Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Hive! I’ve given you nearly everything I have, between The Packet, The Schedule, The Spreadsheet, and The Cards, but I do want to offer one last thing that might be helpful if you’re at the very beginning of your planning—The Checklist.
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Well hello again, hive! So, we’ve covered a few organizational things—The Schedule, The Packet, and the Card. I hope they’ve been helpful in planning! Today I’m writing about The Spreadsheet—which, in a fit of melodrama, I named All The Things.
In the beginning, my wedding planning was almost derailed by Pinterest—I wanted every single detail that I saw. Toasting flutes, engraved cake forks, chair signs, paper lanterns, tissue poofs…all the things! As McGlovin and I started to form a wedding vision, though, it became easier to edit ideas. Once I returned to a rational state of being, I started a Google spreadsheet where I could keep track of all of these ideas, so I could pick and choose what we wanted at our wedding.
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Oh, hive…I know some of you were a little over whelmed with The Schedule. That’s OK…let’s be real, creating a schedule for that many people to follow for an entire day is a little overwhelming. Here’s the thing, though—there’s more. So very much more.
Right, so we have The Schedule. But…I mean, what good is it, except that I have it and can read it? Me having all of the knowledge is nice, but essentially useless. I mentioned at the end of my last post that the most important thing was to give someone else the schedule on the day of the wedding, and it really is! So who did I give the schedule to? Well…everyone. Enter: The Packet.
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
OK, so the schedule. A few things you should know—I started crafting our schedule about six months before the wedding, and I reviewed it at every single vendor meeting that we had. (Truly, my biggest fear was that I would forget to do something, or go somewhere, or be somehow unprepared for our wedding—I had at least four nightmares about it!) Anyway, I reviewed the schedule with the reception venue, the catering staff, the DJ, and the photographer. Each of them had very definite ideas of how the schedule should go and, although it certainly helped me to have their suggestions on how things would flow best, I didn’t always take their advice. Even though I’ve never had a wedding before, I had a very clear idea of how I wanted things to flow.
Example: Our DJ originally told us to cut the cake and then go right downstairs for the first dance. I was all, “What, I don’t get to eat the wedding cake that I paid a million dollars for, or all of the wedding pie??” And he was all, “No, the people will get antsy, and no one wants to sit back down for dessert!” Then, on the wedding night, he came over and let us know that there was a pretty substantial line for wedding pie, so we would need to push the first dance out 15 minutes. Of course we would need to wait—don’t you know anything about pie?
Anyway. Here’s how the schedule was created. First, I opened one of my trusty Google spreadsheets. I used column A to schedule the entire day in 15-minute increments. Then, as I was made aware of when things would happen, I added them in. Here’s my example:
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Hive! I hope your weekend was lovely! McGlovin and I were sitting on the couch on Sunday, when it occurred to us how nice it was to sit and drink coffee and read the paper in companionable silence, without trying to cram every spare minute with wedding planning and logistics and to-do lists.
Speaking of planning and logistics, though…in my last post, I listed all of the awesomeness that is Google. In this post, I want to zero in on why Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) is so incredibly helpful. [Disclaimer: I know that you all are very bright, and can likely figure this out for yourselves. It’s just, when I started planning, I had no idea where to go or what to use to get organized, and I wish someone had made a few helpful suggestions!]
So, what made G-Drive so helpful? Well, a few things. First, it was like our online wedding binder—it had all of our information in it, and was easily accessible. Since everything is online, we could access it from work, home, our parents’ homes, wherever. Also, there’s an app, so even if I was standing in the aisle at Michaels, I could go into my phone app and see whatever document I needed. You can also edit documents from your phone—crazy helpful.
What all was in our drive? Everything, and I mean everything. Here’s a run-down:
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
So my organization is in two forms—online and also on paper. I was always a person that preferred to take notes by hand in class, rather than on a laptop, and I thought wedding planning would be the same. What proved to be the single most helpful part of my life, though, was my online organization. It’s excessive, so be prepared for a wordy post, interspersed with unrelated photos of Howie.
