Rehearsal Dinner Dilemmas...

Since even well-oiled machines don’t always run smoothly, I need to tell you about a little “snafu” that we ran into about a week and a half before our wedding. From the title of the post, you can probably guess that it had to do with our Rehearsal Dinner. I wrote about the triumphant booking of our rehearsal dinner here, and here I showed you the super cute invitations that I made to invite our family and friends to the dinner.

Well, all was going along well...until October 13th or so. You see, we were supposed to call the Johnny Carino’s that we booked to have our RD at two weeks before the event to secure the date. And then we were supposed to call them back the week of the event and place our order for food. Knowing the time line that I was working with, I mailed the invites and had an RSVP date on there of October 16th...a week out from the RD. But one little thing happened. I should have called Johnny Carino’s on the 9th to secure everything. But I was busy on the 9th. So I didn’t think about it again until the 12th, and I was busy again, so I asked B to make the call for me.

He forgot to do it, but remembered on the 13th...and then called me in a panic. Never fear, Johnny Carino’s had not taken us off of their schedule, but somehow it never came up when B was booking the room there that the room only holds 30 people. Hmmm...there were 45 on our guest list for the RD. Bad news, huh? Oh, just wait, it gets worse. On further conversation with the guy at Carino’s, B was told that the guy that had promised that this would be no problem to secure and hold was no longer there and they had no record of our event. Not that big of a deal, since the room wasn’t booked for anything else and we could just re-book the room. But the seating capacity WAS a problem...

We were getting RSVPs in the mail for the RD, but hadn’t heard from half of our guests yet. So we didn’t know for sure that we needed space for 45 people. And to my recollection, the room wasn’t a separate room with doors or anything, there were just low half-walls separating that area from the general dining area. So how hard could it be to seat the remaining “overflow” guests at tables right on the other side of those low walls? I would think not that hard.

That’s what I get for thinking. The guy from Carino’s that was slowly destroying my carefully laid out plans further informed B that since this was a Friday evening at 7pm, he was not included to “hold” seats for our party in general seating. Pretty much, they just weren’t working with us.

I tried to calm B down, a pretty hard task let me tell you! I saw several options:

1 – verify our guest list – maybe we wouldn’t even have 30 guests say yes
2 – if there were just a few more than 30, a table for 6 might be easier to “hold” next to our low walls than a table for 15
3 – change venue – either pick another restaurant in the same shopping center (there are several) or change to the Carino’s in San Marcos all together. Most of the guests were local, but the others could be given a map at the rehearsal.
4 – last, but not least, have Carino’s cater the event and hold the dinner at the venue. Which wasn’t the best option, because at this point we didn’t even know if we could rehearse, let alone dine, at the venue.

I quickly listed those options, but B was being stubborn and he didn’t like any of them. We finally settled on option 1 and started calling our respective family and friends. After an hour of phone calls, we were down to 36 guests...YEA!...but no real solution on the seating problem. Carino’s was being firm on not holding tables and not putting more than 30 in the room.

So I took matters into my own hands. I called the Johnny Carino’s in San Marcos and surprisingly got the catering manager, Casey on the first try. She was MORE than accommodating, being quick to assure me that their private room was an actual room by itself and held up to 50 people. We worked on the menu while I had her and within 10 minutes she sent me an invoice for an estimated cost. Whew! That was WAY easier. I quickly re-worked the maps that I had made for the RD, and felt settled by the time that B called me back. He wasn’t really thrilled that I handled the situation that way, but what could we do? There were several guests that we couldn’t reach and I saw no other alternative.

By the time that I got home that night, he was fine with my “executive decision” and the world was at peace again. Now I just needed to change my maps...and spread the word about the last minute change. No problem, right?

Well...just a small problem...more to come about the actual night soon! Hopefully with pictures, since I took NONE during the entire rehearsal dinner! I’m a bad bride...

