Wedding Website Woes

Mr. Cathedral Heights works as a computer programmer, so naturally I’d envisioned him being incredibly excited about putting together an amazing wedding Website for us. Right? Wrong.

No matter. Plan B: Make the Website myself. I figured it couldn’t be that hard—just choose a service, fill in the information, and you’re set. However, as I spent more time researching each site than I thought I’d spend actually building one, I began to realize that it isn’t so easy. As with every piece of the wedding planning puzzle, complicated details emerge that you would never have imagined, details that constitute entire college majors. I scoured the net for affordable or free packages and finally decided on one that coincided with a very well known wedding site. This particular one appealed to me because, for a small fee, I could have the domain name I wanted, which meant the url would fit on the Save the Date postcards we were soon sending. I entered my credit card information and reserved our domain name. Or so I thought.

The morning after purchasing our domain, which the site assured me was available, I prepared to get to work and instead found that suddenly the domain name we bought was unavailable. Unfortunately, my aunt, an artist, had already put the url we created on the handmade original Save the Date that she’d planned on bringing to the printers that day. (Please note: If you are getting married, this type of incident will most likely happen more than once in the planning process). I asked her to hold off while I sent a barrage of messages to customer service. Days passed and I didn't hear back. I finally called my credit card company and asked them to dismiss the charge, as I couldn’t get in touch with the service provider.

Fortunately, a friend mentioned iWeb, a Mac application that helps the average user make a Website. I’ve always been a PC girl; however, I recently started a new job and have been using a Mac for the first time in years. Along with a tiny bit of help from my brother/Man of Honor and Mr. Cathedral Heights (it’s amazing how little advice they had to share with me, both being in technology fields…men…), I figured out how to build us a site using iWeb, and my brother generously offered to host the site with his mobile me account. I don’t have a full understanding of how it all works, but I’m almost finished adding photos and text and I was able to snag a short yet personalized domain name.

And, of course, the original wedding Website got back to me as soon as I finished building the site on my own. One piece of advice for the brides out there: read the reviews that you can find on website hosts, as some are much more reliable than others. Oh, and don't be too disappointed when plans go awry--you'll find a way to fix it.

Secretly Thinking Spring

The Dilemma:

We've found our venue and booked the date, but that's all we've done. It's unsettling to admit, but even among those two decisions, I feel a bit of unsuredness and remorse. I love Oxon Hill Manor (our venue) and I am undoubtly getting married there, but our date is scheduled as October 24, 2010, and I've secretely been thinking about having a spring wedding, not a fall one.

Initially I thought I wanted a fall wedding, because we love that time of year and we'd have about a year to plan. However, the hectic holidays and now-very-cold wheather has me thinking otherwise. I've been so indecisive about everything thus far (our colors and our theme), but I think that if we were having a spring wedding I wouldn't be having such a hard time making decisions. I've got so many ideas for a spring wedding. The list goes on and on. I can see it all in my mind's eye -- a beautiful spring day,  soft colors, flowers in full bloom, and the sun is warming the air... Ahh it's such a refreshing thought!

Spill the Beans:

My secret isn't really a secret because we've talked about having a spring wedding. We've actually talked about it quite a bit, but we haven't commited to it yet. I think both of us think (May, the spring month we like) is just too far away! Adding an additional 7 months to the planning seems excessive. What do you think? Do you wish you had more time to plan and prepare?

I think more planning time would be great, but that's because I'm a girl that loves weddings. Plus, I know this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I'm not ready for it to be over in 8 months! I love for it to last forever!

Lacking Ideas for a Fall Wedding:

If we were getting married in May, I'd love to stick with our original color palette of light pink, creme, and green. I like spring colors. I'd also love to incorporate a butterfly theme (have you ever seen a butterfly in October? I didn't think so). I want to have fans and umbrellas outside during our ceremony. I want tulips. I want more daylight and a "May'd for eachother," Save the Date...

So while I continue to covet all of these spring elements, I figured I might as well share them with you. Here are a few pictures that inspire my secretly for thinking spring:

{Photo credit: Martha Stewart}

{Photo credit: Silk Wedding Designs}

{Photo credit: Trendy Baby Boutique}

{Photo credit: Modern Girl Invitations}

{Photo credit: Pink Cake Box}

How did you decide what season you'd get married? Did you and your fiance agree immediately on the time of year? How long did you have to plan?

Things That Annoy Me About Wedding Planning - #2

If you remember, #1 in my occasionally updated list of things that annoy me about wedding planning, was: Dress stores that don't let you take pictures. And for #2 I'm going to have to list

#2 - Overused phrases in the wedding blog world.

I've been planning my wedding for oh-so-long, and when I first began there were oh-so-few wedding blogs. Now there are oh-so-many and there is one phrase that most of them use oh-so-often. I have to admit that in the beginning I was so oh-so-guilty as well. Every wedding I saw was just oh-so-cute and oh-so-beautiful and oh-so-elegant.

I'm not sure where this phrase came from...I believe it may have been a play off of the truly oh-so-wonderful and oh-so-charming events of wedding planning company extraordinaire Oh How Charming! All of her weddings were oh-so-amazing, so people had to find a way to express that and developed an oh-so-creative play on the company's name. Now every blog, whether big or small, uses this phrase oh-so-frequently.

