Wedding Planning 101: Chapter 3

6 - 4 months prior to your wedding
The knot's checklist items
MY extra bonus checklist items

• Decide on Formal Wear http://www.menswearhouse.com/
• Don't forget to include
• Groom
• Groomsmen
• Fathers and Grandfathers
• Ring bearer
• Ushers
• Keep in mind what season you're getting married in
• grays and tans are very popular
• tans are more appropriate in the spring and summer
• darker grays are more appropriate for the fall and winter 
• lighter grays are more appropriate for the spring or summer
• black is a safe choice and is very traditional
• What pieces do you want?
• vests?
• bow ties?
• traditional ties?
• tails?
• Make sure your group knows when to pick up their tuxes and when they need to be returned

• Book your Wedding Night Hotel Room
• Some people opt to leave straight for their honeymoon and others have to take a honeymoon at a later time
• We stayed in the gorgeous bridal suite at the hotel where our guests were staying and since my husband is a teacher, we will have to take a honeymoon on his spring or summer break, which is okay for us!

My beautiful dress in our Bridal Suite

• Address your invitations!
• Using the labels I talked about in chapter 2 should make this easier
• Get help from your groom, mom, sisters, bridesmaids, anyone really, and set up an assembly line for stuffing envelopes
• First make piles of each thing that needs to go into your envelope
• don't forget to buy stamps for the outer envelope and for the return envelope on the response cards!

4 - 2 months prior to your wedding

The knot's checklist items
MY extra bonus checklist items

• Choose a Marriage Contract ( ketubah or any other contract required by your religion)
• This is a fun project for you and your hubby -to-be because you get to hash out chores, money and other big topics before you say "I DO" 

• Buy your accessories
• Jewelry
• Shoes
• Veil
• Headpiece
• Hair Accessories
• Makeup

• Purchase Wedding Bands
• Make sure you leave time to get them inscribed if you wish
• Make sure you have time to get them re-sized before the wedding if needed

• Make sure all of your Bridal Party has bought/rented their wedding day attire
• Including the shoes and accessories you would like them to wear
• Remind them to get their outfits re-sized in enough time before your big day!

• Get your Groom measured for his Tux
• It's not a bad idea to get him re-sized 6 weeks before the wedding, just in case his waistline changes unexpectedly

• Get your under the dress items
• 2 Garters
• garter to throw
• garter to save
• Lingerie for your wedding night
• Don't waste your money on super expensive lingerie...we all know it won't be on for very long! 

• Gather Honeymoon Documents
• passport if needed
• plane tickets/ train tickets
• limo to the airport

• Finalize your ceremony songs and readings
• Ask ahead of time if you want a close family or friend to read scriptures at your wedding

• Schedule your first dress fitting
• Usually this happens 6 weeks before your wedding and a final fitting up to two weeks before
• Most wedding boutiques have alterations departments, but you may save some money by finding a trustworthy private alteration specialist
• go only by recommendation!

• Give your bridal shower guest list to the family member or friend throwing your shower
• Make sure to include ONLY people you plan to invite to the wedding
• Be APPRECIATIVE of everything you get, regardless of whether or not you want to keep it or register for it

• Book the Limo or transportation
• Make sure the limo service has references
• Ask if you can decorate the limo or if they will decorate it for you
• Are any drinks provided or allowed?

• Send out your invitations at the three month mark
• You may need to send them out sooner if your guests are required to book hotel reservations up to a month before the wedding - judge it according to you and your wedding
• If you send them too early, some people may forget to respond
• It is acceptable in this day-in-age to call anyone who doesn't respond up to a week after the responses are due

BONUS ITEMS

• Start creating your ceremony programs
• We used http://www.magnetstreet.com/ and loved them!

• Decide if you would like artificial flowers or live flowers
• Artificial flowers could save you SOOO much money!
• Artificial flowers will also provide you with lasting memories that won't die or wilt

• Find a florist to create your floral looks
• Bridal Bouquet
• Bridesmaid bouquets
• Toss Bouquet
• Mother corsages
• Groom Boutineer
• Father Boutineers
• Grandparents flowers
• flowers for any special guests
• Flower balls for flower girls
• Boutineer for the ring bearer
• Flowers for the Church or wedding venue
• Flowers for the Reception 
• Centerpieces

• Decide on a guest book
• be creative!
• One of my bridesmaids created one for us 

Designed By: Katharine Haring

• Start collecting wedding items in one room so you don't forget anything

Happy Planning!

