Weddingbee Blog

One thing I really wanted to do for the wedding was go shopping with my mom and FMIL for their outfits. I had no ulterior motives in going with them and didn’t really care what they picked, but I always enjoy a group shopping trip. We scheduled this excursion for the Monday after the shower. My aunt, who had been unable to attend the shower, was in town and wanted to meet up, so Mr. Cannon, Cherry Bomb, Mom, FMIL, my aunt and I went to Red Robin for dinner. After eating, Mr. Cannon headed home to get some sleep, and the rest of us hit the mall.

This shopping experience wasn’t quite what I was expecting, mostly because we had Cherry Bomb with us. I spent most of the time chasing her around while everyone else browsed and tried things on. We went to several stores but finally found a few contenders at Dilliard’s. My mom tried on her first dress and she really loved it, as did I. It was very flattering and she seemed really happy in it. The second dress she tried on was boxy and not that impressive. The third dress must have been really horrible because she refused to show it to me.

As my mom tried on dresses, this was happening:
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Mr. Cannon and I had a joint wedding shower with our friends and family back in my hometown recently. It was fiesta themed, which is a fancy way of saying there was Mexican food. We also had margaritas and my sister made us wear sombreros. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a pinata. But it was nice to get everyone together even though I was a complete wreck during the whole thing. My final project and final exam for school were due the day of my shower, so I was not focused on the party aspect.

We arrived at the same time as my grandma, her husband, and some of our friends. One of my sisters had decorated with bright colors and my other sister was making margaritas. My mom was getting all the food set up, and we got situated and started talking to our guests. It didn’t take long before Cherry Bomb grabbed my margarita off the table when I was distracted and dumped it all over both of us. (In her defense, the margaritas were in pretty hot pink glasses, so I can see why she was so excited about grabbing one.) Luckily, my cousin had some extra clothes for her daughter that I could put Cherry Bomb in, and my grandma had brought up a dress she made for me that I could change into. Then my mom went to her house and got Cherry Bomb a dress she had bought for Cherry Bomb so we were able to give my cousin back her daughter’s extra outfit. So, Cherry Bomb went through three costume changes over the course of this 2.5 hour party. Apparently she didn’t want the paparazzi catching her in the same outfit twice.

My sister claims to have invented the game she had us play first.
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I had to go back and make sure I hadn’t posted about this already, because I’ve been meaning to for a while. We finally got Mr. Cannon a suit a few weeks ago! It was an arduous task, not only because we were having a hard time finding what we were looking for in the right size, but also because Cherry Bomb was very on edge throughout our search. She doesn’t usually nap, but on that particular day, she had gotten up early and was a complete wreck by the time we were shopping. There was a tantrum in nearly every store in the mall until I lulled her into a nap while bouncing to the dance music in Express. While I was glad she was finally asleep instead of yelling, it left me carrying around twenty-some pounds of toddler dead-weight for the rest of the afternoon since I hadn’t bothered to bring in her stroller. In other words, buying this suit was not my favorite shopping trip.

Luckily, by the time Cherry Bomb passed out, we had found what we were going to get, and it was just a matter of going back and buying it. We were looking for a grey suit, pink shirt and black tie. Mr. Cannon got his shirt and tie at Express, and got his suit at Macy’s. The suit was on sale for a good price, and we are very happy with it. The pants definitely need some hemming and the jacket could use some alterations, but I think it’s a pretty good look!
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If you’re anything like me, you were excited to find Project Runway’s new season starting up a few weeks ago. Bridesmaid Rifle and MOH Bombshell share my love for the show, and especially for mentor Tim Gunn.

Image via ebashy.com

I used that picture because Tim is doing his, “I’m concerned” face, and I’m pretty sure that’s the one he’d be giving me if he were looking over my wedding plans about now.

“Miss Cannon,” he would say, “I really think this could be amazing, but you don’t have much time left.” Then he would point to my closet full of half completed projects and say, “This concerns me.” I would give him a half worried, half hopeful look, then he would give me a squeeze on the shoulder and an encouraging smile. “Make it work!”

