“But what has become of them all?” asked the Mole.
“Who can tell?” said the Badger. “People come—they stay for a while, they flourish, they build—and they go. It is their way.”
-The Wind in the Willows

It’s time for me to go—for now, if not necessarily forever. I’m sure that I will pop back in every once in a while to update you on the major milestones in the Mole marriage. (Holy alliteration, Mole.) Before I say goodbye, I want to say two important things: good luck, and thank you.

Middle left photo by Cashman Photography / Remaining photos by Brian Saculles

Good luck to everyone who is currently waiting for an engagement, planning a wedding, or living together in a marriage. I suppose that luck isn’t quite the right word; relationships, like weddings, require will an effort. It’s no better simply to wish for a happy life than it is to wish for a completed seating chart. So what I will hope for you is empathy, balance, trust, support, and love.

Thank you to everyone who has shared this journey with me. You’ve seen me through the last three months of my engagement and the first four months of my marriage. I have been honored to share my story on the blog, and I have been even more honored that people have chosen to read, comment on, and respond to it. I appreciate that more than I can say. In addition, the hive has inspired, encouraged, and helped me in more ways than I can describe.

Photo by Gavin Gould

I am a little sad to say goodbye, but I am excited to move on and go forward. There is so much to anticipate: the trips Mr. Mole and I will take, the holidays we will celebrate, the children we someday will have—the life we will have together. If you ever want to catch up, I am going to be writing about that life at Make a Spectacle, my new blog.

Photo by Gavin Gould

I leave you with a song that we played at our reception. I love this song. In fact, once I got so excited to hear it in a Chicago supermarket that I accidentally punched Mr. Mole in the stomach. This is the closest we have to “our song” (even if Mr. Mole instinctively flinches whenever it comes on).

Yours,
Dana

For a long time, I sat on this idea because I was afraid if I told Mr. Funnel Cake he would think I’d completely lost it with wedding planning. But as the wedding drew closer I decided I wanted to do it for real, so I asked him about it. Yes, he thought I was weird, but he didn’t mind if we had silly fake tattoos at our reception. Whatever pleases the bride!

I quickly designed a 1.5″ square tattoo and ordered 200 clear tattoos from Tattoo Manufacturing for $43 with a discount. I really hoped that it wasn’t a scam and that my credit card information would be OK! The tattoos arrived safe and sound. Each tat had a clear cover and instructions on the backside.

We decided these were best distributed on the opening table with the favours, so I made a small sign to go on the bowl Mama Funnel Cake provided. You can bet she thought this was a weird idea, but it turns out the guests loved the tattoos!

(Guest photo)

The kids at the reception especially enjoyed the tattoos, and some of my little relatives had arms plastered full of them. I was so happy they were a hit! Either that, or all my friends and family were patronizing me so I didn’t feel bad on my wedding day.

Mr. Funnel Cake and I didn’t have time to try out the tattoos on the big day, but we did the next morning before heading out to spend time with family.

(Left: guest photo, right: personal photo)

I’m really happy I decided to go with my gut and make my idea happen!

Did you have any crazy ideas you made a reality for your wedding?

Miss a Recap?

When my photographer friend (who, sadly, is no longer in business) offered to do a freebie trash-the-dress session for me and my two best friends, we jumped right in! Well, more like laced ourselves up and strutted around in pretty shoes.

The best part? We did it in a cemetery.

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

We have a lot of love for awesome shoes. I’m in the teal wedges.

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

Three girls, three wedding dresses, one cemetery. Needless to say, we got a lot of interesting looks while we were there.

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

One thing I highly recommend if you’re going to do a TTD photo session—props. We’re a group of creatives that never leave a detail undone, so of course we brought along a slew of props with us.

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Edited by Miss Tiara

Why props? Because you can have a tea party in the cemetery, of course!

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography

We even pretended to be a little gruesome—Lady on the left, she just couldn’t bring herself to pretend to smash china. She’s such a doll.

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography

And then there were some ugly faces.

Image courtesy of Selah Vida Photography / Taken with cell phone

And that was that. Our awesome, fun, kind of creepy TTD session! It made me feel like a princess with big hair and lots of eye makeup. I highly recommend doing a TTD session even if you don’t want to really trash your dress!! We just got a little creative and did something offbeat!

I’ll definitely be doing something similar after my upcoming nuptials!

What about you? Will you do a TTD session?

Have a wedding item for sale? Post it with pictures in the Weddingbee Classifieds, and you might see it featured on the blog!

Other great items for sale:

Unity candle set, asking $30

David’s Bridal keyhole-back lace gown, size 2P, asking $450

50 Mason jars with handles, asking $100

10 vintage silver & brass vases, asking $250

• We picked a large(ish), lopsided bridal party
• I’m not quite trendy enough for mismatched bridesmaids’ dresses (although I am kind of trendy)
• I really, really want the ladies standing up with me to be able to wear their dresses again (or at least like them)

So, we wouldn’t be getting bridesmaids’ dresses from David’s Bridal or ModCloth. Where oh where is a bride to turn?

Screen capture taken from Weddington Way

Believe it or not, I first discovered Weddington Way as an ad on Facebook. From the moment Mr. Potion and I changed our relationship status to “engaged,” I was being inundated with ads for wedding-related things, and this little site was particularly persistent. Against my better judgement, I clicked on the link and browsed around their website. In their own words:

Above screen captures from Weddington Way

This seemed like a glorious invention! Who came up with this idea? THEY DESERVE ALL THE AWARDS.

So, I started browsing! I filtered by color, price, and length, then clicked through the hundreds of dresses that matched my needs.

Screen capture from Weddington Way

I narrowed these hundreds of dresses down to six options:

Alfred Sung Styles D461, D502, D447, D448, D520, D524 / Image via Weddington Way

As with my ModCloth experience, I found myself wanting ALL of these dresses for my own personal closet, never mind my bridesmaids’! Therefore, I knew it was time to bring in some outside help.

I sent an email to my mom and sisters with a list of boutiques within an hour radius of my parents’ house that sell Alfred Sung dresses, and asked them to try on these styles, take pictures, and give me honest feedback. If any of these dresses made them say, “Ew, there is no way I would ever in a million years wear this dress, I don’t care if you are my sister!” then they would be removed from the list of contenders. Conversely, if any of these dresses made them say, “OMG who cares about a wedding, I want this dress right now to wear whenever I want!!” then they would be given special consideration for the final decision.

So, which dresses survived my sisters’ rigorous trial runs?

Alfred Sung Styles D502, D448, D520, D524 / Image via Weddington Way

At this point, I created an account on Weddington Way, saved these four dresses to my favorites, invited my ladies to join the website, and asked them to rank the dresses in order from most awesome to least awesome. I told them they could visit local boutiques to try them on, use Weddington Way’s Try Before You Buy Program, or just rank the dresses based on how they look on the screen.

So, which dress won the voting round? You’ll have to tune in next time to find out!

Did you use Weddington Way to shop for bridesmaids’ dresses? Which of these dresses would you have picked as your favorite if you were in my bridal party? Do you think any of them are worthy of the title “re-wearable”?

This is NOT a sponsored post. I am not, in any way, receiving compensation from Weddington Way to post this information. I was simply very impressed with the browse-favorite-vote-buy system this site uses, and wanted to share with you how awesome it is.

In reality, being obsessed with perfection was crippling at some points in my life. If I didn’t think I could do something flawlessly, I didn’t even try. If I didn’t think I looked or felt absolutely perfect, I stayed in and worked on something at which I knew I’d be successful. I could put on a happy face even if I felt sad or upset about something. I considered this to be a tremendous asset at the time, but it probably cut me off from some great experiences and creating bonds with some people.

I started using the mantra “perfect is boring.” I gave myself permission to mess up and take risks. As I became a little more laid back, my life got much more interesting and I probably was a lot more fun to be around.

When wedding planning came up, the need for perfection started to creep back into my life.

From Grey Likes Weddings / Photo by Gina Meola / via Lover.ly

I made list after list of projects I had to execute, of things I needed to buy, and of people I had to wrangle. All the while, I was worrying about looking old in photos, about having enough time to juggle all of my commitments, about not being a burden on my bridal party, and about a mother who couldn’t be present during the planning process. Mr. Mink was a calming force at those times when I was especially worried. He was the picture of consistency as I jumped around from one project or idea to the next.

On top of Mr. Mink’s support, I was getting positive feedback from all around. Friends, bloggers from my design-blog days, and members of the hive would say nice things about my projects or about some aspect of our wedding plans. Instead of simply accepting those positive words, I worried about making our wedding “worthy” of them.

From Snippet & Ink / Photo by Ozzy Garcia / via Lover.ly

Though I love blogging, I have to say that some blogs probably fueled my preoccupation with perfection a little bit. I spent hours gobbling up all the eye candy on wedding blogs. I still love them, but I realized that I have to keep my distance and not spend too, too much time on them. Perfection was everywhere on some of those blogs.

From Snippet & Ink / Photo by Angela Higgins / via Lover.ly

In a way, I should be thankful for the dust-ups that have happened in the last week. (I already told you about the problem with printing programs, but there’s more to come.) When I told my sister-in-law about what was happening, she told me that the two weeks before the wedding are full of speed bumps and missteps, but at the end of the wedding day, those won’t matter.

That drive for perfection that’s inside me wants our wedding to look like one of those styled shoots on the wedding blogs, but I know I need to be at peace with the idea that something might not go according to plan.

Are you a perfectionist or a recovered perfectionist? Did wedding planning make you obsess about being perfect? How did you handle that?

There are so many ideas out there on how to display photos!

With a twist: Photos in Mason jars…though they might be hard to view.

{photo by Jessamyn Harris via Style Me Pretty}

The MS classic: Frames hung on satin ribbons

{image via Martha Stewart Weddings + how to}

Photos clipped to ribbons inside of vintage frames

{photo by Jenny Ebert / design by Hatch Creative Studio via Ruffled}

Traditional and unusual frames—weddings and friends in B&W

{photo by Angie Silvy via Style Me Pretty}

Classic: Frames with photos

{photo by Janae Shields Photography via The Knot}

{photo by Jasmine Star via Elizabeth Anne Designs}

Or with a modern twist: Digital photo frames

{image via Mrs. Cinnamon Bun on Weddingbee}

We’ll use a table to display our photos at our wedding because our venue’s walls are made of wooden logs (think “ski lodge” look). But I’ll keep the large-frame idea in mind—it can easily be repurposed for a general or seasonal card/photo display in our future home.

