Make Me Pretty: The Trial

Y'all, like I mentioned in my last post, there's a hodge podge of things coming at you - so much has happened in the past few weeks, time is flying by, and things are getting checked off the list so quickly that I can't keep up! (Which is definitely a good thing. ;))

I was going for Miley makeup - something pretty neutral and a little smokey on the eyes, but with big, big lashes. You see, I'm a bad example of how to wear makeup because while I wash my face daily, I don't take my mascara off until the last possible day that it looks acceptable. I like my eyelashes to be super big, and since I have zero skills in applying makeup, false lashes aren't in my future.

Photo via Fanpop / Miley's Oscar 2010 look (I'm crazy obsessed with that Jenny Packham dress!)

So with all that said, here's the before and after! (I'd like to point out that my eyes were NOT supposed to be closed, but Momma Otter took the photo and didn't think to alert me to the fact that I closed my eyes. Sigh.)

Personal photo / Talk about a confidence boost!

And more about the vendor, because I can't say enough good things about them! For makeup, I booked EyeMAX, a hair and makeup boutique that's rapidly growing - they actually just opened their second studio in downtown Indianapolis. I read some reviews about them, all good, and decided to call and book the trial for sooner rather than later. I decided on just a random Saturday, which was perfect because it allowed Momma Otter to come along. 

My makeup artist is named Jillian, and she was amazing to work with. She took the photos and basically duplicated them... just on my face. Momma Otter kept making all these comments throughout the process, and when I finally got to see my face I totally understood why. That before and after is crazy! 

Personal photos / And this is 12 hours later... Still looking great!

My only complaint? I don't like having anything on my lips, so I need to get adjusted to that prior to the big day if I'm sticking with a gloss. If not, we'll just change the lip - easy fix! 

If you're an Indy bride and looking for a makeup artist, you definitely need to consider EyeMAX; they're well worth it. In fact, I'll be going back with Best Friend J the day of my bachelorette party and I can't wait!

Oh and just a fun fact: I totally wore those falsies for at least four days. I know, I know - bad habit. But they still looked awesome! ;) 

The Otters have a photographer!

To say that the Otter wedding has had some setbacks would be putting it mildly. Some have been small, like the shoes that were out of stock, some have been big, like me losing my primary job smack dab in the middle of wedding planning. So when just a few days ago, we found ourselves on the hunt for a photographer, I decided that this setback was going to be on the minor side of things.

Without a bit of hesitation, I immediately emailed someone that I knew would be a perfect fit for our day - the lovely Stacy Able.

I cannot sing Stacy's praises enough! When I interned at Deer Park Manor, I got to work with a ton of different vendors. Unfortunately, not all of them loved having interns following them around asking questions (and understandably so!) while they're trying to work. Stacy, on the other hand, was nice enough to tell us that we weren't bothering her at all. Though the day was long and hot, Stacy was consistently upbeat and just a fun person to be around. But enough about that, I'll let Stacy's photos speak for themselves!

All the following images are courtesy of Stacy Able Photography, unless otherwise noted.

And, while Stacy's work can more than speak for itself, just wow. Stacy does such a wonderful job of capturing the special (and hilarious) moments that happen throughout the day, and I'm so thankful that she was still available to capture our day! I also may have let out a piercing shriek when Stacy said she could make macaroons for us. 

Yep, there's going to be a ring shot like that in my future. ;)

What do you guys think!? Do you love her as much as I do?

Day of Transportation

Okay Hive - let's chat about transportation. This is a subject that, during my short time interning at a wedding venue, I saw overlooked COUNTLESS times! People would be at the rehearsal the night before trying to figure out who would take the fall and be the DD for those who drank throughout the night.

Now, while we won't have that issue (still planning on no alcohol at the wedding, as of now), we definitely will need some from of transportation for the big day. Actually... we may need MULTIPLE forms of transportation.

