photos

Wedding photos are up and beautiful!!!

countdown

I am totally in countdown mode. I wish that I didn’t have any work to actually do and I could just think about wedding stuff.

I am now checking the 10 day forecast on weather.com about four times/day to see what the weather will be like.

My rain plan is the K of C, and that is fine, except that I can’t imagine the wedding pictures against the carpet covered walls. Ugh. Pray for sunshine (the forecast today is better! Keep on coming sunshine!

 

 

oh. cost cutters

Not only am I getting my wedding hair done at cost cutters, but I just called to make a prep appt for Friday and move the appt back to 10am for Sunday. And the girl on the phone is going to be the one doing my hair, so right at the end of the conversation she says: “Now, you don’t want cornrows do you? because I don’t know how to do cornrows.”

 

What kind of a place am I getting married where this is a legitimate question?

 

 

call for song requests

I need to submit to the DJ the songs I want played. I already have the big ones, but I am also providing a list of songs that we love that we would just like played somewhere in the rotation.

If you have a song that is very special to you I would be happy to add it in.

 

Sarah… it can be Lil’ Kim if that is special to you. J

Lucia

Dress

As you probably heard, to get the dress I was in love with I had to order two sizes smaller than I really should have. That was April.
Except for taking the month of June off for my sabbatical, I have been working really hard to lose weight. I have lost over 35 lbs.
Yesterday was the moment of truth, would it fit?

Great news, it did fit! Whew. The backup plan was not pretty - picking a dress off a rack at David's Bridal and abandoning my beautiful expensive one.

So, David's Bridal isn't necessary, but I am still a little chunky for the dress - another 10 lbs and it will look a lot better. So, the super intense diet and excercise routine continues...

program - nearly done!

this weekend I worked on the program for the ceremony - all I need is Rick's reading choice and it is done!

hall/catering

got a bunch of stuff done last weekend, here are some of the updates (trying to do a post every day or so)

Catering/Hall -
Knights of Columbus, Mary

Food: three courses served in grazing stations
1) light/cold finger food - starts at 4 and continues until the next course comes out
- fruit tray, veggie/dip tray, cheese/sausage/cracker tray
2) hot food - starts at 6 and continues until at least 8/9
- meatballs, hot beef sandwiches on dinner rolls, baby red potatoes, a vegetarian pasta salad, and some more stuff I can't remember...
3) late night - starts at 10 and includes any food left from the previous courses
- fried cheese curds, tater tots (possibly Rick's favorite food), chicken wings

coffee/tea station all night
water on the tables
real plates (but they are glass)
real silverware
real glassware

Bar:
Old Fashioneds from the bar
wine - this was a fun moment, I said one white and one red, she said "White? well you will want White Zin, and for Red, I have a nice one called Polka Dots. yep, let's do those" sooo, apparently in honor of Jen I am having white zin at my wedding. :)
beer - serve yourself from the tappers Miller High Life (the champagne of beers) and Miller Lite
cash bar open for all other options

Organization of the room - I have a picture I drew, but I will need to scan it in. Basically, you come in the door and the bar is to the right, directly in front of you will be the table with the placecards (and later in the night, the cookies to take home), just to your left will be the guestbook with some guestbook attendants that I haven't asked yet :), and then next to them the gift table. Then as you enter the ballroom (as we are going to imaginatively call it) the grazing stations will be to the right and the DJ on the left. Pass through the dance floor to get to the round tables and the head table right smack dab in the middle of all of them.

bathrooms (2 sets) are handicap accessible.

we can enter to get our stuff done at 9am.

We can hang the globe lights and those are reserved at the Rental Store.

they do not have table number holders, I will be making these.

shoes!

little lift - check
silver to go with dress - check
useable after wedding - check
reasonably priced - check
comfortable - check! and Done!

wedding prep weekend

Ma and I are up in the Northwoods getting stuff done (mostly she has been awesome at forcing me to just do stuff/make reservations/etc.

things we want to get done:
Cake
DJ
plan for seating at park
plan for tables/seating at hall
photographer
directions confirmed

good luck to us

Spa Day - Spa chosen

we went and visited this one: www.wellnesssparesort.com - it was really nice, a big complex and has a lot of services. They will also give us a room for the bridal party to hang out in.

However, we need to make reservations for the Thursday before the wedding probably before mid-June. So... I will be contacting everyone and seeing if they can make it and what services they want me to make reservations for.

invitation

I ordered a sample of this one: http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/products/ProductView_1153.htm

the stripe would be one of the custom colors - the Summer Whisper

Once I see the sample I will order and my extremely nice mother is going to address them all and send them out while I am out at sabbatical...

more invitations!

I really like the ones at this site, but couldn't pick... what do you think?

http://www.papeteriestore.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=21_10&sort=20a&page=1&all=84

Some more that I like:

http://pgp.cceasy.com/order/We_ViewEns.cfm?sItemCode=WedEns7630&sCatalogCode=WedEns5CC&iStartRow=105&strcontinue=yes&strsearch=yes&format=WedEnsCCa

http://pgp.cceasy.com/order/We_ViewEns.cfm?sItemCode=WedEns2964&sCatalogCode=WedEnsCC&iStartRow=177&strcontinue=yes&strsearch=yes&format=WedEnsCCa

http://pgp.cceasy.com/order/We_ViewEns.cfm?sItemCode=WedEns0297&sCatalogCode=WedEns9CC&iStartRow=297&strcontinue=yes&strsearch=yes&format=WedEnsCCa

Voting! Invitations

I was going to have a workshop to construct cheap invitations. However, a couple things are pushing me towards buying invitations pre-made:

1) even when I get a really generic set (25 invitations with response cards for 30 bucks) (would need at least four of these sets since I need at least 59 invitations and I would have to practice to get the right look when printing myself) - it isn't that cheap - 120.00 for 100 invitations/response cards

2) I have to take the time to design as well as construct them.

