It's Been Awhile

Well, things are moving along, even though I haven't been posting much.

We have booked our venue! We will be holding our reception at a beautiful mansion in Frederick called Ceresville Mansion.

Colors are chocolate brown, either mint or spring green and ivory (which matches the mansion perfectly).

My dress has been bought and is currently undergoing a hemming job. Otherwise it is perfect, a tiny bit loose but I don't want to get any alterations till a little closer to the wedding in case I lose more weight (I've lost about 10 lbs so far).

We are currently looking for a string quartet or trio to play at the reception, but they are pricey so my dear friend Stephanie (she is helping me plan) is looking and using some of her music connections to hopefully find a group that won't kill our budget!

We have found a Rabbi to marry us, but we don't know how much he costs quite yet and we need to meet with him for 8-9 hours prior to the wedding. Apparently he is out of the country but when he comes back after the holidays, I'll be giving him a call to ask about his cost and set up our first appointment.

Things to do:

• Find and book strings.
• Choose vendor to do the cake, get quotes, do tasting, etc.
• Set up appointment with Rabbi and get quote.
• Figure out invitations and 'save the dates' and finalize guest list (possibly DIY but not sure yet)

Well, that sounds like enough for now. I'll be checking back more often as the wedding date approaches!

To Do List Update

Yesterday my plans were:

• find a venue
  
• do a first visit to find a wedding dress (at David's Bridal)
• call Rabbis and possibly find a location for the ceremony
• possibly book the string quartet we wanted at the reception

I wound up driving to David's Bridal around noon and I bought my dress, or shall I say dresses. Since we are having a separate ceremony and reception, I was hoping to get something more formal for the ceremony and something that still said bride but was something I could walk around in without tripping for the reception, and I did! As I previous mentioned, I was thinking of Bridesmaid separates and that's what I ordered. Everything should be arriving early January 2009, plenty of time for alterations if need be.

I also had a meeting with Laurie at Martin's Crosswinds (in Greenbelt) at 4pm. She was lovely and very helpful. Everything is good to go except for getting my parents on board with the venue pick (working on that).

This afternoon, I called one of the local congregations and spoke with the nicest lady ever over at Bet Chesed who suggested I give the Rabbi a call. I did, and he was super nice and put us on his calendar. There are some formalities and meetings we need to do in the meantime but I'm thrilled we can get married March 29, 2009 as we had planned.

Everything is starting to come together. Hopefully, we'll have the venue booked by the end of the week and then I can start planning the (more) fun stuff.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to call any string quartets and I've been a bit under the weather today so I have been taking it easy.

To Do List (December 1st, 2008)

With just 4 months till the wedding and 5 months till the reception, I know I'm in a bit of a crunch to get everything planned.

Tomorrow, my goals are:

• find a venue
• do a first visit to find a wedding dress (at David's Bridal)
• call Rabbis and possibly find a location for the ceremony
• possibly book the string quartet we wanted at the reception

We are highly considering Martin's, a locale caterer/all-in-one MD/Baltimore/DC chain to host the reception. Our goal is a sit down classy meal, with a string quartet in lieu of a regular DJ.

The colors I have selected are:
either a mint or spring green
chocolate brown
ivory or white
and an undecided accent color

For a dress, I will be visiting David's Bridal and am highly considering purchasing bridesmaid separates in white since I am looking for something with sleeves and our budget for a dress is not particularly high.

I know there are tons of other things to do! We have already registered at Bed Bath & Beyond (though it's rather bare so far) and Amazon (nothing selected yet!). Stay tuned. I'm sure we'll be adding more items in due time.