Having an "Epiphany"

I’ve mentioned a time or two (or twenty) that one of our groomsmen is getting married a short two weeks after our own wedding. We’re thrilled and touched that he and his fiance will be making the trip out to Texas to stand up with “us” so soon before their own wedding. Now that I’m less than three weeks out from my own wedding, I can’t imagine taking time off of work (and wedding planning) to spend three or four days in another state at someone else’s wedding.

I know it’s probably not that big of a deal to the groom-to-be...but I feel for the bride-to-be! Seriously, I do. It means so much to us that they’ll be here for us on our special day, and of course, we’re returning the favor and going to their wedding in November. (Remember this is the trip that we combined for our honeymoon?)

Anyway, last week in the mail, we got their wedding invitation. It was stunning. Simple, elegant, and very them – if that makes sense. In addition to the wedding invitation itself, there was of course, an RSVP card. Now, you all know with my own frustrations in the forefront of my mind dealing with RSVP cards, I was quick to take the RSVP card right then and there and mark “Accepts” right away.

And then something nearly magical happened. On the line where you write the name of the person sending the RSVP for...it struck me that I would literally be RSVPing as Mr. and Mrs. First Name Last Name.

WOW.

I’ve read from other bridal blogs and all about having that moment when it really hits you that this deal is almost here. That it’s really going to happen, and things change after that moment. This was my “Holy Cow!” moment for realizing that the wedding was taking place. Seems like something so small to bring about such an epiphany of a moment, but you know how it goes.

I proudly wrote our names...and then started jumping up and down like a school girl and yelling at B to come and look. He’s a good groom and he got what I was excited about right away. Because in reality, by the time that we attend their wedding we will be a Mr and Mrs. How cool is that?!?!

I know, you’re not as excited as I am, but this was my moment to realize that we’re almost there. And it was pretty darn exciting for me!

Have you had your moment yet? What set it off? Something small and mundane or something bigger and more important? I’d love to hear about it!

RSVPs...The Initial Counts

So...our deadline for our RSVPs passed the other day. And then I waited a few days for those guests who might have mailed their invitations on the day of the deadline, or even a day after the deadline passed. And this is what we’re left with:

105 guests replied
93 guests did NOT reply

And that number that represents those that have not replied? It actually has 1 bridal party member and a butt-ton of family members in it. Not to mention people that we work (or used to work) with on a daily basis. What is with people?!?

I ask that question as someone who has been that person that didn’t RSVP before. Hell, I’ve even shown up at a party that I was supposed to RSVP for and didn’t! Yeah, I’ve committed all of the Emily Post no-no’s and I live to tell about it. I wouldn’t recommend doing things that I’ve been known to do in the past, but I will vow in the future to do a better job from here on out. Seriously. Now I know why that RSVP is so important to the person planning the party. I get it. Loud and clear. The message was sent, and received with no interruptions in service.

So now what?

Now I’ve got a list of people that we need to track down and get an answer from. Lucky for me, I was smart and I built in some “track down” time in our timeline since I knew that this would happen. The final head count isn’t due to our caterer and our baker until next week for changes to the food menu choices. And did you notice that I said “WE” would be tracking these people down? Yep. I did.

I’m going to rely heavily on B and our moms to help us track down the people that haven’t replied just yet. I think that between the four of us, it will just mean each of us having to contact a few people, but of course, I’ll just have my mom track down her family that hasn’t responded...and FMIL will track down only her family that hasn’t responded yet. B can take our friends outside of work, and I’ll take the people that we work with. Hopefully, between the 4 of us, we can get this done within a few days.

Then I can turn in final counts to our caterer. And adjust the number of cakes ordered, if needed. I can also adjust the rental items in number...and begin on the seating chart. See how important this little RSVP is?!?! I really had no idea...just didn’t get it before now.

How did you tackle tracking down the people who didn’t respond? Any words of advice for me on how to word things? I’d love to hear from you!

The "Waiting Game"

Oh my goodness...other brides are right – checking the mail is SO much fun! No, not everyday is fun, but when you’ve spent countless hours working on your invitations, and then you send them off in the mail, you start to anxiously await the RSVPs in the mail. Other brides have written about how much fun they have going to the mail box, and they’re right! It’s a blast.

