Like I’ve said for many other wedding services, who’s the best? One of my most recent endeavors was to find music for the ceremony and reception. First, the Disc Jockey. Really, they all cost the same so we just went with one that some of our friends had used for their wedding. Two of my bridesmaids, Alyssa and Kristin, used Complete Music so this is who we went with. They did say that they aren’t just DJs but they’re MCs. Correct me if I’m wrong, but MC stands for Master of Ceremonies. I did think this was a little funny when I was talking to the gentleman on the phone but I do believe him. We were at Alyssa’s wedding and arrived on Ollie the Trolley. As we approached the building we saw an ambulance. Of course, we were a little freaked out but a man in a tux approached us. He said that someone who was diabetic had an episode and everything was fine but we needed to circle the parking lot one last time and then we could get out. I thought this was someone that worked at the banquet facility but it was the MC. He had everything under control and was directing guests. I was really impressed. In the end, we just got recommendations and went with that company. Really, they all play music and that’s what we want, all we want is good music. At a traditional wedding an organist would play music at the ceremony. Since we aren’t in a church we had many choices for our music accompaniment. I worked a few summers ago for the Omaha Symphony. Working with all of these musicians, I always wanted to have a string quartet at my wedding. Then, we went to a wedding a while back that had a string quartet. The music was beautiful. While looking for groups I stumbled across a website, Omaha Music Association. The site lists different local groups, from jazz to string. I started making some calls and found a wonderful group, Midlands String Quartet, made up of Omaha Symphony members. I’m really excited to have them at our wedding. Another item crossed off the wedding list. All of these things really help the wedding come to life and get us excited for the actual day.

Something people wouldn’t think about at a wedding where the ceremony is at the same location as the reception is transportation. Transportation is one of the things the bride and groom must provide for their wedding party. We decided that we needed a little get-away in between the ceremony and the reception so we are going to have the photographer take a few pictures of the wedding party downtown and at Heartland of America Park while the guests relax at a cocktail hour. With such a big wedding party, five bridesmaids, five groomsmen, and three ushers, we decided to go with Ollie the Trolley. We thought it reflected the downtown feel we were going for and just sounds like lots of fun. I hope it’s a beautiful day so we can really enjoy the ride. I’ve checked one more thing off my to-do list.One tip for new brides planning their wedding who want Ollie the Trolley, there is only one trolley service in Omaha that I could find. I guess trolleys get booked fast so make this one of your priorities if you’re having your wedding in the summer.

This past weekend I went wedding dress shopping in Lincoln, NE with Alyssa and Keely (two of my bridesmaids) and Dusty’s mom, Jane. We went to J’Marie’s Bridal Shop where there are literally hundreds of dresses. I tried dress, after dress, after dress on. Although there were many dresses to choose from, we didn’t find anything that we felt was “the one”. For those of you who don’t know me very well, I’m very indecisive. I don’t have favorites and I don’t like making the “final decision” on anything. Good thing Dusty doesn’t mind helping make the decisions most of the time. Dress shopping wasn’t any different. Since I didn’t have Dusty I had to count on the girls, or so I thought. Every time I tried on a new dress I would ask my entourage what they thought. Of course, they are all so kind and would wait until they got some feedback from me before saying that they agreed with me that they liked it or didn’t like it and that this or that just didn’t seem to look right. We had our favorites that we would keep to the side but nothing that told us we should stop looking all together because we had found the perfect dress. Our next stop was Ellynee Bridal. The shop was great and had a wonderful selection of dresses. As we walked into the room where all of the dresses were, we saw a mannequin wearing a beautiful gown. Everyone agreed that it looked gorgeous and suggested I try it on, just for fun. It didn’t look like anything I would choose as a final selection but still a great dress for the girls to have me try on. I put it in the dressing room along with at least ten other dresses we thought looked like the style I was interested in. I tried the mannequin dress on and thought it was nice. We put it in the “keep pile” and kept trying on more. Eventually we narrowed it down to a few and I tried on the “keep pile” dresses again. I fell in love with the dress on the mannequin even though I only tried it on for fun. I went back on Sunday with my mom to have her see it and I got my measurements so we could get it ordered. One of the associates called today and said it would be in mid December. Hopefully it will come in before Christmas. I wish I could show everyone the dress but we’ve decided Dusty can’t see the dress until our wedding day and I know if I posted it he couldn’t resist looking.

