Weddingbee Blog

Hi, hive! Long time no see!

I wanted to pop back in to share a secret that I’ve been keeping for exactly a year. I was dying to tell you this back in January of 2011, but Mr. S and I decided to keep it on the down low for the time being. But I think that it’s time to finally share.

Remember our wedding, the one that took place in May, the one that some of you probably read about last summer?

Well, by the time that wedding happened, we’d already been secretly married for three and a half months!

See, last January, I interviewed for and got a new job. The only problem was that I wouldn’t be eligible for health insurance for three months after starting, and continuing my benefits with COBRA would be expensive as hell. So, the solution seemed simple: Mr. S and I have a quickie secret wedding at City Hall so that I could jump onto his benefits.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple.
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This post is about aisle decor, but it’s also about a store. First, let’s talk about decor.

When I originally imagined walking down the aisle at our wedding, I pictured a white aisle, a floral arch, and flowers on the end of each row of chairs. I saw this on so many wedding blogs that I think I must have assumed this was standard ceremony decor.

Flowers by Flowers by Fudgie / Image from Flowers by Fudgie’s blog

Just as I got scared away from bringing lighting into our venue because I thought it would compete with the beauty of our venue, I started to think that going too over the top with ceremony decor would detract from the environment around us. Interestingly, the person who got me thinking about scaling back was my florist!
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Before we get into the juice of this post, I have to tell you that we’ve had a DJ booked for quite some time. We looked into having a live band, but just could not justify the (at least) $3000 extra that would be spent. I was quite honestly a little bummed, because every wedding I’ve been to with live music has definitely had that extra oomph. Anyway, DJ booked.

So when I started talking to Mr. Elk about what music he wanted to walk down the aisle to, he agreed that Beatles songs and other classics would do the trick. I’ve never pictured myself walking to  Here Comes the Bride or Canon in D, and Mr Elk is big into music, especially from the ’60s, so it was easy for us to be on the same page on this front. Mr Elk didn’t seem thrilled, though, that we would be walking to radio versions of songs. Please note that this conversation happened at least 6 months ago. He seemed to think that this wouldn’t be special enough for such a big day. Even the Vitamin String Quartet version of songs wouldn’t do it for him. At that point I was a little peeved that he hadn’t said something sooner, but fine, no biggie. If he wanted real strings to make the ceremony more special that was fine. But since I couldn’t care less about this, it was totally and completely up to him! I gave him the contact for two  reputable string ensembles in the area and told him it was his responsibility to make it happen. Fast forward ’til about three weeks ago, and he STILL hadn’t contacted anyone. I was pretty convinced he had decided he didn’t care either, as I had reminded him every month. But no, he finally got his act together and we now officially have a string duo for our ceremony.

So what are we planning on walking down the aisle to?
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After our misadventures in wood burning, Mr. Warbs stepped up to stain the box. We originally ordered the unfinished box online knowing that we would eventually stain it. We went to Home Depot to pick out a nice rustic looking color, a drop cloth and some paint brushes. While the box’s lid was being worked on by BM Tata’s dad, Mr. Warbs went to work on the rest of the box. Staining is pretty easy to do, but if you’re going to stain wood here’s a tip to make it easier on yourself: sand the wood first! It helps the wood absorb the stain better. Totally a foreign concept to me, but apparently everyone’s part of a secret club that knows about things like this!

Anyway, we neglected to do that and it gave Mr. Warbs a bit of trouble to get the wood dark enough. The first couple coats of stain seemed to roll off the wood like water. I think he must have used four or more coats in order to get the box dark enough. When we got the lid back, (which BM Tata’s dad had sanded) it only needed one coat of stain. If we had added another it would have been a completely different color than the rest of the box.

After giving the box a couple of days to dry we were happy with the finished color!

