Booze: Check!

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:

1. 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!
2. 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.

To-do list for this week/weekend

1. Meet with officiant re: vows again.
2. Finalize seating chart.
3. Work on signage for bar, cupcake table, buffet table, candy buffet, gift table.
4. Work on escort cards and room map.
5. Buy alcohol.
6. Decide where we're buying pumpkins.
7. Buy parent gifts.
8. Buy candy for candy buffet.
9. Practice corset lacing with MOH.
10. Send out rehearsal dinner invitations.
11. Decorate cupcake tree (this might have to wait until next weekend!).
12. Wash and decorate candy jars.

I'm sure there are about 80 other things I'm forgetting at the moment. Here we go!!

45 Days to go, and counting...

...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!).

Showering

I'm torn regarding the idea of a bridal shower. The MOH wants to throw me one and keeps asking me about it, but I feel like weddings are expensive enough for everyone involved--not just the bride and groom (and/or their family), but also the guests and especially the wedding party. I feel very uncomfortable basically asking for two gifts for one wedding.

The MOH proposed a couple of things to ease my mind: first, that we could have folks make donations to a charity in lieu of gifts, but that no one would be obligated to do this, and two, she wanted to make the shower co-ed as a fun change from the usual girls-only showers.

I'm still torn. It feels like it might be a repeat of our engagement party, which, while it was awesome, I don't see the need to re-do. That's a lot of work for the hostesses, and a lot of money spent to feed folks.

And, although I trust the MOH not to do this, the entertainment at a shower is typically silly games that I can't stand.

Perhaps I am approaching this with the wrong attitude and I just need to view this as a nice opportunity to hang out with friends and family before the wedding. I don't know. I do want a bachelorette party to have a fun night out with my ladies before the wedding, and I kinda feel like that will be enough. Both seems excessive.

Do any of you have opinions on bridal showers?

Invitations to Printer: Check! Plus, other random tasks

I'm so happy to report that we sent the invite files to the printer yesterday and dropped off the black paper this morning before work. Hooray! That is such a weight lifted. We were ecstatic after uploading the files yesterday.

Also, the printer has already sent us a PDF proof of our invite. That was fast! The owner told Mr. T that they were in a lull at the moment, so the printing might only take about 2 weeks. Hooray! That means, if we have some time to spare, that we can consider doing custom postage through Zazzle or a site like that, to coordinate with our invitations. If we use the post office's postage, we're stuck with some not-so-thrilling options, but we'll suck it up if we have to. I just wish they'd updated the Edgar Allen Poe stamps with the new rate...sigh.

This weekend we also accomplished a few other wedding tasks:

• We made our registries live on our wedsite. We haven't added flatware yet, but we can do that later.
• We tried two more rehearsal dinner options. This is turning out to be much more challenging than finding the wedding venue! To summarize, the Vietnamese place closest to our venue sucks, so we're looking at opening our search to restaurants without private rooms.
• We purchased a custom return address stamp from Etsy.
• We booked our hotel room for our wedding night, plus our photographer's hotel room for two nights.
• We ordered our cupcake stand (cardboard, to be painted and adorned by us).
• We purchased gifts for my bridesmaid and MOH as well as our officiant.
• I purchased a wedding band for Mr. T from an online jeweler...luckily we can return it to the company if he hates it.
• We purchased envelopes for our invitations, with extras for thank you notes. We also decided that lining the envelopes wasn't worth the hassle, so that's another thing off my list.
• We put some thought into our first dance and decided what we're going to do (but I'm not telling!)
• I scheduled my first dress fitting for this Friday! This is when I try on the muslin version. After that they order the fabric and get to work!
  

Phew! Only another 120 things to go!

Hidden Wealth

I forgot to do a blog about this. It's only remotely wedding-related, but it is definitely related to being thrifty!

So awhile ago I blogged that we were going to roll up our loose change (mostly Mr. T's loose change) and deposit it in the wedding fund. Mr. T got about a quarter of the way through and lost steam, and to be honest, I didn't really feel like helping. Rolling change is really unappealing, especially pennies, and we had mostly pennies. I'm a bad helpmeet, I guess. Or is that helpmate? I'm also bad at tossing out archaic terms.

So the change sat there, and Christmas came. Mr. T and I didn't really have a lot of cash to buy each other gifts this year, but we promised each other to finally get the Playstation 3, which is also a BluRay DVD player. Mr. T and I really enjoy playing adventure games--he drives, and I give advice: "Over there! Watch out behind you! Try that door! No, press the red button first, then the yellow one!" Surprisingly, Mr. T appreciates my backseat driving, so it works out. It must be love!

Mr. T had a few unused Amazon gift certificates, and when our friends asked what we wanted for Christmas, we told them more Amazon GCs, and some of them very nicely humored us, so we had oh, maybe half what we needed? A little less? (Mr. T also added a wireless internet base station to the list so we don't have to run a cord into the living room, along with HDMI cables, splitters, the remote control for the PS3, etc.).

Unrelated to this, Mr. T and I decided to do a New Year's purge. Our apartment is pretty small, and any clutter is very hard to hide! So I sold 8 bags of books (although you can hardly tell!) and Mr. T sold two bags. Oddly enough, we both got the same amount of money, due to a sneaky first edition in his stack that we were going to donate to a women's prison last year, but they wouldn't take hardcovers, thank goodness. Anyway, we decided to put the cash toward our purchase.

