Mrs. D’Orsay nominated this post for the Best of the ‘Bee series!

When we decided to have a non-officiant friend marry us (remember: anyone can marry you in Montana), I knew it meant that I would have to write our wedding ceremony, or at least contribute heavily to its creation. This was high on my list of “cons” relating to not hiring an officiant, but I very quickly came to enjoy that I had the power to word smith our ceremony in any way I wanted.

I want to share with you what writing our ceremony meant to me, the process I used to write it, and finally, our ceremony text, in case any of these things might inspire one of you to follow the same path.

A writer by trade and a poet at heart, I found that composing the ceremony text gave me not only literal control of our wedding, but also the power to truly imbue our ceremony with our personalities and express the importance of our wedding day to our guests. More than that, writing the ceremony gave me the ability to craft it into a ritual that would work most powerfully to move us (heart, mind, body & soul) into marriage.
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Originally posted on September 24, 2008

We’re kicking off our helpful series with a post nominated originally by Mrs. Pony and then nominated 5 times over by other bees in the hive! Mrs. Pony says: “I found Cherry Pie’s writing-their-own-ceremony-post to be extremely helpful when trying to write our own ceremony.”

If you’re planning on writing your own ceremony, Mrs. Cherry Pie gives us some helpful guidelines to craft it.

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When we decided to have a non-officiant friend marry us (remember: anyone can marry you in Montana), I knew it meant that I would have to write our wedding ceremony, or at least contribute heavily to its creation. This was high on my list of “cons” relating to not hiring an officiant, but I very quickly came to enjoy that I had the power to word smith our ceremony in any way I wanted.

I want to share with you what writing our ceremony meant to me, the process I used to write it, and finally, our ceremony text, in case any of these things might inspire one of you to follow the same path.
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This post originally ran on November 10, 2008.

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I know we’re getting a bit too “punny” with the “Secret Life of Bees” titles, but I had to give it a shot.

I even made a PIE CHART to illustrate the four very random “secrets” I’m going to share!

Har har har, I slay me.

Let’s start at the top, shall we?
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I’ve been a busy bee since I started my own business in Seattle. Working from hard is home, and can be isolating…so instead of being a hermit, I decided to see how I could get involved with the community and give back to the industry that inspired me to take charge of my career for myself! It wasn’t hard: one of the first things I learned about was a homegrown wedding charity and fundraiser gala called Get Hitched, Give Hope, and I got involved right away. For the last two years I’ve been working with a fabulous team to make this amazing event possible, and I’m pleased as punch to announce that the 2010 Get Hitched, Give Hope is coming up this week! (Eep! So soon??) If you’ll be in Seattle this Thursday evening and don’t already have plans, I’d love, love, LOVE to see you there. It’s going to be a blast.

What is Get Hitched, Give Hope, exactly? Well, it’s kind of like a cocktail party crossed with a boutique wedding show. Over 100 of Seattle’s top wedding vendors have donated their goods and services (not to mention their time!) to help raise money for a good cause by passing on amazing deals to local brides and grooms.
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Like most people, I suffer from the malady of time passing faster as I get older. When I finished my recaps half a year had passed since our wedding. In the blink of an eye, another half year was gone, and we’d made it to the one-year mark. Last September, we celebrated our paper anniversary in a quiet cliff-top house on Orcas Island, eating wedding cake and watching Fight Club. (Why Fight Club? Don’t ask… I’ve no idea. As for the cake, it was actually DELICIOUS. Ya just have to store it right!)

Aside from cards, cake, and champagne, we only really had one special thing planned…a Trash the Dress shoot with our friend and fabulous wedding photographer, Kate McElwee. I didn’t want to actually “trash” my dress because I had just had it cleaned and was coming to terms with the idea of someday selling it. (I still might. Soon.) I really just wanted an excuse to put it on and feel like a bride again… to celebrate our wedding in style. So that’s what we did!

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Hellooooo ladies! I’ve been a BAD BEE. You’ve not seen hide nor hair of me since my final recap and I have NOT shared with you the photos from our Zihuatanejo honeymoon or any information about it. Well, next weekend is our one-year anniversary and I think it just might be time to relive said honeymoon with all of you wonderful readers.

Recently, I discovered a Seattle charity event for brides that touched my heart and seemed like it would be genuinely useful to the Weddingbee community. I’m sharing with you because it’s for a great cause, and because good deals on high-end wedding goodies might be just what you need!

Here are the deets:

WHO: Well, that’d be you, of course. And other brides-to-be, or anyone who likes a party, really… the goodies up-for-grabs aren’t just limited to wedding or pre-wedding services! Oh! And I’ll be there, too.

WHAT: It’s called Get Hitched, Give Hope, and it’s a one-night event to raise money for Brides Against Breast Cancer & The Making Memories Foundation by offering, at auction and through raffles, fabulous deals on wedding goods and services.
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I feel like an equally fitting name for this post would be “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems”. See, there’s a reason I haven’t talked much (at all?) about finances or budget before this post. We had a budget, to be sure, but no matter what number we set, it kept changing, morphing, and growing as we planned our wedding.

My rationalization, of course, was that this is was once-in-a-lifetime event, and even if we ended up spending more than we thought we would, we’d be OK. I felt like rather than trying to scrimp and save to make every penny fit within the confines of a single number, that being realistic meant understanding that our budget was an estimation, and we would probably overshoot it.

I think you can see where I am going with this. Things add up fast. We definitely haven’t dug ourselves into a hole, but we spent way more than we intended.

{O hai, I can haz budgets?}

About three months into our two-year engagement, when we first started planning our wedding, I envisioned a gorgeous, country-chic affair that would cost us no more than $12K.
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Well, folks, this is it… the last photo recap of our wedding. Next, I’ll share with you our budget breakdown, and then it’s on to our Zihuatanejo honeymoon. After that, who knows!

My first detail recap showed you the people and accessories that gave our celebration special warmth and feeling.

Today’s post focuses on some of the details that made our wedding unique: DIY projects, decorations, food and beverage, transportation, et cetera. I’ve picked lots of colorful photos to share each detail with you and, wherever possible, linked you to my past posts with more information or other external resources. Enjoy!

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Today I’m delighted to share with you the first of two detail-oriented recap posts. These are sort of like recaps of the recap – focused on all the outfits, accessories, DIY projects, decorations, and edible/drinkable pieces of our wedding. Many of you have asked me questions about specific things that we wore, made, or did. Well, these detail posts are the best place to look for all that information, and to see new photos of all the little things that made our wedding day special.

Check it out!
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After our bouquet and garter tosses, the Good Wood Band again took the stage for the second half of their three-hour set. By this time it was very dark – the kind of pitch blackness you can only experience on a cloudy night in the middle of nowhere – and quite cold. But the rain from earlier had still not returned, and between dancing, drinking, and huddling near the wood stove, we were staying warm and content.
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