Last Thoughts

                After reading some of the comments, I was reminded of some things that I was not able to cover in the other entries. The two most important things that I thought of was choosing the cake/groom’s cake and deciding if you want a wedding planner. You need to make both of these decisions as a couple. The cake is a piece of your wedding that you share with all of your guests and you want to have a delicious and beautiful cake to share with them. The wedding planner can help you through the entire process and make your life a little easier if you want to pay the extra money to have their help.

                I actually had an interesting experience with trying to go in and set up an appointment with the cake people. I called the bakery to try to set-up an appointment for a taste test but as I talked to the receptionist, she was not very polite. As she was telling me that I was too early and that I needed to call back in six months, all I could think was that I was stuck with this company. The venue we booked for our reception has a deal with this bakery and we are required to use the bakery since we booked the venue. I do not really appreciate when people I hire to do something talk back with attitude like the woman from the bakery, so I was none too pleased. However, I had to remind myself that nine months out from the wedding was a little soon to be working on the cake so that is something we will do soon. Shop around at different bakeries and schedule multiple taste tests, if you can, to make sure you get a delicious and beautiful cake.

The Groom’s Cake is a tradition that involves the bride buying a cake for the groom, and having it decorated as something that the groom loves. For example, I have seen groom’s cakes decorated like logos from universities, fishing gear, and even beer cans. Mine will be in the shape of an armadillo and made of red velvet cake.

                The wedding planner is an option you could opt for if you want to avoid any part of or all of the hassle of planning the wedding. The planner is there to handle all of the little details that can drive you crazy and to make your life easier. We did not hire one but I would follow the same advice that I gave about anyone else you hire. Meet with them multiple times, make sure your personalities mesh, and do not be afraid to tell them what you want, especially if they have many suggestions. You can end up losing the wedding you want if you let someone decide things for you.

                Overall, it has been a great experience sharing our stories with you and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks for reading.

The Honeymoon

                We are finally at the end of the whole planning process and we now get to decide on where we want to go for the honeymoon. As the getaway destination after the ceremony, you need to take care of the honeymoon plans well before the wedding takes place. Everyone’s honeymoon is different and just because you do not go to Tahiti does not mean that yours is any worse than someone who does.

                Since I start working as a tax accountant this August, I will be right in the middle of busy season for accountants when my wedding comes around. During March and April, accountants typically work between 50-80 hours a week depending on how much work needs to be completed. Our wedding on February 29 will be right in the middle of that time. Due to that fact, we have decided to take a short honeymoon during early March and a longer vacation in May. It is kind of a let-down that we will not get to enjoy a long honeymoon, but duty calls and we plan to take a great summer vacation.

You need to think about situations like this while you plan your own honeymoon so that you do not end up making plans and then rescheduling them. Also, think realistically about what you can afford. We would love to go to Italy and visit all of the famous cities but it just is not practical on our budget and timeline now. As a side note, since our anniversary only happens every four years, we plan to go to Italy on our first real anniversary four years from now. I urge you to look realistically at what you can afford and decide based on what both of you need and want to get out of the honeymoon. The honeymoon is the time for you as a couple to celebrate your new life together and you do not need to go somewhere exotic to do that.

However, whether you get to go somewhere exotic or not, dream big. Do not be afraid to ask for discounts based on your length of stay or membership in some organizations like AAA. Some people might be willing to give you a discount simply because you are newlyweds! Also, think outside the box when you pick your destination, you do not need to follow everyone else. If your ceremony occurs during the fall, you could go to a little lodge in the mountains and enjoy the leaves changing colors while you take walks together or sit by a roaring fire. It is worth really thinking about because after all, the honeymoon celebrates the fact that you just left your wedding and now you are done!

               

The Ceremony

                Each couple can get exactly what they want out of their wedding ceremony. Many officiates are flexible about how the ceremony is run and who is involved. Each person will have their own ideas for the ceremony but the bride and groom need to support each other and fight to get what they want at their own ceremony. The first step in the ceremony is picking someone to officiate.

               

Unfortunately, I do not have much experience in picking someone to officiate your wedding. My fiancée and I are members of the same church back home in Houston so it was an easy choice for us. We have the pastor at our church doing our ceremony and we did not even look at anyone else. However, the rest of my advice is dependent on if you want a wedding performed by a religious leader, a Justice of the Peace, or someone else you find that is legally allowed to perform the ceremony. However, I can offer a little advice based on other experiences I have had in searching for other people involved in the wedding.

