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We came back a few days ago to a wrecked house and (thanks to an infestation of pantry moths a few days before the wedding) no food. Our luggage and unopened gifts turned our living room into a pond of stuff, more fit for wading than walking through.
Still, it was a relief to be back and sleeping in our own bed. It was an even bigger relief to have a pile of unopened gifts waiting for us at 5:30 in the morning when jet-lag left us unable to do anything but toss and turn. One of the best so far has been a family genealogy where Mr. Lollipop’s relatives thoughtfully added me to the family tree. Aww!
Our professional pictures should be ready soon as will my recaps of our honeymoon destinations, Bali and Hong Kong. Whee!
Wow. I married Mr. Lollipop 24 hours ago, and now I am sitting in the Phoenix airport for the first of many connections before we arrive at our honeymoon destination. I feel so happy, so satisfied and so full of love. I’ll be posting pictures soon and writing about our trip, but first I’ll need to fulfill my backlog of pre-wedding entries. So, let’s just pretend that I’m getting married in two weeks, or until I catch up. Thanks!
Our cake baker has finally returned one of my messages and now I am officially on my own for my wedding cake. Strangely, I feel relieved. I won’t be stuck with a cake that I haven’t seen before the wedding and I won’t hurt my baker’s feelings if I show up with a backup cake. She’s a friend and having a tough time, so instead of being irritated I have nothing but sympathy for what she is going through.
Anyhow, full speed ahead!
The best advice I can give to other DIY brides is to test! everything! I am surprised everyday by the varied ways that things can go wrong. Case in point, our favors:
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Mr. Lollipop once tried to add up all the time I spent on our invitations. I had to stop him because I couldn’t contemplate the amount of time I put into them without losing my mind a little. I started sketching in November, did the design in April, screen printed in May, letter pressed in June, and finally mailed them in July. Of course, I had lots of help on the last three, but the point is that I spent lots of time in the print studio that could have been used to learn a martial art or a new language.
Still, I don’t think I could bear to let anyone else design our invitations.
I put invitation page together to carry on the tree theme we used on the cover:
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
A few days ago, on a whim I googled my WeddingBee name and discovered that the top result is not for a person, but for an airplane. The original Miss Lollipop was a B-17 bomber that flew missions over Europe during World War II. While the lovely Miss L found an inauspicious end at the bottom of the English Channel after only three months of service, the coincidence stirred the aviation genes deep within me.
And those genes came directly from my father, an aircraft mechanic. When I was younger, he took us to dozens of aircraft museums and we would spend hours looking at aircraft spanning the whole existence of human flight. And my dad knew something about each one, some fact or story. I really treasure that time spent with him and with the things he knows best. My brother must have felt the same; he grew up to be a pilot. I grew up to be someone who really loves planes. Every year when I lived in DC I would go to the Air and Space Museum for my birthday and would name as many planes as I could when driving past as a tour guide.
So, my inner aviation nerd collaborated with my inner design nerd to produce two stenciled B-17 travel cases, one for me and one for Mr. Lollipop.
Mr. Lollipop, I probably don’t need to tell you that you should wait to read this one until after the wedding.
I bought my dress almost exactly a year ago today. I wasn’t supposed to buy my dress when I did; I had only been engaged for a month. I was planning on a long, slow fight trying on dozens and dozens of dresses until I drowned in a pool lace and beads and tiny, fabric-covered buttons. We took a trip to the local David’s Bridal store because it was convenient and would be a good place to establish a baseline before moving on to more expensive stores. We wanted to know how I looked in a strapless vs. a v-neck dress, or an A-line vs. ball gown, etc.
I find David’s to be a hit or miss place. The staff can either be personable or grumpy and the dresses can be poorly made with cheap materials or pass for a much more expensive gown. It all depends on the store and the timing. Somehow we managed to get both right.
I went to the store in Robinson Township that day with just my mom and one of my bridesmaids. Through a stroke of luck we managed to hit the $100 dress sale. I tried on my first two gowns and both were not quite right. It turns out that both v-neck and strapless dresses make me look like a space alien.
Crud. So, my cake baker moved to Maryland and now she isn’t answering my emails. It might just be a momentary blip, but just in case, we have a plan to make the cake ourselves. Luckily, it will be a rice crispy cake and therefore easy to make structurally. I have some experience decorating with icing, so I hope that I can put something together that won’t look like it was made by a drunken marmoset. We are trying to keep it simple with plain white icing and decorations that can be made separately.
I couldn’t find marzipan anywhere that wasn’t already as hard as a rock, and I don’t trust myself with fondant, and so the decorations were made from Fimo clay. The figures were inspired by the penguin habitat in the back of our reception venue. There are 32 penguins total. There are 24 on the first layer, 6 on the second and two slightly larger ones on top.
Weddingbees, I need your help. I put together a table layout yesterday to get an idea of what our reception will look like, but I’m torn about what kind of table cloth to use. We’re currently signed up for a cream colored tablecloth, but it might make the table look washed out. Orange would be too eye-watering, and bright green would hide the ring of circles and wheat grass around the centerpiece, and I spent far too long cutting them out to lose them. Maybe I should go for a celadon green?
Our post-wedding thank you cards are much different than our pre-wedding cards and most of our other stationery. This is mostly because 1) screen printing in multiple colors is labor intensive and 2) I am tired.So, I went with a single color linoleum block print of our logo:
So, our hotel block didn’t work out too well. My fiance’s family booked a hotel 12 miles out of town so that they could save a few dollars, and my family procrastinated until the block expired. In the end, only five rooms out of the 20 were reserved before the deadline. We had planned to hire a shuttle service to drive everyone back to their hotels so that no one would have an excuse to drive while intoxicated. However, with our family scattered to the wind, such a shuttle suddenly became impractical.
What should I do? Would it be enough to frame some phone numbers for taxi companies, place them on the bar and leave it to the guests to make their own arrangements?
I’m not really in to having things thrown at me or leaving a mess on the church steps, so I had to think of something to replace the traditional rice or bird seed. Bubbles wouldn’t be a good substitute; I’ve never been able to open those little bottles without spilling their contents all over myself.So, to give everyone something to hold, I decided to hand out flags:
We started our search for a venue over a year ago, and it was by far the one wedding decision that required the most leg-work and careful research. We didn’t visit some well known locations like the Priory, Hyeholde or Armstrong Farms, but we did look at a variety of venues running a whole range of prices. Most of the observations below are a year old, so take them with the usual amount of salt.
Inspired by Miss Eggplant’s post, I thought I would also post a list of our recent ups and downs.
Yay! All of my bridesmaids have purchased and tailored their gowns.
Boo! Our cake baker just moved to Maryland, though she swears that she’ll still get our cake done. I’m worried because we won’t be there for the trial run of the design.
Yay! We had enough guests decline so that we will be under budget and fit in our venue comfortably (although no surprises with so many guests overseas).
Boo! We will really miss seeing most of the guests who won’t be there.
Yay! Our koi nobori finally arrived! They will be used to decorate the aquarium and the church and they mark our last big wedding purchase.
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Mrs. Lollipop, Pittsburgh Age and Occupation: 26, Computational Linguist Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Project Manager Engagement Date: August 2, 2006 Wedding Date: September 2, 2007 Blogging Since: July 17, 2007 Venue: The PPG Aquarium at the Pittsburgh Zoo About Me: I'm a Pittsburgh transplant who grew up in the deep south. I have a weakness for exotic alphabets, DIY projects, mobster movies and international travel. My fiance and I are both non-native Japanese speakers and we have a bullfrog named Skinny.
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