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We talked a little bit before the wedding about the possibility of Mr. Mole getting ready in another room. My mom suggested that he could get ready in my sister and brother-in-law’s room, since they were staying next door at the Encore. Our photographer mentioned that we could always stage his “getting ready” shots if we decided to go in that direction.
However, we decided pretty quickly that we would get dressed in our suite, together. I liked the symbolism of it. We got ready for our marriage together—by talking about our aspirations and dreams, by discussing our wants and needs, by growing as individuals and as a couple. Thus, we would get ready for our wedding together as well. It was the best decision for us, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It was wonderful to spend that time with him.
(Plus, on a practical note, we had a huge, multi-room hotel suite. We had plenty of space to each get ready without getting in the other one’s way!)
Mr. Mole says he wasn’t nervous about the wedding, but it took him two tries to tie his tie correctly. (Of course, I can’t talk here, as we had to try multiple times to tie the belt on my dress.) He did it perfectly, though, in the end.
After putting on the finishing touches, our photographer spent a few minutes taking some glamour shots of me. Now, I know that “glamour shots” brings with it the association of overly teased hair, neon makeup, and gradient backgrounds. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately, depending on your perspective) there are going to be none of those things here. However, the photos that I am about to show you make me feel truly glamorous—much more so than I ever thought that I could be.
Some of these photos are digital; some of them are film.
I woke up early on the morning of our wedding. I had been having some stress dreams during the week before, mostly involving being lost or forgetful. Like that crazy dream where you realize that you have a huge exam coming up and you didn’t even remember that you were enrolled in the class in the first place? However, I woke up that morning with an overwhelming sense of anticipation and eagerness. I was fully, completely ready to get married.
There’s always that subtle change in a relationship, from wanting someone to be part of your life to realizing that someone is an integral part of it. Over the course of our three years together, we made that change and celebrated it with our engagement. Now, we were prepared to make that change permanent through our wedding.
I was also prepared to make the shift from bride to wife. The only thing left to do was to get physically ready. My dress was cleaned and pressed, and my hair and makeup artist was on her way.
My mom and my sister arrived at our suite at 10:30 AM, and Amelia C. and her intern immediately got to work. I opened a bottle of Kung Fu Girl Riesling, and we drank the wine through straws as we talked, read gossip magazines, and took our turns getting all made up. Amelia was great. My makeup was gorgeous. My hair was also really nice. Mr. Mole really liked how soft and natural my hair was that day (read: my trademark cowlick made its presence known).
On Friday evening, we arranged for all of our guests to meet at our hotel suite before walking to Stripburger for our “rehearsal” dinner. Rehearsal is in scare quotes here because we didn’t do a practice run-through of our ceremony, so the only thing that we rehearsed that day was eating delicious food. Anyway, it was the first time that weekend that we saw all of our loved ones together, including people who had to travel from Chicago and Milwaukee and New York City to get to Vegas.
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Our wedding in Las Vegas took place during the Chinese New Year festivities. Chinese New Year, which celebrates the first day of the lunar calendar, is the most important—and the longest—of the traditional Chinese holidays. Two thousand twelve marks the year of the dragon: the year that is often considered to be the luckiest. Mr. Mole and I didn’t specifically plan for our wedding to occur during this holiday, but it ended up being a happy coincidence.
One benefit of having our wedding at the Wynn during Lunar New Year was that the casino was completely decked out for the holiday. The atrium featured Chinese-inspired floral and sculpture displays, which included more than 8,000 red and yellow chrysanthemums, cherry blossoms, red lanterns, and silk dragons. There were also dozens and dozens of kumquat trees, decorated with hanging red envelopes.
Good luck and fortune!
On Friday morning, we had plans to go get our marriage license. Part of our wedding package included a limo ride to the courthouse, which seemed like a fitting form of transportation on the fifth day of Lunar New Year, the God of Wealth’s birthday. I had never been in a limo before!
