Young(s) and In Love

It's a good day (Week 16 check-in)

2012-02-07T16:06:00.002-05:00

Today is shaping up to be a pretty good day. Lately, the hallmark of a good day can be very fluid for me. Mostly all of the indications are physical, and usually revolve around the state of my stomach for that day (although the body aches that I've been feeling - back pain, tailbone pain - can make or break a day). My appetite has still been very sensitive - I've barely veered from the few "safe" foods that I've been eating the last several weeks. This past Friday was considered a good day solely based on the fact that I had a small piece of cake after lunch (the cafeteria at work had it for free as a Superbowl thing). And yes, it was chocolate. Mmmm. Lest I get too excited that my queasiness is officially behind me, Saturday night after pizza at a friend's house I was kneeling in front of the toilet again. So, it's definitely a day-by-day thing.

Today started off as a "good" day simply because I handled some calcium-fortified orange juice with my morning peanut butter toast. This may not sound like a big deal, but trust me - it is. I was pretty excited about it, but then when lunch came around, I could barely wrap my head around any of my usual safe bets and ended up picking at a personal cheese pizza and being thankful the free soda machine spouts ginger ale. Sigh, back to normal, breakfast was a fluke I guess, womp womp.

Except, then I was in a meeting after lunch, trying to avoid having the technical presentation put me to sleep and I felt something...I'm 99% sure I felt baby movements. This past Saturday marked 16 weeks, which technically is the start of being able to feel "quickening." Honestly I hadn't thought much about it, most resources say that first time moms don't feel it this early. But here's what I do know: I haven't felt anything like that, ever. It wasn't gas. It wasn't a stomach growl. I wasn't nervous and didn't have the butterflies. Somehow I recognized it for what it is, fairly quickly because a huge goofy grin spread across my face right away. It happened a couple times in the next few minutes while I tried to convey through text messages to Matt the momentous occasion was happening. And then I sat through the rest of the technical meeting pretending to focus but instead just smiling from ear to ear and thinking about the magic of what had happened.

Embracing the bump (Week 15 check-in)

2012-02-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday marked 15 weeks! It's exciting to be in double-digits after a first trimester that felt like it dragged so slowly by. I spent last week coming to terms with my belly. I was going to hold out for a few weeks more, waiting to start taking belly pictures. I was kind of determined that I wouldn't admit to having a baby bump until I was confident it was more baby than food. This past week though I've come to terms with it - I think it's mostly baby-based now - but more importantly, I'm accepting it.

(Left picture - sometime mid-December. Consider this my "baseline" - I've never had a flat, fit stomach in my adult life. Right picture - Taken on Saturday, marking 15 weeks!)

I've spent a lot time the last few weeks feeling guilty about my eating habits. I was doing really well in the weeks before the first trimester queasiness kicked in - well-balanced at each meal, a spinach salad loaded with plant-based protein for lunch, watching my snacks. The complete lack of appetite and constant nausea made it near impossible to keep up that routine. My diet lately has been very carb heavy, and very bland - toast, PB&J, pizza, macaroni and cheese, pasta with red sauce. It was bumming me out that I couldn't continue the healthy choices to start off the pregnancy on the right foot. I was disappointed that I didn't feel as fit and healthy as I wanted to. All of this channeled itself into denial about my belly bump.

Sometime over the last week, however, I came to accept it for what it is. I can't help it if toast and spaghetti are all that I'm eating lately. A friend described it as "survival mode" and that's exactly what it is. I'm happy to get ANYTHING in my body to feed a growing baby and if that's all I can tolerate right now, I'd rather it than nothing. And if all of this is making my belly look more like the pictures above than this "guideline" below (which is totally crazy), I'm okay with it. It's not going to stop me from documenting my growing belly. It's such a special time and worth capturing no matter what.

(This picture is listed as the Week 15 guide to Your Body at babble.com.

Pretty sure I've *never* looked like this - pregnant or not, ha!)

Early baby gifts!

2012-01-26T14:59:00.002-05:00

I didn't expect anything when we made it general knowledge that we were expecting (through a classic Facebook status update, of course). But I've been pleasantly surprised to go through our stack of mail and see a card every so often in between the bills. It's a reminder that there are a lot of similarities between having a baby and having a wedding - people are full of happiness to direct toward you and want to share in the joy of the experience. Beyond the handful of cards we have received though, we've ended up with a few very early baby gifts.

A friend mailed a package and inside was a keepsake pregnancy calendar and two notepads for lists. This particular friend had lots of helpful tips while we were planning the wedding; we are somewhat cut from the same Type-A cloth. So I chuckled along but was not at all surprised to read the message on the included card: "I don't know much about pregnancy yet but I imagine there are a lot of lists to make!"
Then this past weekend I got together with my close group of girl friends. Because of their sheer awesomeness, there were adult diapers worn and baby bottles to drink out of. As a group, they gifted me a prenatal massage which I am almost too excited about - I had to squirrel the gift certificate away so that I wouldn't be tempted to use it already. Something tells me I haven't felt the last of my back aches and I might *really* need it a few months from now when I'm toting around a front-heavy 20lb load. One of the girls had just been in New York City with family and during a late night milkshake run, saw this onesie at Shake Shack. My terrible iPhone picture doesn't do it justice - it's a lovely shade of green and it pays homage to my junk food tendencies (I love a good french fry).

The thing about these little acts that has them carry so much meaning has to do with the fact that a lot of times the first trimester is suspended between disbelief and worry. Sure, a $10 piece of plastic told you from your pee that you are pregnant. But it's hard to believe. Even after that first confirmation ultrasound, there's still a level of surrealism about it. That grainy blob in the picture is going to turn into a cute baby? Really?? Then there's the worry that something is wrong or that something will happen and this pregnancy won't make it to fruition. A combination of all of these things led to a very quiet first trimester for us. Quiet, in that we didn't actually talk about it together a whole lot. It was like not wanting to jinx it. Plus we were working hard to keep it a secret from everybody until we felt confident enough sharing the news. With a bunch of holiday get-togethers in December, we ended up not talking about it during the week to make it easier to not talk about it during the weekend. (I tend to be kind of horrible with surprises, so, if I wasn't talking about it at home, it was less likely I'd want to burst with the news at a party.) This strategy worked for us, but to be honest, sucked some of the excitement out of those initial weeks. Which is why it's incredibly refreshing and reassuring to feel the joy from loved ones through cards and gifts and adult diapers. It also helps make it feel more real. Case in point -- after receiving the onesie, I actually cradled the empty garment in my arms like a baby. It was a tangible reminder that the little one growing inside me will one day be on the outside and filling out that onesie in my arms. A physical reminder after spending so many weeks keeping a secret. Because it is a really exciting time, we are so over-the-moon thrilled, and now it feels like we are allowing ourselves to celebrate finally.

Q&A

2012-01-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry to burst in with such big news last week and then not follow up with any details. Here are some common questions we've been getting.

Q: How far along are you?

A: About 13 and a half weeks. Officially in the second trimester!

Q: Due date?

A: July 21st! Hopefully right on time, too, because Matt's birthday is the week before and my birthday is the week after! Plus, Matt is a groomsmen in a wedding two weeks after that date.

Q: Boy or girl?

A: It's too early to tell. They typically can tell between 16-20 weeks. Our appointment to find out is February 24th. We are going to have the results sealed and passed off to my lovely friend Celia of Delightful Cakery who will make delicious cupcakes with color-coordinated filling. Then we will have our families over for dinner that Sunday and all find out together!

Q: How have you been feeling?

A: Honestly, pretty crummy. The best way I've found to describe it, is like having a stomach bug. I haven't craved *anything* and barely have an appetite even when I know it's time to eat something. The foods in my rotation are bland and boring: toast, peanut-butter-and-jelly, soup, macaroni and cheese, pasta with light sauce. There is lots of dry-heaving (much more a few weeks ago than now) and every few days I end up kneeling in front of the toilet, typically before bed for whatever reason. There have been gradual improvements the last week or two, but the lack of appetite hasn't waned much. I hate to complain because we are SO SO lucky and blessed to have been successful with this pregnancy so quickly. Hopefully the next few days and weeks will continue to improve and I'll be able to enjoy the second trimester - which everyone seems to refer to as the best one!

Q: Are you showing?

A: Bluntly, no, not really. I have never had in my adult life a flat stomach, and my belly pooch has definitely grown some with the carb-heavy diet of the last few weeks (see answer above). The way I've been feeling also hasn't lent itself to much physical activity. This early they say the uterus is on it's way to the abdomen but is still pretty low, not high enough where you typically picture a pregnancy belly. So, no, not really. I plan on snapping belly pictures as soon as I do though, so stay tuned.

Hope that holds you over for now. Sorry I haven't been feeling up to regular posting yet but hopefully back to a routine soon!

Hello, world.

2012-01-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

I've been apologizing for the sporadic posting in the last few weeks/months and I can finally share with you the reason...we are expecting!! We couldn't be more excited and can't wait for July to hurry up and get here so we can meet him or her.

I have been feeling very under the weather and exhausted but I am excited to post about this new experience in our lives. Bear with me and I hope to be back to normal over the next week or so.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T12:58:00.002-05:00

I hope you all had a great holiday season. I'm kind of glad they're over; they felt like quite a whirlwind this year. We welcomed in 2012 with one of our laziest weekends ever. To be fair, I was trying to fight off a nasty cough that developed late last week, so we laid low on New Years Eve and celebrated by going to bed before the ball dropped. I spent the majority of the three day weekend (I had Friday off) on the couch playing too much Mario on our Wii (I easily get obsessed) and reading on my new Kindle that I got for Christmas. Surprisingly, I'm totally into a Stephen King novel. This, from a girl who can't even watch the news before bed or she'll have nightmares. The novel is 11/22/63 and it's not one of his typical horror stories; simply put it's about a guy travelling back in time to save JFK. I'm sucked in. I can't remember reading something that made me anxious to get back home and continue. It reminds me of a book I read a few years ago that I also really liked despite myself. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is set in 1893 and tells the story of a serial killer, intertwined with that year's World Fair in Chicago. Maybe I can handle the gruesome details with the safety buffer of historical context? Who knows, but I'd recommend either. Here's to a lot more reading in 2012! Any recommendations?

A Tuesday Night Conversation

2011-12-21T13:40:00.001-05:00

Me: So, want to hear something cool? I found out today my boss is related by marriage to the person who invented Morse Code.

Matt: Oh yeah?

Me: Yep. He has the title page of his daughter's thesis presentation hanging in his office and her middle name is Morse. I asked him if it was after Morse Code or if it was a family name; he said it was both.

Matt: Wow. I'm surprised you made that connection to Morse Code.

Me: Huh? What else would the word "morse" make you think of?

Matt: I don't know. What about that ship company in Pretty Woman?

Me: (after I stop laughing) I think that's Morris. I can't believe that's what you thought of.

*It hurts to admit, but he was right. I looked it up while writing this post and saw that it IS Morse Corporation that is mentioned in the movie. But still, I think this is a sign that the movie plays a little too often in our house. Kind of scary that that was what Matt thought of, even scarier that he knew it and I didn't.

It's almost Christmas?

2011-12-19T12:47:00.002-05:00

When did that happen? And where did December go?

Apologies for the sorry excuse for a blog this has become lately. I don't have any real excuses. This month has flown by somehow in a flurry of holiday parties and shopping and wrapping. If it makes you feel any better, the only thing more neglected than this blog is our Christmas tree. We have a fake pre-lit tree and although we assembled it fairly quickly after Thanksgiving, the box of ornaments sat next to it for weeks until finally this weekend I told Matt that we should stop pretending and just admit that this year we will have an ornament-less tree. Mind you, I told him this on a "football Sunday," so I don't think he was too heartbroken. Also to help illustrate how scatter-brained I've been this month, I just emailed my 1 o'clock meeting group telling them I had been to the conference room, saw that it was empty and wondered if we should reschedule. Someone politely replied that it was only 12:30, not 1:30. Whew. That's a sign to go home and crawl back under the covers, isn't it? Wake me when it's January.

Wedding Recap: 09.24

2011-12-06T13:26:00.000-05:00

With the ten weddings we had this summer, I'm trying to find a way to capture and share them without writing entire posts about each one. So just a few pictures and a "tweet" (140 characters or less).

J.+ C. 09.24.11

A decade in the making, two high school sweethearts tied the knot in Stratton VT amongst friends. family. and gorgeous fall foliage.

[bride and her father walking in]

[gorgeous cocktail hour space]

[antique skis as a guest book! love!]

[dining room with huge fireplace and exposed beams]

[her dad cut the slice of wood under the candles himself and the candles were DIY decorated]

Notes:

p.s. Yay, this is our tenth and final wedding recap!

p.p.s. Just realized how much more fun these would have been if I had done haiku recaps instead of tweets. Ah, next time.

Pompoms

2011-12-01T15:31:00.000-05:00

Random and perhaps useless information but I saw these in the grocery store this week and wanted to share. I really like eating pomegranate seeds but I am really bad about putting in the effort to get them all out of it before it goes bad. Plus one time I stupidly tried to de-seed one while wearing a white shirt and I am still bitter about it. So when I saw these, I grabbed a cup, completely disregarding how overpriced they are. Just ask Matt - I am often willing to overpay for convenience.

Here is the cup of pomegranate seeds. I probably would've never remembered that they're actually called arils, but now that I know I love that they have their own term. Interesting that I thought it looked like a ton of seeds, but the nutritional chart said the whole thing was one serving.

I packed it in my work lunch bag without thinking and then opened them up to try and was pleasantly surprised they it includes a small foldable spoon! Perfect. I figured it was a great late afternoon snack at my desk.

Interestingly I only managed to have a couple spoonfuls before I was kind of "over it." So I popped them back in my lunch bag for another afternoon. But I'd be tempted to throw them on top of a salad or something, especially since I didn't have to spend time picking them all out.

Instagram Share: Thanksgiving

2011-11-29T16:45:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the sporadic posting. Things have been busy around here. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We traveled to Milwaukee for the holiday to visit with my sister and her boyfriend. It was great to be able to see them, the city they are living in, and experience some of it ourselves. There was some downtime also and quite a few card games which were a lot of fun.

[Their view of Lake Michigan. From someone who has grown up near the Atlantic and seeing smaller New England lakes, this was a big deal for me. I couldn't get over how *BIG* it looked.]

[Thanksgiving appetizers during football - bruschetta and bay scallop pastry cups. Yum]

[The weekend before we finally were able to give Matt's parents a working Kodak Pulse frame (as a belated wedding gift). It really is pretty cool. Because the frame connects to their Wi-Fi, it has an email address! So we took this picture of ourselves and emailed it to their frame so it would show up in their family room back in CT. How cool is that?]

[Time for a tour at a local microbrewery]

[All of us: sister, Matt, mom, me, sister's boyfriend]

Just us formals

2011-11-21T14:03:00.000-05:00

After we took the group shots, we wandered off to another area of the sculpture park on our own (with photographers and videographers in tow) while the wedding party headed back to the warm limo-bus. I think we were really able to let our happiness and giddiness shine through these pictures and they are some of my favorite from the entire day -- so apologies in advance for one of my photo-heaviest posts yet.

[Full disclosure - while we were taking these I thought I would hate them. I don't consider myself elegant or anything so I figured full-length pictures showing only me of me looking serious would be a waste. But I love the second-shooter perspective from behind Matt as he's watching me.]

[one of our favorites. I'm surprised I managed to look that 'serene'...I was freezing and typically I can't keep a straight face to save my life.]

[the heart sculptures in the background. awww.]

So I think I mentioned that it was pretty cold that day, right? We had our wedding planner's intern following me around this whole time with a scarf and sweater for me to throw on in between to warm up somewhat. We were wrapping up and heading back to the limo-bus and I thought to myself how I'd seen pictures of brides with sweaters on and always loved how cozy and comfortable they looked. It was absolutely one of those "should I say this outloud or not?" moments but I'm so glad I suggested we take a few with the scarf/sweater on (even though I was worried they would look too J.Crew-catalog-lookalike or something). I tend to wear scarves a lot anyway and I liked that it looked casual and cozy.

[another of our favorites]

[absolutely one of my top three shots from the day. loveLOVElove. I remember Leah saying to Matt "wrap your arms around her like you're warming her up." This is why they're professionals...because they know *this* is the gold that can result from such a weird description.]

Then we were done. And I ran back to the warm limo-bus (where our wedding party and the coolers and snacks were waiting for us).

No, really, RAN. Didn't even bother waiting for my new husband... haha.

Wedding Recap: 09.09

2011-11-15T16:47:00.000-05:00

D.+ C. 09.09.11

Three weeks after a wedding in Maine with immediate family, they threw quite the party for family and friends to celebrate their marriage!

[This is also the venue where me and Matt's couple shower was held. It's a really cool bar/restaurant space. Court had great decorations that we hung up all afternoon that really personalized the space.]

[they are so stinkin' cute together. you may remember them from this post. or this one.]

[love her. also? can't you just DIE over her J.Crew dress + pearls?? RIGHT?]

Weekend in Pajamas

2011-11-14T14:57:00.001-05:00

We had quite the homebody weekend, which is nice every once in a while. I actually didn't leave the house once! Matt only did to go grocery shopping Saturday morning. It was a good idea to savor a quiet weekend before the upcoming holiday season.

Friday after work I had an appointment to use up a Groupon for a manicure/pedicure. It feels indulgent to get a pedicure during the colder weather, so I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed the result. Manicures, though, I'm pretty sure I could just live without. Unless it's that gel kind (which I think I would only get again for a vacation or a special occasion), I don't see the point. Maybe I'm tougher on my nail than most people, but even just two days later, I have chips here and there and it's enough to make me want to just peel it off and paint them myself. I'm glad it was part of the deal and I didn't pay for the full services. I had a really busy week and it was a treat to be able to relax, especially right after work, which helped me calm down instead of carrying the work stress home.

Saturday we both did some things around the house. I tackled ALL OF MY CLOTHES. I went through all of my drawers and loaded up THREE TRASH BAGS TO DONATE. Crazy, right? It felt SO good. I also reorganized some drawers to make more sense (and commandeered one of Matt's) so I hope I can keep the neatness and organization moving forward. It even brightened my morning today when I opened the drawers and saw nicely folded piles instead of the mess it's usually been.

