Wedding Week Guest Post - Wynn of Le Chic Wedding Consulting & Boutique

Hello lovelies!!! 

Our wedding day is TOMORROW!!! AH!!! So excited!!!

I would guess that right now we are headed to the venue to get the decorations set up and things ready for the rehearsal dinner tonight! 

While I'm busy pulling together last minute details and enjoying the arrival of family and friends for our BIG DAY... 

TOMORROW!!! 

I would like to introduce you to the lovely 

Wynn Austin of Le Chic Wedding Consulting and Boutique!

She's here to share some wedding seating arrangement advice! 

Thanks SO much Wynn!!!

"The Most Common Last Minute Mistake: Seating Assignments!"

It happens almost every time. One of the biggest headaches that we see our couples encounter is the seating assignments. And rightfully so! At this point of their wedding planning, couples are tired of planning and are SO ready to be married. However, seating your guests properly, setting it up so that it is easy for them to find their seats, and display their food choice is extremely important! Not doing this properly can cause a lot of confusion, upset guests, and push your timeline behind causing the flow to get out of whack.


I wanted to share 3 of the MOST COMMON MISTAKES & ADVICE to make life a little easier for all the couples getting ready to get married out there!


MISTAKES:


1) Seating elderly guests near a door or by the band/DJ speakers: Always keep in mind that elderly guests tend to get colder, so do not seat them by an open door or a drafty place. They also do not like to be seated near the DJ Speakers or the loudest part of the room. Seat them further back in a place where it is easier for them to get in and out and is quieter.


2) Setting up the place cards, escort cards, or seating chart by table numbers instead of last name: This is the MOST COMMON mistake! As wedding planners sometimes we do not get the escort cards until the rehearsal and we see this all the time. When you set the seating assignments by table numbers, guests have to look at every single card and table in order to find their names and figure out where they are sitting. This causes everything to be backed up because it takes them so long to figure out where they are sitting. Instead, you need to list, or set up the cards by last name and in alphabetical order. That way guests can simply find their last name and look to see what table number or name that they are sitting at. If you have a wedding coordinator, email her a list of your seating assignments as well, in excel and also by LAST NAME not Table Numbers. That way he or she can help your guests find their seats easily without looking at every single table number until we find their name.


3) Not putting down a clear food legend when guests have a choice of entree: When couples give guest a choice of food, for example, beef or fish. They need to provide a clear and easy legend for the servers to see and to set the proper entree down in front of the guests. The legend can be stickers, crystals, different color or shape placecards. Which ever the choice, keep in mind that during dinner time the lights are typically dim, so it needs to be big enough so that the servers can see. Another common issue is with crystals. They are most commonly used, so if you decide to use different color crystals stay away from pastel colors since the colors are difficult to distinguish from one another when the lights are dim. If you are using the escort cards also as your place cards, you need to put up a sign to give guest instructions to place their card at their seats so that their servers can see their choice of entree.


Guest Blogger: Wynn Austin


Owner of Le Chic Wedding Consulting & Boutique. She is a highly sought after wedding designer and coordinator in San Diego. Her online boutique has attracted brides worldwide!


www.lechicweddingconsulting.com


www.lechicweddingboutique.com

Again, a HUGE thanks to Wynn for sharing some GREAT wedding planning tips!!!

In just over 24 hours I will be a Mrs!!!

Can't wait!!!

Wedding Week Guest Post - Rachael of Lovely Crafty Home

Happy Thursday friends!!!

Only 2 DAYS til our wedding!!!

Today we have a GREAT bloggie friend of Truly Lovely 

(the other blog I run with my sister), and overall awesome bloggie bestie!

Rachael of Lovely Crafty Home!!

She's going to share her AMAZING wedding venue with us today!!!
As well as how she was able to pull it off! :)

Please leave her some bloggie love while I'm off getting wedding ready!!! :)

Here's Rachael...

Hi everyone! My name is Rachael, and I blog over at Lovely Crafty Home. You may have seen me hanging around Truly Lovely before... :)

Today's post is really fun for me because I've been asked to talk about one of the most special days of my life: my wedding! I want to share with you our fairy tale day and how we made it happen.

