Tablescapes

This week my coworker delivered tons of decorations from her wedding a few years ago. We got TONS of stuff - shells, sea glass, & candles. Seriously awesome stuff. This allowed us to really finalize our table designs.

For the reception we decided to use 3 large tables that will fit 8-10 people, 1 round table that seats 5 (My parents, Ben parents, & sister), and a square table for the two of us.

Here's the design for the long tables:

Yes, I measured out the tables on our floor with tape. I have a scale drawing on the computer that we used to visualize the table layout but when it came to the decor on the tables I needed to see it in person and full size. You can see Juno was a huge help observing from the head of the table.

Included in the shells my coworker gave me were ones with slits cut in them that she used as escort card holders. I decided they could function as our place cards that Tensing Pen requires. Here's a close up of them:

Next up was the round table. Unfortunately, I realized I used 1/3 of the seaglass on the long table so I portioned out the seaglass and then took a bit from each table to add to the round table.

After I created those 4 tables, I created bags for each table so it would be easier to decorate once we get down there!

Finally came our table. I'm out of seaglass, but I do have plenty of shells. They may be added to our table if I feel that it is too plain.

Tensing Pen includes white table cloths for all the tables so that's all taken care of now!

HOLY CRAP THIS THING IS ALMOST HERE!

So I spent another weekend getting things checked off the to do list (or at least colored yellow because I've started them). I was just starting to feel like I had everything covered until I got to work today. I basically have 1 month left to get this thing done! While my calendar says 6.5 weeks until I leave my real timeline is a bit shorter you see. March 28-April 1 I will be away for a conference for work. While it's a great honor to be selected to present, the timing is FREAKING HORRIBLE! My plan is to get everything done before this because when I come back I only have 9 full days at home - 5 of which are work days - before we get on that plane to Jamaica. OMG! How am I going to get it all done!

My wedding band is here!

When we began talking wedding bands a long time ago we were both pretty clueless about what we wanted. I knew I didn't want to try to get a band that matched my engagement ring. My e-ring is a bit large to try to add another ring to the same finger. It is also very unique so finding a matching ring would be very difficult. I'm going to move my e-ring to my right hand and wear my wedding band solo.

After that was decided, I got stuck on the idea of combining different metals in a ring and twists, braids, and knots. I spent hours looking and saving pictures of different rings. Here's a selection of the rings I saved:

During the time I was doing this, Ben had a client that happend to work with a jeweler and offered to make our rings at cost. It opened the doors to what we could choose! Unfortunately, when it came time to start discussing designs of rings, their machine broke and they didn't know when it was going to get fixed. Then I found Gemvara.com. They have a HUGE selection of rings with many different metals and stones available. I knew I didn't want any stones in my ring and they use recycled gold so they scored pretty well in my book for these reasons. I narrowed down my search with them and then went to Ben for his opinion. With that, we ordered the Forget Me Knot ring from them.

After 10 days my ring was here. I was shocked at the large box for such a small package but when I excitedly opened it up I saw the beautiful packaging. On the left is my ring box with a bow on it, there is care information on the right and in the lid is a certificate of authenticity.

When I opened the actual ring box I was a bit surprised with how small the ring actually was. I knew it was going to be small but in my head it was a bit larger.

Since I've never tried on rings I had to use a sizing chart I downloaded online so I was terrified my ring wouldn't fit. I timidly slid it on my finger and it fit!

I really like the way it looks on my finger!

Ben ordered a plain wedding band from Amazon the same day and it arrived the same day but it was too small. We sent it back and he is ordering a new one today so in a couple of weeks I'll have pictures of his band as well.

Organization

We're getting down to the wire. The wakeup call really happened when I got a HUGE to-do list from Tensing Pen! This forced me to get real with all the things that needed to happen so after work I got down to business with getting organized.

I first switch our guest list and budget over to google spreadsheets so I can access them everywhere and also created our to-do list in there.

Here's our list with our previously mentioned entree selection form, as well as budget & guest lists as well as to-do list.

Here's a screen shot of the to-do list from last weekend. Yellow means that it is in progress and green means done. I have 3 lists: ceremony, reception, general. Notice how little is done! AH!

I also felt that I needed a constant reminder of how close this thing actually is so I put the countdown on our calendar in our kitchen.