Saturday night Matt was very motivated to try out some new recipes. He made chicken piccata and a Parmesan cheese risotto (Giada's "basic risotto" from this cookbook we registered for). It was delicious! A great reminder that we don't need to always stick to the handful of dinners we usually rotate between. He really enjoys tackling recipes, especially ones that he is eager to recreate after having them in a restaurant.

After dinner, our night got ca-razy: we worked on a jigsaw puzzle all night. It was AWESOME. No really, I *love* puzzles, and I love having a cozy quiet night like that, so I was in heaven. Sunday is football sunday in our house and it capped off a wonderfully quiet weekend.

Yep, it was a good one.

IKEA Love: Closet Hooks

2011-11-10T14:57:00.001-05:00

A few weekends ago, Matt and I went to our nearest IKEA store and ended up spending over five hours there (yikes!). We got a ton of great stuff for our place that I'm excited to share with you. I've been having a crazy week at work, so I thought one item would be a quick post to show you.

Our bedroom has only one closet and it's not incredibly big. When we moved in it only had one length of pole for hangers. One of our first house projects was to install Elfa shelving from The Container Store and make it more usable. We now have a top (Matt) and bottom (me) along one length of wall, and shelves for shoes on another. Another thing worth noting is that we had a bench piece at the bottom of our bed. It was slowly but surely covered in clothes as the workweek progressed. Either a place to throw the pajamas from the night before or the clothes that I considered wearing that day but ultimately didn't. Either way, it almost always was covered in clothes and became an enabler for that bad habit. We moved the bench to another room to try and force ourselves out of using that as a dumping ground, but instead I ended up creating a pile on the floor. It just wasn't realistic for me to always have the time/energy to put those clothes away immediately, or every day. I thought about a story I read in Real Simple magazine a long time ago. I can't remember if it was a personal anecdote from an editor or a reader submitted question but it was about someone being frustrated that their family wasn't putting their shoes in some designated area. The advice/learning was to work *with* the habit instead of calling it a bad habit. If you always put your shoes in this corner instead of in the nice basket by the door, move the nice basket to that corner. To me, that translated into accepting that I was going to have a pile of clothes somewhere and needed an area for them that wasn't a big pile to stare at constantly.

The solution lay in the shallow wall along the right of the closet that was currently unused space. I had originally pictured classic bathrobe or coat style hooks along this wall but knew I wanted more usage than that would afford. At our IKEA trip, we saw these rails with S hooks used in a lot of the showroom set-ups, mostly in the kitchen spaces or bathrooms. We picked the appropriate width dimension, grabbed three of them, and several packs of S hooks in their two different sizes.

It's working out fabulously. It gives us a spot to put the pajamas we had on the night before, or the jeans from yesterday that aren't ready for a wash yet. The S hook also can handle a hanger, so I can put out clothes right from the rack behind it while I decide what to wear that day.

Food Growth

2011-11-07T14:34:00.000-05:00

I like food. Not in the foodie-gourmet-Top Chef way. In the I-don't-differentiate-between-appetite-and-hunger, I just eat it if I feel like it and it tastes good. Maybe it's better described as a lack of self control. Either way it's something I'm working on.

I hate almost all vegetables. Somehow along the wedding planning and yoga discovery path, I tried a salad for lunch from the work salad bar. And it wasn't half bad. And guess what, if you put protein on top, and not just eat a plate of lettuce and tomato, it actually keeps you full. Who knew. Gradually I tried chickpeas on top. And edamame. And now I get *psyched* if my work salad bar has what I consider a trifecta: edamame, chickpeas, and hard boiled egg. I love putting some sunflower seeds on top too. I also slowly worked myself from 100% romaine to a split with spinach and now 100% spinach. I definitely need the leafy greens in my diet...last year at my physical my bloodwork showed I was iron deficient.

What surprises me even more is that I actually *like* it. It tastes good to me.Every once in a while, mid-lunch, it dawns on me how if you had asked me a few years ago what I would get every day in at my work cafeteria, this spinach-protein salad is the furthest thing from what I would've answered. There have been baby steps made. Sure, I follow lunch with a small bite of something chocolate, but that's still progress, people.

*Hilarious stock photos of "women laughing alone with salad" from thehairpin.com

Wedding Party Formals

2011-11-04T15:06:00.001-04:00

When we last left off, Matt and I rode privately in a black London cab to the site for our wedding pictures. We had done a bunch of research to find a place nearby to the church to take some pictures. I really wanted a designated spot for the pictures, not just at the church or at the venue, because honestly we weren't in love with the options for pictures at either. Plus I wanted something a little interesting about where we were taking them. Nearby to the church is a sculpture park and museum with a ton of large fun outdoor modern sculptures. The logistics were pretty stressful because the forecast included a chance of rain and we didn't have a solid back-up plan. We also had to arrange payment (there was a fee to take pictures on-site) without knowing if it would actually rain or not. It ended up being worth it though, I love the pictures we took there. It was freezing and we tried rushing to get everything done but it was still a blast. I remember walking around the park, finally absorbing that we had a videographer following us, let alone photographers. At one point, Jeff was taping us walking to the next spot to take pictures (some of it is shown in our highlight film) and one of our groomsmen said "Is this what it feels like to be on the Real World?" It made us all laugh.

[some classic wedding party shots]

[we took these more "casual" pictures near the end, with everyone holding a YAY flag and wearing pashminas, and of course, attempted to all jump at the same time (FAIL, but great pictures! haha)]

[this one of all the girls cracking up is one of my favorites]

[love this of the boys entertaining themselves while we take the bridesmaid pictures]

[these two are close-ups of the wedding party; I think the photographer asked us to do something fun?]

[love this shot of all of us on a hilled walkway in the sculpture park]

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography unless otherwise noted.

Wedding Recap: 09.03

2011-11-01T16:57:00.000-04:00

J.+ R. 09.03.11

Took a 3hr drive to upstate NY to celebrate with a large group of college friends. There was a beautiful church, a flash mob and a great band!

[gorgeous church]

[bubble exit!]

[flashmob-ish... friends of the bride's mother performed a surprise choreographed dance]

[lots of friends together]

Wedding Home Decor

2011-10-27T13:01:00.000-04:00

We've been in our condo for almost four and a half years. And we've definitely been lacking in the motivation department. The open floor plan of the living/dining/kitchen area threw us for a loop for a while and we hesitated to commit to a layout, which meant we hesitated to hang anything on the wall for what seemed like forever. And then we spent a ton of energy and time planning and crafting stuff for our wedding and I optimistically thought that once it was behind us we would use all that new-found "free" time to focus on our house. Hahaaa.... right. Well, baby steps, people. We have hung a few things in recent weeks, but what I wanted to share today is what we hung very shortly after the wedding and it was a pretty big deal for us.

The door in the very left of the image is our front door. It's a split entry and a few stairs up lead you to the main living floor, so the picture of this wall is very much in a prime-time spot. What better place to showcase some wedding-related wall decor?

First what spearheaded this was our amazingly awesome photographer. Remember my love affair with the company Moo? We used them several times for the wedding. We ordered the info card tied around our invitation from them, the info tag tied to our favors, and our thank you cards. I love their quality. I love their products. Needless to say when we opened a package from our photographer shortly after our wedding and saw this, I was floored. It was an order of the mini-moo cards, with a fantastic variety of images from our wedding day printed on the backs of them (the front has to be all the same (which you can see in the dead-center of the collage). Leah also sent us the white frame to display them (the frame is pretty awesome -- you can switch the images in and out and rearrange how you want the individual pictures to lay out)! I love this way of showing wedding photos, because you can share a lot in such a small place. There's a bit from the reception, our ceremony, our formal pictures, our wedding party, and even some detail shots. When we got this in the mail, I knew I wanted to hang it up soon and enjoy it on the wall.

Here's another angle. Sorry for all the reflection in the glass, we get a ton of natural light through skylights and it was hard to get a good picture, but I think you get the idea.

The next piece took shape over only two weekends which is pretty quick for a project like this for me. I didn't want to waste too much time agonizing over how to make it perfect, I just wanted it hung on the wall to enjoy. I had a shadowbox frame lying around the house empty and decided to use some flowers from my dried bouquet in it. I didn't want to put just the flowers though, so I backed the frame with some of the paper we used in the decor, incorporated some of the leftover mini-moos from Leah's gift and our cake topper. I also used a leftover wrist corsage we had (that's in the lower right corner), and our escort card. I'm happy with how it turned out. We have a catch-all table below this where we dump our keys and mail, so I get to see both of these on the wall every day.

Freshly married, now for some pictures

2011-10-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

After our ceremony and receiving line, we did some family formal photos in the front of the church. I'm so glad we did this right after, instead of later, during cocktail hour. I think I was still kind of dazed by what was happening around me during the formals. Now knowing how the excitement and giddiness overcame me later in the afternoon, it would have been an nightmare to try and get me to focus and stand still during the family pictures. One of those decisions we made for logistics reasons and ended up being the best choice in hindsight.

I won't bore you with a ton of formals, so here's just one: both of our families together.

And a quiet moment between the two of us amidst all the excitement of our family milling around the church.

Then we headed outside to join the wedding party that was waiting patiently in the limo-van. BUT! I had a surprise. I had teased you with this story very early in the recaps. We walked outside of the church and I knew that there would be a black London cab outside waiting for us. When he saw it, he didn't want to get in it. That was his first response. He wanted to go with the wedding party in the limo-van. Granted, I understand being caught off-guard (this is why I personally hate being surprised). Matt was fully expecting to get into the limo-van with the bridesmaids and groomsmen and get to celebrate with them. So when he saw the cab, he didn't want to miss out on what he was thinking. I, however, was giddy with the idea and had been keeping it a surprise leading up to the wedding, so I was excited to see his reaction. After his very initial reaction, I explained how I had booked it as a surprise and it was just to take us to the location for the formal wedding party pictures, and then we would join the wedding party in the limo. He came around and it ended up being something that I teased him about later on and we shared the story with the wedding party who joked with him about it, for example, "top ten things not to say to your brand-new wife: I don't want to get in that cab with you."

[these two pictures by a family friend]

Side note: why do they do the cheap (read: gross) champagne and red carpet? It seems silly and cheesy to me.

We did get some cute pictures while we were in there though.

I really like these. Those glasses we're holding had this awful puffy paint design on them saying "bride" and "groom." Luckily I thought quickly enough to have us turn them towards us so they wouldn't show in the picture.

You can just barely make out our smiling faces through the reflective back window.

Funny story: the cab driver wanted to make small talk when we started driving. Which is kind of annoying to begin with, we just got married and are enjoying the moment together, not chatting with strangers. But to make it worse, is what he asked us! I think he started with the Captain Obvious stuff: "You two just get married?" and then the kicker: "First time for both of you?" ........... Uh, really, guy? First of all, we both look pretty young for our age and get carded all the time, so what would make you think otherwise? Second of all, if it WASN'T our first marriage, would that really be something you want to bring up JUST AFTER we walked out of the church??? I'm not sure what he was thinking.

Anyway, it ended up being a really nice moment together. We got to regroup and have a quiet moment (once he stopped talking) and after the chatter and chaos of the family photos, it was a nice change. Plus we got to soak it all in, together. We chatted about how our mornings went and talked about what we were thinking during the ceremony. I'm glad I booked it. I had been on the fence about it but I'm glad we have the cute pictures of it and it was a nice way to signify the beginnings of our friendship, in London. That 'break' in the day, away from everyone, was kind of like the First Look...a moment to stop and enjoy the day together.

Then we were off to the site for our wedding party pictures!

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography unless otherwise noted.

Wedding Recap: 08.20

2011-10-18T14:20:00.000-04:00

C. + J. 08.20.11

A fellow Type-Aer poured a ton of energy into the day of celebration. The fun included dancing dragons, MYO Cupcake Bar, and a photo booth!

[gorgeous bride and her father. LOVED her dress.]

[ceremony reading = Me Too, Iguana (children's book). So cute!]

[the tent was gorgeous: upside down umbrellas! RED(!!) chivari chairs! a lounge area!]

[a local dancing group performed during dinner!]

[these girls are responsible for me staying sane during the work day]

[Make-your-own-cupcake bar! YUM]

[late night grilled cheese snacks? Be still my heart.]

Instagram Share: Belated Summer Getaway

2011-10-17T10:08:00.001-04:00

We took off this weekend to spend two nights in Kennebunkport and it was one of the best weekends we've had in such a long time. We spent a lot of quality time together, had serious relaxing time, got some physical activity in and enjoyed delicious meals. It was perfect.

Actual keys for the inn rooms. No plastic cards here.

Night 1: dinner at a brewery. Yummy beer and
Matt finally got his quintessential summer meal: chowder + steamers + lobster.

We rode bikes two miles to the center of town.

It was a gorgeous day (a tad windy) and the route took us along the beach where the views were awesome

In town we walked around the shops, got lunch and ate on benches outside.
Then we rode our bikes further to Walkers Point (summer home of George H.W. Bush) and took in the views there.

On our way back we stopped downtown again to enjoy an ice cream (Matt) and a hot chocolate (me) while people-watching.

The view from the bridge downtown. A quintessential fall day in New England.

When we got back to the inn, we were exhausted (we didn't know it at the time but had ended up biking 7 miles) so we sat in the Adirondack chairs outside the inn, across from the ocean and read our books. That night we went to a nice restaurant and I had some of the most delicious spaghetti ever and we split a drool-worthy piece of chocolate cake (that, incidentally, we only knew what it was from the menu description because of our Top Chef watching).

The first year is the hardest...

2011-10-14T13:46:00.000-04:00

Every hotel room we stayed in this summer was because of a wedding, so we wanted to make sure that we got some sort of 'getaway' this fall. Before we booked anything, when we talked about it hypothetically, we agreed that it should be an "unplugged" weekend while we're away...no iPhones, no iPad, etc. We are both pretty guilty about constantly being attached to our phones, so it's a good policy to put in place for certain occasions. However, this was all decided before I placed my pre-order for the iPhone 4S last week.

After Matt did some research, we ended up choosing to go to Kennebunkport, Maine for two nights this weekend. We are both leaving work early to get on the road this afternoon. I have been tracking the UPS shipment of my new phone all week, from China to Alaska to Kentucky to New England. It is set to arrive "by end of day today." And I am well aware of the UPS truck schedule for our condo complex. He arrives between 6-7 PM.

Let me summarize for you. We are headed to Maine for a weekend filled with quality time to make-up for a summer lacking in vacations and to celebrate six whole months of marriage (on Sunday!). My brand-spankin'-new iPhone 4S will be at home, just aching to be opened and played with.

This is easily the biggest sacrifice I am making for this marriage. I've read several times from fellow bloggers that the first year of marriage is rumored to be the hardest. I didn't realize it would ring true for us. There had better be some homemade fudge in a candy shop up there with my name on it to make up for this.

Training, in a sense

2011-10-13T13:28:00.000-04:00

I don't think I've ever athletically trained for some milestone, with serious intention. Train...in the sense of keeping track of progress, and making changes in systematic ways to see improvements. Like people do for long distance running. Or, I don't know, competitive eating?

But Bikram yoga has made me appreciate this type of focused work. I remember one of my first classes the instructors paraphased the thought: Yoga is a 'practice' because you are constantly 'practicing' it. You never reach 100%, it is something you are always striving for, etc.

Tuesday night I could tell I was able to stretch further into a difficult pose more than I had been able to before. This was strangely satisfying to know that attending the class at a regular frequency is paying off. The reward of knowing you've progressed.

So even though the impending wedding was what finally convinced me to actually try a class, here I am, a year after that first class and six months after the wedding, looking forward to going back, week after week. Searching for that feeling of gratification.

Wedding Recap: 08.05

2011-10-10T15:13:00.000-04:00

M. + E. 08.05.11

Hometown friends gathered to celebrate a gorgeous bride and her high school sweetheart, and we got to see our photographers again!

[stunning bride and her brother]

[Funny story. There were disposable cameras on the tables. Someone at ours came up with the idea to pretend ours was one of those underwater disposable cameras. So we kept taking pictures of each other looking like we were underwater -- holding our breaths, doing swimming motions, etc. Then I suggested someone use the steak sauce as sunscreen to look like a lifeguard. It was hilarious. I highly recommend coming up with a theme to make taking the pictures lots of fun. I think that would have been a riot, as well, to have them on the tables with a suggested theme for the table to stick too from the bride and groom! Haha]

[candy buffet. YUM!]

it's official!

2011-10-07T14:45:00.001-04:00

After I nervously walked down the aisle with a giddy smile on my face, the ceremony started. Honestly, I don't remember the entire thing from start to finish. In looking back, the entire day has become punctuated with small nuggets of memories. They don't tell the full story, but it's the day as I experienced it. This is especially evident in the ceremony part. Instead of sharing specifics about which readings we chose or what songs were sung, this is what I felt. And hopefully it pieces together the ceremony enough to tell the story.

I remember squeezing Matt's hand standing up in front of everyone and feeling his nervous energy too. I remember the priest making a joke about the YAY flags that he could see the guests holding. I remember looking at Matt and seeing Mike on his side and seeing Toni next to me, but almost avoiding looking any further back than that. It felt like our own little bubble up front at the altar, and I didn't want to be reminded of all the people that were behind us, watching us like an audience. I remember holding each other's hands a lot, squeezing each other's sweaty palms. I remember feeling relief and contentment that the words in the readings and songs sounded very familiar. We had discussed the readings and talked about the song choices so much that hearing some of the phrases had an unexpected effect of grounding me in that moment. Like an emotional deep breath, reminding me of the preparation and conscious decisions we made in picking these words to be said and sung. It felt so comforting to not hear completely foreign things in those moments. It felt like the readings were over very quickly, and I remember Matt and I whispering to each other that we couldn't believe how fast everything was going, how we were already at communion.

Even though I slaved over those programs and we discussed and studied our ceremony timeline, thinking back now I can't remember exactly the order of things. Did we saw our vows before or after communion? (I think before, but I couldn't swear on it). I remember the actual vows pretty clearly, even if I can't recall when they happened. We had decided to add something personal to the vow part of the ceremony. In the preparation, we had asked our priest about it and surprisingly, he said he had never worked something personal in before. When it was time, he spoke a brief segue way and handed us our handwritten index cards (you can see both of us writing them out in our highlights video). I was nervous to read them aloud and anxious to hear Matt's for the first time. I clearly remember the quietness in the church and the feeling of choking up but holding it back. When Matt read his, I laughed at a reference he made to my love of ginger ale. I was surprised that saying our own vows felt weirdly anticlimactic. There's no applause like there would be if it was a Hollywood movie, and it's not the end of the ceremony yet so there's no big kiss afterwards. It felt very...raw... to state our personal commitments to each other and then stand there and hold hands, that it was too sterile of an act; it didn't effectively match the emotions we were feeling.

