Ok, so here is the guest list, divided up into tables. 

Wedding Party: Matt/Sami, Me, John, Mike/Patty, (6)

My Family: Mom, Dad, Pat, Aunt Pat, Jack, Norreen, Julia, Mike Blum, Wendy (9)

John’s Family: Daphne, Ken, Aunt Pam, Uncle Larry, Uncle Joe, Aunt Lisa (6)

My Work/Friends: Matt, Jess, Sean, Bill, Kim, Jackie, John (7)

John’s Work: Angela, Lucia, Melissa, Nick, Sal, Judy (6)

John’s Family 2: Stephanie, Jeff, Kelly, Patrick, Connor, Kyle, Morgan (7 – if they come)

So that’s possibly 41 people…if everyone comes.  I’m a little worried about the table for my family… the tables really only fit 8 people.  But Julia is 6 years old…how much room can she really take up?

Anyway, as for the centerpieces, I wanted to get all of the same figure (and the one I used in college) because both John and I like the simplicity of it.  BUT, the one I got for college is really an ornament, and has this hook coming out of the man’s head.  So that won’t work.  And when I looked it up online, the statues (not ornaments) were only availible in the UK and something like $40 each (or so John tells me) WITHOUT shipping.  So that wouldn’t work, even for only 5 tables. 

So what we’re thinking about doing is splurging for one to put on top of the cake, and then get other similar statues for the table centerpieces. Here is what we’ve found:

I like how this one is wearing a veil.

There seem to be a lot of this one, for cheap, so maybe we could just get a bunch of these…  Something about it just isn’t quite right though.  Actually, you know what?  This one is a no… it creeps me out!

This one is nice, but I think it might be too thin.  Where is the guy’s body?!

The little wavy thing reminds me of curly hair!  And John likes it too.  So yay!

I wonder if the florist would be willing to help me design something fancy.  Take what I have in mind to the next step, you know?

Also, These are AWESOME. (But soooo expensive!) I need to make a friend who makes clay sculptures, lol.

Photos taken from various ebay auctions.

FROM HERE ON OUT, JOHN IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO READ THIS BLOG.

Just to fill up some space…maybe even take up enough so that he’d have to scroll to see the potential dress pictures, here is what I designed for my senior show, when I presented “A Wedding in a Box.”  I got engaged during my senior year of college, and it was all I could think about.  So when we had to decide on a multi-piece design project for school, of course I chose to design my wedding!  It’s kind of interesting to see how much of my real wedding I can actually make match my imaginary one.

This was my whole set up. I designed the reception table, centerpiece, the favors (magnetic paper dolls of the happy couple) the invitations, a scrapbook that told our story, and even the dresses that the bride, bridesmaids and flower girl would wear.

This is what the table looked like. I pretty much made everything on this table; the napkins, the table cloth, the book itself for the scrapbook, I put together the centerpiece, and I drew the magnetic dolls. I still like most of this, but I’m not so sure about the ivy anymore. And I think I would replace the pink flowers under the centerpiece and fill the bowl with water. Then raise the couple higher and put floating flowers on the water.

Closeup of the dresses I designed.

OK JOHN, LAST CHANCE TO STOP LOOKING.

John’s mom and I (and my friend Jess) went wedding dress shopping last Saturday, (Not yesterday Saturday) and I tried on a tooooon of dresses. OMG I was so sick of dress shopping! And I am a picky person, so a lot didn’t make the cut. But here are the finalists:

This was my favorite (and I think Jess’) from Alfred Angelos.

This was John’s mom’s favorite. I think it looks a little too modern/trendy for my taste though. My mom and dad call it the “JLo Dress” because my dad thinks it shows off my butt!  Also, I would not have that brown color on the sash, but pink.  They just had the example dress in brown.

My favorite from David’s Bridal. (Here, have another look at it.) The sales woman took this off the maniquin, and I was beyond S-H-O-C-K-E-D to find out that it cost $1,000. OF COURSE this was after I saw myself in it. Ugh. This is probably the one that closest mimics the dress I designed in college.  It doesn’t really go in at my hips like that…it’s just my hands that make it look like it does.

This is my mom’s favorite from David’s Bridal. What’s cool about this dress is that it looks like someone took antique lace from an old dress and included it in this one. The photo doesn’t do the dress justice.  (Mental note?)

