2 Weeks to Go!

We are really starting to get down to the wire now!  We still have a pretty good list of items that we need to work through though.  I can't believe it... I looked yesterday and our wedding was in the 10 day forecast!!!  So far it says that there is supposed to be scattered storms that day with a 40% chance of rain..  I'm hoping that changes between now and the wedding day!  The day before is supposed to be sunny and 75 with a 10% chance of rain.  Why can't that be our wedding day!?!?

***Update...  I just looked online and it already says cloudy and 74 with 20% chance of rain!  Woo!  Let's hope that holds!

Here is a list of wedding activities from this week:

• Cody and I went cruise clothes shopping and got quite a few new outfits.  I was excited to get two cover up dresses for my bathing suits.  I think I'm going to wear those a lot on our cruise.  We also ended up cleaning out our closet.  I still had clothes from high school, and Cody has lost 40 lbs and has gone down a dress size.  Together we had over 5 garbage bags full of clothes that we are getting rid of!
• Cody also booked all of our cruise excursions!  We are super excited that is taken care of!
• We sent out party invitation for some out of town people to come to our house on Saturday night for a cookout.  Cody's dad offered to buy steaks for everyone.  Cody and I are going to get hamburgers and hot dogs and stuff too.  So it should be a pretty good time.  Maybe we'll finally break out Cody's cornhole boards!  I'm also excited for everyone to get to see our house for the first time.
• Speaking of which... we've also started the cleaning process.  Honestly, our house isn't really that messy, but it could use a good scrubbing and deep cleaning. I'm going to work on that a lot on over the weekend and try to get things ready.  Unfortunately, I have to work today so I mostly had yesterday to get things done.  Cody and I also aren't really going to be able to see each other very much this weekend, because my bachelorette party was last night, and we both have to work opposite shifts today.
• My mom and I went to pick up my altered wedding dress.  I am really glad that my dress has a bustle.  I almost didn't get my dress altered, but I'm glad that my mom insisted that we do it.  i think it is going to make a big improvement on how I can get around during our reception.
• I called our DJ and started to confirm things with him.  We need to send him our outline this weekend.  Cody and I are struggling to figure out what songs that we want played.  We know that our first dance song is going to be "All of me" by John Legend.  The father/daughter dance will be "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlise... this song was honestly decided years and year ago by my dad and I.  We didn't even need to talk about it during the wedding time, because we both knew that was going to be the song.  Cody and his mom had to debate waht song that they wanted played for their dance.  They were finally able to decide on "Landslide" by Smashing Pumpkins.  Cody and I are struggling to figure out what song that we want to be introduced to.  Cody liked "Welcome to the Jungle" but I've kind of always hated that song...  so I don't think we are going to choose it.  We are looking for a rock song, but I'm not sure which on yet.
• David's Bridal finally got back to me yesterday about my ring bearer pillow!!  They really kept me waiting a while, and I was starting to lose hope from hearing back from them.  I thought we were going to have to use the one with the typo on it.  But they gave me a tracking number yesterday and told me that they shipped a corrected one on Thursday.  So hopefully that will be arriving soon!
• My mom went to the Goodwill and found a really nice backdrop.  Unbelievably it was on sale for only $3!!!  It looks like it will work out nicely, and I'm pretty excited about it.  I was pretty skeptical when she first told me about it, but after seeing it... it looks pretty legit.
• I went back to Party Decor and I paid for our chair covers.  I tell ya... the wedding decorating business is the biggest scam out there!  Those people make a fortune for just renting stuff for one night.  But I do think that the chair covers will look nice, and we did save quite a bit by buying our own table clothes... which by the way... came in this week!
• I started playing around with the power point slide and the projector this week.  I wasn't able to get it to work, but Cody was able to.  I also added animation to the slides, and made each slide play after 3 seconds.  So now the slide show should just continuously play during the reception.  :)  I thinkt hat is one of the things that I have super excited for.  I've always wanted to have a slide show at my wedding, and I've put in quite a bit of effort on this one.
• I also went to Sears with my mom and found my rehearsal dress.  It is a light blue pretty dress, and I think that it would look nice on me during our cruise too.  It doesn't have a zipper... so when I tried it on at Sears I actually had it on backwards and didn't realize it.  It looked like a different dress based on which way I wore it.  My mom and I got a big kick out of that... and we actually liked it on backwards more than we liked it how it should be in the front haha.  I think that I finally have enough dresses and that i don't have to worry about getting new ones.  I just wanted new dresses for all of these big events during the wedding.  Now I will have dresses to wear to other events that I go to.
• Next up is my bachelorette pary...  I will have a separate blog about that.  It is all a complete and utter surprise.  Hannah has given me a little bit of details, but not really a whole lot to off of.  So I am super excited to see everything that she has planned!!  I like the suspense of not knowing...