Doesn’t he look like such a old man here? Or is that just me?
Right, so as soon as I wrapped my mind around being engaged, I went online and reserved two Gmail accounts—one with my married name (I knew I was going to need it in the future) and one that would serve as a wedding account. McGlovin and I both use and love our Droids, so I thought that Google would really be the most convenient source for us, and I was right. Here are just a few of the many awesome ways that Google was helpful:
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Well hello again, hive! McGlovin and I have been married for exactly one month, and it has been…awesome. I mean, it’s exactly the same as it was two months ago, but that was still awesome.
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Welp, hive, McGlovin and I started the new year perfectly—our wedding was amazing! I’m taking a tiny break from things (not like I’ve been crazy active recently) to hang out with my newly minted husband. (Husband! That’s a thing we’re saying now!) But I will be back shortly to talk about all of the DIY that we did in the weeks leading up to the wedding. In the meantime, here’s one of the few pics that I’ve found from last weekend:
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Hello again, hive lovelies! My last post was at 18 days out, and here we are, just five days left! What’s been going on? Here are some things in the Gloves’ lives:
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Yesterday I got an email from my church letting me know that our priest has been called into service in Rome for the month of January. He’s calling around to see if there’s someone else available, but do we know any other priests? Huh.
McGlovin was on duty last night, and when he called to talk about wedding plans, he told me that he’s decided, instead of hiring a car to drive us around on our wedding day, we’re just going to ride with his sister and brother-in-law. I’ve always, always wanted a vintage car to drive us, just us, so we could have even a tiny bit of alone time, but now, 18 days before the wedding, we’ve decided to ride with his sister and brother in law. Huh.
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Hive!! I’ve for sure been the worst, absent since Thanksgiving—sorry! Between school, and a full time job, and Howie, and weddings—I mean, we’re all in a similar boat, so you know how it is.
Anyway, my last post was about my invitations, and I got more than one message asking about the pocketfolds and how they worked with Vistaprint products. Well, two things—first, my mom and I actually handcrafted them. I’ll show you below how to do that. And second, regarding Vistaprint—in my experience, Vistaprint prints in two main sizes, half a page and a quarter of a page. For some reason, I was really opposed to having invitations that were clearly half of an 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper, so I altered them. Here’s how:
First, I used one of their standard templates, and put in all of the correct information in all of the allotted spaces. Then, I purchased the preview—I think it was a $1.99 charge. I printed out the preview, which was in the real size. On a separate piece of paper, I cut out a rectangle that was the size I wanted my invitations to be (for me, that was 4.5” x 6.5”). I outlined that smaller rectangle on the bottom right of my Vistaprint preview, and then went back into Vistaprint and moved each of the text boxes to fit into where the smaller rectangle was on my preview. Then, I bought another preview, printed it out, and cut it to the smaller size to see if everything was spaced correctly. I think it may have taken me two tries before everything was exactly where I wanted it. I went through the same process for my reception cards to make them smaller so they would fit into the pocket.
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
We sent out our invitations early last week, and the RSVPs have been trickling in, so I think it’s time to share them with the hive! As you may recall, McGlovin talked me into a VistaPrint invitation suite while we were still over six months from our wedding and…it was an amazing decision. I would have loved to have had letterpress invites that were glorious and thick and lovely, but there was really no justification for it. I would much rather take the money we saved and throw it at our booze fund
Anyway, so, let’s walk through the invitation suite. You open your mailbox to find this super fun piece of mail:
You tear open the envelope in an excited frenzy, ruining all of my painstaking addressing, to find this pocket-fold envelope with all of the information you’ve ever wanted:
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Hive! I’ve been kind of a terrible blogger—McGlovin and I did our final catering tasting, and do not have any pictures to show for it. To be fair—I took many, many food pics, but my phone chose to save them as grey squares, rather than actual images. Sorry, hive. For the time being, maybe a photo of engagement dinner will suffice?
