Wedding Schedule

We're only 20 days from the wedding, 16 from when it all becomes crazy. I thought you would all appreciate from seeing what this month is going to look like.

• Dec. 9th, Best Man, Joe's arriving and staying to help for a month.
• Dec. 16th, my Dad arrives and I have my hair practice run with Gabby in Castle Rock.
  
• Dec 17th, all the guys go to Al's Tux at Flat Irons Mall @ 6pm for their final fittings.
• Dec. 18th, Gina arrives from Chicago, the plain cakes are delivered to Mar to be sculpted, and we have our combined bachelor/ette party in Denver that evening.
  
• Dec. 19th Rehearsal in Boulder @ the church @ 1130am.
  
• Pick up tuxedos from Al's on the way to the
• Rehearsal luncheon 2pm @ Great Scott's Eatery in Broomfield
  
• 430 is when the ladies need to be across the highway at the Mokara spa to get their nails done for the wedding - we head to the hotel from there.
• The guys head over to Martin's place for the night.
  
• Dec 20th A.M. = getting ready for everything at our perspective places.
• 2pm SET-UP - they only have 2 hours between when we can occupy the space and when the ceremony starts. I've put each table's worth of decor in separate bags with cards detailing what goes where and how. There will be about 6 storage containers worth of decor for 3 halls worth of stuff. Nothing hanging, except pew bows - it's all on the tables. If they can't figure out what I'm talking about, they can ask Scarlet or Canadian Rachel. Food goes into the kitchen immediately, Becky is being paid to take care of making sure the food and champagne is set up and served, she's a pro and will grab people to help her if she needs it. Someone will set out the boards and platters, start the hot water and coffee, make the first bowl of punch - she'll take it from there. Scarlet is going to need all the hands she can get to help set everything up. There's chairs to move in the sanctuary, coat racks to move from the Sky Room to the lobby, tables to set up all over and decor to be put out on everything.
  

The flowers from Sturtz and Copeland should show up about then, we only ordered wedding party flowers, mine and the flowergirl's are in Victorian baskets - we did not order decor pieces, nor corsages/boutonnieres for the parents (I handmade those instead, so they can have them as keepsakes.)

Mar and Dwight will be there with the cake @ that time as well - maybe setting up the cake table first would be good, the wedding cake's going to be a lighthouse on a cliff over the ocean and large enough to feed 120 people... the least they have to move it the better. ;)

****In order to get our house back, so that we may more easily accommodate our out of town guests before the wedding, we're taking the completed decor containers and the food bank stuff up to my art space in Boulder. I'm praying someone will be able and willing to go pick it all up and make sure it's all at the church by no later than 1:45pm! No decorating can happen until those bins are at the church, so it's crucial that whoever volunteers is willing to commit to being on time. They'd need to get the warehouse keys from me on Saturday.*****

Ok! So, everything's all set up, John's ready to start playing his set in the sanctuary, people are being seated - the groom's party shows up at 3:30pm, and the bride's party at 3:45pm.
Hopefully we'll have everyone in and seated by 4pm, we'll find out the day before how long it's going to be in reality. There are programs - they are one sheet, folded in half and mostly thank yous.


Now the schedule for the reception.

Beginning somewhere between 445 and 5pm:

1. Ceremony lets out - people are ushered into Sky Room for "Cocktail 1/2hr" and Erika starts the kids songs, invites families to go ahead and start feeding any hungry kids, parents hand out the fairy wings - there's going to be around 30 kids, all between 1 month and 16 yrs old. (We'll all be back in the Sanctuary with Ara taking the professional portraits of everybody.)
2. Wedding Party Intro
3. Grand Entrance of Bride and Groom
4. Eat and Mingle
5. Blessing of the Marriage by Bride's Father
6. Toasts
7. Cake Cutting
8. Bouquet/Garter Tosses
9. First (and only) Dance - they can step in halfway through if they like, we don't have time to do a bunch of different dances.
   
10. Open Dancing
11. 7:00PM Bride and Groom Depart
12. Clean-up to take everything straight over to the hotel.
13. Head to after-party and put everything out on tables all willy-nilly.
14. RELAX and Have FUN!!
    

We have to be out of the church by 9pm, they don't have to be proper in putting everything back into the bins, just make it all fit, it's coming back out at the hotel in less than an hour anyway.

We've reserved two of the suites directly across the hall from the party room at the hotel for changing plus there's an indoor pool and whirlpool included. Our after party is going to be awesome. Here's hoping it doesn't get too big though!

