Making An Entrance!

Cinderella's fairy godmother had it right when she hooked Cinderella up with a beautiful carriage and horses for her to arrive at the ball in. This worked out nicely for our friend Cinderella, however the only problem with this for me is I have no fairy godmother! And as I recall, the stepmother wasn't exactly contributing to Cinderella's coming out party. 

Now at least for me, I don't have to worry about a cruel stepmother. In fact, I have a pretty cool step-mom who's trying hard to raise funds so that I can have a carriage at my wedding. I'd say that's at least worth some step-mom points. But enough about fairy tales. Keeping your head in the clouds only gets  you as far as the next thunderstorm.

I've looked into carriage rental companies and am waiting for some replies back to them. I've found some really neat wagons and carriages that would be great to arrive in. With the way the place is laid out, there is a trek from where the main house is (and where I'll be getting ready) to where the ceremony takes place. The road leading to the church is quite capable of allowing for a horse-drawn carriage of some sort. I think it will be a perfect entrance for my attendants and me. 

If I can pull this off, we will arrive in some sort of wagon/carriage. I'm hoping for something covered like a coach or buggy. I've contacted a few friends with carriage companies and once they get back to me, I will be able to determine if this will work out or not. Right now I've got my fingers crossed that it won't cost me an arm and a leg. I need both of those for the wedding! Trying to keep this budget down is really becoming a challenge. But, as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. I am learning that wedding planning takes patience and time. This is certainly not a skill set which I come by easily. Luckily, I have my wedding planner and the help of many good friends!!

Of course, there is always the modern day option:

Talk about arriving in style! But no thanks...this is way to much horsepower and not enough horse flesh for me!

Cake Tasting

You would think that cake tasting is one of the fun perks when planning a wedding. I've since learned how big of a pain in the arse it really is. It is really annoying that cake makers should charge YOU a fee for SAMPLING their products.

So, I set up a cake tasting with a acquaintance of mine. She told me she would have to charge me for the sampling and that this is standard with anyone. I don't mind the fee since it was $25. I had never heard of this practice before, so I verified with my wedding coordinator who said it is the norm. She said some places don't charge a fee, but you usually go to them. Since this vendor was meeting me off-site, I didn't mind the charge. I understand for the smaller baker, this fee can help cover expenses for specifically making samples that they don't have on hand.

Heath went with me to the tasting and I told him about the fee. I honestly didn't think anything more of it except for the fact that as Heath pointed out, we are shopping for a cake vendor and this is the cost of doing business. As he put it, "We don't charge people for the gas to test drive our cars. It's the cost of doing business. They shouldn't charge us for samples." 

Anyway, like I said, I didn't mind the fee she charged, I thought her cake ball samples were really good. It was the second vendor who wanted $50 to taste their cakes and they didn't have nearly the sample selection of my acquaintance. 

With the first vendor, I felt like $25 to her was fine because it covered her cost of the ingredients, her time and her gas to meet me. This second vendor however, made me feel like I was putting them out by setting up a tasting. They had a statement in their email in all caps that said "NON REFUNDABLE" which, had they not put it quite like that, I probably wouldn't have been on the defensive.

If I set up 3 samplings and each one charged a fee of anywhere between $25 to $50 per sampling, I would have spent anywhere from $75 to $150 just to TASTE cakes. That's not us buying a whole cake, that's us TASTING cake flavors. I can go into an ice cream store and taste ice cream samples for FREE. I can generally go to a bakery and taste a sample of their products before buying and they don't charge for it. 

I canceled the tasting. It just doesn't seem right that I should have to pay extra for tasting a cake sample (not even get the whole cake for that price) and not get the price of sampling reimbursed if I chose to go with that vendor. 

It's an exploitation of brides by vendors in this "wedding industry". Frankly, it's frustrating to say the least. And that leads me to another question. Why is this an "industry"? We have turned this ceremonious event in a person's life into a 3 ring circus complete with ring masters, clowns and animals.

How have women survived all these years ago without the help of the "industry" behind them? I mean come on, do we really need so much fluff? What ever happened to friends and family helping out the bride and all working together to bring this day to a head and make it as special as it can be, just using your own resources? I understand the need for some of the vendors and such, but do we need quite so many? 

Well that's all I have for now. Sorry for the slight rant, but as we draw nearer the day, I find more things incomprehensible as the costs are rising. One thing these vendors (all of them, not just cake vendors, but DJ's, bands, rentals, transportation, ect...) should realize is that they are not the only vendor in town and we are not bleeding money.

Where does the time go?