Wedding Planning 101: Chapter 2

9 - 6 months prior to your wedding
The knot's checklist items
MY extra bonus checklist items

• Buy your dress
• This is a big decision, however, don't let it take over. If your dress doesn't feel right, then it's not the right time or dress. Make sure you put your money into a dress you're confident in, 100% http://www.davidsbridal.com/
• Find out when it will be in and try to schedule a fitting ahead of time

• Hire your photographer
• We thankfully were given a recommendation on a photographer who we absolutely love and adore (and we will probably travel to her when we have kids so she can do our pictures) http://katekerrphotography.com/
• Look online, use recommendation, look at portfolios BEFORE you hire someone
• Don't overpay, price compare!
• We booked our photographer and her assistant for the full day, from getting ready to the reception
• Make sure they are easy to get a hold of when you have questions or concerns
• Make sure you show them samples of pictures or poses of what you want to try during your pictures

• Hire your videographer
• We found our videographer through www.theknot.com's recommended vendors http://www.timekeepersproductions.com/index.php
• Look online, use recommendation, look at portfolios BEFORE you hire someone
• Don't overpay, price compare!
• We booked our videographer and his assistant for the wedding and the reception
• Make sure they are easy to get a hold of when you have questions or concerns

***BONUS TIP!

• Make a list for all of your vendors so they know where to be when! Include:
• Location names and addresses
• Times you'll be there or need them there
• What you plan to accomplish there (more important for videographers and photographers)

• Envision and Select Bridesmaid Dresses
• First think about you ladies' body types and be conscious of what they will and will not feel comfortable in 
• The most stress-free thing to do is select either one dress style and one color for all of the girls or two-three different dress styles that they can choose from.
• We had the MOH in a short halter a-line and the other three girls in the matching short strapless a-line http://www.davidsbridal.com/
• If you let them select their styles and you have more than 3 bridesmaids, it can get confusing and complicated with everyone's opinions getting in the way, so try your best to make the choice for them.

• Book your DJ
• Research first!
• Use recommendations or reviews
• Make sure you're able to provide the DJ with a list of "Must play" songs and "Don't Play" songs (We definitely didn't want the YMCA or the grape vine)
• Our DJ and her husband were awesome, she was our MC and showed our guests to our appetizer table, the guest book, the seating chart and the gift table! https://www.facebook.com/pages/DANCIN-DJs/166843893928 

• Research a cake baker or bakery
• We were lucky that our caterer also did our wedding cake
• We also had a groom's cake, which is a cake designed to reflect your groom's hobbies or likes
• Taste cake flavors ahead of time
• Find a cake topper that reflects you and your soon to be spouse. We used the "Promise" cake topper from Willow Tree
• You can choose to save the top layer of your wedding cake or not, but we decided not to. We were told that it truly tastes awful a year later, so we decided to get a new tiny cake on our one year anniversary.
• Make sure your caterer or baker plans to cut the cake (for warning, most places charge to cut PER SLICE!) and that they plan to
• have dishes
• silverware
• napkins
• and a cake cutting tool (or one of your own) for cake time!
• If you have a design in mind, print or sketch a picture and make sure the baker can accomplish your design before putting money down (They may charge extra depending on how detailed your design is)

Andrew is a Indiana University Hoosier fan so this was his grooms cake!

This probably isn't the best picture to see the flower detail on our cake, but here we are cutting it!

The petals are a deep purple and they were each hand made. The sugar work took the baker around 7 hours!

• Set aside a block of rooms for out of town guests
• Hotels will generally give you and your guests a discount for wanting to stay at their hotel
• You shouldn't have to put any money down to block off rooms
• Make sure to find out the date your guests need to book a room by if they want the group rate
• Visit the hotel first and make sure it's a decent place for your guests to stay, they're trusting your judgement on this one!
• http://www.clarionhotel.com/hotel-columbus-indiana-IN370
• Make sure the room you're getting dressed in on the morning of your wedding is condusive to lots of people. We reserved the bridal suite so there was room to do hair and for all of the girls to get dressed without stepping on each other

• Research someone to do your wedding day hair and makeup
• Bring pictures of hair and make-up styles you like
• Remember to look like yourself as much as possible, you want your future husband to recognize you as you walk down the aisle

Photo Credit: Kate Kerr Photography
My beautiful Momma and I!

