Mom! This is the wedding I was looking for

Photos via Brooklyn Bride
Aubergine and Lime, natural linen table runners and white pumpkins. Not so sure how much I like the lime, but I love everything else about this color scheme.

We may have a date

Reception venue is available.
Church is reserved.
Pastor is tentatively available.
Organist needs to be contacted.

Looks like St. Paul (for a brief moment I considered Bemidji), on September 26, 2009 is our date. Yay!

I'm thinking dark purple/aubergine/plum dresses, purple dahlias for me and another pop color (green or magenta) flower for the maids.

Photo above from Martha's Blog. If she can grow 'em, maybe I can too.




I could also be persuaded to do a pretty teal/steely blue dresses with everyone having plum colored flowers.



And white pumpkins on the tables. (See the little white pumpkins on the tables above?)




Ooo, maybe white or silver glittered pumpkins! Oh, my :)

Slowly Getting Things Done

I've started to have the problem that I wake up at 4:00 AM thinking about things that need to get done for the wedding. Call this person, call that person, call reception venues, visit reception venues, figure out a date, call the officiant, call the organist, pick a date, tell the church the date, pick colors, order a dress, find a reception venue, ask parents for money, and on and on.

So it feels good that we're going to check out our first reception venue tonight, Sweeney's Saloon. It hadn't occurred to me to look into them until Erica suggested it (thanks). I'm pretty excited, because it seems too good to be true: in St. Paul, cheap, and not ugly. They are one of my favorite bars in St. Paul and I'm sure everyone would have a great time there. And according to their party coordinator they are open the last two Saturdays of September. Only snag would be that they don't have much parking, mostly on the surrounding streets. However the parking would be free.

Anthony and I are going up North for Grandma Albrecht's Dumpling Sunday this weekend and so I'm taking the opportunity to dress shop with my mom and the maids up there. I don't think there will be any purchasing however, because I've been researching having a dress made via an ebay seller.

I've been grilling the seller with fabric questions, foundation questions, and image requests. I've also been searching for reviews of their shop on wedding forums. So far, it looks as though people have been happy customers and pleased with the fit, style and quality.
This is what I want.
Here's what they sent me.
They mentioned that this was for someone who was very tall, thus the added fabric. Otherwise, it's pretty close to the real $4000 thing but for only $600. The flounced lace at the bottom seems like it needs lining though.

And I still need to talk to Anthony's Aunt about making my dress - but she might not have enough time. We'll see.

Next week, we are meeting with a photographer. The same one who took pictures when I worked on Mary Olson's state senate campaign and currently works for the State House of Representatives. The price is right and I'm hoping he can do a nice photo journalistic style that we can edit into amazing photos.

Yay!

New Week, New Possibilities

So, on Friday I chatted with my Mom about all of the issues I was having below. Turns out, my brother has decided to postpone his wedding for probably about a year. Yay! Plans are back on for Kansas, Julie G!

She recommended paying off the credit cards and saving, which was my initial plan before all this engagement happened.

She also really pushed for a non-winter wedding. Mostly, keeping in mind older guests that would be attending from 4+ hours away. I explained that the issue was saving money to pay for the big day and avoiding the Legislative Session and 2010 Campaign season. Then, she offered to help us out in that department. This conversation combined with the news of my brother's postponed wedding has given me hope that we could get married this September or October! Time for a blog name change.

Now, I've got to call the Pastor again to check his availability. Then, we're on a new reception venue search. We've had an offer from a friend to brew us two kegs of beer for a wedding gift, so we need to find somewhere that will let us do that (by some miracle). Also, another friend offered to cater it for us. This was a slightly less realistic offer but good nonetheless. Anthony's sister is going to make our cake and his aunt has offered to make a dress for me. I'm loving that this is turning out to be a family-centered party and not a vendor-center event.

Anyone have a good idea about where to have the reception? Somewhere near my church (Snelling and Marshall) with free parking, and allows us to have our own alcohol and possibly a non-standard caterer. Somewhere that has dates open in September or October where we could have a dance party that isn't insanely expensive (glaring at Eagan Community Center). Ideas?

(Picture of a couple outside the Landmark Center in St. Paul)

Dates and Dollars

(Pictures from Goodwill's Wedding Dress Sale, where I didn't buy anything but had a great time with Jessica, Melissa and Andrea last weekend)
If I had my way, we'd get married this summer. Why should it take a year to plan a party? Buy a dress and order some food, done. But, we don't really have enough money to have a $7,000 wedding in August. So, to avoid credit card debt, we must save money to pay for it.

The state budget deficit will likely not be fixed by the end of this legislative session (May 18, 2009). Thus, we will need special sessions which will probably last into the Summer. So, work would probably prevent me from a Summer wedding anyway. On to the Fall.

My brother, who got engaged almost a year ago, and got pregnant around Christmas, has now planned to get married in October (on the same day as Julie G.:( so, the Fall is out. That's when I hope we'll be able to buy a house.

Then, we're into Winter. Avoiding holidays, our birthdays, and deer hunting season we're into January 2010. But, we wanted to give people some time to recover from holiday spending.

So, then we have tentatively picked January 23, 2010 (a million years away!) and it turns out that the minister has planned a ski vacation. Gah! I'm a bit picky about church services and he makes church feel real and not phony.

So, maybe January 16th or 30th? After that, the legislative session starts again, when I'm not allowed to take time off. Assuming that session would start in (a bonding year) February or March and end on time in May, we could postpone it until then. But, my boss is also running for Minnesota Governor and the State DFL endorsing convention is always the first weekend in June. I'm planning to be a big part of that, which would seriously hinder my ability to plan a DIY wedding. And I always said I wouldn't get married in an election year!

Also, we're looking to buy a house before December 1, 2009, so we can utilize the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers.

Then, the question arises - save money to pay for the wedding or save that money to add to the down payment or pay off credit cards to make your credit look better to possible home mortgage lenders?

Since, we have to buy a house to get the credit seems like we should save money to put towards a down payment and use the tax credit to pay for the wedding (I figured it out, we should get a $8,000 check, however not sure how the interactions will go since we filed separately in 2008 and are buying a home together. Do we split the credit?). Is it solved? Maybe. That's assuming we get our checks in a timely manner. Or is this a recipe for financial disaster?

Anthony wants paper flowers

I'm a little skeptical, but something like these would be nice. Minus the raffia and a different vase.