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If anyone's wondering what $1300 worth of alcohol looks like...
There you go! Our original budget for alcohol was $1500, so we came in $200 under budget AND we also bought 8 bottles of wine for the rehearsal dinner, which was not in our initial alcohol budget at all.
We will probably end up returning some, but we just didn't know what folks would want to drink. Beer? Wine? If wine, red or white? If red, pinot or cabernet? If none of the above, vodka or tequila? And so on...so, we probably overbought, but I really, really don't want to do a beer run in the middle of our wedding. We also bought toasting champagne (excuse me, sparkling wine!). We'll have 3-4 bottles of champagne for guests to drink before the toasts if they prefer to drink champagne...those are Moet, left over from Mr. T's cousin's wedding. The toasting ahem, sparkling wine is Gloria Ferrer, which was a recommendation from my codancer who loves champagne, so we totally took her advice with no hesitation. We are also serving the same chardonnay (Benziger) and pinot (Castle Rock) that she served at her own wedding, so thanks, Rachel!
For the cabernet we went with Smoking Loon, which Mr. T likes, and for beer we went for two more of his faves (and also locally brewed!) Anchor Steam and Trumer Pilsner. He also picked the vodka, of course, which is Ketel One, and I obviously picked the tequila, which is Corralejo (Herradura is my fave but was a tad expensive, unfortunately).
Buying the alcohol took all day. First I placed an online order at BevMo. I saved 5% because it was my first online order (Score!). We also got our chardonnay for essentially half off because of BevMo's five-cent wine sale (buy one bottle, get the next bottle of the same wine for five cents, on selected wines! Double score!). After we placed that order, we had to wait an hour for them to get everything together so we could come pick it up. So we went to Safeway, because they had an amazing deal on wines. A discount for 6 or more bottles of the same wine, PLUS an additional 10% off for 6 bottles of any wine, period. We saved $110 on 24 bottles of wine. Excuse me while I pat myself on the back for suggesting going there as our first stop! Triple Score!
Our next stop was Trader Joe's. Unfortunately they were sold out of the margarita mix, but we did buy the rest of the wine for the rehearsal dinner there, plus the remaining bottles of pinot (Safeway didn't have enough in stock).
After Trader Joe's we swung by BevMo to look at beer and pick up our order. We bought two cases of Anchor Steam there, and at this point my credit card was declined. "Oops," I thought, "I should've called them." I bet hundreds of dollars of alcohol purchases in an hour raises some red flags. So I put the purchase on another card, and we picked up the online order. The woman who helped us out to the car complimented us on our wine and tequila selections (patting myself on the back again...and Rach, you should too, since you picked the chardonnay). "It's for our wedding," I confessed with a smile, and she congratulated us. All day I told people about the wedding, whether they wanted to hear about it or not, since we were getting a lot of attention around our massive alcohol purchases.
We dropped off all the booze thus far at home and I called my card and reassured them that yes, it was me, buying crap for my wedding, nothing to worry about. The operator congratulated me and restored my card to good standing and we were off again! [Lest anyone worry about my credit card spending...no worries, it's just on the card until I can transfer money from our savings account, which takes a couple of days. We're a no-debt wedding! As a matter of fact, we have extra in our wedding savings. Hooray!]
Next we took a break from alcohol and went to Target. We bought CANDY for the candy buffet. $100 worth of candy is a lot of candy, but unfortunately I didn't get a pic of that one to show you. We also bought coloring books for the niece/nephew. I had a crisis in the middle of the lane at Target. I literally could not pick up the coloring books with the Disney princesses on them. "There must be something else," I kept muttering. I had no idea I felt so strongly about this issue until I was confronted with corrupting my niece with them. Finally Mr. T suggested Dora the Explorer and I grudgingly went along with it. He of course had it easy and picked out a superhero coloring book for his nephew. Anyway, we also picked up frames for the parent gifts (we're going to give them wedding photos, so they'll get the frames with "picture coming soon" signs in them), plus tooth whitening kits (yes, we're vain), and I got some cute Halloween tees for myself for $6 each, which I thought was a score. As we checked out the checker (who reminded me of Kristin Wiig's character on SNL) asked if the candy was for trick-or-treaters or if it WAS ALL FOR US. And then she said people sometimes told her they were going to keep the candy for themselves. We're talking about 20+ bags of candy, here. That's frightening!
Our next stop was another Trader Joe's. They did have the maggie mix, and by making nice with one of the employees, we got it in an unopened box. Hooray! After that we went to another BevMo, and since we were under budget, Mr. T approved the purchase of the Crystal Head vodka that I'd been dreaming about. It's going to look so awesome on the bar!
Plus if we run out of vodka we can crack it open.
After BevMo #2, we proceeded to Michael's, where we bought flower petals for our flower girl, spray paint for some of the used frames we bought for venue signage, more glitter for pumpkins, two types of glue, and other random stuff.
We were also supposed to make a stop at Pet Club for the littles but it was closed at this point. It was probably for the best, since we were soooo tired by then.
And finally, we stopped at Andronico's for two things:
- Individually wrapped candy corn packets--we love candy corn and had to have it at the buffet, but we don't want any open candy, just wrapped. Andronico's was the only store we found the packets in!
- The Trumer Pilsner beer, which was on sale, and because of the sale, they had cases in stock, which they normally don't. Quadruple score!
And then we went home and collapsed.
