Wedding planning

It’s been a long time since I’ve been active with ye ol blogging, so I’m not sure if I ever mentioned that Morven and I are getting married on October 23rd 2010! There is a temporary “Our Wedding” page for guests to our wedding – the scope for that page is to inform guests about details they may be interested in, because, well,  you can’t fit everything in on an invitation without it looking more like a ‘document’ than a fridge-worthy invitation.  So we thought we’d mix something old with something new! It’s password protected at the moment, because the invites haven’t been sent out yet, and well, you wouldn’t generally publish your invitation to your wedding in the public domain.

I generally feel the need to write a ‘to-do’ list for the big day, and I hope that if I publish it on our blog then friends/mothers/colleagues may be able to point out things that we may have missed.

We’ve really done quite a lot in preparation for the wedding so far, in no particular order, we’ve:

• Booked a ceremony venue (rose garden at Urrbrae House)
• Booked a chairs and a marquee for the ceremony just in case the weather is wet or too sunny
• Booked a celebrant
• Booked a musical group for Urrbrae House (not telling who!)
• Booked a reception venue (Carrick Hill in the marquee, with pre-dinner drinks and cocktail entree to be served by the big old oak tree)
• Booked a musical group for the pre-dinner drinks and a short while during the reception (in which we will then switch to our mp3 music). Again, not telling who, it should be a surprise for people.
• Booked and organised transport for the bridal party for the day
• Pretty much completely finished the guest list, and wow do we have a lot of family! Unfortunately because of this it made it very difficult for Morven and I to work out which friends we can/can’t justify inviting, although fortunately we’ve been saving for long enough that we can afford to have most of them.
• Designedthe invitations, printed them, filled out the envelopes, stamped the envelopes, and put the invites in the envelopes with the gift registry slips
• Told the relevant people that we require their services as groomsdudes and bridesmaids
• Purchased bridesmaids dresses
• Purchased wedding dress
• Have a plan for what the groom and groomsdudes are wearing
• Very nearly completely finished the invitations
• Very nearly finished setting up a bridal registry
• Have a preliminary travel itinerary for the honeymoon (details of which are to remain secret, even from Morven)
• Told the appropriate person that he is MC for the reception
• Put a groomsdude on notice that he is being asked to give a speech
• Put the other groomsdude on notice that he is being asked to do something for our ceremony
• Put a friend of the bride on notice that she is being asked to do a reading at the ceremony
• I think we have organised all of the floral stuff, although I actually have very little idea, but I’m under the understanding from Morven that it’s all been sorted! (Thanks Morvie!!!)
• We have been to many second hand and antique stores purchasing lots of little vases for the florist (thanks Mums!!!)
• Morven has also sorted out the chair covers for the reception
• Booked a photographer
• Bought decorations for the ceremony venue, organised a signing table

But we still need to:

• Acquire 23 more gift registry slips, and insert them into the last 23 invitations
• Seal and post the invitations
• Work out the actual proceedings for the ceremony – what we’re going to or not going to say and do
• Work out music repetoire for the musicians at the ceremony, reception, and for the mp3 player
• Finalise what the groom and groomsdudes are wearing
• Morven needs to finalise details for her wedding dress (I think this is under control)
• Designate groups of family members to other family members to chase down RSVP’s (if required, apparently it’s always required, and I know that we’re terrible at RSVP’ing ourselves) come RSVP day
• Collate RSVP’s
• Notify reception venue, and chair cover company of the final guest numbers
• Organise a timeline for the reception, as a guide for the MC
• Organise details of where we would like our photographer to take us, and plan an appropriate timeline
• Plan the seating arrangement
• I need to (secretly from Morven) review the details of the honeymoon itinerary, and do a more detailed budget. Also need to work out somewhere to stay for the night after our reception.
• Buy little bottles of water, sunscreen, and some other secret things for the ceremony venue
• Morven needs to decorate the cushions for the signing table chairs

So there we go, the big decisions have been sorted, and now it’s mostly just sorting out the fine details.