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The first year of marriage went by faster than I would have thought possible. Before I knew it, our “newlywed” status was a thing of the past. We packed as many trips and milestones into that first year as we could. Which is a good thing, since now that we’re an old married couple (that’s what you become after your first anniversary, right?), we plan to sit on our tushes and be lazy. In the spirit of being lazy, may I share a recap with you of our last year while I sit on my couch in my pajameralls?
If you answered yes, then proceed. If you answered no, then proceed to the next blogger who might be writing while not looking like a schlub. In November 2010, we traveled to southern Japan. We ate new things (octopus tentacle balls), saw new things (a giant turtle walking around a temple wearing a diaper) and had a deer eat Mr. Pin Cushion’s paperwork.
Pin Cushions in Cancun!! Spring Break 2010!! Whooooo!!
When people asked where we went on our honeymoon, I’m always embarrassed to say Cancun. The word Cancun brings up images of girls going wild, heavy drinking and pool partying. But we had a relaxing, non-binge drinking time in Cancun.
We actually ate real food for sustenance (and not just straight vodka shots for our caloric intake). Well, maybe a few blended drinks, but only after a hearty meal.
Before I launch into recaps, I wanted to allow the newer members of the hive (bee-lings?) to catch up on the Pin Cushion story. Because nobody likes to come into a story halfway through it—what’s going on, who are these weirdos?!
We met in high school. Which means we’d been together a decade when I started blogging.
The Pin Cushions went to college. Go Bears!
Read more…
Originally published on August 23, 2010
Mrs. Cola nominated Mrs. Pin Cushion’s faux-to booth tutorial for the Helpful Series! Mrs. Cola says, “I’ve forwarded Pin Cushion’s PVC Faux-to Booth tutorial to several brides: I love how she breaks it down into an easy, manageable DIY, with something like PVC, which not everyone has worked with before. I really wish she’d posted this a few months earlier, because I like it so much more than the setup we used at our own wedding, with garment racks!”
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Oh, I wanted one.
I wanted one like Aladdin wants Jasmine, like a marathoner wants a gallon of Gatorade and like Hugh Grant wants to make another romantic comedy.
Pre-wedding, I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I wanted a photo booth. But my heart of hearts was also telling me we couldn’t spend a grand on a photo-strip spitting, old fashioned booth. And my heart of hearts wasn’t crazy enough to spend $464 from an online store ($97 for the backdrop, $367 for the support system [yikes!]) to build my own.
So, my (cheap, rational) heart of hearts led me to Home Depot to create a stand for our DIY faux-to booth backdrop. I had searched online for tutorials, but could only find extremely complicated versions involving power tools (and I preferred to keep all of my phalanges attached). Thus, we developed our own method which 1) ended up working out quite well 2) was cheap and 3) was easy to build.
For those wishing to build there own cheap, easy, fun photo booth, here is what we used:
(A) 2 of these (PVC pipe “elbows”)
(from Home Depot)
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
Have you ever started looking through old photos with the intention of just perusing for a minute, then suddenly it’s 2 hours later and photos are covering the floor in a 5 foot radius around you? It happens to me every time. This last time, I was looking for high school photos for this here post, and found this gem:
I’ve been training for Weddingbee for years!
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Somehow, the topic of soul mates comes up in my life quite frequently—in conversations with friends, through pop culture or while talking to my patients at work. For that reason, I love this post. People are interested in soul mates and I am interested in what people think about soul mates! It’s a topic that nearly everyone has an interesting and unique opinion about and I loved reading all of the original comments.
Also, I don’t want to miss an opportunity to share the musician/comedian Tim Minchin with a few more readers!
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Just the other day, I was having a seemingly innocent conversation, most likely about work, or about the benefits of cookies over cake, or perhaps about Harry Potter, when… BAM! I was blindsided by a question about whether Mr. Pin Cushion was my soul mate. This would have posed no problems if I had been able to coolly reply, “Of course he is! I love him so, that soul mate of mine.” But I didn’t say that. Because—wait for it—I don’t think he’s my soul mate.
It’s nothing against Mr. Pin Cushion.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
…but perhaps you can have your wedding at McDonald’s!
Listening to NPR on a recent commute, I heard a news story that I just had to share with the hive—McDonald’s now offers wedding packages for the Big Mac loving bride and groom!
To be honest, it seems like quite a steal. Here is what you get for the low, low price of $400:
1. Ceremony and reception space at the home of the golden arches (though they won’t close the restaurant for you [the McNugget addicts need their fix, even if it is your wedding day]).
(Source)
After writing our ceremony, we Pin Cushions still needed to tackle our wedding vows. But instead of a tackle, it ended up being more of a bob and weave; we avoided writing those vows for days… which became weeks and ::shudder:: finally months. Our vows did not get written until the night before the wedding!
