Bridesmaid Limbo

Johnny has known who his groomsmen would be since the first wedding conversation we ever had, which was sometime last May. Which makes sense. He has two separate sets of friends, both of which are equally dear and important to him, and all of whom I think are awesome. They're all wonderfully geeky men who know how to get along with and interact with all types of people, which I think is awesome -- I didn't get much of a chance to interact with many socially aware geek men (with a few WWC exceptions) until grad school (and even there, they were still a rarity. Sometimes I'd listen in class and interpret topical discussions in terms of "my library penis is bigger than yours and better at Linux."). These guys -- these guys are awesome.
I have my list of wonderful folks whom I plan to ask to be my bridesmaids, and the asking will probably take place a) over the internet and b) sometime soon. I'm hoping to have my act together by tonight. I have no idea how many of them will agree to come, which is okay... but until I get out of this state of "I know who all I'm asking but can't exactly ask them rightthisminute," I'm posting this.

(Do Bridesmaids Need To Match? by SCEchicago)

Matching bridesmaids outfits are great, don't get me wrong. I honestly love the bridesmaid dress I get to wear in my friend Becca's wedding, which makes me look fantastic and makes me feel like a pretty pretty princess. But I gotta say... I love the mismatched bridesfolk look, too (I keep saying bridesfolk because I also love non-gender-roled wedding parties). Look at how great these bridal parties look. Awesome, right? (Some of the most awesome ones I've seen are on OBB, but they're doing maintenance this morning, which also means that I can't put up the link that made me squeee yet.)

After my Alfred Angelo trip with Becca, I was thinking ahead that I'd probably "put" all my folks in something from there, all alike. But again, I get to thinking about money and the wedding industry, not to mention folks' comfort and financial situations and body structure and consuming habits (also, I started not really wanting to "put" anyone in anything, because people should have control over what they put themselves in!). Doing the whole budget wedding thang makes me think a lot about the cost that goes into weddings... for everybody.  If my folks want to buy a dress/outfit, they can buy it from wherever they want, with their own range of prices (and fabrics and purchasing ethics) to choose from.  Basically, I don't want to limit folks who I'd love to have there and who would come based on what they want and can afford to wear. As long as it's some color close to antique lavender. Guess I should put that in there.

And the paint swatch idea they mention in this link is gold. Snaggin' that one for my own future use :)

ETA: Actually, having just read some forum board posts about how some bridesmaids stress out over too much choice, it makes sense just to ask them whether they'd rather all agree on the same thing or find their own or meet somewhere in the middle and choose between 4-5 options I provide...

It's a date!

I finally came to a decision! It was pretty hard to choose, but in the end, the argument about having more time on our hands (but not so much that it'll feel like forever) won out. In some ways, October is a busy month (especially for Johnny with some of the newspaper events), but it's all winding down by the time the 22nd rolls around. Another compelling reason for not-August is that half of our potential wedding party has August birthdays, and we both would rather have time to celebrate those birthdays first. There's one very important birthday among my friends in October, but it'll be past by the 22nd, too. So... I think all systems are go :)

The next step is reserving the church, and there will probably be updates on that on Sunday.

I feel a little relieved to have the first big decision under my belt. I'm already noticing how much I waffle on stuff before I decide. I've known that I'm that way -- it's like I have to look at the options before me from allllll perspectives before I can commit (and doubt my choices either way for a little bit beforehand, too). But it's exciting to have an official date :)

Battle of the Themes: contender #2

The "it" item of my second theme is this fantastic idea constructed by a photographer, which I saw at the bridal show in SC when I went with Becca as her MOH:

 

It's not the best picture (or in the best lighting, being in a convention center with florescent lighting and a lady's shoulder in front of it, taken by my cell phone camera). But I love the idea -- if you can't tell, it's willow branches with little flowers wired onto the ends and with matted photos of the couple (in sepia, I believe) hanging from the branches.

When I saw it, it took my breath away.

My second theme centers around a lot of the natural autumn beauty that's in this region. I could also easily work in some Celtic touches with my DIY stuff -- actually, if I want nice Celtic stuff that isn't just in snow white and freakin' shamrock green, that's the only way to do it (without paying out the butt). Nobody seems to want anything pretty and Celtic and wedding-y and affordable... except me, hehe :) Two words: rubber stamps. They will be key. I'm also hoping that I could achieve a slight, subtle Middle Earth feel to everything without it being in-yo-face LotR, so it would be very personal to us both, slightly geeky, but not so overwhelmingly so that all our old relatives would be confused.

• Colors: antique lavender (like the little purple flowers that bloom on Western NC roadsides in autumn) and various fall shades (mostly brown, a little burnt orange maybe).
• More of a formal feel from the Celtic knotwork and seasonal length of dresses.
• Fall foods! Thanksgiving-y small sandwiches (think cranberry chutney and turkey salad), chai and other tea and coffee, pumpkin stuff, possibly carrot cake.
• Candles candles candles, autumn leaves, and woodsy touches.

It's so hard to choose! I need to choose pretty soon though. So I'm going to mull it over today and see if I have an answer by tonight.