I grew up (for the most part) in Asheville, NC and after a 6 year hiatus in DC, moved back here with my then boyfriend Mike. I'll let you in on a little secret: he hadn't even proposed when I first contacted my dream venue for information. When the wedding coordinator leaves a message on your machine saying congratulations on your engagement, you know you've been busted. But when you want to get married at The Biltmore Estate in the Fall (our tourist season), you have to be on top of things!

Image courtesy of BiltmoreVillage.com

Planning a fairy tale wedding, step 1. Contact the most ridiculous, total long shot, no way in hell venue and ask for wedding information.

No, seriously.

Step 2: Freak out when you get a response and the prices.

Steps 3 and 4: Continue to freak out and wonder why you even asked. Wasn't it a crime to get your hopes up?

Step 5: Get real. If you wanna do this, you better figure out how. Let's face it, no place else is even going to compare.

Step 6: We crunched the numbers. We had conversations with our parents to see if they were planning on contributing and how much. Yes, this can be awkward, but it's better to know what you're working with up front. By the time we got married, we had already bought our house and had been living in it for a year and half. Financially, we weren't really expecting our parents to help. But both sides put in some money, and we had our starting point. I knew for this to work out, we could have only 50 people at the wedding.

Yes, I said 50.

If you've ever planned a wedding or are currently planning a wedding, I'm sure you've heard this advice before. It happens to be Step 7: Cut. The. Guest. List.

We were very fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it) to be paying for the wedding mostly on our own. This meant that we (by that I mean me, since Mike had about zero interest in anything except food and cake tasting) had complete control over the guest list. My parents didn't invite their friends. His parents didn't invite their friends. Certain friends of ours didn't get invited unless we had been in contact with them in the past year. No plus ones unless it was a serious boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance/spouse. We were very strict, but not because we wanted it to be some exclusive event. We didn't want to offend anyone. We just wanted to have our close friends and family around us and show them a good time. Neither Mike nor I like to be in the spotlight, so a small wedding suited us better. I realize this is impossible for some people. We are very lucky.

Step 8: Negotiate. I called up the planner and told her that I really wanted to get married there, but we'd have to work on the pricing. Instead of getting married on the front lawn, we got married in the barn.

Image courtesy of Biltmore.com

Image courtesy of EdwardsNewsUpdates

At 50 guests, there was no way we'd meet their minimum food order for Saturday. I asked if we could lose the minimum and bring the per plate price down if we chose a Sunday. I told her I wanted to leave off the $8/per person passed champagne toast (it was open bar, anyway). We chose a sit down dinner because it was actually the same price as a buffet at that headcount. Be careful of station/serving fees on buffets...for some reason buffets have a reputation of being cheaper but this is not always the case since they have to over prepare food and staff the stations.

Step 9: Hire vendors. At Biltmore everything was provided through them except music, floral, and photography/videography. I found that when choosing a vendor, price is important, but so is the vision. By that I mean you want to pick someone who you gel with- they get your idea and run with it. You feel like they really understand what you want for your day. If you sacrifice this for price, you may be sorry. If you visit enough people, you will be able to find both elements. Sure I would have loved to have a live band, but I decided to compromise and hire a cellist for the ceremony and a DJ for the reception. Brie Castell of Castell Photography shot our wedding, check out some pictures here, here, and here. Our florist was Stacey Brown of The Bloom Room who did a fantastic job of taking my "rustic elegance" vision and bringing it to life.

Step 10: Enjoy your day. Everyone kept telling me to soak it all in, but you really don't grasp this until it's happening. Try to eat. Definitely get cake. Say hi to everyone, but skip the receiving line (who invented that, anyway? AWKWARD).

Now I'm sure you're wondering how we paid for it all. When I tell you what we did you may think twice about the sacrifice, but to me it was worth it. Our parents donation paid for the "down payment" at Biltmore to hold our date. I took a part time job (in addition to my full time engineering job at the time) waiting tables at a diner on the weekend. We rented out a room in our house for 4 months. Every week I wrote checks to Biltmore and our vendors. Sometimes they were large and sometimes they were small. Everything was paid for in cash. We didn't eat ramen noodles, but anything we had leftover at the end of each pay period went out to one of our vendors. By the time our wedding came around, we didn't owe anyone money which felt awesome.

