Pretend I wasn't here

OK, I'm sorry I kind of broke my promise: our honeymoon is booked. Getting there, not taken care of yet. We're doing flights tonight.

See, Kyle and I have started working out again, every night for an hour, P90X

Yeah, thanks.

Kyle's lost three pounds in one week by also changing his whole diet. See, let me let you in on a little annoying secret. Boys suck! As soon as they break a sweat they lose two pounds. Kyle eats fruit and loses another pound. I eat fruit and break a sweat, I gain a pound. It happens to be water weight, let's just say I picked a bad week to get back into working out, self-esteem-wise. But my face instantly started clearing up, and I do feel good... But it's like all my bodily systems have stopped doing their jobs right now just so they can retain water. They're all on strike:

Even Osmosis Jones has given up virus-fighting to retain water on my behalf!

Anyway, it kicks our butts, and like I said, it's every freakin' night, so we've had enough time to shower, eat, and go to bed after working out. So I'm being sneaky because I promised I wouldn't be back here until the honeymoon was completely booked. That being said, I suppose I should still be crazy psyched that the hotel part is booked, 50% deposit is down!

I mean, I am psyched!!!!

Sorry, the real reason I wanted to post quickly is because I want to change my blog url to be more Kyle inclusive. I tried this out yesterday and got an e-mail from my parents saying that it said my blog had been deleted. Sorry to them and to anyone else, it's changed back... obviously.

But I will be changing the url before StDs go out. I want the blog to also act as my wedding website and I want it to be more wedding appropriate. So, without further ado; the new url will be:

ashandkylewedding.blogspot.com

There, easy enough switch. Now I'll wait a week to change it officially, but just know, anyone who does not have google reader or anything, you'll have to type a new address in starting next Friday.

Next, I want to reveal our final design for invitations and StDs. I have to print out StDs very soon, and figured I'd go ahead and do another trial run with invitations while I was at it! Till then, everyone have a stellar weekend!

For real? Ahh!! Taxes are due in less than a month!!

I just read a blog post about someone reviewing their budget and noting that they would have enough when all was said and done to pay off their vendors when the final bills finally came in. See for anyone who does not know, you put these tiny deposits down (sometimes they're 50%, but usually they're like $100) and then a month before the wedding, you're, like, seriously broke. I picture it like the bill collector:

Except the bill collector will actually look like Maureen from Riverdale, our photog Ben, and our florist Tara, and eventually our baker. Also our DJ, the resort where we're honeymooning... am I forgetting anyone??

(I wish they all looked like Pearl :D)

Now, I'm not complaining because everyone's really been great and we're on target for budget, I think we're doing as well as we can and still have the wedding we deserve/want. HOWEVER, the problem is that as time goes on, the final numbers on these bills change!

Here's a breakdown (because I bet you don't believe me!):
Our catering bill will change as far ahead as a week before the wedding depending on the final head count.
Our photography bill will change depending on who our second photographer is.
Our florist bill will change if our number of centerpieces changes and if there are any misunderstandings and she didn't include something I wanted in the initial quote (which I think has actually already happened... maybe).
Oh yeah, and then there's an alterations bill.

Now, I know what you're going to say: "At least you can have an estimate." Do you know who you're talking to?? It's not the numbers that are making me nervous, it's the changes, it's the not-knowing part that's driving me crazy. I need goals in life to know what to aim for. You could tell me a million gagillion dollars and I mean, that would be safe, but I'd know that wasn't real. I don't like surprises, that's all. No one can tell me how much things are going to cost, but it's not their fault.

Boooo. Anyway, every now and then, I just like to whine about those things that are out of my control. I don't like not being in control.

On to things that are in my control. Save the Dates need to go out!! Like a month ago!!! AHHHHHH!!! Once I get working, I think they'll only take me a weekend solid to finish. AS SOON as they're finished I'll post pictures, I'll post some progress pictures of me going crazy colored pencilling the fiftieth one!

This actually brings up another important point, because before the StDs can go out, I need everyone's address... yeah, that's going to take longer than hand-making every invitation!! Mama... get to work!! Haha, just kidding, but only kinda'...

