Ask Esther

Yesterday at Saltwater Farm, JC & I met a bunch of great, newly engaged couples who have either booked or are considering booking (DO IT!) their weddings at the vineyard. I had some really nice conversations with the couples and even some parents about our experience and their visions for their own dream weddings. It made me remember just how overwhelming the whole planning process can be. JC & I planned every last detail by ourselves...searching online through hundreds of potential venues and then visiting over a dozen, many of which we realized in seconds were not right for us (but still drove 2 hours to see); spending hours on the phone with potential vendors, before scheduling face-to-face meetings with each of them...photographers, caterers, florists, justices-of-the-peace, and on and on........

We would have given our right arms (the left needs to sparkle with the ring J) for some advice or recommendations as to where we could start. Once we had agreed to work with some of our vendors, we were able to ask them for advice and it made the process so much easier. If you've followed our blog, you know that we hired DJ Doug from Power Posse Productions without even talking to him, let alone hearing/seeing his work!

I gave my email address and phone number to a bunch of couples because I am honestly more than happy to share our experience, offer inside info, and give recommendations for our awesome vendors. I mean, I spent a year researching and learning all about wedding planning and getting to know vendors in New England so it would be a shame to have all that new knowledge go to waste now! I understand why so many wedding planners get their start after their own weddings ;)

So if you've come across our blog in your search for some of the vendors we used, please feel free to contact me about our experience or ask any questions you like...the more random the better! For now, I'll tell you that we chose to work with each of our vendors because they were the most fun, the most flexible, the most creative, the easiest to work with, and the most excited about our vision. Tall order, if you ask me!

Venue: Saltwater Farm Vineyard - owners, Merrily & Michael Connery

Caterer: Gourmet Galley - owner & event planner, Anna Lathrop

Photographers: Justin Marantz Photography - owners & photographers, Justin & Mary Marantz

Videographer: Stillmotion - cinematographer, Patrick Moreau

Florist: It's So Ranunculus - owner & florist, Leah Miner

DJ: Power Posse Productions - owner & DJ, Doug Jastremski

Hair: Platinum of Norwich - stylist, Bobbie Camp

Makeup: Jennie Fresa Beauty Libray - owner & makeup artist, Jennie Fresa

Justice of the Peace: Chaz Zezulka

Best of luck and have fun!

Bride: Esther Tetreault

esthermary11@comcast.net

A Crapload of Cookies

Let me just say that I truly do enjoy baking.

Now, that being said, I never want to spend a morning baking 150 cookies ever again. My kitchen gets too hot, I will inevitably burn at least one finger, and I end up covering every visible surface in a light dusting of flour because I'm too impatient to add the flour to the wet mixture sloooooowlyyyyyy.

What IS fun, though, is spending a few hours with your girlfriends EATING cookies, drinking wine, and laughing about how ridiculous it is to create 120 cute little bags of homemade cookies.

Last night a bunch of my girlfriends came together to help me finish putting together the wedding favors. I stole the brilliant idea from my bridesmaid Gina, whose mother and mother's friends did the same thing for Gina's wedding last year. What I didn't realize was the difference just one generation makes in executing said idea.

Who knew how long it would take me (and my friend Renee) to measure, cut, and tape the cute little recipe cards I wanted to attach to each bag? I didn't. Who would have thought baking 13 dozen cookies 2 days before I leave for Wedding Weekend might be cutting it a little close? Not me. And who thinks about cold storage for 120 bags full of fresh baked cookies? JC, that's who. Needless to say (although I will), I came home last night super excited that my friends and I pulled off this extravaganza and finished all our personalized wedding favors. We packed up all the bags and left them in Renee's (kinda) cool basement to store for a couple days. Well, JC was more concerned about poisoning all of you than I was because he convinced me to go BACK to Renee's at 10:30p last night to unpack all the boxes, clean out Renee's refridgerator, and jam 120 cute little bags into every available space. Thank goodness she doesn't eat much.

So when you're enjoying your late night bag of delicious, non-toxic cookies...please give thanks to Renee, Gina, Katie W, Katie T, Annmarie, Meg, Rachel, Jen, Aunt Sylvia, and Marsha. Enjoy!

Dress Fitting #1

I had my first dress fitting yesterday!!

If I haven't already told you (10x) that my soon-to-be Aunt Norma is making my dress, well...now you know. Norma is a creative GENIUS and makes beautiful work out of anything...food, fabric, whatever. We currently display some original Norma throw pillows in our living room and keep her ridiculous brownies in the freezer for special treats. When Norma said that she would be honored to make my wedding dress for us I was ecstatic.

