Weddingbee Blog

Part I: Let’s Get Beautified — pre-wedding prep
Part II: First Look — pre-wedding portraits

**all pictures courtesy of my photographer John Schnack

One of the most involved pieces of the wedding planning process was becoming familiar with the traditions of a Greek Orthodox wedding. I grew up in the Catholic church, but my family wasn’t really active in going to church or actively participating in faith-based activities. Mr. P wasn’t really into weddings, so while he’d been to other Greek Orthodox weddings, he didn’t internalize anything he was supposed to know. Hopefully, this step-by-step blog post (with pictures!) will be helpful.

Since we saw each other before the ceremony, we shared a limo with our bridal party. It was nice to spend that time with him beforehand to whisper the words of love and to take the edge off the nervousness we were both sure to feel. When we arrived at the church, everyone went inside except for my maid of honor, bridesman, and me. We sat in the limo in the nice, cool air conditioning (the end of July in Los Angeles is no joke!) and watched some of the last guests rush inside to arrive. We called a mutual friend who was unable to make it from Florida for the wedding and left him a message, then went inside for the fun!

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Part I: Let’s Get Beautified

Every time I see our “first look” pictures, I think of a song that I’ve loved since my pre-teen years called “The First Time” by Surface. Specifically, this part of the song

Can you tell from the look on my face
That I love you more today
The first time I looked into your eyes I cried
Do you remember the first time
We fell in love
You looked into my eyes
Wiped the tears away
The first time
When we fell in love

I think that best encapsulates how I felt when I first saw Mr. Pearl that day, then looked into his eyes.

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***sidenote: our pro pics are in and they’re AMAAAAAAAAAZING! Seriously, I am in hardcore love with them.***

During the wedding planning process, one of the things I knew I wanted for sure was that I wanted to stay at the hotel our reception was going to be at. I wanted a pampered pre-wedding night that was relaxing and enabled me to spend a night away from placecards and menus and obsessing about wedding details. This forced me to be done with everything at least one night early. I know, NBD for most people, but there are some brides who go down to the wire on prepping. I also got to be with my maid of honor and my bridesman who are two of my best friends ever and who make me laugh until my stomach hurts and I’m gasping for air.

The night before the wedding, MOH and I went to drop off some stuff to my coordinator, then went back to the hotel. I didn’t have time earlier that day to straighten my hair, so MOH helped me flat iron. We were having a great time talking and laughing as she worked when all the sudden, the flat iron sparked a couple of times, then died. It’s OK, it was on its last legs anyway. Luckily my MOH is so on the ball, she brought one of her own just in case, so we finished up with only a couple of minor burning incidents.

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Dear Fed-Ex,

I know that you are professionals. I know that you are in the business of delivering packages. I also know that you are restrained by the laws of physics in how quickly you can deliver packages. However, please be advised that my photographer has shipped my proof book and my CD of high resolution images through your service. As such, I must demand that you ignore the laws of physics and the natural world to get me my wedding pictures ASAP. Since you are professionals, I am sure you have dealt with requests like this and would be more than happy to accommodate my neurosis.

Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,
Anxious Wife

During that post-wedding letdown period (where you realize that you’re not wedding planning anymore and miss the more fun components of planning the event), many women think about starting up wedding-related businesses. Sometimes it’s a fleet of fancy and the person gives up on the idea when they realize they don’t really like it. I have always loved planning events and did as much during my college career. It seemed pretty natural that after planning the wedding, I’d look into planning other people’s special events. Over the last couple of months of marital bliss, I’ve not taken the time to pursue this career path because I’ve been busy with life in general.

On Thursday night, after I came home from Back To School Night, I was de-stressing and watching TV when my phone rang. It was a woman, Em, who was getting married on October 6.

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But bad for my waistline.

One of the yummy discoveries I made while visiting New York City was Crumbs Bakeshop. I blogged about this previously, so I’ll spare you the gory details revisited. My dreams of that time have come true! Crumbs Bakeshop has opened a franchise on the West Coast, specifically California. Even more specifically, in Beverly Hills, merely 2 blocks from Sprinkles Cupcakes!

The franchise was slated to open last Friday. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to go to sample the cupcakes before blogging, but I’ll be swinging by soon to sample the West Coast version and make sure they’re up to snuff The cupcakes are made in a certified kosher kitchen and they do custom arrangements for wedding cupcakes.

Crumbs Bakeshop
9465 South Santa Monica Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 550-9811
www.CrumbsBakeShop.com

When we went to the courthouse to get our marriage license, Mr. P and I decided to get a confidential marriage license. No, this doesn’t mean our marriage is a secret (or that we’re keeping it a secret). No, it doesn’t mean we love each other any less.

We chose to get a confidential marriage license for a couple of reasons:

1. We value some elements of our privacy. I mean obviously, if I have a blog and put info about myself and stuff into Cyberspace, I’m not a CIA operative (or am I?), but all our personal biz doesn’t need to be out there.

2. Did you know just anyone can walk into a court house and request a copy of your marriage license info if you do not have a confidential license?

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There’s no getting out of it now. . . we received our marriage certificate in the mail yesterday! Yes, we did get married on July 28. The county recorder told us to expect it in 20 days, but I guess they either worked reeeeeeeeally slowly or there was a glut of 7-7-7 brides in Los Angeles County (or both).