3 Weeks to Go

This week hasn't been as stress free as the previous week.  I've started to feel a little bit worried to get some things done.  Mainly because my trip to Party Decor didn't go as I planned.  I realized just how expensive it is to get chair covers and table cloths!  Ah!  I went there just to see the colors of their sashes for our chair covers and the woman ended up almost selling me a ton of stuff!  I saw these really pretty table clothes (which pictures do no justice).

They were $40 a table plus 8% sales tax.  The whole scenario reminded me of the the trip that dad made to the West Side Market for his Christmas in July party in 2009 and the gypsy woman got him and sold him all kinds of stuff.  The woman started talking about how beautiful my reception would be, and how she has always wanted to see these table cloths used in Carrie Cerino's.  She kept saying how she wanted to get professional pictures from my photographer.  Then she told me that she had a matching backdrop for the head table, and that it was $600 but really money well spent because it is the focal point of all of the reception pictures.  She was saying that would be spectacular and that she would put the pictures in magazines for her advertisements.  And of course, I was started getting excited and had stars in my eyes... until I realized that the bill came up to $1,830!!  And I won't lie, I had my credit card out and I almost signed the papers.  She had it all drawn up, and had her hand outstretched for my credit card.  Luckily, I decided to text Cody and talk to him about it since it was so much, and he kind of snapped me out of it.  I remember telling her that $1,830 was really a lot of money and she told me... well really it's only $1,695 because I can't help the sales tax.  And I was like...ummm... no it's really $1,830 because that's what I'd have to pay!!  In the end I told her that I needed to reschedule to Monday so that Cody could see what we were buying.  She made it seem like that was an inconvenience because she had a wedding in Columbus that weekend, but I held to my guns.

However, afterwards I was STRESSING out about the table cloths for the rest of the week.  It is $20 to rent white table cloths from Carrie Cerino's.  For that price I feel like I should go to Bed Bath and Beyond and just buy my own table cloths and then have them afterwards.  A lesson learned from this process is not to have SUCH a specialized color as your wedding color.  The blue that we picked out is nice, but it is not very common to find.  We ended up having to pay more for my flowers to be dyed to that color, and now it's stressful for the table decorations.  A common color choice would have been a smarter idea I think.

So originally, I thought that I could get table cloths from Bed Bath and Beyond for $20 a piece, and I was going to get blue and silver ones.  But then I realized that I was looking at the wrong size and that the size that I needed was actually $44.  So I was back to the drawing board.  Luckily, my mom stumbled across cvlinens.com and they had something that I liked.

In the end, I went onto Ebay and I bought fifteen 120" white table cloths for $11 a piece. Then I went onto CVlinens.com and bought cornflower blue overlays for $5 a piece.  I think that it will match the chair covers that I originally went into Party Decor to look at.  So I went ahead and ordered the table cloths so that I could stop worrying about it.  I think it was smarter to buy it, because now if I ever have a baby shower for a baby boy to host I already have some of the decorations.  :)  I also called Party Decor and canceled my Monday appointment, and just ordered the chair covers instead.  The only thing that I might look to add is a sparkly silver table runner.  I just have to see if I can find them for a good price.

Also, on Friday my mom and I went to a seamstress's house to get my dress hemmed and bustled.  The woman only charged us $95 to do it, but her carpets in her house were gross.  Mom and I were straining to make sure that my dress didn't touch the ground. Yuck.  If I would have known that we would have gone somewhere else.  But I guess it doesn't matter so long as the dress comes out nice.  I also realized that my shoes are going to KILL my feet!  I absolutely love my wedding shoes... I think they are princess shoes...  I just wish there was a way to make them a little more comfortable.

4 Weeks to Go

This blog is about all of the activities that have been happening at the one month mark!  Cody and I have been working through our "To Do" list and we've been steadily crossing stuff off.  The overall feeling this week is pretty relaxed.  I feel like I have to be missing something, because I'm not really stressing out or feeling like I'm coming down to the wire at all with the wedding.  We have things on our list to do, but really it all feels pretty well planned out.

