We’ve finalized our vendor selection for a number of things!

• Cake & Cupcakes (Thanks Lucinda!)
• DJ (Thanks K!)
• Photobooth (Thanks Shawn!)
• Day-Of Assistant (Thanks Hannah!)

Everyone has been very nice and we’re so pleased that our family and friends know such amazing people that can help our day be awesome.

Mel has been working on solidifying locations online where guests can pick up, make or assemble their own Victorian look. We’re not expecting that everyone dress-up, but we do think it’d be so much funner if you did!

We’re four months out, and outfits for the bridal party are coming along nicely. Flowers and decorations are almost complete too!

We’re working on our invitations now. Our original Etsy vendor was being kind of stubborn about changing colors, so we’ve decided to go another route. We plan on sending those out in mid-to-late August.

Finally, Joe and I have a list of hotels that are close to the Fairgrounds for anyone who might want to stay the night. We’ve booked a room at the Hyatt House, a great option for folks who might want to split a room with another group, since they’re apartment-like rooms.

You can check out hotels in the area yourself, or look at some of the places we’ve listed here.

After many bumps in the road, we’ve settled on a photographer:
http://heidisandovalphotography.zenfolio.com/

She’s great! Her photos are wonderful and she’s a very nice person. Thankfully Ellis recommended her. Thanks everyone else for your help, too! It was rough finding someone within our budget but I’m glad we looked at as many photographers as we did.

We’re sending out our Save the Dates now! If we’ve asked you for an address and you’re procrastinating, hurry up so we can send you a card!

We’re about 8 months out now, which seems both incredibly far away and not far enough! Getting very excited 🙂

After viewing the venue last month, we decided to go with it. The Palm Pavilion is a very nice place and plenty big for the number of guests we anticipate. It has a bar, too, which is very cool. A bit of decorating to make it in line with our theme is all that it needs!

Our date is solidified and booked! We’ll be getting married on October 16th, 2016. This is a Sunday, but since the venue is local we hope everyone will make room in their schedule to attend. 🙂

Our website is almost complete and will be open to the public soon. The Wedding Details page is now up, which has detailed information for guests who would like to dress in theme (and also some good info for the wedding party as far as what they can expect to end up in).

Our site should be just about complete by the end of the week.

This week, we’ve set up our gift registry. You can view it here: Registry. We don’t need anything in particular, but we’d love some help paying for the wedding and we’re always happy to get bottles of booze. We put our preferences on the registry page. 😀

We have an appointment to view our venue this coming Friday (so excited!). If we like what we see, we’ll book and solidify our date. Once we’ve got that confirmed, we’ll begin the task of collecting addresses and creating our save-the-date cards and our wedding invitations, which won’t go out for some time.

The Save-the-Date cards will probably go out before the end of the year!

We’re excited to announce that our website is up and active!

First, some info!

Our wedding will be a Victorian themed one! The entire bridal party will be wearing period/period-themed gear for the ceremony and reception. However, the garb that will be worn will be evening wear, rather than period-accurate wedding garb. This is because the average Victorian’s wedding dress is actually quite plain in comparison to many of the ballroom dresses of the period.

The time frame that we’re looking for is right at the turn of the century. By the early 1900s, ballroom dresses had begun to lose the extreme bustles and large sleeves. Men’s coats were open front and tailed, with a low-necked vest/waistcoat underneath. Mel’s favorite Victorian designer, Charles Frederick Worth, was very popular during this time period. Even after his death in 1895, the House of Worth and Charles’s sons continued to be the height of fashion for decades.

Guests are encouraged to dress in costume, if they so choose! Mel will post some info in the future for friends and family who want to dress to fit the wedding theme. It’s not required by any means, but costumes are lots of fun and that’s part of why we chose to do a themed wedding.

Our wedding budget has been figured and we’re currently in the process of setting up our registry, as well as waiting to visit our current venue choice. We’re currently hoping to have our wedding here:

That’s all for now! Our next update shouldn’t be far off.