Let’s finally get back to that guestbook idea I’ve been promising.
The bottom line with the faux-to booth is that I can’t figure out a way to print on the spot. So there will be no fun favors for my guests, and they will not be able to affix their faces to a giant book and write next to it. That was admittedly the original desire. But, you know, the rental thing didn’t fit in the budget, so we are changing the plan to match our pocketbooks. And the new plan involves no photo printing and no giant book. So far we just have this:
The booth setup we have already discussed. A la Mrs. Pin Cushion. (source)
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Well hive, this whole wedding process has certainly had its ups and downs, but the positivity of this place (as ethereal as it may be) has helped me to focus on the ups.
Pictures taken by John & Whitney Canales, Aunt Annie & Uncle Chris, edited by me
So, thank you, hive, for forcing me to find the positives. It’s pretty embarrassing to put it all out there pre-game and then be too unhappy with the end result to put it up. Blogging forced me to focus on the stuff I was happy with, and since weddings are never perfect, it’s a great thing to focus on.
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At some point in your lives, you’re going to be a wedding guest. It’s basically inevitable. And the WORST part (at least for me) is trying to find the perfect gift, especially back when I was just out of college and broke as hell. So, I thought it was time to look at this whole wedding-gift-thing from a newlywed’s perspective.
When I give a gift, I am always worried if I spent enough or if the gift will even get used. But you know what? The cost of the gifts we got never played into if we liked them. And we have used every single thing we’ve received. What mattered was someone cared enough to get us a gift (or even just a card). I want to show you a couple of things we got that make me smile.
1) A drawing from a six year old on plane
Cousin S. sat next to a six year old girl on the flight to Mexico. When this little girl found out we were getting married she drew us a picture with Spongebob on it and told Cousin S. that was her wedding gift to us. How could I not treasure our very first wedding present?
See? There’s Spongebob in the pineapple.
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I just want to start this post off by saying that these are some of my favorite, favorite photos from the whole wedding. They may also reflect that this was one of my favorite moments from the whole day. We were never really on the fence about a first look—in traditional Jewish weddings, you see each other before the ceremony anyway, and there is no cocktail hour after the ceremony, since it is before, so we figured, why not get some of the photos out of the way so we wouldn’t have to miss the party?
I have to say, I am so so happy that we did.
WARNING: Kissy pictures ahead. You’ve been warned.
We wrapped up my bridal portraits, and Mr. HC arrived at the Rose Garden.
I am getting closer…
Remember how, a few months back, Mr. S and I feared that we might not be able to afford our wedding? And then, we realized that, by scrimping and saving, we could do it? Well, it turns out that Mr. S has some generous family members. Very generous. And they were very, very good to us during the holidays. Suddenly, we didn’t have to worry about even scrimping anymore. We certainly didn’t have enough to go hog-wild, but we suddenly had enough in the bank to feel a bit more comfortable.
(Side note: We’ve thanked them from the bottom of our hearts over and over again, but if anyone has any ideas for a spectacular way to express our gratitude, I’m all ears.)
Most of the money was used for NWR stuff: first and foremost, a down payment on a car for me (since I’d been car-free for many years but now need one to commute to my new job). A lot of it went into our savings account.
But this is a wedding blog, so you better believe that we are putting a bit towards the wedding. Otherwise, why am I telling you this, right? Well, we decided to spend a tad more on some details that we thought we’d have to sacrifice:
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Hello Toronto and GTA Bees! I hope you’re all surviving this endless winter. In an attempt to escape winter we’re planning a meet up on Wednesday, February 9th at 7PM at Snakes and Lattes.
If you’d like to join us for some hot chocolate, wine, or board games (they have Dream Phone!!!) please RSVP here.
The groom, best man, and reverend had the best view in the house as they watched the party make their processional down the aisle. From my bird’s eye view, I could just see each couple walk down the top set of stairs before they disappeared into the courtyard below me.
I’m so happy we decided on the string trio for the ceremony. I felt like their presence added so much to the moment.
One thing that’s been on the Hippo to do list for quite some time is finalizing all of our ceremony music. We’ve decided on our pre-ceremony music and our recessional song, but when it comes to the songs for the bridesmaids’ and bridal processional, we’ve been stuck. See, King Hippo and I don’t always agree on music. While my processional music suggestions include songs by female artists like Sarah McLachlan, Ingrid Michaelson and Adele, King Hippo can only take so much of these ladies and leans more toward the likes of Band of Horses, Death Cab for Cutie and Jason Mraz. Don’t get me wrong… I think these artists are great, but when it comes to finding the one or two songs that will play during the ceremony, I’m just not feelin’ it. But finally…FINALLY…we came to an agreement on one of the songs.
Our house party and bridesmaids will walk down the aisle to this winner:
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Just a week before our wedding I brought in a few of my inspiration photos to my hair trial. I was choosing between three hairdos so I wanted to try them all. See how they turned out below!
