Weddingbee

I’m one of those crazy people who had to get the matching diamond band to go with my pave engagement ring…

BUT - I’m not sure I’m going to want to wear the diamond band alllll the time, since gunk could get stuck in between the diamonds, I’d be heartbroken if it fell off when I was swimming, etc. So I have decided that I need to get (at least!) one other wedding band that doesn’t have diamonds, that I can wear on its own if I go camping or swimming or anywhere else I don’t quite feel like wearing the diamond band.

My favorite site for gazing at cheap options is e-weddingbands.com which has a wide variety of both men’s and women’s rings, in a wiiiide variety of prices! We are most likely going to buy Mr. Bluebell’s real wedding ring here (in titanium I think?), and I am totally picking up (at least!) one backup wedding ring! Now that I’ve gotten this idea in my head and seen how cheap they can be, I kind of want to have tons of options.

My absolute favorite that also happens to be the absolute cheapest is:

at a mere FORTY FIVE DOLLARS!!

They also have these other lovelies:

Embossed leaf band for $185

Freeform scroll band for $92

All of these (and the other really cheap ones) are in white or yellow gold, but they also have a huge number of platinum, titanium, tungsten, and two-tone bands, as well as bands with diamonds! I have not personally ordered from them before, but I have seen great consumer reviews on Pricescope which is my go-to place for anything diamond or ring related. (The forums there are extremely helpful if you are searching for information on diamonds in general, vendors, whether a specific stone is a good deal, etc.)

E-weddingbands also offers engraving and what looks like a great return policy in case you’re not satisfied. I totally feel like an ad, but I swear I just like them!!

And if you can get multiple fun wedding rings for the price of one “normal” ring elsewhere, why not have a bit of fun with it??

Are any of you getting “backup” wedding rings to wear in different situations? Are you having diamonds in your wedding band or do you want one you can wear 24-7 no matter what? What great sites have you found for browsing and/or buying rings?

…and no progress made! We spent our 5 days upstate blissfully ignoring all those pesky caterer issues and not actually making a single call or even measuring the width of the area where we could put the tent! Oh well! I’m sure I’ll regret that soon, but I just couldn’t make myself do anything but relax up there, so it’s all good.

On to actual wedding-related items….

How do we feel about designated place settings? Presumably if you’re having a straight-up sit down served dinner, you would have to have them (right?). But for a buffet, are they necessary/nice to have/a little silly?

I’ll admit that my main reason for wondering about this is that we weren’t expecting to assign seats, but now I keep seeing great place card ideas and I totally want some of my own! But I think they’d be a bit out of place for our fairly informal buffet. We’ll have them for the Chinese banquet we’re having in the city after the wedding, but a lot of my cute ideas (toothpicks with names stuck into an apple is my current favorite) won’t seem as a propos at a Chinese restaurant…

At other wedding forums I’ve been to, people generally get VERY heated over the seated dinner vs. buffet, and seat assignments vs. no seat assignments issues, which leads me to think that perhaps it’s largely a regional issue (?)

That said…it’s poll time!

Planning from afar for an in-the-middle-of-nowhere wedding isn’t as effortless as it sounds! Our main problem so far has been in trying to nail down a caterer, since we’re doing almost everything by email but are a bit hesitant to commit to anything without meeting in person, trying food, etc.

At the moment, we have two top runners, but problems with both of them. The first caterer, who I’ll call K, is someone who was recommended to us by a restaurant we love up there (we asked if they cater and they don’t, so they gave us her name). Her site looked very impressive, so we have emailed back and forth a bit. She seemed very nice, had good ideas, and we met with her in person back in early June to go over possibilities and it went well.

However, since then, she has been very slow at getting back to us. Two or three weeks pass, then a “Sorry I haven’t been able to answer your questions yet, I’ve been on vacation” or “My computer was acting up” or “It’s been really busy.” I understand that this is probably her busiest season right now, and we haven’t actually committed to her, so it might not be in her best interest to jeopardize any of her current clients for someone like us, but shouldn’t she be trying to get our business? Other than my slightly iffy feelings based on her slow response time, she seems great. She was recommended by people I trust (though we will also ask her for references for other weddings she has done), was very personable and helpful, has reasonable rates and a great sounding menu. But I’m just getting a little discouraged. I’m sure she’d be more responsive closer to the wedding and once we’ve actually committed to her, but I can’t really know that until after we take the plunge.

Our second possibility is A. He catered my brother’s wedding up there this June and had such a wonderful time doing it (loved our family’s house and history and people) that he literally begged me to let him do my wedding too, when he heard Mr Bluebell and I were engaged and also getting married up there. My main reason for not wanting to use him is just that he did my brother’s wedding! The food was amazing and everyone loved it, but we will be having a LOT of guest overlap, plus we’re getting married in the same exact place, so I’m already struggling with ways to make our wedding seem completely different and distinct so it isn’t “just another Bluebell sibling wedding.”

