What Matters Most: Wedding Planning for M.O.B.'s

Today is our youngest daughter's 25th birthday and it's been two months since her beautiful wedding day. I learned so many lessons during the year leading up to her special day. I have been a mother of the groom twice and now I appreciate my children's inlaws even more! Thank you Browns and Chandlers for making our son's weddings so wonderful! Here are some stories and tips for any M.O.B.'s (mother of brides) who are planning a wedding:

The budget:
My hubby told our daughter what our budget was and together they created a spreadsheet to estimate how much to allow for the different categories such as; photography, flowers, venue, dress, reception food and beverages, decorations, etc. Except for the dress snafu we did well!

Try to avoid dress drama:
I might have mentioned that my daughter chose her first wedding dress on our first day of looking last October. Yes, I said first because she changed her mind in January. She just didn't LOVE it enough... The store where it was purchased would NOT allow returns (read the fine print!) and she could not find another dress she loved enough to exchange it for. 

Here we were celebrating dress #1-back before she was expecting...

When she was able to come home from Spokane in the Spring, we ended up making an appointment at BHLDN, the wedding section of Anthropologie. Sarah found her dream dress at half the price of the first one. Shipping is free at BHLDN and we had the option to return it. The sales staff was very helpful and the experience was delightful.

We took her "no thank you dress #1" to a special consignment bridal shop up in Seattle to be sold the week before her wedding. I just received an email yesterday saying "Hi Jane, Good news--the dress you placed on consignment with us found a new home!! You should receive your check before September 30th." 

We are getting paid about a third of the original price. That said, let me say it's worth the drive up to Seattle to check out Blue Sky Bridal consignment shop since many of the dresses are still new with tags on like ours was.

Choosing a Venue:
My daughter had an idea for the look and feel she was after, so we started checking out venues in our PNW area as soon as she was engaged. (Actually, she KNEW she was getting engaged sometime soon so we may have started the hunt before he got down on one knee. Shh, don't tell!) 

All the spots we looked at up in the Seattle area were REALLY pricey. We asked friends for suggestions. We took notes and made pros and cons lists. We scoured the Internet. Our daughter had never envisioned wanting to be married at a golf course, but then we took her to Gold Mountain Golf Course. The coordinator showed us the beautiful, rustic, light-filled room for the reception and then drove us out to the woods to see where the ceremony could take place. 

When tears started streaming down her face, we knew it was THE SPOT! It also helped that the cost was totally in the budget we'd set, it was only a 30-minute drive from home and we were open to a Friday evening ceremony rather than a Saturday. The food was incredibly delicious, the staff was super helpful and we would recommend Gold Mountain to everyone!

Wedding details:
Even though we'd had 12 months to plan and looked organized on paper, I began to worry about the logistics of the day as it drew closer. Things like, "how would the reception room get decorated the day-of?" kept me up at night. 

Despite my fears, the bridal party not only looked amazing, but they pitched in and helped me. We were able to take a lot of our candles and other decor items up to the venue the night before when we went to the dress rehearsal. I won't go into all the details, but between my daughter-in-law Amy scaling a ladder to hang the macrame hoops and the parents of the groom (Thank you, Vanderlindas!) assisting me in securing the greenery to chairs out in the woods after family photos, it all got done! 

It was simple and perfect and none of the guests knew I'd had a few moments of angst getting lost while driving a golf cart (my first time) loaded with lanterns and greenery out to the woods alone a half hour before I needed to be dressed for family photos. 

As I watched my darling baby girl walk up the aisle with her Daddy (my wonderful husband of 35 years) toward her forever love, all the preparation was worth it. Such JOY!

Does, Don'ts and Tips:

• Create a To-Do list on Google documents.
• Do NOT get sucked into buying a dress the first day you look.  
• Do NOT say "yes to the dress" until you've gone to at least two or three locations and tried on different styles. It really doesn't take months for dresses to be shipped so don't think you have to choose WAY in advance. 
• Preferably choose a bridal salon that has its options hanging where the bride can see them.
• Do be open-minded. Our daughter wanted her oldest brother to officiate her ceremony and Mitch did an amazing job. He also wore the "hat" of D.J. and saved us a bundle of $.
• A day-of coordinator is probably worth the money! 
• If the budget doesn't allow for a day-of coordinator, don't ask the bridesmaids; ask your Posse of girlfriends! 
• Location matters. Pierce County is cheaper than King County, and only having to drive half an hour was helpful.
• Once your daughter has chosen her reception decor, stop looking at Pinterest and Bridal magazines!
• If it's a Summer wedding, have more white wine than red.
• Ikea, Craig's list, friends, are all good resources for decor. It doesn't have to be new or pricey to look good!
• Simple is best. The focus should be on the couple, not impressing the guests.

I would love to answer any specific questions you might have if you have an upcoming wedding to plan, so please feel free to ask in the comments section and I'll get back to you!

I will leave you with this... Mama might have a stressed-out bride if she is in charge of a High School yearbook and accidentally finds herself pregnant 5 months before the wedding!! Thankfully the yearbook got completed and looked fantastic, our daughter managed to pack up and move across the State a week before the wedding AND she was a lovely expectant bride!

God, who is always good and created marriage, blessed Sarah and Nick on July 6th. 

