Weddingbee Blog

2000 cookies, 44 bobby pins, 14 bridal party members, 3 blisters, and countless hugs later, we’re married!

Leading up to the big day, everyone kept echoing that at least one thing would go wrong, but I wouldn’t mind. In my head, I always scoffed at that piece of “advice,” assuming that, minus the weather, anything that went awry on the wedding day was totally preventable. Ergo, if something did go wrong, it would be directly related to poor planning or an egregious oversight on someone’s part (most likely my own). However, now that I’ve enjoyed each and every moment of my wedding day, I can confidently state that, sure enough, things don’t always go as planned. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s because of any one person’s error. Stuff happens; it’s just life. Here’s the magic of it all: even when something goes wrong on the big day, you won’t mind. It won’t leave even the smallest dent in your euphoria. And, looking back, those little blunders are permanently cemented as part of the entire wedding day process. Without them, your wedding day wouldn’t really be your wedding day, you know?

To say that our wedding day was the most enjoyable and special day in our lives is still an understatement.
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Just a few minutes ago, the grandfather clock downstairs chimed the twelve o’clock hour, denoting the official start to our wedding day. I’m laying in my bedroom in my parents’ house, the same room in which I spent countless hours on the phone with Mr. Snow Cone during the early parts of our relationship. The exact same physical space, completely different mental spaces. Nine years ago, I’d lay on my bed, discussing the day’s events with Mr. Snow Cone. Now, I lay on my bed, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I am preparing to marry the greatest individual I’ve been lucky enough to have in my life.

This past week has had its ups and downs, to say the least. Fortunately, the ups far outnumber the downs, and I have absolutely no doubt that two days, weeks, months, or years from now, the ups will be what stand out in our individual and collective memories.
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One week to go! I keep getting asked if I’m ready, or if I’m nervous, or if I’m excited, or if I’m stressed. The answer? Yes to all of the above.

However, I think the most appropriate summary of my thoughts and emotions at this point is worried. I’d even go so far as to say paranoid.

Image via I Can Haz Cheezburger?

Everywhere I look, there are ample opportunities to bugger up the wedding day.

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Now that the wedding is getting absurdly close, I’ve been doing my best to nail down my DIY makeup based on my professional consultation. I feel like I’m getting the hang of the application basics, but this recent stretch of scorching days has left me feeling a little less-than-confident about my makeup’s staying power. There’s probably a decent chance that our August wedding day will come with high temperatures and even higher humidity, so suffice it to say that I’m very eager to fight off the melting makeup mayhem.

Fortunately, I think I may have found my miracle in a bottle. Or, more specifically, my model in a bottle.

Image via Overstock.com

A few months back, I was asking a family friend who had recently gotten married if she had any general wedding day tips. Among others, she specifically stressed buying this “model in a bottle” stuff that is intended to lock your makeup look in place for the entirety of the day.

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Now that you have the details of the first half of our ceremony’s music, here’s the other half!

Offertory Hymn: Blest Are They by Haas

Video via YouTube

For the actual hymns, I really wanted ones that were kind of common in typical liturgies so that the Catholics in the group would hopefully feel comfortable enough joining in the singing. I really like this hymn; plus, it’s based on the Beatitudes which is such a meaningful message for life in general.

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When I posted about our prelude choices earlier this week, a handful of people requested a post regarding the actual ceremony music. Given how long it took me to nail this down, I figured it was only reasonable to throw my picks into the mix, hopefully helping another bride-to-be to square away her song selections.

Processional

After talking this over with our vocalist, organist, and priest, we decided that we wanted three pieces for the processional—one for the mothers and grandmothers, one for the bridal party, and one for the bride’s entrance. We also decided to go with a more traditional, classical music route as compared to our contemporary prelude selections. After varying amounts of deliberation, we’ve finally settled on our three winners.

Seating of the Mothers and Grandmothers: Hornpipe (from Water Music) by Handel

Video via YouTube

I really like this piece, but I was a little wary that it was too peppy for part of the processional.

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Somewhat intentionally, and somewhat unexpectedly, I am right smack dab in the middle of a maelstrom of change right now. In the upcoming days and weeks, I will have:

• A new address
• A new job
• A new name

Sure, three things may not seem like that much, but I feel pretty safe in saying that all three are kind of doozy-sized changes!

Image via The Heart of Innovation

We’re moving into our first shared apartment this weekend, which is simultaneously exciting, nerve-wracking, and a little stressful.

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Confession: the number of days between now and our wedding ends in “-teen,” and I haven’t sorted out our wedding cake yet.

OK, that’s maybe a bit of an overstatement, but just a bit. Approximately 45 seconds after getting engaged, I knew who would be making my wedding cake—she’s a friendor who has made all of my family’s cakes for birthdays, graduations, and weddings for as long as I can recall. She’s handled every design and request we’ve lobbed at her without ever breaking a sweat. Seriously—she bakes beautiful cakes that taste even better than they look, all while holding down the fort in her household with ten boys. I can barely shower on a daily basis, and I only have myself to look after. The fact that this woman is standing, let alone constructing sugary masterpieces, with how full her hands must be, is nothing short of amazing.

Because my family’s dined on her cakes many, many times, a cake tasting wasn’t really necessary. We know what flavors are in her repertoire that make our salivary glands kick into overdrive. After nailing down our flavors, it didn’t take long to figure out our design, too. Or, I guess I should say, designs… plural.
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I’ve been working on our ceremony for the better part of two months now.  I finally, finally feel like the finish line is in sight, but, of course, there are just enough pieces still to nail down that I can’t in full confidence cross “plan ceremony” off the to-do list. Nevertheless, I have enough of the details figured out to share some with you!

As a quick reminder, we’re getting married in a full Catholic nuptial mass, which definitely has its hoops to jump through. The structure is pretty much set in stone; couples looking to infuse personal details largely do so through readings, music, and unique forms of participation, such as serving the Eucharist. Even with that being said, the music choices are relatively limited for the ceremony itself, as they are intended to be spiritual and/or liturgical in nature, befitting a Catholic mass. On the other hand, there’s a bit more flexibility for the music leading up the ceremony. Because the mass hasn’t officially begun during the prelude, the music chosen for that component can be a little bit more contemporary and secular, but many brides go with instrumental versions of modern songs to avoid any problematic lyrics, just to be safe.

Given how traditional our ceremony is shaping up to be, I was eager to infuse some music that was more “us” into the prelude. Our organist is a family friend who is beyond talented, so I decided that I wanted to showcase his talents during the prelude, giving him songs I love to play on the church’s piano before transitioning over to the organ for the ceremony itself. Enough chit-chat; here are the songs that will grace our guests’ ears while they wait for the ceremony to begin!

Song 1: “Forrest Gump Suite” by Alan Silvestri
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Let me break it down for you. My heritage consists of the following: Irish, German, Swedish, Dutch, and English. This means that I have five kinds of pale skin tones all blending together to form a super-pale experience that is often unparalleled. Tanning isn’t really in my skill set; if I’m lucky, a week at the beach involves two things: the avoidance of a painful burn, and enough minor and brief sun exposure to result in a subtle pink that could maybe pass for brown(ish). Despite my genetic predisposition to paleness, I still enjoy a hint of color on my skin. Because of my genetic predisposition to paleness, I’ve never set foot in a tanning bed and never plan to. As a result, my options for getting a sun-kissed look are pretty limited.

During high school, I tried Mystic Tan for proms and formals, and I was always pleased with the result. Minus the day of gunkiness immediately after getting sprayed, it got passing marks in my book. Relatively inexpensive, relatively long-lasting, and relatively stress- and complaint-free. As long as you follow the instructions, that is..

Image via Metro UK / Credit: NBC

Here’s a picture of the end result at my brother’s wedding:

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Sometimes it feels almost impossible to make your wedding stand out from the pack. Magazines, websites, books, and blogs offer a lot of the same ideas over and over again, making the weddings look almost cookie-cutter. With thousands of brides looking at the same sources for inspiration, it’s inevitable that some new idea will become common practice in no time. This clone-like aspect of weddings, combined with my relative lack of creativity and crafting skills, kind of sends shivers down my spine when I let my mind wander in an attempt to come up with a flair of personality and individuality for our upcoming wedding festivities. With that being said, just try to imagine the sheer ecstasy I experienced when I finally conjured up an idea that I didn’t beg, borrow, or steal from anyone or anywhere else. It’s allllll mine!

Image via I Can Has Cheezburger?

(OK, realistically, I’m sure I’m not the first bride to do this project. However, I’ve not seen it in any of my wedding materials, so I’m going to keep up my delusion that I actually am the first person to experience such a stroke of genius to result in this creation. Humor me, mmkay?)

A little bit of back story.
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Over our months of planning, we’ve been periodically popping into to meet with the priest who will be officiating our ceremony. He’s relatively new to my hometown parish, so there’s a lot of foreign territory to cover. Everyone approaches weddings a little differently, and everyone has their own personality quirks, so I was eager to see how he would handle us and our wedding.

Pretty quickly into the exploratory process, he dropped a total bomb on us (or, at least, on me). He turned to us and simply stated, “I’m going to have you two memorize your vows, since you’re marrying each other. I’m not marrying you. The only people saying the words should be you two.”

And here was my reaction.

Image via Stealthy Like a Continent

Um, yeah.
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On a recent trip to Johnstown, I walked into my bedroom, and the whole wedding day suddenly became very real. My eyes landed on one specific item, and all of a sudden, I had visions of getting ready, butterflies in my stomach, a photographer snapping wildly in the background, a goofy grin on my face. What singular item could evoke such vivid imagery? Here’s a hint: it wasn’t my shoes, or my dress, or my wedding band. Instead, it was a twisted piece of metal.

Seeing that hanger made it so tangible. To be honest, it’s not as though I just saw this hanger sitting on a dresser and had a flash-forward.

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By now, our wedding RSVP deadline has come and gone. And then some. We only have two more pairs of guests to track down, so I feel like that’s a complete enough picture to breakdown our RSVP results. Here we go!

• Number invited: 276
• Number attending: 193
• Decline percentage: 30%

Now that we have the numbers, let’s crunch them. Truthfully speaking, never in a million years did Mr. Snow Cone and I anticipate ending up with a wedding reception with fewer than 200 people. We spent more than a little bit of a time stressing over the guest list, making cuts to give us a morsel of breathing room. We had visions of people uncomfortably squeezed together at tables that were also uncomfortably squeezed together. Lots of tables with lots of people in a moderately-sized room on an August evening—it’s practically a request for someone to pass out! We were definitely worried about attendance, to say the least.

Once the RSVPs started rolling in, we would kind of secretly high-five when we got a “no,” since that meant that we’d have a little bit more room to work with.
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At some point during my blog-surfing, I was introduced to the idea of a photo-sharing card to ask your guests to post their photos online at one central website so anyone and everyone can take a peek. I immediately bookmarked the idea, thinking it was an ingenious way to get our grubby little newlywed paws on our guests’ photos to hold us over until the professional pictures become available and to give us an additional photographic perspective on the day’s events.

I tasked BM K with the duty of finding a site that would work for us. I wanted a place that would allow easy uploads without downloading or installing any software, tons of storage space, and the ability to upload/print full-resolution photos. In no time, she delivered her official recommendation: Shutterfly. I took her at her word and decided Shutterfly would be the site for us.

After our positive experiences with VistaPrint with our save the dates, I decided that we’d disseminate our photo-sharing site information on a business card from VP.
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