What's to Eat?

Our choices were the top left and bottom right meals

Now that the invitation are out, we are free to give menu details!! I know you have all been waiting with baited breath to know the outcome of the tasting, and now you do! Alas, we couldn't fit the entire description of each meal on the RSVP card, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to both finish the tasting story AND explain the meals in more detail.

As you may remember, we had to narrow four meals down to two. It was hard, but we had to go with our hearts (and tastebuds!!). While I won't be revealing the appetizer and dessert, I am going to disclose the main meals to maybe make your decisions easier (or harder, as the case may be!!). Ultimately, we have 4 meals to choose from: the two we picked during the tasting, a vegetarian which we did not try or have a choice in, and a children's, which we also did not try or have a choice in.

• Duet of Sirloin with a Green Peppercorn Demi Glaze and Corander Crusted Marinated Chicken with Garlic Ykon Gold mashed potatoes and baby carrots. This dish was so delicious and met our desire to have a chicken option--the chicken-only choice wasn't very good--and we figured people who don't like red meat could just not eat it or swap out with someone who does.
• Mixed Grille of Sirloin and Jonah Crab Stuffed Jumbo Shrimp with Basil Mashed Potatoes & a Seared Tomato. Holy crap was this amazing!! Without question, this was our seafood offering, it was just too delicious to not offer! The neon-green potatoes alone make it worth serving!
• Butternut Squash Ravioli with Vanilla Sage Chestnut Sauce and Shaved Grana Padano Cheese. Vegetarian option they gave us.
• Chicken Fingers with French Fries.  Kid's option

Ellie and I have an unofficial bet to see which of the steak dishes is ordered most, but I don't want to sway anyone's decision, so we'll not talk about that just yet.

Food, Glorious Food!

Considering it's been almost a month since the dinner tasting, and we are going for the cake tasting tonight, it's probably about time I made the FOOD post. Warning, this post is photo-heavy (remember to click the pics to see them full-size) and extremely delicious!

Joined by the lovely Karina, Ellie's lady of Honor extraordinaire, and Danielle, who graciously accepted our offer to join us as an honorary Person of Honor (wow, that's awkward to say!). What we saw upon our arrival in the tasting room was pretty impressive:

Okay, this was actually the "sample table" where we go to see and choose the napkin fold and table number. I didn't get a shot of the "eating table" before we dug in, but it was very similar , only with more place settings, no plates, and an extra wine glass (we each got a glass of the house white, the house red and champagne!). Jocelyn, the event coordinator, sat with the four of us to go over details like those on the "sample table," centerpieces, timing, etc, and generally make sure we were all on the same page.

As the food began to arrive, she continued to sit with us to note our selections and answer questions. It was weird to be eating in front of her, and we all kept asking if she was okay--I know she does this all the time, but it was still slightly uncomfortable. Now, so you're up to speed, when we scheduled the tasting, we were asked to select 2 appetizers, 2 salads and 4 entrees (from 7, 6 & 12 options respectively!); we narrowed the field by half during the tasting and our menu (minus the cocktail hour hour d'ourves) was complete. We should have known just from making the initial selection that this would be a lot tougher than we hoped!

First Course: Appetizer



We chose clam chowdah :) and tortellini for the appetizers. Clam chowder is so quintessentially New England, and Ellie's family has a long history of tortellini soup for special occasions, this was the next best thing. Although we each got our own cup of chowder, we split 2 plates of tortellini--we all filled up on the chowder so didn't have room for the tortellini, that's why not much had been eaten in the pic.

Second Course: Salad

Again, we shared two of each salad: caprese & wedge. Honestly, these were the only two that really sounded like something we wanted to eat. I love that the caprese salad wasn't just red tomatoes--that slice of yellow really made the dish pop. Wedge salads are just awesome. You really should try a wedge salad, just saying.

LOL, you can see my wedding notebook in this picture!!




