Wedding Planning - Post #11 - Invitations

It's official-official now, word is out, we're getting married, invitations have all gone out in the mail.  No turning back.

One of the best parts of planning a wedding is the outpouring of love from friends and family.  So many people have special talents and that they are willing to share with us, we're smart enough to let people help us.  One of the most important things we'll do for the wedding is sending out the invitations.  They will be the first thing that our friends and family see in our wedding colors and style.  They will be a representation of us to everyone out there.  They needed to be perfect.  One of my very best friends is a talented graphic designer (and even better architect) and she offered to design our invitations for us.

I sent her a few different invitations that I liked on Etsy and she merged them together to give us our perfect invitation.  Here she is:

We're in love with them.  Thank you so very much Lindsay Clayton King for your fabulous design.  Check out her design page here.

In the process of addressing all of the invitations I realized just how lucky Stephen and I are.  We have so many friends and family who we want to share our special day.  We have so many that we aren't even able to invite everyone we love, a sad realization, but to keep the wedding small we had to make some pretty hard decisions.

We were able to invite 75 people from NINE different states across the country.  From California to New York to Florida and Texas.

For our RSVPs we decided not to send out a separate RSVP card but are asking guests to go to our wedding website to RSVP, a service that TheKnot offers for free.  I love the idea of driving guests to our site where they can get all the information they need about our relationship, our wedding and reception, hotel rooms, RSVP information and so much more.  Now we get to wait and watch as the responses come in - in real time!

Wedding Planning - Post #6 - Things I don't need to Plan

I've been so focused on things that I need to plan and book and pay for that I haven't really reflected on what I DON'T have to plan.  Because Stephen and I are making sure our wedding day is about us and not the wedding itself there are a lot of things that we don't need.  Having only 4 months to plan the wedding, not having the following things to worry about is a blessing, too.

1. Ceremony location and all of the decor that goes along with a large ceremony.  Getting married at the court house is easy - we show up, put our name on a list and wait until they call our name.  
2. Rehearsal dinner.  There isn't anything for us to rehearse and we don't need a fancy dinner or special reason to see family, we'll see them because they're in town and we want to.
3. DJ or Band?  We don't have to make that decision.  We've decided to save money on a DJ or hiring a band because we can just as easily pick songs and put them on my iphone and call it a day.  We know what we like.  We aren't going to need the DJ to run the reception with first dances, cake cuttings, toasts, bouquet tosses, etc - we can focus on having a good time with friends and family and dancing when we want to.  Nothing will be forced or corny.  
4. Seating chart, not for us!  The reception won't start until 9pm.  That late at night nobody wants to start dinner.  We aren't having food-food, we're going to serve desserts only.  With that we no longer have to have a seating chart, table numbers, chairs for everyone or elaborate centerpieces.   We'll be at a brewery and it will be a cocktail feel.  There will be 30+ chairs for about 70 people.  I don't want everyone sitting down at once anyway!  
5. Florist.  SweetWater Brewery is casual and so are we.  I don't see the need to spend hundreds of dollars on a florist.  Does anyone walk away remembering the flowers at a wedding?  I couldn't tell you the floral arrangements from a single wedding I've ever attended - sorry to all my friends.  I focus more on the bride and groom and remembering their special night together.  We found 10 matching glass vases at Goodwill for $1.50 each and we'll get flowers from Costo.  I'm thinking baby's breath and I'll tie a ribbon around the vase for a splash of color.  Done.  I haven't costed out baby's breath, but I have a feeling we'll spend less than $50 total on floral arrangements.  I found this arrangement and I love it:

Photo from blog: The Wedding Chicks Wedding Blog

What do you think?  Instead of a blue mason jar, we'll have a vase with blue ribbon.  The picture is the perfect inspiration.

I'm sure there are a few other things that I'm forgetting, but taking those 5 items off our list of To Dos and out of our budget make both of us very happy.  

My advice to anyone planning a wedding - focus on what is important to you.  What do you and your fiance like doing together?  How are you most comfortable with your friends?  Focus on those things.  Don't do something because that's what everyone else does.  Your relationship with your significant other is unique, make your wedding day just as unique.