Wed recap: Photographer follow up & bustling nightmares...

First, let me say thank you so much to all of you who were so understanding and supportive of my frustrations yesterday in my post about our wedding photos.  I agree, that eventually, they won't matter in the long run other than a few key shots that we did actually get.  It's not like I did not get *any* great shots...it's more just the let down of the ones that are truly missing (family shots of me and my mom, my daughter with me and Mr Fix It, etc). And of course, it's so disappointing to not have great shots of all the time and work that went into all the details.  However, that said, I have a feeling our video will showcase all of our big day and even better with real life motion!  So I will definitely be including the video in the recaps as soon as I receive it (which I have been told will be tomorrow morning!).  I will keep you updated on whether or not we end up doing another shoot at our venue.

But let's get on with some hard core recaps now, shall we?

So I told you that my recaps will jump around.  :)  To hold true to that, I am going to start with some helpful info on your wedding day timeline regarding something most girls don't consider when thinking about where they want/need to be when:  the bustling of your dress!

Now, for those of you ladies who have pretty, simple gowns that either have no train or a minimal train that you simply want bustled up with one or two or even three hooks, this post is not for you :)  This is for those of us ladies who went big!  We wanted the ball gown or the ridiculously long 10 foot train and we got it!  It looks so gorgeous in pics, doesn't it?

But that thing is monstrous!  You typically don't want to be carrying it around all night, so you want to have a good old fashioned beautiful bustle.  Here you can see that Mr Fix It played 'train keeper' during our photo session. 

Well, I opted for two bustles...because of the fact that my dress kind of had two different fronts/sides, we had two different bustles....a french bustle on the side where all those gathers are in the pic above (on the right) and a standard 'pulled up' bustle on the left where the dress had all the lace and beading.  And in my fittings, it looked like this:

My amazing, seamstress, Janet Brunton (that's her in the pic above), did a phenomenal job of hemming my gown and adding the bustles for my sister (MOH J) to handle it mostly alone on the wedding day.  She even used colored bows and tacks to help MOH J to know which little ribbon/tie went with which little hook (blue ribbon to blue hook, red ribbon to red hook).  MOH J got real good at it in about 3 different fittings.  She could handle it on her own even though we had cousin A (a fellow Bridesmaid) help her out on the last time just to have a helping hand.  But see, on the day of the wedding, when it came time to do the bustling...yeah, it didn't work out that way. 

Here's a pic of me and all my bridesmaids in our bridal cottage - the place where all the prep work (makeup, hair, dressing, etc) took place on the property.  See that gown?  It may not look it, but it's huge!

As soon as the ceremony was over, me, Mr Fix It, my sister J, and I piled into this room.  Our officiant and Best Man were also there to sign the marriage license but then they headed off for cocktails.  We had purposefully taken *ALL* of our photos pre-ceremony (yes, we had a first look that will come in a future recap if you didn't already see it in our video trailer).  We didn't want to keep guests waiting for longer than an hour for cocktails and *we* wanted to enjoy the cocktail hour and that extra time with our guests. 

Well, MOH J and BM A began bustling away with the little ribbons and the hooks.  Now I don't know why, but it seemed like it was taking them longer than it did in the fittings.  Like 20 minutes maybe!  Did it take that long in the fittings and I just didn't realize it?  Were they having problems stressed out about the actual wedding day?  Who knows?  I didn't really care...but Mr Fix It sure did.  He let us know that he was getting antsy and wanted to head into cocktails.  I asked him to wait for me because I had this image in my head of us heading up to the cocktail area together and making a pre-grand entrance with all the guests clapping and greeting us on the patio.  But he just wanted to get out there without me!  Little twerp!  He began to get stressed and began to say that he was tired of waiting and we needed to hurry up.  I knew that this was just stressing out my poor sister who had already had a long day (more to come).  So I just told him to be patient..."It takes time to do this, baby...just a second and we'll be ready."  He wasn't having it.  So my options were to let him head up to cocktails without me or to just leave the bustle and forget it.  I opted for choice B.  I told my sister not to worry about the bustle...I was going to be changing out of the dress as soon as cocktails were over anyway so it didn't matter if it wasn't perfect for 45 minutes.  I think that really disappointed my sister and probably made her feel like she was failing in her bustling duties.  But I seriously did not care.

