You are cordially invited...

Time to pick out invitations!  This one's in my court, since Lance doesn't care (he says most people will throw them away anyway).  I'm not sure exactly what I'm after, other than I'd like to find something classic that looks decent in an invitation/photo frame, and I have no interest in printing or assembling them myself.  This is one of those times that it pays to have some sort of a theme or concept, since there are a ton of options out there.

Movie or theater themed

Farm themed

Indie urban chic

Rustic or glamping themed

Even so, our multiple-personality concept doesn't help us narrow it down much!

We could go St. Louis city-themed:

Fleur de lis are very Saint Louisan.

Or try for that intersection of nature-inspired and elegant:

Or base them off of our church or the quatrefoils in it:

Or Christmas-themed:

Or we could just go very simple and classic:

Outside of general aesthetics, there are some other considerations.  First, each line of invitation wording means something very specific, etiquette-wise.  We will be looking for one that starts "together with their parents," indicating that both sets of parents and the couple are contributing financially to the wedding (as opposed to Mr. and Mrs. B announcing the marriage of their daughter).  Then we would like it to say "request the honor of your presence" (indicating a religious ceremony) followed by "as they are united in Holy Matrimony" or something similar (indicating a specifically Catholic ceremony).  We also would like them to read "reception at 5 in the evening," because "reception immediately following" means that people may show up 2 hours before the reception venue opens.  Finally, we want the RSVP cards to say "X number of seats have been reserved in your honor," because we want to discourage people from RSVPing for people who aren't invited (it happens).  Second, we will need to order a suite such that we can print out custom cards with our website, since we are skipping the pocket invites and providing hotel information, maps, and other things on there.

Customization also lets you do fun things like this.  :)

Third, we need to avoid the invitations with the AEL style monograms, since I am not changing my name (A + L is okay).  Finally, invitations can get very expensive.  The cheapest I've found start at around a dollar each, but I've seen custom invites go for $15 each.  Prices vary by different shapes, die cuts, styles, printing types, paper qualities, and using multiple colors of ink.  Heavy or square invitations can require double postage.  Considering invitations weren't one of our agreed-upon priorities, I'm going to try to keep them on the low end of the spectrum.

Laser-engraved wood plate, anyone?

With all of that in mind, I've started looking around online (Minted, Wedding Paper Divas, Exclusively Weddings, Invitations by Dawn, Invitations by Ajalon, Anne's Bridal Bargains, Scriptura, Wedding Star, Paperless Post, Zazzle), at local St. Louis stationers (M. Haley, Unique Moments, Milk and Honey), and at the invitation books at our local newspaper.  We haven't picked a tux rental vendor yet, or that would be another option.  I've been bookmarking ones I like, but I haven't looked into the customization or pricing specifics yet.  Here's what I've found so far:

I haven't decided if this one is appropriate, or if it's more rustic than luxe.  I like it, though.

Something like this would look great in a Prussian blue envelope.  :)

Thoughts?  Anywhere else you would recommend looking?

Progress!

So, I've obviously been MIA on the blog (and wedding planning) for three whole months.  Time to get back to it!  In the meantime, I've finished my thesis, graduated with my master's degree, cleaned our apartment from top to bottom, binge-read the Hunger Games, and we've started looking around for somewhat less teeny-tiny apartments in anticipation of adopting a puppy, which I've wanted ever since I graduated college... the first time.  :)  Prior to this hiatus, I had been a few months ahead of every suggested deadline available online, but we've since lost that advantage.  Luckily, Lance has been really wonderful with checking off his side of the to-do list, so we have been making progress in spite of my detour.  This is what we've been up to:

Candy Bar
My family bought us a lot of the apothecary jars that we needed for Christmas.  My mom and I played around with them, and found a pretty way to organize them.  We also found scoops and tongs to use, and I bought a pretty die shape to make signs for them.  Now just to decide what candy goes in what jar!

Front

Back

Shoes
I finally settled on a pair of ceremony shoes.  I think Lance got tired of me ordering and returning shoes, so we went shopping instead.  He actually picked them out... the guy has really great taste in shoes.  I'm not completely convinced that they go with my dress, but I love them so much, I don't care.  And I can wear them again after the wedding.  Now just to find some flats for the dance floor and boots for outside photos!

Badass blue snakeskin kitten heels!

Apparently I'm not the first person to pair snakeskin with weddings, either.  :)

Rehearsal Dinner Centerpieces
After my post about securing our rehearsal dinner space, Lance's mom volunteered to make some small, pretty, portable centerpieces.  She came up with this paint that dries in frosty fractals, and I believe the plan is to finish them with some ribbon, and maybe some Christmas/wedding bell charms.

