7 (ish) more months to go-The Dress...for my BM's

We just passed our 7 month marker! I feel like we've done a lot in the planning process but also that we have so much left to do.

Things we've checked off of our list:-Ceremony venue & reception hall
-photographer & e-pics (first session)-DJ
-Transportation (We're taking a trolley from the church to reception)
-My Dress & shoes :-)
-MOH Dress
-BM Dresses :-)-Flowers
-Honeymoon Booked! St. Lucia, here we come!!

Things we have left to do:
Too many to remember...

So, here's the scoop with the bridesmaid dresses. Awhile back, I wrote about shopping for BM dresses with 3 of my girls. After this shopping trip I was torn on what to do. It didn't help that the girls looked great in almost every single dress. I wanted the dresses to be knee-length and easily wearable again, either to another wedding or some sort of function. I fell in love with a few dresses from LulaKate, however the price was more than I wanted each girl to spend. So, I asked my bridesmaids how much they would feel comfortable spending on a dress. Most of them gave me a general answer of, "Whatever you like, it's your day we'll pay whatever." With the exception of one, which I appreciated for her honesty. She gave me an amount that was well under what I was asking them to pay. So I thought about it a little more and I decided to go with the nicest, best looking bridesmaid dresses. And the best part is that they got to pick their own skirt that would best flatter them.

I went with two different styles of LulaKate dresses. The Maggie and the Pearl. Each girl will be alternating styles. I let my sister pick which one she wanted to wear because she is going to be my maid of honor and I put my friend, Rachel, in the line up of where she would fall the wear the Maggie since I knew she would feel most comfortable in a one strap as opposed to a strapless. Everything else just fell into place.

The color of the dresses will be passion, which is a shade of purple. Each girl can pick out whatever shoes they want, as long as they're silver.

Above is an example of the color...

And here's an example of the two styles together...

The girls are very excited for their dresses and I can't wait to see how lovely they will all look in them.

Save the Date-8 more months to go!

Our save the date postcards went out last week! And the good news is, none were returned! Awesomeness. I designed the postcards myself using Adobe InDesign and then got them printed from vista print. 100 postcards for 30 bucks! Not too bad. I went to pick up my dress this past weekend and I love it!!! I did not want take it off. What I love about it is that it's different. I've seen different variations of the dress in bridal magazines, but it's still not a popular dress. It fits me perfectly, the only thing right now that needs to be altered is the length. But I definitely have some upper body toning to do. No sausage arms for this bride to be.

9 Months to go...Our Photographer

After the cake has been cut, the first dance has been danced, all you have left to remember your day is your photographs. So this was the second most important thing to me. I wanted a photographer who could take really great photojournalistic pictures and who wasn't outrageously priced.

We met Olga Thomas, last October. She was so nice, very laid back and did wonderful work. All for a price within our budget. So after talking to a few other photographers, we decided that she would be the one to take our pictures. I just love her work and everytime I see a new wedding that she worked on, I just get more and more excited for ours.

She came to Chicago and did an engagement session with us in May. Here's a link to some of the pictures. I blogged about it an earlier post.

10 months to go-Our Reception Venue

Happy Friday! Today officially marks the 10 month mark until the big day. Every month, on the third, I will be blogging about some part of our wedding planning process. I love weddings, but I can only write so much about them before it starts to get mundane.

Wedding planning, so far, has been a rollercoaster of emotion. I can sum it up as this: "Wedding planning is the most fun I'll never want to have again." I was really excited at first. I think I bought every wedding magazine out there the day after we got engaged. From excited, I became really overwhelmed with all the decisions that had to be made. Then came frustration. I found a great venue in IL, and my mom threw a fit because I wasn't getting married in WI-where I'm from. Long story short, she won that war-but I picked out the best venue in Milwaukee. Now I'm content and everything is falling right into place. Before LC left, I wanted to make sure that we got all of the imporant stuff decided together and that I wasn't the only one making the decisions. The first thing we did together was look for the reception and ceremony site.

We will be getting married in a church just outside of Milwaukee and our reception is going to be at Pier Wisconsin in the Discovery World Museum. I fell in love with this space instantly and I knew that I would. It was new, it is on Lake Michigan, it would be perfect for a summer wedding, it was out of our budget. LC and I found a place within our budget that we liked a lot and that we thought would be just fine for our wedding. But when my mom got wind of us getting married in IL and not in WI, she thew a fit. She wouldn't talk to me and she was really beside herself. (Can we say momzilla?) So to make her happy, I decided to look at venues in Milwaukee. I found two others that I really liked but were in the suburbs. LC and I decided to try to keep it in Milwaukee because that would make it easier for our guests traveling from Chicago. And that's how we came to decide on Pier Wisconsin. We're getting married on a Sunday so that brought down the cost some. I'm so happy that we were able to find a place that EVERYONE could agree upon. Our wedding date coinsides with Milwaukee Lakefront's big bang fire works display and we will have an awesome view of it! I can't wait for our big party.