I had my hair trial last week. It was just so-so and I’m looking into other options at the moment, including totally changing how I thought I wanted to wear my hair. The one thing I do know for sure is that I have always wanted to wear a flower in my hair on my wedding day. I thought about a real flower, but I’m just too much of a planner to not know exactly what it would look like until it arrived on the day of the wedding. Fake is the way to go for me- no wilting, no brown edges, and control freaks like me can know just what they’re getting ahead of time!
There are so many gorgeous hair accessories out there that it was tough to choose one. After searching through a lot of Etsy shops, I found my favorites at Mikiye Creations.
Here are some of the top contenders:
We finally got around to picking out the groomsmen tuxedos a couple of weekends ago. I totally forgot to blog about it because it was such an unexciting experience. With groomsmen spread out all over the east coast, pretty much our only option was Men’s Wearhouse. I don’t think I’ve ever read a review of a wedding tuxedo rental experience that wasn’t without a few mishaps, MW included. So we’re probably looking ahead to some snafus of our own, but hopefully there won’t be anything un-fixable.
Mr. T and I rolled up to our nearest MW, ready to peruse the options. We were handed a book of tuxedo choices, and picked out a couple that we were interested in…
Mr. T: Here are the two that we’d like to look at.
MW employee: Great! But, uh, we don’t actually have the tuxedos here.
Mr. T: Oh. Well I guess this one will be okay then. I’d like to look into purchasing my tuxedo though.
MW employee: Great! But, uh, we don’t actually have those here either.
At this point we were a little dumbfounded, but another employee came over to tell us that they did have a few of the tuxedos for sale in stock. Mr. Tiramisu tried on the standard black Calvin Klein 2-button:
We picked out this tie for him:
And this one for the groomsmen and dads:
Mr. Tiramisu has an aversion to vests and cummerbunds, so when he found out that it is actually acceptable to go without them as long as you are wearing suspenders, he was sold. Here is the look we’re going for (minus the white sneakers):
I think these groomsmen are sans cummerbunds as well:
Sorry for the boring post, but picking out menswear turned out to be just that, boring. Mr. Tiramisu decided to purchase his tux, and so he will actually get to try it on and have it fitted for him, but if he were renting, we wouldn’t have even seen the tuxedo until 2 days before the wedding! It is crazy to me that with all the time, money, and energy put into the bride’s clothing, there just isn’t much to picking out groomswear.
Was picking out the menswear as uneventful for you? Any horror stories or advice about working with Men’s Wearhouse that I should hear about?
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*Mr. Tiramisu, here’s where you stop reading!*
For Christmas last year, I bought an old map that shows the part of Annapolis that Mr. Tiramisu and I live in and framed it for him. I purchased the map really inexpensively from the U.S. Geological Survey website. I thought it would be a neat gift since Mr. Tiramisu is into sailing and also happens to love maps. I think it’s a guy thing, but anyway he went nuts over the gift.
So when I saw vintage map cufflinks posted on the Etsy Wedding blog a while back, I knew I had found a perfect wedding gift for my groom. The designer, Anne Holman, makes custom cufflinks and pendants (which could make very cool bridesmaids gifts too) out of vintage maps.
The sample shown in her shop is a map of Boothbay, Maine so I took that as a good sign as well! I emailed Anne and she got back to me right away with a couple of options of maps of our wedding location. I was so picky about the exact placement of the circle, wanting it in just the perfect spot, and she was quick to reply to my multiple emails.
Here’s the map I decided on:
They arrived quickly in the mail and they are just perfect. From a distance they just appear to be nice sterling silver cufflinks with a blue inset, and when you get close up you can see the map. I think it is such a cool detail that Mr. Tiramisu will be able to get some use out of, have a fun way to remember our wedding day, and I hope he loves them as much as he loved the Annapolis map.
Do you have any surprise gifts in store for your groom?
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UPDATE!
Thanks for all the entries! The winner of the blue shoes is….
Commenter #39, laurag!
Looks like between all of us bees, we’ve now sold that website out of those blue shoes! If you’re still looking for some, there are tons of great suggestions in the comments of this post. Good luck!
~~~
I cannot thank you guys enough. When I first posted about my trouble finding blue shoes, I received a TON of comments with awesome suggestions. I checked out all of your suggestions, and I’ve finally chosen the one! Thank you, thank you, to weddingbee reader Kalen, who suggested these:
They are perfect, and here they are (even better in person):
Blue, peep-toe, not too high, and the bow detail even almost-matches the shoes my bridesmaids will be wearing. I’ve worn them around the house a little, and get this- they are even comfortable!
I did also purchase a pair of flat shoes to wear at the reception since it will be on a lawn and I don’t want to be sinking into the grass all night.
I’m not sure how to hem my dress though- for the taller shoes or the flat shoes? Did anyone else run into a problem with changing into flat shoes later on?
Thank you all once again for all of your blue shoe suggestions!
PS. I ordered the blue shoes in both an 8 and an 8.5 (because my feet are an annoying 8.25), and I’ve passed the deadline to return the 8.5s. Anybody want them?
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My parents are divorced.
I’m not unique in this fact. I don’t even have a sob story to tell about how my life was ruined, and in fact I had a happy childhood during which my parents never fought. Both my mom and my dad are now remarried, and in the end I got an extra (both awesome) set of parents out of it, not to mention a brother, sister, and a slew of cool step-relatives. So I’m really not here to complain. But the truth is, sometimes having divorced parents sucks.
