Our Married Life

I think I found my favorite cake design. Other than the flowers I really like the shape and scrollwork particularly the silver color (it matches the beading of my dress). I may have to get the scrollwork to actually match the design of my dress. I would also change the flowers color to match the actual bouquet of course. I like how it’s clean and simple. We still have to find that church!!! I did call SMU’s Perkin’s Chapel, since I’ve always wanted to get married there. They said no discounts for former students. BOOOO!!! Kimberly told me when she got married there, it was free for alumni. Booo! Oh well, I prefer someplace closer to the reception site. We have to find one soon before we’d have to settle having our ceremony at the actual country club. That would not be fun!

We’ve registered for fine china and flatware and luggage at Dillards….

We’ve also registered for miscellaneous kitchen items and random stuff at Bed Bath and Beyond….

So yesterday, Brian and I finally registered at Target. This is of course after our horrible experience at Crate and Barrell. Anyway check it out at ClubWedd.

I am mildly disappointed/upset that this wedding planning hasn’t progressed at the speed that I want it to be. I feel like time is wasting. We’re not meeting with enough people, we’re indecisive, we’re cheap. Ack!!!!

Today we’re meeting with another photographer at 6. Their prices and style is pretty good. Somehow my mind keeps creeping back to Duran Photography. What is it that I didn’t like about them?? Too traditional? No negatives? It seems that most of these photographers do not include an album in their packages but only proofs. I guess that’s why I keep coming back to Duran, since they do offer an album.

I am also mildly disappointed at Yi, since I called her to go shopping that one time with Julie, but she never called back. I know it was tooo short of a notice, but she could at least reply. Hrmph. I wonder where she is? I’m assuming she’s out of town. Oh well, it’s not a big deal.

Junior bridesmaids, is it appropriate? Is it too much? I want to include my sister’s daughters in the wedding somehow. They’re too old to be flower girls, but too young to be a regular bridesmaid. Plus I would need to include all 3 versus only one of them. Melody is 11 I think, and Melinda is 9, and Madeline is 5? Gee I don’t know. We’ll see. Also, should I even have a flower girl and ring bearer?

I tried to take my mom shopping for mother of the bride attire a couple of weeks ago, because she gets so bored being at home all the time. We ended up with nothing, mainly because she claims she’s gotten that taken care of. We’ll see about that. I may just have to get my sister to take her shopping whenever she’s down here.

I did schedule a meeting with TheCakeGuys for the second weekend of November. They have tons of designs, but I’m not sure about the flavors. Brian wants plain white and chocolate, which is what they seem to only offer. I prefer a mixture of different flavors. I guess we’ll have to see during the tasting.

We also need to schedule time to go have lunch at the country club. They told us we can go there and have lunch to see what the food is like. If we want further tastings we can schedule a specific time.

Less than 11 months to go. After the holidays, things will soon creep up.

I get to pick up my dress today. Yippeee. I am elated. I wanna leave work NOW!!

Edit: Here is a snippet of the dress, click the image to view it full sized.

There is this great place down at Mockingbird Station called Paperie and Co. that sells the cutest invitations. They have the best selection of papers, invitations, and paper accessories. Very chic, which is what I’m looking for. Feminine yet modern and clean. I definitely prefer something clean and bold versus the usual embossed flowered invitations. I looked at the Bridesmart selections and hopefully I do get that 40% off which would allow me to get something nice for a cheaper price. Unfortunately for Paperie some of their stock is pretty high end, especially the ones I liked here. There are of course ones that are very reasonably priced…

This centerpiece seems to be more reasonable than the last. It looks fun. Although I still like the last one I posted. It was much more romantic looking. I love the combination of orange and red and pink and purple.

We still have tons to do and haven’t really gotten anywhere with them. I think the most important thing is finding a church. Once we have the two set in stone it would be much easier.

Brian and I agree that the prices of wedding photography is completely unreasonable. 2000+ for a decent package? Since when was commissioning photographers that expensive? Especially ones that only spend half a day with you? It’s like paying the person 300 dollars an hour. Sure some of it includes an a 700 dollar album, but still. Take Alex Ham for example, you don’t get the album, but you get all the proofs which is probably about a dollar a piece to print out. Plus the digital negatives. So he’s charging about 1500 for 3 hours. Let’s say 500 of those goes to the proofs and negatives. That’s 333 dollars an hour. I am certainly in the wrong business, and wish I had the talent to take pictures…. People in the wedding business are raping naive brides by jacking up the prices to put off the sense of demand. Seriously, who would want to pay 2000+ for photography, or 100+ for a bouquet, or even 150 bucks for a 20 dollar veil? As fun as they are to plan, the prices just puts a damper on everything.

Edit: Well apparently there are a ton of wedding photographers out there that think I’m a moron, considering there were more than 200 hits from digitalweddingforum.com. Yet none of them suggested a discount :-p BOOOOO. Kidding. Although discounts are welcome!!!! I’m only complaining because when I first set my budget, the MOST I told myself we could spend was 2000 for photography. I actually thought that was alot. I thought we were splurging because I knew it was worth it. Then when it came down to researching, I found that the decent ones start at 2000! Hence the sticker shock. It sucks because it’s not the only thing we have to pay for. Thus, adding another thousand or two for photographs may not be feasible, nor would I be happy with a sucky photographer, so unfortunately I’m going to either have to stick with the budget or cut something really drastic, like a nice honeymoon to make up for it. We’re already trying to cut corners any way we can…I don’t think photographers are being overpaid, I just think it’s expensive. You vendors have to understand what it feels like from a bride’s perspective….