Catering Update!

YAY! Here comes the YUMMY part of planning (well, besides cake tasting!)...CATERING!!!

You know by now, that this is my MAIN FOCUS in February.  We have 5 catering companies lined up to meet with, and so far Mr. Hess and I have met with 2.  Honestly at first, I thought bringing in everything ourselves to the venue would get kind of stressful.  I'm slowly learning to take some deep breaths, take one step at a time, and in doing so I'm really enjoy this entire process of putting every single piece of our dream wedding puzzle together!  Meeting with caterers has allowed Mr. Hess, myself and my mom to all come together and talk about our ideas and concerns.  I had no idea we were actually all 3 on the same page about a lot of things! :)  So, to start off our update here's a breakdown of each company we've met with so far:

Catering Company #1: Millenia Catering.  Located within 10 minutes from our venue, this company has a more of a modern look and we really LOVED the owner, Chef Lo.  This company is definitely one of the smaller catering companies, but has had plenty of experience catering a variety of events, including at our venue, HEAVEN.  Even though Chef Lo owns a smaller company, he focuses on one event a day and overseas everything that ends up at the event himself.  What we liked right away is that he sensed that we were creative people who wanted something different and out of the ordinary for our guests.  We want our reception to be fun, and for people to remember some things about our food selections and set-up.  He was very sincere about tables, chairs and linens - and it looks like it would be more cost effective for us to outsource those.  He actually suggested meeting with other caterers to find out if he's exactly what we were looking for, so we appreciated his honesty.  Basically, we were very impressed by how much he could do for us and it seems like the pricing is right.  I guess the official proposal will tell.

My mom and I going over different options with Chef Lo.

Mr. Hess and my mom going over linen choices.

OMG - those colors! ;)

Catering Company #2: Arthur's Catering.  Located a little further, about 30 minutes from venue, this company is very impressive and can handle several parties or weddings in one day.  We met with the Event Designer, Lori and we loved all of her ideas.  One thing in particular I loved about her was that we didn't just talk about food.  OF COURSE food is the MAIN topic in a catering meeting...but she made it just as important to talk about the look of and theme of our wedding.  She was very familiar with our venue and even showed us examples of a floor plan she made for tables and chairs to map everything out.  Back to food, for us - she suggested an alternative to a sit down dinner, and something different from just food stations - which we LOVED! Who would have thought there were more options?!  We looked at TONS of pictures and I have to say that their menu is a bit overwhelming.  Before we went to meet today, I started printing out the menu she sent me, but then I realized it was 22 pages long! The possibilities of dishes seem endless, which could be a great thing, or just add more stress at what to choose.  But all in all, I was very impressed as well with Arthurs, and I know already that choosing a catering company will be a very hard decision for us.  Fortunately, the whole budget thing will come into play and help narrow this down.  I have to admit I went into the meeting thinking, "Holy crap, we will never be able to afford THIS much to be going on in order to have what we want," but when Lori showed us a completely rough estimate, it actually seemed doable!  Again, the official proposal will help us out a lot to see what we can work with.

Mr. Hess is looking over the photos, sipping coffee. How fancy!

LOVED some of their unique displays for appetizers!

Loving those chargers...

Impressive set up for catering tables and chairs huh?

After meeting with caterer #2 today, here are some of Mr. Hess and I's thoughts on where we are:

So, this whole catering thing isn't as scary or confusing as I thought...I'm so glad we have a few meetings under our belts and that we can now meet with the remaining 3 companies to see who fits us best for the best price.  Hopefully we can start narrowing what we like down to one or two by the end of the 5 meetings, and go from there.  Can't wait to go back to these companies for meeting #2 - that will include some tastings!

159 days left...

Until next time,

Presh

HBSH WEDDING WEBSITE!!!

Drumroll please......

OUR WEDDING WEBSITE IS FINALLY UP!!!!!