Third Course: Dinner

 Can you tell from this picture that we like red meat? of the four dinners we chose, 3 had some type of steak on them. This decision was actually really grueling because we are both such people pleasers, but also wanted to be happy with our choice. Clockwise from top left:

• Mixed Grille of Petite Filet Mignon and Jonah Crab Stuffed Jumbo Shrimp
• Filet of Beef Tenderloin with Scampi Prawns
• Duet of Sirloin with a Green Peppercorn Demi Glaze and Coriander Crusted Marinated Chicken
• Herb and Panko Crusted Breast of Chicken

They all came with some type of mashed potatoes and a veggie. I mean, seriously, holy crap these all look amazing, don't they? They tasted just as amazing, trust me. The four of us each took a plate and passed them around. I'm pretty sure we passed some of them more than once. :D We definitely hemmed and hawed about the merits of each, and what we did & didn't like. As she listened, Jocelyn shot out some options that allowed Ellie and I to make the most of the menu and hopefully please almost everyone. I know some people will bitch, but really? they would probably bitch no matter what we served.

Final Course: Dessert

Yes, the dessert will actually be our cake, but Doubletree adds a chocolate covered strawberry or an ice cream bonbon with it. How awesome, right?

The near plates in this picture are how the plate will look with either a bonbon or strawberry (imagine a delicious piece of cake between the whipped cream swirls). The far plate is just a dish of strawberries, the plate of bonbons was already being passed around.

Both were absolutely amazing, but it was really a no-brainer to be honest.

This was the aftermath (we totally housed the desserts). I almost wish we hadn't had breakfast, no matter how light, beforehand because that was a LOT of food! It's so wonderful to know that we and our guests are going to be treated so well. All the food is made in-house by the same chef who runs Bistro 44, which is in the hotel, who prides himself on only serving food that is sourced from within 44 miles of the hotel. That's harder to do when cooking for a wedding, but knowing there is an effort is nice.

I'm not going to reveal our choices until after the invites go out (about 2-3 weeks, I promise!!) to not ruin the surprise, but I plan to post a full description of each meal so guests have a better idea of what they are selecting for dinner. Everything else remains a surprise (I think...we'll see if I can hold back!).

Centerpieces--CHECK! (for real)

I've already posted what we plan to do for centerpieces, so I'm just going to nutshell it: small, battery-operated fountains placed on top of 2 paper-mache books which are painted in our colors (clover and sapphire). In that entry, I posted a picture of the unpainted centerpieces, now I can finally show the finished project!

Painting the books--we used a blue and green paint we already have, so they don't match exactly, but who's REALLY keeping track, right?

They were lacking something, so we got a paint pen and I added binding lines

The finished project, with a couple wine glasses to show size

And that's that! Half the green books are missing in the pile of wedding crap, but once I find them, I'll add the lines to them and I'll be DONE-done, but I'm counting this as one DIY project off the books.

LOL! See what I did there? That wasn't even intentional. LOL, wedding planning is getting to my head...

Centerpieces--CHECK!! (well, almost)

I don't like flowers. Let me correct that: I don't like CUT flowers--they are overpriced, overused and DEAD. So, I convinced Ellie that we didn't want the floral centerpieces included in our venue package taht guests couldn't take home & that we should do something awesome. She thought fountains would be nice, and the hunt commenced. Eons ago we found the fountain we wanted to use:

Now what to do with them? Being 4"x4"x6", they were going to get lost on the 8' round tables with all the glasses and whatnot. How were we going to lift them up? Going with the "Faerietale Forrest" idea, log slabs were our first thought, but ensuring they were all level so the fountains could work properly was going to be too difficult. Small baskets turned upside-down? Meh. Plastic display risers that you see in stores? SUPER expensive, and ugly to boot. Then, my dad gave me my birthday gift. The gift doesn't matter, the packaging does--a small (6"x4"x2"?) paper mache box that he had found in a box under my old bed!! He thought that my mom had brought them when she moved in during her cancer treatments, but I had bought tehm years ago for a craft project--the company had trippled my order & didn't want them back, so there they had sat for the last...6 years, still good as new.