We went to Costa Rica on our honeymoon and charged the entire trip (yay, reckless abandon!) to a low interest mileage credit card. We paid it off with our tax refund 4 months later. This September we will be married 3 years, and I still think about our wedding quite a bit. Friends and family who were in attendance still talk about the flowers, the cake, and the fillet mignon. Do I regret spending the same amount on 50 people that some couples would spend on 150? Absolutely not.

Image courtesy of Castell Photography

Thank you Rachael, for sharing some great wedding planning tips!!!

I've seen some of her wedding pictures friends... and I have to say, the one up there is one of my ABSOLUTE favorites!!! Can't beat a happy couple on a lovely path with some cows in the background. ;)

Have a lovely day!!!

Wedding Week Guest Post - Monique of Oh Darling Bride

Hello lovelies! Today we have one of my favorite wedding bloggers guest posting for my wedding week off! :)

Monique of Oh Darling Bride

She is a South African lovely with some of the best wedding ideas!

Today she's here to share a GREAT photo station idea with us!

Please leave her some bloggie love as I prepare to become a MRS this weekend! :)

Here's Monique!!!

Crazy for Photo Stations 

Hi there, I'm Monique from Oh Darling Bride, a South African wedding blog for down-to-earth brides. It's such an honour to be guest blogging while Kassi gets married to her Mr (Yay Kassi!)

Today I'm sharing a practical idea my husband and I tried at our wedding and loved! I'm talking about photo stations, a super way to encourage guests to download their photos of your wedding and share them with you before they leave.

Here are a few photo station shots courtesy of our friends and family...

This is how we did it:

• We set up our laptop (which has a built-in card reader) at the reception venue as a 'photo station.'
• I asked my tech savvy brother to help our guests download their photos before they left.
• Our guests downloaded their happy snaps throughout the evening.
• We set the laptop on slide show and enjoyed cute wedding slides while dancing the night away. Brilliant!
• We even got video footage of our first dance (which you can check out here)

While I highly recommend investing in professional photography, family and friends often capture those goofy poses and sweet moments you'll treasure. So if your friends and family pathological picture takers, set up a photo station...you'd be mad not to!

Happy wedding planning :)

Monique 

 Oh Darling Bride {The Blog} * Facebook * Twitter * Pinterest * Bloglovin'

THANKS to Monique for sharing this AWESOME wedding idea with us!!! 

This is a GREAT way to round up all those photos taken during your day! :)

Have a great day friends!!!

Wedding Week Guest Post - Alisha of All About Us

 OK FRIENDS!! It's time to start my WEDDING Bloggie Break! 

Throughout the few days surrounding our wedding day on Saturday, there will be some AMAZING guest posters popping by My Road to Mrs to share some FABULOUS wedding related posts, while I'm off marrying my mister! :)

Today we have Guest Poster #1!! My sweet (real-life) friend Alisha!!

She has a lovely inspiration board to share and some GREAT wedding tips!

So please, share some bloggie love with her, and all my guests, while I am away! 

Thanks!

Here's Alisha...

Hello all! My name is Alisha and I blog about nothing over at All About Us.

Sweet Kassi is allowing me to post a little wedding something while she is off getting married!

I am sooo excited for her and her love! Being married is pretty much the best thing ever!

Wouldn't it be great (for those of us that are married) if we could all have a wedding do over? 

Every woman that has been married goes through this phase, I’m sure of it (Or is it just me??). 

I was quite young when I got married so I didn't know much.

As much as I love my husband, I don’t particularly love everything I did with our wedding. 

I’d like to think I’m a little more informed now about the whole wedding thing (I spend way more time than I should on photography and wedding blogs). 

So, if I could do the day all over again, this is how I would do it (if money was no object).

1. Mustard Shoes 2. Fancy New York Dress 3. Letterpress Invites 

4. Tie 5. Gray Bridesmaid Dress 6. Boutonniere 7. Floral Artwork Dress 8. Birdcage Veil

My style has definitely changed and become more sophisticated over the years (I'd like to think).

