Rehearsal Dinner Planning & Invites

Our Rehearsal Dinner plans have evolved significantly over the last several months. First we were hoping to host it at one of our favourite Kingston venues - Margaritaville (different from Jimmy Buffet's - but similarly fun) at Lone Star. We love Mexican/Southwest food and most of our family enjoys it as well. Plus, we thought it would be a fun casual atmosphere to enjoy an evening. Well, we opted to forgo hosting it at a restaurant for a few reasons…mainly budget. We figured that we would have just as lovely of a time at a backyard BBQ as at a restaurant where the bill could be upwards of $1000 (ok - it likely wouldn't be that high…but factor in all you can drink margaritas and super sized Coronas for possibly 29 people - but more likely 15-20 people… it adds up).

So, our next option (seeing how we are from out of town and thus lacking our own backyard) is to host the Rehearsal Dinner at my fiancé's parents house. We've decided on a "Mexican Fiesta" theme complete with a piñata (I've always wanted to have a piñata!).

We'd like to keep the menu fairly simply - but yummy! Here is what we are thinking for a tasty menu:

-salsa, sour cream and nacho chips
-grilled marinated shrimp
-grilled corn on the cob (if there are yummy looking ones available)
-south of the border coleslaw with cilantro and jalapeño
-Mexican chicken on a stick (aka chicken squewers)
-Jalapeno corn bread
-Mexican wedding cookies (anyone have a good recipe?)
-Dos Equis beer and margaritas to drink - YUM-O!

Hopefully our menu won't be too difficult to pull off. I figure the most labour intensive items will be the Jalapeno Cornbread and Mexican Wedding Cookies…if all else fails I'll just buy some yummy sugar cookies from a supermarket and call them "wedding cookies" and focus on the corn bread…the rest should be pretty simple ;)

The only not so ideal thing about hosting the RD at his parents house is that it is about an hour away from our Ceremony site - seems a bit crazy, eh? So we'll be having our Ceremony Rehearsal at 5:00pm…we should be done by 6:00-6:30pm and then drive 45-60 minutes to the dinner location. Not ideal…but it a way it works out better for the majority of people involved. How does that make sense? We’ll, most participants that are involved in the wedding live in the same city as the RD location…so we won't have to worry about people driving far distances at night. It will also be easier for people to get themselves home afterwards…they can enjoy a few drinks and then have a quick taxi home - this way we don't have to worry about drinking and driving. So, in the end I think it is a better option.

In keeping with our Mexican them, I created some fiesta festive invitations. I purchased two packages of red flat cards and envelopes as well as some festive Mexican inspired stickers. I opted to use a southwest looking font for part of the text and downloaded a fun image of two entwined chilli peppers.





Other than having to redo them once someone from http://www.weddingbells.ca/ pointed out that I had misspelled "Rehearsal" - I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Yay for being done one more project!

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UPDATE: Patrick's parents have decided to cater the Rehearsal Dinner...luckily it will still be Mexican though!

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Exactly one month from today is the Big Day!

BM Dresses Are In & Finally Found GM Ties - whoot!

Last Sunday two of my 'maids drove the nearly two hours up island to pick up their bridesmaid dresses (from Bride's Closet - recommend!) - whoot! The fit pretty well considering I took the measurements myself ;) They don't recommend doing this, but last time Meg (my MOH) paid for her measurements to be taken they were incorrect and resulted in a dress double the size it should have been - eek! Anyway, here are a couple of pics:





I can't wait for my pregger bridesmaid to come and visit in less than 10 days! Whoot! I think she is going to look great in the maternity version of these dresses.

AND we finally found 4 navy and green ties - big relief! I know that we could have just picked up plain navy ones, but this was one of the few things that my fiance was insistent upon. He wears a suit and tie to work everyday and has never worn a solid tie. Although his groomsmen don't currently have to wear ties to work everyday, he figured they'd be more likely to wear a striped tie than a solid navy one ;) Plus the green pics up on the other accents that will be present at the wedding. So, yay!

Accomodations

We've booked our accommodations! Whoot! Well, at least part of them. I still need to book a hotel room for my Mom the night of the Rehearsal Dinner as well as for the Friday and Saturday of the "wedding weekend." And g-whiz…it sure isn't cheap. Rooms at the hotel I booked at are $199/night. Eeps! I probably could have found a room closer to the $150/night range, or even the $55/night range if we were willing to spend our wedding night at my University Campus Residence…lol…but for some reason those rooms don't remind me of romance ;) I've never actually stayed in one (I lived off campus throughout university…with my fiancé ;) but they remind me of essays and exams…yuck! I was also hoping for a somewhat nice looking room for "Getting Ready" photographs. Our photographer will be meeting us at my hotel room at ~1:30pm (which reminds me, I still need to confirm this with her!)…so I'd prefer a room that doesn't scream early 1990s décor ;) Out of nearly all of the hotels in Kingston, I would have to say that the hotel we selected has some of the most updated and simple décor.

