More updates, again sans photos

Photographer: almost check! We're meeting with her next week to cement everything.

Ceremony musicians: check! A brass quintet that plays at my church in WH, who are incredibly accommodating. I'm so excited for our music!

Landscaping: the yard is leveled. The pictures are insane. I'm really excited, now you can see what a lovely yard it is, without all the crap growing everywhere (note to self: do not let garden go untended for several years, you can't repair it after it junglizes)

STDs: in the midst of mailing, some still need addressing. We're being stingy, if there are children and parents both invited, only one set gets one. This is because I simply can't bring myself to make any more, 80 was enough.

Favors: idea is set, everyone likes! Decks of ACBL playing cards that will double as a place card. I'll buy the cards, some ribbon, Mom and I will make the tags. Tables will be numbered in the playing card theme.

Shawl: 30 inches so far, 42 more to go! Nearly half way! Then I may start on wedding stockings.... but that may be a little too ambitious, even for me.

Wedding attire: um, I has undergarments. They'll be shipped tomorrow, we'll see how that goes.


We're looking at wedding rings on Saturday, meeting with the rental guy and DJ again (since I wasn't at teh first meeting) next Saturday, and the photographer hopefully some time in between.

In other news, I'm moving soon. How soon depends on when I can find an apartment. Wish me luck!

A series of checks

Oops, long time no update. I'm happy to say I've been using my time to plan, not just talk about it.

We have:

hotel room blocks! We're going with the Simsbury Inn (although that one's not yet official, I haven't heard back) and the Hampton Inn/Bradley Airport. I knew SI was nice, but I was pleasantly surprised by HI! They also gave us free coffee when we went to check it out. The rooms are quite lovely. SI rooms remind me a lot of the Hanover Inn.

caterer! Well ok, we haven't given her any money yet, but as soon as we get the revised proposal, we will. More on that when it's official, but I'm excited about it!

Rentals! It pays to have people. We're getting a 10% discount and no delivery fee through our cousin who owns a rental business. He's providing everything but portopotties- which sorry, are now referred to as portolettes. How posh.

A landscaper! Not required directly for the wedding, but for preparing the site. The fee is believable- a lot of money, but not so much I fainted. We're trying to be budget-friendly and plant the gardens ourselves. I expect I'l be in Granby quite a bit this summer.

Bridesmaids' dresses! I said that before, though. But we're all pleased. The pink is not what I expected, but it grew on me. I think it'll be a lovely color for a late summer wedding. I wore the dress I got for myself for the DAR shower, and I loved it :)

30% of a wedding shawl! Pictures are required, because my knitting group oohed and aahed over it, and you know when fellow knitters gush, it's really impressive.

Save the dates! They're being addressed and will be sent out soon (like, this weekend, I hope)

Invitation mock-ups! Clint's printing them on a printing press at Dartmouth. We had some wording issues and I'm still waiting for my parents' opinion on the typeface (bulmer or palace script)

DJ! We're meeting with him on May 9th to discuss music.

The big things we still need to deal with:

photographer. Drama! But I'm not so worried anymore (maybe I should be).

florist. We were actually really impressed with the florist from Stop and Shop, who does the flowers for weddings at the Pond House in West Hartford. If we can't get the woman my mom's trying to track down, we'll go to Stop and Shop woman. Mom and I (and others, I hope?) are making the centerpieces ourselves, anyway, so we just need the bouquets, and probably the bouts- I'm not sure I'll have the patience to make the bouts myself.

Portolettes.

Ceremony musicians. There are 2 groups of strings we liked, both are pricey, in the mid-$500s for a trio and around $800 for a quartet. The brass group I want is conveniently ignoring my emails and the emails from my contact for them. I'm considering having the DJ do the ceremony music, but I'd really like live music.

I will try to post STD, invitation mock-up and shawl pictures soon.

In non-planning news: I had my first bridal shower last weekend! It was super fun, although a little un-nerving to be the center of attention. I only got one embarassing thing, adn it was very tasteful. I also got a few things from my registry that I'm *super* excited about: bread basket, cake pans, 12 (12!!) place mats, the 2 calphalon pans I wanted most. My friends have excellent taste!

To the shower I wore the BM dress and my wedding shoes. :)

Speaking of the shawl, it's 30% done, after not quite 3 weeks of work. I'm currently going at a rate of about an inch a day, with a goal of 72 inches in all. If I finish it in sufficient time, and have time to throw in a pair of "no cold feet" socks for Clint, I'm going to make these (second down on the left, there's no direct link) from the current issue of Vogue Knitting.