Happy New Year

© Epic Image Photography

Happy New Year, everyone! The new year's holiday is my favorite, but this year, Big Spoon and I decided to have a quiet night at home. We've been incredibly busy since our wedding with family events, our honeymoon, business travel and work deadlines. This was our third New Year's eve together, but 2011 will be our first full year of married life. We're really looking forward to seeing what it holds for us.

We were so lucky in that our family, friends and co-workers surrounded us with love and support last year as we took those last steps through the engagement journey and into our marriage. It's difficult to believe, but Big Spoon and I have not yet been married 3 months! 

I'm hoping that the coming weeks offer me additional time to blog about our rehearsal, wedding day and vendor reviews, but I'm making no promises. My priorities currently include organizing our home, selling off some of the wedding stuff and integrating our gifts. I'll be hosting a garage sale in the spring to help us purge unwanted items. I'm also working on setting up an Etsy store for Little Spoon Designs.

All things in good time. I hope you all had a wonderful start to the new year!

Vendor Spotlight: Artisan Flowers

via Artisan Flowers

What happens when one of your best friends from your first graphic design job branches out into the world of floral design during your engagement? You get really friggin' lucky, that's what!

via Artisan Flowers

Please welcome Artisan Flowers to my arsenal of vendors/friendors who are starting new businesses in the wedding industry. I really enjoy collaborating with folks like Jasmin, Sarah Mallory and T30SB because, like myself, they enjoy working with brides, helping people problem solve and love this niche of the creative industries.

Jasmin has a blog and will be adding to her portfolio over the next few months. I'm very excited to see how my flowers turn out as we are using muted but lush fall colors that don't scream pumpkins and hayrides. Don't get me wrong, I love the fall. It's my absolute favorite time of the year. However, I didn't want our wedding to have the "typical" fall look. She plans to use red spray roses, hypericum, bear grass, ivy, Ivory roses, red roses, khaki roses and cinnamon roses. I love roses and I'm not ashamed of that.

We'll hang my hand-made & hand-dyed coffee filter pomanders around the venue as well! We'll be making those on Sunday with a few other wonderful friends who have offered to help me wrap up the wedding projects.

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend, everyone!

Crafts & Cocktails Party

A month or so ago, as I began to stress over how quickly the wedding was is approaching (and my lack of DIY productivity), I decided to invite a dozen or so friends over for a crafting party. I'm very lucky to have so many fantastic friends and a little sister (MOH), most of which had already offered to help me. I could not think of a better way to involve them in this process than by inviting them all over together for some bonding time and of course, drinks and treats!

We failed to get pictures of everyone from early on, but Big Spoon did snap some of us assembling the wedding wands and I snapped a few after the party of our projects. I'm still on cloud nine with how well everything went. We completed the following projects within a five hour span:

• Wedding Invitations (70) - RSVP postcards stamped, assembled and stuffed into envelopes.
• Shower invites (50) - all pieces stuffed into envelopes
• Candy Buffet Favor Bags (100) - tags and spoon charm sewn onto bags
• Wedding Signs (3) - hardware added to the backs
• Wedding Wands (80) - tied, beaded and better than I imagined!

I truly had a blast and I think the ladies did too! Big Spoon was adorably attentive and checked on us from time to time. Miss Jasmin's fiance dropped her off and toted in the most lovely arrangement of hyacinth ever! They smell like heaven.

A million thanks to Beth, Stacey, Bethany, Krista, Jasmin, Jackie, Brittany and Melissa for their hard work. And to Big Spoon for being awesome as always. Thanks for being a part of our wedding process. Love you all!

 {favor bags}

{wedding wands}

{sorted invitations waiting to be addressed}

Expect the Unexpected

If you are planning a wedding, my biggest piece of advice to you is to expect the unexpected (and budget for it).

Someone important may be unable to be present. People you didn't necessarily think to include get their feelings hurt over not being invited. A parent dies. You lose your job. You forgot to budget for your wedding bands. Shit happens and it sucks, but this is good practice for the rest of one's life.

