Weddingbee Blog

There was absolutely no question as to whether we would be having flower girls at our wedding since I have the two most adorable nieces in the whole world. Even though the rest of our wedding was child-free, there was no way that my girls weren’t going to be there and be front and centre with me. At least that was the master plan. I had completely prepared myself for the possibility that one or both of the girls may get spooked and refuse to go down the aisle. If this happened I was fine - I did NOT want them to go through anything like this!

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My new favourite website is Pimp That Snack! It is just the kind of random silliness that I love and have been filling my days with until I start work. While snooping around the site I came across this entry which has very easy instructions on how to create a Rubiks Cube cake.

How cute would that be for a groom’s cake?

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Mr. Pumpkin and I had never talked about buying wedding presents for each other. Quite frankly, when we had a short conversation about it on our honeymoon I was shocked that it had even crossed his mind! The funnier part of that conversation was that we had actually planned on buying the other the exact same thing! We have both wanted a puppy for ages but we have been living in apartments for the last 8 years so it was never an option. Now that we will be moving into our first home together we both (but separately) thought that a puppy would be a great wedding present for the other. We had even planned on buying the same kind of puppy, a Maltese (who we would name Falcon… because we are cool like that), but luckily we both came to our senses! Yes, we’d love a puppy and even though we now have a house, we don’t have a clue about what either of our work schedules will be like and we just can’t be sure that we could be around enough to properly take care of and train a new puppy.

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In my recent post about the Candy Buffet at our wedding there were some comments asking about what quantities I had purchased and for how many guests. I had been putting off posting the answers because I was hoping that our professional pics would have some better shots of the candy buffet set-up so that you could see better what I was talking about. Unfortunately (but fortunately for her!) our photographer has been very busy and we haven’t received our professional shots back yet. Here’s a nonpro pic:

I didn’t want to wait much longer in case some of you who were wondering need to start ordering your candy soon so here is the information:

We had 155 people at the wedding, including the wedding party, but I really didn’t try to have enough of every one thing for everyone. I was really only concerned with filling the jars that I had once, and I was fine if certain things ran out.

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Yesterday I got my post-wedding haircut and Thank God because knights of columbus has it been hot here! I was dying under all of that hair. I made an appointment with Grant Bray, the wonderful stylist who did our hair for the wedding and started looking for inspiration. I found this pic on TMZ.com and took it in to Grant hoping for something close to Katie’s new haircut.

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I finally received the refund cheque from my first dress disaster in the mail today! It took them over 2 months to get it to me but at least it is now over and done with. Yay for happy endings!

*Avril Lavigne

Some photographers from my home town of Regina (Red Leaf Studios) are featured on a cool website called Don’t Box Us In. The website tries to feature “today’s best Artistic and Creative Photographers” and there are some very cool shots on there. Check it out for some cool ideas or maybe even to find your photographer!Here is a small sample:

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Except that it was so much fun! Mr. Pumpkin and I tried very hard to make sure that our wedding was appropriately *us* and that everyone felt comfortable enough throughout the day to be themselves too! We may have made the environment a little too welcoming because we received two “very special” e-mails about half way through the dinner and I am sure that they both made our Grandmas cringe a little…

“Very special” E-mail #1:

“Dear Mr. n’ Mrs. Pumpkin,

What’s crackalackin? Congratulizzles ta ya bizzle on this momentous occasion ’n shit. I wizzish ya bizzoth nuttin’ but tha best as you begin yo lives togetha ’n embark on a journey tizzy wizzle no diggity change you.

Love is a beautiful mobbin’ ’n ta find yo soulmate is truly rare ’n special bustin’. Cherish every moment togetha, neva go ta sleep angry at ya boo ’n most importantly, takes care of one anotha! Read more…

We had an amazing time on our honeymoon! If I were to plan it again I probably wouldn’t have left the day after the wedding, but in our case we were forced to if we wanted to catch the Pearl Jam show in London. It would have been really nice to have had a few days to decompress, sleep and help my parents clean up! It also would have been nice to pack for the honeymoon after the wedding because what I discovered once I got to Europe was that I had actually lost some weight over the weeks before the wedding, so some of the pants that I had packed weeks before were actually a bit too loose! It was a nice discovery but annoying to have to keep yanking on my pants all the time! But, we did leave the day after and so here are some of the highlights of the trip:

We LOVED the Pearl Jam shows! We are big fans and so seeing as this was our 14th and 15th time seeing them, it was extra special to see them in a different venue and to compare the European crowds with the Canadian and American crowds that we’ve been in before. The shows were amazing and we got to hear a couple of songs that are rarely played so it was well worth the money for us!  These pictures are from tenclub.

