The suit.

Wow. I have not posted all summer. Alright so planning a wedding and posting about a wedding at the same time might be a little much for me. I don't mean that I'm that busy, I mean I don't want to talk about the wedding THAT much.

Alright, the suit.

First off, let me say this, yes, I realize most people rent. But the boy needs a suit, a good suit, that fits, and this seemed a good a time as any to buy one (and buying one could be done for near the cost of renting). Also, my attendants don't have to match, so he was free to pick and suit that struck his fancy and keep it forever and ever. Secondly, I found it highly annoying that one sales person kept trying to push a suit on us that "he'll grow into." That's nice and all, but he's 22, he's pretty much grown, and aside from that, the suit you wear for the most important day of your life is not the kind of suit that mostly fits but has room to grow. This is not the first day of school, you imbecile.

The first thing you need to know about finding a suit, no matter how many reality shows you watch about fashion, no matter how stylish you are, no matter if you spent a lot of your young life in a costume shop for the theater, and no matter how much you pay attention to everything Barney Stinson says on How I Met Your Mother - you know nothing about suits.

However, I'm pretty sure neither did the stuffy old guy at Belk. He though my 6'3" 170lb fiance needed to be in a size 44 coat.

Another thing you need to know, if you like your men talk, dark, and hansome - the tall part is going to make buying a suit increasingly difficult.

But, good news is, the off-the-rack fashion world hears our cries. They see our metrosexual men in skinny jeans, they see magazines idolize lean guys like David Beckham and they have accounted for this with slim fit and athletic fit suits.



I don't have much to say on the suit... it was sheer luck that we ended up as well as we did.

We originally picked the shirt and tie and one of those crazy apocalyptic sales in some department store, that was easy enough.

Then we went to Men's Wearhouse to have Tripp measured, the intention being to go to this discount suits store in the mall or order offline with our magical codex to the suit language (that being his measurements).

Well, the suit store in mall... pretty sure it's for pimps. Now, not to knock it saying it had great deals, it did. This was obviously for a pimp on a budget. However, zoot suits and alligator shoes were not the intended target in suit shopping.

Shopping online, FANTASTIC, although after also looking in stores I would heavily advise not buying anything offline tagged as "metallic" without seeing it in a store first. If you do that you might just land back at "gator boots and pimped out Gucci suit."

Anyway, here's the stroke of luck part. We searched Overstock, Next Clothing, and Google Shopping. The general problem was that there were regular suits in longs or bigger suits in slim fit, but never any magical perfect pairing of the right sizes, lengths and fits. Finally, Google shopping shows us a FANTASTIC $500 Men's Wearhouse suit for $150, but, as expected, they're sold out of the pants.

So, I call Men's Wearhouse and he tells us just to come down and check for the pants there. So we do. No pants. But that's when our suit knight in shining armor, Rick Harris, tells us about this $200 suit deal they have. Black or grey suit, slim fit, perfect. He measures Tripp correctly. Advises us on whether black or grey is better and just happens to have black Converse in 10 1/2 (I don't know if you've ever tried to find 1/2 sizes in Converse...)

We end up leaving there an hour later, with a suit paid for and sent off for some hemming and a new pair of shoes. All for under $300.

The service was so phenomenal (even the cashier was fun, polite, and gave us a deal). It's just some crazy serendipity that we ended up back there.

So, dear readers, I have no mystical short cut like I usually do for wedding things, Men's Wearhouse really is the best bet. The only tip is, remember when buying at a discount or finding a good deal, if it doesn't fit just right, you'll have to pay for alterations and you should factor that in.

Registries:

Registries were like a really fun nightmare.

It was really fun, because, well, it's shopping with a scan gun. And it was a nightmare because, shopping with a scan gun is not as fun as it sounds.

The problem is, you don't know what you're looking for. You go into this with the idea of what you see on TV and movies: coffee maker, toaster, bed set. And we don't drink coffee so that really left us with nothing. To top that off, we're picky, well, we're not so much picky as we think most things are ugly or we can't see the use in a lot of things normal people would buy.