You see, I don’t normally check my mail everyday. We have a PO Box in town near my office for most of the bills, and then get mainly junk mail at home. So, I try to stop and collect the bills once or twice a week and then we check the mail box at the house even less frequently. Until now! Now, I’m checking that bad boy each and every mail day!

source

For the first few days it was one or two at a time. Then one day I got none. The next day there were three...and the following day there were EIGHT! I was so excited to take each one home and check it out. See who was planning on attending and who might not be. And this was a big question for us, because like most brides out there today, I invited more people than we really have space for at our venue. I figure this is ok, since the average acceptance rate is around 75%, right? Even though I know this, and I’ve talked to plenty of other brides, friends, family and vendors...I was still sweating when the first 15 or so RSVPs were all marked “yes.”

That’s good news, don’t get me wrong. But I’ll also admit that there was a little sigh of relief to get a few that were marked “no” as well.

But let me ask you this question. Now that the initial rush seems to be passing, is it normal to experience a lull or lag in responses? There are still almost two full weeks before the deadline that was printed on the RSVP passes, but I didn’t get one single note all weekend long. Not Friday. And not Saturday. That is perplexing to me. I have a theory though, and to me it seems that the longer people wait to respond back...the greater the chance is that they’re not coming. Did you find that to be true?

The bride inside of me that over-invited is a little relieved. But the bride inside me that wants a good turn-out is a little worried. I think that it’s normal to get a rush of responses right at the beginning and then a rush of responses more towards the deadline...but this waiting game is killing me! Lucky for me, when I collected addresses to build our database, I also collected phone numbers and email addresses. Yes, I fully expect to have to track people down to get an answer out of them. And that’s ok. I was one of those people for Maid Britney’s wedding last year. I’m a tad bit ashamed to admit the fact now, but I was one of those guests that had to be emailed (or IMed) to see if we were attending or not.

Now that I’m the bride, and I know all that rests on the number of guests coming to your wedding, I don’t think that I’ll ever be that person again. I vow right now to always send my RSVP in before the deadline...and as soon as I can, to be honest.

Did you experience this too? A rush of RSVPs hitting your mailbox right away...and then a little pause? How many people did you have to “track down” to get an answer our of? Just wondering...

Assembling the Invitations

This is when MOH came into the picture. I knew that she was coming that next weekend, so I spent the next few nights making my cuts and measurements and getting all the pieces cut out and ready to assemble. (I had taken the advice of many others before me and left the lines on the text boxes just in light grey and a light point to use for cutting guides – smartest thing EVER!) I even managed to get the pieces of the invitation that were to be mounted on the black cardstock mounted and cut down before she got there too, so I was busy! So this is what she arrived to see: Once she was there, the process was simple. Just assembly. Here is the invite all mounted and pretty on the paper... See? It’s lacking something. Good thing that big space left was the spot that I had left there on purpose for my stamp and embossing! Here it is all dressed and finished...Because of the pearly quality to the paper, I ended up having to use both black ink and black embossing powder to do this. Most brides will recommend colored ink and clear embossing powder, as the powder does tend to “scatter” a bit...but that didn’t work on my paper. It came out silver, instead of black.

Once MOH and I did the embossing on the invites, MOH pointed out that the RSVP card, although pretty...lacked something. Maybe that same panache that the outer envelopes had lacked? Possibly. We decided to play around with some extras, and this is what we came up with...Before... And After. It’s the same stamp, just not embossed. It turned out silver (like I mentioned earlier), but was still very pretty – especially when we put the stamps on and the color went nicely with the polar bear colors of the postcard stamp.

Once the RSVP cards were all stamped, we were almost ready to rock and roll and get the assembly line under way. First though, we had to find a spot to number the RSVP cards. Since I took the lazy route and didn’t fill in each guest’s name on the RSVP card, I needed to make sure that I knew who was mailing which RSVP card in case they didn’t write their name in the blank. This was a GENIUS idea that I’ve seen over and over on weddingbee and something that I probably wouldn’t have thought to do otherwise. Can you see it?

