Wedding Blog

After a pre-wedding photo session (yep, it was way too rushed and we did not have nearly enough time…I haven’t yet talked to any brides who were actually ready on time, so if you are out there, kudos to you…I couldn’t manage it), we went down to the Ladies Locker Room for the Ketubah signing.

This is our beautiful ketubah. Ketubah’s are actually Jewish marriage licenses and according to Jewish law, after they are signed, you are officially married (no need for the additional ceremony–of course most of us ignore that part these days). In truth I didn’t quite know what to expect for the Ketubah signing ceremony, but it actually was quite special. Our Rabbi, Sally Olins from Temple Isaiah in Palm Springs was really wonderful. Mr. Beetle and I had spoken with her on the phone several times and then met with her in person the day before our wedding. She managed to make our wedding so warm, personal and spiritual…but in a very accessible way.

Our ceremony was outside and was set up facing the gorgeous mountains. It’s hard to tell in these shots, but the sun was actually setting as our ceremony began and the sky turned the most gorgeous shade of pink. I was so caught up in everything, I missed it myself, but everyone there said that it perfectly matched my dress.

These were our programs.

And these were our seating cards. We got the cardstock for our programs from Paper Source, and the printing done last minute at Kinkos. Big Mistake. Big, big, big mistake. Towards the end of your wedding planning, you will be feeling very overwhelmed…perhaps even a bit complacent. However, I urge you, do not do any of your printing at Kinkos under any circumstances. I can’t tell you what a huge headache/nightmare we had with them and, in the end, our programs ended up looking a bit wonky. Though, that was due in NO part to our fabulous stationery designers, Wiley Valentine. They designed our invites, table cards, program stickers and the stickers and coin envelopes we used for our seating cards. Months after the wedding, I’m still getting comments on our invites. I seriously love me some Wiley Valentine.

After the ceremony, we headed back into the club for our cocktail hour. Mr. Beetle and I actually took our Yichud, which in the Jewish tradition is some private time that the couple spend together directly after the ceremony to reflect on the specialness of the day. We joined the cocktail hour after about twenty minutes or so and the party was already in full swing.

It’s typical here in NY where we live to have an over the top cocktail hour with mounds and mounds of food. Often, I’m not even hungry for dinner after a particularly stellar cocktail hour binge. But we really wanted an elegant, fairly quick cocktail hour. We had 5 or so h’ors d’oeurvres and a martini bar.

Another favorite touch (and fairly recent discovery) I made is X-rated Fusion Liqueur. I know it sounds naughty, but really its the most beautiful pink fruit-juice infused vodka. There are blood oranges, passion fruit, mangoes and some other delish things in there and all I can say is that for a total non-drinker like me, I could slosh down this stuff all night long. We had X-cocktails, which were just some of the liqueur mixed with sparkling water. I chuckled a bit when I saw some of our fairly beefy friends and family walking around with pretty pink drinks, but everyone really loved it.

to be continued…