With trying to finish my PhD and trying to do all this wedding stuff, which, believe me, I love more than my real job, my task list isn't any bigger, it's just more pressing! Kyle's been incredibly supportive though, and has already offered to do all the printing, or at least allow me to print on his laserjet at work :) But the funny thing is that every time I think about invites and RSVPs and StDs I go 'Oh crap... I still don't have anyone's address...' I make mental notes but my mental hard drive consistently moves mental notes to my mental trashcan and then mentally deletes them forever.

I also really wanted to hold on this next post until I could say "OUR HONEYMOON IS FOR REAL BOOKED!!" but we haven't yet heard the for real confirmation that the hotel customer service person has received our secure PDF of the credit card authorization form and was able to open it and then that everything actually went through. So I don't want to get ahead of myself! But I so want to tell everyone that it's booked!! Can you tell I don't like being in this limbo?! Maybe I should take a break from letting it all out on all of you until real things are happening. You have my word I will not blog again until our honeymoon is completely booked, flight, hotel and two smoking barrels.

Anyone else having limbo issues? Are you driving yourself and those around you crazy??

"You need to relax!"

And flowers in your hair

If anyone cares to flit over to my vendors page (Eat, Drink, and Be Married), you'll notice a new addition!! Tara of Splints and Daisies now graces my vendor page! I got a quote from her today and it's even better than I expected. She's actually under my budget, and even though I realized that my budget was a little low, she still managed to come in under it. Now that being said, we haven't completely solidified some things, I might ask her to do a few more things yet.

I know I shouldn't be too thrilled still at the size of the bill, but as I mentioned a few posts ago, according to the cost calculator website, I'm on target. And Tara is really great so far, she's enthusiastic and energetic and (just like all my other vendors... huh) seems to really love our vision and be on board with making it come to life. Now, I say "our vision" and have been very careful to include Kyle in everything so far, but I guess I have to be unfair to be fair in this instance and say my vision, because Kyle just doesn't care about flowers. The few suggestions he has given me so far have been ones I forced out of him because I thought it was important to get his thoughts on EVERYTHING!! I realize now that there are a few things he's okay handing off to me alone... not only okay, downright ecstatic!

Anyway, last week was this ridiculous week that included Mia's bridal shower (I love you bridesmaids, but I don't want one of those!), meeting Tara, buying a dress...

Say what??? Yeah, I bought a wedding gown. Please believe, I am dying to post pictures but I really feel like the mystique of the whole ordeal is long since gone, and I'm trying to maintain some semblance of intrigue. I figured out though why everyone has given me such a hard time about it though. I tried to include as many people as possible in as many of my salon trips as possible. I thought everyone would really enjoy spending a day in New York and playing dress-up. Now, I'm not delusional, I know I was the one playing dress-up and everyone else was sitting around outside the dressing room, but I still thought the fanciful aspect of wedding gown shopping was something everyone would semi-enjoy once they got swept up in it. Well, I was wrong, and if I had known that, I would not have asked anyone to come with me. I apparently bored everyone, looked at way too many gowns, and went to way too many salons. I want to just let everyone know though that I thought if I did it without my best friends' and loved ones' help, you'd be mad at me for not including you...

It's a catch-22, I'm not gonna' agonize over it anymore, because it's bought. No more wedding gown shopping. It's due in in August. Maybe my superstitions will have lightened up by then (or I'll no longer care about intrigue :)).

Oh yeah, and as of today, Kyle's faxing our authorization form to Casa Chameleon to solidify our reservation!! I've got the flight on hold, it's just waiting for a credit card number. Aside from the silly little technicality of not really being paid for, OUR HONEYMOON IS BOOKED!!! It's insanely exciting; I am fortunate to have had a lot of opportunities in my lifetime for travel and seeing spectacular places, but this will be the first time I'm going to one of those places solely to be the laziest, most luxurious, spoiled new wife I can be!

Anyway, sorry no pictures today, but I have no real data for you, just invoices, receipts, contracts... I have never spent this much in one week... ever!

And it feels awesome.

Quick note about Japan and favors

As many of you might have heard, tomorrow is a day of blog silence as a tribute to the devastation in Japan:

Isn't that nifty and a really easy thing to do to show support for Japan?! I thought so too, so even though I am most likely going to get my wedding gown tonight we will all have to wait until Saturday for the announcement, which I am more than happy to wait for, aren't you?

Just one side note today that came to me via Ruffled, and is my new favorite thing that I am super psyched about!

Homemade vanilla extract!!!

