She's Got the Look: More on the Dress

All Photos,Source: Sarah Seven

I finally got around to starting on some Christmas craft ideas and at least thinking about shopping, and as a result I have been on a major Etsy fix lately. One click led to another, and I found myself scanning the "wedding" section for dress ideas and stumbled across the amazing work of Sarah Seven.

Based out of Portland, Sarah creates these amazing vintage-inspired dress designs that are perfect blend of modern-meets-vintage. Her designs have this whole ethereal, romantic feel (the same feeling I'm hoping to evoke throughout our wedding from dress to invitation) and she has this amazing collection of dresses made of delicate layers of natural and recycled fabrics.

The dresses run a little pricey, but they are truly amazing she also donates a percentage of all of her designs to charity. Here are some of the other ones I heart:





I'm not sure if I'll be able to afford her design, but a girl can dream, right?

Maybe I can find something similar more locally? Any suggestions?

A Few Guides for a Less Frazzled Bride

Image Source: www.bridalbuds.com

Ah, wedding magazines. So glossy, so pretty, so full of expensive wedding stuffs and gorgeous models to show it all off.

I fell into the glossy entrapment of wedding magazines pretty early in the game. I think the first wedding-related magazine I picked up was actually at the airport on the way back from our Europe trip (where we got engaged). As a huge fan of magazines in general, I was excited to see what sort of inspiration was out there, note a few dress ideas, scout some vendors (I'm a huge fan of "Best-of" lists) and just gain a general sense of what the soon-to-be-wed crowd was up to in the 2000's.

Problem was, instead of being incredibly inspired and hopeful, flipping through the pages of wedding magazines like Modern Bride, The Knot and Martha Stewart Weddings made me feel more overwhelmed than inspired and I found myself being flushed with anxiety anytime I picked one up. They were pretty, very nice to look at, but these were supposed to be an examples of what normal people were doing? Throwin' down $40K for ONE DAY was actually considered normal?

I felt sick. Even if we magically came into money, I knew that J-Cakes and I would lean towards planning something more unconventional, but the fact that every single wedding-related magazine I picked up seemed to confirm the idea that this one day would cost a full year's (or more) income was absolutely terrifying. What the hell were we thinking? There's no way we could pull this off. I started feeling like maybe we should just elope and play up the kitschy appeal of the Vegas or something so we wouldn't end up looking like total fools.

After a more than a few panic-stricken moments (which I only shared with my mom), I started looking for alternatives. Melanie, my best friend and maid of honor, picked up a planner for my Christmas gift. I scouted the shelves of Borders and searched through Amazon for tips on how to be fancy when you're more fiscally-strapped and eventually felt better about everything. A job opportunity later led me to a couple hundred inspiring blogs online, all couples who had either made it work on much less than $40K or were attempting to. Things were going to be okay.

That sense of relief and feeling like it was possible to have a nice, big wedding without going into major debt was a big moment for me. It dawned on me the other day that I never mentioned what kinds of sites and research I have been a big help to me with all of this planning business, so I wanted to take a few minutes to mention them. (I feel I should note that this is in no way paid advertising, all of these resources have either been recommended to me by friends and family or I have found them on my own and I am recommending them solely based on how helpful they have been to me so far with the hope they might be helpful for someone else).

First up is "Bridal Bargains: Wedding Planner" the book Melanie gave me to help gain a sense of what to expect. Filled with checklists, lists of important questions to ask vendors and advice for just about everything wedding-related, this book has become my trusty companion to all meetings with anyone who might help with part of our big day. I have to admit that I don't actually use this checklist (I use the one on TheKnot because I can link up my guest list and manage things easier), but as far as having a physical guide to help you along with meetings and keep you on track and within your budget, this book does a great job.




The "Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides": I found this book on our way back from Europe when we pit-stopped in Chicago to see our friends. I was cruising around Quimby's, (my favorite neighborhood bookstore) decided to pick this up and ended up reading it from cover to cover twice before realizing that there was a blog to go with it. (If you get your inspiration from seeing examples of couples who have wed before you, I highly suggest browsing the "wedding porn" section on this blog). The book made me feel excited about planning again and instead of feeling a sense of dread that we wouldn't be able to ante-up I started to feel excited about all of the ways we could express our creativity. The appeal of blog is that the weddings on this site look like people are actually enjoying themselves which is kind of what you want at a wedding anyways. These couples seem more real, are reall creative and it goes to show you that there is a place for every kind of couple, even the kind that dream of having a Star Wars-themed wedding complete with a light-saber ceremony.