For the official vows, something the priest had warned us about during the rehearsal had stuck. He told us that since he would be speaking the line first before we recited it, that it would be natural to look at him, but to remember to look at each other. It's so true, and I'm glad he mentioned it because somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that in the moment.

Right before the rings, I realized that my engagement ring was still on my left hand. I know most people wear it on their right for the entire morning so that they don't forget and I remember thinking earlier that I didn't want to because it would feel so unusual to me. So I left it and then remembered it was there at the last second. I briefly considered leaving it, but I had a feeling Matt would notice it there and realize something was off, so I gambled and decided to switch it. It quickly passed through my mind about what a moment it would make if I managed to drop it while I switched hands. I'm glad I didn't drop it, but I think it's funny that all of those thoughts went through my head at the time.

Before we knew it, we were pronounced husband and wife. We had had a conversations before the big day about the kiss, and even joked about "practicing" it, which we forgot to do. It didn't matter. I love how our the pictures captured it, that our arms aren't weird or awkward or anything, but it wouldn't have mattered. Whatever our emotion in that moment resulted in, I would've been fine with. It seems silly that it even crossed my mind beforehand to prepare for it, but I'm sure I read it in some lame magazine as part of a ridiculous checklist.

Then we essentially *sprinted* back down the aisle while our guests waved their YAY flags. No, really. We walked so fast out of excitement and giddiness that our best man and maid of honor said later they watched us go and then realized "Oh crap! We need to go, too!" So fast that our friends told us they tried to take a picture but we were already gone before they were ready. So fast that later when talking about it, we realized that there was no music playing (I guess the organist wasn't ready for us to start sprinting?). We remember hearing the clapping and cheering but not music (not that we minded terribly). We walked so fast that at one of our many weddings this year, one couple excitedly walked fast back down the aisle as well and we looked at each other said, "that's totally what we did." We can only chalk it up to being so excited and giddy. We had never thought "let's pause for a minute and look at our family and friends clapping for us and absorb this." It never came up in the rehearsal. And at the time, I just thought, Okay, that's it! Bouquet, check. Husband, check. Let's go!

We had our receiving line next and it was a great way to share the excitement and energy of the ceremony, and get to see everyone's faces. It was a lot of repetitive small talk, but it had the semi-unexpected result of grounding us in the moment. Everyone's congratulations is contagious, but there's something about hearing it that many times that makes your brain actually soak in what just happened.

[Sorry there was such a long pause in between the recaps this time. It was really hard for me to put together my thoughts on the ceremony. It's a pretty weighty part of the day and I wanted to capture it right and give it the attention it deserves.]

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography unless noted otherwise.

happy october 4th

2011-10-04T12:35:00.000-04:00

Seven years ago today, you were some guy that I knew would be studying abroad in London with me. We were friends-of-friends; little more than acquaintances. We were about to start a prep class for our upcoming project work in London and little did we know, we'd begin to bond during that class and the beginnings of a friendship would start. [Seriously...a few months later, in London, fellow classmates made bets on when we would 'get together' and we would laugh at it.]

A year later, we were completely different: best friends, making plans together every weekend, calling each other for late night ice cream runs, looking out for each other and making trips to the library together. And then, without warning, one weekend, we realized what was between us. Like I quoted last year, we had no idea what we were feeling until that kiss.

Today, we're closing in on six months of marriage (next week!), and just like when we had just starting dating, the single digit number of months doesn't seem to validate our feelings enough. And although April 16th is now our wedding anniversary, October 4th will always be special to us.

You're my partner and teammate through everything. I couldn't imagine my life any different. Thanks for loving me through the 'crazy' and for always being able to make me laugh.

[Pictures from our engagement session with Leah LaRiccia Photography]

Wedding Recap: 07.15

2011-09-30T11:54:00.000-04:00

With the ten weddings we have this summer, I'm trying to find a way to capture and share them without writing entire posts about each one. So just a few pictures and a "tweet" (140 characters or less).

A. + M. 07.15.11
After a sweet ceremony and a yummy pasta bar at cocktail hour, there was a fabulous dance party and a fun photo booth with friends.

[gorgeous bride and her father]

[lots of friends together to celebrate]

[photobooth fun]

[photobooth x 2]

Love and its many forms

2011-09-28T22:07:00.000-04:00

We've learned what happens when I go out in public after a Bikram yoga class. So I've promised to avoid it at all costs, with one exception so far, when last week I needed to stop at the gas station for some sports drinks. See, a few weeks ago, I went to yoga at night and woke up with a crazy headache the next day, more than likely from dehydration even though I make a huge effort to drink water all day before class and then before bed after class. I realized it just wasn't enough, so I've been adding some sports drinks into the hydration plan and I haven't had a headache since. Yesterday I knew I didn't have any left at home and had mentioned it to Matt since he was possibly going to stop at the store on his way home. I was particularly drained after class and texted him before I left to see if he got it, but he hadn't stopped and was already home. So he went back out to the nearby convenience store to get me some. That's Love, people. Just so I wouldn't have to stop. Which turned out to be a fantastic thing because all I had brought for after class clothes was a cami and shorts. A white cami. Which I then proceeded to spill water all over it while I was driving. He saved my butt. You're welcome, local grocery store.

[Source - Etsy shop hopskipjumppaper]

It got me thinking about the forms that love has taken on during our going-on-six-years. At one point in our relationship, love meant keeping the fast food bag folded closed tight while we drove back to the apartment so that whoever was driving wouldn't miss out and the food would be the same lukewarm temperature for both of us. And if temptation succeeded, it meant only sneaking out two french fries, one for each of us.

At another point in our relationship, love meant who would volunteer to go down four flights to the basement and change the laundry. With the summer we had, it often meant who was willing to drive home the day after the wedding, or who will stop at the store for groceries, or get dinner going. Most of the time, love is a clear message sent in the actions we do for each other. And sometimes love is a little less obvious, like knowing I need some time to myself to get out of a cranky mood. Or it is in the 'tough love' by encouraging me to work out even though my motivation is fading and I'm whining.
I'm sure love will take on countless 'new' forms in the years ahead of us. Maybe some day love means who gets out of bed first to tend to the crying baby. All I know is I'm grateful for it every time it takes on such a tangible shape and I will continue to look for it from both of us throughout our relationship.

Ceremony Details: Part Two

2011-09-26T08:23:00.001-04:00

I almost forgot! Two details I didn't mention in the previous recap post about ceremony details.
I ordered this purse from Etsy shop ModDotTextiles to carry on my wedding day and it was perfect. I have used it again and again because of its perfect size; it fits so much inside!

[source]

Also, worth mentioning with our ceremony programs is our face stamp! You can't really see it in the professional pictures of our programs in the buckets, but the stamp is on the backside of the programs. We also used the stamp on the envelope of our thank you cards, and on the bag of our late-night goodies. I found a seller on Etsy, Lilimandrill's shop, that customized stamps so I sent her the following engagement picture and she drew our faces from that.

[Leah LaRiccia Photography]

[photo by Lilimandrill]

Lise, the creative genius behind the shop, was so easy to work with. She rushed the order for us and I loved the result. We did get a few people who cautiously asked if the stamp was "supposed to be us" and one person asked why Paul Newman's face was on our late night snack bags. Haha, I liked the result and I thought it personalized some of the details, so I didn't mind any confusion it caused. :)

Six signs summer has stopped

2011-09-23T13:35:00.000-04:00

(apologies for the lame alliteration, I couldn't help myself)

Tomorrow is the official change to autumn, but this morning I was thinking of how autumn already feels like it's here, and winter is right behind it.

Dry Skin. This week I noticed a few patches of eczema on my upper arms. It always seems to fade for the summer and return in the winter, when my skin is driest, I assume.
Chilly Mornings. Most mornings lately I've needed one of the three: a thin jacket, a scarf, or a little heat during the car ride.
Dark Nights. After yoga class, it was typically still light out. This week driving home from class it has been pitch black out at 8 o'clock! So depressing.
No More Weddings. This weekend is our last wedding of the season! I can hardly believe it!
Holidays Soon. Doesn't it feel like they put out the Halloween candy earlier and earlier every year?
Sweaters, Scarfs and Boots. As much as I love flip flops and ballet flats, scarf and boot season is my favorite so I'm getting all mine ready. I'm probably ushering it in a little too early, especially since this week was still in the 70s.

a love of strings

2011-09-22T10:37:00.000-04:00

Working in a cubicle area is tough. It's hard to focus when you can hear conversations all around you. Or at the start of cold seasons when everyone is clearing their throats and sniffling constantly. So more often than not I have headphones shoved into my eardrums. In the morning, it feels too early for some music (louder, jumpy, dancey), so oftentimes I will search on Pandora or Spotify for instrumentals or, more specifically, Vitamin String Quartet, which, if you've never heard of them, covers recent and current music.

Ever heard an instrumental version before hearing the original and love it more than the original? Much more? Yeah, that happened to me with "Just Stay Here Tonight." I stumbled upon the Vitamin String Quartet version and was in love with it. Then I went to find the real version to hear it. It's by Augustana and in my opinion, it's so-so compared to the instrumental version.

Just Stay Here Tonight (VSQ): Hear the sample on Amazon.com

When I was younger, I really wanted to learn how to play the violin. But now I tend to find the cello intriguing. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good bass line.

A Recipe

2011-09-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

...for a great weekend. You didn't think it was going to relate to cooking, did you?

+ one part date night (we went out for Mexican on Friday night, somewhat cheesily to celebrate being married five months)

+ one part slow morning (sleeping in, no alarm clock, slow to wake up, lazy breakfast on Saturday morning)

+ one part family (my goddaughter had her sixth birthday party. it was great to see family that we hadn't seen since the wedding, but boy was I exhausted after helping out with the activities!)

+ one part alone time (after the birthday party, and a split appetizer at a restaurant, we were home at a decent hour on Saturday night. I chose to watch Annie on TV in bed while Matt played with his new video game.)

+ one part shopping with friends (a good friend and I hit up an outdoor outlet strip mall for several hours on Sunday and it was a great combination of deals and conversation).

Add all that up and sprinkle with the first fall-weather-feeling weekend (I love myself some mid-60s weather) and it makes for one fabulous weekend.

(Would've made for a great Instagram Share post but I didn't think of that until this morning. Next time!)

stop me before I do this next year

2011-09-15T14:29:00.003-04:00

[Anne Taintor Designs]

Right next to my name tag on my cubicle wall is a paper cutout of a picture of a woman and a quote (above). It's there because, after working here for five years, I tend to find myself speaking up to fill a role or duty. Sure, sometimes it is a great quality to have. It's gotten me into two job rotations within the department that worked out well, allowing me to grow and learn, and I reaped the benefits of that. But sometimes it's better to know when not to speak up. Like last year when we switched over all of our internal sites. I picked up on the new site fairly quickly and ended up transitioning all of the individual groups. Mind you, this is completely out of the scope of my job. It was interesting to me, and basically just busy-work, but it wasn't exactly the best use of my time and I was barely recognized for the time I put into it.

Today is our department team-building event. Again, somehow I ended up helping to plan it a few years ago and now have been cast into the role ever since. It's not that formal, a cook-out with some type of organized activity. Basically an excuse to leave the office and hang out with each other outside of the work environment during working hours. Last year I ended up putting together a team trivia activity. Think trivia night at a bar. It went over fairly well and this year we didn't come up with anything new either due to a lack of ideas or motivation or both. So, it's trivia time again. And, of course, I have gotten way too involved into it.

Exhibit A: a stack of folders. One for each of six teams.

Inside: Printed answer cards to fill out for each question as well as a tracking sheet. Each team will choose if they want that question to be worth 1, 2, or 3 points based on their confidence in their answer, but can only use each value once per round (of three questions).

Exhibit 2: Bonus Round 1: name that TV character and show. This I actually enjoy making, except that I try to vary enough to appeal to everybody (i.e. not just shows I watch).

Exhibit 3: Bonus Round 2: List the release year of the movie. This is always a tough one for everyone. Last year I had extra years in the answer bank. People didn't appreciate the challenge. This year, I took out the extras. You're welcome.

Sigh. I guess I'll just blame this again on the wedding crafting hangover. Maybe it's residual energy forcing me to make everything coordinate and match with small details (same fonts, department logo used in their designs, etc).

Wedding Recap: 07.08

2011-09-12T09:15:00.000-04:00

J. + S. 07.08.11

Pouring rain and an hour traffic delay couldn't damper a day of family, love and happiness for a bride in a horse and buggy and her groom.

[thumbprint guest book!]

[cousins <3]

Back to School

2011-09-02T17:19:00.000-04:00

Ah, September, with its school buses littered along my route to work and its cool chilly morning air. Its full of back-to-school sales and calls to mind the image of a "bouquet of newly sharpened pencils." Labor Day weekend marks (at least figuratively) the end of summer. This year, I have mixed feelings about it; I'm not all that sad, in fact, because our summer was characterized by busy weekends. Frankly we did not get our fair share of lazy-days-by-the-pool or beach days. For weeks I've been looking ahead, towards fall, and romanticizing that we will "get our weekends back [to ourselves]" to do with what we want. Truthfully, there are still three weddings to occupy us until the beginning of October, but I'm hoping September will lend itself to some recharging and lazy weekend mornings.
Regardless, the fact that Labor Day weekend is upon us means that I have had a post languishing in my drafts folder for over a month that was titled 'Summer Reading List' where I planned to share some note-worthy posts from blogs I routinely read. I have a lot of friends and family who are not yet sucked into blogland and there are certainly some gems worth sharing. I read a good amount of real-life people blogging things that interest them or things they have something to say about, but a few are what I consider "bigger" blogs, bigger than just one person typing away at a screen and hoping someone reads and comments. So here are a few of my favorites from those sites, and consider this your back-to-school suggested reading list.

Nothing but Bonfires: For the life of me I can't remember how I found Holly's blog but it was one of the first 'bigger' blogs that I started reading and now I happily gobble it up when she posts something new. I loved digging through some of her archives to find their creative wedding details (loved their invites). She also tells hilarious stories of life in a San Francisco suburb but she travels a ton and lived in a bunch of places growing up and shares some of those stories as well. Oh, she throws amazingly detailed parties (s'mores on the beach or surprise going away party, anyone?) and I would kill for some of her house decorating makeovers she's shared.

The Bloggess: A few months ago, one of Jenny's posts went crazy viral and I came across it. And then I almost peed my pants reading it. And if I come down with a stomach bug or some other reason to be couch-bound for several days, you can bet I will be trolling backwards through her archives to catch up on her hilariously witty blog posts. (Warning: posts tend to contain profanity.)

Jennsylvania: I've read almost all of her books and every time I do, I literally laugh out loud at some point (or every page), which never ceases to amaze Matt who can't understand how something I'm reading can be so funny that I can't simply laugh in my head. Her blog posts are just as entertaining.

A Practical Wedding: I read the blogs above to laugh (or to drool over DIY home makeovers). I read APW because it makes me think. It makes me a better person because of the thinking. Reading APW kept me sane throughout planning and even though it has the word wedding in the title, it's not just about that. It's about marriage equality and it's about what being a wife can mean. My favorite types of posts on APW are called "wedding graduates" because they are well-written thoughtful posts by real people that offer their own personal gems of insight and tangible real-life advice (not just wedding day/planning advice). I often bookmark them because of one or two lines that hit home. Planning a wedding or not, I recommend browsing through the site and reading a few posts.

Enjoy.

Ceremony Details

2011-08-29T15:37:00.001-04:00

Now that I (finally) reached the ceremony in the recaps, let me stop and mention any of the details up to this point. Our outfits you already know about. I showed you the suit we bought for Matt in this post and I broke down my dress and accessories in this post. The only things missing attire-wise from those posts are the cotton handkerchiefs from Target that we ironed into pocket squares for Matt and the groomsmen (they wore their own black shoes and white shirts, we provided gray ties with different patterns for each of them).

Here are some smaller details I had with me that day. The handkerchief belonged to my grandmother, the yellow bible I mentioned in this post as my "something borrowed." Then I had two ribbons to tie around my bouquet. The yellow ribbon had my father's dog tag and Matt's fraternity pin, my "something blue." The gray ribbon had one of the charms I mentioned in this post and had a picture of my maternal grandfather on one side and my father on the other.

A picture of me showing the bridesmaids the "something blue" tag that was sewn to the inside of my dress.

At the front of the church, we had a table with the YAY flags and programs. The sign was in an IKEA Tolsby frame that I put a simple sign inside "Take one! Take a flag and wave it as the newlyweds walk back down the aisle!" I was pretty nervous that nobody would take a flag and if they did, they wouldn't know what to do with it. Luckily it worked out fine. We used the bucket we had bought to hold cards in at the reception and doubled as a program holder.

Ah, the programs themselves. The Sunday before our wedding was spent designing and editing our programs and menu cards and having them printed and cut at Staples. I whipped them up fairly quickly in a non-fancy software program (I think I used Word, maybe Powerpoint, I forget). They are pretty simple, we didn't want to mess with folding the paper or assembling anything. The front side (shown above) listed the order of events and the names of family and wedding party. The back had the timing of the rest of the day's events (cocktail hour ad reception) as well as directions to Warren Center from the church. We also had a small area to list our our loved ones who were not there (my father and deceased grandparents), and then a small thank you to our parents for their support and for those in attendance for joining us that day. We had Staples print them on their thickest cardstock. Staples charges per cut so instead of designing one program per page (which would have needed four sides trimmed), we designed two side by side to fill the page and they cut once down the middle. That's the stuff that didn't dawn on us until that morning. Did I mention it was six days before our wedding?

A picture capturing the YAY flags in use during the ceremony.

The boutonnieres for the groomsmen, Matt's father and Matt's cousin (a reader). We weren't picky about flower choices (in bouquets or anywhere else) so I have no idea what type of flower this is.

