Miss Doily, Cedar Rapids, IowaAge and Occupation: 25, Autism Paraeducator/ StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Freelance Writer/ PublisherEngagement Date: August 27th, 2010Wedding Date: March 2012Venue: Father’s Vineyard Church/ A Touch of Class Banquet CenterAbout Me: I’m an Iowan girl with a deep love of Harry Potter, classic movies, cardigans, and Post-Its. My type-A Virgo tendencies often cause me to drive my laid-back college sweetheart fiance batty with lists and PowerPoint presentations. I love to be crafty and do things myself, which explains why my two crazy kittens often will prance around the house covered in glitter and ribbons. When I am not bogged down with work, school, or wedding planning, I like to travel to visit my expansive family and have wild adventures with my best friends. After a rollercoaster ride of a love story, I’m ready to take that final plunge, marry the love of my life, and become a Mrs.!
One of things in wedding planning that took Mr. D and I the longest was figuring out the guest list. We have always wanted a smaller wedding because we want our wedding to be intimate. So we decided that the guest list would include 150 guests at maximum (believe me, that was as intimate as we could get it). So first we looked at our family portion of the guest list. Let me just say that we both come from larger families. Well okay, not this large:
But I do have one mom, one dad, one step-dad, one grandmother, one step-grandfather, one step-grandmother, 4 aunts and 5 uncles (plus their spouses…so double it), one step-aunt, 6 brothers and sisters (plus a pregnant sister-in-law), 16 cousins (plus some spouses and children of cousins). This alone is 55 people on my family list. Mr. D has 38 on his. That’s 93 people if we invite ONLY family. Out of our families invited, most have already said that they would be attending (and invites haven’t even gone out yet), and we also know of 15 that will not be attending due to health, distance, or financial reasons.
So then we looked to our friends portion of the list and were kind of stuck. Who do we invite? Read more…
Miss Snapdragon, Chicago/DallasAge and Occupation: 32,Associate ProducerFiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Lighting DesignerBlogging Since: November 14, 2008Engagement Date: January 1, 2011Wedding Date: March 2012Venue: Marie GabrielleAbout Me: Voracious reader of short stories, Russian literature, National Geographic and Cosmo. I'm a GENIUS at spicing up Weight Watchers recipes and a pathological cheater at board games. I run a slow marathon, but my feet are learning to move faster. Mornings aren't my thing, but I can night owl with the best of them. Don't tempt me with your Cherry Cokes---I'm trying to quit. Tomorrow. Or never.
So, we’re getting married in Texas. Bossyboots and I live in Chicago. As I have said multiple times, we’re getting married down in the Lone Star state because that’s where my immediate family lives, and about a third of my siblings are too disabled to fly or ride in a car on a long road trip. This decision was really tough for us to make, but in the end, I didn’t see the point of a wedding where a large chunk of my siblings couldn’t attend. And Texas is awesome. We get to have a messy BBQ welcome dinner, bluegrass music, frosty Shiner, open sky, with Tim Riggins and Matt Saracin for my single friends to smooch. Texas men are highly lustable. And sweaty, apparently. And they really do all play football.
The hink is that easily 80% of our guest list is based in Chicago. Out of the 162 people we have on our guest list, I am just praying that somewhere between 80-100 check that “yes” box on our RSVP. We’re doing everything we can to make the trip to Texas convenient, courteous, and affordable for our invitees, but… you just can’t get around the freaking crazy plane ticket ($250-$330). Yeouch.
Ms. Ferris Wheel, San FranciscoAge and Occupation: 29, PsychologistFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, PsychologistEngagement Date: May 23 and 28, 2010 (one for each of us!)Wedding Date: November 2011Venue: Parc55 Hotel (city lights ceremony, ballroom reception)About Me: Born in the Southeast, educated in the Northeast, and over-educated on the West Coast, I finally earned my city-girl credentials and have put down roots in gorgeous San Francisco. I’m a raging perfectionist with a lightning quick wit and a terrible sense of both time and direction. Our wedding task list is endlessly growing because of my predilection to think that DIY projects I can make = DIY projects I should make (so not true!). I always go to bed wishing there were more hours in the day to enjoy all the things I adore, whether that be hobbies, friends, my career, our two dogs, or Mr. Ferris Wheel. Ours is a story of a non-traditional couple living an oddly traditional life planning a not-so-traditional wedding in this city we adore. Together we are bustin’ out all of our best skills (and some of our worst ones) to plan a laid-back-chic DIY-craftastic love-alicious affair!
