Wedding Mania

Sunday, June 11, 2006

We are completely exhausted today. Things went beautifully yesterday, with a few minor hitches. In the craziness of it all, I never had my camera with me for pictures, but everything looked just as it should. The couple was oblivious to anything not right and left their reception beaming with joy. I got a lot of very positive feedback from many of the family members from both sides, which was nice. I know that folks were having a great time just from watching them. I was also happy to catch up with a couple of my dear former roommates and old friends.

I tried to take a nap with little success. I think I’m so tired that I can’t sleep, which sounds ridiculous. What’s also weird is that my whole body is sore and achy.

I have decided that wedding consulting as a career is not for me - I will be happy to help friends and do it at the church, but the full thing is too much work and the thought of being this tired several times a year is not appealing.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

CH’s big wedding day is Saturday. I’m taking tomorrow off to be available if they have anything last minute panic. Things are pretty well organized, so I don’t anticipate problems. As such, I’m going to attempt to get my driver’s license updated with my married name and new address. We’ll see how well that goes. After that, if there’s time, I might try to hit the county offices to work on the business license thing. If not, then that will have to wait for another day.

Because of Friday traffic issues, I’ll need to head out to Wedding Central at around 3:30pm for the rehearsal/dinner. Beau will have to meet me out there after his day of subbing at a local school.

Saturday will be busy, with decorating the church in the morning followed by checking into the nearby hotel to get showered and dressed for the wedding followed by getting to the church to be there for the bride and her mother for pre-ceremony administrative things like distributing corsages/bouts and ensuring the ushers know what to do (or not to do).

Beau is a prince because, with the tight timeline at the location for the reception and the laws of physics that dictate that I cannot be in two places at once (the only allow 2 hours for set up before an event - the reception time is 6pm; the wedding starts at 4:30pm - you do the math), he is missing the ceremony to go directly to the reception location to finalize some decorative things for the tables, lay out the place cards, deliver the favor buckets, and light some votive candles at the last minute. I have the best husband in the world. Really.

My parents have gotten into the helping game as well by taking the flowers and a few other decorative things from the church to the reception location right after the ceremony. They are the best, too.

With all of that, I’m looking forward to the day. There are mutual friends from our Young Life - New Hampshire days that will be in attendance and I’m really looking forward to seeing them. There are other mutual friends from our Young Life - Fairfax days who will be there, too. I had a good time going through the guest list when I typed up the place cards.

Blogging may be non-existent as a result of the schedule. But that’s not unusual on the weekends lately, I know. A full recap of the events will be forthcoming on Sunday or Monday - guaranteed.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Here’s a picture of CH’s wedding favors - tea tins with a custom blend from my Mom’s business like we had at our wedding. I did the tag. Beau and I cut the ribbon; Mom tied them all together.

It’s basically a repeat of our favor except that she has her own custom blend of tea and her tag/ribbon coordinate with her color scheme. The whole bunch looks great. We’re planning to use aqua colored beverage buckets from Target (you won’t find them online - I’ve searched endlessly with no success - stores only, please) to hold them. And they got the wedding wands, too, which we’ll use to line the outside of the buckets with the tea tins in the middle.

We all meet tonight for dinner to strategize next weekend - The Big Wedding Weekend. And I’m hoping I’ll get a good report on CH’s fitting this afternoon.

It’s hard to believe we’re already a week away from her wedding. Where has the time gone?

Oh, and Beau and I have passed the one year mark since our engagement (May 28, 2005) and the five month mark since we got married (Dec 31, 2005). Wow. Quite a lot has happened in the last year.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

So if you watched the series finale of 7th Heaven this week, you saw CH’s wedding dress. CH and Joan were watching and then when the bride (in the show) was revealed in her dress they both gasped. “The Dress!!!!” Exactly the dress, although CH had her neckline altered a bit - cinched so that it isn’t so straight across.

