Is this mean?

Quick question to you, blog land:
When the party ends, who is doing the clean up for your wedding? And are you going to be there?


We were under the impression that, as the bride and groom, we get to leave when the party leaves and continue on to our after party at the bar. But my mama disagrees. When asked if she and my dad along with the mister's parents would do the cleanup and do the checkout with our venue, she got a little huffy, thinking it mean that we would bail out.

But I wanna bail out! I don't want to go running around in my wedding dress cleaning up!* And we are hoping that the tear down won't take long and won't be hard. That we can set it up so that whatever needs to go can just be chucked back into whatever box it came in and then loaded in the car.

So what do you think? Is it fair to ask that they clean up and we get to ditch out? or is that mean?

* and when I say cleaning up, I simply mean grabbing all our decorations and packing them in the cars. no scrubbing or vacuuming necessary

(and btw, go enter to win!)

What do with with a wedding decision gone wrong?

I was going to write a post on this today...and then I realized I shouldn't. I have a wedding decision gone wrong, but I am not sure yet what exactly I'm going to do about it! So instead of me saying blah blah thoughts blah blah ramble, this is more of an open discussion.

• Have you made a decision for your wedding that you regret?
• What (if anything) have you or are you going to do about it?
• General advice?

Note: There are a ton of decisions that I fret over. But only one where I know I should have done something different and want to change it. Possibly more to come on this in the future.

DJ vs DIY

One of our bigger decisions has been to forgo a DJ and do our own wedding playlist on either an iPod or a laptop. There have been lots of nay sayers who tell me Why Using an iPod to DJ Your Own Wedding is a Horrible Idea (um, biased much?) but then there is Meg at A Practical Wedding who describes their self DJ experience and gives some great advice (I feel redundant for how often APW and the word "great" appear together).

I've been doing research and have some serious doubts about whether doing our own music is a good idea or not. Yet at the same time I don't really feel like adding another budget item to our list. So here is a pro/con list I've come up with of the biggest factors. Please feel free to weight in.

Pro Doing Our Own Music

• Free! Yeah, we are going to buy some songs and that does cost money, but most of it we have already. Plus, buying more awesome music doesn't sound that bad!
• No worries about a crazy DJ. Yeah, some are great, but some are nutso! And how do you know unless you have a good referral?
  

Cons of Doing Our Own Music

• Without someone to really watch the music, we lose the ability to adjust the music for what the guests are diggin and dancing to.
  
• The sound system at our venue. Its only one volume for the entire room. And when I'm dancing I want music pounding! So either music is pretty quiet or people can't talk on the seating side of the room. :(

So on one side I'm cheap and don't want to spend more money on a DJ. This wedding budget is a monster and keeps growing and growing. All these unexpected costs are coming up and are always more than I expect. I do have an old friend who is willing to do it for a reduced rate if he is still available. Reduced from 1000 to 600, so yeah, a good deal but still a lot of cash! On the other side, the music/dancing are the entertainment for the night and I'd like to do it right.

How do we manage the playlist without having to work our wedding? There isn't an obvious musical person to ask. My brother would be great for the role but he is hesitant and doesn't want to 'work all night' - which I don't want either! And what do you think about the sound levels? Does it really matter?

What are you doing for your wedding? Advice for DJing your own? Opinions on which works better?

Image from Hans Woltering

Our Wedding: Ceremony

We are finally putting together our ceremony and are enjoying the freedom of a non-religious, do whatever we want format. There are so many possibilities and its really fun to sort through our options and ideas to put together a ceremony that is going to be meaningful to us.

So far...this is what we have for our ceremony:
- Important people are seated, the four people standing up for us walk in, and then the Mister and I walk in together (or something)
- Our officiant (who is the father of one of my mister's best friends) says some sort of welcome
- Some cool people read something awesome that makes people think
- Some cool people read something awesome that makes people smile and cry
- Our officiant says a few more words
- We say some kind of vows
- We give each other rings
- We make ou...I mean, we kiss
- Exit to cocktail hour!

Is it sad that I feel really happy and like we've made great progress now that we have this extremely vague and totally nondescript outline?

Also, does anyone have some good readings? We went to Borders to browse through their love poems and all we found were extremely cheesy, epic poems that no one would be able to understand just listening to them. One reading that we are thinking about is from The Little Prince, a story I've loved for a long time, about taming and being tamed. Its adorable and has a cute little message. It also might be fun to have three people read it. One as the Little Prince, one as the fox and one as narrator.

