Real Life Bride: Week 33

I made it to just over four months out from the wedding being in "casual, lull mode" - but now it's time for planning! We've been pretty lackadaisical with things so far other than getting the vendors booked and just tossing around ideas of what we could do, how to make our wedding personal and special for our guests, etc, but now I'm ready to actually start doing/buying/making things happen!

I believe I mentioned before that the rehearsal dinner is set to take place at Westlake Village Inn, so I recently contacted the coordinator at Saddlerock Ranch to book the space for our rehearsal itself. With the wedding in late October, there is no Friday wedding in our space so we are able to hold the rehearsal at our convenience. With that scheduled, we were able to set the time for the rehearsal dinner and get started on the invites - I love when checking off one item leads to checking off another! We were also looking into options for a small Sunday brunch with our families at the Four Seasons where we were set to stay, but they weren't particularly accommodating and we were less than impressed with the hotel being located right off the 101 freeway (you could literally see/hear it), so we moved our room and our families over to Westlake Village Inn which we find so charming. We booked a Master Suite for ourselves, so this is a special treat! We're just starting to work out the details of the rehearsal dinner and looking into a brunch, and it's nice to get the ball rolling.

Our invitations have been sent to the printer and we are on schedule for an early August mail date. Since we didn't send save-the-dates, I think it's good to get the invitations out just before the two month mark especially since many of the guests will be travelling. They include an accommodations card with information on our hotel room blocks, and I feel like receiving the invitation reminds people to start planning their trip - and with flights these days, earlier might be better! Here's a sneak of our adorable map created by my extremely talented sister!

I don't want to give away too many details on the reception itself in case anyone who will be attending our wedding actually reads this, but I can say that we will soon be ordering the items for the escorts cards and favors also. Yes, we are still four months out, but how sad would it be if something sold out and we couldn't get it? I enjoy the peace of mind knowing that all our items are safely at my parents' house!

The next few months are going to go by so quickly and I'm very excited to work with Beth on all the details!