Will you display family (wedding) photos? Have you chosen a display method?

~~~

One of the most discouraging parts of planning my own wedding was finding a dress that fit. At five-foot-one, my small frame and I were completely overwhelmed by just about every dress I tried on, and I found myself swimming in layers of ruffles, tulle, and silk. I quickly learned that the elegant ball gown I had always dreamed of wearing wasn’t going to look right on my petite body.

When it comes to wedding dresses, smaller brides should stick with simple cuts and minimal details. Straight sheath dresses are very much in style this season, and they’re fantastic for elongating, rather than shortening, the body. Classic cuts like A-lines also work well on smaller frames because they accentuate the natural waist. Empire-waist and mermaid cuts tend to make smaller bodies feel disproportionate; petite women should also avoid large ball gowns, excessive ruffles, long trains, and heavy beading. Even though petite brides may not have quite as many options as our taller counterparts, this year’s spring and summer lines are filled with choices for the smaller bride.

This A-line Watters dress has subtle yet beautiful details that enhance a small frame.*

Petite brides should look for sheath dresses like this one from Watters.*

The simple shape of this Elie Saab dress keeps it from overwhelming small frames—even with the the detailed lace.

Even though this J. Crew dress has large ruffles, the overall simplicity keeps it from being too overwhelming.

This adorable dress from J. Crew would also be perfect for petite brides.

If you’re looking for a lace dress, opt for simple, slimming cuts like this one from Ian Stewart.*

A beautiful dress from Claire Pettibone

Just because a dress is simple doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Details along the bottom and the straps of this Claire Pettibone dress add interest to a simple cut.*

*Indicates images owned by Weddingbee

Find me here at Bayside Bride, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

I’m Krista Jones, co-founder and editor of Bayside Bride. Three years ago when I was planning my own wedding, I had the hardest time finding local venues, photographers, and other wedding vendors. There were so many incredible wedding blogs out there, but none where really helpful when it came to booking vendors or finding ideas I could actually use for my wedding. So last May, fellow photographer Natalie Franke and I launched Bayside Bride.

~~~

Follow the entire series of Spring 2012 Wedding Trends!

I wasn’t surprised when he decided to not go the tux route, and I still wasn’t surprised when he kiboshed suits altogether. Mr. Dragon’s a pretty casual dude, as are his bros, and with mismatched, informal bridesmaids, anything formal could have landed us in weird territory.

Last week, Mr. D finally put the finishing touches on his menswear inspiration, sending this photo to the guys:

Photo from Love Me Do Photography [image on Flickr] [used with permission].

His instructions to the boys? Get dark pants, in any shade of brown, gray, black, or green (no burgundy or blue). Find suspenders that match the pants & shoes that aren’t beat up, and wear comfy underwear (seriously, that was one of his instructions). The tie should be a dark, neutral shade (again, no red or blue) with forward-slash stripes. Finally, Mr. Dragon plans to buy them all a matching dress shirt, in a shade of light yellow. They may or may not be wearing hats. (Side note: I just accidentally wrote pants instead of hats…they will be wearing pants!!)

His hope is that, by letting the dudes decide exactly what pants, tie, suspenders, and shoes to get, they can make it as expensive or inexpensive as they please, taking the pressure off of them versus a traditional tux-rental situation. He’s also hoping all of the wardrobe pieces will become re-wearable staples.

As for himself, he’ll be following the same guidelines, but he’s trying to figure out a way to stick out as the groom (not that anyone should really be wondering who the groom is!). He’s hoping a different tie might do the trick, because he doesn’t want to wear a vest.

I’m impressed with Mr. D’s decision! I fought for ties that matched a bit more, but we settled on the dark neutrals as a compromise—I’m still reserving the right to veto anything neon or bright, though.

I think the guys will line up well with the girls, outfit-wise, and they should be comfortable in a more casual ensemble.

Did anyone else go in a less traditional direction with attendant outfits, be it for the boys or the girls? Who chose what your party would be wearing?

I figured now would be an appropriate time to share our full menu. It’s an alternative twist on a Labor Day picnic, with locally farmed, grass-fed, organic meats. We’re not having a traditional wedding cake; instead we wanted to have a trio of desserts. Each guest will be served a watermelon gazpacho, whoopie pie, and last but not least, banana crème brûlée—a slight nod to my brother, who is a fan of banana-flavored desserts and was kind enough to approve of us getting married on his birthday.

Starters

• Grass-fed beef sliders with caramelized onions and Gruyère cheese
• Endive and goat cheese with dried cranberries and reduced balsamic vinegar
• Gazpacho shooter with blackened gulf shrimp

{Intermezzo of peach sorbet}

Salad

• Arugula and goat cheese with roasted beets, hearts of palm, and a reduced red wine vinaigrette

Dinner

• Blackened shrimp taco with black bean and corn salsa, served with summer slaw
  OR
• Chipotle barbecued chicken with truffle mac ‘n’ cheese and grilled asparagus
• With baskets of gaufrette potato chips to share

Dessert

• Banana crème brûlée
• Watermelon gazpacho
• Homemade pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese filling

We were surprised by how difficult it was to find a sustainable caterer that focused on local efforts. That being said, we also had a tasting at Birchtree Catering, where the chef/owner Rasa couldn’t have been any sweeter, but overall Joshua’s Catering was a better fit (plus the owner and chef are super charming and flexible).

For you fellow wedding attendees out there, do you tend to take notice when caterers use locally sourced ingredients, or not so much?

However, I did not consider the complexity that came with such a specific gift, so I thought I’d share the steps with you all…in case you decide to give a similar gift!

Warning—I get a little cheeky here!

Step 1: Locate Hotel

Now, if the couple over-shares on Facebook or Twitter, you might already know the size room (deluxe king!) they’ve selected at their honeymoon resort. However, for those who choose to keep some details to themselves, you may only be aware of the country that they are visiting.

I was in the latter boat here, friends, and let me tell you…knowing that the couple plans to visit Bora Bora and Moorea is great and all, but doesn’t help if you want to get them a gift certificate. Didn’t really have time to call each and every hotel.

Now perhaps some of you have better powers of persuasion than I, but it seemed impossible to secure the information from the bride without seeming obvious.

A: “R, how are your wedding plans coming?”

R: “Where are you staying on Bora Bora? And for how many nights?”

A: “Ummmm”

Eventually I broke down and asked the groom and his mother for the information…swearing them to eternal secrecy (or until April 29th).

Step 2: Communicate!

There are multiple ways to get in touch with a hotel—email, phone, contact forms—but when you have an extensive time difference, email might be the way to go!

I sent a simple email off to (what I thought was) the concierge at the two hotels the couple had chosen requesting information on gift certificates/resort credits. I would quickly realize that there was nothing about this process that was simple. Below is the first email I received back from the Sofitel Moorea…after about six days.

Ummm…”they are one tee shirt”??

I have no idea why, but for some reason it didn’t occur to me that English might not be the first language (naive, I know). Communication via email with the Sofitel just did not seem plausible based on the first response (and its timing), so I hoped that the second resort would serve me better.

The InterContinental Bora Bora resort was a bit more prompt in its response (four days), but the first message was to transfer me to the concierge, which took another day. Guess I sent it to the wrong place first!

There was a lot of back and forth…including some delays near the end, which meant I was cutting it a liiiiittle close for comfort.

Um, hi…the shower is in three days, so if this isn’t going to happen I’m going to need to hit up Pottery Barn.

Step 3: Determine Amount

File this in the naive Turkey file, but I hadn’t thought about exchange rates for the gift either (geez…what had I thought about?).

So, when the concierge told me that the gift needed to be in Pacific Francs, I took to the internet to do some simple math. I like when exchange rates are way “off”—you know, 80 X to 1 USD—because you seem super generous…until they figure you out.

Oh, and keep in mind that the exchange rate you find on the internet may not match the rate at the hotel! This was a bit surprising/disappointing—is this common, bees?

Step 4: Give the Gift

Because of the exchange-rate snafu mentioned above, I chose to “up” the monetary gift instead of going crazy with the accompanying items (see also: I had two days before the shower).

Unfortunately, the hotel did not have anything I could print or give to the bride, so PowerPoint it was!

Mocked up certificate / Images from InterContinental Bora Bora

With the certificate, I decided to put together a quick goodie bag that would come in useful on their trip. This didn’t take a ton of time (or money), but made the gift a lot more fun for A to open!

Sunscreen with a toiletry bag plus some iTunes cards to buy movies/music/apps!

Step 5: Relax

I am happy to say that that the gift was a hit and I am SO glad I was able to pull it off! Totally worth it.

In the future, I might assess the location first for complexity in a gift like this (e.g., Hawaii > Dubai) or perhaps just start sooner…like months in advance instead of weeks.

Have you given a gift that was extra complex? Was it worth it to you?

Keep on loading your inspirational wedding pics to the Weddingbee Gallery to see them featured here on the blog! Remember, your images must be under 1MB in size, or they won’t load.

If your photo is featured as the Gallery of the Day, you’re eligible for a special Weddingbee badge for your blog or website! Check out instructions on how to grab the badge here!

Long before we got engaged Mr. T and I made our minds up that we wanted an outside wedding, somewhere with grass and warm lighting. (That last one was just me.)

Image via Samulco

One thing you should know about the city we live in is that it doesn’t have a lots of diversity in venues. There are two main options:

• Closed hall: From small rooms to ballrooms there’s a variety in size and style (selection goes from not exactly classy to Cinderella-like-ish).
• Garden-like: Some venues try to look like a garden or a ranch and try to give that vibe of old estates. They can range from small places with a few feet of grass, to actual estates with beautiful lawns.

There’s a lot of diversity within these two options. Some places can look really fancy, while others can look like a not so nice playground with just some tables, and all shades of gray in between.

The thing is, your venue actually dictates the formality of the event. Depending on how fancy the venue is, people feel they’re supposed to go in formal wear or they feel free to wear jeans (!). I can’t remember how many times I asked where a certain wedding was taking place so I could decide what to wear.

Looking at wedding websites, I’d love to have the option of a winery or a barn or a state park for our wedding, but since that’s not an option I’ll make the best apple pie out of the apples I have at hand. (I can rarely pull off a decent pie, but play along.)

So we wanted a place with a garden, big enough to fit comfortably at least 250 people, on the fancy side of the spectrum, with a parking lot and preferably a pool. Why’d we want a pool for a December wedding? For this:

Image via arc branch

After Facebook hunting, yellow pages hunting, and internet browsing, I had four possible venues in mind. If none of them convinced us we’d have to lower our standards.

Were you picky about venues? Did you have a specific type of place in mind?

My father helped me off the buckboard and I realized that I couldn’t move my head. My veiled had managed to attach itself to my dress. I was trying to smile and make eyes at Suzy since my dad was clueless and ready to just yank it away.

Finally she made it over there just in time to detach myself from…myself as the music started.

So the first frost of the season had just about killed everything the week before, and a huge storm came through and knocked most of the leaves down. I was kinda sad that our arbor was surrounded by bare trees, until I saw this gorgeous shot. The bare limbs look electrified!

Our pastor started off with a declaration of intent.

Mr. Skunk, do you take Ms. Skunk to be your wife; to live together in marriage, to love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others be faithful to her for as long as you both shall live?

He replied with a resounding “I do.” And the same was asked of me.

Next two of our close friends were asked to come up and give the readings. The first was a passage from Louis de Bernieres.

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

I really appreciate how this passage puts love into perspective. I think as a society we tend to romanticize love into a Nicholas Sparks novel when really it’s much more than that.

I mentioned before in this post that hubs and I are not super religious. The following, though, is a scripture that means a lot to me, and I feel it can be appreciated by all backgrounds.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

And finally we moved on to our vows. We pulled our vows from an online Buddhist ceremony. There were a couple that we nixed. But I’ll be honest, these are pretty much word for word. It was important to us that our vows displayed our view on the foundation of marriage. While our pastor is a Christian, I would have felt like a fraud having our marriage based on the love of Jesus Christ knowing full and well that Mr. Skunk doesn’t believe in that. What we came up with below was beautiful and fell complete for us.

