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Weddingbee Blog
Like I’m sure many of you did, Mr. MJ and I spent the Fourth of July holiday with family. We ate delicious hot dogs and hamburgers, potato salads, chips, and desserts and lit off fireworks until the early hours of the morning. Hanging out with family is always fun for us, but as we departed for Mr. MJ’s family home this year, there was a bit of extra “prep” to be done.
Mr. MJ said to me: “What do I tell them about the wedding?”
See, they all know we’re getting married, and they know we’re doing it this year. But they’re not coming. Of course, they’ll all be there to celebrate with us at the picnic/party FMIL is planning, but our ceremony’s going to be short, small, and simple. As you know, we’ve kept the guest list very small. So telling all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins exactly where and when the ceremony will be held wouldn’t be the best idea.
I do want to clarify something very important here: it’s not that we don’t love our families and friends. They’re wonderful and supportive, and we’re very much looking forward to celebrating with them at the aforementioned after-party. But our marriage ceremony will be most meaningful to us if it is semi-private. We’re not extroverts - in fact we’re quite shy - especially when it comes to our personal feelings for each other. The presence of lots of relatives during our ceremony would make us very anxious. (”Kiss? Like, in front of grandma? Are you KIDDING?”) And on the flip side (as I just mentioned), our marriage ceremony’s going to be very short and very simple. It will probably last 5 minutes. I’d hate for a bunch of relatives to show up and expect programs, readings, speeches and the like. We’re not doing all that. It’s not going to be much of a show.
So what did we tell them about the wedding?
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A while back, when I started sifting through WeddingWire for hair and makeup artists, I also decided to shoot Mrs. Cookie a note asking who did her hair and makeup, as her wedding was held only about two hours from my venue. Now, two hours away may sound like a lot for a vendor to travel, but because our wedding is rather remote (two hours from Denver in the mountains), like Mrs. Cookie’s, there was a good possibility that Mrs. Cookie’s makeup artist would be willing to work mine as well.
Yesterday, I headed up to Colorado Springs to meet with Mrs. Cookie’s artist, Liz (the regional manager at Bobbi Brown), for a makeup trial. Previously, I had a trial with Katelyn Simkins.
I headed to The Broadmoor (where Liz works sometimes) armed with more inspiration photos, such as these two:
(source)
The day after Valentine’s Day, Mr. K and I had a Valentine’s-themed shower hosted by friends and family back home. This was our first official wedding event, and it was so much fun!
The hostess of the shower asked me for an array of pictures of Mr. K and me, from baby pictures to engagement pictures, to use at the shower. I didn’t learn what she was using them for until I arrived, but it was the cutest idea: picture trees!
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I figured after all of your comments and questions about my wedding colors and scheme, I should probably share something to illuminate my vision at this point! You’ve most likely already guessed at what it will look like, since you’ve seen so many of my details already, but it would be considerate of me to put it all in one place, right? Right.
One of the difficulties in having a long engagement (especially when you over think everything like me!) is having waaaay too much time to make decisions and then second-guess them and then think some more and then make new choices and then… well, you get the point.
The two constants throughout this process have been:
That’s about it.
The original colors I picked were eggplant and forest green. Then I started to worry that the color combination would be too un-chic (which I now think was silly — I really believe at this point that any color combo can be fresh and chic if you do it right). So I changed our colors to purple and champagne. Weeks later, I realized that these were the colors of my Mom’s wedding to my stepdad in 2005. Oops.
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Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
I saw this conversation starter idea in the latest Martha Stewart Weddings, and now have to “borrow” the idea for our cocktail hour. You can make flags with your guests’ names, and they can pin their names to the year that they met you. It is such a fun idea and I think it would make for a fun wall hanging after the wedding.
There are a few options for getting a number sheet:
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Something shocking happened the other day. Mr. Powder Puff asked for my help picking a first dance song.
As some of you may or may not remember, the mister was completely gung ho about picking our first dance as a surprise for me. But apparently the pressure got to the poor man. After my mother called to let him know that the DJ needed to know our first dance, he shut himself into our second bedroom for a couple of hours, only to emerge a little while later and sheepishly ask, “Will you help me pick a song? I can’t decide!”
Poor guy.
After a scroll through my iTunes, we decided on this little beauty:
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Pink and cheesy — what’s not to love? If I hadn’t already found some perfect potential purses, I totally would have taken the sweet and sage Mrs. Cheese up on her offer to borrow her silk wedding clutch.
Excited at the prospect of a custom clutch (possibly in one of our bright wedding colors, which are showing up on even the smallest details), I had turned to Etsy, and virtual window-shopped to my heart’s content. I definitely wanted something I’d use post-wedding, and was initially drawn to uniquely-shaped styles with bold details like floral embellishments and funky fabric pleats.