• Send out your Save-The-Dates
• If you make labels with your guests' addresses, you can use them for the save-the-dates, invitations, bridal shower invitations, bridal shower thank you cards, response cards and thank you cards! Suuuper helpful! 

• Book your Cake Baker
• Read and re-read your contract!

• Remind Bridesmaids to order their dresses

• Hire Wedding Ceremony Musicians
• We opted to have a recorded song play when I walked down the aisle (Turning Page, by Sleeping At Last) and then we had a pianist for the rest of the ceremony

• Plan the Rehearsal Dinner
• Now, traditionally this is taken care of by the Groom's family
• Schedule the dinner around the time you plan to have wedding rehearsal 
• Talk to the Officiant about a time and date that works for them
• Then contact your bridal party and important guests to inform them of 
• rehearsal time
• date
• location
• rehearsal dinner time
• Rehearsal dinner location
• Find or suggest a location close to the church so your wedding party and family aren't driving all over town

• Finalize your Catering Menu

• Select Your Wedding Invitations and Order them
• There are plenty of over-priced in-store places where you can buy your invitations, but we used http://www.invitationsbydawn.com/index.jsp
• We bought Sep'N'Sends which are invitations that come together on pre-perforated paper. They are inexpensive and all you have to do is perforate and stuff them
• I made hotel reservation cards at my local www.partycity.com and stuffed them into the envelopes of out of town guests.
• Don't overpay!
• Some places will even send you a preview hard copy of your invite before you commit!
• Invitation Lineup
• Outer envelope (this is the one addressed to your family and friends)
• Inner Envelope for the Invitation
• Invitation
• Reception Card
• Response card
• Response card Envelope (with a stamp and your return address already on it)
• Hotel Reservation Information Card

You're doing Great! You're halfway there and hopefully you're feeling at ease with all of the detailed work you're accomplishing! 

Goodnight! 

Wedding Planning 101: Chapter 1

Congratulations on your engagement and welcome to wedding planning! The engagement and wedding planning process can either be pleasantly productive or just flat out miserable. Now, it should be obvious that the miserable end of wedding planning comes with the lack or planning and organization. My hope is to share all of my Planning-OCD wisdom with you so you won't forget a thing! My wedding day was PERFECT, nothing went wrong and it went better than I could have ever imagined, so if you follow some of my tips and timelines then you should have a similar experience! My engagement was nine months long, but I did a lot of the leg work ahead of time and planned most of it in a little under one month!

When I planned my wedding, I utilized the below websites:

www.theknot.com - This site was so helpful! I used the...

     Local Vendor to select vendors with great customer reviews

     My Checklist to keep myself on a timeline

     My Budget to keep myself and my family on budget while making so many different purchases throughout wedding planning

     My Guest List to track who I sent invitations to, got responses from, and to track their meal choices

            Seating Chart to design the layout of the room and to figure out the reception seating arrangements

www.wix.com - This is the site we used to create our FREE  FREE  FREE wedding website for our guests

www.pinterest.com - This site was helpful for finding unique ideas from the reception, to the cake, to my                                       dress and my hair - it. had. everything.

I used www.theknot.com's checklist, so here I will display portion of their checklist along with things I included! (I will paraphrase their list)

The knot's checklist items
MY extra bonus checklist items


1 year - 9 months prior to your wedding

• Make a wedding binder to keep your ideas together 
• I made a  Pinterest board strictly for my wedding ideas, check out I Do 09.21.13
• I also printed out my favorite pictures that I knew I wanted to give to florists, bakeries, hair stylists, etc.}

• Envision your wedding 
•  This is when we chose WHAT SEASON we wanted to get married in. SO IMPORTANT! here's why:
1. What venues do you have in mind?
• Outdoor wedding? Outdoor Reception?
•  keep in mind the climate corresponding with the date, time and venue type
• what flowers are in season and less expensive to get (some exotic flowers are more expensive to order at different times)
2. Seasons effect the attire being worn as well
• Bridesmaids:
• short dresses?
• long dresses?
• wear a sweater if it's cold?
• Tuxes:
• More often than not, you will not see khaki tuxes at a winter wedding unless it's in a warm location
3. What color scheme would you like? 
• this effects
• bridesmaid dresses
• tuxes
• your dress
• flowers
4. What do you want your wedding pictures to look like?
• Sunny, warm and no jackets- go spring or summer
• Brisk, changing leaves - go autumn
• etc.