So we headed out to cocktails with my bustle half done and part of my train dragging on the ground...I didn't notice and I didn't care.  And no one (especially not the photographer) got any pictures of me with the bustle anyway so who cares?!?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP:  Plan on giving yourself a good 20 to 30 minutes to handle the bustling of your dress.  Don't be stressed...kick everyone out of the room that doesn't need to be there.  Mr Fix It was really rushing us and stressing out my sis who had made such great effort to learn how to do it right.  Let your maids do their job and don't let anyone rush them in doing something they have probably practiced several times already.  And by the way, be sure that you take a maid or whoever will be handling the bustling with you to at least a few of your fittings to practice there with the seamstress!

There's no backing out now...

Well, it's official...our invitations were dropped in the mail today.  So I guess there's no way that Mr Fix It and I can back out now ;)

Here's a few final photos of the finished product.  I showed the original invites when I received the mockup back here.   However, after showing them to Mr Fix It, he had one main request - change the font on the invites to something a little bit more 'formal' and not so simple and plain.  Whatever...I accommodated his request and here is the final invite as we sent it out:

* As always, note the colors are not represented well at all...they look green in this pic instead of the aqua color.   :(

Did you see that I added some little crystal rhinestones to the invites to bling them up a bit...love it! 

And here are the envelope wraps my sister and I created as well as the fun little personalized photo stamp I bought from stamps.com.  Yeah, they're heavy invites and so we had to pay $0.61 per envelope.  BE SURE TO TAKE A SAMPLE OF YOUR INVITE INTO THE POST OFFICE TO HAVE THEM WEIGH AND CONFIRM POSTAGE NEEDED BEFORE YOU MAIL YOUR INVITES!!!

I didn't take a pic of the back side of the envelope but it wraps all the way around to the back where our return address is on the back side.  The graphic also wraps around to the back as well.

Sorry the stamp pic is blurry...I really need a new camera.

All boxed up just before I left for the post office:

Well, that's it...98 invitations from our 'A list' have been dropped in the mail today.  This is 11 weeks before our wedding...about 3 weeks earlier than when they typically suggest you mail them out (6-8 weeks).  But we are giving them 5 weeks to respond.  I know that's early to respond to a wedding that's still 6 weeks away, but we won't be sticklers about people absolutely returning their response by that date.  We just needed to do this to assist with confirming those that absolutely will not be coming (most likely because they're out of state).  This way, it allows us to confirm those that cannot attend so that we can still mail out a few 'B list' invites to local friends we had to cut :(  At the same time, it gives us plenty of time to call people who are lazy about returning their RSVP card.  Especially since our caterer needs the final head count 3 weeks before the big day.

As the no's roll in, we'll mail out a few additional invites to our B listers (hopefully) and then give them an extra 4 weeks to respond (since they didn't get their invite as early).  Either way, the guest list is stressing me out big time...but that's a post for another day.  All I will say for now is let's just pray that at least 23 people out of 221 will respond that they cannot come.  Fingers crossed!

What do you think of the finished invite?  Are/Did you go the envelope wrap route or did you use calligraphy, handwriting or computer printed envelopes?

What? I'm not in your wedding? (And other Bridesmaid issues)

In the past, I've seen posts on bride's blogs about how to handle the dilemma of who is included in your wedding party as a Bridesmaid, Groomsmen, Ring Bearer, etc. I was going to comment on those blogs but figured I'd just tackle the entire issue here instead.

