Weddingbee Blog

It’s Pinot Butter Jellies Time! Jellies Time!

[This post is kinda long, and relatively picture-less, so I apologize in advance. It won’t happen again, I promise.]

The week before our winery wedding managed to be fairly stress-free, in large part because Mr. Jelly made me pinky swear promise to finish all of our DIY projects the Wednesday before the wedding, and not add any more. This was easier said than done (my request for last-minute bottle labels got denied), but I kept to my promise and we finished all of our lingering DIY projects on Wednesday. Here is what the rest of the week looked like:

Wednesday: Bonding with Best Man #1 and a Tuxedo Fiasco

Mr. Jelly’s Best Man #1 (he had two best men) treated us to a pre-wedding brunch at a great place in Berkeley called Cafe Rouge. I had my first-ever Bloody Mary, and boy, was it good! After starting the day off right, we went down to the local tux shop to have Mr. Jelly fitted for his tuxedo. It was at this time that we realized that the shop had ordered the wrong tuxes—ruh-roh!! Maybe it was due to the bloody mary, but to my own surprise, I didn’t freak out. I told the shop owner that he had ordered the wrong tuxedos, and let Mr. Jelly handle the rest while I went outside and sat down for 5 minutes. I thought about the worst case scenario: worst case was the guys would all wear our 2nd choice tuxes (that we had originally chosen but then changed to a different tux). The worst case was really not that bad. The guys would still be looking sharp, and the guests would be none the wiser. Thankfully, the tux shop was able to order the right tuxes for the guys to be rush delivered on Friday, so the “worst case” scenario never came true.

Following the tux mix up, I enlisted the boys’ help in finishing our “Through the Years” table numbers. It only took the three of us a couple hours, and then we decided that we should reward ourselves for finishing our last DIY project by going on a Brewery Tour at the nearby Pyramid Alehouse. We tried Pyramid’s many delicious brews and also indulged in the restaurant’s appetizer platter, which included all manner of fried things like Buffalo wings, french fries and potato skins.

Sadly, this is the only photo I took that day. I thought it was appropriate given, well, you know.

Then, after having several beers each, we thought it would be a really great idea if we tasted sake at the nearby sake factory, Takara Sake. Not ones to drink and drive, we called up a cab to take us to the sake company. The cab took forever, and we made it to the sake company just 5 minutes before closing…but they stayed open for us. It was a wedding week miracle!

When our sake tasting was over, we walked the two miles to our apartment, and I called it a night by curling up on the couch and catching up on Weddingbee. Though spending all day drinking is certainly out of the ordinary for me, it was a really fun and relaxing day and I’m glad we got some quality time with Best Man #1 before the wedding.

Thursday: Tying up Loose Ends

On Thursday I picked up my wedding dress from the shop, and Mr. Jelly and I went to our last dance lesson. [We ended up doing seven 1-hour dance lessons (all in the month before the wedding, and we’re both really glad we did). Not only were we more confident on the dance floor, but it was really nice to hear from guests how much they enjoyed our first dance.] We also went “honeymoon” shopping at TJ Maxx and Nordstrom Rack, but were sad to discover that most of the summery stuff was already gone.

Friday: Beautifying and Relaxing

Friday was the day of beauty. I scheduled waxing, eyebrow threading and a mani/pedi with two of my bridesmaids. I had made an eyebrow threading appointment with my regular eyebrow lady about a month before, and although she assured me she’d written it on several calendars, I had a bad feeling about it. The place I go to does a good job (actually, she does a good job), but the place is not very reliable. Lo and behold, on the day of my scheduled appointment, my eyebrow lady was nowhere to be seen. I ended up getting my eyebrows done by someone else, and they weren’t even. I was not a happy camper.

Luckily, I had asked my eyebrow lady for her cell phone number a year before, because she wasn’t sure if she’d still be working at the eyebrow place by the time of my wedding. I found her number in my wedding binder and called her up, calmly explaining that my wedding was on Sunday and she wasn’t there for my appointment and someone else screwed up my eyebrows. She felt horrible and offered to come to my house and fix my eyebrows for me, which she did. Crisis averted!

Next, I got my bridal mani + pedi with Bridesmaids E and LH, and then we met up with Mr. Jelly for dinner and a movie. The movie? Going the Distance, the sweet-and-funny Drew Barrymore and rom-com about long distance relationships.

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It was the perfect mindless, feel-good movie for the night before the wedding festivities began. After the movie, Mr. Jelly and I packed all our things, typed up some last-minute checklists and letters to our bridal party, and got to bed early because the next morning was our rehearsal!