JC & I drove down to Norma & Jim's place on the Cape yesterday where Norma has been working on my dress. After a brief chat, we kicked JC out so Norma & I could get to work. As soon as I saw the dress lying on a bed...I was speechless. I worked with Norma online while she was in Florida this winter to figure out the best shape and style for my dress, and Norma sent me small fabric samples to choose from but I am NOT a creative genius so I had no idea what to expect. My brain works best with numbers and patterns, and exercise, but I can barely draw stick figures (evidence to the left) so I really couldn't envision the dress we were designing. I have to say, it is BEAUTIFUL J I'm not going to ruin the surprise with pictures, so you'll just have to be content with the happy (naked) self-portrait you see here.

After Norma & I discussed minor adjustments and finishing work to be done, we let JC & Jim back in the house so we could all have a proper visit. If you're going to the Cape, you have to get lobster and ice cream so we ended a fabulous day with a delicious seafood dinner on the water and ice cream (in fresh waffle cones!) at the Polar Cave Ice Cream Parlour where Jim's granddaughters work.

Stay tuned for Fitting #2!

RSVP's rolling in!

After FINALLY getting our invitations out last week, we've already started receiving RSVP's in the mail. It's so much fun! I normally get our mail every couple days (unless JC is anxiously awaiting his monthly Beer Advocate) but I have a feeling I'll be waiting for the mailman at the door every day for the next few weeks.

We officially have 7 guests to date. Exciting! And, I know I'm sick, but by now you know that we're all about the data soooo...we have 4 females, 3 males, 4 beef, 2 fish, and 1 vegetarian. Maybe I'll post a pie chart soon.

Wedding Homework?

JC & I knew that planning our wedding would be a lot of work (I mean fun), but we didn't realize that we'd actually have homework assignments.  Our super fun photographer team, Justin & Mary Marantz, gave us a "little survey" to fill out which would help them get to know us better before our engagement shoot.  It's 4 pages. Right, four pages.

Between my crazy work schedule and JC's stupid (oops, did I say that out loud?) travel schedule, we have what feels like a few precious hours a month together these days.  Needless to say, we found lots of other things to do than fill out a million questions in writing.  When we couldn't procrastinate any longer, JC & I finally sat down on the couch with a pen to do our assignment.

A bit of advice for everyone: find 5 minutes to tell your loved ones why you love them.  Just 3 good reasons will do.  That was just one of the questions on our survey, but you can't imagine how good it feels to hear why the love of your life loves you. J

We spent a couple hours finishing the survey (while we watched the Red Sox on tv) but we cruised through most of the questions.  I'm convinced Justin & Mary are relationship geniuses.  Not only are they a great duo, but they spend much of their time capturing the best of other couples on film.

I have to say, this experience was one of the more fun parts of the planning process.  It was really nice spending a little time focusing on the "Why" JC & I are getting married, not just the "How"!

Wedding Event

Yesterday JC & I went to a great wedding event that was actually hosted at Saltwater Farm Vineyard. There were close to 20 vendors there covering all aspects of wedding planning. It was really cool for us because a few of the vendors we've already booked were featured so we were able to see our own venue set up similar to how it might look for our wedding!

First, I have to say that every time JC & I visit SWF we see new, beautiful updates that make us fall even more in love with this venue. Even on a chilly, gray day with bare vines the vineyard is beautiful! We noticed freshly landscaped areas that are going to look even more amazing when the grounds are alive and green at the end of the summer. Merrily and Michael, the vineyard owners, have been working their tails off to get everything ready for their tasting room to open this summer. If you're in the area in July/August, stop in for a sneak preview! We'll keep you posted on the grand opening date.

By the way, JC is holding my shoes...isn't he sweet? :)

JC's parents came with us so they could see SWF for the first time. The first thing they said was, "Now we understand why the two of you chose this site. It's so "you!"

Anna, our favorite caterer, was featured at the event so we had planned to spend some time going over "fun" details like linen selection, table placement, and timeline flow. A couple strange blue beverages sure made this process easier! Even in the cold rain, Anna walked outside with me from start to finish (have I mentioned how much I love her??) so we could figure out where the welcoming beverages go, where JC & I will exit after the ceremony, where the harvest table should be...so many things to think about!! Once we started using 10th grade geometry to figure out how big the table cloths should be I knew we were done. (a2 + b2 = c2, right?)

This is a picture of the stone fireplace on the main floor. Doesn't it look beautiful with all the floating candles?

