Aesthetic: Floral Conundrum

Vote for the 'Nicole & Ben' inspiration board beginning March 31st!

Wedding planning can inject a little self-doubt into even the most convicted person. I, for one, am not an OMG-we-NEED-peonies (aka one of the prettiest and most expensive blooms in current wedding floral trends) type of bride and happen to think that wedding flowers are a little over-rated. Give me a handful of carnations, I don't care. To this end, I had always figured that I would make my own bouquets. There are plenty of tutorials on the interwebs, I have a creative eye, how hard could it be? I'd go to St. Louis' floral market the day before my wedding, pick out $100 worth of whatever catches my eye, and bribe my family and bridesmaids with wine, beer, and pity to help me throw together some bouquets.

Two fatal email inquiries began changing my mind. I thought, why don't I just research a few local florists and see if anyone is especially affordable? One was, and her online reviews were pretty stellar too. She put hops in one couple's boutonnieres. She recycles vases and sources flowers from local farmers. I could pay this ultra-hip person to make me some aesthetically pleasing bouquets and use those precious hours the day before my wedding to relax with family and friends whom I only see once or twice a year (no floral tape required). Done deal if you ask me. Right? Wrong.

Blooms by the Box is one of the online wholesale flower markets I had heard was popular for brides going the DIY flower route. They ship all flower orders to their customers' door a few days in advance and have rave reviews for customer service. They also happen to be offering a contest starting next Monday, March 31st in which the person with the most 'likes' on their inspiration board will win $300 worth of flowers. As you can see from the board I made, I am really into abundant greenery paired with pretty creams. Because filler flowers are much less expensive than some of the more popular blooms, I am confident that $300 would be more than enough to create 4 maids' bouquets, a bridal bouquet, and some boutonnieres/corsages without sacrificing style (as I most certainly would have had to do if just 'winging it' the day before). I am going for it! Please help me win by following my Facebook posts for updates about when the contest begins and ends and how you can vote. 

The worst-case scenario is that I don't win and get to work with the ultra-hip florist after all. :)

DIY Tutorial: Hand-tied bouquet

It’s sunny and warm outside and I thought today would be a great day to try my hand at assembling a bouquet. Since I’ve already entered the Blooms by the Box contest for $300 worth of flowers (voting starts Monday!), I really needed to see if I’ve been over-estimating my ability to DIY bouquets, or if it’s much tougher than it looks.

If you’re a bride considering DIY flowers, it’s essential to be open-minded about your vision (that includes colors) and not expect the same results you would see from a professional floral artist. For today’s experiment, I didn’t fret too much about the specific flowers I bought; rather, I just picked up a primary bloom, accent flower, and filler in the same color family from the 3 for $12 section in my local grocery store. In the actual pre-wedding scenario, I would have a lot more selection in the St Louis “Florists’ Row” OR I would have the flowers I hope to win delivered to my door! I also grabbed some floral tape and ribbon from the craft store and a few pearl-ended bouquet pins I had sitting around.

The big difference between buying flowers at the grocery store versus a online or local wholesaler is that store-bought bouquets already have their leaves and thorns trimmed off. This saved me a lot of time; I did this whole project in around 20 minutes!

First, I took one of the big yellow flowers, the medium-size pink accent flowers, and a stem of the dyed baby's breath and arranged them into a base bouquet around which the entire arrangement will be built.

Then, I added a few stems at a time, turning the bouquet and attempting to keep it symmetrical. I like the "straight from the garden" look for these particular flowers, so I wasn't shoving the blooms as close together as you would with a rose-only bouquet, for example. [An important side-note: On a single stem of baby's breath, the little sub-stems kind of explode out at varying lengths and make it really pesky to fit in the arrangement in a symmetrical way.] Once I got it looking the way I wanted, I wrapped the stems in floral tape.

I covered the floral tape with my $1 ribbon and inserted the pins to hold it in place and tied a bow at the bottom (next time I'd start wrapping the ribbon higher up the stems, closest to the blooms, and maybe start with the bow instead). This part was probably the most challenging to do with only two hands, so I definitely learned that an assistant is essential!

Finally, I trimmed the stems to a shorter length. I already know that my bouquets will have the stems exposed rather than wrapped all the way up, since it seems easier to keep the flowers hydrated and I prefer the more natural way it looks.

Hey, not bad!

Overall, I am pleased with the result and feel reassured that with some helpers and the option to [hopefully!] choose specific Blooms by the Box flowers, the process will be easy enough to do the day before my wedding.


Note: If it isn't obvious from my amateur pictures and lack of blog design, I am not being compensated to endorse any of the vendors I mention in my posts.  

Wedding Wednesday: Appointment roundup

Some wedding decisions are easy to make from afar.