The London show: 

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I have been torn on whether to do personalized thank you cards or not since we got back from the honeymoon. One of the things that I was adamant about in planning the wedding was that the stationery was consistent throughout. Most of the weddings that I loved looking at in magazines all had that cohesive theme running through every detail and it was the stationery which brought everything together.

So, we had our designer (Melissa Chapman) create EVERYTHING! She used the same cherry blossom motif and colours on our STD’s, invitations, maps, reply cards, ceremony programs, refreshment table signs, escort cards, table name cards, honour bar signs, bathroom basket signs, wish tree sign and cards, and candy buffet signs. I had originally asked her to make us some thank you cards as well, so why am I now questioning having her design some for us now? I honestly don’t know! It’s not the money since she quoted us a very reasonable price. It isn’t that we were, in any way, unhappy with what she has designed for us so far - we have loved everything that she has done for us! I really can’t explain it… maybe I am just sick of making decisions.

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Like most brides-to-be, I was determined to look my best on my wedding day so over the past year I tried out countless different beauty products. Often I was unimpressed, a couple of times I was pleasantly surprised but these two were the most noteworthy.  And so I present to you, dear readers, my very first (two) product reviews! Do you want the good news or the bad news first?  I will start with the good news because I would rather help advertise GO SMILE than Veet so let’s put their picture on the site first! (See, my psychology degree was worth it! I remember the concept of primacy very well and am applying it in real life!)

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We had such a wonderful time at our rehearsal! It was so fun getting everyone together and there was such a nice feeling in the day. So much excitement and love in the air! Here are a couple of pictures taken by the lovely and talented wife of our Best Man.

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I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression here, I had a wonderful wedding day! However, this is a blog about the reality of weddings and it is meant to help others in their planning.  So just this once I am going to tell you about the things that went wrong for us that day, only in an effort to help you avoid the same trappings.  And then every post after this will be sunshine and lollipops, rainbows and puppy dogs, I promise!

This is quite a long post but there are lots of pictures further down so keep reading!

Our day was planned out as follows:
9:30 - everyone who was helping to decorate the island and reception site was to meet at my parents’ house to pack everything up and drive it to the site
9:45 - 10:30 - Miss Pumpkin organizes decorating and delegates jobs to her team of helpful volunteers at the restaurant, so that she can move on to the island
10:30 - 11:30 - Miss Pumpkin organizes decorating and delegates jobs to her team of helpful volunteers on the island so that she can move on to getting her hair done, etc…
12:00 - Miss Pumpkin and MOH meet hair dresser at hotel to begin getting ready
2:30 - Miss Pumpkin, MOH, Mr. Pumpkin and BM meet photographer to start pictures
4:30 - Mommas, Papas, and Grandmommas meet wedding party to take some quick photos before ceremony.
5:00 - all of us are picked up by the ferry and taken over to the island to get married! Read more…

One of the coolest and most spontaneous things that happened at our wedding was the guest DJ phenomenon. We had rented sound equipment and then created playlists for various times throughout the night (cocktail hour, dinner, dance). We had my very good friend and her husband (who had played music this way at weddings before) sort of looking after it all night and changing the playlists when needed etc. Later in the night though, after we had put on the wedding dance playlist and my friend and her husband had left the post, we started having guest DJs appear! First was one of my cousins, then another cousin, then my two brothers! It was great! At first I was nervous (especially because the first cousin to step up there was only 15) but they kept the party hopping and the dance floor filled all night!

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As you may recall I was having a hard time deciding how to display the lollipops and rock candy sticks in our candy buffet. While there were some fantastic suggestions of where to buy test tube type displays in the comments of my previous post, I just could not justify spending another $50 or so (plus shipping to Canada) on racks that I would likely never use again, and so another DIY project was born!

In Regina we have a lovely store called Gale’s Florist and they sell everything crafty at wholesale prices if you have an account. Luckily for me, Papa Pumpkin’s work has an account and so Momma Pumpkin and I bought almost everything that we used to decorate the wedding from Gale’s including almost all of the jars we used to display the candy buffet. We found the perfect square vases to display the rock candy sticks in, and so I left the sticks in the wrapper and stood them up in the vases and it looked great! Unfortunately I don’t have a great picture of that for you but I am hoping that when I get my professional pics back there will be a close up of the candy display.

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