Here's why: the girls and I will be staying at a hotel the night before the wedding, and we'll be getting ready there for the day. The guys are going to be staying (as far as I know) at our apartment and then getting ready when they're actually at the venue; let's face it, I can totally see these boys getting dirty in the ten minute car ride from our apartment over to the venue. :) So we'll definitely need either a giant bus for the girls and two cars for the guys, or three cars for the girls and two for the guys. That's a lot of carpooling!

But throughout this thinking process, one thing came to mind - no limo. Now, if this is your favorite thing - go for it! By all means! But when we take photos with our car, I wanted it to be something different and unique.

.......And then I saw the always lovely Mrs. Fox talk about her transportation. A BUS! How cool is that!? 

Image via Mrs. Fox \ Photo by Exclamation Imagery

So now, I'm thinking a bus. Or at least something equally as cool to the bus. Because after our first look, we'll be doing something similar to Mrs. Fox and her group (depending on how set up at the venue is going) to move around and take photos at different locations.

For our getaway... well, that's still up in the air, but my brother and dad have quite the collection of Camaros, so it's only fair that they share, right!? ;) 

What kind of transportation did you use for your wedding? If you decided to carpool, did it go off without a hitch?

We placed an order...

for our STDs! (If you laughed, don't worry - I did too!)

But really - we ordered our save the date cards! I had been wrestling a little with when we should actually send the cards because, as anyone who has ever planned a wedding knows, everybody has an opinion and all of them are different. I decided early on that we would send our invitations mid-January. Sending them then would ensure they didn't get tossed out over the holidays, and it would give our OOT guests plenty of time (right around four months) to plan their travel and hotel stay.

But that left me with another question - when is an appropriate time to send our STDs? I thought that six months would be a good timeframe, which means I need to send them in October. Umm... it's already October!? Boom, another reality check for me! Between ordering the STDs, waiting on them to arrive, AND addressing them all, I came to the realization that I needed to order them like yesterday. So order them I did.

I decided to go with Vistaprint*, in place of MOO cards. When it came right down to it, I had to consider that most people aren't going to actually KEEP our STDs. More than likely they're going to note the date somewhere and then toss them. So we went with Vistaprint. One side is our STD, the other has lines for me to write the address and use our fancy pants return address stamp (details on that coming soon!).

Our total for the STDs came out to $114 for 200 cards (and envelopes, not that I plan to use them) - a great price!

Now, I'm not going to reveal our STDs until they're actually dropped in the mail, but I will reveal the two designs that we didn't use. (And trust me - it wasn't an easy choice!)

Just look at those beauties! It was very difficult to choose one of the three designs that Valerie sent over. And yes, for those of you who are observant - that is the same Valerie that is doing our photos!

So now - for some advice, when did you send your STDs? And... I'm afraid to ask... but how long did it take you to address them? 

* I have no affiliation with either of the aforementioned companies, I chose Vistaprint of my own free will and paid full price for our STDs.
** And for anyone wondering, Mr. Otter's name only has 1 L. That was fixed before I ordered them. ;) 

YUM - tasting day!

Snaps for us - we finally chose a caterer! The winner is A Cut Above Catering. They've worked at our venue quite a bit and were by far and away the nicest people that we spoke with about catering. When I tried their food at the Night At The Barn event our venue hosted, I was pretty sold on them, but we continued to look around to be fair and make sure that budget-wise, we were making the best choice.

Finally, after way too long, we have officially booked A Cut Above and I couldn't be happier about it! We recently attended our tasting and can I just say - wow! If you are getting married in the Central Indy area, then you need to get in touch with A Cut Above.

Now on to the food!

First up were the sliders and rosemary potatoes. There were three different kind of sliders; two were beef sliders and one was a pork slider. Even before the tasting, we decided these would probably be the most popular options - we had also considered chicken or greek burgers - however knowing ourselves (and our families) we decided to go with the pork slider and the beef slider. The beef slider will also come with three different gourmet sauce choices. We got to taste the sundried tomato pesto sauce and a sweet mango mustard and wow - again, I was blown away! The sundried tomato pesto sauce was by far both of our favorites... in fact, I actually asked if there was a container full in back that we could take home! (And I don't like pesto, so again, I was surprised in the best way possible!)