[personal photo]

We decided to order faux boutonnieres for the female readers and our two godmothers (presenting the gifts). We ordered these from Etsy, the whenlovehappens shop. We gave them out at the rehearsal dinner with the other gifts. Also the seller of that shop makes corsages that I ordered for the grandmothers. Because we didn't have a chance to hand them out beforehand, I tied them up in boxes and labelled them with the names and pictures of our three grandmothers so that our wedding planner could hand them out pre-ceremony. It all turned out to be for naught though, because the florist ended up making three wrist corsages anyway (I believe I had told her my plan and cancelled the order for those, but I was swamped with keeping things straight those final weeks so who knows). So we ended up not handing them out and having the grandmothers wear the fresh flower corsage. It worked out okay though, so far I've used one of the leftover corsages in a wedding collage I made for our living room wall. Everything from the whenlovehappens shop came out wonderfully though, I was very satisfied with the quality of the items and definitely recommend them if you are considering something that lasts for your boutonnieres or corsages.

[Photo from whenlovehappens Etsy shop]

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography unless noted otherwise.

Wedding Recap: 07.03

2011-08-25T14:19:00.002-04:00

L. + M. 07.03.11

The rain cleared in time to enjoy a gorgeous location for a wedding between two best friends with rustic romantic DIY details and a sparkler exit!

[Escort card display!]

[Peeks of lace details throughout!]

Let's get this show on the road

2011-08-23T17:18:00.001-04:00

After our emotional First Look, we headed separately to the church. I felt myself calm down on the 30 minute ride, but was still in awe of what was whirling around me. I used the time to try and let it all sink in. As we got closer, I did a few final touch-ups and my bridesmaids helped put my hairpiece in.

Meanwhile, Matt, the groomsmen and his parents arrived at the church to do some last minute things. Matt finalized any loose ends with our priest and they put their boutonnieres on.

I had to sneak into the church and down to the basement to use the ladies room and then we all got lined up.

The shot above is one of those that transports me right back to that moment. I had just come up from downstairs and saw my two grandmothers and Matt's grandmother and his parents all lined up waiting to walk into the church. It triggered an Oh-My-Goodness moment, where the reality of walking into the church full of people and starting the wedding ceremony was finally hitting me. My mother and I stood off to the side, waiting in those last few minutes. One of our grandmothers waved to me and I started to choke up. To keep my emotions in check my mother made a joke: "So, did I tell you I'm pregnant?"

Meanwhile Matt and his brother were waiting at the end of the aisle.

Love this picture of Mike patting Matt on the back. I'll spare you all the pictures of our families and the bridesmaids walking in one by one. We waited until the perfect spot in the music (remember we chose a version of Canon in D to use) and then it was time to walk down the aisle.

In hindsight, it was a complete blur. Or more accurately, I think I blacked out for that moment. I don't really remember it at all. I guess we walked kind of fast (two emotional women couldn't remember to walk slow? I'm not surprised). A friend told me she tried to take a picture but I had already walked by too fast. It's fitting, I speed walk in everyday life anyway.

I wish we had slowed down, but it is what it is. I think my mom was trying not to cry or get overly emotional. And you can see the crazed grin on my face so clearly I wasn't thinking rationally. My eyes are laser focused on Matt at the end of the aisle, oblivious to anything else, our guests, our photographers and videographers. I was so excited to be walking towards my soon-to-be husband.

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography.

How to send well wishes remotely

2011-08-19T11:21:00.001-04:00

Today my heart is in Kennebunk, Maine while one of my favorite people in the world marries her best friend. While I would give just about anything to be there to witness it, I respect their decision to be surrounded by immediate family only on their wedding day (they are having a cocktail reception in a few weeks to celebrate). This is unfortunately not the first time this summer that we have had friends get married and could not be there to see it. Earlier this season, we had two weddings to pick from on the same day. It was an awful decision to make, but we ended up at one, since we obviously can't be in two places at one time. In order to congratulate the other couple remotely, and to let them know we were thinking of them, we put together a basket of goodies and had it mailed to the hotel so that the staff could deliver it to the newlyweds' room for when they returned from the reception. It was a big hit. I put together another one this week, to send to Maine. Unfortunately I was so rushed to get it in the mail, though, that I forgot to take good pictures to document it for you guys. So you'll have to use some imagination as I describe it.

Both times I started with a small container (I think I used a basket for the earlier wedding, this time I found a small plastic tub at Target). I added some things that I know we would have appreciated after the reception, like snacks and drinks. To each item, I added small tags with little phrases on them.

Here's a quick picture I took of some of the items sent to Maine. Trail mix, Teddy Grahams, M&Ms, fruit gummies for snacks. A pack of tissues, a pack of make-up remover wipes, a small container of Advil, and a travel toothbrush.

I packed all that into the tub with a bottle of water, a bottle of gatorade, a small bottle of champagne and some shredded confetti at the bottom. In the case of today's wedding, I also added a small journal that the bride and I used to mail back and forth to each other when we were away at college with notes and letters inside. I jotted down a quick Wedding Day message inside and I knew she would love to see it (it's been a while since we actively sent it back and forth). I wrapped the whole thing in one of those plastic basket wraps and tied it at the top. It was a big hit and helps the recipients know that we are thinking of them and sending our congratulations.

Today is finally here, you made it! So cherish every minute of it that you can. Smile until your cheeks hurt. Kiss each other long and hard. You two are the *perfect* example of "being made for each other" and I can't wait to celebrate with you both in a few weeks.
My heart is bursting for you. Happy Wedding Day!

Instagram Share: Back to School

2011-08-18T21:20:00.000-04:00

There are a few things I love about my job. The company I work for prides itself on its community involvement. I love that I can walk down the hallway and there could be a group of people in a conference room assembling care packages to send to troops overseas. I love that they sent the largest one-day site-wide group to clean up the tornado damage to western part of the state (I don't love the poison ivy I got from that event, but I can't hold it against the company). I love that there are food drives and pet drives and shoe drives. And, this week, a back to school supply drive. So I sponsored a local boy who was in need of new school supplies. Alex is five years old and starting kindergarten. When asked if he had a color or character preference, he answered "cars."

Monday I was feeling pretty cranky. It was a rainy day, and it was the start of the workweek. It felt like it was going to be a really long day at work. So I ran out to Target during my lunch break and picked up the items off the list, hoping that focusing on someone in need would cheer me up.

I was right. Picking out things as simple as pink erasers and blunt-tip scissors for this five year old boy gave me some perspective. And I ended up really enjoying it. I almost got myself some number two pencils just because I was caught up in the spirit. One of the things on the list was a pop-up book. In that area at the beginning of Target where they keep the dollar items, I found two cardboard dinosaur books. And small plastic dinosaurs. So I grabbed the books, a stegosaurus and a tyrannosaurus rex. Don't worry, I followed his preferences when I chose the Pixar Cars notebook for him, but I couldn't pass up the coordinated set of dino books and toys. I hope Alex likes them.

How our wedding has influenced other things in my life...or, how I made crafts for a bachelorette

2011-08-16T15:09:00.000-04:00

Apparently putting together all the crafty details of our wedding has rubbed off on me, because about a week before my friend's bachelorette party, I thought "hey, I bet I can find something cute to put together and bring instead of just showing up." Well, not surprisingly, I found several bachelorette-appropriate crafts on the vast expanses of the internet.

[image from tutorial post]

First I found fun necklaces to make for all of the girls in the group to wear. I had already conveniently picked up some pink and silver mardi gras bead necklaces from a party store, because based on my experiences with bachelorette parties, it is nice to have a quick way to know who is in your group, especially when it is made up of people that the guest of honor knows in different ways (family, work friends, school friends, etc). So when I saw these necklaces, I thought they were a perfect way to jazz up the beads I already bought. I followed the tutorial pretty much exactly: bought plastic buttons from a craft store, measured the circle, drew up a template and printed them out, cut the circle and popped it into the button. I tweaked the words a little, instead of "She's saying I do (...want another drink)," I put my friend's name in there and added the date of the party. Also I couldn't find the sparkly 3-D engagement ring stickers the tutorial mentions at the first craft store I went to and luckily another friend of mine had some extra sparkly diamond stickers that I placed on top of a gold-ish O to look like a ring. You can see mine in one of the pictures further below. Lastly, I bought the largest plastic button size for the guest of honor and made hers a little different with "Soon to be... Mrs. HisLastName." I thought they came out pretty great, except I remembered how much I hate cutting a precise line (or maybe I just don't have a great pair of scissors?).

[You can kind of see the bride's larger button behind her shot glass necklace and sash.]

Next I found these "survival kits" and used it as inspiration to make my own no-sew versions. You can see how cute hers are by clicking on the link. I loved the details on how she wrapped the individual items but I can't sew, and I found this project approximately two days before the actual bachelorette party so I was limited anyway. So with that as inspiration, I went out and bought some supplies to put together for each girl. Most I picked up at Target and I tried to buy a bulk package if I could. I got Tic Tacs, chapstick, safety pins, lifesavers, bandaids, wet wipes and hair elastics. I still needed Advil, but in individual packages. I couldn't figure out where to get packages of two pills each. We have a dispenser at work but I didn't have enough quarters to get them AND the on-site ATM wasn't working. After checking a drugstore and Target, I realized the hidden gem: gas stations! Sure, they're probably marked up in price because they're at a gas station, but they had them! I only had to visit two stations to get enough for all the girls.

[Here's a close up of some of the items. You can also see the two hair elastics, joined together with a small piece of ribbon and closed with two safety pins so they wouldn't be floating free in the bag.]

Drawing from the kits shown on 100 Layer Cake, I wanted to hide the packaging on some of the items. I used some random cardstock I had in my scrapbooking supplies and printed out some quick labels. "Take two and call me in the morning" (borrowed from the inspiration picture) was stapled to the front of the Advil package. I folded a bigger piece of cardstock around two bandaids and added a label to that. (It just says Bandaids because at that point I was running late for the actual party and couldn't come up with something clever.)

[Here's my coffee table covered with all the supplies laid out, ready for me to fill the bags.]

In the inspiration image, she packages all the items in a Chinese takeout box. Coincidentally I actually have some of these (new and unused) in my house, but I didn't have enough for all the girls. Plus, I kept picturing all the girls taking out the items and putting them in their clutches (or wherever) and then having a ton of Chinese takeout boxes to get rid of or recycle. Instead I went with plastic treat bags. I trimmed the top (they were too long) and stuffed them full of the goodies. Then I added a top that I had printed out on white cardstock to use to close it. I just threw it together in a blank Powerpoint slide, using a cute picture of the bachelorette and her future husband from my wedding.

On the back of the cardstock cover, I listed out the contents. Again, I tried to be somewhat cute but was working under a time crunch. While writing out the little descriptions I realized that it is somewhat intended for a bachelorette party full of single girls (the blog post I saw it on actually included a condom as well) and most of the girls at this party were not single.

The last thing I did was put together a quick gift for the bachelorette. I had actually saw this before on a website and then at a bridal shower I went to earlier this summer. If you haven't seen it, it's basically a cute rhyme that says something for a handful of different underwear. Like a white pair for the wedding day, a lacy pair for the honeymoon (that's the Just Married pair in the picture below), a blue and pink pair to symbolize a baby, a silver pair for the 25th anniversary (not that you actually have to wait that long to wear them). I wrapped the underwear for each part of the rhyme individually in tissue paper and closed them with a printed label that had the rhyme on it, so she would read it aloud and then open it. If you want to see the details, I found this post very helpful.

And it all leads up to the last pair which is a gag... a big pair of granny panties. I found the largest size I could and luckily they had animal print which made them even funnier. All the girls got a big kick out of it.

First Look

2011-08-10T17:04:00.001-04:00

With the lipstick stain event behind me, I think my nerves and emotions were on the edge of the proverbial cliff. I remember our planner telling me that Matt was getting in place for our First Look and that I'd be heading to meet him soon. We had planned it to occur on the third floor of the venue, which is a lofted space above the reception area, and I had been getting ready all morning with the bridesmaids on the first floor of the venue. So I got into the elevator with Christy, our planner, to head there. Once the elevator doors started to close, it felt like the first private moment of the morning.

I think I mumbled something to Christy about not knowing how to feel on my wedding day. That sounds silly to admit now, but for whatever reason that morning it was a legitimate concern of mine. I think it was driven by the surreal feel of the day, like it wasn't really here. I was subconsciously wondering how it was possible that the day had actually arrived and that manifested itself into a concern over whether I was doing, saying, feeling the "right" things, "bridal" things. APW talks a lot about the role of a bride, and how some of us struggle with it, and feeling like it is not a comfortable fit. I think this was also a part of it, feeling self-conscious about whether everything was going "like it was supposed to." Luckily, this really only reared it's head two specific times, both of which I was (somewhat) alone for and I think my vulnerabilities took hold. Every other minute of the day, (and especially once the ceremony was over) I was extremely giddy with happiness, cherishing every second, and letting go of what was supposed to happen/feel and just enjoying the moment.

Back in the elevator, I think I knew I was barely holding in the tears, and Christy reached over to rub my arm as an act of comfort. Problem is, you know how when you're a kid and you skin your knee in front of your friends and you don't cry, but then your mom starts to coddle you and you start to bawl your eyes out? Yeah, that's what started to happen. You can see in the video that I am trying to take deep breaths when I step out of the elevator. It was a lost cause though. As soon as I started walking toward Matt, I cracked. Looking at his back turned to me, in his gray suit that was a symbol of the nightmare it was to find gray suits and epitomized the struggles during wedding planning, standing and leaning against the railing all cool-like with his legs crossed, reminding me of the little things that I am attracted to and making me feel so lucky to be marrying him: it was like a flood of emotions. Realizing that the day had actually arrived...we were getting MARRIED!!!...the stress of planning and to-do lists was behind us...we were about to become husband and wife...all of our friends and family were going to be there to celebrate our love with us...it was all so overwhelming to believe and ultimately I was sobbing, not just teary-eyed, but with big gasps for air so loud that Matt said later he could hear me coming up behind him.

When he turned around, we kissed and hugged. Matt kept asking me what was wrong, wondering if the reason I was crying was because something happened, not just from the emotional overload. I was suddenly aware of the four camera lenses surrounding us and I realized my "waterproof" mascara was running; I could feel it streaming down my cheeks. I asked anyone for a tissue, but no one had one and our photographer even offer me her sleeve (love her!) then Matt suddenly remembered he stuck some tissues in his pocket. Slowly I calmed down and we got to take some looks at each other. I had seen him try on the suit before, but seeing it all together, and with the pocket squares that we had just picked up that week, was perfect. He hadn't seen my dress at all so he got his first look at me.

I vaguely remember asking if i was ruining it, "it" of course, being the 'photo opportunity' of our first look. I realized then though that it wasn't just a great excuse to take some private images together before the ceremony; it was a lot more than that. It was our first moment together on our wedding day, seeing each other dressed as a bride and groom, acknowledging that the day we had waited so long for was finally here. Then the photographers and videographers gave us a minute alone. I couldn't even tell you what we talked about during those few private moments together, but I can tell you that it was absolutely priceless to me. I left that loft feeling more grounded and relaxed than I had all morning. It reminded me that everything was going to be fine, lipstick stain, threat of rain, cold April weather or not. Seeing your best friend can do that: make everything right with the world.

So, while I know that seeing each other before the ceremony can be somewhat controversial since it goes against the tradition of waiting to see each other, it was hands-down one of the best decisions we made. Those few minutes enabled me to "let go" and switch from anxiety to excitement. Without that first look, I think I would have had that reaction walking down the aisle at the ceremony, where, instead, I was able to let the sheer joy shine through and have a giddy smile plastered across my face, and my eyes staring with laser-focus on my future husband waiting for me at the end of the aisle.

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography.

Instagram Share: Birthdays

2011-08-09T15:24:00.000-04:00

We are both July babies. Actually, we're only 12 days apart, which clearly means that the universe intended for us to spend our lives together, although on a serious note we do take it as a sign of good luck and of hopefully just as many wonderful years of marriage as his grandparents (they have close birthdays as well).
We kept both birthdays pretty low-key this year, usually we don't do anything spectacular anyway and we like to celebrate in similar ways, just by doing things that we enjoy together, capped off with a meal the person picks. That is usually where we differ, most years, this translates into lobster and steamers for Matt, and I'm definitely the cheap date.

Matt's birthday fell on a Saturday, the day after we attended a Friday night wedding, so we were kind of groggy in the morning. We golfed with friends in the afternoon and then they came over for birthday tacos and ice cream cake.

My birthday fell mid-week and we both worked during the day, but met up afterwards to golf together. I played probably one of the best days ever and was pretty consistent (except for those 7's you see above).

When we got home, I had flowers waiting for me on the doorstep from one of my best friends Toni (aka MOH) and they were gorgeous.

I have a few meals that are far-and-away my favorites, and almost all of them are pretty unhealthy choices. My choice for this birthday was an Italian sub from my favorite pizzeria and mozzarella sticks. Mmmmmm. And, since my birthday was actually my "champagne" birthday (also called golden? I turned 28 on the 28th), we popped a small bottle of bubbly to enjoy. Delicious.

Wedding Recap: 06.25

2011-08-08T11:31:00.000-04:00

K. + B. 06.25.11

Craft details personalized the alpaca farm, transforming it into a beautiful wedding
with lots of fun and a great dance party, despite the rain-soaked ground.

[escort cards on hay bales!]

[handmade coordinated pillows on hay bales as seating!]

Putting the dress on

2011-08-04T14:21:00.000-04:00

I hope I didn't sound so foreboding in my last post. It's just that I feel like during our engagement several times I read warnings about the wedding day not being perfect. Not so much intended as an alarming omen, but more as cautionary advice. Basically, a recommendation to lower your expectations so that when the day does have a hiccup, you won't be completely blindsided by it, and you won't end up crushed that your wedding day wasn't all puppies and rainbows like they make it look like in blogs and movies and magazines.

We left off with my hair and makeup done and the time had arrived to put on the Big White Dress. I headed into the bathroom with my mother and sister so that they could help me get dressed. They held up the dress for me to step into. My mom was so focused on whether or not I was going to step on the bottom of it and get it caught that she lifted it too high in the front and it rubbed against the freshly applied makeup on my face. Specifically, my lipstick (which, was actually some three-layer system that the guy at the MAC counter insisted I buy) and its top layer was a pink gloss. The residue stuck to the white dress and there was a big pink smear along the v-neck opening of my dress. My wedding dress. On the morning of my wedding. I'm not going to lie to you guys, I freaked out.

