Weddingbee Blog

My wedding morning started at 4AM. Even though I went to bed fairly early, starting at about 1AM I was waking up every hour or so, and by 4AM I just couldn’t fall back asleep. I was so excited for the day to begin that I was up for good. Mr. PN and I agreed not to see each other before the ceremony so I was afraid to leave my hotel room since he was staying in the room next to mine.

I attempted to make some coffee but the in-room coffee maker was so “complicated” that I had to call the front desk not once, but twice, to figure out how to use it… I guess I was just really sleepy and full of nerves. I knew that my room would be “Grand Central” for the morning so I prepared with fruit, bagels, cream cheese, and juice for everyone to munch on while we were getting ready. SIL Pinot was awesome (as always) and went out and brought back a huge container of coffee.

My hair and makeup stylists, Camilla Betteridge and Annette Avila of Lavish Hair & Makeup Studio, showed up right on time at 6AM. Camilla and Annette were both amazing.
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My life is pretty much an open book so I can’t think of any major secrets to share, but I can offer a few interesting tidbits about me.

1. After high school I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go – I just knew that I needed a break from Minnesota. So, I joined the AmeriCorps. I spent a year working as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault, partner violence and sexual harassment. This totally changed the direction of my life and is part of the reason I met Mr. PN! If you are ever at a point in your life where you don’t know what to do next, or if you are considering a career change, I highly recommend the program!

2. Even though I identify as a vegetarian (really a pescetarian since I eat fish), I have a weakness for buffalo wings.
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I love giving people gifts, and finding gifts to thank my favorite people was no different. Whenever I have the opportunity to buy a gift, I like to make eco-friendly choices. I think the best way to do this is to give “experiences” and “useable” items. These items don’t turn into clutter, then don’t get replaced, and they don’t end up in landfills. They are simply used and enjoyed.

Father PN

My dad loves coffee and he always buys Fair-Trade Certified, Organic, Shade-Grown coffee from his local co-op. The sound of the bean grinder and the smell of fresh coffee will forever remind me of my parents’ home. Our gift for my dad was a 4 month coffee subscription to Citizen Bean. Each month he will receive 1-lb of Fair Trade Certified, Organic Shade-Grown coffee in the mail. Citizen Bean only works with small batch roasters that are committed to sustainable practices. Even more, Citizen Bean gives a portion of each month’s sales to a charity selected by the featured roaster. I called Citizen Bean and spoke with the owner. He assured me that my dad wouldn’t receive any information until after the wedding. He even sent me the welcome card so that I could give it to my dad in person.

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The first official event of the wedding weekend was the rehearsal dinner at The Waterfront Restaurant in San Francisco. This event might be better named The Groom’s Dinner (as it is often called in Minnesota) as we didn’t actually have a wedding rehearsal.

The evening started with wine and hors d’oeuvres on the patio. While it was a bit chilly, as San Francisco tends to be in October, everybody enjoyed themselves. It was a great chance to mingle before sitting down to dinner.

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We welcomed our guests to San Francisco with totes filled with goodies and useful information.

Guidebooks & Maps
We ordered guidebooks and maps from the Only in San Francisco: The Official Visitor’s Site for San Francisco. I contacted them through the website and ordered maps and visitor’s guides. I had these shipped to NY and then brought them to SF. If you have enough time at your destination I recommend picking these up on site - one book doesn’t seem like much, but 20 books weighs a lot!

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Getting a marriage license in San Francisco requires advanced planning and it isn’t cheap. First you have to go to the Office of the County Clerk website to make an appointment and pay the $93 fee (!) and a $5 processing fee. This fee doesn’t even include a certified copy—those are an extra $13 each!

When you go for your appointment you must bring ID with your full legal name. Lucky for us, before we left for California I checked my driver’s license and realized that it did not have my middle name on it, so I grabbed our passports. Make sure you have all of the required items and that they meet the exact specifications!

At exactly 90 days out I scheduled our marriage license appointment and paid the $93 fee. We showed up bright and early to City Hall on Friday morning (conveniently located within walking distance of our hotel).

SF City Hall

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Before I get too carried away in the wedding recaps, I wanted to do a quick post about dance lessons! In July, Mr. PN and I started an 8-week dance class with The Manhattan Ballroom Society. These classes were a fun way to master some skills before the big day. Mr. PN and I had a great time in the introductory course. We learned the basics of the waltz, fox trot, and tango. The classes were pretty small (usually about 8-10 people) and we changed partners on occasion (good practice for dancing with others), but we also spent a lot of time dancing with our partners, too! Our instructor, Stephen Dane, was such a wonderful teacher that after we finished the class, we signed up for a few private lessons to focus on our first dance.