For those of you who love following blogs, particularly about wedding planning, Style Me Pretty is one of the best on the web. Abby Larson was one of the featured speakers at the event and many of my friends were a little jealous that I was going to meet this Style Guru in the flesh! If you're interested in reading a little more about what the event was all about, check out this link:

Breathing a confident sigh of relief

It's very rare that JC, King of Data (clinical trial manager for life-altering medical studies), finds something he likes and says, "I want it." I like to think I'm one of those exceptional phenomenons but I doubt it. This has happened 2x during our wedding planning process. The first was during our venue search, which was so daunting we haven't even attempted to blog about it yet. The second was after one of our photographer interviews. You would think I'd be the supporting fian-cée and say, "Great! Let's do it!" Fortunately, I am Queen of Data (MBA in statistics), so I'm not.

We researched as many, if not more, photographers as we did venues. I don't know how many people have told us that the photographer is one of the most important vendors we'll hire because their images will be the only tangible memories we'll have after the wedding is over. For our lifetime. That's for-e-ver. We ruled out quite a few referrals after looking at the photographers' websites because we were looking for something special.

The first photographer we met with was great. She was referred to us by one of my clients and JC liked her website and images so much we set up an appointment right away. After meeting with her, JC said, "She's perfect. Let's just book her." Wouldn't you assume I'd want to make the process as easy as possible? Nope. I told him we should wait to meet w/ the other photogs.

The last photographers we met with were AWESOME. We'd been referred to the husband and wife team by a florist (actually, the florist we did not hire). When JC & I checked out out their website and blog we were blown away. Their work was clearly of a higher caliber than any other photographer we reviewed. Would they be too expensive for us?? Yep.

Ok, so out-of-our-budget, cream of the crop photographer or reasonably-priced, really great photographer? Hmmm...

I can't believe how difficult this decision is. I actually lost a little sleep over this one. While JC snored away, I debated on whether it was worth it to pay more than we wanted for photography, and potentially blow our budget, or hire a really great photographer that we almost hired anyway.

More expensive, creatively stylish or affordable, classic style? Oh man...

I called both photographers to get their bottom lines in terms of inclusions (engagement sessions, cd's/dvd's with our images, albums) and total package prices. To work with the more expensive duo we'd need to cut out some of the extras we were hoping for.

Tastes great, less filling? AARRGHH!!!

Finally JC & I decided that our priority was the quality of the work and it was worth exceeding this portion of our budget because we'd always wonder what our album could have looked like. Then, the other night, I get an email from the husband/wife team that completely put me at ease in our decision. They were recently married themselves and they said they totally appreciate our situation and are willing to give us the images from our engagement shoot, which will save us a pretty penny. YAY! I think more than the savings, I'm happy because I feel comfortable that they understand what we're going through and are sensitive to the stresses of planning a wedding.

So meet Justin and Mary! They are fantastic and fun and you'll be seeing them soon at a wedding near you...

We have our Florist

I have to say that wedding flowers is the one area JC & I had absolutely no idea how to budget for. How much do flowers cost? Who knows?? Apparently they can cost A LOT.

JC & I have some grand ideas about what we'd like to display at the wedding to keep with the "natural" theme we have going. We'd like to do some cool arrangements using grasses, herbs, and foliage but we also plan to have some beautiful bright flowers as well. JC has transplanted about 30 pg hydrangeas from his little garden plot in the city to his parents' house, so we're going to use lots of these big gorgeous blooms.

We really only interviewed 2 florists in CT: one is pretty well known in Mystic and does lots of events all over the state; the other was referred to us by my cousin Marsha (making her 2nd appearance in this blog!). When we got their proposals, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if they were $1000 or $10000. Fortunately they weren't $10k, but they were more than we wanted to spend on flowers when there are other priorities (like food!) to focus on.

We decided to work with Leah, Marsha's referral, from It's So Ranunculus in Marlborough, CT. She was so cute and fun and excited about our ideas when we met w/ her. She's also very willing to work w/ any budget and is planning a "mock design" consultation for us because I have absolutely NO creative vision! I'm excited to watch her play w/ flowers and foliage to see what our arrangements are going to look like. Watch for more posts with pictures soon!

We've got an officiant

JC & I decided to have a civil ceremony for our wedding so we've been searching for officiants in the Stonington area. Connecticut laws state that we can only get our license in Stonington, and Justices of the Peace are elected in Connecticut, so we had a short list to interview. Fortunately, Chaz Zezulka was on the top of that list.

To open our first phone conversation, Chaz told me that he'd met me a few years ago at a David Copperfield show at Foxwoods. Apparently we go way back! He also asked me close to a million questions that I didn't have answers to, making me acutely aware of how little JC & I have planned for this part of our wedding. I guess we thought we'd show up, a little man would say "Man and Wife", and then we'd have food, friends, and fun!

(Chaz actually mentioned that he doesn't say "Man and Wife," he says "Husband and Wife" because, really, how archaic is that?)

Clearly JC & I have some more planning to do but we can breathe a sigh of relief now because Chaz has performed hundreds of ceremonies and is more than happy to help us along the way. He's pretty fun, too, which should make for a more interesting ceremony. Doesn't he look fun??