Funny story about this, I have literally been working on this since before we got engaged.  Call me crazy (we all know the story about my wedding dress)...but I knew Mr. Hess was going to propose sooner than later.  Being the planner I am, (and clearly you can tell by this site alone that I AM), I like to get the ball rolling on things when I think something might take a lot of personal touches, or extra time on.  So, I jumped online and started researching wedding websites.  I looked at site after site, and finally I found EXACTLY what I was looking for.

I know you can customize pretty much any kind of webpage these days, but I was looking for a website that I could customize every little detail to fit the style of what Mr. Hess and I are going for!  And, believe you me - did THAT take some time.  But, alas, she is done and up and running!

I told you before in my February Video Update, I can give you a preview or sneak peak of what the site looks like, but I will not share the actual website with you, for the sake of privacy.  I can, however provide you with plenty of screen shots to give you visuals of what I'm talking about!

To start, I need to share the fabulous wedding website I found after searching and searching for the perfect style for us:

http://www.weddingwindow.com

It's seriously the best wedding website I've seen out there yet.  Not only is it our official website page, but it offers organizational tools like a budget calculator, check lists, guest address lists, RSVP organizer, and more!  I have to admit that this baby was NOT free, but honestly - it was a purchase well worth it.  There are SO many different layouts, styles, customizations, page options, colors, fonts, pictures, and the list goes ON and ON! I can't tell you how many hours Mr. Hess and I put into this site to make it perfect for us.  As soon as we found a theme for the site, we would think about it for a few days and change it again.  We ended up with what you see below as our final decisions for layout. The theme, colors, and style is a mix and match of EVERYTHING - a change of every color possible, a customized photo everywhere possible, additions of pages, music downloads, link uploads, and again, the list goes ON and ON!

I have to say, I never thought of myself as the website connoisseur, but after the experience of putting this blog and wedding website together, I am pretty proud of myself for figuring it all out! :)

So without further a due, I introduce to you the HBSH Wedding Website!!!!!

Intro Page - the gray flower background moves across the back!

Homepage! Couldn't fit the entire page with text, but you get the idea!

Like I said, we customized EVERYTHING...even the 4 picture blocks on the right...since there were 4 blocks we could change, out of nowhere one day it hit me to spell out the letters L-O-V-E.  Notice that the "O" is the picture of Mr. Hess and I's hands forming a heart!

Pretty fun huh? I know I spent wayyyy to much time on this, but I really enjoyed every part of putting it together!  Like most wedding websites, we got an opportunity to share lots of personal information our guests might not necessarily know about us including Our Story and details of how we met:

I don't even know if I've shared THAT story on here, but I'm sure a post about that will come one of these days!  Right now, there's too much wedding info to share!  The purpose of wedding websites is to share more than just personal information.  It's a place for guests (especially out of towners) to get all of the information they would need to travel to your wedding destination!  Here, we have listed not only information about the ceremony and reception sites, but also directions, accommodation ideas and local activities in Orlando! 

Something that was an absolute MUST to share on our site was this blog page with everyone - shoutout to blogspot.com, whoop whoop!

One of my FAVORITE parts about this site, is the MUSIC!  I got to hand pick and download mp3s to upload on our website playlist.  This alone took a day or two for me to figure out, but I absolutely LOVE it.  The music plays right away when you open the site, and rotates through 5 of our favorite songs.  If you want to pause, go back or jump to the next song you have full control on the bottom of the page! 

And, sidenote - for THIS blog page I took off the autoplay for the songs.  The main reason is, I got feedback from visitors saying they had trouble pausing the songs to hear the video posts.  The songs are still there and if you'd like to hear the playlist as you read, simply click on the mixpod Ipod "play" button on the top right of the blogpage!!! Voila!

 Now back to the website...

I could honestly show you a picture of every single page of this thing, but I'm going to stop boring you and save the last picture for something FUN! A puzzle for our guests to figure out while they enjoy the site!  I've never seen a "Fun and Games" page on a wedding website before, so of course I had to utilize this one!