Mr. and Ms. Skunk are happy today not only because they can share the joy of their love for each other with friends and family, but also because they have the opportunity to express their aspirations for the future. Mr. and Ms. Skunk, do you pledge to help each other to develop your hearts and minds, cultivating compassion, generosity, ethics, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom as you age and undergo the various ups and downs of life and to transform them into the path of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity?

Recognizing that the external conditions in life will not always be smooth and that internally your own minds and emotions will sometimes get stuck in negativity. Do you pledge to see all these circumstances as a challenge to help you grow, to open your hearts, to accept yourselves, and each other; and to generate compassion for others who are suffering? Do you pledge to avoid becoming narrow, closed, or opinionated, and to help each other to see various sides of situations?

Understanding that just as we are a mystery to ourselves, each other person is also a mystery to us. Do you pledge to seek to understand yourselves, each other, and all living beings, to examine your own minds continually and to regard all the mysteries of life with curiosity and joy?

Do you pledge to preserve and enrich your affection for each other, and to share it with all beings? To take the loving feelings you have for one another and your vision of each other’s potential and inner beauty as an example and rather than spiraling inwards and becoming self-absorbed, to radiate this love outwards to all beings?

Do you pledge day to day, to be patient with yourselves and others, knowing that change comes slowly and gradually, and to seek inspiration from your teachers not to become discouraged?

Do you pledge to give your friendship and trust, your loyalty and respect, your love and lifelong commitment to each other?

We let our pastor come up with the words for the ring ceremony. I remember he talked about the gold (whoops, Mr. Skunk’s ring is sterling silver…) and the continuous circle…but that’s about it. At this point I felt like the ceremony was flying by way too stinkin’ fast. I also remember my eyes starting to stream because the sun was directly in my eyes. Another ceremony flaw? I couldn’t look at Mr. Skunk in the eyes. The sun was setting just right to be directly in my face if I were to look at him, which caused my super-sensitive eyes to start running. Instead I looked over his shoulder at our best man or the horse in the field. I hope that doesn’t mean I married our best man. Or a horse.

All we had left was the kiss! Mr. Skunk kept saying he planned on dipping me. I was nervous. Because I don’t have flexibility in my spine, I was worried that if he didn’t hold on tight, I’d end up on the ground like a turtle.

Luckily the dip was juuuust right! Finally our pastor said his final line as I started hikin’ up my dress.

Today we honor and celebrate the transition from two separate lives into one life united by love. This broom symbolizes the entrance of the couple into a new life together. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating Mr. and Mrs. Skunk.

I say that since both of my toes are higher I win. Mr. Skunk thinks that the sum of his toe height is probably equal to mine. Either way, I’m still claiming victory since I got to marry this handsome man!

We headed out all smiles and hitched one last ride on the buckboard. As everyone else headed up to the barn for cocktail hour, Mr. Skunk and I got to have some post-ceremony private time during a ride through the woods.

*All photos by iloveyoumuch photography unless otherwise noted

• We picked a color palette and a “feel” for our wedding
• I espoused my love of old stuff
• I really, REALLY don’t love David’s Bridal

So you’ll recall from my last post that before I even thought about what I wanted my bridesmaids to wear, I ruled out David’s Bridal completely.

But what did I want them to wear, anyway?

I had quickly established purple dresses, with a red dress to distinguish my MOH, and that I wanted all the girls in the same dress. As for what that dress would look like…

OK, hive—it’s confession time: I know I said it’s impossible to find a bridesmaids’ dress that is truly re-wearable, but gosh darn it, I wanted to try to find one!

To me, what makes bridesmaids’ dresses so un-re-wearable are their length and the fabric from which they’re made. Nobody wears floor-length dresses to anything other than prom, and, in general, nobody really wears dresses made of shiny, satin-like fabric except for on rare, super-formal occasions. Our daytime, just-on-the-casual-side-of-the-scale wedding means that floor-length shiny dresses probably wouldn’t make sense anyway.

Just to reiterate, this makes the requirements for these dresses:

• available in a dark purple (and red)
• shorter than floor length
• not shiny
• also not fugly because, hello, I love my friends (Basically, it needed to be something I would wear on any given day [well, any given special day] because if I wouldn’t wear it, why would I ask my friends to wear it?)

This…is not terribly specific. Basically, it narrows down the field to anything but this:

It’s like the ’80s threw up all over this photo. / Image via Bridesmaid Trade

Erm, let’s narrow that down a bit further.

Because this is a church wedding, I really didn’t want my ladies in strapless dresses. Sure, we could get sweaters/pashminas/scarves to wrap them up in, but then we’d have to hunt for said sweaters/pashminas/scarves. Also, not everybody likes strapless dresses, and I wanted to make sure nobody hated whatever got picked. If possible, I wanted to find dresses that would cover their shoulders, though this wasn’t a strict requirement.

When I say “not floor length,” what I mean is anywhere from knee length to tea length—and certainly nothing shorter than the knee because, again, we’ll be in a church, not a club.

I guess you’re just not allowed to sit down when you wear this dress. / Available at promgowndress.com

My final requirement was that the dresses cost less than $200—preferably closer to $100 (or less)—but, unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and the most important requirement here is Not Fugly.

So the search began!

At first, I was determined to find a not-bridesmaids’ dress for the ladies to wear—i.e., a dress bought from a store that doesn’t sell bridesmaids’ dresses. If their dresses came from a Regular Clothes Store, I reasoned, then they would look like Regular Clothes and not bridesmaids’ dresses. Naturally, I turned to ModCloth first, and I found this lil beauty:

Soda Fountain Dress in Grape and Cherry, via ModCloth

FACT: This dress, in every single color, has been on my ModCloth wishlist since the first time I saw it…I’ve just never clicked “purchase” because I like trying on clothes before buying them and I haven’t had an “excuse” to buy this dress. So CLEARLY it passes the “would I wear it?” test! Pictures of the models wearing it put it at roughly knee length, the shoulders are covered, it’s in the right(ish) colors, it fits the vibe of the wedding, and it DEFINITELY fits the not-expensive requirement…

But this is not what my ladies will be wearing.

Originally, I had asked the girls to give me their measurements, in the event that I found a dress online that would be “the one.” I figured the only way to ensure that the right sizes didn’t sell out before everyone got a chance to buy theirs would be for me to purchase them all at once and have them reimburse me, and to do that, I’d need measurements to make sure I got the exact right sizes for everyone. The only problem with that is, well, not everyone is particularly responsive to Facebook messages, so around the time I was considering this dress, I didn’t have measurements from everybody, and someone even pointed out that, really, it would just be easier to have everybody try on and purchase their own dresses.

That kind of rules out ModCloth as an option. (Many of the most popular sizes of these dresses sold out quickly, anyway.)

Even so, I spent an awful lot of time drooling over ModCloth dresses before I finally put the idea to rest…

**all of the following images via ModCloth**

Technically two different dresses, but they go together so well!

OK, OK, so most of these dresses don’t actually meet all of the requirements, but rules are made to be broken! And more importantly, THEY’RE ALL SO GOSH DARN PRETTY!!!!

Alas, it seems the only way to satisfy my craving for ModCloth will be to buy one (all?) of these dresses for myself instead.

So, no David’s, no ModCloth…just where will my ladies be buying their dresses? You’ll have to tune in next time to find out!!

Did you go the nontraditional route when looking for bridesmaids’ dresses? Does anyone else share my obsession with/love for ModCloth?

Gorgeous, right?

The problem is…Mr. Coyote and I kinda—sorta already have our own set. You see, Mr. Coyote and I are really dorky and super into that whole medieval/fantasy thing, so every year we try to make it to our local Renaissance Faire. We love browsing the shops, and every year Mr. Coyote tells me that THIS is the year he will come home with sword. (Whatevs dude.) Anyways, a few years ago we stumbled upon the most beautiful flutes we had ever seen:

Now this was a long time ago, way before thoughts of engagements and marriage ever crossed our minds, so we did not purchase them with the intention of one day using them at our wedding. It was kind of on a whim, but I absolutely love these glasses and now that we actually are getting married, I really want to use them at our wedding.

Of course, the glasses Mr. Coyote’s parents bought us are also beautiful and I’m sure they’re expecting us to use them at our wedding. So what’s a bride to do?! I have been thinking about using one set at our rehearsal dinner, and the other set on our wedding day. Or possibly using one set during the speeches and then have our own little toast with the second set after we cut the cake. I’m still floating a few different possibilities around in my head, but now I’m reaching out to you!

{image via Macy’s}

It’s a classic. It has real cultured pearls. It has teeny diamonds on the clasp. It looks fantastic!

And despite the hefty price tag that Macy’s displays as the “original price,” it is almost constantly available at a reduced price. Depending on the sale of the day or week the price varies a bit. So I kept my eye on it. And one day it was more than 50% off…

So I swooped in and scored it! I had it sent to Mr. Bracelet in Montana, and he assured me that it looks great and “very sparkly.” I trust his jewelry opinion. I finally got to see it myself when I visited him after Christmas:

{personal photo}

The clasp is just as pretty as in the photo on Macy’s. It’s delicate and has a sprinkling of tiny diamonds…but even better: beautiful scroll-work details on the sides of the clasp. <3 What did surprise me a bit, though, was the “unevenness” of the pearls and the stiffness of the strands. The photo on the webpage made the pearls look very round and the string balanced. But I guess that pearls come in all shapes and sizes and that they don’t have to be perfectly round…and as for the stiffness—I’m sure that will go away once I wear it a bit.

Watching the price fluctuations of this bracelet, I did start to wonder how inflated jewelry prices in general are. By sticking a steep price tag on something and putting it “on sale,” the stores seem to suggest that we’re “saving money.” I found it especially annoying that Macy’s actually told me in the checkout process that I had saved so-and-so many dollars with this purchase. It’s not like they’re giving me money back. If they manage to keep selling this bracelet on sale, the “original” price can’t be real.

What is your experience with jewelry prices and shopping?

Thanks bees! You all saved my beehind! (hehe, get it?)

Did you screw something up and only realized last minute? Did you bother making a change or did you just roll with it?

Miss Fairy, Upstate New York
Age & Occupation: 27, Project Coordinator
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 31, Engineering Recruiter
Engagement Date: March 18, 2011
Wedding Date: September 2012
Venue: Casa Larga Vineyards
About Me: I’m an eternal optimist, wannabe runner and Starbucks/espresso addict. I love cupcakes, getting dressed up, sunny days, everything about the Christmas season, reading, shopping, crafting, to-do lists and snuggling my mini dachshund. I live for weekend getaways with my fiance, holidays with my family, and girls’ nights. My fiance is my best friend and makes me laugh daily. We are planning a winery wedding, with a lot of personal touches and an awesome dance party.