Anyway, about dinner—McGlovin and I placed a huge, ginormous emphasis on the meal. We’re celebrating a really happy time in our lives, and are fortunate enough to have so many of our loved ones take the time out of their lives to celebrate with us, so a nice dinner is just a small token of our appreciation. Truth: every year, McGlovin and I host a big “family dinner” with twenty or thirty people . This is, of course, a much larger guest list, but providing everyone an awesome dinner party just seems like a natural way for us to show our family and friends how thankful we are to have them.
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Wednesday, Miss Blue Whale wrote about why she’s not having a first look. Everyone has their own perspective, and what’s right for one person may not be what’s right for another person, so today I thought I’d explain why McGlovin and I are definitely doing a first look.
When we first started planning, I was really waffling—everyone says that the first time he sees you is supposed to be so magical, and that “27 dresses” moment when you’re watching the groom watch his bride is so pivotal, etc. I asked Gloves what he thought. He said that it really wasn’t important to him at all—the first time we see each other is guaranteed to be crazy special—it’s the day we’re getting married! Imma be a Mrs. and he’s going to be my Mister. And he’s so right—how could that not be the best moment of my day?
Also, I mean—I don’t necessarily know if I want to share that moment with everyone else. Let’s be honest—I don’t. At all. When we do our first look, we will be looking directly at one another, not at all worrying about what everyone else thinks of us, because there’s won’t be an “everyone else!” Just me and the mister. Plus, then I can tell him exactly what I’m thinking—he probably looks so amazing, and I’m probably so excited to be getting married, and I probably had way too much coffee this morning, and Howie probably accidentally ate my garter while we were getting our hair done. And he’ll probably tell me how much he likes my dress or hair and that the best man spilled coffee all over his mom’s white carpet and everyone almost died. These things are likely nervous chatter, of course, but they’re exactly what our relationship is about! It would kill me to see him for the first time at the altar, and have to sit silently for an hour before I could say anything to him.
Finally, regarding the pictures. McGlovin and I have a serious Catholic gap on our wedding day—ceremony from 2:30-3:30 and the cocktail hour at 5:30. So, we have plenty of time for pics between the ceremony and the reception and don’t need those extra pictures. But, really—how can you resist photos like these?
The sheer joy in Mrs. Poodle’s first hug with her husband to be! Photo from the ‘bee, taken by Next Exit Photography
Mrs. Gloves, Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 25, Executive AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, FirefighterEngagement Date: December 29, 2011Wedding Date: January 2013Venue: Cathedral ceremony, reception in a converted hardware warehouseAbout Me: I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwestern girl, who had grand plans of an international career, before the economy came crashing down right as I graduated college. I love travel, exploring other cultures, cooking for friends and family, and relaxing in a pedicure chair. My fiancé is the perfect, level-headed and logical counterpart for my impulsive tendencies, and the nicest person I’ve ever met. Lately, we like to spend our time renovating our new home, planning our wedding, and fitting in date night with friends. We are so looking forward to a wedding weekend jam-packed with all of our favorite people, plenty of food, and flowing champagne!
Hive, I have to tell you—I was not particularly looking forward to my bridal shower{s}. It’s just that…I’m an awkward person, on a normal day. Put me in a situation where I am the guest of honor and have to talk to everyone, and I am a hot mess. I’m not naturally effusive, so it’s hard to me to find enough nice and friendly things to say, and my facial expressions are completely uncontrollable—you should see how wide my eyes get without my knowledge. On top of that, I was completely prepared for a panic episode…so, in short, not my ideal time.
Future mother and sister in law-/awesome shower hostesses
My actual showers, however…were completely awesome! My amazing future sister and mother in law threw me a beautiful shower with a ‘Love is Sweet’ theme. Since it was McGlovin’s family, everyone was super incredibly nice and welcoming )maybe other people don’t have that experience, but my in-laws are the most gracious people).
