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If you know me IRL, you might think I’m the opposite of sappy. I love nothing more than laughing at movies that are supposed to be heartwarming or making fun of people for waxing nostalgic about stupid stuff. People who talk about how adorable their kids are? Annoying. People rhapsodizing on how wonderful their SO is? Obnoxious! Any Lifetime or Hallmark movie aired during December? My guiltiest of pleasures. Also, ridiculous.
Image via IMDB
What a heartfelt work of art.
But, you guys! Something happened to me when I got engaged! I became a tearful, squinty-eyed sap with a permanent shit-eatin’ grin plastered on my face. It all started when I saw none other than a Fancy Feast commercial:
Choosing to live together before marriage or waiting until after you’re married is a personal decision. I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a friend’s acquaintance after a few months of living with Mr. P. My friend explained that I lived nearby (we were out at a nearby bar) with my boyfriend, and this acquaintance, who had just met me mind you, immediately responded, “Oh, I’m so glad I waited to move in with my husband. It takes all the fun away from marriage if you live with someone first.” I just stared at her blankly. My first reaction was to say, “Who the BLEEP asked you?” I relented.
It may not be the “traditional” route, but one of the benefits of living with someone before marriage is ironing out each person’s role. Mr. P and I have pretty traditional roles in our home. Since we’ve lived together for over three years we’ve had some time to master who does what. I’m glad we have this all ironed out pre-marriage. Things have shifted over time due to changes in work and life, but for the most part I do a lot more work around the house and Mr. P does a lot more work out of the home.
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When Mr. Hawk and I met with Laura of Williamsburg Catering Company a few months back, she was offering a special that included use of their linens for no additional charge if we signed by the end of the month. At our initial meeting, after discussing the basics of our menu, Laura showed us some of the linen options so we could get an idea of what they offered. Her first suggestion was to begin with our color palette. She showed us their aqua and yellow table cloths. The look was fine and her samples did match the colors perfectly, but I quickly realized that I didn’t want to be so literal with our colors.
Imagine something like this stacked:
Image via Factory Direct Party
Video via YouTube / Song performed by Lifehouse
From our entrance, we immediately went into our first dance. Zeb and I are both the youngest children and despite never shying away from the spotlight, this was kind of awkward. We chose to do the 6th grade sway which I’m happy about. We didn’t want to worry about remembering the steps of a choreographed routine even though we’ve seen some amazing choreographed first dances.
Everything (or Beautiful) by Lifehouse has been our song for as long as we can remember. It’s also six minutes long in its entirety. Luckily, our DJ, who can you tell I was extremely happy with(?), was able to cut it down to four minutes seamlessly. Still, four minutes of 6th grade sway, while 250 people stand there wondering if anyone will notice if they make a break for the bar, is a long time.
It was quite surreal at that moment to stand there, at our wedding, dancing our first dance. It was a dream I’d had for nine years and we were finally there.
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After I had maxed out my online searching, it was time to look at some physical rings. But even with our ring drama out of the way, I wondered if searching for wedding rings with Mr. Funnel Cake would be just as awkward as when we looked for engagement rings. Visiting the jewelry stores in Switzerland had been more tense than enjoyable.
I offered again to help pay for the rings because I was worried that money would still be an issue, but Mr. FC was still adamant about wanting to give the rings as a gift. I thought about insisting on helping to pay, but as I dealt with my new tax debts from our civil marriage on my lower income, I conceded that Mr. FC really was in a much better financial position to make jewelry purchases than I was. I decided it would be better to respect Mr. FC’s traditional stance and be grateful that he wanted to cover this cost. I made a mental note that I would try and do something really special for him later on as a thank you. (Which I’ll share later!)
To my surprise, ring shopping was actually very different the second time around!
When you start planning a wedding, people tell you that at some point you’ll entertain the thought of eloping. I heard that a few times and laughed it off. I didn’t think I’d ever feel that way…until six months into our engagement.
From MyWedding.com / Photo by Aregrayline Photography
Wedding planning is a drain on every resource you can imagine. Aside from the financial cost, the investment of time, energy, and brain space takes a tremendous toll. Opportunity cost is a constant thought.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I first want to thank this beautiful, beautiful community for being so kind, understanding, and supportive in the days after my father’s death. Words cannot even begin to express how thankful I am to have wonderful people like you in my life. While I will miss my father every day for the rest of my life, I know that I have to continue living my life because that is what he would want me to do.