To be sure, Big Spoon and I have had our share of little crises over the course of our engagement, but over the past few weeks, I've run into a major dilemma with the guest list: How do you tell friends and family you weren't planning on inviting them? Do you? Or do you invite them thinking they won't come? Do you still invite them to the bridal shower? What about new friends? Where do you draw the line?

Damn those save-the-dates! That was my worst idea EVER. Not only do I now have to invite everyone who received a SD card, I have no control over that part of the guest list, because trust me, I would love to cut it down by 30 people or so. I thought I was doing so good with the guest list ... until now.

So, here we are with a 128 person guest list (that includes us) for a 125 person wedding reception. We're currently $300 over budget, and that is for 100 people. Every time I turn around, someone is wanting me to add someone to it. Some days, I really want to cut everyone out but our immediate family and closest friends. Which, in hindsight is what Big Spoon wanted anyway and I wouldn't couldn't cut down the family list.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Someone from work (who planned her daughter's wedding) told me to only expect a 60% turn-out. She said that I should invite more people and we'd still be okay, but I'm just not sure about that. I'm trying to trouble shoot ... do we go back to the caterer and try to get a lower per person quote? Do we call all our guests and tell them there are no kiddies allowed? Or do I just ignore people? Do I need to cut people to add people? How should I stagger the RSVP dates if I wanted to send out additional last-minute invites?

Somebody help!

9 Months to Go, But Who's Counting?

Hello blog world! We've been super busy over here at Big Spoon Little Spoon and I have a big-ish announcement for you this week. But not yet ... this is what we've been doing lately ...

We booked our honeymoon and wedding night hotel this month because Orbitz was running a great Winter Sale and Discover Card (my credit of choice) was rewarding 5% cash back bonuses on travel and hotel purchases. Not to mention, I get another 5% cash back by using Shop Discover. Cha-ching!

The Hilton family of hotels is also running a January Sale. Since Big Spoon works in West End, he wanted did not want our wedding night to be anywhere near his office. We opted instead to stay half-way between our venue and home in the brand new Hampton Inn in Mt. Juliet. It might sound less glam than the posh downtown hotels, but we have an in-room whirlpool tub. So ha!

On Jan 17, I attended the big big bridal show with Hillary Capes of Your Day of Fairy Tales and two girlfriends who are engaged to marry after us (not each other). Much fun! Thanks again to Hillary and Jonathan Campbell Photography for my show ticket.

I've been collaborating with my FMIL to plan our rehearsal dinner. Gallatin, TN is smallish, so the variety of nice restaurants is ... limited, shall we say. We are looking at Monell's Gallatin and a new place in Hartsville, TN called Tully's Bistro.

*Just a word of advice while we're on the subject. Don't limit yourself to "in town" venues. An additional 20-30 minutes outside of Nashville might save you hundreds of dollars in venue costs. It certainly worked out that way for us and thank goodness we don't have to fool with the _________'s at Metro Park Services!


And there's more ...

Big Spoon got really great news this week: he’s been reappointed to his faculty position! Yay! (That means we don’t have to pack up and move right after the wedding.) I’m not ashamed to say that I cried a little I was so happy about it. He worked very very hard last semester to make this happen and I’m soooooo proud of him.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a bit-o-bling .... I purchased this on Etsy for our cake, but it’s a lot bigger than it looks. I’m wondering if I shouldn’t ask them if I can exchange it for another. Gorgeous, no?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I'm back from my blogger break and wedding planning hiatus. I am so excited about 2010 - the beginning of a new decade and the year I will start my married life with Big Spoon! 2009 went by so quickly and I have a great deal to be thankful for. I'll work backwards from today ...

New Year's Eve 2009: 
We invited our closest friends over and had a ton of fun ringing in the new year. Also, it appears that 2010 is the year of weddings: three of our close friend couples are engaged and planning summer/late summer weddings. Oh my! We are so excited for all of them.

Christmas 2009
We had such a wonderful, low-key Christmas this year. It was our first year to celebrate Christmas together. We headed up to my family's celebration on Christmas Eve to be with my parents, maternal grandparents, brother, sisters and brothers-in-law and niece and nephew. Christmas day, Big Spoon's parents flew in from Colorado and were here through Tuesday and they totally spoil us. I am always sad to see them leave and miss them like I've known them forever.