While we were tasting the burgers, we also tried the rosemary potatoes. Now, I have to admit, I didn't expect to enjoy the potatoes. I typically only enjoy potatoes in the form of chips and french fries, haha. These however? We finished off almost the entire cone while we were eating the burgers, then ate them cold with our second dish. So. Good.

Next up was a sample of the taco bar ingredients. They're the same except for the salsas - on the left is a regular salsa, and on the right is a mango salsa. Since I don't like mango anything (or trying new things) I let Philip have at that one while I devoured the regular one. SO delicious! And again, exceeded my expectations.

Throughout the tasting, we also discussed a lot of the details such as where we want things, if they're going to be cutting the cake, and if we want to be served or not. Most of those conversation points I was expecting, but the service question I wasn't. They said that even though we would get to eat first, they typically serve the couple. They did make a good point though in that you get to create your own burgers and taco bowls - so maybe we'd rather serve ourselves. I was already thinking that so we jumped right on that bandwagon.

And last but not least - a decision regarding the cake! We're having cupcakes (more coming on that soon) and a top layer but I immediately deemed that layer "for us only" - meaning that we'll cut and eat our piece, and the rest will be packed up for us to take with us. Also, we wanted to make sure that people feel free to grab a cupcake when they get their meals - so we're going to cut the cake as soon as we enter, and let Brett (our fabulous DJ) let everyone know that they can go ahead and grab themselves a cupcake, too!

Now be honest: are you hungry after reading this?

*All (delicious) photos are personal!

- a big thing: done!

So, if you'll recall, I recognized that when I was talking about the catering, I kind of forgot that the officiant was another big thing that I needed to book. Once we have the catering and the officiant, it will be all details and DIYs from there.

And with that: we have an officiant!

Isn't that awesome? Yes, yes it is. Let me tell you allllllll about it.

I first found our officiant via WeddingWire. When I went there searching for officiants, I found Marry Me in Indy. They have nothing but great reviews, their website was extremely well done in terms of content (and yes, I realize that judging people on their social media/website may not be fair but seeing as that's my work - it's what I do. I can't help it!) and when I emailed Victoria, she got back to me that same day.

I enthusiastically set up a meeting with her for a night that Philip had off work, and off we went.

....And then we sat in a parking lot for a while because we were supposed to arrive at her home at 7pm and we were definitely looking at arriving at 6:15. I'm all about being early, but not THAT early. So I emailed Victoria, got her go ahead to come early, and we were back on the road.

We had a great meeting with Victoria - she asked every question that I wanted to hear from her (do we have crazy people she'll need to look out for, will there be babies crying and if so how do we want her to handle that, oh and another good one - any divorced parent situations happening that she should be aware of) plus gave us a ton of information about herself and how we would proceed after we paid the deposit to save our date.

I would say that we slept on it, but that didn't really happen. As soon as we got in the car we started discussing it and pretty much decided before we were out of her neighborhood that we would be booking her. I sent the check out the next morning!

The details as they stand: we will be having a non-religious ceremony, with the traditional exchange of vows where we repeat after her. We may end up tossing in something funny, but thankfully we have plentyyy of time to think about that. We'll also be having a moment of silence for all the people who can't be there with us (yes, I'm going to cry - I accept that). And my favorite part: all of this is going to be written in a Google Doc where we can exchange ideas and change things that we don't like!

If you're looking for someone to officiate you're wedding close to the Indy area, I would highly recommend you checking out Marry Me in Indy.

For those of you who have already chosen your officiant - what made you decide they were the right fit for you?

Uh... so... *hangs head in shame*

I distinctly remember talking about catering. How it was the last "big thing" to do for the wedding. The last big decision, big vendor, the last big thing to figure out.