I'm not exactly proud of how I reacted, and I wish I could have let it roll off my shoulders. I wish I had known that after a little bit of stain remover magic, no one would be able to tell. I wish I had realized that it wouldn't show up in pictures or video like I feared. It didn't help that it was along the fold of the neckline, so that when I looked down at it, I could see it very clearly, and I didn't believe anyone when they insisted that it wasn't obvious. It didn't help that right before this, I had felt like the morning had just zipped by before my eyes and that was probably how the entire day was going to feel, like it was in a motion of it's own and wouldn't stop for anyone.

Looking back, I try to cut myself some slack, but I still wish I had reacted differently. One gem of wisdom that I read on APW once was basically said that if you are a controlling, Type-A perfectionist, don't necessarily expect to be overtaken by a calming wave of zen on your wedding day. I don't typically "roll with the punches" or "bend like a reed in wind" under normal circumstances, so why expect myself to on my wedding day? Understand that you may react like your non-bridal self, or even at your worst. However remember that it does not have to play a major role or have a lasting memory if you don't let it. The biggest takeaway is that it's your wedding day, you're getting married, and you and your best friend will say "I do" regardless of a tornado alarm (like at this wedding) or lipstick stain. Plus, the one upside of having something like this happen is that it becomes your "F*ck it" moment, because, like Meg says, "marriage isn't perfect and your wedding sure as hell isn't going to be. But it's going to be amazing, because f*ck it, you're there to have the time of your life."

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography

Wedding Video!!

2011-08-01T09:54:00.001-04:00

I was planning to tell you about some crafty details that I put together for my friend's bachelorette party this weekend but instead I get to share our WEDDING VIDEO!!! We hired Jeff Brouillet Films for a feature film package, which means we get a 30-35 minute video showing clips of all the parts of the day and a shorter "trailer" video showing some highlights from the day. I got the email from him on Saturday saying it was ready and even though I was in someone else's house I headed straight for a computer and sat down to watch it. The first time through, I had tears streaming down my cheeks. It is pretty amazing how easily all the emotions come flooding back to you while watching it. It made the wedding day feel so close, like it had just happened. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through me all over again. Before seeing it, I used to think that having the teaser video would make waiting for the feature film more bearable, since there would be something to watch in the mean time. But now, I am more excited than ever to see the final product.
I remember looking at Jeff's work and being anxious about not having any control over the result, especially about the song choice. In his pre-wedding worksheet, he asks that you list out your music preferences objectively, without foreshadowing what songs might work well in a wedding video. I couldn't have pictured using the song he chose but I absolutely love it. I think it perfectly fits us. I am SO unbelievably happy with how it turned out. I love all the clips he chose. The overlay of the best man's speech to our first dance, the moment I walk out of the elevator and am trying to keep it together, the "waterproof" mascara streaming down my face during the First Look; all of these moments are strung together to capture the feel of the day.

Jeff posted the video to his blog with a sweet write-up of our wedding and here it is embedded to watch. Hope you like it! :)

Val + Matt | YAY from Jeff Brouillet on Vimeo.

It's Funny...

2011-07-28T09:48:00.000-04:00

Lots of times Matt will ask me to look at something on the internet that he found. Lots of times I could care less about some random video that he thinks is funny. This time, however, he found a good one:

[from TheChive.com]

It's funny....because it's true.

Wedding Recap: 06.18

2011-07-27T12:34:00.000-04:00

S. + J. 06.18.11

A touching ceremony on a beautiful seaside cliff where blue sky met blue water,
before the rain + fun with frat brothers we don't see often.

Instagram Share: A Summer Day

2011-07-25T12:38:00.000-04:00

This weekend we did not have a wedding to go to. After five weekends in a row, we were excited for a break. It wasn't a completely free weekend, but we made the most of it and headed to Newport so we could spend the day there on Sunday. And honestly, it felt like one of the first times so far that we were actually able to enjoy a summer day...even if it was mostly cloudy and had scattered showers.

We slept in and woke up slow, feeling rested.

We walked to a diner and had breakfast; the best part of was a warm cinnamon roll that we split and Matt let me have the best part (the middle). We went in the pool for a bit and then it started to spit rain at us so we headed inside for lunch and a game of Scrabble.

Then we returned to the pool to relax and I drifted off for a quick nap.
Of course, just as we were packing up and leaving, the sun came out.

Also? I am sorry about the slowness of wedding recaps. They are fun to write and to remember the day, but our summer has been intense. In the past few weeks, some version of our Team has been to four showers, four weddings, two funerals and who knows what else on our crazy weekends. I don't usually have the motivation on weeknights and during my lunch hour I sit at my desk trying to convince myself that THAT GUY CAN ONLY CLICK THAT FINGERNAIL CLIPPER A FINITE NUMBER OF TIMES MORE BECAUSE I KNOW HE ONLY HAS TEN FINGERNAILS, RIGHT? RIGHT??? Ahh... sooo maybe it's no surprise that I haven't been spewing eloquent and thought-provoking reminisces about our wedding day. I really want to be able to put my feet up and concentrate long enough to make them interesting to read. It's a work in progress, but I'll deliver them soon enough, promise.

Waking up and getting ready

2011-07-19T16:08:00.001-04:00

After my alarm went off I laid in bed for a minute or two and then started to get up. The bridesmaids hair and make up appointments were scheduled to start early and I felt guilty asking them to be there if I wasn't so we all joined up in the meeting room. The girls were in their gray zip-up sweatshirts and luckily I had thought to buy myself a matching one as well. It was pretty chilly that morning, so the sweatshirts were perfect, and we had to keep the door shut in between everyone entering and exiting the room. Everybody was pretty sleepy and groggy (until a coffee run was made - Thank you!). I was also tired but felt a heightened awareness about what was happening.
My hair wasn't scheduled to start until 10:30 but the first appointment was 7:30 so we all sat around eating breakfast and listening to music while the appointments progressed. This part of the morning seemed to drag by. I was trying to finish up writing thank you cards to each bridesmaid and I couldn't focus. I wrote out a small card to Matt that morning. I wrote out my personal vows onto index cards.

Things started to pick up slowly. Our planner and her assistants were on site and setting up the reception and cocktail hour spaces. The florist arrived to drop off the flowers. Our photographers and videographers arrived and got straight to work. Meanwhile, the boys entertained themselves (with an onlooking videographer).

Picture by a family member

After sitting around for what felt like forever, my hairdresser told me they were ahead of schedule and asked if I wanted to get started earlier than planned. I'll be honest, deviating from the minute-by-minute schedule that our planner had put together made me a little nervous, even if it was in the right direction (not running late). I think I knew that as soon as I sat in THAT chair there was no turning back, it would all hit me. I was right. As soon as she started doing my hair, that is when the nerves started. I tried to eat from the sandwich platter we had delivered but I didn't have an appetite for a turkey sandwich. Note to self: I have a finicky stomach and whenever it gets like that, I can only stomach the idea of a few things, namely peanut butter and jelly sandwich or pasta. I should've known this and brought some PB&Js with me. Or a granola bar. The idea of turkey, lettuce and tomato at that point was not appetizing, but I managed to eat half of a roll up because I knew I had to. At some point, one of my bridesmaids came back from having handed off the card I wrote out for Matt, and had a bouquet of beautiful roses and sunflowers he had picked out for me. I hadn't really felt emotional or sentimental yet that morning, but the small note he wrote with the flowers made me tear up. I felt like I could feel his excitement and emotion through the card.

Picture by a family member

After Matt and the groomsmen were done outside, they started to get ready themselves and get dressed.

Not 100% sure what exactly is going on in this picture (above) but I imagine Matt and his brother are talking about their ties. I like it because it reminds me how as we were getting things together that final week we realized we couldn't find Matt's tie. After all we went through to decide on gray versus yellow, we had several of them at the house for so long. We wrapped them up to give to the groomsmen as a thank-you for helping with our couples shower, and we must have put all the discarded ones together and ultimately returned them to the store without leaving Matt's separate. So just a few days before the wedding, Matt was running around finding a gray tie for himself while we tried to remember what the pattern was on each of the groomsmen's so not to match too closely.

Then my hair and makeup was finished and I gave it the thumbs up even though I couldn't get over how weird it was to try and take me seriously as a bride, all fancied up.

I had thought it would be a cute touch to keep my hairpiece out while Matt and I had our First Look, thinking it would be a final detail to add at the church when he saw me coming down the aisle. Turns out he didn't actually notice that it wasn't in during the First Look (although I don't blame him, and you probably won't either, after I tell you that part of the story). And the hairpiece didn't really stay in as securely all day as I had thought, so in hindsight I should have just had Kelly our hairdresser jam it in there. These pictures are her showing my bridesmaids how to put it in at the church.

This is my smile after seeing my mom fully dressed come into the room. Pretty sure some version of this smile stays on my face for almost the entire day and night after this point. All of a sudden it was time to get dressed for Matt and me to see each other. I headed into the bathroom to get ready with my mom and sister. And here is where I'll insert my "something will go wrong on your wedding day" story.

Stay tuned...

*All photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography unless otherwise noted

Letter Wednesdays: Dear Local Grocery Store

2011-07-13T14:17:00.000-04:00

Dear neighborhood IGA store,
I supposed I should apologize for my behavior last night. See, yesterday I was a little hesitant to go to yoga class since it was above 95 degrees all day. Usually at work I barely know what the weather is outside but anyone that went out at lunch came back to the office area and commented on the heat. Regardless, yesterday was a day I had planned to go, so I stuck to it and tried to increase my water intake even more. Walking into the studio usually requires a minute to acclimate, but yesterday I barely noticed. That's of course, between classes, when the heat is off.
I actually had a really great class, one of my best, and was glad that I had gone. Afterward, the 85 degree evening air even felt refreshing. I felt so good that I decided to stop at the grocery store on my way home. Here is where things go awry. Background: I'm not thinking 100% lucid after 90 minutes of hot yoga. And I typically dry off (the class makes you soaking wet) and throw on a pajama-type outfit for the drive home.
So I pull up to the grocery store with high hopes. I bring in my water bottle and am sucking on it like an infant through the aisles. I usually try to breeze through with no carriage but I was gripping onto one to stay steady. My face is flushed and my hair is soaking wet under a baseball hat. Never mind the fact that I'm in a thin t-shirt....and no bra (which led to me clutching one of my canvas grocery tote bags to my chest). Clearly I should have been escorted out of there based on appearance alone.
Then as I'm walking around, I'm bumping into things with the carriage, and walking briskly by any cooler case (see: no bra). I realize how famished I actually am, coincidentally while I'm in front of the dairy case. String cheese? YEP. So now the girl with a flushed face and a crazed look in her eye is walking around the store tearing into a unpaid package of string cheeses. I have to think the bag-boy's inquiry as to whether he should "just leave out the open bag of string cheese" was barely-hidden sarcasm.
Somehow I made it home without police escort and with all the fixings for tomorrow's Taco Night.
Next time I brave the hot studio in the heat I will head straight home.
Promise,
Valery

Tuesday Tapas: 7/12

2011-07-12T14:44:00.000-04:00

How is it the middle of July already? We've been going crazy on the weekends since mid-May and it makes me extremely grateful for our early spring wedding. I joked the other day that the last month I consciously remember was January.
We are almost halfway through our wedding season. We have been to four weddings in the last four weekends. I don't think I'll be able to do a wedding recap (like I sort of did last year for the three we attended). But I hope to at least pick one or two pictures from each to share, especially since they've all been so different!
I've been trying to pick up the pace a little bit with the recaps of our wedding (though the holiday last week threw me off). How do you like them so far? Too much detail? Too slow-paced? Just right? Hurry up and get to the details? Let me know! :)
Product review alert! A while ago I saw that Edy's was going to come out with ready-to-eat-milkshakes and I was (obviously) excited. I've had them now (twice) and can tell you that they are awesome. You add milk and stir vigorously and ta-da, milkshake! You can control the thickness which I love and they taste delicious. It's pretty straightforward, seems just like soft-serve mixed with milk, but I love it. They're perfect to keep in the freezer for milkshake cravings (especially when the best milkshake is 5 minutes from your house and only comes in Jumbo sized).

Funny story. I was making my first one of these and so excited to have it. I searched around the house to find a straw to use to increase the authenticity of the experience. I asked Matt if we had any straws that he knew of. His matter-of-fact response: "No, I don't think so, but we had about 400 gray ones a few months ago."

Yes we did, but they got put to good use. :)

* Last photo by Leah LaRiccia Photography

Thank yous

2011-07-11T14:45:00.000-04:00

I had initially thought we would make record time sending out our thank you cards because I was so eager to tie up the wedding into a neat little package and move on with the rest of our lives (and our busy summer). But it took a while to decide which picture to use and then to finally order them. Writing up 100 thank you notes that you want to feel thoughtful and personalized is fairly overwhelming, especially when the weather is nice and you are just getting used to having your free time back. So while I had set a deadline of having them out before attending our first wedding (June 18th), they were actually only dumped in the mail last week.
We ordered through moo.com again because I loved their quality in the other wedding-related items we had purchased from them. In hindsight, I can understand why people order a matching set with their invitations, because there's no delay. I really wanted to include a picture of us with it though, and we've gotten a lot of compliments already on them, so I think they went over well.
We went with a postcard size and kept the back fairly blank to allow for the handwritten note. The glossy finish of the postcard means that it will look great stuck up on the fridge, like an actual picture, and could even be framed. Instead of mailing the postcard directly like we did for our save-the-dates, we ordered kraft brown envelopes with them to protect them through the mail and hopefully keep them in fairly good shape. Here they are!

The front.

The back. All that was printed was "MY+VY 041611" which played into a "logo" that organically happened the week of our wedding and showed up in some of our details.

Postcard + envelope. I used a custom stamp that I ordered through Etsy that also showed up in other details on the wedding day.

The night before

2011-07-07T16:42:00.000-04:00

After Matt and I exchanged presents privately, I headed to the other part of the venue, a separate building, where the bridal suite was. For the record, Matt and I had talked about spending that night together. Since we live together, we didn't think it would matter much to anyone and we both tend to sleep better when we are next to each other. Ultimately we followed the tradition of spending the night apart. One of my bridesmaids stayed in the room with me because I didn't want to be alone and I am grateful for that. It's an exciting time and it's hard to quiet your mind. It was nice to have the comfort of having someone close by.

It also helped having her there to get out some of the giddiness and excitement I was feeling. We laid there for a while, in the dark, giggling and chatting. Every once in a while, she would let out a loud yell of excitement. It made me realize the hugeness of the night and of the next day's events. And afterwards, it became one of my favorite memories to think about and remember the built up anticipation I was feeling.

After a while, we stopped talking and I tried to lay there and tell myself it was any other night, to just calm down and fall asleep. Obviously there were several things that kept it from feeling like "any other night," including the location and the person I was sharing the mattress with. It didn't help that there was a big white dress hanging from the top of the armoire on the wall facing the bed. That sight kept the adrenaline pumping through my body. I was too nervous to take any kind of sleep aid, even though I had been taking some melatonin supplements in the weeks leading up to the wedding to help quiet my mind from making task lists at three in the morning. I didn't want to risk feeling groggy or anything the next day. Instead I tried to call upon any type of sleep aid I knew of. Counting sheep, focusing on the physical touch of the sheets, meditating that each part of my body was feeling heavier and falling asleep, nothing really worked. At some point, I just fell asleep. Although I definitely did not sleep soundly, I awoke before my alarm, feeling a little tired but nonetheless ready to start the day.

Letter Wednesdays: Dear Poison Ivy

2011-07-06T21:39:00.000-04:00

Dear Poison Ivy,

You are no fun. Not at ALL. I don't remember in recent history having you (although I assume I did when I was younger) and I am not big on itchiness as I have expressed before. First of all, where the heck was karma watching my back while I volunteered for the tornado clean up? Seriously, that whole "no good deed goes unpunished" is hitting close to home. I'm not all that surprised, considering we spent the day carrying piles of brush and I couldn't identify your leaves to save my life. (Sidenote: When you ask someone if they know what poison ivy looks like, and they say "it has three leaves", don't they know that everybody knows that and that everything looks like it has three leaves?? I want a boy scout manual with example pictures, damnit!) Also, I found out later, that one of the homeowners came out of their house to casually mention how grateful they were of the work we were doing because "my wife and I were out there last weekend and got covered in poison ivy." Good tip, buddy, thanks for sharing...after we were finished! Argh. Anyway, you didn't show up until Thursday morning (two days later) and stayed under control until Saturday, when we were flying to Maryland for a wedding. Then you turned into a blistering pus-filled rash on my arm all weekend...and slowly showed up in a variety of other places even though I swear I was being careful.

grossness.

Luckily, my work gives us a bonus day off every Fourth of July so I got a doctor's visit in on Tuesday and am taking the prescription steroid pills to help. Hopefully it will be fading fast, I'm sick of you.

Hurry up,

Valery

Instagram Share: Wedding+Hooky+Tornado

2011-06-29T14:27:00.000-04:00

Interrupting your regularly scheduled wedding recaps for a quick Instagram sharing to document the last few days. Instagram is an iPhone app that takes ordinary pictures and makes them look way better/cooler/hipper.

Saturday we were in Amherst, MA for a wedding. Our room overlooked the back of the hotel where the bride and bridesmaids had some formal pictures taken before the ceremony. The wedding was at the groom's family's alpaca farm and was bursting with creative and thoughtful details that I swooned over.

Deliberately worked a half-day Monday to leave at lunch and hang out with a friend. This picture epitomizes the scene for the afternoon: outside (gorgeous) on the back porch, chatting and snacking. And yes, that IS a tub of cheese.

On Tuesday I spent the work day volunteering, organized through work to head out west to Sturbridge, MA and help with the clean-up after the tornado hit three weeks ago. This is an area of severed trees, all cut in half by the winds.

These last two pictures have not gotten the Instagram treatment but I had to share. At the beautiful wedding we went to on Saturday, they gave Out-Of-Town bags to each hotel room (amongst numerous other thoughtful and creative details). Inside was a homemade alpaca cookie (the wedding was on an alpaca farm). I thought the cookie was so stinkin' cute that I posed him around the hotel room while Matt napped. I was uncontrollably giggling the entire time.
(above) Alpaca checks out the scenery.

(below) Alpaca getting ready. What a diva, he hogs the mirror.