So, in an attempt to take advice from my favorite man (other than Mr. Cannon, of course), I have been trying to make it work the past few weeks by having Rifle over on Thursday nights for wedding crafting, beer, snacks, and of course, watching the new season of Project Runway.

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I have said many times, both in this blog and in real life, that I like to be busy. I get antsy if I have too much down time. I want to, “Go! Go! Go!” as my daughter’s idol, Kai-Lan says. But, Hive, I have been way too busy over the past couple weeks.

At work, our fiscal year ends June 30, so the past month has been incredibly busy. In the world of accounting, the end of the fiscal year is a big deal and there is a lot of work involved. On top of the fact the work had to be done, one of the employees in our department quit and another received a promotion, so we are understaffed.

At school, my last class ended on Saturday and it was a very intense, involved class. I had, no exaggeration, at LEAST fifteen hours of homework each week for this one class. And as the last two weeks wound down, I found myself studying for the final and doing a huge involved project that took a lot of time and concentration. Meanwhile, Mr. Cannon found himself having to work seven days a week several weeks in a row. This left me in charge of Cherry Bomb all weekend, which really took a toll on the time I set aside each week for school work. Additionally, two weeks in a row, one or the other of the websites I use for my on-line class were down during one of the days in which I usually do my school work.

On top of that, time is ticking ever closer to the wedding, and we absolutely had to get our invitations sent out.
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So, I promised myself I would post every day this week because I didn’t post at all last week. However, I have a TON of homework to do (it’s my last week of class!) so I don’t have a lot of time. I have lots of things I want to write about, but I want to REALLY write. You know, articulate my thoughts clearly and re-read my post before I hit the publish button. Luckily, my photographer sent us our engagement picture book which we’ll be using as our guestbook and it arrived today. So, I present blogging without writing—aka pictures of our guestbook:

Ooooh, what’s in this fancy box? Oh, and Cannon, I love your lime green gingham table cloth! *blushing* Thanks! (Ok, I’m done complimenting myself.)
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Man, was I excited to finally get these stupid things in the mail. Honestly, what started as a labor of love grew into a labor of annoyance. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad, but I was behind schedule with them and that always frustrates me. Plus, we kept adding more people, and overall, it was driving me crazy. But I’m happy with them. They’re cute and simple. I think Rainbow Brite would be proud of my use of color, but they don’t look completely childish. I think I achieved a nice balance.

So, here’s the outside. I did a completely simple wrap-around since the invitation is designed to be pretty simple. I didn’t put a stamp on this because I’m obviously not really mailing this to Awesome, YA, but we used the dolphin stamp:
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There were things I was really worried about with this wedding, and things I really didn’t care about. Cake was on the “don’t care” list.

I like cake, but it just seems like it’s not really a big deal when I think of all the other important things we need to do for the wedding. I also know that Mr. Cannon is not much of a cake fan, so groom’s cake wasn’t really in my mind, either. At one point, Mr. Cannon told me his mother had made a few wedding cakes in her day, and not long after that, she volunteered her services. The opportunity for a free cake sounded exciting, especially since I had rainbow cake on my brain to fit in with the rainbow colors. It didn’t seem like something that required a professional baker, especially since I was much more concerned with the appearance of the inside of the cake as opposed to the outside.

Whisk Kid

I sent the rainbow cake link to his mom, and she did a test run this weekend.
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Hey, guys, did you miss me last week? I am ashamed to say that I didn’t blog at all last week, but there was the perfect storm of work, school, and wedding tasks that all needed to be done at once. I had very little free time, and I chose to spend that time with my kid instead of the internet. Sorry! But I do have some exciting (kinda) new things to share.

The wedding task that was pressing this past week was getting the invitations out. I’ll show you the final invite in all its pocketfolded ribboned glory later this week, but today I thought I’d share my address label how-to.

