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On the “eve” of our wedding, I tried to sleep until 8:00 AM before bounding out of bed to tackle my last-minute items. I wanted to finish going through the parcels I’d ordered for Mr. Funnel Cake and myself, because I knew on Sunday we would be packing for the honeymoon.
(Photo Op Eye Enhancing Palette for Blue Eyes from sephora.com)
I had bought myself a fair amount of new makeup, including Smashbox’s Photo Op Eye Enhancing Palette for Blue Eyes, which I was hoping would be the perfect palette for a natural wedding eye.
By the Thursday afternoon in our three-day pre-wedding crunch, things in Funnel Cake land were starting to pick up. Though we both had Polterabends with our Swiss friends at home, we had reserved some time in Columbus for casual mini bachelor/bachelorette dinners. I would be going out to dinner with my two sisters, sisters-in-law, and BFF MOH, while Mr. Funnel Cake was going out with his brother/BM, some of my brothers, and some of my local guy friends.
We got ready for our respective outings and, before you know it, my brother and Mr. Funnel Cake were off to pick BIL FC up from the airport. I was so excited to spend time with my sisters and endeared that my brothers and male friends were going to spend some time getting to know Mr. Funnel Cake and his brother.
(Brush by Sephora, Cream by Skincode, Swiss bag by Skincode, Beauty set from Benefit, and canvas bag designed by me and printed by Vistaprint)
Before heading out for the evening, I had quickly put together some makeup and skincare goodies in these custom (KH)² bags for my bridesmaids (free with a Vistaprint coupon!). I also couldn’t help putting together something in the Skincode bags for my SIL and sister who were helping out in the service at church. I brought half of the gifts with me from Switzerland and the other half I had ordered from Sephora, so it took a bit of time to mix and match everything properly before meeting the girls for dinner.
At Barcelona we enjoyed some delicious tapas and sangria, and after a long dinner each girl shared a story or anecdote about how they knew me. It was incredibly sweet and I was so happy to have spent time with my ladies!
Some of you might recall that during the last few weeks of wedding planning, Mr. Funnel Cake was busy serving in the army. Luckily I didn’t have to worry too much about his mortal safety, but I did worry about him getting into accidents. He has a habit of coming home from the army with cuts and scratches, bruises and dirt baked into his skin.
Thank goodness he didn’t arrive home with another gash on his forehead, but he did show up with his usual dry, dirt-baked hands. I had chided him nightly on the phone about moisturizing daily, but as you can imagine, when surrounded by men, he wasn’t that interested in pampering himself publicly.
“It’s not manly!’”
I photographed a friend’s wedding earlier that year and told Mr. Funnel Cake that I hoped his hands would look a little more “groomed” than the groom’s hands on our wedding day.
After settling the cake business we arrived at Metro Cuisine and met with the head honcho, Margaret, who wasn’t exactly what I had imagined from Mama Funnel Cake’s emails. In my mind, I was picturing a robust, middle-aged woman helping us, but walking towards me was an elderly petite woman with short grey hair peeking out from a black cap.
(Margaret in action—Photo by wedding guest)
If I had any doubt at all about Margaret’s vigor in those first few seconds, it was immediately diminished when Margaret greeted me with a hearty hug and got down to business. More like a drill sergeant than anything, Margaret didn’t miss a beat as she went through each and every detail with us about our event. It’s pretty clear that she has a very firm handle on all her events no matter what age she is!
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After I crashed in bed on Wednesday night after traveling from Switzerland, it was time to rise early on Thursday so we could get going with wedding errands. Mr. Funnel Cake wasn’t too keen on the 7:00AM alarm during holidays, but we had to drop off our cake topper to Katie from The Cake Studio before meeting with the caterer.
When breakfast was over, I rushed upstairs to start going through the mountain of packages I had sent to Mama Funnel Cake’s house during the planning months. I needed to make sure everything was pulled out that needed to go to the caterer before we could head to our cake appointment.