Close enough; image from Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts

Stacking two of these babies would be perfect AND stick to the theme. Sunday on my latest visit to my dad, I scooped up the books (3 boxes of 12--more than enough for our 15 tables) and brought them into The Wedding Zone. We're working on painting them now (hence the ALMOST done comment); one blue & one green for each table, with gold pages & maybe some gold embellishment on the spines, I'll have to look into that. Here's the demo, from the front & side, with some glasses to give an accurate depiction:

Centerpiece Trial-front

Centerpiece Trial-side

How Can You Pick Just ONE Song??

When Ellie proposed, she had a playlist on her iPod all ready to go when we got back into the car. It was chock full of songs that made her think about me, or that she knew made me think of her. Oddly enough, despite her love of music, we don't yet have "our song"  because she can't narrow it down to just one, and the songs I would pick really don't work for her (she doesn't dislike them, I think they just don't 'speak' to her). Yes, the wedding is less than 8 months away, but I knew our 1st dance song would be hard to choose. I was hoping to convince her to do it, but she refused, only going so far as to narrow down the huge playlist from our engagement (not a bad place to start IMHO) to 6 songs. Now it's up to me and she's not giving me any more help!!

So I sat down at work yesterday morning, pulled up all the lyrics and YouTubed each song. Bringing the field down by half was pretty easy actually--those that did't make me cry were eliminated (hey, a girl needs SOME type of measurement!), but I still have three. I honestly didn't think this would be so difficult!! I've been listening to them on almost constant repeat much of the afternoon, with each affecting me to various degrees of crying, happiness and "this is it." Ellie gave me hell last night about which three I chose; and today I thought it wouldn't be harmful to be public about them--you'll have to come to the wedding or read the recaps after September if you want to know which one I chose!

If you care to hear them, click play on the videos below--the artist names link to their websites for credit purposes.


She's More - Andy Griggs


Then - Brad Paisley


Whatever It Is - Zac Brown Band

Have You Missed Us?

Of course you have!! Then why the HECK aren't you commenting?? I know for a fact that 16 of you have looked at this website today alone, and I haven't even posted yet! If you are reading this, then I assume you know either Ellie or I at least semi-decently and know that we are both attention whores (in different ways, but it's there) and we need you to express your love and adoration and awe for our wedding and planning.

Okay, that's a little much, isn't it?

Not much has actually been happening though. 2 weekends ago we scored our toasting glasses and cake topper, and there was much rejoicing at that. Don't tell Ellie, but I realized too late that the glasses we picked weren't QUITE the ones I'd planned on, but that's okay because they are awesome enough that I didnt' realize they were a little different. And, as we've been looking for the little things like favors/cake topper/etc, we've apparently hit upon a light theme, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. Suffice it to say that it's going to be fun and sweet and totally us without being ridiculous. We DID go visit the Double Tree to see what it looked like when not under 3 feet of snow and in the fall when the wedding will be held. It's very nice, and we're already planning the hows/wheres of the ceremony.

I go on Saturday to have my first dress fitting, and am nervous: is it too soon, will she be able to make the changes I want, just how much is this going to COST?? I'm also trying to decide on a good alternative to flowers for the Ladies of Honor to carry, and we have to work on planning the ceremony itself. I feel bad thinking about it all because it's still so far away, but I know that I like having things done ahead and feel better when I put check marks in the little boxes, so I want to get them done when I can.

Anyway, that't the state of the wedding. I wonder if Ellie is going to post anytime soon?

Live from Bedford: Jessi & Ellie Unplugged?

On the 241 South Studios Facebook page, Jeremy posted a link to an article on Offbeat Bride about having an "Unplugged Wedding."

So there you are at the altar, gazing into the eyes of your beloved, saying your vows. You turn to sneak a glance at your wedding guests, all your favorite beloved friends and family... and are greeted by a sea of down-turned faces staring at their LCD screens.

