Weddingbee

Wow, that’s intense! Good luck, Shortie!!!

As I was reading your post, I thought…hmmm, she’s not gonna be having much time for bee blog posts! Ha! We’ll understand and look forward to your return with a wedding all planned out

yowza! Good luck!

OH. MY. GOD. Your dog is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

phew! thats intense…….i really hope everything goes well and that you get it all together.

(pulls out nylons)

i’m about to head on down to the redlight district myself. somebody’s got to pay for this wedding!

baby shortie is sooo frikkin cute! i’m loving the bee furbaby pics!

Deep breaths.
I am planning a wedding for 200 in a place I’ve only been twice, where I don’t know my way around, don’t have any friends or family - and it has really been a blessing being able to compartmentalize wedding errands all into one week. I went for one weekend in September to choose the venue, and one long weekend in February to get through a very similar check list as the one you have above (two cake tastings, caterer tastings, find and practice with hair and makeup, meet officiant, find a florist, find rentals/linens, choose wine, etc). I made a very detailed Excel schedule, Excel contact list, and pre-printed all of the maps to ensure that the trip went smoothly - and it did. I was glad I had the contact list with me at all times, because I was frequently calling the next vendor/appt to tell them we were going to be 30 minutes late.
A few suggestions - eliminate everything from that list that you can do via phone or email:
1.) If you’ve already booked the DJ, you can email him song lists and discuss things over the phone. Then if you really want to meet him in person (why?) you only need a 15 minute appointment to confirm all the things you already emailed and discussed via phone.
2.) The same thing goes for all the vendors you already have booked/scheduled - send pictures of hair styles via email, cake styles, etc. so when you get to these appointments they are much shorter because the communication has already taken place.
3.) Do not schedule your tastings for the same day. Also don’t cut these appointments short. You only get to plan your wedding once, and these appts are so fun - enjoy them.
4.) Do not worry about planning timing while at these appts (hair, rehearsal, etc.) Give them all an approximate time. When you get back home to Winnipeg, take all the information you have and make a schedule then and email it to people. Timing is too difficult to figure out until after you have all the pieces of the puzzle. It does not have to be done face-to-face, and figuring it out is stressful - so wait until you have all the vendors set and are at home with Excel to figure it all out.
5.) Buy attendants gifts online and have them shipped directly to your parents house. I’d also suggest pre-purchasing cards, wrapping paper, etc. online and having them shipped to your parents too - I do this whenever I am traveling across the country for holidays - I don’t want to lug everything, but I also don’t want to have only a few hours to find all the presents.
6.) Try do hair and make-up with same person.
7.) You do not need to visit limo places - you know what limos look like. Relinquish control of this. I will never see my limos ahead of time. If you insist that they are seen - use the internet to research and reserve limos with two companies. Have your sister go look at them when she has time - do not waist your precious time going to a limo place.
8.) We found a store that had tuxes both where we live and where we are getting married - you can choose your tuxes before your trip - email the groomsmen the information (location of store, time frame they need to go within, style) and have them take care of it.
9.) You can bring the babypics back to Winnipeg with you and scan them at a library for free in Winnipeg. Better yet, have your family go through them now and mail them to you - you can start scanning immediately.
I will stop with this list, but the point is you are only as stressed as you decide to be. I have many vendors that I will not meet until my wedding - and I probably won’t even meet them then - my DOC will just take care of things. These include: nannies for kids, band, ceremony musicians… You can research these things online, have them mail/email/fax you licensing info, music samples, etc. So my final advice is to look at your list and figure out what is really 100% necessary, and cutting what isn’t (like meeting the DJ or seeing the limo). If you want any of my Marathon Wedding Planning Weekend excel sheets, let me know. Good luck.

Harvey is too cute! I would love to see more pictures of him.

You’re dog is RIDICULOUSLY cute.

I’m hitting cute overload!

Ha, sorry

Good luck with your list of to-do’s!

If anyone can do it, Shortcake can! We have every confidence in you. I second the suggestion that some of the things on your list can be done mostly over the phone or email — or by delegating to your coordinator. Especially the transportation. You also might want to plan to just mail the invites with the rest of them to take one thing off the list entirely. Of course there are some people you definitely want to meet in person — for me, that would mainly be the photographer (since you’ll be spending most of the day with her or him) and the DJ (to make sure you are in agreement with the level of talking/announcing he or she plans to do and you’re a good “fit”). But I agree with Natalie that a lot of the detail work can come afterwards . . . finalizing every last bit of the menu, the playlist and do-not-play list and timelines, for example, can all be in email follow-up. You also might want to ask your photographer (in advance) to come up with possible shot locations for all day-of photography. Presumably that person is local and has done this before, so they’ll have good suggestions. Take advantage of their experience so that you don’t have to run all over town re-inventing the wheel.

Omg it’s a wookie!

Oh my gosh, your dog is an Ewok! Have you ever put him in a little hooded cape for Halloween?

Anyway, on to the post…. good luck with all your details!!!

Harvey DOES look like an Ewok! Mrs. Tulip was dead-on! Shortcake, delegate whatever you possibly can to whomever you can trust to do it right….

Holy moly. Good luck with your whirlwind trip. Can I just hold your dog in my arms for 1, maybe 2 weeks at a time? He’s super cute!

“knitting sweaters for my furbaby, Harvey, to chew upon.”
do you mean “chew on”?

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