Weddingbee Blog

The Baconator and I have looked high and low for an appropriate unity ceremony that works for a blended family with 3 pairs of parents. Unity candles kind of worked, but he didn’t love the idea since he’s seen it at so many of his friends’ weddings. Unity sand really only comes in pairs and we could have purchased a second set to break up, but that one didn’t seem to fit since we aren’t getting married on the beach. I threw around the idea of a boxed wine ceremony, but we don’t drink all that much wine. Hand fasting was also out since neither of us have any kind of a discernible Celtic background. So now what? Our families MUST UNITE!

I was flipping through a bridal magazine months ago when something on the table of contents page caught my eye. There was a teeny tiny blurb about incorporating love padlocks into weddings. How to do it wasn’t covered, but I cut out that little photo with it’s caption and pasted it into my wedding inspiration notebook. I remember hearing about the idea when I was in China a number of years ago, but at the time, I had no one to lock away with, so it didn’t really stick with me. But now, four years later, there is something charming and hopelessly romantic about locking together and throwing away the key.

Image via the Google Earth People & Cultures Community

I brainstormed ways to give each person at the wedding a piece of ribbon that would be clasped together with a padlock with our name and date inscribed on it, but that’s an awful lot of ribbon.
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While browsing the Weddingbee classifieds several months ago, I ran across this post. The bride was selling items used in her winter wedding and one of the pictures showed two sparkly navy baskets. I was less interested in the baskets themselves and more interested in what was inside the baskets.

Image via Weddingbee.com

I was curious what the bells were used for as I couldn’t read the tags. I e-mailed the seller and she responded they had used the bells after their ceremony. Each guest grabbed a bell on their way out of the church and when she and her new husband exited, everyone rang their bells. This was her alternative to the bubbles, rice or confetti post-ceremony toss.

I had been racking my brain up until this point for ideas for our church exit.

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Last night on our way home from running some wedding errands Mr. FW noticed, “We’re taking turns breathing heavy sighs.” And once he said that I realized I, too, could hear the sounds of deep, controlled inhales alternating with unsatisfactory exhales. For the first time it was really starting to weigh on us just how little time is left before our wedding day and just how much needs to get finished during that limited time. We are working on wedding projects constantly at this point, and days are flying by at breakneck speed. Yet it never seems the list gets any shorter. In fact, for every one item that we start or complete, at least one other item gets tacked on. So we both get ridiculously giddy when we find a project that seems like it will be quick and easy to cross off the list.

The ring dish should’ve been one of those easy items—”should” being the operative word here. Mr. FW spent an hour or two combing Etsy to find a few good options, one of which we both agreed would be perfect for us.

image from Etsy shop Cats Paw Pottery

One dish for the wedding, one to go on my nightstand right away. Affordable, patterned but simple, our choice of colors, and the seller would create a hole in one of them so that we could tie on the rings. Perfect!
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Once the rings make their way through the crowd and after the wedding party processes in, we’re finally ready to begin. Since the Baconator’s uncle is marrying us, we won’t have a homily, but he’ll do a welcome and maybe a opening prayer. We are sending him Union by Robert Fulghum in case he wants to include it. I love the way that it is so frank about what marriage might be, but the Baconator wants his uncle to have the freedom to put something of his own together for the ceremony.

Union by Robert Fulghum

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way. All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks - all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married,” and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” - all those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” - and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding. The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed - well, I meant it all, every word.” Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another - acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same. For after today you shall say to the world - This is my husband. This is my wife.

After the welcome-slash-introduction-slash-description of marriage is over, one of our usherettes will be coming forward to read Corinthians.
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We’ve been engaged for 229 days, and I’ve only just begun thinking about the ceremony.

This should be shameful, but really, it’s not because I’ve found cupcake choices and belly bands to be of more importance. It’s just because our ceremony is relatively straightforward – no readings, ring warming, hand fasting, high masses or moments of silence. Our goal is 20 minutes, end to end.

However. This past weekend we had our first meeting with the Reverend who will be marrying us, and he’s given us just a bit to think about.

For one thing, Mr. Ladyfingers has recently revealed to me that, all this time, he was under the impression that we were writing our own vows. Cue freak out.

I didn’t freak out because I’m against it.
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This week marks nine years since my first date with PDog.

That first date lasted for 11 hours. It involved a gelato, and the swings of a local park, and a minor car accident, and that teenage feeling like you’re going to explode of happiness at the end of the night—the feeling that makes you dance around the taupe carpet in your bedroom and text all your girlfriends even though it’s late. I built my entire adult life around that feeling, and it has served me well.

So, in honor of our relationship’s birthday, I’m ducking out of recaps for a moment. Instead, I’ll be sharing our almost-ceremony readings because…I think the passages that we considered say a lot about where nine years has taken us. The passages I’m drawn to always reflect the quiet magic of a well-aged, worn-in love. There’s so much romance in the long-term, in what happens after those first-kiss fireworks and the can’t-sleep-after-that-date butterflies. What I mean is: I see more beauty in our everyday love than I do in the movie scenes we all swoon over.