"Cheap Ways to Tie the Knot" is a quick read and a good guide if you're trying to figure out what your options are for various budgets. Organized by "Bargain, Budget or Bling" each section is broken down into what kind of alternatives you can consider and a quick line about what to expect.

Additionally, for solely the cost of Internet connection, there are a TON of talented bloggers out there dishing out design advice, sharing wedding photos and passing along information about some awesome giveaways amongst other things. Since blogs have been helping me out big time, I feel compelled to mention the few that stick out in my mind. In no particular order, here are some of the sites that I often visit for inspiration:

• The Broke-Ass Bride
• Snippet & Ink
• DIY Bride
• Green Wedding Shoes
• Brooklyn Bride
• Once Wed
• Clover & Bee
• RuffledBlog
• A $10,000 Wedding
• Design*Sponge
• 100 Layer Cake
  
• One Wed Savvy Scoop Blog

These are in no way the only sites I visit, but it's not a bad place to start if you're looking.

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In completely unrelated news, this morning I did a search on Google to see if there were any photos or blogs mentioning Lula Cafe. I love Lula, and have been there many times, but since we're hoping to set-up our rehearsal dinner there, I wanted to get a feel for what that experience might have been like for someone else.

That's how I stumbled across Peopling Places, a community-driven blog about Logan Square, written by Lynn Stevens. It was great to see a blog intended to foster community in the neighborhood we live in, because we're both huge fans of Logan Square and some of the amazing people businesses around here. I noticed that AwesomeMidwestWedding was listed on the blog roll, so thank you to Lynn for being a fan! I hope we can work with some amazing people in the Square!

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Happy Planning!

"Kick out the jams, muthaf*****!"

You know how when people are asked what kind of music they like, they usually give the big cop-out answer: "everything." It's a little misleading, because although they might appreciate different types of music, whatever they are listening to the most when that question is posed is really the answer to the question. If a person really likes "everything," their appreciation for music is constantly evolving and shifting, and Johnny and I would be no exception.

Surprisingly, that poses a problem when picking a wedding song: With so much to choose from, what do you pick as "your song," the one to best represent you both together? How do you narrow it down? How do you choose something that really fits for you both as a song by an artist you both like, a lyrical representation of both of your feelings on the relationship? How will you dance to it in front of everyone you know? And most importantly, how long is it?

With both J-cakes and myself being obsessively into music, (albeit, different types of music) I knew that choosing the music for the wedding, especially what to play as "our song," might be a little complicated. I can honestly say that I didn't envision it taking seven hours to decide, but hey, you can't plan for everything.

Long, drawn-out process or not, I kind of liked how we came to the final decision so I figured I would share the process with you. I figure, best case scenario, you consider a few songs you might have forgotten about or never thought of before and worst case scenario, you rule out 20 or so songs from the running. Either way, it works, so here's a How-to Guide for Choosing the Right Wedding Song:

Hit the Sauce. To help us get started, I started drinking. It's my personal opinion that alcohol always helps in these kinds of tough situations, so if you're reading this and trying to find a song right now, I suggest you crack the cork off your favorite wine bottle or pop open some PBR and get started.

Consider yourselves as a couple. Do you and your sweetie both like to cut a rug or does he/she get painfully shy when you're just trying to slow-dance? If you lean towards the attention whore side, you might want to consider the popular trend of fast-paced, musical montages. Get your wedding party involved and choreograph steps to the song. Capture it on video for You Tube. Have some fun with it!

Two left feet or not that into dancing? Try to choose a shorter song (less time in the spotlight) that allows you to slow dance (requires less dance talent). You could always take dance lessons somewhere to learn a few moves before the wedding. Obviously, dance studios are a good place to start looking, but you could also check for cheap dance lessons that might be happening at local colleges, universities or community centers.

Write it down. Before you even try researching songs, think about the ones that may already mean something to you and start a list. It doesn't matter if you remember the song title or the artist. Hell, if all you remember is tune and one verse, you may still be able to find it online. You might even find the lyrics are way off later, but it's nice to get started with the songs that already have meaning for you and your fiance.

