March 20, 2011

Running of the Brides

Well…we survived! Here's a recap of our day. We hit the road around 3:30 am and got in line at 6:30. The line was pretty long at that point, so I was a little nervous (and as it turns out, rightfully so).


6:30 am...the line.

While we waited, I prepped Erik on the different kinds of wedding dresses, and what we were looking for. A few minutes before 8 am the excitement was building and we were ready to start running!

Just before 8:00 a.m....proudly displaying our signage.

There was a countdown, and the crowd took off. It probably took us less than 30 seconds to reach the doors…but we were too late. They announced as we approached the doors that all 2,000 of the dresses were off the racks! See, here's the basic strategy for Running of the Brides: You bring a team of people, run to the racks, and blindly grab as many dresses as possible. Then you take your pile of dresses and start making a "trade pile" and a "try on pile." While you're trying on, your team is out trying to trade the ones you rejected (usually because it's the wrong size) and bring back more dresses for you.

We got inside, and just had no clue what to do since all of the dresses were taken. We probably spent about 10 minutes walking around, hoping someone would see our sign and our sad faces and give up a dress (they didn't). Finally, I turned to Erik, and told him we needed a game plan. We decided to split up and start begging for dresses.

I didn't have any luck, but Erik triumphantly returned with a dress! It was an ugly size 10, but it was something! When started trying to trade, we realized that it was an issue that I was looking for a size 10 and I was in possession of a size 10…basically we really needed a different size. For example, I could give someone a size 6 and they could give me the 10 I was looking for. At some point we traded for a size 4 and that's when things started going well for us! Size 4s were fairly rare (most dress samples are 10-12), so once we got our hands on one, we were able to start accumulating dresses.

Probably, for about the first hour and half we were trading…but not really getting anything good enough to try on. By 10:00 dresses were finally starting to return to the racks, and that's when I started to find some good stuff. Basically, it was useless to get there so early. We really should have just showed up at 10:00. If we really wanted to be successful when the store opened, we needed to camp out overnight, and bring a big team.

10:00 am...Finally trying on dresses! This was one of my favorites. Even though you probably can't tell, it was dirty and stained...and I wasn't confident that the stains would come out.

Around 10:00 though, we started feeling optimistic. I tried on a few dresses and I felt like we had some good options. The problem was finding a dress that I liked that was actually in decent condition. Most of the dresses were samples, so I was expecting to be a little beat up. Well some of them were in really bad shape--stained, ripped, and just plain dirty. So we spent the rest of the morning alternating between trying on, hitting the racks, and trading.

At 1:30, I was out of energy. I sent Erik out for food, while I protected my stockpile of dresses. After being there for so long, I actually had about 8 really nice dresses…so I had a lot of women (mostly mothers of the bride) trying to swoop in on them. Erik returned. We ate…and tried to keep our spirits up.

I'll summarize the afternoon by saying it sucked! We were both exhausted. And it was just overwhelming. I had a lot of nice dresses. Every one was weighing in at this point. I would try on one dress and some random woman would say that was her favorite. Then I'd try on another one, and someone else would tell me I would be crazy not to buy it. I was expecting to find ONE nice dress at Filene's. Well I found about six. And that's why the whole thing took forever. It was a really tough choice.

Finally, we started eliminating. And I started paying more attention to what I wanted, instead of what the other women were saying….and in the end…I bought a fantastic dress!

After doing some research on the interwebs, I think I saved closer to $2301. Score!

Erik went above and beyond expectations. He was more patient than I was. He didn't freak out once. He didn't say let's just leave. He didn't roll his eyes. He didn't complain. In short, he did much better than me! Over dinner that night, I asked him how he did it. How did he remain so calm the entire day? "Well" he said, "there were a lot of boobs." LOL.
You can see more pictures of this crazy event here, including a picture of a triumphant Erik.

March 17, 2011

Massive To Do List

Alternative title: Getting our Sh*t Together. I mentioned earlier that apart from booking the venue and photographer, I've largely been a "deadbeat bride. " A few things have contributed to my deadbeat attitude.

1) I'm frikin' busy! I teach a 4:4 load, I'm trying to be successful at what I do, we're house hunting, and I'm making more of an effort (compared to when I was in grad school) to have an actual life. Fitting wedding planning into all of that has been difficult.

2) I'm trying to adopt a pretty laid back attitude about the whole wedding and focus more on the meaning of our marriage. I don't want to obsess over centerpieces, dresses, etc. Sure I want everything to be awesome, and fun, and I want a pretty dress and pretty centerpieces. But…have you been on the internet lately?...there are like a bajillion wedding sites out there with a bajillion ideas. It's easy to obsess over all of the options if you let yourself.

But…as laidback as I may want to be…and as busy as I am…a wedding still requires planning. Sigh.

My (silly) hope was that we could book some vendors and then wait until the summer (when I'm not teaching) to work out all of the details. But then I started realizing how much one decision is dependent on the other. For example, I wanted to start contacting florists for quotes. But then I realized I have no idea what kind of flowers I want. What colors? What style? Do I even want flowers? Then I turned to the internet for answers…probably lost 4 hours of my day…still had no idea what kind of flowers I wanted…and decided to just stop thinking about it.

That was probably not the best approach. Usually, when I'm overwhelmed by a big project, I make a to-do-list, and that helps to reduce my stress. So finally…I made one for the wedding.

This is the biggest to-do-list in the history of me.

First I organized everything by month, and filled in all of the major stuff that I knew had to get done by a certain time. Then I was able to work backwards to figure out when I needed to start on a certain task (i.e., invitations should go out in July…so designing should start in June…ideas should be bounced around in May). It took me a whole night to write it all out. But it was well worth it. I feel like I have a much better plan to tackle this wedding.

