Full speed ahead

I'm terrible at keeping up with this blog. I have yet to contribute anything this year. And this is the year! We are less than 7 months away and charging full speed ahead! So where to start....

Now that we are back in California, things are getting done over the phone and Internet. We did go back to New York for a brief visit and we were able to schedule in a cake tasting with the fabulous Daniel Andreotti, Oheka Castle's premiere pastry chef. This has been, by far, my most favorite wedding planning activity since we started planning! Check out Graig and I with our massive platters of cake! We are not revealing the flavors we chose, however. We want everyone to be surprised.

While in New York, I also saw my wedding hair stylist, Megan Cook. She gave me a fabulous up do that will look great on the big day! She has her work cut out for her with my massive mane to control. Good luck, Megan!

Graig and I are happy to announce that we have added a few heads to the bridal party. My brother Adam is now a groomsman and Graig's sister-in-law, Jennie and cousin, Sara are now bridesmaids! We are both very excited to have them be a part of the bridal party! And speaking of bridesmaids, the bridesmaid dresses have been selected. As well as the junior bridesmaid dress. I know all of my beautiful bridesmaids will look stunning that day!

Next on the to do list: invitations. We have found ones we like, now we just have to begin the arduous task of figuring out wording, type of paper, envelope color (cream vs ivory?), inserts, etc. Gotta love the little details!

Engagment Pictures

I know it has been a really really really long time since I have posted anything. Graig and I have done all we can do at this stage in the planning process. And now we are about a year away from the big day! I have some engagement pictures to show you! We spent some time with our photographer getting to know him and his quirky style and I think we got some great pictures out of it! We drove all over Garden City Park and adjoining areas stopping at places Graig and I really loved as a backdrop. These include a graffiti wall, train tracks and train station. Click here to see the full album.

Up to speed

Hello all of you few people reading this blog. I know I haven't written in a while. We are keeping so on top of our wedding plans, that we have nothing to do right now. The videographer will get his deposit this week. The hotel for out of town guests was picked and rooms are saved. The Save the Dates are coming soon so keep an eye on your mailbox....

We have decided to put together a wedding website so all of you savvy Internet users have another place to check out information about the wedding. This will be more of an "official" information page where all your questions will be answered. I will keep writing the blog as a way destress when I need to. There may even be a way to link the two pages. Website URL coming soon so keep an eye on your inbox....

18 months to go!

Exactly 18 months from today I will be saying "I do." It's weird because I have never planned anything so far in advance and yet I know what I will be doing to the hour, 18 months from now. And I am so excited I can hardly wait!

Yesterday, I went out to lunch with four happily married coworkers who have each been married between 9 and 25 years. They felt it was their duty to fill me with nuggets of wisdom and advice as well as stories of the exact moment they knew they were supposed to be with their significant others. It was very sweet and I enjoyed hearing stories about fun times and laughter as well as hard times and sadness. It made me think, "I want to have all that. I am going to have all that. The good, the bad, and everything in between. And it makes me so happy that I will have all that with my best friend."

Ok, now about that wedding in 18 months. Planning is coming along smoothly these days. We have the DJ, the florist, and are about ready to put down the deposit for the photographer/videographer. After this, we wait. We have nothing else to do since the wedding is still a ways down the road. Save the dates will be mailed soon, but not too soon. And then, the part I am most excited about, the Dress! I am looking forward to trying on tons of gowns with my mom and friends looking on and giving me all of their worldly beauty advice.

The tears finally flowed

I am not usually the type of girl who pats herself on the back for a job well done, but there I was reading yet another Bridal Guide article on flowers or favors or something for "the big day" and I couldn't help but think that I have been doing pretty good on the freak-out front. I have now been engaged for over a year (February 14 - happy anniversary to us!!!) and I have yet to have a big emotional break down. Granted, the planning is going slowly so that definitely helps. But I can get very stressed out about what I am going to wear on any given day, so surely I must need to stress about something as gi-normous (gigantic-enormous for those of you not up on this lingo) as my wedding. Well as I was saying, patting myself on the back one day, crying my eyes out over flowers the next.

Apparently, decorating an entire castle for a wedding can get a little pricey! Shock! I know, right? Who would have thought? Well during our first meeting with a florist, I got a tad overwhelmed and freaked out just a little bit. I didn't have a clear enough picture of what I wanted in terms of my bouquet/reception table centerpieces/lobby of castle/etc. It was clear very early on in the meeting that I was not going to stay cool, calm and collected as I would have hoped. Charlie, the very nice guy who helped us that morning, seemed to understand my stress and helped me get through it. But as soon as I walked out that door - waterworks. Now I must take a moment to add that we were heading directly to another florist appointment, and after the 30 minutes I just had, I was not about to do that without getting some of the frustration out. Graig, being the calm, wonderful guy that he is, remained relaxed throughout all of this, including trying to calm me down. He was willing to drive me home and take on the next appointment solo (probably because he didn't want to introduce this sobbing, red-faced mess as his fiancee to anyone.)

After a bit, I got myself together and we headed to the next place. There, we saw sample centerpieces and created a better idea of what we liked, of what was uniquely us. I know our flowers will be beautiful and I can't wait to see everything set up in the ball room!

I'm ready for my close up

The wedding photographer. This is probably one of the most important people you will ever hire. The pictures are what we have after the wedding is over and we don't remember anything that happened that day. We need those pictures as keepsakes of the most important day of our lives. Without great pictures, how will we look back on that day and see what we may have missed; someone getting weepy during the ceremony, group shots at the bar, a drunk family member on the dance floor. These are precious moments, people!

