The asking my maids fiasco

I went back and forth with Danny whether we wanted a bridal party or not. In the end, we decided that we would regret if we didn't ask our family and friends to be in a bridal party and to go all or nothing. So all or nothing meant I had 5 girls to ask (plus my sister who I had already asked). I wanted to do something special like a card and a gift but couldn't decide on anything. Then I went to the weddingbee boards and saw that a post on how a girl asked her maids by sending them all flowers to their jobs. I loved that idea, knew it would be expensive but figured this is the only time I would ever get to do this.

I decided to use teleflora because the website let me send the flowers to multiple addresses and put it on one invoice. It let me pick each local florist based on the location I was sending it to. So here's how it went:

Bridesmaid D: She's a stay-at-home mom so I had to send the flowers to her house. The florist sent them a day early!!!! Then she starts writing on facebook that she has a secret admirer! I had to email her and tell her to keep it on the down low because everyone else would be getting the flowers the next day.

Bridesmaid G: I'll just let her email tell this story: OMG! I just got a special delivery at work; Flowers : )

My answer is ABSOLUTELY YES!! I am sooo excited and nervous. I have never been an official bridesmaid.

I do have to tell you when I first opened the little card I had a mini panic attack because I thought is was someone sending cards to their wife or something and they gave them to the wrong person because the card is signed Deanne. Then when I calmed down and actually read it again, I figured it must really be Deanna, and then I was giggling with excitement.

So they spelled my flippin name wrong!

Bridesmaid A: I find out that her work sent her to Columbus at last minute and she would be out of her office for 3 days! In a panic, I called the florist who was no help. I ended up calling her work and asked if they could just put the flowers on her desk for her to get when she gets back. They ended up putting them in the fridge so they were perfect when Bridesmaid A got them.

Bridesmaids M and B got theirs at their respective places of employment no problem.

Whew, right? I have to say it was fun getting the emails and phone calls from everyone saying yes and telling me they were excited. Oh and I asked them to send me a picture of these flowers so I could at least see them! Here they are. I picked two different designs and alternated between the girls:

Photographs - Check!

Since I had such a problem booking halls, I realized that I had to get on the search for a photographer too. I emailed a bunch of local photographers and got a few emails that were set up like this:

Hello Deanna - thanks for contacting me. Unfortunately, I'm booked on xx. However, I would like to suggest the following photographers. They do amazing work.

The photographer suggested 7 photographers' names. What was really weird was that I emailed one of the suggestions and I got another booked letter with the original photographer on the list! They must have a little club or something.

One of my favorites, Hunter Photographic, emailed me back almost instantly and was open on my date! I loved that he had an updated blog and was so fast to respond. He even wanted to meet with Danny and I right away! We met at a Caribou Coffee at my suggestion and I was sold on the fact that he brought an ipad (I'm a mac nerd) a cool portfolio. Included in the package were the engagement photos and I said I wanted to wait until spring because I hate winter and snow and don't want to see it in my photos. So we're looking forward to that in a couple months!

Hotel vs. Banquet Hall

My next natural inclination was to get a guest list number to see what we were dealing with. I knew it would be a big number. After going back and forth between both sets of families, the estimate was 378! This new information knocked out about 70% of the venues that I had bookmarked or liked.

Since my future in laws were helping to pay for the reception, we devised a system of booking appointments to look at venues on Saturday mornings. The first venue we visited lied on their website on how many people it could hold. Or you could probably hold 400 with tables set up in a completely different room. Fail. After about 5 visits, we narrowed it down to two choices - the hotel vs. the banquet hall.

I honestly fell in love with the hotel. It was built in 2009. Everything was sparkling new. The bar had a flat screen tv. But it was at the tip top of our budget. Also, Danny loves Jim Beam and their house brand of bourbon was Jack Daniels. We would have to pay extra for a longer bar time. We knew we wanted our carnival theme for appetizers and it just seemed like we would have to work so hard to fit our theme in these food and drink packages.

Enter the banquet hall. I wanted so much to hate it but each feature was better than the next! We could bring in our own alcohol! The dance floor was huge! They were flexible with food options! What really sold me was that the dj that we had excitedly booked too early had played there before and was familiar with how to set up their equipment there. The one catch was that we had to change our date to the weekend before. At this point, I was fine with the date change. I had a heart to heart with my future FIL and decided on the banquet hall! Yay! Now we can move forward!

Our first vendor!

Is probably not the first vendor you should book, haha. It was our dj! Danny had heard about Rock the House Entertainment by word of mouth and booked an appointment. We went to their studio and waited an obscene amount of time past our appointment because of the couple that was scheduled before us going overtime. When that couple finally left, the marketing manager came to get us and apologized. He brought us in an office and didn't say a word about the dj company. He asked us to tell him our engagement story. We were a little taken aback! He listened patiently while Danny told our engagement story and then asked a few more questions about how we envision our wedding. It was such a great meeting and I was convinced that we needed to book them that night! So I signed our first contract and deposit. I do not recommend booking the dj before your venue because we ended up changing our date and had to resign a dj contract, but the excitement of meeting with our first vendor was definitely fun!