Weddingbee Blog

This weekend has been a blitz of wedding crafts and basketball. After taking a week off of planning/crafting, I realized I needed to get my booty in gear if I wanted to make a dent in my craft list before the wedding. Well, with the help of Mr. Aardvark and some basketball on TV, we got a a ton done. One of the biggest items that I was SO excited to check off our list? The ceremony programs. Originally I figured we did not need a program. We could save time, money and effort by just skipping them all together. Then I realized we had a pretty sizable contingent of non-Catholics who would be attending. It would only be polite to include some kind of instruction for all of the standing, sitting and kneeling.

Mr. Aardvark and I used the ceremony planning worksheet our priest gave us to come up with the content…a bit of fiddling around and we figured out how to print half sheets front to back. After a quick trip to Staples, the easy part was done. We had 100 copies of our seven page (half page) programs. Being the crazy person I am, I decided these would be SO much cuter if we used the same corner punch we did for the invitations. I now know that means 2,800 corners to punch…
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So, here we are with one month to go. I can’t believe how fast things have progressed so far! One of the big things that we needed to check off our list was the music. Don’t worry, we hired a highly recommended DJ ages ago, but we had songs to pick! Our DJ provided us with a little work sheet with all sorts of questions and “pick a song for this, pick a song for that” type things.

I had been dutifully putting this off, because there are so many great songs and music styles out there that I was totally overwhelmed. The only song I knew I wanted all along was my daddy-daughter dance song. My dad used to sing it to meas a lullaby:

“Be Bop A Lula” by John Lennon. In fact this song is so special, I had to shut it off just now because I got a little misty listening to it!. I’ll blame that on my “Lady Time” and hope I can get through it at the wedding (even if Bridesmaid Sis tears up).
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Mr. Aardvark and I were filling out some paperwork for the church, and he realized we have been dating over three years. “I can’t believe we’ve dated so long! You’d think we’d be married by now!” he said. This caught me a bit by surprise. For one, I don’t think three years is that long at all, and two, I thought I was the one who was antsy to get married! This lead to a great discussion about what the standard aount of time is to wait until two people get married.

I realized that there is no right or wrong amount of time. Mama Aardvark and step-dad Aardvark were together for fifteen years before they made it legal. One of our good friends married her husband after about six months of dating (although they’d know each other for years). And there are heaps of people that fall in between those two.

Even reading the boards here on Weddingbee, it is clear there is something of a bell curve, but no right or wrong amount of time to date before marriage.

When it came to Mr. Aardvark and me, everything happened as it was supposed to. Looking back I thought he was going to propose Christmas of 2009. It turns out I was off by about a year-and-a-half but I am SO glad we did not spend part of our LDR engaged.
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A very wise man once said “real life begins when you have to implement plan B, even if you aren’t sure what plan B is yet.” Now, don’t fret your pretty little faces, there isn’t major trouble in our lives or wedding planning. However, something we thought was all figured out, unfigured itself. That something is our bridal party. Spoiler alert: There is no major drama here just a bit of a bummer.

We had asked our peeps months ago when we first got engaged. They all excitedly said yes and we started planning away. About a month ago, one of Mr. Aardvark’s good friends, and groomsmen, had a change in his work situation. The change was pretty crummy over all, but made extra crummy by the fact that it made attending our wedding a financial impossibility. While he decided to look for different work, the odds of him attending our wedding are pretty slim.

There wasn’t much to be done except let him know we’ll save a spot for him if things change. We did not take him off the “Wedding Party” part of our website or anything. He is still an important part of Mr. Aardvark’s life and we both feel like he is still a part of our day, even from a distance. We are sad that he will not be joining us, but we are all rolling with it.

We are now facing the interesting situation of having uneven sides. While I am not in the least worried about it, I am curious about how it has been handled by other bees?
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Something funny has happened this week. We are under the 40-days-to-go mark (eep!) and I still have quite a few to-dos. Despite having had that now or never feeling for the last month or so, I took a break. Madness, I know.

Last weekend, Mr. Aardvark and I were getting our biz-nass in order, filling out forms and checking off checklists for the wedding. We were really rocking and rolling. Then Mr. Aardvark announced that he couldn’t wait to be done planning.