There’s the obvious split up holidays, which I’ve mostly gotten used to, but still manage to have a yearly mini panic attack over. There’s the awkwardness that is unavoidable at events with both sets of families. There’s the question of what to call my brother and my sister- really my step-brother and half-sister if you want to get technical, but those titles seem so weird to me and we’ve never used them. And at the moment, there is the huge bummer of not having my mom and dad sitting together, smiling proudly at my wedding.
Allow me to whine for just a moment- I want to have pictures of both Mr. T’s parents and my parents on their respective wedding days, cutting their cake, displayed on our cake table. I want to send our invites with pictures of our parents on their wedding days on custom stamps- I love this idea- LOVE it. I want a big wall filled with family wedding pictures- parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings… everyone smiling and proudly representing whatever wedding style decade they fell into. But I can’t have these things, and that’s okay. What I do have is two (four really) totally supportive and awesome parents. I am so very thankful for that.
This post is a little sad, so I’m going to throw in this picture, since it won’t be on display at our wedding. Maybe the real tragedy is that no one will see the awesomely stylish tuxedo that my dad sported in 1974. No one except Weddingbee’s thousands of daily readers that is. 
The bigger question is what having divorced parents means in terms of how I’ll view my marriage. I can easily see how people with divorced parents choose not to get married, or are cynical about successful marriages. Recent statistics (mine are from the New York Times) show that the rate of divorce is falling just a bit, and is probably closer to 40% than the oft-cited 50%, but that’s still more than a little discouraging.
All my life I’ve known that I would get married, and I look at it like this- seeing the consequences of a marriage that ended in divorce firsthand, I am even more committed to making mine work. Mr. Tiramisu and I have had lots of conversations about this, and I think it’s so important that divorce is just not an option for either of us.
How has your parents’ relationship affected the way you see yours?
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I was SO happy to mail my invitations and get them out of here I thought I was going to burst. We finished the invites about a month ago, but getting all of them assembled, numbered (I almost forgot to number the RSVP cards, even after lots of bee advice!), addressed and stamped took awhile!
My mom and my grandmother helped me to put the finishing touches on our envelopes. First, my grandmother carefully glued these liners into our envelopes:
We only used two different papers because we ran out of the first, but I ended up liking them both.
Then, my mom and her perfect schoolteacher handwriting addressed all of our envelopes in gold ink:
Does your calligrapher accept payment in the form of chocolate? Mine does
After all the stamp debate, we ended up going with the simple and pretty dragonfly stamp.
Thank you so much to reader Manda who suggested it!
I didn’t quite know what to expect when I got to the post office, since there have been so many varied experiences with asking for hand cancelling. Well before I could even open my mouth I nearly had a heart attack as the postal employee took one look at my envelopes and announced that I was “way off on postage”. She took a closer look and saw that the dragonfly stamp said 62 cents and changed her mind - I knew that I actually had 3 cents worth of postage more than what I needed, but I did get nervous for a second.
Then I asked about the hand-cancelling and she said that there would be a 20-cent surcharge for each envelope! I said that I was pretty sure that it said online that it was free. Then she said even if it were free, she wouldn’t have time to do it. Luckily I had learned from other bees that it was possible to do it yourself. I asked, and she moved me to an empty counter and handed me the stamp!
It took me about 10 minutes to hand cancel all of my envelopes, amid lots of funny comments from a busy post office line. My grandmother watched and said I should consider a job at the Post Office if this whole Optometry thing doesn’t work out I’m a big dork and so I’ll admit that it was actually a little bit fun.
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Like a lot of you, I’m not really all that into the idea of the garter toss. I was planning from the start to leave it out of our wedding festivities, certain that no one would miss it. But I was wrong. And the one who swore up and down he would miss it the most? None other than Mr. Tiramisu.
“How can we not do the garter toss?” he questioned.
“I’ve never been to a wedding that didn’t have it!” he insisted.
The man sees no reason for linens, menus, programs, heck even flowers, but don’t take away his garter toss! So I relented. And now I have this embarrassment to look forward to-
I’ve heard a lot of stories about how the garter toss tradition started and its awful symbolism. Here’s one of those versions of the story:
“Another interesting custom dated back to the ancient times where the wedding garter represented the virginal girdle. When the groom removed the garter from the bride, this represented the bride’s relinquishment of her virginity.”
No thanks.
Here’s the one I prefer to believe:
“The garter tradition originated back to the 14th century. In parts of Europe the guests of the bride and groom believed having a piece of the bride’s clothing was thought to bring good luck. They would actually destroy the brides dress by ripping off pieces of fabric. Obviously, this tradition did not sit well with the bride, so she began throwing various items to the guests – the garter being one of them. It became customary for the bride to toss the garter to the men. But this also caused a great problem for the bride….sometimes the men would get drunk, become impatient and try to remove the garter ahead of time. Therefore, the custom derived at having the groom remove and toss the garter to the men.”
Just an innocent piece of good luck- that is my story and I’m sticking to it.
Also helping to ease the pain is this pretty little button version of a garter that I ordered from The Gartermaker.
So the big question is, are you doing the garter toss or not- and why?
Photos: 1, 2
Stories from www.wedalert.com
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Miss Tiramisu, Annapolis, MD/Maine
Age and Occupation: 26, Soon-to-be Eye Doctor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Project Manager/Real Estate Management grad student
Engagement Date: May 15, 2007
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 4, 2008
Venue: Oceanfront lawn and tent
About Me: I was born and raised in Maine, now living in Annapolis, Maryland and planning a hometown wedding from afar. I’m nothing short of obsessed with wedding planning, and am loving the do-it-yourself madness that has now taken over my life! As for me, I’m a craft-loving, martini-drinking, girly-girl who loves traveling, photography, my schnauzer, and above all, spending time with Mr. Tiramisu.
Commenter #39, laurag!
