Good bye Frederick!

I can’t express enough how much fun I had keeping everyone in the area posted through my wedding planning journey.  It has been a great ride.  I’m a married woman now, so this will be the last you read from me.  Thanks to the FNP for letting me be a part of this.  Good luck with planning for all you future brides.  Thank you to my family and friends for all their love and support in helping to make our big day a wonderful event, we’ll never forget!

Love,
b2binfredmd
The New Mrs!

I’m a married woman!

I’m back!  I was married, had a honeymoon and now its back to work and reality!  My name is officially changed and I’m beginning a new life with the man I love! 

The wedding was beautiful, despite hurricane Hanna showing her ugly face.  The rain subsided after the ceremony, which had to be moved in doors from the rose garden.  We were still able to take some pictures outside and everyone had a wonderful time! 

We left early the next morning to enjoy our honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, where we stayed at the Velas Vallarta Suite Resort.  It was beautiful there!  The food was amazing and the service was top notch!  It was just what we needed after a hectic year of planning a wedding and all the stress that leads up to the big day. 

Over the next few days (it might take weeks) I am going to be writing up reviews on all the vendors that we used to make our special day possible.  Hopefully you can learn from these critiques and it might give you some good recommendations on who you should or shouldn’t use to help plan your own wedding.  I feel like a pro after planning mine, so please feel free to ask about any dos and don’ts on planning a wedding.  I am here to help!

5 days left!

The seating chart has been finalized and the place cards have been printed!

Ceremony is designed and the program is done.  I will be printing those up today and tying black satin ribbon around them to hold the accordion style programs together.

I put together all of the OOT bags and they are finished!

We found gifts for our parents, the groomsmen and our 2 readers.

I had my final dress fitting and both my rehearsal dinner dress and wedding dress look wonderful.  They were steamed and taken home, ready to go.

Have to pick up a few last minute items today.  Tomorrow we’ll load up the car and drive everything up to the Antrim to be dropped off.

Its almost here!

The countdown continues….10 days to go!

I cannot believe how fast the past year has flown by.  I feel like I just got engaged and now our wedding is right around the corner.  So much to still do and I feel like I’m running out of time.  I took off next week because evenings after work just don’t allow enough time to finish everything up.  Here is where we are with things left to do:

FI went this week and got the marriage license, so I’m glad that’s all taken care of.

My sister and I worked on a DIY project of making personalized water bottles that will be put in the OOT bags and given out at the ceremony.

Only a couple vendors left to check in with and pay off the balances owed.

The venue has our final head count and specialty meal requests.

I am finalizing the seating chart and getting ready to print the place cards.

I’m also working on organizing the program and printing those up as well.

We still have to buy gifts for the groomsman, parents and the readers and make sure those are wrapped up and ready to go.

My last dress fitting is tomorrow to make sure everything is taken care of.  The dress should be steamed and ready to go.

Just reading my list is exhausting!  I’ll keep you posted in these last few days leading up to the wedding!

18 days to go…..busy, busy!

18 days to go and counting!  What I’ve been up to lately….

We met with our Reverend last week to go over the details of the ceremony.  Now that we have that laid out, I can start working on designing and printing the programs.

I have been packing all my “wedding stuff” up in boxes and labeling them to prepare to drive everything up to the Antrim the week of the wedding.

I finished a DIY project of making our unity candle with 2 tapers to match and several white pillar candles with black ribbon and rhinestone embellishments.  They came out fabulous and will add some nice touches to the party.

I ordered my flower girl basket and ring bearer pillow and they just arrived.  The basket is definitely smaller then I expected, but will do the job.

I have another DIY project planned of putting white and black ribbon wrapped on glass votive holders with rhinestone embellishments.  Since I have over a hundred to do, I’ve been putting this off, but I’m running out of time, so its now or never!

My current task is working on the seating chart.  This is proving to be a more difficult task then first expected.  You have to think about who knows each other, who will get along, pairing up the singles to fill a 10 person table….phew!  It is coming along though.  The way I see it is that our guests will only be in their assigned seats while they are eating dinner, so it shouldn’t be too big of a deal if some people are mixed up.  Its hard to please everyone!

Things to Do:

• Call up all vendors and finalize details of service, time line and final cost
• Design/Print programs
• Finalize seating chart
• Print place cards
• Buy/wrap gifts for parents, readers and bridal party (of course all the gifts for my bridesmaids are bought and wrapped, but the FI still has to get gifts for the boys)
• Pick up marriage license (also on FI to-do list)
• Finalize reception play list

Lots to do and not alot of time.  Better get to work!

Married in a month!

Exactly 1 month from today I’ll be walking down the aisle….ahhhh!  So much to do in such a  little time.  I am getting so excited!  I can’t wait for our big day….and the honeymoon that follows!  It will be here before we know it.

Vistaprint…a bride’s best friend!

If you are looking to get anything printed for your wedding, or any other event for that matter, I highly suggest visiting www.vistaprint.com  It is a wonderful website that offers very inexpensive professional printing for just about any item you can think of.  I have already ordered my STD’s with return address labels and printed a note for our OOT bags.  Today, I ordered a card with the schedule of events, return address labels for our thank you notes and a set of personalized stationary with my new married name!  Everything I have purchased from them has been top quality, arrived quickly and was very inexpensive.  I really cannot say enough good things about their company and customer service.  Highly recommended!!

More items purchased for the wedding…

I took a trip to AC Moore this past weekend and picked up some more supplies for the wedding. 

I found some place cards that have the same pearl detailing as our invitations.  I’ll be able to print them on our printer which will save lots of hand writing. 

A tall, white pillar candle was purchased, one I can decorate myself and will use as our unity candle.  I also purchased 2 matching white taper candles to complete the set.  Now, I’ll only have to purchase a stand to display the three candles together.  This DIY project will definitely save some money. 

Next on the list was a card box for the gift table.  It is in the shape of a trunk, covered in white fabric with a long slot cut in the top.  I was going to make my own, but now that its getting closer to the wedding, I figured I would save some time and just buy one. 

Lastly, I purchased two beautiful sets of glass candle holders.  Each set has 3 glass holders with red globes on top.  I’m not sure where we will display these yet, but they will be beautiful accent pieces.

Groom picked tuxes with his Best Man

A classic black Ralph Lauren tux was chosen for the groom, the groomsman and the fathers.  All will wear white shirts and matching black vests.  My groom will be wearing a black straight tie to complete his ensemble.  The groomsmen will be wearing a burgundy straight tie to match the bridesmaid’s dresses.  Both of our fathers will be wearing a black bow tie.  My FI’s nephew, our ring bearer will be in classic tails with a white vest, white shirt and white bow tie.  He is going to look so cute!  The tuxes were rented from Men’s Wearhouse in Frederick, MD.  The customer service there was wonderful!

I must give credit to my FI who has been really on top of his “wedding to-do list” now that it is getting closer to the wedding.  I guess he realizes that I need help and its crunch time!  Thanks FI!

My FI bought my wedding band!

It’s a 14kt white gold band with 9 round channel set diamonds and a little less then 0.5kt total diamond weight.  I love it!  He did a good job.  He wanted to choose a ring that complimented my engagement ring perfectly.  It looks like they were bought as a set.  I’m looking forward to the day that he can slip it on my finger! Less then 5 weeks and counting!!