...............well, here I am Hive, head hung in shame, because uh... I forgot a kind of big thing. You know, um... that person that actually marries us? Yep, forgot about that.

Image via She Finds / Featured in an article about choosing a wedding officiant... tips that I clearly need, *uh hum*

You see, I totally had our officiant picked out LONGGGG before we were engaged. It was one of the vendors I worked with during my internship - he was hysterical, prompt, fun to be around/work with, and spent a lot of time working with the couple on their vows. Another bonus: he only included the religious elements that the couple asked him to include.

Now, I'm not speaking for Mr. Otter here, but I'm not a believer in God. This wedding is absolutely about the two of us, but when it comes to the vows, it was a simple decision. There wouldn't be any religious talk happening, because it's not something I believe in. Knowing that this vendor understood that, and would still be hilarious to work with made it an easy choice.

But alas... like most ministers (oops, forgot to mention that, right?) he can only perform ceremonies for the members of his church. Okay, understandable... except that I won't attend church. My interest level also drops considerably when you add in the fact that the church I'm speaking of is now an hour and a half away. So, with that, he was off my list.

Leaving my list at exactly zero possibilities. 

Help a girl out - I don't have any friends I'd want to marry us (except possibly one, and that person is already in the wedding party) sooo... what do I do now?

Meet the bane of my existence...

Catering. We meet again. The last of the "big things" to get done. The last piece of the puzzle as far as comparing prices, meeting with people, and figuring out deposits/payment schedules/etc. After this - decisions are already made (for example: I know who I'll be using for makeup, but I haven't booked them yet) and now I just need the corresponding deposits made and I'm done.

But that is not the case with catering.

Image via Just Wenderful / Photo by Becca Rillo Photography

With catering... I'm at a standstill. You may ask why? There are a ton of caterers! We can bring whoever we want! So why am I still on the caterer search? Well, it's complicated.

I met with one caterer that I really liked. They were fun to talk to, they got exactly what we were looking for, and they got me the contract quickly. In my mind - booked. But my mom had a friendor (friend/vendor) in mind and wanted me to give her a chance to get back to me with a quote. Understandable - but I hadn't gotten a response from the friendor for just over a month, which scared me a little. A lot of communication comes with the wedding, so it was important to me that whoever we went with was quick to respond to emails.

I finally got the quote from the friendor. It was more affordable than the vendor I liked, yes, but it also wasn't from the friendor. It was from a local cafe. That confused me. To be quite frank: it also led me to feel a little deceived. I had been told this was something that friendor was doing "on the side" and "outside of work"... but the cafe is her place of work. So now, I'm talking to a cafe that I've never ate it or been to, which definitely isn't my preference. (As it turns out, we found out later this is something that her place of work had been doing quite a bit - essentially stealing her side work - but at the time, we weren't aware of that.)

But this is my major issue: we're spending a lot of money on something that I don't place a huge amount of value on. The meal is just one part of the evening, and while I do want the guests to enjoy it, I just didn't love the price tag. The photos? Worth spending a good portion of the budget on because we will have those forever. The venue (ie: setting for the photos) is also worth a good chunk. The food? Not so high up on the list for us.

So I'm at a crossroads. As far as I can tell, I have a very limited range of options:
-  Go with the friendor, because it's more affordable, even though when I did eventually eat at their establishment, I wasn't thrilled.
-  Go with our first choice, even though they're more, but know that they have AMAZING food and a great staff who all have worked at our venue before.
-  Go back into discussions with a wide range of caterers (please, no!)
-  Start thinking far, far outside the box and consider doing just appetizers, just hors d'oeuvres, something like that.

Was catering a big ticket item for your wedding? Up next... we do actually make a decision!

A DOC update

Okay, so I know that I already talked about hiring a day of coordinator to ensure our wedding weekend runs smoothly. But with the decision to hire a day of coordinator also comes the commitment to pay someone some serious cash for my peace of mind. Now, I was all for it, but I'm not the one paying for this component of the wedding so I spent a ton of time researching potential day of coordinators.