Yup, I'm as guilty as the next person of paying more attention to my camera and getting the "perfect shot." But really, is that picture, that I'm only going to look at once or twice for the rest of my life, really worth missing some of the experience? Heck, at the last wedding we went to, I was behind the camera during most of the ceremony trying to get the perfect shot--and it DIDN'T HAPPEN! What did happen was I missed some of the pastor's speech and some of the vows. Maybe that's why I've never been much of a photographer; I've always been too busy to remember to take the camera out (I've gotten better as I've gotten older, but there are no pictures from when I was in high school or college). And when I helped Jeremy with the GSEM Gold & Graduating event, we were talking about all the parents that didn't care about free professional pictures, they were all crowding around taking crappy cell phone pictures, not even paying attention to their daughters' achievements. It was also difficult for him to take pictures without a parent's head or camera in the way--if you read that article, you'll see that many photographers feel this way.

I am seriously thinking about having an unplugged ceremony (don't worry folks, your cameras would be welcome at the reception!). I might even talk to Erica about getting prints of the ceremony for us give with our thank you cards or something to people have something and won't feel quite as bad about not being able to take their own.

I don't know...I'm more just as connected as anyone, but I think this would be a really meaningful thing to do, for both us AND our guests. Hopefully Ellie feels the same way.

But I Want One Damnit!!

I want my wedding to have a theme. Not something like you'd do for a children's party "Come to my Pirate-Themed Wedding ARRRR!" (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not who I am), but something to tie the whole thing together, to make people look at things like invites and centerpieces and think, "That's REALLY Ellie and Jessi, what an awesome touch." Plus, I find it more aesthetically pleasing to have things go, like the Save the Dates and Invites both having cherry blossoms (I can say that because I'm not doing it) on them, then cherry branches as our centerpieces, and maybe soft pink napkins and table overlay. I'm not expecting the hall to be dripping in the silly little things, but enough to tie it all together.

But we have so many interests, and don't want to choose something that will be tacky, overbearing, only a little bit us, or overly silly. We've bounced around a bunch of ideas, and I have even more in my head. But then I start to over-think and the spiraling of "Is that US? How will I implement THAT with centerpieces? Isn't that overdone? etc" happens and I understand why people go sans theme.

I really shouldn't be thinking about all of this since I still have a month of classes to get through, but I wanted to process it or it would eat at me even more.

Two Birds, One Week

Holy crap, I have a dress AND venue!! Here's the story in a nutshell:

Last weekend, was the "dress looking" trip to NYC. I was NOT getting a dress. The plan was to get to the city, find our hotel, then come back into Manhattan to eat & putz around until Carrie got into town. Well, RK Bridal, the dress shop that was highly recommended to Jere, was actually right around the corner from where we got off the bus, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to go over.

Gilda was the 70-year old Jewish grandmother every girl needs--she heard my street size, told me I was in "The Diva Collection" and we started shopping. I was happy that part of our shopping included a tour of the discounted racks, since that's about my price range. All in all, I tried on about 9 dresses, most with some color, which was a requirement. The second dress I tried was an Alfred Angelo (actually, most were by him, which was convenient since most of the dresses I've loved were his designs). I fell in love instantly. The fact that it had come from the discount rack made it even MORE appealing (can you say 70% off?? I know you can.), but I kept trying dresses just in case. There was another dress I loved (also by Alfred Angelo), but it wasn't as perfect.

Needless to say, I bought the dress. Yes, you read right, I bought the 2nd dress I ever tried on, on a trip where I wasn't supposed to be buying dresses--and I had to tote it home on the bus!! But it is safely sitting in Jere's office closet waiting for me to find a good seamstress to take it in and make the alterations I want. No, my dress isn't available on the website, so don't think you've found it if you go perusing--it was a discontinued model, and I got the floor sample.

The Venue...as you all know, we were in a pickle about where to have the wedding. Mostly because it was Ellie's preference, partly because there were some details about H that we couldn't overlook, we went with the Doubletree Bedford Glen. We would be happy at either venue, but after going over the good, bad and mediocre between ourselves and getting feedback from former brides, we went with the place that was able to best give us exactly what we needed. I'm super pumped, we have a few days to sign the contract and put in the deposit, then it's REALLY ours!

Now to look into Save-The-Dates...

Making it Harder on Ourselves

Saturday, we went to visit D, which is a venue we had been thinking about for some time, but because it's slightly north of Boston, was a little lower on our to-see list. However, the single picture on their site made it too good to pass up, so it became the 3rd location we have looked at.

