Vanity Plate

Kristian decided that he wanted to change his license plate. His current plate refers to his old job of selling swimming pools and he wanted to update it to something more current and fitting to him. Since his favorite thing in the world (besides me) is fishing he decided to buy a vanity plate with a fishing theme. We came up with a few different ideas, all of which were available according to the website that you order plates through. See if you can guess which one he picked.

FSHNEKD

HOOKFSH

EATFISH

MSTRB8R (my personal fav)

FISHLVR

FSHNROD

SOFISHY

BIGBAIT

SHRPHKS

SMELFSH

CRZEFSH

and in case you can't translate any of these they are:

Fish Nekkid

Hook Fish

Eat Fish (duh)

MasterBaiter

Fish Lover

Fishing Rod

So Fishy

Big Bait

Sharp Hooks

Smell Fish

Crazy Fish

So which one would you pick?

SeamSTRESS

As with any wedding ours did not go off without a hitch. There were issues and not everything went according to plan. Fortunately none of these things negatively affected the overall wedding but that doesn't mean that I wasn't a bit of a basket case in the days/hours leading up to the big event.

Two of the issues that we encountered involved my seamstress who not only did the alterations on my dress but also my mother's and one of my bridesmaids. In addition to the alterations she also made my veil (this was after the veil I ordered on Ebay never arrived...long story) and she made from scratch the two flower girl dresses.

Needless to say she had a lot of work on her plate for my wedding. And this was all while her daughter was going through testing and surgeries for being newly diagnosed with breast cancer. First let me say that I really do like my seamstress, she put a LOT of work into my dress and I know it wasn't easy with my continuous weight loss. She also basically re-made my mom's dress after my mom gained weight (we seemed to have the opposite problem). I also realize that she was under tremendous stress with her daughter's health issues. With that said two of my most stressful moments the weekend of the wedding were due to her.

We first discussed the flower girl dress design back in February I believe. She said it wouldn't take very long to make them and she wanted to get my dress finished first. Worked for me. What I didn't find out until the day before the wedding when my mother called me (while I was having my nails done) was that the flower girl dresses hadn't been finished until that morning. The morning before my wedding. My poor mother had been so stressed out and concerned the night before when she learned that the dresses hadn't been made yet that she ran to the mall and bought two little dresses she thought might work. Because of the last minute creation of the dresses it didn't allow time for the girl's to actually try on the dresses until after the Rehearsal dinner. So the night of the Rehearsal I still didn't know if the dresses for my flower girls would fit, nor was I able to see them until after dinner.

Fortunately both dresses fit and the girls looked really cute in them, even though the youngest didn't end up walking down the aisle.

The second issue was my veil. I really wanted a veil similar to the $500 one I tried on in the bridal store that was Cathedral length with lace around the bottom edge. After the one I ordered on Ebay failed to show up I asked my seamstress if she could make something similar. She said no problem. She did have some trouble finding the lace for the bottom but was able to use some she actually already had. It wasn't exactly what I wanted but figured it would work well enough especially since I only planned to wear it for the ceremony and a few pictures.

As with the flower girl dresses she ended up not making my veil until the last minute. Since she's an hour away my mother picked it up for me and I wasn't able to see it until the morning of the wedding. When I first took it out of the bag and spread it out I was NOT happy. The lace on the bottom only went part of the way around the bottom of the veil. When it was completely spread out both sides were missing lace and it just looked very strange. She also said she would put some subtle lining on the edge of the entire veil and that was not done at all. The edges were not cut straight and the whole thing just look completely unfinished.

I basically freaked out and called my mother who was in another room at the hotel. I took the veil down and tried it on for her. Basically we figured out that the seamstress had intended for the sides at the bottom to be tucked under rather than have the whole thing completely spread out. My mother calmed me down and said it would look okay. As you can see in the pictures below it looked okay while walking down the aisle however when it was spread out for the formal pictures you can really see how the lace doesn't go all the around the bottom which really irks me.

*You can see how both sides of the veil are tucked under rather than completely spread out and the small trim of lace on the bottom*

*In this picture my veil is more spread out and you can see on the right side how the lace doesn't go all around the bottom edge. I know it's not super noticeable but it irritates me to no end when I look at this picture*

As I said neither of these issues ruined my wedding and to be honest with the exception of a very small group of people no even knew about these issues but it didn't make them any less stressful at the time. Though considering all the things that could have gone wrong, last minute flower girl dresses and a not exactly perfect veil aren't too bad.

Wed-cap: It's In the Details

One of the requests that I made of our photographers was to get a lot of detail shots, after all I wanted to be able to remember all the small details that I spent 15 months putting together. And as with our other photos they did not disappoint. They did a great job getting shots of all the details throughout the day. Below are just a few of my favorites. There will be more to come once I start re-capping the reception.

*This was taken in our hotel room which turned out to be a great back-drop for the getting ready pictures*

*Close up of the beading on my dress*

*My grandmother's engagement ring- which was my something old/borrowed, my earrings, and the pin I attached to my bouquet*


*Close up of mine and my grandmother's engagement ring*

*The bottom of my shoes, the top shoes says "I Do"*

*My $10 earrings, yes they were only $10!*

*Our programs...I loved our programs*

*The flower girl baskets that my mother in law decorated*

*The ring shot on the rock wall outside*

*The candles lining the aisle*

*Part of the reception tables...more pics to come of these*

*The beautiful stained glass window in the venue*

*Our invitation with the bridal and bridesmaid bouquet*

*The napkins my MIL bought for us*

*The Waterford Crystal champagne glasses we got for Christmas*

A note of thanks

For the past two weeks we've been working on sending out our thank you cards. We've been writing and mailing a few at a time so that it's not such an annoying, tedious task. Kristian has actually been a big help and written most of the ones for his family and friends. His thank you cards are not only very personal but quite humorous. For example he wrote in his aunt's card that I'm afraid the Indian artifact she gave us (don't ask) is really some sort of fertility thing and I refuse to keep it in the bedroom. HAHA. I hope his aunt has a sense of humor!