Start your search engine. If "Why do birds suddenly appear" is the only verse you can remember right now, (Note: This may be a side-effect from killing off that bottle of wine) just type it in Google and see if it gets you somewhere. Once you have the title and artist for each song listed out, start searching for sites where you can read the lyrics in their entirety and music players where you can hear the whole song.

Read, Listen and Cross-off: Remember that part in the last step where I said read the lyrics in their entirety and listen to the whole song? Yeah, that's because the part of your brain that remembers the verse or chorus that might make it a perfect fit (ex. "It's a nice day for a white wedding") might have blocked out or not cared to remember the other parts ("White Wedding" by Billy Idol is actually about Idol's little sister's shotgun marriage to someone he didn't like). Take notes about what you like, what you don't like. (Hint: Write down the songs' time lengths - shown on the bottom right side of most online media players - it helps weed out the best songs later).

Honorable bad choices (for various reasons):
"Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics ("some of them want to abuse you)
"I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston (it's about a break up)
"Every Breath You Take" by The Polices (hey there, stalker).

Compare Notes: Once I had a decent list together, Johnny got home and cracked open another bottle of wine (yet another reason why I love him) and we went through the list side-by-side, opening up the lyrics on one screen and playing the songs on YouTube (when available) on another screen. Besides being a helpful way to get a sense of the song, it's incredibly amusing to see some of the worst music videos ever made.

Compare Votes: Once we had reviewed 20 or so different songs, we put it to a vote. No better way to choose a song between two die-hard music junkies than to put through a democratic process! To choose, we each grabbed a post it, numbered 1-3 with 1 being our top choice. In the event that we both chose the same songs, the one that was listed on closest to the top for both would be the final winner.

I sort of knew this wouldn't be an issue, but I hoped we would pick at least one song we both liked, and we did. Without giving the final pick away (cause what fun would that be?) here are some of the songs we checked out with links to the lyrics:

You're My Best Friend - Queen
Oh My Love - John Lennon
In My Life - The Beatles
And I Love Her - The Beatles
Never My Love - The Association
Into My Arms - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Ship Song - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
It's, Oh, So Quiet - Bjork
The Promise - When in Rome
Harvest Moon - Neil Young
This Magic Moment - Ben E. King & The Drifters version
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) - Talking Heads
Perfect Day - Lou Reed
Center of Gravity - Yo La Tengo
All Day & All of the Night - The Kinks
Come Rain or Come Shine - either by Ray Charles or Billie Holiday
The Luckiest - Ben Folds
Just Like Heaven - The Cure
Close to Me - The Cure
Moon River - Frank Sinatra version
I Love How You Love Me - Camera Obscura version
I Can't Help Falling in Love with You - Elvis Presley
I Only Have Eyes for You - Art Garfunkel version
Mushaboom - Feist
Unchained Melody - The Righteous Brothers (I know, almost as over-used as "At Last" by Etta James, but so good!)

Whichever songs were awesome, but not the best fit for first dance are going to be played somewhere throughout the night. There's plenty of opportunities, with the cake cutting, anniversary song, etc.

Good luck!

Lovin' it up in Logan Square

After months of waiting for Humboldt Park to come through with the contract, it's finally official! We booked our place, signed the contract and paid our $500 deposit. We will officially tie the knot on October 9, 2010 and we now have a place to party it up properly after the ceremony.

So how this miracle finally happened? What did it finally take for us to lock it all in? Simple - We decided to chuck the Humboldt Park Fieldhouse idea and we're relocating the reception to the Logan Square Auditorium. (Psst: Pictures coming soon, I took a few on my phone but I don't have time to upload 'em).

Yesterday we met with potential caterers (a few folks with Honest Foods) to scope out Humboldt Park and map out some ideas about the rentals and layout. Once we finished, we popped in to check one last time and see if by some chance things had finally come together. No such luck. It still wasn't ready (through no fault of Neirda's, she is a super chill and pleasant lady to that is just waiting on the City of Chicago to get it's self together).

I guess that was sort of the breaking point on this. With less than a year until the wedding and no contract, we're getting increasingly nervous. They did promise to hold the date, but without a deposit or any sense of what the cost will be hiked up to, it doesn't seem smart to keep waiting. We've been asking since May and it's making it really hard to budget for everything else. I know, there are plenty of couples that get hitched in well under a year, but there are also hundreds of couples who book locations far in advance and with a limited budget in a big city where most venues run $5,000 and up for an empty space, it just seemed to risky to bank on a venue that still isn't ready.

