Wed-cap: Cake Cutting

After we finished with the toasts we went ahead and did the cake cutting. I knew the grandmothers would be getting anxious for this part so that they could head out early. Also, my 6 year old niece/flower girl was having a hard time concentrating on anything BUT that cake. What can I say like aunt like niece.

I really loved our cake. It turned out exactly how I wanted it and it tasted quite yummy too. For my shower my mother gave us our engraved cake cutter and server which was great because I had planned to just buy a cheap one at Michael's. But now I'm glad we have a nice engraved set as a keepsake.

The one thing that surprised me was that I felt like there weren't many people watching us cut the cake. Even our families. Everyone seemed to be off talking or dancing or drinking. I guess the cake cutting isn't the most exciting part of a wedding but I thought at least our parents would be watching and from what I remember they weren't around. I could be mistaken though, as I've said the whole night is a blur now.

*Here we are getting ready to make the first cut. Our photographers had to guide us on where and how to cut it*

*We fed each other nicely. I'm sorry but I just don't get the whole smashing cake in your spouse's face tradition. Why would you want to smash cake in the face of the person you just vowed to spend your life with?? There were several other people there I wouldn't have minded smashing cake in the face of but my husband was not one of them. It just seems rude and tacky. But that's just me. And God knows if I had gotten cake all over my face/dress/hair I would not have been happy. I know this is what makes for excitement for the guests but even as a guest when I've seen it done I just feel uncomfortable.*

*Nom Nom Nom*

*Awww*

Are you pro or anti cake in the face?

Wed-cap: The Toasts

Today is a VERY special day as one of my closest friends is welcoming her son into the world this morning! Kristen has waited a long time for this day and she's going to be an exceptional mother. I love you Kristen and I can't wait to meet baby S!

Now onto the recap for the day. Our toasts. After dinner and a little bit of dancing we stopped the music and did the Best Men and Matron of Honor toasts. Kristian appointed his two closest childhood friends as his co-best men so both Kevin and Bryan gave a little speech along with my MOH Krista.

Krista was up first. She did a great job. Krista has known me for more than a decade and definitely has some good dirt on me but thankfully she didn't bring up any embarrassing stories which I know she has a plethora to choose from! Krista, much like myself, is not a big fan of public speaking so her speech was short and sweet, which was perfect since most guests hate to listen to speeches that drag on and on.

I wish I could remember exactly what she said but of course it's all a blur now. I do remember her talking about how good husbands will come home and make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when you are hungry, which was actually quite fitting for me and made me laugh.

Next up were the boys. Now this could have turned our family friendly event into something inappropriate but thankfully both boys kept their speeches G rated and didn't reveal anything that would warrant an annulment or being disowned from his family. The main part I remember was when Bryan talked about how he knew that Kristian was totally whipped for me after we met by the way he would gush about me on the phone...okay I may be paraphrasing but that's the gist of it.

*Best Man-Kevin*

*Best Man- Bryan*

*Krista was around 5 months pregnant at the time so she toasted in spirit, she also changed into flip flops after the ceremony and pictures. Heels and pregnancy don't always mix so well.*

We didn't have any of the family members give toasts. Kristian's dad gave a very nice speech at the Rehersal dinner the night before. We didn't want to break up the momentum of the evening with a lot of long, drawn out speeches but it was nice having 3 of our closest friends say a few words to help us celebrate.

Who did/will give a toast at your wedding?

Wed-cap: Making the rounds

After Kristian and I quickly ate our meal...well Kristian ate, I picked at the food...we made the rounds to say to hello to all the guests at the tables while they ate. We did this in lieu of a traditional receiving line which takes a lot of time and always feels awkward to me.

It didn't take very long to hit all the tables and say some quick hellos, give some hugs and make sure we talked to every guest.

*Kristian's wedding ring was his grandfather's wedding band. His grandparents were married for over 60 years when his grandfather passed away. Here's the photo of Kristian showing the ring to his grandmother whose husband wore it for 60 years.*

*Kristian kissing his other grandmother. Both of his grandfathers and all of my grandparents have passed away so the two grandmothers were the only grandparents there*

*Showing my rings to my mother in law and her friend*

*Getting a hug from my mother in law*

*Kristian finally getting to meet my friend Emily and her husband. Now he can no longer ask "Whose Emily?" whenever her name comes up which has become a running joke between us.* *Me hugging Kristian's uncle whose a Major General and wore his dress uniform to the wedding. We were afraid he wouldn't be able to make it to wedding after he was sent to Haiti for several months for Earthquake relief but fortunately he was sent home right before the wedding.*

*Kristian talking to one of our day of coordinators*

*Kristian and my Uncle Bill*

*Kristian's cousins*

*My brother showing Kristian and my other uncle something on his iPhone. It doesn't surprise me at all the my brother had his iPhone out during the reception.*

I think that eating quickly and then making the rounds to each table to say hello to all the guests worked out well for us. It was very important to greet everyone and thank them for coming and this seemed to be the most effective way to do it. I think that guests really do appreciate it when couples take the time to come and greet them at some point during the wedding.

