a little bubbly.

This will likely be my last post until I’m finished with exams. However, I can promise you that my next posts will be exciting ones because we’ll be designing our save-the-dates and invites over the holiday break! I’ll also be meeting with our florist to discuss colors!

I’m not a big drinker, in fact I suffer from what is known as the Asian Poison. It’s where, after 1 or perhaps 2 drinks, my face becomes red and flush and rather warm. In other words, I’m done drinking. However, my friends enjoy a great party and I love the opportunity to get everyone onto the dance floor.

After discovering mrs.pootiekin’s bio, I loved the idea of getting some mini champagne bottles for the girls to drink while we’re getting pampered. With respect to other drinks, since the ceremony will be outdoors, it might be nice to have a little soda waiting for the guests. I envision a simple table with rows of Izze soda. We are also thinking about doing a signature drink, which might save a little money if we go the “buy our own liquor” route. Even if you don’t go that route, having a few signature drinks gives your wedding a more personal touch. You could play with menus to include stories of drinks you had on your first date, etc.

(Photo from mrs.pootiekin’s bio and izze.com)

Raspberries in champagne. It just looks cool!

(Photos from L-R: by Paul Johnson, Jessica Claire)

See you in a couple of weeks! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

i rock the crib!

My wonderful friend, Lane has given me an award! She happens to like my blog, isn’t that cool?! I mean, coming from the woman who won “Wife of the Year,” this is such a huge honor. You should check out her blog, especially if you enjoy laughing.

I can’t tell you blog readers how much I miss this woman. I haven’t seen her in…YEARS! She’s living with her super star hockey hubby (yes, that’s his name) and her wonderful canine sidekick (Falcor) in Deutschland.

brown and…lilac?

My sister (aka bride-to-be) emailed me today asking if I had decided my colors. She had sensed that I was sitting in class browsing martha stewart weddings and found yet another viable brown palette!

(from martha stewart weddings)

(from left to right: christine farah photography, martha stewart weddings)

(from martha stewart weddings)

layouts.

I can’t remember how I found this, but check out the Mosaic Event Center. They have programs that will help you envision your linens and the layout of your reception! I haven’t used it yet, but it seems pretty helpful!

I suppose I haven’t used it yet because I’m not ready for that phase of the planning. My wedding is next November, so I have a while before I need to start thinking of that. However, I’m happy to share that this week we booked our officiant and DJ. Both of whom I found through my lovely day-of coordinator, Stacy Henderlong and my fabulous photographer, Jason Angelini.

It’s been really hectic picking out vendors. I would even venture to say this may be the hardest part of the wedding planning process. I’ve tried to hire people based only on referrals and reviews. Fortunately, we only have a few more to book and then we’re done! I can’t wait to move on to the more creative aspects of the wedding (i.e., website design & stationery). Matthew and I are counting the days to our holiday break from school so that we can play with our gocco!

Speaking of the impending holiday break, exams are right around the corner so if posts become sparse, I apologize! Does everyone use Google Reader to monitor their blogs? That’s how I keep up with updates!

inspiration board contest.

My fabulous photographer, Jason Angelini, is hosting an inspiration board contest that ends tonight. I won’t tell you which board is mine, but GO VOTE! The winner gets a $50 Target card, and $50 to their favorite charity!

everything goes with chocolate!

I have given up on thinking about colors. I’m serious. I’m just going to give all the pictures to my florist and have her surprise me. Everything is so pretty.

Top to Bottom: Photo by Jose Villa, Photo by Michael Norwood

Top to Bottom: Photo by Sarah K Chen, Photo from kayrose Bio

when money is tight.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, and I don’t want to sound like I know what I’m talking about. I truly don’t know what I’m talking about, because my wedding hasn’t occurred yet. However, I think the key to throwing a wedding on a budget is picking one aspect, one splurge that will really make the difference.

It could be fabulous linens, unique lighting or fancy furniture. Here’s my wedding attitude: We’re young, we’re grad students and we don’t want to put our families into debt. Now, there are a lot of tips that wedding professionals will tell you – get married on a Friday or Sunday, or get married in the morning. I just didn’t want to do that, I felt like it would be an inconvenience to our out of town guests to take extra days off work, in addition to travel costs.

Others are fortunate and money isn’t an issue, but for those where money matters, here are some tricks that I have learned in my wedding planning process:

1.) Venue is key. Don’t go for the hotels. They will charge up the wazoo for food & alcohol. We found a municipally-owned venue that charges $26/hour to rent. That’s not a typo. $260 for 10 hours. Now, these venues may not be advertised as a “wedding venue” so you’ll need to be a little more persistent, but there’s a big payoff in the end.

2.) BYOB? Most venues/caterers will charge per person per hour for an open bar. It’s crazy! If you can find a caterer with a good price it will save lots of trouble. We found a caterer that charges $11.75 per person for five hours, but this isn’t the norm. Your other option is to find a venue that allows you to bring your own alcohol. The lawyer in me made sure to ask our venue whether we needed to acquire liability insurance if we were serving alcohol to our guests. Since we’re having a private event and we’re not charging our guests for the liquor, our venue does not require insurance.

3.) Set aside some money for splurges. Pick one element that makes the difference to you. For our wedding, we’re looking into hiring a lighting designer. Dramatic lighting will completely transform our reception room, and guests won’t notice that we don’t have $1,000 centerpieces. If you can’t afford a lighting designer, go for lots of candlelight. You can get 200 tea lights for $20. Lighting can go a long way!

(Photos from MrsAnayisnin’s Knot Bio, taken by Laura Novak)

 (Photo from Artfool)

choosing the photographer.

