Wedding Journal

While we've been in wedding planning mode since October, getting things together for the wedding has largely been a piecemeal thing, with little spurts of expended time and money here and there as self-imposed deadlines came due. Today was the first day of sustained "all wedding, all the time" activity, and it's not going to end until probably Sunday.

Still so much left to do. All the big things are taken care of, but there are little things -- such as printing/folding programs, assembling bouquets and the small matter of writing vows -- that still must be tackled.

This evening we had the official "meeting of the parents." Rob and I had been stressing over it for a while, but it actually went really well.

Posted by Aly at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Conditions have been such that I'm really too busy to blog right now. It's been fairly busy at work lately, on top of needing to wrap some things up before checking out for two and a half weeks. Plus, a couple small freelance projects came up -- certainly not unwelcome income at a time like this, but time commitments all the same. And, of course, there's the wedding.

Whenever I need a minor panic attack, all I have to do is check the countdown graphic on Annie's blog. (She and her fiance Dan are getting married the same day as Rob and I.) Right now it's saying "6 days until our wedding." Yipes!

In all honesty, though, things are going pretty well in the wedding planning department. Everything big is taken care of now, and we've been steadily whittling down the list of small tasks. My mom's arriving tomorrow evening, which should be a great help: She'll be able to take care of some things on Tuesday and Wednesday while I'm still at work, and she can help me with final errands on Thursday before everyone else arrives. (Plus, my mom and I get along pretty well anyway, so it'll be nice just to spend some time with her before this weekend's craziness hits full-force.)

Six days and counting. Whew. I'm getting tired of all this planning and talking about planning. Can the day just get here already? Because I'm so ready.

Posted by Aly at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Working from an early design Rob put together this fall, I finished designing the invitations this weekend. We put Doug's illustration to use again in the RSVP postcard and directions insert, (hopefully) to good effect.

On Monday evening, I went down to Kinko's to have everything printed. I handed my key drive with my PDFs to one of the guys behind the counter, and he sent them to the color printer so I could look them over before putting in my order for the full print run. (Coincidentally, while I was waiting for my proofs, I ran into our photographer and his wife.)

The printouts were disappointing: My light blue had turned to a mucky gray, and everything else was too dark. After revisiting my original files, I was at a loss as to why it had come out this badly, when I had used the same colors and settings from the "Save the Date" cards. I went back to the counter and asked a second Kinko's tech for advice. He suggested that the problem the printer calibration, but he couldn't say when a technician might be in to service the printer.

Suppressing the urge to snark about how it doesn't look good for a print shop to have a color printer so badly out of whack, I went home to ponder my options.

Following Dari and Rob's suggestion that I revisit Kinko's at a different time of day, I stopped by on my lunch break yesterday. I ended up talking to the same tech that I'd spoken to Monday, but this time, the proofs came out perfectly, the colors bright and crisp. (My happiness came in stark contrast to the rising fury of the couple behind me, who were throwing a fit at another tech because there was a problem with binding their 600 multi-page wedding invitations.)

Kinko's finished my order a few hours earlier than expected, so I stopped back on my way home from work. Everything came out just the way I'd wanted it. And, whether by mistake or out of generosity, they even cut everything up for me and didn't charge extra for the service, thus saving us a long evening of fussing with the now-to-be-returned paper cutter.

The next task, for this weekend: Addressing and stuffing envelopes.

Posted by Aly at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We have a postcard! Many thanks to Doug for the illustration.

Posted by Aly at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

TheKnot.com has this semi-useful "Planning Calendar" page that breaks down, by month, what tasks a bride-to-be should be addressing. I say "semi-useful" for two reasons: 1) It assumes that the bride is starting her planning a full 12 months or more the event (I maintain that it's possible to pull off a nice wedding in a much smaller span of time) and 2) Some of the suggestions seem a bit silly, or at the very least directed toward a fairly high-class audience.

Case in point: At 8-10 months, the calendar suggests, "Decide what type of entertainment you want. A pianist for the cocktail hour, strolling violinists, a DJ, or band?" The general advice is sound, but strolling violinists? (Meanwhile, I'm debating whether to hire a DJ or just figure out how to hook my laptop up to a sound system and pray to the Party Shuffle gods that we get a good playlist.)

