Mr. and Mrs. President…

Did you know that if you invite the President and First Lady to your wedding that they send you a congratulatory message?

See you guys on Saturday!

The Dress

No, this will not include pictures. SORRY.

But, my dress.

See, I had a vision. I wanted something vintage-inspired. I wanted non-traditional. I wanted champagne. And not super-weddingy. And something that glows. (You read that right. Glows.)

And it does. It absolutely does. I don’t know how well it will play in pictures, but the fabric is champagne silk and has this sheen that makes it “glow” just like if you held a glass of champagne up to the light.

And what makes the dress? The brooch I bought even before I purchased the fabric.

Erica did such a great job and modifying the pattern to fit my short, chubby figure. That’s not easy, but I think she really made the dress fit amazingly well. She’s pretty much a rock star in my eyes.

Madeline’s dress is just as awesome. She’s gonna look so freakin’ cute.

3 days! 3 days until we say I DO!

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!

Grooms Hat

As some of you may know, I have a lot of hats. Baseball hats, wool beanies, cabbie hats, a lot. At one point, close to 70. I don’t wear hats that often anymore, but I wanted one for the wedding, and I finally found one.

And with a week left before the wedding, it’s a good thing I found it in time!

One month!

We are one month out from the wedding! I can’t believe how quickly it snuck up on us. There has been a lot of planning, stress, making things in the past year and a half, and there is so much still left to do and the two minute warning just went off.

The thing we are most excited for is to have all of our friends and family in one place for the first time. A lot of people, not just us, have been waiting on this day for a long time (Hi, Mom!) and we can’t wait to share it with all of our family and friends both here in Houston and New Jersey in November.

Having this blog and posting sneak peeks, planning details and pictures of me trying to embarrass Ali has been awesome, and the wedding won’t be the end of this blog. We’ll keep blogging all the fun and goofy stuff we do, as you’d expect.

We can’t wait to see you all next month!

Wedding Planning and Online Marketing Nerdery

Most of our wedding planning and preparation up to this point has been full of nerd stuff, and it’s only gotten worse.

A few months ago when we were designing our wedding invitations, as with any couple planning a wedding, we were looking at areas where we could save money. The RSVP instantly came to mind. The cost of another insert card, envelope extra postage because of the weight and postage for the RSVP card adds up quickly.

In an effort to work around that, we jumped on the green RSVP trend that has been going on for the past few years – online RSVP forms.

This was a beautiful thing for many reasons.

1. Using an online form service allowed us to customize our RSVP and get all the information we needed, guest names, if they were coming, and if yes, their dinner options.
2. We won’t be getting a ton of mail that has to be opened, read, recorded and stored.
3. Since the  data is in digital form, and can easily be imported into Google Docs where 85% of our planning has taken place.
4. There’s no margin of error on our part. With paper RSVPs, we might accidentally mark you a “yes” for fish, when you wanted the beef. If there is something wrong, it’s your fault. (Sucker!)
5. It reduced the cost of our wedding invitations by about 10-15%.

Another major plus to doing an online RSVP was that we could send the guest to a specific thank you page based on how they answered. For our non-marketing friends out there, when a visitor to a website fills out an online form, you can send them to a different page once they click “submit”. On this thank you page, you can do a lot of different things, like offer a white-paper download, invite them to watch a webinar, whatever.

Since over half of our guests are coming in from out of town we decided that our thank you pages needed to have hotel information on them and driving directions to the venues for the in-town guests.

But that created a problem. We didn’t want to send someone to a page with hotel information and directions if they weren’t coming (the jerks), so what to do?

Enter Jotform, an easy to use (and free) web form creator. I use it quite often at work and it was the perfect solution for us because the forms have conditional functions. If a person RSVP’s yes, they go to a thank you page with the hotel information and directions. If they answer no, they are sent to a thank you page saying we’re sorry that they can’t come, and a link to the blog to stay informed and to see pictures of the events leading up to the wedding and beyond.

How about another monkey wrench into the RSVP flow? We’re having a second reception in New Jersey for friends and family who couldn’t make it to Houston for the ceremony. And some friends and family were invited to both events, so that is a lot more thank you pages than just a yes or no. We had to create a diagram to make sure that we hit all the possibilities.

As you can see there are eight different outcomes. Since things were getting really out of hand with the amount of pages that we would need, we decided to scale back where we could. We treated any “no” response as the same “no”. We’re very sorry you couldn’t share the day with us, but please keep checking back.

The “yes” responses were different. The Yes to Houston and Yes to New Jersey went to a unique page for each location. A Yes Houston/New Jersey went to a page with the same information as the yes to Houston and yes to New Jersey. A yes/no or no/yes went to the affirmative RSVP for the respective location.

We made this incredibly difficult and nerdy because that’s just who we are. We had the knowledge and tools available. It started with saving links and ideas to services like Google Docs Spreadsheets, Delicious and Evernote, to our Save the Date video that we emailed out using the email marketing service Constant Contact and it hasn’t ended yet.

Perfect Wedding Shoes

THE SEARCH IS FINALLY OVER. I HAVE FOUND MY SHOES.