We haven't completely given up on Humboldt Park though. We still plan to host the ceremony at the Humboldt Park boathouse, (if things get too crazy with the wait on that, at least it's just an hour event and there are other parks in the city) and in some ways that works out better than the boathouse/fieldhouse situation. If you're livin' around Logan Square or considering a wedding/event over there, here's a couple notes on the auditorium:

The Pros:

$3,275 is the cost for a Saturday rental (if you're planning a Friday night gig, you'll save yourself $500 but with so many out-of-towners this wasn't something we could consider).

Security, chairs and tables (includes 60 inch rounds, high boys and low tables), ice, soda, a sound technician and amp/stage equipment are included in the $3,275.

With all the sound equipment access, booking a DJ with a lot of talent but not a lot of gear may be easier.

You can choose to buy your own alcohol or buy it through the venue if you'd like.

You can bring your own bartenders through your caterer or pay for their bartenders.

You can choose any caterer you'd like as long as they sign a certification with the venue (pretty standard, but the choosing who you want isn't so standard).

The venue can fit 350 people normally, and we had the luck of seeing a wedding being set up for late this evening. The couple was having 208 guests, and was able to fit 26 large rounds, 14 low boys, buffet food tables, the head table and ample dance space.

The closer bathrooms and kitchen space are being updated and will be finished by the time we have our wedding next year.

It's right off the Logan Square blue line stop and Milwaukee bus route (a big plus for city-livin' guests).

It ties into our idea for the flyer-style wedding invite pretty nicely.



The Cons:

The only really big concern for us is the wheelchair accessibility (there isn't any). There is also no service elevator, so everything has to be hiked up some stairs. Bands do it plenty of time for shows and with the tables and chairs already available on-site, at least it's a few less things to haul. Still, we have some family members who might struggle with the lack of elevator situation. I checked in with family to make sure they are comfortable with it because I'd had to sign up somewhere and have people not come for that reason. It seems like we'll be okay...

Also, a lot of people complain about the sound system for rock shows. Johnny and I have both been to concerts there and while we agree it's not our location of choice for shows (the sound bounced off the walls as sound tends to do in large, gym-like spaces) it's a wedding. We will have to double check it's all on the up-and-up, but I think we can work with it.

We're getting married! With an actual space to have the party and everything. Whew, finally!

Day 334: Sprucin' up the Space

It's been a little crazy around here lately, but the good kind of crazy for the most part.

I've been picking up a few extra shifts a week at the pub and I've gotten a few more freelance opportunities in the past few weeks. It's not enough to be a full time situation, but every little bit helps and the more we look at the costs of wedding crap, the more I'm happy to take on any assignment. (Hint, hint, if you happen to be looking for a writer/publicist at the moment).

J-cakes has been working a more shifts at Piece Out while looking for a full-time gig and he's been getting a lot of stuff together for his band, Sadhu Sadhu. The band is actually working on recording their first full-length album and he does all the album/poster artwork so he's had a lot going on. I'm excited to see how the recording pans out he's definitely been working his butt off.

The nice part about recent developments is that we now have our days off together, vs. nights, so whenever we think about something else that might be cool for the wedding we can actually make appointments to meet vendors and both be there. J-cakes is actually looking forward to parts of the wedding planning beyond just setting up the bachelor party (which is more of the stereotypical dude action). It should be interesting to see how we mesh all these ideas together.

Anyways, as part of the planning, we met with Deb from Art of Imagination last Thursday. (If you've been reading this blog for a bit, I mentioned a few posts ago that we were supposed to meet up, but a work deadline got in the way).

Deb was met us on-site at Humboldt Park Field House so we could get a better idea of what we might need to make the place a little fancier. Again, if you read this blog, you've seen this before, but one of my biggest concerns - and the whole reason we needed to meet with Deb in the first places - is to figure out a way to tastefully cover this:



...yeah.

Fortunately, Deb came prepared to consider not only the mural situation, but also tips on how to mask the basketball hoops in the gym area, what ideas might look nice to help create an entrance, and which lighting might work best around the place, among other ideas. Besides appreciating her eye for this sort of thing, we also liked that Deb didn't just spout off the priciest options when suggesting ideas to us. While we wandered around the place she made a point to mention ideas we might be able to put together ourselves and suggestions on where to go to get keep it on the cheap. The whole meeting made us both feel much more at ease and I know we won't be able to afford all of her ideas, but I'm still excited to see what the possibilities could look like. Here's are some examples of event work Deb has done in the past:







(These images are from Yelp, if you're looking for more...)