So, any good, meaningful, not so cheesy and not so grand poems or readings about love/marriage/commitment out there?

Too many weddings

We are at that age when every summer is full of weddings. And this summer, it feels very different to be a part of that. We are getting married, I will be in one, attending a hand full, and starting to hear talk of a wedding for two of our closest friends in the coming year. Its a very busy time!

I'm finding that it also adds a very difficult element to our planning. I've talked before about all the crazy expectations that come with planning a wedding and trying to stay true to our goals in the face of many differing (and very vocal) opinions. One side of the family thinks our wedding isn't going to be formal enough ("This is your wedding, Jen! Not a child's birthday party!") while the other side can't believe what we are spending and that we are having such a "large" wedding. All very encouraging, thanks families.

And as our wedding represents, we fall somewhere smack in the middle. Our 94 person guest list is the right size for us and includes all of our first ring relatives and close friends. We definitely hurt some feelings and drew some uncomfortable lines to keep it that small, but its what we choose. And I don't feel like its a large group or a really small group. Its just right! (This guest list is too big! This guest list is too small! This guest list is juuuuust right!)

Our budget reflects what we wanted as well. Meaning: a full meal, a place to eat that food, a photographer, a white dress, a suit, and some things mixed in that look pretty. We luckily have the means and partial financial support from my parents to do this and will not go into debt for our wedding. The budget definitely got bigger than we imagined...but we found out very quickly into the planning that the budget we imagined was not realistic for what we wanted. We are sacrificing money instead of sacrificing a day that will represent us and be meaningful to us. *insert cheesy phrase here about making memories to last a lifetime or something*

All these decisions were made with care to fit us as a couple in this particular moment in our relationship and lives.

Enter the wedding season.

I've been talking to a friend of mine whose wedding will be in July. Inevitably, weddings are the major portion of our conversations, but I try to avoid it as much as possible. We are having very different weddings and I want to avoid comparisons. Me comparing our wedding to theirs and her doing the same.

But once wedding season gets into full gear I don't know how to avoid it. I'm scared of attending weddings this summer, seeing what they did, and feeling the expectations all over again. On the flip side, I DO think our wedding is going to be completely awesome...and I don't want to share awesome details that we are doing in case it sounds like "oh yeah? check out what we're doing! isn't that GREAT?" or that I'm gloating about ours.

Anyone else dealt or dealing with this? Advice on how to avoid comparing weddings?

The Shower

Oh, the epic bridal event that is the shower. With its ladies gabbing and adorably arranged trays of food and games of toilet paper wedding dresses. What to do with you, wedding shower?

My lovely aunts have offered to throw me a bridal shower and I feel really mixed about this whole event. I'm extremely flattered that they are willing to go through all the effort for me and I know that whatever they put together it will turn out spectacularly (One of my aunts is, after all, referred to as Franck. As in Franck from Father of the Bride because she can throw down some fabulousness!) It really does make me feel all warm, fuzzy, and special that they would go out of their way to do a shower for me.

I'm all for the gathering of the ladies and having an afternoon of mingling - I just don't know what to do about the whole gift giving tradition. The mister and I have lived together for the last three + years (sinners!!!) and don't need or want many things. We live in an apartment that is already full with our loads of gear (two bikes each, skis (alpine and cross country), snowboards, camping gear, etc.) I don't feel like we can even register for enough to cover a shower AND a wedding! Also, I feel bad asking for gifts twice. "Hey, come to two separate events just for me where I will require gifts of you both times!" Awkward.

My aunts are pretty traditional, though, so I can't stray too far from tradition on the shower. I was mainly hoping to come up with a shower theme that would ease the gift burden of the attendees and allow for more time for fun and mingling (aka less of the staring at me as I open things that I put on a list for people to buy).

Here are the ideas so far:
- Books, Booze and Beauty "The bride would appreciate gifts of great literature, nummy drinkables, and Aveda goodness!" (These items can come in wide, wide ranges of cost. There is many a great bottle of wine for under 10 bucks!)
- Themes such as "month of the year" gifts where each guest is responsible for a gift that goes with a month of the year. (aka scarves for January and a beach towel for June)
- Just let the older ladies get whatever and trust my friends to know me better and get something fun and creative that I could actually use (like books, booze, and aveda gift cards for nummy, nummy goodness)?
- That's it. I'm out of ideas.

Any other ideas?
What are your shower plans?