81 Days...

Where is the time going? We are running out of it! I know you guys are probably sick of wedding talk by now, but it is consuming a big chunk of my life at this point. So bear with me for ohhh 81 more days and I promise I'll take a break on wedding talk for a few months before I start in on wedding #2!

This week I finally got the shower invites out...

I like how they turned out... I won't tell you what draft this was but lets just say I have rough sample layouts for the next 12 bridal showers I throw... Sorry about the picture quality, but I am just too lazy to scan it in...

Here is what Allison and I were working on for three nights last week...

This photo was taken after night one... You know what doing this in advance told us? That we had left nearly 20 people off the list that really do need to be on it! You will notice the "head table" has lots of tags and they go all around it... Katy doesn't want to sit at a "display" table, she want to have a few minutes of fun with their closest friends. They also do not want to separate their attendants from their dates... That is just uncomfortable for everyone, so we decided to do a totally nontraditional "family" style table.

I purposely made this photo a little fuzzy since a few of my readers are real life friends and I don't want you to spot yourself on this and later be disappointed if I have to change your location. (Allison P. you guys are at #2, and that won't be changing.) The new chart has three more tables across the bottom of the dance floor.

This is what I've been working on tonight...

Printing 100 copies of this and 100 reply cards... We only had to run out for more ink once so far, but I am only on #60 when I quit for a break...

Yes, we are now all wedding and youth group for the next 81 days... Allison and I finished our last "other" commitment this past Sunday... We had a baby shower we planned Sunday afternoon... We wanted to do a vintage circus theme, but were unable to find the props we wanted, so at the last minute we mined a theme we had done recently...

Sock Monkey!

Here is one shot of the banner and candy bar... I will upload pictures of the tables and such later.

We love planning these parties, but this is the last one we will do (besides Katy's shower and wedding) until July. We decided we will need a break until after the wedding, but will pick back up in July. One thing we discovered as we did this party, we always become insane during the set up... Both Allison and I are very into the details... Little details mean a lot... We like all the custom water bottles to face outward, all the straws we pre put into the punch "cups" (mason jars) but all the straws need to point in the same direction... Stuff like that... This typically drives others nuts and nobody wants to help us. Paul will do manual labor... Lug stuff in and out, set up tables and chairs, take out trash at the end, but otherwise he is out of there... Katy and Jed will show up if it's a huge party but tend to leave when Paul does, but Dakota can handle our "crazy" and is actually a big help. He will do everything exactly the way we do and not just do things hap-hazard and say "it doesn't matter nobody cares which way the straws point"... We do, and even though he doesn't "get it" anymore then the others do, he respects that it matters to us. He was a huge help at our last party and we were on a seriously tight set-up schedule and couldn't have finished on time with out him. Another thing we learned... Adult women LOVE a candy bar... As you can see above we did a small one for this party. This party was for 21 people and only one of them was a child so we scaled down the candy bar to save money... The women in attendance descended on that candy like locusts... It was crazy, but they were having so much fun too. Allison made the cones to hold the candy and they packed those cones and a few of them secreted candy to their pockets... We will be suggesting one at every party from now on. This six item (small) candy bar with customized cones was only a $35 upgrade, but a huge hit...

We also did our last Monday night Bible Study until after the wedding last week and I have to admit as much as I will miss the weekly fellowship, I won't miss the weekly stress of having the house "company clean" every Monday.

We still have Allison's birthday in April and the Prom in May, but other than those things we are only focusing on wedding and youth group. It will be nice to not feel like our focus is so divided for a little bit!

Thanks for listening,

PS. Based on Dawn's comment below I realized I have left a couple things out. Allison and I are starting a party planning business. Not a large scale (weddings, etc... Although we are planning two of those.) but our vision is to help make small parties more memorable. I have always thrown really cool parties for the girls. I was "that" mom that always had a theme and spent months planning elaborate parties for the girlies... It was something I loved doing. When Allison got older she discovered a passion for it too, and when we moved back to Maine we started volunteering to do all the parties at the church, and several more here. Everyone encouraged us to go into business so we decided to give it a whirl. Right now we are only doing them for friends and only charging our expenses for three reasons, to get experience, to build a portfolio, and (most importantly) to see if this is what we really want to do. Our goal is for as little as $50 people can throw customized parties for their loved one. If you price the "Character theme" (Sponge Bob, Dora) at a party supply store it will cost you at least that much and not be at all individualized. So, that is what we are doing... Sorry for any confusion...