Block Head

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Um, why hasn't any told me how difficult and time-consuming reserving a block of rooms for a wedding can be? Somebody has really dropped the ball on keeping Miss Lab in the loop!

I've been trying for a couple weeks now to get a hold of someone at a few hotels I'm interested in, but haven't had much luck. Either I call too late (this internship is killing all my free "business hours" time) or when I get a chance to call within operating hours, their sales teams are out for the day! I've tried leaving voice messages and emails, but no one is getting back to me. ARGH.

I was always under the assumption that hotel blocking would be one of the easier things to do in the wedding planning process. I guess I was mistaken. I mean, what's so hard about taking down my contact information and then marking some rooms as unavailable until a certain date? Sheesh. Maybe one of you hotel-savvy hive members could clarify the reason it may be hard to do?

Anyhoo, I figured that while I wait for someone to have mercy or pity on me, I'd share a couple hotels I'm hoping to snag at a discount for my guests.

I'm reserving two hotels for the wedding weekend. One will be close to our reception site and the other will be close to our after party site. Both are within walking distance of all the squares, so our guests will rarely need a car to get around and see the heart of Savannah. However, the hotels are still near a major highway, so guests will be able to make a quick escape back home the day after the wedding!

First up, the Hampton Inn & Suites in the historic district:

All photos found at their respective websites!

This hotel is literally right around the corner from our reception site. Our guests could just walk there and back if they wanted to. The Hampton is Savannah's newest hotel, so it's definitely clean! It's the only hotel I've visited from my list of possibilities and the entire staff was incredibly friendly (even those sales wasn't working that day).

I loved the chandeliers and southern decor they had in the entryway and lobby!


The rooms were all very clean and modernly dressed in neutrals.


Who doesn't love a free breakfast bar?!?


Our next top choice is the Inn at Ellis Square downtown. The building is simply stunning:



And it's located close to River Street where we'll hold our "after-party"! Again, no ugly super-busy-color-clashing-gaudy printed comforters on the beds. Always a plus!


I'm keeping my fingers crossed on these two in hopes of scoring some discounted rooms in the price range we want for our guests. Of course, Savannah has a plethora (I love that word!) of hotels, some chain-owned while others are historic and/or bed & breakfasts to choose from. Our guests will be welcome to pick any hotel they want, but we wanted to make sure we provided them with some affordable and conveniently located options. Not to mention that I love when hotels are researched and choosen for me, so I'm guessing our guests will appreciate that as well.

We're expecting 75 OOTs, so we're planning on about 25 rooms (a mix of single and double beds) at each hotel. We'll be suggesting on our wedding website that friends share rooms to cut down on travel costs (a lot of our single guests are friends and/or co-workers who won't mind sharing).

I haven't found much information concerning how many rooms to block according to guest counts and when the deadline for reserving should be before releasing extra rooms. Any suggestions so when the sales managers finally call back, I've have a better idea what to ask for?

Our Wine & Cheese Engagement Party

My wonderful bridesmaid Brittany threw Chris and I an amazing engagement party a couple weeks ago. Another bridesmaid, Ashley, and my MOH, Amanda, helped out with the decorations and food setup as well as some of Brittany's roommates. I could not believe how fabulous the party was. I expected just a few bottles of wine and some cheese (since I knew the guests were expected to bring either a bottle of wine or a block of cheese), but I had no idea that they would have so many delicious hors d'oeuvres as well! The girls really outdid themselves. They made me wonder if hiring a caterer for the reception is really necessary...lol.

Brittany started out by sending adorable evites to the guests. Here's the main banner of the invitation:

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As I said, the food was absoluting amazing and yummy! There were mini burgers, mini strawberry cheesecakes, herbed potatoes with dip, fruit, & stuffed mushrooms. Brittany even went so far as to find napkins with a damask theme! How thoughtful is that?!?



Of course I can't forget the great wines & cheeses. The girls set up a display with balloons, a banner, and pictures of Chris & I along with the wine & cheese. They even put cute little bride & groom outfits on a couple bottles!



Me and the fabulous hostess!



And you'll have to excuse Chris's face in this one, but I wanted to show off how handsome he looks in his all-black ensemble. Grrrr... ;)



We topped off the party with a game of toilet paper wedding dresses! We split the guests up into groups and they had to design a wedding gown out of toilet paper on their "models" (which were all guys!). I then picked my favorite one by calling it pageant-style with runner-ups until the winner was announced. Trey's team (which ironically consisted of Brittany & Amanda) won! He's the second from the left with the "veil" covering his face. I picked them because he had a sweetheart, trumpet style gown which was closest to what I'm looking for in a gown! But I do have to say that the bow on Chris's butt was fabulous as well! ;)

Engagement Photo Session Date Is Set!

We've finally set our engagement photo session date for February 21st! It'll be earlier on the same day as our engagement party so we can just bask in a whole day of engagement festivities. As I've mentioned before, our session will take place in Athens, GA, aka the Classic City. We met here, attend college here, live together here, and share in our favorite past time here: Georgia football! If it weren't for growing up dreaming of a wedding in Savannah and living here for six years, I would have easily chosen Athens as the site for our wedding. But we'll still have plenty of parties and showers here and our engagement photos will be in our guest book, so I think I've covered Athens pretty well.

I wanted to share with everyone some of the places I would love to have as a backdrop of our photos (especially those of you who have been unfortunate enough to never visit this amazing city).

Easily one of the most recognizable icons in Athens is the Arch that separates downtown from the University of Georgia campus. A lot of people don't realize that the campus was the first thing built in Athens and the surrounding city (namely downtown) was then built around it. It is said that any underclassman that walk under the Arch will never graduate. Needless to say, I've steered clear (Even though I already have one degree, I don't want my other one compromised!).

Just across the street from the Arch is historic downtown Athens. It's full of so many landmarks that anyone who's ever been to Athens would recognize in an instant. One of the more famous buildings is the Georgia Theatre. Some of you may remember it from the music video of some singer/songwriter guy named John Mayer (who is that guy? :P). He shot "No Such Thing" in the GA Theatre. Athens music scene is insanely full of crazy good talent. R.E.M. and the B-52's of just a few other names to come out of this city.

I love all of the historic buildings in Athens. Here's a photo of the Tanner Building (now used for art classes) that is just gorgeous.

The Chapel on North Campus has been the sight for many many many weddings over the years. It would be just plain romantic to have a picture in front of this building.

Last but absolutely not least is Sanford Stadium. There's no way we'd have an e-session without including shots of the stadium in the background. But our photographer Lindsi had an even better idea: how about INSIDE it? We've spent countless Saturdays in the fall inside the stadium, so why not capture some of that in our photos? So we called around and got permission to shoot inside! This is the part of the session I'm most excited about (for obvious reasons!). I cannot wait to see how these shots turn out!

February 21st can't get here soon enough! Now I just need to find an outfit for the session...

"There's a saying in Georgia:
If you lead a good life and say your prayers,
when you die you'll go to Athens."
-The Princeton Review-