The Cocoa Bean is well known around the New Orleans area as being both delicious and incredibly well priced, especially when compared to bakeries in the city. They had also done an incredible job on the cakes for Bridesmaid L’s wedding, so we were hoping for great things as we walked into the little yellow house. We were not disappointed! Chef Anthony met us promptly and set us up with books of cakes they had done, as well as an iPad loaded with images of their most recent creations. While an assistant prepared our tasting platter, we discussed the details, I showed him my inspirations, and he was off and sketching!

Anthony told us lots of good things, like that the sterling cake stand was included for free, that he insisted on delivering cakes going to New Orleans (an hour away) himself, and that he split the already modest delivery charge among however many drop-offs were happening in that area on that day. Oh yes, and that our groom’s cake would be hugely discounted (more on that amazingness later!). He was racking up points with us left and right.

When our plate of samples arrived, we were some happy (and impressed) girls! There was a small mountain of both chocolate and almond cakes, paired with a divided platter filled with healthy dollops of some of their most popular fillings.

We tasted very scientifically—working our way around the plate, trying each filling with both white and chocolate cakes, and scoring them all. Our scale was mostly taste and texture based, and rather arbitrary—everything was so yummy, it was hard to choose favorites! We were really impressed by the cake itself—these were moist but not mushy, with a tender crumb, even before a syrup brush. We tasted fillings including chocolate Bavarian cream, vanilla pastry cream, strawberry, raspberry, cream cheese, strawberry, peanut butter, chocolate buttercream, and traditional buttercream.

After we had tasted all of the options, we started discussing combinations that included our favorite flavors with Chef Anthony. He was so helpful—he was able to tell us some of the combos he knew would be a hit, as well as help us brainstorm new ideas. He even made a run back to the kitchen to snag us a piece of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, since he knew that was a flavor contender, and some more samples. After some more “decision-making” tastes, our plates were emptying and I felt ready to make some choices!

Our three-tiered wedding cake will be frosted in The Cocoa Bean’s traditional buttercream, which combines light vanilla and almond flavors. The top tier will be red velvet cake with amaretto cream cheese filling. The middle tier will be chocolate cake with whipped peanut butter filling (so delicious, it was unholy!) and chocolate buttercream AND ganache. And the bottom tier will be lemon cake with raspberry filling and vanilla pastry cream. Y’all, I CANNOT. WAIT. to eat all of this delicious cake again on our wedding day!

A peek of Chef Anthony’s sketch

The textured frosting will be irregular, but not messy. The little oval plaque will have a pearlized finish and a dove gray monogram.

As the icing on the cake (hehe), Chef Anthony sent us home with complimentary slices of the red velvet and chocolate/peanut butter tiers (they had both flavors available in their bakery case that day). Though I knew I needed to discuss details and flavors and such with Mr. Archer, that final touch sealed the deal for me. As I drove back to the south shore, I called and canceled the remaining bakery appointments I had scheduled. Much in the way that once you find your wedding dress you should stop looking, I knew that The Cocoa Bean would be our choice; so I didn’t want to waste my limited time in New Orleans visiting second-choice bakeries. I was and am so excited for a cake that will look good but taste even better!

Did anyone else just go with their gut when it came to a vendor decision? What flavor did you select for your wedding cakes? Do you love me like a fat kid loves cake? (Disclaimer: I was a fat kid, and I still love cake!)

Guests entering the palm house at the Franklin Park Conservatory first encountered a simple table laid out with the favours that would act as table-seating cards. The table itself was very plain because, ultimately, it was too hard to plan something special from overseas. I think it looks OK considering all the green foliage, and I am thankful that green magic did a lot of the work for us. Maybe I would have liked to put some more effort into our tables and signage, but honestly it wasn’t really possible given the long-distance logistics. (And it doesn’t really matter!)

Mama Funnel Cake did not think that a table full of favours with names and numbers on them was intuitive enough for the guests, so we also made a sign telling people to pick up their favour to find their seat.

BM SIL, who both made and boxed all of our buckeye favours, was also kind enough to print out and loan some silver frames for the minimal signage we needed for the wedding (best BM ever!!).

Let’s backtrack a bit to see the work that she put into single-handedly making 675 buckeyes:

(Personal photos)

After rolling, freezing, and dipping all the buckeyes shortly before the wedding, BM SIL set up a packaging station to assemble everything. She is my DIY goddess!

(Personal photos)

I think my SIL did an absolutely amazing job making these special favours. Buckeyes were the perfect treat to give to guests on a wedding day that turned out to be an OSU game day as well.

Sadly, I don’t have that many pictures of them in use on the wedding day, but it’s always that way, isn’t it?

I scored a free Moo Cards Groupon before the wedding and thought it would be a great idea to use the Moo Cards to tell guests the URL to our free gallery on our wedding website where they could upload photos from the wedding day.

We were planning on having BIL bring his laptop to the wedding so we could supply a multi-card reader and hard drive for a download station, but we had some major postal delays when we arrived in Columbus and the card reader did not come until Saturday as the reception was taking place. I wasn’t sure if the download station would work because the distance made it very hard to plan, so I’m glad we had the Moo Cards as a backup option.

For a long time, we weren’t sure how or where to distribute the Moo Cards, but as luck would have it, BM SIL discovered that the width of the Moo Cards fit the favour boxes exactly so she could just slip them in between the ribbon and we were set. For the Moo Card design, I pulled elements from our invitations and had fun reusing my little bride and groom.

(Left: Graphic design by me, right: personal photo)

BM SIL really liked the little people on the Moo Cards, and she came up with another great idea. At the bottom of each favour box, we created a secret message that you would get to when you had eaten your buckeyes. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to use the little people again and already thank our guests for sharing the day with us!

(Left: Graphic design by me, right: personal photo)

After guests picked up their favours, there was something else on that table for them to notice…

Miss a Recap?

*All pictures by Timwill Photography unless noted*

Have a wedding item for sale? Post it with pictures in the Weddingbee Classifieds, and you might see it featured on the blog!

Other great items for sale:

David’s Bridal keyhole wedding gown, size 2P, asking $450

Yellow and gray wedding decor, various prices

Long purple infinity dress, custom size, asking $50

Crystal drop earrings, asking $30

I went to a local university, just a 15-minute drive away from the house I grew up in, and I found a job in town after I finished school, so there was no reason for me to move out. Mr. T’ case is a bit different—after finishing school he got a job in Hermosillo, the state capital, two hours away from here, so now he has his own place away from home.

It’s kind of a cultural thing. My parents lived at home till the day they got married, they went to school and found jobs in the city they grew up in, and the idea of moving in together before marriage was enough reason to burn them in the city square (figuratively, don’t worry).

I come from a very traditional environment. I’m not sure if the entire country, state, or city is like this, but pretty much everyone I know has the same views my parents have on the matter. Someone’s not supposed to leave home till marriage, or till getting a job outside the city. I know it’s old fashioned, but it’s the way things are done here.

Personal picture / My parents, brother, sister, Mr. T, and me. Yes we’re wearing matching shirts.

It’s hard to understand other people’s cultures and customs. My mom always talks about how odd and inappropriate it is for TV to portray young couples living together before getting married; she doesn’t exactly get that’s how things are done a lot of other places in the world.

Of course I know some couples who lived together before marriage and they’re not burned at the stakes, but they certainly get a hard time from a lot of people. In a country where 80% of people follow (or say they follow) a religion that disapproves premarital cohabitation, the population can be a bit intolerant.

Mr. Toadstool and I always talked about moving in together before getting married. It was something we really wanted to do; however, as we grew up it became clear we wouldn’t be able to do it. Us living together prior to marriage would create a tension between us and our families that would seriously damage our family dynamics. (Doesn’t it sound dramatic? Sadly, it kind of is.)

I think it was me who ultimately made the decision (I can’t use that coin to repay all my parents have done for me) and finally realized it wasn’t going to happen. Mr. T was more than supportive with the decision, and at the end I have a feeling that the idea of us not living together till marriage hurried him into the decision of proposing. (Points for me! Kidding.)

Was/is premarital cohabitation a problem for you and your SO? What do you think about grownups still living at home?

Image via graphjam

The venue gave us a menu and said we could choose two entrees, two vegetables, and two starches to taste. The first thing we had to decide was what meat we wanted to serve—the ever popular steak? The crowd pleasing chicken? The ritzy surf and turf? We decided that, if we were going to serve steak or seafood, we had to also offer the option of chicken since it is a crowd-pleaser, after all. Not everyone eats red meat or seafood, but most people can stomach some good, ol’ fashioned chicken.

Image via I Can Has Cheezburger

We considered giving everyone a choice between chicken and beef or chicken and fish, but then we read the fine print and discovered that all entrees would cost the same amount, regardless of what each guest ordered. This meant that if we offered chicken and steak, and only one person ordered steak, we would still pay for steak for each and every guest. When you’re inviting about 250 guests, and the price difference between different meals can range as much as $15 a head, that’s a Big Deal.

So, chicken it is! We chose the Stuffed Breast of chicken poulette and the Mediterranean chicken for our tasting. For sides, we tasted the steamed broccoli, the zucchini and carrots, the garlic whipped potatoes, and the parsley red potato.

Obligatory face-stuffing pics. I enjoyed the cake-tasting pics so much that I had to feature these, too.

And here’s the carnage:

We pwned that shiz.

In the end, I thought it all tasted good. Surprise. Mr. Unicycle liked it all, too, and our parents’ opinions canceled each other out. We decided to go with the entree that seemed “fancier,” AKA something our guests were less likely to randomly whip up at home some night, which was the chicken poulette and parsley red potatoes. Since no one could decide on the vegetable, we’re getting both!

We also got to choose our beer and wine selections, our salad, and our hors d’oeuvres. I’m excited about the hors d’oeuvres even though we didn’t get to try them—we’re getting mini crab cakes, mini deep dish pizzas, and brie with raspberry in a flaky crust. Raspberry is kind of a food theme at our wedding, since we’re using it as our cake filling and our salad dressing, too—it’s Mr. U’s flavorite!

Are you a foodie? Or will you eat pretty much anything? How did that affect your tasting experience?

• We picked colors, although getting there was a little weird
• We decided our wedding will not be a black-tie affair
• I bought a very vintage dress (MR. POTION—IF YOU CLICK THAT LINK, YOU WILL BRING DISHONOR! DISHONOR ON YOUR WHOOOOOLE FAMILY! DISHONOR ON YOU, DISHONOR ON YOUR COW…)

Video via YouTube

So, I’ve been a bridesmaid in a grand total of two weddings thus far (and both of those lovely brides are now in my bridal party!), and I actually find it really fun. I’ve learned a lot from both of these experiences, and I hope that what I’ve learned has helped me make the experience of being in my bridal party a pleasant one for my ladies. (Of course, the weddings I was in were for two really low-maintenance brides who are far less controlling than I am in their everyday lives…) What’s the most important thing I’ve learned?

There is no such thing as a truly re-wearable bridesmaids’ dress. They just do not exist. The only place you could ever re-wear a bridesmaids’ dress is a formal dance (if you’re still in school) or maybe, if you’re lucky, as a guest at another wedding of equal fanciness. If your goal, as the bride, is to dress your ladies in dresses that are guaranteed to become a part of their regular wardrobe, you have to let each girl pick her own dress from whichever store she likes best.

