1. Chosen the caterer (still have to fill out the paperwork)
2. Created our wedding website
3. Created our Save the Dates
4. Created our invitations and had them approved by family
5. Decided on our bridal party (but need to tell everyone still)
Wow, and it wasn't even that hard. My favorite part about wedding planning so far is spending time with Mr. T and watching him get so excited about wedding stuff. He isn't one of those slouch grooms that don't care and it is really important to me that he gives input.
Catering: We went on three caterer tastings total. One was a little more expensive and all inclusive. Another was mid range and "newer", and one was pretty inexpensive but still all inclusive. We found that the best food was with the mid range company. The least expensive company was the worst food in my opinion. The best deals with rentals was with the least expensive company because they own it all and can cut you a deal. The other two have to rent their stuff so they charge you full price. We went with the mid range company which was the tasting I posted in pictures. We feel so good about this company, they are a super nice husband and wife team and I fully trust my wedding to them. It wasn't the least expensive but still in our budget. Word of advice: do not even step foot in any caterers business without first getting a basic proposal. Once you go down there prices go up when the details are added. It will just be frustrating if the whole thing is above your budget from the start. Here is our caterer:
Save the Dates: Next up we created our Save the Dates. More than half of our guest list is coming from out-of-town and we want to give people advance notice so they could come! We decided we didn't want anything formal for the Save the Date so we took one of our beautiful engagement pictures and created a postcard with it. I found a company by advice of other bloggers called Overnight Prints that does custom postcards for a song. I am pretty good at design so I created the postcard in Microsoft Publisher and then saved it as a JPEG. You then import that into Overnight Prints designer and there you go. Here is where it gets tricky, you have to make sure the pixel rate is big enough so your image doesn't print blurry or grainy. You can do this with Photoshop or Inkscape (free online). If you aren't tech savvy you can use the overnight prints design tool to create a simple one (limited on the fonts though). Just make sure the picture you use is high resolution.
So I ordered samples just to make sure they look how I wanted, but they haven't come yet. Here is the one I designed that was decided upon by fiance and family, as well as the other options I had designed as well.
Invitations: I have also designed our invitations suite. I knew I wanted to do them myself because I find it fun, less expensive, and I don't need a bunch of fluff paper that is going to get thrown away anyway. I know its early to have this done, but it will take more time to put it all together since we are doing it ourselves. Also I really feel like the invitation is the one thing that pulls the whole theme together. After many trials and tries I finally got to the "chosen one". I also sent a bunch of mock ups to my family to have them vote. I will post pictures when I get the final design printed up and put together.
Wedding party: Last but not least we chose our wedding party. It was hard for me because Mr. T has so many friends that he wants to include and I have never been one with tons of friends (especially girlfriends). Times like these I wish I had sisters. So Chris will have four on his side and I will have three. All of his guys are his best friends. His brother will be our officiant and my brother will be my "man of honor". I will also have his girlfriend and a friend of mine stand with me. We still have a few people to tell, but it is exciting to get that part finalized since it has been causing me stress.
Whew that is a lot going on in one post! Next things on our to do list are to let all of our wedding party know they are "chosen", give the caterer a deposit, send out the save the dates, and start researching music and flowers. YAY wedding! Won't it be sad when it is all over :-(