So that’s them! My friend Jackie says that the fact that I’m having a hard time choosing between my two favs means I haven’t found the right dress yet. Let’s hope not…

PS: MOM TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR DRESS AS IT IS NOW AND SEND IT TO ME ALREADY! :p

Photographers from the bridal show:

Ultimate Images – I couldn’t get their site to load, therefore I have no idea if they’re good or not. When John is playing online games the internet connection is soooo slow on mine. Also, their site looks like it’s all in flash. I HATE SITES ALL IN FLASH. And, also annoying, the link for their “low bandwidth” version of the site didn’t work. Grrr.

Sevilla Photography- Site design was ok, but what annoyed me was that their portfolio was done via one of those freebie slideshows. I couldn’t see the whole photo at one time, and I couldn’t click on any of them. Annoying. But it didn’t look like it was going to work out for them because most of the photos were in black and white and I want color anyway.

Sue Egan Photography- They’re part of the Greater Rochester Professional Photographers. Uuuuugh site all in flash. So much so, that I can’t even see it. Ok, I installed the flash player they recommended and it looks like I can see the site. Here’s hoping!

 Look a gazebo shot! 

Suggestion for the site: Make the navigation in flash, and the rest with regular HTML. I’m tried of waiting 10 seconds for each photo to load. Also, some thumbnails would be nice.

 The kiss, the kiss!

 Bubbles as they leave!  (Notice, so far, this is ALL what I want?)

Overall, the wait was worth it. I really like Sue’s style of photography. I think I’m going to put her in my list of contacts…as long as she’s willing to give me a CD of high res photos!

Photo Kisses – The picture on their flier is of a couple making out so I was like “Woah! Not at my wedding!” but the photo was bright, and well composed, so I decided to check them out.

 I always look for photographers that have shot outdoor weddings.

They seem to be more of a photo journalistic company; I didn’t see too many formal shots. I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, I want some of the photos to be candid, but I also want formal shots, you know?

 So cute!

Rachel Gracie Photography – Wasn’t impressed with anything on their site. Nice photos, just not what I’m looking for.

Salith Studio – I was thinking really good things about this company, but then I realized I only liked one photo out of the bunch. I think they’d be much better off with more photos to look through.

Alan Farkas Photography – nice pictures, just not my style.

Peter Z Photoz – not impressed.

PQR Photography – Woah! Their website is a little overwhelming when you first look at it. Lots of wedding galleries, which is nice. Still, nothing that caught my eye.

Kracke Photography – Nice pictures, I just wish there were more of them to look at. 

Alwyn Studios – I think they charge an extra $100 for the negatives. Not cool. I like their photos, but they’re really small on the site. You can click on the thumbnails to view larger versions, but they’re fuzzy! Like they took the thumbnail and stretched it.

Whew! That’s it! I’m done with new photographers!

Lots to catch you up on!  I went to a bridal show on March 31st, and am just now getting to going through all the fliers, business cards, etc. that I received at the show.

Right now I’m trying to narrow down florists and photographers.  My friend Geoff has offered to take the photos as a wedding present, but he hasn’t sent me over any example photos, so I’m still looking.

Ok, so at work we held an auction, and one of the clients, The Magic Garden Florist, was a florist.  I almost bid on the certificate, thinking that I had already researched them.  But when I looked through this blog (thank goodness I have this thing to keep all my notes organized!) I realized that I hadn’t!  So I researched them today.

They really don’t have a lot on their site about weddings…just a page to call to set up a consultation. I’ll still add them to the list (maybe I can get some kind of CC discount?) and see what they have to offer.

As far as florists that I found out about via the bridal show, I found out that the Wegmans in Pittsford does wedding flowers. Who knew?! They don’t have a website or anything though. I’ll probably pop in there one day if all the other florists have problems.

Another florist at the show was Marguerite Herbert, but she was kinda rude and didn’t really look at me/act towards me like I was important. I hate that. I think vendors should treat everyone amazingly because EVERYONE IS A POTENTIAL CLIENT. So I’m not really considering her, but I figured I should look her up just in case her arrangements are awesome.

At first I thought her site looked pretty good, but then I realized that she doesn’t even have a gallery for the “up” and “down” bouquets; she just has an example of each!  All together there are 9 examples of everything she does.  Lame!  Do I smell a site-for-flowers trade?  Probably not.

All images from the various florist websites.