It's getting real!

Feeling organized is definitely helping the stress level. I would probably feel more accomplished if I took everything from theKnot to-do list that I've already done and added it but I don't have time for that!

seating chart

To go along with all the menu planning we did this weekend we also got to choosing our seating plan and asking our guests their entree selections.

To ask entree selections, I made a handy dandy Google Form to email to all of our guests.

5 guests have already responded in less than a day! YAY!

I also began planning our seating arrangements with post-its (YAY my fav!) and a template.

It's hard to see but, there will hopefully be 3 long tables, a circle table with our parents, and a sweetheart table for us. I'm waiting to hear back from Tensing Pen if this table arrangement is possible. I hope it is because I do really LOVE the pictures of feasting tables from weddings!

Wedding 'Cake'

Notice that cake is in quotes. That's because we aren't having a traditional wedding cake! Early on in the planning process Ben mentioned that he thought it would be awesome to do cupcakes and pair them with a drink or two like one of our favorite places, Sweet Revenge. So once Tensing Pen agreed that we could have cupcakes we had the task of figuring out how to pair them with a drink from our wedding. Without knowing their house wines, we chose to try to pair cupcakes with Red Stripe. This excitedly (the only thing Ben has been excited about yet) gave us an excuse to go to our favorite cupcake shop, Crumbs, and get a variety pack of cupcakes.

Here's what we were working with starting at top left we have: m&m, raspberry, grasshopper (Chocolate mint), ROW 2: hostess, yellow cake with vanilla frosting, chocolate chip, ROW 3: Red Velvet, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, oreo cookie, ROW 4: Chocolate something, coconut, chocolate blackout, and finally strawberry because that was a basic flavor missing from the mix.

We wanted to focus on the more classic flavors that we thought that Tensing Pen could replicate. So we each cracked open a Red Stripe and go tasting away!

Ben very much enjoyed this wedding task!

Here's the aftermath!

So you can definitely tell our favorites. The raspberry almost completely disappeared as well as the two yellow cakes. So we choose yellow cake with raspberry filling and vanilla frosting & yellow cake with chocolate frosting. We definitely wanted some chocolate in there because so many of our friends (and my mom) are HUGE chocolate lovers. So there it is folks! Try them out with a Red Stripe!

Menu Selections

Tensing Pen has 3 menus for us to choose from. When we first looked at them we knew we wouldn't select one straight down and knew we were going to mix and match from them. We also had to consider our ethics (sustainable seafood is huge for me) as well as dietary restrictions (shellfish allergies, vegetarians, etc) in our selection process. These things basically choose our menu for us. Behold the reception menu:

Appetizer - saffron risotto with slivers of chicken on truffle glaze; Vegetarian = risotto with steamed veggies.

Salad - Charred / pineapple / mint mixed garden greens / cherry tomatoes / toasted nuts citrus vinaigrette

Entrees - Blue cheese crusted beef tenderloin / red wine peppercorn glaze Or Blackened sliver snapper with lintel papaya salsa; Vegetarian = TBD by the vegetarian guests (get your act together guys ;)

All Entrees are served with sour parsley whipped potatoes / Island pak-choy

Hair & Makeup Trial

In mid January, I went back to Saja for my first dress fitting. The wonderful thing about Saja is that the designer is the one fitting the dress. She's taking the measurements and putting the pins in place, crawling around on the floor to make sure the hem is in the correct place. My dress was then walked to the alterations place.

I took this opportunity to do a hair and makeup trial. I tried a different hair style and did my makeup pretty much like I always do when I go out.

Here are the results:

left: no makeup

right: makeup

Not a huge difference especially with the horrible lighting of my apartment. I'm planning on going to Sephora to get some help, closer to the big day.

I really liked the hair style I choose. It was fairly easy to do but definitely needed some hairspray to help hold it together. After I got out of the shower, I let my hair dry a bit and then pulled it into a side pony and loosely braided it. I let it dry like this all morning. I set the waves with mousse before pulling it back in sections to create the back. This may be a winner!

I also wanted to test toenail colors. Thankfully it was winter and no one noticed that I left the house in 2 different color polishes! I decided that the teal was too much (I figured it was), so I'm planning on doing something neutral-ish like this light pink on my left foot.