One Lucky Girl…and One “Excited” Guy!

Isn’t that how you should refer to the catchers of the bouquet and garter? At most weddings, the participation on the girls side of things is usually a lot more…willing, shall we say? The girl that catches the bouquet usually is excited to get it and feels lucky that she caught it. But the guy that catches the garter? More often than not, you might see them tugging at their tie only minutes later…LOL!

And that’s sort of how I felt about this part of the reception. I would really have been ok just skipping this whole toss tradition…but B wouldn’t hear about it. He wanted the chance to embarrass his single guy friends…not to mention the “fun” of taking my garter off! So, despite my best arguments against it, we kept this one in the line-up.

I can’t tell you for sure when it happened. It was in the middle of all of the dancing…maybe about an hour before we left for the night? But it just seemed easier to slip this in my recaps right here before I start the dancing pictures…so here you go!

First up, the ladies. There were quite a few out there to form the mob…even if it looks like maybe some of them are a bit “underage” to catch a bridal bouquet! No, I’m not sure what that look on my face is about either…I know that Christina wanted me to do a few “practice” throws for the pictures, so maybe that’s what I was doing…who knows? And then I let it go… Our friend, Nicole, was the lucky one that night! And she was SO excited to get it! Now I don’t know about you, but I think that the groom gets a LOT of enjoyment out of the garter toss…even if the guys catching it don’t really! I’m doing my best to keep my dress down (due to the cameras) and he’s doing his best to reach on in there! Luckily for me, it just took a few “looks” to get good behavior out of my groom, and the garter was almost off… He’s victorious! And as you can see, the group of guys waiting to “catch” the garter is MUCH smaller…with only two that should really be catching it! B did a few practice throws too… Now I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like the younger guys are working harder to get it than the two that actually count! And the outcome was pretty hilarious! Looks like neither one of them really wanted it!

The funny thing is that the two that caught it are a real-life couple friend of ours…so it was completely appropriate that they were the winners! And even though I’d like to add a post script to tell you that catching the bridal bouquet DOES in fact work as far as getting you a proposal…I can’t do that. They are still together, happily, but no ring in sight at this time…much to her dismay! I’m sure that it’s coming, Nicole, be patient!

**All photos courtesy of Christina Carroll Photography

Need to catch up? Here’s some links:
Girls’ Spa Day
Bachelor/Bachelorette Party
Setting Up the Venue…
Practice Makes Perfect…
Rehearsal Dinner
5 Minutes is All that I Need
A “Quick” Stop at the Hair Salon
A Sneak Peek at the Venue...
Arriving at the Venue...to Stay!
Getting Dressed
The Maids Pose for the Camera...
Oops - I’m Out of Order!
The Boys Smile and Say “Cheese!”
It’s Show Time!
Here Comes the Bride!
Becoming Man and Wife...
We’re Man and Wife!
Family Pictures
Now THAT’S Love!
The “Group” Says Cheese!
Now It’s Just Us...
It’s the Smallest Things...
Here Comes the Bride! And Groom!
Raise Your Glasses...
Our Cake Buffet
The Great Cake Cutting Debate
We Danced...
Two More Special Dances...

Thank You Notes...

They’re done! Whew! That feels good to write. Seriously, it does. You cannot as a bride-to-be imagine or fathom the amount of thank you notes there are to write after the wedding is over. Seriously, you can’t. Trust me. But there are a lot.
I had set a goal in my mind that I wanted to try to have them all out before we left on our honeymoon. That might seems unreasonable to some, but remember that we had 10 days between wedding day and when we were set to leave on our honeymoon. And once I found out that B fully intended to help with this task, I put him to work on his fair share of thank you notes to write!

I’d like to say that they ALL got done before we left. But I’d be a liar. What I can say is that MOST of them got done before we left. And most of them were mailed the day that we left, which is good too. I would hate to have finished them off and then left them at home awaiting postage while we were gone. And I guess since we did stamp them and post them on a VERY busy day, I was relieved to only have one come back to me missing postage. Must have been stuck to the one in front of it – Oops!

But that straggler is on it’s way today, along with the ones that I didn’t finish before we left. Some brides might choose to go the route of writing the hardest ones first to get them out of the way, right? Not this bride. I saved those special ones for the end...knowing that there was more that I wanted to say than I was capable of saying right away. But luckily for me, those last few were the ones to my best gals and my mom...and surely they’ll understand the wait. I hope so, anyway.