CH had her fitting yesterday and managed to gain enough pounds (she’s a tiny little thing, so I’m thinking one pound would have done it) that it wouldn’t zip. Fortunately, she laughed while the seamstress (Alice) looked like she was going to cry. She assured Alice that the dress would fit on the wedding day, but there will be some measuring done by the bride for the next few weeks to see if the weight has come off. Otherwise another fitting is scheduled the week before the Big Day to take it out if needed.

I sat on the floor and learned how to tie the skirt up from underneath for her bustle. Because it’s a cloud skirt (no straight hem, it’s poofy and random), it won’t bustle in the traditional way. It’s not hard to do, but I will be on the floor to do it on the Big Day - in a skirt myself. Joy.

The other good news is that she and Joan LOVED the jewelry I made and now she wants earrings for the girls, too. Originally it was just going to be lariat necklaces and then she added bracelets. Now I’m doing earrings and also a bracelet for her (my gift to her, actually and I’ll make a matching pair of earrings so that she’ll have a nice set for later - she already has her official bridal earrings. The bad news is I didn’t take pictures of the finished work, so you won’t be able to see it - I gave it all to her yesterday. I do still need to make the other three lariats, but that won’t take too long. And they are happy with the printed stuff, too. Nice to know.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Our small group leaders’ daughter is getting married on May 20. They invited the small group to the wedding, which was very nice of them, and so we are going. My parents are going as well. It’s going to be a fun time, I think.

So I was in need of a dress or outfit that would be suitable for that wedding as well as CH’s wedding in June. I searched online for most of last week and finally found a skirt/jacket ensemble in the Coldwater Creek outlet pages. What’s funny about that choice is that a mere five years ago I would not have even considered looking at their clothes. However, I find that I am turning into my mother after all, which is not a bad thing, believe me - and this means that we have similar tastes in clothes now. Anyway, the outfit arrived on Saturday and I love it. What’s fun is that it’s the exact color of the corally pink (CC calls it geranium) in CH’s color scheme, so I’ll blend.

Now I’m on the hunt for a pair of shoes to go with it. I’m leaning toward simple espadrilles in a natural color, but it’s hard to find any that aren’t with the high heel that’s traditional. I need a low heel (no more than 1-1/4”) or flat shoes. CC does have some cute shoes that are the pink color, but I really wanted some shoes that I could wear with other things, too. Still hunting…

Progress on CH’s wedding is going well. I’ve printed and punched her favor tags - Mom and I will be assembling those favors on Saturday. I printed the programs last week - I’ll take those over to Joanie’s house next weekend for an assembling party. They bought fun ribbon wands for the guests to wave as they depart their reception - those need assembling, too. I am making lariat necklaces and bracelets for her bridesmaids. I have one lariat and all bracelets completed. I’ll try to finish one other lariat this week - they take a while to design and string since they’re about 40” long. It’s hard to believe we’re only a month away from that wedding already. It’s going to be lovely, though. I can’t wait to see how it all works out on the day.

Monday, February 13, 2006

This whole wedding coordinating thing is expanding. I’m pretty sure I’ll take on the lead for the wedding coordination at my church. And I’m helping bridesmaid Joanie to plan her daughter’s wedding in June. We had a meeting on Saturday to kind of brainstorm - I wanted to see what CH (the daughter) was thinking she wanted and I wanted to present some ideas as well.

CH has her dress ordered and it’s gogeous. Her bridesmaid dress is picked out and the color is perfect - a nice warm aqua blue. Aside from that CH was wide open to ideas - nice. I knew about the aqua color and I had the thought that adding a nice accent color or two would open up some options in the decorating and flowers. So I asked how she felt about adding peach/coral and a soft fuschia pink with a soft green (to take into consideration any greenery the florists may use). White is in there, too, but that’s not really a color; it’s a nice neutral that can be used anywhere needed. They loved that idea so that’s the direction we’re headed. I also presented some ideas for the favors, centerpieces, printing, and attendant gifts. Next up will come some appointments with bakers, florists, and a stationer. The invitations are the top priority on the list at this point - time is getting near for them to be addressed and mailed, which seems crazy.

