Please help us!

Please help us! Our wedding planner started a contest on Facebook. The couple with the most posts wins $150 off their planning package.

$150 may not seem like a lot on a wedding scale, but every little bit counts!

Like Marrero Weddings and Events on Facebook and then post the following on their wall:
"Marrero Weddings and Events is Celia and Jake's wedding planner"

Contest ends Friday, March 4 at 12pm (E.S.T.).

Now let's talk about some stats. You are might be thinking "naw, they don't need my help, they have plenty of friends." SOOOOO not true. In fact I'm begining to think that either our friends just don't like us, or you are all thinking the next person will help us.

There are 3 couples in the contest. We are dead LAST as of now (3/3 7:55am EST).
Amy and Sean - 28 posts
Kate and Doug - 17 posts
Celia and Jake - 15 posts (that's including the 2 posted by Jake and myself! I don't think the other couples made posts themselves.)

In any case, I'm bribing folks to help us out. It turns out that cupcakes are a great bargaining tool.

So please, help us out if you have Facbeook. (Don't tell Paula, but you can always hit the "unlike" button later). Oh and I'll give you a cupcake if you do this.

(airline) Discount!

We scored a discount for you guys, well some of you guys, on air travel!

For those of you who book Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air, you'll get 7% off for travel to (and from Boston) between August 17 and August 23, 2011.

It's not much, but it sure is beats nothing.

Use discount code: ECCMB2303 for Hung/Perkowski wedding. Not valid for Hawaii or Mexico and some cities may not be available. Let us know if you run into any trouble.

We know that not everyone can hitch a ride on Alaska, so we tried to negotiate for a similar discount through JetBlue. No dice. Sorry ya'll, we tried.

Milestone: hotel blocks

We have hotel rooms blocked off for ya'll! And discounted to boot!!

The Westin-Waltham

August 19-21, 2011

Room: $99 (+11.7% tax)/night

Parking: $8/day, unlimited in and out privs

Caveats: In room Wi-Fi is not complimentary (but it is on the lobby). Also, there are all sorts of rules about not bringing alcohol into the hotel. I shouldn't have to tell you to just hide it in your bag and to keep the noise level down. We'll turn a blind eye (most likely we will be partying with ya'll).

Use this link to book your room with our group discount: Hung/ Perkowski Wedding Room Block

Some of you may be thinking "Gee, The Westin is really nice, but too pricey for us." We understand, that is why I spent a lot of time negotiating with the hotel to give you the biggest bang for your buck. $99/night is really good for the area. But, it is the only hotel that makes you pay for parking and does not have free wireless internet.

With that said, you are more than welcome stay at one of the handful of hotels that are next door to The Westin. I'm far too lazy give you the links to each and every one of them, but the Google map below has them all. If you do choose to stay elsewhere, just let us know. We want to make sure that you are taken care of.

View Larger Map

6 months

EEEEGAAAADSSSS! 175 days to go...how? How did we go from 700+ days to 175?

As you know, we've been pretty busy this past month with wedding stuff:

