Weddingbee Blog

You guys, we are two days out from the day. Two! Days! So pardon my utter insanity, pretty please?

One of the things we decided to do for our ceremony was to write our own vows. Or rather, I suggested it and Mr. Lox was on board. I’ve never done this before so I’d like to share the experience with you and perhaps help you from falling into the same trap that I did.

Obviously I read wedding blogs. And so I’ve read multiple times about people writing their own vows. I had visions or us telling each other how much the other means to us, why we love them, and what we promise for the rest of our lives. I did not, however, communicate any of that to Mr. Lox. Now, Mr. Lox does NOT read wedding blogs. After all, why should he when he has me? So when I said, “Let’s do our own vows!” he had something quite different in mind.

Then we decided it would be super romantic to keep the vows a surprise. You can see what’s coming right?

Mr. Lox sent his vows to the officiant last week, just a day or two before I was ready to send mine. I had about half a page typed that I was still refining a bit. And after he sent his, I had a horrible feeling. A feeling that these two sets of vows were not going to match up. So I asked him, without revealing the content, if he could give me an idea of the structure.

Remember the half a page I had written?
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So this weekend, Miss Sparkler reminded me about my plan to walk down the aisle alone. I know the last time we talked about it, I seemed like there might have been some wiggle room in that decision. That was a little unfair of me because there isn’t. For all the reasons I gave there and then some, I still plan to do this one by myself.

But I haven’t been able to shake the fact that I wouldn’t have made that decision if my step-father were still here to step in. It would have been his greatest joy to escort me down the aisle and I would have been delighted to have him do it. But it is what it is and he isn’t here with us, so that is not a choice I get to make.

So my dears, that brings us to the question of why on earth I’m writing about this again. I mean, if nothing has changed, then why bother to re-open the topic? Well, because something has, in fact, changed.

Like I said, I keep thinking of my step-father when I think about this. So it occurred to me that maybe I could find a way after all to take him down the aisle with me. Enter, my keychain:

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So as I’ve mentioned a few times before, there will, in fact, be children at our wedding. We could go over tons of reasons why and why not to have children at a wedding. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer or decision there. We decided to let them be there because I simply hated the idea that someone we love would miss our wedding because they couldn’t find a babysitter. So there it is. Children will be there.

That doesn’t mean I like the idea of bored kids running around, making noise at inappropriate times, or photobombing us. I do like the idea of kids dancing, having fun, and not being bored so their parents have to leave early. So, dear hive, what is the best way to keep children from getting bored? Give them something to do! This was the one project Mr. Lox has wanted since we first started wedding planning. And since he really hasn’t asked for much throughout this process, he was always destined to get his way here. So I started dreaming up ideas for activities for the children.

And we came up with this…

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Sorry y’all, I’m too frazzled now for cute titles. But I did want to not leave you hanging on the monogrammed totes. So cute title or not, we have spotted a tutorial!

First, you should gather all of your supplies. Here are mine:

Okay, there are some freeloaders in that shot, so let’s focus on the real supplies. Those are:
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No no, not you all. I mean, I’m glad you’re here and all. But today I’m talking about thanking those guests who are choosing to come a longer way and stay overnight with us at the inn. So Mr. Lox and I chose to make out of town bags for them. Okay, maybe that’s’ not exactly how it went. Perhaps to be more accurate, I should say that I decided to make OOT bags and Mr. Lox supported me like he almost always does.

Making the OOT bags was something I knew I ‘d do as soon as we knew we’d have OOT guests. And, truth be told, we don’t have many. But I still thought it would be nice. So that decision was simple. What wasn’t simple? Was deciding what they should look like and what should be in them!

After many iterations of what these would look like, they ended up like this.

Starting with the bag on the left and going clockwise, this is what we have:
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Hive, let’s take a moment to let me freak out. Our wedding…it’s getting CLOSE. Y’all can see I’m a May bride right? I mean, I’m less than a month away. So now I’m working on those last minute things… some of them more last minute than others. And as I get frenzied, I am hoping to keep up with you all. But if I don’t quite hold up my end of the bargain, you know where I am right? Right.

So back to the details… program fans were something I’ve been set on since I can’t even remember when. I was just fixated really. Initially, I hunted down templates all over the web. And each one was kind of worse than the last. Then I decided to just use 2 8.5×11″ pieces of cardstock. You know that was too big, right? Yeah, so do I. Now. So I got a little desperate and the hive came to the rescue. Specifically the fine bees in this thread. Thanks ladies!

In case you were wondering, the end solution was to use one piece of 8.5×11″ cardstock… cut in half. And so I was ready to go. And here is the skinny on how I did it.
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So the other trial I had this weekend was my makeup trial. I know…busy busy!

Unlike my hair trial, I didn’t go in armed with inspiration pictures. I did show her pictures of my dress and give her a general idea of what I was looking for. Basically, I want to look polished and have my skin look fantastic. I’d like a sort of natural look but with some oomph to the eyes. And of course, I had to go in bare-faced.

Here’s the deal. I know you all love a confident woman. And I’m totally cool with who I am. But who I am is a chick who doesn’t leave the house without a little bit of makeup at the very least. So what I’m showing you here is a testament to my love for you all. And visual proof of why I wear makeup even to the grocery store.
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This weekend was the weekend of trials for me. And first up? Was the hair.

