Two great suggestions from Chrissy, for small, independent florists who could be creative and elegant on a reasonable budget (i.e. substitute expensive flowers for cheaper alternatives without losing aesthetic appeal, embrace the reusing of decorations, etc):
We had very productive conversations with both Kate form K.LA and Erin from A Stem Above. In the end, Kate’s style seemed to match us a bit better, so our wedding florist will be K.LA!
The DJ problem:
We wanted someone to play music after dinner was over (dancing during dinner, between courses, is ridiculous – and yes, I speak from experience). Having no desire to relive the puberty years, we did not want bar-mitzvah-esque emcee-ing, and we wanted control over the music that would be played. Given our guests’ tastes, the best hits of the 50s, 60s, and 70s would not go over well (though some judiciously picked 90s and 00s most certainly would), and there are some substitutions that we wanted to be able to make instead.
That said, we did not want to make an iPod playlist and let it go. We did not want songs that last 6 minutes, we did not want a dancing crowd to suddenly be forced to mellow out, and we did not want dance music pumping over an empty floor. And yet, we did not want to rope any of our guests into babysitting the iPod – we wanted to hire someone else to do that, preferably for not too much money.
Is that so much to ask?
Well…
We ran across many great-looking DJ companies which failed to meet our criteria, mostly by providing (and charging for) way more services than we wanted, and not allowing us to add songs to their libraries. But finally, this too was solved! Let me introduce:
For anyone looking for something between a full-on DJ and an abandoned iPod, this is a great-looking alternative. They also promised to follow directions such as “watch the dancefloor – if they’re having fun, play a fast song, and if people wander off, play something mellow,” which can currently only be properly evaluated by humans (though as two computer scientists, we wholeheartedly encourage research into robot DJs).
Time to make playlists!
We consider ourselves very lucky that our venue, Prairie Production, has absolutely no restrictions on the catering companies that may work in the space. This is very often not the case, so remember that choosing your venue may also limit your catering options. Regardless, ask your venue coordinator to recommend caterers they have worked with in the past (you may be given a list of required or recommended caterers to choose from).
In our case, Chrissy considered our budget and taste (literally, what type of food we would like :-)) and requested proposals for us from 5 catering companies:
Berghoff Catering
Blue Plate
Food For Thought
Jewell Events Catering
J & L Catering
After we reviewed the proposals, we set up tastings with our 3 personal favorites: Blue Plate, Food for Thought, and Jewell. Note: tastings are the greatest part of wedding planning, and also a great time to reward anyone in your family or wedding party who has been getting stressed out by the planning along with you. Don’t impose on the caterer and bring your entire party, obviously, but one or two people in addition to the two of you may serve to remind you that there will be other people eating the food besides you!
After the tastings, we narrowed down our personal preferences to Blue Plate and Food For Thought (I keep saying our personal preferences because I have nothing bad to say about all of these excellent catering companies – it was just a matter of preferring some courses over others, and your mileage may vary). Some more rounds of debate finally yielded our choice: Food For Thought!
To no great surprise to anyone who knows me, a wedding dress now officially tops my list of clothing items I hate shopping for, handily beating out swimsuits and bras. But success was finally had!
To start with, I had absolutely no idea what style of dress looks good on me. So first I tried visiting places where I thought I could try on a variety of dresses:
David’s Bridal – needs no introduction, better for quantity than quality
House of Brides – Think higher end David’s Bridal
Eva’s Bridal – somewhere between David’s and House, with a bit less selection
Doris Bridal – a boutique where the saleswomen do a great job of figuring this question out for you, and the prices are correspondingly a bit higher (though still quite reasonable for a boutique, I think).
After these trips, I learned which dresses looked good on me (which turned out to be only vaguely related to which dresses looked good on the hanger – seriously, just try on everything in sight in the beginning). I also did not find an actual dress that I both liked, and was in my budget. Everything was clearly proceeding according to plan.
A friend then introduced me to the world of department store wedding sections. If your tastes run a bit simpler than “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” or “Say Yes to the Dress”, this is an avenue worth exploring. Here are just some of the clothing stores which have a wedding section, with dress choices for both brides and bridesmaids:
Ann Taylor
JCrew
Nordstrom
Bloomingdale’s
I actually ended up finding my bridesmaids their dresses at JCrew, which makes for easy returns and exchanges to makes sure the right size is found (if your bridesmaids are not scared off by a no-exchanges policy, Aria Dress has some great looking options). But still no dress for me.
I finally appealed to Chrissy, and she sent me to a miraculous place: a boutique with extremely reasonable prices, selling gorgeous, simple, well-constructed dresses: Nicole Miller! Which is where I finally found a dress to my liking.
I would like to end this post by noting that you could find worse ways to spend an afternoon than visiting a Bridal Expo (the link is to the Chicago area one, but I have no doubt these things are everywhere). Either, like me, you will find the whole thing ridiculously entertaining and hilarious, or you may actually find some useful vendors or ideas for your wedding 🙂
We had decided early on in the process that a photographer was one of the most important vendors for us, so we focused on this task early and thoroughly.
Chrissy, our wedding planner, suggested three potential photographers:
Eric from Allori Photography
Nick from Gerber + Scarpelli Photography
Robyn from Robyn Rachel Photography
After having really great in-person conversations with both Eric and Nick, we chose to go with Nick, and are really excited about him! We unfortunately did not manage to have an in-person conversation with Robyn (the downside of planning a wedding remotely).
As a jewish couple getting married, one thing we must consider is what type of ketubah we want to have. A ketubah (Hebrew: כתובה ) is a special type of Jewish marriage agreement. It is considered an integral part of a traditional Jewish marriage, and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom, in relation to the bride. In more modern times, ketubahs also outline the responsibilities of the bride to the groom (as it is a equal partnership).
One requirement of the Ketubah is that is made beautiful and is decorated. So to that end we have been looking at http://www.ketubah.com/ to find Ketubahs we like. Marina looked first, and found about 25 of them, I looked after and added a few more. We are now discussing and trying to make a very hard choice, of which ones we like. As we know more, we will post.
Marina’s Selections:
Abstractions II
Love’s Mosaic: Emerald and Jade
Rothko – Blue
Abstractions
Ithaca
Eco
Kinetics of Desire
Love Song
Harmony III
Joyus Geometrics
Mystical Geometrics
Josh’s Selections:
Meant To Be – Teal
When the Day Blows Gently – Blue
You’re Within Me
Growing Together
Beloved II
Prosperity
Falling Blossoms
Op Fields
Moonfall
Update: Ketubah Selection (by Marina)
In the true spirit of cooperation, we narrowed our choices down to 2 mutually acceptable options: Rothko – Blue and Beloved II.
And then in the true spirit of making no logical sense, we realized that the best choice was actually neither one of those and chose Rothko – Red as our favorite. This kind of thing seems to happen a lot during wedding planning.
Two great wedding planning books:
Wedding planning websites, with resources on every wedding topic, customizable timelines and to-do lists, worksheet templates, etc
Though we finally chose Chrissy from Big City Bride to plan our wedding, we also talked with three other excellent planners, and we would gladly recommend them:
Here are some venues in the Chicago area with a ‘modern’ feel. These are urban alternatives to the traditional, hotel, or restaurant reception venues. We visited a few in person, and the rest just over the Internet:
The ‘in-person’ visits:
The ‘virtual’ visits, in no particular order(Internet-only):
We took another trip to Chicago to revisit Prairie Production and look at two more venues:
