My Wedding on a Budget: 6 Days to Go!

Meetings & More
Up early enough considering the fun night we had. We girls had some good re-cap time of the night before, enjoyed breakfast and cleaned up the girl explosion that happened in Holly's room. (Seriously, I wish I'd taken a picture of that--shoes, shirts, boots, jewelry, bags, bras, presents-EVERYWHERE!)

I headed to Louisville with Michelle since Jon had stayed at their house last night. (He went up to get a nice, snazzy haircut.) Then we headed to meet with Ben one more time about music. And wasn't it a surprise that Virginia came with him! It ended up being more like a great afternoon of chat and catch up with two of our favorite people--oh yeah and by the way here are 2 cds of music. We actually kind of took a page out of their book for the whole wedding from the beginning. They just got married last October and had a fairly short engagement. The wedding was outdoors (her family winery) and reception in a barn. The fact Ben was the DJ for his own wedding is what made me even ask to do ours. They did a "cook out" style meal and the entire thing was fabulous. Hope they take it as a compliment that we are copy cats!

Aunt Anne flew in today and Mom brought her home. Touched base on a lot tonight: music, singing, rehearsal, things father brought up at church this morning. So I came home and sent the itinerary to Mom and Cassie to see what their thoughts are before finalizing.

Also, Uncle John has (so kindly) agreed to make a few signs for us. His artistic hand will have a much better result than anything we could have done. Looking forward to see what he comes up with!

This week is going to fly......

My Wedding on a Budget: 17 Days to Go!

Ready to Jam
We're set! The sound equipment is all safely to the Valley! I stopped at Doo Wop before heading home tonight and the guy helping me hooked me up with all I needed and even bettered it. He got me speakers and an amp that would use less power than those I was originally quoted. I also specifically watched how he hooked everything up and he definitely do anything special with outlets and what he plugged in where so I think our electric hook up should be fine. The total came to $118 and the quote last week was $178. Clay also picked up the electrical equipment we need and hopefully we can return some of that when all is said and done. After watching the hook up process the Doo Wop guys did I don't think we need to be too worried about the power. We're ready for a purple party!!

My Wedding on a Budget: 18 Days to Go!

Musical Meeting with a hint of Cider
Got together with DJ man Ben after work today. We met up at Heine Brothers on Frankfort after I got off work and I'd printed off the list I made (and Jon added a little to). We met for about an hour and a half but I'd say less than 45 minutes of it was essential planning for the wedding. I went through the things I really wanted/needed played, the general feel for before, during and after dinner and he provided some pretty nifty input as well. I've got to put a lot of my music on CD for him so he can add it to his collections so hopefully I can do that this weekend and get with him one more time before the big day (oh-so-close!)

I know I've said it before, but I'm so grateful to have a close friend heading up my music for the day. Beyond that, I'm so glad to have close friends and family being a part of so many aspects of the wedding. And in case I haven't given them all a special thank you in this blog:

• Caitlan "KK", my cousin, doing some of my church decorations and flowers for the bridesmaids.
• Jerusha, my cousin, helping with more than her fair share. She'll do pictures (with help from her sister, another cousin, Alyx), a batch of cupcakes and put together flowers.
• My Aunt Lea who made my veil
• Kara, my college friend, who is making my cake and a batch of cupcakes
• Michelle, my sister-in-law, who is make TWO batches of cupcakes (sorry I cannot link to a Michelle page! She actually did a test run of cupcakes for me before I started tracking my wedding progress in the blog. She made FIVE batches of cupcakes from scratch in ONE DAY! The house was loaded with cupcakes! Quite the taste-testing!)

Most of my time with Ben was simply catching up. As most of you probably know, the older we get, the less time we get to simply relax and enjoy a good cup of coffee with close friends. But it's worth stopping to do every so often. And in this case...for me at least, it was an exception to my normal coffee because HUBER'S CIDER is back at Heine Bros! YUM!

My Wedding on A Budget: 24 Days to Go!

MU-ZAK!
I like music. In fact, I really love music. I listen to it non-stop. I know nothing about making music and nothing about music equipment. Thank goodness for people who do.
My friend Ben ("Big Ben" from my Man Clan at Bellarmine) will be heading up our reception music with his mad-music-DJ skills. If he's talented and cool enough to DJ his own wedding, you can bet I'd trust my wedding in his hands. Not only can I trust him to know the equipment and guide me in what I need, but I trust his music tastes, I trust him to play anything I want and I trust him to be a good emcee. Let's just say Ben's a pretty stellar dude and most definitely trustworthy.
So he'd recommended renting the equipment I need from Doo Wop Shop when I first talked with him back in May or June. He'd told me then that they don't do reservations but did week or month-long rentals, so I really couldn't take any more action until now. Ben sent me specific instructions on what I'd need: a subwoofer, 2 speakers and stands. Once to the Bardstown Road location a guy named Mark helped me and by all means he did HELP me. Very helpful. He added the cables I would need, plus the mic and a DJ mixer. He also helped me pick out fun lights. He gave me the quotes on renting all I'd need for both a week and a month. I could have taken what I needed today but he told me he really didn't think I'd have to worry about getting it later. The other convenience I have is that there are 2 Louisville locations, plus Frankfort and Lexington locations. All 4 would be easy enough for me to rent from and all 4 have the equipment I'm looking at using.
I have to say, I'm really impressed with how cheap it is to rent this equipment. Even for the month long rental of everything, it's under $200. (For the week it's less than $100.) I left without anything today with the thought maybe I could save money and do the week rental, but I'm pretty sure I'll move forward with it next week. It'll give us a chance to determine how we'll do the hook up, one less thing to worry about the week of and I won't have to worry trying to get it returned just before or during the honeymoon.