The Clock Is Ticking...

Only four days to go and I’m very glad I took this week off work. I have a few errands I have to run today and then tonight I’m steaming my dress and going over the music with our volunteer DJ (the real DJ doesn’t start until nine so the volunteer DJ will get the iPod started for the cocktail half-hour, dinner time and run it during our entrance/first dance/speech/cake cutting time).

This past weekend was super busy with my sister arriving in town on Friday night; my hair getting done on Saturday (it took four hours!), my stagette and Shawn’s stag on Saturday night (more on that later), my bridal shower on Sunday and then yesterday we finished these tasks:

• Created the centrepieces (at least as much as we could In advance)
• Packed up most of the décor
• Gave our pre-dancing playlists one last listen and loading them up onto my iPhone
• Created a super-detailed timeline (complete with key addresses) and sending that out to the relevant people
• Completed the set-up notes and sent those over to our décor helpers
• Finished off our “notebooks” (more on these later)
• Started organizing my day-of bag
• Wrote all the checks that need to be given out on Saturday

This morning I also steamed my veil and my party dress.

So while most stuff is done there’s still a handful of tasks that need to be completed. But at this point in time I have no doubt that everything will get done for Saturday.

One Month To Go

It’s now less than a month to our wedding day and while most things are done, there are still a few things that need to be taken care. Let’s take a look…

Done since our last to-do list update:

• Nail appointment booked
• Hotel room booked
• Hair highlighting appointment booked
• Ceremony music finalized
• Liquor permit form dropped off
• Marriage license done
• Favours purchased
• Favours packaging purchased
• Earrings purchased
• Wine sampled & purchased
• Cupcake flavours submitted to baker

Here’s what will get done next week:

• Order wine (need liquor license first)
• Order beer (need liquor license first)
• Book eyebrow waxing appointment (I forgot about this!)
• Finalize DJ playlist
• Finalize photo list

And in the two weeks after that:

• Finalize day-of schedule
• Create “décor plan” for décor helpers
• Meet with décor helpers and walk through plan
• Package favours
• Finalize seating chart
• Make escort cards
• Meet one last time with venue
• Check in with all of the vendors

Week of wedding

• Steam my dress (I’m just borrowing a friend’s steamer)
• Buy liquor
• Organize all the centrepiece stuff and other décor items
• Dozens of other little tasks

OK, that’s not too bad. I think we can pull it all off.

My Wedding Day Shopping List

I’ve just put together a list of physical items that we’ll need to bring to the venue, some of which I’ve already got and some of which still needs to be purchased.

While some of these items are certainly personalized to my wedding, I think there’s quite a bit of stuff on here that you’d have at any typical Toronto wedding.

Need To Get

• Card box
• Paper to cover card box
• Tea lights for escort cards/candle holders (I’ll explain these in another entry)
• Clear labels for the escort cards/candle holders
• Mirrors for centerpieces
• Rose petals/jewels/something for table décor
• Three silver picture frames to hold drink menus at the bar
• Little favour baggies for our M&M favours
• The M&Ms

Already Bought

• Guest book
• Guest book pen
• Table numbers
• Escort card candle holders
• Rest of centerpiece supplies
• About a dozen purple candle holders as assorted décor
• Two or three silver runners as assorted décor

I’ll also be bringing my party dress, an overnight bag for the hotel, a fairly empty purse and another bag filled with emergency/back-up items. I’ll list off those things once I’ve figured them out!

How We Did On Our May To-Do List

Here’s an update on how we did with our May to-do list:

• Block off hotel rooms for guests: Not happening because the hotel we were dealing with said that we’d have to pay for unused rooms. So, since this is Toronto and there are tons of hotels out there, we’re just putting a list of few that are near our venue and reasonably priced
• Book late July hair appointment for cut and highlights: I tried to do this but then found out that my hair shop will be on vacation on the date I originally wanted to book on. So now I’m waiting to hear from them about when exactly they’ll be closing up and hopefully I’ll still be able to get my hair done there, just a few days earlier
• Meet with sister and figure out her shoes/jewelry, etc.: Meet with sister, didn’t find anything, it’s now in her hands
• Buy earrings for me: I looked while I was in New York but didn’t see anything. I’m going to try looking in Toronto this weekend
• Get Shawn’s brother to order his suit: Done
• Figure out & order favours: We know what we’re getting and we’ll place the order in a couple of weeks

So yeah, unfortunately we didn’t get everything done.

On the flip side, I have gotten started on:

• The photo list
• The music list (including banned songs)
• The alcohol list
• The timeline (the day-of and the week-of)
• Seating chart

And on Saturday I did my make-up trial (more on that in a future entry) and we now know what we’re getting Shawn’s brother as a thank-you gift so that’s two more things done.

