Wedding Journal: All the Details

Well, it's been quite a while since the last update, and we've done quite a bit of work in that time.

We sent out the invitations in early December. We bought the paper at the local Staples and Whozat designed them and printed them out. We got 75 invitations (sent about 50?) and extra envelopes (since they only came with one, and Whozat wanted to do inner envelopes, too) for about $50.

Shrike discovered that there are tons of wedding flowers listed on Ebay, most of which seemed to be from florists auctioning standard "packages." We found some that we liked, but of course, the package they were offering wasn't quite right for us, so we contacted the lady and asked what it would cost to get what we need.

She has been extremely helpful, even suggesting on some things, like altar arrangements, that it would be cheaper for us to just get them from Walmart, rather than ordering them through her or from a local florist.

While we are a little nervous about ordering them this way, we figure that anybody who suggests that you buy from someone else to save money must be "on the up-and-up."

We ended up getting our bouquets, tossing bouquets, corsages for our moms, our sisters, the minister and the readers, boutonnieres for our dads, Whozat's brother, Shrike's brother-in-law and Shrike's nephew, and a pin-on flower for the ring pillow (with a little looped stem to hold the fake rings) for $51, including shipping.

Since we'd decided that large potted plants, that we'll buy locally, would be best for the altar, she even throw in a couple of big bows for them! They are all silk roses; our bouquets and the boutonnieres are red, and the corsages are white, since we're asking the women to wear red. She has them all made and will be shipping them early next week.

We're having them sent to Whozat's parents, so they'll already be in Texas. When they arrive, Whozat's mom is going to "pass judgment" on them and make sure they look ok, and her dad is going to email us some digital photos of them.

We also talked to the minister a few weeks ago, and we really like her. She's sending us some suggestions for vows, and we need to get to work on that soon, so that we can get them to our friend that's doing the certificate.

The next order of business will be to get the cake and food arranged. Whozat's mom has all the information about the cake we want, and she is planning to find a bakery to do it as soon as the holidays are over. She will also do some checking on prices for the rest of the food. We'll feel a lot better when we know what all that is going to cost us!

We also need to start shopping for clothes for us to wear for the ceremony. We each have a pantsuit that we love, but they don't match at all, (Shrike's is gray, Whozat's is tan/gold) so they won't really work.

We'd like to both wear white, or off-white, pantsuits, similar to those, but we don't hold out a lot of hope of finding that. If one of us can find one that we like that matches the one the other already has, we may go that route. Wish us luck!

So, it seems to be coming together, we can't believe it's only 40 days away!