More gifts

2011-06-24T16:53:00.000-04:00

While we handed out the wedding party gifts, we also gave thank-you gifts to our parents. My mom was fairly easy. She's been asking for an iPod for a long time and she was so happy to get it. We preloaded it with some Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dionne Warwick and Frank Sinatra selections (AKA the soundtrack of childhood car rides).

My mom, psyched, and getting some set-up help from groomsman Jimmy

Matt's parents weren't as easy, but once we considered a digital frame, it seemed like an obvious answer. We picked out the Kodak Pulse frame which is toted to have the ability to receive new photos over Wi-Fi through email. So we can update their frame in CT from our house in MA, which is pretty sweet. (However we have had some serious issues setting it up and think it's a lemon. We're going to return it and try again. I'll let you know how it works out.)

We also wanted to acknowledge our readers with something. We had two female and one male readers during the ceremony. I find it infinitely easier to shop small trinket-gifts for women than men.

[link]

So I had picked out this cute jewelry holder early on, but was stumped for a guy gift. Then I saw this wallet bottle opener and thought it was perfect for Matt's cousin. We had it engraved with his wedding anniversary, his wife's birthday, and our wedding date (not that he needs to remember it like the others, but just to commemorate the occasion).

[link]

We had asked both of our godmothers to bring up the gifts during the ceremony and we decided to get handmade corsages from Etsy for them to wear and to keep afterwards.

After the rehearsal, we returned to Warren Center and exchanged gifts privately. I don't really like surprises, so when it comes to gifts, I tend to *hint* pretty obviously so that we're all on the same page here. This method works well for us because Matt likes knowing I'm going to like what he gifts, so it's win-win. I had kept my eyes out for earrings to wear for the wedding but didn't find anything I liked and *hinted* that diamond studs would be perfect. I wear a pair every day that Matt gave me a few years ago, but I *hinted* about upgrading them a size or two. Hehe. So, no surprise, I opened a box with a pair of beautiful diamond earrings inside (seriously, he outdid himself, they were even better than I had "suggested"). I didn't have a gift to give him that night, but he found out the next day, 30 minutes after we were married, what my gift was. I had arranged for a London black cab to transport just Matt and I privately to the location where we were taking pictures. It was waiting outside the church when we finished taking some formal pictures and totally surprised Matt. I thought it was such a sweet way to pay homage to the role London played in our relationship. I'll share a funny story about that moment when we get to it in the recaps....

[photo by Matt's brother's girlfriend Cara]

Gifts for the wedding party

2011-06-23T11:49:00.001-04:00

I wanted the gifts to our bridesmaids to have a little bit of everything in it. Something actually useful in everyday life, something to remind them of the wedding, something personalized to each girl, and something with some actual value (not just a handful of things that don't add up to much). So I accomplished that by putting together a few smaller gifts.

I got four different colors/styles of canvas tote bags off Etsy. Somewhat personalized, and definitely useful for day-to-day.

The inside that I put a monogram mug from Anthropologie to remind them of the day (since we had a Y one as part of the reception decor at the wedding).

Something small but personalized that I added was purse mirrors with different covers. I picked a pretty pattern for my sister, a cute hippo cartoon for Toni, a shamrock for Colleen, and the "Keep Calm and Carry On" logo for Courtney.

The item of value was a necklace I found after reading Naurnie's blog post and finding coatt's website. I loved how they turned out and ordered one for myself as well. This was another way to remember the wedding day because the morse code word was YAY.

One kind-of gag gift was these bright pink "bridesmaid" bandannas that I found on clearance at Michael's one time. I bought them before my bachelorette and figured, if they made me dress up in some tiara or big sash (that I had mentioned once or twice NOT wanting) I could whip those out and take some consolation knowing they were publicly designated as well. :) Luckily there was no such paraphernalia at the bachelorette (I should've known) so I still had them afterwards and threw them in the tote bags. Turned out to make an appearance at the wedding reception as well, which you'll see later. We had also decided to cover the cost of getting their makeup done that morning. I thought that was going to be all I got them but about one month out I joked with them not to worry about what to wear the morning of the wedding while we got our hair done because I had gotten them all matching robes with their names bedazzled.

[link]

That's kind of a stereotypical bridesmaid gift and something I would never had gotten them because that's not something I think any of them would like. I got to thinking about what the "opposite" of bedazzled satin robes were and decided it would be kind of funny to have us all in matching...hoodies. Heh. So I got us all gray zip-up hooded sweatshirts to wear from H&M. Then I thought they were too plain, so I order felt yellow flower pins from Etsy to attach to them as embellishment.

For the guys we knew early on what we were going to give them (thanks to Dancy!!!). Matt and his friends are big into poker. They played a lot in college and they play when they get together now.

When Dancy posted the custom poker chips and mentioned they were reasonably priced I knew we had to get them. Groomsmen gifts are not easy; the most traditional ones don't often get used a whole bunch (flasks, etc) and we both wanted to try and find something that would actually get used. The poker sets were a perfect fit.

Only thing was Matt's brother doesn't play poker as much as the other guys. So we needed something different for him. We have often teased him for his lack of tech gadgets so we were leaning towards something electronic, like an iPod. That plan was almost thwarted when his work gave him a iPhone a month before the wedding. Luckily he had mentioned to Matt that he thought it was a little large to use in the gym all the time. Bingo! Enjoy your new iPod nano!

* All photos by Celia

Our last supper

2011-06-22T16:33:00.001-04:00

We didn't spend very long at the church since it was just logistics (walking in and out) and not going over the mass. Then we were on our way to the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. Matt had found a great place nearby to the venue that was a historic building in town and had a private room. I had only two suggestions for the rehearsal dinner: a private area and some time to mingle before dinner with a snack or two. My generous in-laws took care of the dinner and included a few selections of appetizers. This was such a fun time to chat and move around a room filled with people we love. It allowed it to sink in even more, and pause to appreciate what was happening. It also gave everyone else more time to chat and get to know each other so we were happy about that. Celia joined us for dinner as well and continued taking fabulous pictures to document the night.

Mingling and chatting before dinner

Love these candid group shots from Celia.

Before dinner, Matt's dad called us to the front of the room and had us sit. We had expected this for a while. He is known for his touching speeches at milestone events, even if we do tease him about the length of them. :) It was very touching; he talked about both of us individually and then our relationship. I think in the picture below we're laughing when he called me "domestically challenged." :)

Afterwards we stood to thank everyone in the room for being there for us and for being special people in our lives.

Then we enjoyed a delicious dinner and wonderful company...

...complete with a "groom's cake" which Matt's cousin made for us. It's got all of Matt's favorites, Hostess cupcakes, yodels, etc. Maybe looks familiar, remember this post?

I had hinted to my mother that I wanted her to say something at the rehearsal dinner. So after dinner, she did. It was just a little something but it meant a whole lot. And now whenever she's frustrated with me, I can tease her about how she called me a "ray of sunshine." :)

Again, I can't express how grateful I am to have these pictures. It allows us to vividly remember that important evening, even though at the time it may have felt like a blur. It's such a special time, to be surrounded by your immediate family and wedding party, who, by definition have all had an important part in your life. The excitement is building, everyone is celebrating the two of you and looking forward to the wedding the next day. It's pretty magical. Up next, we hand out gifts!

* All photos by Celia

Rehearsing the moves

2011-06-20T08:52:00.000-04:00

I had lobbied early in our engagement to have a day-of-coordinator. Luckily Matt saw my point without too much effort and we hired Christy to help us throughout the engagement with the venue and vendor selection and especially the logistical coordination on the wedding day. Walking into the church that Friday evening, I had never felt so grateful for making that decision. Knowing I could actually enjoy it, take a backseat, and not run the show was absolutely priceless. You guys, seriously. It's a good thing wedding coordinators don't set their price at the time of service (haha) because I would've handed over buckets of money. Any brides out there that are sick of answering 2938174 questions every hour of the engagement (yes, even well-meaning, appropriate questions)? Having her there to take charge and have all the questions directed to her was just a huge sigh of relief.
It was so exciting to see everyone there, getting to know each other, and letting it sink in that we were at our very own wedding rehearsal. Another priceless decision was asking a friend to be there and take pictures. I didn't have anything too fancy in mind, just wanted someone to snap a few pictures and be able to take a few group shots without worrying about who had their cameras or not. Celia (also the YAY-flag-maker-extraordinaire, stop-motion-video-creator, general-awesome-craft-guru and delicious-cupcake-maker) outdid herself. I am so thankful to have pictures from that night. I highly recommend it. It's a more casual, relaxed environment than the actual wedding, so there are some great candid shots from the night.
We got started with the rehearsal and followed Christy's direction to go through the typical flow. We knew that our priest would not be there (remember we had practiced the actual ceremony parts the week before), so it was just about the logistics: the processional, recessional, where to stand, etc. It didn't feel like a big deal the first or second run-through and then we decided to add the processional music as well to get the timing down, and that's when it started to sink in more.

LOVE this picture of me and my mom

I'm PSYCHED. My face had this huge grin on it and that's how it stayed for the entire next day.

The boys were less than thrilled with rehearsing. Hehe.

Matt's parents nailing their processional timing. :)

The bridesmaids spacing out their entrances.

Celia even went up to the choir loft to take some sweet pictures. Awesome, right??

*All photos by Celia

Thoughts from the day before.

2011-06-17T14:12:00.001-04:00

Leading up to the Wedding Day I thought I had pretty realistic expectations for how it would all happen. I'd been reading more than a handful of blogs that told me what brides had experienced and how they had felt. It's how I knew that to have the best chance at feeling relaxed (as relaxed as my control freak self would allow) that I needed to turn off the "To-Do Mode" as early as possible. At the very least, the day before. Sounds kind of obvious but it's so easy to think: "Oh, I'll just do that quick on our way to the nail appointment." This is definitely a tangible piece of advice. Stop planning/doing/crafting/organizing at least two days before. Go to bed the night before the rehearsal with nothing left on the list. If it isn't done by that point, accept that it isn't getting done.

So I planned for that. What I didn't plan for was the anxiety of getting out the door that day. Leaving my house meant it was all real. Once we drove away, the day was set in motion, starting the clock. I had started lists of things I need to pack that day (remember I'm a list person) but with all that earlier anxiety about possibly forgetting things, I didn't fully trust them. I was double-checking things. Another piece of advice...start those lists as early as possible while your head is clearest (i.e. these items in overnight bag, these items for rehearsal dinner, these items for venue, etc). Add to it as you go, listing everything.

Early on I knew that I wanted to get my hair styled so that I didn't have to worry about being all sweaty and struggling with a blow-dryer before the rehearsal. I also knew I wanted to wait until that day for a manicure so I could get the most out of its ten-day lifespan for the honeymoon. At first I thought I would just do these appointments alone and meet up with everyone at the venue to leave for the rehearsal. After all, it was a weekday and people had work and other things to do. Thankfully, one of my bridesmaids ended up booking side-by-side appointments with me for each of those and volunteered to pick me up so that Matt and I wouldn't have two cars at the Warren Center for the weekend. This ended up saving my butt that morning. She arrived early, maybe 10am? and the first appointment was 12:30pm, so we thought we had plenty of time. But all that anxiety I mentioned was built up and it was so hard to physically get me out the door and in the car. I was double-checking things, making sure we had everything, and just a general ball of nerves. Having someone else there with a clear head was a lifesaver. Being chauffeured around that day to all the appointments was an added bonus, because I felt so flaky, I probably wouldn't have been a good driver.

That Friday was somewhat of a blur. With all the time we thought we had in the morning, we cut it close for the hair appointment, but then waited for a bit while our stylists finished their previous clients. Our nail appointments were scheduled for immediately afterwards (but 20 minutes away... good planning!), so we were rushing from place to place. Once at the nail salon, though I remember finally settling a little bit, and relaxing. I have a fond memory of the technicians making conversation as we sat there, "Anything going on this weekend?" "Eh, nothing big. Just getting married," was my casual response and then laughing at their reactions.

We arrived at the Warren Center with enough time to change clothes and head out to the rehearsal. Almost everyone else was already there, milling around, creating a collective buzz of energy and excitement. That's when I remember the smiles and tingling setting in. I wanted to spend some quality time with my bridesmaids so we rode altogether to the church. That ride was a mix; of excitement because it was all starting to feel very real but also calming because I was surrounded by people who know me best and I was happy to see and talk to. It also felt really short. Before I knew it, we were arriving at the church for the rehearsal.

Letter Wednesdays: Dear Gilt

2011-06-15T09:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Gilt,

I downloaded your iPhone app thinking another Groupon-esque deal program couldn't hurt. Of course I didn't expect to wake up Saturday morning and poke around at the available offers and find a wedding for sale.

[iPhone screenshot]

Yep, a wedding for sale. Including food and drink for 100 people, premium open bar, a cake, some well-known DJ from New York City, arrangements for an on-site ceremony, and flowers. Oh, and all at an oceanfront gorgeous estate. I'm fully aware that many venues offer this type of package-deal and I have to admit it sounds attractive. You're limited with options, but that's a blessing in disguise, especially if you have a tendency to over-analyze and be indecisive (who, me?). What really appeals to me is that this is SO "2011". Such a sign of our "times" that you can be using an app on your phone, select the pull-down menu, ask your fiance what date sounds nice and select your wedding date all on.your.phone. It's so silly, it's genius. If this was early 2010, I'd be considering this option, just so we could say "oh we booked our venue and wedding date through an app." Don't you love how low maintenance that sounds? So carefree and easy. The dates available are only a few months away (September-October 2011) and judging from the drop-down menu, someone already chose one (!!), but there are still plenty available, in case you're interested. :)

Keep the great deals coming,

Valery

The flurry of activity that was the week before...

2011-06-14T14:10:00.000-04:00

I think I've mentioned how we have ten weddings to attend between this weekend and the end of September. One of the things I always try to tell the bride when I see them is...it sneaks up on you. Hopefully it doesn't come off sounding so scary or impending, and it definitely sounds cliche but I don't care. You might be wondering how something that your life has centered around for a triple-digit amount of days could, in fact, sneak, but let me assure you, it can. No you say? You know when it's coming? The Knot countdown haunts you in your sleep, you have the date tattooed on your arm, you close your eyes and see the digits emblazoned on the inside of your eyelids? Well, it can still happen. Even if you are subconsciously muttering the number of days left, it can still manage to suddenly appear out of thin air, like in some freaky horror movie.

It's like you are so well versed in the countdown, in the approach of the event, that when it is actually there, it catches you off guard. Maybe it's disbelief. Maybe your sense of time gets swallowed up by the vortex that is your crazy life in those last few days. All I know is, the week of the wedding, I felt like I could not steady my balance. Could not slow down the ride to catch my breath. I felt like time had run out quicker than I had planned. There were things I still needed to do! A whole binder of inspiration images from early on that I wanted to comb through and make sure I hadn't forgotten something. An entire tab in my spreadsheet called To Remember that I wanted to read through (and remember). A list of blog posts I wanted to pre-write to post during our honeymoon. These are the types of things that fell by the wayside. Not critical, no. And yes, we ended up happily married at the end of the week, even without those things happening. But they contributed to my unsteadiness and made me feel like things were unraveling. If I didn't have time to check my old inspiration binder, what else was I forgetting to do? What other things was I running out of time for?

Amidst the unraveling, there was a ridiculous amount of tasks that had to get done in the last week. Luckily, the things that had drifted to the bottom of the task pile during the engagement were things we could recruit help with. The Friday night of the weekend before was spent crafting at our house and feeding tacos as gratitude to our welcome help (one of my bridesmaids and Matt's brother). We folded paper poms, finished escort cards, assembled the escort card display (I'll share the projects soon!). It was a wedding sweatshop. Saturday and Sunday were spent running around crossing small things off the list. We had our menu cards and ceremony programs printed that weekend, so I was literally designing them in the Staples waiting area and quickly handing the flash drive to the woman to have her print them out.

The beginning of that week was a blur. A few days of work, a couple more long nights finishing up things at home. Another night of recruited help (a friend this time and Matt's brother again) and then finally, I went to bed late Wednesday night feeling pretty good. That flurry of activity had left me exhausted (remember I was also fighting a sinus infection that week!) so the massage appointment and yoga class in lieu of working that Thursday were much needed.

I wish I had a picture or two from that crazy time. The sheer volume of "STUFF" in our house was scary. Remember how I get anxiety when our house is a mess? Yeah, that didn't help much. But it did help that they were messes of yellow and gray things that made me happy. In hindsight I wish I could have taken another day off from work but it was crazy, we survived, and we were that much closer to Saturday, our wedding day.

Let's do this.

2011-06-13T12:11:00.000-04:00

I've been dragging my feet to start writing recaps. It's nothing new in the wedding blog world. It's very typical for bridal bloggers to post several times a week during the planning process to share their progress and then take several months to share the pieces of their wedding day. I didn't want to fall into that trap, but I kind of took May..."off". Some part of it is laziness, I'm enjoying my lazy weeknights a lot. Some part of it is selfishness. Sharing our day piece-by-piece seems like it would take something away from it. A fellow blogger worded it this way: "The whole thing was so magical and important and special that part of me has been afraid that some of that will be lost if I let it out in to the world."
This weekend I spent some time reviewing some of our pictures and video from our Flip camcorder of the wedding and I got REALLY excited to share it all, so I'm motivated to get crackin'. I cleaned up the blog a little. A lot of the "pages" I had created were intended for our wedding guests and no one needs driving directions to our venue anymore, so I got rid of a lot of that, though I left our vendor information up under the Our Wedding Day tab to give credit where it's due and because we loved them all.
This blog started as a way to keep family and friends updated on our planning progress. Since that is no longer the case, I am also going to remove the few email subscriptions that were added (probably by me as brute force to make people read it, haha) from the very beginning. So this will be the last post you get automatically. Instead, now anyone can subscribe to get the posts emailed to them by putting their email address in the box listed in the bar on the right.

Yay. I'm ready. Let's do this.*

* "Let's do this" is also the phrase that I put on Matt's Facebook wall the morning of the wedding. :)
Picture of YAY flags by Leah LaRiccia Photography

I'm too happy.

2011-06-10T16:11:00.000-04:00

I had a post all lined up to finally start walking you through some recaps of the wedding but I have to save it for next week instead because I have to share this thought with you. I've recently been listening to the Cold War Kids album, which I am enjoying very much and it made me think of this.

