Wedding Venue- Booked!

(Copied from my weddingbycolor blog here)

The booking details have been finalized! We're good to go for 11:30 am on Saturday, November 26th, 2011 at the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Goodness gracious, I'm sooo excited!!!

Okay, since I had originally planned to make a blog/guide about wedding experiences at the TRF, let me go ahead and list what I've gone through so far. There are, like, no first hand accounts from past brides at TRF, so I figured I'd go ahead and fill this void. Just for anyone who might be interested in booking there and is a detail-fanatic like me.

Let me first off state that my INITIAL interactions with TRF about wedding stuff weren't awesome. Don't let this cool you off though, because I'm fairly certain this is unique to our experiences and they most likely won't be something you'll have to endure...but let me explain.

Long story short, the TRF wedding staff was completely turned over somewhere around the end of December 2010 (for reasons that have never really become clear to me but aren't any of my business anyway). I only found out about this when FH and I went to a hat shop in Old Town Spring that sells at the Festival and the shop owner told us about it. I had originally agreed to meet her at the Bridal Expo and put down my deposit and agreement with her there, but now that she was miraculously gone, I wasn't sure that was still the case.

I attended the Houston Bridal Expo on January 8th, and I was met by two very charming women who answered all of my questions and were very helpful. They were actually in charge of Media Relations, but Gina (one of the ladies) would be heading up wedding stuff until a new staff was in place. Gina has been very helpful and has gone out of her way to get our date in place, and so it's all thanks to her that we've made it where we are now. =D

There will be a new staff in place soon, so I'm hoping things continue to move as smoothly. Like I said before, I think these issues were unique to my experience and won't be common place for those of you planning to book your wedding at TRF in the future. I just thought it'd be fair to let you know what my experience was like!

So my next post will probably be in relation to my dress, as I was going to order it once we had our date in place.

Edit- From now on, this will be my main wedding planning blog, just for anyone who cares. =)

Wedding Idea Number 3...or 4? =/

In my search for other options in wedding venues, I came across this little number...


Millard's Crossing- Nacogdoches, TX








*squeee!*

I adore this place and I've never even been. So I guess I can only really appreciate what I've seen so far -which has just been the stuff on the website- but it seems so quaint and so lovely. It also gets brownie points for having a ton of information about weddings on site, for being really obliging/flexible about wedding plans, and for being super freaking cheap!!! Seriously, I added up the total cost (including deposits) of renting this place for a wedding and a reception and the grand total is....*get ready to shit a brick*
$950

Yeah, I'm not kidding. And it's not a piece of shit, either. Here's the chapel-













Isn't that awesome????

There's also this really amazing cake business in the area that's run by a really awesome-seeming woman. I like it because its her own, independent business and she seems like she'd be really easy and personal to work with-
Cakes By Cindy

Likely, if we have our wedding here, we'd go ahead and do the Autumnal/Halloween theme we'd be lusting after. I did a quick mock-up on Dress My Wedding for what my gals and I might look like-



















I was trying to avoid the black/white wedding thing, but I think if we throw some oranges/browns/auburn in there it'll look Halloween-y and not 'dapper'. The only reason the guys aren't included in this picture is because what we're envisioning for them isn't an option on the David's Bridal page. In keeping with the black/white/orange-accent theme, we might have them do black slacks, white shirt, black tux vest/waistcoat, black ties, with an autumnal flower boutonniere. I think Matt will be the only guy with a full suit because we're trying to avoid making people pay for things they can't afford (guys, tuxes; ladies, dresses)
Speaking of which, this is why my gals are all wearing different style dresses. I came upon the fantastic idea the other day (given to me by a girl who is going to be bridesmaid this fall) to let my BMs go out and choose/buy their own dresses from wherever they want for whatever they want to pay. I think doing this will prevent them from feeling obligated to have a spend a certain amount of money that they probably won't have for a dress they may never wear again (and/or won't look good on them). My only requirements will be that the dress is short (like knee length, or whatever) and is solidly black. That's it. Just get a 'little black dress', which is sold at every Target, JC Penny's and Macy's in the country, and you're solid. I actually was open to the idea of having different dress-lengths for my girls if they wanted, but then I saw pictures from a wedding where they did this and I just didn't think it looked very good. So we'll be skipping that.

The only things I'm worried about are these-
1. The catering situation is a little hazy, as there are few restaurants in the area and even fewer who actually have a website with catering quotes.
2. Nacogdoches is about 3 hours away from Houston and I'm a little worried it'll be further out of folks' way to get to. I'd like for everyone to be able to come (we're envisioning a total of about 70-75) but maybe if we can eliminate some people we'll be able to let others bring dates, which will be good for some people that might know us, but no one else.
3. I've never been, which is a concern in and of itself. While it looks great on the site, it might be a total shitfest in real life. It also seems like a place that would be run by sweet old people, but in reality, it might be managed by dickfaces that would be a pain in the butt to work with. So, I'd like to get a chance to visit it, but my window of opportunity would be within December 2010-August 2011 (roughly) and I don't know how ample my time would be to go and do something like that three hours away from home.

