Caterer

We're coming close on nailing down our caterer.  Looks like we're leaning towards Atlantic Caterers They seem to give us the biggest bang for our buck and of course have received some great reviews from local brides.
My family is big on great tasting food.  I work for restaurant chain and my Dad manages a grocery store and like I mentioned before, my mom is an awesome cook and is always serving up some delicious meals.  We've been to so many wedding where the food was kinda yucky, so we want to make sure to pick a caterer that has some great dinner options that will be hearty and satisfying and won't leave guests hungry for more.  My parents really have done all the research for the caterer (since they are paying for the food and beverage) and we fully trust their judgement!

For cocktail hour, we would have a lavish Fruit, Vegetable, and Cheese Display.  The table is adorned with displays that boast the season's freshest vegetables to included fresh broccoli and cauliflower florets, zucchini, squash, carrots, Chinese snow peas, cherry tomatoes and others, complimented by an assortment of imported and domestic cheeses presented in wheels, wedges, and slices, garnished with fresh fruits, surrounded by gourmet cocktail crackers, broken French and pumpernickel breads, hearty Florentine dip, vegetable dip and cracked country Dijon. There would also be lump maryland crab dip with sliced baguettes too and in addition (2) hors d'oeuvres (TBD) getting passed around on trays by staff.

We would then have a seated dinner under the tent and as of right now it looks like we'd be starting with a mixed greens and baby spinach salad tossed with sliced strawberries, mandarin oranges, vidalia onions and glazed pecans tossed with a sweet onion dressing, topped with shaved asiago cheese. For the main entree we would serve filet mignon and lump crab cake with roasted marinated vegetables and lyonaisse potatoes.
This caterer also provides a cake with the cost (we choose one of the cake companies they offer to source the cake from) so we wouldn't have to worry about coordinating another vendor.
Coffee/tea service, china, flatware, linens, champagne toast, service staff, and service display and head table decorations are also provided with the cost.
Compared to what other catering companies offer in the area, this is the most reasonably priced for everything that they offer!  We have a tasting scheduled in a few weeks to finalize our menu!

Program Fans

I've been in the mood to research some of the fun details of the wedding and saw these program fans and thought they can be useful for our ceremony... especially since we are having it on a June evening. We're going to be another DIY project. Above is the one we will be making! I found the template from Alyee Designs
and the original maker, Aylee, gives a "how-to" and even a template to use!

I plan on having the front and back cover in a summer green color... then the middle pages will be ivory/white. I'm now on the search for some heavy 100lb cardstock in those color choices so the program is sturdy enough to use as a fan. It's a hard search so far to find the heavy cardstock in light green! I've also purchased some stamps and an ink pad that I will use on these programs as well (kind of similar to that shown in the above picture). Once all the pieces are printed, cut, and stamped... I then would keep them together with a eyelet and have ribbon dangling from the bottom as well

I think these will turn out really nice!

Will You Be My Bridesmaid?

I know who I want to be in my bridal party. My Maid of Honor is going to be my older sister, and my bridesmaids are four of my closest girlfriends (3 from college 1 from high school). I've been a bridesmaid in all of their weddings too.

I wanted to find a creative way to ask them to be my bridesmaid rather than just call them up and ask. While browsing online for "will you be my bridesmaid cards", I fell upon this cute DIY idea. Anna from Rifle Design gives a "how to" on her cute idea so here's another project I'm going to try!

They are super cute and unique... and I think my bridesmaids will be super surprised... and they'll adore getting this kind of "be my bridesmaid" invitation in the mail.

Guest List

The guest list has really been one of the easiest steps so far. When thinking about who we wanted to be at our wedding, it was no problem rattling off the people that we wanted to attend. We just whipped out microsoft excel, typed away, and plugged in names.

What we realized is that 90% of the people that will be attending our wedding will be from out of town.
We live in Northern Virginia... my immediate family is in Maryland... extended family is in New Jersey and Pennsylvania... and my friends are scattered all across the country. My Fiance grew up on the west coast and all his family and friends live near Seattle, WA. How will these large travel distances will effect our RSVPs? We have no idea. I guess we'll find out in April when invites go out! All in all we have 150 people on our list... we are thinking about 100 people would probably RSVP yes. We have a handful of names on a "B" list as well in case we get a low response and have room to fit other people.

Our next step was to fill in our excel sheet with everyone's addresses. Even though we were not planning on sending anything out for months... we just wanted to get all this research out of the way while we were putting together "the list". My Fiance got kind of annoyed that I kept badgering him for names and addresses so early in the game... but why not get it taken care of while we're on the guest list subject... right?! My Fiance's brother is getting married 10 months before us, so it was really kind of easy for him to just to copy his side of the list from his bro's list.

So now that we have an idea of the amount of people that we will have at the wedding we can now think about where we will host everyone!

Budget

So the first step to our planning process was to talk about our budget. I'm not going to state what that budget is on here, but I will tell you that we did want to keep it WAY below our regional average. Curious what the cost average is for your area? Check out www.costofawedding.com or a quick reference.

Luckily my parents have stepped up and stated how they want to be supportive and help. They volunteered to pick up the tab for the reception (venue, food, alcohol, tent, tables, linens, chairs, centerpieces, misc rentals) which really helps cover the big ticket needs and over 60% of the budget.

My fiance and I will be in charge of the photographer, DJ, officiant, stationary, attire, rings, and other misc needs.

My future in laws mentioned that they would like to contribute as well with some money or possibly pay for the honeymoon which will also help.

Amazing help from parents. Even though we have financial support to the big day, that in no way alters our thoughts of keeping the day budget friendly. Again, we really don't want to go overboard on budget for this big day. The twelve months of planning is just for one event... on one summer evening.... for a total of five hours. The most important thing is that we are gathering our friends and family to witness our life long commitment to each other... then we're just having a party to celebrate afterwards That's how I like to think of it :)

So now that we know the breakdown on who's covering what... it's time to dig in to all this planning!