We also discovered that a little store by our house has a Coinstar machine. You pour all of your change into it, and either it takes a percentage of the total (if you want cash), or it gives you a gift certificate with no fee. Amazon was one of the options for the gift certificates, so we unrolled all our rolled coins (all of Mr. T's hard work down the drain), put all the coins into a bag (a very very heavy bag), and gave the machine our money. It turned out we had $207 in coins! Over 4,000 pennies! Crazy.

So, at this point, we were almost at our goal, but we had more stuff to sell: the old PS2 games we'd already played (which netted us $50) and some movies and CDs ($27).

Enroute we also donated old towels to an animal shelter and old clothes to a thrift store. We felt so liberated!

And, the good news, we ordered and received the PS3--so exciting. We're going to have a movie night soon. I believe our gift certificates and random cash covered almost the whole thing, except maybe $30? And now our house is so much more open! We both feel really good about it. Who knew we had all that money hidden in the house? ;-)

After-Halloween Sale Shopping

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!!

Visual DNA Test

I ran across this "Christmas Gift Finder" site on some bridal blog--you select an image based on a question like, "What is your perfect vacation?" I'm not sure how it would be helpful for finding gifts for others, unless you had people take the test and then email their lists to you?

Anyway, here's what it said about me, I think it's pretty accurate (but am I a "party animal"?).

You're a bit of a party animal at heart. You love the holiday season cos it's a great excuse to eat, drink and be merry with friends and family. When it comes to holidays, you like to be pampered. Zero exertion, maximum relaxation is the name of the game. Deep down, you have a wild untamed spirit. You appreciate any opportunity to run free, especially if there are horses involved. You like to give your brain a good work-out every day. A crossword or two, a spot of sudoku� it all definitely helps to keep your grey cells limber. You'll no doubt be doing plenty of puzzles over the holidays...

For my gifts, it didn't do too badly either--spa stuff, chocolate, jewelry (such as the necklace above, although I wouldn't want anyone to pay $200 for it), Travel Scrabble, and a McSweeney's subscription. I wouldn't turn up my nose at any of those!

Bucking Tradition

It will be no surprise to you that I'm not going to go for a lot of the wedding day traditions. As I've told Mr. T, this is our day, and it should be about us. He wasn't sure if he wanted a ring or not, but felt that he needed one for the "mandatory" ring exchange on the day. I told him, "If you don't want one, don't get one. This is your wedding." Ultimately he decided he'd get a ring, but an inexpensive one, and he'd only wear it sometimes. (I teased him, "You know, women look at men's hands..." He said dryly, "Believe me, they're not beating down my door now, and I don't have a ring." I told him I didn't believe it.)

Here are the things I'm pretty sure we aren't going to do on the day:

• No white dress for me.
• Probably no veil for me (unless I find a fabulous red lace mantilla veil that I must have).
• No diamond ring for me.
  
• No tux for Mr. T.
• No flowers in the reception hall (I'll post about decor later). I will carry a bouquet though, which brings me to...
• No bouquet toss. It's my bouquet, I want it! Also, why humiliate the women at the reception with this horrible game? "Okay, all the losers...I mean single women...come up here and scrabble desperately...I mean try to catch the bouquet." No thanks. My single ladies are gorgeous and fabulous and I love them. I was thinking of having my bouquet made into a painting, actually. I like the idea of keeping it in our household, but in a nontraditional way.
• No garter toss. I actually found a few cute Halloween garters (below), but again, I think it's really in poor taste to have your groom all up in your business while your friends and family watch. WTF?

• Not getting married in a church. We're happy heathens.
  
• Non-traditional officiant. We don't know who will be our officiant, but they will likely be ordained by the Universal Life Church.
• Photos taken before the ceremony. Actually, we haven't officially decided this yet, but I think it's hard on the guests to be left cooling their heels while you're doing a photo shoot. So I'm going to push for a pre-ceremony shoot. My brother and sister-in-law did this and I thought it was brilliant.

And of course there's the most non-traditional part of all of this, which is that we're having a Halloween costume wedding.

We haven't decided what we're going to do about other traditions, such as the first dance. I suggested to Mr. T that we learn the "Thriller" choreography and do that as our first dance. He laughed and started doing the infamous zombie dance part (you know the one), which made me laugh. See? He makes me laugh.

We will definitely have guest favors, but with our own spin on it.

I do like the "something old, new, borrowed, and blue" tradition, so I think I will keep that one. Apparently the original saying ended, "And a sixpence for your shoe" (for luck), but no way am I putting a coin in my shoe. I would like to incorporate a sixpence another way, if I think of a suitable idea.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't mind doing the "cake cutting" with our cupcakes. There will be NO smashing of cake into the face, however. (Mr. T, are you reading this?)

I like the idea of bride and groom gifts--stealing a sweet moment the day of or night before the ceremony to give each other a thoughtful gift. Speaking of that, some of the brides on the blogs have mentioned stealing a little time alone together directly after the ceremony (like 10 minutes or so) to let the impact of being married sink in, and have some alone time, before joining folks at the reception. I like that too.

I'm excited to create something that reflects us! I hope our guests will enjoy it too.