Otherwise, it seems like a really cool place and a definite candidate for our venue. I'm really eager to find really inexpensive places because I'd like to not spend more than 5,000 on the actual day (which is, after all, only one day) and more on the honeymoon to New Mexico. Woo hoo!

Progress Post as of 1/27/10

A lot has changed in our plans since November. Of course, we still have a year and 10 months to get this right. The current plan we've come up with to replace TRF is much, much, much cheaper and we're getting a lot more for $4,500 now than we were with $6,500 for the Ren Fest. So let's begin!

Our new location is The Tall Ship Elissa in Galveston-











Ain't she puuurrrdy? Of course, she'll be docked during the ceremony (though it would be cool to have her out on the sea).

The docks right next to the Elissa will house our reception. I'm not sure, exactly, how I want that to look, but I have some ideas for decor-








I'd like to have a centerpiece like this, maybe in a bottle rather than a jar, but filled with sand and a candle in the middle. This would be part of the centerpiece, not the entire thing.












I thought this was a cute idea for place settings. I'm not sure we'll have those, but the idea is cute.

I'm considering these as options for vendors-

Catering by Salsas of Galveston (Prices are dirt cheap, plus the family loves Tex-Mex.)

Rev. Bostock as our Minister (dude has got a great biz going there on the island. He'll marry you anywhere and he seems like a really nice guy)

The rest we're not sure about yet. But I do have a pretty cool mock-up of what our wedding part will hopefully look like.












I'm keeping the same dress as I love it sooo much. I really, really love the white/dark blue color scheme.

I'm really excited about this wedding idea, as I've always loved Galveston and always kinda hoped I'd get married there. So far, our budget is showing up as super, super cheap so I couldn't be more excited. =)

Wedding Dress!

Ugh. No more work, please. Ever. Especially not this morning. I'm so over it. I should be working on my four-page paper due tomorrow, but let's be serious. I have to endure 8 hours of crap today. I'm not about to start with my three hour, morning respite.

So to keep myself from thinking suicidal thoughts, I decided I'd share what I hope will be my future wedding dress.
Yaay! Isn't it pretty? Mine actually will have either a goldish/ivory trim or white, but not red. The picture was just automatically at red (though I can't really see why anyone would find that appealing, but to each his own). I like how it sort of borderlines between Renaissancy/modern.

It's about $400, which isn't too bad for a dress like this. I hate to be a snob, but I just couldn't see myself wearing a dress that wasn't a little bit showy. For instance, I need a petticoat, a bit of a bustle, etc, etc, etc. I don't really get into the "less is more" philosophy of wedding dresses. I mean, I can see the appeal of just wearing like a prom or sun dress (super cheap) but you only get married once. Oh, wait...

I think I will also invest in a pair of gloves, like the kind this lady has. I've considered getting a tiara, but its kind of ridiculous how much bridal boutiques want to charge for them (not to mention everything else). I also don't want to look too much like Princess Peach.

Introduction to my official Wedding Blog!!!!

Hey there!

So, this is my first, official wedding blog entry. There shouldn't be any readers just yet, but this is as much for me as it is for the eventual blog followers.

To begin with, here are some minor, general facts about our 2011 wedding that Matt and I have hammered down so far.

1. Our tentative date is November 12th, 2011, which is a Saturday. This may change, but we'd like to have an autumn wedding and we're doing it Houston, TX (where autumn is pretty much nonexistent until December). October would be too hot. By November, one is more likely to get a cool front, or at the very least, highs in the mid 70's.
   
2. Our location is The Texas Renaissance Festival (huzzah!). We'd like to have the ceremony in the Wedding Chapel. I am really psyched about this, BTW. TRF is one of my favorite places on earth (I'm not even joking) and I've wanted to get married there since my first visit when I was ten. It truly is one my happy places and I can't think of a place more romantic and free-spirited.
   
3. Our rehearsal dinner will be a "Potluck BBQ" in Bear Creek Park the night before. We'll provide the fantasy decorations, souvenirs, and maybe some meat entrees, but everyone else can chip in with food contributions. I know, it's a great way to avoid spending a fortune, right? I'll make another post about this soon. We'll also get a chance to rehearse since it's an outdoor location and TRF doesn't conduct the rehearsals themselves.
4. I've decided to not try and spend 1,000 dollars or more on some time period-specific wedding gown. I've found a dress at David's Bridal for 390 that looks as though it might be Renaissancy/princessy, but also very modern. I might get a tiara to balance it out.
   
5. We basically have the potential people picked out for our groomsmen/bridesmaids. Assuming either one of us doesn't experience a huge falling out within the next couple of years, we'll probably stick to those folks.
   
6. We've decided on Pachelbel's Canon in D for the "walk down the aisle" music, as well as Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring for the seating of the mothers. Texas Brass will be providing the music for our ceremony, and we've already picked out some of the music they provide as choices. Again, I'll make a post especially about this, eventually. I'll also provide a link to their website. I'd really like to havea good, celtic version of "Fields of Gold" for our first dance at the reception, but we'll see how it goes.

Okay, that's all for now. More to come later!