Matron of Honor BB: A Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Bash!

What you may or may not know is that in addition to my role as "bride" in my September wedding, I have an alter-ego as a bridesmaid in my Matron of Honor (MaOH), E's, Floridian destination wedding in July. After a marathon engagement of approximately two years and two months, her and her FI are quickly approaching the finish line. As of this past weekend, her combo bridal shower/bachelorette party, there are officially NO more celebratory milestones between now and becoming Mr. & Mrs.!

In keeping with her Spanish heritage, MaOH E is getting married in St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in the nation, which boasts an insane amount of Spanish charm. To keep with the feel of her wedding, we chose to host her shower at the closest thing to Spanish flare we could find - a Mexican restaurant!

St. Augustine. Image via Wilkipedia

 We continued to infuse Spanish theme into our New England-based restaurant by decorating the large guest table with mini potted flowers that resembled palm trees, and with favors from Whetstone Chocolates of St. Augustine that had been slyly shipped to my apartment by MaOH's mother, who resides in Florida!

Brunch was had and champagne for toasting was enjoyed by all! Finally, after a delicious fried egg with truffled breakfast potatoes, it was time to open gifts:

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Personal Photo - Opening my gift!

 After gift time, we finished up some conversations and hit the road to rest up at the hotel room. We had a looooong night ahead of us....filled with jello shots and vodka drinks and.....

....bachelorette party human pyramids...

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...and sassy photos....

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...and jello shots...and shots...

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 ....and finally, the night ended like this....

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Yup, that's the "bachelorette" sash and one shoe from the bride-to-be. Looks like they didn't make it into the room for the night....a sign of a good time, indeed.

Have you been to a bachelorette party recently? What's your idea of a kick-ass bachelorette party?

Bling Bling

I have had a love/hate relationship with Mr. BB's taste in jewelry. Lucky for me, I've only been the recipient of his jewelery gift-giving whims a few times.

On our first Christmas together we both went overboard spoiling each other with lavish gifts. We were still in the "get to know you" stage and we each wanted to impress the other. I spent an insane amount of money on the brand spankin' new Playstation 3 (with an extra controller and a few extra games thrown into the mix) and Mr. BB bought me a beautiful diamond necklace. He was totally WINNING after that.

Image via Union Diamond

Then, a few years later on one of our anniversary's, I was pretty obvious with my desire for an Aero Garden. Something about growing lettuce on my kitchen table seemed incredibly liberating to me. A mutual friend talked him out of purchasing it for me, saying it was too "unsexy." He opted for a beautiful Tiffany bracelet with a heart on in.

Sexy gift, huh? Image via AeroGarden

There are a few things you should know about me at this point. 1) I HATE hearts. and 2) I don't really wear any jewelery. At all. I may be the only person in the world that doesn't want Tiffany jewelery.

When Mr. BB and I began discussing marriage, we both knew it would be important to hunt for "the ring" together. We made the mistake of beginning our search at a super formal jewelery store where they took us into a back room and began pouring loose diamond stones onto a desk in front of us. Naturally, without a band to cradle the stone and put on my finger, I was unable to put the size of the diamond's into perspective and thought they all looked small. Even a 2.5 carat diamond! Mr. BB began profusely sweating and that was the end of that.

I had originally thought I would like a princess cut diamond with a diamond encrusted band, but quickly tossed that idea when half the people getting engaged at the time received the same ring. The e-ring game completely changed when a friend sent me a photo of this ring that she thought I would like:

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I had to have this ring. This was it. This was "the ring." I loved the cushion cut and the halo! It was dainty and feminine and so elegant looking! I quickly asked where it was from and Mr. BB and I made plans to head to the store and try it out, which we did a few weeks later. I was even more in love once the ring was on my finger, and Mr. BB was relieved when much smaller diamond sizes more than appeased my taste. I was sold and couldn't stop waving my finger in his face and asking "don't I look pretty with this ring on?!" We quickly discussed the specifics and that was that.....

....until the day he proposed and this beauty became my own:

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I couldn't be happier. Mr. BB made such a great jewelery decision....with a bit of help!

Did your FI pick out your engagement ring on his own or were you involved? Did you give him any ideas about what you would like your ring to look like?

A Minor Wedding Detail: Deciding on the Groom

I met Mr. BB at the best time possible. And I wasn't even looking for him.

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After an on-again-off-again relationship from college officially went bust during a semester abroad in Australia, the last thing I was looking for upon my return home was a relationship. I had always been a girl who saw the silver lining in being single. I was wild, fancy and free all by my lonesome despite the fact that most of my closest friends were serial monogamists. After a final heartbreak from the aforementioned relationship, I was equal parts angry, hurt, and sick of men. I was 22 and on the prowl for fun and flirting but nothing serious. Turns out, this is actually a very successful recipe for acquiring a relationship. Ironic, huh?

I settled into post-college life pretty roughly. A breakup, unemployment, and my parents divorce all came to fruition at the same time. Add in the fact that my friends were no longer just a room away and I was in a bad place. Luckily, I was re-offered a position at my former summer job doing data entry. It wasn't glamorous, but it paid the bills and provided a fun, casual environment of young 20-somethings. Plus, we worked right next to a bar and you just can't go wrong with that.