I also really like some of the "full service" ones - and given that I only have about 59 invitations, getting 75 of these is more expensive (for 75 invitations and response cards: the tree one I would get 75 for about 227.00 - the bird one is 130)

so, on to the voting...

So, what do you think I should do? also the tree one comes in the same background color but with light green instead of brown. The bird one comes in a variety of paper and ink colors -

oh! and...

here is the cabin (someone please volunteer to be in charge of linens!): http://www.trails.com/rentals/propertyna.asp?vacation=0181_Pickerel_Wisconsin

And I changed the picture at the top of the page, that is Rick's parents' cabin. you can always find your way home, the lighthouse even works.

What the hell have you been doing???

Well, that is a great question and I am glad you asked. From January through two weeks ago I took a complete mental break from all wedding related things.

But baby, I am back! the funny thing is that the wedding planning is actually a stress reliever from my real job.

Here is what I have done thus far:
1) project plan - I am working on adding all of my tasks to a project plan. if you have ANY tasks that you know I should do/think of/consider - please just shoot them to me. If they are on the plan then great, if they are things I am not going to do then great, if they are something I haven't thought of they will be promptly added.
2) timelines - I have sketched out all of the key dates and will be adding them to this blog
3) committed a cardinal sin of brides - I ordered my wedding dress two sizes too small, so much of my time is taken up with working out and avoiding all carbohydrates. - small side note, Ding88 thanks so much for lending me those Hip Hop Abs tapes, but i just could NOT watch that flamboyantly gay man touch his own abs one more time. I made it through about 20 minutes of one tape.
- good news on the working out front - I haven't lost much weight and I fear taking my measurements again, but I have gone from being able to do 8 pushups and 26 sit ups to 18 pushups and 56 sit ups. and I have worked out 20 of the last 24 days.
4) increased my watching of bride shows on TV. no good ideas yet, but I do know some key things that I won't be doing.
5) Save the Date Cards - besides a couple late addresses and a suspiciously spelled name I got all the Save the Date cards in the mail today. whew. In this process I also mastered the Mail Merge functionality between Excel and Word and I managed to F-up my excel spreadsheet so I now need to spend a couple hours reconciling some columns. Good news, my job has messed me up so badly I actually like to clean up Excel spreadsheets. Wow, I am a weirdo.
6) Plan for spa day - it will be Thursday morning and we will be going to a spa in Stevens Point where we can each get the services we want and then head to Antigo/the lake (see below) afterwards.
7) Place to stay - in a wonderful turn of events (this is going to make the wedding a lot more fun for all of you folks and for me) I booked a cabin on the same lake where R's parents live. It sleeps 10, so my mother, sister and the ladies of the wedding party/officiant/attendants can all stay there! Matt and Todd may join us eventually or stay wherever Rick is staying. Aunt Geri and Aunt Chris, you are welcome, but I know that you have circumstances that may lend themselves to staying at the hotel. Never fear, the hotel is close enough you can still be involved in all activities. This way we get to stay on a lake and enjoy all sorts of sunrise/sunset/campfire/sleepover aspects!
8) Agenda leading up to the wedding finalized:
a) head up on Wednesday to the cabin - anyone that can get off on Wednesday can come
b) Thursday AM we will go to Stevens Point for spa morning - anyone that can meet us on Thursday AM there can do that.
c) Thursday PM - we will return to the cabin and enjoy an afternoon of lazing about the lake. We can rent a boat, drive said boat over to the bar and then drink in the sunshine all day... whatever!
d) Thursday overnight - sleepover!
e) Friday - sleep in and then tackle last minute wedding details.
f) Friday night - wedding festivities officially begin with the Welcome Reception at Quinn's bar.
9) website reinstated - my credit card number changed and the website: www.rickandleigha.com lapsed. However, I reinstated.

Bridesmaid Dresses

Lucia claims that she just wants us to pick out whatever dress we want as long as it's black (she' love some sort of blue accent). Just in case she's thinking we will naturally gravitate towards giant butt bows and poofy sleeves, here are some of my thoughts:

Bari Jay halter



Morilee halter



Dessy dress 1



Dessy dress 2

here is the postcard proof

Accomplishments abound

in an effort to quelch a very nice run of getting my actual work done... I spent a couple hours today working on wedding stuff.
I set up a wedding website for the guests to go and see information: http://cs02.ewedding.com/v30/main.php?a=anorthwoodswedding

I sent away for the Save The Date post cards (hey Madison girls, you know you want to help me address them!) - I think that I got a pretty good deal with 100 for 35.00. then I only need to buy postcard stamps as well. Of course I just went and looked - post card stamps are now 27cents each.

And, I made the call to order the dress from the shop in Kansas City. I couldn't bring myself to take the chance on a Chinese website. I really didn't want to have a disaster with poor stitching or shoddy material (particularly since it is a corset one, seems like you have one ripped seam and all is lost!)