Flowers
I finally found time to meet with our florist and put in our flower order.  Our florist, Kelly, was incredibly helpful with choosing flowers, since she knows what is available in December and how expensive each flower is.  I nixed calla lilies immediately because of cost, stephanotis because she didn't think they were very sturdy (they bruise), and sweetpea because they aren't in bloom that time of year.

I picked out white full roses, sweetheart roses, mini carnations, freesia, and orchids with white or silver ribbon-wrapped stems for me.  I picked out blue and white hydrangea, delphinium, sweetheart roses, freesia, and tweedia with silver ribbon-wrapped stems for the bridesmaids.  I also ordered fireplace arrangements of curly willow and baby's breath.  Any boutineers we have will probably be orchids, since we are ordering them wholesale and I won't need that many for my bouquet.  Ultimately, though, flowers are just not something you can micro-manage since you don't know exactly how a flower will look until it comes in, so I just made sure Kelly understood what I was going for (lush petals, no greenery), and after that, it's pretty much in her hands.

Finally, I now have the challenge of finding a place for bridesmaids to put their flowers during the reception.  They will need to be in water so that they don't immediately die, but there are just no more places to put any kind of decorations.  Normally they go on the head table, but we're not doing that.  We have the cake table, fireplace, and other little nooks around the space taken care of.  Putting them in the bathroom actually seems sort of wasteful... we'll have to figure something out.  Anyway, here are the two photos that are most similar to what I picked, if that's helpful:

Bridesmaid Dresses

Hokay, so, I'll be honest, progress has not really been made here.  I asked each of my bridesmaids what they would want in a dress, and they pretty consistently said long, blue, with straps.  So I scoured every dress maker that I know*, asked the bridesmaids to contribute the ones they found, and came up with 18 different dresses that would work.  I then set up a poll for the dresses, figuring that there would be at least one dress that everyone likes or at least finds tolerable.  Wrong.  Every dress had at least one person that absolutely hated it.  So now I'm tasked with looking at each one that was least offensive and picking one of those, or revisiting the mix-and-match dresses, which Lance doesn't like.  And, one of my bridesmaids just found out she's expecting in early December, so that's another consideration.  I need to get this figured out, but I've been putting it off, because the prospect of making one of your best friends wear something they hate is just no fun.

*Alfred Angelo, Allure, Alvina, Amsale/Kenneth Pool, Anne Taylor, Badgley Mischka, Bari Jay, Bella Bridesmaid, Belsoie (Jasmine), Bill Levkoff, Bloomingdale's, Bonny Bridal, Camille La Vie/Group USA, CB/Casablanca, Da Vinci Bridal, David's Bridal, Demetrios, the Dessy Group, Dillards, Donna Morgan, Eddy K, Eden, Fox Gowns, J. Crew, J.J.'s House, James Clifford, Jenny Yoo, Impressions Bridal, Ivy and Aster, Jim Hjelm, Kenneth Winston, Lazaro Noir, Lela Rose, Liz Fields, Love by Enzoani, Macy's, Mon Cheri, Monique Lhuillier, Mori Lee, Neiman Marcus, Nichole Miller, Nordstrom, Paloma Blanca, Pretty Bridesmaids, Pronovias, Reem Acra, Ravini, Rosa Clara, Sak's 5th Avenue, Simone Carvalli, Social Bridesmaids, Sofia Tolli, Sorella Vita/Stella York/Essence of Australia, Val Stefani/Moonlight, Venus, Watters, 57 Grand.

DJ

You wouldn't think that finding a DJ would be a terribly difficult thing, but it was actually one of the hardest decisions we've made.  Since we weren't exactly sure what we wanted, but wanted to decide on one quickly, we set up four meetings in one weekend.  We looked around online for advice and compiled a series of questions to ask:

• How long have you been DJing?
• Have you worked our reception site before?  If not, could you visit?
• What type of equipment do you have?
• What are your rates and overtime fees?
• Describe your DJ style.  How do you get the crowd going?
• How do you transition between songs?
• Would you be our actual DJ?  If not, who are they and when will we meet them?
• What is your emergency back-up plan?
• Do you play edited music?
• Can you get requested songs that you currently don't have?
• What do you expect from us (dinner, breaks, drinks, etc.)?
• Do you take requests?  What do you do if someone requests a song on the do-not-play list?
• How many songs should we suggest on our play list?

Surprisingly, each DJ was very different.  Equally surprisingly, this did not help us choose one at all.  The first guy we met with was a clean-cut older gentleman who DJs as a hobby.  He seemed open to playing any kind of music (although they all tell you that, "Whatever you want!"), but he also seemed to want to talk to the crowd a lot, which could edge into cheesy.  He was super nice and very professional, and had several back-up plans if he couldn't make it.  

