This is porcelainbride's Green Wedding!

thinking about our guest list, the majority of our guests are going to either be married or engaged already. There aren't many people that we're inviting who are single so I'm thinking that there's not really much of a point in doing a bouquet toss. We'll still do the garter, because there'll be more single men there than women (i don't know many women and Chris doesn't talk to most of his female friends anymore) but I was trying to come up with an alternative for it.

One of the lovely girls on the OBB commented with this-
"...instead of having a bouquet toss, they asked everyone to stand up. then they asked everyone that was single(ie not married yet) to sit down. then anyone married 1month-1year to sit down, then anyone 1yr-5yr to sit down, yadda yadda until there was only one couple standing. that couple got her bouquet and they were asked to tell a memory about their wedding."

I think that's a lovely idea. I'm pretty sure I already know who'll get the bouquet (my mom's godparents have been married for 54 years!) but I think it would be really fun to get everyone involved, and quite sweet to hear their memory.

since we're using a lot of vintage touches, i figured that the card box shouldn't stray from that either, so I started researching 1920's & 30's style radios. FH *loves* doing any kind of wood working so it's a perfect project for him. I asked him how hard he thought it would be and he's like "i don't care! i get to play with wood and nails and get dirty!"

Not only is it going to look awesome, it's going to be fully functional too- he's going to make sure that it actually works because we're going to keep it as an ornament in our house after the wedding.

I checked the mail and found this wonderful little envelope in there- the information from the church! So I settle myself down on the sofa and begin reading through it. It's far, far more confusing than I ever imagined.

It also leaves me with a slight predicament. The Church only offers weddings on Friday at 11am or 2pm. Most of the churches around here allow for 4pm ceremonies with the lithurgy starting at 6pm through all of sunday. I was planning on having a 4pm ceremony. a 2pm ceremony throws everything out of whack! I mean, really. 1 hr for the service. 1 hr for the cocktail hour/photos. 4 hours for the reception & dinner. that's 6 hours overall which for the amount of things we've planned is actually a really short time period. This means that if I go direct from the ceremony to the cocktail hour, the cocktail hour's at 3pm, and everyone's eating at 4pm. A little early don't you think?! Then the whole thing's finished by 8pm. which is great if we want to have an afterparty, but I'd been anticipating everything wrapping up around 10pm- then we'd just hit some of the bars in downtown for an after party. There's no point in having an hour's break before everyone heads over to the Jefferson because it's only a 5 minute drive from the cathedral to the hotel.

I suppose we could opt out of the seated dinner, and just have a drinks & nibbles/buffet reception... but then isn't everyone going to get hungry because they didn't get a proper dinner?

There's also the slight chance that they may not marry us- after all, I'm not catholic & I take all religion with a grain of salt. I've also never been baptized- christened & confirmed yes. baptized, no. And the price. OMG THE PRICE! Definitely much, much more expensive than I'd anticipated. $800 just to rent the church because we're not Parishioners of 6 months or more. There's another $300 charge for the music minister (to organize all the music that'll be played, but doesn't include the cost of the mandatory Cantor to lead the assembly in song, which varies) and another $200 for their wedding coordinator. And you cannot opt out of any of those fees. That totals to $1,300 just for bare bones on the ceremony. And, if you're not a parishioner you have to find your own officiant and give him an offering for doing the service. Thats if I have no flowers on the pews, no flowers at the alter, nothing... Thats just for the church itself. I'm a bit in sticker shock tbh!

There's also no dressing rooms- only a waiting area for the bride, and alcohol is forbidden from the church. Failure to abide by the alcohol rules will result in the ceremony being terminated. I guess I'm getting drunk in the limo then!

You can't have flower petals, birdseed, rice, confetti bubbles or any other item dropped or thrown neither inside or outside of the cathedral. So what in the hell is my flower girl supposed to do?!

as beautiful as it is... this is part of the reason why I didn't want to use a church. Churches make my blood boil because of all their rules, restrictions and politics. Not to mention, I'm only a half-hearted believer in christianity.

oh, and an update about the dress... I found a shop in Richmond that specializes in making custom bridal gowns. Just finished shooting them an email asking what their general time frame & cost is for a gown like the Lazaro one i want. I guess we'll have to wait and see what their response is, but if it's cheaper than the Lazaro gown then I'm totally going for it. I'll pop in their next time we're up in Richmond which should hopefully be sometime next week.

I'm still tossing around the idea for flowers. When i was in a bridal shop today I was talking with the assistant and she asked about flowers. I said I wasn't keen on the idea so I was thinking of some alternatives- either making a bouquet out of vintage jewelry, or using silk flowers but having the majority of the bouquet make of crystals & feathers, or even making flowers out of feathers. Then I was talking with another friend of mine earlier tonight and she suggested that since we're giving out silk fans to the ladies as favors, why don't i get the girls to carry feather fans? I LOVE the idea!!

I'm thinking for me, I might have a bouquet made with silk flowers, but use lots of crystals & feathers in the design as well. once I'm done with it, i could stick it in a vase and make a nice table centerpiece out of it (if my cat doesn't destroy it first)

I'll probably stick with fresh flower corsages for the mothers & grandmothers though- they'd like that.

since my girls are doing NOTHING to look for dresses or dress styles they like, I've gone on a quest to find something for them. So I've spent all night looking up various styles that I like as well as the ones that I already have saved. the jim hjelm & lazaro ones I liked are a little out of their price range unless they absolutely fall in love with them when they see them, so I started looking at a few more affordable designers.

my next biggest issue with them, is that I need to figure out a way to ask them to wear a fascinator in their hair without them looking at me as though I've lost my mind. I really want them to though- I'm trying to encourage all the female guests who are attending to wear hats or substantial sized fascinators to add more to the feel of the theme. (and just because i don't like weddings where people aren't wearing hats.) I don't mind it being whatever they want- they can pick it out. I'm even willing to pay for it (in moderation) for them as part of their gift. I think it might be asking a little too much of them to wear gloves, even though i think it would look fantastic and totally add to the feel of the wedding.

We're planning on having a seated dinner for the reception seeing as we're only looking at having around 100 or so guests. Anyway, this has lead us to thinking about the menu. We could do a buffet, but really what's the point? There'll be a ton of left over food if we do that.

Then we thought we'd offer choices for the menu- but with choices comes complication. offer too many choices and people become indecisive. Offer too few and people become picky. And since we'd have to have a general count for each entree in before the wedding there's always the chance of people not marking their menu selections on the RSVP etc. and getting numbers all mixed up.

So now I'm torn. i really love the idea of giving people a selection to choose from (that way I can go around and sample everyone's meal lol!) or just giving them a set menu with a mixed grill plate so that I don't have to worry- if they don't like it, they don't have to eat it. And if they're like my sister (who claims to be vegetarian, but eats chicken & fish) they'll just have to suck it up and deal.

The price isn't really much different. It's about a $1000 difference which really, isn't much when you consider the fact that if they have a selection menu they're selecting one appetizer or salad or soup and their entree. If they have a mixed grill, they're getting an appetizer AND soup or salad & their entree. (copy of the menu is in the previous entry)

Which is the best option? What are you doing?