A Little News on a Big Day to Come!

So, I have a few little updates on wedding planning! There have actually been plans made! YAY! This is good for everyone involved. My Dad especially because he's been acting like his check book is burning a hole in his pocket. Not for the reason you may think... that he just can't wait to unload all kinds of cash on our big day... no no that would be wishful thinking on my part! :) The reason is mostly because wedding planning and planning in general is very stressful for him. After the initial deposit and a few decisions here and there he knows his work is done until a year or so from now when the check book is really "burning" a hole in his pocket again! Love you Dad and thank you!

Now, my Mom on the other hand is ready for all things wedding, and planning, and all the fun girlie amazingness that goes along with that! The venue for the reception is just the tip of the iceberg in her eyes. Now its on to flower arrangements, food choices, dresses, registering, organizing my home to accommodate anything else being there besides me, Beanie, and now my new roommate my Fiance!

So now onto the real details of my post today...the plans so far....
Reception Hall:
The lovely Hilary J. Boone Center on UK's campus.
You can check it out ahead of time at:
www.uky.edu/BooneCenter/
The Date:
June 4, 2011
The day will be captured by:
Alicia Fierro-Gehres of Aesthetiica Photography, LLC
You may view her lovely artistry at
www.aesthetiica.com

Bridal Show like WHOA

So, this Sunday my mom, Michael's mom, and myself embarked upon our first bridal show. We have never been to any bridal shows so none of us really knew what we were getting into. With that said at the end of our day we took a special field trip to Liquor Barn to reward ourselves for a long day well spent. The good news is that the three of us had a lovely time perusing each booth, the bad news is that there were like 9,000 booths.

Now this can work two ways... 1.) You can think this is awesome because you have a lot of options because there are lots of different vendors to choose from or 2.) You can be completely overwhelmed and want to hide in a corner because every person you talk to gives you 30 pieces of paper. Option one is how our day began but after about 20 minutes option two began to set in. Everyone is really nice and wants to talk to you, give you lots of papers and sign you up to win free stuff so you feel really special. After you repeat this process 46 times and are racing around to get every vendors signature on your "Bridal Passport" (Bridal Passport - a card showing that you have in fact visited every booth in the show, once you have received a signautre from each booth you turn in your passport to be in a drawing for...more free stuff).

The Bridal Passport was the most stressful part of this process because each bride has one and you all want to get yours signed by every vendor so you can be in the drawing. You aren't a "real" drawing contender if your passport hasn't been signed in full. You only have so much time to get your passport signed, so towards the end of the day you have a choice to make; run from booth to booth cutting everyone in line hoping you can get your card in on time, or you can sign the card yourself and practice creative initialing skills and drop your card in the box. I'll leave it to you to decide which I did. :) But I'll have you know I was influenced by my partners in crime on which decision to make! Anyway, we didn't win any free stuff that I know of so no harm no foul!

Overall, It was a really fun day! We tasted all kinds of wonderful reception food, fabulous wedding cakes from Cake Walk and Tinkers (This was obviously my favorite part of the day as I believe cake is the greatest food given to us by God other than pizza.). There was also a fashion show with lots of cute bridesmaids dresses, and we got some really great ideas for colors and center pieces that we could easily create ourselves! On the table for this week is visiting several locations to decide on a reception site and we are starting to register a few places! YAY! In case any of you are looking for creative and awesome gifts for the brides in your life... you should definitely contact Emily Bradley. She has some fabulous gift options for brides who love their new monogram! I love the new Tupperware she made for me with "DPM" monograms!

Soooo Wedding Planning... Friend or Foe

Lets start with that Michael and I have been engaged for approximately 5 days. YAY! In this time span I have decided to start calling places for pricing of venues etc. Some places have been really reasonable and others have been absolutely outrageous! By outrageous I don't simply mean the initial cost of renting a space to house a wedding. But ridiculous in the sense that as soon as you mention that event you are planning is in fact a wedding the cost seems to increase by like 40%. It's as if you can hear the person on the other end of the phone, giddy with excitement, calucate "bridal event" into the equation and this immediately adds all kinds of fees.

A perfect example... If I am paying $5000 to rent an open space to have a wedding... I would expect there to be something in it. Things that I would expect would be maybe a chair, or a table for say the 250+ guests we will likely have. But no, as soon as they realize its a Wedding they want to charge you $8 per table and $2 per chair (keep in mind these are not beautiful chairs, they will also need a $5 a piece chair cover to make them look decent), and an additional set up and cleanup fee. A clean up fee? Really? Needless to say we will not be having a reception at this location.