A few weeks into our engagement, my co-worker/friends shared their brilliant wedding planning tactic: Wedding Wednesday. The concept is as simple as planning together on *one* night every week and eating and/or drinking something delicious. In their case, the bride-to-be was happy to be making progress with her future husband, and the groom-to-be was happy to have a designated time period to smush all things Wedding into. It works pretty similarly for Ben and I. Everyone wins.

I'll admit that our first Wedding Wednesday was our best: we made white russians and watched The Big Lebowski (well, Ben did). We've had a lot less to decide upon since then, so our drinking has tapered off a bit. However, I did spend some time rounding up our appointments for next week when we are in St. Louis for a friend's wedding. Squeezing it all into one day will be hectic! Here's the tactical plan:

8 am. Get an E-check on Ben's car. Get some Dunkin' for me.
10 am. Meet our officiant Ruth Ellen Hasser in person for the first time at Panera (more coffee). We have Skyped with her, which helped make our decision really easy, but it's just not the same as meeting face-to-face.
11:30 ish. Meet our photographers, Amanda and Dustin at For the Moment Photography, for the first time. We also Skyped with them during the decision process and found out that they are basically the coolest people ever and that it would definitely be alright if they hung out with us on our wedding day and took some pictures. We will be discussing the logistics of doing our engagement session in Cleveland this May!
1 or 2 pm. Meet with a potential florist. Gahhhh I planned to DIY flowers, but something about this small business owner just clicked with me, and her prices and environmental philosophy are pretty awesome as well. I'll dedicate a post to DIY vs. florist another time.
3 pm ish. Check out a potential bakery that can make a Hungarian Dobos Torte (cake) and lots of pies and brownies, although I was totally planning to crowd-source homemade wedding desserts from our in-town guests. Ben initiated the dismissal of that pipe dream, but I can't say I blame him.
After. Go to Tower Grove Park to decide upon a pavilion for our cookout rehearsal dinner. It's fair to say I'm insanely excited about this idea.
6 pm. Ben attends friend's rehearsal. I power nap.

It'll definitely be a busy day, but I can't wait to meet all of these wonderful people. Although planning an out-of-town wedding takes a lot of organization, plenty of people before me have done it and we can too! What tips do you have for planning a wedding in a different state?

We Did It: Apparel

The Dream Dress that wasn't.

I'm not really planning to enter posts in my "We Did It" category in chronological order, but rather, the order I feel like telling you about it. Right now I'm especially proud of our recent shopping trip to the outlet shops in Oklahoma City, so I'll just start off by bragging.

We found Ben's wedding suit for $99.

Ben and I aren't quite formal enough for tuxes. We want our wedding party to look nice, give them flexible options, and not spend a fortune. Thus, we had already decided that the bridesmaids would choose their own navy dresses and the men would choose their own grey suits. Ben had mentioned that he wanted to stand out a bit (it's his special day too!) and search for a navy three-piece suit. So off we went, planning to look at places like Nordstrom Rack, Saks off 5th, and any other store that might have some hidden gems. The Jos. A. Bank outlet was a magical place. Right away, we found almost exactly what Ben was envisioning with a nearly perfect fit, except for the length of the coat. The manager offered to order in the long size that he needed, even granting us the in-store sale price! While I needed a little convincing and wanted to see a few other suits and stores for comparison, the first suit ended up being the one we went back to. Ben tried it on with his shoes and a tie so I could envision the whole ensemble, and my heart skipped a beat when he came out of the dressing room! GREAT success.

My dress, on the other hand, wasn't quite so straightforward and took mannnnnny shopping trips. My initial goal was to source a pre-owned or purchased-but-never-worn dress, either from a charity-run shop or website like preownedweddingdresses.com or Tradesy.com. You know, to be environmentally conscious and stuff. I also researched all of the outlet-type wedding dress stores in a 3-state region. If you've ever watched I Found the Gown on TLC, you'll know the type of store I mean: beautiful designer dresses from last season or closing boutiques find their way into the hands of gown curators, who sell them to you at a heavily-discounted price. I don't buy anything full price; why would my wedding dress be any different?

However, I also had a vision in mind: a beautiful creamy satin dress with a sweetheart neckline, cap sleeves, and dramatic low cut-out back with buttons all the way down the train, herein referred to as "Dream Dress" (or Allure Romance 2717, pictured above). I went to several appointments before deciding that I would not be able to fall in love with something until I knew whether Dream Dress was an option or not. As it turns out, the stores in Oklahoma that carry Allure did not have that sample and did not plan to get it in for their upcoming trunk shows. So, a dedicated friend and I took a little road trip to Fort Worth, TX to a store that did carry the Dream Dress, and I tried it on, and it was amazing!!!!...........in the back. The front was the single least-flattering dress I put on out of about 65 total dresses. The material was shiny and the seams did no favors. The consultant pressured me to make a decision about it that day, but I left empty-handed and knew I would not be returning.