First, meet with the person you want to marry you more than once before the ceremony. We are going to “Pre-Marital Counseling” with our pastor, which really is not as bad as it sounds. It is mostly a way for the pastor to get to know us as a couple and as individuals on a more personal basis. If you decide to go with someone that you have not met or know well, I would recommend you set up a few sessions to get to know each other (all three of you). If the person performing the ceremony knows you, they are able to deliver a more personal message instead of using a generic reading of the vows.

Also, during your sessions make sure that the person you chose is open to change and is willing to do what you want. There are some people out there that do things the way they want and it does not matter what the bride and groom want because they know what is right. Conduct a little research before you bring this up so you have some idea of whether you want your ceremony to be more traditional or more contemporary. We decided to have a couple different things happen during our ceremony and our pastor was encouraging of our taking ownership of what we want. We are having someone do a reading before the vows start and we are taking the Lord’s Supper (Communion) with our Best Man and Maid of Honor. We are very traditional people and it made sense for us to do the ceremony in a traditional way but we also are doing those couple of things to change it up. It is your ceremony so you need to do things that make you happy and remember it as a great start to your marriage.

The Bachelor Party

                The bachelor party is a very controversial issue and everyone has a different opinion about what should happen at one.  In this post I want to set out a strategy for dealing with potential issues before they happen and give a little information about how I think bachelor parties should be handled. Obviously not everyone is going to agree, so feel free to comment below.

               

                The image many people have of bachelor parties involves a bunch of guys getting drunk and causing mischief. We see this type of party shown repeatedly in the movies we watch. I do not think those type of parties are good for anyone involved. I think having a party like that only causes the bride and groom trouble in the future. I know I do not want to worry about what my bride-to-be is doing at her bachelorette party so I think it is only fair to provide her with the same assurance for my bachelor party. I am proposing a pact between the bride and groom stating that they will not engage in any activity that would make the other one uncomfortable if he or she were there. What each individual is comfortable with varies from person to person so I cannot set any hard and fast rules for you. The only way to find out what your partner is comfortable with is to sit down and talk to him or her and be honest. Obviously, the bride and groom would have to do create the pact before the party actually happens so that they could set ground rules.

The typical way a bachelor party occurs is the Best Man and groomsmen organize the party without the groom’s knowledge. This means that if the groom wants to assure that nothing happens at the party to violate the rules of the pact he created with his bride, he must tell his groomsmen about the pact and its rules. It will have more effect if the groom is the one to tell his groomsmen the ground rules. It also helps if the guys selected to attend the bachelor party are trustworthy individuals that both the bride and groom can trust to follow the rules created in the pact. If you are a little creative, you can do many things other than going out and getting drunk and doing things you will regret in the future.

                Since I am not involved in the planning of the party, I do not really know what the overall plans are but I do know what I told my groomsmen.  I told them that I do not want that typical movie party and they have assured me that we will not be engaging in any of those activities. Because of this, I came up with a plan for what I would like to do for my bachelor party. At the time I get married, I will live at an apartment complex where residents can rent the in-house movie theater for a night. Each resident can bring his or her own movies to watch on the 86-inch television with surround-sound. On the other hand, residents can bring a game system like an Xbox 360 to play games on for the entire night. Therefore, my idea is to rent out the movie theater on the night of my party and play Xbox with my groomsmen into the morning hours. This also means that if we chose to, we could ingest beverages and would not have to drive anywhere while intoxicated to get home. This idea follows the rules of the pact my fiancée and I have created and makes both of us feel comfortable with the choices that will occur.

The Tuxedo

             

                We have all heard the saying, “Clothes make the man,” and to be honest they do to an extent. When we go to important events in our lives like job interviews, we dress as nicely as we can and a wedding is certainly no exception. On many occasions, the bride has been waiting her whole life to put on a dress that symbolizes her transition to a married woman, so it only makes sense that the groom should dress as nicely as the bride does. I will tell you how we chose what I will wear at my wedding and give a short description of the different types of tuxedos or suits men can wear at a wedding.