They are actually a vegetarian restaurant that only does catering occasionally (their screening process is largely whether they think the wedding sounds “fun” enough, hehe), so I know they’d have different actual dishes than what was served at my brother’s wedding, but I’m worried it will still have the same basic look and feel. Also, I LOOOOOVE cheese so we were planning to start with a big cheese spread - guess how my brother’s wedding started! So even if we have different appetizers and entrees, the cheese table will probably look the same. Plus since everyone loved all the food, I’m scared people will say, “Why didn’t you get those mushroom puffs?!? They were my favorite thing last time!”

The other thing holding us back from going with A is that because their business is almost entirely supported by the restaurant, they only choose to cater weddings where it’s “worth their while,” which they described to my brother as essentially coming down to offering an open bar through them. We were originally hoping to provide our own alcohol and have people serve themselves to cut down on the cost there (informal outdoor buffet wedding), so having to pay the extra however many dollars a head for an open bar we didn’t want in the first place isn’t that appealing. So taking that into account they are considerably more expensive than going with K would be.

But…we’ve been dragging our feet on calling A so we haven’t actually gotten any estimates from him, nor do we know if they are actually available for our date or, well, anything else! All of our information there is just based on what my brother and sister-in-law told us from their discussions. Plus I’m secretly hoping he’ll give us a hefty discount just because he wants to come back to our family house again since he reeeeeally did seem to enjoy it last time.

So what we need to do now is:

1) Call A and actually talk to him about whether they’re available that day, what they would charge us, how different they could make it “feel” from my brother’s wedding without making the food any less tasty, and if there’s a possibility of not doing open bar.

2) Call K and actually talk to her! Get her to answer some of those questions we asked weeks ago….and get references.

3) Contact more people?!? The only other people we contacted were already booked for our date! (Oh, and also there was the person who is now just a “party planner”) I’ve done a ton of searching but there really just isn’t much up there, so I’m feeling discouraged about this too…like I really need to just suck it up and either commit to K or get the ball rolling quickly with A.