• The Budget Talk with Family
• For some families, this could be a sticky situation. Traditionally, the bride's family pays for everything for the wedding day and the groom's family pays for the events the night before the wedding, such as rehearsal dinner. Every family is different! 
• I also used www.theknot.com's My Budget to help keep everyone, and myself, on task with spending and accumulating costs

• Get Your Engagement Ring Insured
• We bought my ring at http://www.helzberg.com/ and for a minimal fee we insured my ring for life, provided that I get it looked at every 6 months, which is completely worth it to us! This coverage includes any re-sizing, when diamonds fall out, and any work I need done to it. This DOES NOT include if it gets stolen or lost - but we have it on our renters insurance which is always a good thing to do!

• Place Wedding Announcements
• We contacted our local newspapers and included some basic information about us and a picture to let people in our communities know of our engagement. This was neat and we have a clip of it saved! 

• Book a Wedding Location
• Make sure you find a location that fits your vision or can be made to fit it without going over budget! 
• Check to see if your officiant requires you to accomplish anything before the wedding, such as pre-marital counseling
• http://stpeterscolumbus.org/

• Book a Reception Location
• Make sure you find a location that fits your vision or can be made to fit it without going over budget! 
• SIGN A CONTRACT! read it, have your groom read it, have your mom read it, make sure it's legit! 
• Pay the down payment to reserve the space
• http://www.factory12eventloft.com/

• Pick a Wedding Date
• DO NOT DO THIS UNTIL YOUR VERIFY THAT YOUR VENUES ARE AVAILABLE! We made sure to get penciled in with our photographer of choice, our reception venue and the church before officially selecting a wedding date.
• Don't forget to check that all immediate family can make it as well. You may find that some friends or family try to tug you towards a different date or time of year so that they can be part of your day, but honestly, you can't accommodate everyone that has special requests. At some point you need to draw the line and decide on a date that works best for you and what you're trying to accomplish, good luck with it, this is a pretty tough part sometimes!

Photo Credit: Dan Sather Photography

• Start Shopping For a Caterer
• We made sure to look at these things when selecting a caterer:
• Their travel distance/time to our reception (most will charge you for mileage)
• Pricing, obviously, but how many things can you get included? You will be surprised how much some caterers can nickel and dime you!
• Linens like table cloths and napkins?
• China/dishes?
• Beverages?
• Appetizers?
• How well they stay in contact with us. Now my poor venders probably thought I was a psycho, but I liked being able to update them and ask questions over email at any given time and they responded to me within a few days. That's super important!
• How does their food taste? Again, totally obvious, but seriously, go try samples of their food!
• Visit a location, see how friendly and clean their location is. This will ensure that they are polite to your guests and that no one gets sick from the food you serve on your day!
• Check reviews on caterers (if you can)

• Start Your Guest List
• Generate an ideal "total number of guests" based on your budget/caterer pricing per plate/per person
• Make a "must be invited list"
• If there is room in the "total number of guests" after your "must be invited list", offer some of the spots left to your parents and in-laws to fill them with a few of their friends (this ensures that they not only have fun, but they fulfill some of their social obligations **this will earn brownie points!). Make sure to tell them the total number of guests you're trying to stick to and hopefully they respect that. 
• I used www.theknot.com's My Guest List and it was the BEST THING EVER!
• I keyed in our list of guests
• Tracked when I sent them their invitations
• When I got their responses
• What their response was
• What they wanted for dinner
• How many of them were his family, my family, his friends and my friends
• Seating chart according to those who responded
• and the list goes on! This was super awesome!



This is reception layout that I made on The Knot's website!

• Select your bridal party
• Large bridal parties unusually include drama, so choose wisely
• We had an uneven bridal party, 4 maids and 3 men, but it was no biggie!
• This could be a time when feelings of friends or siblings get hurt, this can be tended to by making important people "helpers" in your wedding instead of making them part of the bridal party. Between Andrew and I, we have 8 siblings. Since we couldn't make everyone part of the bridal party, we gave each one a special job like handing out programs or the bubbles and gave each one a corsage or boutonniere so that they felt special and part of the day.

