so, our friend that we were hoping to talk into catering isn’t able to do it. so…. i’m scouring the internet and the yellow pages for potential caterers. i’ve found a LOT of people that i’m sure we DON’T want to cater our wedding. and maybe one potential possibility (i AM feeling optimistic aren’t i?). he sounded quite cool and laid-back on the phone, and was willing to explain some basic stuff to me. i got his info packet in the mail on friday and it seems not too bad. i’m going to try to get us an appointment for next weekend.
the prices seem reasonable (ok, seriously? what do i know?), and he seems to be into using local products.
i didn’t see one single vegetarian possibility listed, however. (and while i think it might just be entertaining to serve a steak or something to our meat-hating guests — who account for almost half the list — apparently, that’s not terribly polite. who knew?) so, i need to see what his level of flexibility/creativity is on that one.
what i’m thinking is: heavy appetizers during the cocktail hour(s) (vegetarian and non, and including snails and foie gras!!), very small salad/appetizer at table, main dish (with vegetarian alternative), cheese course. my mom’s trying to promote the buffet idea, but i have some trouble seeing it.
then (i guess?) coffee and (maybe) non-cake dessert? wedding cake (american and french) a little later? hey — anyone got any ideas about this? it’s been about 10 years since i’ve been to a wedding, and i’m really fuzzy on a lot of the practicalities!
took a short break from documenting all the planning (and, if we’re being honest here, a short break from the planning part of the planning too), and now it’s all MADNESS i tell you!
[deep breath]
i’ll take it slow & try to get back on track, i promise.
Filed under: etc., music, planning, reception | Tags: checklist?whatchecklist?, general wedding planning
list of tasks for the coming week for me:
- last-ditch effort at convincing our caterer to be our caterer. failing that (sigh) come up with a plan B for food.
- contact the gite which seems to be in the same village as the chapel; find out just how far away it is; find out if they’d be interested in renting it just for the day of the wedding (so that the girlies can use it to get ready).
for frogboy:
- music stuff.
- call the chair/tent guy to find out whether we can reserve his stuff and what it looks like.
that and normal stuff (pay the rent, go to work, see the dentist, and convince the tax people that we don’t need to pay the WHOLE realty tax bill they sent us — that’s my job, as the smiley foreigner half to our household ). anyone wanna take bets on how far we get?
Filed under: music, planning, reception | Tags: DJ, live music, music, party, reception
so, music. not music for the ceremony, because i’m pretty sure we’re not having any, due mostly to logistical issues (see photos of ceremony location). that, however, i am totally open to, and plan to bring up, should we ever manage to make contact again with our priest.
no, i’m talking about music for the party. here’s what we’re thinking for the moment:
at the cocktail party, we have a band. this band, should it exist, and should we be able to find them and hire them, will be a jazz manouch group. lively, wild, non-wedding-ish. i love it.
during dinner, jazz piano. frogboy’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother (are you following along at home?) is a professional pianist AND has his own REAL LIVE piano along with a minivan that it travels in. and apparently is good too. frogboy has, on his current to do list, ‘call re: piano.’
after dinner, DJ? i dunno. seems like the DJ is the best option, no? someone who can hopefully come up with a good mix of french (shudder) music and, er, other (normal) music. i love the idea of live music, but since the party threatens to go until like 4 a.m., i’m thinking the DJ might be more practical. frogboy’s got a good friend who’s a DJ, so that too is on his to do list.
don’t worry about me, my to do list is infinite.
sorry to have disappeared. things got a bit hectic around here for a while.
the dress hunt continues. i found some other things i like. check them out:
so, yeah, i like sleeves.
thing is, none of these dresses is (i think) available in france. but what if i ordered the jacket-y vest-y thing from either the first or the second dress? and then picked a dress here that would go with it? is that a ridiculous question? i told you i don’t know what i’m doing. and honestly, i can’t seem to find much help from the dress store ladies. they keep telling me i have PLENTY of time.
anyway, this week we’re on pseudo-vacation in the south of france. where there are MORE dress shops to see. i plan on hitting some of them perhaps tomorrow. gulp.
sigh. after having finally agreed on BOTH sides of the save the date designs, i thought the hard part was done. ha.
frogboy hasn’t gotten all the addresses for his side of the list, and since his side of the list accounts for like 99.999999999% of the guest list, we’ve not gotten too far through the guest list.