This list is really a master plan for the whole process. It's not very pretty. So the next night, I made a pretty one for the month of March…broken down by week. Not really necessary, but fun. I'm trying to figure out a good place to hang it so we see it everyday.

Finally, I made the list for this month. I find it helpful to write out all of the steps in accomplishing a task. If I just write down "launch website" … it's too vauge, and probably won't get done. So every little step in accomplishing all of our monthly tasks has been put on this page.

I know it may seem like list making overkill…if you're counting, I have 3 lists. But as long as it's keeping us on track (which it is at the moment), I plan to keep it up.

Are you a list maker? What works for you? Any tips for me?

March 14, 2011

We interrupt wedding planning...

...for house hunting! Jeeze. It's crazy over here at Hoover-Brandt headquarters! We started seriously house hunting last week, and planned to take our time looking for a house. Well, we went out on Friday and looked at a bajillion houses, fell in love with one, put in an offer on Saturday, received a counter offer today, and we're getting ready to fire back! So wedding planning is on hold for the next few days. Unfortunately, Running of the Brides in Atlanta is on Friday...I don't think they will reschedule it for us. We'll see if we're still standing at the end of this week! Anyway, wish us luck on negotiations!


A small (blurry) sneak peak at what is hopefully to come!

Save the dates sent.

Stamped and sealed! The save the dates are in the mail!

March 13, 2011

We've settled on a designer!

No surprise here, I'll be designing all the media, both paper and digital, for the wedding. I recently completed the save the dates and sent them off to the printer. In this case, we used Vistaprint. They made it super easy. I simply downloaded the template, opened it in Illustrator and got to work. Not to mention, our order was free! Well the actual save the dates were free, there were a few fees and charges that made them less than free, but it was still a great deal.

Here is the designer, hard at work.

Brodie offers constructive criticism.

I'm happy to say, we received them on time according to Vistaprint's estimated arrival date (7 days after order). They look great and we're sending them out tomorrow!

March 7, 2011

What we've been up to...the kinda (but not really) short version

Hello! And welcome to our very first blog post. As we get ready to send out our save-the-dates and launch our website, I figured it was a good time to get together a post. I realize no one will be aware that this site even exists until they actually receive their save-the-date....but let's just pretend someone is reading this.

From here on out we're hoping to use this blog as a way to keep our family and friends involved in wedding planning...to keep us motivated to work on our HUGE wedding to-do list...and hopefully to make the whole planning process more fun and less stressful.

So to start here's the "short" version of what we've been up to.

First a little background on why we're getting married after all of these years. We've been talking about having a Vegas wedding (and generally, a wedding) for many many years, but practicality always seemed to get in the way (i.e., I was in grad school, we wanted to save for a house, etc.). Finally (only took about 8 years...we're slow learners I guess), we realized two things: 1) there will always be a more "practical" way to spend our money besides a wedding; but 2) we really want to share our wedding ceremony with our family and friends. So with that in mind, we decided we would shoot for a small Vegas wedding. We decided we wanted to talk to our families in person and feel them out (in regards to Vegas) at our annual holiday visits.

My mom basically beat me to the punch when I took her out for coffee to talk about the possibility of a wedding. I think she said something like "So, do you think you and Erik will ever get married?" LOL (Love you mom!). Long story short, she was on board for a 2011 wedding.

By the time we made it to PA, we had pretty much made up our mind that we wanted to do a destination wedding in Las Vegas. Erik talked to his Dad and Lisa first, and then we had a lot of fun sharing the news with the Brandt and Franczak families.

Christmas Day with the Brandts.

I figured, while I was around friends and family, it made sense to try to squeeze in some wedding dress shopping. So I rounded up Cara (BFF), Chris (BFF), Lisa (Erik's stepmom), and Olivia (Erik's sister). It was 50% fun, 25% overwhelming, and 25% terrifying. Next time, I'll be more prepared.

I'm currently shopping for a parasol to complete this look. (kidding)

After Pennsylvania, we were off to Las Vegas for a top secret scouting trip! Okay, it wasn't really top secret. Lots of people knew we were going...and a few knew why. But I felt like I was on a secret mission.

Jan. 2: Thank goodness for inflight wi-fi! Researching vendors and setting up last minute meetings.

To sum up the trip, it was a whirlwind of scoping out chapels, ballrooms, and restaurants. Plus, we were trying to squeeze in an engagement session with a really awesome photographer (we did! more on that epic day later).

Jan. 4: Erik at Planet Hollywood's chapel.

It was an exhausting trip. But I am so glad we went. I don't think we would have decided on The Platinum if we didn't see it in person. Oh and as an added bonus, we got to hang out with my mom and Ed! (They were in Vegas/Laughlin for New Year's...party animals.)

Jan. 2: Dinner at Firefly.

Back to Spartanburg (and reality) where we had to make decisions, come up with a firm budget, and figure out how to stick to it. After going back-and-forth about the pros and cons of the different venues, we finally decided on The Platinum. In the end, we'll get more for our money there...and uh, did I mention it will be on a roof...at night...overlooking the Vegas strip? How awesome is that? (more on The Platinum soon).

Because we're dorks (okay, mostly me), we (I) took pictures of the contracts. This is us signing the contract for The Platinum and Chelsea Nicole Photography.

Jan. 28:

So that brings you up to speed! Since then, I've been a deadbeat bride. LOL. Don't get me wrong...I'm super excited about this wedding. But planning it?...not so much. All of that is about to change now that we're about 7 months out. So stay tuned, and cheer us on (in the comments section please!) as we try to pull this whole thing together.