Wedding Planning 101

We went to meet with the florist on Tuesday, but I don't think it went that well. I was expecting that we'd sit down and she would act super interested and excited about my flowers, but she had us standing by the cash register looking at a catalog, not even one with bouquets she had created but just generic looking ones. Then a customer kept wanting us to move over so she could sign her credit card slip, but I guess that was ok since the florist took a call in the middle of our visit.

She wrote up a list of how much everything was going to cost and the numbers for the corsages and boutonnieres varied slightly from the numbers she gave me over the phone earlier. She doesn't really have set prices I guess. It seems like we could get a pretty good deal, but I didn't think she was very professional. She seemed like my questions were annoying and that I should just fork over the money right then. She was saying how it would be more convenient for us to pick up the flowers at her other store even though this one is much closer for us. I thanked her for her time and said I'd be in touch since we were meeting with various other florists and on the way out the woman at the cash register complained that I had been in the store twice and hadn't put up any money.

So we're going to visit the florist at a military base next week, one of the perks of Albert being in the military, and see if we can take advantage of assumed military discounts. I also hear that they have a dry cleaners so maybe they can alter the dress I'm borrowing from a friend for cheaper than what I've found.

Tomorrow we're going shopping for reception stuff. Since Albert's Filipino we want to add some Asian things into the decorations, which has been fun. Last time I was in IKEA I saw that they have bamboo shoots for $2 and I was thinking that I could buy those small low vases at the dollar store, put some rocks in the bottom, and put 3-5 bamboo shoots in there for my centerpieces. Besides being somewhat inexpensive and easy to maintain, bamboo is suppose to be lucky too and we can give them to our helpers afterwards. He can make origami cranes which I read symbolize longevity and we want to put up lanterns to create a more festive, intimate feel. Here's what I'm talking about...

I've also been thinking about making other centerpieces/decorations for the food and signing tables by putting peacock feathers into vases. I saw this on the Knot.com for a wedding that had turquoise and gold as their colors.

Albert's aunt recently went to the Philippines and she was kind enough to bring back 150+ favors with her. Albert's dad sent us pictures of the favors yesterday. They were able to get the ribbons in our colors, turquoise and silver and they have little tags with our names on it. I guess they are a few inches high and a couple inches wide, you can't really tell from the pics how big they are. Here are our pretty little swans...

We still haven't heard back about the apartment and I'd like to settle on a baker, but haven't received the proposal from the one I'd like to hire most. Hopefully she gets back to us soon. We also need to sign something for the caterer. I gave them a new list of food a couple weeks ago and asked them for a proposal, but haven't heard from them since. It makes me wonder if they really want to do it after all. We're just going through a small company in Alexandria and getting hors d'oeuvres so I'm not too worried about it...yet!

In other news Albert and I got new phones this week so that's been taking up a lot of our spare time playing with all the cool new features. We got Sony Walkmans and since we are now on the same phone plan and Albert's been working nights we've been talking on the phone more than we have since we first started dating. So far we're happy with his purchases :) It has been a pain telling everyone my new number, I switched over to his family plan so I had to have a Florida number. I'm sure all sorts of people are going to be majorly confused when they call my old number and find it no longer works. The bad thing is that in a month I'll have to tell everyone my new address and a month after that I'll have to change my name on everything. I wish I would have done it all at once!

Also today Laura Bush came to speak at my building so I went down to see her. I think we made eye contact at least once! I was in the 3rd row back because I got there so early so I took some pictures of her with my new phone. They turned out pretty well for a cell phone camera. I also took some video of her speaking but I don't think you would know it was her unless I told you. One of the benefits of living in DC is that you get to see the President or one of his "people" every-so-often :) It's always cool to see the Secret Service guys talking with their ear piece walkie talkies.

TGIF! Have a nice weekend!