rehearsal night

So I have been collecting many, many ideas for decorations and different ideas and whatnot, and today I feel like sharing options for my rehearsal dinner dress. Haha, it's the one other time that I get to dress pretty since I get to be the "fake bride" for a bit during the practice run, and I came across this awesome site called Unique Vintage and am absolutely IN LOVE with their dresses.









These are a small selection of what they have...and the even better fact? They aren't super expensive! Which makes me even more happier, since these dresses can actually possibly be a reality, instead of just pretty pictures that I collect. Obviously I wont be purchasing until closer to the date, but I'm excited so far!

maybe?!?

I think we might have found a reception site. Nothing is set in stone, and my mom is heading to look at it for me soon, but if it really is like the pictures, I will be one HAPPY, happy camper....

ceremony site

So this has been planned for a while now, but I figured I should finally share the details of the ceremony site. I guess I've just been a bit paranoid that something would fall through or some other catastrophe would happen. But everything seems confirmed now, so I think we are safe!

I have tons of ideas for the setup, and Adam can't seem to visualize what the place will look like since he has only seen it in the winter with the leaves gone and the place looking pretty much, dead. I'll post my ideas some other time, but as of now, this is the ceremony site! Obviously picture it with pretty colored fall leaves. Not dead, stick-like things.

The lake on the property

This would be my entrance. Good lordy look at those stairs!

This is where I want the actual ceremony. Right at the end of this walkway, the chairs will be on either side, and those stairs where you "enter" is right off to the left.

This is the other spot where most people have the ceremony, in between these trees. It's pretty...I just like the other spot better.

A couple more views of the property.

So pretty! Adam has no imagination, but I see the trees all bloomed (I did see it in the fall too, I just was stupid and forgot to take pictures. Smart, Cassie, real smart.) with rose petals on the ground and little white wooden chairs down the aisle. Mmmm, so excited. And we looked at tons of places, none of them just had this...feeling. When I had pictured my outdoor ceremony place in my head, nothing that we had looked at FIT. But then I saw this place and it just felt perfect. Now I just have to pray and pray for no rain...

pretty pictures

I swear I went through about 50 different photographers for the ceremony. Apparently all photographers in Springfield are either ridiculously expensive, or charge a flat fee for all day coverage. I just wanted someone who would be there for about 6 hours, get the getting ready and the ceremony, edit the pictures, and then give me all of them on a DVD. No albums, no extra frills- I know what that all costs to make and when I can do that myself, I'd much rather put that money elsewhere. I finally narrowed it down to 3 different people, and in the end decided on Heather Hoadley. Again I feel so lucky, because I think I got really, really lucky with her. She worked with me on the price, mostly because she is fairly new to the wedding scene (she specializes in portraiture) and is giving me all of the images on a DVD with a release. I'm really excited. I chose her in the end because she just seemed like the nicer person, was open to changing things up, and I'm a big fan of her editing styles. It's incredibly hard to find someone who works with textures in their editing who doesnt charge thousands of dollars. So this major hurdle is over, thank god.

Now we have to concentrate on the reception site. This is becoming an absolute major headache...I'm really starting to worry that we wont find anything down there and it's really depressing me. So far the art galleries have been a bust...there is one I want to look in to more, but the others are either too small or dont rent out their space.

We are much less than a year out now, we definitely need to decide this!!!

reception? anyone?

We are still hung up on this reception site. I swear I have looked in to possibly every possible venue in the Springfield and Branson area and nothing just screams WEDDING to me. The one place that we were so excited to see turned out to be an absolute bust, with the actual "hall" being in a storage garage- literally. In fact, they used giant sheets to cover the garage doors. The pictures on their sites made it look so pretty, but in person it was just...not. I wanted to cry- I had such high hopes for that place. Now I'm resorting to some..unconventional means and emailing the local art galleries, hoping that they might rent out their spaces. This is why we wanted our reception in Kansas City, everything here we can find and it's just absolutely perfect. But everything here is expensive, and we dont really want to shell out a minimum of $20 grand (yes, I said $20 GRAND) on food. But honestly, how perfect would this place be??



Guhh, I just LOVE it. It has the modern, urban style and the rustic feel of a fall wedding. Too bad they arent flexible with their menus, and for the SMALLEST plate, still comes out to be close to $15,000 for 100 people.

Hopefully we'll hear back from the art galleries soon.