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Doesn’t the name of this post make it sound like I am going to talk about diamond encrusted underwear or something? Sorry to disappoint!
I’ve been watching the Rachel Zoe Project (I have a lot of time for Bravo lately), and loved the way she styled her celebrity clients for the Golden Globes. I was particularly happy to see that both Debra Messing and Anne Hathaway wore navy blue, further convincing me that the colour choices that I made for our wedding are indeed chic!
I loved Anne’s overall look, and plan on using it as inspiration for my bridesmaids!
We’ve all heard about “trash the dress” or “rock the dress”, if you prefer. But what about the groom?
“Rock the suit”?!
In my last video post, I introduced you to our lovely videographer, Wilson Fontaine. One of the cool things that Wilson does is incorporate more casual, pre-wedding footage with the wedding day events to create a complete story. With that in mind, Mr. Hammy and I met Wilson in Central Park to get some casual footage.
Mr. Hamster and I wore the same outfits we selected for our engagement photo shoot, because we liked them so much (or rather, we didn’t want to go through the ordeal of picking out new outfits!). We met at the fountain outside the Plaza hotel and then headed into the park.
It was a sunny, weekend morning, and it was still pretty quiet. We first started out by one of Wilson’s favorite hidden-tree spots:
Since I’ve posted the story of how we got engaged but haven’t really posted any ring pics, I figured it was time to show off “my precious” just a little bit. A teensy bit of back story, though, before we get to the gratuitous ring shots. Before Mr. French Fries and I got engaged, we had a little chat about e-rings. He basically told me that if he was going to be investing a substantial amount of moolah on a ring, he wanted to be absolutely positively 110% sure that I loved it. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what he said, because the words “ring” and “shopping” were scattering across the synapses of my brain too quickly and they blotted everything else out.
So, yes… I knew what my e-ring would look like before we got engaged, but I know it was the right choice for me to be involved in the process. Plus, the memory of picking out something this special together is one of our relationship/pre-engagement/engagement highlights. (I will say, after I decided on my ring it was absolute torture waiting to wear it, but it was so totally worth it!).
Enough with the text and the sentences and the words! (Also, as if there was any question, I got my e-ring photog skillz — and I use the term “skillz” loosely — from the amazing Anne Ruthmann tutorial.)
I used a ceramic kitten mug that I got from a Japanese restaurant as a prop for this one! I think this is my favorite.
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 have decided (with near certainty!) that I will end up getting henna on my hands and feet for our wedding day. In fact, I think other than actually being married to the love of my life, it’s the part of my wedding that I’m most looking forward to! I’m thinking of having mine done earlier in the day on Friday, before the wedding party and family start gathering, so that I can actually pay some attention to other people for a few minutes (maybe!) :). Or maybe not. I’m super, super excited about this part and I can’t wait to see how it will end up looking! The last time I had this done was at a cousin’s wedding four years ago… I took pictures on my cell phone, but that was two cell phones ago :). It was so hard to sit still, but so awesome to look at!
(source)
The Budget. The elephant in the room. The thing that no one wants to talk about.
After reading many, many posts on lots of different blogs about budgeting, staying on a budget, how not to break your budget, why not having a budget is wedding suicide - I was planning to establish said budget early on…
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
So, after the last minute crafting, we finally made it to the beach. 
We unpacked all of our things, met with our friends and family and rushed to the shore to pose for our groomsman’s camera!
He said I could have all of the pictures if I let them have Mr. Poodle one weekend a month (gosh, they are so funny!) and because I agreed… here some of the pics!!
{ Image by RimRunnerPhoto, aka Groomsman Scott }
I know I said in my last post that I’d start sharing my projects with you, but I thought it might be a good idea to tell you the story of how Mr. Cola and I got engaged, first.
(At our friend’s wedding summer 2008, photo by Mr. Cola’s dad)
We’d been friends for about 2.5 years and roommates for 1.5 years before we even started dating back in college. Fast forward 5.5 years from when we got together, and imagine us on a Halloween/Mr. Cola’s birthday weekend in Vegas. After surprising him with a limo ride to Casa di Amore for dinner and then tickets to Fantasy at the Luxor (a, cough, “adult” show), he was one happy Mr. (I know, I’m such a good girlfriend, right?).
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After our rehearsal (which was your standard, hour long event that I have no photos of) we ran back to our place to get ready for the dinner. When we got back to our ’hood, the caterers were already setting up, and our family members were arriving. The sky was gorgeous.
While I was at Bridal Market this year, Mrs. Bee introduced me to a really neat concept that we wanted to share with the hive: video that can be displayed in print material, like in your wedding album. The technology, called My Video My Voice, is essentially a video screen so thin that can be incorporated into pretty much any print material you can think of.