Enter: the mismatched bridesmaid trend.

I actually think this can look really lovely, and definitely makes for beautiful photos:

Photo by Erin Hearts Court / Image via flutterfly events

Photo by Jamie Bott Wedding Photography / Image via Bridal Musings

However, I just…don’t want to do it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m old-fashioned or what, but I like the look of matching bridesmaids, and it just feels…right for our wedding, even if we’re not going fancy-schmancy.

So we made the decision to have my attendants all in the same dress, with my MOH in a different color.

Remember our color palette?

I decided to put six of my ladies in purple, and my MOH in red.

Next decision: where to buy the dresses from?

Both of the weddings I’ve been a bridesmaid in had us in dresses by David’s Bridal. I completely understand why the brides went this route: they’re all over the country, they have a decent selection of styles and colors, and as far as bridesmaids’ dresses go, they’re pretty affordable.

However.

Let me first state that the following is my OPINION, based on my own experiences, and is in no way meant as a critique of those brides’ decisions. My two wonderful friends had lovely weddings and the bridal parties looked gorgeous. I am not trying to complain about the experience of being in either of their weddings.

But…

DAVID’S BRIDAL IS THE DEVIL.

Sorry, that’s a little harsh.

SHOPPING AT DAVID’S BRIDAL IS A REALLY TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.

Well, it was for me, at least.

In the first of the two weddings, all the bridesmaids got together to go shopping with the bride at one time. I don’t remember if we actually had an appointment, but it certainly didn’t feel like it. It was a very busy afternoon and the sales associate was distracted; she seemed to think it more important to get us all out of the store quickly than to help us make a decision about which dress to choose.

In the second of the two weddings, the bride had already chosen her favorite style and we went to our respective stores to try them on and place orders. Every dress style is sized slightly different—this is true of pretty much any garment in any store, which is why I find it difficult to shop online without the ability to try things on. I honestly would not have been surprised if my size in this style had been different than the size of the previous style. In wedding #1, I wore a size four—which is, admittedly, not my normal dress size. In most stores, I’m a size six.

The day I went to try on dresses, I was feeling particularly bloated, so when the associate asked what size to pull for me, I said “A six—hopefully!” in a sort of joking tone. I tried on the six and it was much too big—I’m not exactly a chesty girl anyway, but I would’ve needed to stuff this thing with pillows to fill it out. It hung on me like a pillowcase, clearly not my size. When I voiced these concerns to the sales associate, she told me that since it was the sample, it had been tried on by hundreds of girls and therefore stretched out—a “real” size six would be smaller. I told her that I understood, but it would make me feel better if I could try on a four—and she said no. The woman would not allow me to try on a size four—probably because another girl walked in and she didn’t want to deal with me anymore.

She drew up the paperwork to order a six and, lo and behold, when it came in the dress was way too big for me and needed to be altered, as there wasn’t enough time to exchange it. The seamstress looked at me like I was crazy when I tried it on for her to pin—she literally needed to take the dress in at every seam in an attempt to take the dress down an entire size. After all her hard work, the top still didn’t fit properly, and I felt like you could see down my dress all day!

See? It’s all bunched up and gap-y! And Mr. Potion is making a funny face (though that has nothing to do with the size of my dress)! / Personal photo

In short—I was NOT going to subject my ladies to the horrors I’d experienced at David’s, affordable or not.

So where would they be buying their dresses from? And what dresses would they be wearing?

You’ll have to tune in next time to find out!

Has anyone else ever had a horrible experience at a bridal salon?

It’s when I got back from my hair appointment that all the fun began. I joined my friends at the venue…they serenaded me with “Going to the Chapel” as I pulled up and then ambushed me with a bottle of champagne. We all piled into the tiniest bridal room ever to start getting ready. My awesome friend/makeup artist went to work on my face while I tried to soak up every moment.

Finally it was time for me to get dressed. I asked everyone to leave the room but my sister. She helped me transform into a bride!

I slipped on my dress and the belt I made with my mom. / Photo by Seed and Sparrow

My sister helping me put on my veil / Photo by Seed and Sparrow

Another shot of my awesome belt / Photo by Seed and Sparrow

My sister touching up my hair / Photo by Seed and Sparrow

When I was finally ready we opened the door to the bridal room so I could reveal my wedding look to my best friends for the first time. The result is one of my favorite photos from the day…

My best friends’ reactions to me as a bride. Aren’t they adorable?! / Photo by Seed and Sparrow

Next I headed outside to get some shots by myself before Mr. O arrived!

Miss a recap?
It’s Friday…I’m in Love!
It’s Friday…I’m in Love!: Our Rehearsal Party

I can’t knock it too much, though, because lately? Lately it’s been lots of helpful and interesting things, like: Get Your Marriage License (check!), Do A Vendor Check In (check!), Top Ten 80s Songs (because the ’80s were the best, obvi), Create Your Own Ceremony Programs (check!), Changing Your Name - Here’s What to Expect (don’t even want to think about it), and—ready for it?—Don’t Forget Your Dress!

Alas, surprisingly enough, this isn’t actually a post about Project Wedding and all of its email goodness. This is a post about the latter subject—the dress. The article mentioned above talks a lot about making sure you get your alterations done, bringing things to the wedding in case your dress needs an emergency fix of some kind, and remembering to accessorize. All of this is well and good, but I just thought it was extra awesome and appropriate at this moment in time because of what I just picked up the other day.

Oh, hello there!

Now, I’ve technically had my dress in my possession since last October, since it was cheaper to have it shipped to Maryland from New York and get alterations done down here than it was to purchase and have alterations done up there. Blame it on lovely New York state taxes and up-charges.

Once I initially had my dress, however, I had to wait (semi) patiently until April to start the alterations process. I eventually ended up taking it to a local seamstress by the name of Estee, thanks to some recommendations from both friends and the ’bee. I have to boast and brag about her for just a hot minute, though, because the woman is simply amazing. She works out of her home, which in turn keeps prices low (we’re talking under $200 for taking in the dress, significant hemming, creating a bustle, and adding what she dubs a “lingerie strap”). I saw her a total of three times, and was able to pick up my dress at the third fitting, just this past Monday. The dress went from somewhat of a hot mess that was too long and terribly unsupportive to one that fits me like a glove—thus, having me fall in love with it all over again. Now I just can’t gain or lose an ounce for the next three weeks. #nopressure

I also have to give some credit as to how the dress fits to my undergarment selection. The process of finding a bra that would properly support me yet still dip low enough for both the very low sweetheart neckline and very low dipping back was a lengthy and anxiety-inducing one. I’ll be honest with you, here: even though the top of my dress has some supportive boning, there was no way in Hades that I could get away without wearing some sort of bra. The tatas just…need some support. Whatever, it’s what I was born with. Sewn in cups won’t do, those silly little sticky cutlet things are a joke, and a backless bra is almost just as laughable. My girls need some help and some oomph. My only real option was some sort of dippy longline bra.

I scoured almost every store and every website I could think of. A close contender was this little number from Victoria’s Secret.

Victoria’s Secret Back Off Baby Low-back Bustier

Would you believe me if I told you that it didn’t dip low enough on either the front or the back? Because it didn’t.

My last resort was Amazon. I didn’t want to go this route because it’s all a crapshoot - I could potentially spend a ton of money on several different bras and wait days to get them, only to have to return them all in the end.

However, this story does indeed have a happy ending! I eventually made myself go on Amazon, and wouldn’t you know it: I saw, I bought, and I conquered. I got one of the few bras that looked like it not only dipped low enough, but had enough support for the girls.

Carnival Women’s Invisible Plunge Longline - 206

No, it’s not the sexiest thing in the world, but I’m counting on the fact that Foxy will be too tipsy to really care. Especially since I also intend on taping and gluing the shiz out of myself to the both the bra and the dress. That thing isn’t budging at all.

Yes, that is toupee tape on the left. It’s the poo.

And yes, I will probably be trying on my dress every time Foxy leaves the house for the next few weeks until the wedding.

How far out from the wedding did you take your wedding dress home? What did you do about the undergarment situation?

Ah yes, lots of nervousness started turning to silly. So, for the behind the scenes, my dad and I have a habit of joking around A LOT in order to hide our emotions. I knew if we got somber for a second, I’d turn into a puddle. The buckboard arrived with my dad on board. We ladies piled in, and the ride to the ceremony site got started. While I can’t remember exactly what was being said, I remember my face hurting a lot. And then, in the distance I heard the first song in this post (go ahead and throw the music on in the background for effect). HOLY SHITBALLS! I was getting married. That was the first song we picked out for the ceremony. My eyes were wide, and to calm me down BM C. Bear got everyone to put their hands in and on the count of three we shouted a mix of mine and Mr. Skunk’s last names (and also the name our friends tend to refer to us as). There was laughter behind us as I realized we were a lot closer to the ceremony site than I thought. Whoops!

While all of this was going on, down at the ceremony site our ring bearer was a ham for the camera. Because he is so young and unpredictable, we opted to not give him a responsibility except to look cute and maybe walk down the aisle if he felt like it. He did a pretty damn good job on the first part.

Meanwhile, the groomsmen waited on standby with our junior bridesmaid.

Mr. Skunk was adamant about escorting his grandmother and mom in. My brother escorted my grandmother and mom in. Our best man felt a little weird about the setup at first because the way Suzy had everyone set up, he would be standing up front with the pastor while the escorting business went down. The maid of honor would walk down by herself, so he didn’t have any escorting duties himself. He was worried that people would think he was the “stand in” groom or something. As it turns out, I think everyone figured out who the groom was, and it all made for a really sweet gesture. After escorting his family in, Mr. Skunk headed up to the altar and got a good handshake of moral support from our best man. As awkward as it looks, I love this picture.

Finally, the buckboard made it all the way to the ceremony site. At this point, Kashmir had quit playing and there was a massive ringing bell signaling our arrival.

The air went silent for a couple of moments as the last bell toll rung out and this song started playing. It was so fun and appropriate for these beautiful people to come down to.

And finally, before I was allowed off the buckboard, they wanted to see if our little guy would do his walk. This is about as far as he got. He flipped his hat around and just posed for the camera before going back to his parents. It was kinda perfect. I was the flower girl in his parents’ wedding, so getting to have him involved in mine meant the world!

Next up, I’ll be making my way down the aisle and we’ll get hitched!!!