At some point during March 2006, a tall, handsome, blond-haired and blue-eyed drink of water entered our office. A new employee. Fresh man meat. I studied him from afar and allowed myself to develop a totally innocent school-girl crush. You know the kind of crush I'm talking about. It's the "I've-never-ever-talked-to-him-but-am-sure-I-would-love-him" type of crush. Allegedly I used to utter the phrase "I hate to watch him go but I love to watch him leave" every time he left the office for the day. I can't confirm nor deny this allegation, or the accusation that I threatened every female in the office that they better stay away from him. I'm sure my misconduct came from a place of love.

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As weeks went by, mutual friends began to invite the future Mr. BB out to the nearby bar for after-work cocktails and dart games. It wasn't long before I was a faithful tag-along to these outings and that Mr. BB and I began actual verbal communication. My crush intensified.

We spent probably every single night after work during the month of May 2006 at the bar. And often, Mr. BB and I would be the last men standing, competing against each other in games of pool and sharing our most ridiculous drinking stories long after everyone had left.

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After about three weeks of this, I had decided it was time for Mr. BB to profess his undying love for me, or at least his general "liking" of me in an official way. So, naturally, I told my girlfriends that I was "so done" with our little friendship since obviously he wasn't going to pull the trigger on anything romantic. Maybe he didn't enjoy spending time with me after work...perhaps he just liked to drink which is why he'd stick around and chat.

Fast forward to the fateful night of May 22, 2006. An office coworker was celebrating his birthday at, you guessed it, the bar next to our office. The same formula followed for this night. After games of darts and drinking beers, everyone left. Everyone except for Mr. BB and I. At some point, I offered to drive him home since he'd missed the train. We were in full-on flirt mode as we walked back to my car. I remember him making some joke and I turned to playfully push him...and then we kissed. I stepped back, somewhat stunned and told him straight out that I wasn't looking for a "hookup" so if he wanted to take the kiss back, he better do it now because I don't play games. I'm so romantic, right?

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Mr. BB in all of his drunken glory proclaimed that he "liked me yesterday, liked me today and will like me tomorrow." That's a pretty bad-ass thing to say to a girl you are trying to "woo," yet I may or may not have called him out on the corniness of his statement.

The rest, as they say, is history. We continued to hang out even after we both left our job for different ones and slowly began spending more time together. We have continued to like each other during all the of "tomorrows" we've experienced together and this "like" turned to love. We couldn't be more excited to become husband and wife.

How did you meet your fiance? Do you think that timing had anything to do with the formation of your relationship?

A Wedding Budget Bump in the Road

It's been no secret that Mr. BB and I are on an incredibly strict budget for this little shin-dig of ours. Like, a spaghetti-and-meatball dinner every night budget. So what happened to us yesterday was incredibly traumatic in a variety of ways.

I'll warn you right now, this isn't a bubble gum, typical, happy-go-lucky wedding post. This is about some serious shiz-nat that went down yesterday.

Mr. BB left for work like any other day and arrived per usual. One of his coworkers arrived in the office and asked him if he knew his car had been keyed. He didn't. As if that wasn't bad enough, she proceeded to tell him that the images of the inscriptions were that of a Swastika, and the words "F**k You."

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Shock and dismay doesn't begin to cover it.

It's worth noting that we live in a very diverse community filled with young professionals and college students alike. We live within one block of a Buddhist temple, Mosque, and Synagogue as well as a Jewish school. You have to totally embrace the surrounding diversity to fit in and thrive here, and obviously, this person hasn't done that. The surrounding neighborhoods are also very, very conservatively Jewish, and, this unfortunate example of Antisemitism occurred on the first day of Passover. Coincidence? I think not.

In addition to this ignorant, disrespectful act of hate, we were also the victims of vandalism. Vandalism costs money, so for us, we were out a $500 car insurance deductible. This is totally not the thing you want to happen to you when you are on a strict, time-sensitive budget. Especially when you've been working your little butts off to save money.

So, what were we to do?

Get angry. I immediately decided that the person who did this would not get away unscathed and promptly notified a local news station via e-mail. They called me back within seconds and before I knew it, we had an interview scheduled for later that afternoon. We became a news story as quickly as that. Turns out, when you notify one news station, the others follow, so for the entire duration of the afternoon, our doorbell was buzzing with the sounds of reporters looking for the scoop.

At the least, I was hoping to put the word out that his horrible act had occurred in our community in hopes of spreading awareness. I even hoped that the person who did this would realize how seriously it was being taken - we've been contacted by several police detectives after filing a police report, and it was elevated from an act of vandalism to a hate crime. Lastly, I thought that if the person were caught, we could hold them responsible for paying for the repairs.

Well, wouldn't you know - along with a small amount of 5-minute, local celebrity status, we discovered another Swastika had been carved into a truck and that several acts of vandalism had occurred at the synagogue around the corner. Our neighbors are shocked and disgusted, but we successfully got the word out and people are on high alert.