Saying Cheese in Style

It took awhile before it caught onto the wedding scene in the States, but since it's started, it hasn't stopped, (there is even an inflatable photo booth these days).

Once we started talking about our wedding, we knew we would probably be no exception to the photo booth mania, seeing as how we can hardly go to Empty Bottle or Rainbo Club without sneaking in a strip or two, and why not? They're fun, they have a special way of looking cool and creating a memory that might have otherwise gone undocumented and they offer a chance to cram a whole bunch of people into a small space and take silly photos. What's not to love?

We were already planning on renting a vintage photobooth from 312photobooth.com and asking guests to rubber cement their photo strips scrapbook style and jot down a few words to us, thus operating as a much more fun and functional guest book. (I personally loathe the regular guest book, no one ever really signs more than their half-assed signature). We figured guests could also take a few strips home for themselves, eliminating the guest favor dilema, but then I did some research.

As it turns out, (and not to my complete surprise) photo booths are not cheap to rent - think $1000 rental range. Not really a cost-saving idea, so I've been thinking about other options. I've seen some very lovely photos of weddings and other parties where people have gone the DIY route and done a great job of creating their own cloth backdrops to mimic the photo booth feel, like this gorgeous backyard wedding backdrop from GreenWeddingShoes.blogspot.com...


And there's the adding of giant picture frames and goofy props, which has been a wedding photo mainstay for a few years now...

http://chicmapsbynikki.blogspot.com/

And there are even some enterprising couples out there who make their own booths, complete with coordinating colors to match everything else...

Snippetandink.blogspot.com

It's all very pretty (and in some cases, incredibly impressive) but I still saw us sticking with the real deal, until I came across this AMAZING photobooth idea:

Greenweddingshoes.blogspot.com

and then saw this at OffBeat Bride:




And now I am completely obsessed with the idea of creating our own photo booth. How are we are ever going to top the amazing ingenuity and creativity of these kids? I'm still not sure, but I'm working on some ideas!

Day 353: "Come Out & Play"

Gotta say, yesterday's venue recon mission didn't go as badly as I thought it was going to. Park lady was really nice (considering we politely busted into her office in the middle of her work day) but the bad news is we still don't officially have a contract. Park lady won't have the new price quotes until early November, and neither her nor us want to make a deposit only to find that the venue was raised to be something ridiculous. It's not her fault, it's a sort of Chicago Parks matter all across the board, but it's still a little unsettling. She does have us in the books though, so the date is saved for us. It's really the best we can do right now.

The upside? Park lady confirmed the following:

• We can definitely go til' midnight at the venue.
• We can definitely bring in the caterer of our choice.
• They have 21 round tables that can seat between 8-10 people which is exactly how many we need (we were able to whittle down the guest list to 225, and with a lot of out-of-towners, we're guessing we'll have 200 or less at the wedding).
• We can use the concession stands as bar set-ups and coat rooms for no additional costs.
  

Overall, not the final result we were going for, but at least we have things in motion and an idea of what's actually going on. However, our trip to Flying Saucer turned out to be helpful in unexpected way.

After we wrapped up lunch, we talked to Danielle (one of the chefs) a bit about weddings and Humboldt Park and she said that Flying Saucer actually does catering. While we have a few places in mind at the moment (Honest Foods and Centered Chef) Flying Saucer does have the advantage of specializing in vegan/veg food and being a block away from Humboldt Park (something that is especially helpful considering the tiny, tiny kitchen in the Fieldhouse space). Not sure who we're going to go with in the end, but it's cool to know they have the capabilities.

Next up, a lot of decoration talk with Art of Imagination. They're based in Humboldt Park/Logan Square and specialize in drapery (if you've ever gone to a Stan Mansion event before, chances are you have seen their work since Deb from A-of-I has an exclusive contract with Stan Mansion). We chatted a bit and have an in person appointment next week to meet at Humboldt and go over some ideas. We're hoping we can do this on the cheap. My biggest concern is if she can help us temporarily cover this:

Nice for a community space, not so nice for a wedding.