How did you/are you planning to say hello to guests?

I feel like I'm 12 again

This morning I saw THIS online. When I was younger I was OBSESSED with the Sweet Valley High books as well as the college series and all the special editions that were put out. In fact I still have a lot of my SVH books tucked away in a box somewhere (I'm a bit of a pack rat). So you can bet that I will be catching up and following along with the Wakefield twins now that they are more in my age bracket.

Was anyone else obsessed with these books or am I the only dork out there?

Fondue is a DO

**Today marks our 2 months anniversary! I promise to try to wrap up the wedding recaps soon**

This past Saturday we decided to make a trip to Crate and Barrel to use some of the gift cards we got for the wedding. There was one item in particular on our C&B registry that Kristian REALLY REALLY wanted and of course we didn't receive. Probably because the one item he really wanted was a $200 knife. Yes $200 for ONE knife, not a whole set. I told him when we registered for it that I highly doubted anyone would buy it for us and I was right (per usual).

Well I knew how much he wanted it and since he is the one that does a majority of the cooking and 98% of all chopping I agreed to spend our gift cards on the knife. He turned into a giddy little boy and kept thanking me. Since they didn't have any in stock in the store we had to go home and order it online and it arrived yesterday. I'll tell ya the thing scares me to death and I'm just waiting for when I have to drive him to the hospital because he's cut off his finger. He spent all night cutting things...carrots are his favorite.

Here's the knife. Apparently it's awesome. To me a knife is a knife so I'll take his word for it.

Since we still had some money left to spend after agreeing to the knife Kristian said we could get something I really wanted and the something I wanted was a fondue set! HELLO melted cheese...melted chocolate?! What's better than that?!

Kristian has never fondued but I promised him he would love it. Granted it's not something we'll use everyday but I think it's a fun gift and will be great when we have company. Once again they didn't have the one we wanted in stock so we had to order it. When it arrived yesterday we decided to go to the store to buy cheese, bread and steak for fonduing and it was awesome! It also came with a little recipe book which we plan to take advantage of. I think tonight we'll try out the chocolate. Nom Nom Nom

Saying No to the Dress

I loved my wedding dress...L.O.V.E.D. it...still do. Hell I would wear it to work if I could. It had everything I was looking for- lace, a sweetheart neckline, A-line and a touch of sparkle. To me it was perfect.

It took me a while to find my perfect dress...5 stores and about 35 dresses. I found it in the second to last store I went to. I knew I loved it but since I already had another appointment setup at a shop down the road I figured I would still go check out some dresses just to confirm. But nothing at the last store came close to my love of my dress.

I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the other 35 or so dresses I had to try on to get to "The One". First let's take a look at the dress I did pick which is by Impressions Bridal, it's style "Aileen".

The photos below were taken over a year ago so I'm going to apologize in advance because I don't remember all the designers/style names of each dress. The first store I went to was David's Bridal. There was one dress in particular I liked but it was out of my price range.

*The very first dress I tried on! Loved the lace but it was VERY heavy and just not flattering*

*I really liked this dress, it fit well and felt nice and I loved the neckline*

*The same dress from the back*

*Liked the lace, hated the top, made me look even flatter*


*This was my attempt at a "princess" ball gown, you can see my reflection in the mirror behind me. I looked ridiculous, it swallowed me up*

*A non-lace, satin, beaded gown. This felt VERY traditional. It was pretty but not me*

*This dress had potential but again I didn't like the bust area and the pleating*

The next set of pictures was from my second outing up in MD at TLC Bridal Boutique.