It's super easy (not super cheap, but most likely not more expensive than most other favor ideas), I mean ridiculously easy... I mean insultingly easy. Here's the recipe, in telegram style:

Put vanilla beans in vodka or rum. Stop.
Wait 2 months.
Stop.

Yeah, for serious, that's it, and I'm super psyched that I found out about it now, because I have plenty of time to get the beans and let the extract mature.

This, to me, is down-home, wholesome, and rustic, and I love anything vanilla. As an added bonus I've decided to do vanilla beans tucked in the napkins at each place setting instead of herbs as a tie in:

This was my original idea, now just replace the herbs with vanilla beans (I had no idea where else to put herbs and was afraid they looked out of place anyway).

Also, on a side note, this is of little consequence because I've never posted about it before, but at one point I loved the idea of putting coffee beans in the candle glasses:

(This one's from project wedding)

I absolutely love it, I love the color of coffee beans and the smell of fresh coffee beans is to die for, but then I couldn't think of any other way to tie in coffee beans, any way at all. In retrospect, I suppose I could do chocolate-covered espresso beans or something, but I still think incorporating vanilla in different ways is going to be easier than coffee beans, mostly because vanilla beans are long sticks that can get poked into things here and there, coffee beans can't go into a bouquet or a hair accessory.

As a note to anyone who doesn't like vanilla smell, the uncut beans are not too too strong, as long as they stay uncut, also the ballroom is really large, I don't think we have to worry about the smell getting too overwhelming in that space, no more so than with coffee smell... I love both, so everyone else can kind of get over it... :D

Anyway, that's all for me until the weekend. Just some things to think about and please please please pop over to that link from Ruffled to make some homemade vanilla extract for yourself, because I think that it will be so worth it, especially if you are not making 50-100 favors, just for yourself it's very cost effective... seeing as real vanilla extract is ridiculously expensive anyway!

Happy Saint Patty's Day!!!

Flowers really are that expensive

I just did a quick cost analysis of the flowers. I won't bore you with itemized lists. If I get wholesale flowers and everything else from http://www.save-on-crafts.com/ it would cost over $900!!! Even if Tara gave me flowers for free (I realize that wouldn't happen, I'm just trying to prove a point, sheesh) all the other supplies would still cost $500.

The point is, after doing that analysis, I'm even more receptive to her price. Especially because let's not forget that most importantly, she'll be doing the work! I won't be doing the work the day of our wedding! That's got to be worth the cost. I also can't neglect the fact that aside from actually picking wildflowers, my "vision" is not an expensive one; we don't need much besides the bouquets, boutonnieres, and centerpieces. I mean, my opinion might completely change once she actually sends me the estimate, but for now, I'm even more on board with these flowers... Until I crack and just pick some weeds from the side of the highway.

I know I know, the suspense is killing me too

So, I'm sorry that I promised to write two days ago with flower pictures and I didn't. I know also that you're all dying to know about my honeymoon drama (just play along) and I've kept you hanging.

Well, I'm very sorry, but I'm back now and more than ready to tell you about the last few days!

First of all, Honeymoon!!! I told you that I had not heard back for a week and was ready to write the serious e-mail. Well, I looked through all my e-mails the next morning and I noticed something: My first e-mail that the customer service person responded to immediately was sent to the general "info" e-mail address at Casa Chameleon. When the woman responded to me, however, she responded from her personal e-mail address associated with the hotel; I wrote to "info@hotelCC.com" and she responded from "her.name@hotelCC.com." Well, I just hit reply to reply to her, and when I saw the difference in these two e-mail addresses, it struck me that I bet I could get a quick response again if I went back to e-mailing "info@hotelCC.com."

Well, I did just that, I tried it out. Monday morning I wrote an e-mail to info and said something to the effect of 'We have written a couple e-mails that have not been answered. We love your resort, we really want to stay there for our honeymoon but we'll have to choose another destination if we don't hear from you in another couple of days.' Dude, I heard back that evening! Now, while I got no explanation as to why it had taken a week for her to respond or why her e-mail wasn't working or whatever, she finally responded with the same sweet enthusiasm that she did initially.

And guess what... OUR DATES ARE OPEN!!! I wrote back to say thank you so much and please put them on hold for us, she just wrote back to me with the credit card authorization form and the guarantee that the Ultra Luxury Villa aka Honeymoon Villa is on hold for us!! When I told Kyle he promised that this weekend we would sit down and book the flights and fill out the credit card form.

