2 months down, 7 to go – woohoo! If you haven’t already, check out the pre-planning I did before we were even engaged (lol) and the planning I did the month after we got engaged. This was definitely a slower month for planning since I went full force right out of the gate, but this month had some of the most exciting moments yet that made everything seem so real!

Send Save the Dates

I wanted to send save the dates earlier, but had to hold off. Why? Because it had our website listed on it and I couldn’t make the website public because it mentioned we’re buying a house! Our closing kept getting delayed (dang COVID-19) and I didn’t want to jinx it so I couldn’t send out save the dates until we officially had the house. Plus, what was I supposed to put for the return address label?! I ordered a self-inking stamp on Etsy for the return address label and it made it so much easier instead of stickers.

We had the cards for over a month before we were able to send them out so it made it that much more exciting to drop them off at the post office for them to find their way to all of you!

A hack if you don’t have nice handwriting (which I do not) is to print your addresses on save the date and invitation envelopes! Some printers feed envelopes, while others don’t so it may or may not work, but it made them look so pretty using nice fonts I found on DaFont. I just formatted all the addresses in Excel to print them.

Look At Bridal Shower Dresses

Even though my shower isn’t until November, I’m someone who obsesses over planning my outfits so they are perfect. I started looking around for some pretty white dresses for my bridal shower. I’ve ordered some and haven’t quite found the perfect one yet, but that’s why I started looking so early.

Book Videographer

This was by far one of the hardest decisions to make. I spent a good 3 days doing nothing but watching wedding videos trying to find one I even kind of liked – and I pretty much hated something about all of them. I finally found a videographer from North Florida who had done two of my friends’ weddings and his videos were PERFECT! Then when I contacted him he said he wasn’t doing wedding videos anymore… I basically begged him and after thinking it over, he agreed! I’m so, so happy to have him film our wedding!

Publish the Website

Like with the save the dates, I couldn’t make the website public without jinxing our house since it’s part of our “how he proposed” story. I loved working on the website and couldn’t wait to share it with everyone! For those interested, our wedding website is www.zola.com/wedding/sammyandjared. I had a lot of fun writing little bios for each of my bridesmaids, but man it was like pulling teeth asking Jared to do the same for the groomsmen. I’d ask him, “Why did you pick so-and-so to be a groomsman?” and his response would be, “I don’t know,” with a shrug. It got to the point where I wrote them, read them to him, and he changed it or approved. I don’t know why I expected more from him!

Order Jared’s wedding band

So this one we did wayyy early, but I saw a recommendation for the Manly Bands website and they were running a 20% off sale so we figured we’d just go ahead and order it anyway. Jared has an idea of what he wanted before looking at the website and found a perfect match – The Baller. I measured his finger at home and ordered the ring based off that…and it fell right off when it came in and he tried it on. Luckily they have free exchanges so we ordered a size down aaaaand that one was still too big. We returned it for another half size down and it STILL didn’t fit! We even went to Kay Jewelers at the mall to get him sized and that still didn’t really help. We’re still working on getting the perfect fit, but at least he knows what style he likes.

Wedding Dress Shopping!

This was the first thing I wanted to do right after we got engaged…and then a global pandemic broke out shutting down all bridal shops (and everything else too). As soon as stores were allowed to open back up, I made appointments at 3 different bridal shops – CC’s Bridal Couture in Clearwater, Calvet Couture in Sarasota, and One & Only Bridal Boutique in Winter Park. First up was CC’s where I tried on 8-10 gowns. All of them were beautiful, but just weren’t “the one,” except for one gown. I knew the second I put it on that that was it! It was the only dress I showed the consultant a picture of to ask if they had it in store because I wanted to try it on. I told my mom before we even started shopping that that was going to be my dress. Even though I loved it most out of what I’d seen so far, I had my appointment at Calvet Couture only a few days later so we left CC’s without a dress in hand, but one to compare every other dress to.

Here are 2 dresses that didn’t make the cut:

At Calvet Couture, because of the pandemic, my mom and I had to wear masks, which was a great accessory to go with all the gowns! It definitely made for some memorable photos. I tried on 7 dresses there and really liked the first one I put on. I put it on again at the end, but after comparing it to pictures of my favorite dress from CC’s, I knew I had to go back and get that original dress.

*Also not my dress*

I canceled my appointment for One & Only because I just knew this was the dress. We went back to CC’s about a week later and as soon as I put the dress on, I was sold. I went in with a checklist of criteria I wanted my dress to meet and it checked off every single box! We ordered it and it should be in our hands mid-September!

The boutiques wanted to limit the number of guests each bride brought with her into the store, but I’d originally planned to only bring my mom wedding dress shopping with me. I knew what I was looking for and am decisive enough on my own and I wanted it to be a special thing we got to do together. She was so great through the whole thing and it was so much fun!

One big tip I have for brides going wedding dress shopping is to not look at the sizes of the sample dresses you try on! Wedding dresses run small and the sizing is all over the place. In one designer, the size 12 fit like a glove and in another designer I was swimming in a size 8. Just roll with it and don’t let it get you down! I sell formal gowns so I’m used to crazy sizing and I was still shocked by the sizes on the tags!

Stay tuned for next month’s post with lots more wedding planning as we get closer and closer to the big day!