Well, maybe it's because I'm near the end of a long planning time and am starting to burn out a bit, but every time I see this turn of phrase I find it oh-so-annoying. Sadly, I see it on a daily basis, multiple times a day, on oh-so-many blogs. Now I know imitation is oh-so-flattering, but as a group of wedding bloggers and oh-so-talented writers, lets see if we can all find an oh-so-new way of expressing how oh-so-spectacular some of these weddings are. I'm begging on my oh-so-painful knees, for my oh-so-fragile sanity, or maybe it's just time for me to take an oh-so-needed break.

Things That Annoy Me About Wedding Planning - #1

So the month of March was the two year mark since I was engaged (and no I don't remember the exact day that Fiance proposed). We lived abroad for work for a year and then needed time to plan so here we are now going on two years.

Some brides *think* they'd like to have a long engagement so they'd have more time to plan. But the reality is you really don't want that. I could go into all the reasons why but lets just say there is a reason most engagements are a year or less.

Anyway in honor of this mile stone I thought I would start a new little series that I will occasionally contribute to entitled "what annoys me about wedding planning." I have no doubt that at least one of the things that annoys me will probably offend someone but c'est la vie.

Number one on my list is probably one we can all agree on:

1) Dress Stores That Don't Let You Take Photos

O.k. so maybe back in they day before internet and thousands of bridal magazines it made sense not to let girls take photos...otherwise they could take the dress to a seamstress and have it remade. But in the information age this excuse makes NO sense. I can find a picture of almost any gown by any designer and usually within a day of it hitting the runway (except for mine apparently, but that's another story).

Here I am about to drop THOUSANDS of dollars on a garment and yet I can't even take a picture to be sure I want it. In what other industry are you treated that way? If I was dropping cash on a car, a house, a new couch, whatever, no one would blink an eye if I wanted to take a pic but for some reason bridal stores are the exception.

I can even see limiting the number of photos the bride takes for time purposes. Maybe the shop doesn't have time for her to be a fashion model for 15. But at least let her take pics of the top 3.

Not only does this not hurt business but it actually heps. I went to TONS of gown stores in the D.C. area and the ONLY one that let me take pictures was the store where I bought my gown. Now don't get me wrong, they weren't perfect...they only allow you to take a picture of your favorite gown, but it was so great to be able to look at it on me from every angle and not feel rushed.

After each store I'd come home and look at that picture again and it soon became the one to beat. This was doubly helpful, as for the most part I was shopping alone and didn't have other's opinions to fall back on. I'll never really know if I would have still chosen that gown had I not been able to take a pic, but I do know it played a major role in my decision.

If anyone out there can give me some good reasons why this rule exists I'm all ears!

A Change in Plans?

M and I had always planned on having a formal reception. In the one year and three months since we got engaged, I pictured nothing but peonies and sweetpeas, chairs covered in white with pink sashes, and all the typical wedding details. But when M and I first walked into Pinzimini, our favorite little restaurant in the Westin in Ballston, we started second-thinking our plans. Immediately, I wanted to know whether they hosted wedding receptions. Unfortunately, back then, there was no one to answer my questions and wedding planning took a back seat to other things such as the recent tragedy in my family.

Unbeknownst to my family, Michael had already taken vows in a Christian ceremony in Turks & Caicos (TCI), which I plan to post on soon, as I have some great tips on the island and resources for anyone planning a destination wedding. Nevertheless, we still wanted to celebrate our legal union with family and friends and have a “traditional” wedding. I am Italian-American. Needless to say, my family would KILL me if we didn’t have a formal ceremony and celebration. Although I’m sure our 4 days in TCI could not compare to anything, I know that the little girl in me would not be satisfied until I got to walk down the aisle wearing the white gown and veil I’d dreamed of all my life in front of the people who’ve meant the most to me all my life.

In any case, my thoughts of big floral arrangements and quaint ballrooms faded when we first set eyes on Pinzimini. It was more “us” than anyplace we’d ever dined at. It is an Italian steakhouse drenched in candlelight and bears no resemblance to any tired ballroom we’d been considering. This is not to say all ballrooms are tired. We are only having about 50-60 guests and so our options were very limited. Pinzimini holds about 120 people (from what their website says) and reminds me of the Italian restaurants I grew up eating in all my life in NY, only this is modern and edgy and PERFECT for my purposes. If you don’t believe me, take a look and bear in mind that the picture does it no justice.



So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I heard back from the events manager at Pinzimini and learned that we could indeed have our receptions there on August 11, the one year anniversary of our TCI ceremony.

Nothing is set in stone yet but we are working with the staff to find something within our meager budget. The only problem is that this throws a monkey wrench into all the plans I’d solidified in my mind in the time leading up to this. I cannot picture my Marissa lace princess cut gown with the (modified) sweet heart neckline coordinating with this room. Fortunately, I haven’t purchased it but I’ve been visiting it since last January and haven’t found anything that fit me as well since.



When I look at this room I picture something edgy and modern. I don’t see peonies. I see calla lilies.