Honestly, we had a pretty relaxing and enjoyable weekend.  On Saturday night we went to my dad's house for a cookout.  Then Sunday we went to the Metroparks and went for a nice long walk.  We then went to Big Lots and got lounge chairs for our deck, and we came home and took a nice little nap.  We then cooked some steaks and had fresh corn on the cobb for dinner and our neighbors stopped by for a drink.  It was a very calm weekend, and not filled with wedding stress.  I'm glad that we spaced everything out, and I hope we aren't forgetting anything!!

Wedding Tasks Completed:

I've put together all of the boxes for our favors and I've started to fill them up with the candy that we have.  We still need to get more candy to fill the boxes all the way up.

We got our unity sand and my garter in the mail.  We are still waiting on the ring bearer pillow.  I'm not sure why it didn't arrive with everything else.

This week we've spent a lot of time talking about our cruise and trying to make a plan.  We've booked a lot of places to eat for dinner during the week, and we have a better idea of the excursions that we are going to do on the islands.

Cody got part of the groomsmen's gifts ordered. He went to Things Remembered and got them a money clip/wallet that is magnetized.  He is also thinking about getting them a beer mug with their favorite team on it, but we'll see if that happens or not.

Also our projector that dad ordered came in.  I'm excited to get to try that out in the upcoming days.

I also got my 8lb. weights from my dad's and started using them in my arm workout routine.

Also the big excitement was that Cody and I met with Carrie Cerino's on Saturday and confirmed our menu and alcohol selections.  We also talked about what our cake design was going to look like.  Our action item is to find ribbon to put onto the cake, and maybe find a big C to go on top!  I'm so excited to see how it turns out.  I also have a meeting on Tuesday to go to Party Decor to look at their chair covers to make sure that they have cornflower blue.

Wedding Countdown - Within 2 to 1 Month

I didn't decide to start writing these blogs about our wedding process until about 2 and a half weeks until the wedding... so this blog is a little bit late.  However, I can still talk about all of our "To Do" lists and my memory on what we accomplished between 2 months and 1 month before our wedding.  And I promise my other posts will be more timely.

My excitement about the wedding really started to pick up after our bridal shower, and we really started to get our "To Do" list knocked out.

Wedding Tasks Completed:

We finished sending out all of our wedding shower thank you cards.  Cody and I personally wrote all of the messages.

My silk flowers came in, and I order crystal pins to go into the center of my flowers.  The place I ordered them from was going to charge me $1 a flower to put a crystal pin in the center, which would have bee almost $200 extra!  I ordered the pins off of Ebay for $7 and spent a half an hour and them into the flowers myself.

We made a "Bill Summary" list so that we had an idea of everything that we've paid so far, and how much more money we still owed.  Let's just say that weddings are expensive!!  And I feel like we've even cut some corners on things and it still added up to quite a good sum.

Right around the wedding shower, Hannah Johnson came over and we both tried on our dresses and shoes.  It was extremely exciting to get back into my wedding dress.  I hadn't tried it on since I had bought it over a year before!  I was starting to have nightmares and a lot of anxiety about not having tried it on for a long time... so I felt that we needed to get together and try everything on.

Every day since then I have been doing at least 20 minutes of arms exercises (except Mondays which are my days off).  And my arms have gone from 11 1/2 inches to 10 3/4 inches so far!  I'm proud of all the hard work that I've put in so far to make my arms look better.

I found my hair and makeup place.  I couldn't believe how hard it was to find a place!  Almost every salon is closed on Sundays!!  I DID NOT know that!  I was calling around, and it was super hard to find a place.  Luckily, I found a place that was not only open, but that also does air brushed makeup.  I am pumped to try out air brushed make up.  I hope that it looks good.  I had my trial hair done there... and I won't lie... I didn't really like how it turned out.  My hair frizzed up and the curls fell out on my ride home from the salon.  That is making me a little bit nervous...  I'm going to straighten my hair the night before the wedding and use some products into my hair.  I also switched my shampoo and conditioner to a better brand.

We selected and booked our rehearsal dinner location.  Cody found the place called Stancatos.  They have a private room that we will be using, and we are pretty excited about it.  I originally wanted to do our rehearsal dinner at the 100th bomber squad, but it was cost prohibitive.

