On the wedding planning front, things are going well, although it's been an exhausting week. This time last week my family and I were in France for my grandfather's funeral. It was a short trip, so kind of a shocking dose of jet lag to deal with, and when we got back last Monday night Jordan and I had to stay up and study for finals. Yeah, that was fun.
Nonetheless! We have successfully made it through the semester, and for Jordan, he successfully made it to graduation! He's worked so hard these past four years, gone above and beyond in his academics, and he's the first person in his (immediate) family to graduate from college. I'm so proud of him.
Anyway. Wedding. I guess I'll start with the past few days.
Friday I had my first meeting with a florist. My mom bought me a nifty little book called "Bridal Bargains", which boasts to be "the book the wedding industry does NOT want you to read!" and is full of tips and tricks about how to plan a wedding on a reasonable budget. Before the florist meeting I flipped through the "flowers" section to get my bearings on what I should keep in mind and ask about. One of the first things the book said was to meet with your florist about six months before the wedding. Um, woops. Obviously, that's out of the question. As of yesterday, our wedding is exactly four weeks away (don't freak out, don't freak out). Thankfully, the florists I've talked to so far have not had a problem with the short notice. We've (my Mom and I) have met with two florists so far, and both of them said all they need is at least two weeks notice.
The first florist was one I found in the yellow pages, after many exasperating tries to get in touch with a larger, more popular florist, only to be redirected to a location I didn't want to go to every time. Friday at noon, my Mom and I walk into the flower shop.
It was bigger than I imagined; a large yellowish room that, honestly, felt a little vacuous. There were islands of flowers and fake flowers and stuffed animals around the room, but it didn't feel filled in. In a corner near the refrigerated room - the kind that you see in grocery stores where they keep the fresh flowers on display - a green patio table was set up for us, with wedding books filled with sample arrangements awaiting our perusing eyes. The wedding coordinator we met with was also not what I expected: a large man with thick hands and thin glasses, dressed very casually in a gray shirt, jeans and his green florist apron.
In spite it being a lot of things I didn't expect, the meeting went very well. I was impressed with the florist's - named Will - knowledge, and in spite of the many warnings in "Bridal Bargains" about vendors who are out to swindle naive brides, Will was only helpful, even suggesting things to save us time and money (i.e. not ordering many different colors of flowers, having a couple of the groomsmen come pick up the bouquets the day of). He understood my vision of keeping things simple and elegant, and had some great suggestions. The final estimated price came out to be about $275.00, which, according to Will, is fairly reasonable. I was hoping for something less, but from what I've heard $300.00 is about standard for wedding flowers.
Saturday was taken up with Jordan's graduation and celebrating afterwards.
Sunday (yesterday) we went to church, I took a nap on Jordan's couch while he and his roommate watched "Heroes" (Jordan's new obsession. I wouldn't mind, except it's taken his attention away from Buffy, which he no longer wants to watch with me, claiming that Heroes is way better. I disagree), and around 4:00 I came home to work on invitations. Yes, we've still got invites to send out; we've invited a lot of people via Facebook whose addresses we didn't have at the time of the first send-out, and after I stressed out about what to do for a while, my Mom very rationally pointed out that if some have already gotten FB invites, it's still OK to send them real ones, even this late in the game.
After looking through our many address lists, I decided that it would be helpful to compile everything into one big list, a task that ended up taking me several hours last night and a while this morning to finish. It was as boring and tedious as data entry, even when I played part of Alec Baldwin hosting SNL on Hulu to try and keep myself entertained. I do think it's helpful to have everything in one place, though, although I fear there may still be a few addresses that have alluded me . . .
Which brings us to today. We were supposed to meet with another florist at 11:00, but I woke up at 10:00 not feeling up to jumping out of bed and straight into more meetings and checklists, so I called to reschedule for tomorrow. After breakfast (Special K and a kiwi; I've been trying out that "Special K diet" in an extra attempt to trim off a little bit before the wedding) I made a few phone calls to the florist we were going to meet with today, just to double check the time of our appointment. Then, like I mentioned, I went upstairs to finish off the address list. Jordan had come over, so I gave him the tasks of calling the hotel where we're having the ceremony to ask about sound equipment and setting a time for the rehearsal.
Lisa (my soon-to-be mother in-law) called me about an invitation that never made it to its receiver. Turns out the address was out-dated. We also talked a little bit about my bridal shower, which won't be until the week before the wedding so that my older sister/maid of honor, Rebekah, can be there. She's currently in L.A. going to law school and won't be back until early June. Later that morning, my mom called a bakery and a tea house about reserving space for a shower, but other than that we don't have a lot of concrete ideas right now. Like everything else, though, I have confidence that it will come together when it needs to.
OK, florist #2: a pleasant woman at a smaller but much more heavily decorated flower shop. We met with her at 3:00, and I told her my ideas and she added some of her own. I never knew there were so many types of "filler" flowers (i.e. baby's breath, but in many different styles and colors). I'd been hoping for a wildflower-esque floral theme, and some colorful fillers seem to be just the thing.
Halfway through our meeting, however, Deana (pleasant lady florist) found out about a funeral she needed to prep flowers for tonight at 6:00, and I noticed that she started to talk faster and act more rushed. This, along with all the pictures of flowers, names of flowers, suggestions for flowers, and bouquets of flowers that surrounded us, got me a little overwhelmed. Generally, I think the meeting went well, and it was definitely helpful and gave me some better ideas of exactly what I want. We didn't get a price estimation, though. Deana will mail one to us. Mom gets the feeling it will be a little bit more expensive, but we'll see.
We made a couple of other stops on the way home: Staples, to get a planner of the kind I've been wanting (exclusively for wedding things, so I can keep track of people's phone numbers, to-do lists, and appointments all in one place); Walgreens, so I could get a less-expensive planner (we had some buyer's remorse walking out of Staples; all of the cheap planners were school ones with calendars that didn't start until September so we had to go for the pricier ones); and Albertson's, because my mom wanted to show me the many beautiful (and cheap) potted flowers that they have right now. She's been suggesting for a while that we should look into something like that to decorate the chapel for the ceremony. I, I'm a little ashamed to say, have been ignoring my mom's ideas because I didn't think the chapel needed any decoration, and I wanted to keep things simple. However, Deana was actually the one to mention that there are shelves in the front of the chapel where people often put potted flowers to add color to the all-white background, and after seeing the flowers my mom has been imploring me to look at for weeks, I think they're both right.
Someday, I hope, I'll learn that my parents usually give very wise and insightful advice. There's one thing I know for sure: without the help of my parents, Jordan's parents, and other friends and family members, our wedding (or the planning of it, at this point) would not be where it is today. And for that, I know I am incredibly blessed, and I am very thankful.
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