Weddingbee

Then, I secured the thread with glue dots and positioned the “main portion” of the program to the top half of the folded card.

I’ve always adored fan programs, but people always complain that there is not enough room on them to say what you want to say, so I made a sort of “modified fan” with my three insert cards. Using glue dots, I secured the back part of the fan (The “Thank You” card) onto the folded card.

Then, using an eyelet, secured the other two cards (Bridal Party, Thai Water Ceremony) onto the program.

So when you open them, the programs look like this:

The bottom portion of the cards fan out like this:

Thats basically it!
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I’ll admit it was tough to find an affordable, yet beautiful venue. Did you ever watch Before & After on HGTV? You need a lot of vision to walk into a blank room and see it differently. After much searching, we found a municipally owned mansion on the water in Sarasota, Florida. It was nice and met all of our requirements, but the city did not allow reservations until a year before the event. It was a little nerve wracking to say the least, but we went with it. In late October, we were planning a trip down to book the venue and found out an art exhibit had been booked for three weeks. Ugh is right! Back to the drawing board!

I stuck to searching for municipally owned buildings because they seemed to offer the most value and allowed us to BYOB. Never having been to Lakeland, Mr. Coconut and I didn’t know what to expect, but our photographer told us to check it out so we followed his advice. We walked into the building, took two steps into the room and all it took was looking at each other to know this was the place. It was perfect. Tons of natural light, hardwood floors. We were in love. Want to know the price? It was $500 plus $26/hour. We rented both the building and the outdoor promenade for a grand total of approx. $1,500.

I’ll give more details about the space a little later, but for now I’ll post a few pictures!

(Do you see all the natural light and hardwood floors? Me love!)

(An amazing stone fireplace that I will have a blast dressing up!)

(The gardens next door that our guests will walk through during the cocktail hour!)

(The perfect Florida ceremony spot, right?!)

(The back of our building, see the great deck?)

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We’ve been anticipating its release for months now. Mr. Lovebird said there we about 50 people a head of him at Best Buy lined up before the store opened, and he got one of the last ones. He said “it wasn’t as bad as before.” By “before” he meant the times (yes, more than once) we camped out through the night to get the actual Wii system when it was released in the winter of 2006. What can I say, he’s a techie and I love him for it. Apparently, it’s sold out in most places and you’ll be lucky to get your hands on one since it was just released in North America today.

source

With about 6 weeks until the wedding, I’m not sure if I’ll see results, but I’m gonna try to use it everyday! When we first got the Wii, we used it constantly and my arms would be sore from all the bowling and tennis. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Anyone else planning on getting Wii Fit to help them get in shape for the wedding?

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They’re always in search of couples to help, so I decided to send in our 12 page application at the end of February. It was clearly stated that if we passed the pre-selection, we would get contacted 2 months prior to the wedding. Since the 2 month mark passed and I never got any news, I forgot about it…. well I got a call last week and they want to meet us!

Apart from having parts of our wedding televised, whatever they decide to help you with, they offer as a gift to the couple. How awesome is that!!!

I was told to bring every single thing I can think of that is wedding related - from pictures to my actual favors. This is when you realize how great blogging about my whole wedding process really is. It’s made collecting this information so much easier.

Since they are behind on the whole process (we only 1 month left to my wedding), they narrowed down the choice to 2 couples. Us and someone else. That means we have a 50% chance of getting chosen.

Our audition is TODAY!!! I’m so nervous! I really hope we get chosen.

Wish us luck!
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Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing by The Magnetic Fields - Our first dance

Daughter by Loudon Wainwright III - Father/Daughter dance

Love You Madly by Cake - The cake-cutting song (A JAM video)

Mr. Candy Corn still needs to pick a Mother/Son dance. Any fun suggestions? He and his mom are super close and he totally inherited her smart ass gene, so something with some humor might suit them best.
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Mr. T didn’t have any specific requirements of his own — he just wanted to be happy with whatever we chose — so we planned our ceremony around the Baha’i wedding requirements. There are 3 requirements for a Baha’i wedding:**

1. Consent of the couple’s parents. Although parents may not arrange a marriage partner for their children, they must consent to the child’s choice of partner before the marriage can take place. This honors one’s parents and helps to unite the families.

2. A one-sentence vow: “We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God.” This simple vow encompasses all others because, as the teachings of any religion will tell you, to live by God’s Will includes cultivating such virtues as honor, love, and fidelity.

3. Two witnesses to the marriage vow. My grandparents, who have been married for 65 years(!!), served as our witnesses.

(Grandma and Grandpa, circa 1943)

Because the Baha’i Faith does not have clergy, the local administrative body handles the details of ensuring that all civil and religious marriage requirements are met. (Note to any Baha’i readers planning your wedding — these details are handled by the Local Spiritual Assembly of the locale where you will hold your marriage ceremony, which may be different than your home community.)

There are no other specific marriage rites. Most couples design a service to accompany the vows, but Baha’is are free to choose any readings, music, dance, food, dress, etc., that has special meaning to them. In fact, the most memorable wedding I’ve attended was between a woman from Tonga and a man from Samoa — they used traditional dances in their ceremony, including a group of men doing the Hakka!

Alas, our own wedding had no Hakka. We followed the usual American format of a couple of readings, a short speech by the officiant, and an exchange of vows and rings.

We opened with a Baha’i marriage prayer read by my mother. For readings, if left to my own choosing, we would have used excerpts from the “Baha’i Marriage Tablet” (which may be a talk instead of a Tablet, by one of the Central Figures of our Faith, unless it’s by someone else). But Mr. T found the language too “flowery,” so we went with something secular. Specifically, Marriage Joins Two People in the Circle of Its Love, by Edmund O’Neill, and a Hindu Marriage Blessing after our vows.

(Mom reading her prayer, handkerchief clutched in hand)

For vows, we chose the traditional “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, etc.” We considered some more modern vows (the “hippie vows,” as Mr. T called them), but the language or grammar of those versions bugged us for one reason or another. Also, we figured the traditional vows might mean more to us precisely because we’ve heard them so many times before. Immediately after exchanging those vows, we said the Baha’i vow.

We chose to include the witnesses’ signing of the marriage certificate as part of our ceremony. After the vows, we had a musical interlude where we led my grandparents from their seats to a small table in the front and waited while they signed. I love my grandparents tremendously and am in awe of both the length and strength of their marriage, so it means the world that they played this important role in our own marriage.

(Escorting Grandma and Grandpa back to their seats) (Photos by Punam Bean)

What unique religious or cultural traditions will be a part of your ceremony? How will you mix your traditions with those of your partner?
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Kirsten, the lovely MAC make-up artist, apply the make-up

FSIL and me after the make-up trial sans lipstick and foundation

After going to the MAC store, I decided to DIY my make-up. Why? Kirsten did a fantastic job with my make-up, I loved my look! If I was having my wedding in Denver I would have hired her without any hesitation, but with my wedding in Breckenridge I don’t want to pay for her travel expenses. There are plenty of spas/salons in Breckenridge, but they charge almost $200 and not in my budget.

Many of the make-up artists I have talked with recommended hiring a professional, which they should as a salesperson, in order to apply enough make-up for the photographs. I do admit that your wedding day is the one of the most photographed days of your life, and if you don’t feel comfortable applying make-up you should hire a professional, but if you do feel comfortable, save yourself the money and DIY. With my background in theatre, I feel very confident to not only put on enough make-up but also achieve my desired look.

If you’re DIY’ing your makeup, please tell us why you decided to go that route!

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