Stylish Groomsmen

The detail Mr. Newport is the most excited about for our wedding day is his outfit for the day. Everytime he puts it on, he declares it's so much better than a tux. It's no Hawaiin shirt, but he's still really happy about it.
When Mr. Newport first decided to go with navy blazers and khakis, we both knew it could get pricey, but we wanted to make sure it would not cost the groomsmen more than a tux rental. So I did quite a bit of research. I found Menswearhouse often has sales like buy one get one half off, or buy one get one free. At one point, I even saw a navy blazer on clearance, so we went to our local MW to look for the suits.

When we went in, I told the salesman we wanted to find navy blazers around $100. He said he wasn't sure it was do-able, but I told him about the jacket I had seen on clearance on their website. He then remembered the jacket (make sure to do some research before talking to sales people) and it turned out to be the only one in the price range we were looking for. Mr. Newport tried it on and said "I like it", and that was it. We found the blazer. At the time, they were on clearance for $109.00 each, but it was also buy one get one half off. So Mr. Newport got all of his groomsmen's sizes and placed the order.

A week or two later, we went with Newport Dad to the same store to pick out his outfit. We checked the status of the order, only to find out they had lost it and the order had never been placed. I had a mini heart attack, since we were told about two weeks ago, the jackets would be hard to find since they are on clearance and need to be found and ordered from other locations. Plus, Mr. Newport didn't write down all the sizes, so he had to chase down the sizes for a second time.

Luckily, Menswearhouse's mistake turned out to be a good thing. The sale at the time of our second order was still the same clearance price, but jackets were now Buy One, Get One Free! The jackets should be about $55.00 per groomsman!

The pants we found are $29.99. We told the guys to wear a white collared button down shirt and brown shoes, which we hope most will have. So if they already have the basics, it should only cost them $85.00. Since Mr. Newport spent around $175.00 on his last tux rental, I was really happy with the outcome.

Did you find any great deals for your wedding party?

Banding Together

Our wedding bands are in! I was a little antsy waiting for mine becuase when I went to try on the matching band to my engagement ring they didn't have it in stock. I tried on two other bands, which were basically the same, but one was a bit thinner, the other a bit thicker. The sales associate told me the third option would be just right, but not having tried it on, I was a bit worried. But now it's here and the sales associate was right, it's perfect! I love that it looks just as beautiful on it's own , as it does with the engagement ring.

After picking them up we decided to engrave our rings. At first we were going to surprise each other. But, we both knew what the other one would choose because we both came up with the same idea.

I knew for sure I wanted to engrave "I love you more" on Mr. Newport's band, but as soon as I thought of it, I knew he did, too. It was what he said during his proposal, what we say when we hang up the phone, and it's a line in our first dance song. So instead of surprising each other we decided to both engrave it on each others bands- since it was pretty obvious anyways.
Did you or your fiance engrave your rings? What do they say?

Drop Us a Line: Table Numbers & a Note

Our postcard "guestbook" is officially in the works! I've ordered the first batch of postcards, yes I said first batch. We originally were just going to do a few designs, but later decided we want to put the postcards at each table. As I've mentioned before, I'm in love with the postcard guestbook and hope every single guest at our wedding fills (at least) one out (There are different questions on different designs).

I recently went to a wedding and I think less than half the guests signed the guestbook. I'm thinking if we put the postcard at each person's place setting they might be more likely to fill it out, if only to get it out of the way for the food.

So to encourage guests, we'll have a postcard at each place setting, with pens and a sign explaining what to do. The sign will actually do double duty as it is also working as our table number. The front side will have the table number.
The back has a little note asking guests to "Drop us a line". I think these little signs are my favorite wedding detail so far.
The Note says: Drop us a Line....
Please fill out a postcard with your wishes, advice, memories or thoughts for the bride and groom. The Mother of the Bride will be sending the postcards to the newlyweds throughout the first year of their marriage to help them remember this special day. Please drop the card off in the box at the enrtrance.