One last, but definitely not least, thing: We need to figure out how to get Gina to DIA in time for an 815pm flight out, the day of - which means she has to leave in the middle of the reception. I'm hoping someone will be willing to help us out, or at least get her on a Boulder bus to DIA on time - we would be forever grateful, she's making a lot of really amazing gifts for everyone attending, as a present to us and is flying out from Chicago just for the weekend.

We're both nervous wrecks. My head's in the clouds and Martin's neck froze up again. On the plus side, my health is swinging up finally and I'm dropping weight fast - while Martin is rapidly making all the changes to his life that he procrastinated for so long.

26 Days!

I'm having the "will I get it all done?" jitters with insomnia.

I think I'm close to the end of my list and someone reminds me of something I forgot.
We're both nervous but I think we're ready for the day to just get here so we can stop spending money, time and energy on it.

I think the fact that I've been very ill for the last year and the medicine/extreme diet I'm now on saps my energy, makes everything seem so much harder right now. At least I know ahead of time that he really will stick with me through sickness and health. (The plus side of this is that I'm dropping weight quickly, though, here's hoping I don't lose too much before the day of and end up making my dress too big for me!)


We're renting a party bus for the combined bachelor/ette party, since neither of us are interested in strippers and the only way to distract our friends from that is to have a bar hop with the driving done for them. Thankfully I can't have any booze because of my illness, so I won't have a hang over the next day for the rehearsal. I can't say the same for Martin, his Best Man, Joe, and my MoH, Stephanie, all of them like a good night out drinking.

The list that's left:

• Stain the bows for the pews with tea to age them and add the ribbons from the wedding to them.
• Put together the slideshow of us as kids and together to play on the wall behind everyone throughout the reception and afterparty. (I'm thinking of scaling down from the projector and just getting a large digital frame instead.)
• finish making the embroidered tablerunner for the cake table (the embroidery is done - I just have to assemble it all.)
• Put together the organization tubs with everything for the decor of the church sanctuary and reception spaces. (I'm not allowed to be there for any of the set-up or tear-down, per the request of my family and friends - so I'm making it super easy on them to put it all together without me.)
• Buy bridal hosiery - the last piece of my undergarments yet to be purchased.
• repaint the bars for the afterparty - we made bars for the Burning Man camp we used to be a part of, I'm sanding down the old paint job and repainting them to reflect us instead of a dusty art camp.)
• Make the signs for the different areas: gift table, birdcage for cards, guest-tree instructions, box of fairy wings, box for food bank donations.
• Talk to my daughter about her hair.
• Confirm spa time for the ladies after the rehearsal luncheon.
• buy booze for after party
• hand out the catering pans for all the food the ladies in our families are making for the wedding.
• buy the biodegrable plates and cups, and the sternos for the hot stuff on the buffet.
• make the chili for the wedding. (I'm making vegan red and pork green.)
• buy the meat with my SiL (my brother's wife) so she can make the turkeys and get everything ready to go. My brother and his family are storing and bringing the majority of the food, as they have an extra fridge in the garage that's currently empty.
• Go to the church before the rehearsal with the photographer and my wedding coordinator for a walk through.
• Go in for my practice hair appt with my veil (which I finished!! w00t! It's perfect, I can't believe I did it - took me 5 hrs to hand stitch the string of pink beads around the edge of the top layer and 2 days to figure out how to make the ribbons work on the combs but it's done! Whew!!)
• Make sure the guys make it in for their tux fittings and to pick them up between the rehearsal and the luncheon.

Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it. I'm normally super OCD and an artist to boot, the caveat that I not show up at the church until 20mins before the ceremony and not help put everything together is hard for me. Since I will not be there to see what I missed, I'm trying to not worry about forgetting anything before hand - this is hard as well. I keep trying to just breathe and remember that having my friends and family put it all together for me will make it even more magical for us when we finally see the big picture manifested.

Glorious!

Since we lost our venue and it was too close to the date to find something that fit our first vision on our current budget, we had to change our vision instead.

I'm beyond pleased to say that this is working out 5000 times better than we imagined it could.

We're now having food at the formal reception and a cocktail after-party at the hotel where all of our out of town guests are staying. We get to use the indoor pool and hot tub and we'll be using the suites directly across the hall from the conference room where the dj and bar will be, the pool is on the same floor and end of the hotel as the conference room and suites, as in so close that the doors to the pool room are adjacent to those rooms doors!


We'll have a party going throughout that part of the hotel me thinks! teehee!!