Juxtapose that "upscale" bridal salon experience with the one I had at Sunday's Bridal, an affordable outlet store that every budget-conscious bride in the Dallas-Fort Worth area needs to check out! The owner is so sweet and the selection of off-the-rack dresses may surprise you. I tried on a beautiful Casablanca that was only $500! Although I was skeptical, I also had a great rebound appointment the next day at David's Bridal. If your style is understated and modern, check out their new Zac Posen collection, for reals.

The following weekend, 3 friends accompanied me to an appointment at Moliere Bridal in OKC. We all immediately zero-ed in on a Justin Alexander gown and took it right to the dressing room. It contained elements from each of my prior favorite dresses and I felt like myself in it. I didn't cry, but I'm pretty sure I said, "Let's do this. This dress is epic." The consultant/owner didn't pressure me with an impending timeline, which was something that had happened in every single other appointment [I get it, wedding dresses take a long time to make, I have < 1 yr engagement, I GET IT LEAVE ME ALONE]. So, with a positive experience and a skip in my step, I bought the glorious dress with no discount negotiation, no price comparison, and no reservations. The bargain hunter in me could have been more satisfied, but the dress was in my decided price range and I felt like a total Hottie McHotterson in it.

So there you have it - the quest for finding something nice to wear when we get married is complete! I am not likely to write two posts in one day again, so sorry for today's information overload. Stay tuned for my DIY veil tutorial and a post about the accessories I have selected so far!

We Did It: The Location

Choosing the location was the hardest thing we've had to do in wedding planning thus far. The conundrum is as follows: my family lives in Cleveland, where I grew up and think of fondly, and Ben's family lives in St. Louis, which he LOVES with every fiber of his being. We live outside of Oklahoma City - that's 8 hours from St. Louis and 17 hours from Cleveland. Having just finished graduate school, many of our friends live in our city, but Ben has a good amount in Missouri too. I have literally 2 friends who live in Cleveland. More than 80% of Ben's extended family lives in St. Louis; probably 1/3 of mine lives in Ohio. Are you catching the pattern here? St. Louis should have been an obvious choice, but it wasn't. Family finances, aging grandparents (on both sides), personal traveling constraints, and societal expectations ("it's supposed to be in the Bride's hometown"... yeah, and my father is supposed to trade me for livestock) made the decision especially agonizing. In the end we picked what was easiest for the greatest number of people, including ourselves. We plan to have a second reception, casual pot-luck style, in Cleveland over the holidays. I'm sorry, Lake Erie. I still love you.

Once we knew St. Louis was the most logistical choice - and Ben and I are extremely pragmatic people, so we like logistics - we had to select a venue. Our requirements were as follows: ceremony and reception have to be in the same place, no banquet halls, freedom to customize, and room rental for no more than $1000. A park setting would have been ideal for these constraints, but as meteorologists we are skeptical that the weather will just magically cooperate because it's our wedding day. Knowing we wanted a beautiful, non-suburban venue, our options had to be a little unconventional. More often than not, a Friday or Sunday wedding at a traditional wedding venue is far less expensive than the more sought-after Saturday. We also knew that going with a place that doesn't normally cater to weddings can save you major cash, as can finding a location that will allow you to bring in your own alcohol (unfortunately these are hard to come by in some cities). Thus, I set up appointments at two St. Louis venues: Plush, a concert hall with a penthouse and the 9th Street Abbey, a catering company's renovated church used for special events.

Ultimately, we chose the latter. We loved the ability to use the same beautiful indoor space for both ceremony and reception (see above), the price we could attain on a Sunday, and the professionalism that the amazing sales representatives at Patty Long Catering had already shown me in my partially insane* pre-engaged research. As an out-of-town couple, we felt more comfortable leaving the tough stuff to the professionals, even if it meant dedicating more of our budget to venue/catering than we had hoped. It took us a few days to pull off the band-aid and accept that the catering bill will be more expensive than anything either of us have ever purchased, but we are confident about our choice and feel extremely lucky to be able to get married and celebrate in such a beautiful place.

* I should clarify that doing research before a formal engagement is not actually insane; I was just a little....dedicated.... for the depth in which I did it. Always do what works for you and your fiance! As I mentioned, Ben and I are methodical people. We were both going to be in our respective hometowns for different parts of the Christmas holiday, and felt that it was necessary to check out some venues while in town (knowing that we would not be back for several months but were getting engaged in the near future). We got some strange looks and inquiries, but guess what? We were prepared to make major decisions and deposits a few weeks into our engagement, and everything has quieted into a peaceful planning lull since then. Total Wedding Zen.

Aspirations

Now that I've embarked upon this wedding blogging endeavor, I should clarify my objectives and what I hope to achieve for all 18 readers I hope to have. That's a bit academic, isn't it? Sorry not sorry.

