Quick update

So we're just under 4 weeks from W-Day & our to-do list is looking GREAT!

• our music selections are coming together
• our entree selections have been sent in and seating chart made
• transfers have been scheduled
• centerpieces are done and ready to be packed
• both of us have our complete wedding day ensembles
• we have all the clothes we need for our safari

It's all starting to come together thankfully. After a few hiccups in the past week or so, I'm definitely starting to reach my limit and want to be in Jamaica relaxing with everyone we love!

Additional Activities

We finally have a full schedule of activities planned for our guests for the weekend! Friday we will have a welcome dinner. There will be a buffet with pretty traditional Jamaican food as well as a Red Stripe and rum punch bar. This will give everyone an opportunity to meet the rest of the guests and start catching up with old friends. It will also allow us to not go crazy trying to greet all of our guests as they arrive throughout the day.

Sunday we have arranged a shuttle to and from Seven Mile Beach. Guests that choose to will be shuttled to Margaritaville to eat, drink, and explore all that Seven Mile Beach has to offer.

This photo of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Negril is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Margaritaville has indoor, outdoor, and beach seating and Seven Mile Beach has many activities, shops, and bars for everyone to explore. We wanted to do something that would appeal to everyone. You can sit in the shade, drink drinks with an umbrella and people watch or you can enjoy all the sun, sand, and surf have to offer or party your face off. We don't care just have fun!

The hotel has also offered to coordinate the transfers from the airport for everyone. I just have to collect all their information and send it along. I used a google form to do this just like I did to collect all the entree selections for the reception.

So far it's going pretty well. 5 responses in the first day.

This information will allow me to group people together that are coming in around the same time and save everyone some money and start the party! The drive is about 2 hours so having company will definitely make the trip go faster! I'm using a google spreadsheet to keep track of all of the information.

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!

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.

3 months!

1. Ben tried on some wedding bands to get a feel of what he likes. I have chosen my ring design and Ben is narrowing his down so we can send them to the jeweler to get made.

2. Centerpieces have been mocked-up.

Each table will have something similar to this on it. We got the lanterns from Ikea on a recent trip. Next steps = figuring out how many tables and ordering enough supplies, taking the glass out, making better numbers.

3. Dress fitting. Yesterday, I had my first fitting of my dress. There are very few alterations that need to be made. Tacking on my sash and flower as well as a bit of hemming since my shoes are so flat. I did my hair, hair, makeup and painted my toe nails for the trial as well. It was nice to look in the mirror with everything done. I was able to make a decision about my toenail color and I am sticking with the shoes I have. I had my hair half-up and half-down and wavy and liked it. The exact style may change though as it was pretty destroyed by the time I got home - I'm sure the hood on my coat didn't help that much...

First Hair Trial

We're almost 100 days from the wedding! It's getting down to crunch time. Tonight we're headed to a holiday party so I thought I might as well try a hairstyle I could try. I've been researching a lot of images on Pinterest.com. It's a fun place to kill an hour or two looking at pretty pictures. The nice thing is if you click on an image it sends you to the original url so I actually got a how-to for this one. Here's the original picture:

Photo from The Bride's Guide

It actually was fairly easy. I think it would stand out more if my hair was lighter which I'm hoping to make it for our wedding (highlights - not a full dye job). It's also really hard to take a picture of the back of your head.

It'll do for tonight. Looking back at the photo it looks like they dropped the top strand while I dropped the bottom strand each time. Hopefully it'll hold up all night!

UPDATE: While I did get a compliment on the hair, it didn't last very long once we started dancing. I will definitely keep this style in mind for nights out but not a keeper for the wedding.

Decor Decisions

The beauty of Jamaica will be our main 'decor' for our day. The ceremony will be outside on the rocks and the restaurant is open air with plenty of natural beauty surrounding it as well so any decor we do will be minimal.

I want our ceremony to be 'in the round' as pros like to call it. Basically, I want everyone surrounding us in a circle during the ceremony.

Photo from Jessamyn Harris Photography, via A Practical Wedding)

Thus there will be no aisle to decorate and any decor that we do to mark the ceremony space can't hinder anyone's view. So if I get my way and get to have that ceremony set-up there will be no decor needed. Scattering something like the pictured couple did wouldn't really work with the nice sea breeze we'll hopefully be experiencing.

While I haven't received more detailed pictures of the restaurant space we'll be using for our reception to get any further ideas about decor for that, I do figure I'll want to do centerpieces. However, they won't be what most people imagine when they hear the word centerpiece. There will be NO FLOWERS.

