Jon and I used our Holiday Break to our advantage. Without having to worry about school, we were able to focus our attention to the details of our wedding:
1. We finalized our menu. We chose a two-meat buffet with two sides. We ended up going with Roast Beef and Hy-Vee’s Chicken Paprikash. For our sides, we chose a green bean casserole and we are still deciding between mashed potatoes or hash browns. We will also have a kids buffet with items like chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese.
2. We re-evaluated our budget. It was a great refresher to go over the budget and see where we were from where we thought we should be. I think it is extremely important to stay on top of the budget because it is so easy to over spend in so many areas. To keep track of budgeting, we have everything in an excel document by column of who is paying for what and how much it actually is vs. how much we budgeted. It makes it so easy to change, up-date, and calculate where we are sitting.
3. We finalized our guest list. After scratching out, re-writing, counting, erasing, and re-counting what felt like 100 times, we put the names of our guests in an excel document. Like the budget, it takes only seconds to change or update an address, add or subtract guests, or calculate how many invites vs. total guests we currently have on the list. We also split it up into two columns based on number of adults and number of kids, which is also helpful in determining the amount to include in our budget. We have added an RSVP column to keep track of the guests attending as we receive the RSVPs later on.
4. We finalized our flowers. After looking at all of the displays at the Bridal Fair, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted, but were open to letting the professionals at Hy-Vee give their thoughts. We decided on a bouquet of green Hydrangea for the bridesmaids. We will probably accent with some green spider mums in the girls’ hair. For my bouquet we went with a combination of violet flowers including: Violet Hydrangea, fuscia Carnations, Purple Iris, and purple daisies. We will wrap it in white satin. (see the different flowers below)
Money Saving Tip: We are going to do the bridesmaid bouquets ourselves. Since they are just one type of flower it will be easy to do, and it will save us money on the flower expense!
Until next time,
Morgan 
