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Our reception dance party was phenomenal! There are not enough words to describe how great our DJ was. Seriously, y’all—Mr Thrill was THE BEST! He read the crowd so well and the dance floor was never empty.
Our DJ, Mr Thrill / Photo by Steve Twigger
Hi, my name is Miss Dalmatian and I was an impatient girlfriend. I admit I had stacks of bridal magazines long before I had a ring on my finger. I had a folder of wedding inspiration saved on my desktop many months before he popped the question. Heck, I even visited a few venues—it’s not entirely my fault; Mama Dalmatian is an enabler!
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| Personal Photo of the wedding folder on my desktop |
In general, this wasn’t too problematic. We had faced many situations that proved Mr. Dalmatian didn’t scare easily. Like the time he went on my computer and saw I was browsing wedding gowns (and already on page 52). Or the time he was included in a family photograph and my grandmother told him “You’d better come through now, buddy.” If the thought of commitment or the sound of wedding bells scared him, he would have been out the door quite a long time ago!
So when the wedding world began to sweep me away, I didn’t put up too much of a fight…
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Missed the first post about our Jamaican honeymoon? Here you go: Jamaican Me Crazy: Experts at Lounging.
On our first night at the resort, I wound up going to bed early because I wasn’t feeling well. (Trying to stay hydrated by drinking a ton of supposedly “safe” resort water backfired on me.) Well, at about midnight, Mr. HW comes blazing into the room telling me that there are crabs everywhere and that I should come out and look at them.
I don’t know about you, but anything that can walk laterally, like spiders, crabs, or this horrible, horrible thing, is deemed 100% evil by me. It isn’t natural for you to walk sideways, I’m sorry.
And when I’m half asleep and someone comes running in saying these things are all over the place, I’m probably not going to be too happy with you. In my sleepy daze I remember I covered my hands over my head and asked Mr. HW to please please please stop talking about them.
As the week went on, my fear subsided, mostly because these poor little crabs are terrified of people. If they see you, they just run away. They are just out trying to get a midnight snack and don’t want to hurt anyone. And I have to admit, I found them so interesting!! So our nightly mission became attempting to photograph these little guys before they ran off into the shrubs. We managed to capture some good ones:
Crusty the Crab
One of the things I love the most about Weddingbee is the sense of community. Even though when we started planning our wedding I was still living in Chile, the power of the internet brought me here and got me hooked. I loved the interaction with brides who, just like me, had questions and were excited abut very similar things. I was lucky enough to actually *meet in person* a lot of the California bees when the time came for me to move from Chile.
Ms. Stripes, Mrs. Sprinkle, Mrs. Dachshund, me, Mrs. Meatball, Mrs. French Bulldog
A few of these lovely ladies also came before the wedding to help out with wedding crafts and have an afternoon at the ranch. They got an exclusive peek of our wedding chapel and a jeep ride with Mr. Poodle, hehe.
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.”
Ever since I wrote my cupcake post, the ghosts of wedding cakes past have haunted me.
Image via Martha Stewart Living
I’m just not sure I can skip such a traditional element.
There are so many nice venues in South West Michigan, and I am really a sucker for “what-if-ing” So I thought I’d start my own little mini series for a number of reasons. 1) It may be helpful to other brides who are still in the midst of their venue hunt. 2) These little walks down “what-if lane” will help me re-affirm my venue choice. (Not that I need much re-affirming—I am very happy with both venues, I just thought it would be fun!)
So for this the first episode, I would like to introduce you to The Birch Gallery.
This beautiful place would FOR SURE be where we would get married if: we could have a Catholic wedding outside, we were getting married in the fall, when the weather is a bit more predictable than April, and if the majority of ours guests were not from out of state (read: need hotels), and we weren’t having 200 guests (give or take 50). Alas, all of those things are part of our wedding reality, and for that reason, we will not be getting married here.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Let’s veer back to music. It’s an essential part of any wedding day, yes? It can really set the tone for the ceremony, reception, etc…from the processional to the recessional to the first dance to the last song, and everything in between.
I kind of wish we could do, like, 27 first dances so we could use every song that’s in our “Wedding Possibilities” playlist right now. Sure, “Stolen“ is always a possibility, but there are SO MANY other beautiful, perfect songs out there as well.
I discovered a lot of the songs that I’m loving right now thanks to TV and movie soundtracks. In fact, Mr. Foxy and I were watching Juno for the eleventy-billionth (not exaggerating) time a few months ago…you know the opening scene, with the credits and cartoon? The song that plays during it…I’m obsessed.
PRESS PLAY:
Video via YouTube
We need this at our wedding.
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We chose to have a seventeen month long engagement. People questioned us on this decision over and over again like a broken record. The constant “why are you waiting so long” question got old real quick. When I ran into people they would ask me what I have planned so far, and I would follow up with a laundry list of what I have done. At the end of every conversation they would answer back with a snarky tone and say, “isn’t it a little early for that?”