This morning we were informed by local media outlet that an incredibly generous auto body shop has offered to repair our car for free. What a way to give a giant middle finger to a horrible crime driven by hate, than to show a tremendous act of kindness. Awareness raised. Budget intact.

Have you ever witnessed an act of hatred and bigotry like this? How did it affect you?

The Stalking of...

...the bridal registry.

Don't look at me like that. You know you do it too.

Image via Funny Wedding Ideas

If you haven't guessed, my bridal shower invites went out this week. At some point, about 5 seconds after I realized they must have landed in mailboxes across the state, I began to registry stalk. This was fueled by the fact that a few gifts had been purchased after we sent out our save-the-dates. And my registry-lovin' fire was further ignited when a couple of gifts were purchased earlier this week...on the exact day I anticipated the invites had landed.

This has kicked my registry obsession into high gear. Sorry I'm not sorry about it.

The thing is, I really couldn't care less about receiving gifts. I'm the type of person who gets more of a thrill from giving someone a gift that I think they'll totally love rather than anticipating my own. Crazy, I know. There is just something about walking into a store, picking out several items, and then having people buy them for you. Isn't that such a crazy concept? What's even crazier is that it's totally socially acceptable.

I told the tale of our registration before. While we were excited to be drinking mimosas registering, something about it felt, well, off. Here I am, in all my bridal glory, with the audacity to register for a $499.00 mixer? Or a $299.99 dual-zone wine cooler?!?! How dare I!

The thing is, the only think that talked me down from my arrogant guilt was the fact that I've done this same.exact.thing. for so many of my friends. And that makes it totally okay, right? Well, it does, because there is even a Sex & The City episode about it. So there ya go. But seriously, I've come to realize that it's totally normal to feel guilt over your registry, and even more-so over your enjoyment of things being purchased in your honor. I've also learned that it's okay to feel this way.

I think part of it is the overall discomfort with being the center of attention for such a prolonged period of time. After all, the wedding is just a day, but the wedding planning, which can be just as exciting as the day itself, lasts a whole lot longer. So, for now, I think I'm going to try and lay off the registry...maybe cut down to one or two views a day in the hope of bringing myself back to Earth. Well, maybe.

Did you have any guilt when you registered? Have you been registry stalking?

Post-Wedding Relaxation: Hawaiian Style

So, I like to fancy myself a world traveler. I've lived in Australia, solo-vacationed in Fiji, climbed an active volcano in Guatemala, and sky-dived the Great Barrier Reef, just to name a few. There are few things that thrill me more than a fresh, new passport stamp. When it came time to book our honeymoon, we just haaaadddd to travel to some exotic locale and procure ourselves one (or several) new passport stamps!

Personal Photo - Volcan Pacaya, Guatemala

We talked about traveling Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, relaxing in Tahiti, or going on a multi-country tour of Europe! I rationalized that it was our honeymoon, so if we couldn't do it up for that, then when could we? Right?

Well, as always, life got in the way. Y'all know that airfare ain't cheap, and as it turns out, neither is traipsing around the globe. Our wedding budget got cut, and so did my world-traveling dreams. Sigh.

After my injury, we decided that we'd be lucky to pay for the wedding entirely in cash, let alone pay for a honeymoon, and quickly came to terms with putting it off until a few months after the wedding. Then life happened again - in our favor!

It turns out that Mr. BB's second cousin has a timeshare at the Ritz Carlton Residences and wanted to gift us a few nights as our wedding gift! This was a HUGE plus as we're getting married at a Marriott, which is a brand under the Ritz Carlton umbrella. As such, the 100,000 points we're receiving for having our wedding at an affiliated hotel can go to even more rooms at a Ritz (or another Marriott) at no cost to us!

When we reviewed the worldwide Ritz Carlton locations, I was somewhat shocked to find out how limited they were. No Tahiti, no St. Lucia, nothing that really struck me as, well, different, or super tropical. And then Mr. BB suggested Hawaii. I almost died. Hawaii?? It's in the United States! It's SO overdone as a honeymoon destination! I was super disappointed. After all, a pretty flower lei is NOT a passport stamp.

It took lots 'o convincing on Mr. BB's part, but I finally came around to the idea. He convinced me that being a state in the U.S. doesn't mean that it's not a totally awesome tropical destination. And that by being in the U.S., we don't have to worry about cell phone connections, money exchanging and all that jazz. Plus, and this one was huge for me, it's a destination where we'll feel comfortable just sitting and vegging out instead of running all over the place to see the sights. Turns out that Mr. BB had a point. We decided that we could go on a super awesome 1-year-anniversary vacation when we're feeling more financially flush. I was sold.

Hawaii - Image via All World Visits

Hawaii - Image via Travel Agent Central

At about this same time, a friend who runs a study abroad office mentioned that he had a kabillion-trillion frequent flyer miles and said that we may be able to work something out for flights if I commit to babysitting his children a certain number of nights. DONE.

So, now we're working on the airfare. If all goes well, we'll have free flights and only have to pay for about 3 or 4 nights in a hotel along with our spending money! We may manage to have a super luxurious honeymoon for a small cost, after all! Most of all, we're excited to spend some time relaxing as newlyweds, and we deserve it!

