The new All Heart stamp came out from USPS yesterday!
Also making their debut are this year’s wedding stamp duo (42 and 59 cents respectively).
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On Saturday evening, Mr. Lemon and I found ourselves wandering amidst the foothills of Amador County, and just happened upon quite a celebration.
People were dressed in quite the attire (check out the gorgeous girl in white!)…
…there were wine glasses filled to the brim with the finest Chardonnay, and little teal accents all over the place…
… some lucky ladies even got to carry around beautiful flowers!
These folks obviously enjoy having animals either on their cakes…
…or eating animals made of cake! (I ate a piece of Joe’s shirt… because I really couldn’t bare to eat a piece of Joe!)
And there seemed to be water everywhere you turned! The tears were flowing…
…and streams of water poured through the honored couple’s hands.
At the end of the night, there were tiki torches ablaze and revelry to be had amongst the vineyards and under the tent. (I had to edit the photos here… They were far too wild to be shown on weddingbee!)
So without stealing the thunder from one of the most amazing girls I know, I had to say that the Penguin affair was an event not too be missed, and we can’t thank them enough for the honor of attending. The bride was beyond gorgeous in each outfit she adorned, and the groom was glowing all night (even before the cigars were lit). My photos don’t do justice to the magic (I know Sarah’s photos will be sickly amazing!)… but trust me there was lots of it! And now Mr. and Mrs. Penguin get to enjoy wearing new rings, hearing new names and just loving married life!
Your friendly wedding crashers signing off…
Mr. & Mrs. Lemon (who is sporting the latest Bee-trend of lopping the locks)
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What if… ..
your biggest fear about getting married wasn’t about fitting into your dress, or making sure all of the pew bows were tied properly, or that that you’d remember the choreographed dance steps to your first dance? I wish I could say that my mind was preoccupied with programs and favors and ribbons (oh my!) but unfortunately it wasn’t as simple… it was all about NOT being sick on my wedding day.
I was hesitant to write about this before the wedding, mainly because I wanted to avoid any sort of loyal attention to the subject. Certainly wishful thinking would come through on the big day as long as I kept happily not-thinking about the big “s” word happening… and I have a feeling that I’m not the only one out there to battle chronic illness and have the same thoughts floating in my head.
Just to clairfy, I, along with 3-6% of the US population, suffer from fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed 10 years ago when I was 17 when my athletic body melted into uncontrollable pain and spasms, and I’ve been fighting to ignore the pain everyday since then. My pain is mostly in my neck and upper back, and while everyday my muscles are rock hard and I’m constantly stretching and popping things, on bad days I can’t get out of bed as my pain migrates to other areas to inflict harm on new territory. Lots of other fun stuff comes along with the FMS, like tension migraines and IBS, but the suffering really comes from the day-to-day struggle to just keep moving and shrugging off the pain.
My personal history with chronic illness has shown that I always make it through the stressful events in my life, such as final exams, job interviews, performances, etc., but sadly I usually collapse into a heap hours later to awake from a fog days later. My big worry was that I would survive the actual wedding ceremony, but the second I started to let loose on the dance floor, I’d start to feel weak. Or perhaps I’d be fine all day but have a horrible honeymoon on account of the preceding weeks of stress. Let’s just say I had plenty to worry about, and there really wasn’t much I could do but have things around to make sure I was comfortable, relaxed and out of pain.
So I did my best to plan that things went well, everywhere from avoiding all caffeine all day long and making sure that I bought a wedding dress that sat on my rib cage and hips instead of draping on my neck and shoulders. And in the end…. I survived. In the follow-up to this post, I’ll go through of what I did to “set-up” for success… but for now, I just want to leave all of those worrisome brides with a glimmer of hope… that someone who wanted to be anything but her sick self during her wedding made it through with flying colors!
Perhaps the responses to this post will help us realize that we’re not alone out there and that others are facing the same BIG issues… and I hope everyone has as much “healthy luck” as I did on my big day! So good luck to my fellow sickies out there… I’ll be personally cheering you on from the other side!
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If there’s anything that Mr. Lemon and I look forward to at a party… it’s dancing. We may not be the hippest cats in town, but we boogie like no other and notoriously stay on the dance floor long after the music has died down. We knew we’d be dancing all night long, and luckily for us, most of our guests were right there with us!