I’ve been scouring the internet for the perfect wedding shoes. My mom who likes to actually go to stores and shop (ew), has been looking like crazy, too. Nothing was ever what I wanted.

I wanted dark blue shoes, no higher than a 3 inch heel, preferably with a platform. I wanted peep toe. I wanted satin. And I wanted a little bling.

I was fully resigned to having to add the bling myself if necessary. I’d even forgo the satin if I had to, as long as they were blue, pretty and I could walk in them.

I was finding nada. Zip. Zero.

Honestly – I’d love to know when hooker heels became all the rage. I would break my freakin’ neck in the majority of the shoes out there labeled “evening”. My choices were either platform stilettos or maw-maw pumps made for the geriatrically inclined.  Look, I certainly can’t get down with some 5 inch heels, but I’m damn sure not ready for support hose.

Then I saw the perfect heel. The only problem was that they were sling-backs. Typically, I have trouble keeping those on my foot, but I’d glue them bitches in place if I had to.

I got them and they are PERFECT. Even the sling back stays in place.

Now, I need to find me some dancing shoes. Either a blue flip-flops or ballet flats. Links you find would be appreciated!

Oh, man. 5 weeks!

-Ali

Get Down With Ya Bad Selves

This is video from Sherri Shepherd”s wedding. Niecy Nash is the bridesmaid with the big flower in her hair. Y”all know how I love me some Niecy!

I think my bridal party would rather die a thousands deaths than do this, but they look like they are having a blast. Love it. AND I love Sherri”s dress.

5 weeks, y”all. 5. Weeks.

Vintage Goodness

SO. IN. LOVE. This wedding will be full of vintagey goodness. I’m so happy with how everything is coming together!

So. A Food Network Competitor is Doing Our Wedding Cake.

And the Food Network fan in me just peed a little.

I discovered the yumminess of Frosted Betty after Mike had seen their truck at the downtown Farmer’s Market. Adorable white truck with this little retro chick in the logo. Totally my style and, hello? CUPCAKES.

We went to an event and the truck was there. I had a lemon cupcake and it was YUM. Then I saw a little sign on the truck: Opening our new location in The Heights this week.

Y’ALL. We live in The Heights. Her shop is, like, a minute from my house.

So a few days later I wander in. SO. In. Love. Vintage coffee sacks as curtains, exposed brick walls, chalkboard menu, vintage cake plates and old-fashioned candy. Delicious cupcakes and vintage decor all rolled adorable little place right by my house? HEAVEN.

Then I tried a salted caramel cupcake. Y’all. Y’ALL. Silky, buttery, slippery frosting. Sweet, but minus the sugary film and cloying texture of traditional butter cream. Sprinkles of big sea salt chunks clinging to it atop a moist chocolate cupcake.

I died, y’all. I. DIED. It’s amazing. And you should all know my love of cupcakes runs supremely deep. I’ve tried all of the major players in Houston. All tasty in their own rights but, frankly, none that really wowed me. I mean, they were good. I thoroughly enjoyed each bite. But they are traditional flavors and really, just… good. Not mind-blowing, but yummy none the less.

Frosted Betty is different. Nicole pushes the cupcake envelope. She makes flavors like Maple Bacon, Strawberry Balsamic and Dreamsicle. I kept telling everyone that these weren’t ordinary cupcake flavors. These are Cupcake Wars flavors.

After that, I knew I needed to talk to this chick and ask her if she makes cakes. I went in one day and chatted her up a bit. So sweet. Just moved to the neighborhood. Young, talented and yes, she makes cakes, too.

I knew I had to have her make our wedding cake.

A few weeks ago, I brought Sarah and Savannah in after they’d been measured for their bridesmaids dresses. Savannah ordered a almond ricotta raspberry. Holy. Balls. I had a bite and heard angels sing. Insanely moist almond ricotta cake with bits of raspberry topped with a silky raspberry butter cream. I don’t even LIKE raspberry and this is divine. So light yet so decadent. Savannah described it as having “a party in her mouth”.

The next week Nicole made some samples for us and my parents to try. They freaked over them, too.

Nicole and I chatted a bit on Wednesday, and as of right now, our cake will be almond ricotta raspberry along with an assortment of mini cupcakes in various flavors (including salted caramel) and a variety of bite-sized cookies.  DE. LISH.

I was talking to my friend Jennifer tonight.  She loves baking and wondered how old Nicole is because she is basically living her dream. So, I went to my trusty pal Google  to see what I could find.  AND WHAT DID I FIND?! Oh, just the listing on the Food Network site about the episode of Cupcake Wars that Nicole competed in. It aired on Valentine’s day. No big or anything.

EXCEPT THAT IT IS.

I rest my case. I know my food.

This article about her and her father (who is her biggest supporter and works for her) is really touching. I love helping out people who are just starting out and show amazing promise. Nicole is one of those. I’m really thankful to have met her and found her adorable little shop on Studemont.

Hit up Frosted Betty anytime you can. You will thank me. (An almond ricotta raspberry or salted caramel would really show me your thanks.)

-Ali

PS – At the time of the episode, Nicole was 25. She could possibly be 26 at this point. Pretty fantastic for a girl who owns 2 cupcake shops and a food truck, no?