Where are you going for your honeymoon? Are you leaving right after the wedding or are you holding off? Why or why not?

Not THE Dress, Just all the Rest!

As a celebrity gossip aficionado, I spend a fair share of my day on entertainment websites like Perez Hilton and The Superficial. This is partly due to an unwavering nosiness that requires me to be all up in other people's biz-nass, and partly to see who is dating whom in the celebrity sphere. Neither of these reasons has to do with fashion, but often, these sites are also where I pick up on new trends in clothing.

This was really helpful when it came time to consider what I'd be wearing to wedding celebrations. We've got quite a lot going on with my bridal shower, bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner/welcome cocktail reception and post-wedding brunch. Y'all know how much I dreaded the idea of shopping for my wedding gown so you can imagine the stress of needing to find several more!

I'm pretty traditional in the sense that I really love the idea of making the most of my bride-ness and wearing white to all of our parties. I think it's cute, and quite frankly, I generally never wear the color white because of its affinity to staining, and because white clothing tends to blend in with my sexy, pasty white, Irish legs.

Despite the shortcomings of my natural skin pigmentation, I haven't been able to shake the vision of this:

Image via PopSugar.com

 This dress literally makes me shiver. I.LOVE.EVERYTHING.ABOUT.IT. Period. It's so delicate and beautiful. Rockin' this baby with a nude heal is all I can think about! Now, this is the Notte by Marchesa White Lace Dress and costs roughly roughly $700-$1,000. Not gonna happen. However, The Budgetista has some super swanky alternatives for a fraction of the cost:

Slash Neck Lace Dress. Image via ASOS - $80.57

Lace Dress with Scalloped Neck. Image via ASOS - $80.57

Totally cute, right? And super affordable. At this point I'm on the hunt for a shower dress and rehearsal dinner/welcome cocktail reception dress for the night before the wedding. While I'd love to show up to our post-wedding brunch looking flawless and fresh with a new I'm-still-the-bride outfit, more than likely I'll be in jeans, exhausted, with smeared eyeliner, crazy hair and one helluva hangover.

Macy's has been a great resource for dresses. They offer frequent sales with additional discounts for card-holders. Most of the dresses they have that are appropriate for these parties are on sale for under $55, like this pretty number:

One Shoulder Dress with Rose Detail. Image via Macy's. $46.99

As you can tell, I'm more excited about finding these dresses than I was about my gown and I am fighting my shopping trigger-finger to hold back on making impulsive purchases until we're a bit closer to the date and I've lost a bit more weight.

What are you wearing to your bridal celebrations? Have you already purchased your dresses? Are you going a more traditional route and wearing white or not?

Dressing the Part: Grooms Edition

The men of the wedding officially have clothing! Mr. BB and I headed downtown to Men's Wearhouse yesterday afternoon for our official tux-seeking appointment. We chose Men's Wearhouse over other comparable businesses for a couple of reasons. First, with five paid rentals, Mr. BB gets either a free rental, or a free suit up to a $400 value. We opted for the free rental so that his day-of attire would cost us $0 (ahhh, such a beautiful concept!) Second, Men's Wearhouse coordinates their color selection with David's Bridal, which is where our bridesmaid dresses were purchased. That was a major plus!

We met with our consultant, Nicole, who was pretty awesome. She really made the process easy. Our first choice was to pick the vest. Mr. BB wanted to stick out from his groomsman, and since we knew they would be in the color 'Lapis' to match the BM dresses, he gravitated to an ivory vest to match my dress. So far, so good, huh? It seemed like a natural progression to put our father's in black so that they had their own clothing identity aside from the bridal party. An added plus (which I hadn't even considered prior to our appointment) was that we were able to pick a sleek, modern vest pattern that was available in all three colors. Score!

Personal Photo - black, ivory and lapis vest (sorry for the poor photo quality!)

Personal Photo - Sleek vest pattern

Each vest was paired with a perfectly-matching bow-tie or tie option. Mr. BB opted for the tie. I agreed that this was the most fitting as we're planning to be married on a rooftop garden, so while we consider our event to be formal, it's certainly not black-tie. He also opted to pick white dress shirts with a pleated pattern. I liked the added character of the pleats and am happy Mr. BB chose white as the ivory shirts looked, well, dirty.

Next up was picking the jacket. Mainly, the options were to have one button or two. Or to have regular pocket slits or have fabric covering them. I'm sure there was some sort of fancy, mens-wear lingo used to describe the different pocket designs, but, um, I didn't pay much attention. I did take a picture, though!

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Mr. BB opted for the middle option. Two buttons and regular pocket slits. The remaining decisions were left entirely up to Mr. BB. He opted for plain, black shoes, black cuff links for the guys and white for him, and, his one must-have option: pocket squares. Currently, each guy will have a white pocket square to match their dress shirts. Mr. BB is up in the air about this one as he'd prefer a purple pocket-square to match the guys' vests but they don't offer them in lapis, only plum. The fact that the pocket-squares don't come in all of the colors offered by Men's Wearhouse is weird to me, and slightly disappointing, but oh well.