I bought the Martha Stewart anchor punch about a year or two ago with no idea of what to do with it. Then as I was thinking about the "drop a line", it just seemed too perfect! Plus we already had Baker's Twine, and left over navy and white paper from Paper-Source. These little add on notes were made from all the left over materials from past projects.

Do you think people will actually fill these out or am I wasting too much time on the guestbook?

Here Comes the Bride

I've mentioned before Mr. Newport is super traditional, so I'll be heading towards him on our wedding day to Here comes the Bride. Once that decision was made, Mr. Newport thought the ceremony music was done.

Wrong. We still had a few songs to pick out. We are getting married in a Catholic Church, but we aren't doing a full mass, so luckily it did narrow down our choices. We needed to decide on a song for the mothers and wedding party to walk down to, the processional, and the recessional. We thought we had it nailed down.

So the processional was our obvious choice. We are going with The Bridal Chorus by Wagner.

We then had to find a song for the wedding party to walk down the aisle. We decided to go with Canon in D by Pachelbel. It's so long that we are also using it as the mothers walk down the aisle.

Last it was time to choose the recessional. The obvious choice for us was the Wedding March by Mendelssohn. I never really considered anything else for the recessional.

Until.....I realized there was no where to include our alma mater's song. Our school song which was played many times throughout our college years is Hail Holy Queen. I knew I had to include it in the wedding somehow. When we found out we only needed three songs, it narrowed our places to use it. The processional was set, so it left the wedding party song or the recessional. At first I wanted to keep the Wedding March, but it doesn't make sense to have our friends walk down to our alma mater song, so we decided to forgo tradition and we'll be leaving the church as husband and wife to Hail Holy Queen.
Too Bad we can't include the Sister Act version somewhere.

Are you choosing traditional music for the ceremony or going for something a little different?

License to Wed

Mr. Newport and I got our license! We're legally ready to get married. I know this post is boring, so I thought I'd add in one of my favorite songs for fun. It's been stuck in my head since the bachelorette party and probably will be there until we actually go to the chapel.
We took a Friday off and headed to Middletwon, RI to pick up our marriage license. A little early, but they are valid for 90 days from issuance. I was a little antsy.
Can you tell I was excited?You can't tell, but Mr. Newport was excited on the inside.
Were you excited to get your marriage license? How far in advance did you get it?

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

Mr. Newport and I are getting married at a venue that also happens to be a restaurant. Our venue is kind of iconic in Newport, but not for weddings. Whenever I tell people where we're getting married, they think beach, bikinis, cocktails, bands, flip flops and summer. I've been asked way too many times if I've tried their famed Astro Bomb.

The venue is on the beach and has a patio bar with live music during happy hour. I know many people who travel from boston for the day for happy hour at the ABC. It's pretty legendery, but when I say we are getting married there, people are kind of confused. It's known as a restraunt, not a beautiful wedding venue. To be honest, I was pretty skeptical myself of the venue.

Mr.Newport and I had been there many Fridays during our senior year for the happy hour buffet. All you do is buy one drink and you get free food. Awesome for a college kid on a budget. I don't know why people didn't take advantage of it more. This is how we knew the ABC. It was a happy hour spot to meet with friends and enjoy some free food. We spent two years living a block away from the site, and never noticed a wedding.

When Mr. Newport hinted about a proposal, I started doing research on Newport venues. I knew they had a long wait and wanted to know our options far in advance. While searching I realized that the ABC did weddings. I wondered where, because it seemed random to do it in the restaurant area, but because the venue overlooks our college campus, I knew we had to look.

We went and the ballroom upstairs blew us away. It was elegant, spacious and has amazing views of the ocean, the cliffwalk and of course, Salve. My visions of beach goers drinking astro bombs went away and we chose our venue on the spot.

Since then we've been back to the ABC many times and I still had not tried an Astro Bomb. Well, that changed this weekend. Mr. Newport and I headed to Newport to finalize some wedding plans. After meeting with our wedding coordinator, we went to the outdoor patio and enjoyed the ABC for what it's known for.

