The countdown is officially on, we are within one month of our wedding day! There has been so much planning going on, I already know that this month is going to fly by! In the past several months we have been able to nail down details while still enjoying the planning process.
We started off the new year with our group tasting at our venue, HollyHedge Estate. Each season, HollyHedge hosts their couples to a mock-up wedding reception where we get to try the delicious menu items that are offered. This was such a fun experience getting to meet the other couples and to hear their love stories that brought us all to the same place! We got to talk details with our wedding coordinators, Michelle and Gabbi, and also extend our hotel block to the sister hotel, 1740 House, with the help of the innkeepers, Courtney and Aldrin. By the end of the day we had decided on our signature drinks, our menu options, as well our linen colors and that we would be included a raw bar at our cocktail hour. We set up our menu-meeting with Gabbi and were able to send out our invitations shortly after!
Smart Invites
For invitations, we kept it simple. TikTok has become very handy for planning and learning ways to save money! One piece of advice I received from my close friend was to think twice about breaking the bank on things that end up in people’s trash. This may seem harsh, but it’s so true— weddings can be so expensive, and since Matt & I are paying for our big day solely by ourselves, we have definitely looked for ways to budget responsibly. That being said, I made our invitations on Canva and ordered them directly through their website. Using my already existing premium account, I was able to use the premium templates and fonts to create something I loved. We also added a personal touch by putting a wax seal with a “D” on it to wrap it all together. After all was said and done, I managed to only spend $2.58 on each invitation, including the stamp! We were also able to save on our response cards as well, we decided to opt out of the traditional way and asked our guests to respond directly on our wedding website. Using Zola to organize our guest list, seating chart, meal choices and registry has been a stress-free experience and we loved seeing our guests’ responses roll in in real time!
Look & Feel Your Best on the Big Day
In order to feel my best for the upcoming wedding and all events surrounding it, I decided to team up with La Chele Medical Aesthetics to get my skin prepped and glowing. My beautifully talented aesthetician, Ashley, was able to create a plan for different treatments every 3-4 weeks starting in February. So far I have received microneedling, derma planing, illumi-peel, and diamond glow facials; coming up I have another micro needling treatment, derma planing with Diamond Glow, as well as some Botox. I truly have seen a great improvement in my skin and have loved getting the chance to work with La Chele to tailor the perfect plan to fit my needs and my schedule.
Must Have for the Groom
Don’t worry, Matt is getting star treatment too! We decided to have his suit custom-made at Indochino and Carl at the King of Prussia Showroom is taking great care to make sure Matt looks and feels his best. The most important part of a man’s attire is the fit so your tailor is the key to the groom looking his absolute best. With planning there will always be some set backs and unfortunately Matt’s first suit was ill-fitting, so Carl took it upon himself to get Matt a brand new suit rush ordered! The customer service is amazing and since we are newbies when it comes to custom tailored items, we are truly thankful to be in the company of someone who really knows what they’re doing and care about the final product. At the end of the day, Matt will have an amazing suit that he can wear not only on our wedding day but for years to come at other special events.
Honeymoon Update
We also officially booked our honeymoon, we are headed to Portugal! We are not leaving directly after our wedding (I won’t lie, I had to see Taylor Swift in Philly before heading out!), so we will be spending almost 2 weeks on our honeymoon at the end of May. We love to travel and even took a wedding planning break earlier this year in South Africa, which was the most incredible place we have ever been! We wracked our brains about honeymoon destinations for a while before deciding on Portugal, where we will split our time between Lisbon, the Algarve, Porto and Madeira. I still have quite a bit of planning to do but I am a perfectionist when it comes to our itineraries and I enjoy every little detail that goes into mapping out the perfect vacation.
The Final Countdown
We’ve started working on our timeline with all parties involved: photographer, videographer, florist, hair & makeup artists, and of course our family and closest friends. I still feel there are so many items left on our to-do list but little by little we are tackling each task together and enjoying the process! Our biggest to-do list items left are mostly related to decor and the day-of details like food for getting ready. We cannot believe our wedding day is almost here and cannot wait to celebrate this next step in our lives with our friends and family in just a few weeks!
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