Over the next month, we’re going to complete the following tasks:

• Order the beer
• Order the wine
• Book nail appointments
• Book massage appointments
• Book hotel room
• Finalize ceremony music (we have a pianist and violist booked and are meeting with them tomorrow to sort out the music)

I’ll do my best to keep you up-to-date on how things are going. I actually have a list of topics that I want to write blog entries about but I just keep running out of time to write them. Hopefully though I’ll be able to get up at least two, maybe even three, entries this week.

May To-Do List Check-Up

OK, so let’s see what’s left for us to do:

May

• Block off hotel rooms for guests
• Book late July hair appointment
• Meet with sister and figure out her shoes/jewelry, etc.
• Buy earrings for me
• Get Shawn’s brother to order his suit
• Figure out & order favours

June

• Do make-up trial
• Book nail appointment
• Book any other spa appointments
• Book our hotel room
• Figure out the rehearsal lunch
• Figure out transportation
• Figure out what Shawn’s brother’s getting as a thank-you gift (I already know what I’m getting my sister)

July

• Create seating chart
• Write up escort carts and put that all together
• Ideally meet with photographer, wander through High Park and plan photo locations
• Finalize playlist for DJ
• Get wedding license
• Email list of cupcake flavours to bakery and confirm all of that
• Make card box
• Send RSVP follow up emails if necessary
• Start assembling centerpiece bundles
• Create itinerary and
• Go to Berkeley, review itinerary and give final guest count
• Last week of July confirm everything with:
  - florist
  - make-up person
  - hair person

On Sunday, before I made this list, I was getting a bit worried about what we still needed to figure out/get done. Now that I see what we have left, I feel a bit better about the volume of tasks. However, I still have a couple of other big worries and I’ll write something up about those this weekend,

Where We’re At

We’re now about four months away from our wedding day and I’m proud to say that most of the big stuff is done. Most of it. Here’s what’s left, along with some of the little stuff…

April

• Get my ring made (this is all lined up, I just need to drop off my engagement ring)
• Figure out guy outfits
• Figure out maid of honour dress
• Get hair trial (already booked)
• Gather all addresses (in progress)
• Create Alberta reception invite (in progress)
• Address & send out invites
• Do tasting

May

• Continue addressing & sending out invites
• Get earrings
• Book our hotel room
• Starting working on song list

June

• Makeup trial (booked)
• Start looking on photo list

July

• Finish off music list
• Finish off photo list
• Create liquor list
• Create seating plan
• Create escort cards
• Submit cupcake favour list to bakery & check in
• Also check in with: photographer, DJ, florist
• Final meeting with venue

August

• Let’s not worry about this month now

I’m sure there’s other stuff that hopefully I’ll remember sooner rather than later.

March Wedding To-Do List Update

A quick update on our to-do list:

January

• Get sample invite: Done!
• Write invite copy: Done!
• Get guys’ outfits: Not yet started
• Block off hotel rooms: In progress
• Start the registering process: Done!
• Make short list of cake bakers: Done!
• Make short list of florists: Done!
• Make short list of officiates: Done!

February

• Figure out flowers & hire a florist: Florist picked, in the process of figuring out what we want
• Figure out hair & make-up & book: In progress
• Hire cake baker: Waiting on one last quote
• Hire a DJ: Done!
• Hire an officiate: Done!
• Buy invites: Done!

March

• Figure out ceremony music: No clue
• Pick first dance song: Ha!
• Figure out rings: In progress
• Have all guest list info in our magical guest list spreadsheet: In progress

So the big lingering item from January is the guys’ outfits and I hope to have that sorted some in the next couple of weeks. The other January item is the guest hotel rooms but we have the hotel picked and we have a quote, we just need to tell them to block off about a dozen rooms for us.

I’m confident that the cake will be sorted out by the end of this month. I’m pretty sure we have a design picked, we just need Dufflet to get back to us with a quote (for some reason it takes them a week).

I am a bit worried about my hunt for an in-house hair stylist. There seems to be a ton of talented, in-home make-up artists out there but hair stylists seem rarer and I’ve yet to track one day who I think will work.

Then there’s figure out our first dance song and ceremony music. I have no clue what we’re going to use there.

Wedding To-Do List Update

We’re almost halfway done February so I figure now’s a good time to see how our to-do list is coming along:

January

• Get sample invite – done!
• Write invite copy – getting proofread this weekend
• Get guys’ outfits – uh, we have some catalogues
• Block off hotel rooms – this weekend I swear
• Start the registering process - done
• Make short list of cake bakers - done
• Make short list of florists – not quite done
• Make short list of officiates – the venue’s given us a couple of names

February

• Figure out flowers & hire a florist – to be done
• Figure out hair & make-up & book – to be done
• Hire cake baker – to be done
• Hire a DJ – this we’ve actually done
• Hire an officiate – to be done
• Buy invites – just waiting on figuring out the wording

Yeah, so we have bit of work to do but I think we’ll be able to get pretty much all of this done before the end of this month.