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Remember how I talked about using a wine box for our ceremony and then promptly never mentioned the subject again? Yeah, I’ve been a bad bride. We bought an unfinished wine box with the intention of staining it and wood burning our names on it. Well, the box has been sitting in our apartment for months now, just begging to get all fancied up. Long story short? We lacked the motivation to get going on the thing. Every now and then I would get short bursts of motivation. One day I went out and bought a wood burning kit. Then something came up and I didn’t think of the box again for two months. Another time I bought foam inserts and a X-Acto knife…and the box sat for months. You get the idea. A few weeks ago, I set aside a specific day to tackle this project. I was tired of looking at the unfinished box with all of the tools stacked on top of it. So I grabbed the wood burner and practice wood and went to work. Yeah, it turns out wood burning is a much harder skill than I thought.

FAIL!

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Putting our ceremony together was oddly simple. We have been on the same page since day one that our ceremony would be short and simple; having an outdoor winter ceremony has helped us keep it to that.

We needed an officiant and we knew right away that our officiant would be someone special to us, someone who knew us. We aren’t church-goers and so having a church officiant didn’t make any sense. While it took a couple months into our engagement to actually decide whom that person would be, once we thought of it, it was like, “Duh!” Our officiant is Best Man Cruise’s dad, Mark. Mr. Honey has known him for years and years and while I’ve only known him a couple years, he is the perfect person for the task. We asked him over for wings and beer one night and he happily accepted. In the months to come, I did some research on how Mark would become officially officiated. I found the best website to be openministry.org where the ordination was free, so I even splurged and spent $14.95 on a certificate. We celebrated with margaritas and Mexican food that night.

We have an Officiant!

Once Mark had “the power invested in him” as he likes to say, I outlined the flow of our ceremony, leaving the word content in Mark’s hands. So, here’s how our short and sweet ceremony will go.
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Mr. Unicycle and I rang in the new year at a VFW hall in Minneapolis where my MOH and I did a rousing rendition of Queen’s “Somebody to Love.”

Personal pic

No photographic evidence was taken this time, but here’s us doing “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” circa 2010. I told you this happened!

Not exactly the swankiest of nights, but that’s neither here nor there. Mr. U and I smooched at midnight, surrounded my veterans and karaokeing hipsters alike, and the symbolism of the midnight kiss made me think of another symbolic kiss we’d be partaking in during 2012: the “you may kiss the bride” kiss. Or the more modern “you may kiss each other” kiss. But I prefer the former because it means he needs permission and I don’t.

I did some extensive research on the topic of wedding kisses, which is to say, I wikied that shiz and read the poorly cited paragraph they provided:
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There are countless details when planning a wedding. One of them that I recently decided to fixate on was how our wedding bands would make it down the aisle for the ceremony. You see, we have a ring bearer—Salty’s nephew will be two. In my opinion that is the perfect age for such tasks. He’ll be old enough to walk in a straight line (more or less) and young enough to be a bit of a wild card and promise some entertainment for the guests watching.

The with the “who” settled the next question was, “how?”

I have never really liked the traditional ring pillows (some are lovely, but they’re just not my style). The ceramic bowls are nice, but I wanted something different.

Photo via MovieQuotesandMore.com / From Shawshank Redemption

OK, so ours will not be shaped like a pick hammer but I decided a cut out book would be perfect. It would be fun, unique, and provide a great chance to to really get my craft on. Without further ado, how to make your very own ring book:

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Image via Chicago Now

It seems like with everything that goes into planning a wedding, sometimes the ceremony is overlooked. Just me? Fine! I’ve put most of my energy into picking the right photographer, food and minutiae that I forgot all about the ceremony. Like, seriously. Whoops!
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Like I’ve said in my introduction to our church, the building was once a strip club. Because of that, our building doesn’t have a normal church ambiance. There are no vaulted ceilings, no stain glass windows, and no glossy pews. Basically, there is none of this:

Image via St. Clement’s Shrine in Boston, MA

It’s a simple building with little decoration. The church is more about focusing on God than on appearance.
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I’m really proud of our wedding ceremony script. I think it works in both of our traditions in a beautiful way, and incorporates some other elements unrelated to either of our heritages, but are very beautiful. Our officiant put together the ceremony himself, and we made a few minor tweaks.