How about now?
The ONLY place that we thought that it didn’t really stand out and glare up at you was on the stamp itself. We didn’t know what the Post Office would say about it, but we crossed our fingers and hoped that they would notice it as much as our guests would...which was to NOT notice it! I guess it worked, as they’ve been arriving each day in my mailbox...

Did you follow other brides' advice and number your RSVPs too? How did that work out of you? How many guests forgot to fill in their name? Maybe we're doing all this work for nothing!

To RSVP or Not to RSVP...

We’ll take another quick break for some snapshots of Little CC’s b-day party this past weekend. How is this wedding-relevant, some of you out there might ask? Well, technically, it’s not. But in a round-about way, it IS. You see, little CC’s 7th birthday party taught me a thing or two about RSVPing for parties. And that includes weddings.

Let me back-track one quick moment. Last year, little CC’s party stunk. I did it where she wanted (Chuck E Cheese, and yes, I deserve a medal) but I didn’t let her invite all of her friends from school. I can’t remember my reasoning at the time, but I just didn’t. Instead, Mr. CC and I opted to go the safe route and just invited some of our friends that have kids. What we didn’t realize is that all of our friends with kids have boys. So, yes, the party was what she wanted and where she wanted, but there were no girls at her party. (There was actually one girl present, but as she was barely walking, little CC didn’t count her!) Needless to say, the party was a bit of a disappointment to little CC. And I vowed to do better this year.

This year, I pulled out all the stops. Found a cool place, let little CC pick the theme (Scooby-Doo), and sent out about 30 invitations to both her school classmates and her day care classmates. And then waited…

The Tuesday night before her Saturday party I was wide awake at 4am. (If you’re wondering if this is normal, YOU try to plan a wedding while working full-time and then throw into the mix a birthday party and tell me how much sleep YOU get!) So there I am, trying my darndest to get back to sleep, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s Tuesday…and not ONE SINGLE PERSON has called in for her party. Oh no. Do you mean to tell me that out of 30 people, NO ONE is coming?!?!?!? Oh, the horrors…the nightmares…I just didn’t think that I could face another bad birthday party on my shoulders.

So the next day, amid a full blown panic, I set about trying to somehow solve the problem. In comes BM Britney to the rescue. She comes up with the sweet idea to send a reminder “flyer” to little CC’s school the next day (which was the last day of school, thus making coordinating all of this a bit harder) to remind the parents and kids about the party on the weekend. Excellent idea, love you much BM Britney!

In about 10 minutes, I had designed, written and printed out a rough draft of something that would work. I sized it down so that 4 reminders printed per sheet of paper, and I took advantage of our color copies at work to run a few extras. I trimmed the papers down to size and the next day when I delivered the cupcakes to little CC’s class, we put one in each mailbox.

Being not-so-sneaky, I also tried to talk with the kids that were sitting around us while I was there and ask them if they were planning on coming to little CC’s party. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long…as I got responses anywhere from yes, to no, to “I have to go to the library that day.” I kid you not, a little girl actually told me the one about the library. So, with strict instructions to little CC to pass out the remaining reminders at day care, I left it up to the fates.

And I’ll be honest here. On Thursday night, when I got the first RSVP phone call, I did a funky-monkey happy dance. If you don’t know what that is…then I can’t help you at all. I literally did a dance of joy around the kitchen. Probably looked like a freak, but I didn’t care. A little girl WOULD be at the party on Saturday. Over the next day or so, I got 4 more such calls, and was very comfortable with 5 confirmed attendees for the party. My mom’s rule of thumb (while comforting me about all of this) was that twice as many who call will show up, so I was prepared for 10 kids all together. And we had 9. Of course, 2 of them were little brothers, but that’s ok. I’ll count them too.

Here’s some pics of the festivities…

I'm not sure about her smile here...kinda scary!

I could NOT get her to give me a "real" smile...