I've been pondering my processional options. I was thinking about some of our belly dance faves like Beats Antique, but a lot of those songs have doumbek interludes and that just seemed odd to me.
Then I remembered this one:
You're My Best Friend by Queen
Ooo. you make me live
whatever this world can give to me
It's you, you're all I see
Ooo, you make me live now honey
Ooo, you make me live
You're the best friend
that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
I've been wandering round
But I still come back to you
In rain or shine
You've stood by me girl
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend.
You're the first one
When things turn out bad
You know I'll never be lonely
You're my only one
And I love
The things that you do
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live.
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
You, you're my best friend.
Pretty perfect, right? I love it, but I have concerns:- It's 2:50. Is that long enough for two bridesmaids, a ring bearer, and a flower girl to get up the aisle? Because if it isn't, now I need another song for everyone else.
- Is it weird that it's sung by a gay man to a fictional woman?
- My dad is going to make fun of me, but I can live with that (nothing new there). I just hope he doesn't refuse to walk down the aisle because of it!
...and all I have to say about that is GAH.
Today I bought our ring bearer (Mr. T's nephew) and flower girl (my niece) a couple of books each, as their wedding party gift. They're both almost 4.
For the ring bearer, I thought Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs would be fun, and then his parents could take him to see the movie!
For the flower girl, I got Beatrice's Goat, which is based on a true story. I like to annoy my brother by giving my niece ultra-liberal message books. The last one was about environmentalism.
And I thought it would be fun to give them a couple of Halloween books, and these looked cute and not too scary:
I haven't decided who gets what yet. I might have to read them first!
This weekend we're going for our final tasting at our venue, where we're nailing down the vegetarian entree and one of the appetizers. I was happy to see that the apps menu is much longer than it used to be, so it should make choosing much easier. Last time there was a lot of deep fried stuff. Not that deep fried doesn't equal yummy, but my thought is that one deep fried app is enough.
After the tasting I'm going on a whirlwind shopping spree with the MOH, to buy makeup, lingerie, and earrings. I can't wait. After saving for so long, it feels naughty and forbidden to plan a shopping trip, which makes it that much more fun.
Last weekend we went to a friend's wedding in Sonoma, and this weekend we go to another in Saratoga. It's wedding season! After Sunday we're done, until ours, that is! I'll try to blog about the weddings later, but I've been a crappy picture taker lately, so they might be short posts.
Finally, we got our first wedding gift!!! It's official, we're getting married! Or that's how it feels, anyway. My lovely friend bought us a food processor. I'm sending off our first thank-you card to her today (we bought some Martha Stewart ones at Michael's last month; that woman is a genius!).
The day after Halloween, Mr. T and I woke up (not too early), went out to breakfast, and strategized about what we needed. We then proceeded to go to 13 stores:
Ace Hardware
Halloween Superstore
Walgreens
Andronico's
Z Gallery
Restoration Hardware
Crate and Barrel
Sur La Table
Some random other home store in the same neighborhood as the last four
Paper Source
Target
Ikea
Pottery Barn
I was worried when we set out because it was later in the day (like noon) and I had gotten multiple calls and emails saying that stores were out of things and that some stores had started discounting items earlier in the month, but we did okay, actually.
Here's what we bought (I haven't totaled the receipts yet, but I believe we spent about $150?):
Ace Hardware: 6 strands of lights. There's not a ton of outlets in the room, so we were just going to light up the two sets of railings that separate the sunken middle section of the room:
At the Halloween Superstore, they were pretty cleaned out, and anyway, their stuff is always pretty cheap. I did pick up a cute plush bat bucket for the flower girl's basket:
Tikka agrees that the bat is very interesting:
At Andronico's, I picked up two high-quality pumpkin carving sets, two metal luminaries, and a spider candle holder:
At Z Gallery, they didn't have much, but what they had was 70% off! We got a glittery "tree" and a glittery black cat candle:
You can see that Dobby is very interested by the tree, or maybe it's that paper bag she's spying on:
Target, which I thought would be empty, actually had a lot and was our biggest haul. We got a 5-foot black tree with orange lights (we figured this could go in one of the two large niches in the wall, or over by the bar area), a smaller table top tree with vintage-looking Halloween ornaments for the guest book table, a black (fake) pumpkin with Happy Halloween carved into in orange letters, a cute box for cards for the gift table, runners for the cake and guest book tables that are silver with black velvet webs on them, and two orange frames for photos:
Pottery Barn was our last stop, and again, I was surprised they still had stuff. We probably got there around 5:30 and we were what my friend calls "hangry"--so hungry that we were very irritable. Mr. T didn't love their stuff, but I did, but it was one of those disagreements where it was very civilized and considerate, "If you like them, get them!" "No, if you don't like them, I don't want to buy them; this is not all about me." So, instead of buying their entire stock of skull and crossbones votives (Mr. T had mixed feelings about using a lot of skull imagery for our wedding), we compromised and got one set to help decorate the bookshelves. And we also got a really cool metal bone candle holder. They had cool feathery garland, but those were $15 a piece even on sale, so I thought I'd skip them.
After all that shopping we were exhausted! Our feet and legs even hurt, and this is from a couple of people who walk over 2 miles almost daily. We were also soaked, since it was pouring rain all day.We still need table decor (and a fog machine for Mr. T!), but we might be almost set for the rest of the room, so that's progress!!
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