Speedy Gonzalez

I feel like Speedy Gonzalez. So much to do, so many places to go... so little time. I just want to zip around chanting, "Andale! Andale!"

This weekend has been a busy one. Friday, I got out of work at noon. I immediately went home and began working on that table runner for Sandi. Worked on that all afternoon. After that was finished, I did all of the cutting I needed to do for the brunch invitations, and glued the layers together. Michael and I went out and got some dinner, then when we came home, I stuffed and addressed all the brunch invites, then embossed our return address on the back. Then I don't even remember what I did... I guess I went to bed.

Saturday, we got up and immediately took a little drive to these hiking trails near our house. Since we knew it was going to be ungodly hot, we wanted to get outside to enjoy it a little bit (with Tess, too) before it was unbearable. We completed a very short hike then went home. I showered, then immediately headed out to run errands.

Post office to mail brunch invitations--check.
Hit the mall to drop off cake serving set and toasting flutes for engraving--check.
Buy more candy to finish the favors--check.

Now that I'm typing this out, it occurs to me that I completely forgot to take photos of the favors. Whoops. And now they're at my mom's.

I also stopped by Michael's to buy more votive candles for the reception tables since they were on sale. Once home, I threw an angel food cake mix into the oven for Michael's mom's birthday, and then we sat down to finish putting together the favor bags. On our way over to celebrate his mom's birthday, we stopped by my mom's to drop off the favors to hang out in her basement for the next two weeks since it's so cool down there. Chocolate + 90 degree weather = Not good. So now they are safe from melting over there.

At Michael's parents' house, we not only had angel food and strawberries for his mom's birthday, but we spent a few hours going through more photo albums to collect and scan additional photos for the slideshow. Fun times. When we got home (at around 10 p.m.), I sat down and started working on the table number luminaries.

Today, again... on the go. We attended the rehearsal for our vocalist (a friend of ours) and our organist, and finalized the ceremony music. Then we ran more errands. We went and picked up the toasting flutes (they came out SO awesome) and serving set from being engraved. We went to Old Navy to return some things. Went to Target.

At home, there was no relaxing to be had. I sat down and finished the rest of the table number luminaries. They came out so well, I am so pleased with them and can't wait to see them on all of the tables. A few photos:

I packed them up safely in a couple of boxes, ready to go to the reception venue the day before the wedding.

We ate dinner, then I sat down and proceeded to spend the 4-5 hours finishing our photo slideshow. At LEAST an hour of that was spent with the two of us in front of the computer trying to figure out the damn music selections. Aggravating. But it's done. We're going to make a few tweaks here and there, but all in all, it is another check off the list!

Pretty productive weekend, eh?

13 days!

Do me a favor

Favors. I hate favors.

From the beginning of wedding planning, I have been against doing favors. Frankly, I just don't understand the point of them. I hate hearing people say things about how we "owe" our guests favors, and how it really shows them that you "appreciate" their attendance.

Bullshit.

Come on. Admit it. They're stupid.

Let's review some of the favors we've received over the years:

- Ceramic roses. Where are they now? In a landfill somewhere, that's where. In fact, they went to the big black hole/giant mountain of garbage about 12 hours after that wedding.

- Shot glasses with the couples' names on them. Sure, they're useful. But we have about a dozen other shot glasses. Therefore, we wouldn't have died if we hadn't received shot glasses.

- Rock candy. Yummy, but we also had an abundance of cake and a chocolate fountain with all of the fixings at that wedding. Did we need rock candy? No. We ate one of them. The other one sat in our snack cabinet for two years. We finally chucked it a couple of weeks ago.

- Personalized M&Ms. Sure, a tasty treat. But there's no way in hell we enjoyed them as much as you paid for them. Those bitches are expensive. They're M&Ms, not gold.

- Coozies with the names and date on them. Again, cute. And totally fit the personalities of the couple. But they are up high in a cabinet somewhere in our kitchen, and I can honestly say we've never used them.

- A ceramic candlestick with some kind of ugly bow on it. Another donation to the landfill.

- Photo coasters. These, we actually did take home and we love them. Each person got a pair of them, so between the two of us, we ended up with four. We put a different picture of Tessa in each of them. We break them out fairly often. They are probably the only favor I've actually really enjoyed.

The fact of the matter is, we've been to weddings before where there have not been favors. And we certainly haven't been looking around screaming "WHERE IS OUR FREE CHOTCHKY? WHERE IS IT?! NO FAVORS?! HOW DARE THIS COUPLE! DO THEY NOT APPRECIATE US AT ALL?!?"

I don't say these things to offend anybody. Sure, favors are a nice gesture. And if you have the money for them, by all means... include favors in your wedding planning.

Ultimately, we have decided (begrudgingly) to do favors. Just because we can. And I'm going to be the first to admit that they're nothing special, not necessary, and not memorable. But they're affordable, and I've come to the realization that a lot of people do really like favors. Let's face it: People like free stuff. Period.

What we decided to do is pretty much fail proof. Chocolate. We're going to buy chocolate in bulk--probably Hershey's Nuggets, along with some Hershey's Kisses--at BJ's, and put several pieces in little organza bags for each person. I'm going to have monogram favor tags made by an eBay seller, and we'll attach them to each bag. Bing, bang, boom. Done.

Here are the organza bags I ordered from YourOrganzaBag.com. They were $20.35 for 180 of them, including shipping. I ordered 60 light blue and 60 white. They came in pretty quickly. Not only that, but I was pleasantly surprised about the color of the blue. I thought they were much lighter. When I opened the package, I found that they're actually much closer to the aqua blue we're using. Awesome!

We'll probably wait another couple of weeks until we buy the candy. I don't want to have it sitting around the house in danger of melting as the weather gets warm. Also, I haven't ordered the favor tags yet, so it's kind of pointless. We're still waiting on 63 RSVPs, and I'd like to have a more accurate count before finalizing the favors.

At the reception, we'll put a bag of chocolate at everyone's place setting. The smart ass in me wants to include a note: "To our guests--Here is your $0.40 token of our appreciation. The dinner, drinks, dessert, and music we're providing mean nothing. This candy? This is a true sign that we are grateful you could be with us this evening. Yes, this. Nothing else."

I kid, I kid.