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A few days ago, I read an article on The Salt, NPR’s food blog, that broke down the eating habits of the average American over the course of a year. I was shocked by the fact that the average American eats 630 pounds (!!!) of dairy per year—until I thought about how much frozen yogurt Mr. Mole and I eat during our weekly trips to Yogurtland, Pinkberry, and Menchie’s. Gah.
Needless to say, our dessert of choice is ice cream. In fact, I am normally ambivalent about cake—even wedding cake—unless it has ice cream melting on top. (Yellow cake + chocolate frosting + mint chocolate chip ice cream = amazing.) Or if the cake is actually an ice cream cake.
Be still, my heart / World’s largest ice cream cake / Image via National Post
When I was growing up, a Dairy Queen ice cream cake was always present at any celebration:
Today I want to talk a little about those other wedding dresses. You know, the ones you wear to the shower, to the bachelorette party, to the rehearsal dinner, to the dinner that first night on your honeymoon. I love to wear dresses, so I had a great time shopping for ones for these occasions. In fact, I might have had more fun on these shopping trips than I did when looking for my actual wedding dress!
The first dress I found was for the rehearsal dinner. I wanted to wear something “bride-like,” but not necessarily bridal, if you get my incredibly fuzzy distinction. I ended up finding a silk-blend dress from Banana Republic in a shade of ivory. It was on sale, so I bought it in September for $38 and change. I am pairing it with a J.Crew cardigan, which I also got on sale. I may use it again with my wedding dress (after our Vegas reception, during our Milwaukee party). I’m also wearing my grandmother’s graduated pearl necklace. On my feet are my Kate Spade Ollie flats.
Both of my parents liked Mr. Mole from the very beginning. They liked him for the same reasons that I did: he is incredibly caring, considerate, and supportive (plus a whole long list of other admirable qualities). Of course, they also liked him because he made me happy. Yet during the holidays, I was able to see how much they love him — and not just as my future husband but as their own son.
Seeing this subtle shift in the relationships between Mr. Mole and my parents made me think about the way that the relationship between Mr. Mole and me is about to change. Now, I know that to some extent that a legal marriage is no more than paperwork. I can’t imagine that I will love Mr. Mole any more just because I signed my name to the marriage license. I can’t imagine that either of us will change in the way we act, talk, sleep, eat, do the dishes, etc., now that we are called husband or wife. Nothing fundamental will change. But I also have to acknowledge that there is a great deal of symbolic value tied up in these legal categories (something that just makes the bans of gay marriage in many states and countries even more problematic and unfair). This symbolism may very well affect the way that we feel or think about ourselves as a couple.
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Miss (almost Mrs.) Sunhat got me thinking the other day about our own winter wedding. We are getting married at the end of January, and our Milwaukee party is going to be in the beginning of February. We chose our wedding date because it is our third anniversary. What better way to celebrate that occasion besides getting married? (Sure beats a dinner and a movie!) We chose our hometown party date because it was convenient to our honeymoon plans.
Getting married in Vegas in January is not much different than getting married there in March or October. The temperatures tend to range from the upper 30s to the upper 50s. However, the weather in Milwaukee during this time is an entirely different beast. Want to see what it looked like outside there last February?
Well, someone loved it at least
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Unique Wedding Favors
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This holiday season, Mr. Mole and I are going to visit my family in Wisconsin. We are really looking forward to this vacation because it gives us a chance to spend time and celebrate with our loved ones. We look forward to exchanging presents, eating lots of my mom’s delicious Christmas cookies, and lounging around in new fleece pajamas (a family tradition).
Because our wedding will be less than 6 weeks away, our trip to Wisconsin is also going to be filled with a lot of wedding-related activities. Mr. Mole and I will be attending our co-ed shower, which will be thrown by two of my aunts. We received the invitation — which rivals our wedding invitations, for sure — last month, and we are so excited.
Sage and coral invitations with a (hard to photograph) vellum overlay
Also in Wisconsin, we will be assembling our party favors, another project involving our moo mini-cards and Divine Twine.
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On Friday, I emailed our ceremony text and readings to our officiant in Las Vegas. This email was a pretty big deal for Mr. Mole and me. We spent a lot of time choosing how to structure the ceremony, what tone to set, which traditions to incorporate. I was feeling pretty darn accomplished until I reread this section:
[Mr] and [Miss], please turn to each other and share the vows that you have written.
[Mr vows]
[Miss vows]
Oh, that’s right. We still need to write our vows. That’s not exactly an insignificant portion of the ceremony, is it? Fortunately, we do have some parts of the task accomplished. We picked out a fairly traditional set of vows for the ring exchange:
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I’m sure what I am about to describe has happened to some of you. You stand in front of the mirror at the bridal shop, trying to decide if this is The Dress. You smooth down the fabric around your hips, adjust the neckline, check out the way that the train lays in the back. “Hmm,” you say, almost to yourself. Then, almost out of nowhere, the bridal consultant sweeps in and plops a veil on your head. “There! A bride,” she exclaims. “Perfect!”
In bridal stores, as well on shows like Say Yes to the Dress, the veil seems to function as the ultimate transformative piece (and hard-sell accessory): you put it on, you become a bride! But what happens when you don’t want to wear a veil?
I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to wear a veil. That’s not to say that I didn’t admire veils. I love long, lace-tipped ones, like this one from Rohm. It’s also not to say that I didn’t try any veils on; I had veils dropped on my head whenever I seemed remotely interested in whatever dress I was trying on. Having the consultant do so, however, just reinforced my feeling that a veil just wasn’t for me.
I did know that I wanted to accessorize my gown with some kind of hairpiece. Like I had done so many times before, I turned to Etsy. I first started looking at different hair flowers. (I just realized that several of the ones that I bookmarked have tiny tulle netting attached!)
Image via Amie Noel Designs
Without corrective lenses, Mr. Mole and I are both blind as…well, moles. We’ve both been wearing glasses since middle school. Mr. Mole even underwent LASIK surgery as an adult so his lenses no longer look like the bottom of Coke (or, Mr. Mole’s preferred soda, Pepsi) bottles. Between the two of us, we own 10 pairs of prescription glasses and sunglasses and a large stash of disposable contact lenses.
As such, Mr. Mole and I have been faced with two questions: Will we wear glasses on our wedding day? If so, which glasses will we wear?
We ended up taking some photos to test out the different looks. I quickly pulled my hair back to approximate a wedding day do. (My hair is now long enough to make a tiny ponytail, which means it’s time for another pre-wedding chop!)
Clearly, the prescription sunglasses didn’t make the final photo array cut
I’ve been thinking of all of the tips and tricks that I have picked up from wedding magazines and blogs (including the Weddingbee blog and boards) along our nine-month engagement. I learned from Mrs. Cola how to pee on your wedding day without taking half of your guests into the stall with you. I learned from christi how to alter a wedding dress to fix potential problem areas. I learned from Mrs. Hamster the importance of numbering your RSVP cards.
Now, I have to admit that I didn’t fully appreciate Mrs. Hamster’s advice in the beginning. Mr. Mole and I even got into a small debate about numbering all of our RSVP postcards. He thought it was a good idea; I thought it was a good waste of time. “Seriously, I don’t know how ANYONE could forget to put their name on a postcard,” I huffed while penciling in little numbers in the corner of each card.
Then, yesterday, we got this in the mail.
Poor RSVP: nameless and slightly disfigured
One of my favorite things about Los Angeles is the radio station KROQ. I love this station for two reasons: first, it broadcasts Loveline. I used to listen to this program every single night in college. Second, like me, KROQ seems to be musically stuck in the 90s. On my drive home the other day, I heard a collection of Stone Temple Pilots, REM, Harvey Danger (?!), Offspring, and Smashing Pumpkins songs.*** I was pretty pumped.
I am only a tiny bit embarrassed to admit that the evolution of my music tastes stalled somewhere between my junior and senior year of high school. What this means for our wedding, though, is that I am relying heavily on Mr. Mole to create our ceremony and reception playlists. He is much more musical, both in terms of his ear for good songs and his ability to play instruments and sing.
Since our ceremony is going to be relatively short, we were only faced with the task of picking a song for our processional and our recessional. The “our” in front of “processional” is purposeful: Mr. Mole is also going to be processing down the aisle with his mother! It only seemed fair that he also have a grand entrance.
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So, does having your rehearsal dinner at a restaurant called Stripburger set an appropriate tone for your wedding? Mr. Mole and I think so. (Its name refers to the Vegas strip, hive, not strippers! Of course, the latter would be more appropriate to the bachelor/bachelorette parties.)
Image via Las Vegas Sun
Mr. Mole and I decided to have a rehearsal dinner, even though we aren’t having an actual rehearsal. (We’re hoping that the first time’s the charm when it comes to performing wedding ceremonies.) We figured that a dinner was a nice way to welcome all of our guests to Las Vegas and spend some time with them before the wedding. Deciding to have the event, however, was significantly easier than deciding where to have it.
Maybe it’s just me, but I completely underestimated how much a rehearsal dinner would cost.
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Well, I’m not a total teetotaler. I drink the occasional glass of wine or beer, maybe averaging a drink or two per month. But Mr. Mole doesn’t drink. Ever. Not even a little bit.
Only one glass of wine at this table in NYC!
I didn’t find this out until our second date. Chicago offers liquor licensing for BYOB (bring your own booze) restaurants, and we just happened to go to one of those places for our second date. As we hugged hello outside of Habana Libre on Division, I suggested that we pick up a bottle of red wine from the liquor store down the street. “No thanks,” said Mr. Mole, “I don’t drink.” “Ever?” I asked, somewhat incredulously. “Never,” answered Mr. Mole.
It’s hard to shop for swimsuits in December. A lot of retailers, online or otherwise, are still stocking heavy Fair Isle sweaters and fleece-lined jeans instead of bikinis and cover-ups. When I do find suits for sale, I also find that my blinding white skin tends to distract me from the cuteness of the pattern or style.
I did, however, have some luck finding a very important swim suit accessory on Amazon. I even picked up an extra one for Mr. Mole.
His and hers snorkeling kits
Or, an alternate title: Why Mr. Mole and I Almost Got Married Before Our Wedding
Mr. Mole and I moved to Los Angeles in July. He had found a great job with a higher salary and benefits; in fact, that job was the reason we decided to move in the first place. I, on the other hand, would be unemployed. I had a couple of good leads on some jobs — including an available teaching position in the Los Angeles Unified School District — but nothing concrete.
Good news: I ended up finding a job in my field within a week or two of moving. Bad news: the job offered no benefits. I still took it, and I immediately started the process of finding insurance. Going without some form of medical insurance was not an option for Mr. Mole and me. Want to see one very convincing reason why?
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Our invitations have now made it to most of their destinations. Faster than expected, even: we got a text from Mr. Mole’s sister the day after I dropped them in the mail. So now it’s time that they make it to the hive’s computer screens! My warning is that there are lots and lots of photos ahead. The coral envelopes are our Vegas invitations; the sage envelopes are our Milwaukee invitations.
Two kinds of stamps: USPS, Personalized Address
Imagine you get one of these in your mailbox.
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