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This is the second installment of my little “Venue That Wasn’t” series. For this venue, I wanted to show you all Leila Arboretum. Seriously one of the most beautiful places in Battle Creek. In the spring, it is bursting with new flowers and green everywhere. In the summer the trees are lush and beautiful. If the fall it is a Midwestern dreamscape of orange, yellow, and blue, and in the winter it is a marshmallow magic land of rolling hills and sledding.
OK, enough yip-yapping! I will show you pictures!
When you come up the main drive, this is what greets you.
I just got an email of the menu from our contact at Arcadia. All I can say is YUM-O. I don’t know how I…rather, Mr. Aardvark and I are going to pick and choose from this list! Seriously!
We are having a buffet style dinner and are picking food off of the regular menu (the menu they have while they are a restaurant and not my wedding reception venue).
One of the appetizers is called the “Garden and Goat Quesadilla” and it’s described as having pesto, mushroom, and fresh salsa.
Umm, hello? That sounds amazing! Also I love the name so that will probs have to be on our “For Sure” list. Not into goat cheese? They have AMAZING pepperoni rolls that I could eat all.day.long.
Their pulled pork and brisket are also STUPENDOUS! I am not really sure how I will choose one type of BBQ…maybe I will have to flip a coin.
But best of all are their pizzas! So good, and so many choices… Now, I know you are thinking what I am thinking right now…Aardvark, pizza? At a wedding??? Surely this will happen:
OK, I may or may not have a problem with my brain running away with thoughts faster than I can sort them into orderly piles. However, I was at work yesterday, in a timeline meeting, and realized it was almost APRIL!!! AHH!! How did that happen!?
What’s that you say? It’s only October, and that is not really April or anywhere near April, for that matter. Well, I think you are mistaken—the whole rest of our engagement can be broken up into pretty small chunks. And everyone knows small chunks go by WAY faster than big chunks of time! Would you like me to prove this? OK:
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.
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
OK, so…I have not had a bridal shower yet, and I am not planning one for anyone (at this time)… However, I made this cake this weekend and thought is was SO girly and delicious that I had to share it with you, and, since this is a wedding blog, I figured I had to make it wedding-ish somehow so…TADA! Shower cake*.
Super easy-peasy just this side of totally box cake.
Step one: buy and bake a box of Funfetti cake according to directions on the box for the two nine inch round pans.
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| Image from Meijer |
I guess you can use some other white or yellow cake mix, but really, why would you? Also I should note, I really like to use butter instead of spray non-stick…it just works better.
Read more…
This is a post I have been waffling back and forth on for quite some time. I was not sure how, or if, to write it, and even now I am a little nervous about it going up. That being said, I think it is an important part of Mr. Aardvark’s and my story, and it really wouldn’t be fair to you if we left it out. I also understand that this is a very personal subject and that many people have many different opinions on it. I welcome all of your thoughts, but please remember, as I just stated, it was a very personal decision and what’s right for me may not be what’s right for you.
As the title implies, Mr. A and I are living together. We have been living together since the end of our LDR. Initially, this was not the plan. I had a very clear thought in my head that I didn’t want to live together until we were at least engaged and ideally, if we could time it right, married.
Well, hive, as the months of our LDR dragged on and on, that thought began to evolve. You see, more than anything I wanted Mr. Aardvark to come out to Wisconsin, and we even began to discuss him doing so without a job. Now the tricky thing about not having a job is that it is darn near impossible to get approved for a lease. We briefly discussed having me co-sign his lease but ultimately decided that was not worth the extra time, money, or hassle since one of us would inevitably be spending the night at the other’s apartment every night.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Hive, I have some bad news for you. *deep breath* I will not be showing you my dress before the wedding. I am so, SO, so sorry. But trust me, I have lots of posts about it up my sleeve for after the big day!