We booked our hotel in Miami!  After our cruise we are staying for the day/night in Miami so that we don't have to fly right home.  This was a lesson learned from our last cruise.  I wish that we could have gone the day before our cruise too, but unfortunately I have to work until 11pm that night.

Dad ordered my projector for the wedding.  It has long been my dream to have a slide show playing at my wedding and it looks like it is going to happen!

Debated Decisions

Some decisions for the wedding were pretty easy for Cody and I to make.  We both talked through all of our options and pretty much knew what we wanted.  However, below are the couple of points that we heavily discussed and debated back and forth on what we wanted to do.

Hotel Wedding.  Cody and I knew that we had a lot of people coming to our wedding from out of town so at first we really thought that location/proximity to a hotel was going to be the biggest factor of where we decided to get married.  Honestly, we really thought that we were going to have our ceremony/reception at a hotel.  But once we started to look into it, a hotel really started to lose it's appeal.  First of all, no hotel had any real character or the look that I was going for.  Second, they charge over $100 a person just for food and additional $20 for a three hour open bar with very limited amounts of alcohol on the bar.  We really liked the convenience factor of having our reception at a hotel, but in the end it just didn't seem like the best move for us.

Church Ceremony.  It's no surprise that Cody and I aren't really church people.  When we first started planning our wedding I wasn't interested in getting married in a church at all.  We were looking into all kinds of different options to keep us from having to have our wedding in a church.  But most indoor locations were not pretty at all, and would have taken a HUGE effort to decorate.  There were a few outdoor locations that I liked, but I was really worried about it raining on our wedding day and ruining everything.  We even asked Carrie Cerino's if we could use one of their smaller rooms and then move into our reception rooms.  But they said that they couldn't block off a small room for us, but that we could just get married in the ballroom.  That sounded really bizarre to me.  I've never seen anyone get married like that, and I didn't want to be the first person to do it.  So we found a non-denominational church in Middleburg Heights that agreed to marry us.  I almost wish that we would have been able to get married at my grandma's church, St. Vitus, in Cleveland because it is absolutely stunning.  But it is located in a bad part of Cleveland, with limited parking options, and it's a catholic church and I'm not sure if they would have even agreed to let us get married there.  I also don't think that I could have standed having such a long catholic wedding.  So in the end, I'm ok with where we choose to have our ceremony.  They have a lot of added elements like a live pianist and a candle light procession and stuff...  soooo hopefully it works out well.

Hotel Room Block.  Cody and I were pretty convinced that we were going to do a hotel room block for all of our guests to stay at the same hotel.  However, the hotel we were going to pick was the same hotel we are staying at on our wedding night.  It was not a cheap hotel and there were a bunch of hotels in the area that were less expensive.  We didn't think that everyone would necessarily want to stay at our hotel, and we didn't want to get stuck with paying for extra rooms in the room block that weren't used.  So in the end we decided to not go with this option, and we sent a list of hotels for everyone to choose from instead.  Even now I think that this was the best idea for us!

Real or Fake Flowers.  I guess this decision wasn't debated too heavily, because I wasn't interested in real flowers at our wedding at all.  I wanted to have my bouquet that I could keep forever and that would last.  It was just difficult finding a place to find nice silk flowers from.  The part that we did debate on was whether or not we were going to buy the matching centerpieces for our tables or use the ones that Carrie Cerino's provided.  I knew all along that I wanted to use Carrie Cerino's mirrors and vases, but I wasn't sold on their flowers.  However, it was more than double our flower cost to buy centerpieces for our tables.  Cody and I talked about what we remembered from other weddings, and table decorations aren't really at the top of the list.  We have a general remembrance of how we felt at the wedding on whether or not the place looked nice, but what was actually on the tables wasn't something that we could recall from any wedding that we'd been to.  We decided to spend our money on the food and alcohol, which we thought people would care about and remember more.

Videographer.  A part of me really wanted to hire a professional viedographer to tape our wedding so that we would have it in the future.  I remember watching the tape from Matthew's wedding years ago and thinking that would be a cool thing to have.  But professional viedographers are $1,000 minimum and Cody felt strongly that it was a waste of money.  We went back and forth on this, and eventually settled on my Aunt Karen's friend using a personal video recorder to tape the wedding for us.  It's not professionally done, but it's not going to cost us much and we'll still have the video to watch if we want.