This came in the mail about a week after my father’s death, which made me realize that while my world had stopped during that time, the rest of the world did not:
Sorry for the craptacular photo quality. I’ve misplaced my camera card and had to use my Blackberry
Gobble gobble! We hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Mr. Penguin and I spent the latter half of the week in Scottsdale, AZ where we hiked (climbed? Hike/climbed?) Camelback for the first time. What a thrill! With Thanksgiving just passed, it’s so exciting to welcome Miss Turkey to the hive…give her a warm hello!
Miss Turkey, Philadelphia
Age & Occupation: 29, Brand Management
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 28, Consultant
Engagement Date: February 2011
Wedding Date: May 2012
Venue: Kimmel Center
About Me: I’m a marketer who loves a good glass of wine, anything pumpkin-flavored, every crime drama on TV and, of course, Mr. Turkey. It’s funny to say out loud, but we’re former coworkers turned betrothed—now planning a wedding in the city of Brotherly Love. For three years, we’ve been eating our way through Philadelphia, playing tourist at home, and cheering for every sports team in the 215. Although we’ve hit some unplanned snags along the way, we’re determined to have a rocking party this spring with our loud, fun families and friends.
By the title of the post, you may have deduced that we decided to go with a full mass. After my recent entrance into the Catholic Church I really wanted to have a full mass. After my dad handed me off to my very very very soon to be hubby, we walked over to our chairs, which felt very much like Royal Chairs, and we had the beautiful sun shining behind us.
Unfortunately, habits are hard to break and as soon as I saw Mr Teaspoon, I gave him a kiss…whoopsy!
Our mothers then walked up together to light our family candles on the altar.
Mr. Unicycle lives in Milwaukee. I live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, which is about a two-hour drive, one and a half if I’m coming from work—which I usually am. Most people in LDRs would kill for this kind of proximity. I even know people who live this far apart and don’t consider their relationship to be an LDR (granted, they are middle aged divorcees who don’t feel the need to see their SO every day, but still). Even though two hours isn’t that bad in the scheme of relationship commutes, it still feels pretty bad.
Image via Google Maps. MS Paint job by me.
I only see Mr. Unicycle on the weekends, because it doesn’t really make sense logistically or economically to drive to Wisconsin for an evening or an afternoon. And I don’t even see him every weekend. Sometimes he has to spend the entire weekend studying and I have to stay home and entertain myself. It’s not hard to entertain myself, but it doesn’t stop me from missing him. Being in an SDR has it’s perks, I suppose, but it also has its cons.
As I told y’all before, Mr. PF has celiac disease, so that means no cake.
Picture via Gluten-Free Foodie
I thought about buying gluten-free cake mix and taking it with us to Mexico and then just making a small cake for us to cut and eat. I feel like that might be more trouble than it’s worth, and honestly, I haven’t tried any G-free cakes I actually liked.
After thinking about it for some time, I started to think that maybe I was being selfish not having a wedding cake just because Mr. PF can’t eat it.
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Mr. Hawk works in retail. More specifically, he is a district supervisor for a chain of retail stores. If any of y’all have ever worked in retail or have been in a relationship with someone who worked in retail full time, I’m sure you have an idea of what his job entails: long hours, working holidays, and (my least favorite) travel. (Lots.Of.Travel.) He is gone so often that sometimes it feels like we are in long-distance relationship even though we share the same address. On the off chance that he can actually make it home, it still feels like we’re just crossing paths. He walks in the door around nine and, being an early riser myself, I head to bed around 10 or 10:30. Come morning, I wake up earlier than him to head to work. When it comes down to it, we’re lucky if we’ve actually spent over an hour of (conscious) time together!
Heaven3600 is selling a lot of vintage brooches. Make her an offer.
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:
You learn a lot by setting up a wedding registry. The scanner guns are even more fun than you had imagined, there are a lot of gadgets out there that you never knew existed that you’re now convinced you can’t live without, and they’re not kidding when they say don’t use fabric softener on your towels because it covers them in a film and makes them less absorbent.
I use to be really bad about judging other people’s registries. You’re just starting out together…why is a Q-Tip holder, the complete seasons 1-4 of Alf, and some random crystal that could pay my rent on your list? It’s on there because they put it on there and that’s fine. There are so many ins and outs that I had never considered before.
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