but, we printed out 50 copies of side one. and we printed out side two (which has the names & addresses) for the people on my side of the list. AND i went to the post office today and . . . sent them.
this means that we need to make sure the website is exactly how we want it, since the address is printed on the save the dates. i think that’s the project for tonight. although i can highly recommend the site we used, there are still some details that are difficult to work with, because we need everything to be in french and english. more on that later. promise.
um, yeah, i’ve had my “save the dates have gone out” post ready to go for like, a zillion years now, but we’ve had a few setbacks recently (problems choosing the right paper, disagreements about style issues — frogboy has excellent taste AND is by profession someone who, you know, designs things, so i tend to defer a whole lot in this area, but we had a few small disagreements nonetheless). today (AS WE SPEAK) frogboy is at the paper store, trying to talk them into a discount. this was originally my job, but i really really don’t like this sort of job, and i told frogboy that it would probably go something like this:
futurefroggie: um, hi. um, i wanna buy like LOTS of this kind of paper. um, how much would that cost?
grumbly french salesperson: that would cost the price that’s marked, you know, times the quantity you wanted.
futurefroggie: um, ok, thanks!
so frogboy’ll do it. and tonight we plan to start printing them, and then we will . . . MAIL them! yes, it’s true. and according to martha (my mom just sent me a care package with wedding magazines galore, thanks mom!), we’re still within the time range (mid-october for a end-of-may wedding), so i am incredibly proud of myself.
photos tomorrow!
Filed under: planning
ok, so i was a little traumatized by my experiences at the mean-people’s bridal shop (um, i typed “bridle” first — not sure what that’s about!). not because they were mean, finally. and not even because the dresses were for stick people, believe it or not. just because, well, it was SO WEIRD.
first of all, of course they don’t have any dresses like i want. they don’t even have any catalogues with pictures of dresses that i want. BUT THEY MADE ME TRY THEM ON ANYWAY!
it went better than i would’ve thought. and i did really almost kind of like one of the dresses, despite its strapless-ness (and despite the fact that it was obviosly designed for an amazon, er, a slightly overweight amazon — the top of the strapless part was practically tickling the bottom of my nose) and despite its chocolate-y color they SWORE it was also available in white or ivory).
i also talked to the seamstress there. she swore up and down that sleeves are not something to add to a dress. straps? no problem (depending on the dress). sleeves? no way. buy a bolero.
i don’t LIKE boleros.
what do you recommend? i will go back to see my BFF at the other dress shop, but after that, i’m out of dress shops. suggestions? help!
and i’m not working this afternoon. [contented sigh] i think i will go harrass the ladies at the mean-people’s-bridal-shop. there are two bridal shops in town (not bad, really, considering the size of this place), and i’m already BFF with one of the salesladies. (she reassured me that their model dresses weren’t exclusively size 36s — i.e., size 4 or 6 — but that there were even some in 38!!! ok, that doesn’t really help, since i’m sure i’ll need more like a 42 or 44, if i’m lucky, but she didn’t stare at me like i was a ginormous freak or anything, which is always a plus.) my BFF shop lady told me i needed to wait until mid-october, which is why i’m off to see the mean ladies.
thing is, i know what i want (i think). i also know that i’m going to have a really hard time finding it, since what i want? is sleeves. sleeves on a very simple a-line dress. (did you know that in french, a-line is trapeze? it makes me feel so happy and circus-y, even if it’s not pronounced the same.) here are some photos that dr.google helped me find.
i love the shape of this (russian?) dress:
These two italian dresses have fabulous lace-y sleeves (although i prefer the shape of the second one):
(i think this last one is from pronovias, but i can’t seem to confirm that anywhere.)
what do you think?
we chose the chapel in the woods (i think).
what this means, of course, is that the dirt/mud factor will be a consideration for the getting-to-the-chapel portion of our program. for those of you less clueless than i, does this mean i should choose a dress without a train, or maybe even shorter? help!!!
also, seems that the plan is to hold the ceremony outside,
unless it rains the day of. in that case, we’ll take out the pews (?) and have a standing room only ceremony in the chapel.
what i think this means, practically speaking, is that i’ve got to be prepared for two totally different ambiences, right? the outdoor, sunny, flowery, nature-chick one. OR the indoor, cozy (cramped?), candlelit, romanticy-woodsy one. do you guys think that’s a big deal, having something that important decided really and truly at the last minute? do tell. . . .