Mama Funnel Cake drove us to Powell to Katie’s house where Katie sat us down and served us all pieces of cake at nine in the morning. It was pretty good cake as Mama Funnel Cake had described in her initial cake tasting, but I was more impressed by all of the gorgeous cakes sitting around Katie’s client room. They were simply stunning!
Wednesday morning before our wedding, Mr. Funnel Cake and I headed to the airport to fly from Switzerland to Ohio. After a long, painful day of flying, we arrived in Columbus around 7 PM and were greeted by Mama and Sister Funnel Cake, my MOH, and her family. It was a happy but short reunion. I had a hair trial to get to!
My friendor stylist is still an apprentice, which means that during working hours she can only observe her assigned stylist. Her only days of the week off work were Wednesday and Sunday, which meant that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday she would be working. (Crap!) Our only time to do a trial would be in the evenings…and on the wedding day she would need to come early enough to make it to work on time—which was fine because I needed to get ready at early-o’clock for our 9:00 AM church date!
Friday night was out because that was our rehearsal-dinner night, and Thursday didn’t really work either unless I wanted to cancel my mini-bachelorette dinner with my sisters. That meant that the only possible time we could get together for a trial was after I had been traveling for 18 hours.
Grrreat.
At my parents’ house, in my little sister’s room, Friendor and I discussed the two inspiration styles I had shown her:
(Mrs. Tartlet’s wedding-day look, captured by Aruna B. Photography)
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
OK, hive, I admit to a long, guilty newlywed pause here…but we need to get this show on the road. Funnel Cake recaps are starting, rain or shine!
Photo by www.timwill.com / (Funny tidbit: we got married on the 29th, but the photographer wrote the “Ninth” here. Just noticed that now! At least he got the year right…)
Dear hive, I have missed you! I promise I have not fallen off the face of the Earth. I finally got my paws on our pro photos last week and I am starting to write recaps after I stop coveting my photos like Gollum and a certain ring.
In the meantime… hope you had a happy Mardi Gras!!
Mr. Funnel Cake had been bugging me for awhile if I would make him some funnel cake because he has never had this American delicacy. He claimed that it is unfair to hold the title “Mr. Funnel Cake” without actually knowing what his moniker tastes like.
Like many brides, I had a few nightmares here and there about the impending wedding. Mostly things like the wedding arriving a lot earlier than I had planned or Mr. Funnel Cake seeing me in my dress before the wedding. Just small stuff. And when the big day finally came and everything was just perfect, I really thought my nightmares would be over.
Wrong.
They started on the honeymoon. Post-wedding nightmares. I would wake in gorgeous Hawaii, turn to Mr. Funnel Cake and tell him with wide eyes “I just dreamt XYZ happened at the wedding!!!” and he would look at me like I was nuts. Who stresses about an event that is already over?? Apparently lots of hive members have post-wedding nightmares as well though. (Thank God I’m not alone!)
For the most part I keep dreaming that I am late and I need to get dressed already. I don’t have all my preparation items with me and I have to improvise on hair and makeup. Everything is rush, rush, rush. Why, just last night I dreamt I was in my parents’ front yard sewing flowers on to my wedding skirt the morning of the big day and Mama Funnel Cake was yelling at me about having dirt all over myself. We were running short on time, of course. I kept saying, “Just one more flower and it’s done, just one more flower!”
I think my favourite post-wedding nightmare so far was the one where Mama Funnel Cake informed me that President John F. Kennedy would be attending the wedding as a guest and that I needed to give him a VIP tour of our house before the wedding started.
Read more…
We may not have splurged on videography at the wedding, but on the honeymoon we had all the time in the world to make a video ourselves. Mr. Funnel Cake planned on taking his new GoPro on the honeymoon to document the trip and try out some underwater filming when we went scuba diving. His filming captured perhaps the most amazing thing I have witnessed in my life—watching manta rays feeding underwater at night. I’m no videographer, but I’ve put together a quick cut of our trip to try and give you a taste of what our honeymoon was like while we basked in the warm glow of newlywed bliss.
