We're Registered!

We did it!

And we had fun!

It took 2 days, and some wine tasting in between to get us through, but we are officially registered at four places:

For fine china and crystal:

For bedding and bath:





For basic kitchen stuff, plus silver and glassware:

For pots & pans and "fancy" kitchen stuff:

I am pretty sure we registered for more items than any bride and groom ever - we went nuts! We even registered for some furniture so that we can get a discount after the wedding. 

Here's a sneak peak at a few items for which we registered...

Our china, which is Herend "Queen Victoria":

This bedding:

These super fun accessories:

B was a master with the scanner and all-in-all it was pretty painless :)  I think what I've decided about all the wedding stuff is that if I wasn't so busy at work, I would be having a LOT more fun with it all. I was able to take a break from work for *most* of the weekend and it really made the wedding stuff a lot more enjoyable!

More updates soon!

Scheduled: First Dress Fitting

It's official: I have my first dress fitting scheduled for early March! That seems right around the corner, and it is - I just checked and it's only four weeks away.

I'm supposed to have my exact pair of shoes at my first fitting. The store emphasizes exact, as in the pair I will wear when I walk down the aisle (chills).  I guess they've had brides bring in a pair in the right style but wrong color only to have them come back with the right pair and realize the shoe was a 1/4" taller in the other color. Who knew shoes had such big discrepancies?

All of this means I'm officially on the hunt for fun wedding shoes. I need something that has a very low heel, or no heel at all, which really sucks because all the fun shoes have 4" heels. But, fun shoes are not worth being taller than B in all of our pics, so low heels it is.

I'm wearing rhinestone/crystal necklace with my dress, so I need shoes that are white, silver or some bright color. I'm really not big on white, though - so I'm mainly considering white styles because they'd be dyable (any advice related to dyables is welcome, I've actually never had this done).

So far I've seen a few styles I like, including:

These are totally cute, totally re-wearable...but too wintery? They are adorable though...

via

LOVING these, but I think they might be too tall!

via

These are similar - also Kate Spade:

via

These are too businessy for me, I think, but they're still cute! They also might be too tall :(

via

Thinking I could possibly dye these? A little too boring though?

via

Also cute, also Kate Spade, also possibly dyable?

I still have a lot of searching to do - all of these I found in about 30 minutes after looking on just two sites. That said, I'm VERY encouraged by what I found, which is good!  I was worried that I'd have to find shoes before all of the cute spring/summer styles come out, which is probably still going to be true. I'm over worrying about that though; I'll probably be happiest in a classic style any way, so as long as I have a fun color and some fun detail I will be very happy!  I hope to do some more searching this weekend and then order a few pairs so I have time to try them on for size (and put the heel height to the test against B in his tux shoes). Will keep you posted!  Any if anyone sees any cute shoes, let me know!

Thinking About: Wedding Cakes

Since we have our first cake tasting scheduled, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about cakes.

We're planning to have a cupcakes & candy bar, in addition to wedding cake, which means we don't need a huge, multi-tiered cake. Still, I would like a pretty cake that looks like a traditional wedding cake!  So far I seem to be draw to structural, simple cakes with floral details.

Here are a few of my favorites, the first being my very favorite :)

 

Shot by my lovely wedding photographers

And, just for fun, a sneak peak at B's groom's cake:

NOT!

Yall have a good night :)  

Note: all images from Martha Stewart Weddings, The Knot and Weddings Unveiled

The Ingredients: Caterer!

One more big decision finalized:  we selected our caterer.

I am BEYOND excited about this, since we'll be using Carpe Diem, which is also one of the best restaurants in Charlotte.  I've loved Carpe Diem since I was in high school, maybe even before.  The food is always delicious and they are wonderful people!

I know a lot of people get nervous about using a restaurant for their caterer, since it's really hard to be good at both.  Often a company is great at catering, but struggles to run a restaurant; or a restaurant servers awesome food but isn't very good at catering.  Carpe Diem, in all their awesomeness, manages to be good at both.  They catered one of my good friend's weddings and it was to die for.

We're setting up our first wedding menu tasting for early February.  I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, here's a link to their website and menu.  YUM.

Save the Dates: We've Hit a Wall

Our Save the Dates are finally coming together, woohoo!  After sitting in a box in our condo for 4 months, it is SO nice to feel like we're making progress:

 

Well..we were making progress until we hit a major wall: I didn't order enough baker's twine...so now we're in a holding pattern until more comes in.  Mwah, mwah.  I really want to get these out soon, so they don't get mixed into the Christmas Card hoopla.   Thankfully a good friend has offered to help me finish them up next week!  Here's hoping that by next weekend we are done, done, done!  This would be a big thing to check off our list, so we can move onto more important things like cake tastings and caterer selection.

Good times :)

The Ingredients: Fabric!

I seriously heart our wedding planner.  She nailed fabric swatches, just like she did our color palette and style board.

Here is a sneak peak of the swatches (excuse the pictures, my bberry isn't the best):

Our base colors will be a mix of beige and navy pintuck table clothes.  We'll use the bright colors on accent tables and possibly as ties around the base.  And I think the cake/candy table is going to be hot pink, hah.

We are also (hopefully) planning to have lounge furniture near the dance floor and we wanted to bring in a pop of yellow by putting making some pillows to go on the lounges.  We've been struggling to find a bright, preppy, yet budget friendly fabric...until I found this swatch on one of the blogs I read:

The fabric is Paula Prass for Michael Miller Summer Soiree Chevron in Yellow and it was on sale - score!  Fabric.com has a pretty awesome return policy so I ordered 4 yards to qualify for free shipping and crossed my fingers that it looked good.

