Planning Bio

We're having our RD at Carino's. We put our name in the system but need to call back to update them with our menu. We loooove this place, and probably go to it every 3rd time we go out to dinner. It also has pretty good prices for their catering/event menu (around $12-15 per person), and has a great atmosphere inside. Maybe we'll even be able to sit by the fireplace, which would be great in December.

We stopped by Carino's over labor day weekend and spoke with one of the event manager/chef guys. He was sooo nice and it sounds like it's gonna be an awesome dinner. He basically gave us 2 options of how to set it up. We can either pick out multiple family platters that serve 2-3 people each or party pans that serve 6-8 and have people just get to choose from them, or we can pick out 3-4 entrees and he will customize a menu for us that people get to order off of. Tyler did want to the menu option, but his mom nixed that for the cheaper Party Pans. I'm up for anything, it will still taste delicious!

We have to finalize the dishes, but we're looking at getting some of these:
- Shrimp Scampi -  Angel hair pasta, mushrooms, roasted garlic, basil and white wine lemon butter sauce
- Baked Cheese Tortelloni - Creamy meat sauce tossed with ricotta cheese baked with mozzarella and parmesan
- Homemade Parmigiana - chicken Hand-breaded signature recipe with special seasonings, tomato sauce, parmesan, mozzarella with spaghetti

We're gonna have carafes of wine set out on the table to help cut the cost of alcohol too. And my mom mentioned bringing in our own cake, although their Italian Chocolate Cake is to die for, so I don't know if I'll opt for that instead.

Yummm! This is making me so hungry just writing about it!

I found a dress at David's Bridal (style 81372) that I thought was really cute and would end up working well for the RD and the HM too. I wanted something still fun and not too formal, and this seemed to fit. I ended up ordering it from ebay for only $20 (at the store it was $99). I just got it in and it looks great! So cute on! The only problem is it's slightly too big. Like just big enough that I can't wear it comfortably, but not so big that it seems like it needs an entire adjustment. Kind of annoying actually. Because the bottom is loose though, I'm hoping I might be able to find someone who can do alterations to just the top part to make that tighter. That might end up being cheaper than having the entire dress redone.

Now I just need to find some cute shoes to go with the dress!

This first picture is in the navy color, which is the one I ordered. The bottom picture is in black, but it shows the shape better.

I've never been much of a shoe person, ask my friends and they'll tell you I'm always in flip-flops, but I must admit all this wedding shopping is starting to get me more into it.  I decided this dress is really not much of a pump dress, and I'm not the most comfortable in skinny heels, so I'm looking for some cute strappy platforms or sandals. Here is the pair I ordered from endless.com. They're Madden Girl Kocktail in white.

Just got them in and they're super cute. Pretty comfortable too, although it's not like they have ton of support. I wasn't really expecting that though. I don't know that they go perfectly with my dress, but I think it's good enough. I'm definitely keeping the shoes even if I find something better for the dress.

I know this is a really bad picture (and I'm not looking my best, haha), and I still need to get the dress taken in, but it gives you an idea on what it will look like. All I have right now is that cream colored sweater, but I'm going to try to keep looking for a pure white one as I imagine it would go better. I'm kind of running out of time though, so I might have to either just not wear a sweater at all or just not care enough and wear the cream one.