And then there’s the jewelry thing, which has made money. Joanie told me this weekend that three sets of some Swarovski bracelets and earrings were sold. I made a nice profit on those items.

Mom suggested I get a business license and even a name that would encompass both things together. It’s an exciting and scary thought, but I will do the research into what the county and state require for a business license. I’m a lunatic.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Mom and I met with the gal who leads the wedding coordinating at our church. She does it now because she’s our senior pastor’s assistant and it’s where it fell, but as we talked she paused and asked if I would be interested in taking that on. Whoa. I would have a team of coordinators, so I wouldn’t have to work every wedding myself, but it will be more work than if I were just one of the coordinators. The biggest perk is that I would get paid a little bit per wedding, but as I told her I would do it for free because I enjoy it.

So I’m praying about this and will talk to Beau, too, since it will be larger time commitment than just being on the team would involve. Could be fun though. And it means that wedding blogging would continue indefinitely. :grin:

Friday, February 03, 2006

OK, so I’ve been married for a little over a month, but my wedding continues. Sort of.

My mother and I have wanted to give some feedback to the church regarding my wedding, so I finally put together an email to the gal who “manages” the weddings at our church. Included was the offer to help as a coordinator. Happily, the response was very quick with an acceptance of both my offer of feedback and to help coordinate.

And so sometime next week, I’m hoping that Mom and I can meet with this woman to get the stuff we’ve discussed that needs evaluation to the person who needs to know it and to get me in with the coordinating thing.

On a related note, I plan to meet with Joanie next week to discuss her daughter’s wedding as well. I sent her an email yesterday with a list of talking points/things that need doing and I think that rather than helping her, I increased her stress. Oops.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Don’t know if anyone is interested, but I thought I’d share the music that we had in the wedding ceremony. We used five recorded pieces and then had a pianist for the prelude and the hymn singing.

1. For the seating of the mothers we had Gabriel’s Oboe from Amy Grant’s A Christmas to Remember. I think it was originally part of the score for The Mission.

2. Our processional was a three parter with the flower girls preceeding the bridesmaids and me. The three older girls came in to Aquarium from Camille Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals. I first heard it when it was used as part of the soundtrack in Babe. After that piece, CootieGirl came in without music because she was to ring a bell. Then the piece that the bridesmaids and I came in to was Highland Cathedral, also from AG’s A Christmas to Remember - all bagpipes and drums to herald our entrance. It’s a piece that builds, starting with a quiet lone bagpipe transitioning with the addition of the drums and a few more bagpipes until it reaches the majestic fullness with all of the orchestra. It was at that point that Dad and I came in and made our way to the stage.

3. After we said our vows and exchanged rings we had communion. For that time we had Hope of Israel playing - a sweet instrumental piano-orchestra piece from Michael W. Smith’s Christmastime. When it ended and folks were still partaking of communion, our pianist filled in with a lovely classical piece that fit perfectly (I can’t remember what it was though!).

4. Our recessional was also from Saint-Seans and Babe, Allegro-Maestoso from Symphony No. 3 in C Minor with organ. It has very majestic opening that was perfect to signal the end of the service but it had lovely quieter moments as well. Over the time we were engaged I really came to love that piece. It also served as the postlude of sorts since it is almost 8 minutes long. Once that ended, the celtic band kicked in.