I love that our venue isn't all about weddings. We'll be able to go back for celebratory drinks and anniversary dinners in the years to come.

Is your venue known for something other than weddings?

College Love: Flags

I've already written a whole post about showing our college some love, but I can't help but add these little flags to my college love collection. We aren't having cupcakes, so I don't know how to incorporate them into the wedding, but I need to figure out a way. Our alums main colors are navy and white, our wedding colors, so they'll go perfect with the rest of the decor.

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Mr. Newport is completely on board, but we're both clueless on how to include them.

Any ideas??

Unrealistic Expectations

Even before Mr. Newport proposed I watched a lot of wedding shows. I loved watching Whose Wedding is it anyways?, Say Yes to the Dress, Platinum Brides, etc. etc. After Mr. Newport proposed, it was finally time to start planning our own wedding, after months of watching others. I knew a lot of these weddings were over the top, but they still formed my idea of a wedding and apparently Mr. Newporth's, too.

I feel like you hear a lot of people go into planning a wedding and they are totally shocked at how expensive they are. We had the reverse effect. We knew how expensive they can get. Both of us knew this, so there weren't any shocking moments of "THIS COSTS WHAT?????"

When you watch shows like Say yes to the Dress, it kind of gets in your head that you can't get a nice dress unless you spend upwards of $5,000.00. "Your dress budget is $4k? Sorry we don't have anything in your price range". Luckily, I knew this wasn't true. I've been to a lot of weddings and overtime, I've kind of picked up on how much things cost, what's appropriate etc. Mr. Newport hasn't been to a lot of weddings (well not a lot pre-me). His entire foundation of what a wedding costs has come from his glimpses of shows like Say yes to the dress and Platinum Weddings. He's never actually sat down and watched one, but since I watch them fairly often, he gets glimpses here and there, or "Starfish, you have to see this!". He obviously knew these shows and weddings could be over the top, but it still shaped his ideas of weddings.

I never really realized this until I called him after my first dress appointment. I found my dream dress, but it was about $200 over budget. I promised myself I wouldn't go over budget, but I loved it so much. I called Mr. Newport and told Him I went over budget. He asked what it cost and when I told him, he said "that's it?" Real confused. Which made me confused. He proceeded to tell me that he thought I'd spend like $5,000 on a dress. My response, "did you even look at the wedding budget spreadsheet?" (that I spent quite some time on). His response, "No I trust you". So I have a finace who trusts me and thinks it's ok to spend $5k on a wedding dress....Hmm.... Luckily I'm more realistic.

So thank you Say Yes to the Dress for making me look like I saved a ton of money on our wedding budget, when actually I went over.

Were you or your fiance surprised by any wedding costs? What shaped your idea of the cost of weddings?

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I have an irrational fear that it is going to rain on our wedding day. If it ends up being sunny and beautiful, I'll be ecstatic, but until the wedding day comes, I'm certain it will be gloomy and rainy.

There is some thought behind this. Back in 2002 when I went to visit Salve for the first time, it rained. When I went back for my second time before accepting, it rained. When I went to freshman orientation, it rained. Then Mr. Newport and I lived there for four years, some days it rained, some days it didn't. Flash foward to 2008, Mr. Newport and I headed to Newport and Mr. Newport proposed, it rained while we were there. I've had many rainy experiences in Newport.

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I've decided if it has to rain on our wedding day, at least I'll be prepared. Although I'm not a fan of rainy wedding days, I am a fan of cute umbrellas for the wedding party.

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The weekend Mr. Newport proposed, we stopped by the Salve bookstore and I picked up an oversized Salve umbrella for our wedding day, just in case. Somewhat similar to the umbrella the couple is using above. Then, on a recent shopping spree, I found some cute umbrellas for the bridal party.

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If we're going to be wed in the rain, at least we'll do it in style.

Did you make any special preperations in case of rain on your wedding day?