Image via IMDB / And don't tell me that you didn't think of this movie when you think of a "wedding planner" because I will totally call you out for lying!

Here's what I did, with a few pieces of advice:

The first thing I did was ask for recommendations via Twitter. Twitter is my favorite thing, and I know that often I'm going to get at least a couple answers that way. It also helps to localize what I'm asking about with hashtags like #Indy and by tagging the few wedding websites we have here. I got a couple of recommendations that way... but none of them were quite what I was looking for, so I moved on.

The next thing I did was find a few options and check out their reviews. It's really important to me that whoever I work with comes highly reviewed, for obvious reasons. If you have bad reviews, I have to at least address them when I speak with a potential vendor. Thankfully everyone I was considering had good reviews - only one negative one to speak of and based on my own experiences in the wedding industry, I'd have to say that this was probably an issue that nobody but the bride cared about. (Hey, we all have those things!)

The last step was contacting them (and/or stalking their websites) for more information. The interesting thing that I ran into with a lot of DOCs was the fact that they only allowed a certain number of calls or emails. They would create the timeline, create the contact information spreadsheet, ensure that everyone knew when to be where and etc., but as far as actually answering questions that might come up or working with me? Nope. A lot of them had it limited to a certain number of questions by email or a certain amount of time via phone. Neither of those were okay with me. Since I'm going to be planning the wedding myself, I want to be able to say "hey, based on your experience, is this a good price or a bad price?" or "oh, i have this really cute idea, but is it actually possible?" Unfortunately, a lot of DOCs don't allow you to just email them whenever you need to. I crossed those off my list.

By the time I got done emailing/stalking all my options - I was down to two.

I emailed one of them to get their fee and was told that they started at $4,000........... let that sink in... $4,000 was the starting fee. That didn't include travel. That included minimal communication (with a set limit of emails). Last but not least, this person just didn't seem friendly. Obviously my first priority is someone that is going to be a great DOC and get everything done on our big day, but I plan to communicate a lot with this person AND they're going to be working around our friends and family so I definitely want someone who is friendly.


That email correspondence left me with one option. I had emailed both DOCs at the same time and after a quick exchange with Alison of Aviva Events, I was pretty positive I had found the right DOC/wedding weekend coordinator.

And after meeting her in person, I was completely sold!

Luck just happened to be on our side in that Alison had a wedding in Indianapolis recently and was available before heading back to Cincinnati to meet with me and my FMIL. Not only did I immensely appreciate that she stayed in town a little longer to meet with us, but I also really enjoyed meeting with her - I told her about a few of the tricks the boys have up their sleeves for the wedding and she laughed with us, so that was a good sign. Another good sign was that she was very open to telling us about previous weddings and her experiences with things like hiring a friend as a vendor.

And the best part? Alison will be the one putting together our timeline, ensuring that nobody harasses me on the day of (by that, I mean the boys in our wedding party ;) haha), AND she said I can feel free to email her or call her whenever I want to talk - even if that's just to bounce ideas off of her - AMAZING. And definitely not something I expected to find in a DOC/wedding weekend coordinator.

So my tips for a DOC once you've narrowed down your options? Easy - meet them in person. I can't stress enough how big of a difference that made to me; it had nothing to do with knowing Alison was a great planner, because I could find that out from all the amazing reviews about her online. Instead, it was about ensuring that our personalities meshed. I felt very at ease with her and telling her about the details of our day and I really appreciated her understanding of me wanting to plan the wedding, but not have to be in charge on the day of.

It was a great meeting - I look forward to working with Alison! :) So far I'm feeling extremely lucky in the vendor department... if I could just get the whole caterer thing nailed down, I would be good to go...

A Wedding Planner?