Having no flowers is very important to me for multiple reasons. First of all, the commercial flower industry is full of human rights and environmental abuses. If we wanted organic flowers they would have to be flown in from a fair distance at a huge price. Flying organic flowers from further away than conventional flowers kind of defeats the purpose. My mom is also allergic to a TON of flowers. Like seriously almost every flower. I also think they're wasteful and expensive, so no flowers here.

So now that I've squashed your idea of centerpieces here's some inspiration photos I've gathered for our centerpieces:

(all from google search of non-floral centerpieces)

So the common element is candles. The candles will either be on top of mirrors or driftwood and there may or may not be shells present. The shells bring up another contentious point for me - I don't want to be staring at the shell of an endangered species (conch) while I'm trying to enjoy my reception. Even if they are shells of abundant species, I want to know that they are sustainably harvested. So this once again may be difficult to make happen so they may not make an appearance at our wedding.

I sent these photos to a florist that works with Tensing Pen a few weeks ago with a description of what I was imagining and making sure all of my wants were clear and never heard back. I figure they will charge way to much money for some candles anyway so I'm soon going to start getting things together myself with a plan of how to get it down there.

Budget Update

So one of the fun things about getting legally married already was finally combining our finances and coming up with a budge for our combined finances. (Can you hear the sarcasm there?!?) Well anyway September was our first month on our budget.

Things we learned: (1) it actually doesn't take that long to enter our expenses (15 minutes last night for the first half of this month). (2) We don't spend as much on food as we thought - or we did really good on cutting down our eating out when we consciously tried. (3) our pets are expensive (still underbudgeting that so far this month!). (4) a lot more unplanned expenses come up than we thought.

Overall we were $150 over budget (this includes attempting to save around $1100). Not bad for our first attempt. It looks like we're not going to do as good this month thanks to me planning last minute trip to Tampa.

The software is really easy to use. We don't try to have it automatically enter anything using our banking data because there is so many things on our cards that go on other expenses (Ben's business, things for work that I get reimbursed for) so I can't judge how good it is at that but I would recommend it! YouNeedABudget.com (YNAB)

The Honeymoon Reveal

So last I spoke of our honeymoon, I gave you the list of options we came up with. So are you ready to know what we decided??!

SOUTH AFRICA!

So we chose South Africa and I quickly began doing some research on where we wanted to go and do. We knew we wanted to go to Cape Town and we also wanted to do a safari so I spent a lot of time looking at safari companies and options. We also contacted a travel agent to help us out. Within a month of our decision, I was very anxious. Everyone was telling us our budget wouldn't work with a trip to South Africa & a safari. I became overwhelmed and pass the job of planning our honeymoon onto Ben (he's traditionally supposed to do it anyway!).

Well, our plans changed slightly because we got an AMAZING deal on a safari from LivingSocial Escapes. We booked a 7-day, 6 night Kenyan Safari! We will be staying at 4 different lodges in total and going to multiple reserves. From LivingSocial Escapes:

"Get a taste of royal treatment on your first night in Nairobi's Safari Park Hotel & Casino, a five-star property fit for those who Just Can't Wait to Be King. The following day, you'll travel to the Samburu and Buffalo Springs Reserves.

"Samburu National Reserve showcases arid specialists such as the Beisa oryx and Somali ostrich," says BBC Travel. "Field guides depict the flora and fauna of a specific area alongside photos, identification pointers, and distribution maps."

Trade advisor Zazu for a naturalist guide, who will drive the minibus and introduce you to rare and sometimes endangered species you won't find anywhere else. You'll also meet Samburu village tribespeople and donate supplies to local school children. For both nights, you'll sleep in a luxurious en suite tent at Ashnil Samburu Camp.

Wise Rafiki says to put the past behind you, so take his advice and move on to the Lake Nakuru National Park, famous for the millions of flamingos that flock to its waters. Embrace Hakuna Matata along with the no worries philosophy of napping leopards camouflaged in the yellow Acacia trees.

After a day of rhino spotting, retire to Sarova Lion Hill Game Lodge to watch the sun set over the pink-plumed lake from your private veranda.

At last, arrive in the real Pride Lands—The Maasai Mara National Reserve—to behold awe-inspiring scenes of the Serengeti. Millions of wildebeests cross these perilous grasslands each year during The Great Migration.

"The plains are full of zebra, impala, topi, giraffe, [and] Thomson's gazelle," promises Games-Reserve.com. "Also regularly seen are leopards, lions, hyenas, cheetah, jackal, and bat-eared foxes. Black rhino are a little shy and hard to spot, but are often seen at a distance. Hippos are abundant in the Mara River as are very large Nile crocodiles, who lay in wait for a meal."

