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Hive, I have to tell you something. I tried on over 150 wedding dresses. Yup. I’m that girl. I tried on a TON of dresses. I was not one of the lucky few that we see on SYTTD who found her dress in one appointment. When I told sales associates at the bridal salons just how many dresses I had tried on, I could see the look of fear on their faces. They knew I was going to be hard to please. They knew they weren’t going to make a sale.
Our photographer search left me a little stressed out. In fact, I took a week long break from the vendor search because I just couldn’t handle it. Fiancee Eagle and I really wanted to choose a photographer that “got us” as a couple, someone who supported marriage equality… someone whose work was phenomenal. I honestly thought we would have to settle, because we were setting the bar too high.
And then I remembered something… something so big, that I couldn’t believe I forgot it. I already knew the perfect photographer. I had spent hours poring over her blog when I was doing my Bachelor’s Degree, because she was one of my classmates! It takes serious talent to be a scientist AND a photographer. And serious talent she has.
Image via Brittany Esther Photography
Photography is pretty dang important at a wedding. When we first started talking about our wedding, we knew that the two things we were willing to spend “big” on were the venue and the photographer. I was absolutely horrified when my mother suggested that we just let the guests take photos, and ask my aunt (who did photos at my mom’s 1984 wedding) to take our “formals.” Not happening! She is a great hobby photographer, but she’s my aunt (and Godparent). She’s a guest at the wedding. She shouldn’t have to be working.
Both Fiancee Eagle and I were firmly set on hiring a professional photographer who had a good track record (and pretty photos!), who also was supportive of same-sex marriage. We looked on the So You’re EnGAYged preferred vendor list for photographers, but we couldn’t really a find a photographer in Alberta or even Vancouver, that we loved. Everyone on their list had technically “good photography” and was obviously fine with gay weddings… but none of their work really stood out as something we were willing to shell out thousands of dollars on.
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So, I’m sort of ass-backwards and shared our rehearsal BBQ invitations with you all before I even told you why we chose to have a BBQ in the first place! Please forgive me, hive. Since we don’t have a groom in this wedding equation, I knew that we would have to plan it ourselves. But I really freaked out at the thought of planning a rehearsal dinner…I mean, it’s pretty expensive, and I knew that our parents would want to invite out-of-town guests, further racking up the bill. Since our venue is so popular, they book Friday evening weddings as well. This ruled out having the traditional Friday-night rehearsal, and this made me want to just skip the rehearsal dinner all together. Our ceremony rehearsal is going to be on a Thursday evening, and I felt like having the rehearsal dinner on a Thursday just sort of defeated the whole pre-wedding excitement that the rehearsal dinner gives to the weekend.
I expressed my whole rehearsal dinner ambivalence to Mommy Eagle, who then suggested we have a BBQ in a local city park. Honestly it seemed like a great idea to me—we could easily buy hamburgers and chicken breasts from Costco for the main dish, and make up some salads and sides, the day of. And since it wasn’t going to cost much per head, we could invite out-of-town guests. Perfect! Mommy Eagle to the rescue.
We were able to book a local city picnic area that comes equipped with charcoal grills, and access to an electrical outlet for $100. I’m estimating that food will cost us max $500, and decorations may come in at $100. I’ve tallied up our guest list, and I think we’ll invite around 50 people…so the whole shebang should be approximately $14 a head. This is very reasonable considering quotes from restaurants were closer to $50.
A rehearsal BBQ isn’t all that un-common in the wedding world. I’ve found tons of great photos and inspiration!
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
I’m sort of a private person. I know that may seem strange coming from someone who is blogging every detail about her wedding… but I really am! I don’t share a lot of details about my life or feelings with people around me that I don’t consider close friends. I’m sort of a “closed book,” and I kind of like it that way.
When I first got engaged, I really didn’t tell anyone at work. I just felt like it was my business and if people saw my ring and wanted to ask, that was fine! I would tell them if they asked. One of the main reasons I didn’t share my wedding news with work is because I work in an incredibly cerebral environment with very scholarly people. These people know more about science and medicine and evolution that I could ever imagine, and I read their papers in awe before I started to work with them. They are all really smart, like Darwin-of-our-times smart. It can be incredibly intimidating, and I really didn’t want to look like the dumb 22 year old who couldn’t stop gushing about wedding dresses and flowers and invitations (I’ll save that for the hive!). That being said… I don’t think that people who talk about their weddings at work are dumb, I just felt like I would be perceived as such in my particular work environment.
But then something changed:
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I shared with you all in my last blog that I designed my rehearsal dinner invitations in Adobe Illustrator and ordered them through Vistaprint. I felt comfortable using Vistaprint since we’re just having a rehearsal BBQ and the invitations don’t need to be super fancy. Plus, I had used them for my Save-The-Dates, and I was impressed with the quality of the paper, for the price.
We went from this design:
To this printed product (plus I rounded the corners):
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I left off my Illustrator tutorial with showing you all how to make a background and edit vector shapes that you can find online. I know that this is all “heavy” learning—but I promise, if you stick to it, it becomes easier and you eventually get the hang of it.
Now, starting up where we left off… we had just finished the background, and placed the squiggly background image on top of it.
Ever since my Vistaprint STD post, I have been getting lots of messages from hive members asking me how I used Adobe Illustrator to design my invitations. Learning how to use Adobe Illustrator was NOT easy, mostly because I taught myself. I learned how to use it for work to make figures for academic publications, but the same skill-set works for wedding stationery design.