During the planning process I stalked many wedding blogs and websites and one of the ideas that I decided to borrow *cough*steal*cough* was the idea of taking a photo at the wedding of us holding a "Thank You" sign and using that photo for our thank you cards.

Something like this:

*source- Weddingbee.com*

When I first mentioned the idea to Kristian he thought it was kind of cheesy and lame. But to be honest at first he thought most of my wedding ideas were cheesy and lame only to turn around after the fact and tell me what a great idea it ended up being. Moral of the story--Shannon is always right!

I tasked him with making our Thank You sign before the wedding since he's the one with all the artistic ability in our little family. He made the sign to look similar to our invitation design and my Type A Control freak thought it turned out great. I told him if the photo didn't turn out well or if he still thought it was cheesy once it was done we wouldn't send it.

Well of course he gave in and we've sent out more than half of our thank you cards and gotten great feedback on them. People seem to actually want to keep these more so than they would a generic thank you card. I've already seen the card displayed on the counter at my In-laws house and my brother and SIL's house. So I guess my "cheesy" and "lame" idea turned out pretty good.

Here's a pic of the card which we printed via VistaPrint. The inside is completely blank and I've whited out our last name.

Wife Chop

I think I'm in the same group as a lot of women who decide to grow their hair out for their wedding. I've always had relatively long hair (below the shoulders) but in anticipation of the wedding I made a point to grow it out even more. I knew I was going to wear it down and curly and therefore I wanted it as long as possible in order to get the look I was after.

Because of this I haven't cut my hair since October. Holy Split-ends! The past few months my hair has been driving me nuts, it's just gotten way too long and unmanageable and most days it didn't take long before I threw it up in a ponytail. I COULD NOT wait until after the wedding when I could finally cut it and tonight was finally the night.

I decided to use a new hair stylist who was more geographically desirable than my previous lady. I ended up going to the same lady that my mother in law uses. In fact Kristian has even had her cut his hair in the past. I basically gave her free reign to do what she wanted. I told her I wanted at least 4 inches off, maybe some layers and possibly some bangs. I'm really happy with what she did and Kristian feels like he has a new wife. Check it out below.

*The before-- in the bathroom at work--long and boring*

*The after- BANGS!*

*My hair is shorter but not "too" short and she cut some layers in it to give me some more body*

I haven't had bangs since college and those were not the cute, trendy kind of the bangs but more the hideous, whatwasIthinking kind. I'm happy with the bangs, now I just hope I can style them and not go nuts having them in my eyes.

Wed-cap: Flower Power and Sweet Treats

In addition to our photographers whom we loved, we also had a really great florist and baker. We hired Hilary from Fleurtations to make our bouquets, boutonnieres, ceremony arrangement and flowers for the cake (my mother-in-law took care of the reception flowers...more on that later).

When I met with her last fall, I showed her a few inspiration photos and told her that my three favorite flowers are roses, peonies and hydrangeas. I wanted an all white bouquet for myself and for the bridesmaids I wanted bouquets with various shades of light and dark pink. The bridesmaid's bouquets were a mix of roses and peonies and for the jr. bridesmaid she used just three pink roses which turned out to be the perfect size for the girls. For the ceremony, I wanted one large, all white arrangement using hydrangeas as the primary flower.

I must say that Hilary did an AMAZING job! When the bouquets arrived I literally jumped up and down and clapped my hands with excitement. They were EXACTLY what I wanted. I was so happy that Hilary really listened to my ideas and not only met but exceeded my expectations. I loved the bouquets! I also thought the ceremony arrangement was really beautiful and has really added to the ceremony photos.

*my bouquet- roses and peonies*

*It was the perfect size for my small frame*

*The Bridesmaid bouquets*

*The jr. bridesmaid bouquets in comparison to the bridesmaid bouquets*

*The ceremony arrangement*

For the cake we hired Shawna from Sweet Creations Cakes. I loved working with Shawna, she was always incredibly responsive to my emails and when we had our tasting with her last fall we immediately liked her. Her flavors were delicious and she helped us come up with the perfect design. We went with 3 square shaped tiers with a different flavor for each tier. The bottom was vanilla with strawberry filling, the middle was chocolate with raspberry filling (I didn't get to taste the middle layer so I'm assuming it was actually chocolate) and the top was carrot cake (we ate the top tier after the honeymoon). She used buttercream icing with a black fondant ribbon around the bottom of each layer.

Hilary provided the flowers and Shawna placed the flowers on the cake. I really wanted a simple flower cake topper with a few flowers on each layer. I was so excited when I saw the cake after the ceremony, once again it was exactly what I had wanted. I thought it looked beautiful and tasted wonderful.

Wed-cap: Just the Two of Us

After we were done with the formal shots and we released the rest of the wedding party to the cocktail hour, the photographers took us outside for pictures of just Kristian and I around the property. Fortunately by that point it was only lightly sprinkling so it didn't hinder our outdoor shots. In fact if anything I think the rain added to them. The trees were extra green, the ground was wet and shiny and of course having the pink umbrella was the icing on the cake.

Before we started with the pictures my dress needed to be bustled so that it wouldn't get ruined dragging the ground. Unfortunately by the time we realized it needed to be bustled everyone had disappeared. Have no fear because Kristian came to my rescue and with only minimal guidance from me was able to figure out the bustle on my dress. The photographers thought it was hysterical and couldn't resist getting a picture of it, after all it's not every wedding where the husband bustles the dress.