Monday, January 30, 2006

So we have a bit of a wedding gift dilemma. Because everyone was incredibly generous, the gift management got a little out of control. I did well keeping up with the thank you notes for the gifts we received before Christmas, but since then it became a hodge-podge of invoices/notes for things shipped to us that I keep in my daily tote bag and the neat list that my mother wrote when we opened the gifts received at the wedding itself after we got back from the honeymoon. I thought all gifts were accounted for, but they are not. Fortunately, I think we’ll be able to sort it out but here’s the confusion:

1. One lovely gift at the wedding that either had no card or got separated from its card.

2. Two cards with no gifts attached at the wedding.

3. An email notification of a gift purchased from a registry. We never really knew if that gift arrived because…

4. Several gifts were shipped to us that had no gift enclosure cards or any other indication from whom they came.

From that list we’ve only got 2 or 3 unreconciled things - the lovely gift with no card at the wedding and the two cards with no gifts at the wedding. However, I just nailed down a gift with one of those cards, which was part of item #3 - a phone call to that registry to inquire about that notification verified that we did indeed receive that gift. But it opened another question about the quantity received of that particular item because I know we received some of that item from more than allows for what we have. Are you confused yet? Anyhow, the mystery of item #1 is now clarified some because I’m pretty sure the other lone card from the wedding actually goes with item #1.

And we have so many thank you notes to write. If there is one piece of advice I can give to engaged couples and brides especially it is to keep up with your thank you notes as you receive gifts - don’t let more than a couple of weeks pass before you get them out because it won’t take long before you get behind and it seems overwhelming. You do not want to have to do all of your thank you notes after you’re married - you’ll be dealing with adjusting to your new home routine, which is fun but a huge time waster. But that’s another post for another day.

Funny related note: We attended a wedding in August and just received the thank you note from that couple last week. So I’m feeling pretty good that we may be able to get our notes out a little quicker than that.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

UPDATED to add the pictures and another vendor that I forgot to include. Check the links in the post.

I thought I’d give a plug to a few of the vendors we used for the wedding/reception. All were excellent:

1. Groom’s Cake - Allie’s Cakes -

This cake turned out much better than my wedding cake, to be honest. Although my wedding cake was delicious. I was very pleased with how this one looked and tasted. Allie took my design desire as well as my request for a black forest cake and made it happen.

2. Celtic Band - Celtic Wedding Music - these folks were fantastic and I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from guests that they enjoyed the band a lot. Since I missed most of my own reception, I only got a small bit of their talents while we did the receiving line. We had the bodhran, guitar, flute (and I think she played the tin whistle, too, which was a bonus), hammered dulcimer, and fiddle.

3. Limo - Prime Transportation -

Here is a picture of the car we had, too. It was not the normal limo, but rather what they call the London Executive Sedan. Very fun.

4. Photography - A Click in Time (no website) - ECD’s friend (and her fabulous father) outdid herself with the photography. From the engagement photo shoot to the candids they got at the rehearsal dinner to the final shots of the happy guests as Beau and I departed (

- there’s a great one of our mothers celebrating), each picture tells the story of our wedding day. Because of my friendship with ECD, she got us some extras that the average bridal couple do not get and I am exceedingly grateful. If you’re in the Charleston, SC, area, you should look them up for your wedding photography.

5. Chocolate Fountains - The Chocolate Chick - Mom found this vendor early in our engagement and since Beau and I are such chocolate addicts this was a must have for the reception. Judging from the table when we eventually got to it, which was picked clean, it was a hit. We had dark chocolate (his favorite) and white chocolate (my favorite).

Friday, January 20, 2006

The files are large, so it takes a while to get them uploaded to the server. Plus my computer is a little bogged down by the DVD. So I’ll post a few every once in a while today as I can get them loaded.

My dress
My dress and tiara
The hem of my dress
The bouquets
The corsages
The bouts

Beau with the girls - in this picture you get a really good shot of the “halos” that the flower girls wore. The greenery is miniature Scottish thistle, which the florist picked out. It was perfect.

Bride and the girls
With my bridesmaids
With bridesmaids (2)
The bridal party
The happy couple

LATER: I should clarify that I did reduce the files because they were too large for good viewing. So they’re not as clear in this format because I don’t have P-shop here at work. I’ll try to remember to redo them at home this weekend.

