Dress shopping!

So I’ve finally started dress shopping! I was starting to get worried because I SWEAR, everyone who finds out I’m getting married invariably asks whether I’ve looked at dresses yet. And theknot.com isn’t helping by emailing me literally every day asking if I’ve put down a month’s worth of paychecks on several yards of satiny fabric. But I finally got properly excited for dress shopping when I dropped by a boutique and tried several dresses on. It was fun! And I think I know what sort of dress I’m really looking for now.

Updates

I just wanted to post a few updates as our wedding plans have undergone a few big changes.

The biggest change is we’re no longer getting married in New Jersey. As much as we would have loved to use the chapel, it was simply too expensive to try and manage everything else related to the wedding and wedding festivities in the North New Jersey area.

Instead, we’re going to be having the ceremony near my home, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Although it’s not set in stone, in all likelihood we’ll have the wedding at St. Christopher’s Church (on Kent Island) and potentially will be having the reception at my house.

There’s some various other elements of our planning that have been slightly revised, but those are the biggest updates.

Good News on Weddings?

From Megan McArdle:

Good news for me:  wedding costs are apparently down 33%.  Bad news:  this seems to mean that I am going to have to hand craft invitations and centerpieces.  A gifted florist, I am not.

I’m no florist either, but still, savings are savings. Hopefully Reina knows more than I do on that front.

New photos

Actually the only new photos are those of the engagement ring, but I also added a few pictures of us from the past few years because people were asking! So take a look at the Photos page!

Date!

We need to get the word out to people that we’ve booked a date at the Chapel!

Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 11AM!

We’ll probably send Save the Date cards to family and/or people who live out of state, to make sure everyone can make plans for that weekend. By the way, there were no other available dates OR times for the Chapel in May 2010! Well we didn’t want to do Memorial Day Weekend so we didn’t even ask but that time slot was the only one available for May. Wowwww. Plus now that we’re committed to an 11AM ceremony we’ll have to start planning for an afternoon luncheon for the reception. But that can be fun too!

Wedding bands!

We bought our wedding bands, yay! There was a massive sale at Fortunoff because it’s going out of business (how sad!) so we went there to buy a baby shower present and thought we might take a look at the jewelry counter. We saw discounts of 50-60% all across so we decided to just buy the rings on the spot if we found what we liked. Kevin found his easily enough, a plain gold band about 5mm wide, after searching for his size for a while. We had a little more trouble with my ring because there weren’t many plain bands for women in my size. Eventually we looked at rings with diamonds in them (because more diamonds can’t hurt, can they?) and finally found a pretty little ring with a 1/4 carat of diamonds channel set. It looks very pretty with the engagement ring and doesn’t look too different from Kevin’s band so we went for it!

So one less thing to worry about, and at a good price too!

Wedding party

Kevin & I have both picked our entourages! I’ve known all along that my maid of honour would be my little sister, Rosie, and the bridesmaids would be my two younger sisters Romina and Rianna. Kevin finally got around to asking his friends: Kyle is the best man, who was his roommate for two years, and his two groomsmen are Steve and Rob, who also go to school with us.

Knowing Kyle, I’m thinking my bachelorette party is going to be EXTREMELY different from Kevin’s bachelor party.

Chapel

I just went to Mass in the Chapel for the first time since it was renovated and I swear, it takes my breath away every time I walk in. The decor is all so ornate and delicate, and the colours are astounding. It’s quite small – I always seem to forget how small it is when I don’t go in for a while – and probably only seats about 150 people comfortably. I wish I could’ve taken a photo without being… impolite but I promise it’s lovely and feels very holy and serene. I might try to get Kevin to come to Mass one day with me before the semester ends.

I really think it’ll be perfect for the ceremony – now I’ve really got my heart set on the Chapel! I’m sure all our guests will love it as well!

Flower girl!

Excited – I picked my flower girl! It was pretty easy actually; it turns out that I don’t know that many young girls so Elise was a natural choice. Her father and grandparents work with my parents, and my father is her godfather, which makes me her godsister! I’ve noticed that the god-relationship isn’t very strong in America, but in the Philippines your godparents and god-siblings are supposed to be a very important part of your life.

Anyway I went to see her grandmother (I’m closest to her) to run the idea by her and she thought it would be great so I went to Elise, who is three, with a pretty little note asking her to be my flower girl. She immediately said yes, albeit a bit shyly because everyone was kind of standing around her waiting for her response but I can tell she’s super excited, as I am.

She’s quite pretty, with sweet big brown eyes and a pretty spunky personality. Best of all, she’s a fashion addict like me – starting off at an early age! So I’m sure she’ll lend a very sassy start to my procession. Just need to go on a shopping spree to find a pretty dress for her! I think I’d like to go with something extremely poufy, à la Cinderella, with lots and lots of tulle. Something mainly white with perhaps a green ribbon and flowers for her hair!

Chapel of the Immaculate Conception

I’ve been emailing about booking the Chapel at Seton Hall University, and I think depending on law school we’ll try to book something for early summer 2010. It’s a little frustrating because it seems quite easy to book the Chapel (the woman who does the bookings is extremely responsive and helpful), but everything pretty much depends on where I’m going to law school, which determines when we can get married. Basically all that matters to us is that we are able to actually be together once we’re married; that is, I’m not in law school in Jersey while he’s in DC. So I have to wait to hear back from all the schools I applied to before we can set a more concrete date. But so far I’m really hoping for Spring 2010!

Anyway, I really love the Chapel and I think it’s really special because we’re both SHU graduates. It’s quite small actually; I haven’t been to Mass there for a while but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t hold more than 150 people. I love that though, since I’m hoping that we can keep the entire affair more intimate. I didn’t really look around anywhere else but it seems quite inexpensive too: it’s $1000 for the cantor, organist, and sacristan fee, but you have to provide your own priest. I think I’ll ask a priest at my home parish, St. Agnes in Clark, but we’ll see!

Also the Chapel is totally new! It was under renovation for the good part of last year and just re-opened a few months ago. I think it’s lovely and I highly praise it whenever I give campus tours.