We started at Target because that what the only place I could ever remember seeing a registry sign. As I said in the last post, they give you a Shutterfly gift card, a cute little box to keep all your wedding papers in, some coupons for things like teeth whitening strips and other things that other almost-weds apparently buy, and a really slow, badly charged scan gun.

We picked a good bit of stuff there. A really hard thing is trying to match what you're shopping for with the other things that you scanned. Because, you don't know what you were after, you just kind of picked things you saw and liked and now this could mean that you live in a nightmarish rainbow of mismatched housewares for a very long time.

They (they being the people that tell you how to do wedding stuff) suggest that you register for two times the gifts as the amount of guests you invited. Seriously? I don't have that much stuff now and this stuff took me my LIFETIME to accumulate. Plus, we live in a one bedroom duplex... where exactly am I to keep a food processor, blender, AND mini chopper?

We at least were able to knock that down to "more gifts than the amount of invitations we sent out."

Well, the issue with that is... there still are not THAT many things at Target we like. Futhermore, I'm also registering for things like spoons and nobody is going to just bring you one spoon (unless it is a REALLY NICE spoon) so you can't count that sort of thing as one object. That's like a fraction of an object.

Since we can't find enough things here we like this sent us on to Bed Bath and Beyond... and man, if we thought there was a load of crap we didn't need in Target... BBB had two times that (apparently, they understand the registering guidelines). BBB was woefully inadequate at fulfilling our needs (mainly because I didn't know what half of that stuff did). And they tried to get us to pick out ugly China.

We made an online ThinkGeek registry - which was more silly than anything.

Finally we figured, JC Penny. We can easily fulfill our quota there.
Alright, here's the deal with JC Penny, you get a lot for registering there. Completion deals (still not quite sure what that means), free engagement portrait, registry announcement cards, and wedding planning binder (I was very excited because I love to organize) but if you're the kind of person who would say something like, "Who would pay THAT MUCH for a POTHOLDER?!" this might not be the place for you.

I'm going to go ahead and linking JC Penny even though we ended up just clearing out that registry and moving on, because they are super nice and have a lot of perks. But, I only suggest registering there if you hate your friends and family and want to make them waste as much money as possible.

Oh, what did help us out though, was in that nifty wedding planning binder was a registry guide. It had a guide to picking out knives and pot and pans, a description of different kitchen gadgets and an overview of thread count. It also had a checklist of things you should register for. It was like someone said, "You stupid kids don't know a thing about housewares - here's a crash course."

Although, they contradicted themselves a bit by including things like "hostess set," "serving set," "stock pot," and "trivet" some of which I still don't know what they are. Apparently a hostess set is just silverware... which confuses me since they already listed silverware...

We ended up settling on Macy's (mainly from theknot.com ads yelling at me about it enough) and with the help of our handy dandy JC Penny checklist were able to bolster the Target and BBB registries enough that people should have enough to choose from and we should be at least decently aware of what each item does.

To see our actual registries, check the links in the side bar.

Invitations:

I just sent out my invitations last week (and for some reason since I started this post in April that's when Blogger thinks I posted it - I did not send out invites THAT early), and after all the double checking, I find they have a typo. But, with the way we did our invitations, it wasn't really that big of a deal.

The first thing you'll notice about wedding invitations is there is A LOT of crap to them. Return envelopes, RSVP cards, tissue paper. I read an eHow on what order you were supposed to put everything in the envelope (very important was the tissue paper placement).

I did not want these fancy envelopes. For one, they are expensive. I'm talking way out of what I could ever justify paying for a piece of paper with a time and date on it. Also, I believe stuffing envelopes is something that should be left to scams and pyramid schemes. Third, I don't like fancy script and I don't like things that drag out saying what we're all waiting for. By this point, you've received a save the date, if we're Facebook friends you've seen the photo album. You know what's coming... you don't need: "With their parents ______ and ______ would be honored at your attendance honoring their love and yada yada yada..." You just need to know who and what. And heavy wording and a fancy script really would raise the expectations far too high for this party. I can't send out a purple and silver stuffed engraved invitation (with tissue paper - I'm really hung up on this tissue paper nonsense) and then serve everyone burritos and rock candy while they listen to karaoke.