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When people ask me about the wedding I am truly speechless. It was such a happy, loving, perfect day, and when I think about it I get butterflies in my stomach. After a week and a half I still can’t find the words to describe what an amazing day it was.

We set up a Flickr account so that we could collect pictures from our friends and family. It’s only 10 days later and we already have over 300 pictures! So, before we get our professional photos back I will share with you a summary of the day using some of the amazing photos from our families and friends.

Girls Getting Ready

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We had the most amazing and weekend and the perfect wedding day. It was filled with love, family, friendship and sunshine. I’m really speechless right now—the day was more than I could have ever hoped for. Everything went off without a hitch and I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
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Wedding day is just around the corner. In less than 24 hours Mr. PN and I will be husband and wife. Mr. PN arrived in San Francisco yesterday morning without any flight delays like I had feared. All of our family and friends are arriving and the final details are coming together.

We went to get our marriage license this morning at City Hall. I took the obligatory pictures but I can’t upload them to the hotel computer. I guess we will have to wait to share them until after we get back. San Francisco City Hall is amazing. When we arrived at 8am this morning we were the first appointment, but many more lovely couples quickly followed. What was really amazing was that the room was filled with half a dozen couples, and we were the only heterosexual couple - everyone else was gay and lesbian. I love San Francisco and California in general! Way to be inclusive guys! The excitement and love that filled that little room was incredible.

I want to thank everyone for all your kind words and support over the last few months. I have been so honored to share my wedding planning with you. I really don’t have the words to express my thanks. I’ll see you all on the other side - next time I’ll be a Mrs!

After a relaxing weekend and super supportive email from my friend J, I made peace with the fact that Mr. PN might not have a kilt and that I can’t control the weather. It seemed like the minute I started to relax, things started to fall into place. First, the weather forecast for Saturday went from rainy back to sunny:

But even better than sun, Mr. PN’s kilt arrived in the mail and it is perfect! He humored me by letting me take a couple pictures to give you all a sneak peek!
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The final weeks of planning have been a little overwhelming. Even when you do as much as you can in advance, there will always be last minute issues like missing kilts and a rainy weather forecast. It is so easy to freak out over things you cannot control, and obsess over the things that are going wrong. It is important to remember the important things—marriage, family and love.

I awoke on Saturday morning to find a wonderful email from my friend J who lives in Los Angeles. She has been following my blog and saw that it had been a difficult week. Her words were so comforting and really helped me put it in perspective. She got married in June and could relate to my situation. I asked her if I could share her words of wisdom and she was happy to oblige. Without further ado…

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Hey Babe!
I’m seeing on your blog that you are encountering all sorts of stressors and I thought I’d send you an email pep talk.

Take a deep breath!

One more.

Alright, do that every once in a while, and then remind yourself that in a month, you’ll be back to your same old schedule, living in your same old apartment, wearing your same old clothes, hanging out with your same old friends, reading the same old web pages, kissing your same old Mr. PN.
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We wanted to do something a little extra special for the kids at our wedding. There will be three little ones (ages 5 to 7) and they will each play a role in the wedding as the flower girls and the ring bearer.

We decided on goody bags filled with snacks and fun games. I figured this would be multi-functional, as it would be fun for the kids and would also keep them entertained.

I used recycled paper bags and personalized them by adding their names and wedding roles.

Then I filled the bags with games and snacks.
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I’ve been checking the weather forecast for the wedding since the 15 day outlook started on http://www.accuweather.com/. Now that we are under 10, days I’m also including http://www.weather.com/ in my rotation. Today, weather.com has given us bad news:

http://www.weather.com/

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We will be escaping to Hawaii the day after the wedding to spend a week relaxing and recuperating. When I posted about our trip last month you guys gave me some great suggestions. After your glowing reviews I picked up a copy of the Ultimate Kauai Guidebook from eBay. It is packed with tons of great information and suggestions! I already used it book a special adventure for Mr. PN (my wedding gift to him). Other than that, we haven’t had the time or energy to do anything other than reserve our hotel and Jeep. I’ve been reading the guidebook on the subway, but to be honest I’m pretty overwhelmed. There are so many options!! We aren’t planning to put together a specific itinerary but we do want to have a rough layout so that we get a chance to see all the best spots!
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