So what does all of this have to do with my wedding? I have learned how important it is to call and say you’ll be there and mean it. I learned this lesson so well, that I had a wedding RSVP on my kitchen table waiting for a decision from Mr. CC and I on it. That card that some bride sweated over and addressed and stamped went in the mail this morning. Yes, it was two days late. But hopefully she followed the standard rule of thumb and put the deadline for a response a week before she actually needed it.

It’s important for the person planning the even to know what to plan for. I get that now. Yes, it’s taken 32…nearly 33 years…but once the lesson’s learned, hopefully it’s here to stay. So I vow right now to not ever not RSVP again…

I’ll leave you with this cute picture of Mr. CC and little making fruit faces…just too cute to not include!
Do you appreciate it when people RSVP to you? Or are you able to stay sane and plan your shindig without relying on that little phone card/postcard response? If you are, please be ok with the fact that I hate you just a teensy bit…LOL!

Making a tough call...

So we did what any self-respecting couple would do. We took a day or so to weigh our options. We talked through all of the scenarios that I had envisioned as a couple, and made our decisions once we had all of the information at hand that we needed in order to make that decision.

This, of course was done AFTER I had consulted two of my closest friends for their advice first…don’t hate me honey! A girl has to talk things through with another girl (or two) before she comes to you…that helps eliminate options. Because even though it was presented to you with just four options of what to do, there were actually 7 or 8 things that could have happened. I just did the hard work of eliminating the REALLY far out ones first!

So what that being said, Mr. CC really shocked me with the option that he chose.

Mr. CC and I agreed to simply change the reception hall that we had selected and stay with TOT and our original date of October 24th. I was really worried about us selecting this option for several reasons. The main thing that worried me was that this wedding isn’t just about me, it’s OUR wedding, and Mr. CC’s initial reaction upon walking into Redbud Hall just kept standing out in my head, the immediate “No, this won’t work” kinda leaves a lasting impression on a girl. I know that a lot of grooms out there aren’t concerned with the details, but as long as Mr. CC is showing interest in the details, then I want to include him as much as possible and this is a big part of the overall wedding/reception.

But when we sat down and talked it through, Mr. CC was quick to assure me that his initial reaction was based on the size of the hall alone. He thought that it was too small, and this could be for several reasons.

One – he’s right, it IS the smallest hall that TOT has to offer. With a max guest count of 160 (with a dance floor), Mr. CC is worried that we won’t be able to invite all the people that we want to have there and still have room to breathe.

Two – it didn’t show well. The hall still had tables and chairs set up from the last party that had been held there, which took up some the viewing room. I know, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, there will be tables and chairs out in the room during our wedding/reception. You’re right. But when you’re just viewing a venue and both of the other halls have tables and chairs out of sight or pushed back along the wall, it makes a difference in the overall impression.

Now that I knew what the worry was, I could set about seeing if it was justified, which meant going back to the rough guest list that I had put together several months ago. This was something that I had not previously gone over with Mr. CC, so it was a good exercise to sit down and do. I made a database with all the names and contact information that I had of everyone that I thought that we would invite to the wedding. Along with this information, I put in a head count of both adults and children, and then totaled it all up neat and tidy at the bottom. I then applied what I’m hearing is a good rule of thumb for invites, 75% acceptance rate, and got a good guesstimate at the attendance for our wedding/reception.

Mr. CC’s biggest worry was that we would have to leave some people uninvited. But as it stands today, our guest list it right at 160 people (children included) and if only 75% are able to come to the shindig, then that puts us at around 120 on the big day. Which is more than enough room for Redbud Hall.

With that worry relieved from his mind, Mr. CC was MORE than happy to go ahead and go with Redbud Hall. We know that there will be some additions to our guest list as we remember people (family) that we’ve “accidentally” left off…and that’s ok. Heck, if everyone shows up, then I’ll rent some extra tables and open the doors wide and throw all the kiddos outside….as it stands today, there are 39 of them on the guest list…and let’s be honest – they’d have more fun outside anyway!