I’m talking guests here, people. Although there are about 125 people on our invite list, we’ve been guesstimating that only about 70 adults and 5 children would actually attend—and that’s the number of people we’ve budgeted for. Now, I come from the ’more is more’ camp when it comes to party attendees. In fact, I’ve been known to invite way more people into my home than could possibly fit comfortably, and just let them work it out for themselves with the help of everyone’s good friend, vodka. So I’ve been secretly hoping that we’d have more, even *way* more, wedding guests than we’ve budgeted for. In my mind, that makes for a better party, even though it also makes for a sadder wallet.
My worst worst worst fear is that only, say, 50 people show up to the wedding and then we’ve spent beaucoup money on a party that will fizzle early because there aren’t enough people there to keep up the energy. (Why it’s not my worst fear that 125 people show up and then we’re $10,000 over budget, I have no idea.) Read more…
Mrs. Magic, Chapel Hill, NCAge and Occupation: 30, Licensed Clinical Social WorkerFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, ResearcherEngagement Date: December 1, 2009Wedding Date: October 2011Venue: Barn at ValhallaAbout Me: I’m a tall drink of water (5’10”!) and a Southern bride with an enormous appetite for Mexican food, good deals, anything French, and all things wedding! By day I am lucky enough to work with individuals with autism and their families. By night, I’m even luckier to be able to spend time hanging out with awesome friends, crafting, shopping, thinking about exercising, and kicking it with Mr. Magic and our two cats. I tend to have sudden, intense cravings that will not be denied (seafood enchiladas! new jeans!) and I’m prone to being a disorganized mess of anxiety and stress. After waiting (and waiting!) to get engaged, I am finally planning the colorful, fun, fabulously awesome Fall wedding of our dreams. In an effort to share the fun and craziness that is wedding planning, I’m gonna blog about it for y’all---the good, the bad, and the pretty!
Whenever I would read or hear about others’ guest-list woes, I never really understood what the big deal was. I would hear people griping about making their guest lists and think, What’s the problem? Just write down your friends’ and family members’ names, get their addresses, and be done with it! Coworker invites herself? Just smile politely and respond, “Oh, that’s so sweet that you would want to attend our little wedding! We’re keeping the ceremony really intimate, though, so we’re not inviting many people outside family and close friends.” Parents want to invite 37 of their not-so-close friends? Just say no!
Mrs. Sparkler, ChicagoAge and Occupation: 27, Communications AficionadoFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, PublisherEngagement Date: July 21, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Chicago Illuminating CompanyAbout Me: I’m a Southern lady living in the big city of Chicago. Well, lady may be a stretch, but I’m working hard to keep some Virginia charm in our sleek, urban, wedding-palooza! I’m addicted to marathons, not-so-famous bands, Chicago restaurants, and Mark Twain. I cry during SPCA commercials, and I think LOST was the best show to ever hit television. Mr. S and I met at a classy college mixer and, 7 years later, he’s still by my side. He’s the only child, laid back, free spirit... I’m the oldest of five kids, type-A, organizer. It doesn’t work on paper, but we’ve never paid attention to that stuff anyway. Somehow it works. And like they say, sometimes when you know…you just know.
All of a sudden it seems like I have a never ending list of things to do. Our STDs have made a home on my kitchen table, which means I need to start making envelope liners, getting stamps, and um… finishing our guest list.
Yeah, our guest list isn’t quite finished yet. Okay, so we have an actual list of people, but their contact info is mysteriously missing.
Mrs. Elephant, Dallas, TXAge and Occupation: 27, Financial Operations AnalystFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, IT Student/Store ManagerEngagement Date: March 29, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: The Tribute Golf ClubAbout Me: I'm a Philly native creating roots deep in the heart of Texas. I might be a little obsessed capturing those Kodak moments of anything and everything (mainly on vacations). I've become more of a gamer thanks to Mr. Elephant, who I met online and can't wait to spend the rest of my life with. We are planning a wedding based on our favorite colors, blue and green, with a travel theme for 150 of our closest friends and family. Hopefully our long (2-year) engagement won't kill me!