LATERER: Here are a few more. I think that will probably be all that I post. You get the idea.

Reception table centerpiece
Reception tables en masse

This next one is hard to describe. My church auditorium is large and stadium-like. The back area by the entry doors is wide. The florists made it cozier with greenery and topiaries to create a rope line of sorts that led to the back row of seats.

A flower arrangement on one of the side tables.

The reception area as seen through the plate glass windows.
Denis lighting the luminaria outside.
The cake with the silver toasting goblets.
During the processional.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

We should receive a DVD with preliminary wedding pictures in the mail today. ECD tells me that they look great, so I’m excited to see them. I’ll try to post a couple tonight.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Here’s where you can find the instructions for making the beaded bridal bouquets.

I moved this post up since I think it got missed in the immediate aftermath of my wedding last week. And I don’t know why the comments aren’t working on this post - they are turned on so it is a mystery.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

I got the church super early - about 90 minutes earlier than I really needed to be there as it turns out. But I was able to chat with the florists as they were clearing out - they did a wonderful job of making our very contemporary church auditorium look like a fairyland. I’m hoping our photographer got a good shot of some of their work - I forgot to ask for that. In any case, they far exceeded my expectations on the overall look and they did a great job with all of the finish work on the bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres. The halos that the flower girls wore were so sweet with miniature Scottish thistle, beads, and twisted wire.

We gals had a good time in the “bridal room” - laughing at the flower girls dancing around in their excitement; chilling out with sodas and chocolate. They were great to keep me mostly calm while I waited for my mother to arrive with my dress and veil. Once she arrived it wasn’t much longer to wait after I was all dressed and ready to go.

Denis set up his video camera in the back of the church to take some rough video of the ceremony since we decided not to hire a professional videographer. Beau and I just watched the wedding and enjoyed hearing the hymn singing, Scot’s message, Monty’s officiating, our vows to one another, watching our family and friends take communion, and all the pomp of the night.

Because of the dim lighting in the sanctuary and the bright lighting at the stage it was hard to see anything too clearly, but that’s OK. What we could see was the beads sparkling in little bursts from the bouquets and lapels of all on the stage. Very cool. I looked like a ghost in all white and Beau looked like a bald monk next to me because of the glare of the lights on the back of his head. He does have a full head of hair, so it’s pretty funny.

It was neat to hear that the tone of Christ-centeredness that we wanted for our wedding was present and we got a lot of feedback from folks who appreciated the worshipful tone we tried to set. It was a worshipful ceremony for Beau and I.

The reception we do not remember much of at all for a few reasons: 1) long receiving line post-ceremony, which we’re glad we did so that we were able to talk to just about everyone that we never had a chance to see at the party; 2) long photography session, which was necessary since we wanted to be sure to get a good group of family shots for my in-laws; 3) once we got to the party it was time for all of those things that people wait for at weddings - cake cutting, toasting, bouquet tossing. By the time we finished those things our car had arrived and we were off.

Fortunately, our caterer put together plates of food for us to take with us. The wedding cake was fantastic - she used my recipe (yes, I’ll post it) and it was perfectly delicious; there was a bunch leftover that Mom saved for us and half of it is in the freezer and the other half is thawing in the frig - we also have leftover groom’s cake from the rehearsal dinner, which was beautiful and yummy. We ate the food once we arrived at our hotel room - luxurious with a lovely bottle of champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries there for us compliments of the hotel. We tuned in to watch the ball drop in Times Square - kissed in the new year and then crashed.

The next morning we woke up to get ready for our long travel day when the doorbell rang - my parents had pre-ordered a light breakfast for us to be delivered just at the perfect time. We ate, finished getting ready, and headed off for the airport.

Next up: HD1 (Honeymoon Day 1) - Travelling Day

It was such a fun night and most of it is a blur. Thanks, Denis, for the video to help us remember.