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Well, hive, this is it. Not my final post, that is yet to come, but our final wedding recap.
It has truly been my pleasure to share the most amazing day of my life thus far with you all. From the blood, sweat, and tears that went into planning it, every step of the way, to my MUCH delayed recaps that I promised would be finished up before our first anniversary (even if I’m waiting until the week before to finish).
I leave you with a video recap of our wedding and only a handful of images. The song in the video is our last dance song, much fitting for the two of us.
*images thanks to Perez Photography, video thanks to Chris Watson
I’m a PK (pastor’s kid). I grew up attending bajillions of weddings that my dad has officiated, and I’ve always imagined that I too would get married in a church. How quaintly traditional of me, I know. I never imagined I would get married outside, or on the beach, or on a mountainside, or in a courthouse, or anywhere else. Just a church.
And not just ANY church. I really wanted to get married in a Spanish mission-style church; a church with old-school pews, not theater-style seats, and a semi-long dramatic aisle. Although Phoenix is a very diverse city with a lot of churches, it was still hard to just find one church that could accommodate our then 250-guest wedding (now 350, yikes!), was available on our date, would let us have our own officiant, and wouldn’t charge us an arm and a leg (our little church doesn’t have its own building). Some churches were just ruled out based on their interior decor (think early ’90s purple and teal), size capacity, location (I think our guests would not be happy to drive 30 min+ from the ceremony to the reception), or rental fees (up to $2K and more!).
Notes to my fellow Phoenix brides: A LOT of churches don’t rent out their facilities to non-members! And if they do, you often times have to use their clergy/have them participate in the ceremony. Also, expect church rentals to be in the $800-2,000 range. Seriously. Probably 95% of the churches we looked at were $1500 to rent.
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I’m excited to present to you Miss Dachshund, coming to us from the hot, hot heat of Central California! Join me in welcoming her into the hive!
Miss Dachshund, Fresno, CA
Age & Occupation: 24, Legal Office Assistant
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 27, Computer Technician
Engagement Date: April 18, 2009
Wedding Date: May 2010
Venue: Victorian Gardens of Two Sisters
About Me: I’m a 24-year-old Californian bride-to-be who found love in the most unlikely of places - an online video game! I’m a farmer’s daughter living in rural Central California, but will always have a special place in my heart for the city. My future husband is a 27-year-old extraordinarily tall, exceptionally cute, and undoubtedly Canadian boy who was able to sweep me off my feet and take me for his bride. I love color, folksy songs that make me smile, interior design, kettle corn, my one-year-old puppy, Juno, and my fiance, of course! We’re planning a DIY garden wedding with a laundry-list of projects, all while dealing with the bureaucracy that is American Immigration!
There was only one aspect of our co-ed wedding shower I didn’t love: Being unprepared — since it was a surprise — with nary a thank you gift on hand for the party planners and hosts!
I worked quickly over the next few days to remedy this situation — the mister and I felt so loved and knew a ton of work had gone into the shower, and as a result, I had trouble focusing on other tasks until I had this one all wrapped up — and then realized everyone wouldn’t be together again until the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. So the gifts waited patiently in our den, and with them completed, I was free to continue hammering away at our to-do list.
Inspired by our festive Italian-themed celebration, I created green, white and red gift bags. Each contained a package of pasta and jar of gravy. We also included gift certificates to Moore Brothers — a specialty wine shop located a hop, skip and a jump from Philly. And to round out the feast, I semi-DIYed goofy, wordy pizza party vouchers. Wanna read the small print?
This coupon entitles the aforementioned recipient(s) to one (1) homemade pizza party with the dough-making duo listed above. Said party must be scheduled on a previously agreed upon date after the wedding craziness has passed. Furthermore, at this carb-tastic gathering – the location of which will be determined when consulting all necessary calendars to plan the soiree – the recipient(s) retain the right and privilege of selecting the preferred method of cooking, given the choice between baking and grilling, and bearing in mind the limitations of the venue at which the ultimate homemade pizzas will be constructed and consumed.
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All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
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Mr. Fro Yo is in charge of the honeymoon, and yes, he does know this. Has he done a lot of research on it yet? Not so much. I figured giving him fun things like honeymoon planning was the best way to go, because we all know boys and planning weddings typically do not mesh well together. I tried to assign him DJs, and so far he’s still thinking about which sites he wants to use to search for DJs, but hasn’t actually searched. Hmm…
Anyway, he did offer a suggestion for where we should go for our honeymoon: Puerto Rico! I was really excited about it, and hadn’t considered it previously. They use US currency, we don’t need a passport, and it has a gorgeous beach with lots of activities, should we decide we want to do more than lay around on the beach. Just look at some of the beach photos:
… which make me think of board shorts, which make me think of the beach. And down the rabbit trail… (lamb trail?) I go.
Anyboard, I pieced this bad boy together for a long time. Who knew it would be so difficult? Somehow, Snippet & Ink manages to make one every other day. She may make hers in Photoshop, but I was going non-technical and cropping my images in PowerPoint. I’ll show you a little tutorial and then the finished product!