*The only dress I tried on with straps...did not like the strap look*

*I actually really liked how this dress fit and looked on me but I really wanted lace and this felt rather plain*

*Again, this was more of a fuller, princess style which just didn't look good on my petite frame. I also didn't like how plain the skirt was.*

*This was my fancy, beaded dress. I actually really liked this one but it just didn't fit our venue setting or the outdoor garden wedding we were planning. This was more of a hotel ballroom type of dress*

The next set of pictures are from my third outing at Leesburg Bridal & Tuxedo

*This was pretty but again the skirt was very plain*

*I really loved this dress, my mom actually picked it out. I very seriously considered it but it was out of my price range and then when I found the dress I ended up with I knew it was the one. Funny story- the daughter of my in-laws neighbor who got married last year wore this dress (I saw the pictures).*

*The dress from the front. The big concern I had with it was that the lace under the bust and on the train wouldn't show up well in pictures*

The last two stores I went to including the one I bought my dress at didn't allow picture taking until you actually purchased the dress which was annoying at the time. So unfortunately I don't have pictures of those dresses but I think you get the idea.

After the wedding I showed some of these pictures to Kristian so he could see some of the other options and he completely agreed that I made the best choice.

RQOTD

This weekend I was watching "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway" and on this epsiode, the groom decided to suprise his fiancee by planning their entire wedding in a week with the help of a wedding planner and the bride's (bitchy) mother. When he told his fiancee that he had planned the wedding and they were getting married the next day she actually took the news surprisingly well. Now I don't know if the show paid for a portion of or their entire wedding or if they just supplied the planner but it got me thinking and this leads to my Random Question of the Day:

If you were offered $100K for your dream wedding but it meant giving up COMPLETE control of every aspect of the planning (including your dress) to your fiance would you do it?


My answer: after much hesitation I would say yes...I was a bit of a control freak when it came to my wedding so giving up that control would be very hard. But I think Kristian could do a good job planning a wedding on a $100k budget...I would just make sure he knew EXACTLY what I did and didn't like in advance!

Wed-Cap: Mother/Son Dance

The only other "special" dance we had in addition to our first dance was the mother/son dance. Since my father was not at the wedding we obviously didn't include the father/daughter dance. I did briefly consider doing a brother/sister dance but decided that both my brother and I would have felt weird doing that, however I didn't want to take away the opportunity for Kristian and his mom to have a special dance together which I knew my mother in law would be looking forward to.

So after we ate, we did the mother/son dance as a way to open up the dance floor for post dinner dancing. I told Kristian he and his mother needed to decide on the song, I had no say in what it was. He chose Rod Stewart's "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" since his mother is a big Rod Stewart fan.

Both Kristian and his mom felt awkward dancing by themselves on the floor for the entire song so halfway through his father came up to me and suggested we cut in and have a couples dance for the second half of the song. This turned out to be a great idea, it was really nice being on the floor dancing with his parents who have been married for over 40 years and who we really look up to as a couple.

*I think this is such a cute picture of Kristian and his dad high-fiving*

*We always say we are the younger version of his parents, the way we interact as a couple is very similar to them so hopefully this means we're in for over 40 years of marriage ourselves*

*Kristian got his dance moves (and love of dipping) from his dad*

Did/Will you have special dances with your parents? What songs did you dance too?

Full House

This weekend we are dog sitting for my inlaws who are currently on their way up to Connecticut for Kristian's cousins wedding...we were invited but didn't have the funds to make the trip. So now we have two cats, a turtle and two dogs in our two bedroom condo.

We love the dogs, Jack and Lily, they are really well behaved and totally adorable...especially Lily who is just the sweetest thing in the world. We were excited to have them stay at our place primarily so we could see Halpert's reaction since he's never been around dogs before. Wendal knows these dogs because he's stayed at our inlaws house before. He's not a big fan of them but will basically ignore them and just go into another room.

I wasn't home last night when Kristian came home with the dogs. I had to go to a work event in DC where I got to meet Phil Donahue! I know he's not a huge celebrity but it was still pretty cool getting to meet someone whose been on t.v. for 40 some years. As I was saying I was not home when Halpert had his first meeting with the dogs but Kristian said it did not go well. Halpert hissed, puffed up his fur and basically jumped on every piece of furniture to get out of their way.

Right now he's keeping his distance, he's learned that the dogs won't jump on the beds so he and Wendal pretty much just hang out next to each other on the guest room bed where they can watch each other's backs. It's pretty cute. Hopefully between now and Sunday he'll warm up to the dogs and start to play with them...or at the very least not hiss at them and run away.

Jack and Lily slept with us last night. Jack at my feet and Lily in between us at the head of the bed. Now Kristian is begging me to get a dog. Sigh.

*Jack is the one at the top of the picture and Lily is the pretty princess at the bottom of the picture*

*Jack is fascinated with Wedette and the fish*

*Halpert's reaction to the dogs...I've never seen him look so scary!*