Now, as I might of mentioned before (I really can't remember) when you register at Target they give you a little carrying case and a $20 Shutterfly gift card. We had long decided before we got the gift card that we'd probably print our own invitations but still the prices at Walgreens and Kinkos were a little more than we expected. Not only did Shutterfly end up having the lowest rate but we also had a gift card. We ended up with 125 custom made invite cards (and envelopes) for about 40 dollars.



Since these were cards (and basically just say the names and place) we added little inserts that tell everyone to RSVP to our wedding e-mail and also have a link to our The Knot website.

Of course, two days after sending them out someone tells me they say "RVSP" which I've just decided means "respond very soon please!"

We thought the photo-heavy personally designed invites would be nice for far away family who like to have pictures and would be nice for people who couldn't make it to at least see who their friend or relative is marrying.

Finished result:



I thought of blacking out the date and time, but I figured if anyone who happens across this and isn't already invited shows up... my security will handle it.

Also, the great thing about the e-mail RSVP system is that Gmail lets you create labels (they're sort of like folders, but less politically correct) so now when I get an e-mail, I can read it and then sift it easily into the "Attending" or "Not Attending" folder. It also means that when someone sends a heartfelt apology and wishes us well I can respond back immediately. This also leaves me with an inbox full of "best wishes" and "congratulations" to easily look back on.

The dress:

I let Tripp go shopping we me, and oh the judgmental looks and comments from the salespeople.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm not superstitious. I am very superstitious, but, I am also very precise. The superstition is, that it is bad luck from the groom to see the bride in her wedding dress. It is not bad luck for the groom to see the bride in 2 dozen other wedding dresses that she hates.

Wait, that's not completely right... I did not try on 2 dozen dresses. I think, with the time Tripp and I went, the time I went with Nicole, the second time I went with Tripp and the time I went on my own... I tried on 12 dresses? Maybe 14.

My thought process in this was, I undoubtedly think some dresses are hideous, and just because Tripp is male and has mostly no opinion on things like this doesn't mean there aren't going to be some things he genuinely hates.

Now I know the groom is supposed to be all in awe and think you look great in whatever dress you choose, and I am sorry for some dress designers, but some of this crap is just ugly. And I know a good bit of guys are going to be freaked by ball gowns. I'm freaked by ball gowns. I can't find my legs.

So, I wanted to take Tripp with me, at least in the early picking process, to get an idea of not only the styles that I like but also of the styles he likes. This is about both of us. I don't want him standing at the alter in a bright purple velour suit and I'm sure he doesn't want me walking down the aisle wearing this.

Don't hate. You know a little mid-drift is classy.

Anyway, it turned out to be a great idea. He had some really good thoughts and pointed out a lot I might not notice or consider and he made me feel better about dresses I was wary of simply because he really liked them.

By the end of our first venture, we had both decided that we didn't like trains. They're bulky, unnecessary, make alteration costs higher, and I am really clumsy. He liked ruched skirts, I like bunched off-the-shoulder tops. However, in dresses that had both it just looked like too much. We both also agree that it could have a lot of pleating and ruching OR it could have bling, but both was too much to handle.

I eventually came across an Alfred Angelo dress that I loved... in a magazine. So I called around to every bridal store within an hour drive and nobody had it in my size. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm a size two?

I'm NOT a size two, I'm a size four. Seemingly in some attempt to fool dumb brides into thinking they are thinner on their wedding day, wedding gowns run a size smaller. Whatever. The problem is that so little of the population is a two that nobody carries them just on hand.

I eventually found a SIZE TEN in a similar style that I tried on and ended up hating.

By this time I had also found an Alfred Angelo version of a David's Bridal dress that Tripp loved.

This is where things got tricky. I came upon a site (thank you Google Shopping) that could make either one of these dresses, custom to fit, for $230.

Now, I am not a naive person. I think I might of just been blinded by wedding excitement but it was not until I had polled my friends and family, picked a dress, planned my veil and jewelry around it and was ready to order that I realized this company was in China. (It's Queen Is A Girl, by the way).

Luckily, the registration on their site was as crappy as Rip Off Report claims their products to be and I didn't go through with ordering.