This made me constantly second guess myself as to whether I was in fact planning too early. I would receive email updates from wedding websites and it would say I am 360 days out from the wedding and at this point I should start researching venues. I would sit there and think hmm, I did that six months ago. Was that bad? No, it is not.
We chose to give ourselves the precious gift of time.
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craiglisted is selling a White by Vera Wang one-shoulder gown and a slip. The item is for pre-sale, and will be available after February 11, 2012. She’s asking $900 for the size-10 gown and slip.
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:
After a roller-coaster ride of making a hair and makeup artist decision, I’ve finally found the woman who will be making me up on the day of the wedding. Despite some previously unfortunate circumstances on the glamour front, and having not budgeted any money for my day-of hair and makeup, I was left in quite the predicament. Thankfully, I have the most amazing family in the world, and my parents graciously offered to pay for my dream vendor! A winning situation? I think, YES!
Anyway, enough jibber-jabber. Let’s get on to the good stuffs.
Last week, I met with the lovely Susie Cee for a hair and makeup trial, and boy was I blown away! From the moment I sat down, I knew I was in good hands and knew that the unexpected investment would be totally worth my parents’ money. 
What I typically look like without makeup:
Mr. Seal and me after completing Bay-to-Breakers in SF this past May
Now, you may be wondering why I didn’t show you what I looked like “before makeup” on the actual day of the trial, and I will gladly explain. The only picture taken of me without makeup that day was by Susie…and it was right after I got my eyebrows waxed. When I showed the picture she sent me to the Sealman, he (no joke) laughed for a full minute. Anyway, I’ll let you see the picture below, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of that photo being on the FRONT page of the blog for all to see and laugh at…because I totally look terrifying.
After our intimate moment together, it was time to head back up to the Manor and prepare for our walk down the aisle.
Our guests got seated and patiently waited for us to make our appearance.
I didn’t post about whether or not I was changing my name because it wasn’t really a part of my wedding planning. I had already decided back when we gave Cherry Bomb a last name what I would be doing with my last name when we got married—I was changing it. There are a lot of reasons to change it and a lot of reasons not to, and my reason was simple—I didn’t care. I don’t have any great published works or career motivations to keep it. I’m not overly attached to it. I have a brother with two sons to “carry on the family name.” It didn’t really matter to me one way or another if I changed my name, and I think it did matter to Mr. Cannon. Would he have been upset if I didn’t change my name? No. Is he happy I’m changing? I think so. I also think it just makes it easier for people to know how to address us, and the whole family has the same last name. So, my real reason for changing is everyone else’s convenience. What a people pleaser. Plus, I think I always imagined I would take my husband’s name. And I’m happy to do it.
So today I started the name change process. Well, I guess I started it after the wedding when I changed my name on Facebook. If only the rest of the changes were that easy!
But that’s not to say the rest of it has been that hard.
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Vintage keys? Yes please!
A punny phrase? Yes please!
Unique and adorable save the dates that are definitely DIY-able? YES PLEASE!
I first came across the idea of using vintage keys for a save-the-date when I was reading Handmade Weddings. Then, as usual, I searched the internet to see similar projects. In general, they look a little something like this:
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| Image via The Ginger Parasol / Design and construction by Dana Cochran of A Fine Line Studio |
When I first saw this idea, I was completely smitten. I loved how the key brought in a little vintage flair and would serve as a sweet keepsake for our guests.
I immediately began contemplating what my shopping list would look like to create these (which was pretty easy since Handmade Weddings includes a list of supplies and instructions), and what kind of dent it would put in my budget.
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amie_mcmahan’s pink crinoline gets a moment in the spotlight!
Keep on loading your inspirational wedding pics to the Weddingbee Gallery to see them featured here on the blog! Remember, your images must be under 1MB in size, or they won’t load.
If your photo is featured as the Gallery of the Day, you’re eligible for a special Weddingbee badge for your blog or website! Check out instructions on how to grab the badge here!
The past 11 months have been a rollercoaster of ideas, inspiration, wants, have-to-haves, needs, and chocolate (the last one more so in the last couple weeks). Along the way, I have semi-committed to plenty of things that I recently had to cut loose. There were also a few things that I swore up and down we had no need for (some of which vacillated between “we NEED” and “we don’t need”). So with 20-something-odd days to go until NUPTIAL TIME, I though it would behoove me to do a quick rundown of the things that have come and gone, as well as some of the minute decisions that we’ve finally settled on. No, really… there’s no time to change our minds again.
1. The cardigan-over-the-wedding-dress
Is there any wedding trend more controversial than the bride-in-a-cardigan? I think not. Most of you pointed out that a cardigan on an already stressful and sweaty day, in Florida—whether in November or not —might be a bit overkill. I had been going back and forth over whether I wanted one, or wanted to add sleeves to my dress. What finally made my decision? Seeing how awesome cap sleeves looked at my first and second dress fittings. That, coupled with a complete lack of cardigan-shopping and an aversion to sweaty pits, made the cardigan issue: Abandoned
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