Here’s the script in its entirety. I hope you enjoy and if there are any interfaith couples out there, this may make for a good example if you are looking for something similar.

Processional

Gathering Words

We are here today in the presence of God to witness and celebrate the uniting in marriage of Kenneth (full name hidden for privacy) and Rachel (full name hidden for privacy). They are taking the first step of their new beginning; their new life together.

Loving someone is a reason to stretch beyond our limits, to become more for the sake of the other. It is to look into the soul of your beloved and accept what you see. Loving is the ultimate commitment which challenges humans to become all that we are meant to be.
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The wedding planning universe is a funny, funny place. It’s full of pretty meaningless details that can go from being completely ignored to absolutely essential in a manner of hours—nay, minutes. For us, the most recent wrench has been the ceremony’s seating of the parents. Warning: You’re about to dive into a logistical nightmare of epic proportions, with every combination of our bridal party doing an endless number of things. You’ve been cautioned.

We thought we’d pretty much figured this out at our meeting last month with the officiant: The Reverend, Mr. Ladyfingers, and his groomsmen would file in from the side of the lawn, along with FFIL Ladyfingers, who would just kind of sit down without fanfare. Then, we’d do a special song for seating Mr. LF’s mother and my dad’s fiancee, and then the bridesmaid processional song would begin, followed by my processional song.

Then, I got on the phone with our caterer/coordinator to do our ceremony appointment—and it’s been a crapstorm all afternoon since.

Scottish-style bridal processional/Image via Blue Bonnet Tartan Weddings/Photo by Alison Cooke Photography

Her line of questioning, along with my vague grasp of what we’d decided in the first place, ended in an all-afternoon email session with Mr. LF on why MY way of seating the parents is the RIGHT way.

He’s voiced his opinion, and I keep deciding he’s wrong. This is clearly not in the spirit of collaborative wedding planning—nor in the spirit of the ceremony in general.
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I mentioned a while back that Mr. Cucumber Sammie and I will be including some cultural traditions in our ceremony to represent our heritage. We covered Mr. Cuke Sammie’s African American roots with a broom jump. And now it is my turn!

I am Irish, Irish and just a little bit more Irish so picking a heritage pull a tradition from was easy. There is tons of great inspiration for including Irish elements in your wedding. I would have loved to get Mr. Cucumber Sammie in a kilt but before I could even get the words out he said, “not going to happen.”

Would have looked so handsome! {KiltRental}

We also briefly flirted with the idea of the Irish handfasting.
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We had planned the rest of the day before the wedding to be pretty chill and relaxed. After rehearsal brunch, MOH Sweet Pea and I went to get our nails done and then it was off to the Dog and Duck Pub for some grub and hangin’ with friends and family. I was enjoying myself, but there was a little voice in the back of my brain that wouldn’t be quiet and said, “You need to finish your vows.”

You see, I had started my vows, but was having trouble finishing. I was feeling intense pressure for them to be great…REALLY great. They were dripping with beautiful and flowery metaphors with a witty line or two thrown in for good measure and a laugh, but something wasn’t quite right about them and they needed to be finished. How is it that I couldn’t find the words?

Mr Waffle and I went back to our apartment and he hurriedly packed his overnight back as midnight was looming. He’s a very traditional and superstitious guy and technically seeing me on the day was not an option for him. As he rushed out the door, he gave me a kiss and said, “Don’t forget to turn the AC back on. You’ll get hot. Bye!” Then he was gone.
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Mr. D and I did not know that there was so much involved with planning a ceremony. Soon after we decided against writing our own vows, we realized that there were other things to consider. Such as, what kind of ceremonies to include during the ceremony. There are all kinds to choose from. We could do a unity candle ceremony:

Image via Luster Studios

A variation of the unity candle ceremony—the unity sand ceremony:

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