There are also a few things, non-style wise, that I would do differently as well. 

First of all, I would not have hand addressed 500 invitations. I thought it would be personal but it ended up being torture. Labels FTW.

Second, I would have delegated to more people instead of doing it all myself or putting so much pressure on just one beloved sister (don't get me wrong, she was wonderful, but it may have been too much for just one person to handle). 

And third, I would have definitely searched and researched a whole lot more. There are so many resources at our disposal for wedding things. I really wish I would have learned what I really wanted from a wedding instead of what I thought I wanted... does that make sense?

I hope some of these tips have been helpful to you!

After it's all said and done, the most important thing is, you are marrying the love of your life and that is so much better than some silly decorations. 

Thanks Alisha!!! 

What a beautiful wedding that would be! And I've seen her wedding photos friends... 

She had a beautiful wedding in real life too! :) 

Have a great Tuesday!!!

Happy Independence Day!!!

Happy 4th of July friends!!!

To celebrate... 
How about some patriotic wedding cakes! :)

Source: flickr.com via Kassi on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Kassi on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Kassi on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Kassi on Pinterest

5 Days until our WEDDING!!! :)

And TOMORROW starts my

Wedding Week Guest Poster Series!!!

They'll be sharing some fun wedding related posts with you all while I'm getting ready to get married, getting married, and enjoying being married!!! ;)

Please come back by and pay a visit to some of the most fabulous ladies!! 

My Last Name.

Mr. M and I have been "together" as it were for over five years... 

Mr. M and I snorkeling in South Padre, Texas

We've already gone through majority of the big changes a newly married couple experiences. 

The biggest change coming after we're married is my last name. 

I was curious so I logged on to Facebook to see how you go about changing your name on there...

You know, so that when the time comes I'll be ready of course. 

Facebook print screen

Turns out its as easy as clicking change under My Account -> Settings. 

Who knew?!?

I'm hoping getting used to a new last name in real life will be as easy as changing it on Facebook. 

Like I said, realistically it'll be the biggest change for us.

My last name will be growing. From 5 letters to 9. 

My sisters in law have joked that you learn to sign it in mostly squigglies because it's longer than what you're used to. :)

I'm VERY proud of my current last name. My father's name. My mother's name. 

It's who WE are. It's my family. 

Me with my brother and sister (one brother missing)

I'm VERY proud of my soon to be new last name. 

A good family. That's what everyone tells me. 

"You're marrying into the best family" they say. They're right. 

M. family picture

I'm very blessed. 

In my lifetime I have had the immense luck to be blessed with not one but two perfect last names. 

I CANNOT wait to join those two last names, two amazing families into ONE. 

In 7 days. One week. 

Wedding week here we come! :)

We are licensed to wed! :)

On Tuesday we marched ourselves into the county courthouse... 

Up three flights of stairs to the Clerk's Office and bought ourselves a wedding license. 

We are now the proud carriers of a license to wed in the state of Arizona!

***

Mr. M was nervous because all he had with him was his driver's license. He was worried they would ask for a social security card or something and that was all at home... 

But they didn't! They didn't even ask for ID! 

They asked us to fill out a form with our names, socials, etc.. Typed it up while we waited a few minutes and called us back up to the window. She asked us to review everything to make sure it was correct... 

I skimmed over the parts she had typed in but Mr. M read the entire thing... Laughing the whole time. 

When I looked at what he was reading... 

"and do solemnly swear I am of no relation to Kassi..." 

He thought that was hilarious. 

To make things even more funny... She asked us to raise our right hands and repeat after her... It was basically this is my name, this is my birth date and I solemnly swear we are not related. 

Couldn't help it... like two kids we were giggling away. 

I know that's serious stuff in some places... But come on... You just gotta laugh. 

And for the record, Mr. M and I are not related. We swore to it Tuesday. Haha!

Another check mark on my Knot wedding checklist. 

That list is really starting to dwindle... YAY!!!

Get the marriage license and make appointments for blood tests (if necessary). 

Check when the license expires.

If you wanna know more on getting a marriage license in the state of AZ, you can read this post.

No blood tests needed. :)

9 days until our wedding!!!