Sunday, June 7, 2009

Feel the Beat!

Hey Guys,

I finally booked all of our musicians for the big day! The DJ (Hal Mealor-www.halcodj.com) was the easiest to find because we ended up picking a DJ off of the vendor list for the Park Tavern. We had tea/coffee/desserts with him at Cafe Intermezzo and asked him tons of questions. Our first meeting lasted about 1.5 hours, so we made sure everything was covered. We told him the things most important to us are: appropriate music, timing, getting everyone on the dance floor, smooth transitions between songs and not only being a DJ, but also a MC or master of ceremony (he's gotta work the crowd!). There's also a surprise for the guests that he's involved in...I'll let you guys know that after it's been done. Just know it will definitely be hilarious and entertaining!

Okay, so finding ceremony musicians was a more stressful task. Being on a budget I shopped around to find the best deal and thought I booked this quartet from Emory, but they never called or emailed me back, talk about unprofessional :(, luckily I we had not paid anything. It seems like that's the risk you take when not booking certified professionals. I was bummed about this at first because I had to search again, but had to get over that quickly and find some replacements. Again, the vendor list for our wedding location came through and we booked Amadeus String Ensemble (http://www.amadeusstrings.com/). They have a contract so I know they won't run off with our money!

We hope the music in our wedding will create a sense of elegance and class for the ceremony and allow everyone to have fun and enjoy themselves at the reception.

Here are some tips that we learned on our hunt:
  • Interview/meet your musicians


  • Ask lots of questions


  • Get a time frame on when they will contact you, etc...


  • Make sure there is a contract


  • If it is difficult to get in contact with your musician they you may want to consider booking someone else


  • Bargain, bargain, bargain!
Next time we will explore wedding favors!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

It's Raining Men, Hallelujah!

Hey Guys,

We recently went to Savvi Formalwear to pick out the attire for all of the handsome men in our bridal party. I would recommend this store because they have a nifty online wedding manager that allows the guys to input their sizes, making it simple for pick-up upon their arrival to Atlanta! This is really helpful, especially since most of the men in our bridal party are out of towners. The guys were much easier than than the girls and we were really happy with the choices. I'm so excited to see everyone because they're going to look fabu!

Ok, so down to business, first let's start with the groom, Jon! My bridesmaid Tonya and I initially went looking for a black suit, but when we spotted the chocolate suit we were pleasantly surprised. We're pairing the suit with brown shoes, brown socks, white collared shirt and an orange striped tie that looks great! We finalized this as our choice after getting Jon's approval of course! If he's going to wear it then he must like it, especially since there will be pictures of him in this for the rest of our lives.

Check it out below. I purposefully put pictures of the chocolate and black suit so you can really see the difference in colors.




The groomsmen will be wearing the same color suit as Jon (chocolate), shoes, socks and collared shirt. However, their ties will be different; instead of the striped tie, theirs will be a plain orange that matches perfectly with Jon's tie. They're going to look so handsome!

The next little man we had to consider was my nephew, our ringer bearer Omar. He's going to be decked out in an ivory suit with ivory shoes, socks, shirt and the same tie as Jon. How adorable is that!
Finally, we had to consider the dads of course! They will be wearing the same suits as the groomsmen, but in black with ties that compliment the colors of our wedding. It will most likely be the copper tie you see below without the vest.


None of the men in our wedding party will be wearing vests, reason being we don't want a formal wedding look/feel. We also think this will be good for the guys since our wedding is outdoors and we don't want them to overheat.
I am already envisioning what everyone will look like walking down the aisle and can't wait! Next time we will explore another essential part of any wedding, the music!