When I first pulled it out of the package, it looked a little mustardy...but in better light, and next to the samples, I think it looks great (the light in the pics is still pretty bad, but it does have a little more of a pop than I originally thought):

Progress feels good!  Carla, you're my hero ;)

The Ingredients: Bridesmaids

Even before B & I actually got engaged we had talked about who we wanted in our wedding party.  I don't know why but it was always fun to talk about who would be sharing one of the biggest days of our lives by standing at the alter with us.

But when I actually got engaged, I really struggled with how to ask my bridesmaids.  So many of my girlfriends have already gotten married and done some really cute things to ask their friends to be bridesmaids.  I felt a lot of pressure to do something different (this has been a common theme actually, I'm really getting sort of tired of people saying "Oh I know you're wedding will be so crazy cool and full of different stuff"). 

A few examples of what friends did in the past, off the top of my head:

• Mini champagne bottle w/ cute tag
• DVD w/ nice letter
• Homemade cookies shipped out to all the girls
• Bridesmaids Survival Kit
• Nice letter
• Framed picture + note

I also saw some really cute ideas online but all seemed either super time consuming or really expensive.  Sorry girls, you're totally worth it, but things were really busy at work and I was in major saving $$ mode.  

I decided I wanted to do something slightly humorous, yet still let each girl know that it really would be an honor to have them be part of my wedding party.  So after lots of thought (and procrastination), I went with a funny card from Naughty Betty, purchased through Jack Cards, and pictured right (Naughty Betty cards are honestly the funniest around, I am so glad I discovered them, thanks Holly for the reco!).

I think most of the girls got the humor and thought it was funny.  Thankfully all of them said yes to being a bridesmaid, so now the next challenge is to find ways to torture them with ridiculous dress options.  Only kidding.  I'm SUPER excited and can't wait to get all 10 girls together for the big day!

How did you ask your bridesmaids?  Any creative ideas?

The Ingredients: BAND!

I don't know why this was such a difficult decision, but we had the hardest time picking out a band!  We liked tons of them, but seemed to find fault with most of them.  And then, several of our early favorites got booked up because we took so long to make a decision.  BUT, I'm proud to say that finally have a band and I could not be more excited.  I think they are the PERFECT choice!   I won't bore you with the details but this was one of my top choices originally but Beale veto'd them right away.  Turns out he didn't really know who they were...and when we randomly came across them earlier in the week he loved them.  I'm SO excited; can't wait to be on stage with them in less than a year ;)

Here's a link to their promo video from East Coast, Enjoy!

The Ingredients: Colors

This past weekend we met with the fabulous Carla Eustache, who presented us with a style board that will guide all of the creative elements of our wedding.  To say we were blown away is an understatement - Carla totally "got us" and presented us with a look & feel that we love, along with several ideas that I can't wait to see brought to life for the big day.   There were only two ideas - out of several - that we had to veto:

1.  Exiting the reception on segways.  Despite the fact that this would have been hilarious (I giggle every time I think about B & I cruising away in our wedding gear on segways)...this was met with a resounding hell no - sorry Carla :)

2. Having the Chick-Fil-A cow show up at the museum, get ON STAGE with the band and then distribute nuggets at the end of the night.  I mean honestly - this is SO fun...I kind of loved it...but I could tell B was not having any of that.  And I can admit it might not go over well with some of our friends & family.  Great idea...maybe for my 30th birthday (B - take note!).

So, back to the point...the amazing style board, which included our color palette.  We wanted bright, happy colors and Carla totally delivered.  Check out the base colors that we'll be using:

SOOOO excited, can't wait to share more :)

The Ingredients: Photographers

Since photography is SO important to me, I knew I wanted to go ahead and find my wedding photographer right away.  After flipping through a couple of magazines and checking out several local blogs, I found a photographer that I LOVED - Cunningham Photo Artists.  A meeting with Drea Cunningham (one half of this husband & wife team) and I knew I had to book these guys fast.  Not only was Drea super friendly and generally awesome, but she could sense my panic over the planning and took extra time to help me understand how far in advance I needed to contact other vendors and how this whole wedding planning business typically works.  Plus she showed me a video she shot that made me cry.  Sealed the deal :)

Here are some shots from their blog that I adore.   Super excited about shooting with these guys!!!! 

The Ingredients: Ceremony & Reception Sites

Once we decided that we weren't going to run away to Cheeca we started checking out places here in Charlotte.  I immediately nixed the country clubs - they're amazing, don't get me wrong, but I wanted something different.  After a bit of searching we found it.  The most. amazing. reception. site. (in charlotte) EVER.  The new Mint Museum Uptown.  We've got the fifth floor space, which has floor to ceiling windows on one side of the room that give it an amazing view of uptown.  There's also a 4000 square foot terrace.  I can't even imagine how awesome it will be at night!   Here's a link to the video tour the Charlotte Observer put together:  video

Once we found a date that worked for the Mint and our church, St. Peter's Episcopal, we booked both as fast as we could.  I never knew the wedding venue market was so competitive here in Charlotte, but I guess when wedding venues are limited, brides book WAY far in advance.  Even 14 months ahead left us with limited options, insane!   I digress...back to the church.  I've gone to St. Peter's since I was about 11 and I've always dreamed about getting married here.   The church is one of the oldest in Charlotte and still has many of the original details, like the rich wood pews.  The church also has a gorgeous mosaic inside that gives the front of the church a really rich, warm feel.  I know our wedding day will be extra special because of the gorgeous setting.