The invitations are going out today, huzzah! huzzah! I had to increase the postage 2 times to the ones going to Canada, but hey, them's the breaks and at least now I know they're on their way :)
Tag: wedding
Updates on the wedding planification
–£200 for tux rental/shirt/shoes/haircut for me and Michel.
–£200 for bridesmaid dress/hair/makeup for Rita
-£600 for wedding dress/hair/makeup for Katy. Dress: £255.
-£1500 1725 for hall rental & buffet
–£300 for wine/booze
-£200 370 for wedding cake
-£900 1000 for wedding rings
–£100 for disposable cameras for guests
Stuff in italic, we haven't confirmed yet.
Costs we didn't know initially:
– invitations: £28.60.
– Certificate of Approval: £140.
– Notification of wedding: £60.
– Wedding ceremony: £250.
– Wedding certificate: £35.
And we still need to figure in the costs for:
– car service
– bouquet and flowers
Stuff we still need to do:
– making mixed CDs for background music
– planning the buffet menu
Wedding stuff!
Progress has been made! After weeks of fiddling in Photoshop and Illustrator during my lunch hour at work, the wedding invitations have been printed out, cut to size and folded neatly as you please. I'm inordinately proud of them.
I'm really fortunate that we have a kick-ass graphics department here at work. I was able to make use of their insanely expensive A3 printer and use all their paper handling paraphernalia. It took about two hours to get everything printed and cut to size to millimeter precision. I'm a geek, and a perfectionist (sometimes, when it's important to be). The Illustrator file is symmetrical to within a micrometer. Did I mention that I love Illustrator? I do. It rocks.
And the thing that makes me the most happy about the invitations? We made them. By hand (well, sort of, you know what I mean) and they're unique to us. Another thing that makes me happy, even though it sounds really bad when it's said out loud, is that including the nice stationary and envelopes and printing costs, our hand-made, personalized invitations only cost £0.50 apiece. (Yes, I know it sound like I'm a cheap sod, but we're trying to make the most of our wedding budget).
An update with some meat on the bone
Haven't written anything of substance in a while, so I'll make this one count.
We're slowly reclaiming our back yard from its natural wilderness state. I cut the grass for the second time last weekend under the watchful eye of a suicidal sparrow who kept landing in front of the lawnmower to get at the fresh bugs, with Katy going “watch out for the biiiird!”. It's still looking rough so we bought a rake to try and pick up the grass clippings that are left behind. Katy was off on holiday this wednesday and had a go at it. The lawn won in the end, but she still managed to get half of it raked clean. It's slowly getting better. Our goal for this year is to get it in a clean slate state that we can use to make something pretty next year.
She also had a whack at pruning the shrubbery in front of the house. We can now get in and out of the house without being attacked by the bushes now (even though it looks like a WMD went off in the front yard)
We're in Leicester this weekend. Since I was supposed to be in Canada at the moment, I had the week booked off as holiday time but I'm only taking Thursday and Friday off. Since we finally got the paperwork from the Home Office, wedding plans are officially underway. We bought the paper and envelopes for the invitations we're going to make. We bought the wedding rings (well, they're ordered, at least. We're paying them over 3 months to lessen the pain) and Katy knows which dress she wants. We stopped in a bridal shop today to have a look at suit styles. I'm going for the top-hat-and-tails look, with grey pinstriped trousers with a charcoal tail suit, cream vest and burgundy cravat. I need to buy some cufflinks, but I've seen some nice mother-of-pearl ones at the jewelers where we bought the rings.
And now for something completely different, we bought a BBQ! It's a pre-emptive wedding present :) It was on sale for 20% off, so that's ok. We just need to assemble it and get a bottle of propane and suburbia, here I come :)
Oh, frabjous day!
I am now holding a shiny new official Certificate of Approval for Marriage, as granted under Section 19(3)(b), 21(3)(b) or 23(3)(b) of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004, entitling the holder† to give notice of a marriage to take place in the United Kingdom.
†That would be me, huzzah! huzzah!
Angry penguins…
The two people I'd asked to do our wedding invitations bailed because they're too busy. Understandable, but that doesn't mean I have to like that fact. One of them asked a friend if she could pinch hit. While we appreciate what she's doing, she's worried about getting sued for copyright infringement and the end product just isn't… what we want.
*sigh*
Wedding invititation designs
I'm asking a designer friend of mine to work on our wedding invitations. This is the source material :)
People are annoying the hell out of me today
I've sent out a feeler email to people we'd like to be present at the wedding in order to start planning for how many people will be able to make it. So far, less than half the people have replied. I am less than impressed by this results.
My parents are coming but my sister can't make it for maternity reasons. My best friend is my best man, so he's coming. Shibl and Line can't make it because of the inherent problems of traveling with young children, Ata is undecided because he already has commitments to another wedding in Belgium in the summer and doesn't know if he can afford two trips (which is fair). Stephane can't make it because he's already going to another wedding, on the same day (poo on those unknown frenchies who are stealing our evil frenman!)
I'm really hurt by the lack of response from the boys though…
wedding icon?
I realize that I have no wedding-centric LJ icon. Can somebody suggest/create one?
weekend update
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/bradgate-apr2006/
Katy and I went to Leicester for the weekend. We left on friday, after going to the gym in the morning and made good time to get there, considering how late we left. The weekend was ok. I survived sleeping in that tiny bed better than most weekends, which was a good thing, although my back did make its feelings felt by the end of our stay. We went walking to Old John in Bradgate park. It was a nice, if foggy, day but good walking weather nonetheless.
We also went to see Stu's new kitchen, where I had my first cup of tea in… years, really. Since his kitchen is still in shambles, really, it was a bit funny to see him get teabags from one room, milk from another and sugar from a third one still :) We also left with the most hideous smily-face mugs that I've ever seen, but for some bizarre reason, Katy is enamoured with them and so now they hang on a mug tree in our kitchen… *shudders*
Back at work today, and hopefully it will be an uneventful week. We need to sort out the paperwork for my Certificate of Approval † this week, as soon as we get the forms. Once we have that, we can finalize the rest of the mountain of paperwork that is apparently required to get married in this country. Gotta love the bureaucrats…
†I don't know if I've mentioned it or not but we found out last week that since I'm not a British or EU citizen, I need approval of the Home Office to get married in the UK… You'd think that I wouldn't need to, seeing that Canada is part of the Commonwealth after all, but noooooooooooo. Also, it can take between 3 weeks and 3 months to get the paperwork filled out, and costs the nice sum of £135 just to get a small sheet of paper. Joy.