Dad and daughter relationships have always made me slightly emotional. Whether in a movie, a book, or heck, even a TV commercial, there is no doubt that I will get a little misty eyed. (Mrs. Armadillo’s recent post about her dad walking her down the aisle? Pass the tissues, stat!)
The worst emo attacks come from songs. I was super into country music growing up, and this one always got me.
Let me start by saying I must really like this community if I am showing some of the pictures posted below. All for the love of the hive!
Every bride wants to look her best on her wedding day, there is just no way around it. It is the day all eyes and camera lenses will be on you. Your hair has to look its best, your teeth should be their brightest, your skin its most flawless. Well, easier said than done. I live in the real world over here—a world where I can’t get a trim and facial every few weeks. A world where sometimes I am so dead tired that I can’t bring myself to take off my makeup before going to sleep. (In all honesty, I’ve gotten better about at least using a cleansing cloth like this.) A world where a bowl of ice cream and a glass of red wine sound like more fun than a plate of broccoli.
I will never be perfect—no one will be. But I am trying my best to be the best version of me I can be, both inside and out. I should say before we begin that I originally planned on including a weight/health section here, but I have so much to say there that it will unfortunately (for me) get its own post. Also, I plan on doing a follow-up post in a few months to see how these treatments worked for me. The main superficial concerns I want to address before my big day are: skin, hair, teeth, and body.
Realistically speaking (typing?), I should be working on my graduate project or possibly reviewing videos of me doing therapy with my clients. Instead, I’ve decided to talk to you about flowers!
I knew from the very beginning that flowers weren’t something I was super attached to as wedding decorations. When it comes to Sparky, his described interest is “As little as you care, I’m about 5% of that.” So it’s not something we’ve been too hung up on.
That being said, I knew that we would have some flowers. I couldn’t imagine walking down the aisle without a bouquet, and I think a tux without a boutonniere wouldn’t look quite right at a wedding.
Being a researcher by trade, I put a lot of time into reading reviews and looking at portfolios of various florists. Having done that, I decided on the florist I was most interested in and then promptly set it aside. (This was done last February, probably.) Fast forward past the year mark and my Knot checklist suggests “set up appointments with florists to discuss options.” Uh, yeah. I should do that.
Before I got in touch with the florist I had found, I asked BM Apple Pie who did the flowers at her wedding. Lo and behold, she used the same florist. Sold.
We went to the meeting with Wendy of Ravenna Bloom with iPhones in hand. Sparky didn’t have any strong opinions, so I used my inspiration board to talk about what I was thinking. Basically what I said: Anemones, pops of blue, edible components, texture, and a smallish bouquet (no hiding behind flowers for me!).
So…my inspiration? Click through!
Photo by SMS Photography via Style Me Pretty
I love that this bouquet has anemones. They are my favorite, and really the only flower that jumped out when I was looking at bridal bouquets. I love the different white/white colors and textures, too. Plus, the gray brunia berries are really rocking my world. If this is what my bouquet ends up looking like I would be very happy.
Wedding blogs are filled to the brim with gorgeous locations just brimming with all sorts of sprawling oak trees, majestic staircases, rustic barns, and glorious vistas.
It’s no wonder that when we start to actually look for places to host our own events, we might be a little disappointed.
Image via stock.xchng | Photography by yirsh
Last February I started sending out requests for information, filling out web forms, and constructing a spreadsheet to house the results. I was casting a fairly wide net, looking both locally and up to four hours away just so I wouldn’t miss that potentially-perfect-for-us spot.
Turns out, the problem wasn’t finding potential locations, it was getting responses.
But more about that later.
PREZZIE TIME! Hive, I love prezzies. I also participate in Chrismukkah, because, as Seth Cohen explains, it is “eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents.” But that’s a story for another time.
After the guys got ready and I officially became a bride, the guys were kicked out of the room so Mr. O could open his gift in private.
(All photos by Stacy Able Photography.)
Our ceremony was quick and traditional. We met with our rabbi (if you’re looking for a rabbi in PA to do an interfaith wedding, or any wedding, really, I highly recommend Rabbi Bleefeld.) a few times before the wedding so he could get to know us and personalize the ceremony a bit. He gave us one crucial piece of advice for the ceremony that we both took to heart. He advised that as soon as the ceremony started, we look at each other, and no one else, the entire time. He told us some stories about brides who were more concerned about where the photographer/videographer were throughout the ceremony, and didn’t pay attention to the real reason why they were there. He advised us that there’s nothing like being able to recall the way your beloved looked the moment you were married, and we didn’t need to look at him, or our guests, or anyone besides each other. I am so very glad we took his advice, because there is nothing that I remember more vividly about our ceremony besides what Mr. Ly looked like in those moments where we were married. I did not see guests come in late, my photographer lying on the floor to get some of his shots, or my MOH run out in the middle of our ceremony (surprise: she’s pregnant too!), all I saw was the face of my love as we promised each other to love, honor and cherish each other for the rest of our lives.
So all of our photos are us, looking at each other. And I love that. If you can take this advice and look at no one other than your partner for your entire ceremony—do it. You’ll never regret not looking anywhere else.
All photos by Mike Landis Photographer
(Also, sorry to jam all these photos into one post. I didn’t want to do more than one ceremony post, but I love ALL these pictures. I couldn’t choose. So very pic heavy post ahead.)
The rabbi started the ceremony by welcoming our guests, mentioning those in remembrance who have passed, and offering up a bit of his rabbinical advice about marriage.
TheFairyPanda share these cute sidewalk chalk photos from her engagement session.
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It’s weird…before the ‘Bee I never even realised that people had such strong opinions about registries.
Apparently a registry should be spread via word of mouth, and it should be for only household gifts. You should never expect a gift, and you should be thankful for that plastic flower that your great aunt gave you that says “do not display in direct sunlight” on the label, even though you’d never display it anywhere where light could get to it because it’s so hideous. (That didn’t happen to me…OK, it did.)
We’re not doing a household registry. We’re doing a honeymoon registry. We will be putting the registry details on our website and app, and we can pretty much guarantee that everyone will be thankful that we did.
You see, registries just aren’t a big deal. Not with my circle, anyway. We’ve had household registries, honeymoon registries, and even little poems about how it’d be nice to get cash. And it never offended me. Not one bit.
Well, hive. I’m sorry to keep disappearing on you. Married life has surprised me with ups and downs that have kept me on my toes and away from Weddingbee for longer than I would have liked. And, I’ll confess, Mr. Unicorn and I haven’t even finished writing our wedding thank you notes. Bad unicorns!
Clip from Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove via YouTube.com
In all seriousness, though, thank-you notes have been a huge pain. A word of advice to any and all brides-to-be: knock those suckers out the week after the wedding. If you procrastinate, like we did, you’ll find yourself writing very generic notes for gifts you don’t really remember.
Dear So and So,
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