Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:00a.m.
Lots of little (but important) things have been occupying my time this week.
We begun our first major step towards getting our invitations designed, and in the process discovered that there's a whoooole lot of decisions we need to make asap!
Firstly, we haven't even decided on a ceremony time! As we're getting married outdoors in the middle of summer, we're leaning towards a slightly later start time for the ceremony, so we can avoid the hottest part of the day.
It seems however that deciding your ceremony time isn't entirely straightforward, because there's lots of factors to, well, factor in!
We don't want to eat too late in the evening (thereby missing out on valuable party time), so we thought we should work backwards from our ideal dinner start time. Before that comes photos; we want to allow a good amount of time for these, no rushing around and missing shots we simply can't recreate another time. Then comes the ceremony; short, sweet and to the point; 15 mins or less I reckon! And allowing say 10 minutes for me to be fashionably late, takes us to around a 4.00 pm kick off.
Now I have to schedule hair and makeup appointment times in the morning, to allow enough time for photos of both the girls and boys getting ready. But I certainly don't want to be starting my day off at the sparrow’s fart just to fit everything in! I also don't want to be starting too late and end up in a big old panic trying to get everything together in time for the ceremony!
And another major gap in our preparations – the gift register!
I haven't really been to many weddings, so don't really know the etiquette for gift registers, or what 'the done thing' is these days.
As we're having a relatively small wedding, there doesn't seem to be much point in registering with a travel agent with the hope of getting a decent contribution towards a honeymoon, unless of course that honeymoon is somewhere very local and very cheap!
And registering at Freedom or Stevens or similar seems very limiting, both budget and variety wise. It also seems a bit impersonal, but maybe that's just me?
We could have a wishing well, but it just feels a bit weird asking for money, with no real purpose for it in the long run (except maybe to help pay for the wedding!).
Another option is to create a website where we can list general gifts we'd like, i.e. queen-size linen, eight piece cutlery set, that sort of thing. Guests can look up the list, reserve a gift and then find something that meets our criteria and fits their budget. Best of both worlds perhaps?
Do you know what would be awesome, if you could register with a whole shopping complex, and wander around choosing things you want from a selection of their stores! That'd be perfect!
We also have to decide on transport for our guests - are we going to put on a bus? Or will we leave them to fend for themselves!? Our venue is about a 45 minute drive from Wellington city, so too far for a taxi, but not really far enough to justify booking accommodation. A bus seems good, but the logistics seem tricky!
So I'm going to be a very busy lady for the next little while!
Promise to give you more details about the invites soon :)