Finalizing the Menu

I spent 2 1/2 hours last night on the phone w/ Anna, our caterer, finalizing the wedding menu. (Ok, we actually only discussed the menu w/ JC for one hour and then Anna and I chatted about anything and everything for the next 90 minutes...honestly, I love her! My new best friend...)

JC & I had a lot of input into our menu (shocker) since the food is so important to us. I'll leave most of it for a surprise, but expect classic JC & E: Fresh. Local. Seasonal. Delicious. I'm talking fresh off the boat New England seafood (lobster, crab, scallops), local farm cheeses (Cato Corner Farm), artisan breads (no, I'm not letting JC bake the bread because I don't want to be sneezing for our whole wedding), and late summer seasonal fruits and vegetables. My mouth is already watering!

Connecticut's hottest dj

I can't believe we actually did this, but we booked our dj without even talking to him, let alone hearing/seeing his work.

For 2 people as obsessed w/ data and research as JC & I, to not even interview or research another "music" option for our wedding seems crazy at best, scary at worst. The music is half the party! JC & I both hate the traditional "wedding songs" and we have different taste in music so I was concerned that this would be one of our toughest decisions. Nope.

Every vendor we've spoken to in CT has referred us to the same person: DJ Doug Jastremski of Power Posse Productions (yes, that is actually the name...apparently he started the company when he was 14 with a boombox and some cassette tapes he recorded off the radio). Caterers, florists, photographers...everyone knows DJ Doug. In small towns like Mystic and Stonington, people in the same industry (Weddings) have probably worked with everyone else at one time or another. They are really quick and happy to give referrals and let you know if they think another vendor would be a "good fit" for your personality and wedding style. During every vendor meeting we've had so far, when the subject of music came up the first and sometimes ONLY reference we got was, "Oh, you have to book DJ Doug." or "You should call Power Posse Productions as soon as possible." Really??

So last week I left a message for DJ Doug and got a prompt return call from Mia in his office (30 minutes on the phone and I find out Mia is Doug's wife). Surprisingly, they don't have a website or media package but apparently they only work off referrals, do no advertising, and are slammed with business. Doug did the Victoria's Secret fashion show after party, Kevin Bacon's 20th wedding anniversary (ha! 2 degrees of separation), a Rockefeller wedding, and a party for Justin Timberlake at 50 Cent's CT mansion, among other big names. They have a small staff of dj's and production people but fortunately, Doug was actually open for September 6 so Mia penciled us in and told me she'd send out a hard copy of their proposal. In the time it took to get the package, we were referred back to him by 3 more vendors. Time to make the call.

Ok, I literally just got off the phone with Doug and he's great. Done deal. Actually, I spent 45 minutes on the phone w/ Doug and then called Mia and I just got off the phone w/ her after another 45 minute conversation. I love these two! I feel completely confident that our wedding is going to be so much fun and you're all going to have the best time ever!

The Caterer

We’ve made our decision and couldn’t be more excited! For anyone who’s ever been “entertained” by us, you probably recognize how important food is to both JC & I so we knew choosing a caterer would be the most difficult part of this process (yes, more important than even my dress!). I think if JC were left to his own devices he would actually attempt to cater our wedding himself. As it is, he’s already making all of the beer. I’m still not sure I’ve talked him out of bartending.

We interviewed the 3 local caterers (who’ve all worked weddings at Saltwater Farm) that the vineyard owner recommended. I had a looooooong phone conversation with each of them before scheduling the tastings. Here’s a little bit of advice: don’t plan 3-course dinner tastings the days before AND after Thanksgiving. I also don’t recommend a 9am dinner tasting, no matter how much you like filet mignon.

Anna, the owner of Gourmet Galley, was the first caterer I spoke to and was really great about fitting us into her schedule the afternoon before Thanksgiving, since JC & I were going to be in Connecticut. She worked w/ her chef to put together our menu on just 3 days notice. We met Anna and her chef at her house, where she has a full catering kitchen built on as an addition. Everything was amazing, but I think we didn’t realize how impressive it was until we had finished the other two tastings. The dishes were all obviously prepared to order for just JC & I, but the other two caterers actually tasted like “catered” food, rather than made-to-order restaurant fare.

It took almost two months (holidays and all) of going back and forth drafting menus and proposals, but we decided to go with Anna and Gourmet Galley because of the quality of the food, their approach to service, and willingness to work with us on the menu. JC has opinions (lots of opinions) about what we’d like to serve and how we’d like the food presented and Anna loves it. I’m really excited to work with her as we get closer to finalizing the menu and JC & I both feel completely comfortable letting her run our big day.

Next up: CAKE TASTING!