Tech specs: Footage was shot on the HD Helmet HERO (Mr. FC bought it right before the new version came out… like a week later. You can imagine how annoyed he was!) in 960p = 1280×960 pixels (4:3), 30 fps, 12 Mbit/s data rate because Mr. FC’s computer doesn’t handle the 1080p HD footage very well. Edited to 640×360 (16:9) in iMovie ’11 because I’m a film newbie!
Of course, aside from the GoPro filming, we both had our cameras with us because we love travel photography. Hawaii had me waking up like a kid at Christmas every morning to race out and soak in the amazing scenery.
Read more…
Long ago, I revealed our Hawaiian rental treasures to the hive. I was pretty excited about staying at all three rental places, but I wasn’t expecting the awful amount of rain that we encountered during our stay in Hawaii. We made the best of the weather though, and here I am to report back about the quality of the rental homes in case you happen to be planning a honeymoon (or vacation) to the islands.
Nightly Rate: $98-110
When we arrived at the first house, the sun was setting and Mr. Funnel Cake raced out excitedly to see the ocean from the property.
Weddings sure can be expensive sometimes. The Funnel Cake wedding, as you might be able to tell from our planning, was not easy on the bank either. So what did that mean for *my* personal budget?
Well… just the act of getting married civilly in Switzerland changed my financial situation for the worse. In 2010 I lost 11% of my annual income when I switched to my new married tax status. 11%! The change was less of a shock for Mr. Funnel Cake, who as a Swiss citizen already “enjoyed” a much higher tax rate than foreigners here. (Don’t even try to make sense of that.)
With the loss of my income to the tax man, I also was disturbed to learn at the beginning of 2011 that as a citizen-level taxpayer you are supposed to pay your Swiss taxes for the year before you earn that money. So as this year began, I scrambled to gather my funds together to pay the upcoming taxes I would owe on money that I would be earning this year. Instantly I missed my monthly taxes I’d enjoyed as a single foreigner! Mr. Funnel Cake was used to this method, so of course he was all set to pay his part of the taxes. Hmmph.
It was this awful tax change that stopped my savings dead in its tracks.
Read more…
OK hive, I’ve gone on long enough about the lengthy search for my wedding ring. You are probably wondering what the heck I ended up choosing, so I present to you my shiny treasure!
After weeks of revisiting the jewelry store to recheck if this was reeeaaaaally the ring I wanted, Mr. Funnel Cake purchased it last Christmas and shortly after New Year I was bringing my precious home to wait for ten months until our wedding would arrive. I may or may not have tried the ring on several thousand times before the wedding. But only to make sure it still fit, you know?
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!
Part of what sparked the whole ring drama with Mr. Funnel Cake was that after I chose my beautiful engagement ring, I went online to search for wedding band ideas and had NO idea what would match with it. I just knew that I really didn’t care to have a band like this on my finger:
Do you recognise my original engagement ring up there? (It’s the one Mr. Funnel Cake proposed with the first time.) I thought it would be really sweet if I decided to use the silver band FC proposed with as my actual wedding ring, but I still did not like the ring that much.
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Mrs. Funnel Cake, Zürich, Switzerland/Columbus, Ohio Age and Occupation: 24, Visual Communication Designer Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Application Engineer Engagement Date: May 30, 2010 Wedding Date: October 2011 Venue: Catholic church followed by a botanical conservatory About Me: I'm an American designer who moved to Switzerland for love after a fairytale beginning at the top of the Eiffel Tower. I love travel, photography, museums, learning German so I can speak with my mother-in-law, cooking (eating), cuddling, and I'm not afraid to try something new even if it terrifies me. My Swiss/Brazilian man and I are both down to earth people planning a traditional Catholic wedding in my hometown with some quirky cultural exceptions to reflect our different backgrounds. We look forward to celebrating with friends and family from all over the world in a classic, sophisticated fusion of heritage and love.
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