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!


Whew! But I need to calm down, on to flowers!!

I met with Tara from Splints and Daisies yesterday, it's literally a hop-skip-jump from our venue, so that's great. Her style is more contemporary but she's also rustic and doesn't do cookie cutter- what she calls- lollipop bouquets. Here's a little taste of her style:

Moss... love moss...

She's as in love with fiddlehead ferns as I am... Score!!

She likes making bouquets that look lopsided or flow a little, not just balls of perfect flowers in pinks and reds. Anyway, as I hinted before, if I had to have a florist, she's right up my alley. She's very nice and for the area, seems to be well-priced. Especially because I found out that she can do a lot of the things I wanted to do with my centerpieces (moss, wood slabs, candles) because she already has those materials. I was hesitant at first, but then when I factored in shipping and what I was going to do with 12 wood slabs after the wedding, I thought 'hey, maybe I should just let this nice lady make my life easier.'

Here's what I came to her with:

These are the flowers I want incorporated in the design (the ranunculus is there just in case, but not my favorite, because the calla lilies are better).

It's been so much easier for me to find boutonnieres that I like, and so hard to find bouquets that I like, so basically, I told her that I love the balsa wood flowers, the feathers, the twigs, the fiddleheads, winter berries or pussy willow, and the calla lilies. These things are well represented here on these bouts, sooooo, just make the bout first to represent what's here and then make a bigger version as the bouquet.

Here's all I could find as inspiration for the bouquet:

I know it seems like there's a lot here, but I don't actually like any of these. I like the deep burgundy callas (but not the other stuff in those top left and middle bouquets), I like the succulents (but not the white callas or the grasses in the top right bouquet), I like the feathers (but not the dusty miller in the middle left bouquet), I like the wheat and balsa wood flowers (but not the fabric flowers in the middle right bouquet) and finally, ALL of them are TOO BIG!! I want the bouquets to be the size of the bottom row bouquets.

Shoo, got all that Tara? Here's some more stuff:

Centerpieces was very straightforward: I'm currently collecting wine bottles (I actually have enough *Squee* already but still collecting so I can use them elsewhere if I want to) and I want just a fiddlehead fern or two and few wheat stalks sticking out. I'd like herbs at each place setting, and that's it. Then of course I still want the burlap on the table, moss on the burlap, the wood slab on the moss, and a few candles and the wine bottle on the wood slab.

Again, she has these for me to use.*


*Now of course I don't get to use them for free, I would be renting them, but if renting them from her still costs less than buying and shipping them to myself, then we've found ourselves a winner. Now, I say all this now, she hasn't yet given me a breakdown of how much this is all going to cost, but she has assured me that it's on the lower end budget-wise from the average Lancaster flower budget, which by the way is $2000!! I told her my budget was $1000 not because it is but because I really don't want to spend $2000 on something that's going to die very soon after the wedding.

Needless to say, I've re-budgeted because I realized that I've not been using very good tools to figure out my budget (theknot said flowers should cost me $300... what the frick?!). There's a website that shows average wedding cost for your zip code and breaks down how much you should expect to pay for each element, and it's making me feel a lot better about how much we're spending:

Average wedding cost in Lancaster: between $17,960 and $29,933! If we even manage to come in on the lower end of that range, I've decided I'm going to be happy. Here's a quick breakdown of why:

• We spent more than average on the wedding bands because Kyle keeps insisting on getting me whatever I want HOWEVER, according to the website, we're still spending below average for jewelry (I'm not counting engagement ring, I'm sorry, I just can't do it, it's not a wedding cost)
• We spent less than average on the invitations by DIYing
• We're right in the middle of the range for attire
• We're right on target for flowers (hopefully)
• We're actually on the low end of the average for venue and catering, can you believe it!
• We're spending a bit less on the DJ, because he's a good friend, but not to worry Nick, we're still not going to shaft you.
• Our DOC comes with the venue, and I'm too anal to actually pay someone to do stuff I'm going to want to do myself before the day of anyway
• We don't have transportation to pay for because booking 15 rooms at the nearby Hampton/Marriot gets us free shuttle service!

