We Are Officially at the One Year 'til Our Wedding Mark!

On this day next year we will be getting married. Anyone who ever told me that the time flies sure wasn't kidding. As a re-cap, this is all that we have done in the first six months of our engagement:

1. We have booked our reception and ceremony sites (which includes catering and the bakery for our wedding cake).
2. We have booked our band.
3. We have booked our photographer and videographer.
4. I have ordered my dress.
5. We have chosen the wedding party.
6. We have decided on our centerpieces and purchased the majority of the supplies (minus the flowers and mirrors).

There is still some ridiculous number of tasks that need to be completed but all in all, I say we're in pretty good shape for the most part. In the last few weeks, we have accomplished or at least started several other tasks as well. Here are the most recent updates on what we are currently working on:

Engagement Pictures: We have scheduled our engagement pictures for Wednesday, October 15th with Rick Helman. They will be shot in Cold Springs, NY in the late afternoon. We are hoping for some good light as the sun starts to set.

Officiant: We would really love to have Judge William Franks officiate the wedding ceremony. Judge Franks not only knows my Uncle but also used to be the Chief of Police for Stony Point before being appointed judge so he and Brian's father knew each other pretty well back in the day. The connection to both of our families makes us feel a bit more comfortable than going with someone who has no ties what-so-ever to either one of us. (Thanks to my Uncle Bill for help arranging this!)

Ceremony: We were able to visit Patriot Hills last week as they were tearing down their afternoon wedding set-up. We wanted to go as close to the one year mark of our wedding date as possible to get an idea as to what it looked like in the fall. The last time we visited, it was at the tail-end of winter so the landscape was a bit dreary. I LOVE how it looks in the fall. We were hoping the leaves would have started to change but it's a bit too early for that. Nevertheless, the grounds are beautiful. They have mums in these large urn-like pots and ficus trees surrounding the patio. I'm almost thinking that minimal decorations for the ceremony would be best - a less is more mentality. It really is beautiful all on its own. Once I get the chance, I will upload the photos.

Ceremony Music: We really don't want to spend money on ceremony musicians given that (1) they aren't cheap, and (2) it doesn't seem worth it for the short amount of time that they would play. Luckily, Patriot Hills has speakers set up on their patio where the DJ (that comes along with the Outlaws) can play the music off a CD for us.

Centerpiece Supplies: We got GREAT deals on our centerpiece supplies and I'm pretty proud of myself for being so thrify. As mentioned below, our vases came from Linens 'n Things at 50% off. The river rock was more than 50% off (got each bag for less than $1.00) and the votives were on sale in twelve packs for 50% off as well (worked out to be roughly $0.33 per votive and holder). Both were bought at Michael's. The newest excitement came when I found the floating candles for dirt cheap at Quick Candles. Even with shipment, they came to less than $1.00 per candle. So the only thing left for the centerpieces are to find cheap 12" round mirrors and pick which stems we want to submerge. I'm really excited about these.

That is all for now! We will be looking for hotel blocks, florists and limo companies next. Before the end of this year, we hope to have created and mailed our save-the-dates.

Second Centerpiece Mock-Up

Over the weekend, I decided to test out another option for our centerpieces. I stuck with the candle theme and ended up really liking the end result.

I always thought that flowers submersed in water in cylinder vases with floating candles look very elegant. After finding an incredible deal on cylinder vases (each set of three was only $10.00 at Linens 'n Things) - I decided to give it a go. We stopped at a local florist and picked half a dozen or so random stems to see how they would work out. We used a handful of the river rock from the first centerpiece mock-up to line the bottoms of the vases. Then, we added the stems and water and topped it off with the floating candles.

Here is the result:

I think this centerpiece affords us more options price-wise as we can forgo flowers all together, choose silk stems or real stems. Luckily, we have a connection with a wholesale flower distributor so we can try to price out what the most affordable option will be.

After a few hours driving throughout New Jersey, countless issues with Mapquest, an almost dead cell-phone and visiting 4 Linens 'n Things stores, I was finally able to stock up on the amount we needed by clearing out their Totowa and Butler store shelves. It was a productive, wedding-related Saturday.

Memorial Candle Mock-Up

As a tribute to those of our close relatives who passed before us, we will be setting up memorial candles at the reception. It is our way of reflecting upon the great impact they had in our lives on account of their love and unwavering support.

The actual candles will be placed in large cylinder vases. I will be creating a wrap to go around the cylinder vase in translucent (or vellum) paper. The front part of the wrap will be the same layout for all relatives. It will contain a picture and the name of our loved ones, along with various other sentiments. On the back part of the wrap will be a saying or poem, personalized to the individual. The translucent paper works nicely as it is heavy enough to hide the candle in the vase but is light enough to allow the glow of the candle to shine through to the outside.

Here is a mock-up of the first wrap that I did. I have blurred out my grandfather's last name for privacy purposes. There is still some minor tweaking to be done (maybe some font changes) but this is the basic format for the candles:

I Ordered My Gown!

One big item was checked off of my wedding checklist today - I ordered my dress! The most I will say about it is that it is a Maggie Sottero. The turnaround time on getting Maggie Sottero dresses in-store is roughly 10-12 months so I'm not ridiculously crazy in ordering this early. I'm very excited to get this out of the way! In the interest of being discrete (i.e. keeping it from Brian), I will not post pictures but if you want to see a picture I took at the bridal salon, let me know!