(p.s. these were stuck in my queue and I never noticed that I hadn’t posted them! Sorry for them being so tardy!)
Our first dance… Fields of Gold by Eva Cassidy
Gotta get some giggles in there somewhere!
Dancing with Dad to “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder
Dip #1 to “Que Sera, Sera”
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Dip #2 … thank goodness he didn’t try this with me!
BM Meagan leading me out to the dance floor to join my new hubby.
Let the dancing begin!
Even Grandpas and babies joined in on the fun!
Our favorite dancing moment of the night…. a roaring jig to “Cotton Eyed Joe” … gotta love it!
Part I: Beauty Shop Prepping
Part II: MAC Attack
Part III: The “Morning-Of” Brunch
Part IV: Aunt Kathi’s Perfect Bedroom
Part V: VroomVroom to the Chapel
Part VI: The Boys In The Garden
Part VII: Rings and Other Ceremony Things
Part VIII: Purty…Purty Flowers
Part IX: Let’s Do This!
Part X: We Do
Part XI: Strike A Pose
Part XII: All By Ourselves
Part XIII: Party Time, Excellent!
Part XVI: Reception Goodies
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When Mr. Lemon and I visited our reception hall the first time we were simply fixated on the windows and the view. The second time around, we focused in on the details… and there was a glaring problem that we had right when you walked off of the elevator:
Now I’m all for celebrating Monterey’s fishing history (despite the way my Dad describes the afternoon stench of the city in the 40s & 50s), but seeing those photos on the wall doesn’t exactly scream, “Let’s Celebrate!” Mr. Lemon examined the photos only to learn that they were quite bolted to the wall which meant they couldn’t be tucked away and stored in the coat closet. He left me with the task of eliminating them from the reception and I let my mind wander toward a solution.
My solution was all quite simple. I decided to make a wooden frame that would sit on top of the canvas boxed photos on the wall, cover it with some sort of canvas material and slap on our favorite engagement photos in poster sizes. The frame would be light enough not to damage the photo underneath, and the fish (along with the giant mug shot of Mr. Ferrantes) would be hidden from view!
The wood to build the frame cost around $5 and I found some white interior decorating fabric for about $6. We stretched the fabric and stapled it to the frame (just like you’d stretch a normal canvas), but we decided it still needed an extra touch. We taped off a border on each canvas and painted it gold, leaving a bit of white inside to center the poster. I had the posters printed at El-Co Color Labs while they were running a 2-for-1 special, so it was around $22 for all four posters. We attached the posters to the fabric using foam wall tape and they were ready for the reception!
(gotta LOVE the metallic print paper… it does amazing things with sunset prints!)
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The 1 cent stamp increase rumors have faded completely … as it seems that someone in the philatelic community read a memo incorrectly and set the collecting world all a flurry!
So mail your .41 cent invitations with pretty stamps without any fear!
(my apologies for any panic that was raised from my earlier post!!!)
So I was happily looking up the release date for the new LOVE stamp for someone on the bulletin board, when I realized something wasn’t right.
Every stamp past April 2008 was listed as being 42 cents… not the current 41 cents. Umm… uh oh? (I had to deal with the postal rate increase in May ’08 so I completely empathize with those that would have to wait and worry about cute stamps)
I quickly checked the source (a USPS postal memo) and it looks like more details will be announced in the coming weeks after a few big meetings, but nothing solid other than a November press release that expected prices to go up in 2008.
So for now this is just an APB for those who are buying their favorite stamps ahead of time… you might want to wait a little bit longer to see what happens…
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Mrs. Lemon, Los Angeles/Monterey
Age and Occupation in 06: 26, Graduate Student (Public Policy)
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Environmental Consultant
Engagement Date: April 7, 2006
Wedding Date: July 7, 2007
Venue: Rosary Chapel & Monterey Marriott, Monterey, CA
About Me: My FI and I met online, but we like to tell people that we met at a "cookie shop" which is the technical location of our first encounter. He proposed exactly 1 year, 1 month and 6 days after our first date (it's the only part of his proposal speech that I remember), and we're planning long-distance from Los Angeles for a July wedding in my hometown of Monterey, CA. I have a passion for all things "cool, cute and quirky" and I enjoy video games, reading blogs (WeddingBee, trashy celeb, consumer & political) and crafting in my spare time, if I have any!