The second guy actually stood us up.  No idea what happened there; he just didn't show up to meet with us.  

The third DJ was part of a large company.  He gave an incredibly detailed and polished presentation, down to how they transition between songs (beat-mixing?) and what equipment they use.  However, I've worked in sales, and I know better than to accept what a good salesman is saying.  They had great equipment and 8 back-up DJs in reserve, but they cost almost twice as much as the first guy, and there was no guarantee that you would even meet the DJ who would be working for you prior to the event.  

The last guy we met with was a recommendation from our photographers.  His presentation was not very polished, he had no emergency back-up plan outside of his partner, and he had no online reviews to look at.  However, both he and his partner come to each event, he had equipment as good as the mega-company, but with much more reasonable prices.  He didn't seem like he would be comfortable making announcements, but he said his partner did that.  He was very into his equipment, but Lance and I are not convinced we are that cool--he was wanting us to go for a giant pulsing light-up DJ table, and I'm not sure if that works in the context of our otherwise formal event.  He was also super excited about his mirror ball, but I really don't want those lights on my face during my first dance.  We will have a lot of family that probably won't dance, and bringing all that fancy club equipment sounded like we might be trying too hard.

We actually were stuck on the decision for weeks, given that there was no obvious choice.  I mostly left this one up to Lance.  Finally, we decided to go see the last guy DJ at a bar in St. Louis on our way through to our parents' house one weekend, and ended up signing him.  I think he might just not like trying to sell himself, because he seemed to calm down a lot after we made the decision.  It was really not fun telling the first guy no, since it seemed like he might take it personally, but at least now we can move on to making song lists and planning the reception itinerary!

CAAAAAAKE

Luckily, we paired one of the least fun aspects of wedding planning (picking a DJ without actually getting to see them work) with probably one of the most fun aspects (CAKE!).  Here again, we picked 3 bakeries to try.  The first, Patty Cakes, was close to my parents' house, has won TLC's Cake Off, and used to make my birthday cakes when I was little.  The second was a bakery in St. Louis who I've seen featured several times in magazines.  The third was a recommendation from our photographer.  My parents ended up coming to the first tasting, since they live nearby, and we had so much fun!  They brought us a tray of cakes and fillings, and we mixed and matched until we found everybody's favorites.  We settled on butter pecan with cream cheese filling, chocolate with caramel filling, and french vanilla with strawberry filling.

They also had these fun styrofoam shapes to play with so that you can visualize the size and shape of your cake.  When we went in to Patty Cakes, we thought we would get a small cake and then buy enough kitchen cakes to avoid the cake-cutting fee at our venue (50% of the guest list).  However, Lance immediately decided that the small cakes were sad, so we started building bigger models.  We are going to check with the venue to see if we can avoid the cake-cutting fee if we still buy 50% of the guest list worth of kitchen cakes.  We we have a ton of cake left, but at least then your money is actually purchasing something!

The second place we looked at actually made tiny cakes of the cake/filling combinations that we were interested in.  Unfortunately, the cake was actually just bad.  The third place had great cake, but they were about 50% more expensive than Patty Cakes, so we decided to go with our first option.

We also originally planned on on getting basic cake flavors and then getting more interesting flavors in ice cream cups (coffee, peanut butter, etc.) since our venue does not offer ice cream service.  We think that our cake will stand on its own, now, though, so we're going to skip that.  From talking to the bakers, we also were able to narrow down our cake options to a stained glass cake or a sugar snow cake.  The final decision will depend on our price quote, but we haven't gotten one yet because the head baker had an emergency family situation, and we're waiting for her to come back to work.  Anyway, I sketched a potential scene for the cake... what do you think?

It's not finished yet, but the idea was to combine our church with our wintery forest theme on just one tier.  :)

This was the only "snow" cake that the bakers weren't afraid of chipping people's teeth!  Those dragees are hard to bite!

Centerpieces

Finally, we ordered two silver trays for our centerpieces.  They both would work, but Lance and I liked the octagon over the circular one, so we ordered as many as the maximum number of tables we could have.  They're pretty nice, so we're probably going to try to sell whatever we have left after the wedding (because we're thinking of asking guests if they want to take centerpieces home after the reception).

I also bought a number die to punch out table numbers.  Then I started playing with candle arrangements:

And did some experiments to see how they burn in different arrangements:

It looks like I'll need to space them out so they don't melt their neighbors (even though I think they look better all pushed together).  Now I just need to find a way to stick the die-cut letters on the big candle (those in the photos are just scrapbook paper taped on for now).  Lance's mom said that I'd have to mod-podge the whole candle to make it look even if I use that, so I might try some other glues.  Pins won't work because the letters are so curvy, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.  Still, they're very pretty!