I know that some wedding ceremonies are very, very short, and that is fine. I have been to quite a few short ceremonies, and they have all been perfectly lovely. However, Mr. CA and I are practicing Catholics and we knew going into this that our wedding day was first and foremost about just that—our union before God and our closest friends and family. So we wanted the ceremony to be very meaningful and personalized. Well, as much as the Catholic mass can be personalized! We spent a lot of time choosing readings and songs, deciding who would do what, etc. I actually really enjoyed this part of wedding planning, because it was part of the actual “getting married” planning. The Catholic Nuptial Mass is, of course, fairly set in terms of what happens when, but you depending on your priest/church, you do get a large amount of flexibility on readings, etc. Fr. John even told us that if there was an excerpt from literature or something that was particularly meaningful to us, we could include that as a reading instead of a traditional Bible reading. We didn’t end up going that route, but I really appreciated that the option was there!
Anyway, enough of my blabbering. I really enjoyed our ceremony, so I will just let the images and the words speak for themselves. I loved Fr. John’s contributions to the mass, so I will be copying portions of the mass below. It’s a bit long, and for that I apologize but, well, the Catholic Nuptial Mass is long! You have been warned…
My brothers and sisters, on behalf of G and J, I am happy to welcome you to this blessed event. On this beautiful day, they have called us here to be with them, to stand with them as they offer themselves to one another.
My name is Fr. John Whitney, and I have the great joy of witnessing this marriage on behalf of the Church; but the truth is, all of us here are called to witness, called to celebrate, called to bless this union with our prayers and with our heartfelt support.
It is important to J and G that each one of you is here, because you are part of their community of love. And so—on their behalf—I invite you to be active in this celebration, and to feel yourself an important part of it.
Though we may come here from various traditions and diverse backgrounds, we are united by our love for G and J, so I invite you to feel at home here, today. Now, filled with the Spirit of love, let us pray…
He then said an opening prayer. I love the calm and serenity I feel when looking at the above picture. It is how I remember much of the mass—just me, Mr. CA, and the priest, but feeling the warmth and love surrounding us from our guests. It was really very powerful.
Kathy is selling a Jenny Packham Cascade gown. She is asking $1,800 for the size-10 dress.
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:
I can’t write a post about ice cream and cake without thinking about this old Baskin Robbins commercial:
The video’s caption on YouTube declares “best 16 seconds of my life… ^_^”
…That’s about right. Kind of embarrassing (but really, no shame): whenever we go out for dessert, or even if we’re just pulling a pint of ice cream out of our freezer, Mr. W and I chant, “Ice cream and cake and cake! Ice cream and cake and cake!” Yeah, we’re four-year-olds like that…
Anyway, to refresh you on the dessert sitch: Mr. W and I do not like wedding cakes. We love pretty much anything full of butter and coated in sugar, but there’s something a little…dull about wedding cakes. I think it’s the fondant frosting. And also how many are baked a few days in advance—they always taste so dry. So instead, I thought it would be fun to have a pie competition: to ask all of our local guests to bring homemade pies to the wedding, and we would award ribbons for best pies. Yum, right?! But I realized that many of our local guests are Persians who weren’t brought up baking classic American pies, so asking guests to bake pies would be an imposition.
How exciting is this?! I’ve been reading this website now for a number of months and now all of a sudden I’m going to be one of those girls writing the content! I really hope I do good.
It was my fiancé (who we’ll refer to as “Jack” from now on) who encouraged me to apply for this. He’s one of those over-achievers—you know the type. The kind of guy who has to be good at everything, and is disappointed in himself if he comes in second place.
I’ve had a blog for as long as I can remember, but despite being jealous of those who wrote for a huge audience, I just didn’t have that drive that he has to push for more readers. I guess a lot of it comes down to a lack of belief in myself—there were so many better blogs than mine, you know? What did I have to talk about that someone else couldn’t do better?
Well, wedding planning isn’t new. And there are plenty of incredible bees here with their own stories to share, but for once I’m going to stand up and say “Hey—I think my wedding will be pretty awesome, and I would like to share my experiences with people and hope that they get something out of it.”
