Hi, friends! Now that we’re a little less than four months away from the wedding, I feel obligated to start this post with, “I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE FOUR MONTHS AWAY FROM THE WEDDING!?” We started planning a lot more around the holidays—which wasn’t the smartest idea, but hey, it helped! Here’s an update of what we’ve gotten done so far and what we still need to do.

Wedding Master List

The event planner in me started a master list on Google Sheets to keep myself and everyone helping with the wedding on track with tasks. Since both of our families and my maid of honor is from out of town, this list keeps them up to date on tasks we need to complete, as well as research for tasks I’ve delegated to them. Some research tabs in my master list include research on cakes, flowers, hotels, etc.

But, the budget sheet has been my best friend during wedding planning. When Angel and I first started talking numbers, we both agreed that we did not want to take out a loan for our wedding and that we wanted to keep it under $10K. (Not an easy task when you live in a state that is a destination wedding location.

Venue

Angel and I knew way before we got engaged that we wanted our wedding ceremony at the church of the school we met at. This church is a sentimental place for both of us because we met there, but because it where we got confirmed in the Holy Spirit and where we practice our faith together. We’ve also managed to book our favorite priest. He was called to serve in Missouri a few days before we were engaged, and we feel extremely blessed that he’s agreed to fly in to marry us.

To stay on track with our budget, we’ve decided to host our reception at a restaurant. I will admit that I was a little heartbroken about not having my dream wedding reception with space for dancing, photo booths, and all that fun stuff. But realistically, we didn’t even have a guest list or budget big enough to host all of those things, and I’m glad it’s turned into this intimate dinner with our friends and family.

Wedding Website

I used Zola to create our wedding website simply because the advertisements influenced me. What I love the most is that our guests can RSVP online. I read that paper and postage are some of the most expensive items in a couple’s wedding budget. Not only are we saving lots of money by having our guests RSVP online, but we’re also reducing our wedding’s carbon footprint. Da Orozcos: 1; Mother Earth; 1. 😌

Wedding Party

Since I was a teenager, I've known that I wanted all of my sisters to be bridesmaids in my wedding. When it came time to ask them, I gave them, and my maid of honor, a rose gold bracelet with a charm. I wish I took a pic of the bracelet, but I did manage to get a pic of me and my MOH after she said, “yes!”.

Wedding Dress & Groom’s Attire

Dress shopping was an interesting experience. I found “the dress” at a locally owned dress shop, Vows Bridal & Formal. Shop owner, Aunty Vicky, has been part of the wedding industry for over 25 years. Before I tried on dresses, we sat down and talked about her process, my budget, and our wedding theme. She pulled about six different dresses for me to try on. She knew “the one” before I even decided on it—that’s how good she is. I can’t wait for Angel to see me in it on our wedding day!

Finding Angel’s attire was super simple, we bought his guayabera, a traditional Mexican shirt, from Olvera St. during our trip to California and his pants from Banana Republic.

Wedding dress shopping at Vows Bridal & Formal. See what else we’ve gotten done for our wedding on my blog, beautybyjessika.com.

Bridesmaids Dresses

A big part of wedding planning is learning to let go of things that just weren’t meant to be. Having terracotta-colored bridesmaids dresses was one of those things. My Tuscany-inspired wedding color palette heart was broken when I couldn’t find terracotta dresses like the ones I had pinned to my wedding Pinterest board. So, I left he decision up to my bridesmaids and they chose a beautiful soft pink color.

Even though we couldn’t find bridesmaids dresses in the color I wanted, they were able to snag their dresses on sale from Birdy Grey.

Invitations

Instead ordering invitations that matched our wedding website on Zola, I designed and printed our invitations with Canva and ordered our envelopes from Sterling Stripes on Etsy. The invitations printed beautifully and the envelopes were high quality—I was so excited to address the invitations using my white jelly roll pen. 😌

Wedding Cake

Since Angel and I are hosting our reception at a restaurant that is serving dessert, we’ve decided to order a wedding cake from Hokulani Bakery just for us. Wedding cakes can be expensive with the tiers and decorations so ordering a small, simple cake saved us a lot of money. I’m already salivating thinking about how yummy it’ll be.

DIY Wedding Sign

A few weekends ago, my maid of honor flew in from Maui to help us start our wedding DIY projects. A big project we were able to knock off our list was our DIY wedding sign. I love that it was something we could work on together and I’m so grateful for her and her talents!