Originally, I wanted to just print the addresses directly on the envelope, but Mr. Cannon told me that our printer would not print on the size of envelopes we have. Boo!
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First, I would like to thank you bees for your advice on our rehearsal dinner dilemma. The majority of your advice emphasized the importance of Mr. Cannon’s opinion and that I need to reduce my stress as we get closer to the wedding. Considering that advice, I made the decision to delegate. I told Mr. Cannon that he and his mother were officially in charge of the rehearsal dinner. I have complete faith in Mr. Cannon, and his mom is a tough lady, so I knew they would come through and they did. He says his mom got everything set up at Pizzapapalis, and I’m taking his word for it and am not worried at all.

Can I tell you how good that feels? Just making the decision that something is not my problem was such a relief. I have had such a hard time delegating wedding tasks for two reasons:

1. If I’m doing something, the only person who can screw it up is me, so I don’t have to worry about anyone else acting responsibly
2. I don’t want people to think I’m some Bridezilla slave driver forcing them to work on my wedding

Both of these reasons are absolutely ridiculous. I’m not the only responsible human being alive, and no one thinks I’m a Bridezilla. All my close friends and family have volunteered to help, so I’m hardly being a slave-driver. It’s time that I relax and let people help. Easier said than done, but I’m working on it.

Back to the point of this post:
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Mr. Cannon has been very excited about the opportunity to brew beer for our wedding. He got into brewing three or four years ago when I bought him a fancy starter kit from Homebrewers Outpost and a few books on the subject for Valentine’s Day. We have brewed together ever since, and I dare say I believe we’ve gotten better at it over the years. I will say Mr. Cannon is way more into brewing than I am, although for some strange reason it always seems like the beers I brew turn out better. Maybe I just add more love or it needs a woman’s touch or something. That’s obviously total crap, but my beers do tend to be the best for whatever reason. (Yes, I’m totally bragging here!)

Most brewing supply stores offer all-grain, partial mash, and malt extract beer kits in addition to a variety of individualized grains, hops, and yeasts so you have the option to design your own beer or follow an already proven design.
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I’ve posted a few pictures of myself here, so you may have noticed something about me. In case you haven’t, I will post this um, over-exposed picture from Mother’s Day to make it clear what I’m talking about:

I am, to use the medical term, emboobulated in the chestal region. As this picture illustrates, if my bra is not doing its job properly, and I have made the ill-advised decision to wear a low-cut shirt, it gets, as scientists say, totes ridonkulous. Of course Mr. Cannon just decided to take this completely over the top (ha, see what I did there?) picture without warning me about my problem. Men! *eye roll*

This is highly relevant to my wedding because I have to maintain a tasteful level of mammary exposure during the event known as “church cleavage.”
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I was pretty anxious for Machine Gun to send me the new and improved wedding files. When I emailed her back to detail what I wanted, I requested something clean, modern and text focused, preferably with a white background and using our rainbow palette (which is bright pink, bright orange, dandelion yellow, Kelly green, turquoise, royal purple). She sent me exactly what I was looking for, and after a few minor adjustments, I had my invitation suite!

First, the invitation page itself:

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This past weekend I took a drive down to Columbus with my mom and Cherry Bomb. My grandma had requested a weekend to work on THE dress, and I was happy to oblige. After a long drive that Cherry Bomb very loudly did not enjoy the last half hour of, we arrived at Grandma’s a bit late to get any work done on Friday. So, we talked a bit, I tried on a top she had made with her pattern adjustments (it fit!), and we went to sleep so we could get an early start on Saturday.

Saturday morning we ate some breakfast and Grandma started cutting and sewing. I worked on paper flowers for the wedding while Cherry Bomb ran around playing with blocks, yelling, and otherwise being a toddler. It was around that time that my mom revealed her big secret- she’s been crocheting a shawl for me to wear at the reception! It’s really pretty, and the color she picked is a pretty perfect match with my crinoline. Mom worked on her crochet and I worked on flowers, stopping only when Cherry Bomb needed a playmate or a diaper change until lunch. I tried things on for Grandma whenever she requested, and she asked me what I thought each time. She made adjustments from there and then hid out with her sewing machine some more.
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