WHAT?! I thought I had been doing such a good job of sheltering him from the crazy-wedding-planning-storm. With each category, I would ask if he cared about it, and in most cases he did not. I would then plow ahead, only checking in occasionally for a thumbs up or to show him the finished product. That’s not to say he hasn’t helped—he’s been VERY helpful, but as far planning goes it really hasn’t been that bad. (Or so I thought.)

I think Mr. Aardvark could read all of this through the look on my face. He said, “I mean, I can’t wait for you to be done planning!” This

is when I realized that I was also looking forward to being done! So much so that I didn’t want to tackle another wedding related task for a couple of days. (OK, maybe that is an over-statement—I have tackled a few tasks, but they were really just things I’d already started.)

So how did I really get my mind off of it?
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So, I kinda feel like I have been holding out on you, Hive. Mr. Aardvark and I registered AGES ago. I was convinced that we needed to do it RIGHT AWAY, so in the late summer we decided to get to it. Turns out the registry’s sat unused for a few months, until Christmas. But since then my obsessive occasional checking has shown me that items are being plucked off right and left! As someone who never made birthday or Christmas lists as a child, this seems new to me. Mr. Aardvark has given me a hard time for peeking, but I figure if we already know what we’re getting… what’s the harm in it?

Image by yours truly

You may be asking yourself, “What are they getting? And from where?”
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As I mentioned here, not only did I have my hair and makeup trial this weekend, I also had a super-amazing-fantastically-fun bridal shower! My two grandmas and MOH MD put it on for me and I was totally blown away. I mean, these ladies know how to put on a party!

After I got all prettied up, Mama Aardvark and I had to make a blitz trip to the mall because both of the outfits she was thinking of wearing were too big! She has been on a pretty hard core fitness kick and is looking fab!

So, after scampering off to get her a dress (seriously, it took like five  minutes to find one) we headed down to the parish center. We got there a touch early to find it BEAUTIFULLY decorated!

How cute are these tables?!

It was a pretty sweet spread. Each place setting had these super cute favors that my Grandma and her sister had painted by hand! How cool is that!? So cool. The answer is So.Cool.

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Last weekend was a whirlwind! I had an amazing bridal shower in Michigan and my hair and makeup trial! I will tell you all about the shower soon (It was SO much fun!).  But, first things first! I had to look good if people were going to watch me open gifts!

Mama Aardvark cleverly suggested the pre-shower trial and booked me in with Salon Hanna. Lisa has been doing my hair since I was in junior high and it was so much fun to go back in for this big event! Not to mention, she does amazing work!

You know what they say about pictures, so I will spare you the thousand words and get right into it!

I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted and had printed several pictures to bring with me.

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I have given very little thought to flowers. In fact, I don’t have any flower inspiration pictures saved anywhere. I really like them, they are pretty and smell nice, but I just can’t get excited enough to drop  big money on them. For myself, the moms, and maybe the ‘maids (still undecided on them), I am planning on going to the grocery store on Friday or Saturday morning and bunching up some flowers. I don’t think that I can do what a florist could do, but I know I can do something that’s good enough for me.

For the men-folk, I have had my mind made up on their florals since wayyyy back in July when the lovely Ms. (now Mrs.) Ferris Wheel wrote this post. I was totally sold. I didn’t give the  bouts another thought until a few weeks ago when I decided to tackle this project for myself.

One thing Mrs. Ferris Wheel didn’t say was how easy she made it look! While it wasn’t hard per se, it was rather tedious and I got blisters on my fingers from hot glue burns and wire twisting! But the end result, after only a few swears, was very much worth it!

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I know. I have already written about shoes a few times. I’ve talked about bridesmaids shoes, I’ve talked about my non-wedding-bridal-shoes, and on several, different occasions, I have mentioned my own shoes. However, this post is not about my shoes or my moms’ shoes or any other lady shoes at all.

In fact this is a post about MAN shoes! Yep, with out so much as a pro/con list Mr. Aardvark selected and purchased his shoes for the wedding! Enough of my blabbering on, let’s get to the pictures!

He ordered them from Zappos. We were sitting on the sofa one quiet afternoon and he asked, “What do you think of these for the wedding?” I really liked them. They were cool, but not trendy. They were stylish, but not too much so. And the color was to die for.
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Mr. Aardvark and I love kids. We are lucky enough to have a number of kids in our family who will be in our wedding. We are having three flower girls and a ring bearer. One thing I really wanted to do-up right was the thank you gifts for the children. They are all fairly young (between five and two) so I wanted to make sure their gifts were age appropriate, but I also wanted to make sure it was something they could have as a keepsake as they grew up.