Total tux cost is $199/piece. However, we were armed with a $40 off coupon for each tux which brought the price down to $159. An additional $7 can be take off the price if the guys opt to rent only one dress shirt versus two (Mr. BB was afraid if it was a hot and sweaty day the guys would like to have another shirt if needed, but mostly, I think it's because he knows he'll inevitably spill something on his shirt within ten minutes of the reception!)

Men's Wearhouse offers a great online tool where we can log into our "group" and view each individual item we've chosen. It breaks the attire down by the specific individual, so clicking on Mr. BB will show his clothing, while clicking on the groomsman or our fathers will show their selections. We can also keep track of which guy has had his fitting, picked up his tux, and returned it. Since this is information that Mr. BB likely won't communicate to me, I like to know that I can simply log in and see who's lagging behind on their duties and help keep them in line (in a very non-bridezilla way, I promise!)

Another wedding-related decision is in the books!

Is your groom opting for a tux or suit? Have you picked it out yet? Did you let your FI make the decisions or did you give him some guidelines to work within?

The After Party

To quote R. Kelly:

"After the show its the after party. After the party its the hotel lobby. And round about 4 you gotta clear the lobby, then take it to your room...."

Aside from being the song that is credited with inspiring more Instant Messenger away messages on my college campus than any other ("Sippin' on coke and rum, it's like so what I'm drunk"...anybody?), this song, Ignition (remix), has got the right idea.

After our Big Show, there really will be an after-party! The decision to incorporate this additional celebration was really not a decision at all. We just knew it's something we would be doing. What can I say? We know how to party! Our reception ends at 11pm, which is pretty early by our standards, and we have plenty of options on how to keep the celebration going.

Our first option is to head to the first floor of our venue (a hotel) and into the on-site sports bar. The hotel has graciously stated they will keep the bar open until 1am to accommodate our after-party, and we have the option of purchasing $10 appetizers or a few pizzas to serve to our guests, you know, to absorb some of the libations people have been consuming. After that, guests will be on their own to go sleep it off, or host a gathering in their hotel room for the remainder of the evening early morning.

Champions Sport Bar - Image via Marriot

 Our other option is to rent a trolley to transport our hard partyin' guests to a Boston landmark - Faneuil Hall - which boasts an insanely large number of watering-holes within a really small area. As opposed to our other option, this one requires more money on our part. We would need to rent the transportation and most likely, pay money to reserve an area of a bar for us to hang out in since it's a Saturday night - and one of the first weekend nights that all of the college kids in Boston will be back after summer break.

The downside is that it will cost us more money, and we probably won't be able to serve food to our guests. The upside is that the bars are open until 2am so we can totally maximize the night!

For us, as much as we love each other and will be super excited to be married, we'll have a lifetime of time to spend with each other. So why not spend the rest of our wedding night with the ones we love the most instead of hiding out in our hotel room? We may be exhausted, heck, I'm sure we will be, but I plan to suck every damn minute of time out of our wedding weekend! Adding on an after-party just adds to the fun! Plus, we'll have plenty of time to relax on our honeymoon!

Are you having an after-party? Why or why not? If so, what are you planning for after the reception?

Soundtrack of the Day

Of all the decisions to be made when planning a wedding, our reception music was not one of them. A friend of Mr. BB is a professional DJ. In fact, on most "Thirsty Thursday's" in college, I could be found at the very club where he spun his tunes. Since then, he has continued to work the college club scene, and, through persuasion from mutual friends, has branched out into wedding's to help create memorable nights like this:

Personal Photo

The decision to hire him was a no-brainer. We know him, we like him, we've seen his work many times over and he's cheap. Boom. Done.

Ceremony music involved a bit more work on our part. For years, I've harbored a burning desire to have an elegant string quartet play as I gingerly walk down the isle towards my future husband, the sounds of Canon in D by Pachelbel guiding my way. This fantasy is somewhat coming true.

Turns out, string quartets are expensive. Who knew? Financing that sort of splurge was pushing it even before I got injured and our budget got slashed, so it was even further out of reach after.

When cutting (or as I like to say, revising) our budget, I knew that I wanted to keep some sort of live ceremony music because I felt that it would make a big impact (ie: class it up) for a relatively low cost. I figured the price of a string quartet would be divided in half if we cut the number of instruments in half! Novel idea, huh? And it was true...by cutting down to a duo the price was cut down by just as much. I further deduced that the same logic would apply if we cut it down to just one, solitary instrument. I was right again! Man, I should be a detective or something!

Personal Photo - The Case of the Declining Vendor Cost!

Next, we needed to decide which instrument. For me, this was either a solo violin or harp, and after we considered it further, we decided a harp would have more depth.

At this point, the hard part was over. Turns out, there aren't many harpists in Massachusetts, and to weed through those few, we used our never-fail, vendor-review tool: Google. From there, we personally contacted every harpist who had consistent 4-or-5 star ratings, and narrowed it down to the two who had the lowest price. Of the final two, one harpist had over 60 reviews (all 5 stars!) and has her doctorate in the harp! Cool, huh? At that point we were pretty sure she was the one!

