Tea Party

Tea Mosaic
Originally uploaded by prideofazchick

A beautiful Tucson Tea Party with the girls to celebrate Jen and her wedding. Those scones and devonshire cream were absolutely delicious.

We had wedding tea which was an amazing white tea. I am a tea fiend so I had like 4 cups. It was so good!! Picking one's own tea cup and pretending to be fancy and girly was a lot of fun (despite all the PINK). It was a very sweet idea for a bridal shower/celebration and I highly recommend it.

Bachelor/Bachelorette Parties

Lk Pwl #3
Originally uploaded by uacheesehead

This pic, taken by my friend Josh, started me thinking about unique bachelor and bachelorette parties. I hope that we have moved beyond the traditional gross stripper+beer=bachelor party philosophy and into the realm of real creativity.

This picture is from our friend Brad's bachelor party (more about his wedding in a bit - must get pictures off of camera) that my husband threw. They took the family boat out on lake powell and had a great weekend of jetskiing and camping. I know that this opportunity doesn't present itself to most people but boats can be rented for the weekend!

For my bachelorette party, we all went to disneyland and had dinner and drinks in downtown disney. The traditionalists at my office made fun of me (of course) but isn't it really more about your personality and interests and less about what society expects of a bachelor(ette) party?

Any other fun ideas out there? Anyone? Bueller?

'If I knew then what I know now' - The Bouquet

My wedding was beautiful, fabulous, and fun but I have learned so much about the planning of a wedding throughout the process. I've also actually found ideas now that I wish I had known about then. Here is the first entry in a series of wistful looks back in time and things that I would change if I had it to do all over again.

Maybe someone else will find a great idea here or I can use these ideas for a 5 year anniversary vow renewal!

If I knew then what I know now, I would have had DK Designs make me a clay bouquet like this one. Yes, it is made of CLAY (and about the same price as my flower bouquet without the worries about drying, preservation, or wilting).

Beautiful!!

The list

My cousin just got engaged and she asked me to put together a list of resources for her. She asked if I used a book but I actually got most of my wedding ideas from magazines and bloggers. I'm going to pass on a list of my favorite wedding blogs and sites so I thought I would post it here too.

Blogs
Stinkerpants Blog
Broke-ass Bride
Mrs. Candy Corn
Binational Bride
Polkadot bride
Style Me Pretty

Though I hate to send traffic that way, I would hate for her to miss the pre-eHarmony weddingbee archives of:
Mrs. Lovebug
Mrs. Lime
Mrs. Penguin
(no offense to bees and ex-bees that I didn't pick; she is getting married outside on a beach in Hawaii so I didn't think that the big city bloggers would do much for her - plus these guys are my very favorites and I wanted to limit the list to 3!)

Sites
The Somewhat Official Knot Bio List - easiest way to find knottie bios
Indiebride - check out Kvetch for some great boards. Posters tend to be really positive and supportive, no matter how crazy your idea is!
Martha Stewart Weddings

Plus there's the worst wedding blog ever, this one! Sometimes you just can't do it all!

The Bridesmaid Pledge

I am the only one of my close female friends/family members that has gotten married and had a full-fledged bridal party. I’m ready to be someone else’s bridesmaid now!!

There is a sort of social antagonism surrounding the concept of being a bridesmaid. Why is that? Why can’t the stigma of ugly, poufy, identical dresses and subordination to the bride’s will be left in the past? Why must there be so much drama?

I’m not saying I was the perfect bride, either, and that there was no drama with my wedding party. It was there, though very minimal in comparison with others.

I don’t know, maybe it is because I’m married or for whatever reason, I just think that being a bridesmaid would be incredibly fun and that I’d be good at it. There is actually a ‘bride’s pledge’ circling the net where the bride basically pledges to not harass the bridesmaids, not make them wear ugly dresses, not make them cut their hair or get Botox (seriously, WTF? Who does that?), etc., etc. I think that’s all very reasonable but seriously, as cynical as a bridesmaid may be, the wedding day is really all about the bride [and groom]. So, I make my own bridesmaid pledge (if I am ever to become one). These are all things I learned from planning my own wedding, which was my first experience dealing with bridesmaids.

1) I will never complain about the dress, shoes, accessories, hairstyle, etc. that you choose for me. It is one day out of my life and I will wear anything you want. Just because I let my BMs pick their own accessories and dress style doesn’t mean you have to do that too.

2) I will never ask “are you doing [fill in the blank here] at your wedding?” That is a passive-aggressive insinuation that that is what you should be doing and you should do whatever you want.

3) I will offer my wedding planning expertise (well, maybe not expertise, per se, but I did plan a wedding!) only if asked.

4) I will NEVER use the word Bridezilla. It is the equivalent of calling the bride a bitch and it is absolutely unacceptable.

5) I will always offer to help. Whatever I can do, I will do.

6) I am available to run interference between you and whoever is bugging you: vendors, parents, in-laws, stepsiblings, other bridesmaids, etc. I will body check if necessary. I will take them down.

7) I will smile for pictures and never complain about how long they take.

8) I’m already married so I can’t steal your ideas for my own wedding! Bonus! But feel free to steal mine.

9) I will take pictures (or designate someone to take pictures) of all the things your photographer won't think of (centerpieces, placecards, buffet, tablescape, aisle decor) and upload them to flickr for you. I wish someone had done this for me!

10) Anything you feel that I need to add onto this list is negotiable!

And look how cute my BMs were! I don’t think I tortured them too much (at least I hope not). That adds to my BM street cred.

polaroid wedding

polaroid wedding
Originally uploaded by mark van etten

Look at the sweet quality of this polaroid wedding photo. This is great incentive to bring my polaroid camera to weddings I attend in the future. This was taken with an sx-70 which makes it look even cooler and more vintage-y. That is good incentive for me to get mine working soon (with the proper exposure).

I'm really glad this didn't happen to me at my wedding

We also got married on a platform over water. Thank you Brad for having sure footing. 

The weddingbee drama

See my personal blog for my feelings on this.

swoon...

I'm in love with Mrs. Milkshake's wedding video.


Cheryl + Andrew's SDE - Vancouver from StillMotion on Vimeo.

there is still paint on our car

Jen and Mike Wedding; Toby/Bob photos, originally uploaded by deatswedding.

...I don't think it's ever coming off :)

Invitations Part I - the inside

My mom and I designed my invites and she made them all. It was a ton of work and they turned out beautifully. She bought all the materials for the outside part and then suggested I just print out the inside. So not happening! The outside was so beautiful and the inside needed to match so I had the inside part letterpressed through papersource. They turned out so cool!


Here is a sneak peek at the inside part. I will be taking pictures of the actual invites this week but you'll just have to make do with this for now!

The ratio of text to paper is off in this proof but you get the idea. We used lyrics from our first dance song from Phantom of the Opera. Our first real date was to see phantom together when it came to Centennial Hall at UofA so it was a very fitting theme!

pencil sketch

pencil sketch, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

Having kids at your wedding and looking for something awesome to put in those kiddie packets? A wedding coloring book made easy by flickr's picnik tool. Use the pencil sketch tool to turn your e-pics into sketches, print and bind. Look how cool they turn out! I might print some of our wedding pics and color them just for funsies.

Note: You probably need picnik pro to use this tool but trust me, picnik is so cool that it's totally worth it.

You know you're obsessed with your color scheme when...

...your bar includes these babies:

Note: these weren't our actual straws, they matched the other colors better (these were just the best internet pics I could find!). I found our actual straws at walgreens a few days before the wedding, super cheap! Something like $2 for 300 straws. I just got lucky in that they had this blue and green summer picnic display going on.

Our napkins were ordered from platesandnapkins

Super 8 Wedding Videos

Here is something I wish we could have done for our wedding. It would have taken additional coordination, expense and planning and by the end I couldn't justify expending more of those things.

A Super 8 (8mm) film of our wedding would have been really really cool though. Check out this one below by cake and lemonade. I love vintage-y things!!! (refer to burgeoning collection of lomographic cameras)

Holiday Cards

In order to avoid doing this during my crazy busy season, I ordered Holiday cards recently. I won't give away the inside but this is the outside:

Photo by Jacob Konst, Texture/Color/Text modified by me

Wedding Cake - ready for its close up

I posted earlier about my wedding cakes but I thought I would put in a better picture. The lacy frosting design that follows the sugar flower branches matches the embroidery on my dress. I sent photos to our cake designer for her to copy and she did a marvelous job. Also, the little matching cake stand was just perfect too!

Note: all photos are by Jacob Konst. If you use them for anything, please credit him.

UA Photo shoot pt I - Table numbers

Mike and I did a photo shoot around UA with 2 bridesmaids following us around with Mike's Camera and some of our lomographic cameras. This gave us the opportunity to test the lomos as well as shoot our table numbers. We were going for whimsical and nostalgic. Some of our photos have issues (the bad merger of the backpack and my head in the McKale center photo - Mike's fault! -, for example) and the fact that it was super hot resulted in me not always looking my best. :-( We also used the best picture of us in front of my favorite part of campus - the stadium - as a big blown up print so the table number version was not stellar. But, the guests enjoyed them and that's what counts! I consider them a marked improvement over plain old table numbers, especially because no matter how we looked, Meghan (my bm) still took some good shots. Thanks Meg!

And yes, we are in the fountain on #7. Please note the sign ;-)

Empty Table for perusal

ballroom, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

Thanks to my stepmom, I have a semi-decent photo of the ballroom before the guests descended upon it. It should, at least, give some idea of the table settings. Notice the painstakingly folded paper cranes at each place setting (folded by Mr. Monkey mostly), the revolution tea box at each setting, the alternating colors of blue runners and ties from table to table, and the beautiful centerpieces. Add the emerald green cudge candle holders and you have, all in all, a pretty nice table. Yay. It looks simple but it feels like it took eons to put together. It is difficult to see in this picture, but I did use the cobalt blue wine bottles to mark the tables and the table numbers feature photos of Mike and I around UofA.

Here's the original, un-messed-with photo. It gives a little more table detail but less "whole room" detail.

Wedding Jewelry pt II - Blue Nile

Since it isn't possible for the layman (or at least for me) to get a picture of my ring without the diamond looking blurry, here are professional pics of my rings from blue nile :

These guys were not actually a set but they appear to be one and they look great together. I have no complaints with blue nile. Everything they sent was wonderful and we had no problems even when we had to return a band - we ordered 2 so I could choose which one I liked better.

Note: the diamond is actually not from blue nile, but from USAA. They have a wonderful selection.

Also, I purchased this necklace from blue nile before I found the etsy one. I ended up looping it around my wrist to use as a bracelet (see top banner of the site). I bought the matching bracelet but, being a large-boned person, it would not fit around my wrist. The different colored pearls are so cool, it is definitely a necklace/bracelet that I wear post-wedding.

Wedding Jewelry pt I - Etsy

You can see some of my wedding jewelry in these photos. I was thrilled with the quality and beauty of these pieces so I wanted to give a shout out to the etsy sellers who made them.

First the hair ornamentation. These bobby pins are made from vintage earrings by OriginalsbyLynnette. They were beatiful and stayed in my hair all night without dragging it down. Note that I have very thick hair so others with thinner locks might not enjoy the same results. I would email the seller with any questions you might have. These pins were one of a kind but OriginalsbyLynnette has many sets of bridal and non-bridal hair ornamentation.

Second, in keeping with the pearly theme is my coin pearl necklace by teleecouture. This worked beautifully as well with my dress and I envision wearing it with many other outfits post wedding.


Enjoy and happy etsy shopping!

the "altar"

Wedding49, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

Here is a good "unprofessional" picture of Mike at the "altar." As much trouble as I had with our florists (a possible blog for later), the flowers were beautiful and the pedestals were perfectly rustic, just like L'auberge. The reader's platform was mercilessly stolen from the restaurant patio. Earlier in the day, I spotted them using the ugly podium that the catering manager and I traded them for the use of their music stand. ha!

Oh so thats what the cocktail hour was like... too bad pictures took forever and we missed it...

Oh so thats what the cocktail hour was like... too bad pictures took forever and we missed it..., originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

The cocktail hour and bar setup in the garden was so beautiful. Too bad the entire bridal party missed it since we were taking a bazillion pictures. From the couple of pics that I got from family members it looks like people were socializing and having fun. My previously blogged about soda bar seemed like a big hit. There were only 2 bottles left when we came down to make our entrance.

I love polyvore

I used polyvore to create a collage of images from my wedding (and some inspiration pictures of things I used. I planned to blog in more detail later but for now I thought I would share these with you, faithful readers (oh wait, do I have any of those? :-P)

The sprinkler

IMG_8797, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

It is always important for a bride to dance ridiculously and have a ton of fun at her wedding :)

Works of art

Works of art, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

Our cakes were definitely a hit at our reception. The cake artist was Andrea of Sedona Cake Couture and she did a phenomenal job with our wedding cake and last minute groom's cake.

I decided about a month before the wedding that we definitely needed to have a grooms cake. Mike is very into video games which sparked the Mario idea. I gave Andrea a completely over-the-top in-depth tutorial on the world of Mario. She incorporated the elements I asked for really well. The backgrounds, coins, stars, and blocks were perfect and the sugar goombas were so cool.

The flying mario at the top rocked and was perfect in the details of the gloves, hat and yellow cape (I am a super nintendo child, mario uses a cape to fly, not a racoon tail in my world - sorry for all you NES purists out there).

Mike LOVED it.

Our much fancier cake turned out great as well. The pattern of icing matched my dress and the sugar flowers were exquisite. Just what we asked for! I give Andrea an A+++ for being incredibly attentive to detail and communicative.

Flavors:

Wedding cake - half orange chocolate, half caramel pecan cheesecake

Mario cake - red velvet (mike's favorite)

zilla moment

Definitely in the right place, originally uploaded by bfurlong.

WHAT'S with the PRICE SCANNER STICKER????!!!!!!!!! They couldn't have at least turned the pot around so that was facing the wall??????

Lomos!

silly, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

Here is a great lomographics action sampler shot of DH and I on the admin steps at UA for our table number photo shoot. We purchased several funky lomographic cameras for the wedding and to test them out our lovely MOH took these pictures while another BM shot our table number pics. We are still waiting on the actual wedding photos which we are getting developed through snapfish (which unfortunately takes longer than your usual drugstore development but costs much less and includes digital images). I promise a new blog post when we get our actual wedding lomo pictures back.

Ceremony

wedding64, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

Here is an "unprofessional" picture of our ceremony and some excerpts (note this is not our entire ceremony). Enjoy!

Address to Bride & Groom

Michael, Jennifer, you are about to make promises to one another. The vows you make today are beautiful words representing even more beautiful intentions. As you live these vows over the years, happy times of your life will be twice as joyous because you share them together. When life meets challenges, they will be halved because you will carry the burdens together. For those times when life presents you with opportunities, go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you’ve imagined.

By marrying you do not lose your individuality, but instead gain a partner with whom you can share your joys and sorrows. Together you will grow as individuals as well as a couple.

Always remember, a good marriage must be created.
In the marriage, the little things are the big things.
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once each day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is not only marrying the right person, it is being the right partner.

Reading by Elizabeth S (cousin of the bride)
(From "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams)

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."


Reading by Jennifer W (sister of the groom)
(An excerpt from " The Two Towers : Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien)

ENT: When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!
ENTWIFE.: When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade;
When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid;
When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air,
I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair.
ENT.: When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold
Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold;
When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!
ENTWIFE. : When Summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown;
When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town;
When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West,
I'll linger here beneath the Sun, because my land is best!
ENT.: When Winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay;
When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day;
When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain
I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again!
ENTWIFE : When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!
BOTH : Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.

Blessing of the Rings

A circle symbolizes wholeness, a state in which nothing is missing and everything is possible. Let these rings therefore represent wholeness. Let them remind you of the coming around of an eternal cycle: from sickness to health, from want to plenty, from despair to joy, from failure to possibility, from loneliness to love. Let these rings also be a sign of substance, as is the precious metal from which they are made. May the love they symbolize be, to the end of your days, the most precious part of your life.

Apache Blessing

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years.
May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.

a stand for the readers

We are having an outdoor ceremony but we have 2 readers. Originally we were thinking our venue or DJ could provide a podium for them to stand at or we could rent one. Then, the thought was that a big blocky podium would be really ugly in our pictures and would block our speakers.

I then considered having a microphone stand only but there is one catch - both our readings are from literature and we would prefer to have them read from our actual books. I'm thinking that that could be troublesome since Mr. Monkey's sister's reading is from Lord of the Rings... That's a big book, especially the fancy collector's edition one.

The solution? A wooden music stand!! It is a bit of a splurge but it might be the motivation I need to dust off my clarinet which hasn't been touched since undergrad and thus, it would be useful at home after the wedding.

Here are a few pretty ones from amazon.com:






The last one is beatiful! So, of course, it is out of stock. Maybe I can find something similar elsewhere.

Don't let the intro fool you, it's not "Ice, Ice, Baby"

Brides are under pressure to make their wedding day as beautiful as possible...but what if all these potentially great ideas in their heads don't really work out all that well in the execution?!

I have felt a jolt of excess pressure recently. My photographer is a friend of mine who worked on our college newspaper and yearbook with me (I was a layout designer) and went on to become this amazing wedding/fashion photographer in New York. He usually charges significantly more to do weddings than I am paying him...like 90% more. It helps to have friends!!

He has done several weddings but he is still building his portfolio so he is coming in the day before and going over to our wedding cake baker's house (out of which her company is based) to shoot the cake and now I'm thinking "I really hope our cake is as fabulous as I think it will be because it's important to his career!!"

Also, he has an agreement with Brides magazine because they really like his previous pictures so I gave him permission to submit our wedding. What if they don't take his pictures because my fabulous (in my mind) wedding isn't so fabulous (in reality)?

I just want to give him as much opportunity as possible considering he is doing crazy things like shooting my rehearsal dinner and bending over backwards for basically free.

Yikes! Talk about pressure.

The beauty of simple things... like soda bottles?

My mad brainstorming post included my idea for a lemonade stand. We inquired about this with our resort but the price they quoted for making and refilling the lemonade for our stand was out of our range and I wasn't sure how we could manage it ourselves. I thought having a family member refill the lemonade dispensers would be a bit tacky. Well, maybe not tacky because I hate to use that term but just not the aesthetic we are going for.

So I started thinking we wanted something fun, whimsical and beautiful and I came up with... soda!!

Beautiful soda though, not what you're thinking right now ;-)

Soda like this:

Sources:

bawls.com

thefoodpaper.com

jonessoda.com

amazon.com

jonessoda.com

Pretty, no? We are going to set them up on a table in the garden for cocktail hour.

All the sodas are available online but we actually found a local soda shop that sells by the case, saving us a ton in shipping and is actually cheaper per bottle too. We are going soda shopping at the end of the month!