Though outnumbered, Simba's living counterparts are the true monarchs of the Maasai Mara, fittingly called the Kingdom of Lions. Spend two nights in one ofAshnil Mara Camp's lavish tents, complete with walk-in closets.

We couldn't pass this deal up. It was a longer safari than we were originally thinking we could afford and the timing of it works perfectly for us. I can't wait to see hopefully see some amazing and endangered animals in the wild. Staying in luxury tents sounds amazing as well! We'll have time to come back to NYC for a night and change out our bags, and still spend 4 days in Cape Town before our safari.

We have a contact in Cape Town who's guest house we will be staying in and he will be showing us around the city. We will be spending one day north of Cape Town cage diving with great white sharks. We might spend one day in South Africa's version of Napa Valley as well. We are SUPER excited about this opportunity. I'm NOT looking forward to the LONG flights though!

Whoop there it went!

Our first RSVP deadline has come and gone and I have to say I'm VERY disappointed in our guests. We sent out 22 invitations and have only received 13 of those back. That's 9 missing RSVPs. Everyone of those 13 were yeses. These 9 RSVPs equal 21 people of the 41 we invited. So it looks like next week we'll be calling and e-mailing people to figure out why we haven't received these. A little frustrating because we have to go through this process all over again with a new group of people. I do have to give a big high 5 to our friends because they have done a much better job than our families at returning RSVPs!

Crazy Wedding Dream

I had another wedding dream this week. It was much longer and more detailed than the last one I had several months ago. I can't call it a nightmare because it wasn't frightening per se but it was definitely confusing and left me confused most of the morning. So here are some details I remember (may or may not be in chronological order):

1. We were on some odd transportation mechanism (monorail-like) with a bunch of tourists on our way to our venue when my front tooth popped out. Like it was never in my gum just attached to my other teeth and just came unglued or something. Very bizarre. Even weirder, later in the dream I look in a mirror and my gum had like closed together and brought my teeth closer so that it doesn't really look like there is a tooth missing. So I go with it.

2. On our wedding day we (us and our guests) went from some full resort event straight to our ceremony. I had to run and get ready for the ceremony while the guests were being arranged into some sort of order to form an aisle.

3. This left me alone to do my hair and make-up and get fully ready. My foundation was orange and I got it on my veil (which is really weird because I don't want a veil).

4. Apparently, we hadn't rehearsed our ceremony at all and no one knew what to do. Our bridal party (that we aren't having) didn't know who to walk with or in what order and a couple of random guests jumped in to walk down our "aisle". At this point in the dream, I'm half ready but in my dress and run out of the room that I'm getting ready in and tell everyone to get their act together.

5. It's not until I'm walking down the aisle that I realize our ceremony is against some ugly building with no views of the ocean or scenery surrounding our tropical locale.

6. No one, including the resort, knows what to do when the ceremony is over.

This maybe a new dream, I'm not sure but it happened the same night...

7. Then we went to find a new ceremony location on the resort property. The site suggested by the resort had no ocean views. All of the beautiful sites I was suggesting were off limits for lame reasons. We walked and walked around the HUGE property and finally found a site that was available and as we were investigating the bridge farther, other guests broke it.

It was somewhere around here when my alarm finally went off. It was a VERY weird and confusing dream for many, many reasons, mainly because NOTHING was similar to what we have decided and imagined.

RSVP deadline approaching

So out of the 22 invitations we sent out 12 have been returned to us. That's 10 outstanding RSVPs with less than a week from the deadline. That's 21 of 41 people who we can't account for yet! I should subtract 1 invite/2 people from this as we JUST found out their invite got lost in the mail! Needless to say I feel like I'm going to end up spending the coming weeks tracking down friends and family to figure out how many more people we need to invite to fill our resort.

Guests - if you're reading this please put a check on the line and drop the postcard in the mailbox! THANKS!

Photographer Peril (AGAIN)

So we have resolution! On Monday, I sent a friendly reminder of what we discussed on the phone and on Thursday I received an e-mail with detailed pricing information for what elements we wanted in photography & videography.

We are getting 4 hours of photography, 1.5 hours for trash the dress the following day, and video of the ceremony & first 2 hours of the reception (before things get sloppy). All from one vendor for one reasonable price.

I happily introduce you to our photographer: True Colors Photography.

(All photos by True Colors Photography from their blog)