To have a wedding planner or to not have one... that was never the question. Okay, I know, bad play on words but apparently I'm just not that witty! ;)

Anyway, right when the planning begins, you know how you get hammered with questions? Mostly things like "Have you set a date? What are your colors? Can I have a plus one? When are you having babies?" (And yes, we were asked the baby question even though that definitely isn't in the cards for us for a bit.) Well we also got the question "who is your wedding planner?"

{personal photo: my OCD, color coordinated planner}

The short answer? I'm our wedding planner. For a lot of reasons:

• First, I'm totally a Type-A. I'm also sort of OCD. (I've mentioned these things before, I know!) I love plans, details, color-coordinating, and scheduling. So I knew without fail that I would be the one to actually plan our wedding, go to all the vendor meetings (with my over-prepared presentations, of course) and generally just be making decisions on what I wanted for the big day.
• Second, for those who don't know yet, I worked as an intern for a wedding venue for over a year. I loved it there and I also learned a LOT over the course of 70 or so weddings. After seeing that many events, with no two events being the same, I figured out pretty clearly what I did and didn't like.
• And then the last thing? I don't want to be restricted in planning. Some of the event planners that I worked with had their brides meet vendors then make a decision within a set amount of days. That's definitely not how every planner operates, but the idea that I may be forced into a decision definitely wasn't my idea of a good time.

So when I started thinking about the wedding weekend, I initially said that I wouldn't be having a wedding planner. But again, with planning comes options - and specifically, with one that I hadn't thought of yet. Hiring a day of coordinator.

Instead of hiring a wedding planner who would work with me to execute my vision, make vendor decisions, and etc. I'm going to hire a day of coordinator. The few options I have in mind come highly recommended, and offer full weekend management services instead of just the day of. That means they would also be present for the rehearsal, take care of final payments to vendors and final confirmations in advance, so it looks like this is going to be a great option for us!

Now I just have to decide which DOC to choose... If you hired a planner or DOC for your wedding, how did you choose? Did you find that meeting with them in person was helpful?

Our Engagement Photos!

The following is 30-something photos out of the 248 we received. That was my best effort at narrowing it down. I've also managed to narrow that down to 25 I want printed... The problem is I want them GIANT to hang in our room... so I can only choose three or so, theoretically. That's going to be a problem. But moving on...

Shooting with Valerie was SO FUN. It was just like an adventure around town, especially when we had to kick people out of the spot where Mr. Otter proposed, haha. Unlike me, Mr. Otter isn't all about photos, so I was surprised to see he actually had a fun time when we were shooting. It was also fun for me to get to see Valerie's engagement ring in person since she is freshly engaged!

We had a great couple of hours with her, the photos are beautiful, and I am 100% confident that we couldn't have chosen anyone better to photograph our wedding day. And rehearsal. And maybe the shower, though I haven't actually booked that one yet...

And now, on to the photos! 

* All of the following photos are by Valerie Marie Photography.

(Our true relationship colors coming out? Haha, this is one of our favorites!)

(We call this the Mr. Otter chair. Very convenient!) 

(Team pride!)

Now you can see why it was so impossible for me to choose favorites! Which of these photos do you like best?

We have a photographer!

And not just any photographer, we have the greatest photographer: the lovely Valerie Carnevale. (It's totally fine to be jealous, I would be too.)

Here's how we chose Valerie: I've seen her work in photography for several years; everything from senior portraits, to weddings, to family photoshoots. We were friends when we were little kids and still are friends now. But most importantly? I trust her. I know that Valerie is going to take GORGEOUS photos, in her own style - the style that I've fallen in love with.

And another huge plus? She's creative. When we discussed where we should take our engagement photos, I suggested the spot we got engaged, and then she offered a few more places she wanted to try out. She's totally game for trying new things and so are we - a perfect match!

But enough talk from me - here is a sampling of her work, which more than speaks for itself.

All of the following photos are courtesy of Valerie Marie Photography - she sent me a selection of photos to use for the Bee and I had to narrow it down... it was NOT an easy task!

 

I think the photos speak for themselves - but which are your favorites? As I start to put together our shot list, I'm sure that some of these will be included!