Here's a tip for venues...Most brides are probably not going to want to come to a venue in there wedding gown and set up or clean up anything on the day of their wedding....period. And for $5000 just to stand in an open building, should you really expect them too? So a word to the wise...bundle your little "fees" into the cost of the space along with all the chairs, tables, silverware, light bulbs, trash bags, and every other crazy expense you come up with! Brides will be less distraught over prices when everything is included in one price tag. (You're Welcome)

In reaction to all this silliness Michael and I realized that we are clearly in the wrong business because wedding people are cleaning up. Plus, in most cases its not repeat business, so once you sign a contract people dont have to be that nice to you. Michael and I may construct an immaculate wedding venue one day. You know when we are ready to retire. It will cost viturally nothing to use but we would charge you for everything inside. A per head bathroom cost, an additonal price to include forks in the silverware bundles (as they are the most popular utensil...duh) and possible charges for the number of tiles your guests dance on while they are shaking it on the dance floor to whatever music is popular 50 years from now.

The good news is the wedding will probably be June 4, 2011. So we have plenty of time to find the perfect place, in our budget, that we love, to celebrate with all the people we love the most! So as I go through this planning process I appreciate your patience and hopefully your advice, so please send me some! The verdict so far...Wedding Planning Foe!

We are Engaged!! And here's how it happened...

Michael proposed to me on Friday February 5, 2010 at Talon Winery! I am still in shock that we are actually engaged...finally! I have been anxiously awaiting this special day for some months now...as many of you may know due to my "rainman" like obsession with agonizing over when it may happen. I think the best part is that I was literally so surprised when he proposed that even as he was asking me to marry him I didn't quite process what was going on.

We had been out at Talon one summer by accident and it ended up being an awesome Sunday of wine tastings and walking around the vineyard. It was such a spur of the moment fun date that we had always talked about doing it again on purpose one night. So, as Friday has become our typical datenight, we set out to Talon... this time Michael had a plan! I just didn't know it yet. It was a little rainy and I think Michael was a bit worried about how to convince me to walk around the vineyard. So he dangled the "While we're out here why don't we look at the barn and see if this would be a good place for a reception" card. Of course because, as I mentioned earlier, I have been "patiently" waiting for the proposal, any conversation regarding a wedding immediately has my full attention.

So, I got out with my umbrella and we walked around the barn and peeked in the windows to see what kind of reception the winery could offer. Just a bit into the vineyard there is a gazebo where they often have weddings. Michael suggested we go check it out and see if we would want to get married at the winery. We strolled out there with umbrellas in hand and stood inside the gazebo out of the rain. Michael will often tease me with "Would you marry me if..." statements to which I often bring the same sassy response of "Yeah if you ever propose!" So this game quickly ensued. Michael said "Would you want to marry me out here?" and I with my sassy pants on said "Of course if you ever propose!" He got down on one knee and pulled a box from under his coat and said "I'm serious, will you marry ----" the 'me' didn't quite make it out of his mouth because I was immediately in the grass under the gazebo with him crying and hugging him. We stood under the gazebo hugging and laughing and crying all at the same time. I loved that it was raining and we were in the wet grass all alone in this huge open space but tucked neatly under the gazebo, just us. It was the most amazing moment and I couldn't have been more shocked or more blessed to have this man in my life. After we got settled he said "Do you want to see your ring?" I laughed and laughed because I realized I hadn't even given him time to finish his sentence or open the box with the ring before I jumped into his arms crying. Im glad he reminded me because my ring is beautiful and I love it...pictures of all of this to come!

We went into the winery and had a private wine tasting and he told me my parents and his parents were waiting for us a Malone's for dinner. I was so excited to hug my mom and dad and to celebrate with them and Michael's wonderful parents. I am so lucky to be marrying into such a kind and loving family. Dinner so so exciting to recap our engagement to them and talk about all things wedding! After dinner we got to celebrate with some of our friends at the Gray's! I can't tell you how happy i was to call and text my girlfriends and tell them we are engaged! I love all of you and hope to keep you all updated with our blog and our wedding website! Love and blessings to all of you! Thank you for all the love you've shown us over this amazing weekend!