Six months and counting...

Ok, so it's time for a major wedding planning update! Last fall, I had been taking graduate classes part-time and working full-time, so there was little time for planning a wedding. BUT, now that the clock is ticking, I have been in full "Wedding Planning" mode, and plan to keep it up until July.  I will highlight what has been happening:

• Pre-Cana Meetings - We have been meeting with the pastor at the Church (St. Adalbert in Berea, OH). We even had to take the "Marriage Test" - or a questionnaire about how you plan to address different aspects of marriage. We did very well on the test (thanks to years of Catholic education) and we scored 100% on problem solving (thanks to our engineering skills)!

• Bridal Shows - I attended the Q104 Bridal Fair and the Today's Bride Bridal Show, both in Cleveland, OH! I gathered lots of information on Caterers, Cakes, and Photographers. Speaking of those photographers...
• Photographers - After meeting with and interviewing several wedding photographers, we ended up selecting Jeanette Palsa Photography! Jeannette is from the Akron area, but was willing to travel to Cleveland. Her packages were reasonably priced and she had a good mix of artsy photo-journalistic photos with the traditional family portraits. Plus, she is giving us the high resolution images with copyright, so she was exactly what we were looking for!

• Maid-of-Honor Dress - After a long day of searching with my mother and sister, we found the perfect dress for my sister to wear as my maid of honor! She will be wearing Alfred Sung (Style D494) in Midnight as she walks down the aisle!

That's all for now - but I'm sure that I'll have more updates soon on Catering, DJs, & Cake!

I said YES to a Dress!

Alright, it's been a month since I've had any major breakthroughs in wedding planning. However, after a busy day of dress shopping with my mother and sister, I've met my match.

I always thought that I'd be one of those girls that tries on Dress #1, Dress #2, and Dress #3. Then, I'd just pick the best one out of three dresses. Well, we started out at Catan's Fashions in Strongsville, where I tried on 6 dresses. The service at Catan's was wonderful, but most of their dresses weren't my style. I was looking for simple and most of their dresses had lots of lace or bling. I found one that I loved - but unfortunately it was a clearance dress ($2000+ on sale for $1000) and it would need lots of alterations. :(

Our search for the perfect dress continued at Dora's Bridal in Fairview Park. Now, I had stopped by Dora's after work earlier in the week, and fell in love with the place. The people working there we so friendly and helpful. I struggled to find dresses above $1000 (most of their dresses were priced $600 - $800).  And the dresses were just as elegant as the ones at Catan's Fashions (if not prettier).  After trying on two dresses, I knew the one below was "The Dress."

So, I said Yes!

Save the Dates!

So, after debating "magnets" vs. "postcards", postcards finally won because they are much easier (and cheaper) to mail out!! I designed our Save-the-Date postcards using Adobe Photoshop, and then uploaded them to a postcard template on VistaPrint.  It took me a total of 5 minutes. I also made cute address labels to put on the back of the postcards!

I have had great experience using VistaPrint in the past to print promotional postcards. I'd suggest googling coupon codes if you decide to use VistaPrint - I ended up paying about $3.50 for the address labels (including 15-day shipping) and $6.50 for the postcards (including 15-day shipping)!  So this was definitely way under my wedding budget. I can't wait to see what they look like when they arrive - below is a preview from my photoshopping!

Engagement Photos - Preview!

Despite many threatening clouds, we were able to take engagement photos on June 26th! I'm attaching a few of my favorite ones that I've already editted!

The bad news: While I really wanted to take pictures at Progressive Field in Downtown Cleveland, we decided not to go downtown because the weather was "iffy". Also, about half way through our photoshoot in the park, my dad's camera battery died.

The good news: Our pictures in the park came out so great, that we didn't let the bad news bring us down! I loved our pictures from the duck pond and Squire's castle in the Metroparks - both great locations for taking engagement photos! And with a little photoshop, the cloudy weather didn't affect the pictures much at all!

Engagement Photos!

Although I am planning a wedding that is still 393 days away, I’ve decided to have our engagement photos taken this Saturday (tomorrow). Yes, I have been engaged since January 9^th, 2011, but I have been putting off the engagement photos because I wanted to take some outside (and getting engaged in January in Cleveland, the weather outside is not so nice).

I did not book a photographer to take our engagement photos – instead, I am relying on my dad to brush up on his wedding photography skills. My dad, who currently works in the meat department at the local Heinen’s grocery store, used to have his own photography business. However, when digital cameras came out in the early 2000’s, his business took a hard hit and he had to look for employment elsewhere to provide for our family.  Luckily, he saved all of his photography equipment and is willing to help my fiancé and me save a few bucks by taking our engagement photos!

So….the next big question was where to take the photos. I thought it would be nice to take our engagement photos where we had our first/second dates. Therefore, we will be taking photos at Progressive Field and at the North Chagrin Reservation Metroparks.  I feel like we have to wear Indian’s t-shirts for the Progressive Field photos, and then probably something a little more formal for the pictures in the park.  IF it rains (*knocks on wood*), then we can still take some photos at my dad’s old photography studio.  However, I will be praying for warm weather and sunshine on Saturday so that we can take our photos outside!

I’d love to hear any thoughts on other outdoor locations to take engagement photos in CLE (just in case it rains tomorrow & we have to reschedule)! :D

Wedding Colors

This feels like one of the biggest decisions in planning a wedding, as I have already spent hours looking at different color combinations to find one that is "just right" for our wedding. Initially, I decided on:

Coral - Turquoise - Pearl White

I thought bright colors would fit a casual summer wedding. However, now that I have started to look at decorations and dress options for my mom & sister, Turquoise is WAY too bright. So, since I don't want guests to have to put on sunglasses at the wedding, I have "dulled" it down to Navy.

So, there you have it! Hopefully I won't decide to change these again (since it was a lot of work to Google images of strange color names)!

mywedding.com vs. theknot.com

After reading many wedding magazines, I thought one of the easiest ways to organize and plan a wedding would be to use the free online wedding planning tools that are available. From what I've seen, both www.mywedding.com and www.theknot.com seem to be the most popular choices for wedding websites. After creating accounts on both websites, I've decided to use mywedding.com for the following reasons:

+ More Wedding Website Options - wedding websites seem to be popular these days, and I felt that there was much more variety on mywedding.com

+ Simple Wedding Checklist - I felt that the Knot was very detailed and I was looking for a simple wedding checklist feature. I felt overwhelmed by the Knot's checklist.

+ Simple Budget - again, the Knot also had a very useful wedding budget tool, but it was above and beyond what I was looking for to plan a wedding.

So, for my wedding, I'll be using www.mywedding.com!

Note: Even though I've selected My Wedding for overall planning and wedding coordination, I will probably still use a lot of tips on the Knot website; the Knot has an entire section of their website dedicated to weddings in Cleveland, which I'm sure will come in handy!