Goals:
1. Share my planning with my friends and family near and far, especially my sister, mother and future mother-in-law, who don't really get to be as hands-on as a family living in the same city (or even state).
2. Inspire at least one person to do something outside of the box. My #1 super favorite inspiration site is A Practical Wedding, and they refer to "the box" as the Wedding Industrial Complex. The WIC is easy to both hate (why is sh!t so expensive?!) and love (hello, TLC Friday Brideday).
3. Have a running monologue to remind me of this exhilarating process on our 1st, 5th, 10th,  50th, and-beyond wedding anniversaries.

Topics:
1. Hard decisions, aka the expensive stuff. This includes our process for choosing a venue/catering, apparel, photographers, officiant, musician, etc.
2. Quandaries belonging to the modern bride. Do you have to get married in the bride's hometown? Should I change my name, and if so, how? Which traditions are important to us as a couple, and which do we throw to the wind? Are we the rudest people ever for sending e-mail invitations or having our wedding on a Sunday?
3. I'm gonna make some stuff, and if it looks good I'll show you how too. Plus, how we personally navigated when DIY is necessary and when it wasn't feasible for us.

For my web programmer/designer friends, my apologies. I do not plan to edit the code of this blog template. It will probably never be beautiful, slick, or modern, but I do hope it is informative for other brides or grooms planning their wedding!

I can't wait to get started and I hope you'll follow along!

Obfuscation

We're always the friendliest faces at a metal show.

I promised I would explain the blog's title, although many of our closest family and friends have surely detected that it is simply a play on words. However, here's what I think it could mean, if you want a prettier, metaphorical answer.

When I picture my married friends and myself, I kind of see a vast expanse of desert or empty land between us. They are on the other side of this space, married and done with their planning and their honeymoons and practicing Life As Normal. They have a lot of wedding knowledge on Their Side, piled up like mountains of Bed Bath and Beyond registry gifts wrapped in white and dark purple. Ben and I are far, far away from The Married, and at times it feels like there is an insurmountable space to traverse before we reach them and join them. The blog is the journey between The Married... and Me. Well, us. Just go with it. I'll save my "the wedding is NOT all about the bride" rant for another time.

The real explanation is that Ben and I initially bonded on an airport shuttle after discovering we both liked the progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me. Our relationship was founded on music and it continues to play a fundamental role in our lives. Simple as that. :-)

The Primer

Photo by Sean Waugh

So I'm writing a wedding blog.

We got engaged on January 10 and our wedding is on October 5. For those who don't like to count the months on their fingers, that's just shy of a 9 month engagement (insert "OMG you need *at least* a year to plan a proper wedding!" here... or don't).

It's now late March and the photographers have been selected, save-the-dates emailed, venue deposits made and wedding dress and suit purchased. Why bother detailing the planning process now?

The background story is that I did not dream of my wedding as a little girl. I didn't dress up as a bride for Halloween and I never watched any of the princess Disney movies; my mom didn't want me to grow up thinking I had to find a "Prince Charming" in order to be complete or satisfied in life (you may find this theme of independence to be a recurring one). Thus, the irony of my not-so-secret OBSESSION with wedding planning - beginning as soon as I realized I had met my life partner, which also happened to correspond to the time frame when Say Yes to the Dress and Pinterest and Wedding Gawker became things - could have been forecasted. And I was not just a pre-engaged dreamer or a pinner, either. I emailed venues for pricing and stalked photographers. I acquired charts for how much liquor, beer and juices to purchase and found every resale wedding dress shop in three different metros. I emailed my sister's high school to make sure our wedding wouldn't interfere with her senior Homecoming dance. I made an itemized budget. I was going to have the most fabulous, wallet-friendly, straight off the images of Style Me Pretty wedding - EVER.

As it turns out, wedding expectations do not often correspond with wedding reality. Some brides or grooms may have dreams too lofty for their budget, and others may be constrained by other factors such as time and location. I personally had to take a step back from Pinterest and realize that I could not, in fact, have an effortless backyard wedding under twinkling lights with a DIY cake, bar, flowers, and centerpieces. For one, we live in the Midwest and have no faith that the weather will cooperate for two meteorologists tying the knot. Second, there is an 8 hour distance between our current location and the wedding location. I can't do it all, and most of the venues we liked wouldn't let me even if I tried.

I am writing a blog now, 2.5 months into our engagement with the "big" decisions already made, to tell you about what I will craft my little heart out on. I will discuss the wedding industry pressure and cultural expectations I had to free myself from before we could take on the challenge of planning a wedding that is both personal and practical. I will write about our vendors and DIY/DIT projects and to share this process with my family who lives far away.

True story, I originally had a Pinterest board called "Elements of a Dream Wedding." I've since re-named it "A Practical Wedding" (I'll give this epic site a full-fledged shout-out in later posts). It might sound less romantic, but who says practical can't be beautiful?