Now before we get started, let’s take a walk down memory lane. We talked about my original hair-spiration. We also talked about how much I hate my natural curls. (I know, a bad curly girl is me. But that’s the way it goes.) And then we talked about new hair-spiration for straight lox. (Sorry, couldn’t help it.) Let’s revisit the final chosen inspiration…

From The Knot/Photo by Mary Claire Crow, Old Hickory

With side swept bangs like these…

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Mr. Lox and I finally have the complete set of numbers to give to the venue. So I thought, in the interest of full disclosure, that I would share them here. I’m going to limit our discussion to the adults we invited. As we’ve discussed before, we invited everyone’s children. However, a lot of folks chose to leave the young ones at home, so including the children in our numbers doesn’t give an accurate sense of our acceptance rate. And honestly, I’m pretty pleased with where we landed so I wanted you all to get a solid idea of it.

Here we go!

Total # invited: 70
OOT Guests: 9
“Local” Guests: 61
Total # of Invitations Sent: 40

Local is in quotations for a reason.
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The search for my wedding band was oddly difficult. Unlike Mr. Lox, I knew exactly what I wanted when we set out. And it wasn’t exotic or crazy so it shouldn’t have been hard to find. At least, that was my logic. That was not, however, the reality of the situation. (Come on, you saw that coming. An easy transaction wouldn’t make for a very good blog post, now would it?)

I wanted a channel set princess cut band in white gold. so far, so good. And I wanted the diamonds to start and stop more or less where the channel set princess stones on my engagement ring do. Initial shopping trips indicated this would amount to roughly a .5 tcw band. You probably already spotted the problem in there… the starting and stopping matching up. Yeah… that was a rough one.

The search kind of went pear-shaped quickly. and to make matters even worse, our budget crisis occurred just as we were starting to shop. Meaning that all of a sudden we had to totally slash the budget for my ring. I would love to pretend I took that well, but I’d be lying. The truth is, I resented it. Big time. Especially since I had bought Mr. Lox a rather expensive (for what it was) band because it was what he truly wanted. And now, the reality was that what I wanted was irrelevant because we were short on cash. I’m going to go back to pretending this never happened now, if it’s all the same to you. Back to ring hunting we go!

Enter our very own Miss Crepe, who gave me the idea to seek out a jeweler.
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Once upon a time, I told you all that I wouldn’t be having a shower. I mean, I’m an encore, I’m 33, and Mr. Lox and I have so much stuff between us that we have a storage unit because it won’t all fit in our apartment. So, no shower. Done.

Right. Except no one gave my coworkers the memo. I tried to deliver it multiple times, but they would have none of it. As far as they were concerned, it was their only chance to celebrate our marriage and they were going to have it, by golly. I told them there was no reason to bother. They laughed at me. Then I told them no gifts, and they ignored me. Instead, they put together one of the sweetest things I’ve ever had coworkers do for me. I was floored.

First, there was tons of food. i mean, they really had a great spread. And then, there was the cake, made by the yummiest bakery anywhere near me. I mean, you guys, this is some serious cake.

Look at the flowers in our wedding colors! So thoughtful!

And then there was the thing I tried to stop them from doing. In fact, I tried so hard I didn’t give them any ideas on what I would want. I said nothing. And they knew better than to ask. But this happened anyway…
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So here is a piece of advice from me to you. If you’re working with a vendor who comes with the package at your wedding venue… a cake vendor even… and said cake vendor offers you a trial of your cake. Take. It. Trust me, you can thank me for it later. Obviously, this is going to be a story about why I will never be sad that I did exactly that.

Yesterday we went on a wedding bonanza to get several things done at once. The first of which was a visit to the bakery to see the trial top tier of our cake. (Which I had wisely ordered the week before. Go me!) When we pulled up to the bakery, I pulled the cake inspiration picture out of my handy wedding folder so Mr. Lox and I could examine it and be ready to properly assess if the trial tier was correct. Just as a refresher, here is the cake-spiration we gave to the bakery.

Photo from The Knot/ Cake by Alliance Bakery in Chicago/Picture by Dayna Schroeder Photography

So pretty. On the phone last week, I told her I wanted it to look like this but with pink in place of the green. And, per my instructions, this is what they had for me today…

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So, you all put up with me while I waffled over hair flowers. And for that I’m grateful. Although I’m pretty sure I still need some kind of 12 step program. For the record, I bought a total of four (yes FOUR) hair flowers. And for whatever reason, I have resisted, and fought, and doubted the right choice. Even though it’s pretty clear. But my hair trial is next week and I am overdue on this decision.

My alterations lady and my mother both championed the smaller first hair flower I bought.

Vintage Collection – Victoria Hair Piece – White and Ivory by Y & E Bridal

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Last week, our DOC was getting started on our timeline, so she had some questions. And one of those was, are we having a final send off? Now, let me tell you something here. We are getting pretty close to the one month mark. So, like the good type-A bride I am, there are very few questions I can’t answer. In fact, I’ve got details, ideas, and other minutia coming out of my ears. And yet, this one stumped me. So I asked Mr. Lox… are we?

Let’s pause for a moment to remember some details about our wedding. We are having an afternoon affair that will begin and end in broad daylight. So sparkler send-offs are right out. Also, our venue has outlawed anything with glitter or confetti. Basically, the only thing we’re allowed to throw around are real flower petals. That was never an option for us since it gets kind of pricey and we are still on a budget.

Okay, back to the story at hand. Now, early in our wedding planning I found the hive. And you guys taught me about little flags and ribbon wands.
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No pretty pictures today my dears, I’m sorry about that. But I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately, so I thought maybe I could share with you. I know, I know…I promised a post full of pretty details would be next. Forgive me?

I adore the Beatles, and I love their song All You Need is Love. Love it so much, in fact, that it will be the recessional for our ceremony.

But I don’t believe it. Love is NOT all you need.

This is where my encore status makes me a little different. I’ve been through two failed marriages. And I loved both of those men. Loved them completely, to the point where I sacrificed myself and my needs to them. But those marriages, they didn’t work. And it’s not because I didn’t love them.

It’s because love isn’t all you need.
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