While it is nice to have everything done early, sometimes it’s not possible. I believe you said your D is getting married in 11 months. Now that they have the venue, with only 6 caterers as options, that is what I would prioritize. Our venue has 17 caterers but 5 weren’t options for us (commercial catering only/served only a specific type of food, etc.) and several others were fully booked. We came down to two good options and are happy that is settled.
My D’s wedding is in May in CA and she’s on the east coast. She was told that dresses would take 8 months to come in so I would prioritize that as well. If that means your DW flies to CA and she’s up for it, why not? My D scheduled appointments at 5 places and found lots of A- dresses but I didn’t want her to settle…it’s a lot of money to pay for a one day dress! So she took a little longer. She also explained to me that the stores often have specific lines so one store could have completely different dresses from the next store. Also, fyi, every store we went to required an appointment made in advance and most had a fee for the appointment.
She had photographer and DJ lower on the list and found that she had several good options and is just finalizing with them now (7 months out).
D1 had appointments at 5 stores and we didn’t pay any appointment fee. D2 has just as many appts if not more for her upcoming wedding and no fee is mentioned. They all carry designer dresses.
No fees where D shopped for wedding dresses. But one or two stores required a credit card number and said they would charge a fee if we didnt show up for the appointment.
Last weekend D1 had two bridal dress appts in one day. At the first one she was pretty sure she found the one she wanted, but she is NOT one to make a snap decision. That bridal store actually offered to pay the cancellation fee at the second store if she made the decision at their store. The stylist said that the bridal stores in Columbus are pretty friendly and often do that for/with each other.
All the things to ‘secure’ the deal with a ‘soft sell’ approach. Also sometimes when one ‘finds the right dress’ and they don’t want to go into another shop…
So get it that shops have appointments and want to have people show up, as others will not come to store w/o appointment - because the personnel are committed to those with appointments.
This is my second time around 5 years later. What’s interesting to me is what was in when D1 got married is no longer the case with D2, even with flower arrangements. This is what had D1 had when she got married.
I was at a wedding this weekend. In addition to the large floral/candle arrangement in the center, there were tea candles around the arrangement. These were lit with live flames. When the napkins and menu cards were moved so the servers could place the salad, my menu card hovered over the candle and started to smolder. I caught it by the smell.
I’m the daughter of a fireman and will recommend battery operated tea lights.
We had battery operated tea lights and they were fine. Our venue did not allow open flames. But this was also five years ago…so not a look brides are looking for now.
Hurricane candles seemed to be big last year, too! We placed some greenery around them and also added some very cheap “invisible” fairy lights from Amazon into the mix.
I don’t know if this makes me lucky or unlucky, but my daughter the bride-to-be is not sharing any info! An old friend of mine who moved away from Brooklyn many years ago, made her a veil. This friend is an amazing artist and has made veils for a bunch of famous brides. After she offered and I connected her to dd, I heard nothing until last week when dd asked me via text what she might like as a thank-you gift. I didn’t even know the veil was in the works! i asked dd for a preview and she turned me down. Oh well, the fiance and I will see it on the wedding day (11/11–soon!).
I just returned from a long weekend in NYC doing wedding, wedding and more wedding. First was DD’s bridal shower which turned out even better than I hoped for. And I finally saw the church and reception venue and rehearsal dinner restaurant. Seeing these places in person makes it all so incredibly exciting. The church is absolutely gorgeous and I can see how magical the reception will be. We lucked out touring the reception space while they were setting up a wedding. It was so helpful to see all the little details we need to consider. The only bad part was I could see the floral budget going up yet again now that I understand the size of the space and where we need big impact arrangements.
For son’s outdoor wedding, there were lovely small floral arrangements on a low wood base (think log slice). Later in the tent for dinner I realized that they had become table centerpieces, without the base. Seemed clever.