It was really important to me that our readings be personal, that their words mean something to us already, outside of wedding planning. And, bibliophage that I am, there were a lot of options. These were the top contenders.

Short Story
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As we are now in the home stretch, it is time to talk about something that Mr. CA and I have been thinking a lot about lately. What might that be? Well, it’s the backbone behind this whole wedding shebang—our nuptial mass. Yep, our wedding ceremony, where Mr. CA and I will pledge to stand by each other for the rest of our lives, in front of God, our family and our friends. That’s deep stuff right there, and sometimes it gets a bit lost in all of the floral inspiration, the oohing and aahing over invitations, and the meal choices.

Now, none of this ceremony stuff is a secret, per se, but, well, wouldn’t you guests of the CA wedding prefer not to know about every single little thing beforehand? I didn’t think so. Let’s keep some of the mystery, shall we? Okay, then…

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A while back I discussed wanting to find a way to incorporate my love of quotes into our wedding. And, after much discussion, the Ponies have decided on a wedding quote!

What is a wedding quote, you wonder? Well, it is a quote that we will incorporate into as many of our wedding details as possible without overdoing it (maybe. hopefully. sometimes I just don’t know when to stop.). I am thinking our wedding quote will be included on our programs, displayed in gobo form at the reception, similar to the one below:

Via The Wedding DJ Blog

We might stick our quote a few other places here and there throughout the wedding as well, we’ll just have to see where it looks good.

Now, you are probably wondering which quote we chose to represent the ultimate day of our love (aka the Pony wedding or a really bad romance novel—you decide).
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At this point in our planning, we have the framework pretty defined. The big picture details are all confirmed and finalized, for the most part, so now it’s easy to pay attention to the tiny little details that very few people outside of the individual(s) planning the event will notice. One of those details? The first kiss.

Admittedly, this is an unbelievably small detail in the scope of the entire day. However, it is one of the most cherished and most photographed moments of the day, so I don’t think I’m 100% bonkers for wanting it to go off smoothly and beautifully. I mean, look at the flak the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge received when their first kiss wasn’t deemed satisfactory. It seems as though there are a good number of ways to make this moment imperfect in the eyes of the observers—too short, too long, too G-rated, too R-rated. Not to mention where you put your face and arms in relation to your partner’s face and arms. That’s a lot to think about if you’re over-analyzing things such as I am! I’ve decided to take action, thoroughly researching the photographic evidence of the available first kiss styles to determine which one is right for the Snow Cones on our big day.

Option 1: The demure, hands-touching-only style: very sweet, good photo visibility for both bride and groom

Photo by Luster Studios

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I am a writer. Mr. Jam is not. So when it came down to creating our ceremony, I lovingly forced the idea of writing our own vows because words are my bread and butter. Plus, I sincerely miss our long-distance IM sessions where we would do the whole, “OMG, I love you!” and “OMG, love you more!” thing for hours and hours until we virtually self-combusted. And let’s get real: Who doesn’t want to get goose bumps listening to two people spilling their guts using words they actually wrote?

Jacqueline+Brandon Wedding Trailer from NoBox Films & NoBox Productions on Vimeo.

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The vows in my friend Jacki’s recent wedding video = part of the reason Mr. Jam finally agreed to write ours. WE JUST LOVE THEM.

But remember, Mr. Jam’s bread and butter is numbers, not words (unless they’re technical, though he was quite the essay-writer in college) so he suggested we write them together. I likened this to going Christmas shopping for each other together, meaning we’ll get exactly what we want but without the delicious surprise of, “OMG, darlin’, you know me SO WELL!”

So I created an easy-to-follow vow format, enabling our vows to be written in secret but still feel cohesive like they were written together:
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Choosing an officiant seems like it should be one of the more simple wedding decisions one can make. Either you choose a religious figure, or not. If not, you go with someone who has a close personal tie to you and your partner (and preferably has a penchant for public speaking).

Wow that sounds easy. Sign us up for non-religious-figure, closely-personally-tied with mad public speaking skills, please.

* chirp… chirp…chirp… *

image by Ande via Flickr

Uh huh, yeah, so umm that didn’t work so well.
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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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We’re in the home stretch, y’all! I’ve only got one major thing left to finish for W-day, but it’s a biggie: writing my vows. And I’ve got some writer’s block.

Savage Chickens

I’ve been working on them for several weeks, and I’ve finally gotten something written that is very romantic and fairly formal. But that’s a problem. See, as a couple, Mr. S and I are not very romantic or formal. We fart in front of each other, a LOT. We call each other “butthole” as a term of endearment. We pick food out of each others’ teeth.

And we are both embarrassed by huge romantic gestures and flowery language.
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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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