Sunday, January 25, 2009

Very unwedding related...

but when oh when will I be able to share these pictures with you? So today the course went to Cesky Krumlov, a town quite close to where I am staying (Cesky Budejovice). There is a chateau there dating back to 1253. Rulers switched hands a few times and the city grew... yada yada yada and this is the modern day version (and a UNESCO site).
The flower in the center of the shield is found all over the place.


A great view of the town and castle

Surronding the castle is a moat without water, but is home to 2 bears. They are hibernating right now, so this is as good as you get.

They take their beer (or pivo) very seriously. The Budwiser sign refers to the real Budwiser beer that is brewed in Cesky Budejovice. The American Budwiser stole the name, and the Czech version is not allowed to be distributed it in the US.


The brewery in Krumlov is the Eggenberg. I am told that it sucks because they switched to the American form of beermaking.


A marrionette and wood toy shop. Soo cute!


Just because.

Where we ate lunch. I am told that these are typical resturants here. BTW, this is no region for vegetarians!


The Vltava River which surrounds the city. We were supposed to cross it, but it was a bit dodgey, don't you think?

Oh and all the interiors of the castle were closed, since it is, you know, its freezing out - seriously you should have seen the layers I had on to be touring outside in 32 degree weather. But this is the second most visiting spot in the Czech Republic (first being Prague Castle).

Friday, January 23, 2009

I am a sucker for contests

I entered another "contest" for free Day of Coordination (DOC) services. This one isn't a popularity contest thankfully. I really really hope we win, because the latest mess from our venue is very upsetting. It is far too complicated to blog completely about it, but to summarize....

(1) Our original coordinator left. In getting a new coordinator we found that....
(2) Our 25% off catering discount was never put through. In getting a new contract to reflect the promised discount, we found that...
(3) They weren't sure what our wedding date is (I'M NOT KIDDING)
(4) The Plan B in case of bad weather was not reserved for us.
(5) The ceremony site was listed as the incorrect location.
(6) The reception site was listed as the incorrect location.

Now you might be thinking... did we even bother to read our original signed contract? Of course we did and the original one was perfect and had all the right details in it. I have NO idea, where all the confusion came in when drafting the new contract.

Sooooo.... I have little faith in our new coordinator (apparently she can't read a contract), so a DOC would be great to insure everything goes as planned the day of (and if it doesn't, she'll fix it and never let me know). Check here on January 25th to see if we win her services.

Oh and I am flying directly to Miami upon leaving Europe. We got a mess on our hands that requires more than emails and unanswered phonecalls! In the meantime, Ralph is trying to get me revved up to get me to go all bridezilla on them. He thinks that is the only way to get them to do anything right. I think he might be right.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Second dress fitting sneakpeak

My awesome friend at Uplift Photography took these amazing shots at my second fitting. I wish I could share all of them, but I don't want to ruin any surprises. I just had to post these, though. She is so talented!!!!


Monday, January 12, 2009

Invite Sneakpeek

This is all you get....

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Just an update

I love my dress. They really do wonderful work at Amy Kuschel and have just been awesome. My lovely girl Jade took a zillion pictures and it was obvious to everyone there at the store that she is a pro photographer - they were loving her pictures. There was even an exchange of business cards - too funny. Anyway, Jade helped us out so much in so many ways. She is in arts and crafts pro herself and was great to have my friend by my side. Thanks so much Jade - YOU are the best.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

It is just paper!

After we got engaged, and I got immersed into all things wedding, I drooled over the pretty invitations that people had. It is just paper, I know. But invitations have come a long way since I was a flower girl. Look at these pretties...


The cost of pro invites has also astronomically increased over the years. And to make matter worse, the cost of recycled paper invites is astounding!!! So this is something I thought that I would DIY from the get-go. Sure, Target, Michaels, et al have print your own invites in a box, but I had hoped that we would have some more unique, recycled invitations.

I obtained my gocco (that Ralph renamed the go go) before I was even engaged and so I pretty much knew that we would screenprint our invites with them.

I did a cost analysis a long time ago for DIY paper supplies at the famed Paper Source and found that if we did the traditional invite suite (an invite card, an RSVP card and envelope, within an inner envelope, all encased in an outer envelope), it really doesn't save us any money and uses up alot of unnecessary paper.

So, we decided to pare back and just include an invite card and envelope. I was able to get pretty recycled paper envelopes for a very reasonable cost and heavyweight cardstock to elimate the need of layering pieces of paper upon paper. We decided to forgo the RSVP cards altogether and just do online RSVP from our wedding website. Even the elders on my side of the family are internet savvy. No inner envelope either - yeah we are just bucking tradition :-)

Anyway, this really allowed us to save a ton on them, in terms of materials cost, printing cost, and in postage. One of the little tricks I learned is to NOT buy pre-cut cardstock, it is overpriced. Instead we bought all our paper in 8.5*11" sheets and then got it professionally cut by Kinkos. All the extra paper could then be used for other project and crafts.

So in the end, our unique invitations will cost around the same as super simple invites from a place like Costco, except we also were able to also have Christmas cards, thank you cards, and still have enough really cool paper for other a bunch of new projects that I dream up when I go through wedding withdrawl.

Then again, they haven't been made yet. If the design doesn't work out on Saturday, Costco here I come!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Annoyances, but not wholly unexpected ones

After a little over a week of unanswered emails from the catering coordinator at our venue, I received an email informing me that she was no longer with them. Well, I was pissed to say the least, but I will admit that it wasn't completely unexpected. It is not that I didn't like her or anything (quite the contrary) but when we signed the contract with her a year ago, she was brand new and had a long history in the hotel catering biz. It sent up a few pink flags in my brain. Coupled with the fact that this has happened to several other brides, in several other South Florida venues, why couldn't it happen to us?

It couldn't have been worse timing though, considering that we aren't scheduled to be back in Miami until the week before our wedding. Why of why weren't we informed while we were in Miami???

The good news is that our new coordinator has been their awhile, and what I have heard about her is very good (hence yesterday's google search).

The bad news... well some important things that I expected her to know about us, things like who our other vendors are, well she didn't have any record of these things.

There is so much minutia in party planning, that I am so scared that I don't know all the things I need to review with her.

Well, we will see - I am trying to stay positive.

Another somewhat positive outcome is that I also learned that the catering discount we were supposed to be getting from a third party was not put through. This in itself a big deal! Our new coordinator was able to give us all the info to get this all straightened out.

Oh headache!

Just when I was starting to stress...

a google search saved the day.

One of the reasons I really liked our venue is that it was pretty and natural on its own and needed little to no decoration. For some stupid reason, I was starting to think that our lack of ceremony decorations and use of standard run-of-the-mill banquet chairs sans chair-covers (a thing that both Ralph and I dislike out of the discomfort of them slipping from under our bums), would look boring.

Well a simple google search, which I did for reasons I will discuss later, yielded a wonderful video from Fandango Video Solutions, that alleviated these fears. It is of a cute young(!!!) couple getting married in the same location (but different setup) that Ralph and I are in sealing the deal in. They had no chair covers, no ceremony decor, nada... and I like it that way. Whew, I need to stick to my gut. I don't have time to be rethinking this stuff. Anyway, I have other things to worry about.

So please enjoy the show.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Looking forward to some fun stuff

Which is good since I am not in the best spirits. See, after the holidays and all the fun visiting family and friends, I always get a wee bit depressed to come back out to California. Ralph, has just now witnessed this for the first time. But, on Friday my good friend is coming out all the way from New York to come with me to my second fitting and to help make the invitations with my gocco. I am so excited!