After looking at multiple tuxedo rental companies, we decided that the men in our wedding would wear a grey tuxedo that looks very similar to a suit. We went with that style because our wedding will be more casual and is scheduled to begin at 10 AM so it did not make sense to us to have black tie attire in the morning. The best way to find out what you like and do not like is to go to something like the Bridal Extravaganza that happens twice a year in Houston. There you have the chance to talk to all the vendors in the Houston area and see what they offer. Both Men’s Wearhouse and Al’s FormalWear were at the show we went to, which gave us the opportunity to look at all the styles offered by both companies. We were feeling kind of lost because neither of us really knew what we were looking for or wanted when an employee from Men’s Wearhouse walked over to us and helped us decide, based on when and where our wedding will be, what suit or tuxedo would be best. She pointed out that black suits or tuxedos are not normally used for morning weddings because that color and style is usually reserved for formal dinners in the evening. One we had thrown out those ultra-formal tuxedos we came to something called a “morning suit” which is a jacket with coat tails cut very long. We did not like that style either and to be honest, it was hard to imagine myself in that type of suit. What we finally decided on was a tuxedo cut exactly like a suit.

                To give you a little background on me, I love suits. I was in a business fraternity on campus, Beta Alpha Psi, which had weekly meetings where all the members had to dress up in a suit because we had professionals from Houston and Dallas come in and give a presentation. It was a networking opportunity so we needed to look like professionals ourselves to impress these recruiters. I feel put together in a suit so it made sense that I would be dressed in something like a suit at our wedding.

The woman who was helping us at the Bridal Extravaganza showed us the grey tuxedo and we fell in love with it because it looks smart and nice without too nice for our wedding. Once you pick the suit, you need to set-up an appointment to pick the colors of the vests, ties, and pocket squares. The next step is to make sure all your groomsman get fitted so that the company will have all that they need at the time of the wedding. My groomsmen are scattered across the nation so it is nice that we chose a company, Men’s Wearhouse, that is also everywhere around the country. That means all my groomsmen have to do is go into a store wherever they are and tell them our wedding Group Number and the store will fit them and make sure the store closest to the wedding will have  everyone’s suits. One last piece of advice, get everyone fitted as soon as possible because companies change what is available on an ongoing basis. To make sure they have what you want, you need to lock it in as soon as you can. Hope this was helpful!

Flowers

                You can make picking your flowers into one of the most fun activities in the whole wedding planning process if you try. We had three different florists locally that our reception site recommended so we decided we would take a day and make it “Flower Day.” We scheduled consultations with all three florists one after another to make sure we remembered everything that each florist said and promised to do. It was a long day, but it ended up being worth it because each florist had great ideas that we were able to take to the next appointment so we could get the best of all three at the florist we picked.

               

We started the day at a florist that looked more “industrial” and the outside of the building was not very attractive. We walked in and were taken back to the florist to start our appointment. He was not friendly and took pride in having the cheapest flowers in the area, which he bragged about constantly.  We left after he decided to show us his appointment book to prove how busy he was, which left both us feeling as if he was saying, “I don’t need your business.” Our next appointment was right after our first one so we moved on and on the way to the next place, we talked about what we liked and did not like about the first appointment.

               

The second appointment was at a florist that literally had no plants in their lobby for us to look at, which made us feel a little nervous. Once we started talking to the worker however, she really seemed to understand what my fiancée wanted for the flowers and colors for the wedding. You can tell when someone you are talking to understands what you want and starts to make suggestions that make you think. We did learn one important question to ask while we were at that appointment; will the person you are talking to be the person at your wedding putting together the flowers. We found out the woman we talked with would not be the person at our wedding. After that disappointing piece of news, our appointment ended and we went on to our third appointment.

               

Finally, we arrived at our last appointment. We knew the quality of flowers that this florist produced and were already leaning toward the third by the time we arrived. We sat down and were impressed by the appearance of this florist who was dressed in a smock and obviously had been working on putting flowers together herself even though she was the owner. She also understood what my fiancée wanted but offered even more suggestions than the second florist offered and told my fiancée that the flowers she wanted would be in season, which the others failed to mention. After the appointment, the florist told us she wanted us to come back for a follow-up appointment so we could see the flowers she had in mind. We waited a week and did come back and saw all of the flowers, which were beautiful. However, the last florist also seemed to understand what we wanted and was the most willing and helpful of the three but was the most expensive. We had a decision to make. Did we want someone cheaper who was harder to get along with or someone more expensive who really wanted to work with us? To be honest, if you have the money it is not even a question. We went with the more expensive florist because we knew that she would be there when we needed her and that she would do a good job. Overall, it all comes down to which florist understands what you and your fiancée wants. 