When I finished those last few up yesterday, I opened my wedding database to check them off as being done and I saw a name or two that I don’t think that we did. Some intangible gifts that need to still be addressed formally...the friend that rented the limo...one of the shipped gifts that didn’t come wrapped with a card...just little things like that. (Since I organized the thank you cards using the cards that came on the gifts, me missing these last two were totally understandable!) And then there are the two or three gifts that we received while out in CA helping our Best Man get married off. We weren’t expecting to receive more gifts!

So I wrapped those stragglers all up tonight, and put them in the mail drop this morning. I feel better having this all done. How about you? Did you feel a sense of relief once this task was finished? Did you drag your feet getting it done? Or attack them aggressively in order to have them off fast, like I did?

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...

Tips from My Mom...

I was tickled pink to hear from my mom the other day. Yes, I normally love to hear from her, as we’ve evolved into a friendship-relationship which is more than the mother-daughter relationship...but this call was ESPECIALLY cool because she was calling me about my quilt guestbook project. My mom is cool, and she reads my blog, which touches me more than words can express, and she will usually talk to me about the ideas that I’ve posted about and to check in on how my MANY, MANY, MANY crazy DIY projects are going.

No, my projects aren’t crazy. I’m the crazy one for doing them all!

Anyway, apparently there is a lady that my mom works out with that is a phenomenal quilter. Let me back up. My mom CAN sew, but she CHOOSES not to. Unless forced. At gunpoint. Or something else drastic like being held at gunpoint. That creative gene that I got skipped over my mother from her mom and landed right on me. Which is cool for me. The really funny thing is that my mom can envision things a LOT better than I can...so often, when I’m thinking about doing a sewing project, I can take the pattern and the materials to my mom and she can envision it (which I CAN’T do) and tell me what needs to be different. So back to my story...

Apparently, this friend of hers had been out of town when I first posted about the quilt guestbook, so my Mom waited oh-so-unpatiently for her return. When she got back into town and showed up at the gym that first day, my Mom pounced on her with my project and all the questions that she had for her friend. I literally got an image in my head as she was telling me this story of my Mom lying in wait at the door until her friend came through and my Mom jumping out and surprising her...just too funny.

This friend shared some tips for me, which I will in turn share with you...because chances are that if you’re reading this blog you’re a bride, or a friend of a bride, and maybe they’re thinking about doing something along these lines. I just thought that her ideas were really good – too good to keep to myself.

1. Be sure to use a marker that is specifically for quilting projects – you can either find them online or in most craft stores. My Mom’s friend suggested that I go to an actual quilting store to find them, but there weren’t any stores like that closer than 20 miles away in North Austin. So, I did what any self-respecting bride on a mission would do – I googled it. Sure enough, you can find all sorts of online stores selling the markers and read all kinds of reviews on said markers. Once I had two brands in mind, I went to my nearby JoAnn’s on my lunch hour and sure enough, in the quilting notions, they carried one of the brands that I had found online. I bought one.

2. I had been told by several people (not just my little sister) that a Sharpie marker would work...apparently sometimes they bleed too much or don’t write as well on the fabric or fade. So you’re better off going with a special permanent marker for fabric – and they’re only about $3, so the price is right. This is the one that I got.

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3. Line the back of your signing pieces with Freezer Paper. Just regular old freezer paper from Reynolds. (It even says “use for arts and crafts” on the box!) Iron the slick side (not the paper-ish side) to the muslin with an iron that’s hot without steam. The paper will “stick” to the fabric and give the fabric a little more weight and strength for people to sign on. It’s hard to write on a moving target like fabric! The paper is easily removed when you’re ready to sew them in by simply “peeling” it off of the back of the fabric.

4. Mentioning hard to write on, my Mom’s friend also suggested setting up a “practice area” for people to use the pens and get a feel for writing on the fabric, since it is different than paper.

5. Along those same lines, she suggested either stationing someone there at the table to answer the questions that are bound to come up, or having clear and concise directions posted at the table.

6. Not using the larger open pieces as the signature spots. I had posted here about being unsure about where to have our guests sign in, and this quilter said that there is usually too much actual quilting done on those spots for this pattern for those larger pieces to work for me. Good thing that I had already changed my mind on that one, huh?

I think that’s it. The only other thing that I read on the boards was that muslin was your best bet for a fabric choice and a project like this. I also read several reviews telling readers to “heat set” the signature pieces after they’re signed and before you wash them or sew them into the quilt. This means that once the signature pieces are all signed, that you would basically iron them again in order to “set” the permanent ink in. I think that I’ll do a trial run on this process this week and make sure that using the right pens, the right fabric and heat setting will mean that those signatures WILL stay on the fabric. Even after washing. I would hate to go through all of this trouble to make a signature wedding quilt just to have the signatures lost the first time that I wash the quilt!

