Sarah-n-Peter.com

Last night Laura drove up to New York after work so we could go look for a wedding gown today. Not only did we look, but I bought the best wedding gown!! We grabbed some bridal magazines to look through on the train on the way in to the city, and picked out all the different elements that I liked and didn’t like. Then we got in to Kleinfeld and I only found one dress that I thought would fit all the criteria I had chosen. So my sister (wisely) told me to pick out some others just to try the different styles. The main thing that was limiting my choices was that I thought I wanted a pure white dress. I didn’t realize that the dresses that were pure white were the polyester ones (oops!). So I ended up getting a “pearl white” dress in 100% silk. It’s so luxurious and I really love it! I don’t want to reveal too much, because Peter will probably read this later and I want him to be totally surprised when he sees me appear at the end of the aisle.

Tonight Pete and I had a little chat about who we want to ask to be in our bridal party. It was really nice to talk about all the reasons we love our friends and siblings and why we want them to be a special part of our wedding day. Now we just have to ask and hope they all will accept!

We booked our photographer today! We got up nice and early (at least for me) and had a long meeting at Starbucks with Danielle Richards. I love her style and was very glad to be able to book her for our date! She was very thorough in going over everything with us and she showed us many different styles of albums, many of which we really liked. She also went over some details I would never have thought of. For example, we will designate someone as the person in charge of rounding up the necessary people for formal photos since the photographers will know our bridal party and parents, but can’t possibly know all of our extended family. As we get closer, we also will come up with a list of important details we want to make sure are captured (for example my heirloom piece from my grandmother) or some of the details I plan to surprise everyone with! The only thing I forgot to ask her is if she has any recommendations for videography. I’m still not 100% sure if I want a video, but we will probably regret it if we don’t, right?

We decided today to go for table names instead of numbers. I want to keep the exact details a secret for now, but I had lots of fun coming up with the idea. I even went to the library to do some research for the different table names. I plan to make a photo for each table with the name, and then have a small icon of that same photo on each place card. We think it’s going to be very interesting and a nice conversation starter… hopefully. If nothing else, you can all make fun of Mr. & Mrs. Poindexter!

This morning my wake up call was one of my best friends calling to tell me that she tried to book a room in the hotel adjacent to our hall and there are no rooms left for our weekend! I was never comfortable with the fact that the adjacent hotel was owned separately and refused to allow any room blocks, and this is why. I really freaked out when I heard there were no rooms available and started thinking about changing our wedding date. Then I ran to the computer and checked the order for the save the dates. It was already processed and couldn’t be canceled.

What to do? We started looking at accommodations in the surrounding areas and found many options. At first I really liked the idea of everything being all in one place (the hotel, the rehearsal, the salon, ceremony and reception). In the end, I’m actually really happy that this happened! We can still have the rest of it at Atlantica, but I found a hotel that has a B&B feel to it but has 67 rooms so everyone can all stay in one place. It also has a bar and a pool. It’s only 4 miles away. It looks beautiful and it even has a bridal suite. I think everyone is going to be much happier in the end. So I blocked plenty of rooms to be sure we can all stay in one place and have our weekend getaway!

Can’t Sleep

It’s now 2:30 am. I was so excited that we finally settled on a location and date for the wedding that I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up late designing save the date cards and stickers for the calendar. I can’t wait for the morning so I can show Pete and make sure he likes them before I order them.

Save the Dates

We ordered the save the dates tonight! I’m so excited. We also decided to get custom stamps to match. I think it’s going to be really cute. I can’t wait to see them.

Today we officially decided to book Atlantica for our wedding on September 21, 2008…only 242 days away! It’s so exciting to finally have made a decision. I spoke with the owner and she e-mailed me a contract to sign. Tomorrow I will mail her a check for 1/3 of the cost. Yikes! (more…)

Today I drove out to the Hamptons with Pete and both of his parents. Pete really loved Atlantica and the surrounding area. It has a park like feel to it. We even saw a heard of deer running around. I’m so glad that he seems to like it as much as I do! (more…)

Today I was finally very motivated to do some web design work and not think about the wedding at all. I got a lot done. I think when I have a deadline it’s easier to make myself do work and put all other thoughts out of my head. After talking to some relatives to get addresses today, Pete said he wanted to try and make a family tree. I searched online for freeware family tree maker, and found an awesome program called MyHeritage Family Tree Builder. We spent about an hour putting in all the relatives we could think of and how they are connected to us. Then we got to learn something really neat. When you mouse over a person it tells you the relationship to the person you started the tree based on. So I now know that one of my family members is a cousin once removed. This is a really neat time to be thinking about a family tree too because this is the time when our two trees are going to merge into one!

I took a break from wedding planning for the majority of the day. I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed about all the possible details to look into, but still very excited. I did about 10 hours worth of web design work today, which is really important because I have not one, but two projects that I have to have results by Monday! Today Pete was very supportive of me. I’ve been a little anxious about how my family is reacting to the Big New York Wedding. (more…)