You see, I am having my dress made. Confession time: I purchased the dress pattern WAY before Mr. Aardvark and I got engaged (like over a year before). We were pre-gaged, and I had a bad habit of looking at dresses online. It was during this time that I stumbled across a vintage dress pattern that stuck in my head like a popcorn kernel between my teeth. It seemed perfect! Everything I was hoping for in a dress. Due to the fact that we were not engaged…I did not buy it right away. However, a few months later at the fabric store, there it was, and on sale too! So I bought it, and then went about my life for a year or so.
Fast forward to our engagement. I hit the internet hard looking for dress ideas. Nothing really seemed to knock my socks off. Then I remembered the pattern. I dug it out of my craft box and fell in love all over again. It seemed a little odd, giving up on dress shopping before even going dress shopping, but every time I looked at that pattern, it seemed so much more perfect than any of the dresses I’d found online.
Was it totally crazy to just have the dress made? Just jump right into it without trying others on? Yes. Is that what I did? It sure was! But not without some due diligence.
For some reason, saying (OK, typing) those words makes me feel all nostalgic for dial up…but then I remember that horrific noise and the warm fuzzy feelings are gone. However, this post is not about the history of the internet; it’s just about my, well, Mr. Aardvark’s and my little corner of the web.
It seemed to me that having a wedding website was an important but not very interesting thing, so as I mentioned before, I put this task in Mr. A’s more than capable hands. He is an IT type by profession, so I thought this would be no big deal. Let me tell you, he did LOTS of research on the various free and “free” wedding websites available and finally landed on Project Wedding.
I have to say, he did a fantastic job! I am not sure how much of it was custom work and how much was pre-set templates, but it looks really nice (if I do say so myself).
Wedding planning has been rolling right along at the Aardvark house. We have all of the majors out of the way and are somewhere near that “in between” time I’ve heard so much about. However, there are still little wedding things that pop up now and then that need to be taken care of.
Well, lately work has gotten really busy for me (in a good but still stressful way), and last night I came home and realized I had never actually booked a block of hotel rooms. I had, a few weeks ago, emailed back and forth with the hotel we had decided to book with. And then totally dropped the ball. It was not an emergency or anything, it had just fallen off of my radar and happened to pop back on when I was just too tuckered out to handle it. (Yes, folks, I am saying I was too tired to open my computer and type, “Sounds good. We’ll take x number of rooms. Please and thank you.”)
What’s a bride to do?! Well, the answer may be very clear to you clever ladies (and gents), but it seemed totally novel to me at the time. It went something like this:
Our hunt for a photographer was pretty simple. From the get-go we had planned on having a family friend do it. Cheap.Easy.Done. So, instead of obsessing over photographers I started to search for videographers. (I wasn’t sure if we needed a videographer at this point, but I had to obsess over something!)
Unfortunately one of the first videographers I stumbled across was WAY out of our (budget) league. They produced videos with the production quality of Titanic with dramatic music and timing that had zero “home video” feel to them. I was smitten. Mr. Aardvark was not. I pouted for a while about “wanting the best quality documentation” for such an important day. He pointed out that we could get a perfectly lovely video made that would not triple our wedding budget. And, being the sweetheart that he is, he looked up a whole heap of local vendors and sifted through them to find his favorite few. From there, there was one that stood out above the rest: Michael Terri Studios.
They were just what I was looking for—a husband and wife team who had been doing weddings for years and were within our budget and, most important, were very prompt to reply to questions and emails. We signed the contract and felt very good about ourselves.
Then, the wheels started turning again. You see, our family friend is an amazing photographer; however, he is also a close friend, and asking him to work and feel obligated to catch all of the little “moments” as opposed to kicking back and enjoying himself didn’t seem fair. We chatted and decided it would be best to hire a pro to ensure everyone had a good time and enjoyed themselves. Michael Terri Studios also happens to offer photography that, when packaged with videogaphy, is CRAZY affordable! Not only that, but the pictures were great. Not trying too hard, but still artsy, fun, and natural; he really seems to have a knack for catching great moments. Want to see a few of my faves?
Hive, I have a very exciting wedding event coming up in a few weeks. (You will hear all about it—don’t fret!) So, you all know what that means! I will get to wear my non-wedding bridal shoes!! As luck will have it, the shoes have arrived! Would you like a little peeky-pie?
