I am Wedding Planner, hear me ROAR!

May I just begin by saying…whoa. This wedding planning business? It is cray y’all! I started off feeling very overwhelmed and kind of like, “Oh Gosh. I can’t do this!!” and thinking that hiring a wedding planner was the only solution. And I mean, hiring a super-duper deluxe wedding planner; like Barbie on crack or something. And then I got all, “Oh hellll to the naw. I got this. I am Wonder Woman!” and through my adrenaline I Wonder Woman’ed and G.I. Jo’ed my way through about a week. Now, I am in “the zone” – you know. The cool, calm, collected zone where I have it all taken care of and am just solving world peace left and right. Yo.

Okay, so maybe if I’m being honest I am actually floating somewhere in between each of those descriptions. In all reality, I actually AM enjoying this process. So much so, that two nights ago I uttered the words, “This is so much fun! Now I want to be a wedding planner!!” Yes. I did. But seriously – call me.

So, here is how it has been going down. Every day I call my mom and we do the wedding 411 together. I give her a list of things need done, and she does them. Not long lists, or difficult lists. But since we are getting married in the town in which she lives, it is just soooo much easier. I’m not sure if you all know this about Southern women, but here’s a little secret: If you are a Southern woman who lives in a small town, you know everyone. Not just some people. Not just your neighbors. Not just your cousins (who are most of the town). No, you know E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. Period. I can literally call my mom and say, “Hey, mom I need to find someone who rents out Unicorns for wedding receptions.” And she will go “Well, there is a man, named Larry if I remember correctly, who rented out a unicorn for the Smith wedding back in 2007. He works in insurance now, but I can make a call.” And then, voila! I have unicorns. See, you’re laughing but it is so very true!!

Though I have not outsourced my mom for her unicorn connections yet, I have utilized her talent of “knowing” for many other things. Reception Hall? Done. Florist? Done. Church? Done. DJ? Done. Literally, having only had about 4 conversations with my mom this week, I now posses an appointment to view our reception venue tomorrow, the church is confirming our wedding date on Sunday, we have quotes for a DJ and quotes for a florist and everything is within budget thus far!! And, I should give an honorable mention to my Grandma, Mammaw Alta. Because what my momma doesn’t know, mammaw does. She has more of a sense of where people live than what they do, and she literally has the phone number for every single human being alive. On earth. We drove to the reception venue to view it, thinking there would be a number on the door or something, but there wasn’t. So what do we do? Call mammaw. She knows all. And she did not disappoint – she knew the owner’s name, where he worked, and his day time telephone number. I didn’t ask, but I would be willing to bet she could name at least one of his childhood pets.

So, in other news I have been gradually weeding in the advice coming from dozens of people – all of which I welcome and love! And I am gradually deciding what works for us and what doesn’t. Two BIG things are working.

First shout-out is to my lovely hoodthang, Taylor. She suggested a “wedding account” – a special bank account with its own debit card to be used solely for wedding expenses. Andrew and I are paying for this entire thing ourselves, so this has turned out to be a fantastic idea. We now have a special wedding account that we are contributing to, and it is not to be touched unless it is to pay a wedding vendor. It takes a lot of stress off of us actually!

My second shout-out is to my sweet Justin Randolph, who recently got married himself and relayed to me his nightmarish difficulties with keeping track of RSVP’s and guest lists and budget. So he recommended making spreadsheets. And ohhhh my friends, spreadsheets I have made! I have the master guest spreadsheet, alphabetized by last name, with every guest we are inviting, their mailing address, how many guests I anticipate for that person(s), and then a separate column for RSVP responses later on. My second spreadsheet is the mac daddy budget sheet. I have a complete list of vendors, venues, decorations, officiants, etc and am tracking our set budget for each.  Ladies, I’m talking a column for estimated cost, actual cost, balances for each individual area, balances for the wedding account, miscellaneous expenses – boom. So thank you Justin and Hoodthang for your well-received advice.

I should probably mention that part of the reason I am so enjoying being a wedding planner is because it is feeding my organizational soul. I am a nut when it comes to spreadsheets, color-coding, organizing – you name it. I am every office’s dream. So I enjoy everything being in its place! Entering each receipt into the budget sheet makes my heart sing.

Also, in keeping with budget talk, because I have decided on old-world shabby chic Parisian, I have begun scouring Goodwills already! And it has been a blast! I have successfully found basket bottoms for 12 of my hot air balloon centerpieces, several antique candle holders, 6 mason jars for the photos, a beauuuutiful piece of lace for the cards/gifts table, and about 20 vintage pieces of china for our reception dinnerware. I am using a different antique table setting for every person; I’ll have to take a picture because the plates truly are gorgeous. And they are cheap!! We have made three huge hauls so far, and I have only spent $30. I’m sorry, what?!

Finally, in the last bit of wedding news this week: the music. The first question most people ask me about my wedding is about what music I’m going to have. I can see why this would be the first question, considering I am a musician, and am obsessed with music as a general rule. But I keep responding to everyone that I couldn’t make that decision until we had a venue. The music not only needs to fit with what we want to hear, but HOW we hear it makes a big different. A big hall, a small hall, a church, outdoor, indoor – all of those things completely change what type of music I envision. Well, we are having our wedding in a very small, wooden pewed, stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings, step back I time church. And that is not at ALL what I had in mind originally, so that is why I didn’t want to make hasty decisions. But now that I have seen, smelled, taken in the beautiful space I know what I want. I wanted live music, but not a piano or organ. Little known fact about me: I despise organs. Like, they make me want to punch bunnies. Repeatedly.

Soooooo, to make a long story a bit less long: We have hired a professional String Quartet. The Volare String Quartet to be precise. I work with a guy who plays viola with the quartet, so he helped us get in touch with the leader, and we got cut a great deal for knowing Elias – so shout-out number three goes to Eli! Woohoo! So we will be having a full string quartet for 30-minutes prior to the ceremony, during, and after. And the kicker? They can play ANYthing. I’m not talking just Bach and Mozart here people. They play the Beatles. AC/DC. Cole Porter. Elvis. Anything!! So the next amazing task for Andrew and I will be to select our wedding music. If there is something they don’t have, they will arrange it for us personally or buy the music. I listened to their audio recordings of their off-beat selections and they were amazing!! Fantastic arranging. Andrew is equally excited, and has been googling string quartets like it’s his job. So the actual pieces are still TBA, but I will let one thing leak: We will be using one song from 1967, the year my parents were married in that same church. Full circle people.

I feel like I should have a cape. And some type of wedding planner saying, like “Go Go Gadget!” or something. But more wedding-y. Or maybe just …okay. Too much. I know. I get it. Stepping away.

Squeeeeeeeeeeee.!