After a bit of brainstorming and memory searching, I came up with an idea that I thought was brilliant. When I was little (and now) I loved “treasure boxes”: any wooden or plastic box totally captured my imagination. I would fill them with pretty rocks or fall leaves or earrings my mom had lost the match for. I still have a couple of these “treasure boxes” to this day, and I use them as jewelry boxes.

Mr. Aardvark and I decided treasure boxes (filled with candy treasure) would be fun enough to feel like a real gift to a little kid, but still something they could keep their whole lives.

Of course, just buying pretty boxes would be too easy. So, I decided to paint my own!

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No, that is not a typo. This is a story about how, my Mama Aardvark, Step-Mama Aardvark and I  all went dress shopping together and found their (S)MOB dresses.

Before we get to the pretty pictures, there is something you need to know. My family is pretty unique   in that, despite divorces and remarriages, everyone gets along. In fact, getting along is a bit of an understatement when it comes to Mama and Step-Mama Aardvark. One might even go so far as to say they are friends.

And, as sometimes happens with friends, they have very similar taste. I cannot count the times they have shown up dressed identically (without planning) to an event. They purchased the same grill within weeks of each other (first off, how often do you buy a grill, and second, what are the odds they both got the same one!?). They have purchased the same glassware (unknowingly). I even remember a time when I was I was in high school and we all three had the same pair of shoes in the same size and color!

Knowing this, we decided to all shop for dresses together so that they wouldn’t accidentally end up in the same dress at our wedding!

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Four years ago today I was a single college student in South Dakota. I had just joined a cycling team. I had been riding a bike my whole life, but had never competed. I was relieved/nervous that the first event of the season was an indoor “race” the team participated in for a local charity.

I was relieved because it was on stationary bikes so I knew I wouldn’t get dropped. I was also relieved because it was Singles Awareness Day (AKA Valentine’s Day). I was glad to be doing something besides sitting alone and feeling sorry for myself. (Leslie Knope had not yet invented “Galentine’s Day.”) I was nervous because I had never met any of these people in my life and I didn’t know if I would be fast enough to “keep up.”

If I had know I was about to meet my future husband, you can bet I would have been a lot more nervous! While neither of us claims love at first sight, for me it was at least interest at first sight. After each of us had ridden our “leg” of the race we all went to Pizza Ranch for lunch. (If you have never been to or seen a Pizza Ranch, it is an ideal location for calorie replacement and people watching.)

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Hive, forgive me, this may be a bit of a rant. Really, it is more of an open letter to people who may witness a bride-to-be eating. I know that weight and weight loss are very personal subjects, and I acknowledge that others may enjoy a bit of outside motivation. However this is my experience and I feel I need to share it with you.

I thought that an upcoming wedding would be a big motivator to be in the best shape ever, but honestly it has had the opposite effect. And really, that makes sense, because when I was in my best shape ever, I was spending 20-30 hours a week training, and was laser-focused on competition. These days, not so much. However, all my clothes still fit and I don’t feel horrible so I have had a hard time seeing a “problem.”

Well, I must have missed the memo that all brides are fitness-crazed, calorie counting, and worried about the fit of their dresses. Lucky for me, a few months into my engagement this was pointed out to me. The kicker? It was pointed out by an acquaintance! Someone I knew, kinda, but in any other situation would be totally inappropriate for her to comment on my weight or size. We were talking about getting ice cream (or was it doughnuts?) with a group and she looked at me and said,

“But you have a wedding dress to fit into!”
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So, currently we have less than 70 days to go until “the big show,” and I am starting to feel the time crunch. After hearing over and over again not to put off projects until the last minute, I am starting to take that a bit too seriously because I can see the “last minutes” coming closer and closer.

This weekend, for example, Mr. Aardvark went out on a bike ride (outside in Wisconsin!) because it was so nice out! I could have joined him, but instead I finished the flower girl/ring bearer gifts. Chances are I would have gotten them done if I had ridden, but I REALLY wanted to check them off of my ever-growing craft list. (Post on those to come.)

On Sunday, as we were getting ready to watch a Packer-less Super Bowl (AKA a few hours of great ads), I was working on boutonnieres, but what I really wanted to do was make soft pretzels. Why? Because I have convinced myself that if I don’t do it NOW, it won’t happen.

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