A Matter of Taste

Last night, my parents, Jack and I went to the Rosewood for our tasting.  All I can say is YUM!  Well actually, that isn't all I can say. ;)  If anyone goes home hungry after our wedding, I have to believe it will be through no fault of ours.  They had told us ahead of time to allocate three hours for this, but we ended up being there for longer.  We were served a glass of both of their house wines, 4 salads, 2 options for a course after the salad, three different entrees, 4 potatoes, 3 veggies and 4 "upgrade" desserts.  Needless to say, we did not go home hungry.  And although I had had a lunch or two there due to my job, I had never had a full dinner.  But once we started to tell people where I reception was going to be, we received numerous comments from friends that have said the food there is excellent and, now having tasted it, we could not agree more.

Lucky for us, we all generally agreed on our preferences and were able to come to decisions on our menu pretty easily.  I am not going to tell you what it is though because for the elements that I can keep to a surprise, I plan to so that the majority of our guests enjoy it the night of the wedding.  I'll say again though, it was delicious!  One of the nice things about their service also is that they are very understanding of dietary restrictions or anyone who requires a vegetarian meal.

After the actual tasting (and our host packaging an extra dessert for us to go), we sat with one of the event managers who explained all of our food options throughout the meal and he rattled off what seemed like 30+ questions on things we had not even thought about or discussed, but that he wanted to try to nail down that night.  For example, we had to pick what kind of cake, what kind of cake filling, are we having chair covers, how we want the head table set up, do we want monkeys as entertainment, etc (He didn't ask us about monkeys - I am just trying to see if you are paying attention) and for the most part with brief discussion, we were able to answer most of what he wanted.  And throughout these questions he asked if we had different vendors already booked, which quite often was answered with a "no", so at the end of the night, he gave us a list of places that he has worked with and would recommend so that will definitely be helpful.  He asked if I had a cake in mind (as far as the decoration goes) and I hadn't spent a ton of time on that yet.  I wish I had known what he was going to ask or at least had a list of questions from them so that I knew what to expect and could have thought about things for a while.  I have a tough time making very quick decisions.  But we managed and I am very happy with everything.  By the time we left, we were full and I felt like we were truly able to accomplish a lot in one night.

I am finally feeling like this is fun and like we are really getting married. :) HOORAY!

Wedding Dress Shopping

It is hard to know where to start on this subject.  A week and a half ago, I spent all of a Friday night and about 6 hours on a Saturday with my mom looking at countless pictures of wedding dresses both online and in magazines.  I had a stack of magazines that had been given to me and that I had purchased that we had both gone through and tagged different things that caught our eye or dresses that we possibly liked for me.  Now don't get me wrong, this was fun, but it was exhausting!  By the time I got back to my apartment that Saturday night, I was useless and just laid on the couch for the night.  I think it took a lot out of me because it was a matter of having a definitive opinion about hundreds of pictures for an extended amount of time.  And from what my dad told me, my mom was pretty worn out afterwards too.  But by the end of that weekend, I had a stack of dress pictures that were at least interesting to me that I could look into.  I did not want to be a bride that took one picture into a store and said this is what I want because I had no idea how it would look on me or what would be possible to find in my price range.  I just wanted to know what I liked.

 

I started to then do some research on different dress shops.  I took recommendations from friends, co-workers and looked up a few that were in magazines.  But then I started to read the reviews that people had posted online about these places and got nervous.  There were SO MANY negative comments about different stores and the way in which people were treated.  It started to make me feel like this was going to be very difficult and that I was not going to enjoy this the way I had hoped.

 

I made appointments at two different independent shops this past weekend thinking that this would at least be a good start, but that my mom and I would probably be at this for the next few weeks.  The first was at a little shop in Mokena (near where my parents live).  The girl who owned the store was young and very nice, but as more clients came in, I started to see less and less of her.  While I was the only one there, she paid great attention to me.  I probably tried on 8 dresses with only 2 of them being possible but nothing that made me feel like I had found my dress. 

 

Then we headed to Catherine Simms Bridal in Naperville and after getting lost and calling the shop twice while on Route 59, we finally found the shop.  This store had more room which automatically made me feel more comfortable.  We were able to browse the racks and pick out different dresses that I wanted to try on.  There was an employee that was "assigned" to me which was nice because she helped pick out dresses, even helped me try them on (which was a little weird at first) and stayed with me the whole time.  My mom and I both liked the first dress I tried on and compared everything I tried on subsequently to it.  After I had finished trying them all on once, I tried the first dress on again and thought "Wow - I really like this one".  I showed my mom again and we started to discuss it.  Although it did not match any of the dress pictures I had, it certainly had a number of the elements for which I was looking.  The longer I kept it on, the more we liked it.  I started to get overwhelmed -- Could I have really found the dress that I would wear when I get married?  I asked the shop staff to give us a few minutes and they were great because they really did leave us alone for a little while.  I got to just look at the dress for a while, sit in it, and see how it felt.  I could not believe that I may have found my dress on the first day looking!  This is not at all what I expected.  I thought this would be far more difficult.  I started to question myself -- Was I picking this one because it made this whole process easier?  Should I keep looking?  Am I picking this one too quickly?  Thank goodness I was not by myself because my mom knew exactly what to say.  After much discussion and a few tears, I decided that I had found my dress!  I could not be more excited (or more relieved)!  Thanks for all your help, Mom!  I could not have done this without you, nor would I have wanted to.

Vegas, The Flu, Save-the-Dates and More

It's been a while since we've posted anything, so for the sake of keeping folks updated,  here's some of the latest.  Two weeks ago, I had to go to Las Vegas for work, and Mary joined me for a little R & R (& G).  Then as soon as we got back, I got the flu.  Mary took care of me while I was sick (isn't she great!), so we were both out of commission for the last couple weeks.

 

Now we're both in town and healthy and back on track.  In the works are save-the-date cards, hotel accommodations for us and our guests, and a tasting at the Rosewood.  Mary found a concept for save-the-date cards that she likes, but to order them through the company would have cost us $1500!  That's crazy to me!  Fortunately, Mary just liked the concept, and is far too practical to spend that kind of money on save-the-date cards.  Typically you can get five postcards for $1, but I supposed since it's for a wedding there is a 1000% markup :)  Needless to say we won't be ordering the $1500 save-the-date cards, but we like the design, so maybe we can get a little creative!