Photo Credit: Kate Kerr Photography

• Start Looking for a Wedding Dress
• This experience is all what you make of it!
• Bring a SMALL GROUP of close friends or family. The less people you have, the less opinions are flying around, I'm sure you know that though, "Say Yes To The Dress" had that lesson covered far too often!
• You may not fall in love with a dress day one or day eight, keep at it and remember to keep in consideration your overall vibe: venue, season, colors, etc. 
• Most importantly, how do you want to look on your day? Modern, classic, elegant, edgy?
• I got mine at http://www.davidsbridal.com/



Photo Credit: Kate Kerr Photography
My dress was from David's Bridal

• Book a Caterer and Food
• Remember, taste some food, get some estimates and book away! Select your menu, but don't stress, this may not be finalized until it's closer to your date.
• SIGN A CONTRACT! read it, have your groom read it, have your mom read it, make sure it's legit! 
• Pay the down payment to reserve the space
• We used http://www.jonathanbyrds.com/

• Finalize your Guest List
• Do one last check with family to make sure you're good to go and do your best to keep the list as is! It's not uncommon though to be adding people up until a month or so before, hold your ground but also pick your battles!

• Start your Gift Registries
• Set aside a few hours to register...we went into two stores (Target and Bed Bath and Beyond) and it took us a total of 3 hours!
• Eat food and drink water before you head out
• I browsed ahead of time online to:
•  make a list of things we needed 
• look up reviews of the best products out there (vacuums, blenders, knife blocks, etc.)
• I also selected color schemes for our rooms ahead of time so I knew what colors of items to register for
• example: we chose to do gray, white and lavender in our living room
• lavender throw pillows
• white throw blanket
• gray ottoman
• white coffee table
• Register for a wide array of gifts for different price ranges
• Register for enough gifts for bridal showers and the wedding
• You will get things you did not register for, but try to locate their store of origin to return them and purchase things you need
• First register for necessities, then add things you want
• Select stores that are easily accessible or online to help make purchasing easy for your guests
• Most stores will have an online version of your registry, this factor was my kryptonite because I loved watching to see when things were being purchased, what they were and I constantly updated the items on our registry....literally...like every day if not multiple times a day...it was bad! Ha! but in the best way!

Our Additions to the List:

• Take Engagement Pictures!
• We didn't end up liking most of our pictures, but definitely research a photographer ahead of time. 
• DON'T book them for your wedding yet until you have your engagement pictures taken and you love them after you get them back

• Once you get your engagement pictures back, you can make Save-The-Dates
• We used http://www.shutterfly.com/ and loved ours! Take a look!

If this hasn't overwhelmed you yet, then you're doing great! But if it has, I'm sure you're not alone! It's a lot to take in and a lot to do, but I'll get you there! Don't worry! Check back in in a few days for the next segment of "Getting It Together Because...I'm Getting Married"

Goodnight!

Getting it Together Because...

I originally started blogging to de-stress and to journal our lives, and since that journey began, I have found a new purpose for my blogging. I am a business woman and wife to a wonderful, hard working school teacher, with the aspiration to one day be a stay at home mom. With that goal in mind, I know that I need to be able to provide my family with supplemental income when we decide to have a family - so here we go. I am hoping to start a book/blog series about the different stages of life as we live them - of course I hope to write these over the course of our lives as we experience each new chapter. Here is the plan...

Book/Blog Series Part 1:

Getting it Together Because... We're Getting Married!

A look into the world of a OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) bride-to-be

Book/Blog Series Part 2:

Getting it Together Because... I'm a Wife!

A look at molding myself into the Christian wife I have always hoped to be

Book/Blog Series Part 3:

Getting it Together Because... We're Having a Baby! (Don't worry mom and dad, this one won't be written for a few years or so!)

A look into the world of an OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) mom-to-be

Book/Blog Series Part 4:

Getting it Together Because... We'r e Buying a House!

A look into the world of an OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) homeowner-to-be

Book/Blog Series Part 5:

Getting it Together Because... We're Retiring!

A look into the world of an OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) retiree-to-be

Oh Beautiful Day

I'm baaack! After a lifetime of waiting, 2 years together, and 9 months of planning, our beautiful day has come and gone! Andrew and I are married, and what a beautiful day it was! I have a few pictures so far and I will share them below. Now that we are all moved in, settled into our apartment and back to work after 3 days of marriage, I'm ready to begin my book/blog series some time this week! Enjoy a peek from our wedding day!