As we started to look for event locations, photographers, caterers, and florists, among other things, we realized that our wedding is going to be on the last days of the College World Series. We aren’t concerned because most fans will have left for home or in the stadium but it does mean a need for planning. We don’t want to alarm anyone but this does create a small inconvenience when reserving hotel accommodations. We have added a new link titled “Accommodations”. We have listed several hotels and contact information so you may begin reserving your hotel room. Please let us know if you have any specific questions or needs.

How do we decide on which is the best? Good question.  Dusty and I have found a great way to keep him involved in all of the choices.  It’s easiest for us to go to our first meeting together and then creating a list of things we want in each service.  Then I meet with some of our other choices by myself.  For example, we will go to one particular photographer appointment together and we go home and decide what we want in a photographer.  Then I meet with other photographers and in the evening explain what cost, services, time, etc.  Then we choose the best one for us.  This way Dusty doesn’t have to take off so much work but he can still be a part of the decision-making process.  He really understands what is going on because he’s gone with me to one appointment.  Now he doesn’t have to make a decision purely on what I say, he has something to compare things to. The week before last we went to our first caterer, Catering Creations.  This was a very nerve-racking decision for me.  Food and drinks are the most expensive thing in a wedding and there are so many different options.  Jeff Snow, theh owner, was so great!!!  He made us feel so comfortable and had such great ideas.  He never made us feel that what we wanted was not doable or too expensive.  He also put together a special menu just us and never tried to give us a package deal. I met with another caterer later in the week.  I just didn’t feel the same way about this caterer. First, the caterer was busy with another meeting and couldn’t meet with me.  I met with another assistant who didn’t know anything about food and actually did most of the other event planning such as rentals, set up, beverages, etc.  In fact, the person said that she didn’t know anything about food and to always talk to the check, she was the one I should talk to about everything else though.  I don’t know about you but I thought food was the most important thing when picking out a caterer.  I gave her a description of what we wanted to eat and she didn’t seem very accommodating.  The chef met with me for five minutes and literally looked over my menu choices and left.  They didn’t seem excited about our wedding and it really effected my decision.  It’s been a week and I haven’t even heard from them.  They haven’t sent me any information on the menu or pricing.  The whole time they were making the assumption that I would use them without consulting other caterers.  I think once I told them I was meeting with at least one other caterer that they lost interest.  They even asked who I was meeting with.  I told them I could remember but in my opinion, that’s inappropriate.  It’s none of their business what other people I am talking with. Last Friday we decided to go with Catering Creations.  It’s interesting how much just caring and getting excited about our needs helped us make our decision.  I think that’s the most important thing to look for in a caterer and any other service.  Jeff made us get so excited about what we will be eating and how everything will look.  I won’t give you the details on what we will be eating, but all I can say is that everyone should come with an appetite and be ready for some great food and drinks.

Last Friday we broke down and made a few more major decisions for the wedding.  Dusty picked out his groomsmen so you can now check out our wedding party.  I made it a little difficult for him by having five bridesmaids.  He said if I picked any more girls that he might just have to start meeting new guys now so that he could have enough groomsmen and ushers in the wedding. I’ve spend the last two weeks calling and meeting with different services around Omaha.  It’s a never ending job and I could have called photographers, caterers, and florists for weeks to come but we finally decided to just choose from what we had and be done with it.  Knowing I was going to be in Toronto for a week and how fast things book up, really helped push us to making some decisions. Photographer.

Dusty and I only had a few requests from our photographer.  Dusty wanted to have access to the digital files so he could post them on his website.  I wanted the photographer to put together an album for us and touch up pictures or add special effects if they needed it.  For example, cropping the picture, change pictures to black and white, make the background blurry, and have only part of the picture be colored while the other parts are black and white.  Of course, we just really wanted great photographs from someone who took a variety of photos.  We finally decided to go with Douglas Gunder photography. I met with him last week and he was very familiar with the Scottish Rite Masonic Center and all of our needs.  He was willing to work with us and made me feel really comfortable.  I’m not the type of person to rush into things so I met with four other photographers but I ended up going back to him.  Photographs and taking pictures are important to Dusty and I, and knowing we have a great photographer makes me feel really good.