*All photos by iloveyoumuch photography unless otherwise noted

~~~

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{personal image}

Option a) is the most versatile option. Pearl studs are classic and can be re-worn in everyday situations.

Options b) and c)  are fancier, so they might not work for everyday wear. However, there are many different looks to choose from.

Option b) would add some bling depending on the top design of the earring.

I like dangly earrings, as in option c), as long as they’re not heavy. But I’m worried that they will move a lot and look like they’re flying around when taking pictures.

I have a pair of tiiiny pearls studs that are very…erm…not visible—which is why I wanted them. I would need something more visible for the wedding. Studs are easy to locate, but when it comes to drop earrings…there are so many to choose from! In my search for earrings, these are some that I have liked:

{collage by me, images from…

top row: Macy’s / Dogeared /Zales

bottom row: Macy’s / Dogeared / Dogeared}

Awhile ago Dogeared had a pair like the bottom right one, but with waaay more pearls. I even bookmarked it, but it has since been discontinued. Cue sad face. (I did check, and they’re still available through some other online vendors.)

I still have plenty of time to decide what type of earrings I want to wear for the wedding. I’ll keep you posted on which one I end up choosing.

What earrings are you considering for you wedding-day look?

PS: Does anyone have feedback on the very dangly type earrings?

Straight out of the box where they have been stored for almost 25 years

With a little TLC, some cleaning and a little shine on the silver part, they will look as good as new. We had a little scare with one of them when the cup came apart form the stem, but it wasn’t anything a little glue couldn’t handle.

I’m so glad my parents kept these after all these years. It gives us the opportunity to honor their marriage and incorporate it into our wedding in a deeply personal way. As soon as I saw them, my eyes got all misty eyed thinking that in a few days we will be toasting to our marriage with the same glasses my parents did, years ago. I find something about that incredibly romantic, and hopefully a little of their great marriage juju will rub off on us.

Will you be incorporating a memento of your parents’ wedding into your own?

We could’ve rented a party bus or Hummer limousine, but nothing’s quite as quintessentially Chicago as a trolley.

Image via Coach USA

Plus, we can bring drinks and toast our brand new marriage while cruising through town! Ain’t no party like a trolley party…

Image via David Wittig Photography

How will you travel on your wedding day?

{Images via Hotel Artemide}

{Images via Hotel Artemide}

For those of you who have been to Rome before, what lesser known sites should we scout out? I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to a tourist-y night walk to the Trevi Fountain and Colosseum (preferably while eating loads of gelato).

{Images via Grand Tour in Florence}

After we explore Rome for a couple of days, we’ll take the train an hour and a half to the Grand Tour in Florence, a five-star B&B I’ve been smitten with for years. The original structure was an 18th century garden theater, which the owners brought back to light during its restoration and converted into nine suites. All of the doors open onto a courtyard garden with a fountain, which sounds all sorts of dreamy. I fully expect for there to be cartoon birds hanging our clean laundry on a clothesline when we wake up in the morning, that’s how good it sounds.

{Images via Grand Tour in Florence}

The Actor Suite, which we’re staying in (above), has a large bathroom with a private sauna…yes, please. The shower has handmade majolicas (decorative earthenware tiles) that are so, so lovely. I love the old marble sink that is featured in the bedroom, along with the headboard that has some really pretty details.

{Images via Rificolona-Paper Lantern Festival}

Florence is a great central location for day trips, so we’ll be spending four nights in Florence, with excursions to Venice (Peggy Guggenheim Collection!) and Siena. I’m really excited about the Rificolona-Paper Lantern Festival, an evening parade through the Piazza Santissima Annunziata, with children carrying paper lanterns lit with candles, while the older kids try to set the lanterns ablaze with pea shooters. It’s all in good family fun since it is tied around tradition, plus there’s live music and carnival food, so it shouldn’t be too crazy. Supposedly most of the lanterns end up burning by the end of the night, so it should be interesting to see.

{Images via La Poesia}

After exhausting ourselves in and around Florence, we’ll be heading to Cinque Terre. I’ve been wanting to go to Cinque Terre forever, but then this happened last year, and it made my heart sink. Alas, the cliff-side villages are rebuilding and need the tourists now more than ever, so we will be spending four nights in Monterosso Al Mare, one of two villages extensively damaged in last fall’s flood. Pete really wanted to stay near the beach, so that’s how we landed on Monterosso; however, we’ll also be hiking and traveling to the other villages—Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

We’re staying at La Poesia, a charming B&B not far from the train station, with homemade breakfasts served on the outdoor terrace, and complete with lemon trees and a breathtaking view of the beach.

{Image via Mick Lerlop Photography / Photo by Mick Lerlop; Image via PlanetWare; Image via Gogobot}

I’m most excited about hiking around Cinque Terre, with a day trip to the port town of Portofino and loads of relaxing. The Ginger seems to think he can convince me to jump off of a 30–40 foot cliff into the Mediterranean Sea, but I have a feeling I’ll have to jump from the little kiddie spot that is only a few feet above the water.

Have you guys ever been to Italy? What spots should we be sure to add to our agenda (restaurants, museums, anything)?

It was a cold (not really—25°C) December night in 2004. Mr. T and I were sitting outside my house. We’d been dating for a year now and had started talking about future.

We talked about marriage (in general, not exactly with each other), what we’d like to study in university, our goals in life, what age we would like to get married, what we’d like to do before settling down, and how many kids we wanted to have and at what point in our lives. At one point in the conversation, right there, I knew I’d like to marry this boy; he was mature, fun, down to earth, smart, goofy, and unique—how awesome would it be to have him as the father of my kids? Did I mention I was 15 years old?!! Oh you silly dreamer…

Fast forward five years later, and I was doing a semester abroad in Canada and was obsessed with TLC wedding shows. (Can you believe we don’t have TLC in Mexico?) The wedding obsession became a joke between Mr. T and me, until one day while chatting on MSN he wrote: “When you least expect it I’d surprise you with a ring.” Wait…what?!

I always knew (or at least expected with all my might) we’d eventually marry, but this comment made it real. Right there I knew it was indeed happening—sooner or later I’d marry this guy.

So, do you remember the moment you knew? I’d love to know your stories.

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Don’t I just ooze excitement in my awesome graduation garb?

Anyhoo, I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t be wearing my wedding band and engagement ring together, mainly because my engagement ring is weirdly shaped and no band fits around it—plus I didn’t want a curved band because I wanted the option of wearing it without the E-ring. I came to love the look of stacked rings, and thought maybe I’d just have a ring made that LOOKED stacked but was actually one piece. And so I showed some inspiration pics to our family jeweler, who went to work.

Want to see the beauty?

Isn’t she pretty? I’m so glad I love her, since there isn’t really much time to make a change before the wedding! And just so you can see how she matches the style of my E-ring (and if you like an artsy shot):

What important aspect of the wedding did you leave till the last minute? Did it work out OK?

• I tend to pose when there’s a camera around
• Mr. Potion makes goofy faces when there’s a camera around
• We worked on toning down both of our tendencies for our engagement shoot

After posing out on the swing set, it was time to change clothes and head to the next location. Since I knew my costume change would take awhile (as I’m a girl), I handed Emile my ring and a Scrabble board to see what would happen next!

**all photos in this post courtesy Emile Frey**

These are our initials, by the way. We’re not making a dirty joke.

I asked him to take a few shots spelling out the date and location. By that time, Mr. Potion was done changing clothes, as evidenced by the below photo.

Once everyone was ready to go, we went down to Leesburg’s historic downtown for some more beautiful photos like these:

Gotta have a shoe picture!

Then it was time for one more costume change and a metro ride down to Old Town Alexandria, the place where we first fell in love.

Hey look, we’re both looking at the camera!

This is an instance where silly faces are a good thing!

The next day, we went into DC for the last batch of pictures. We danced on the Mall:

We went to the Museum of American History, mainly just to play around, but there were a couple of cute photo opportunities:

And finally we went down to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

This is also where we shot the “interview” in our engagement video I showed you in the first post!

Where did you go for your engagement pictures? Did you buy a new outfit or shop your closet like I did? Did you do your own hair and makeup (like I so obviously did) or did you get it done professionally? Were you lucky enough to have a “friendor” for a photographer?

One Valentines Day, she got me (us) a small authentic red velvet cake from a local bakery. I’m talking buttermilk and unprocessed cocoa…not a chocolate cake dyed red, typically found in the “gourmet cupcake shops.” After that, we were red velvet converts. Pretty much every holiday/birthday since, we have baked red velvet cake.

Image via Bakerella

And we’ve gotten pretty good at it, thanks to this early registry gift my Mom got me for Christmas:

personal photo / KitchenAid 5-Qt Artisan Stand Mixer in Cornflower Blue

We knew we wanted a red velvet cake from the get-go, but we didn’t want a chocolate cake that was dyed red. We considered baking our own cake, but we’re already doing our own centerpieces…and the more I read about disaster wedding cake transportation, the more I realized it wasn’t for us. But before looking for a bakery, we wanted to decide on a design. We’re pretty anti-fondant, and we didn’t want to even talk about it with bakeries. As a couple, we like to go into vendor meetings with a vision and have a solid idea of what we want. We really like simple, tiered cakes with buttercream frosting (and cream cheese filling, or else it isn’t a “real red velvet cake” in our books!) and no fussy fondant decorations. Fresh floral decorations are more our style.

Photo by: Lauren Kinsey Fine Art Wedding Photography on Grey Likes Weddings via Lover.ly

Photo by: Photos by Lauren Drage on Polka Dot Bride via Lover.ly

Photo by: Angie Silvy on Snippet and Ink via Lover.ly

Photo by: Jonathan Canlas on Snippet and Ink via Lover.ly

With our cake vision in mind, we set off to find a baker. Spoiler: Holy sh*t…wedding cakes are EXPENSIVE.

What flavor did you choose for your wedding cake? Did you go for a more simple buttercream design, or a fancy fondant cake?

Garter from lionusagi on Etsy

Garter from MabeliciousBridal on Etsy

Before I got to finding a garter, though, I realized I didn’t really know anything about the tradition, so I decided to do a bit of research.

It looks like the roots of the garter toss come from a sort of bizarre mob mentality where people were so eager to get a hold of the bride’s garter, for good luck, that grooms started throwing them at the crowd in advance—sort of like chucking a T-bone at an angry dog.

I learned something new, too—turns out if you’re tossing a garter, you have the option of getting a set of two: one to keep and one to throw. I’m not 100% sure I’m going to see any nostalgic value in a piece of lace, but who knows what will be meaningful to me as the years pass by!

It seems like lots of women choose their garters with their husbands in mind—a sports team, a hobby, something highlighted on that piece of lace to make their husbands even happier whilst digging around under their dresses. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a sports team Mr. Dragon cares about, and his hobbies aren’t really garter-charm friendly (snowshoeing? airplanes? video games? I have no idea), but after racking my brain for a few ideas I came up with something.

I bought an inexpensive ivory set off of DeluxeGarter on Etsy, along with a few moose buttons from TheCraftyBead, also on Etsy. You might recall that Mr. Dragon calls me moose instead of dear. A bit of hot glue, and here’s what I had:

Personal photos

Cute, right? I think Mr. Dragon is going to get a giggle out of it, and I still have two little tiny moose left over. If you want to personalize your garter but don’t trust your DIY skills, check out buttons, because I can’t believe how easy this was!

Did you personalize your garter in any way?

