But what will we eat?

We started our search for a caterer with the list of preferred caterer's from Cator Woolford - obviously, better to find a caterer on the list than to pay an extra $1,000 to bring in someone else! Being the dedicated bride/researcher that I am, I went to the websites of every single one, crossing out the ones that didn't really appeal to me. Then I sent the rest emails - and continued crossing people off based on their lack of response, very strange response, or any number of things. I tend to go with my gut in most cases - so even if I couldn't explain why I was crossing them off, I would. What can I say? Not all my reasons have to make sense! I'm a bride!

When it came down to it, we were left with 2 caterers. And after meeting with my DOC (the wonderful Daria of Circle of Love Weddings) and getting her recommendation, we had 1 more. That caterer wasn't on the list of preferred caterers.. but they were willing to split the cost with us 50/50.

Since I was trying to get all the major vendors booked before I left in August, and it was already July by this point, AND I was trying to let Thomas have the tasting experience as well, we scheduled to have all our tastings over a period of 2 days. Plus, I figured that we would definitely know who we liked best if we had them all in a row.

Disclaimer: My camera was stolen before I had uploaded the pictures from our catering meetings. So we have no pictures from the tastings, which is so sad I can hardly stand it. We experienced some really awesome presentations.

First up was Monday lunch at one of the more trendy caterers in the Atlanta area. Thomas and I went, along with my brother/man-of-honor. There's a group of vendors in the area that all seem to have a similar aesthetic appeal, and they work together on a lot of weddings. Their food is fantastic - they actually have a restaurant that we often eat at for brunch - but their prices definitely reflected the fact that they are an in-demand caterer. This was actually Thomas' favorite for the food, since their beef was really fantastic. However, the cake was not as good.. Though they gave us huge slices, it was kind of dry and crumbly, and they charged an extra fee to bring in your own cake. But it was definitely something we could work around in order to get some delicious dinner.

That evening, my mom, BM C, Thomas and I went to dinner at the caterer that Daria had recommended. It was not as trendy, and doesn't have quite the reputation as the first one, which meant they were also significantly cheaper. Also, their beef was not quite as good, a little on the tough side, but their chicken was much better than at the first caterer. Their prices were also significantly less, and I was absolutely in love with this appetizer they had.. watermelon and mozzarella with a balsamic vinaigrette. So good. But Thomas got food poisoning the next day.. and since no one else did, we weren't really sure where he got it, but he thinks it was this caterer.

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My new favorite flavor combination! 

The next day, my mom and I were supposed to go to the third caterer, but it ended up getting pushed back two days. When we went, their office had no air conditioning, but it certainly didn't detract from the overall experience. Their food was excellent, but definitely more on the traditional "wedding food" side of things. They were on the price point in between the first two. In addition, they had a lot of experience.. I think they said they had been catering in the Atlanta area over 20 years, so I knew they would have a lot of contacts with other vendors. However, when explaining some of my ideas for the wedding, they were a little more negative and less accommodating than the other two had seemed.

Time for a little House Hunters style question! Which caterer did I choose? A) The trendy, expensive caterer with delicious meat? B) The less-expensive caterer with the amazing appetizer that might have given Thomas food poisoning? or C) The more traditional, experienced caterer with delicious "wedding food" and a less-than-positive attitude?

Long Distance Planning

Since I moved to Kentucky in August, I've been in kind of a planning lull. Over the summer I tried to get the majority of my vendors booked because I knew that it would be hard to do from 5.5 hours away. I like to be in control of major decisions, but somehow I didn't get to the florist before I left. This means I either make a trip down to Atlanta for a crazy vendor weekend, or I delegate to my mother and BM C who lives in Atlanta. Since I don't really know what questions to ask a florist anyway, this makes it hard to tell them what to ask. I know the look I'm going for...

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Kind of fluffy, kind of organic.. I want peonies, ranunculus, faith roses, globe amaranthus, etc. And some dusty miller for the grey.  Of course, I can send all those pictures, and create inspiration boards for my Mom and BM C to take, but how will I know if I like them? I realize that sounds ridiculous - I trust both my Mom and BM C to make that sort of judgement, but for some reason I'd really like to be a part of choosing my florist. 

Did you have to delegate part of your wedding planning? What would you do in this situation? And do you have a list of questions you found crucial at your florist meetings?

Mail Call!

One of my favorite things is getting mail. And for the past few days, I've been waiting on a very fun piece of mail to come to my mailbox - invitation samples! I saw on Snippet&Ink that an invitation company I had never heard of was having a letterpress special - 100 invites and reply cards for $398! Considering that most other letterpress places I was looking were in the $1000 or higher range, I was very excited. I had basically written letterpress out of my budget when I saw this special. I know you're probably just as excited as I am to hear about those prices, so head on over to Invitations by Ajalon to check it out! It only goes until the end of August, so go quickly.