Holy bananas!! Honestly, we are highly unlikely to look at any other places and are actually wracking our brains trying to decide between D and H. D is amazing--the ceremony space is gorgeous and can double as extra space for the cocktail hour, the hall is big enough that we won't feel cramped, but I also don't see us getting swallowed up in some grand ballroom built for 400. There are a few other intriguing features that I'm not going to discuss until we've made a decision, but they just work so perfectly for who we are and who our guests will be.

I feel confident to say that Ellie prefers D and would book it tomorrow if I wasn't slightly hesitant. It's more expensive (although not by a whole lot), and I feel blasé about the hors d'oeuvres and dinner selection at D compared to H. And I prefer that the ceremony space is a lawn with trees instead of stone--unfortunately it seems to be set up weird and the pictures we've look at don't give a very good visual.

So we're in a small conundrum and are going to have to seriously sit down and decide...hell, it might come down to drawing a name out of a hat ☺We'll see.

Money and Etsy and DIY Oh My!!

One of the things I feel really strongly about in regards to the wedding is that we spend our money wisely. Too many people spend their money on (what I think are) frivolous things like ice sculptures, hordes of favors, or an abundance of flowers and candles that you are begging your guests to take at the end of the night. It's one of the reasons I am asking reception venues if we have the ability to not take some of the options (like an ice sculpture or a "toss bouquet" or whatever) and roll that money back into the cost of the reception and get the things I do want (like an open bar, or maybe an extra hot appetizer). It's also why I am very much into the idea of DIY and/or buying through Etsy.

Something that's been helpful in idea-gathering is the Wedding Wednesday Etsy Find posted weekly by Amanda at MrDrew Photography. One of my favorites was her post about a woman that makes headpieces, bouquets and boutonnieres using handmade flowers and vintage pieces. I can't say I'm definitely going to buy anything from this shop, but seeing Amanda's post made me start to think about some options I have for flowers that aren't just faux flower centerpieces. She hasn't been doing this feature very long, only a few weeks, but I'm excited to see what she blogs in the future.

Looky-Loo

This past Tuesday was Ellie's day off, and we spent the first half of it looking at a couple of potential venues.

The first place, which I'll call S, was nice but it was easy to see why the prices were so low. The outside of the building was obviously older, although the inside had been nicely remodeled in recent years. Based on our intended guest count, the wedding coordinator showed us a function room that was gorgeous,with marble and a glass wall that could be uplit in any number of colors, but was rather small. It maxes out at 125, which is about where we are estimating where our guest list will be--this means a TIGHT reception and the potential to have to really limit the number of invitations we send. The space also had some limitations because it was rectangular and had 4 large columns, which I know will limit visibility. If we were to use the ballroom, we'd either get lost in the 450-person capacity or have to split the room and have a function next door--yeah, that's not going to happen. Finally, they have no outdoor space to have a ceremony--the room we were shown had whiteboards along the main wall and I am assuming they don't have curtains to hide them because the coordinator said, "and we'll face all the chairs towards the windows so the guests see the trees; they won't remember the back wall." That was a serious - for this location, that they didn't even have a semi-nice room to have the ceremony. However, based on price and options within the packages, S is still an option; we'd just have to find another place to have the ceremony and tighten up the guest list.

H is gorgeous!! Unfortunately the catering manger had a personal emergency so wasn't able to meet us; he did have someone show us around for about 15 minutes and give us their materials. She showed us the outdoor area where ceremonies usually take place--unfortunately the 10 feet of snow that covered it prevented us from really seeing the space and visualizing how it would be actually set up (and pics online aren't terribly helpful). The ballroom was amazing, even only seeing half of the space--the only thing that would have made it better is chandeliers. We were able to get a few questions answered, but not many, so will definitely be meeting with the catering manager in the future. Our only problem is price: H is pretty expensive and doesn't have quite as many options.

There are a couple of other venues we're interested in seeing, so will hopefully be scheduling those soon.

Getting excited...