Wow, has it really been so long since my last post? With so much going on now it's hard to keep track. Well, let me backtrack a little and bring you up to speed. I hired a wedding planner, which is great because all of this was getting to be too much organization for me. She's keeping track of everything, which if anyone knows me knows that is not my strong suite. 

The menu is set. The decorations are bought, and the guest list is (hopefully) finalized. The Save-The-Dates are ready to go and the invitations will be ordered shortly. We still haven't' decided on a band or a DJ, but with the numbers shaping up the way they are, we may go the DJ route.

The bridesmaids dresses should be in soon, and for the record, I didn't go with any on the last post. I chose a different dress for my girls. You'll have to come to the wedding to see what we picked! My dress will also be in soon. I'm excited!

On a side note, my wonderful sister has planned out the bridal shower and by the sounds of it, it promises to be a dazzling event. I can't wait to see what she has in store.

I've set up a site which has more information regarding location and venue, which can be seen at: www.theknot.com/ourwedding/shannonschwedhelm&heathshields

I'll try to keep updating this one as we get closer. Only 92 days to go!

Always a bridesmaid...

Watters Dress

Now the time has come to decide what they should wear. I've searched online through many different styles of dresses, checked out department stores for fresh ideas and picked the brain of everyone around me that I can to come up with something that will work for my venues. Yes, I said venues. I'm still debating on having a small wedding in Belize at a Mayan temple. Time and finances will determine that outcome. However, my main focus right now is to find a dress that will suit my main venue, the local wedding. 

The dress needs to be light and summery. I do not want my girls to wear long dresses that will be heavy, hot and irritating to move around in. I have to take into consideration the fact that this will be partially outdoors and partially indoors. The facility has a lot of grass and dust, since it is an old west town. There will be the fact that it will probably be over 90 degrees outside, being that it's in September in Texas. I don't want to look back at my pictures to see a bunch of sweaty women who were miserable and uncomfortable. 

Sophi Tolli

So, back to the topic. This past weekend I ventured out to Fort Worth to give that rustic city a shot at what they had to offer. I rounded up three of the four bridesmaids and off we went, down to historic Camp Bowie blvd to find dresses. We ended up at a place called Ocones at the suggestion of one of the bridesmaids, Vanessa. She said she purchased her dress there and they were wonderful about it. 

The little lady who helped us was so sweet and cute, she reminded me of my grandmother. She suggested a fabric that was soft to match my dress. She pulled out a few that she thought would work, and after a few rounds of yea's and neigh's, we got closer to the concept. 

We finally narrowed the options down to two choices. One was a Watters/Wtoo dress and the other was a Sophia Tolli dress. The Watters dress is very light and flowing. It is a chiffon knee length dress with draped bodice, a sweetheart neckline and a sash at the waist. It looked very comfortable and comes in several different color choices. The link to the site where you can see the different colors on the dress is Here.

The Sophia Tolli dress has a different look, and honestly, looks more like it would fit in with the theme of the wedding. It is a strapless taffeta tea-length slim A-line dress with an elegant sweetheart neckline. It has a gathered bodice with a ribbon sash and ruffled hemline. It also has a corset back closure, which makes it slimming and better fitting. Here is a link to see this dress. The one shown is the slate/coffee colored dress, and I actually kind of like that color combination. 

Much Happier!

So I had Bonnie and Vanessa try on these dresses and though I didn't get a picture of them in everything I did capture one of Vanessa in this Sophia Tolli dress. I have to say, this dress actually made her smile, as opposed to some of the other dresses she's tried on with me. 

So you can see how happy
she is in this dress...
and who can blame her?

Vanessa modeled this dress for us and here's what she looked like in it. She was quite happy in this dress as you can see here, but this was not the case for other dresses she tried on in the past.  Let's take a look at some of the other dresses that didn't make the cut.

This first dress, though pretty on the rack, certainly was not the dress of the day. In fact I can say that it got a rousing "hell no" out of my bridesmaid. I did like the colors on the dress, but the point was made that the colors may clash with my own dress. 

So this dress was scrapped. I had my lovely bridesmaid try on another dress, that again, I thought was pretty. But it turns out that pretty only extended so far as the hanger it was held on. 

You can see in the following pictures how elegant the second dress is. It had beautiful bead work on the neckline and had a pretty corset back which flowed into two colors, but it was a little to formal and would over power the wedding dress and didn't fit the venue at all.

Although I do have to say, I did at least manage to get a smile out of Vanessa on that first one. It only took some coaxing. (And mostly showing her the picture again. That made her laugh!)