The drive to Vegas from our home is around 275 miles each way. On the way to Vegas on the Wednesday before our wedding, two things happened that made me even more convinced that Mr. Mole was my ideal husband and partner. First, he allowed me to play my favorite car karaoke song—REM’s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite”—at least five times. He even sang along. If you know this song, you will understand how impressive that is. Second, he kept me calm when we realized, at an El Pollo Loco in Victorville, CA, 100 miles into the trip, that we forgot to put the garment bag with my rehearsal dinner dress into the car. (Despite our packing list!) Womp womp.
Mr. Mole stayed completely level-headed, as I tried not to cry into my containers of salsa. He called his brother-in-law, A, who also lives in Los Angeles and would be coming to Vegas the next day. Luckily for us, we gave A a copy of our apartment keys for emergencies—not knowing that the first “emergency” we had would be wardrobe-related. He drove over that same night and picked it up. Thanks again, A!
The rest of the drive was uneventful and Sidewinder-free (I figured I owed Mr. Mole as much.) We made it to Mr. Mole’s parents’ home around 11PM, and we immediately crashed on the pull-out couch. The next morning, we slept in, lounged around, and ran some errands.
That afternoon, we checked into our suite at the Wynn. We had originally booked an executive suite, and the concierge offered to upgrade us for a fee to a Salon suite, which clocks in at a whopping 1960 square feet. This suite, by the way, is almost double the size of our apartment. We turned it down, laughing, only to have her upgrade us to a Parlor suite for free. This suite was a more “reasonable” size at 1280 square feet. When we entered the room, our jaws both dropped.
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Hello hive! I can’t believe that I have been blogging here for almost six months. What better way to celebrate our half-anniversary together than to kick off the Mole recaps? Last week, we received our professional photographs from our January wedding in Las Vegas. I am so excited to have this disc in my (creepy) mole fingers, and I can’t wait to share our wedding and hometown party with you. Our pictures are beautiful.
Now that I am a married woman, I decided that it was time to finally end my three-year relationship with Bob. We had been carrying on far, far too long. Things were getting dull. I was ready for a change. A clean cut. A chop.
That’s right. I made an appointment with my hairdresser to switch things up from my normal, graduated bob hairstyle. I was ready for the popular Post Wedding Chop. Before I reveal my new look, here’s a reminder of what my hair looked like. The picture below is obviously from my wedding ceremony, but my everyday hair looked pretty similar (minus the huge, sparkly comb). I am normally in color as well.
Bob! / Photo by Cashman Photography
My hairdresser did a great job, especially considering the fact that I only gave him two vague directions. 1. I like Michelle Williams’ hair. 2. I don’t want to be mistaken on the street for a man. He laughed, and he started cutting. I have to admit that I had a moment of pause (okay, panic) when I realized how short it was in the back. I hadn’t had hair this short since I was in diapers.
A few months ago, I talked a bit about the idea of changing my last name. Now, one month into our marriage, I have begun the actual process of changing my name. Happy Month-versary, Mr. Mole! Let’s celebrate by visiting various governmental agencies! Whee!
Every day’s a party at the DMV / Image via Oregon Live
Let me tell you right now: changing your name mainly involves standing in line, sitting in waiting rooms, and making phone calls. It’s not a hard process by any means. It’s just…boring. There are quite a few services out there, like Miss Now Mrs. or Name Change Express, that will help you change your name for a $30 fee. However, I’m here to help you through the process—at least in the United States—for free!
Read more…
Many newlyweds choose to save the top layer of their wedding cake to eat on their first anniversary. Then, the couple can share both the cake and their memories of that special day which began their marriage. This tradition seems to date back to the nineteenth century. Spoiler alert: Mr. Mole and I are not ones for a lot of wedding traditions.
Our cake in Vegas consisted of two tiers of vanilla cake and lemon curd: one 12″ round, and one 10″ round. I was pretty surprised that we ended up driving back from Vegas with the entire top tier of our cake. After all, we both come from a family of cake (and ice-cream cake) eaters.
One question that is often asked of newlyweds is, “So, how’s married life?” Mr. Mole and I have probably been asked this question dozens of times in the weeks that we’ve been married. My immediate answer to this question is always, “Great!” And it has been great so far. Really, really great.
