So close.

Today, at 3pm, we're doing a conference call with our favored property to bang out the details of the rooms, venue and food. If IC is satisfied with the call (see, it's all about me until the time where it's all about him), it's happening. In April. In Turks&Caicos. It's all completely exciting and nerve-wracking but at the end of the day if we're married to each other, it will all have been worth it.

Shmetiquette

A destination wedding is plainly unlike other weddings. There are so many more moving pieces. Where will they sleep, what they will eat, where will they go, what will they do, how will they get there are all questions most regular weddings never have to deal with. And a destination wedding planned in like 2 months, well, that's unlike anything at all.

We're like thisclose to securing our location, the invitations are ready to be calligraphered (calligraphied? calligraphed?), and I'm having a few people over to help construct the invitations (because as previously mentioned the most un-arty girl in the whole world has decided to go with an arts&crafts project for an invitation) as soon as they arrive. Then the invitations go out and we need the reply card back with the quickness. In fact, we probably won't wait for the reply card in most cases, just get a response via email or phone. We need the hotel to hold a block of rooms for us and we need to give them a fairly accurate count asap.

So my etiquette question is this: can I ask people how they're looking before the invitations even go out? Like, now? We're working off a "likely" list of attendees which is about 2/3 of our guest list (see, IC, I can count and do percentages, 80 of 120 is 2/3 or 75%! JUST SAYING.). If someone on our likely list already knows that they're unlikely, I'd like (like, like, like) for them to tell us. But is it totally rude to ask? I mean, I know it is. But can I do it anyway?

Music. Makes the people. Come together.

I don't know why I used a Madonna line in the title, it's unlikely that any Madonna will be played at our wedding. I know this because if there's one area where I can see myself being demanding, know-it-all and bridezilla-esque, it won't be about my dress, the food or the favors, it's the music.

There will be NO Macarena, no chicken dance, no "Electric Slide", no "Shout" and probably no Madonna (see, I'm not totally inflexible, look at that probably right there). In fact, I want to decide on every single song played at our wedding (and at the welcome dinner, and at the cocktail hour, and at every opportunity when music is played). Like, every single one.

Which brings me to this: for what, then, do I need a DJ?

IC spoils me. The official song of our engagement weekend was "Whatever you like" by TI (not the corny parts about stacks and Petron, just the chorus). I wanted some crazy Do It Yourself ("what's 'DIY'?"-asked the immigrant IC on Saturday) invitations, I got it (more on these later). And he's been completely patient about all the wedding details like room configurations, menus, response card fonts and every other annoying thing that goes into putting on a wedding. But when I say no dj, he says no way.

It's not that ground-breaking. Lots of people are having Ipod weddings. Why not us?

I think IC is more worried about the logistics than about my musical selections. Who will be there to cue our first dance? Slow it down, speed it up, feel the crowd? I don't know but I'm just not too worried about it. I think I can gauge when in the night we might have to go for slower music and when we'll bump the Biggie. I admit, it's partially because I not-so-secretly think I'd make a kick-ass DJ. But mostly it's because if I were to hear any of the songs in the second paragraph played at our wedding, well, I wouldn't take it well. And I don't want the DJ riling up the crowd. They're either riled or they're not. I hate the DJ yelling into the microphone to get on the dancefloor. Just not my thing.

I haven't totally nailed down the reception music list yet; ok, fine, it currently has six songs on it, but I have decided on the music themes for the welcome BBQ and the pre-reception cocktail hour. The former will be all reggae with a strong focus on Bob Marley as he seems to appeals to the young and old alike. The latter will be sultry sounds like Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles perfect for cocktails under a setting sun. The rest I'll figure out and produce a list to give to a capable professional dj. But if he Macarenas me even once, his ass is toast.

Favor for a favor

I don't really get the whole concept of wedding favors. I mean, I enjoy eating Hershey Kisses off the table as much as the next wedding guest but ultimately, what's the point?

But with a destination wedding, I feel we have to provide some sort of welcome bag. Some ideas so far have included playing cards, luggage tags, sunblock.

As I mentioned in the last post, I really like taking photos, so I was thinking a beach-themed frame with a photo of the guest in it (as I've likely taken a photo of nearly every attending guest at some point over the years, or can get one). But then IC said "why would they want a photo of themselves?" and I guess he has a point. But they definitely don't need a little photo of us so that just about concludes any thoughts I had for incorporating pictures into the gift bag.

Thoughts? Ideas?

UPDATE: The other thing I really like, in life, is music so I've considered making a mix cd of music that will be played at our wedding. But A)people will likely have a lot of the songs already and B)those that don't have the songs probably aren't into them to begin with. But maybe a mix cd.

You get what you pay for?

One of things that I learned while doing my current crash course in everything wedding, is that many photographers will do a destination wedding for free. All we'd pay for is their flight and hotel room and they'd be there the whole time shooting photos (or, they wouldn't be working the whole time but they would be shooting more than just the wedding). It works out much cheaper than hiring a photographer and I emailed a few good ones yesterday and they all seem interested. I also love the idea of a professional photographer being on hand for most of the weekend. I'm a HUGE picture-taker and it almost bothers me that I won't really be able to do much snapping during our wedding weekend.

My fear, though, is that people who aren't paid for their work can't be relied upon to work. I'm concerned there is a higher probability that they won't show up, or will be more likely to slack if they do. Am I being unfair? I suppose I would do a good job in exchange for a free vacation somewhere warm, but would I do as good a job as if I were being paid for it? I'm not sure.

What say you all? Do we go with one of the "free" photographers or do we suck it up and hire one on the island (massively expensive, by the way).

It's all happening

It's all starting to come together and for the first time in this whole process wedding planning has started to become...fun.

It's still stressful, there are so many moving parts and details, I'm essentially planning a vacation for 80 people, but I'm finally seeing the big picture.

And little things are starting to make sense too. As my friend Lisa pointed out in one of the comment sections, it turns out I'm not much of a planner, but I'm actually focusing on all the little things that need to be done.

Also, and this is the crazy part, I've actually managed to do some small creative things in our planning which is particularly amazing because I'm not at all crafty or artsy. It's so exciting when I get a creative wedding idea and IC has just been the most encouraging, amazing fiance of all time. I read this post during a full day of wedding mania and looked at my wonderful IC who was patiently looking at reply card options, deciding whether our centerpieces would feature shells and encouraging my ebay purchases to make our invitations unique. Love. Him.

My trip to Turks&Caicos was a success in that I saw us getting married there in a way I didn't when we were in Aruba over new years. I saw five properties in total and the fact is any of the five would work. There's one that is my favorite, but two others that could easily fill the role of venue and not miss a beat. I'll post here when a decision is reached, we're very, very close.

Quote of the day

"I like the idea of an old rabbi. Scholarly. With like a Jewish humor. He's been around the block, ya know?"

-IC on what he wants in a rabbi.