At the risk of jinxing us, I would have to say that our planning has gone quite smoothly so far. From the venue to the photographer to the DJ, our first choice has worked out for us. I have certainly appreciated the ease and cross my fingers that it will continue. With that said, we have most definitely entered “crunch time” as we passed the six month mark. The To-Do List has become noticeably longer since January hit. Despite our seemingly long engagement, we are not immune to the pressure of the deadline. However, we have made a small dent in the list since my last post.
I mentioned in my last post that we had a floral consult and were waiting on a proposal. After some discussion, we decided that we wanted to shop around. Recently, we had another appointment with a local florist, Fleur de Lis, recommended to us by a high school/college friend who got married this past June. This consultation had a much different feel than the first one. As we shared our concept for not only our flowers but also our vision for the wedding, Lana and Christine listened to our ideas, were inspired to create their own, and most of all shared our excitement about our wedding. Throughout the consultation, we were shown examples of our choices using actual flowers they had in the shop, which was tremendously helpful since I am most definitely a visual person. However, the most impressive aspect of our meeting was my take home bouquet! Based on the decisions we made, a bouquet was created representing the ideas we discussed that I actually got to take away from the meeting. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty fun to play bride for a minute!
Me at our Fleur de Lis consult with my sample bouquet. Note, this is an approximation of what I will carry except with different in-season flowers.
We also did something that is probably one of the biggest landmarks in the pre-wedding process:sent save-the-dates. I have heard people say that ordering/sending the invitations “makes it official” but I would argue that this happens by sending the save-the-dates. This is the first official announcement of the wedding and an unofficial request of the presence of your family and friends. To me, the formal invitation is more about the invitee committing to the event than the inviter committing to the event (um hello, we committed to this event when we put both put a ring on it…). We were very excited to send our loved ones our Orioles-ticket-inspired-save-the-dates which featured one of our engagement pictures, event details, wedding website information, and a very cute cartoon bird all wrapped up in an orange envelope! They seem to have been a big hit based on the response from our family and friends. Needless to say, there’s no turning back now ;)!
This is the fantastic work (including the photograph) of the amazing Heidi Ostendorf. Thanks, again!
Another big decision we made was bridesmaid dresses! Kristine and I spent a Sunday picking out dresses with our VERY PATIENT models, Sarah (my MOH) and Meagan (my pregnant bridesmaid), trying on potential dresses – thank you both for being great sports and only complaining in the privacy of your dressing rooms! Because we have 13 women in our wedding, we decided one style of dress just wouldn’t work – I didn’t want a bridesmaid army. So, we decided on two styles for our lovely ladies to choose from. These dresses are similar in shape, length, and material but have distinct differences that will hopefully suit 13 different tastes and body types. In addition to two styles, Kristine and I each have our bridal party in a color of our choice. As I mentioned (and you can tell from our flowers), we are planning a colorful wedding and our bridal parties are no exception. Kristine’s ladies will be rocking a Tiffany’s blue while my side will be killing it in Kelly green. How did we come up with these colors? Simple – these are our favorite colors. And if nothing else, this wedding is going to scream Emily and Kristine in every way it can.
As we get closer and closer to The Day, there are more decisions to make and items to cross off the list. But, I want to take this moment to say that throughout the entire process so far, Kristine has been by my side and we have made every decision together. While I might be more interested in wedding planning, we have both been equally invested in our wedding planning. During the last year or so, we have paused to appreciate that we have worked harmoniously to create a day that represents us. Not to say there won’t be stressful moments, but this experience has made me that much surer that there isn’t anyone else I would want to make these decisions with. – Emily Wolf