Ack, so what do you think I should do? We’re actually heading upstate today (YAY!) until Tuesday so I was hoping to meet with someone to make this weekend at least slightly productive. I just got my first email in weeks from K this morning saying she can’t meet with us this weekend since she has a wedding, but she might not have realized we were staying until Tuesday. I’m getting SO STRESSED about this decision and just want it to be done already. I really think either A or K would probably work out great, but for the reasons listed above I’m having a reeeeeally hard time just pulling the trigger on either of them. I’m also starting to worry that other people are going to book them before we can decide, and then there will be no one to cater our wedding, for which we’ve already reserved the date….eeeeeeek. Help me!!!!

~~~

After the fact poll addition:

If I had to make a decision right this minute based only on current information, who do you think I should choose? The obvious real answer being to talk to everyone more and get more info…but based only on this, what do you think?

For no apparent reason, I feel compelled to create a pros and cons list of various items which guests can throw at the bride and groom as they make their getaway!

1. Rice. This is the traditional item to throw, and one of the first. According to this handy site, rice and other grains (& fruits!) were originally thrown at the couple to give them good luck, particulary with respect to fertility.

2. Birdseed. Due to the urban legend (not true apparently!) that rice is bad for birds to eat, a lot of people started throwing birdseed instead. This is equally slippery to step on, however, and still hard when it hits you in the face. Also, if there are cats around, it’s not exactly nice to lure the birds to the area. (True in my case.)

3. Confetti. Can be purchased in your wedding colors to match, doesn’t hurt if it hits you in the face, but still slippery. Also creates a bunch of litter that you really should clean up.

4. Flower petals. Beautifully romantic, can be purchased in your colors, doesn’t hurt if it hits you! But you have to be careful about them turning brown before you get to the toss time. I’ve heard freeze dried petals stay pretty but feel a little weird, and dried petals both look a little morbid and are crumbly. Plus flower petals cost more than a bag of rice.

5. Bubbles. Not technically thrown, but rather blown at the couple. Very pretty and…bubbly! No cleanup afterwards, no pain. However, soap in the eye can sting, and I’ve heard tales of wedding dresses becoming discolored by bubbles popping on them. If someone spills their bubble solution, it will be veeery slippery and probably get on people’s clothes.

6. Sparklers. Also NOT to be thrown! This is probably what we will end up going with for our wedding. They look great in pictures, and you don’t have to clean anything up afterwards or worry about people spilling things. You might want to be sure none of your guests are pyromaniacs though. And if you have a really flowy veil, maybe take that off before you go running through the sparks. Plus you have to orchestrate everyone getting matches at about the same time and getting their sparklers lit close enough together so that the first ones aren’t out before you actually walk through them. But they’re oh so pretty!

Did I miss anything? What are you doing, or are you skipping this tradition altogether?

Both of the caterers we have spoken to so far, have recommended the same tent/rental company as the best in the vicinity of our upstate wedding. I looked around their site and everything seems perfectly fine, so I think we’ll most likely go with them since that seems easiest, and they have working relationships with most of the caterers in the area.

However, I came across something on their site which drills fear and anxiety deep into my heart… CHAIRS.

First, I fell in love with the gold Chiavari chairs (the first picture in the chairs section, obviously):

The second picture, of garden chairs, was… okay. Nothing special, definitely pales in comparison to the Chiavari, but not unpleasant at all:

The third picture was plastic folding chairs. These, after looking at the first two pictures, were completely unacceptable, horror! But in truth, seem like perfectly decent chairs. (You can choose all white or all brown, so it wouldn’t have the hodgepodge look of this picture.)

After just looking at the pictures, I definitely wanted the first ones. But then I looked at the prices… $8.50 per chair vs. $3.50 per chair vs. $1.80 per chair. So now the question is, I know I love the gold chiavaris many times more than the plastic folding chairs, but do I really love them nearly five times as much??

To make this a little more tangible, the chair-only prices for 120 people would be:
- $1,020 for the Chiavaris
- $420 for the garden chairs
- $216 for the plastic folding chairs

And when you have it written out like that, it seems pretty ridiculous to even consider for one second spending $800 more just so your chairs are a little prettier, right? So I’m leaning towards the middle garden chairs, but part of me is still secretly lusting after the Chiavaris. And then the other part is saying, why double the price from plastic folding to garden in the first place?

So in recognition of what is probably my first of many adventures in Bridezilla-ville, I would like to ask:

1) How much do chairs matter anyway? As a guest, do you ever remember thinking one wedding’s chairs were particularly nice vs. particularly unattractive? Or is a chair just a chair?

2) What other ridiculous minutiae have you been obsessing over lately? Please tell me I’m not the only one! I literally have broken down to Mr. Bluebell about how we can’t even decide on our chairs!!!! He, strangely, just doesn’t quite get what all the fuss is over.

While we obviously care a great deal about having a million fabulous pictures of our wedding, we are currently weighing the pros and cons of hiring a professional photographer. We have several friends who are very good amateur photographers, and one cousin of my mother’s is definitely professional-quality (although he focuses on travel photography, not weddings or people).

Is it really worth the extra X thousand dollars for someone else to take pictures in addition to everyone we already have? We were thinking of offering to pay for film and development for the people who are really fantastic (& use real film), and asking the digital users to consider themselves to be “our photographers” and maybe asking that this service be their gift to us, or even paying them a bit.

I think we’d end up with a ton of amazing pictures if we did this. But then I see some professional pictures (like all of Mrs. Firefly’s, swoon) and wonder if this is really an area we should be stingy on. I want to have all those gorgeous pictures too!!!

I guess the question is: Is this an area where you would ever consider going the DIY route? I don’t care about formal portraits really, but I care a lot about having beautiful pictures. I’m also very picky and don’t like the majority of the cheaper photographers out there, so we can’t really compromise by getting a cheap photographer.

Is it worth several thousand dollars to be extra sure we have artistic gorgeous photos, or should we just stick with our friends and cousin who we would take great if not absolutely perfect photos?

Please also comment with any thoughts you have about how you chose what to do, and advice you might have for us! Thanks!

What are you doing for a photographer?

1. Nothing - I figure everyone will take pictures, so we can just get those from people. We might get disposables to put on tables to encourage people, but there will be no designated photographer.