Now, first things first: Adobe Illustrator is expensive. It comes in a package called “Creative Suite 5″ (or CS5 for short). It includes things like Photoshop and InDesign as well. Right now, it is listed on the Adobe website for $1299 USD. Yikes. I purchased my CS5 Design Standard for around $200 at the University I attend, with an education discount. If you’re in the market to purchase CS5, try to use this discount. It literally saves you hundreds of dollars. But: the website does offer a free 30 day trial. So: if you can teach yourself how to use Illustrator and design your invitations in under 30 days - you can avoid purchasing it.
The most important thing to understand about Illustrator is that it is a vector-based design program.
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Dear Miss Eagle,
Last Friday, January 6th marked the anniversary of the day we first met and began a friendship. I know our first date wasn’t until the 28th of January and we chose to celebrate that day, but I would like to take a moment to remember the conversation that started it all.
The conversation was about an Angelina Jolie movie that we both enjoyed more than a person should. Girl Interrupted. Remember that one? Well our common love for that movie and Miss Jolie lead us to discovering what other interests we shared… other than that and Grey’s Anatomy, there wasn’t much. You were a beautiful, intelligent student, partying every night in the big city. I was the shy girl from a small town who had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. But that night after hours of getting to know you, I knew that you were the one for me and I would be stupid not to pursue you.
You’ve heard this one hundred times already, but that night when I went to bed, I dreamt of you and I ten years down the road. We had two children and were getting family portraits done. I don’t know about you, but I am so very excited to see that dream come to life. I know it won’t be for a while - grad school and then more school and all… - But we’ll get there eventually.
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Making the guest list is seriously the hardest part of wedding planning. Well, I found it to be difficult, probably because we have a venue maximum of 96 including us, our DOC and our photographer. First, we agreed that we would split the number of guests down the middle. It just makes it easier that way. However, I wanted to follow guest list “rules” like we would only invite our “immediate families”: parents/siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins… and our friends, obviously. But, that didn’t work out.
Image via Wedding by Color
My “immediate family” is a bit bigger than Fiancee Eagle’s.
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Hive! I’m losing a month of my engagement. A whole month. 30 days of crafting and DIY projects and prime-wedding-planning-time. Gone. Down the drain.
No, we aren’t moving up the wedding. I’m not pregnant.
Image via World Island Paradise
We both love kids. We can’t wait to eventually have our own kids one day. But, did you all see Mrs. Zebra’s kids-at-wedding recap? That little girl, while just being young and carefree…she successfully photobombed several crucially important photos. While we love children…sometimes a wedding just isn’t the place for them.
Image via Mrs. Zebra / Photograph by Sara Zarrella Photography
One of the very first discussions we had about wedding planning was whether or not to invite anyone under 18 to the wedding, family or friend. Since we’re having an evening black tie invited (optional) wedding…
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Picking bridesmaids’ dresses was something I was really looking forward to! Well, besides picking my own dress and all. But really, I couldn’t wait to see our bridesmaids in some pretty dresses, even if I haven’t found my own dress yet.
I already told you all that we’re each having one bridesmaid and one bridesman. We’re planning on having the boys in standard tuxes, but we want our girls in the same dress. I love the way the mismatched dresses look in bigger bridal parties, but I think that because there is only two girls standing up with us, and because they are on different sides, it will look more balanced to have the same dress. They agree!
Since we’re having a formal wedding, we’re looking for a floor-length bridesmaid dress. I’m not sure if I’ve ever explained our “color palette” but we’re going for a champagne, blush and ivory color scheme, and we want blush bridesmaid dresses. Similar to this color:
What is the number one rule of wedding planning? Any wedding planner will tell you: “STICK TO YOUR BUDGET!”
Well…we didn’t set a budget.
Canada’s New PLASTIC money! / Image via The Huffington Post
This may have been due to our naivety about how much a wedding really costs, and because we had set ideas about what sort of vendors we wanted to work with and what details we wanted at the wedding. I also planned to DIY a ton of stuff for the wedding, so I really didn’t know how much everything would cost. When we were looking for a venue and photographer, we had a few thousand bucks saved up as a couple, so we were all set (and then some!) for vendor deposits. We then made a savings plan that required both of us to save up a certain amount each month. With that plan intact, we would be able to pay for everything (we thought).
In the two bridal salons I visited, the sales associates made sure to tell my mom and me that even if we didn’t buy a dress from their salon, we should NEVER purchase a gown online.
“You will get a ‘dress’ made out of cheap polyester with sequins instead of rhinestones, and it will be shipped in an envelope as big as your laptop. It will be hideous.”
“You get what you pay for online! CHEAP DRESSES!”
“Those dresses are tacky, cheap, and horribly ugly. They are horrific.”
I’ve heard it all. The scare tactics worked pretty well on my mom, but the fact that both of the bridal salons made a point of saying this to me made me wonder: What are they scared of? If I order a dress online and the dress is as horribly tacky and ugly as they say, I’d have to come back to their store and purchase a rush-order dress anyway. This would therefore generate them more income…so why do they care? Are there online dresses that could rival the quality of the bridal-salon dresses? What are they afraid of?
I’m not looking to get into the debate of whether creating a replica dress is “ripping off” the original creator’s design. But I’ve done some research and these dresses are the “ugly and tacky” replica dresses I was so strongly warned against.
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Miss Eagle, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Age and Occupation: 22, Medical Sciences Graduate Student / Science Instructor Fiancee's Age and Occupation: 23, Nurse Engagement Date: April 2011 Wedding Date: August 2012 Venue: Historic Lougheed House About Me: I'm a science-geek graduate student who is studying craniofacial malformations and evolutionary developmental biology. I have a passion for DIY crafts, amazing red wine, and all-things-wedding. Together with my wonderful fiancée, we are planning a formal black tie wedding filled with DIY projects and vintage decor. When I'm not reading about science-y things or wedding blogs, I enjoy teaching science-y things to kids and trying to be Martha Stewart incarnate.
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