I know I’ve talked in another entry that we had decided on the Scoular Ballroom but we haven’t signed the papers yet. Because the Scoular ballroom would only accommodate our reception, we have been frantically trying to find a location for the ceremony before sending everything in so that we don’t end up with a reception and no ceremony. Our original idea was to have the ceremony and reception in the same location but after seeing the Scoular ballroom and not finding anything available or liking much else we thought we might make a compromise because it was such a beautiful location. One of the photographers we met with suggested among many places that we look into the Scottish Rite Masonic Community Center.

The name didn’t seem very appealing but I was really at my wits end and went to look at the location last Friday, only because it’s a block away from the Scoular building. Surprisingly, I loved the looked of the building and it’s old charm. Dusty went with me this morning to see the building and after a lot of talking, we decided that although the Scoular ballroom is beautiful we really liked that we can have the ceremony and reception at the Scottish Rite center. We have found our ceremony and reception site! This afternoon I returned and gave our deposit. I say this again, it’s hard for me to make decisions that are so important but we did it. One down and a lot more to make. The next step is the caterer, photographer and florist. I hope I’m up to the challenge. The ceremony will be in the auditorium, something I was not keen on until I saw how beautiful it was. It’s not your typical high school auditorium, it feels smaller and very romantic.

Dinner and dancing will be on the second floor in the ballroom. They also have a small court yard where people will enter and exit. Starting from the top and going down, the first picture is of the main entrance or “Garden Entrance”. The second picture, on the right, is of the lounge area will people will have cocktails before dinner. The third picture, on the right, is of the main ballroom. And the final picture is of the auditorium. What’s really neat about the stage is that you walk two steps up and you’re on the stage, so it really is very much like a church but with nicer seating. There is enough seating for just under 300 people so we suspect that not many people will have to sit in the balcony, if at all.

Another difficult decision. Today I went wedding dress shopping with my mom, Dusty’s mom, and three of my bridesmaids. I was telling Dusty this morning that I was very excited to go dress shopping because everything else we’ve done has been something that I don’t get to actually have until the day of the wedding. We have been looking at ceremony and reception sites, photographers, florists and caterers. These are things that are VERY important but not as much fun as trying on dresses.

We’ve Picked A Date — June 23, 2007

Since we want to have our wedding next summer we decided it was easiest to visit sites and find out what Saturdays they have available, then choose what location and date work best for us. We really wanted a downtown wedding so we first looked at Joslyn Art Museum. Next we looked at 1316 Jones and then the Durham Western Heritage Museum. We really liked the Joslyn because we could have both the ceremony and reception in the same location. The only days they had available were one day in April and a couple weekends in June. After discovering how expensive it was to rent we decided to keep looking. At the time we still thought we could find a date in May. Some other locations we called were the Hilton, Bemis Center, Zoo, Holland Performing Art Center, and many others. We also found a lot of facilities that were too small for our guest list and then decided a hotel might work best so we kept calling facilities. Last Friday we went to see the DoubleTree and the Scoular Ballroom.

After visiting Scoular Ballroom we started to think that this might be a great place to have our reception and having the ceremony and reception in two different locations would work better. Today I called Scoular and we have reserved the reception site. It is a beautiful location, still close to downtown and right across from Joslyn. We didn’t want to have the ceremony in a church because both of our churches are in Council Bluffs and we haven’t been to church for quite a long time but there is a beautiful church a couple of blocks away. So now, we are looking into this church and other ceremony sites. We’ve included two pictures we found of the reception site. A neat little side note–Dusty will have proposed one year from the day of our wedding. This date is also during the College World Series, the day before the championship game. Most people in town for the CWS will have already left to go home and if our guests really like baseball, they can come into town early and watch a game. This does mean that if you’re traveling you will need to make hotel reservations early. We will let you know what hotels are the best very soon.