Location Information

The Dumbo Arts Center is located here, near the F to York Street and the A/C to High Street.

Anyone who wishes to take the LIRR would probably be better off traveling to Penn Station; the event is only about one stop into Brooklyn from Manhattan.

The street parking situation is not so good, but you could consider paid parking nearby here.

Please let me know if you'd like more customized advice about directions!!

So, I still suck at blogging...

But I'm trying to get better!

The wedding's in a few weeks (I refuse to count the days; it's too stressful). A few of you have asked if there's anything you can do to help, so here are some ideas! Love you all, whether you can lend a hand or not! ;)

1. Figure out what background music to play while everyone but me walks down the aisle (we have a special song for that)

2. Figure out what appropriate iPod dock volume to play it at and who will man the iPod dock.

3. Figure out who will help set up the aisle and chairs.

4. Figure out who, with a car, can pick up our booze (and this might need to be at two places-- a beer distributor and Trader Joe's)
* We're not sure exactly where/how to store the booze and get it to the wedding. We could keep it at our apartment and then Chris and his brothers can take it in a cab to the wedding, though anyone with any other suggestions is welcome to share them!
* We were considering getting a keg, 'cause we're classy like that, but we're not sure how we'd keep it cold 'til Sunday afternoon
* We also want to get a case of Martinelli's because we'll have a lot of non-drinkers in attendance who we'd like to share a toast with us. Any clue where to get this?

5. Figure out who will pick up cake, plates, forks at Costco
* anyone with a membership want to take this on? Otherwise, we'll get a membership and someone with a car can go for us...

(PS: This is Liz, not Chris! He was accidentally logged on. Not that it matters...)

In other news...

Ok. So, I suck at blogging.

Here are some updates.

1. The wedding reception will be a cocktail party style affair. It will probably run from about 2:30-5:30. There should be awesome live music for an hour in the middle of things and an hour for corny toasts and cake.

2. The wedding ceremony is still a little less planned. People should gather at noon and the walking should start at 12:15-30ish. We know that most people will be standing, though we'll have ten chairs for anyone who needs to sit. We need to figure out who will make us a chuppah. We need to confirm an officiant. We need to figure out how we'll play our song while I walk down the aisle. (Get batteries for my iPod dock...?)

3.I know that my friend Stef, an awesome photographer, will take the posed pictures. We hope that everyone else will take a lot of fun candid shots throughout the wedding and reception and email us good ones. We'll put the ones we like on a web site and people can order prints, if they want...

4- Our awesome friends Chris and Emma are making our invitations. They will, hopefully, be ready for mailing in about 10 days (2 weeks max).

5. We need to figure out cake and booze and coffee. Anyone with ideas may weigh in!

Food!

Okay. So, we've decided to go with a cocktail-party style reception, catered by a Brooklyn-based caterer called Cobblestone Foods. They cost a teensy bit more than we'd hoped, but they're great. They've worked at the Dumbo Arts Center before, they're really professional, and they'll take care of everything. We'll have about three hors d'ouevres, soft drinks/juice/etc., beer, wine, and maybe a signature cocktail. (We have to price out the booze!)

We still have to figure out our dessert situation. One idea I had was to get a very small, very pretty cake for "ceremonial purposes" and then a large sheet cake for everyone. Another good idea is the, evidently Midwestern, tradition of a cookie table. Any guest that wanted to could bring a couple dozen cookies and contribute to our dessert.

Anyone else have any good ideas? Now we're down to the fun stuff!

Planning Paralysis

Whether it was because I started back at work and school, or because we're just natural procrastinators, Chris and I completely just stopped wedding planning. We'd muse fantastically about our plans, and neither of us is unexcited about our upcoming nuptials, but neither of us was taking the initiative to do any of the important stuff. And then the new year hit. And then an email from Caryn, happily noting we had five months left to plan. Crap.

So, we're meeting with a caterer on Tuesday who, for $3,000, would supply a buffet, tables, chairs, set-up, and service. This would eat up a huge chunk of our budget, but it would save a ton of trouble. We might do this.

We also have a very, very daunting checklist ahead, but we'll manage. Expect invites in April...

Foods.

Food and drink are proving to be the most challenging part of our wedding to do on a budget. I posted the following on Chowhound, one of my favorite foodie websites:

Hi there,
I'm getting married (in Dumbo) next summer on a tight budget, but food is super important to me. Because I'm on a really tight budget (hoping, perhaps crazily, to spend $1000-1500 on food for 120-150 people), I'm considering throwing a simple cocktail party with hors d'ouerves and cupcakes or cake.
Does anyone have any experience with providing good food on a budget for a large group? Does anyone know of any affordable caterers or restaurants that cater? Any suggestions for specific items to serve? Our venue doesn't have a super workable kitchen, just a "catering nook," by the way.
Thank you!
Liz

I think $1000-1500 is a huge sum of money to lay out and food is cheaper in quantities, yes? Though I got some helpful suggestions, I also got a lot of responses like these:

"Your budget seems quite unrealistic for that many people "

"$10–12.50 per person isn't a realistic budget... If $1,500 is your limit, I'd suggest slashing your guest list to 50 people or fewer. It's still a wedding even if it's smaller." (This one annoyed me. I couldn't possibly slash my guest list! Y'all know how huge my family is!)

"Wow. That budget is totally unrealistic."

UNhelpful. There were some helpful responses, though. You can read them all here, if you're interested.

Any suggestions from the homefront? The only thing I'm sure about is that I want to serve something like cake or cupcakes. My current ideas are:
- An Indian buffet (no worries, I promise that there are non-spicy options. I don't eat hot food!)
- Only serving hors d'oeurves (pre-packaged and heated up) and dessert
- Really good quality Italian subs

Wedding Dress.

I won my wedding dress on eBay! I don't want Chris to be tempted to peek (one thing we ARE doing in a traditional fashion is the surprise-wedding-day-dress reveal), so if you want to see it, you can e-mail and I'll shoot you a picture!

In keeping with our bargain wedding theme, I'll share this detail: it was (for a wedding dress) very affordable. I won it for just over $100! Woohoo!