Pick the florist who is easy to talk with and you know will do a good job. One last tip: if you are not sure what quality of flowers come out of a florist’s workshop, order a bouquet from that florist. I would recommend you use a fake name so that they do not know it is someone they just consulted.

Ceremony and Reception Sites

The ceremony and reception sites are obviously very important for the wedding and putting a lot of thought into picking the right place is important. Think about where you want to remember the moment when you promised to love and honor the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Do you want it to be in the church where you both grew together? Or perhaps on the beach with sand between your toes. It is very important that you as a couple actually agree on where you want the ceremony and reception to be. Check into multiple sites on the internet and then schedule tours of each one all on the same day. We did this and it helped us to remember the things we liked and did not like at each venue and mention things we found out as we went along. We are members of a church back where we grew up so it was a no-brainer where we wanted to the ceremony to happen, but the reception was a total mystery.

The ceremony site is the place you will remember most. The church where you get married or the gazebo or beach or wherever you choose to say your vows will always be a special place. On the other hand, perhaps you want a destination wedding in Hawai’i or Las Vegas. In that case, I would recommend you call the site and ask questions before you even consider booking it for your wedding. That way you will know you can reach the owners and how helpful and accessible they will be. Finally, with the ceremony site you need to find out if you are able to have your reception at the same site and if not, you need to decide where you want it to be. Our church does not allow alcohol so we had to pick a different site for our reception because we wanted to be able to drink champagne.

Booking the reception site is one of the more stressful parts of the wedding planning process. The major things involved in choosing the reception site include going over the guest list again, picking the menu for the food you will serve and deciding what sort of celebration you want it to be. Based on the capacity of the reception site, you might have to cull the list of guests you invited to wedding down to a manageable number for the reception. Then you must pick the type of food you want to serve which can be a sit down meal, a buffet or something in-between. The type of food you choose can easily set the tone for the type of celebration you want the reception to be with sit down meals considered more elaborate and buffets more relaxed. We picked our site because I had been to a wedding there before and really liked it and told my fiancée about it. We set-up an appointment to take a tour of the site and meet all the staff and ended up falling in love with the owners and site. When you find the right place, you will know it.

Guest List

           In the last post, I talked about creating a guest list but did not give any good guidance or help which I intend to correct in this post. Most of your budget goes toward paying for the venue and paying for your guests, so it is important you not waste that money on people you do not want at your wedding and reception. The best advice I can give you is to sit down with your fiancée and hammer out a list of the major groups of people you would like to have at your wedding. We ended up with family, extended family, church members, family friends and our friends as our major groups. Once we had that number, we compared that to the capacity of the venue we booked and our guest count was below the capacity of the venue, so we had some extra places we could fill. Getting the list together is a tough job and my fiancée and I have had to sit down with both sets of parents, our friends, and just us at least eight to ten times to get the list to where we have it now. Everyone and every wedding are different so I cannot give you any specific guidelines but I can tell you that this step can be fun, but you have to make it so.

               

            I would recommend starting the list with your immediate family and wedding party first, and then moving on to extended family and everyone else. It seems obvious but sometimes it is easier to think of friends and extended family that you would like to invite. If you forget a family member, feelings are definitely going to be hurt. Once you have your family listed out, move on and speak honestly and earnestly with each other about who you want to come. I can guarantee you one thing: not everyone you both want can be invited. Everyone involved in our wedding has had to make sacrifices and most of them boiled down to co-workers we would have liked to invite but could not. Another important tip is make sure that everyone is sharing the hurt of not getting to invite someone. There is nothing more unfair or hurtful than someone telling you that you must make all the sacrifices.

Call or speak to those people you cannot invite and let them know you would have liked them to come but you just do not have the budget to invite everyone. We have had problems with this through the whole process. We have many church friends that we wanted to come but we had to settle for telling them they are welcome to come to the ceremony. We will not have room at the reception for them however, because we are trying to keep the reception for family and close family friends. You may want to consider inviting people to the ceremony site because it can usually hold more people and you do not have to pay per person to attend the ceremony. After all, the ceremony is the actual union and the reception is just a celebration of that union.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! You are picking people to share your special day with you. Those people who have watched you grow up, grew up with you, shared a special moment, or just have always been nice all have a place at your wedding. Make a couple of passes over your list to make sure that everyone coming is really someone you want to come for you or your fiancée’s sake.