I’m not gonna lie, assigning tables was not something that I looked forward to doing. Making sure people sat with people that they knew as well as filling in all of the extra spots was a little daunting. The hardest guests were the ones that knew no one else (other than my parents). As the RSVPs came rolling in, I started to work on the escort cards and visualize how our groupings of 10 would go.
Perfect Table Plan made the task a little easier as I was able to import my Excel guest list and play around with table groups. When Mama Elephant wanted to make some changes (and there were more then a couple), it was a simple drag and drop to switch up the seating.
Mrs. Biscuit, Morgantown, WVAge and Occupation: 24, Dental StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Chemist at a pharmaceutical companyEngagement Date: April 2010Wedding Date: July 2011Venue: Catholic Church, Lakeview Golf Resort and SpaAbout Me: I'm an engineer who decided to trek back to my hometown three years ago to become skilled in the arts of drilling and filling. I'm engaged to a pretty awesome guy who tests your assorted benzodiazepines by day and home brews by night. Together we have two fur children, Tsali and Tobias N. Fünkat. I'm a lazy perfectionist and eternal sorority girl who enjoys running, crafting, string cheese, good beer, and bad reality TV. We are planning a Big Fat Italian/Sicilian/Polish wedding filled with DIY details and are expecting 300 +/- 50 guests. Our whimsical summer affair is themed "Alice attends the Mad Hatter Vintage Garden Tea Party in a Ballroom. She Thinks That The Venue is Odd for a Vintage Garden Party, but is Tripping on LSD, so She Doesn't Really Care." Yes, I am the Dickens of themes.
I should preface this post by saying that I think in numbers. It’s creepy. I’m like the female Rainman. Even as a child, I loved my name because it’s length was a palindrome of sorts: seven letters for my first name, three for my middle, seven for my last. Best name ever? Oh yeah.
Ms. Sloth, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 35, Account Manager and Fashion BloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Design AdminEngagement Date: December 25, 2009Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Bartram's GardenAbout Me: I'm an internet junkie and music snob with a good eye for a bargain. I couldn't live without thrift store shopping, cheeseburgers, sushi, Coke Zero, websites devoted to silly photos of baby animals, Photoshop, and Mr. Sloth. Speaking of which, he and I are a pair of goofball homebody nerds who love our beagle (the most ridiculously adorable dog EVER) to an embarrassing degree. We're planning a low-key and intimate yet festive and quirky outdoor wedding with DIY details and deeply personal touches, and it's all taking place in the city where we fell in love and call home: Philadelphia.
Mr. S and I decided right off the bat that we wanted a fairly small, intimate wedding. Our reasons were twofold. First of all, the smaller the guest list, the smaller the budget. And secondly, we wanted to make sure that every single person on the guest list was someone that was really important to us.
We sat down and made a list of everyone who could possibly be invited, and then we had to cut it way down. I personally felt like a bouncer, standing in front of the velvet ropes at a club, deciding who could get an invite.
Mrs. Zebra, Providence, RIAge and Occupation: 24 Marketing/Costume DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 26 Management/Firefighter Engagement Date: December 12, 2008Wedding Date: March 2011Venue: The Providence BiltmoreAbout Me: I'm a small town New England girl with an affinity for procrastination, crossing the proverbial line, and putting her foot in her mouth. I'm a lover of history, all seasons, sewing and Incubus. I design costumes on the side for my old high school's theatre department, which is where I met my sexy man. Our motto for our Big Fat Lebanese/Portuguese/Irish near-300 person wedding is "the more the merrier"! We are marrying in a Catholic ceremony and are hammering out the details of our Victorian-inspired reception.