The BOX! Oooh, look at the hearts! (I think it means I will luv them.)
As you know, Mr. Aardvark and I have put our long-distance days behind us. However, this week I have been out of town for work. And when I say out of town, I mean on the edge of civilization. We are staying at this beautiful place in the woods of the U.P. (Upper Peninsula, for those of you not from the Midwest or Michigan). We are getting some bike riding in and lots of important meetings. The bum thing is, there is NO phone service and the internet speed is glacial at best.
This is the first time since Mr. Aardvark moved here and we ended our 14-month LDR that I have been on a trip without him. It’s not that being apart for a week is bad, it’s the not being able to call or text or IM that stinks. We have had a few very slow email conversations, but that’s about it.
This has made me realize a couple of things. One, I am FULLY addicted to surfing the internet and checking my phone, and two, there is something really comforting about having an understanding partner. To the last note, I really struggled this week with the lack of voice time with Mr. Aardvark, but instead of adding fuel to the I-miss-you-so-much-I-wish-I-could-talk-to-you fire, he sends cheerful updates about how he and Kitty are getting along, encourages me to enjoy the nice weather and beautiful mountain-bike trails, and reminds me that a week is much shorter than 14 months. Yet another reason I am mad about that man.
This project was lots of fun and very simple to execute. I had been looking at doilies on Etsy to order as a base for our centerpieces when I came across this:
Image via therufflyowl on Etsy
This seemed like such a cute, simple idea. It would look nice on a gift table, or cake table, or candy buffet, or anywhere, really! I was convinced I could make one for less than the $18 they were asking for this.
You may remember, not so long ago, I was all up in the air over which shoes to wear to complete my wedding-day look. I figured I had time, as I had not selected a dress yet. Well, I still have not selected a dress yet, but I have solved the shoe conundrum. You see, I did not want to pass up the chance to buy a pair of FANTASTIC shoes, but I hadn’t found anything I liked more than these:
I was not 100% sold on the colored-shoes thing, but these were A) pretty, B) comfy, C) already in my closet, and D) closed toe (ish). You see, I am a HUGE fan of back-seam stockings; I think they are the perfect way to be ladylike, but show you have a sassy side as well. I had my mind set that I wanted to wear stockings for my wedding before there was a wedding to plan. That means closed-toe shoes are a must. PLUS, April in Michigan = cold and most likely wet, so no strappy sandals here.
Alternate title: “A Promise Made”
or
“Yes, I Will Be Talking About Boobs, but Only as Far as They Pertain to Bridesmaids’ Dresses” (See why I didn’t go with that title?)
A long time ago, back before engagement, before pre-gagement, heck, even before I met Mr. Aardvark, I made a promise to Bridesmaid Red. You see, Red has been in more weddings than anyone I know, a few of which were during our stint as roommates.
As such, she had been subjected to all manner of strapless dress/bra combinations that ranged from “just plain ugly” to physically painful. As her roommate I heard and saw the anguish these contraptions put her through. I promised her then and there that if I ever got married she would be able to wear the most comfortable bra she owned, and the dress would hold itself up no matter how much she danced. (Let’s face it, there will be a lot of dancing.)
Image via Burda Style
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Mrs. Aardvark, Beaver Dam, WI Age and Occupation: 23, Assistant Product Manager Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Business Analyst Engagement Date: May 28th, 2011 Wedding Date: April 2012 Venue: St. Philip Catholic Church/Arcadia Brewing Co. About Me: I am a resourceful lady who love surprises and adventure. At the same time, I value traditions, family and friends. I like to make crafty messes, sometimes, clean them up, and do pretty much anything outdoors. The Mister and I are pretty avid cyclists---we have nine bikes in our home right now...and one motorcycle! We both enjoy eating food we can't pronounce (language doesn't really matter) and going places we've never been. We currently reside in rural Wisconsin, enjoying the cheese and beer it has to offer, and getting outside whenever we can!
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