Dr. Lizary Rodriguez. Image via Gig Masters

She hosted us in her home a few weeks later and began playing selections for us so we could hear them in person. I think she loved us because, aside from the few songs we picked for the ceremony, we gave her free reign to play whatever she pleased for the cocktail hour. Anything from Bach to The Beatles. Are we laid back or what?

It took about an hour to narrow down our ceremony selection:

• Processional Music:
• Seating of the grandparents/parents: King William's March
• Attendants: Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring
• Bride: Canon in D 

• Recessional: Pavane

Clips from these songs can be heard, played by our harpist, here.

Beautiful, huh? We're so happy to have found such a great talent and we're even more excited to have live music during our ceremony and cocktail hour!

Are you having live music for your ceremony? If so, was the process of booking the musician(s) easy or difficult? How did you finally decide on the right vendor for the job?

A Birthday Proposal

While planning future blog topics, I realized I've never told the story of our engagement. Not only did Mr. BB totally out-do himself, but he actually managed to surprise me, which is huge, because I'm a thinker  ridiculous over-analyzer. In any given situation I can create hundreds of scenarios to be prepared for, so a romantic birthday dinner at our favorite restaurant should have caused sirens to go off in my head. It didn't.

The day began with me accompanying a really good friend, E, to a bridal show in Boston. After leaving the overwhelming bridal show, I was pretty excited to not be engaged (as I've mentioned - bridal shows can be stressful!) Mr. BB had been working many, many weekends of overtime on a work project and this day, his 26th birthday, was the first weekend in months that he didn't have to work. We were planning to head to our favorite restaurant, The Oak Room, in the Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel for a nice dinner. All week Mr. BB had been saying he needed to run errands on Saturday so when Saturday came I wasn't surprised he had things to do. E joked that maybe he was preparing an elaborate proposal. I quickly said "yea, right" and didn't think about it again.

Image via The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel

The Oak Room - Image via TV trip

Dinner was lovely, and since it is our favorite restaurant, we were pretty excited to be there. While eating, we had a conversation about how we had never seen the rest of the hotel so I wasn't surprised when Mr. BB hopped into an elevator on our way out. I thought he was being clever and we would creep around the hotel to see more of its interior (it's very beautiful and historic!) As we were walking down a hallway, looking at the artwork on the walls, Mr. BB proceeded to pull a room key out of his pocket and open the door to a suite overlooking Copley Square. I immediately noticed two bottles of champagne on ice and a bag of my clothes in the corner of the room! We began to enjoy the champagne. I asked why he did this and he said he wanted to do something nice for the both of us. I felt bad because it was his birthday and I didn't even get him a gift (awful, I know!) After relaxing for a few minutes he proceeded to tell me that we had brunch planned for the next day at The Oak Room, and that he had scheduled me for a manicure, pedicure and massage at a local spa! I was suspicious that something was going on but we continued to relax and chat. After a few minutes, Mr. BB began getting antsy and walked away. I turned to look out the window to Copley Square, and when I turned back around, Mr. BB was on one knee and asked if I would marry him! I pretty much cried like a baby for the next ten minutes and Mr. BB kept repeating "um, say yes, can I just hear you say yes?" but all I could do was shake my head!

Hotel Interior - Image via The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel

Copley Square - Image via City Profile

From there I learned that Mr. BB had been to dinner with my parents a few nights before to ask for their permission. We called our parents and spent the rest of the night celebrating with friends!

How did your FI propose to you? Were to totally surprised or did you see it coming?

Organizational Wedding Planning from a Type A Bride!

On any typical day, you would be hard-pressed to get me to acknowledge that I have a type A personality. I love organization, and in my world, everything has it's neat and orderly place. However, on some days I feel as if I teeter on the brink of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, while others I feel I could be on the TLC show "Hoarders."

You see, my problem isn't the desire or ability to live up to my anal retentive whims, no, it's that I am easily deterred from reaching my organization goals with even the slightest obstacle in my way. And I have a black-and-white mentality. I'm either being super organized or I'm a chaotic mess. No in-between. So, when it's come to wedding planning, I feel as if I cannot possibly continue until I have all of my info in its neat and tidy place, with convenient little boxes to check and to-do items to cross out.

My first stop on the organization train was re-configuring how much we could actually manage to save up for the wedding. Ideally, this would have been done before we booked a venue and committed to a price-point, but where's the fun in that without a little anxiety thrown into the mix? Also, our ability to save money was thrown off-kilter after I stopped working when I hurt my back. I'm happy to say that we have a very reasonable budget and, with all of the cuts made, will still be able to pay cash for our wedding and keep an open bar. I'm sure our guests are sayin' Hallelujah as we speak!

Personal Photo - Click for a larger image!

I made a basic excel spreadsheet (and apologize for my limited skill!) I have a column for our time-frame, how much money we currently have in savings (under "budgeted,") my monthly contribution, Mr. BB's monthly contribution, and the monthly total. From there I added another column, "Total Minus Budget," to account for the amount of money I remove from savings monthly to provide for my expenses for the following month. At the end of every month I plan to record what our actual amount of money saved was, and whether we have a surplus (yay!) or are in debt (boo!)