The bane of my existence. I loathe you guest list. Can I let you all in on a little secret? Our room’s maximum capacity is 275. That’s asses to elbows, tiny dance floor, please don’t bump into the cake table, capacity. We would have liked to invite 275 and hope for a luscious 250 to attend but we can’t cut the guest list any more. We’re currently inviting about 295 people. It feels a little bit like playing wedding roulette. Read more…
Mrs. Pashmina, NYC/Catalina Island, CAAge and Occupation: 28, Arts EducationFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, IT AdministratorEngagement Date: April 26th, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Catalina Country Club, Catalina Island, CaliforniaAbout Me: I'm a laid-back Cali girl who moved to NYC for school, and ended up staying for love. My fiance is a quick-witted Jersey boy, a self-proclaimed Foodie and the funniest man I've ever met. Together we love exploring the city streets embarking on our next misadventure---and yes, this often involves eating off food carts and trying "the next big thing". I'm the girl in the sundress, snapping photos and collecting trinkets of memorabilia along the way. As a girly girl at heart, I am excited about our romantic natural island wedding incorporating our American & Filipino traditions.
I had a terrible, crazy time addressing our invitations. I tried to address all of them in one sitting, handwritten calligraphy and all. Please DO NOT do what I did. There was really no reason for the crunch. I ordered the envelopes separately, so even though I was waiting on our invitations, I had the envelopes to address for at least a two days ahead of time. But I didn’t think. Learn from me: When you rush, mistakes happen. But this is what happened…
I went over the invite list again and again in my head, on paper, and with Mr. P. All of the people were included. I went over the invites with Mr. Pash’s parents and my own parents to make sure everyone was on the list. I tried my best to ensure that everyone’s names were spelled correctly, and I stalked people on Facebook to make sure. I was pretty sure everyone was on our list and I even had the significant others’ names down.
But we left someone’s name off the list. No one caught it! No one…although, as the bride, I do take responsibility for it. Read more…
Mrs. Pashmina, NYC/Catalina Island, CAAge and Occupation: 28, Arts EducationFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, IT AdministratorEngagement Date: April 26th, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Catalina Country Club, Catalina Island, CaliforniaAbout Me: I'm a laid-back Cali girl who moved to NYC for school, and ended up staying for love. My fiance is a quick-witted Jersey boy, a self-proclaimed Foodie and the funniest man I've ever met. Together we love exploring the city streets embarking on our next misadventure---and yes, this often involves eating off food carts and trying "the next big thing". I'm the girl in the sundress, snapping photos and collecting trinkets of memorabilia along the way. As a girly girl at heart, I am excited about our romantic natural island wedding incorporating our American & Filipino traditions.
A few months before we ordered our invitations we finalized our invite list. Initially you might think this would be a quick task since we were hoping to only have 75 people. But think again! It wasn’t at all.
We really had to pare down and limit the invites. This was fine with me and my groom since we really wanted a small, intimate wedding but the parents were a little tricky. Each of the parents had different ideas about who had to be invited. My parents are divorced and have small families on each side, while Mr. P’s parents are married and come from large families. Our unequal family size complicated things because it had to be “fair” in terms of number of invites, but it also had to be fair in the degree of the relationship. My parents couldn’t be inviting their co-workers while Mr. P’s family wasn’t able to invite his aunts! Read more…
Mrs. Brooch, Arlington, VAAge and Occupation: 25, Writer/EditorFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Front Desk ManagerEngagement Date: October 3, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: Oxon Hill ManorAbout Me: I’m an indecisive girlie-girl with a motor mouth, can-do attitude, and knack for making others laugh. I dream of becoming a best selling novelist like Elizabeth Gilbert or Julie Powell (a girl can dream, right?), and love long road trips, a beautiful countryside, music, blogs, books, and all things vintage/thrift/antique/or homemade. I’m a Virgo, i.e. overly sensitive, emotional, and critical, and there’s no such thing as short and sweet in my world. I want to say and do it all. Mr. Brooch grounds me. I point where to go and he figures out the way. He’s a pragmatic fancy-pants who enjoys video games and movies. We both adore our mutt, Rocky, and spending time with our amazingly supportive family and friends. We’re planning a garden wedding with a formal reception with lots of whimsy and unique, Southern-inspired details.
I told you pretty much everything about our save the dates, except one tiny, but very important detail: the guest list. First, let me start by explaining that I’m the type of bride that likes to think she’s organized, but is really all over the place.
I have a tendency to jump into projects and skip over the preparation and planning stages, and the save the dates were no exception. As a result, we faced a bit of stress about the guest list. I wish we would have had the list complete before starting the save the dates, but it didn’t go down like that. It was more like mid-way creating the save the dates, we’re evaluating our list…again. and again. and again. FAIL. I know.