Table Cloths.  I can't believe how stressed out I got over table cloths for the reception!!  It ended up being pretty expensive to just rent a table cloth for the wedding.  For a plain white table cloth it was $20 to rent it.  For a colored one it was anywhere from $25 to $40.  I thought that I could probably just buy some and then just have them for that price.  So I started looking around, and at first I thought I would find something at Bed Bath and Beyond.  But after hours of stressing and searching I found white table cloths on Ebay for like $11 a piece and then I found a pretty cornflower blue overlay for $5 to go over top of it.  Plus if I ever have to plan a baby shower for a baby boy I will be set.  :)


Honeymoon.  I think this was the most debated and undecided topic that we had during our planning process.  Cody and I are avid travelers, and that is probably our favorite thing to do.  So we really wanted our honeymoon to be special and to be something that would remember.  First were going to go to Sandals at an all-inclusive resort... next we were going to Hawaii, then we were going on an adventure to Alaska, until we finally decided on our Caribbean cruise.

At first we were all about an all-inclusive luxory resort.  I think we got excited about this idea when we used to watch Jeopardy every night together.  We thought that we would get an amazing room and really enjoy the atmosphere.  And we researched probably 20 different all inclusive resort destinations and properties.  But as we talked we kind of realized that we aren't really go and sit on the beach type of people.  These resorts really didn't seem like they had enough activities to keep us interested and we thought that we'd probably get bored.  So we decided.... okay... next idea.

Which led us going to Hawaii.  We really really liked the idea of going to Maui, and we probably will actually go next Christmas if all works out right.  However, Cody really wanted to make a statement on our honeymoon.  He really wanted to have a nice property and not skimp on a cheap place during our honeymoon.  The places that we would have been satisfied with for our honeymoon were way more than what we wanted to pay right now.  So we decided that Hawaii was not going to be our ideal honeymoon location, and that we would go there a different time when we weren't as worried about how nice the hotel is.

Cody and I have been talking for a while about going to Alaska.  We are thinking that this trip would be a once in a lifetime trip and that it would have been a completely unique way to spend our honeymoon.  It definitely had a big appeal to us just because of how unusual and different it would have been.  But after more discussion and plans we decided that we didn't want to do this trip right now.  It's been a hard winter and we don't want to leave Ohio right as the weather gets perfect to go to Alaska where it would probably be colder.

After evaluating our traveling plans for the next couple of years, and what we would like to do/where we would like to go, we realized that another cruise was pretty high on our list.  We thoroughly enjoyed the cruise that we went on a few years ago, and we've been itching to go on another one soon.  Also, a cruise was a lot cheaper than our other ideas, and with being on second shift and us not getting to see each other that often, we both wanted to go on more than one vacation this year.  If we would have choose one of the other options, we probably would have only been able to afford that one trip.

So we continued to debate the cruise line we wanted to go with, and we decided to give Norwegian a try.  It seemed like they got great reviews and they had good food.  We bought an aft balcony room... which I am EXTREMELY excited about!  We also got lucky because there was a promotion going on where we got the unlimited drinking package for free.  We also bought the unlimited dining plan so that we can eat in all of the specialty restaurants on the ship.  We are also going to buy passes to The Vibe, an adults only lounging area.  I'm pretty happy with our choice, and I hope that it's everything we're hoping for!  Don't worry... you'll see more blog about this in the future!

Drinking.  I think that the only topic that Cody and I have talked about more than our honeymoon, and have really argued about is how drunk he is going to get at our wedding.  Towards the end of April, we went to the Reverse Raffle at the VFW and there was an open bar there.  Cody got ridiculously drunk, and we had to leave at 8:15pm.  I was super mad at him.  For the past year and a half... honestly ever since we started planning our wedding...  I've been telling him that I don't want him to get too drunk at our wedding, and he has always pushed back and said that he wants to be able to drink at his own wedding.  Well... after the Reverse Raffle incident, I feel like I'm finally making some headway on this particular topic.  I asked him the day after the Reverse Raffle how long it would have taken him to live this down, had his drunkenness happened on our wedding night.  He said that he didn't think that he could have lived long enough.  I told him that he was right, because I would have still been talking about it at his funeral.  I don't care if he drink a little bit....  I just don't want him to get stupid drunk. I don't feel like that is too much to ask for. Even when we went to Carrie Cerino's were were debating whether or not shots would be allowed at the wedding.  I believe that we are allowing shots to happen in the beginning of the wedding but after either 9pm or 10pm they are getting cut off.  We also aren't providing heavy liquor for the shots to be done with.  I feel somewhat pleased about that.