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However, I don’t own any necklaces that look like the ones I’ve sketched. I’ve looked online at the jewelry offered at Macy’s, Kays, Zales, Dogeared etc., and not fallen in love with a single one. I don’t want to spend $100 or more on a necklace that “I think will work” and that I won’t wear much after the wedding.

I think I might just go without a necklace and instead have gorgeous earrings and a pretty bracelet. I have ideas for earrings and I just bought an amazing bracelet (more on that later).

Have you considered not wearing a necklace?

We went semi-DIY with these bad boys, and even though we hit some bumps in the road, I absolutely love the final product. And so, without further ado…It’s time for some Coyote invitation porn!

We ran all of the envelopes through the printer (shhhh…I know this is bad etiquette, but I have horrible handwriting and a calligrapher just wasn’t in the budget). I went with the boring wedding cake stamps because nothing else really jumped out at me:

I sealed the outer envelope with an envelope moistener that I picked up from Staples for like a dollar. I gotta say, it was totally worth it to not lick 100 freakin’ envelopes:

I used three different types of scrapbook paper for the envelope liners:

And wrapped the whole thing up in a belly band:

It KILLS me to blur out so much of the invitation, but here is the main event:

There were lots of little pieces to our invitation suite, and I promise to go into more detail in the next post, but for now, here is the whole set laid out:

Whew! Again, they were a ton of work (and I didn’t even make them from scratch!), but I am so, so happy with the result. Did you make your own invitations? How did you do it without having a mental breakdown?!

When I got home, I used a corner punch to round the corners of the card stock sheets. This was surprisingly time consuming work. The Martha Stewart punch I used could only handle two sheets of card stock at a time. I had 200 sheets of card stock and four corners on each sheet, so I had 400 punches to make. (It actually took more than that because I didn’t discover the punch could take two sheets until I was a good bit into the stack of paper.)

Photo by Miss Mink

I followed Mrs. Bunting’s advice and used some packing tape to secure the fan sticks I bought on Etsy to the card stock. I had to stare at that first, botched print job for hours while I taped.

Photo by Miss Mink

I’ve extolled the virtues of the adhesive tape runner before and, like others before me, found it to be the perfect tool for securing the two sides of the program fan together. You can just barely see the shiny lines of adhesive in the picture I took of this step:

Photo by Miss Mink

Finally, I had to line up the two sides of the program and apply pressure to get them to stick together. The second printer did the cuts for me and the two sides were exactly the same size, but I did my best.

Photo by Miss Mink

When it came time to assemble the program fans, I was a little disappointed. Some of the ink on the “inside” of the fans could be seen around the edges once the fan was put together.

I contemplated painting the edges or running marker around them, but that should have been done before they were put together. What’s more, when I tested using a marker on the edges, the paper soaked up the ink unevenly and the result wasn’t very nice looking.

If I was doing this project six months ago, the perfectionist in me would have scrapped everything and started over. I am giving myself permission to use the fans as they are. I hope people can focus on the illustration and program content instead of the edges.

Did you have to settle for less than perfect results on a project you tackled during wedding planning?

We had our reasons, of course…and good ones, mainly trying to avoid attention, but the truth is our four parents are old-fashioned, some more than others. Each in their own way thinks we’re too young and not ready for marriage, not mature enough, or rushing into it…my mom used to have a mild freak-out every time someone brought up the subject of me getting married or having kids. Hey! After seven years people want to know when are we going to tie the knot!! (Try to tell my mother that is normal…seriously, I’d appreciate if you tried.)

Image via Mademan.com

We initially made the decision because we were trying to enjoy our engagement by ourselves for a while, soak in the happiness and joy that is to think we will be soon sharing our lives, before telling everyone and having to face everyone’s opinion.

One of the main reasons we kept it a secret was that Mr.T’s dad was out of the country and we didn’t want to tell him the news by phone, so we decided to wait until he came back. This turned out to be quite inconvenient because he didn’t came back till late December. Did I mention we got engaged in the last days of September? It was two days shy of three months that we had to keep it quiet.

It was fun to have that secret—we attended expos and hunted for venues while making up excuses. It was our thing, no one else’s, but within a month we were ready to tell everyone. We were tired of waiting and a bit worried about everyone’s reaction to us keeping this secret for so long. But we were waiting for FFIL Toadstool and we were not spilling the beans without him here. After all, out of our four parents, he was the only one who rooted for us to get married instead of avoiding the subject and expecting it to come back five years later.

In the last three days of 2011 we finally went public. One day we told the future in-laws, and the next day we told my parents and took advantage of the New Year’s family gatherings to let everyone else know.

It was good to have everything out in the open—our families were more excited than I thought they’d be, and although it was an initial shock for our parents (seriously, about 10 minutes of blank faces from them) it was extremely relieving to tell everyone. At this point Mr. T and I realized how much stress and tension we’d been keeping in our bodies, so it was good to finally relax.

How did you break the news to your family? Were you worried about your family’s reactions?

Underneath the warm glass of the conservatory, there was little need for a jacket anymore and some guests were already sporting sunglasses—something I hadn’t planned on needing in late October!

With the lush foliage all around, white tables and chairs were more than good enough for our decorating needs! I also like to believe this was slightly budget friendly as we didn’t have to pay for special table runners or seat covers.

Mama Funnel Cake had coordinated the purchase of cupcake stands to hold an array of pastries, donuts, and cookies for guests to nibble on while they waited for brunch. Atop each centrepiece was a red or black watering can filled with flowers and a table number.

The conservatory was also filled with Funnel Cake clan members. Below it looks like Brother Funnel Cake was getting a bit antsy for brunch to happen. That or the brother drinking juice said something cheeky. (I wouldn’t trust that one if I were you…)

But Papa Funnel Cake was happy to enjoy some fresh juice during his wait.

He was having a nice time catching up with Papi Funnel Cake, whom he’s only seen on visits surrounding one of our wedding days. They still have some “getting to know you” to do, but I think they get along pretty well.

Metro Catering had set up a coffee bar that was supposed to include espresso so that the Brazilians and Swiss (including us) would have a drinkable caffeinated beverage, but it ended up merely being an “espresso roast” that was the same watery coffee we tend to avoid on trips to the US. Oh well. Mami Funnel Cake gave in and had some!

Along with a variety of coffee, guests could also enjoy the fresh juices and mimosas. Mr. Funnel Cake still thought it was weird to be offering alcohol in the morning, but I was adamant that I wanted some booze to celebrate our special day.

Downstairs in my “bridal quarters” I was being bustled by Mama Funnel Cake. She was making sure that my five-point bustle would hold for the rest of the day. I also was using the opportunity to get rid of my lace jacket. I doubt I would have needed any extra warmth in that sunny conservatory!

Soon the music stopped and Papa Funnel Cake announced that the bridal party was making their way to the reception.

The bridesmaids headed down the stairs first, followed by the groomsmen.

It was maybe a little uncoordinated, but there wasn’t really a great entryway into the palm house. The entry splits into two staircases, so we had to choose one side of the room to ignore as we went down the stairs. I felt slightly guilty, but we had to get to the party somehow!

Mr. Funnel Cake was pretty happy I decided to take off my lace overlay, too. I had promised him a busty dress and he was happy with the results.

Now that we were there, it was time to get the brunch started!

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*All pictures by Timwill Photography unless noted*

Have a wedding item for sale? Post it with pictures in the Weddingbee Classifieds, and you might see it featured on the blog!

Other great items for sale:

Wtoo by Watters ball gown, size 8, asking $1,500

White ruffle chiffon cocktail dress, size 8, asking $97

22 jumbo clothespin table numbers, asking $45

Ivory leather peep toes with ankle strap from BCBGeneration, size 8.5, asking $30

As we stood facing one another, hands clasped and giddy smiles plastered on our faces, our pastor started us off.

In the presence of God and before these people I now invite you to exchange your vows. Through the sacred vows of marriage, you are saying that who you are and who you want to be are best achieved through this union. Please join hands, as you exchange your vows, repeating after me.

I, Miss Bunting, choose you, Mr. Bunting to be my husband.

I promise to love you, to honor you, to respect you, and to support you, as long as we both shall live.

This is my solemn vow.

I, Mr. Bunting, choose you, Miss Bunting to be my wife.

I promise to love you, to honor you, to respect you and to support you, as long as we both shall live.

This is my solemn vow.

Then it was our turn to exchange the personal vows we had written. We didn’t want to stress ourselves by trying to memorize our vows, so we each had a little cheat card that we brought out. It was pretty easy to tuck an edge in between our fingers while keeping our hands clasped, and our photographers angled themselves so you can hardly even see them.

I went first.

Mr. Bunting, I love you with every fiber of my being, and I am continuously amazed by how much my love for you grows. Just when I think I couldn’t possibly love you any more than I already do, I stretch and discover a new corner to fill.

You are the sun of my day, the moon of my night, and the highlight of my every waking moment. You know me better than anyone else and you love me for who I am: a perfectionist and a daydreamer…you love me, even though I don’t really understand how computers work.

Thank you for anticipating my needs before even I know them. I don’t know how you do it, but you do. You never fail to find a way to make me smile, especially when I need it the most. Thank you for loving me and accepting me and everything that comes packaged with me, like my two cats, even though Zoey drives you crazy sometimes.

Today, I promise to be your wife and your best friend, to love you unconditionally, to support and defend you in difficult times, and always appreciate you and all the little things you do.

I will try every single day to make you happy. I will give you my ears when you need to vent, my eyes when you need my insight, and my voice when you need a defender.

I vow to spend the rest of my life with you, laughing, sharing, creating memories, and thoroughly enjoying whatever adventures may come our way.

And I promise to try and play some of your favorite video games when no one else is online, but mostly, I promise to be completely and utterly yours, now and forever.

Then it was Mr. Bunting’s turn.

Miss Bunting…you are simply put the best thing to ever happen to me. You are my voice of reason and motivation. You keep me in check and bring out the best in me. You are my sun and moon, the earth and the stars. You are my life and love, my confidant and counselor. You are my best friend and my zombie-apocalypse partner. You really are everything to me.

I want to thank you for the laughs. Thank you for knowing how to make me smile. Thank you for saying exactly the right thing at exactly the right time and for understanding my need for video games and every other nerdy interest I have. Thank you for being so passionate about everything you do. The care and creativeness you put into even the littlest of things serves as great inspiration to not only me, but to those around you.

I will make sure that you are always loved and that you know it. I will always anticipate your needs and do my best to fulfill them. I will be patient and compassionate, with not only you but with your cats as well. I will be your knight in shining level 30 armor, there always to protect and serve you.

I vow to always care for you, to cherish you, to love you to no end. I vow to make you smile every day for the rest of our lives.

And I promise to always be standing next to you, ready to take on whatever life throws our way. I promise to consult with you on every major electronic purchase I make. And finally, I cannot stress this enough, I promise to try to clean the cats’ litter box. Sometimes. Maybe.

Our guests giggled right along with us at each nerdy reference and cat joke. It was the perfect balance between sincerity and humor.

But it’s still not official yet! Next up, we exchange rings.

*Marked photos are copyright Bryan and Mae Photography. Unmarked photos are personal or guest photos.