My sister called me last night. As you all know, she recently got engaged and is starting to plan her May 2008 wedding. It was nice to impart some wisdom to her, because I’m going through the exact same thing. She needed some advice in choosing a photographer.

For me, the photographer is probably the most important vendor. Call me crazy, but I just love great photography and great photos that can stand the test of time. I was happy she called me, although I gave her an ear full so she may not want the advice anymore!

Luckily, we’ve entered the digital era where many photographers have blogs. If you’re a photographer and you don’t have a blog, as a bride-to-be, I would advise you to create one. See we know that your best photographs are put on your website and while we will ooooh and ahhhh over them, we want to see a normal days work. This is why blogs and knot bios are integral to choosing a good photographer. Moreover, for those that can’t spend $4,000 on photography (i.e., me the poor law student), it will take a significant amount of time looking through blogs and knot bios to find a talented, affordable photographer.

I love my photographer. Not only is he talented (and has a blog!), but it’s obvious that he loves his job. He’s also super affordable. The perfect combination!

(All photos taken by Jason Angelini)

***Oh, and I judge my vendors based on the quality of their websites. (I know, I’m an internet snob.)

a new direction.

This post signals a new direction of my blog. Instead of just posting about my colors or attire, I want to start explaining the more intricate details of planning my wedding. In my experience thus far, I’ve gained the most value in blogs like weddingbee where the various brides discuss other prevalent issues like careers & money. My other favorite planning resource has undoubtedly been the Knot bios. I’ve added links to my favorite bios on the main page. The level of detail that goes into these bios is incredibly helpful in creating my own vision.

So, the first thing I want to discuss is my crazy fiancee. Is yours crazy? I’ve definitely been the “primary” planner of the wedding, and thus I’ve entered into “wedding world.” You know the place, where “chiavari” becomes part of your vocabulary and you learn how to spell ranunculus? Well, whenever I have to approach Matthew for input there is always a scuffle. It’s not a major one, but there’s always a moment where Matthew’s eyes grow really wide and his nostrils flair at the price quote.

Our first major scuffle: the DIY DJ. After I told him how much a DJ costs, Matthew insisted on being the DJ himself. Yes, I know you’re all laughing now, but I’m totally serious. This is the kind of thing I have to deal with. It’s been a hard battle, but tonight Matthew agreed to hire one. I won. Yeah!

Okay, this picture has nothing to do with a DJ or crazy fiancees, but it’s really awesome! I wish we were cool enough to pull off dance dance revolution at our wedding, but unfortunately we are not. However, I may recommend this to our great friends, Erica & Greg, who are getting married next August. Greg is the master of dance dance.

(Photo by Boutwell Studio)

the ringmaster tagged me.

So, my dear friend Lane tagged me. She thinks that just because she lives all the way in Germany, she can get away with it! Well, I suppose she can…

Lane is a very talented writer, so mine are pale in comparison, but here goes:

The rules of tag:
1. Post the rules at the beginning.
2. List 6 facts/habits about yourself.
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post, and leave them comment informing them they’ve been tagged!

1. I’m a member of the CCJ and my status is monkeybait. Okay, let me explain. I have an incredible group of high school friends. They are the best, and in high school we developed a name for our group. Remember the Simpsons episode where Homer gets upset b/c he can’t be a Stonecutter and says, “Ohh, why won’t those stupid idiots let me in their crappy club for jerks?” It’s a great quote, right? So, we are the CCJ (the Crappy Club for Jerks). Every year since high school (almost 9 years now, whoa) we’ve gotten together for 2 pinnacle events (there are other events like weddings, but we’re all over the United States now) – the CCJ Halloween Horror Nights Weekend and the CCJ Christmas Cookie-Bakeoff. One year, one of the guys made us t-shirts and declared all the women “monkeybait.” We’ve protested ever since, but the status has stuck.

2. I’m a scaredy cat. I can’t watch a horror film without my hands glued to my face. Even though I’m intelligent enough to rationalize it’s NOT REAL, I still can’t do it. In fact, every year when I attend the annual CCJ Halloween Horror Nights Weekend (for those that don’t know, it’s a bunch of haunted houses at Universal Studios in Orlando & Hollywood) I buy a ticket but I never go into any haunted houses. Seriously. I pay upwards of $75 for a night of walking around waiting for my friends to go through haunted houses! I know…LAME.

3. I eat my food in proportional parts. You know how some people, they have turkey and mashed potatoes and broccoli on their plate, and they just eat it? They’ll even go so far as to mix the turkey and potatoes and put that in their mouth at the same time?!! It appalls me. I have to eat one section at a time, and circle around the plate until I’m full (which happens to be when all the food is gone).

4. I can’t stand yellow bulbs. You know the ones I’m talking about, the bulbs you put in your ceiling fan? That gross yellow color kills me! Whenever Matthew and I walk into our bedroom for bed time, he’ll flip the switch which is immediately followed by me turning it off and running to the white bulb lamp. I know what you’re thinking…why doesn’t she put white bulbs into the ceiling fan? Too much light. I know.

5. I’m addicted to the Food Network and Giada’s pink fingernails. I spent an entire evening on Google, trying to find her nail polish color (which happens to be OPI’s Bubble Bath) and those porcelain measuring spoons (fantes.com). I also love waking up on Saturday morning to watch Ina and Giada make their wonderful food. I never attempt to recreate it, but I love to watch it!

6. My mother and I end our phone chats by making kissing noises to one another. I also never talk with my mother without her asking me, “Have you taken your vitamins today?” I’m 27 years old, but in my mother’s eyes I will always be her baby.

Alright, I’m only going to tag 1 person – the lovely Kate, who is also blogging about her wedding! All 3 taggers (Lane, Lynn & Kate) are UMichigan grads – GO BLUE!