• We sent out our STDs, (HAHAHAHAHA that joke never gets old) no not that, save-the-dates people. It's funny to look back on them and realize that I have "save THE date" in all our pictures, but I had obsessed for weeks about how I wanted to be different and have it say "save OUR date." Whoops.
• We were able to introduce our wedding party to one another. I probably spent 100 hours (no joke) working on the magazine, but I have ZERO regrets. I would do it again if time decided to roll itself back.
• We picked our caterer! I'm not going to tell you which one we picked, we need to keep some level of mystique you know. Rest assured, you will not be dissappointed.
• My Chinese dress is coming along...much slower than Barbara had originally planned, so it is a good we started months in advance. Right now the hold up is obtaining the fabric I want. I'm much too lazy to drive down to NYC to purchase it, and far too paranoid about purchasing it online. So, we have to be patient and wait until my friend has some free time to pick it up. She's an aduitor and seem to recall that it's tax season.
• We obtained hotel blocks at the local Westin. Oh yea, we want to pamper our guests. Yes, we know that Westin's are expensive, but in our part of the woods and with my mad negotiating skills, we scored a great deal. Rooms will be $99/night (+11.7% tax), self-park (unlimited in and out privs) was reduced down to $8 from $11. We were not able to get them to throw in free Wi-Fi in the rooms, but there is complimentary Wi-Fi in the lobby. They are setting up an internal website just for booking rooms. As soon as we have that info, we will link it on the Travel & Accommodations tab. Keep in mind you are not required to stay at the Westin. You are welcomed to stay at any of the handful of hotels next door to the Westin, just let us know where you are.
• We ordered paper for our invitations. There is a giant box of paper and envelopes sitting on our bedroom floor (the floor of the guest room is full of other wedding related crap).
• We met with our floral designer, Karla of Karla Cassidy Designs. People, Karla ROCKS! I can't even begin to tell you how awesome she is. We did not interview any other florist. She was just it. Done and done.
• We booked hair and make-up vendor for all the ladies (mom's included). We will have a hair artist AND a make-up artist onsite the morning of to help get us all dolled up. My trial run is scheduled for May 1. I'll keep you posted with lots of pictures.
• Oh, oh, oooohhh! We have wedding bands! Well kind of. Jake has his and mine is purchased but sitting at the jewelers in Oregon. I'll have it physically in May when I see my MOH (maid of honor). don't worry, I'll write a separate post on this and include pictures because I know ya'll are nosey and want to see.

Whew, that's a lot don't you think? Between all of the aforementioned hub-bub, we jetted to Oregon for a really quick trip and visited my family and friends. We figured that if we didn't go now, we wouldn't be back until 2012. The thought of that just brings me to tears. 

Countdown:
7 months
8 months
9 months
11 months

12 months

13 months

2 miles of twine

Oh bakers twine, your presence has swept through a new generation of crafters in the wedding world as well as crafting in general. People have found a new use for you, that is so much more than just being wrapped around a box of baked goods. You are so main stream that even Crate and Barrel sells you. And here's the kicker, you come in more than just 3 colors now (red and white, blue and white, white).

Bakers twine and I go way back. Try a year. I saw an image of bakers wrapped around a box and just like that, I had to have it for our wedding.



via Style Me Pretty



I'll have you know that I'm not just following a trend, but rather it makes sense, I'm a baker! But a year ago while folks in the wedding world were purchasing a product called Divine Twine, I didn't. Not because I didn't want to, but because they only carried 3 colors at the time and red was not one of them!!! I researched high and low, I even thought that I'd try and wait for Divine Twine to release new colors, but at that time, they weren't. I found red and white bakers twine...A LOT of it for cheap. I mulled over it for awhile, 3400 yards (yes 3400 YARDS!) was a lot of twine. It was only $9 ($17 after shipping). But what if the red wasn't as red as I'd like? What if the white wasn't really white? Well it's not even $20 and I'll just use it to wrap up boxes of cupcakes, right? So I pulled the trigger and ordered it.



via We Sell Coffee



Damn that's a lot of freaken twine. But guess what, it looked dirty (at least I thought so at the time). So I went back to Etsy, where I had originally started my search. I struck up a conversation with MyFriendAmy. Before you knew it she sent me a small sample. It was brighter! It looked so much better than the commercial stuff I purchased in bulk. I proceeded to clean Amy out of her red and white bakers twine stock, 200 yards. She sent in in the cutest little box.



personal photo



At last, I had my twine. Get this, months later, Divine Twine releases new colors...red being one of them. What. The. Crap.

Fast forward to last night, we received the cutest wedding invitation wrapped in twine, twine from Divine Twine mind you. I immediately pulled out my collection and compared. No surprise, Divine Twine is so much brighter, even then the stuff I purchased from Etsy.

*sigh* It's ok, no one but me will know the difference.

3600 yards = 2.045 miles