Wedding Wednesday: Organization

Hi friends, it's Wednesday. That means time to talk weddings. So let's get right to it, shall we? 

The only thing I really knew about weddings was that you weren't cool unless you had an ice sculpture. And nut cups with little square pastel mints. 

At least that's how it was in 1987.


So I started searching wedding blogs and Pinterest to find out the latest trends. I was surprised to see a glaring LACK of ice sculptures or nut cups. 

Instead, here are some of the trends I found for today's modern brides: 

-having a personal wedding website to explain things like how your napkins are really recycled banana peels. Organic peels, of course

-having a wedding registry where friends and family can donate to charity in lieu of gifts

-wearing designer shoes (ie: Manolo Blahnik) which cost as much as an entire 1987 wedding

-buying new decorations to look old  (tired of vintage yet?)

-having a professional video to document the "couple's story, " consisting of 101 ways to kiss and holding up love signs to make sure everyone knows you actually love each other (see below). Just in case you mistake the video for a mouthwash commercial

Photo credit: The Bride's Cafe

We didn't follow any of these trends.

However, one of the trends that will never go out of style, and that we embraced wholeheartedly, is organization.  Planning a wedding, especially a DIY wedding, requires good record keeping, no matter what year or style. 


Excel came to my rescue. I made a spreadsheet with 3 tabs: Jobs (to keep track of what the bride's and groom's family was responsible for), Budget, and Guest List (including addresses). The addresses in Excel can be used to print labels directly from the spreadsheet, if desired. (We hand addressed all of our invitations to be a little more personalized). 

The next thing I did was buy a little orange notebook, made tabs and divided it into sections:

do list
shopping list
photography ideas
music / playlist ideas
design ideas / sketches
vendors (paid and balance owed)
reception set up: specific list of what goes in each area along with the tools, equipment, etc.
list of things to bring to reception site

I carried this little notebook around with me everywhere. It had pockets for color swatches, ribbon samples, and business cards of potential and hired vendors. When ideas would come or I would remember things I need to do, it would get jotted in my book. Everyday, I recorded what I had done that day on the wedding, who I called, what conversations I had, what I purchased and where, etc. This proved to be a big help when trying to remember if I had asked so and so about such and such.

Someday the book might be helpful when Janessa is planning her daughter's wedding. I am amazed at how many details need to be kept track of. No wonder mothers of the bride have a reputation for getting crazy.

Which is why I made this poster: Don't mess with me I am the mother of the bride!

The Retro Version

The Gangster Version

Feel free to forward this to any mothers you know who are planning a wedding. It's good to help each other. MOBs have to band together. That's what they do best :)

Well, that's all for this week.  


Lots of love,
Ms Fish 

Up Next Wedding Wednesday.... THEME.

A Ceiling of Birds

Every year around this time, the telephone wires along our main local thoroughfare become a temporary resting place for bunches of black birds. It is always a bit unnerving to see so many birds in one place. Though I'm sure the only reason I think that is thanks to Alfred Hitchcock.

But yesterday.... oh yesterday there was NOTHING uncomfortable about it. In fact, these birds put on one of the most incredible, and magnificent spectacles I have ever seen. In fact, I can't get it out of my mind.

Turns out, our local highway also became the preferred route for a whole city of birds making their way south.

About 7:00 am, I was driving to work along SR 9, when the sky suddenly darkened above me. I looked up to see that I was directly beneath hundreds of black birds who formed a ceiling as wide as my car. The birds stayed directly above me for at least 200 yards like a giant stripe painted in the sky to show the way. The swath of birds swayed back and forth horizontally in a gentle wave as if they were attached to a ribbon held between two (very large) people. Though the entire band seemingly moved as a singular unit, it was also fun to notice the individual tiny birds flapping their wings wildly.

After several minutes, the canopy of birds above me ended. But another aggregate of birds were flocking off to my left. This longer strip continued for miles.

I was awestruck. This must be similar to watching the return of the monarch butterflies to Mexico.

The picture below is the tail end of the bunch as they were starting to thin out. Unfortunately, I was so taken with the scene, that I didn't think about pulling out my phone camera until it was nearly too late.  I took this in my moving car, so it is difficult to make-out the birds. But if you look closely, and use a childlike imagination, you can discern a faint black line above the two telephone wires. That represents hundreds of tiny birds headed for home.

Did anyone else see this? Or have you ever seen anything similar?

photo by Ms Fish

We Still Got It

Jared and Janessa on the eve of their Grand Wedding Celebration. Photo credit: Justin Hackworth

I've missed the last two Wedding Wednesdays.  But you didn't notice, right?

I'm really sorry about it, though I have all kinds of legitimate excuses, including spending time with Mr. Fish. We are, afterall, officially EmPTy NeSTeRs now.