Next up was our overall budget. I found this link on Excel Blog from Office.com and downloaded the wedding budget template. From there, I watched the tutorial for super easy instructions on how to further modify the template to include cute little arrows to denote whether you are over/under budget. Sometimes, a little cuteness makes you feel a lot better about spending too much money, no? See for yourself:

Personal Photo - Click for a larger image!

 I highly suggest using this budget. It's easy to customize. I use the "estimated" budget column to put the actual amount we're spending (estimations be damned!) and use the second column to add what we've already paid for an item. The third column has the cute arrows to denote that, so far, we're under-budget on everything! There is also a nifty pie chart to help you visualize where your money is going.

I used a spreadsheet similar to our savings spreadsheet to formulate a master guest list. This sheet includes our guest name, relationship to bride/groom, number invited from each household, and address. From there we added a column to discern whether we have sent a save-the-date and invitation, and further columns to denote whether the guest is attending, meal chosen, table assignment, if they've given a gift and if we've sent a thank-you card. Phew!

Personal Photo - Click for larger image!

My plan today is to work on a "Master To-Do" list. I will be drawing off of lists on weddingwire.com, theknot.com, and a list that came with a wedding binder I received for Christmas. I plan to combine them all and then add some individualized tasks specific to my own wedding. I'm going to put it in Microsoft Word and add plenty of space for additions - I have a feeling my list will keep getting longer before it ever becomes shorter!

I now feel there is a bit more certainty in regard to wedding finances. Not that there wasn't before, but knowing that I have everything in a tidy "wedding" folder on my desktop, with easy access to it, makes my world spin a bit less out of control. The immense thrill of crossing off tasks and checking boxes is enough to motivate me to continue planning with fervor, and if that's not an indication of my Type-A-ness than I don't know what is!

Do you have formal budgets or to-do lists? Did the organization make you feel more in control of your wedding planning?

Groom/Groomsman Attire

Hands down, so far, I am the most excited about picking out the groom/groomsman attire! First, it doesn't require me to try on a damn thing, and second, renting Mr. BB's tux won't cost us a cent! If that's not a win-win scenario, than I don't know what is.

Image via LOP Lists O Plenty

It's also exciting because this is going to be the first (and likely only) unilateral decision that Mr. BB will be making in regard to the wedding. The only guideline he's been given is to stay within our deep purple-gold-ivory color scheme.

Well, aside from finding out that Men's Wearhouse (where we plan on renting the tuxes) offers groomsman attire in exact matching colors as offered at David's Bridal for the bridesmaid gear, Mr. BB didn't have any idea of how he wanted to dress his guys.

Until he saw a report about some very fortunate soul winning a $160 million jackpot, when suddenly a vision came to him:

Monopoly Man image via Free-Extras

Okay, maybe that's actually the vision that came to me when he tried to articulate what he had in mind. In full disclosure, this is the same outfit that Mr. BB would like to wear if he ever has to claim a multi-million dollar jackpot and would be televised while doing so.

I'm not too sure about the top hat, nor am I sure if he's serious, but I'm pretty happy that he's thinking about it...even if it means I need to dress as a shoe or thimble and we have have to get married at Park Place.

Is anyone else leaving the groom/groomsman clothing entirely up the groom? If so, did he have any specific ideas about what he would like to wear, or is he totally ambivalent?

Lighting Up the Night

To cut costs, we've given up many things that had originally been built into our pre-injury, full-income budget. Our $8.00/piece chiavari chairs? A thing of the past. A lavish floral budget? Significantly depleted. Wedding album? We can wait on that.

With 14' ceilings, a seating capacity of 600 people and a carpet that is ugly as sin, we were desperately looking for something that could make the room feel more intimate and give it a certain, je nais se quoi.

Originally we thought tall centerpieces would go a great distance in "filling up" the room. Something like this budget-friendly number, perhaps?

Image via A Night in Bloom Event Floristry

While tall centerpieces help to create "drama," I realized we would need to seek something else that would create a more intimate space and take away from the "vacant" feeling that a large ballroom so often has.

After seeing some lighting inspiration like this, we knew exactly what was missing from our vision:

Image via Syracuse Dram Weddings By Wanna Jam DJ Productions

Up-lighting!!!!!

Doesn't that look amazing?! I was really shocked at how much of an impact the lights make. In every example, the lights transformed an ordinary ballroom into an exquisite area that was warm and inviting. The lights also give a very "polished" feel to the room for a relatively small cost, which is great since we are cutting back on decor to keep the budget in-check.

We started our search at the venue, which would provide us with 16 LED lights for $50/piece. The total cost, not including a lighting professional for the event would come to around $1,040. This is the baseline cost I based all other quotes off of.

I wasn't surprised that many quotes came back in the $1,200-$1,500 range, with various inclusions, considering that many professional DJ companies offer this service, and have high overhead costs. I searched high-and-low for a vendor that would beat our venues cost. Finally, I found a brand new company run by a technician who is just branching out on his own and offering a 50% off sale to get his company off the ground. Score! With his company, our total lighting costs will come to $650.

