Lu and I created a wedding website for our guests. Besides pictures and our story, the website also included information on our wedding party, an online RSVP, details about our engagement parties and bridal showers, our registries, and information about traveling to the wedding.  It eliminated a lot of wasted paper, time spent on phone calls, and misinformation.

With that said, we've been married almost four months. People don't need to know the time of our events or anything about wedding accommodations, and RSVPs have been done with long ago.

We're currently in the process of revamping our website to include more about our lives as newlyweds: putting in some wedding pictures, changing our video link, and adding a thank you message for everyone who supported us.

We're also going to remove the information that's no longer relevant. We have decided to keep information about:

-- Wedding party: They're still supporting us long after the wedding.
-- Registry: We got three gifts last week. :-)
-- Vendors: We had great vendor and would love to continue to promote their work.
-- Guest Book: Messages of encouragement mean more to us now than before the wedding!

Stay posted. Ashley and Jeremy 2010 is getting reloaded!

I have had a beyond busy week, and I apologize for slacking on my blogging. Since my last post on Monday, I have:

-- survived a sleepover with my cheerleading team: 17 high school freshmen and sophomores who were wide awake until 3 a.m.
-- finished the final draft of my prospectus and am two committee members away from scheduling my defense
-- finalized my schedule (and funding) for the political science conference next week
-- set up a cake tasting with our new baker. Yes, new baker.... Long story, to be discussed in a later post.
-- went to the doctor for my allergy shots and a yearly check up
-- took Maggie to the vet for vaccinations
-- hung out with Lu's parents, usually eating way too much food
-- completed two projects for one of my side jobs  (editing)
-- started a project for my research assistantship (data coding and analysis)
-- emailed all of our vendors to let them know that Lu and I would be in town next weekend for the last time before the wedding to schedule any last-minute appointments
-- planned an overnight trip to Canada to celebrate Lu's birthday
--  celebrated Lu's father's birthday
-- coached my first game (super-nostalgic!)
-- drove back and forth across town selling items from my home and Lu's, so that he'll be able to move out of his place next week and start moving things into mine
-- re-organized my closet and dresser drawers to accommodate Lu's stuff
-- picked the wines for our wedding
-- spent some quality time with one of my bridesmaids and hostesses... even if I did have a mini-meltdown in the grocery store because I was stressed out about all-of-the-above on the list. I love these girls -- nothing like a group hug in Meijer to remind you of what real friendship is all about!

.... And I wasn't the only one with a busy week. Lu was extra-stressed with planning a conference for transfer students in the engineering department. With the conference starting next week and his boss out of town this week,  Lu was doing everything from meeting with program advisors, to stuffing folders, to arranging the schedule, to picking up students from the airport after midnight.

WHAT A WEEK!!! UGH!!!!!

Despite all of this, one thing that Lu and I did not have to worry about was wedding RSVPs. We sent out invitations a few weeks ago, and we've been getting back RSVPs fairly consistently since then. (I owe you guys a post on that!)

Normally, the RSVP process can be tedious: keeping track of who has RSVPed, who still needs to RSVP, handling guests who RSVP for more people than were invited, and worrying about RSVPs getting lost in the mail.

However, in addition to giving us our lovely website, Wedding Tracker also has a really great RSVP management system.  Our internet-savvy guests can RSVP directly through our website. All they need to do is to input their last name and zipcode, scroll to their specific invitation, and fill out details on how many people in their party are coming.

This is also great on our end because Wedding Tracker allows us to save:

1) Time: Although we did put response cards in each envelope, the majority of guests are filling out their information on our automatically-updated website. Guests are also able to access details about the wedding ceremony, reception, bridal showers, registry, travel, and accommodations through our site.

2) Money: Lu and I saved over $50 on stamps. Although we obviously had to put stamps on the invitations going out, we only put stamps on the response card envelopes of people who either do not have easy internet access or who we thought would prefer to send in a more formal RSVP. We ended up putting return stamps on less than 20% of our invitations.

3) Sanity: Wedding Tracker helps us manage our guest list, as well as keep track of invites mailed, RSVPs received, gifts received, and thank you notes sent.

4) The Environment: Our invitations were really simple -- outer envelope, invitation, response card, response card envelope, and magnet.  While this sounds like a lot, most wedding invitations include a ton more paper. Everything from inner envelopes, to reception cards, to directions from the ceremony to the reception, to registry cards can make a typical wedding invitation tip the scales at the post office. 

Wedding Tracker has become our quick-reference, 24/7 wedding coordinator. Instead of answering emails and calls from guests or dealing with people who've lost various parts of their invitation, we just refer everyone to our website. That way, Lu and I can focus on checking off the million other things on our to-do list.

After Lu and I priced a few florists in the DC-area, we found that the cost for 1 bridal bouquet, 6 bridesmaids' bouquets, 2 junior bridesmaid's bouquets, 5 corsages, and 10 boutonnieres would be approximately $900... and that doesn't include flowers for decorating the church or reception centerpieces.

We decided to downgrade from traditional florists to see what grocery stores had to offer. Although the designs were still pretty and the price tag dropped to $500, the professionalism of many grocery store florists left a little to be desired. In addition, the bouquets were dependent on who'd exactly be doing them. Even though it cut the price nearly in half, quality wasn't a risk that I was willing to take.

So I put the florist out of my mind and moved on to tackle some of the other hundreds of items on my to-do list, which took me to Michaels. When one of my bridesmaids, Mrs. R., found out that I was engaged, the first thing she said was, "Michaels and Jo-Ann Fabrics are going to be your new best friends."

She was right! I've been to Michaels more in the last few months, then I've been in my entire life -- well, except when I was in my friendship bracelet stage in elementary school... and my latch hooking stage in high school... and my cross-stitching phase in college. Okay, okay. I'm already quite familiar with Michaels!

Anyway, on one trip, I decided to go through the clearance section and found beautiful artificial flowers in our wedding colors for $2/bunch. Inspired, I grabbed a few bunches, some burgundy ribbon, and some lace ribbon trimmed with pearls -- all on sale. After about half an hour of work and some hot glue gun magic, I had two jr. bridesmaids bouquets that look similar to the the one below for about $5 each.


I decided to go back and grab some different flowers for the bridesmaids and myself. After that trip, I was ready to make 9 bouquets for $55 -- less than what the florist quoted me for one bridesmaid bouquet.

I skipped "Wedding Porn Wednesdays" yesterday because I was busy working on... our website!