Planning a Wedding in San Diego...(part 2)

So the venue and food were set.  Next order of business, booze.  The venue was awesome in that we could bring our own alcohol in so we ordered from BevMo.  We got some great discounts on the wine (the cava and white choices were part of the 5 cent wine deals) and the hard alcohol was reasonably priced.  We ended up having a really nice open bar for a fraction of the cost of what it would have been at a bar.  That was one of the few parts of the wedding that ended up being cheaper than expected so that was also a welcome surprise!

We ended up getting one red (Joel Gott Cabernet 2010), two whites (Les Pierres Blanche Macon-Villages '11 and Kris Pinot Grigio '11) and one cava sparkling wine (Lineas Cava Brut'10).  We got several bottles of four different beers and lots of hard alcohol.  We had "featured 
drinks" of margaritas and mojitos but we also had bourbon and vodka.  It was a GREAT bar.  I also made 
sure to ask my  grandfather what his favorite non-alcoholic beer was so everyone was covered.  WT
included a "bar package" in our contract, which meant that bartenders were provided and all the 
accouterments apart from the alcohol- mixers, ice, etc.  It was a GREAT way to go!

Entertainment was also important.  I thought about a band for about 5 minutes.  While it would have been 
cool, there would have been several more things to organize since a band can't cover a 6 hour period.  I 
would have likely had to pick to separate artists: one for the ceremony/cocktail hour and one for the
reception. The cost for one of those eclipsed a DJ and it was just more of a headache to organize so we 
decided to go with the DJ.  I found a couple of ones that SMS deemed too cheesy so he went online and 
found Scratch Weddings.  We really liked one of their DJs that we were told wasn't available so we told 
them we weren't interested.  A few days later, they called us and told us that DJ Mike Sincere was available!
Hooray! [Oh my gosh, I just looked up his Tumblr feed and 6/8 was his birthday.  Well, I think he had a 
good time!)

Flowers were not high on my list, almost to the point of leaving them off but Linda insisted that we reconsider and I'm so glad she did.  We used Lois Matthews as our florist and she was AMAZING.  The flowers were unbelievably beautiful.  My bouquet was amazing, the corsages and boutonnieres looked great and the venue was transformed!

Well, that was pretty much it for the "Grand scheme" planning, apart from the officiant who deserves his own post.  I had a few things I wanted to do for myself- dress, hair and make-up but it looks like that will be saved for a part 3!