Ever been every so slightly disappointed about being so happy because you love angry music so much? Let me clarify. There are some alternative music songs that are so iconic of late high school and early college years. Mainly because I associate them with driving around our small town, blaring the radio, and singing along. Most of them have lyrics about betrayal or hurt or sadness or just your general "I hate your guts" sentiments. This dovetailed nicely with any romantic relationships during those years.They became ballads that you sang with your girlfriends after you were angry with your boyfriend for whatever reason. You would feel so connected to the song. It was FUN to be so emotionally invested in a song, so bitter and angry that the song felt like it was so perfect and fitting for your life, right that second.

Anyway, my point is that I'm happy now. I don't feel that same way when I hear and sing along with those "I hate your guts" songs. And it makes me a little sad and nostalgic for those times (which is quickly washed away by gratitude that I am happy now, obviously). Am I totally crazy or has anyone ever felt this too?

Here's one of my favorites off the album that made me think of this.

[I couldn't find a studio/album version on YouTube so it's live]

Tuesday Tapas: Shopping Help

2011-06-07T17:59:00.000-04:00

I need some new shoes. Okay, okay. I want some new shoes. I work in a very casual place and I typically wear jeans and sneakers, like these:

[they may look familiar]

If I'm wearing something nice, like a cute sweater, I will wear a pair of ballet flats instead. But the pairs I like have almost no support so my feet are sore the next day, and, when it gets warm out, they can get really stinky since I'm not wearing any socks. So I need a pair of shoes that would look cute with a sweater and jeans but that I can wear a small ped sock with it if I want to. I want them to be low, too, like ballet flats. I was thinking about a pair of TOMS maybe. Like these:

[link]

Or these:

[link]

But I don't know if they'll actually be comfortable. Or if they're cute enough. Or if you wear socks with them. Do any of you have TOMS? Do you love them? Any other suggestions for cute/low/socked shoes?

Also I need some new jeans. I used to buy my jeans from Martin + Osa, which was like a spin-off of American Eagle, but more adult-like. But they closed, or at least the only store close by to me did. So I've resorted to a pair of GAP jeans, which never used to fit me right, but now kind of do. Except I'm kind of picky about the opening at the bottom. I like "bootcut" but the GAP version of "bootcut" is more like what I'd call flared. I ended up buying a pair of "straight" ones last time which I like, but I still need a go-to pair. I'd always always bought my jeans from American Eagle and now I just can't bear to even go in that store, so, help me out. Where are you buying your jeans? What am I missing?

Weekend Recap 6/6

2011-06-06T14:55:00.000-04:00

Things I learned this weekend while at a lake house up north for a friend's bachelorette:

1. Think long and hard about why you haven't enjoyed a certain type of drink in a long time before resurrecting that relationship. There was probably a valid reason for the hiatus and getting excited about the summertime is not enough to attempt to pick up where you left off with aforementioned specific drink. (See: Captain + Coke)

2. Something about bachelorette parties will have you talking about "girl talk" with someone even if you were introduced to them 12 hours ago.

3. If you have spent the night drinking (See: note #1), and proceed to wake up and start drinking before lunch, your judgment is probably not worth trustworthy.

4. Just because you can't see a body part, doesn't mean it won't get sunburnt (See: note #3. And my back).

5. It is probably worthwhile to learn how to operate a gas grill, considering that a house full of nine girls had only one confident volunteer.

5. Even if it is June and absolutely gorgeous outside your window, you may very well find yourself spending an entire day watching four full-length movies on Netflix On Demand and enjoying a six-pack...of ginger ale.

6. If you normally get chilly in your office you may want to bring a sweater to work when you are sunburnt. (Technically this is a "learning" from today and not the Weekend, but worth sharing.)

[view from the boat on Saturday, stolen from a friend's FB page
because I was too lazy to download from my camera yesterday]

Tuesday Tapas: 5/31

2011-05-31T13:55:00.001-04:00

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. I did, but not in the ways I had thought I would. Going into the weekend, we had ambitious plans to visit friends and family in both CT and Newport. On Saturday night when we had planned to drive from CT to Newport, we decided to come back home instead. A big part of convincing us was realizing that this was our last weekend free until late July. So we spent Sunday and Monday home, mixing (some) relaxing with (lots of) cleaning and organizing.

What is it about a (finally) clean house that makes me want to entertain? Just as I was putting some finishing touches on the second bedroom, I thought, oh this stash of bedding would be perfect for any overnight guests at our next party. Am I a glutton for punishment? How about enjoying the cleanliness for a quick minute before inviting guests and alcohol-induced sleepovers? Or is it just a subconscious urge for approval? I'm proud of the results and I want to show it off? Maybe next time I'll take 'before' and 'after' pictures and get that urge out by sharing the results with you guys instead.
Four years ago, this holiday weekend, we moved in. Is it sad that I think the way the house looks right this second is the best its looked in all that time? It's probably not entirely true, but we have finally reached a point where we question whether or not we need/want something before we just store it indefinitely, so our house is more organized than it was four years ago.
Our thank you cards have arrived! I'm so excited to start crossing those off the list and getting them out! My goal was before our wedding season starts and our first one is in two weeks, so hopefully we'll be on track. I'm happy with how they came out, too. We ordered from moo.com again (we used their products on our invites and our favors).
Memorial Day weekend is always the unofficial kickoff to summer (at least to me). I'm excited. May felt like a lot of transitioning for us, and now I'm hoping we hit a stride with routines and everything. Here goes nothing! :)
If you ever need to butter me up for some reason or prepare me for bad news, just put a package of Lofthouse frosted sugar cookies in front of me. I will gladly inhale the thick sugar cookies and overly-sugared-frosting and while I slip into a diabetic coma, you can tell me whatever it was that you needed to. I need to amend my previous list and add these suckers. I can not be trusted with them in the house (I enjoy a few and then bring them to the office) and I would happily eat them until I got a stomachache. Dangerously good, and too sweet for some, but perfect to me.

[source]

Tuesday Tapas: Wedding Music

2011-05-24T15:20:00.000-04:00

I told you once before about how much music means to me and how it affects me, so its probably no surprise that I was completely obsessed with any symbolic part of the wedding where we got to choose a song. I love that because a lot of these were such conscious deliberate decisions, now, over a month later, I can be doing something and hear one of these songs and instantly be transported back to April 16th. So here's what I consider our Wedding Day Soundtrack:

Getting Ready: Getting ready the morning of the wedding with my bridesmaids we mixed between Pandora streaming Today's Hits with some random shuffling of albums that bring us right back to high school.
Ceremony: I alluded to the process we went through to pick the processional song for my entrance and I am SO glad that it worked out. At the rehearsal, we played it on the church speaker and I was getting emotional already. I love everything about this song, but especially from 1:45 to 3:00 (we didn't want to use anything past 3:00 for the ceremony). We realized at the rehearsal that the bridesmaids wouldn't even start walking until we reached the 2:00 mark to make sure that it was in the best spot. When I hear it now, I remember standing there behind the doors waiting to walk down the aisle and it brings back a flood of emotions.
Reception Entrances: These were some of the funnest "tasks" to take care of in wedding planning. We knew we didn't want anything too typical, something that meant something to us. We went through our playlists and picked songs that we thought fit the idea and then narrowed down to our choices and I couldn't be any happier with them. They felt exactly like "us."

Our grandparents and parents walked into "Life in Technicolor II". We have seen Coldplay live several times and it's always such a fantastic time; they put on a great show. When their studio album came out and had "Life in Technicolor" on it, I loooved it and kept saying how great it would be as a full-length song. Then there was one, on their EP. I can't explain how much I love the opening instrumental parts. It's just "one of those songs" for me, that you can close your eyes to and swear that your heart and insides are swelling bigger because the song is just that good. Anyway, we thought it was perfect for a low-key but upbeat song for our families that didn't have a driving bass of a pop song. One of my most vivid memories of our wedding day was standing off to the side, waiting to be introduced and hearing this song and knowing our reception is starting (weee!!). (Sidenote: I just watched the official video below for the first time and it is hilariously awesome.)
Our bridal party walked in to MGMT "Kids." This is one of those songs that Matt and I dance around in the car to, but wasn't an overdone pop/hip-hop song so we thought it was a perfect balance. Again, it's super upbeat and has a good rhythm to it.
We knew all along that we wanted the theme song from The Office to be a part of our wedding somehow. We had always talked about having it as a recessional, walking back down the aisle to it after being pronounced husband and wife. Our priest not-so-subtly suggested we use it as a reception entrance instead, and it worked out perfectly. We love the show and have always danced a little every time the theme song plays on TV (since the wedding we dance a little and look at each other with a twinkle of nostalgia in our eyes). It felt like a perfect match for us (last Halloween we dressed up as Pam and Jim) and fit our criteria of not being an overdone song.

Reception:

We loved our band and were so excited for them to play all night, but we also had a small list of songs that we really wanted to hear during their DJ-ed breaks. "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros was one of them. Another dancey-in-the-car song, with super cute lyrics. Whenever I hear this song, I remember dancing in the middle of the dance floor and hearing the transition from the previous song to this one. I looked up, frantic, to find Matt so we could dance together to it. We made eye contact, even though he was on the other side of the glass door, out on the deck, hanging out with some of our college friends. Before I even realized it, he was inside, next to me on the dance floor and we were singing each other the words and dancing around and around. That night, he made such an enormous effort to be on the dance floor with me, so much more than he is ever usually dancing, because he knew I did not want to be separated all night. This song, to me, embodies the effort he made and how it felt that minute to see him outside and then suddenly dancing next to me.
This song "Float On" by Modest Mouse symbolizes how freakin' awesome our band was, in my opinion. When we were desperately searching for bands that fit some magical criteria, I knew I wanted a band that could do such a wide range of songs...oldies, 80s, Top 40, alternative, anything! When we saw them live, they played a Kings of Leon song and a Franz Ferdinand song that convinced me of their range. On the wedding day, this song hit it home for me. Its a song that reminds me of the town I grew up in and I made sure to dance with those friends during it.
Oh, this song, you guys. This song has a special nostalgic place in my heart and symbolizes all things youth. I don't even know how long this has been one of those road-trip-mixtape/late-night-house-party must-haves. I have a specific memory from high school of a friend pulling into a driveway and blaring this song, then standing on the roof of the car and air-guitaring and singing along to it. The lyrics also were particularly applicable at one point during high school to one of my friend's relationships, so it became sort of an anthem. "Your Love" by The Outfield was on my itsy-bitsy short list of songs that our band absolutely had to have in their songlist. It was a requirement.

Dress!

2011-05-20T13:46:00.000-04:00

You followed along during my great dress search. While I complained about each of the ninety-something dresses that I tried on and found flaws with all of them. Then on a hot July Tuesday, shopping alone, I found it. And I didn't even bother to show you it (shame on me). So here it is, my full wedding day look.

[Pictures edited and chosen to try and show dress detail and full-length.]

The dress is Mikaella, style 1367. It's the same company that makes Paloma Blanca, who are known for (at least as far as I know) their use of silks and lightweight material. This was the same thing...lifting the hanger off the rack, my arm did not collapse under the weight, which was a huge factor for me. It had the things on my original checklist: straps, plain, ruching, not too poufy. A few people said to me that day how the dress was what they would have pictured for me, classic and simple. So that makes me happy, I wanted to look like myself, as a bride, not just play the part of a bride.

I kept my accessories simple (even though, if you remember, I toyed with the idea of a statement necklace). I wore diamond earrings that Matt gave to me as a wedding day present. My necklace was borrowed from my mother and the diamond was from her engagement ring. It went nicely with the earrings and meant a lot to be wearing it.

I didn't even realize it, but keeping everything simple made my headpiece stand out. A friend mentioned to me after, that the hair fascinator was like a statement piece for the whole look, and I'm glad it worked out that way. I had teased you guys before about the designer, Sara Gabriel, (whose work is seriously fantastic, I loved all of her items). I absolutely loved it, I think it was exactly what I was looking for (just wish I had figured that out sooner than I did to avoid the anxiety!). It gave the look and feel of a veil, but was a modern twist on it and I was happy to leave it in all night long. A friend suggested I wear it around the house as well, haha!

The shoes I ended up with I had posted about before. They were the perfect choice and didn't hurt my feet at all, even dancing all night in them. They have a wedge to them, so I got the height and feel of a heel without worrying about walking in them or comfort.

I felt beautiful all day, and just as importantly, I was comfortable all day and night. I didn't wear any crazy undergarments like Spanx and I didn't have to tug up my dress to keep it from falling down. I was happy and comfortable and could focus on the day.

*All pictures by Leah LaRiccia Photography.

Letter Wednesdays: Dear Wedding Planning

2011-05-18T21:45:00.005-04:00

Note: I wrote this for the Wednesday before the wedding but didn't have time to finesse and publish it. I want to capture it here, even a month later.

Dear Wedding Planning,
You are a mixed bag of emotions. One minute its a high from finally deciding on wedding bands. Next its a soul-crushing low with the realization that the invites could potentially have been printed with the incorrect start time on it (saved in time, thank goodness). One day is all excitement about the small details that will personalize the wedding as our own; the next I'm willing to grab the dress and suit and exchange vows in city hall during a lunch break.

What a roller coaster the past 16 months have been.

On APW, Meg said once (I'm paraphrasing because I can't find the exact post) "I loved my wedding. And I never want to have to plan it again." That's how I can't wait to feel. I can't wait to love every minute of this coming weekend and enjoy it, and then, have it behind us...have all this planning, this (particular) stress, these tasks and to-dos...behind us.

Just as I was thinking how much I can't wait to just be married (yes, to this amazing guy, but also, selfishly so that I can be done planning..) I saw this post on Lauren's blog at the perfect time. It really hit home with me...her being so anxious to be in the next "phase" instead of taking stock of what "phase" I'm actually in. As she says, "I am trying to rush through this stage to get to the next one. And this weekend I reminded myself that this is a pretty great stage." I mean, I'm lucky and grateful to be planning a wedding that we can financially and logistically take care of, a wedding that our healthy family and friends will be able to attend, where my best friend becomes my husband. That is pretty great when you think about it in the scheme of things. The engagement period is trying, but also sweet, if only inherently because it is a finite period of time. It is bookended, with milestones... a proposal and a wedding. It seems hard to picture now, but some day far off, I could be thinking wistfully about that time in my life when I was planning a wedding. Again, Lauren nails it: "I believe that in stages that are not so peaceful, I will look back at this time and wish it could have lasted longer."

Isn't that the rub with most things? The grass is always greener, etc, etc? So I'm trying, in this very exhausting, busy, emotional week to take a deep breath and remember that this stage happens once and I could very well long for it later (maybe? after time has dulled the emotional exhaustion?).

Love to hate you,
Valery

Tuesday Tapas: 5/17

2011-05-17T21:49:00.002-04:00

As far as the government knows, my name is officially changed. I had some free time after an appointment last week, so I spent it doing what any red-blooded American does at some point in their life, if only to give them something to complain about: waited In lines at government offices. Nothing quite like sitting around public agencies like that to make you grateful for everything nice in your life. The hard benches and plastic chairs make me thankful for our living room couch, even if I've been bookmarking new styles for over a year. Hand sanitizer never seems to be strong enough, either, so you end up taking a hot shower as soon as you get home to feel clean again. And, somewhat obviously, it makes me feel incredibly lucky for the people in my life, especially after sitting at the Social Security office. Naively, I forgot that other transactions at the Social Security office are not as joyous as changing your name after marriage. Not so.
Also worth mentioning is the anxiety I had before these visits about having the correct forms and appropriate documentation. Some things I read made it sound like I needed my birth certificate but I couldn't find it the night before. I was armed with my marriage certificate, license and passport. And if they requested back-up identification, I was ready with my DSW rewards card (heh). Despite all this, the SS office only took the form and the marriage certificate from me. No ID whatsoever to prove I was who I said I was. I could've sent a proxy, if I knew a masochist who enjoyed waiting in line for other people (any takers?). I headed over to the DMV next, with the perception that I was about to waste my time trying. After all, the internet had told me I needed the actual SS card to get a new license (silly me didn't realize I'd have to wait to receive it in the mail). But it was literally next door so I figured I'd try. Good thing I did. Again I didn't have to prove my identity, and this time they didn't even care to see the marriage certificate. I could've picked a different last name, like Bananahammock. To be fair, he did ask if I had applied for an updated Social Security card. Eager to show any documentation, I practically whipped out of my purse the letter the SS office gave me as proof of my request. He didn't care to see it. Something tells me I could've quipped "Does James Brown get down?" as my answer and he would've continued processing just the same. Identity stealing tips aside, I now, 5-7 business days later, have new cards in my possession showing my new name. Now onto the really tedious part: banks, accounts, work, etc.
Unfortunately, the increase in gas prices coincides with tons of weekend plans scattered all over New England. This weekend alone I drove over 300 miles. It was an exhausting, long weekend, which I wished for my own couch at some points, but... But. The people I drove all those miles for really appreciated it. My presence really meant something and I am glad I sucked it up instead of choosing to bow out of any part of it just because I was tired or didn't want to. Sometimes you can just tell that being there, showing up, is such a big thing. Having a fantastic time and enjoying mimosas (or beers, depending on what time of day) doesn't hurt either. :)
I'm really flattered that we have gotten some requests about specific things from our wedding. People do notice the details. And they appreciate them. I hope to get my butt in gear and roll out a ton of posts I've been meaning to that specify our details for those who are curious. We also got our pro pics back too so I will have to exercise some self-control in holding out on some recaps for now. Soon, though, soon. Yesterday was one month already and I'm looking forward to going through the day again and reliving it with you.

Honeymoonin' Part II

2011-05-16T13:52:00.000-04:00

After we arrived at our room, we settled in for ten days / nine nights of warm weather, relaxing, and enjoying each other. To spare you the boredom of our day-by-day itinerary, it was a lot of sleeping in, eating, laying by our pool, ordering an afternoon snack from room service and going out to dinner. I actually don't have a ton of pictures since we used our new Flip camcorder for any excursions (which I *highly* recommend), but I'm putting a few in here, and using collage format to cram them in since they follow two themes: beautiful Caribbean scenery and camera-timer-self-portraits.