If you’re having a tented wedding, be prepared for additional costs and additional vendors. A tented wedding costs more money since you have to bring everything on site, and there’s no way to really get around that. Here’s a list of items you need to consider when working with a tented event that you wouldn’t need to deal with if you had your wedding at an existing venue. You don’t need all of these items but it gives you a pretty complete list to work off:
If you want to learn more about tents, check out one of our past blog posts here: What you need to know about tented weddings.
Reception Tent: So this is pretty obvious. The size of your tent depends on the number of guests you’re having. If you are planning on an outdoor ceremony and/or cocktail hour, make sure you consider getting the next size up for your main tent as a rain plan. Better yet, consider a cocktail tent if your budget and space allows. In addition to your tent, you need to consider tent sides- clear, mesh, white, windows, a dance floor if you’re not having a complete tent floor, and maybe even a stage for your reception entertainment. Depending on the size and style of your tent, this will vary from $500-$10,000.
Tent Flooring:
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Mr. S and I met with our minister this weekend to begin discussing the type of ceremony we might like. The next time we meet we’ll really get into the details, but this meeting was to get us thinking about what is important to us.
In the car on the way to church, we discussed how we didn’t want a unity candle because it didn’t really feel like us. Of course, the topic came up later in our meeting, and we shared our feelings about it. Our minister, however, gave us a completely new outlook.
We had been thinking about the thing and the stuff more than the meaning.
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Like many brides before me, I have had major indecision when it comes to what shoes to wear with my dress. Since my dress is short, my shoes are going to be featured prominently throughout the day—in other words, I can’t screw this one up!
Originally I picked out some beautiful red satin shoes from Victoria’s Secret online. I loved them—they flattered my feet and would have provided a gorgeous pop of color.
Then, we chose our first color scheme, pomegranate and gold, and decided the red just wouldn’t look right.
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So, I have been blabbering on and on about the wedding, and only briefly mentioned the boy who made it all possible, my fiancé, Mr. Cloud! By the time we get married we will have been together for just over five years and have been engaged for close to two. And let me tell you, three years in, when he finally got down on one knee, I was so ready, but so surprised!
Let me back up a bit. I met Mr. Cloud when I was in college. Like any good sorority girl with commitment issues, I was busy having a good time with my friends. It was my third year, and I was living with another sorority sister (who is now BM N) and a friend of ours from our brother fraternity (ironically he is now best man L… see where this story is going?). One night while we were all having a fabulous time at the classiest toga part you could ever imagine (I swear, it really was a toga party, you can’t even make this stuff up), best man L yells over to me and BM N if we would mind if his best friend from home came to visit and stay with us a while. Well, we had seen pictures, and we knew he was cute so we obviously had no objections. The next day, Mr. Cloud was at my doorstep and I was left to entertain him all evening until best man L got home from work. We talked all night and his three day trip turned into a week, followed by many miles traveled back and forth, and ultimately a big move to the South to live here for good!
Our first picture together, we look so young!
(Yeah I don’t know why it’s black and white either..)
Fast forward to 2008, and I was getting antsy.
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Reader kgs1010 is selling her stunning Rivini wedding dress. The dress is made of luxurious silk satin and has intricate beading. She is asking $3499.
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:
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If you’re looking for a quick, last minute favor idea, I have the recipe for you! I tried my friend’s mother’s peanut butter and chocolate fudge last week, and it was so great I begged for the recipe right then and there! Lucky for me, it’s so easy you can remember it. It’s quick to make, and the only requirement is that you have a bit of patience and some upper body strength. I went to a 4th of July cookout and forgot to make something - luckily we had all the ingredients in the house, because I was feeling a bit too lazy to go to the store right before the holiday.
Start by melting your butter and peanut butter in your pot. Yes, it looks gross. No, there is no way to justify this as a diet treat.
Then add your sifted cocoa powder and vanilla extract.
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It was a crazy holiday weekend! Friday morning was spent at the salon, where I had my hair trial. Based on the feedback I received from all of you, I brought in all of my inspiration photos (side bun and side ponytail) and asked the stylist what she recommended. I mentioned that it might be fun to do a bun that could transition into a ponytail for the reception. She liked the idea and went to work. After the curling and pinning my hair into a bun, we decided the ponytail might be a better choice. The bun just wasn’t doing it for us. The ponytail, on the other hand, looked muuuuch better.
Hey, all. Remember me? I was the one who blogged about Twister and going to Brazil. And then y’all gave me your input on photo books because you’re so sweet. {And then I might have fallen on the face of the blog-earth because I haven’t gotten my recaps together. Yup, that’s me.}
I just downloaded the software from MyPublisher and those lovely folks sent me a promo code good for a free book. Yup, just for giving them my email address.
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