That being said, this question always gives me some pause—mainly because it implies that some fundamental change has occurred. Yes, we are now married. That’s a big change. Our relationship has taken on new legal and symbolic values. That’s another change too. But, honestly, I have to say that not much has changed in our day-to-day lives since Mr. Mole and I were married. We now both wear rings. We now have new sheets, new silverware, new glassware, and new small kitchen appliances. We now have a ton of pictures of us, including some amazing teasers from our photographer.
A few of our 20ish teasers / Photos by Brian Saculles
Bienvenido de vuelta a los “recaps” de la luna del miel de los topos. When we last left off, Mr. Mole and I were leaving Secrets Maroma Beach and heading to beautiful Cozumel. We took a cab to Playa del Carmen and then hopped the ferry across to the island. Luckily, we packed lightly on our honeymoon, so we only had two carry-on sized roller bags to transport with us.
There was a band on the ferry to entertain us, but I was just happy looking at all of the beautiful scenery and taking photos.
¡Hola, chicas! We have returned from our honeymoon in Mexico at Secrets Maroma Beach and the Presidente Intercontinental Cozumel with many great memories, lots of pictures, and some pretty epic tan lines.
Photo by Adventure Photos
Hello everyone! On Saturday, Mr. Mole and I were married. The day, like the rest of the weekend, was absolutely perfect.
What’s important to point out though, is not everything went absolutely perfectly. Despite my packing list, a garment bag was forgotten. The flowers on our cake didn’t match our color scheme. My bustle took several tries to get right: a process that ended with me taking off the dress completely, helping tie up the ribbons while only wearing my “something blue” thong. (Our absolutely amazing photographer has no photographs of that part of the evening, thankfully.) My dress ended up with a huge tear in the organza along the hem after a highly entertaining walk back from the Venetian to the Wynn.
None of that mattered. None of it. At all. At the end of the day, we were married. We exchanged vows (Mr. Mole’s were amazing). We gave each other our rings. We celebrated with our loved ones. We ate delicious food. We thanked strangers who congratulated us on the Strip. We laughed. We smiled until our faces hurt.
Mr. Mole showing off his new ring; Me showing off Mr. Mole
Dear hive,
It’s almost that time, friends. The big day is almost here. Tomorrow, our third anniversary, Mr. Mole and I are getting married! Hurray!
Back in mid-October, when I first started blogging for Weddingbee, I couldn’t imagine how rewarding this experience would be. I just wanted to thank you for all of the connections that I made throughout the last three months, both on the blog and on the boards. Hive, your caring and critical feedback has made planning this low-key wedding a (mostly) stress-free process! I value every single comment that has been left on my posts, from suggestions about which glasses Mr. Mole should wear to opinions about cross-cultural name changes to stories of personal experiences with ideal marriage timelines to encouraging statements about my wedding weight loss goals. I thank you one and all. I especially thank you bees who challenged me to think deeper, to write better, to reach out more. I am so honored to be a part of this wonderful community.
I also need to thank Mr. Mole. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For being here. For being you. It’s hard to express in words how much I appreciate you and all that you do. You are my person, my partner, my friend, my love. You are a wholly amazing person, and I thank the universe every day that I was fortunate enough to meet you. Online, no less! Everyday you inspire me to be a better person, a more generous person, a more kind person, a more loving person. I cannot wait to make my vows to you in front of all of our loved ones. I cannot wait to be your wife. I cannot wait until tomorrow.
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Mrs. Mole, Los Angeles/Las Vegas Age and Occupation: 29, Test Prep Instructor Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, User Experience Architect Engagement Date: April 2011 Wedding Date: January 2012 Venue: Wynn Las Vegas/Bouchon Bistro About Me: I’m a Wisconsinite-turned-Angeleno who is planning a destination wedding in Las Vegas. I am passionate about education: I spent 23 (!) consecutive years in school, and now I work to help other people get into graduate programs. I love running on the treadmill, buying bath products from Lush, learning new moves in step aerobics, and exploring my neighborhood on foot. I am sometimes snobby about food, but I am rarely snobby about books. I read everything from Geoffrey Chaucer to Iris Murdoch to Chuck Klosterman to Candace Bushnell. My fiance and I are getting married on our third anniversary!
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