[typical gorgeous Caribbean views]

We had an absolute fantastic time; it was exactly what we needed. I managed to get through three books I brought with me, even though sometimes I was so relaxed that I would doze off mid-page. Several times Matt almost fell asleep floating in our pool on the raft. We did a few activities as well. We had a couples massage (gifted to us from my bridesmaids!). One day we went on a resort excursion to the rain forest to go zip lining. Neither of us had ever done that before and I was a bit nervous but it was really a great experience. So much fun to whiz among the trees and get to see some beautiful views. We also spent a day on an island tour, which included a speedboat tour, lunch at a local restaurant, views of the landmark Pitons, a bus trip to the drive in volcano to take a mud bath in the Sulphur Springs.

[the hallmark of a vacation alone... self portraits]

As for our stay at Sandals, everything was really great. If you've never been a couples-oriented resort like that (we hadn't), it's pretty much what you'd expect. They certainly know what their doing, with their romantic touches like turn-down service with rose petals. There was a lot of cheesiness...I'm almost positive Celine Dion songs were on repeat in the main building. Our room came with butler service, so we could call him to have him make dinner reservations, spa appointments, golf tee times, or to order room service. Not surprisingly, the main pool areas were always crowded with couples, so we were grateful to have our own private area to relax in. The room was gorgeous and the resort was nice and clean. It is the oldest of the three Sandals resorts on St. Lucia and has the most restaurants on it. We chose it (Regency La Toc) because it had the style of room we wanted and it was attached to the golf course (we ended up golfing only one day). The downside to this resort is that it is not known for its beach. The waves and surf were not the calm ripples you picture for a Caribbean island and most days they had a yellow flag flying to show the conditions were for advanced swimmers only. We took the shuttle to one of the other resorts (Grande) that is known for its beach and spent one day there. It was gorgeous and it was nice to get the beach feel for a bit.

St. Lucia itself was perfect for our ten day trip. For a shorter vacation (a more typical 7 day trip) I don't know if it would be at the top of my list. The mountains and rain forest of the island gave us plenty of excursions to pick from that you wouldn't be able to enjoy on a flatter island. But one downside was that the large airport was on the southernmost part of the island and required an hour-long car ride to get to the resort (although I've heard it is popular for people to land there and take a helicopter transfer to the smaller airport that is closer to the resorts). Also, there is something I like about a place like Aruba or St. Martin (only other Caribbean islands I've been to), with a sprawling beach on either side of you, as far as you can see. Even at the Sandals with the "good beach" it wasn't quite like that, it was more of a very small bay.

I think it was a great fit for our honeymoon trip. We enjoyed the excursions that the island had to offer and we had an amazing time, creating memories. We spent a lot of time reminiscing about the wedding day, enjoying being disconnected, recharging our batteries, and spending time together without errands to run or crafts to do. We overused the words 'husband' and 'wife.' It was perfect.

Honeymoonin' Part I

2011-05-12T11:15:00.000-04:00

When we returned home with a car-full of wedding gifts and reception decorations after the Sunday brunch, we still needed to pack but we were both exhausted. We were lazy for a bit, basking in the one-day-old marriage glow, then threw some clothes into a suitcase and went to bed early since our flight left very early the next morning.

We were both still out of it a bit when we were boarding the plane. We got to board early, since Matt's brother had arranged the plane tickets using his status with the airline and we flew first class for the first time ever. It couldn't have happened at a better time. The bigger seats, roomier legroom, and complementary blankets were perfect for our barely awake selves. They even served us breakfast! I didn't know they even did meals anymore on planes. It was pretty awesome.

[sunset from our room]

At our stop in Miami, we patiently waited at the gate, keeping ourselves busy with books. Slowly we started to realize that the line at the airline's gate desk was primarily made up of fresh-faced couples, several making small talk with other couples. Yep, it was pretty obvious that we were on a route very popular with honeymooners. We assumed they were all hoping to flash their "Just Married" tank tops and snag an upgrade. Then we snickered to ourselves as we saw the flight attendant shake her head back and forth after each couple asked. It was extra sweet, then, when we boarded as first class again. :) As we sat all comfy and settled in our roomy seats, watching the rest of the plane walk down the aisle to board, we realized we could be seeing all these couples again, at our resort. We aren't the most social people on vacation; we prefer to relax, decompress, and enjoy the time together quietly. Not so for many couples. One couple was even carrying an outdoor wireless speaker with them! To each their own, but it made us grateful that we had booked the particular type of room that we had...
We landed in St. Lucia and the airport has a designated Sandals area, where they group the guests onto buses for the ride to the resorts. There are three Sandals resorts on St. Lucia, and all of them are at least an hour from the major airport. The room we booked, though, qualified us for a private transfer, so we climbed into a nice car while we were driven to our hotel.
Of the three Sandals resorts, we chose the one that had a golf course attached to it. It was also the resort that offered the type of room we wanted, and had the most restaurants to offer (you can travel to and eat at any of the other Sandals restaurants). It was not the one known for the beach, but we didn't mind, because we booked a room that had its own pool...

[private plunge pool attached to our room]

Tuesday Tapas: 5/10

2011-05-10T11:42:00.000-04:00

Even with no wedding looming ahead, we still have a bit of a to-do list:

Thank you cards. I love getting thank you cards and sending them has been ingrained in me since I was little. I don't mind writing them too much, and I definitely don't want them to drag on and on. I want to get them out as soon as we possibly can, hopefully before the summer picks up and our weekends become full. I have a plan for them, we're just waiting on the files for our photos so I can design them.
Photo album. We opted not to get a professional album with our photographer's package, so once we get the files, we'll start combing through and choosing our favorites, then using an online service to design the pages and order it. I've heard that this can take a long time, and be up to a year later, but I'm hoping we can realistically get it done sooner rather than later.
Change my name. I am anxious to change my last name. I will be excited when it is officially official. The paperwork is overwhelming but I'm starting this week, hopefully with a trip to the Social Security office and the DMV.
Videos: Our Flip camcorder got passed around on our Wedding Day and we have over 100 videos to comb through and do something with. Also, our guest book was in video format, so we need to check those out. Plus any videos from our honeymoon. Plenty to keep us busy editing and putting together.
Updates. With the wedding day behind us, I think I'll make a few changes to the blog to freshen it up and update it to reflect that we are no longer in a planning stage.

Our summer feels like it's in full swing already, even though summer doesn't officially start until the end of June. We have ten weddings this year and all the pre-parties that come with it. Last weekend I was at a bridal shower; this weekend is full with a bachelorette party and a bridal shower (for two different girls). Next weekend is another bachelorette. Then in June I have another bachelorette and bridal shower, and we have two Saturday weddings, back-to-back. July there are three weddings and two bridal showers; August has two weddings, and September's got three. It'll be a busy few months, that's for sure. We're looking forward to all of them, I'm so excited!

Back.

2011-05-09T13:51:00.000-04:00

This Monday feels a bit different than last Monday. The sparkly wedding gleam is starting to fade into normal reality. I think I mentally took a big deep breath last week, and now I feel ready to go again. It's still hard to explain what this feels like, but it's kind of like a 'wedding hangover.' I think this weekend helped; I saw some friends and family and it started to feel like things were back to what they were before planning turned into a self-consuming ball of fire. Also, at the end of last week, a few things happened at work that went well; I felt focused and productive, and thought to myself, "I'm back."

With that in mind, we're expecting the files to our pro pics from our photographer soon so I'm hoping to start going through the wedding stuff, starting with things I already have pictures for, or just need to 'reveal.' I've gotten some questions from guests about several of our details so I definitely want to share how we made it all happen. I am delinquent in transferring the honeymoon pictures from our camera still, so I owe you a few of those too. We used our new Flip camcorder much more than our traditional camera, so I need to comb through the videos too and see what's worth sharing.

Stay tuned; I promise to be back in this space and sharing good things soon. I can't promise that I'll stick to the Tuesday Tapas and Letter Wednesdays while I'm catching up on wedding posts, but we'll see. And you may have to bear with me as I clear out some posts that I started writing the week before the wedding. I still want to post them even if they may be awkward timeline- and tense-wise.

[As a peace offering, here's one of my favorite (guest) pictures of us, getting announced into the reception. That is one intense grin on my face... :) Love the emotion.]

It's Monday and I'm feeling good.

Transitioning

2011-05-04T17:04:00.000-04:00

Bear with me, here. I know I alluded that I would get right back to posting regularly but it's not as easy as I thought it would be.

We may be back from the honeymoon, and yes, we are returning to a (new, married) normal, and yes, life without wedding planning is less hectic, but... I had been so emotionally ready for the planning stage to be over that I had assumed that this week would feel... clean? and... fresh... That a switch would be thrown and I'd be ready to dive right into whatever is next. I'm surprised to find out that it looks like a slower transition for me, emotionally and mentally.

Let me clarify that this isn't about going from engaged-to-Matt to married-to-Matt. That transition has been fabulous, seamless, easy. It's the transition from life-with-wedding-planning to life-without. What does that look like? What time did we used to go to bed? How many times a week do I actually want to work out (and can reasonably sustain) without the pressure of a wedding? Now that my brain doesn't feel like mush 90% of the time, do I really want so many mindless TV shows filling our DVR and clogging my weeknights? Without crafting tasks to complete every night, what kind of dinners do we want to try and make (and commit to making)? What kind of things do I want to post about on this blog and at what frequency?

This feels like a prompt for a fresh start and I'm trying to capitalize on the opportunity. I've found myself ruthlessly purging in almost all areas. I've cleaned out wedding emails from my inboxes. We organized out our closets and cabinets. I cancelled DVR series recordings to a bunch of shows I was regularly watching. I've unsubscribed from email newsletters and asked to be removed from lists for mail catalogs. I've become suspicious of anything seemingly wasteful of my time or energy. Somehow, the absence of the time-suck-that-is-wedding-planning has made me want to grab every wisp of free time/energy that I have and pull it in tight, protecting it, and asking myself what do I really want to spend it on?

It mean seem silly, thinking about it this much. Maybe my wheels are so used to spinning and turning about the wedding that its taking me some time to slow them down. People joked all along the engagement, "what will you do with your time after the wedding?" My stock answer was always "Nothing! Thank goodness!" Guess I'm still deciding...

[personal pic, view from our room on the honeymoon]

Back to Reality...

2011-05-02T12:08:00.000-04:00

Today is back to the real world... I'm back to work for the first time since April 13th, yikes! Our honeymoon was absolutely fabulous: a mix of relaxation, fun, and an intentional overuse of the words 'husband' and 'wife.' We got home Wednesday and had a few days to ourselves to get our house back in order. We still had shower gifts that we hadn't put away, plus wedding gifts and wedding decorations in boxes - you couldn't see the carpet in our dining room anymore. It was a really productive weekend though; we took it as motivation to go through every.single.kitchen.cabinet and reorganize. I also went through my closet as a transition from winter to spring clothes, and cleaned out our house in general. We ended up filling two car backseats with donations. It felt so refreshing.
Work thought it would be nice to "welcome me back" by decorating my cubicle. This is a pretty typical practice for when people return from sabbatical (8 week leave) but I guess for life events as well...).

This was the view from the outside of the cube.. they printed off an enlargement picture of some of the detail shots off our photographer's blog to act as a door...

...that kept all the yellow, gray and white balloons from spilling out into the hallway. And there are crepe paper banners crisscrossing across the top opening. It was a cute touch, and I had fun popping all of the balloons all morning. :)

Anyway I have so many blog posts in mind to spit out, but having trouble finding the energy to get to them (guess I'm still on island time?). In the meantime, I'll share a link to our immensely talented photographer's blog. I am dying to go through each detail and decision we made that wasn't published on the blog (and I totally owe you a dress reveal post) but, spoiler alert, here are the highlights. I love, love, LOVE the pictures. Honestly I was a little anxious on our honeymoon, desperate to see some proof that we didn't look (too) goofy in the photos. I was so relieved and happy to see her blog...hope you enjoy them as well: http://www.leahlaricciaphotography.com/blog/valery-and-matts-amazing-yellow-spring-wedding/

We did it!!

2011-04-17T21:07:00.000-04:00

We're MARRIED!! I'm SO happy. It was such a beautiful weekend. I had ambitious plans to have some pre-written posts scheduled for the next ten days while we're off honeymooning so I could share some things I kept secret (details, gifts, etc) but it fell low on the priority list in the whirlwind that is The Week Before, and I'm just so drained today. So, unfortunately, it will be radio silence until I get back. I had also intended for there to be some posts on this past Friday and Saturday but things escalated quickly last week.

Anyway, it was such a perfect weekend, everything happened just as we pictured it, and we were even early against the timeline for everything (which made the Type-A in me really excited). Thirty second summary: The rehearsal dinner was such a special time to spend with everyone; Saturday morning went slowly then sped up so fast. We did a first look (saw each other before the ceremony) and I bawled my eyes out (waterproof mascara was not impressive). Got that emotional release / good cry out of me and kept it together for the rest of the day (mostly). Our full mass seemed to go by in fifteen minutes tops, saw a stream of faces in our receiving line, took pictures outside (even though it was pretty chilly), joined our guests at the cocktail hour, pulled off our first dance, had a few quick bites to eat, and danced all night to an amazing band. I loved every single detail and decision we made along the way, and was so happy to be able to call Matt my husband.

The single best way I could figure out how to describe the whole day was to compare it to a ski lift.

You know the lift is coming. After watching the people in front of you go, you know it will approach slowly but swing around faster. You mentally prepare to feel the impact on the back of your knees, but are still surprised to actually feel it and then all of a sudden, you're whisked away, carried off the ground and you can't do much except sit back and hold on.

That's how Saturday felt. At the end of the night, I felt so....content. Satisfied. And very much ready to move on to a first full day of marriage with my husband. Very excited to be "on the other side." :)

I'll be back in ten days-ish with plenty of recaps and pics and details to share. Promise! Until then, some much-needed rest and relaxation.

(late) Tuesday Tapas: Wedding Week

2011-04-13T10:43:00.000-04:00

I know it's a day late, but things are nutty around here so bear with me.

We had a really productive weekend! It kicked off with a bang on Friday when one of my bridesmaids and Matt's brother came over for some serious craft/DIY time. We blew through a BUNCH of it and I was so happy with our progress. We fed them tacos to thank them :) and I don't think they held it against us that our house has been overtaken by a sea of gray and yellow items.
Saturday I had my final dress fitting and then took my dress home, eek!
Another thing I picked up on Saturday was an antibiotic for a sinus infection. Oh yes. I woke up on Saturday morning with my head in a fog, my throat sore, and my nose all congested. I stopped into one of those minute clinics at CVS and got an antibiotic. I'm so glad I did. I started to feel better slowly and today (Wednesday) is the first time I've woken up without a ton of head/face pressure. So it was a slight setback since I felt like crap for a bit this weekend but things are looking better!
Sunday was a lot of running around. We attended mass, had the ceremony program reviewed by the music director and priest, then went to Staples to have them and the menu cards printed. I finished our placecards and we finished a few other projects that I haven't mentioned on here to keep as surprises for our guests.
We finalized our music choices for the reception, like what songs the bridal party gets introduced to, and we went through the band's set list to pick some Must Play / Do Not Play songs. We picked up thank you cards for our bridal party gifts and wrapped them all.
Matt and I were talking last night about how surreal it is to say we're getting married this Saturday. I'm SOFRIGGINEXCITED. :)

Home Stretch

2011-04-11T13:11:00.000-04:00

So we're in the home stretch, people. 90% of the emails I'm sending right now contain some form of capital letters. Usually a W followed by a few hundred O's. Or YAY that trails off into infinity, but I can certainly work in the caps anywhere. The excitement level has DEFINITELY (see, there you go) overcome the stress level. What's funny is that now that the task list is diminishing, I realized I have mental energy to think about the smaller things like "how will our first dance go?" whereas the brain space for that before was taken up by "how many placecards do I need to make?"

One thing about being this close to the big day is showing up on the weather forecast. We knew all along that picking April in New England was a bit of a risk (although any month can bring who-knows-what-weather). We purposely picked locations where we enjoyed the insides of places, instead of falling in love with a beautiful garden and then being heartbroken when it rains. So I'm not going to be devastated if there are some showers on Saturday, and looking at the forecast so far, there will be. Even though I've tried so hard to not become emotionally attached to the weather, I am obviously hoping for the best. Dry weather (at the least!) would make travel and logistics easier. Blue skies and nice temperatures would just be bonuses. We'll see what happens. I'm not going to stress about it, but you can't ignore the weather when you're planning an event like this. I've got my yellow rainboots ready to go, in case, and we've got some large black golf umbrellas on order. This is one thing I am actively letting go of, since there is no way to control it. Rain or shine, we'll get married and have a blast.

Traditions: SOSNSBSB

2011-04-08T13:24:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned before that I already have my "something blue" covered, so I thought I'd mention the other items that cover that tradition. As a reminder, the saying goes: "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." I'll share some tidbits about the meaning behind it that I've found after googling.

Something Old: This is supposed to represent continuity with the bride's origin family and the past. I mentioned before my struggle between a statement necklace or simple and classic. No surprise, I decided to keep it simple and plain. I was going to wear a small diamond necklace that I wear every day, but my mom offered me something else. She recently had the diamond of her engagement ring from my father turned into a necklace that she wears. It's a bigger diamond than my current necklace, so it stands out a little bit more, and the chain is nice and sparkly. And of course, there's the obvious sentimental value. I think it's the perfect "something old."

Something New: This represents hope and optimism for the couple's life ahead. There are so many obvious symbols for this. My new dress, that was such a nightmare to find but ultimately ended up being exactly what I wanted. My yellow shoes that I will dance all night in with my husband.

Something Borrowed: This has one of the cutest explanations. It is supposed to be an item from a happily married friend or family member, with the representation that the good fortune will carry over to the newlyweds. I can't think of anything more fitting than the small Bible I will carry down the aisle. It belongs to Matt's grandmother and several family members have carried it on their wedding day. It's a nice tradition to honor, sharing that item with so many other happy couples in Matt's family. But also, I think it speaks to the marriage of Matt's grandparents, which I had the pleasure of witnessing in the past few years. Although Matt's grandfather sadly passed at the beginning of the year, the two of them had a marriage that we'd be lucky to even come close to embodying. I'm honored to carry an item with so much history and such emotion and sentiment attached to it.

Something Blue: I mentioned once that I'll be pinning Matt's fraternity pin to my dress, which has a lot of meaning to us, since during our senior year he formally "pinned" me, and I purchased a hand-sewn tag with my maiden name initials and date in blue thread that is attached to the inside of my dress.