At this point I had come across a reputable knock-off site that I was really enthusiastic about until I had some correspondence with them. I wish I'd saved the message (I can't even recall the company name now). I wrote the woman to ask for a quote, that's how it works, you send them pictures and ask for a quote, and I told her that I'd found this dress online and loved it and found out that the company I was ordering from was in China and was a bad investment.

I got back an e-mail chastising me, telling me how ALL these dresses are made in China and that's how they do it so cheap (and here I'm thinking, "Didn't you say you were in Michigan, what do you care...?") and then she offered to make the dress for $60 more than I would pay for the real thing.

However, during my day waiting for her rude reply, I had been scouring eBay for a used dress and I found one with a horribly blurry picture but that looked like it had iridescent bead work.

I love iridescence. My jewelry and headpiece are Aurora Borealis crystals, my engagement ring is an opal. This would be the dress for me. I e-mailed the seller for a clearer picture and I had my dress within a week and for half the price than my Chinese dress and a fifth of the price of what it cost new. Part of it was missing - a panel that goes between your skin and the corseting so you don't have badunkadunk hanging out all the way down the aisle, and the seller refunded me part of my money to have one made. It's gorgeous. I don't have a full length picture, but the skirt is very full and satin with a covering of beaded tulle and here is the bodice:

Maggie Sottero Flirt 4258

The dress is actually a Maggie Sottero prom dress. But it's nicer than any prom I've ever been to.

I have some full length shots, but they're all of me in the dress and I can't put them up here because, after all, I am very superstitious.

Venue:

Tripp and I were both very enthusiastic about an outdoor wedding and reception. For Alabama to be such an outdoorsy and beautiful place the amount of outdoor venues in Huntsville is severely lacking.

There's Big Spring Park, which cannot be privatized. Though, most people will not walk through the middle of your wedding, there will still be people playing frisbee thirty yards away, dogs peeing on trees, and ducks wandering aimlessly. That coupled with the fact that somehow with all of the engineers in Huntsville they could not construct a park without pools of gnats and buckling brick walkways makes it not worth the trouble. Also, this venue offers not dressing quarters or reception space.

There's Burritt on the Mountain, which was a favorite of ours as it was our first date and the place of our engagement. It is also very expensive and honestly a little stuffy. I mean it is a gorgeous place, it just has this stuffy feel.

There's also a chapel somewhere up on Monte Sano, I never went and looked at it because I saw the price online. Sheesh. The pictures didn't look that good. Just for the record, we're paying a little more than this for a possible 75 times the guest allowance (though we really only have maybe 15 times that) and as many attendants as we want, and dressing rooms, and... well pretty much everything this place doesn't offer.

There's a tiny wooden chapel up on Green Mountain and a pavilion that looks over a lake that comes with the rental fee. I never called for a price because when I say tiny chapel, I mean TINY. With a lot of luck and 5 extra benches we could fit 60 people MAYBE. Also, it's about a 100 yard hike through some woods. Not a bad hike, but not one I want to do in a wedding gown. Furthermore, you don't get full run of the preserve when you rent meaning anyone else who comes in can just be all up in the pavilion and hogging the swings and benches on the lake's beach.

And then there's the Botanical Gardens which offer several different venues, all of them you have to call for pricing. I didn't, because I've been to a wedding there and I'm pretty sure we can't afford it.

I imagine you can rent some part of Bridge Street, and there are probably a variety of churches without outdoor areas... but none of this was "us" or in our price range or "us" enough to justify going out of our price range.

I happened to luck upon a childhood friend getting married on Facebook right after the pictures of her wedding had been posted... it was then I was reminded of a well-kept secret called AM Booth's Lumberyard.

It's not that it's a secret, it's that it's just not for everybody, at least not for a wedding per-say.

We loved it. For around 400 dollars (plus a refundable deposit) you have a full days access to a venue that holds 750 people. However, your event can only last 5 hours.

I'll post some pictures of the space, but it really does more justice to explain it.