For the food we're going roast and carve up two turkeys before hand, add ham, roast beef, veggies and cheeses and we have a sandwich board . This would allow us to have a smaller budget, and not have to have too many things need to be hot. I've always enjoyed those, since people can make their own sandwiches according to their diets, we just provide the different kinds of food to go on the sandwich plus different kinds of salad. Have a hot appetizer, like the meatballs and lil smokies and maybe a chili or soup. I can make chili and soup by the gallons without breaking a sweat.

I'm meeting with the women of both families next week to finalize the menu and delegate who's in charge of what dish, we're making everything ourselves and friends of mine in the service industry will take care of making sure everything stays stocked and passing out the champagne for the toasts.

At the hotel, the space is big enough for 80 plus the indoor pool area and two suites across the hall for $330!! O,O (Really?!? WOOOOHOOOO!!)

That should be more than enough for an after-party and it means that we'll be spending about the same amount between the fee and the bar, as we would've if the Pub had stayed open for us. The hotel doesn't have a restaurant and bar, so we get to bring everything in ourselves and have a friend bartending - taking care of the extra expenses much more cheaply than one would normally wracked up at hotels which provide everything for you. It's perfect and I'm glad it happened this way. Now I don't have to worry about drunk drivers coming from my party; anyone who cannot drive can either crash in one of the suites or get one of their own at the front desk.

The older I get the more I appreciate my community and how much easier life is when one isn't set in a specific vision with all the details just so. If it's a bit hazy and nebulous on the edges magic is able to flow and things work out so much better than you ever imagined possible!

Wow! Awesome Cakes!

Our engagement cake ended up in LA Weekly's Food Blog as one of the nerdiest pastries in the universe. LOL I think they're exaggerating a bit... maybe? We're #3 - the people are modeled off of our engagement photos.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/baking/dungeons-dragons-cakes-the-ner/

Mar's also making our wedding cake, which will not be nerdy - it'll be the Pigeon Point lighthouse, with the house attached, on a cliff over a beach and the ocean. No really, that's what she told me and that the lighthouse will light up behind it's sugared glass windows (it's better than the actual lighthouse which doesn't light up at all these days.)

My cake is going to Awesome!

Martin and I in front of Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Last Minute Arghs!

Because the economy has gone down the toilet, the venue for our 2nd reception site had to close for good.
We feel really bad for the owners, that was their lifeblood, their whole income and with a new house and a toddler - this is a horrible time for them to go under. Our prayers are with them as they go through this transition in their lives.

So we don't have any hard feelings toward them, but it certainly put a bunch in our planning panties!

We started looking for something else immediately and have had people all over trying to help.
Every place we've looked so far has been one or more of the following :
A. Too small
B. Too expensive
C. Already Booked
D. Doesn't allow booze and/or food

We're now rearranging our thoughts and plans instead of panicking.

We've decided to go ahead and have food at the formal reception - homemade Church potluck style. We'll still have a box for food donations and we'll still be donating a large amount of food to the UUCB's favored food bank for the holidays.

Right now we're trying to decide what needs to happen and how.
With an actual meal added to the Church events, we can make the other reception an after-party cocktail event with dancing instead of a full-blown second reception.

We go on Friday to talk to the manager of the hotel where we have our out-of-town guests staying. They have a conference room which is ok, but there's an indoor pool down the hall and if we can stretch it between the two (maybe reserve two rooms for people to use as changing stations) - it would work well for us in this capacity AND those staying at the hotel don't have to worry about getting back to it when they are done for the evening.

Hopefully we can get this figured out, then ironed out by the end of this coming weekend. We're running out of time.

As far as everything else goes, we're ahead of schedule on almost all of it. Which is exceedingly happy for me.

Still to do:

I need to get the cakes ordered for Mar (she's a food sculptor, not a baker as she puts it, so we're getting her cakes to sculpt from Whole Foods.)
Make my veil - which I have scheduled for next week on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at my Mom's house.
Finish putting together the centerpieces and attaching the gifts to them.
Finish the guestbook tree and the birdcage for the gift card collection.
Finish the cake table runner.
Put everything in their bins and mark the tubs according to what part of set-up they go to.
(I'm trying to make it super easy to put together without me. Each area gets a tub with everything they need to decorate, a list of what is in it and a diagram of how it all goes.)
Tea dye the sanctuary pew bows and the table runner.
Schedule the guys' haircuts day and the gals' spa day.
Finish the slideshow.
Make the music list for Dodo
Make the menu for the food.
Make the food for the reception.
Print the programs.

That should take up the next month and a half - keep me busy at a nice even pace.
In the meantime, I'm getting my teeth fixed to improve my oral health and going to physical therapy, as well as a pain management doctor, to get my fibromyalgia under control.
I want to look and feel spectacular for my wedding day - after all, I'm hoping I'll only get to do this day once.