Battle of the Themes: the first contender

I should not be awake at 2 am thinking about this, but since I'm doing it already, here goes....

I've currently got two "finalist" themes in mind, and both of them hinge on the the time of year -- whether we get married in late summer or into fall.  There are other factors going into the decision of exactly when to tie the knot, too, of course. If we do it earlier, we're more likely to have warm weather to encourage people to go outside and ease up the number of folks inside the church, longer daylight hours for taking pictures, and my bridesgals can wear shorter dresses (which will cost them less). If we do it later, we've got more time on our side -- time to save, time to plan, time for me to get more DIY adventures in.

But, I gotta say, this is the most visually compelling argument for doing it earlier:

I've been in love with this invitation since I saw it on the internet last summer. By "love," I mean "I saw it and actually started crying because it was that perfect a fit for us." At that point, I'd been kicking around the idea of "what if we have a summer wedding some day in the distant future," and this particular graphic tied in with the fireflies and mason jars idea I'd already been incubating just perfectly.
Like all outsourced invites, these are dang expensive -- however, they're the one thing I think I would really splurge on if we decide to go with an early option, and I don't think I'd regret it. Considering that I'm still drooling over them after about four months, I think they'd be a worthy splurge. I've heard arguments against investing a lot in invites -- people throw them away, they say. That's true -- some people do -- but they're also the first taste of the event that people get, and I think they make a better (at least flatter and more saveable/scrapbookable) memento than favors.
Bah, my practical judgment is clouded so much here.
Anyway, this gives you a visual reference for the theme, so here are some of my other ideas for details:

• Colors: A berryish purple (the invite color is "lobelia") and ivory
• Fun, laid-back, summery feel 
• BBQ and sweet tea!
• Copious use of Christmas and rice lights, along with gauzy fabric
• Guestbook constructed of a clothesline strung back and forth, where people can use clothespins to attach signatures/notes (I really need to draw a pic of this one to show the full idea)
• Centerpieces of mason jars used as various types of candle holders, ribbon accents added for color
• Star-shaped paper lanterns

I have more solid designs in mind for theme #2, but that one will have to wait until tomorrow.

Questions. Questions that need answering.

I've been engaged a little over a week. I'm not sure what normally happens in that first week for most ladies -- I'm pretty sure that my overflowing happiness, my inner Martha Stewart mental craft store brain explosion, and my initial panic as the idea of "wedding planning" sinks in are all common. I talked a little in my first post about trying to wrap my brain around some of the particulars of what the Hayes wedding will need to entail. I'm at a point where I'm still working on those details, and a lot of the rest of my plans will probably need to hinge on those.

I've noticed that there are plenty of wedding websites that provide checklists of things brides "need" to do to plan their wedding. There's the supposedly-personalized monstrosity of a list at The Knot, which tells me I should have done 30 things already -- and when I examine them, I realize how few of them are neccessary and how many are just there to direct you to different articles on their site that tell you how much money you ought to be spending on save the date photo magnets and other such junk. Many of the others aren't quite designed that much to be lists of advertising, and they all include pretty standard fare.

My favorite one so far is the Offbeat Bride Wedding Checklist. I've printed off the PDF and have it in my (so far extremely plain) binder. It's got all the basic items on it, along with a healthy dose of humor. Any list that starts out with "Ok, don't lose your shit. We can do this together." is a winner.

DIY Bride also links to some neat tools. I may give the Wedding Wire Wedding Checklists a try, along with the Google Docs wedding templates. There's a way to plan your wedding with any device -- iPhone, iPad, toolbars for your browser (on a whim, I threw The Knot's toolbar on my Firefox, but haven't really felt led to use it at all...).

So far, all I've really wanted to use is a combination of my own Google Docs that I've been piddling with even before I got engaged and a binder to carry around my info with me in case I ever need to show it to others (if I use any real vendors, for instance).

Now that I'm starting to figure out what I need to plan, I have a set of particulars that I need to fill in. And these are:

• People - We know the answer to this one.
• Place - Actually, we know the answer to this one, too, even though it's not official. It's a gorgeous church, it's the church Johnny grew up in, it has as much room as about any church in the area (a ton of room more than most!), and it's a gorgeous facility. I'm pretty much willing to get married on their schedule as long as we can do it there. Speaking of which...
• A Date - Uh. Well. I thought we had that one figured out, but now I'm not so sure. I'm not even sure on a month. I keep waffling between next October (in which case the date would be October 22, 2010) and sometime in July or early August. October would give us a year to save and prep my DIY stuff, but we could have extra outdoor space and cheaper dresses for my bridesgals if we did it during a warmer month. I have two kickass themes in mind, one that would fit with either time, so whichever way we decide, it'll be fun.
• A Budget - This is a doozy. In fact, the budget is probably going to be the most crucial part of this wedding, and it's the also the most squirrely part right now. At one point last summer, I had 3K saved up for a wedding. Since moving in with Johnny, buying a new catalytic converter, and having a ton of other random expenses, that's been whittled down to 1.5K, and I have a feeling it will be less than 1K (at best) by the 2011. This is where having a very helpful and crafty mom and future mom-in-law, great friends who know how to dj and take great photos, and my own love of crafty things comes in super handy. I know that I can find creative solutions to my budget limitations.