Because if one person decides they’re going to make 500 meters of bunting, or has the same bridesmaid dilemma that I have had, and they read a post and relate and feel better—then my job here is a job well done.
Sorry for the lag in posts lately. I am soo close to completing a HUGE project I can’t wait to share (as in over 100 hours logged…ugh). In the meantime, I want to start brainstorming my next DIY: escort cards.
There are so many directions I could have gone, but I think I have it narrowed down to two options:
I found this awesome set of 100 wood rounds on Etsy for only $10. They come in a variety of one- and two-inch sections, but the seller FiNeGRaiNeD also takes custom orders. I could whip out my fine-tipped pens and hand write the guests’ name on one side and the table numbers on the other. Easy and cheap. (It’s about time I find a project that meets both of these criteria.)
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Image via FiNeGRaiNeD on Etsy
I knew I wanted to gift my girls something awesome. Save my sister, I’ve been in (or will be) in all my ‘maids’ weddings, and they were incredibly generous with their gifts…like, really generous. Plus, they took a lot of the good ideas!
First, in lieu of a card, I got everyone a copy of this book:
(Photo via Deep Discount / Book by Sandol Stoddard Warburg)
We’re using part of it as one of our readings, and I love how it appropriately translates from how I feel about Wolfman to how I feel about my ‘maids. Some sample pages:
TGIF hive! I’m thrilled to welcome our latest bee coming to us from across the pond. Join me in giving a warm welcome to Miss Jackrabbit!
Miss Jackrabbit, Brighton, UK
Age & Occupation: 26, Office Manager
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 25, Songwriter
Engagement Date: 5th October 2012
Wedding Date: September 2013
Venue: Fabrica Gallery, Brighton
About Me: I honestly thought I’d go all Monica Geller when I started planning our wedding, but in truth, things couldn’t have gone much differently. I am working my way through this venture, figuring things out as I go, and adopting a ’Que Sera, Sera,’ approach to making decisions. When I’m not organising the biggest day of my life, I can usually be found drinking a glass of wine, crafting up one thing or another, or stopping my cat from head-butting me in the face.
So I was (I thought) 100% convinced of how I wanted to wear my hair for the wedding. You see, I’m all about looking like myself on my wedding day. I wanted to buy a dress that was “me,” that was comfortable, and that I could see myself wearing on any other day (if it wasn’t white and a wedding dress…). So when it came to hair, I wanted to follow the same principles. And I basically have one “favorite” way of wearing my hair, the same way I wore it in our engagement shoot.
Photo by Niki Marie Photography
Yeah, I’m kinda boring, but basically curly and pinned half back. I have a lot of heavy hair, so having it hang in my face drives me crazy! My hair now is even longer than in this picture.
So easy enough, right? I looked up pictures and found tons of inspiration for long curly hair—ways to make me look dressy yet still myself.
I found this video today and had to share it with the people who I knew would appreciate it best: you guys. First watch, then discuss.
*Warning: Video contains profanity and might not be safe for work!
Found via A Cup of Jo
I definitely had feelings of inadequacy when I received my first envelope-within-an-envelope invitation. I had never heard of inner and outer envelopes until then and thought it was just some sort of extra fancy wealth flaunting vessel. If you’re naive like me, read this informative Yahoo Answers post (oxymoron?) about what inner envelopes are for.
I’m not sure what our pastor was expecting from our reception, but it is fair to say that he decided to roll with the punches once he saw that we were keeping it relaxing and casual. After our caterer arrived and set things up, Mr. Cannon gave a brief welcome and thank you to our guests and introduced the pastor, who came up to say grace. He gave a nice blessing to our marriage and our families, but he did a musical grace, in keeping with our not-so-serious reception. Although this was a total surprise, it was also meaningful for me because we did the exact same musical grace when I went to church camp when I was a kid. It’s to the tune of “Rock Around the Clock.”
“God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food! We’re gonna thank him in the morning, noon, and night! We’re gonna thank our Lord, cuz he’s outta sight! Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen.” My sister was totally weirded out that I knew the words to this song. I am totally weirded out that I remember them, since I went to church camp in fourth grade. But it was a pretty cool coincidence.