Everything that mattered most was accomplished, and the day was amazing. 

THEY ARE MARRIED and the countdown to our first grandbaby, their sweet baby girl, is only 57 days away! WE ARE SO EXCITED!

In His Grip,
xo Jane

P.S. So here's a ridiculous thing that happened. With dress #1 (the reject) we were given a $200 accessory allowance. AKA trick to get us to buy on day one. When I picked up the gown to take it to the consignment shop, I reminded them of the $200. I got to choose an accessory. Who knew a hair comb could be so expensive? I can't even... It did look pretty!

Thanks for reading "See Jane Learn" and I look forward to hearing from you!

What I Learned This Fall: September-November 2017

Oh Alexander, I can relate!

As I write this, my Mom is celebrating her 91st Birthday!! I am thankful that she was born, thankful she met and married my amazing Daddy Vaughn, thankful that she had my two older sisters and me and thankful to have her as my Mama! She is very young-at-heart and it's hard to believe she's been on Earth for 91 years! I choose to believe that my kind qualities come from her! She was a teacher her whole life; to students and her children. She graduated from Depauw University, earned her Masters degree from Ball State and she taught at  College Wood Elementary in Carmel, Indiana from the day the school opened until she retired. She was the BEST 5th-grade teacher ever and she passed on the teaching gene to her three daughters and three of her grandchildren.

(The Story "girls" on my visit this Fall.)

Besides all the lessons I've learned from my Mom, here are some other things that I learned this fall:
1. Some people can sleep with their cats, but not me!
My one-year-old, always hungry, growing daily, red kitty wants to sleep on my pillow on top of my head or on my neck! He makes it difficult for me to breathe, let alone sleep! I can really only snuggle with him when I'm sitting on the couch.  Oh, Thor!

2. I finally figured out how to clean and shine my teapot.
For some reason, when you leave your teapot on a burner while you fry or cook, it gets coated in residue that just won't come off with dish detergent. After years of frustration, I hunted online and found that a paste of baking soda with white vinegar makes a gentle scrub that takes off the gunk and leaves the finish. Thanks, Martha! 

3. Being a "Great-Aunt" is super fun and gives me a glimpse of how amazing it will be to become a Grandma someday.
Thanks to my nieces and nephews in Indiana, I have nine Greats! I didn't get to see them all on my trip back to the Midwest this Fall, but I did get to see five of them including the two new twin baby girls. 

4. Sometimes life gets hard and things change quickly.

I thought my part-time job was always going to be "my spot."  Finding out my hours were being cut was HARD. Throughout my adult years, I have spent time as a waitress, teacher, full-time Mama, and sales clerk at the baby boutique. What's next? It's time to start hitting the pavement and find my next $pot. 

We knew my husband's job was probably going to end. (I'm proud that he hung in there as long as he did! ) When it really happened a few weeks ago, it was HARD. 

When our five-year-old front-loader washing machine stopped working and even with the new part wouldn't work, that was ANNOYING. My sweet friend let me use her home like a laundromat until our new top-loader was delivered. Thanks again Dawn!!

Deciding to sell our dream home was HARD! Not knowing if it's the right solution has us awake at night. I'll let you know what we decide... Which leads me to #5.

5. TMJ is a THING and I have it!

Headaches. Every day. All day and night. I have been trying to rule out the causes. My doctor sent me to an ENT, Ophthalmologist, MRI and guess what I found out at the Dentist this week?... I have TMJ and my pain is exactly like the picture below. I wish I had found this article months ago! I suffer from all of it. I could be the girl in this photo!

So...I'm now going to be wearing my night guard, taking Advil every four hours, and applying moist heat. (Not sure about the don't speak too much and don't bite your nails mentioned in this article.) Perhaps my stress level is through the roof?...

6. Do you want to become a minimalist? Put your house on the market!

We actually got our home "on the market" one week after we made the decision. I sped through each room, pulling items to get rid of. Some things were boxed up and are stored in our garage. Daily trips to Goodwill happened. My bible study friends got used to me schlepping in bags of "stuff" for them to look at. Two of my best friends did a walk-through and advised me what else I needed to remove to make our home look VERY uncluttered and tidy. Then, the deep cleaning began...

I really miss my family photos and "GOD is Good" artwork, but other than that, everything left "sparks joy" as in Marie Kondõ's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. 

If you're serious about decluttering and purging, you might want to check out a book coming out next month called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson that I discovered while looking around on Amazon. Basically, the premise is "Let's not leave our cr__ for our family members to deal with." I can't believe some of the stuff I've been saving!

Perhaps I need to write a book on how this transplanted Midwest-turned-PNW-recovering-sentimental-hoarder is learning how to say goodbye to stuff?!

For those of you who have read my posts this month, I don't really have an update on my current situation. Are we selling? Moving? Finding jobs? 

I've always loved Fall, this year's Fall just hasn't been my favorite. Alexander in the book at the top had a terrible, horrible, very bad day, and I've been feeling like we've sort of had a very bad month. I DO know God knows and sees and has a plan, and so we will just continue praying for wise decisions that are God-honoring. 

I am linking up to Emily P. Freeman from Chatting at the Sky. Enjoy! 

Only 25 more days until Christmas!! Let the joyful merriment celebrating Jesus begin!

In His Grip,

xo Jane