Wow time really flies, it's crazy to think a year ago I was sending back the first ring that I did not think was right to put on Jessi's finger. I remember because it came in the weekend of V-day and the place was mobbed. Now we are 20 months away from our wedding. YIKEs!!! and Yay!!! I am very excited because on Tuesday Jessi and I will be visiting 2 possible places for our reception. We have temporarily limited the reception area to around 7. So hopefully one of these will pan out. Once we have the reception hall figured out we can start the wheels moving with everything else. It seems so far away but in the same breath it's just around the corner. I hope by the end of this month or beginning of next month to have figured out which reception hall we want and to book the place for our date. :-)

Getting My Feet Wet

I didn't discuss this earlier, but I attended my first Wedding Expo a couple of weeks ago, hosted by The Original Wedding Expo by Chevaller Associates in Marlborough, MA. I was lucky enough to get a free ticket from Jeremy at 241South Studios, who is thinking about exhibiting at a future expo (you can see his review here).

It was fun. Most of the reception sites are outside of my search area--we don't want people who are coming from out of state to have to travel too far from the airport or major roadway. Because the Expo was in Central MA, many of the vendors were a little too far west to be a real contender. But I was able to find a possible vendor for Ellie's outfit, got to meet a LOT of photographers (it's what Jeremy does, we spent quite a bit of time at all of the photographer booths). I was a little put off by the number of vendors that were really aggressive, but I hear that's just what they do. I did find one vendor that works in silk flowers that looked very real, so that was a positive. It gave me an idea of what to expect when Ellie and I go to shows in the future.

Date? DATE!!

First of all, I'd like to direct you all to our "About Us" page (click there or on the tab above)--we've both finally updated it!

So, I think we have settled on a couple of dates so we can start looking at venues after the New Year! I finally pulled up a 2012 calendar and noticed that the New and Full Moons are both on Saturdays in September, 2012. The New Moon is a very auspicious time for new beginnings, and the Full Moon will be a gorgeous touch to an evening reception.

Having our wedding in September may create some difficulties with my career being in Higher Ed and it being the beginning of the new academic year and all, but I'll have been working for a year and it should be fine as long as I have gotten things settled, under some control and have people in place to take care of whatever it is that may come up while I'm gone--this is a one-time thing and I don't see my supervisor being terribly against it when the time comes.

So, yeah. Unless our favorite venues ALL have weddings booked one those two dates, I'm feeling pretty confident that we have them settled!

Party of the Year?

We hope so, at least as far as our friends and families are concerned. As many of you know, Ellie and I like to entertain--we LOVE to entertain, and we want to ensure that our reception reflects that love. This means it's going to probably be the biggest expense we have. We've been looking at places online, and it's crazy overwhelming. I had no idea there was so much involved.

Venue: Do we have the entire thing in a hotel? We're having a LOT of out-of-town guests from several states, so this makes the most sense (not to mention it allows people to drink without having to worry about a DD), but non-hotel venues have way better grounds. We obviously have the option to have the ceremony at one place and the reception in a hotel, but that's honestly a pain in the arse.

Food: Plated dinner or buffet? We both prefer the plated dinner, but it's pricier than a buffet. Then again, from the prices we HAVE been able to find, the savings aren't THAT different. However, the savings would still help a lot.

Alcohol: We want an open bar for at least most of the reception, but that is SUPER expensive!! I'd love to do some kind of "Open Bar to a Set $$ Amount" but haven't seen price estimates for that option. Also, if we're not at a hotel, we really have to face the issue of DD's and ensuring our guests get "home" safely.

Music: We're in agreement about getting a DJ rather than a band--DJ's just have better selection and it's only one mouth to feed rather than four or five.

I looked at a place (a hotel) on Tuesday; it's down the street from a friend's place and I was over there for a photoshoot, so we had lunch and looked around. There are some flaws, like the really pretty patio having the pool located on one end and rooms overlooking the area. It's probably still going to be on the short list, and we haven't spoken to anyone, which is a definite for any venue we look at. I know there is still plenty of time, but it's all stuff that needs to be thought of and I don't want to put it off too long without at least thinking about it all--the more decisions that can be made early, the better.