I took the certificate in to Mr. Pearl who was in the bedroom. We had a sappy little moment together, then he did the ultimate in sappiness.

He put our reception introduction song on his computer.

As we stood in the bedroom and had a kiss while grinning like silly fools over our marriage certificate and listening to “Happy Together”, I was reminded of how blessed and fortunate I feel to be married to my hubby. Now I get the “fun” of going through the name change process. Woo-freakin’-hoo.

Back in August, I blogged about my family’s strange disinterest in my wedding, including my cousin, who didn’t RSVP, but sent me a wedding invitation in the interim.

After receiving bizarre, bitchy messages from his beebee fiancee today claiming that I “bashed” my cousin in that blog post, I will amend the blog to say that about 5 days after I posted that message, we received a gift from him.

Because naturally, my love can be bought.

Happy first monthiversary to us! Exactly one month ago today, we were married in the best. wedding. ever (at least, in my opinion)!

We lived together for almost a year prior to getting married (and spent several nights a week together before that), so it’s not like we had to deal with the transition of merging lives and belongings. A lot of people who live together before marriage say that nothing really changed once they were married. In some ways, I guess that’s true. But it does feel a little bit different. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what or how. It’s beyond that immense sense of pride I feel when we go out together and I’m wearing my wedding ring and beyond being able to check “married” on official government forms. I guess it’s more a feeling of contentedness (is that even a word?) that we’re married and the firm belief that finally, I feel like my life is moving in the right direction.

Happy monthiversary, love.

How do you think your life is going to change once you’re married? Do you have any moves to make (long distance, with each other, etc)? If you’re already married, how did things change for you, if at all?

1. He thoughtfully cleans up the mess from me making dinner, even though he didn’t eat what I made.

2. He takes me to 7-11 at midnight to fill an ice cream craving.

3. When I bring home the supplies for an ice cream sundae (that I’ve been talking about for literally 2 weeks), he laughs that I bought light vanilla ice cream, but doesn’t judge.

4. He’ll take time out of his schedule to help me pack up and move my classroom.

5. He doesn’t care that I practically kill his Palm battery playing solitaire.

6. Because he tears up when he talks about his dog that passed away earlier this year at 12 years old.

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On Saturday night, Mr. P and I went to The Grove for dinner and a movie. Apparently we have settled into this as our routine. We’re an old married couple after 3 weeks.I digress.

We thought about seeing Superbad, but after noting they already had a line at 9:30 for the 11:15 showing, we decided to skip it. We walked toward the exit and I heard someone yell out “Miss Pearl” (OK, my real unmarried last name, but you know what I mean). I saw it was a group of about 4 or so of my students from last year. I was glad to see them because in the summer time, I really miss my kids. We talked for a bit, then they went out in search of girls to hit on and we went off to leave.

I was thinking about it later and I realized that talking to them might have been potentially awkward . . . at least for them. I remember when I used to see my teachers out and about and it was like seeing an alien or a science experiment or something. It was something kind of creepy and bizarre — like a-whaaaaaaaaaaaaat, teachers actually go out to dinner/grocery shopping/to the mall?!?! And it hit me. I am that alien. I am that weird science experiment. As young and cool and fetch as I feel, high school graduation was 8 years ago.

I am a grown up.

*tear*

A couple of weeks prior to the wedding, I made the executive decision to hire a second photographer who would be with us to shoot getting ready shots. My photographer would have charged us a couple hundred extra per hour to be there while my bridal party and I were getting ready, and it was money I really didn’t feel like adding to the budget and spending at the last minute. I looked on Craigslist and found a photographer who was experienced in other areas who was willing to trade free photography and a CD of all pictures taken in exchange for building her portfolio. I figured there would be no real loss anyway — if the pictures sucked, I wouldn’t use them and I’d be at the same position I was prior (no pics of getting ready). If they were great, then I’d be ahead of the game.

With that said, here are a couple of the getting ready pics from our second shooter:

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Mr. Pearl and I decided we weren’t going to do wedding presents. However, he did decide to surprise me with a present the morning of. He was searching for something unique and meaningful that would last beyond our wedding day and he definitely found it!

I tend to be a one perfume kinda girl, normally sticking with Juicy perfume. However, Mr. Pearl bought me Fleurissimo. Normally a bottle of perfume might be a bit blase. This isn’t just any bottle. Fleurissimo was commissioned by Prince Rainier of Monaco as a wedding present for his wife, Grace Kelly. I love that the present he picked was inspired by one of the great love stories of this era! Wearing the perfume now brings back the memories and emotion of our wedding day.

I am still on the high from my wedding. What an amazing event we threw! I couldn’t have asked for much more, as it was everything I imagined. But we’re about 11 days out and something has been bothering me ever since the wedding.

My family.

My immediate family was present at the wedding. I totally loved and appreciated not only their attendance, but their help on the day of the event. Mother-of-Pearl can be really fabulous and she was so clutch on the wedding day that I don’t know if I could really thank her. Beyond my immediate family, it was such a disappointment. My maternal grandmother attended, as did my paternal uncles. Otherwise, none of M-o-P’s four sisters or their families attended. What’s even worse is that one family didn’t bother to RSVP at all! And beyond that, not one of those sisters or their families have contacted me since the wedding to say congratulations or good luck or anything. What chapped my ass was that my cousin, who is getting married at the end of October, sent out his invitations around mid-July…and hadn’t bothered to RSVP to my wedding himself.

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