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Last week I thought to myself, “Hey, I bet we are getting close to the 100-day mark,” and I headed over to our wedding website where Mr. Dalmatian so helpfully included a countdown. Lo and behold, when I went to check there were 99 days and 20 hours! I swear I was a good blogger and snapped a screenshot at the time, but unfortunately I was not such a good computer user and there was a box over poor Mr. D’s face in the picture. So here is a snapshot from today—we are now down to the 96-day mark!
Isn’t he handsome? You can see why I wouldn’t want to deprive you of a glimpse at that gorgeous face!
I told you about our honeymoon wish list. I told you about the unbelievably smooth booking process through our travel agent. But I have not told you about one minor detail…where are we going?
Since I have already made you wait this long I will not drag it out any longer… we… are…going…to…(ok, I lied, but I’m done now, hehe)…SECRETS MAROMA! It is an all-inclusive resort on Maroma Beach, just south of Cancun in Mexico.
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| Image via Google Maps |
While I had casually browsed beautiful honeymoon destinations soon after we got engaged, it was a Sunday night when we decided it was time to kick our butts into gear and start making some decisions. By Tuesday night we had everything booked and ready to go. Yes, that’s right, in a mere 48 hours we were able to complete the entirely stress-free process of arranging everything that needed for an amazing honeymoon experience! How is this possible, you ask? The answer, my friends, is simple: A travel agent.
I had never used a travel agent before but we have a family friend who has planned many trips for many different members of my family, including MOH A’s honeymoon last May. So I decided to take a chance and shoot her a quick email. Best move ever. Here’s why:
They are all-knowing: We had no preference in terms of location other than that it be warm and sunny (see our honeymoon wish list). Even when narrowing it down to all-inclusive resorts, there are still about a bagillion options throughout the Caribbean and Mexico. You can do lots of browsing online, but the fact is they all have websites with photo galleries so appealing that you want to book immediately. And even if you find one with good reviews, how do you know that there isn’t one out there with better reviews? How do I know which one is the best? The fact is, I didn’t know. But our travel agent did!
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| Too many choices! Image via AstraMatch.com |
I realize that my posts lately have been a bit all over the place, but in all honesty, that is pretty much where I am in the planning process. We are getting close enough that I have transitioned from trying to think of things to add to my DIY project list to trying to cross things off of said list. But we are far enough out that we are still dealing with nailing down some of the bigger ticket items, including… THE HONEYMOON!
As I sit here on this cold January night wrapped in a fleece blanket, sporting a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up and using Echo as a 9-lb canine heater, I cannot think of a more appealing topic to discuss than our honeymoon plans.
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| Not my most attractive look, but a pretty typical scene here in our apartment. |
When Mr. Dalmatian and I discussed our honeymoon, it was a very quick and easy conversation - a welcomed anomaly in the wedding planning world! To sum up our want list:
1) A Vacation, Not a Trip: This has become an important distinction in our relationship when it comes to travel. The issue came about a few summers ago when we were on a cruise. I was forcing Mr. D to get out of bed to do things like go swimming with dolphins or take a walking tour of Key West. According to him, the presence of alarm clocks and itineraries contradicted the concept of a vacation.
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On the eve of our wedding, Mr. Dalmatian’s very generous parents have offered to host a dinner. Many people would call this a rehearsal dinner, and I admit that most of the time I take the easy route and do this too. But technically, we are not having our rehearsal until the day of the wedding. This sounded scary to me at first, but the lovely ladies at our venue have assured me that it will go smoothly (and quickly), and given the number of weddings they have successfully pumped out I have decided to take a chill pill and believe them. So when we arrive at Cedarwood, everyone involved (minus Mr. D) will run through the ceremony. Then, as I am sliding into my gown (Eek! So excited!), they will take Mr. Dalmatian and run through what he is supposed to do.
ANYWAY, back to the not-really-a-rehearsal dinner. While we will not be rehearsing the day before our wedding, we will be doing something very exciting… attending Mr. Dalmatian’s business school graduation!
So where will we be celebrating? To answer that, let me tell you a little back story:
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After posting about mismatched vintage dessert plates, I noticed a lot of discussion about renting antique china, which got me thinking: What a brilliant idea! While there are some unavoidable purchases, there are a lot of wedding things that we need to use but we don’t need to own. The smaller price-tag that would come with renting is very appealing because even when I close my eyes, cover my ears, and hum a happy little tune, that darn budget just won’t disappear!
One website out there that gives people a renting option is called RentStuff.com. But wait, there’s more… their current promotion is for brides!
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Bees, it has been WAY too long since I have completed a DIY project. Between starting a new job and the holidays (yes, I realize it has been almost a month since Christmas but I am still recovering from all of the festivities), my craft cabinet went a freakishly long time without being busted into! But no need to worry—the disturbing drought came to an end this past weekend.
In an effort to dip my toes back into the DIY pool instead of cannon-balling, I decided to take on a smaller project that I could likely complete with a quick turn around. The project that fit the bill: table numbers!
During one of my antiquing escapades, I came across vintage flashcards with basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems on them.I knew these were perfect for us because I have a nerdy love for doing basic math in my head, and Mr. D has a nerdy love for giving me math problems to do in my head and seeing how quickly I can do them (you don’t have to tell me, I know we’re cool). When I got home, I finished off my collection with an Etsy purchase of very similar cards.
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| Vintage Flashcards by paintedpony99 on Etsy |
I have shared with you what my lovely ladies will be sporting, but what about the handsome gentlemen standing on the other side of the aisle? It didn’t take us much time or discussion to decide that they will be looking dashing in black tuxes, white shirts, and some sort of tie. But what sort of tie? That was the question.
I started here (hint: this will not be the last you will hear about my love for Liberty of London):
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| Claire-Aude Liberty Print Tie by Liberty of London |
This floral tie was quickly dismissed by Mr. Dalmatian.
At this point I have discussed desserts until I am blue in the face, but there is an important question that remains unanswered: what dishes will our cake be served to our guests on?
You may not have realized that this is an important question, and if you asked me a year ago I myself would not have given a second thought to the topic. But alas, the wedding planning vortex has sucked me in, so here I am writing a post about dessert plates.
Within the giant wedding planning vortex there are many mini vortexes into which brides-to-be can easily get sucked. I will openly admit that I have fallen into many of these including, most recently, the mismatched vintage china vortex. And oh what a glorious vortex it is!
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| Image via Prairie Perch |
One day, I was Googling my wedding dress for fun. In the results, I came across the usual assortment of pictures that I had seen on many prior occasions. Yes, that’s right, I Google my dress for fun on a regular basis - please tell me I am not the only one?
But on this particular occasion I also came across an article that caught my glance. You see, the image that went along with this article was not the standard model shot of my dress, nor was it any of the shots of real brides I had gushed over already.
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| Article from VWonWeddings / Image from Anna-be.com |
In the article, Vera Wang explains her design inspiration, and the above picture is her sketch of the dress. Maybe I’m crazy, but I thought it was so cool when I came across this!
I have shared my love for ruffled wedding cakes, my admiration for Martha’s cake designs, and my decision (by that I of course mean “our decision” - I love you Mr. D!) to have an ombre wedding cake. Now I think it is time for a little something to top things off! Okay, that was a stretch…I’m talking, of course, about cake toppers!
What will be atop the mountain of frosting at our wedding? This:
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| Personal Photo |
Not only is this is vintage design, it actually is vintage (if you consider the 1970s vintage). And not only is it vintage, it has very personal meaning to me.
Well bees, this just may be the last installment of my posts about wedding cakes because I have found a cake and I. AM. IN. LOVE.
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| Image via StyleMePretty.com / Cake by Cake Coquette / Photo by Lisa Lefkowitz |
While I cannot wait to have a mouthful of moist cake and sweet frosting, its hard to imagine cutting into these edible masterpieces!
When I came across the cake of my dreams (see above), I did a little more research and came across a few more stunners.
I am definitely not a purple person, but the crazy detail on this cake is pretty impressive:
In case you missed it, my current topic of interest is the wonderful world of sweets at weddings, and what the Dalmatians can offer that will be fun, unique, and tasty (while still meeting that pesky criterion of not breaking the bank). While I had begrudgingly let the frozen yogurt bar idea go, I was still hanging on to a desire to incorporate something ice cream related. Then, as luck (or endless internet searching) would have it, I came across something that not only met but exceeded all of my sweet dreams!
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| Sugar Wagon / Image via NashFoodTrucks.com |
That’s right, an ice cream sandwich cart! As I read through their mouth-watering menu and scrolled through their adorable pictures, I was ready to enthusiastically jump aboard the Sugar Wagon!
I’ll go ahead and be captain obvious here and comment on the fact that it has become quite popular to do a little something extra when it comes to sweets at weddings. In addition to traditional (or not so traditional) wedding cakes, brides and grooms love providing their guests access to extra dessert. An awesome trend if you ask me—I mean really, you can’t go wrong with extra dessert!
There’s the classic sweets table:
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| Image via HostessBlog.com / Cake by Kate Sullivan / Photo by Andrew McCaul |
There’s the more specialized selection, such as the candy buffet:
The other night, we were at dinner with Mr. Dalmatian’s coworkers discussing marketing (this is what happens when you attend the office holiday party of a start-up company) when one of them commented that if you put a bird on something, girls will buy it. This made me laugh because as I thought about my personal experience and quickly realized: It’s funny because it’s true. This point seems particularly poignant when it comes to weddings. I am quite confident that I am not the only bride who is drawn to anything with a these feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic, egg-laying, vertebrate animal (definition of bird via Wikipedia.com). Perhaps it is because we ourselves feel like little lovebirds.
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| Image via LilyBelleEvents.blogspot.com |
Perhaps it is because birds look so dapper in bowties.
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