Oh, and Big Spoon gave me a Tiffany's charm! Isn't it cute?

Fall 2009
Oh, let's see ... we booked Down South Delights catering in November, celebrated our 1st year dating anniversary and chose Rose Mont Mansion for our wedding and reception in October.

Summer 2009
We (as in my parents) purchased my wedding dress in August, celebrated Big Spoon's birthday, had engagement pictures made in June and celebrated my birthday! Oh, and I bought a new car :)

Spring 2009
This quarter of 2009 was marked by travel - a weekend trip to Colorado and a romantic getaway to New York City. Big Spoon proposed in Central Park on April 13. It all felt like a dream and sometimes, it still does. I started our blog in 2009 as well.

Winter 2009
Shopping for engagement rings in January is definitely an experience I will never forget. Both surreal and exciting as this experience was, the most shocking part was falling in love with classic solitaires. I love my ring more every day. Big Spoon did a great job matching my personality to my engagement ring - classic brilliant round with a flat, small modern band. Even down to the surprise side diamonds, its perfect.

Although there were some shadows - work, relationships, the economy - overall, I couldn't have asked for a better year. I am so lucky to be in love with my best friend, to be surrounded by family and friends and continue my career in design into the new year.

Thanks for reading, folks. Happy New Year.

Trimming the Fat and Other Stress

As the months roll by and 10/10/2010 becomes more of a reality than a distant date on the calendar, I have become increasingly obsessed with the budget. I like to think that I am a practical, frugal and sane bride. Big Spoon and I certainly have a handle on our finances and both feel that spending an outrageous amount of money on one day is foolish - for us. We sat down and listed our priorities, compromised and set a budget.

I knew things would come up, I just didn't anticipate how soon.

The wedding dress I have found is a bit more than I wanted to spend, which means the difference that would have paid for undergarments, shoes, accessories ... is now going into the cost of the dress. My parents want to pay for it, but my Dad was laid off from his job and I can't in good conscience let them pay more than a fixed amount.

The venue we are renting provides chairs and tables. That means we provide the linens, and even though I have busted my butt researching prices and contracts, weighing the pros and cons of making them or buying them, we still (at this point) only anticipate affording the table linen - no chair covers. The chairs are ugly, in my opinion, and they bother me. I think this is something I will eventually get over - a minor detail that is not going to majorly effect our wedding day - but that doesn't keep me from fantasizing about them now.

I decided in the beginning that I am perfectly capable of planning this wedding and then handing the reigns over to a friend or day-of-coordinator. What I didn't anticipate is HOW MUCH day-of-coordinators cost! Holy moses! I've asked a dear friend of mine (who is also doing our flowers) to assist and I hope it works out for us. I feel confident that she will do a fine job, I just worry that perhaps she'll need a helper.

So, in my head all the time, I'm thinking about a) the things I can't have b) the things I shouldn't want but do c) or how to cut costs in other areas.

Is this sort of thing normal?

The tie that binds Bridezillas

One of Little Spoon's guilty pleasures is the show Bridezillas, in which the misbehavior of a variety of women is chronicled and edited together with the sweetest and snarkiest of narrators describing the proceedings. Some of them have minor emotional meltdowns, but others become physically and emotionally abusive to those around them. There have even been a couple who seem to play up their "bitchiness" for the cameras - after all, they wouldn't want to be deprived of their $2500 and free wedding video for not making enough of a show!

After watching some episodes of this, it seems like these brides would all be high in a personality trait called stress reaction; namely, they are moody, react strongly to even minor stressors, and seem to be unable to put things in perspective. However, many times this stress reaction seems to stem from a belief that the wedding day is supposed to be all about the bride, that everyone else is supposed to be her slave, and that the perfect fulfillment of every one of her multitudinous wishes is only a reasonable expectation - not a recipe for insanity.

Keeping things in perspective - that your wedding is just a day in the grand scheme of things, your friends and family still deserve to be treated with respect as on any other day, and everyone still has their limits - can go a long way to reducing the Bridezilla mentality. If you can step back and remember that your wedding is a celebration not just of your relationship with your future spouse but of all the relationships with your friends and family that got you to this point, it might help take the aggressive edge off.