At first it was just a collection of names. Oh, Mama Brooch has these guests and Papa Brooch has these. Mr. B wants so and so to be there, and then—holy crap—we’re about 40 people over our limit! Ahh!
Mrs. Socks, Southern NJ/Philadelphia, PAAge and Occupation: 23, Web Developer/Marketing SpecialistFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Systems EngineerEngagement Date: September 7, 2009
Wedding Date: October 2010Venue: Ladder 15 RestaurantAbout Me: I am originally from the Midwest, but I love being an East Coast transplant! Mr. Socks and I are foodies and winos to the core---give us a hunk of cheese, some charcuterie and a glass of wine and we could die happy. We have two mischievous Wire Fox Terriers with completely opposite personalities but with a shared love of uprooting anything in our garden. Our backyard garden includes everything from tomatoes and peppers to a fig tree, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries! I love cooking, indie music, and spending time in our wedding city of choice---Philly!
Okay. So. Mr. Socks and I have to rent 8 tables for our wedding venue since the restaurant’s in-house tables are high, bar-style tables (well, it is a bar, after all) which wouldn’t do so well for ladies in nice dresses. Originally, I pictured all rectangular tables and then we’d use the four booths that are downstairs as well. Each rectangular table would seat 8 guests.
And then…we ended up with four tables which only had 6 guests each when I made up the seating chart. Hmm.
So we decided to just do a mish-mash of tables in order to seat everyone with people that they knew!
Yep. We’re doing tables of four, tables of six, and tables of 8. Small, medium and large, if you will!
Mrs. Thimble, NYC/PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 26, Actress & Costume Designer (+ day job)Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Lawyer & Techie WizEngagement Date: August 22, 2008Wedding Date: October 2010Venue: The Pearl S. Buck HouseAbout Me: I’m an easily inspired over-thinker delighted with the process of designing, building, directing and {dare I say} co-starring in the early-autumn affair I’ve been dreaming up. I’m a sucker for trendied-up comfort foods and old family anecdotes; I have an affinity for adjectives, alliteration, eyelet and earl grey; and I live for quality time with family and friends. I never guessed I’d marry my “high school sweetheart", but when it turned out to be my funny, techie, loyal Mr. Thimble I was committed for life. We’re both mid-career transition and ready to move back to small-townish TBD, PA in a pre-wedding flurry of all-good life changes.
Now that we have our RSVPs in, it’s time to figure out the final layout for tables and submit our final head count and rental requests. This is undeniably the most daunting wedding task. We are using a combination of long and square tables to give a modern, clean-line balance to our mixed china look which has its benefits and its drawbacks. Behold, my high-tech design tools to figure out the best layout:
Good ole’ Post-It notes! (Please excuse the dirty coffee table). The table in the top right corner (aka the back corner near the speakers) is a little short and stumpy so I wanted to make sure it would look okay “in person” versus on a computer screen.
Square tables can be difficult to seat, because if you only have seven guests at one table, there is an obvious single person. And if you have a crew with 9 people who should Ideally sit together, you can’t just squeeze one more in like you can at a round table. Fortunately, we only had one situation with a straggler, and I worked it out by breaking up the back stumpy table (my sister and her bests. They’ll be okay).
Mrs. Sewing, San Mateo, CA/Honolulu, HIAge and Occupation: 24, Electrical EngineerFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Electrical EngineerEngagement Date: June 27, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Anela Garden Chapel & Japanese Cultural Center, HonoluluAbout Me: I'm an easily entertained, compulsive idea-scheming machine who loves good art, good food, and a good engineering challenge. I'm planning a half-destination wedding on the beautiful island of Oahu - imagine a plethora of movies, art and games; savory Hawaiian food; blended Chinese and Japanese cultural details; lush, fragrant tropical flowers and all the air conditioning a NorCal native could want! And once I marry the love of my life, we'll come back to the 'mainland' to party it up all over again in my hometown of Salinas, the salad-bowl capital of the world!
I’m talking of that super un-fun stuff called paperwork.
*Yawn*
Regardless of the boring-factor however, the paperwork is pretty important. And since I’m in the mood for pretending to be organized, I thought I’d share my arsenal for conquering the wedding week. Read more…
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
