Cake stand ~ I WON!

No, I didn't win a free cake stand... I wish... but, I bid on one on Ebay and found out I just won it!! Cory really wants the cake to rest on a stand so we went to Fran's Cake and Candy Supplies in Fairfax and reserved an 18" stand. When I told the lady who's making the cake that we finally reserved it, she said that it was too small. Unfortunately, Fran's didn't have a bigger size and the owner told me she doesn't plan on buying one anytime soon. Bummer. We had no choice but to buy our own.

So I won this beautiful cake stand today:

Diameter: 22"

Height: 6"

I have no clue what we're going to use it for after the wedding or where the heck we're gonna store it. Let me know if there are any brides, bakers, or party planners out there that are reading this post and want to rent this cake stand... LOL... I'm serious.

I guess when our cake is resting on it, it will look something like this:

The future hubby was happy with the recent purchase!!

Candles & holders

During my lunch break I decided to head over to Pentagon City Mall. It's conveniently located 10 minutes away from where I work.

After walking around aimlessly I wandered over to Things Remembered. They were having a 50% off sale on some of their items so I bought the Eternity Unity Candle Set which includes the pillar holder, pillar candle, two taper holders, two taper candles, and a keepsake box. Each of the pieces has Swarovski crystals and the pillar holder has an "infinity" symbol. The design is simple and it was a pretty good deal.

(I'll post pics up soon.)

Reception lighting

Cory and I thought it might be nice to spice up the lighting in the ballroom for the reception. I did some research and contacted a lighting company that looks like they do an amazing job.

(Don't worry, we're not having totem poles or pictures of leopards on the walls.)

We set up an appointment for someone from their company to meet us at the Westin on June 5th (the same day we had our menu tasting). He turned out to be really nice and had a lot of good ideas. Here are the things we decided on:

24' Drape behind the stage where the two-tiered head table will be on
Cool blue uplighting along all four walls
White uplighting for the drape behind the stage
Washes of moodlighting for the dance floor in warm and flattering colors (I think he said pink and lavender were the best)
Spotlighting of the cake table
Spotlighting of the two 6-ft. candy tables

I really wanted to have the entire wall behind the stage draped but it wasn't in the budget 'cuz we added the dance floor lighting. Actually, what am I talking about?! We didn't even have a line item for additional lighting in the budget! We were planning on just using the hotel's existing lights! Oh man... this is what I mean by "unexpected costs" in that blog post called "Budget." But they say that the lighting can really change the ambience and look of a room, especially the use of uplights. There's no way to know how it'll look until the day of so we'll see. Here are some examples of uplighting:




It's been almost two months since he gave me the contract. We were going back and forth trying to decide if we could lower the amount of uplights (he highly recommended that we don't do that)... or if we needed to spotlight the head tables (we opted for the uplighting behind the stage in case the bridal party gets too hot underneath the spotlights)... or spotlight the centerpieces (we figured that the floralytes in the vases are enough). Also, the spotlighting of anything required prior approval from the hotel since the lighting company would need to put tracks on the ceilings. Thankfully, the hotel is very lenient and has no problems with it.

It's a done deal 'cuz I just faxed him the contract and put the original and deposit in the mail!

Jack 'n' Jill wedding shower

Post coming soon...

Wedding rings are engraved =)

Post coming soon...

Flower girls' dresses

I've been putting off buying the flower girls' dresses. Mainly I think it's because the store has a final sale policy and I'm scared they won't fit the girls. Unfortunately, both our flower girls live out of town and can't try them on ahead of time. But I finally brought myself to do it two weeks ago. I bought one at the David's Bridal in Springfield but since they didn't have the other size that I needed, I had to drive to the Woodbridge store to get the other one. What a hassle! I chose style S1038 in ivory (satin, sleveless bodice w/ tulle skirt). According to the website, the sash and removable ribbon are sold separately but both items came with each dress when I purchased them.



We're not using the sashes/bows that came with the dresses though. Instead, we asked Jean to sew sashes from the fabric she's using for the bridesmaids dresses. She finished making them today and ta-da! The girls are gonna look so cute in their dresses!

(Disregard the lighting that's making them look yellow.)

Invitations

Post coming soon...

Privacy

I just realized that I'm giving a lot of personal information out on this darn blog!!!! Got a lil' paranoid today so I went back and blurred out some personal info from pics and deleted some info from old posts.

After the wedding, I'll put vendors and contact names back in the posts.