Maddie Gets Married: Preparing for Our Creative Session

Today, we head into our very first wedding planning meeting with RRE - the full-day creative session! Nate and I will be popping onto the @rroseevents feed for some live updates throughout the day, but I thought it would be helpful to share with you a few of the things we did in preparation for today’s meeting.

To kick things off, Betsy, emailed us both with team introductions/roles and a few homework items to get started on.

There were two questionnaires to fill out - both of which we tackled during a recent road trip to Atlanta, visiting Nate’s brother and sister-in-law and, unfortunately, watching the Panthers’ brutal loss to the Falcons.

The first was the simple but oh-so-necessary contact form, while the other was more of a get-to-know-you style in preparation for the creative session - not to mention, much more entertaining to fill out. I’ve never felt so silly sharing Nate’s personal style as my own version of a country music star mixed with an NBA player. And we answered all sorts of questions ranging from our favorite places to shop to our go-to snacks to what we hope to most remember from our wedding day. As entertaining as the process was, it was also informative. For instance, I had no idea Nate’s go-to snack was the Hot & Spicy Cheez-It (regular Cheez-It when he’s trying to be healthy).

The other big to-do was to get started on the guest list. Thankfully, Nate and I are both the last of three siblings to get married, so our families had a pretty good sense of the guest list already. We’re targeting 175 to 200 total guests, so our invite list is around 225 - it’s customary to account for around 75% of your total invite list being able to attend. Given our wedding date is over a holiday weekend, we’re anticipating that either a) several will be unable to attend due to other plans, or b) lots will decide to make this their Labor Day weekend plans. I’ve always been a more-the-merrier type and am hoping for the latter, but know we’ll absolutely love our day with whoever is able to spend it with us!

The biggest reason for tackling our guest list right away is to inform our overall wedding budget. While we have our venue and photographer, we’re going into this creative session with an idea of what we want design/aesthetic-wise (see my Pinterest board), but mostly keeping an open mind, knowing that what remains of our budget determines what we can execute.

Needless to say, I’m anxious to find out and will be sharing more details on the creative session with you all as the day goes by! Stay tuned for those live updates!

In the meantime, I thought I’d share the sweetest gift I received in the mail from my teammates at Rebecca Rose Events during the hustle and bustle of our creative session prep. I’ve shared a video - FabFitFun style - on the @rroseevents feed today but will leave you here with these beautiful images by Heather Beerman.

The gift box included a mini LaMarca Prosecco bottle, The Gem Pen, The Mrs Box, a Mixture candle in the cashmere scent, Rebecca Rose Events matches, and of course a sweet congratulatory letter.

Photography by Heather Beerman