I’ll be sure to let you know how the trial goes when I get around to doing it.

Anyone else have any other thoughts or tips of advice for this project? I was thrilled that my Mom went to all the trouble to talk to other people more knowledgeable than either herself or me about this topic!

A Non-Traditional Guest Book…

So if you haven’t picked up on it yet, I’m not really a traditional sort of girl. Don’t get me wrong, I like to be girly-girly and I like to follow tradition just like anyone else. But more often than not, I also like to march to my own beat. I have always been very self-confident and knew what I wanted, what I liked and didn’t like, and it never really mattered to me whether you thought I was cool or not. I thought I was cool, and I knew that was most important.

With that in mind, why would a traditional guest book work for my wedding? You’re right, it won’t. I want something a little more than just a book that everyone signs to say that they’re here to share this special day with us. They’re nice and all, and please don’t hear that I’m knocking traditional guest books, because I’m not. It’s just not what I want for my guest book.

I’ve known this for a few months, and started keeping my eyes open for some inspiration on what I could do differently for this aspect of our wedding. I wanted something out of the ordinary, something that truly reflected us and who we were, and definitely something more than a book that I’d probably never look at again.

I’ve seen several things that I like. I LOVE the big poster board type of thing that everyone can sign. Using an engagement picture and making it big enough to frame in your “new” house. Cute.

I’ve also seen the ever-popular photo booths and one bride who required all guests to be snapped in the photo booth and given a card to sign. She then arranged all the strips of photo booth pictures with the notes that were handwritten into a type of coffee table book. She gets points for originality in my book...and with my love of scrapbooking, this was an early front runner for me. Which also led me to consider the idea of actual scrapbook pages set out for guests to sign that I could incorporate into a photo book of our wedding. Also a good idea, and now that I’m getting more familiar with Photoshop, this could work for me.

But that didn’t really stand out for me. Until I came across the idea of signing fabric. (I SO wish that I could remember where I got this idea! But I can’t credit the originator since I can’t remember…but this is NOT my original idea.) With another of my hobbies being sewing…this one sparked my curiosity. What if I laid out pieces of fabric for my guests to sign and then later worked those “scraps” of “paper” into a quilt. I’ve made several blankets and quilts and am now working on a bedspread for my room…

Hmmm…the idea takes hold…and continues to grow.

I’ve been looking into the thought a little more, and so far, most fabric professionals (read ladies who work at JoAnn’s) have told me that muslin would work the best for signing. And my little sister assures me that a sharpie pen would work for ink that won’t run. And I’ve found the pattern that I would want to use…what is more fitting than the wedding ring pattern? Here’s a picture so that you can visualize along with me…

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Picture this quilt pattern made with scraps of black and cream fabrics forming the rings…and in the middle of each ring is the swatch of cloth that our wedding guests signed. They can just sign their names, they can write words of advice, and they can even draw me a picture (keep it clean, folks!). These scraps can be worked into a quilt later at my convenience, which I like since this is one wedding project that won’t be totally finished BEFORE the wedding.

Here's a close-up of each circle - you can clearly see the area in the middle where guests could "sign in"

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I LOVE this idea! (I think that I’ve written that A LOT these past few posts!)

I think that I’ll go ahead and find all the patterned material and try to make up one ring that can be displayed at the wedding to give everyone an idea of what I’m trying to accomplish. Building a quilt that each guest signed a piece of just resonates deep inside me as something that is meant for me and just “right” for our wedding somehow. This would be an ongoing symbol of the love that others feel for us; that they cared enough to come to our wedding day and share in our joy. I love it, love it, love it.

I even came up with a little poem that I could display on the table where you would “sign in” the other night as I was trying (unsuccessfully) to drift off to sleep. Stinks for me that I was then successful in falling asleep and I’ve since forgotten the poem. It was perfect…Maid Britney assures me that I’ll remember it again. Let’s cross our fingers!

I’ve borrowed my mom’s pinking shears to cut the washed muslin into the “scraps” for our guests to sign…they’re special because they come from my step-dad’s mother. What a nice touch to be able to use a family heirloom in making one of my wedding projects – my own personal hot glue gun that I’ve had for years doesn’t really qualify!

Do you think that doing something this untraditional just puts “our mark” on our wedding that much more? Is this a great way to incorporate something that I love to do into our wedding?

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!