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I really didn’t elaborate much on this before the wedding because there wasn’t much for me to talk about. One of my bridesmaids, AC, is a florist. I never considered hiring anyone but AC to design my florals. In fact, we discussed it before I even met Mr. Crab Cake. This is why I say I sort of DIYed my flowers.
After months of harassing AC about our flowers, she placed the order and had them shipped to my mom’s house where we would take over my brother’s cottage and transform it into a floral design studio!
The first (and probably most important) task at hand was to go to my mom’s house and sign for the delivery. AC was tracking the delivery from her home in Texas and told me that the flowers should be delivered by 10AM EST. I got to my mom’s house around 8:30, and prepared to settle in and work on some projects while waiting on the delivery. I was surprised to see my mother’s boyfriend there and decided that I’d let him sign, gave him instructions, and went on my merry way. (After all, I had a ton of errands left to run that morning!)
About an hour later, AC called and said according to FedEx, the flowers had been delivered, but there was a notation on the tracking site that said wrong address.
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I was a theatre major in college – and when I would stage manage, I was often the voice that told you to turn off your cell phones and pagers and unwrap your candy before the performance would begin.
Groomsmen at the rehearsal before the ceremony (via Melissa Blemur)
(And, yes, both of the photos in this post were taken at recent weddings I officiated… before the ceremony!)
I had high aspirations for the shower I’m throwing. I was so tempted to go out and buy every cute citrus-themed party item I could find. Luckily for my checkbook, Mr. Peng took the car to work every day this week, meaning if I wanted something, I’d have to walk to get it, or make it on my own. 
So, my lazy ass has decided to only use things I have around the house. I only have 10 champagne glasses, which means that if someone misplaces her glass, she’s drinking from the bottle. So, I thought I’d make some drink tags! I tried a wine charm-type name tag, but the way my champagne glasses are shaped, they wouldn’t lie flat above the foot of the glass. Also, I was worried that spilled drinks would smudge the inkjet ink on the tags. So, I utilized the undersides of the glasses instead. Sneaky. These are orange-slice themed, but of course you could just print whatever you want on these things.
First, measure the foot of one of your glasses and create circles (this image was purchased from Istockphoto here) in your chosen design program that are slightly smaller than your glass. Add names of your guests, and print.
My future mother-in-law is shocked that I haven’t gone shopping for wedding dresses yet! I have several reasons for this:
Late last night, I began an innocent search. I decided to save all the dresses that I immediately liked and try to narrow down my taste and style. I started at Jim Hjelm, because I fell in love with this dress a while ago:
Sweet, chic, simple
Miss Sparkle is selling a Mother of the Bride dress. She’s asking $170 or best offer for the Greek-goddess gown.
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:
And I’m not talking about our wedding day, I’m talking about a day we have waited for for 9 months…
{ Image Source }
… we will finally be reunited!!
Yeah! In exactly 12 days from today I’ll have my visa interview, and hopefully a couple of weeks later I’ll be on a plane with baby Curly, on my way to go marry Mr. Poodle - YAY!! And even though I’m extremely excited about that, I’m not so happy about the packing, the amount of paperwork left that Curly and I need to travel, and the fact that I’m still struggling with the emotional aspects of this move.
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This weekend I inadvertently completed a minor wedding task while preparing for another wedding-related event: my bachelorette party! I can’t write about the party until I get photos back from my girls, but I can sure tell you about that minor task in the meantime!
*Cue overly-dramatic drum roll for said minor task!*
I finally picked out my wedding day nail polish color!
Since getting engaged, every time I needed a manicure I’d use it as an excuse (aka “research”) to try a new shade of nail polish for the wedding. I’d run around for a few weeks imagining it with my wedding ensemble until it had finally chipped away to the point of no return. Then I’d wait until I could come up with a good enough reason to shell out $15-25 for another manicure (usually for a wedding shower/party/etc.). I had just about given up finding the perfect shade (nearly opting to go with the good ol’ french mani standby) when I stumbled upon this absolutely gorgeous line of OPI nail colors fit for any bride with a romantic, fairytale-style wedding in mind!
* Do you know what movie that line is from? A million e-props if you do!
Mr. Ramen and me enjoying the to-die-for chicken and rice from the Halal Cart on 53rd and 6th in NYC ~ taken by Mrs. Caramel, one of my college friends! This goes to show that good food doesn’t have to cost a lot of $$!
I love food. I even told Mr. Ramen that the perfect proposal would be for him to take me to Napa to eat at French Laundry, and then for him to just hand me a ring. Ha ha. His proposal was much better than that, but only by a little bit… quite obviously, food means a lot to me, and to Mr. Ramen as well (I’ve converted him into a food snob, mwahaha!). The food is what Mr. Ramen and I usually remember most when we go to weddings.
Yep, technically we’re still on our honeymoon, but I couldn’t resist sharing this teaser shot that our photogs posted a few days ago!
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