Ultimately, what it comes down to in my opinion is maturity. Maturity on the part of all parties involved as to how you handle these situations as they arise. What do you do as a bride when friends expect (or worse, ASK you) about being in your wedding? What do you do when your wedding party begins to outnumber the guests sitting down at the ceremony? How do you tell someone they won't be a wedding party member...and better yet, should you even HAVE to tell those you don't plan to include? Here are my thoughts and suggestions on how to handle these situations:

* Don't bring it up. Unless someone specifically asks you (or you hear through the grapevine that they have been wondering) then you shouldn't go around telling people who are not going to be in your wedding party (WP).

* Be calm, compassionate and loving. If you have to tell someone who asks if they are going to be in the party that they won't be, then do it with some respect and use 'wish' words a lot. "I really wish that I could have included you as a bridesmaid, but unfortunately, we are having such a small wedding that we decided to keep the WP small as well." "I wish that I had been able to include you in our WP, but between me and John's family and best friends, we already have a much larger WP than we expected."

* Definitely provide them opportunities to be involved in other ways if you feel so led and have the option. Ask those who really wanted to be a bridesmaid or groomsmen to serve as an usher, guest book attendant, hand out programs, follow you around during photos to hold your flowers or attend to your needs, read a special poem during the ceremony, offer a special toast at the reception...There are all kinds of things you will think of that people will need to help you with on the day of. Just be sure that whatever you ask them to help with, you don't treat them as a servant or errand boy. They don't want to be your slave, they want to feel special and included.

* Feel free to think outside of the box. Don't feel confined to traditions or standards. My fiance and I have 4 nephews between the two of us who are between 2 years and 6 years old. We couldn't ask just one to be in the wedding and not the others so we opted for including all four as ring bearers.  I have a future post about the little 'tasks' that these supposed 'ring bearers' will have during their walk down the aisle.
So what do you think...have you had any unfortunate experiences with friends/family who wanted to be in the wedding party? What are your thoughts and suggestions on how to tackle these tough situations when they arise?

Proposing to your potential bridesmaids

So I don't want anything about my wedding to be traditional...not even the stuff that half the guests will never see or know about.  So when I began to select my bridesmaids I knew I wanted to come up with a fun and creative way to ask them to join my wedding party.  I mean afterall, your man asked you the jump start question "Will you marry me?" and for me, the next thing that followed was offering a similar question to my closest family and friends: "Will you be my bridesmaid?"

I found greeting cards with the question on the internet but I didn't like the packaged card idea.  So I decided to incorporate a few things I found online and then create everything myself to make it more personal and unique to each girl.

The first thing I did was find a photo of me with each girl.  I then photoshopped it using my wedding colors and text that asked them to 'Be My Bridesmaid?'  (For my sister, who would be my Matron of Honor, I used the question 'Return the Favor?' since I was her Maid of Honor.)  I then had the photo converted to a jigsaw puzzle.  Only about 30 pieces and an 8x10 so that the girls wouldn't need to 'see' an example to be able to put it together.  The surprise was putting the puzzle together to find the question.  (For reference, this site is where I purchased the 8x10" 30 piece puzzles from for $11.95 each)

Within the packages (I wrapped them and either personally delivered or mailed them) I included a small bouquet of silk flowers in my colors and using flowers I like and want to include in floral arrangments.  I told them in the note inside that this would give them some idea of what colors they'd be wearing and types of bouquets they'd have.

I finalized everything with a card I made out of scrapbook pages.  The card had a picture on the front with the question, a poem I customized typed inside and a hand written note telling them why I love them and why they're so special to me.

Ok, so a couple of them cried when they opened it...that's always the response I am looking for...tears or laughter!  For those of you who are interested, below is the poem I included:

The day, the dress
The bride, the groom
The joy, the tears
Will all come soon

Professing true love
To my husband-to-be
With family and friends
All watching me

The Father will be watching
From up above
Pray that our ceremony
Is filled with Jesus' love!

But there's just one more thing
That there needs to be
And that's to have you
Standing with me!

So what do you think, brides?  Do you have any fun or unique ways that you did or will pop the question to your closest gal pals?