Those are the big points that I can really think about that have given us a hard time during our planning process.

Selecting our Reception Venue

Picking our wedding venue was one of the biggest decisions that we had to make.  We evaluated 15 different venue options and we visited at least 9 different venues.  Not including the venues that we went to bridal shows at!!!   It was a super amount of effort going around to all of these places to select the best place.  There were a couple of qualities that I was looking for.  Overall convenience to go to the place, how the place looked, food options and prices, and the alcohol options.  Most places had expensive alcohol packages and did not have a lot of options for the type of alcohol that we really like to drink.  Here are a couple of noteworthy reception halls that we really considered going with.

Sun Valley Banquet Center was one of the first places that we visited. It was kind of in the middle of no where in Chagrin Falls.  We really liked the owner a lot at the venue.  He was very nice and allowed a lot of nice options that we liked.  We got a really good feel from him, and we loved the location. The grounds were stunning with a beautiful lake and gazebo.  We were actually considering having our ceremony and reception there.  However, in the end the drive was over an hour away and it just didn't make sense to bring our families all the way out there.  So we decided to look for other options.

Galaxy Banquet Center was the place that I was almost convinced we were going to go with.  I really liked that they had a hotel almost on property and I really liked from the pictures what the place looked like.  When we got there we went on a tour, and the one thing that I remember us not liking was that the patio was completely removed and away from everyone.  We had just gone to Bridget's wedding and we knew that a lot of Cody's family likes to smoke so we didn't like that option.  Also they are a big prom place and I feel like they didn't really have our date available.  We were really thinking about using this place though, and in the end I'm not 100% sure why we didn't.  Probably the fact that I really loved Carrie Cerino's... but more on that in a second.

We also looked at numerous hotel venues.  We knew that a lot of people were going to be coming from out of state and we thought it would be really convenient to have our wedding at a hotel.  Cody and I were both really into this idea at first.  The problem was that most hotels didn't look that great, and their menu and alcohol options were not that good.  They were also extremely pricey for what they gave you.  In the end, Cody and I decided that it wasn't a good value for us and decided against a hotel.  The alcohol package was really important to Cody.  He wanted to have a good open bar with a lot of selections on it, and having our wedding at a hotel just didn't align with that.

I have to say when we first started looking into venues I went on theknot.com and I saw that Carrie Cerino's was a wedding venue, and it just had an instant attraction for me.  Carrie Cerino's is not even 5 minutes away from our house, and it is a restaurant with really good food.  I really liked the idea of having "our place: that we could go back to in the future and celebrate anniversaries or eat the same food at our wedding.  All of the other venues that we went to were only venues.  The only time that we would have really got to go there would have been on our wedding day.  I loved the idea that we could go right down the road to Carrie Cerino's whenever we wanted to.  So even before we looked at their menu or saw the hall I already had a feeling of longing to have our reception there.

Once we started looking into it more, I really liked their menu options and the amount of food that they gave you.  They also have an alcohol policy where you can pick whatever alcohol you would like to be served at the wedding.  They also charge you based on what you consume or at a maximum amount whichever comes first.  This was unique because not a lot of places offered this option.

When we went into their ballroom, I was stunned by their beautiful crystal chandeliers.  It looked so beautiful and I knew that Carrie Cerino's was probably going to be the place that we would select.  They also had really pretty centerpieces that they allowed you to use, and I instantly loved the vases when I saw them.  I wasn't so sure about their flowers that came with the centerpieces at first, but they grew on me.

The only reason why we didn't immediately pick Carrie Cerino's was because there are not any hotels near by.  Everyone has to drive at least 20 minutes to get to the closest hotels.  That wasn't ideal for us, but in the end we felt that Carrie Cerino's was the right place for us.  When we went to the bridal showers all the other vendors said how nice Carrie Cerino's was and how good of food that they have.  So we are pretty excited about having our reception there. We bought an uplighting package from our DJ and I'm really excited to see how everything comes together.

Selecting Our Wedding Photographer

I wish that I would have started this blog series way in the beginning of our wedding planning, but I did not... so I'm figuring better late than never!  I am planning on walking through all of our wedding options and why we choose the vendors that we did.  In this blog I'm going to discuss our photographer.