What a lot of this comes down to is that I'm extremely grateful for online resources that focus on how to make a wedding that's wonderfully, uniquely yours without costing a fortune and looking awesome at the same time. I've noticed that whenever I get down about money (or lack thereof) and start feeling like I don't know how we'll afford a wedding, looking at these websites always makes me feel better and sparks my creativity. I'm glad to have such great resources at my fingertips.

My Bridal Manifesto

Today is October 22, 2010, and I'll be getting married in a year. We haven't set a date yet, but we're still thinking about sometime between late summer and the leaf season here in Western NC. I'm excited, thrilled, and ridiculously happy.
And I have a confession to make.
Ever since I first had an inkling that Johnny wanted me to be his main squeeze long-term, I've been looking forward to the day when I could think about wedding stuff "legally." Ah, there was the thrill of covertly reading through posts on WeddingBee on my laptop every once in a while, with Johnny playing Red Dead Redemption blissfully unaware of the craft store DIY machinations taking root inside my mind just a couch away. I think he's guessed that secret, because in the less-than-a-week since he put the ring on my finger, he's already heard about what I envision doing with silk leaves and florist wire and heard about the five or so theme ideas battling it out in my mind. But for the most part, then, I kept my wedding-dreaming to as much of a minimum as I could, feeling like it was better to enjoy dating rather than to get ahead of myself (but it was hard.)
Now I feel like a race-horse ready to spring out of the gate, ready to plan the heck out of a wedding that will host (most likely) at least 250 people, because we both have ginormous extended families. It's a challenge I feel excited to take on, even as it scares the poo out of me.
But engagement didn't erase everything I promised myself and learned during my days as a lady in waiting. I learned from watching a friend go through the early stages of planning her wedding and from another friend's fantastically offbeat wedding. I learned from conversations with my awesome Mom. I learned from my own values of practicality. I learned from praying. And I want to set out my goals for myself as a bride as I get ready to take on a fantastic, exciting, beautiful challenge of a year.

Mere's Bridal Manifesto

• I will do my best to act out of kindness, consideration, grace, and love in all aspects of pre-wedding stuff. I won't go into the details of what I've seen brides-to-be do -- I mean, everybody knows some good bridezilla stories. The heart of what I want is for those around me -- the family I know and love and the family I will be joining, as well as the friends Johnny and I hold dear -- to remember me as a bride who "knows how to act," as my Granny would say. I want to remember that my friendships are more important to my friends than a wedding is. I want to remember that my Mom is my mother more than she is a mother-of-the-bride. I want people and relationships to come before centerpieces and coordinated colors. You get the gist. There's no other time when you're on display more than as a bride-to-be, and I want to represent myself so that people will remember me focusing on the love, not the stress. And really... I want to focus on the love, not the stress! Which brings me to...
• I will do my best to remember the big picture. To me, the big picture is that... dude... we're getting married. Johnny and I love each other enough to give our lives to each other, and to give our connected lives and relationship to God. It's a three-part union (at least for us), and I want this time to be used to build that union. I want to grow closer to my husband-to-be and to God and not let the planning make me forget that that's what's important.
• I will do my best to approach challenges with creativity and an open mind. I've already experienced the bridal freakout feeling when I realized just how many people will be involved in this wedding. It was my first occasion when I did panic for a few minutes -- before I remembered that getting that worked up is unneccessary, and that I can find creative solutions for how to feed and host what might feel more like an army of Spartans than a family wedding. I know I'm capable of figuring out how to adjust to about anything -- I want to remember that I can!

I NOW... PRONOUNCE YOU... MAN AND WIFE!
• I will not cave in to the pressures of the Wedding Industrial Complex. What is the Wedding Industrial Complex, you ask? ("Here is a resource!" says your friendly bride-librarian. Bridebrarian? Oh snap. That's me.) I bought one copy of Bride magazine just to prove to myself that going "traditional" wedding industry isn't my thang. And I was pretty much right. My reactions are a lot like those of Toots in the article. There are a lot of traditional elements I like -- I will be wearing a fantastic ivory dress, I will tell you that. But when it comes to sit-down meals and favors and escort cards, that just doesn't hold any feeling for me. I may not be as offbeat a bride as some of the fantastically awesome brides I love to read about, but I have a feeling that the Hayes wedding is going to be a wonderfully individual mix of things that are just right for us, our friends, and our family and not be beholding to "tradition."

There they are -- my goals. It feels a little surreal to actually put them down, after having mulled them over for months while I wondered if I'd be waiting for this until the year 4027. I put them out here for y'all to keep myself accountable. If you're reading this, consider it my promise to you, whether you're a family member, a friend, or just some awesome internet-reader.
Alright. HAYES FUTURE OF AWESOMENESS -- ENGAGE!
Meredith out.
Rock on :)