It's on the easy setting, but you can change the level and type of puzzle!

HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!

I'm sure you can tell by now, how freaking excited I am about our site.  FINALLY, after 6 months of working on it our wedding website project is DONE!!!  In a way, I feel like a proud momma sharing my baby with the world - because that's how much time and effort I've put into it!  No, but on a serious note - now I can actually spend my nights doing some REAL planning now that it's out of the way! 

So that's our HBSH Wedding Website! I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! If you have any questions about weddingwindow.com, ask!

161 days and counting...

Until next time,

Presh

Wedding Hint #3

So, I've had this picture saved on my computer for about a MONTH now...debating whether or not it was too much to give away to you all.  Well, finally I decided it's not.  If you have had any kind of temptation to go to our venue website, you will quickly see what this events center is all about: LIGHTS!

We will not be using these actual LED lights, but you get the idea: 

LIGHTS, COLORS, ACTION - GO!

More posts to come, so keep a look out! :)

Presh

Save the Dates - CHECK!!!

OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!! What I'm about to write, I have been dreaming about writing for the last few months, and I am SO HAPPY to announce that our...

Save the Dates are IN THE MAIL!!!!!!

Those babies have been on our monthly 'TO-DO" list for quite some time now and it feels so good to actually get that one CHECKED OFF!!!!!! :) :) :)

Well, the first step to getting these done was to get our Engagement Photos taken, and that alone was so hard to schedule and get in the books with our photographer.  We ended up getting those done just a month ago - so I'm proud to say within a month we have taken our photos, picked out our "Save the Date Photo", then ordered, put together, and mailed out our Save the Dates! Pretty impressive if you ask me!  Now, I'm not going to show an entire picture of how they turned out until I know that everyone who is supposed to get one in their mailbox has seen it first...so that might take a little while.  But, I was SO EXCITED to get these done, I just couldn't wait to share with you all the big news!

Mr. Hess has been out of town for work a lot since the New Year, so I have been taking those nights he is away to my advantage by hopping on my computer and knocking some wedding stuff out.  This weekend's project was Save the Dates and our wedding website and believe me, neither of these fall into the "quick and easy task" category.  Knowing this, I took a deep breath and set up shop in front of our TiVo, my loooong lost friend. I got to catch up on some of my favorite shows while I put them together and let's just say I got through 2 Grey's Anatomy episodes, this week's SNL, and 2 Jersey Shore episodes (YUP, it really is like a train wreck but who can resist?) before I could officially say I was done - that's A LOOOONG TIME!!! But, I was determined and pushed through the neck aches and finger cramps so I could gladly brush my hands off and drop these puppies off in our mailbox to go out first thing Monday morning!

Here is a Sneak Preview of our Save the Dates:

For the sake of privacy to our guests, I decided to cut out our logo and set it on the envelope to cover where the recipient's address is! That should explain why they look like they do in this picture.  Obviously, in real life we got the addresses printed on the envelopes, (which by the way was worth EVERY extra penny!) Having them sent over to us already pre-addressed has been one of my best desicions yet.  Now, we already have our guest list and addresses ready and uploaded for our invitations, BONUS!

Special thanks going out to my support team who stuck by my side while I put the man hours in to get these things done!  Aspen was ALL over these, I was afraid she was going to crinkle them...but obviously lost that battle for her to get off of them:

And then there's the puppy.  He really just wants to be where we are at all times, and is SO precious.  Thanks for the help buddy!

OH - and invitation update!  This coming Wednesday, Mr. Hess and I are BOTH going to meet with our invitations lady I met with last week to show her pictures of what we want and go over design ideas. SO EXCITED to get that ball rolling...because that's an entire other bear to conquer!

Can't wait to show you the real photo of them...be patient friends! :)

166 days to go!!!!

Presh