Literally the week after we got engaged Cody and I started going to the January bridal shows in 2014.  We went to probably 5 or 6 bridal shows that year including the giant show at the IX Center. I was dead set that year on finding a vendor and you guessed it... a photographer!  Cody was a little irritated with me because I wasn't even interested in any other types of vendors.

Cody and I really went through the whole wedding process together, and we interviewed a WHOLE bunch of photographers together before we settled on the one that we wanted.  I'd say we probably met with 5 to 10 photographers before we settled on Carol.  During this time we were having multiple appointments a week and it was a little overwhelming at first.  I'll talk about some of the note worthy meetings that stand out to me below...

The first photographer that we met with was C Three Photography.  We went to this guy's extremely fancy and nice house and he walked us through a lot of things.  He said that he had 3 daughters that had just gone through the wedding process and if we had any questions we could always call and ask him.  Honestly, I liked him a lot during our interview and we might have selected him... except...  Cody and I were really struggling with where to have our ceremony location and we asked him if he had any recommendations, and he told us that he wouldn't help us until we were his client.  He didn't want to give us information or help us until we decided to book with him.  That really didn't sit well with us so that's actually a big reason why we didn't select him.

Another photographer that we met with that I had seen at a lot of shows was Mystic Image.  I really liked their work.  Cody and I met with the guy at his house, and he showed us his work.  He also showed how he touches up pictures and uses photo shop to make the pictures more vibrant.  The only problem with Mystic Image was their price point.  Their packages started at like $5,000 and you didn't even get much included for that price.  I would have had to have spent like $8,000 for everything that I would have wanted.  So in the end that eliminated them, but they were a consideration.

Kind of on the same line, I didn't even bother setting up an appointment with Christopher Norris.  He is a local photographer who's studio is actually located in North Royalton.  I pass his studio all the time, and always thought I'd like to work wit him.  His pictures were featured at almost every venue that we looked at too.  I was incredibly interested in him at first, because I figured that with him being so local he would become our "family photographer" that we could continue going to even after we had kids.  That thought process was quickly shattered once I discussed his prices with him at a bridal show.  He was incredibly expensive and didn't even give you the rights to the pictures that he took!  I thought that was crazy!!  Loved his work... and I loved the idea of working with him down the line... but too pricey for me!

One photographer that I met with that we didn't even consider was George Street Photo.  They are a company that matches you up with a photographer.  But the problem is that you don't get to meet or see the photographer unless you want to buy an engagement session.  I really didn't like the sound of that.  Here we had been going through so many interviews to find the perfect photographer... we weren't going to just select someone from seeing a highlight reel of their best work.

Then at work my friend, Tom, recommended his photographer, Carol Malick.  There was also another girl at work that had used Carol and told me how she was very organized and kept everyone on track throughout her wedding.  Those were pretty good references so Cody and I decided to meet with her.  Right away we could tell that she was a very bubbly, friendly, and helpful person.  I really liked her work, and her packages included a lot of things that other photographers packages didn't.  First she didn't limit her time during the wedding day like some photographers, and she was one of the only photographers that gave you a copy of all of your pictures printed out.  I like the idea of having a wedding book and all of the 4X6 pictures of things that don't make it into the book.  She also has a lot of other little bonuses that she includes.  Another factor that I really liked was that she had a lot of ideas and contingency plans if it rains on our wedding day.  We had a great engagement session with Carol and so far it has been a good experience.  Every time that I talk with her she is excited to talk and run through plans.  She also helped me set up a wedding day timeline/plan for getting ready and getting our pictures taken on the wedding day.

Something special that Cody and I are doing for our wedding day is the "First Look."  Meaning we are going to do our wedding pictures BEFORE the wedding ceremony.  I know that this is against tradition, but I think this option is becoming more and more popular.  This will give us more time to spend with each other on our wedding day, and we will not miss any of our wedding reception.  I hate it when people have a 3 hour gap in between their ceremony and reception, because then everyone is standing around waiting all day.  Also we have a lot of people that are going to be coming in from out of town so this really wouldn't have worked for us, because no one would have had anywhere to go. This way we will have a good flow right to reception, and Cody and I won't have to miss any of it.  We will still have a bridal "unveiling" where Cody will get to see me for the first time, and then we'll have some time together alone before all the festivities start.  If you know me... you know that I love my pictures and I don't want to be rushed or miss out on getting my pictures done right.