2. Something like what you described above - there will be several people who we specifically ask to take extra pictures. We may or may not offer them some sort of financial incentive to do this, but we won’t be “hiring” them officially.
3. We will be “hiring” one friend/family member and putting him/her in charge, although he/she is not a professional.
4. We will be “hiring” one friend/family member who is a professional and/or in art school or the like.
5. We will be hiring the cheapest professional we can find who is decent. The most important thing is to have a record of the event, so the level of artistic quality is not as important as being sure that everything is captured.
6. We care a lot about having artistic photographs that match our sensibilities and are choosing our professional photographer based on the quality of his/her photographs. If this means upping our photography budget more than we wanted to originally, so be it - having beautiful pictures is a top priority for us.

Although I LOVE the look of fresh grass sprinkled with petals, my main concern for our outdoor ceremony is mud. So even if the weather is gorgeous at the time of my ceremony, I want to be prepared for the ever-present danger of a mud-drenched train.

At first, all I could come up with for aisle runner ideas were a traditional church aisle runner or red-carpet style runner, neither of which seemed at all appropriate for my wedding.

Then, I came across this:

What do you think of having a few straw mats marking the aisle? I thought it would be so simultaneously country and elegant, that I think it will be perfect for our wedding!

Here’s another option (but it’s only 15 inches wide, so you’d need two or three side by side, which might ruin the effect):

[Both of these are from plumparty for $4.50 and $26.00 per mat, respectively.]

Does anyone else have nontraditional outdoor aisle runner ideas? Do you think this would work well for a fairly informal wedding in the country?

While my title may sound flippant, I’m asking genuinely! It seems to me that there are certain types of weddings (cathedral ceremony, ballroom reception) where you may need a program (not technically of course, but it’s usually expected). Then there are less formal weddings, to downright untraditional ones. Do they all require a program? Or does the level of formality of your wedding dictate whether you “should” have one or not?

A program traditionally includes the names of the wedding party, readings, etc., but what about all those other things people are putting in these days? Pictures, stories of how the couple met, biographies of the wedding party, games, puzzles, favor CDs…

While I love all these ideas, it seems a bit more than I need for my pretty unconventional, informal wedding. At the same time, I do like the idea of listing the order of events and naming the wedding party. But if I’m going to bother having programs at all, I might as well go all out, right? I’ll add some pictures and stories and….then it’s the complicated type of program again.

Do you think all weddings should have a program? How much does a program register in your mind when you’re a guest?

As requested!

After we finished opening presents on Christmas last year (18 people were in the house so it took a while), everyone was just kind of hanging out in front of the fire, putting away their presents, browsing through new books etc. Mr. Bluebell suggested (in a whisper) that we go for a walk - just the two of us. Since my parents’ dog is always taken on any outing, I said, “With Duncan?” and he said he’d rather not.

When he first suggested the walk I was 95% sure this was it, but when he said no dog I was positive. He loves Duncan as much as anyone else, and would certainly not deprive him of a nice walk without having a very good reason. The walk he wanted to take was up to my family’s summer house (which is about 15 minutes away from my grandparents’ winter-ready house) where, incidentally, we had always planned to get married.

We hiked along the road a bit, then up the really long, steep driveway which can’t be driven on in winter because of the snow. The only footprints in front of us were a bunch of deer prints. He was being sweet and saying nice little things along the way. Then we reached the house at the top, walked around to the huge front porch and sat on the wide railings looking out at the gorgeous view of the lake. He said some more sweet things then asked me to marry him, and I said of course and we talked a bit more (me crying, of course). Note I have not mentioned a ring yet… It took him about 5 minutes to get around to producing it, and I was getting really worried he’d forgotten to bring it upstate!!

After another couple minutes, we decided to head back to tell everyone (and also because our feet were freezing). But as we were walking down the steepest part of the hill, we kept slipping in the snow, so 10 minutes after we got engaged we were just laughing hysterically as we slipped and slided along down the hill holding hands. This is probably my favorite memory from that day - the giddiness of sliding along with my brand new fiance.

Remember how I said there were 18 people at the (fairly small) house for Christmas? When we got back we had to try to lure my parents out into the front hall to tell them first, but everyone else was around and getting suspicious as to why we were hovering in the hall and not coming in. They kept peeking out the kitchen door to see what was up, so basically everyone saw as we announced it to my parents!

Sigh… I haven’t told that story in a while, so much fun to remember it all!

We got engaged on Christmas Day 2005 and won’t be getting married until June 23, 2007. For those of you keeping track, that is a mere 2 days shy of 18 months. The reasons for waiting that long involved when we could have the wedding at our family house (a million people co-own it so it’s complicated reserving it just for your branch), and the surprise engagement of my brother about a month before ours - with the announcement they were marrying at that same house in June 2006!

We could have our wedding the weekend after my brother’s (eh) which would also be a week before one of my best friend’s wedding (”You can’t steal my thunder!!”), in September (hate to make all our family fly out there twice in one summer just for us), or June 2007, which seemed by far the easiest. So we hunkered down with our wedding magazines and books (haha, “our” :)), and daydreamed endlessly, but didn’t start planning for a looong time.

Then, one day, I realized it was June, which meant it was no longer “well over a year” before the wedding. Soon it would be “less than a year!” How did that happen? I decided we should celebrate our one year preniversary just like a real anniversary, but then I realized that we would actually be at our friends’ rehearsal dinner. At first, I was a little sad we couldn’t celebrate it just the two of us, but then I thought, really…what better way to celebrate our impending nuptials than at a wedding event for two people we love, and all the people they love? So, quietly, during dinner we shared a quick toast, and then the next day, at their wedding, we enjoyed our first day of less-than-a-year-to-our-wedding!

I’ve got to say, that feeling was almost as good as getting engaged the first time around! I am so excited to finally be able to say “June 23rd” when people ask when we’re getting married instead of a bleak “2007.” But, along with the heightened anticipation came the realization that now it’s really time to get down to planning…eeek….

How long is your engagement? How did you decide when to set your date? Do you wish you had allowed more or less time before the wedding?