Follow the adventure:

• We had a fluffing party and rehearsed.
• I woke up and got ready with my girls.
• I step into the prettiest white dress I’ll ever wear.
• Mr. Bunting recounts getting ready at the Man Cave.
• Wishin’ and prayin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ for perfect weather.
• I received the most important Post-it note. Ever.
• We race toward one another for our first look.
• Mushy-lovey photos ensued shortly after.
• We strutted our stuff as one big happy Bunting Bunch.
• Our guests started to arrive: welcome to our wedding.
• I went into hiding… and panicked.
• Our wedding party assembled on time, but the bride was missing.
• I arrive fashionably late in a horse-drawn carriage.
• We listen to a reading and turn to wave at our guests.

Acting like a supermodel, around age 12 or so / Photo by Potion Dad

Sure, I went through a phase where I hated having my parents’ camera in my face…

At the beach, age seven or so / Photo by Potion Dad

…but for the most part, I’ve always been good about putting on a show when cameras are around.

We were lining up for a race through the neighborhood; I was more concerned with the camera getting my good side. Shout out to MOH (the one in the Alabama shirt) and BM BabySis (the lil toddler on the end) / Photo by Potion Mom

Maybe it’s because I was a dancer from age three through high school.

That’s me standing on the far right, tap class, age nine.

But then again there were times when, even in costume, I didn’t have the patience for pictures.

Age nine again…MOH has more patience than I do in this picture. / Photo by Potion Mom

Mr. Potion, on the other hand, normally reacts like this when there’s a camera around:

Ring Banquet at Virginia Tech, 2009 / Personal photo

Ring Dance at Virginia Tech, 2009, with BM BabySis / Personal photo

If he even looks at the camera at all! / Personal photo

So we had a bit of a challenge on our hands when it came time to talk about engagement photos.

Wait wait wait—engagement photos? But I haven’t talked about booking a photographer yet!

…that’s because we haven’t booked a photographer yet. Still. Yikes. I’ll get to that in a later post.

See, Mr. Potion has this wonderfully talented friend named Emile. He’s one of those guys that’s good at everything he tries—and incredibly humble, to boot. One of those things Emile is good at is photography! (See where I’m going with this?)

Since Mr. Potion moved up to Leesburg, he’s wanted Emile to come visit and see the area. Almost immediately after we got engaged, Mr. Potion asked Emile if he’d like to spend MLK weekend with him and, if he wouldn’t mind, take some pictures of us. We paid for his airfare (since flying from Louisiana to DC is not cheap), covered his meals all weekend, and showed him a good time at some museums and touristy things in DC, and in return, he took some beautiful pictures of us.

Want to see?

Our first set was taken on the swing set right outside of Mr. Potion’s apartment.

This photo and all following courtesy Emile Frey

To ensure there were no goofy faces (well, not too many, anyway), I told Mr. Potion to just look at me most of the time instead of the camera. This gave us pictures with natural smiles on both our faces instead of awkwardness or forced facial expressions.

Of course, staring at each other the whole time made it kind of difficult to not just do this:

…and it also didn’t necessarily prevent goofy faces.

This is actually one of our favorite pictures from the weekend!

But at least those goofy faces made me laugh!

We have a ton more photos from the e-shoot weekend…but you’ll have to tune in next time to see them!

Do you like having your picture taken? Does your groom? How did you get over camera-jitters?

*I sure do like confessions, don’t I? Guess it’s ’cause I’m Catholic.

Image via Amazon

It was a hilarious book, or at least the 18-year-old, head-over-heels version of me thought so.

Anyway…let’s talk about weight loss, shall we? First, the perfunctory disclaimer so you don’t all turn on me in the comments: I don’t believe that all brides should lose weight. I personally was unhappy with my weight since I gained the freshman 15 and have been using the wedding as motivation to lose it. I know Mr. Unicycle will still marry me if I don’t lose weight, and my custom-made dress is definitely going to fit me no matter what I eat between now and the wedding. I’m also not a doctor or nutritionist. Some restrictions may apply, void where prohibited, some assembly required, etc., etc.

I’ve always shunned the scale because I’m an informed woman who knows that weight can fluctuate throughout the day, week, and month, and sometimes gaining weight can mean you’re just getting more muscular. (Yeah…that’s it.) Since weight wasn’t a good indicator of health and fitness, I stopped weighing myself for years. Until I randomly decided to step on a scale last summer and was shocked. Shocked, I tell you! How many hamburgers did I eat? Here’s what I looked like:

Photo by Jennifer Shaffer Photography

Although I love my engagement pics, there were quite a few like this one that had me saying, “That’s what I look like??”

Starting in January (yeah, even after that kick in the pants it still took me another six months to do anything about it) I decided to make a change. Since then, I’ve lost approximately 15 pounds (allegedly—I still don’t trust scales). Here’s a recent pic of me:

Sorry, it’s the best I could do. I’m wearing pajamas now so I’m not taking a new pic tonight.

Not a dramatic difference at all, but I feel a lot better! So what have I been doing? Here are my tips and tricks that have been approved by approximately zero doctors and health professionals:

1. I made my own Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred plan. Yes, it’s another spreadsheet. I decided to do 90 sessions of the 30 Day Shred (so now it’s the 90 Day Shred?) throughout the six months between January 1st and my wedding. I would do 10 of workout one sans weights, 10 with weights, repeat for workout two, repeat for workout three, then 10 more sessions with weights for each workout, for a total of 90 workouts. I haven’t reached 90 yet, and it’s looking like I’m not going to. As of right now I’m at 65.

2. I started drinking lots and lots of water. I find myself hungry for lunch around 10:30 or 11:00 AM every day at work. Instead of eating early and feeling hungry all afternoon, I fill up my water bottle and make sure it’s gone before I eat any lunch. It always makes my hunger pains go away until it’s actually lunchtime. I know a lot of times people think they’re hungry when they’re really just thirsty, and the feeling of thirst is actually one of the last signs of dehydration, so it makes sense that drinking a bottle of water would assuage my hunger. I also got a cool water bottle with a straw, which encourages me to drink more because I friggin’ can’t get enough of drinking out of straws.

Image via Copco

I have the pink one.

3. If I feel like having candy, I grab a stick of gum instead. OK, this one’s only half true. I haven’t been able to cut down on my candy habit much still, even now that I’m only a month from my wedding. But in the mid-afternoon when I’m craving something sweet and just want something to chew on, I will usually chew a piece of gum instead. It keeps my mouth occupied and food-free for at least 30 minutes, it tastes sugary like candy, and the calorie content in a stick of gum is practically negligible.

4. I cut bad habits one by one. Instead of declaring January 1st “diet day: one” and cutting out all my favorite things at once, I slowly shaped my diet into something a little more weight-loss friendly. I actually started this before the engagement even happened. First, I replaced my daily bowl of cereal with a banana, then I replaced my afternoon bag of Triscuits with an extra serving of fruit (who knew Triscuits were so high in calories, considering how much they resemble cardboard?). I stopped drinking a can of pop every afternoon, I stopped indulging in every single office treat that my coworkers brought in, and I cut my dinner carb intake down (though I can’t stop eating bread altogether—that shit is good). I think the key to changing your diet is really just taking it slow and getting used to one change at a time.

How many times have I used this picture on Weddingbee??

5. I gave up alcohol “for Lent.” I can’t believe I’m even admitting this. I hate when people use Lent as a diet aid, and yet here I am doing so myself. To be fair, I really just gave up alcohol for 40 days that happened to coincide with Lent. I also cut out weekday drinking almost completely. I used to drink a glass of wine every night as my “dessert,” thinking I was being so healthy by not eating real dessert. For some reason I assumed the calories in wine were negligible, too…not the case. At all.

So there you have it: How to lose weight in five easy steps. What are your weight-loss tips and tricks?

When I left you all, I was worried about finding supplies for the Gocco, which is no longer made. I decided to find a machine just like the Gocco, but one that was still being manufactured. On my quest to find an alternate option, I discovered the Yudu. The Yudu is a true at-home screen-printing machine. It’s slightly bigger than the Gocco (the size of a scanner). It works just like traditional screen-printing does. You coat your screen with emulsion (only this time it’s in sheet form), dry it in the built-in drying rack, place the screen on the machine to expose it with the design of your choice, rinse it, let it dry, tape off areas you don’t want to ink up, start printmaking, rinse screen, and then repeat.

I found a video on the internet on how to use the Yudu. After watching the the clip, I was convinced that the Yudu (as great of a device as it is) was not for me. It reminded me why I disliked my screen-printing class (too long of a process—I’m a fan of instant gratification!). That was it—the Gocco was what I needed, despite any manufacturing issues.

Images (from top to bottom) via DIY Life; Elizabeth Anne Designs; Craft Critique; Provo Craft

I searched all over the internet for a device and saw that my best option was eBay. I’d never bought anything on the site before but have used it to sell some stuff. Mr. Beanstalk helped me find a great model and deal, and I bought it that night!

All images are personal

When it arrived I was so excited! It came with the screens, bulbs, and some ink. I plan to buy some more ink in various colors that will match our wedding suite. Plus, I plan to stock up on some bulbs on eBay. I figure the Gocco will be a cheaper and more unique way to print our invitations. (Plus, I can print tote bags, escort cards, menus…etc.)

I love searching the hive for Gocco inspiration and to read about other bees’ tips and advice. (Check out the Gocco Wiki page on here Weddingbee—there’s so much info there!) Mrs. Penguin created some AMAZING save the dates with her Gocco (and provides an excellent how-to). Mrs. Cupcake used hers to create cocktail napkins (so cute), and Mrs.Champagne printed hand towels for her guests!

I know supplies won’t be around forever, but by that time I will be married a woman (with all of my wedding goods long printed and definitely not forgotten). Hopefully by that time they’ll be manufacturing Goccos again!

Does anyone else plan to go out on a limb and teach themselves a new craft for their upcoming wedding? If so, what is it you’ll be learning?

Sadly, I couldn’t access these designs because they’re only available on iLife ’11 and my Mac is just a tad older than that, but BM P came to the rescue with her new Mac! Triple yay! So one evening after classes I dropped by her place with a bag of chips and we flipped through the iLife catalog…

These are the two best wedding-related designs in my opinion (we used a random photo of BM P as a stand-in):

{Screenshot by BM P}

Details

{Screenshot by BM P}

{Screenshot by BM P}

Details

{Screenshot by BM P}

You can choose to put one to three photos on the front of the card, and you have several layout options (text/photos) on the inside:

{Screenshot by BM P}

{Screenshot by BM P}

I have to say that apart from locating the resource, I did not have much to do with these invitations. My mother took care of the them and my brother helped with the getting-them-printed (on his iLife ’11) part. They arrived about a week after we ordered them, all neatly packaged.

My mother decided to use a neutral photo rather than a people photo (such as one of our engagement photos) for the cover. She’s into local history and always keeps a couple of local tourism brochures on hand for guests—which is where she saw the photo (below). It’s a balustrade overlooking a garden next to our ceremony venue. A long time was spent trying to determine who held the copyright so we could properly use it, but in the end neither the local historical society nor the photographer was sure who had the copyright, so they just told us to go ahead and use it for our wedding (for private purposes, of course). My mom felt that this photo had a nice timeless appeal to it—the kind of “weddings are forever” look.

Card outside

{personal photo}

Card inside

{personal photo}

Information sheet

{personal photo}

The inside of the card can only hold a limited amount of text, so my mom added an information sheet to the invitation. The photo at the top of the sheet is a photo of our venue. The text gives an outline of the wedding-related events and addresses, while the bottom asks for the guests to RSVP by phone or mail, including their meal choice (meat, fish, or vegetarian).

Would you consider using Apple for your invitations (or other wedding-paper needs)?