Here is a picture of the room that will likely be very similar to ours (at will be water view too!):



My original plan was to book the "Murphy Bed Suite" at a hotel that I had heard about from a friend. She had her wedding at this hotel and said the room was perfect. Her and her bridesmaids were able to sleep there the Friday before the wedding as there were 4 pull down Murphy beds. This also allowed for lots of getting ready room the next morning because they just pushed the beds up. Since I heard about this suite I have been calling the hotel since (about a year now). Apparently they hold this particular for the bridal party that is getting married there…they can only book it to others once they have released the room. Well, it doesn't look like that is going to happen. So, instead my 'maids and I will all meet up on the morning of the wedding and come back to my room to get ready. Which, in the end I think will be nice…I'll have the bathroom to myself without worrying that 3 other people need to get in there. It also allowed me to book the room for two nights in a row and thus make it our wedding night hotel as well :) Even though we have to be up and out of the hotel by 3:00am to catch our flight to Jamaica out of Ottawa - double eep!

Our Wedding Invitations

After nearly a year and a half of designing and redesiging…ordering components, printing, cutting and assembling my DIY invitations - they are FINALLY finished and have been mailed out! Whoot!

Our invitations are truly a labour of love. I totally get that most people will end up throwing the inivtations into the trash, but I don't regret all of the time and dollars that I spent on them. Like most elements of our wedding, we are doing them because they are important to us and I enjoy doing crafty things :)

Both www.weddingbells.ca online forum and www.weddingbee.com were huge sources of inspiration for our invitiations. Ultimatly I chose elements that I like from many different invites and created one to meet our needs.

The invitation itself was designed using Adobe Illustrator, but I'm sure similar ones could be designed using Adobe Photshop or even Microsoft Word. The flower swirly art was traced from a stamp I found at www.PaperSource.com The fonts used are Shelley Allegro and Copperplate Light. I downloaded both for free using various free font websites - do a google search and some should pop up.
The following list are the components I used to make them:

-White Linen Paper from Staples
-White Luxe Petal Folds from Paper Source
-White Luxe 5.5 x 5.5 inch envelopes from Paper Source
-White Luxe 4bar envelopes from Paper Source
- Stardream Quartz 5 x 5 inch Flat Cards from Paper Source
- Stardream Quartz 4bar Flat Cards from Paper Source
-Clear Labels from Staples
-HP 2000 Printer
-Martha Stewart Glue Stick from Michaels Craft Store
- Flatback Swavorski Crystals from www.Artbeads.com
-Gel Glue from www.Artbeads.com
-52 cent Stamps from Canada Post

If I take into account all of the supplies I used (there was plenty extra though ;), 88 invitations including postage were around $5.50 each - eep! But, like I said, I have a few extra invitions as well as a bit of extra materials…so it was likely more around the $5.00 mark - still not cheap, but not crazy expensive either ;) Here they are:













Oh...if you see any mistakes PLEASE don't point them out AND I do realize that becuase this year is a leap year June 21 is no longer the first day of summer. We realized this shortly after they were printed but decided to leave it because the whole reason we chose our date nearly 2 years ago was because it was the first day of summer...and nearly all of our anniversaries will fall on this day anyway.

And for funsies here is a picture of my fiancé's handiwork after I asked him to help…lol:

Invitations Are In The Mail - Whoot!

Last night after we picked up the keys to our new house (yay!) we dropped our wedding invitations into the mail. *Huge Sigh Of Relief. So, hopefully in the next few weeks we'll receive tons of RSVPs in the mail with "Yes, we'll attend." My plan is to post about the actual invites in a week or so :)

As my fiance and I dumped the invites into the mail box handfuls at a time, I kind of had an "OMG this is really happening moment" lol…in a good way of course. Sorry no pics…for some ODD reason we weren't in a picture taking mood…weird of, I know ;)

About a month ago I brought a sample inviation to my local Canada Post to have it weighed and to ensure our square invitations met the postal standards. They were just on the cusp of being a little heavy needed two stamps. My fiance spoke up and said that he thought one stamp would be fine and the Postal Clerk agreed. His only tip was to mail them in a regual drop box and not at a postal outlet…where things get more regularly weighed? I sure wish I knew a Canada Post insider who could tell me my chances of having each invitation weighed…and thus returned. I *think it will be OK though…at least I am hoping it will be.

I also still have a bit of anxiety of how the invitations will be received. I think I've mentioned before that not all guests are invited to the dinner…but to the ceremony and to "cake and dancing" followed by our favourite pizza as our "midnight snack." I'm hoping folks will be understanding…but I'm still a little worried about it.

Only 50 days to go!