It's Coming!

The big day is coming fast!!

There are only 9 days left - where did all the time go??

Things are actually pretty calm over here - after what can only be described as one of the worst Septembers ever, we are rounding the corner and enjoying a peaceful October. Most things are in order at this point, and what's left is totally doable.

In the past few weeks, I've gotten almost all of the decorations organized - the things that are going to the florist and the things that are for the ceremony are totally ready to go! Of course, everything comes with something that looks like this:

That's right, I'm totally insane, and I've made directions for the decorations. Now, not everything requires directions - I'm hoping that the venue people can figure out what to do with the cake server - but anything that I am particular about has its own set of directions.

I'm not sure if at the end I will feel that it was worth it, but all of this work is definitely for a purpose. I have spent over a year now working hard on all of the various pieces of this wedding - at this point, especially since I have time to spare right now, I have no one to blame but myself if my directions are confusing and things get set up wrong. Sure, there will still be a few mistakes - but I'm hoping that with clear, visual directions, people will have an easy time understanding how best to help set up.

Aside from going nuts putting together these directions, I have been busy with a few other things. The programs got put together this week, and the place cards got put together the week before. Now that everything necessary is basically done, I have been focusing on gifts for people and fun extras, which is nice.

I've also finally had a little time to really let it sink in - I'm getting married in 9 days! That's 9 more days of being single, folks. It doesn't feel like a huge change for me, since Brendan and I have been dating for over 9 years now - I imagine life after the wedding will be quite similar to life before. But it somehow still feels like a big deal, which I guess I'm happy about. I was a little worried that we'd plan and plan, and have this big wedding, and everything would be exactly the same as it was before. I can feel the excitement coming up for the wedding, though, and I know it won't be exactly the same after. Because what I'm excited for is really the marriage - although the big fancy party will be fun, too! Bren and I have been really close lately, and everything about this just feels right. Even if I still have those holy-crap-I'm-getting-married moments, I know that this is where we are meant to be. The idea of calling him my husband is exciting - and I can't wait until he finally calls me his wife.

I'm sure there will be plenty more to do in the upcoming days, and probably a few fires to put out here and there, but hopefully everything goes generally as planned. Let's hope the forecast stays like this, too!

9 more days! Can't wait!

Invites and Guest Tally

Now that all of our RSVPs are officially in, I want to write a little something about our invitations!

First, we began our invite suite with our save-the-date, which was designed by me, based off of some inspiration from Etsy:

We ordered ours from Wedding Paper Divas, which I had used before for shower invites for BM Ashley. Our invite was the Artistic Maple: Autumn Orange. Here's a peek:

Sorry for the blurring out - gotta avoid having any party crashers!

The invites came out looking very nice - we were pleased!!

Bren and I put together the invitations over a few days - I wouldn't necessarily say it was fun, but it was nice to see the finished product.

The finished invite suite

Me and Bren, hard at work!

The outside of the invites, complete with burlap ribbon and wax seal

These bad babies went out in the mail mid-summer - here is me, hand-canceling the stamps at the Post Office:

NOTE: Any future brides, please PLEASE listen to me and take your completed invite to the post office to see what postage you need BEFORE ordering your stamps. I ordered stamps that were too low in price and ended up ordering new stamps, which both cost $$ and wasted time. Lesson learned!

The finished outside shows off our (new) custom stamps, which have our monogram (also designed by me) on them:

We started getting RSVPs back right away, but they definitely trickled in over time. And we had a few delinquents who needed to be tracked down - but we finally got our final head count!

We invited 124 guests, and 72 total were a "yes." That is definitely a higher than normal decline rate, but we expected it, as we had a lot of out-of-town friends and family members. We expected around 80, so we were only a little below! There were a few disappointments, but overall we are thrilled with our final guest list.

As the day closes in on us, we are finishing up our final seating chart (much more complicated than it needed to be!) and getting the head count on to our venue coordinator. There is plenty of work left to do!