Weddingbee Blog

I’ve had so many false starts and promises to you guys to start my recaps. I did the honeymoon and a sprinkling of this and that. And now it’s almost 10 months since our wedding, and I *still* haven’t done any recaps. Until now. I regret not doing them sooner, as some of my memories have faded. If you’re documenting your own wedding, do yourself a favor and don’t wait. Try to remember as much as you can and write it down. It goes by so fast!

If you don’t recall, I’m Mrs. Perfume, and I got married last May on the same day as the lovely Mrs. Taffy and Mrs. Peep Toe, who have been way more diligent with their recaps than I have. So, hi, again!

But before we get to the Big Day, I’ll start with the events of the days before the wedding.

Warning: This is tedious, boring stuff, but it got documented, and I want to remember it, as well as show you the level of effort involved in getting all the elements together for the big day. The only thing I really remember is feeling consistently exhausted, excited, and light-headed.

As you may recall (or not), it was a busy weekend before the wedding, making the final batch of macarons, getting together their packaging, taking a dance lesson as well as finalizing these:

The program and other paper goods, including the menus, escort cards/board, faux-to booth poster, table cards, etc. They all had to be organized and packed with maximum space and organizational efficiency for the four hour car ride to our destination.

Lindsey, who did the invitations, and I stayed up for several nights in a row, like until 3 AM, in a rush to get these together. We went through the programs line, by line, by line. Again, did I mention we were exhausted? She was a trooper. We communicated on g-chat the whole time. The menus were a bit easier and looked very much like the invitations.

Everything was organized into Ziplock bags by table. Table “numbers” (recall the vintage-looking destination post cards) and place cards (color coordinated to meal type) were all put together so it would be easy for our coordinator to execute. Along with those I included two copies of the seating chart (one for the coordinator and one for the florist).

Everything had to travel flat. So any assembling, say like the welcome bags and the macaron favors and their packaging, had to be done at the hotel.

Our dining room was the staging area where we gathered all that had to go with us—poster board (for the faux-to booth poster and escort card board, as you’ll see below), ring pillow, rehearsal tissue bouquet—everything.

Earlier that week, I got the Moo cards of the destination images for the escort cards. Moo is awesome, by the way. Each card would specify a ’destination’ table. The card went into an envelope made up of pieces of a ’Welcome’ escort card board.

The poster itself was rolled up and each individual card was numbered on the back for easy assembly. Our friend, Cary helped us by cutting up the larger image and adhering pieces onto the individual envelopes. Thank goodness we got help on this. It was, again, the week of that it finally came together! He even wrote out a map for us. All I had to do was put the name of the guest on the front, and coordinate their table ’destination’ with the right image/card.

Similarly, our ’faux-to’ booth poster (made by the lovely Mrs. Cupcake) was printed out at work (shhhh) and rolled up to be dry mounted on poster board after arriving at the hotel.

For the centerpieces, we wanted all vintage and antique sterling. So we used what we had and borrowed candlesticks, ice buckets and wine coasters from Mr. P’s parents. I also ended up going to my local junk store, Ruff and Ready, to find three more pieces, which included silver (though not sterling) tea pots and a water pitcher.

Afterwards, G polished all the pieces and I organized them into table groupings, with the name of the table at the bottom of each piece. This would eventually go to the florists to fill and place on the tables.

We ran out of silver centerpieces, so I used this porcelain vase (that my neighbor had thrown out!) and these antique Limoge candlesticks that Mr. P’s mom gave him as a gift years ago. So, this would be the one for our sweetheart table.

For the petal toss, I cut in half large doilies, which were later rolled and secured to create a cone by the BMs the day of the wedding. Again, traveling flat was key.

Finally, I gathered all the gifts for the BMs, reader, the flower girl, and the ring bearer. The kids got candy and fun work books. The ladies got hilarious tongue-in-cheek little books, handmade monogrammed stationery (by the awesome Paulette at Paper Nosh), candy, and the jewelry for their dresses.

That Tuesday, before my last day on Wednesday, my colleagues surprised me with a little party at M&S grill. I couldn’t eat a thing. Just the salad. And the cake… it was delicious, but again, I just couldn’t eat.

And that Wednesday night, we had dinner at Corduroy, where we had dinner after the proposal over a year earlier. We sat at the same table. I had grilled Branzino and we shared some sort of chocolate dessert. We were coming down the home stretch. Things were gathered and packed. And the next day, we were off!