Anyway, today I received the samples, and I was so excited. So here's a little photo documentation of my envelope-opening experience.

First, I opened the envelope and pulled out a folder..

Inside, there were tons of samples! There was 1 invitation, 1 business card, 4 or 5 RSVP cards, and a card with their 3 different paper colors on it.

Some had rounded edges, some were grey, some were purpleThis is the purple color we would probably use, it didn't photograph really well but it's called "grape".
Some of them had these very helpful cards taped on the back, letting me know which colors were used, which design it was, which paper was used, etc. One of my favorite RSVP cards used these symbols for the menu choices instead of just writing "beef", "fish", "vegetarian", etc.

The next picture isn't very exciting, but we would probably use the "pearl" paper - which is the one in the middle.
This is the RSVP postcard that goes with the invitation I like the most. I love that they do postcards - less envelopes = less money, and less waste!


Last picture -- these are my favorite invitations. It's called "baroque" and I just love the fonts and the border. I think it goes well with my unofficial (as of yet) "Secret Garden" theme, especially once it's in purple on whiter paper. The ecru and teal is a pretty combination though, too.. Sorry about getting a little artsy there, I had to use Thomas' fancy camera since mine is gone, and I wasn't entirely sure how to use it to it's full advantage.

What have you been strangely excited about during the wedding planning process?

Finding a Photographer, Part II

At the end of the last post, we had visited with one photographer who we loved, but I personally couldn't stomach the price. So we continued our internet search, hoping to find someone who satisfied both Thomas' photographic needs and my budget needs.

At some point, I came across the Wedding Photojournalists Association (WPJA) website, which I really recommend if you're trying to find a photographer. They have listings by state, and you can see if any of their photographs have won the contests that the WPJA sponsors. There were a ton listed for Atlanta, so I got to work weeding out the ones that didn't match our style or our budget. Somewhere towards the end of the list, there was a posting for Nam Nguyen. At the time, he was part of BTO Photography, a collaboration between him and his friend. Looking through the pictures, I totally fell in love. Everyone just looked so happy in his pictures! He had also won three awards from the WPJA, and Thomas approved of his pictures on the site, so we were all set to have a meeting. He just recently switched to being his own business, so you can see his most recent stuff here

Nam lives in a town that is a little bit south of Atlanta, but we met at a Starbucks that was literally 5 minutes away from my house. We had a great meeting, and he found out that Thomas and I take rhetorical questions very seriously.. when he asked for our life story, he definitely got more than I think he bargained for. Thomas and Nam had already been sending emails back and forth about photographer stuff, so we were able to work a lot of things into our contract that usually is not really allowed. At the end of the meeting, Thomas and I were both really excited, so the next day we emailed him and asked him to send us a contract. He sent us one with all of our additional requests in place**, and he became our photographer! At the time, we also set up our engagement shoot for the first weekend in July, and we should be getting our pictures back any day now.

You'll have to go on over to his website to see shots of his, they're all great! I'm really looking forward to showing y'all our engagement pictures.


**if I can, I want to do a contract review at some point in the future. I've usually heard how much people spend on their blogs, but not exactly what they got for their money, which I think led me to have some misconceptions about how much things would cost. I'd like to avoid that in this blog if I can.

Finding a Photographer, Part I

Aside from finding a venue, finding a photographer was really on the top of our list. You see, Thomas himself is actually a photographer, currently in the process of getting his degree in Fine Arts Studio - Photography. He has actually even shot a few weddings himself. Needless to say, this made our search for a photographer somewhat difficult. I would email him links to certain people who looked just fine to me, but he would respond with things like.. "The space under their faces is too dark" or "The angles just aren't right in a few of these pictures."

Yes. I'm being serious.

At some point right at the beginning of our engagement, my mom and I went to a Bridal Show just to see what it was like. It was free, so we figured we might as well. We didn't really find anything at the actual event, but looking through my giftbag later I discovered there were tons of business cards, including a few photographers. One of them was David Christensen Photography, and his was one of the few websites that Thomas really enjoyed. He had even taken pictures at our venue, which was really interesting to see.

We set up an appointment to meet them on a weekend Thomas was going to be in town. However, it was on a Friday night, so he had to drive like a maniac from Lexington all the way to Athens with no breaks! We had a really great meeting with them, and got to see several albums and full weddings. Albums were one another thing that Thomas was really picky about, and David really blew us away with his albums.

One thing I didn't really foresee? How expensive it was all going to be! I know that you get what you pay for, especially with photography, but I felt like we could get someone equally as good for at least a little less money. It was really kind of awkward, but as much as Thomas loved them, I just couldn't handle several things about the price, including how much our relatives would have to pay if they wanted prints. We had already planned on looking at other photographers anyway (isn't that what you're supposed to do?) and they knew we weren't planning on signing right then anyway, so we left feeling a little conflicted. They were great photographers, no doubt.. but I wanted to keep looking.

Coming up next, the second and best part of finding a photographer!