It's an old lumberyard renovated to be an artsy party space. It has a couple hundred mismatched chairs and some tables for your use, a small gazebo, a train car (that will be a functioning restaurant by September), a stage with lights and VIP booth, a bar with an old bathtub that you can fill with ice to keep beer or can drinks in, a hammock, a loading dock that is now a fountain, lots on shaded and open space, artwork, white Christmas lights, and so much more.

You get to use a small kitchen and dressing area as well as an indoor area with chapel windows. There is a bar located in a building on the premises that your guests could go to if they wanted something other than what you're serving.

You have access to a basketball goal and foosball table if you so wish and you can move any of the numerous pieces of lawn furniture anywhere to create the layout you want.

It is very offbeat and some people would probably find it ugly or tacky but I love it.

It's taken a lot of stress off planning because I can basically show up there that morning and I don't have to arrange for any vendors to be let in, I can get dressed there and it is literally like a half mile from where we live.

Pros: Very flexible, very customizable, cheap (although rates are getting raised because of the upgrades - luckily, we signed our contract before all that).

Cons: You gotta be weird! Also, it's about 10 yards from the train tracks so you have to call the depot and find out when the trains are running and either schedule around it or throw a fit so that they delay.

Save the dates:

Save the dates can be expensive and a hassle just to tell people, "Hey! Soon I will be sending you an invitation! If you are somehow challenged in how mail works then this is a reminder for you not to overlook it!" Also, for it to say all that is a bit contradictory because someone could just as easily overlook a save the date.

When I was still struggling with an cheap and easy idea for save the dates (and leaning towards skipping them altogether) I got a Facebook ad for a little start-up company called Greenvelope that offers web based guest list and invitation managing.

You can purchase a package that ranges anywhere from just save the dates (which is free) to the full set up RSVPs and thank you cards.

We decided that for us save the dates were the way to go. Paperless invites just weren't easy enough for a large enough portion of our guest list.

When you register with Greenvelope you can upload your guest list via e-mail or input manually. The guest information includes a place for how many people are expected for that particular guest (John Doe Plus One = 2, The Smith Family = 6). It also give you the capability to e-mail all guests at once and to see who has opened their virtual invite (this way, you can tell if somebody's invite might have sent to their spam folder and remained unchecked - this was a problem for a number of my guests).

You get a choice from a lot of different templates (I chose dandelions, I sort of have a thing for dandelions). The text editor is set up in a basic "we announce yada yada this person and that person yada yada month/date/year" format but if you're careful enough you can fit more in. This was nice for us as we used the save the dates as a sort of "RSVP for invitation" service. This gave us an idea of how many out of town guests REALLY thought they could make it and allowed us to skip sending out some invites without hurting feelings. It also provided a quick and efficient way to collect snail mail address for those who were confident that they could make it. We asked people to simply RSVP with address to a Google account setup for the event. I also really recommend setting up an e-mail for your wedding. Use it on any forms on websites of vendors that relate to the wedding. This way, when jerks like David's Bridal sell your information it all goes to one tidy place. It also provides an e-mail that the couple can access without infringing on each other's privacy. I used it for all my online transactions for the wedding, all guest correspondence, and anytime I just felt the urge to "REGISTER TO WIN FIVE FREE BRIDAL PARTY DRESSES!" Google is a great place to setup a wedding e-mail account mainly because you can use Google Docs for guest lists, shopping lists, or to jot down to-dos and you can make the document accessible to your primary e-mail account and that of your future spouse.

We also managed to link the complimentary wedding website that The Knot gives you when you register for their (re: awful) website.

Pros: Quick, free, efficient, saves trees. Who doesn't love trees? It's a cute idea most of your guests will find interesting and allows you to cut corners with tradition and maybe even save some money.

Cons: Some people (older relatives, friends who think using the internet isn't indie enough) will never get it or open it. For others, it might get marked as spam, or they can't view it at work and forget when their at home. However, most of these problems won't hurt the majority of your guests.

All in all, I recommend this to people on a bduget or DIY wedding, especially if most of your guests are wired in. It helped me tremendously and set the tone for how low key and offbeat our wedding will be. The template also inspired my template for this website and (I haven't hashed this out yet) probably how my programs will look.

My save the dates: