If money/time/convenience/travel/family grumbling were no object...

I'm absolutely thrilled with how our Manhattan/polka dotted/theatrical wedding is shaping up, but photographs like this almost make me second-guess:

(Photo Credit)

My dream way back before Mr. Star and I even started dating was to get married in this chateau, Le Chateau Chambord. My MOH and I visited the castle on our whirlwind three-week tour of France during college and it has always enchanted me. They do hold weddings there, but I fear to inquire about the cost.

I almost went ahead with trying to plan a small, destination wedding there way back when we first got engaged. Can you imagine floral arrangements overstuffed with peonies and chandeliers glittering above the dance floor? Oh, I can. I even think my dress would still work at that wedding. That's the wedding I had first imagined, but I think our wedding is going to be so much more us. Mr. Star would humor me no matter what I wanted to do, but I know he would feel out of place in the middle of nowhere France getting married in a chateau.

What really killed it for me is how few of "our people" (as Miss Cheese would say) would be able to make it to a wedding like that. I don't regret for a second the wedding that we've planned, but I still sigh over the chateau every once in awhile because it would be sooo dreamy to be married there -- maybe we can celebrate an anniversary there or something?

What would be different about your wedding plans if money, time, travel, or family grumbling weren't factors? Anything?

Trusting my "Bachelor"

(Photo Credit)

Everyone knows about the stereotype of the crazy, controlling bride who dictates what her husband-to-be and best buds can and can't do for his bachelor party. Apparently, even though our groomsmen know nothing else about wedding planning or traditions, even they know about this stereotype (either that, or they just think I'm nuts, which is also possible).

As it turns out, Mr. Star's guys have been planning his bachelor party for some time now and Mr. Star told me the other day how humorous he found it that they were all taking such pains to keep any and every detail from my knowledge. Even my brother has been sworn to secrecy under pain of death because of his relationship to me -- and he agreed wholeheartedly!

The thing is, I don't really care. True story. If Mr. Star wants to see a naked woman jump out a cake, he can be my guest. I'm fully confident in the fact that he doesn't, but that's an issue for him and his groomsmen to work out ;)

I trust Mr. Star with my whole heart and believe that he would probably be willing to be involved in even less crazyness than what I would deem to be perfectly acceptable. My ex-boyfriend and I once had a big fight over him possibly heading to a strip club, which I now think was a combination of my silliness and the fact that he didn't make me have enough faith in us to not be worried about the rest. My trust in Mr. Star is a credit to how he treats me, because I am so totally secure in how head-over-heels in love with me he is that I'm completely unconcerned about what may or may not transpire at his bachelor party. Maybe that's naive, but I don't think so.

Are you worried about what your guy and his buddies might get into at his bachelor party or are you unconcerned?

"Star"-ing on BeeTV

Come swing on by this Sunday night (8/02!) at 7:00 PM to chat with me on BeeTV as we approach the two-month countdown!


I'd love to take suggestions on what you'd like to hear about! DIY tutorials? Young-ish bride stuff? The challenges of getting married in NYC?

Hope to see you there!

Veil Va-Va-Voom: Part Two

You might remember my post about the first part of my veil saga where I told you all how I made my own birdcage veil. If you don't, that's okay. It was so long ago! It took me a bit longer than anticipated to finish my second veil, so you'll have to excuse the gap between parts one and two of this story!

Anyways, I promised I'd show you a picture of me wearing the birdcage that I made:

I'm still working on the placement, which makes a shockingly big difference in how the veil looks. I'm thinking I might need to bobby pin it to my head in a place or two, as well.

I also showed you the vintage French lace that I bought from Etsy in my post about my somethings. As it turns out, hand stitching that lace to the bottom of my veil took several weeks of painstaking effort. But I'm very pleased with the end result!

I wanted a shoulder-length veil because the detail on the back of my dress is too beautiful to cover up (I know, I know...). It was surprisingly difficult to find a shoulder-length veil! I guess they're really out of vogue. That was what prompted me to make my own veils in the first place.

I'm really glad I made them, though, because now they're both so very much my own.

The trick now is just to figure out how and when to wear each of my veils. I know it's become acceptable to wear a traditional veil during the ceremony and throw on a birdcage for the reception, but the birdcage I made covers my whole face, which isn't exactly ideal for eating/talking/kissing/dancing/etc. 

I had thought that maybe I would just wear the shoulder-length veil and use the birdcage solely for pictures, but I kind've feel like I worked too hard on the birdcage to sell it short like that.

Momma Star suggested that I actually reverse things and wear the birdcage for the ceremony and have Mr. Star do a cute "lift the veil" thing before the kiss, which I think would be really fun. Then I could wear the other veil for the reception. The only thing that bothers me about that plan is that wearing a veil that falls behind me really makes me feel like a bride. Like, I cried in the salon when I put on a veil for the first time. So I'm torn.

What do you think? How should I plan to use both veils? Do you have two; and if so, how are you wearing them?

Showered with Love

One fine, summer day a few weeks ago, I was naively walking towards a lunch date with a few of my bridesmaids and chatting on my cell phone with my mom about how my brother was down in Florida visiting her and all the clothes shopping they were doing for his birthday.

I met up with a couple of my friends and they lead me towards our table in the back of the restaurant, where I found 25 of my closest friends and family waiting to shower us with love and gifts. This is how I felt about that:

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, but that face is too priceless to not share

There was also champagne and trivia questions about me and Mr. Star:

And a poster that Sassy Bridesmaid and Fairy Bridesmaid made to mimic the invitations they sent out in secret!

Oh, and did I mention it was a tea party? Because everyone knows how much I looooove high tea. Scones and chocolate -- how can you go wrong, right?

I was most shocked, though, by the people who were there! Out-of-towners galore! My mom had been lying to me all morning and secretly flew to New York for the shower! And my best friend from middle school was there; I hadn't seen her since we graduated 8th grade.

My FMIL, Mr. Star's Aunt, Momma Star, and my middle school best friend!

We played games and had tea and then it was time for presents! I used my overly dramatic faces big time (P.S. this was not intentional).

One of my friends enclosed a picture of me from middle school in that card -- hence the horrified face ;)

And my college gals made sure to include some hilariously inappropriate gifts and cards. Reaction shot here:

Cute face, right?

I was so glad to have so many of my Hofstra ladies there:

And I want to thank my amazingly wonderful and loving bridesmaids for such a thoughtful and beautiful shower!

My MOH, Boston Bridesmaid, Blonde Bridesmaid, Fairy Bridesmaid, Me, and Sassy Bridesmaid

Major kudos to my ladies for totally catching me off guard. I was so thrilled to be surrounded by the love of women from all eras of my life. It was just a taste of what the wedding will feel like, with people from various parts of our lives mixing and mingling and showing their support for us. It was a truly wonderful feeling. I was a little awkward with the gift opening, like most brides, I think. But it was a very special day; and we celebrated my brother's 21st birthday later on that night in style!

Was your bridal shower a surprise? Were there people there who shocked you like my middle school best friend and my mom who fibbed her way through two days?

Floral Frenzy

I know I haven't really talked about it much yet, but we're not having floral centerpieces. I think flowers are absolutely gorgeous and love having them in our apartment, but I couldn't justify the expense of centerpieces. At any rate, I'll talk about what we did decide to do for that later.

As you know, we're having silkies for bouts because I thought I could pull that off, but I wasn't so sure I could handle arranging the ladies' bouquets. Plus, I think my bridesmaids and I will really appreciate the fragrance and luxury of having real flowers, whereas the groomsmen expressed that they could care less whether or not they bouts were silk. So I decided to go for the gold and get gorgeous bouquets for the ladies, since we're not doing florist flowers for anything else. I'm pretty sure the bouquets will end up displayed somehow at the reception, too, just to have those pricey beauties do double-duty :)

So I needed some floral inspiration. I didn't really have a clear idea of exactly what I wanted, only that it needed to fit into our colors and be as much on the unique side as possible. With that in mind, I scoured the Internet and came up with these:

(Photo Credit)

This bouquet from theknot is really beautiful. I love how the colors pop because they're contrasted with each other and that the purple flowers chosen are too pastel-y. There's a fine line to walk with purple wedding anything -- it's really easy to do a very 80's lavender. I had originally wanted to do dark purple flowers to avoid this, but two different florists advised against it, given the fact that the bridesmaids are in dark purple.

(Photo Credit)

This bouquet was uploaded to the gallery by reader Loralie! I love bouquets with texture and ones that have several different kinds of flowers for visual interest.

(Photo Credit)

I plucked this gem off of the internet so that my florist and I could get a visual on the elusive white camellia flower. Camellia flowers are apparently rare to find in bouquets, despite the fact that their leaves are frequently used as green filler around the outside edges of bouquets. I had my heart set on having at least a few camellias in my bouquet because of a show I was in my senior year of college, Camille. The experience of working on that production meant a lot to me and it was also what I was performing in the same week that we got engaged! You might remember that the play is also one of our table numbers. My florist tells me that camellias are very fragile and that he'll be ordering them and doing his best to include them in my bouquet, but that he can't guarantee that he won't have to replace them if they look droopy. *Fingers crossed!*

(Photo Credit)

I chose this picture because the bouquets are lovely and I thought it was a good indication of the sizes that I wanted the bouquets to be. I wanted to make it clear that I don't want a 40-pound monster to hold. I've been in weddings before and heavy bouquets are a drag!

(Photo Credit)

This bouquet I loved because, even though I don't want a totally all-white bouquet, the texture and variation of flowers makes it absolutely dreamy. For the white flowers that are in my bouquet, this is how I want them to work together.

(Photo Credit)

This bouquet is stunning. I chose it simply to show my florist what I meant by having fiddle head ferns in my bouquet. I'm in love with the little spirals poking out and hope they look as awesome in my bouquet as in this one!

(Photo Credit)

Reader Cranley04 uploaded this gem to the gallery. Again, I love the texture. And I love the dark purple in the lisianthus (holy cow, I'm learning flower names...). This is similar to how I picture my bridesmaids' bouquets, only minus the green and adding a little bit of white.

(Photo Credit)

And then -- the crowning glory of my floral inspiration. This bouquet literally makes my heart skip a beat every time I look at it. I have a definite crush on the style of whoever's wedding this came from. Much like Miss Sunbeam, I fell in love with anemones because of this picture. Aren't they perfect for a polka-dotted wedding? I have no pink in my bouquet, nor do I have beautiful ranunculus or peonies due to the season, but this is definitely the feel that I'm going for. 

WARNING: ALL BRIDESMAIDS STOP READING! Thanks, ladies ;)

I also swung by a jewelry store and picked up different charms for each of my ladies to have on their bouquet, just to add a little sentimental something special for each of them. For example, Sassy Bridesmaid and I have our favorite little Chinese place down in Chinatown that we love to go to together, so I got her a little chinese dumpling charm. My MOH and I spent three weeks backpacking through France together, so hers is a little Eiffel Tower charm. And so on. I think it'll be a little sweet and unexpected thoughtfulness for them that day.

I've done my best to make each aspect of our wedding really personal and meaningful because Mr. Star and I are saps that way! How are you making your flowers mean something special to you and your family and friends?

Adventures of a Young-ish Bride, Mrs. = Boring?

I feel like this is how our single friends see us 

(Photo Credit)

From what I hear, it's pretty common for engaged couples and newlyweds of all ages and persuasions to have a hard time continuing to relate to their single, unmarried friends. I never really understood how that could be until it started happening to me, and then it suddenly started to make a lot of sense how it could happen to anyone.

One thing that I think is different for young-ish couples, though, is the proportion of single, unmarried friends that you're likely to have and how weird or unnatural they think it is for you to be taking the next step. Let me explain.

The other day I was having coffee with one of my dearest single friends. She has been nothing but supportive of my relationship with Mr. Star, but couldn't stop expressing how she doesn't understand being in a place in your life where you're ready for marriage -- and that's fine. I don't hold it against her because I probably wouldn't understand either if I was her! The hard part for the young-ish bride (and groom!) is how isolating an experience it can be when pretty much all of your friends feel that way. Fairy bridesmaid and her husband are really the only married couple in our group of college friends, which just so happens to be a group of friends who pretty much all moved into New York City and remain quite close even a year after graduation.

What this means for me is that I've been drifting away from the group of friends that has kept me happy and sane for many years now. I still have coffee dates with some of those girls, but I usually politely decline their invitations to parties and bar-hopping. Not that I don't still like to have a good time, I just often end up feeling awkward because I can't relate to what they're going through and they don't understand where I'm coming from. I never would have thought that marriage would wedge such a gap between us, but it has. It has.

Fairy bridesmaid and I have both talked expressed this strange feeling that we'd rather go home and have dinner with our husbands than drink at a crazy party with all of our college ladies, which has surprised us because we both used to love a good party in college! And we've both noticed that, as time goes on, people have been inviting us to fewer and fewer parties because they can sense that we're not that into it. That makes us both feel like "lame, old married women," but what are we supposed to do?

Mr. Star and I have found that we really enjoy having dinner parties or game nights or going out for cocktails with other couples now -- the trouble is 1. how not to lose touch with the college friends that we really care about, and 2. how to find couple friends who are our age.

Have any of you dealt with drifting away from your friends? What about feeling like you've become boring? How do you cope?

Our DIY City/Purple/Polka Dotted Invitations, OR: The DIY Project That Nearly Killed Me

Now that our out-of-towners have officially begun RSVPing (hooray!), I think it's probably pretty safe to share these babies with you! Though they were not gocco'ed and were certainly far from being perfect, they were a labor of extreme love and dedication and I'm pleased with how they came out.

I do have a confession to make: I've been super nervous about sharing these with the hive, but only because of the beautiful creations of so many very talented bees that have come before me. So go easy on me, ladies! My running joke has been that my engagement ring did not come with a degree in graphic design (or floral arrangements or tuxedo styles or the like!) ;)

What our guests saw when they opened their envelopes!

Everyone takes their invitations to the park to photograph them in the greenery, right?

Doesn't our "suite" look nice together? It pained me to have to cover up our personal info.

Our dramatic RSVP postcards

The hand-drawn map that Margarita Groomsman labored over...isn't the compass cute?

So that's it. There they are. Out of all of the DIY projects I've conquered thus far, designing and printing and assembling the invitations, combined with doing the calligraphy for all of the envelopes, is the project that nearly sent me packing...to elope, that is! I had no idea this would be so hard, but it certainly was worth the effort in monetary savings. Similar pocketfold envelopes are selling on Etsy for $5-7 a piece! And no wonder, with how much work they are. I made ours for just a bit over $2 each.

What seemingly insurmountable task have you taken on that has saved you a bundle?

Short Dress NYC Brides: Check This Out!

I personally think brides who rock the short dress are just the cutest and most chic thing. Take Miss Mouse, for example! If I hadn't had my heart set on something dramatic and show-stopping, I definitely think I might have rocked the short dress.

As some of you might know, I live in Midtown Manhattan, the Garment District, to be exact. I am forced to walk by cheap, gorgeous clothing every day of my life. I say forced because, even though it's cheap, I have a wedding to pay for! I can't be buying every beauty in the window.

So yesterday, as I was walking to rehearsal, I stumbled upon this gem:

It's SO stunning! It's floaty and sassy and has two gorgeous bits of embroidery/beading. For a moment, I considered getting it as a reception dress, but I just love my dress too much to take it off any sooner than I have to.

So then I thought: maybe someone from the Hive could benefit! Oh, how I would love to see a bee bride in that dress. Just in case you're interested, here's the store info:

Have you run into anything gorgeous that has made you second-guess decisions that you've already made?

Polka Dotted Cake - Taking a Stand

As I've mentioned, my cake baker and I were able to incorporate my favorite aspects of several different inspirational polka dotted cakes into the one singular cake that will be the unique Star cake. There was one picture that I loved that I just couldn't get out of my mind, though, and that was this one:

(Photo Credit - again!)

I really think the cake stand makes this cake. So I did a google search for black cake stands and came up with this one that I adore:

Trouble is, not only is it not 12" across, it's almost $50, which I really can't justify adding to the budget at this point. 

My search on Etsy didn't really yield anything, either, although I'm not ruling out an alchemy request to try to get someone to custom make me one. I don't really care what material it's made out of (whether it's ceramic, wooden, etc.), so that could be an option.

I finally headed back on over to the CoveredInCrafts blog where I first found the cake picture to see where she got her stand and as it turns out, she made it! She says she took a pillar candle holder and somehow attached it to the cake board. I'm not really sure how to do that myself or where to find a black pillar holder, but I'm thinking of trying!

So what do you think, Hive? Should I keep searching for an affordable stand to buy, put out an alchemy request on Etsy, or try to make one myself? Does anyone have any links to share with me?

Polka Dotted Cake - Decision Time!

So after getting all of your wonderful feedback and opinions on our polka dotted cake options (thank you, ladies!!), I had a meeting with our cake baker. I showed her some of the same pictures that I showed all of you and told her what I liked about each one. Like some of you suggested, she thought that it would be best to create an amalgamation of all of the things that I like about the cakes I've seen and make it into a unique Mr. and Mrs. Star cake!

Please excuse my TERRIBLE drawing skills, but this was the only way I could think of to give you a good visual of what we came up with. If our actual cake isn't 100 times prettier than this drawing, I'll be shocked.

Like I said, please don't judge. 

We decided on doing the bottom and top tier as white frosting with black polka dots and the middle tier as black frosting with white polka dots. This serves two functions: one, I get some visual interest by having the middle tier be different (a la the green polka dot and striped cake I showed you!) and we also don't have an entirely black cake, which didn't sound appetizing to me. We are also planning on having the polka dots be differing sizes: some larger and some smaller, also to help give it some visual interest. Our baker will also be making two oversized fondant bows and attaching one to the corner of the top tier and one to the opposite corner of the bottom tier. The way she drew it was much cuter, believe me, but her drawing was on lined paper and didn't have colors! This lets us incorporate both the bows (which a lot of you loved) and a little bit of our purple. We'll also have our adorable cake topper on top, which I have yet to show you (but I will soon!). What do you think?

Did you have your cake baker make a replica of a beautiful inspiration photo you found or did you make a "frankencake" like I did?

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Post Is About You...

So I figured after reading about our engagement, you might like to get a peek at my beautiful ring! 

Mr. Star and I had looked at some ring pictures online and talked about what I did and didn't like in an engagement ring. I kept hinting at the fact that the setting was really more important to me than the size and heft of the center stone itself. Much as I love me some bling, I knew we were on a budget (hello, we were still living in dorm rooms!) and I was much more excited to get a gorgeous setting that really reflected who I was, as opposed to spending all of what we had budgeted on getting an enormous rock.

I really didn't have a clear idea of exactly what I wanted, though, so Mr. Star was left to search on his own. He went to about half a dozen jewelry stores before walking into one and immediately seeing my ring. He knew it was perfect for me the second he saw it and boy, was he right! He must know me really well :)

I absolutely love my ring. It's so delicate and vintage-esque and interesting to look at. Its unique shape really made it difficult to find a wedding band that looked good with it, so before I talk about our bands, I knew I had to show you the E-ring! Thanks for the help, Anne Ruthmann!

On cupcakes!

Cyrano de Bergerac is one of our favorite plays. And one of our table numbers ;)

I am one bride who cannot live without her coffee!

What was most important in an E-ring to you? Was it the size of the center stone, the setting, the kinds of stones, or something else?

Engagement Love

I thought that at this point it might be fun to tell you all about our engagement story. Mr. Star did such a great job of making it everything I wanted in a proposal and he definitely deserves some props!

We had been talking about getting engaged for months. I’m not the kind of lady who really wants to be surprised by that kind of thing, quite frankly. I think it’s terribly romantic when a girl is totally shocked by a proposal, but if Mr. Star had done that to me, I think I would have freaked out! So, needless to say, I knew it was coming at some point.

He can’t keep a secret from me to save his life and I knew he had bought the ring way back in September of our senior year at college. I had a very busy semester, but still spent a lot of time thinking about where he had hidden that ring in his dorm room and when I was going to get to see it! He was a terrible tease, showing it off to all of our friends and taking his sweet time planning the perfect proposal. On top of that, Fairy bridesmaid and her (now) husband got engaged on Halloween, making it even harder for me to keep waiting! Mr. Star asked both sets of my parents for their blessing and approval of our engagement, and hinted (erroneously!) that the proposal would take place when my little sister was there.

Our one-year dating anniversary rolled around over Thanksgiving weekend and I was such a flurry of activity because of upcoming finals and my show opening a week later that I barely had time to think about it. Mr. Star told me he would be pampering me for our anniversary and got us a hotel room at the Plaza in Boston, where his family is from and where we had celebrated Thanksgiving the day before. After checking in and getting dressed, we grabbed a cab to go see a very funny and silly murder mystery dinner show that was loosely based on Law & Order (one of my favorite tv shows!). On the way there, I patted down his pants pocket just to tease him about not having the ring with him. Before the show started, one of the actresses came up to Mr. Star and pulled him into another room and I was all suspicious of what was going on, worrying that he was going to embarrass me about our anniversary! We ate our really lovely pasta dinner and watched the first half of the show and I kept asking Mr. Star why he wasn’t eating the pasta. I assumed he didn’t like it! About midway through the show, in one of the “courtroom” scenes, the judge turned to Mr. Star and started “cross-examining” him like he was on the stand. The actress gave him the mic and I was still thinking that he was going to say something cheesy about our anniversary, until he got down on one knee in front of about 100 people and said, “I want to look into your eyes for the rest of my life – will you marry me?”

Look how shocked I look! (Photo courtesy of the kind people sitting with us at the table)

I stopped breathing and the whole room erupted into wild applause and cheering. I was so shocked, I don’t even think I moved until I heard a man yell, “she didn’t say yes yet!” and I fumbled through, “of course, of course, yes!”

Please note the hilarious chef jumping for joy and Mr. Star's untouched dinner :)

A woman there celebrating her bachelorette party came over and gave me the fake veil she was wearing saying, “honey, you need this more than me” and the show continued on some minutes later. We got a round of drinks and then snuck out a little later to head back to the hotel. I called my parents in the cab back and was all ready to snuggle into bed with Mr. Star when I walked into the hotel lobby and saw about a dozen of our friends and family gathered there waiting for us! I was so shocked again! We all headed out to a nearby bar to celebrate and, needless to say, Mr. Star and I didn’t get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. I’m pretty sure in all the commotion, I didn’t even examine the ring until we were back in our room! I still have the mint box that Mr. Star had hidden the ring in to keep me from patting it down in his pocket, too ;)

At the bar post-proposal. The two brunettes are Sassy Bridesmaid and Boston Bridesmaid!

The next day, we had to get in the car and drive back to New York, but Mr. Star had promised me a manicure first so that my hands would look nice showing off that ring! It was so strange having to come down off of cloud nine and go back to classes and rehearsals the day after, but we were both smiling 24/7 for days.

Was your proposal a complete surprise or did you know it was coming?

Polka Dotted Bridesmaids

Having a polka dot motif certainly opened us up to a lot of cool options for everything -- from cake, to bow details, to pretty paper, to bridesmaid attire! The struggle for me has been to balance my concern about having too few polka dots versus having too many. The perfect polka dot balance is a tough one to strike.

So when I first started thinking about bridesmaid dresses, I was up in the air. There are some totally awesome options like this gorgeous dress with a purple sash:

(Photo Credit)

I love, love, love this dress, but decided that it would be way too much on five girls. Maybe just on my MOH, I then pondered. But I quickly rejected that idea, too, because I was worried that she would look too different from the other bridesmaids and me.

So I decided to go with deep purple dresses and have the girls wear polka dotted accents instead. I decided that, since my girls are each so incredibly different and full of their own wonderful personality and style, I would let them each choose a different polka dotted accessory and not dictate how they wear their hair or which shoes they buy. This has resulted in awesomeness all around so far. I really hope they all look as amazing together as I think they will.

Sassy Bridesmaid bought some super cute polka dotted hoop earrings from Cassowaryjewelry on Etsy for just $8!

Fairy Bridesmaid made three separate polka dotted chokers that are each slightly different, just so I could pick which one I liked best!

My MOH whipped this beautiful little fascinator up in about 10 minutes; I was so impressed! She just took some grosgrain polka dotted ribbon and hotglued (you knew it was coming) it in to a fan shape as she went, then glued an oversized button on top of it and added some rhinestones for bling. Then it all got glued right to a little plastic comb and voila!

(Photo Credit)

I was really hoping one of my bridesmaids would choose shoes. Really, really hoping (thanks, Boston Bridesmaid!!). I originally wanted to wear polka dotted shoes, but I just don't think it would work with my dress.

(Photo Credit)

Blonde Bridesmaid made herself an adorable polka dotted headband with purple sparkly buttons on it, all from supplies we picked up at M&J Trimmings. This headband looks similar to the one she made except it doesn't have the purple bling.

Are all of your bridesmaids dressing alike or are you giving them some creative license?

Adventures of a Young-ish Bride, The Vendor Bender

One of the other unforeseen age-related issues that we have run into while planning our wedding is one that many of you brought up in your comments: getting vendors to take us seriously as adults.

As I've mentioned before, not only are Mr. Star and I actually young-ish, but we look even younger. I have been able tell from the look on their faces that a lot of these Manhattan vendors have not taken us seriously from the moment we walked in. A few vendors have actually said something out loud about it.

There's one really simple fix for this: don't give them your money. I have walked away from one florist who didn't seem to be taking me seriously, and there are so many amazing vendors out there who will be thrilled and excited to be working on your wedding (there really are, it's great)! 

If, however, there's some reason why you can't just pick up and change vendors (like there's only one florist in town or you're really in love with your venue like we are), there are a few things you can try!

1. Professionalism in your interactions. A lot of us use half a dozen exclamation points or misspelled wordz (haha, I can't pull that one off) in our facebook wall posts or instant messaging. I am totally guilty of this myself. But when it comes to emailing a potential wedding vendor, that kind of stuff has to go. This may seem obvious, but I think it really makes a big difference when you take the time to write a cohesive, edited email.

2. Dress up! I'm a big proponent of dressing nicely to get people to take you seriously. Sad as it may be, people do judge you by the way you look and how you present yourself. I never went to meet with a vendor without making sure I looked nice. I even made Mr. Star throw on a nice shirt and coat to come with me to put the deposit down on our loft:

I didn't get him out of jeans, but he's at least wearing a sports coat!

3. Have a clear idea of what you want and what your budget is. Even though I don't know a lot about flower names or how many tiers of cake I needed, I always brought inspiration pictures along with me to show my vendors. Many of them really appreciated getting a look at what I wanted when I wasn't able to clearly articulate it in an expert way and I think it helped them to take me seriously as an adult who knows what she wants. One thing I didn't always do was walk into a meeting knowing exactly what I was able to spend and I now think that was a mistake. 

4. Know what is and isn't fair. Have an idea of what comparable vendors are charging in your area. This is the best way to not get taken advantage of, no matter what your age.

5. Research the vendor and his or her past work/events. I tried to do my homework on each vendor before I went in to talk with them by checking our their online portfolios or researching reviews on yelp! or Weddingbee, if possible! This gives you something to chat about with your vendor, lets him or her know that you know what you're talking about, and might even inspire you for your own wedding!

Hopefully, some of these tips will help you and your young-ish sweetie get taken seriously when you meet with the people who are helping to create your special day. 

What vendor troubles have you run into? Have all of yours taken you seriously?

Bombs Away!

So we mailed out our 80 invitations this week. It was quite the relief because pretty much every piece of those things was handcrafted by yours truly. This was by far my most ambitious wedding DIY project. I'll post later with pictures of them and some tips on what I learned, but for now, I'll give you some pictures that tell the story of our mailing saga.

We had quite the drama over what would be the correct postage for these puppies. I delegated to Mr. Star the arduous task of taking a finished invitation to the post office (which is ALWAYS crowded in New York, despite the fact that there are about 5 within a few blocks!) and getting it weighed to find out how much it would cost to mail them.

He went to one postal worker who told him it would be nearly $2 to mail each invitation and while this seemed high to him, he didn't know how much I was expecting to spend and went ahead and bought $160 worth of postage.

When he came home and told me what had happened, I freaked. Hoping to have spent somewhere in the $60-$70 range and knowing that USPS would be unlikely to give us our money back, I was distraught. Mr. Star quickly went to another nearby post office and was given a much better .61 cent quote by two different postal workers who both thought that the original guy was crazy.

To make a long story (and about 8 visits to the post office and 5 phone calls to the USPS complaint line by Mr. Star), we did end up getting our money back and were given the correct stamps. It did end up delaying us getting our invitations out by about a week, though, which may not seem like such a big deal to anyone else, but to me it definitely was. I had just seriously busted my butt to get all the calligraphy done quickly and then had my finished invitations sitting around my kitchen for a week -- it was frustrating.

So that might be why Mr. Star looks so happy and relieved to be carrying the box of invites to the post office:

Isn't he cute?

I felt a little sad because I was handing the pride and joy of my wedding paper crafting over to the postal workers whom I know will not treat my invitations in the manner I would like. I told Mr. Star that after all that work there should be trumpets or something. At which point, he proceeded to make loud trumpet noises as I walked down the crowded sidewalk. This is my reaction to that:

But in the end, we were both more than a little happy to have them in the mail and on the way!

My message to you is this: please, please, PLEASE have your invitations weighed and priced at more than one post office if you think there's anything wonky about the quote they give you.

What invitation mailing snafus have you run into?