Granted, some of my cynicism has to do with the choices that we're making for our wedding, both to keep costs down and out of practicality. But now that I'm actually planning a wedding for myself rather than thinking fancifully of one, it seems especially clear the degree to which big wedding sites play to that fantasy wedding -- and the jaw-dropping costs that result (more money for The Knot, its advertisers and the rest of the bridal industry).

Posted by Aly at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We scheduled an appointment to see the Hendry House — part of Fort C. F. Smith Park in Arlington, Virginia — last weekend after eliminating a number of other potential locations for various reasons (convenience, flexibility, cost, etc). The park is situated just off Spout Run Parkway, which runs towards the Potomac River and feeds into the George Washington Parkway. Sharon, our erstwhile tour guide, met us in the foyer of the house.

The house itself is lovely. It was built starting in 1901 — a "20th century mansion", as the Arlington County website calls it — and the interior and exterior have been recently renovated. We were taken on a tour around the ground floor of the house, and then up to the second floor. Sharon went to retrieve a book of photos from past weddings held at the Hendry House, and Aly and I took the time to put our heads together and discuss the merits of the venue. It didn't take us long, and we quickly came to the conclusion that this would be a perfect spot to hold the ceremony and the reception.

Having an indoor wedding — particularly the reception part — will undoubtedly turn out to be a large exercise in traffic management. The Hendry House has two large rooms, two porches, and a foyer; we're going to use all the available space to encourage our guests to mingle and move from room to room. A lot of thought and effort will go into setting up the floor plan for the wedding; however, it will be really, really cool to see how everything works out* on the big day!

* "Working out" is defined as guests mingling, moving about, and generally having a good time.

Posted by Rob at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Union Station? So off the list.

I contacted the Columbus Club for more information, and one of their special events planners responded with more information about the facility's rates and policies. The facility rental fee was what we expected ... but we nearly choked when we got to the part about catering. We would be required to use their caterer, and the charge for two hours of "light hors d'oeuvres" was $60/person. That's for a minimum party of 100.

Heh.

So, now for something completely different...

Rob and I have an appointment on Saturday to check out Hendry House, part of Arlington's C.F. Smith Park. The rental fee is "reasonable," and the list of "approved" caterers includes Lebanese Taverna, a Mediterranean restaurant we like.

Here's hoping this works out. Everything seems so up in the air right now: We can't even set a date until we know for sure that we have a venue.

Posted by Aly at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clarendon Ballroom sent me their rate sheet and catering options yesterday, and I was a bit heartbroken at just how much it costs to rent out the art deco ballroom and/or the rooftop deck for an event -- to the tune of $4,800 for an 8-hour block on Saturday, or $3,300 on a Sunday. And no matter how much I like the space, that's way more than I'm comfortable paying.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Glen Echo Park, which boasts its own art deco ballroom and an interesting history, although I don't know if I should hold out much hope that it'll be within our still-ephemeral budget. (We don't know what our budget really is, number-wise, but we know we don't want to go over-the-top and go in debt over this wedding thing.)

Meanwhile, we're tentatively kicking around the idea of having the ceremony and reception at Union Station, in the Columbus Club. We need to look into pricing, catering requirements and whatnot, but Union Station seems like a great mix of all worlds, combining convenient location, a beautiful setting and our own interests in travel and architecture.

Posted by Aly at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that the move is (just about) over and we're settling into our new place, we can start seriously thinking about the wedding. We've done some early research into possible venues for the ceremony and reception (ideally, in the same place, given that so many of our guests will be from out of town) and came away with a bit of sticker shock, to the tune of $1,500 or more for some of the venues we liked -- and that's just to reserve the facility!

For a bit of a laugh, I like to go look at the Corcoran Web site, where the contract to rent out the museum for private events demands a $15,000 fee (including a $13,000 "donation").

But we really need to buckle down and figure something out. We're looking at the first or second weekend in April, and I worry that, this being a big city, places will get booked up soon, if they aren't already.

Posted by Aly at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)