Do you even realize how much these camera-wielding people cost? Well what's one arm and one leg when you have a fantastic wedding album on your coffee table? Yeah, its expensive. A few days ago, Graig and I met with a photographer to discuss our big day. This was a really nice studio and came highly recommended. They did beautiful work, but a little too pricey for us. Then last night we met with a second photographer. Slightly lower price tag and his work was just as beautiful. We have appointments with three more photographers after which we will hopefully feel confident enough to choose someone. Like I said, very important decision.

I think I should start keeping track of how many (wo)man hours I am spending on this wedding. It will be interesting to look back and see the time that has been invested. Is there some sort of counter I can add to this blog? Anyone have a suggestion?

Bride to be/Maid of Honor

So I am going take a break from discussing my wedding plans and talk about my awesome friend, Jenece, and her wedding plans. She apparently likes a challenge because she has given me the privilege of being one of her maids of honor! I say this is a challenge because her other maid of honor, Carolyn, lives in California. So we get the hopefully not-so-difficult task of planning the bachelorette party together from opposite sides of the country. We have a phone date this very evening, in fact. And we are thinking Palm Springs spa weekend.

I am very excited about being Jenece's maid of honor. Other than standing up with my mom at her second wedding when I was 9, I have never been a bridesmaid or a maid of honor. As soon as I accepted this post, visions of 27 Dresses danced in my head and the horror of wearing something less than flattering was starting to make me nervous. However, I thought to myself, I trust Jenece's fashion sense and she wouldn't dare make us wear something hideous, would she? Then I got an email from her with the link to the dresses she was considering. Not very hideous at all! I think I can handle these. After a few suggestions from me about color and style, I think she will make a good decision and let us maids look fabulous! And I, of course, will do the same thing for my bridesmaids.

I understand the idea of wanting to outshine everyone else on your wedding day, but why make your friends, your devoted besties who are standing up there with you and in support of you, wear something hideous and potentially ruin the pictures. I will be wearing a long white dress and a megawatt smile. There's no way anyone could outshine me on that day, even if the girls do look fab!

I am getting married next year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you are all having a positive start to your New Year. I know I am. Wedding plans were put on hold during the holiday festivities so that we were better able to focus on family and friends and holiday shenanigans. And if I had tried to fit anything else into the packed schedule that was my holidays, I would have gone absolutely crazy. So now that we are back into the routine, Graig and I will be focusing once again on the important things in life - flowers, music selection and table decoration. And since my mother bought me not one, but two different bridal magazine subscriptions, I have a lot of reading to do and wedding dress pictures to contemplate.

As the countdown to midnight on New Year's eve came to an end, I realized that I can now say I am getting married next year! It has a nice ring to it, don't you think? In the meantime, there is more planning to be done. And other weddings to attend. One of my favorite people in the whole wide world, my best friend from high school, Jenece, is getting married this year and I am very excited to share the experience with her! And maybe I will learn a few things in the process. It is always nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and we can help each other out. If she lived closer, I would share my bridal magazines with her.

Well stay tuned for what happens next. I'm not even sure what that is yet but whatever it is, I am sure it will be fun. At least it will be once all this snow goes away. I can't even picture my beautiful, sunny wedding day with this much snow around me.

Princess Dianna and her Castle

I know you are saying to yourself, "Self? Where is Dianna and why hasn't she updated her blog in a while?" Well I will tell you where I have been. Busy. Busy with school, busy with holiday prep, busy with work, and busy with wedding venue discussions. But after careful consideration and negotiation, we have finally set the venue and the date, officially! The deposit is paid and the papers are signed. And we are getting married in a castle.

Now its not a real British castle by any means, royalty do not live here. But it is called Oheka Castle and it looks like what I think a real castle would look like, so that's what we will call it. For info and pictures, click here.

The date is September 3, 2012 (Apologies to my cousin Lindsay for taking this very important date of her birth for my wedding but it had to be done.) We chose Labor Day so as to give everyone traveling an extra day. I am very excited about this venue and I will keep you informed of the next phase of wedding planning - flowers, music, food, etc. The food is supposed to be really good so I am looking forward to our tasting, which we won't be doing until about a month before the wedding, but still....

Yes, still looking

The great venue search continues.

When one has too many options that one likes, one tends to not be able to make up one's mind. There are three places that we are smitten with and each one has a different pros/cons list. We are very serious about our venue selection. I never thought I would be the kind of girl who agonizes over where she will get married. But then you dangle a bunch of beautiful mansions in front of my face and all of a sudden I'm "one of those brides."

Oheka Castle is a front runner by far. I mean, hello, its a castle! What girl doesn't want to get married princess-style? The beautiful gardens, fancy ballroom and winding staircase, not to mention it is the highest point on Long Island so there's that.

Then we have The Woodlands, a gold coast mansion that is located about 5 minutes from where I work and most people don't even know its there. It is settled on a golf course and it has the most beautiful interior design, some of the most perfect places for wedding photos. We love the outdoor ceremony area and the reception room is very unique.

And lastly, there is Bourne Mansion. This is another gorgeous mansion with beautiful interior decor and unique rooms to hold cocktail hour. It also has the most spectacular views of the water. The outdoor ceremony would be over looking a large lawn and the water.

So that is where we stand at this moment. Time to flip a coin? Maybe.