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Mr. Kiwi and I have been married for two weeks now. People are still coming up to us and telling us how much they enjoyed the ceremony, and how beautiful the wedding was (pictures are coming, I swear). Other than that, nothing much has changed. Sure, there is the whole having to change my name over thing, and the “how’s married life?” questions to answer (wait: there is supposed to be a difference?), but that’s about it.
It’s strange because this is one of the hugest decisions you will likely make in your life. Despite what the celebrities are showing us, splitting up isn’t so easy after a marriage, and who goes into a marriage relying on the idea that divorce is always an option? I said it was strange because although it is such a huge step, the actual marriage part isn’t as different as I thought it’d be. The “Hot Thread” post from yesterday got me thinking about this little (big) thing called marriage.
Much like the poster, I also experienced some major what-ifs. Mr. Kiwi and I have been together for four years as well, with things between us more of a steady love, and less the “on-fire” type of love you seem to see all over the place. We’re getting married, right? Should we be more excited? Since day one of our reunion, I’ve known we’d end up married. Apparently, so did Mr. Kiwi. I’ve mentioned that we dated a decade ago, and throughout the years apart we grew up and became a little more stable, and wanted someone with the same ideals.
When we first started planning our wedding, I assumed we would hire a DJ for our reception and Mr Corn assumed we would hire a band. I loved the idea of a band, but I was convinced that we wouldn’t be able to find one that we could afford that wasn’t cheesy.
I. Was. Wrong.
We hired The Belltones, a five piece band “specializing in Swing, Sinatra, Motown and Disco”.
I had no idea how to even attempt to look for a band, but it actually was really, really easy. When we first started looking, we were interested in a Zydeco band, so on a whim I Googled ‘Zydeco Band’ and the first post that came up was from a site called Gigmasters. One click led me to an amazing place where I was able to look up bands by style, type of event, even the state my event was in! Even more, I could see individual websites of the bands, I could listen to mp3’s, see pictures and read reviews. And incredibly, I could also look up ceremony musicians and DJs!! I swear, this was the easiest process; if only all the cake bakers and photographers in the world had a one-stop-shop like this set up!!
Recently I posted about our walk from the ceremony to the reception. Today I wanted to share a short video clip of the walk as a sneak peak of our wedding day.
Long time no blog Weddingbee! How have you all been? It’s been so long that I am not sure if any of you new-bees will even know who I am, the site has grown so much since I started blogging not even a year ago now! I have been extremely busy but we are finally feeling settled in our new house in our new city, and the new job is becoming less and less scary as the time goes on. Now, if only I could get rid of that pesky bar course….
Anyhow, I thought it was about time that I post some professional pictures of our wedding day and some vendor reviews. I will start with the small details and reviews of our ceremony and reception cites.
Our juice station on the island:
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
You can tell that a number of us Bees just got hitched due to the number of Thank You card-related posts! And here’s my contribution to the topic. 
While many brides lust over letterpressed stationary (I would have considered it had it been in the budget!), I personally have a love affair with offset printing, and more specifically, Overnight Prints. I can wax poetic about their thick paper stock, the brilliant colors, the glossy UV coating… I even love the way they smell (yea, I’m strange). I had OP print my invitation, rsvp card, website card, menu cards, and now my Thank You postcards (so it’s all cohesive of course!!).
I kept it simple and used one of my favorite black & white images of us flashing our newly graced ring fingers (despite the fact that I am slightly out of focus in the pic). Initially, I played around with adding some text, but then decided that I preferred it without text. I chose to print 5.5″ x 8.5″ postcards versus the 4″ x 6″ postcards, even though that meant paying regular $0.41 postage instead of the discounted postcard rate.
OK, I lied. Next up is the whole bridal party’s, including groom and groomsmen’s, attire.
[1] The Details: Hair + Makeup
[2] The Details: Bride’s Attire
[The Bridesmaids]
Dress: Custom, based on Watters #7415
Custom made by Laura Bravo. Some process shots.
Fabric: Soft aqua silk dupioni + French blue silk dupioni purchased wholesale and gifted to me by work vendors.
![[3] The Details: Bridal Party Attire : wedding los angeles pictures post wedding Bm021 bm02](http://www-static.weddingbee.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/16/bm021.jpg)
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I’d have to say that above all, my favorite part of the reception was the first dance. Immediately after being announced as the new Mr. and Mrs. Kiwi, we had our song cued up and ready to go. Since we had chosen the soundtrack version of “Kiss the Girl”, the song started with “Percussion, winds, words…” spoken by Samuel Wright as Sebastian the crab.
I have no excuses! I’ve been gone because I didn’t have any pro photos to show you! But it has been a full month since the day of and we are… still working on those thank you cards, I swear.
Besides the daily “did we get photos yet?” question I ask Mr. GB, I have been focusing on decorating the house, as I did before the wedding (and promised myself I wouldn’t do during the planning, but did anyway). And what better time wasting activity is there than painting a room!
I’ve been meaning to paint a few of the rooms, but it’s really daunting to get up on a ladder and get the ceiling, or to cover the floors… and as much as I love picture rails, masking them off on both sides is pain in the ass. Alas, to get me to shut up about not having any wedding crafts to do, constantly whining about not having photos, and not having things to talk about on weddingbee…. Mr. GB agreed to break his back and paint the bedroom with me. He’s so good that he let me pick the color without a peep about how bright it is.
before:
The bridal party was off to the cocktail reception… the guests had all departed… and now it was just the two of us (and Papa Lemon waiting in the getaway car) and we got enjoy a bit of calm between the storms. This time, we opted to take some photos inside one of the main hacienda’s buildings, which happens to be the Admissions Office of my high school. The room seems to come alive most on perfectly foggy days and our wedding day was no exception!
One of my favorite things from our wedding day was processing from the church up the Church Street Marketplace to our reception with all of our guests. We stopped traffic and as we approached the restaurant we could already hear our guitarist, Brendan Burns, playing “My Romance.” It set the mood perfectly!
As always, click to enlarge - credit and thanks to our photographer, Daria Bishop.
MVP = Most Valuable Products. Let me tell you about the 3 items that were absolutely indispensible during my months of wedding planning and DIY heaven.
Cutterpede trimmer. The white attachment is the slicer, while the pink attachment scores the paper to create perfect folds and creases. Thank goodness I borrowed this from my crafty sister-in-law, because I used this on nearly every project! Available at your neighborhood craft store, or online.
It’s the funniest thing, lately I’ve been signing my name as First Name Mr.Kiwi’s Last Name, and it feels weird. Hearing and seeing it as Kiwi Maiden Name New Last Name just seems… right. I’m a little surprised by this, as I have never really been that attached to my maiden name, and was looking forward to taking Mr. Kiwi’s last name. I’ve always wanted the same last name for all members of our family- that may be because of my mom having a different last name from my brother and I. I remember the confusion it would cause, and didn’t want that. There was also no particular reason NOT to change my last name.
At our wedding rehearsal, we ran into one of the parents from Mr. Kiwi’s work/school (also the church), and she begged me not to change my name. Ha ha, all said in jest, I assumed. Well, after the wedding, she pulled me aside and said, “Seriously, you have a beautiful poetic name, don’t change it! Also, don’t tell Mr. Kiwi I said that, he has a great name, but yours just GOES.”
When I came home from Vegas, I set to changing all my emails and things to my new last name. I shocked myself with the wistful feeling that followed. My maiden name isn’t going away, I’m just moving it to my middle name, thus removing that particular part of my name. Why am I so sensitive about this?
We still have a few thank you cards to send out to relatives who live overseas and couldn’t make it to our wedding. Rather than send them a few 4 x 6 photos from our wedding, I wanted to create a keepsake holiday card that would highlight some of our favorite photos.
Weddings have many moving pieces. With all the contracts, details, and communication, there is a high chance for something to go wrong. Mr. Eggplant and I were incredibly selective with our vendors, choosing only the ones we knew would provide superior customer service. I made a point to confirm our vendor contracts in the week before the wedding.
Even so, some things simply fell through the cracks. Perhaps my error was confirming everything via email, where communication mistakes easily occur. During the wedding, I definitely let go of all the mishaps. But once we returned from our honeymoon, we began addressing the open issues.
With one vendor, we did not receive many of the items that were paid for in our contract. The company was (and still is) extremely reputable, receiving only the highest praise from people that have worked with them in the past. I enjoyed communicating with them during the planning process because they were always responsive and professional. I believe that our case was a one-off situation and might even recommend this vendor to others, pending resolution of our open issues. Reputable service-oriented companies will usually be more than willing to address any problems that a customer has with their products or services. Hopefully this will be the case with us!
As always, I give MAJOR, MAJOR credit to Kate Whitney Lucey for my awesome, awesome pro-pics!
Previously:
Getting Ready Pro-Pics
The Ceremony Pro-Pics
Bride and Groom/Clambake Pro-Pics
Reception Pro-Pics
Now on to the Details pics!
Because it was so windy, the escort card display had to be set up very close to side of the tent instead of at the entrance, but it still ended up working fine.
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