Roadblocks...and How We're Dealing with Them

I may have been laying low on the posts lately, but that doesn't mean the wedding workload has eased up much. Unfortunately, most of it has felt pretty overwhelming and our external hard drive crashed and looks to be a very costly replacement, so I've been throwing myself into finding a job and working extra hours at the bar and brainstorming wedding stuff on the bus rides to and from work.

Officially, the wedding is less than 261 days away (I have the Facebook countdown widget, I swear I'm not that crazy) and my little wedding tracker/planning thing at theknot.com is telling me I have 361 more items to work on and 54 overdue. I'd happily whittle that list down, but there's a few HUGE roadblocks in my way right now, so I figured I blog it out and consider ways to get past 'em.

Problemo #1: Shower Setbacks
To make it easier on family and friends, we figured we would have one wedding shower in Indiana and one in Ohio. We mapped all the dates out months ago, but due to another wedding in JCakes family we might have to change our shower date in IN and since everyone in the wedding party and our families were clued in on the important dates, it's another headache to map out.
Possible Solution We're Tossing Around:
Just have one shower in Ohio. With all the other details to worry about, I'd just as soon have one shower and maybe do the honeymoon registry thing for people who can't make it.


Problemo #2: Ceremony Crisis
We've been checking in since May '09, but still need to make things official so we can figure out the planning in it's entirety.
Possible Solution We're Tossing Around:
Contacting our Alderman. I don't know what else to do, this is getting pretty crazy.


Problemo #3: Catering Conundrums
We have a pretty limited budget and a pretty big guest list and have been very upfront with caterers about everything, but quotes so far for food, service and rentals have been almost as much as our total budget for the entire wedding.
Possible Solution We're Tossing Around:
With over 200 guests invited, JCakes and I have been re-assessing the list over and over. Self-catering isn't really an option with that many people invited, but there has to be some kind of way to get around estimates being $15K+ just for catering. I've been looking at tons of DIY books and blogs for info on this, but if you have any local, Chicago ideas on who to work with or how to make this happen, please let me know.


Problemo #4: Officiant Issues.
In a perfect world, we would love to have our friend who introduced us lead the ceremony as our officiant, and as a nod to our family, have a Catholic priest (friend of JCakes famil) say a small blessing. I've read about this being a possibility (depending on the priest's views), but our request has been denied.
Possible Solution We're Tossing Around:
Still not sure. Like I mentioned, ideal was to have our friend do the ceremony with a blessing so we can honor both our families and our own views and backgrounds. As a second option, we really wanted to find someone who could be a premarital counselor and our officiant. We found a great guy (contact me if you want his info) but he's much too pricey for us. We want to have someone meaningful and not piss off our parents. I have no idea what to do.


Problemo #5: Musical Obstacles
A few friends offered a long time ago to assist with the ceremony music and having met at a friend's concert, JCakes and I thought there would be no better way to honor that than to have our friends play at the reception. We've been keeping in touch, mentioning how important it is to have things locked into place, but nothing concrete has cemented so far. To have a working knowledge of the run of show for our big day with details to pass along on invitations, to the caterers, DJ, photographer, etc., we really if this is gonna happen.
Possible Solution We're Tossing Around:
JCakes has been doing his best to stay in touch about this, but I guess if it comes down to it, we'll have to say screw it, and just roll with the punches. Sucks, but not much we can do here. Maybe we'll just use an iPod for the ceremony music.


Problemo #6: Decoration Dilemma
In the greater picture, this is definitely amongst the least of our worries, but it's still something we need to consider. Having a cohesive theme for everything not only makes everything look nicer, it's much easier to budget for and plan ahead with DIY projects and hit up sales if you know what you're looking for. Most of the ideas JCakes and I have collaborated on and discussed actually fit better with a spring/summer wedding so taking our "backyard wedding" ideas and changing most of the details (including the backyard part) is kind of hard. Achieving the same feel in a different season may be more difficult than we originally thought. I keep looking for examples of fall weddings on Brooklyn Bride and other sites, but none of them so far have evoked the same feel the summer ones seem to.
Possible Solution We're Tossing Around:
Being way too late to change the date and location, I've been brainstorming ideas with my Aunt Glo (as a former windows display visionary, she has a total knack for this kind of thing). Still not sure how it's all gonna form together, but I'm hoping some of my favorite bloggers post more real weddings from the fall to help us gain some inspiration.


I guess it doesn't all seem so bad when I write it all out, but I've been dying to work on the detail stuff. The fun stuff, like drafting our first screenprint for the invitations, but all of the business stuff needs to be taken care of first.

Oh man. 261 days feels so close.

Gray Skies.

I keep logging in on here, all ready to write something and then going to type, feeling defeated and going on Facebook or something equally unproductive. It's not as if there aren't a million working parts or ideas to talk about, it's just that lately, it feels like what's the point?

I'm not referring to the marriage, I love J-Cakes with all my heart. And I'm not talking about the blog, I like looking at this stuff and I love hosting parties so it's fun. I mean the wedding. Why go through all of this? Every time I get a few steps ahead with planning, I hit a huge block in the road when the price tag presents itself. It's not as if we're incredibly demanding, but it feels like our budget is almost laughable and so many people feel the need to express their opinions about how whatever we're doing it wrong.

"Make sure you serve meat"
"I know you guys are vegetarian, but you better have meat"
"You can't just do heavy appetizers, people expect full dinner if they're coming ALL the way there"
"You have to have a full bar or people will be really upset"
"People will be unhappy if they have to pay for cabs to get to the wedding"
"Do you really want to have a band play, what if people don't like the music?"
"It's not really a marriage unless it's done in the church, in front of the eyes of God"

It's no longer a surprise to me that the days of having really big weddings have gone by the wayside. Who wants to spend a year of their life or longer doing everything they can to make a personalized and welcoming wedding reception to celebrate their love with their closest friends and family, only to feel like crap in the end? We're really doing the best we can, but most days, it feels like no matter what that is, it won't be good enough.

Somedays, I am even convinced that on the day it all comes together, someone is going to say something snotty or rude about the way things were done and I'm going to overhear it and just fall to pieces. Just start sobbing or second-guessing everything we have worked so hard on all this time. I have always work hard to make people feel welcome, and I really feel like good hospitality is a lost art and friends and family should be treated like the important people they are. To think that on one of the biggest days of our lives, after three years of working on how to make this all happen, I might fall to pieces over one rude remark may sound silly, but that's just the person I am.


Today's one of those days, where I feel like giving up.

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: