Moving on.

(source: the amazing bunbunlife) 

Sorry for the lack of recaps. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the wedding and old stuff that it dredged up, and I'm done thinking about it for now, because I need to be.

Moving on... I've started a new blog for October, based on my commitment to learning or accomplishing one new thing each day. Thanks for all your support, readers of this expired wedding blog! (And feel free to check out the pics of the wedding on Flickr if you haven't seen them yet!)

Check it out: 

Thirty-One Days of New

finally!

I think I'm finally finished processing the wedding. I love reading recaps and all, but had NO desire to write them.  I still don't, really - I'm ready to move on to the other things that are consuming my brain, but here we go anyway!*

Our wedding started out in a very stressful way. Our relatives came and drove us crazy (with notable exception - my aunt, who not only was helpful but pretty much ran the whole show. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I hated my flowers (the only dahlias that were available due to the unusually cold/wet weather we had been having), my makeup-doer backed out the afternoon before, I wasn't 100% pleased with my dress, and on and on and on. A bunch of friends jumped in and helped do all kinds of last minute things. We found a new makeup-doer. The local-but-not-organic cherries for the centerpieces found themselves in a bath of fruit/veggie wash. The night before the wedding, Bryn ironed my dress for 4 hours, ordered me around so I could get organized, and prepped fruit until 3. T and I went to bed at 4 in the morning (after having premarital sex for the last time, awww yeah).

this is a total lie. not "all done". not at all.

I got up before 7, when I began to run around like crazy again. That day, many people who were helping pre-wedding arrived late because of one reason or another. Getting stuff to the venue was an absolute nightmare. The tandem bike got left at home because no one had a truck. I received 4 separate text messages within an hour concerning the location of the homemade lavender-infused vodka!

Two people who were on time were Kathleen, who was doing my hair, and Erin, our photographer. Also, Milton was on hand to help get white cat hair on everything possible.

gratuitous cat picture.

We all consumed lots of Viso.

gratuitous hot fiance pic

Kathleen curled my hair with a curling iron and set each section with an alligator clip.

my day of "perfect beauty" - featuring the worst under-eye circles of my life!

tools

Then we tied a scarf over it in grandma-like fashion.

Erin took some neat details shots of our wedding clothes.

Kathleen and Erin drove to the venue together while I finished running around doing Icantevenrememberwhat, and forgetting ALL my jewelry (which I didn't even remember until after the wedding, when I mourned the absence of my CUTE bird earrings and bicycle locket). Best thing of the morning? The GORGEOUS bouquet my neighbor Jan made me! All the best dark-red dahlias with random foliage from our yard.

After a kerfuffle over WHERE THE EFF IS UNCLE RAY, I NEED TO GET OVER THERE ASAP, I ended up driving myself to the venue, alone, in our housemate's car, nearly getting in a head-on collision with a woman haphazardly exiting a motel near the venue. T had told me by phone, "Go in through the front door so you don't see the backyard [where the wedding was]... you do not want to see how un-set-up things are at this point." EFFFFF. So I went in the front and went straight upstairs to get ready.

Kathleen came up and finished my hair. And after feeling a little "meh" after the trials.... she nailed the hairdo perfectly. I loved it!

T's friend, Alison, who might be the most normal lady I know, helped me do natural-looking makeup. We were unable to do much about the enormous bags under my eyes, but whatever, I got 3 hours of sleep and that's what photo editing software is for.

My dress fit perfectly, thanks to the pigging out I did the couple days before the wedding. The few pounds I gained back actually made a huge difference in the fit of the boob area! Also, I'd like to give a huge thank-you to the shapewear industry. I wore a strapless bra that actually stayed up (tested it with the 1-year-old the week prior!) and a "Miraclesuit", which looked awful, felt okay, and kept my stomach in check and didn't creep down! Kathleen and Erin helped me zip and tie my dress. My friendors kept me totally sane, since all my other friends were running around setting things up downstairs.

 Then we had an impromptu photo shoot in the white-and-turquoise subway-tiled bathroom with a built-in vanity:

HA! The bottom half of this window is frosted. This pic is a LIE.

So I'm dressed, starving, and ready to go. And things still aren't completely set up, and it's after the wedding's start-time and Thomas hasn't even taken his clothing out of the car because he had a disaster with the sound system and had to tell everyone what to do besides that. And I pace back-and-forth in the upstairs bedroom...

pic by me. obviously.

(To be continued)

(Hey, you're lucky you got this much!)

*All photos by Erin Thomas Photography, unless otherwise noted! You can also "like" her facebook page (which is more frequently updated)!

Almost there...

Hold onto your horses*, readers!

My first wedding recap is almost finished. I'm way too lazy to look through pictures again tonight, and I have a headache to boot. Tomorrow, tomorrow, you're only 15 minutes awayyyyy.

(Erin Thomas Photography)

* things like the phrase "hold onto your horses" make me really appreciate working with young children.

Aftermath!

I suppose one of these days I should do a wedding recap! My brain is super-cluttered right now, as I continue to be insanely busy. The day after the wedding we had brunch with my cousins and then we ran around town returning sound equipment and stuff. There was also tons of food that had to be repacked and shuffled around in the fridge. The day after that we ran more errands, did laundry, packed, and left for Astoria (which was wonderful). We got back Friday night and have been trying to work on our apartment, which was filled with mason jars, dishes, napkins and tablecloths and runners. All of which needed to be washed! Some of which were covered with red spray paint dots from a can that exploded in the back yard. Saturday we had a last-minute "come eat our cake" bbq, where I got no less than 50 mosquito bites.  Sunday was more cleaning, and running loads of mason jars in our upstairs housemate's dishwasher, and then the mosquito bites started to inflame. My Monday was mostly spent laying around in an itchy stupor after getting little sleep. Today they're a little less intense and I'm getting some stuff done!

I'm making a list of the things we're going to sell now that the wedding is over. By some miracle of the universe, all of the white tablecloths came clean, despite having cherry juice dripped all over them! I'm selling those, table squares, milk-glass, tissue paper, kids' games, serving trays, the white FiestaWare pitcher (which I really don't need), and a bunch of other stuff. I can't wait to have it out of my life!

I feel like there are so many things I still need to process, but between the insane mess of our apartment, and the itch of the mosquito bites, I can barely even think. I want to write a huge recap of the wedding and the madness leading up to it. I want to write about our honeymoon. And I want to write about how weird it feels to use the word "husband" and how our relationship has changed. I just need to clear some physical/mental space first!

Wedding was amazing after a rough start! Check out photos from Erin Thomas Photography here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smartasskicker/

More later!

opinions needed....

cute? or too over-the-top? or both?

we are having a craft-a-thon over here tonight! our good friend jeff came over and helped make tissue paper pompoms!

my dress came and was sent back to seattle. it needed more alterations and some boning. but i got my shoes back from being cleaned and they. are. gorgeous. 

more later! i'm going nuts! my dad gets here tomorrow night! aaaaagh!

One week!

One week left, and I finally feel like things are starting to come together. We have been SO busy this weekend, but got a ton of things done. Stuff I did today:

I finished the small pinwheels for the kids. Oh my gawd, these things were (unexpectedly) a total time-vampire, but they're damn cute:

I made the 12 big pinwheels to create the aisle for the ceremony. They're mounted on dowels that I painted red. They're fully functional, so hopefully they'll spin if it's breezy!

I cut out more felt dahlia petals but got distracted because why am I doing that when I should be sewing?? So I went inside and pressed and sewed the last two table squares and the last runner (Total made: 5 of each). It feels so good to have these done!

Later I washed a bunch of the pyrex and milk glass for the centerpieces and started putting each table together. I am setting them up (miniature-style) on our dining table, photographing them, and putting it in a MS Word file with a list of all the components. All the stuff for a table goes in a paper bag, and the photo and list will get stapled to it. I have 4 tables figured out, so far. This is what Table 1 will look like (but a lot longer since it's a 60" table):

T is making a giant mobile using bike parts. Today he spent a lot of time disassembling his old bike (the one I was hit on - it's no longer functional) and cleaning and spray-painting the rims aqua.

He's also taking care of writing out ceremony (with frequent input from moi, of course), working endlessly on our Zune playlists, and is arranging some live music from (part of) Julia Massey & the Five-Finger Discount. And since he doesn't know how to sew or do a lot of the crafty stuff I've been doing, he's been taking on the role of Head Dishwasher in our household so he's just as busy as I am (because fairness is extremely important when I'm fighting with my sewing machine or burning myself with hot glue).


Our biggest challenge right now is flowers. We were planning on getting a butt-ton of dahlias from the farmer's market or a U-cut place, but the unusually cold/wet/neverending spring we had has pushed the season back a couple weeks and they're not ready. I'm trying not to panic and am instead focusing on thinking up a game-plan. I love poppies, so I might try the trick of burning the tips to make them not wilt. I'd love a wedding full of poppies! We can probably get dahlias from New Seasons, but they'll likely be more pricey than buying them in bulk. I need to see how many bud vases we need to fill before going this route. Lastly, I had a moment of madness (and hoped people would help me, which no one really volunteered to do) and considered making a bunch of those felt dahlias I'm in love with. But while I was cutting petals today, I was reminded of how time consuming it is! Probably not the best route at this point. I wish I had thought about the potential flower delay last month, when it was unseasonably cold and raining like crazy... I could've made 20 of those felt ones by now! Oh, well. Something will work out - we're looking for red flowers and that's easy to find. I find myself rethinking and reshaping my idea of this wedding even a week before it happens!

I could REALLY go for a ton of poppies, though....

(source)

Some of my list for tomorrow:
+ Pick up trash cans/beverage containers from Jasper
+ Collect materials to use as handfasting cords
+ Email everyone with kids who doesn't know about the plan to have them walk me down the aisle dressed in fun outfits (should've done this weeks ago.... oops)
+ Go by New Seasons and see their flower options and talk to deli about bread/cheese trays
+ Try poppy trick
+ Hunt down tea towels or cut fabric to cover food trays
+ Plan table layouts 5-10
+ Try to get some sun while wearing a strapless top to counteract horrid farmer-tan
+ Pick up more stuff from an Offbeat Bride Tribe girl
+ GET WEDDING LICENSE
+ A million other things, I'm sure!

ETA: pardon me while I use this as my to-do list

P.S. The most exciting thing happened yesterday! As I was sitting, working on the pinwheels, my glue gun went up in flames. It literally caught on fire! Luckily I was able to unplug it and blow it out before anything burned, but still! Scary! Later, T bought me the DELUXE Aleene's glue gun at Michael's and it is awesome. Not only is it multi-temp, it has interchangeable tips!

P.P.S. I'm having the weirdest formatting issues tonight with blogger. Anyone else?