Wedding Wednesday: Venue Vetting

In the north east, we continue to recover from Hurricane Sandy. My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the storm. It was scary when Sandy made landfall on Monday night, but luckily, I am ok and my building is intact. So, as promised... I'm back this week with Wedding Wednesday.

We were last thinking about the venue and painting a vision for the ideal venue. The next step is to make a decision, so you can also set a date. Once you have a date, everything else is set towards the goal of that date, including all of your vendor interactions. So it's really important to vet through your venue options by asking the right questions.

• Ask every question you can think of about the numbers... How much does it cost? What is the per person rate? What is maximum capacity? What is the minimum guarantee? What's included in cost? What are all the extras and how much? How much are gratuities or taxes? How many hours for set-up, photography, ceremony, cocktail, reception, post-reception/pack-up? How many chairs and tables? How many staff members? How many weddings are held at the same time? How many menu selections are included?
• Ask for a full tour and walk through of the wedding flow to see if it's in line with your vision. Ask about the bridal suite and the behind-the-scenes areas. Ask about alternative ceremony and reception locations within the facility if you have any part of your day outdoors.
• Ask about the wedding agenda and make sure it's in line with your plan for the day.
• Ask about the payment plan and all of their policies. Make sure you walk away with a clear understanding of how much and when payments are due and don't forget to cover all policies include vendor restrictions, if any.

Come back next week for another installment of Wedding Wednesday.

Thanks for stopping by today and stay safe!
- KRAFTY pearl

Wedding Wednesday: The Venue

Happy Wednesday! Now that we've touched on ways to organize your wedding thoughts and notes. The next step is to think about the venue. The venue is an extremely important part of the day and it really sets the tone for the rest of your decor and vision, including your dress, your colors, and everything in between.

There are a few questions to answer:

• Is it a small and intimate or is it large and festive?
• What do you envision as your backdrop?
• What time of year will it be?
• What is your budget?

Our decision: Given our guest list, our wedding was on the larger side but it was important to keep it feeling small and intimate. While my groom didn't have a preference on the backdrop, I always envisioned getting married in a clean, lush green garden with sprinkles of bright, colorful flowers.

Photo credit: Cly Creation

I also envisioned seats on the grass... an understated, down-to-earth,  backyard-like, yet classic wedding.

Photo credit: Cly Creation

Once you've fully answered the questions, you'll be able to narrow down to a list of places that's just right for you.

Next week, I'll post a second part to the venue topic covering the different questions I asked my venue that helped me make my final decision.

Come back at 9am for another Mama Elephant highlight!

Thanks for stopping by!
- KRAFTY pearl

Wedding Wednesday: Getting Organized!

It's Wedding Wednesday! As my first official post since the announcement, I thought I'd start from the very beginning... When I first got engaged, I had no idea what we were about to plan. First, we really tried to give ourselves time to absorb and just be an engaged couple.

Revisit this project here.

We both mentioned in passing conversations that it'd be nice to have an autumn wedding. A couple of weeks passed by and suddenly, it dawned on us that we only had 9 months to plan a wedding. While that sounds like a lot of time, I felt overwhelmed by all of the different wedding checklists and timelines we had signed up for, which often made me feel I was really behind. The checklists are comprehensive and extremely helpful in identifying every possible detail.

• TheKnot.com
• WeddingLovely.com
• MarthaStewart.com
• WeddingWire.com

However, not everything applied to me, so I created my own list based on a combination of these lists and went about it at my pace. I knew it'd be too hard to keep absolutely everything online or a spreadsheet because I'm not always connected.

I received an extremely sweet gift from my Matron of Honor to help me start my journey. She even picked one with the colors I had mentioned would be shades of my wedding colors.

Organization that worked for me: I used this notebook to jot most of my projects, plans, and notes down. But I wasn't always so organized, so I also carried around a smaller more flexible notebook made of several sheets of plain white 8 1/2 x 11 paper folded in half. As time went on, the method that worked best for me was to put small quick tasks such as "buy something at the local craft store" on my sheets of paper, while more permanent notes such as those from conversations with vendors or vision brainstorms went into the notebook.

So if you're like me and you like to write things down, I recommend finding yourself a notebook that makes you smile... because you'll be carrying it everyday leading up to your wedding!

Thanks for stopping by!
- KRAFTY pearl

Wedding Wednesday: A New Series!

Hi, friends! My blog has been greatly neglected because I've been planning a wedding! Now that I'm married, I am back with a weekly series inspired by that very special day. Every Wednesday, I'll share a post about my wedding planning process... from the not-so-fun vendor vetting to the super fun, but incredibly time-consuming hand-crafting DIY work. Hopefully I'll provide useful info and how-to's to brides who are in the middle of their own process.

So come back next Wednesday to read about my trials, tribulations, compromises, and decisions leading up to this very special day!

Photo Credit: Loretta Tong

Thanks for stopping by!

- KRAFTY pearl