Yay Wedding Planning!!

As I explained in my last post, Chris and I have been together for quite some time now, so once we got engaged it gave us ample time to think through how we wanted our wedding. In 2010 a good friend of ours got married at the Monte Sano Lodge. Chris and I had never been up there before, but we fell in love w/ the venue and how everything was just in one place.
  Near the end of 2011 we booked our photographer before we even had our venue set in stone. We knew that she was getting very popular and was high in demand, so we booked her before her prices went up. Erin Lindsey was the first vendor we booked for our wedding. I have known her for over 10yrs since I used to be very close to her younger sister, and then they moved, but Erin stayed here. I started to see that Erin was getting into photography, so I stayed in touch w/ her. Her pictures are so natural looking and Chris loved her style too, so once we had the money we snatched her up :)
  Near February time in 2012 we booked our venue. The Monte Sano Lodge is also very popular, and we wanted to make sure to get it. It's popular because it has a flat rate year round. The price doesn't go up during wedding season, or go down during off season. It's an amazing price too. We get the whole lodge AND the amphitheater as well for the whole day.
  We took a break on booking until the summer and the year mark hit us. This summer we interviewed tons of vendors. We looked at about 4-5 florists and 4-5 caterers. The first florist we interviewed I fell in love w/. She is so sweet and nice, and she lives close as well. The problem we had w/ other florists was our wedding falls on Mother's Day weekend. One florist told us no on the spot, and another said they could do our flowers, but we would hafta get them and do the setup all on our own. Food was fun to talk about. We talked to a bunch of wonderful caterers, and one super pricey one. The super pricey one was nice, and gave us some information to consider for the lodge. We can't leave the doors open all afternoon while people are coming in since the lodge doesn't have the most up to date air conditioning unit. I never would've thought of that. Caterers love our venue since it has a full kitchen in the back. We ended up going w/ Decreations w/ Lisa Akins as our florist and Ashley Smith w/ Ashley's Creative Catering.
I love doing makeup, so I was kind of wanting to do my own makeup for the wedding since I know Chris hates a ton of makeup, and I was afraid that a makeup artist would just put too much on. I had a trial w/ 2 makeup artists. The first one was nice, but a little more expensive than the 2nd one. The 2nd one, Kerry Mari, and I just clicked. I've seen her twice. After we got done w/ the first trial I had second thoughts about the look, so I just saw her again recently, and she did another look and I loved it. We just talk and talk, and she's amazing at what she does. I can't wait to see what I'm gonna look like on my wedding day.
I did originally plan to have a close friend do my hair for the wedding, but she had a baby, and motherhood called. I'm so happy for her, and I really didn't want to stress her out or anything like that. A good friend of mine got married about 2 months ago and I LOVED her hair, and I found out that the people who did her hair was one of the people I talked to about flowers and wedding planning. We got in contact, and she gave me the number of another person who does hair since she already had a commitment set on the wedding date. I got in touch w/ her and we did a trial, and omg. She did such an amazing job. I plan on going and seeing her again next month for some high and low lights. Her name is Sarah and she works at The Parlour out in Jones Valley near Hampton Cove.
One thing Chris wanted was lighting. Our photographer has recommended just about everyone that's working in our wedding, and she always recommends Metropolitan DJ. He does music and lighting. We really liked them. They are super friendly, and we met up at the Lodge w/ one of the guys, and we walked around and Chris told him all of the ideas that he had, and we got him for lighting.
We have an amazing friend that's going to DJ for us as a wedding present, and my former flute teacher (now great friend/other mother) is going to play her flute as I walk down the isle. I'm gonna cry my eyes out of course.
Now, the dress. I was planning to buy my own dress from David's Bridal. I didn't want to spend too much money or anything like that. October of 2011 I saw that Alfred Angelo had a Disney inspired collection, and all of the dresses were out of my budget, but GORGEOUS! I had already tried on a few at David's Bridal, but I hadn't had that moment yet. There was another bridal store in town that carried them, so Linda and I went to see them. I tried on a couple, and they were pretty, but not it exactly it, and then I tried on the last one in the room and it was stunning. It brought Linda and me to tears. I'm not going to go into too much detail, bc I don't want to spoil it for Chris or anyone else. A couple of months after that I brought my mom and nana to see it, and after that we went to Birmingham to an Alfred Angelo signature store where they had a similar dress in a better fitting size, and Daphne came as well. We bought the dress there, as well as my veil and my shoes. I had already gotten a pair of shoes, but they weren't the right white.
Speaking of shoes, our whole bridal party will be wearing custom made converse. Chris and I did the design for them :) We are super excited about that, and we've also made our own center pieces and card box. Chris is also making buttonieres for all of the men as well.
I think that about covers where we are when it comes to wedding planning. We only have about 2 more months to go, so now it's just crunch time. We gotta make sure everything is falling right into place for our big day :)