Par Cans (Image via Musician's Friend)

For full disclosure, LED lights provide an option for wireless lighting that emits less heat and affords you the ability to change colors throughout the night. A cheaper alternative would be to use par cans. The cans require wires to plug the lights into the wall, emit more heat and limit you to one color option for the night, but are a great alternative to LED lights for a fraction of the cost. Both options can easily be rented and placed in the venue on your own with relative ease to save even more money!

We're super excited to have found such a great deal on lighting and help get a new business started, but most of all, we're excited about how well the lights are going to set the mood to P-A-R-T-Y!

Have you thought about up-lighting for your reception? If you used up-lights, was the price worth it?

Bridal Show Inadequacy

The first bridal show I ever attended was for my Maid of Honor (MOH), back in January 2011. From the hoards of over-eager brides and their families, girls sporting bachelorette-type attire, and the bright pink "bride" stickers they made each engaged girl wear, I was thoroughly overstimulated. So was my MOH, which she made abundantly clear as she forced me into the corner, stuck her "bride" sticker on me, and shoved her engagement ring on my finger.

It was clear at this point, that bridal shows are not for the faint of heart.

Image via Colorado Bridal Show

Potential vendors stalked the status of my left ring finger before they would approach me, and when approached, would attempt to lure us to their little corner of the the convention center, like a predator stalking prey.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but for someone who doesn't like confrontation or medium-to-hard sell situations, it was not my dream scenario. I left the bridal show that day very excited to not be engaged. Mr. BB proposed to me after dinner that very night. How's that for irony?

Since then, I've had a love-hate relationship with bridal shows. My mother loves them with every part of her being and takes personal offense when I lack her over-enthusiasm. To keep the peace, I've attended my fair share with mixed results.

Bridal shows have been such an enormous source of inspiration for me, from floral design to invitation suites to after-party and honeymoon ideas. They have provided a great environment to commiserate with other brides and to meet with several vendors at one time.

Awesome transportation idea! Image via Old Town Trolley Tours

They have also been a source of jealousy and anger for me.

Strolling past the masses of vendors touting their "must-have" wedding accessories like customized tablescapes, photobooths, and ice sculptures, especially when my mother gravitates to those booths (despite me not being able to afford these things,) drives me B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

After a particularly embarrassing experience this past weekend, where a florist essentially laughed at my flower budget of $1500, I swore off bridal shows all together. As a bride, I shouldn't feel bad about my wedding. Ever. Nor should people be telling me (or imply via laughing at what I can/cannot afford) that my wedding isn't "good enough" because I don't have all the bells-and-whistles that a "good bride" should. My feelings of inadequacy were somewhat self-inflicted, but some of it was the result of an over-zealous wedding industry telling me what a wedding should be.

So, I'm at peace with my decision to retire from the bridal show circuit. I'm going to put all of those feelings of wedding inadequacy aside and plan a day that is uniquely ours, whether we have a photo booth and firework display or not!

Have you ever suffered from bridal show inadequacy? How did you combat it?

Dressing the Part!

The day has come. A new dawn has emerged, for I, Ms. BB, am officially a wedding dress owner! And I have to say, it wasn't quite the traumatic, melodramatic, depressive little situation I thought it might be. It was, dare I say, somewhat pleasant?

Due to our budget cuts (and a $50 coupon we got at a bridal show,) my appointment was scheduled at David's Bridal. Our backup plan was to scour bridal consignment shops in our area for an affordable dress if the David's option didn't work out. We arrived early to peruse the selection and pick out some favorites. The place was packed, as I was warned it would be on a Saturday. I managed to maintain my composure amongst my ever-increasing dread and anxiety until I saw the consultant that I was assigned to - the nasty woman from my bridesmaid dress appointment! Yikes! I won't keep you in suspense, she wound up being really supportive, especially after I told her I'd rather be getting a root canal than trying on wedding dresses due to my ever-fluctuating weight.

I quickly learned to focus the search on dresses that had a very fitted form, especially at the waist line, as I found it really helped to suck me in. Then we learned that I was looking for a dropped waist and a bit of a flare at the bottom. No, I wasn't one of those girls who came in wanting one thing and left with something they never thought possible. Nope. I was gravitating to, and ultimately settled on the exact dress I always thought I would. I am not going to post a photo of me in my dress yet, as Mr. BB cannot be trusted. For your viewing pleasure, I now present to you......my dress shopping experience in pictures (my face is blurred to spare me, and you from having to look at my incredibly unflattering, awkward facial expressions):

Personal Photo

Personal Photo

Personal Photo - this lil' number was a finalist!

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Personal Photo

 What do you think?! I'm happy to say that I looked much better in the dresses than I thought I would and I didn't let the posted sizes scare me. Ultimately, I picked a dress that I thought I looked good in, even if I didn't lose another ounce! She is due to arrive in April and I'm super excited to start looking into accessories and hair-styles for the big day!

How was your dress shopping experience? Did you pick something you totally knew you would? Or did you pick surprise you?