Everything is more beautiful after the pressure of the vows is off…
(by the lovely Steep Street Photography)
It was easy enough to let the procrastination bug get the better of us. There was so much pressure tied up with the vows! Vows are supposed to be the ultimate statement of love to one another, a promise of your life together. Each time we mentioned to each other that perhaps we should think about writing them, I would feel my chest tighten up and a cold sweat break out.
After putting it off for as long as we possibly could, we finally agreed upon a general format:
Read more…
This post is likely to do a few things:
When Mr. Pin Cushion and I set out to write out own ceremony, we were quite miffed with how to begin. We ended up relying on a variety of sources. We frequently looked to Mrs. Cherry Pie’s post on her ceremony wording. We endlessly googled for ideas. And we used this book:
On Amazon.com
Lastly, we used our own noggins (and my dad’s, as he was our officiant).
It took quite a few hours-long sessions at coffee shops, and lots of revisions, but in the end, we were beyond thrilled with how the ceremony turned out. Many guests told us that the ceremony made them cry (which we took as a compliment!).
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Many a summer ago, I took a cake decorating class at a local community college. It sparked an interest in me, unseen since my discovery of Haribo gummies. Since that first class, I’ve spent time teaching myself cake decorating (mostly through a lot of trial and error), as well as gleaning tips from books and the endless supply of cake decorating shows now on TV.
My homeboy, Mr. Pin Cushion, is my sous chef, as well as my voice of reason when a cake starts to (literally or figuratively) fall apart.
Together we have created some pretty interesting and crazy fondant-covered creations (like the 2+ foot wine bottle cake above).
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One of the issues with having my dad officiate the Pin Cushion ceremony was figuring out how to make the marriage legal. Before the wedding, we applied for our marriage license, and my dad applied to be a “Deputy Commissioner of Marriage” for one day.
My dad practicing his officiant duties at our rehearsal
But post-wedding, we were a bit perplexed about the next step. We didn’t bring the marriage license to the wedding to sign…because we couldn’t find it!
Mr. Pin Cushion and I? We don’t like to feel clueless. We like answers. We like feeling like know-it-alls. Our thirst for knowledge runs nearly as deep as our thirst for chocolate.
My desire to feel smart extends all the way to my photography poses.
(I seriously have boatloads of photos like this.)
So we didn’t like it when we realized we were feeling clueless about our wedding officiant. We felt lost. Adrift. We brainstormed and created flow charts and acted out scenarios and set up computer algorithms to work out the problem.
One day, we finally got a break in the case. Our combined 41 years of education helped up come up with the perfect candidate:
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Perhaps a few of you have seen this video already. But if you haven’t, pull up a wagon full of Kleenex and have a watch. Don’t let the cartoon aspect of it lull you into a false sense of security. This video is about love. Love that will make you cross all of your fingers and toes and wish that 27 years after your own wedding, your marriage will be as strong as the couple’s in the video.
Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.
I feel lucky to work as an oncology nurse where I get to see the amazing strength of marriage every day.
It took less time to build our PVC faux-to booth than it takes to watch an episode of Project Runway. And considering the hours our guests spent having fun and hamming it up in the booth, and then the many more hours Mr. PC and I have spent falling off the couch laughing at the resulting photos, I’d say our time was more than recouped.
Our friends and family were true top models, and wowed us with variety when it came to their poses…we saw tiger growls (perhaps that was just my pose), couples kissing, Blue Steel gazes…
I was happy to see my expensive props put to good use (a spray painted IKEA frame I already owned, fake flowers [note how many people put that flower in their mouth, including me], handmade felt mustaches).
The faux-to booth posts live on! Due to overwhelming demand (hundreds of requests [or perhaps just a few commenters] on the last how-to post), I’m back to explain a bit more about how we set up the DIY photo booth.
Our best man, Virat, can hardly contain his excitement about the faux-to booth!
Total cost: about $46.
Read more…
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Mrs. Pin Cushion, Oakland, CA Age and Occupation: 25, Nurse Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, PhD Student Engagement Date: November 23, 2008 Wedding Date: July 2010 Venue: Radonich Ranch, Los Gatos About Me: I'm the 3 Cs: crafty, creative and quirky (oh, that's not a C? Close enough!). I'm also a recycling fanatic, fluent in bad accents and I have the loudest laughter this side of the Mississippi. I have not just one sweet tooth, but a whole mouth full of sweet teeth. I cry at 97.4% of all movies I see, but my fiance's always there to hand me a tissue. My geek-chic fiance and I are planning a wedding full of color, cookies and handmade goodness and I can't wait to spill the beans on all of our crazy ideas!
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