It’s still a good six to eight months away, but I’m starting to feel the need to plan the rest of the wedding, at least the basics: where and when. Mike and I are doing this wedding on a very small budget (relative to the Bay Area, anyway), mostly because we’d like to buy a house in the next few years, which means saving for a down payment. But also, neither of us sees it as a Big Huge Deal – we’re already committed to each other as life partners, and a wedding isn’t going to change that. This is more of a party with friends and family to celebrate our commitment to each other, and as such it doesn’t need to have all the dressage (or expense) associated with a capital-w Wedding.
So I have put together a preliminary list of locations, which Mike is going to vet in the next day or two, and then I’m going to visit a few places in the East Bay on my way up to see Sharon Bell about the muslins. I’ve also been scouring Yelp, Craigslist, and other online spots for photographers who come well-recommended and aren’t too expensive. (If you have any hints for location (under $1200) or photographer (under $1500), leave a comment or drop me a line!)
We are also considering the date. We had wanted a June wedding, primarily so we could have it outdoors without being rained on, but we’re also considering getting married in March-April, which is the wedding “off season” and which would be considerably cheaper. There’s at least one location we’re looking at that has an enclosed, heated-in-winter garden, so that’s a possibility for a pseudo-outdoor wedding.
And I am starting to draw up the inevitable lists of to-dos: invitations, guests, officiant, wedding location, decorations, etc. For invitations, I want to weave a number of double-happiness symbols, and put a handwoven double-happiness character on each invitation. (If you have experience doing cards with handwoven fabric, let me know how you did yours!)
Weaving-wise, I am now halfway through beaming on the warp for the samples, and expect to finish tomorrow. Saturday, though, is going to be spent sewing up muslins, so I probably won’t be fully warped until mid next week.
I am still evolving the gamp. As several people have commented, the motif is much clearer in the six-shaft broken twill, so I am thinking that I will do two samples in the six-shaft broken twill and only one sample in the four-shaft broken twill. I have also changed the spacing so the three samples are all at different spacings. I’ll post the .wif when I finish it, probably tomorrow morning.
Next Monday morning I put in the chocolate order. It looks like I will be sending out about 55 packages of chocolates this year – 22 for the friend I “sponsored” for the Breast Cancer 2-day fundraiser, and 25-30 for my own friends and family. So that means making about 70-80 pounds of chocolates. (Because the number of chocolates made never comes out quite even, I always have about 25-30% left over. This is actually just fine – I “pay” the volunteers who help me pack and box the chocolates with leftover chocolates, and any left over goes to make Mike’s coworkers and my coworkers very happy.) So I am ordering about 50 lbs of chocolate, which should be plenty since the bonbons aren’t 100% chocolate – fudges, caramels, and toffees are mostly sugar, and there’s cream and flavorings in the ganache centers.
Hi Tien,
My Guild made over 300 cards with handwoven fabric. We bought blank cards with a precut window, some were rectangular and some were oval. Handwoven fabric was glued on the cards with a glue stick so it would show through the window. The fabric was cut with rotary cutters, the way quilters cut fabric. They looked great!
“neither of us sees it as a Big Huge Deal” — ha, that is pretty rich coming from someone who is devoting all this time / energy / focus to weaving & sewing the dress! I think you are just celebrating in your own way (and hurrah for that) instead of following the How To Get Married books.