The only expense that's over the average is photography, Ben's a little pricey of course, even though he's less pricey than most of the photographers we've seen! But the point is, I seem to be on the right track to have a mostly budget-conscious wedding, but I'm no longer going to lie to myself and let myself think we can do this wedding for less than it's going to cost because I keep getting sticker shock and it's embarrassing when you go to vendors and they're like 'yeah, that's going to be 10 times what you want to spend.'

Anyway, I'm getting off my soap box. I go dress shopping tomorrow!!! All by myself, and I'm going to buy a dress, for real. I feel like it's best in the end for me to be there myself, even though that didn't work out so great the first time. Everyone has had different opinions and so I want it to just be me at the counter making the final decision. Plus no one else is around :-(

Oh hey, I found my long lost twin! And she's wearing my dress!!

How funny is that?! Now, a shift is happening here, it's ammo against my FMIL; is this the way you want my hair to look for the wedding?? Because this is the only way I would wear it curly... My mom is currently cringing. No worries Mama!! But still, doesn't her hair look almost right with that dress?? If I wore my hair curly for the wedding, I would actually be tempted to wear it like that! And that's the only way I would wear it curly.

So you tell me; curly and wild, or sleek and sophisticated and possibly boring???

Because easy would be boring... right?

Sorry it's been a few days but I have a very very good reason. My friend Mia had her bridal shower this weekend. It was a surprise so I couldn't write about it here, because Mia sometimes reads my blog :-). Now that it's over, I can say that for the past few days, I have been baking 120 cookies and 60 cupcakes for the shower and then spending time with Mia because she and her fiance Dan are two of my best buds. I was ridiculously stressed about getting everything done (not because it was too much, but because my oven sucks the big one and I kept burning cupcakes and cookies) and would not have been a pleasant blogger.

Now, the title of this post. I'm still not a very pleasant blogger at this moment in time because remember my last post? You know, the one about how our awesome honeymoon is all planned out and is going to be totally awesome? Well, I first contacted Casa Chameleon a week ago, and a customer service woman got back to me the very next day. The e-mail was very sweet and she was very helpful. The e-mail was personalized but contained all the important info I needed as well. She asked where we had heard about CC and about our dates. We don't have them completely worked out yet, but I wrote her back to her that day (now 6 days ago) with our tentative dates... I didn't hear back. Three days go by, I write a very friendly 'Just in case you didn't get my last e-mail, I was wondering if you have availability for the dates that I requested.' I gave her the dates again, there was absolutely no condescension, no passive aggression. I honestly thought maybe our e-mail got buried. Well, it's been another three days and nuthin'. Now, we are settled on this place, we love it. Now, of course, the one thing that keeps running through my head is that our dates are taken or will get taken while I wait for this woman to write back to me. Maybe if the dates are taken, they just ignore you... That sounds like an acceptable business model... BUT it makes a hell of a lot more sense than that they ignore you if the dates are open!

So now I'm convinced that our honeymoon fantasy is going to be over before it even began. We do have other options of course, but we were both set on this place, and at 9 months out, really thought we had given ourselves enough time. Maybe there's been some staffing change or maybe everyone had a week off, but tomorrow marks a full week. Tomorrow they get the serious e-mail. Tomorrow they get the 'We have our heart set on this place but if we can't count of your communication we'll be forced to choose another destination.' e-mail. It won't be nasty, but it will be possibly the firmest e-mail I will ever send (cue dramatic music) because my name is Ashley and I will get my dream honeymoon. If no one contacts me again for another few days, we will have to move on in order to book any honeymoon.

Now, onto a slightly happier subject; I found a possible florist! Her name is Tara and she's from Splints and Daisies and she's based close to our venue. Over anything else, the first thing that struck me is that her website was not the typical special occasion generic flower website. She doesn't do red rose and white lily bouquets. She does fiddlehead ferns and dramatic lilies and she seemed to like my few ideas that I spouted out when I e-mailed her a few days ago. We have a meeting scheduled for this week. The drive sucks, and I'm not sure if I can even afford a real florist, but if I have to have a florist, she is definitely up my alley. I would like to post my ideas, inspiration and preparation once I have more time (I'm sleepy after this weekend) tomorrow for your opinions! I can't wait to at least meet her, even if nothing comes of it, just to go through this process and see what a professional makes of my crazy ideas!

Pretty flower pictures tomorrow. For now, goodnight!!