You can load up to 45 minutes of video material and break it up into 5 chapters, and it can be all recharged via your computer. So, you can combine the best of both worlds—photography and videography—in one place!
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Another country, another sunrise! After a day at sea, we arrived in Santorini, Greece on the seventh day of our Mediterranean cruise.
For the last couple of weeks, I have been working very hard to organize Mr. Pudding’s closet. It started out with me sorting and throwing out his old, outgrown clothes, and advanced to folding and neatly stacking all of his garments (the man has over 90 t-shirts!). For the last couple of days, I have found myself endlessly ironing all of his dress shirts and pants, and meticulously placing them on hangers so that they are ready for future wear.
When FFIL Pudding saw me ironing again last week, he said: “You know, ironing was one of the first things that my wife taught me when we got married, so that I could iron my own shirts!”
This got me thinking about why I was so concerned about ironing Mr. P’s clothes. Am I trying much too hard to fit into the stereotype of what a “wife” is supposed to do for her husband? Am I forming habits in our relationship that will forever box me into being Mr. P’s glorified housekeeper?
Upon further thought, I came to the conclusion that when I iron Mr. Pudding’s shirts, I really do it for me.
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When this whole wedding planning shenanigans started, Mama Cloud and I decided that we were going to go it alone—just me and her on a big fat planning adventure. I like to think I’m pretty resourceful and persuasive when I want to be, and Mama Cloud is the most downright organized person I’ve ever encountered. I figured between the two of us we would have this wedding locked down and ready to go in no time. Trouble is, like mother like daughter; we are also both very emotional and very excited ladies. Emotional as in the tears come quick when we get upset, and excited like we have so many ideas and want to start making things happen quickly before thinking it all through (OK, I’m way worse than she is at both of these, but that is not the point…). It wasn’t far into our twenty one month journey (I’m sorry but I still cannot believe it was TWENTY ONE months, it seems like an eternity!) it was obvious that we were going to need some help, if not only just on the big day.
Enter Windy Jennings of Weddings By Windy (aka lifesaver and wedding goddess extraordinaire!). I really cannot say enough about this woman. If I were to write a review on her with a rating system it would be an A with so many plus signs afterward you would think she was paying me to say it (which of course she’s not, I just love her that much). She not only made me love her but also made me realize the value and importance of having a planner or coordinator for your wedding. We used Windy for her “partial coordination” package even though we set out looking for just day of services. I didn’t even know there was a middle level between DOCs and the whole shebang, but it turns out a lot of coordinators offer personalized packages to handle whatever small or large tasks you need help with.
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If I’m not mistaken, we took about two hours to finish our portraits which meant we were around 30 minutes late to meet our bridal party and family for pictures. The funny thing was, we didn’t care. We’d padded the photo-taking with enough time that we were still able to get all of the pictures we wanted. Plus, it was so frigid outside (probably 30 degrees with the wind chill) that we couldn’t stand a drawn out photo shoot anyway. With t-minus one hour until our ceremony time, we gathered our friends and went back out into the field for some group shots.
Q: Now that we’re having a baby, I need to get a decent camera! I have a little point and shoot now, but I think it’s time to invest in a decent SLR. I’m not a professional, of course, so it doesn’t have to be fancy –it just needs to take good pictures. Any suggestions? - Michelle
A: I get this question all.the.time. And to be perfectly honest, unless I’m lugging around bulky professional gear, I typically rely on my iPhone for quick images to upload to Twitter or Facebook. But if you have a little peanut in your family’s future or perhaps just want to make some nice images from your honeymoon, purchasing a digital SLR is the way to go. You won’t regret it.
SLR, by the way, stands for single-lens reflex. The biggest difference between a digital SLR and a point & shoot (hereafter referred to as p&s) is you can change the lens. And unlike a p&s camera that uses an LCD display, SLR cameras use a mirror to show the image that will be captured in a viewfinder (more thorough geek tech explanation found here). By manipulating the digital SLR’s camera settings, you’ll be able to capture action, photograph in low light, zoom in tight on those precious baby toes, and print frame-worthy quality enlargements as you see them in your camera’s viewfinder.
In my humble opinion, there are only two brands of cameras worth looking into: Canon and Nikon. I learned how to shoot on a manual SLR Nikon in high school and switched to Canon in 2005 when they seemed to be leapfrogging Nikon on offering the best professional cameras and lenses. At this point, they’re still neck & neck, both producing a consistently reliable quality product. You can’t go wrong with either.
You can get a decent p&s camera for under $400. You’ll need to invest a bit more to upgrade to a digital SLR, however, so don’t let the prices shock you. According to Consumer Reports, these are the top rated consumer models for according to image quality, useful features, battery life and weight (listed in order of price):
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