1. The Half Up
It would be a good compromise between my longing for long wavy locks and a crisp updo. Perhaps I could look Grecian and whimsical like the character from Mamma Mia? Or perfectly in place like on Martha Stewart Weddings?
So. Budgeting your wedding is, for most of us, really hard and awful and stressful, yes? I mean, kudos to you if it wasn’t, but I know that for us, the whole money thing was the very worst part of wedding planning. At first, I had absolutely no idea how much weddings could cost—my initial investigations into planning were utterly shocking!
I want to share a full, detailed, nitty-gritty budget recap with you in the hopes that it might give you a bit of a touchstone for your own planning. I know that when I’d look at wedding features in my early planning stages, my running internal monologue would often be, “but what does this COST? What am I looking at here? Is this a $5,000 wedding? A $15,000 wedding? A $50,000 wedding? Can I do something like this, or would it be utterly impossible for me?”
I think it would be really helpful for brides to see more impartial “here is how many dollars our wedding cost, and here is where those dollars went” types of posts. I’ve written before about my thoughts on how journalism about The Cost of Weddings These Days is often served up with a big scoop of scorn and judgment about the amount people spend (and I think there’s a pretty common thread of “how about those crazy women with their wanton, greedy, frivolous spending on themselves just so they can play princess for a day!”, as well). Of course, money is a loaded subject in most contexts, not just weddings. Still, I do think it’s possible to have more transparent, emotionally neutral conversations about wedding budgets, and that’s what I’m striving for with this post.
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Congratulations to our winner, OctPumpkin!
~~~
We have a great giveaway from Indigo Album Design today! Wedding albums can be a huge expense, but there’s no need to sacrifice quality for the price. Indigo Album Design offers affordable handmade Flush Albums and Coffee Table Books, all featuring personalized design layouts. All Indigo albums come in either cloth or leather and feature decorative end paper lining. And in celebration of their new website launch, they’re giving away one 8″x8″ Flush Album with personalized album design, worth $455 right here on Weddingbee!
Currently Indigo Album Design is also offering a 10% discount to all Weddingbee readers on any of their products. Simply enter the promo code WBFeb10 at checkout to take advantage of the discount! This 10% off promo code expires on March 1, 2011, so now’s the time to save on creating your wedding photo album!
You have two chances to enter this contest!
Simply visit Indigo Album Design’s new website and check out their great flush albums. Then come back here and let us know what your favorite aspect of the albums are! And for a second chance to win, follow Weddingbee on Twitter and retweet this contest (if you’re already a follower, simply retweet by clicking here!). Then come back here and let us know that you followed/retweeted. You have until Thursday, February 3rd at 11:59 PM PST to enter. Good luck!
Hey hive, what’s up? I know I’m very married now (firmly in my second year) and my recaps are over, but I still have a few more posts for you before I really say goodbye. The other day, for example, I was painting my nails and it occurred to me: I have a lot of knowledge and experience on the subject. Maybe I ought to share! Consider this post to be a culmination of my personal experiences, articles read in magazines and books, internet research, tutorial-watching, and learned-from mistakes. (Hint: that means this post is pretty long.)
You see: I may be terrible at makeup and just so-so with hair-styling, but I’m really, really good at painting nails. I’ve been doing it since age 11. I think my mom let me do it because she thought it’d curb my nail-biting habit. (But it didn’t.) I’ve painted friends’ nails for proms, weddings, etc. Swimmers on rival teams in high school used to call me ’the nail polish girl’ because my toes were always painted up wild for the meets. I’m the girl who hates to spend $5 on an eyeliner pencil (let alone $20+), but I own probably $300 worth of nail polish. I have curbed the habit (for the sake of practicality and storage space) in recent years, but I used to pick up a snazzy new color every time I went to the store.
If I had a beauty shrine, it’d look like this.
Remember my obsession with chalkboards? Well, I finally got around to making one for us! Not just any one, but the main one! It’s pretty much the first thing our guests will see when they approach Oxon Hill Manor:
Obviously it can’t be blank. We need to figure out what it should say!
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Last we checked on it, my list of DIY projects was about 19 or 20 lines long. When I checked on it this weekend, I realized I’d left a few things off and made it two or three lines longer. Not much is crossed off of this list at all. So, knowing all of that, what did I do this weekend?
Well, if you said I completed something and crossed it off the list, you’d be right. I mean, sort of. I added it then I crossed it off. Hey, I have to get my satisfaction somewhere! I blame the lovely Mrs. Meerkat for posting this.
Of course, I promptly asked for the template, which she very promptly sent. Isn’t she nice? Yes, yes she is. But did I stop there? No, no I didn’t. The colors were already close enough to our wedding colors, so I didn’t touch those. But I just had to mat them up instead of leaving well enough alone.
Here is what I started with:
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