LONG STORYYYYY ABOUT WEDDINGZ ZOMG
OH HI INTERNET.
Did you want to see some wedding pictures? Here are some wedding pictures. I will put a few in this post, actually, to illustrate my story...
We tried to be low-stress on it. We had lots of help from our family and friends to try to reduce costs (but it was still super expensive!). Our place was a banquet room at a restaurant a few minutes from our house, which was on the small side - we had room for about 110 people including ourselves. We sent out our invites.. and had NO declines. There were three people from my Ohio family who weren't coming (but the other five were), and that's about it. Then we had a bunch of people ask if their SOs could come, so we made seating arrangements to fit them all in. It worked out, but we had to switch from buffet to family style serving to accommodate all the tables. I guess the sheer number of guests (and not getting to invite some people I wish we could have) was the most stressful part.
The invitations were from etsy - these, but the seller did them up in a green and blue palette.
I also got a guestbook from etsy. It's small and has an alligator on it. My mom picked up some pens that were wood carved to look like alligators.
For the decor.. I had the coordinator at the restaurant rent lime green tablecloths. My mom has worked in wholesale/farming with flowers for a long time, so she got all of that together. Since our cake, tablecloths, and my dress were all in shades of blue and green, we chose gerbera daisies in all their simple pink, yellow, and orange glory, in several different sizes and stem lengths. Mom also picked out a few bunches of a purple flower that I can't remember then name of. She also has tons of vases in all shapes, sizes, styles, and colors, so we picked out a whole bunch of them and supplemented them with inexpensive glass ones from Ikea, Target, and Michaels. On Friday afternoon the restaurant was setting up the tables, so we came in and put a cluster of three different vases on each table.
Bill's mom had M&Ms made with the cats' faces and our names and the date on them. She put them in little turquoise tulle bags for the favors.
All of this together:
We ordered our cake from Vegan Treats bakery in Bethlehem, PA. We aren't vegan, but Vegan Treats is THE BEST CAKE. We got 70 cupcakes in addition to the cake, so people would get to try a few different things. I'm pretty sure all of it got eaten - we weren't going to save the top layer, but the restaurant did it. Oh well, more cake for us. My friend Michelle helped me put together little flags for the cupcakes - they're chopsticks and construction paper, held up with vintage wooden spools of thread.
And my dress.. This is a bridesmaid dress from the company Saison Blanche. I don't do white or offwhite or whatever; and I'm just not a giant gown kind of person. I was also quite averse to the idea of making my own dress from scratch - I am a competent stitcher in general, but my experience with wearables is low. So I picked up a dress I liked on its own, but one I could easily modify just a little bit to make it a little bit more me-ish. The company lets you buy extra fabric in any color, so I picked out another blue and a green to use for the mods.
So it went from this..
To this:
Here are the scallops all piled on top of each other before being put on the dress:
The fabric I used to back the green part is vintage barkcloth my great grandmother bought in Hawaii. She gave it to my mom to try to convince her to take up sewing, but it clearly did not work, since I have it now. I wanted to use it because I thought it would be nice to have the super bright fabric peek out of the bottom, and for the symbolic thing to make my mom get weepy (my great grandmother died about 22 years ago).
I wore a turquoise yo-yo barrette from etsy in my hair.
And speaking of hair, I got my hair and makeup done here.
These are the shoes I wore, from a company called Poetic Licence. They are absolutely ludicrous (so are the brand's other styles!) and everyone was taking pictures of them during the reception, haha.
Our rings.. Um crap, I don't have pictures. Bill bought his from the same craft gallery/store that he bought my engagement ring. It's multiple metals layered together to be sort of stripey. Since my other ring is somewhat oddly shaped, I asked my friend Melody (who is an awesome jeweler) to make me a band with a cutout that would fit against it. She made a model and had it cast in rose gold. It is super cool and they fit together awesomely.
We decided it would be awesome if our friend Micah was our officiant. After laughing for two minutes when we asked, he agreed to do it. So we got him ordained on the internet. Bill searched for nonspiritual/nonreligious text to use, and we picked out things we liked and jammed them all together. Some of our friends had a bet on how long the ceremony would last - the over/under was six minutes, and it came in at about four and a half. WE ARE VERY TO THE POINT.
Then there were a bunch of pictures taken of us doing various things like air guitar,
and then more pictures with people in our families,
and then food and cake and dancing,
and our parents inexplicably disappearing and returning in Three Wolf Moon tshirts,
and more dancing,
and then suddenly it was time for the traditional wedding-ending "Livin' On A Prayer" singalong,
Lots of people went to the hotel to hang out. Bill and I went home for a bit of between-party resting and to get changed.
Then we went to the hotel with a lot of my family and our friends, where my cousin Mia and possibly some other people conspired to get me incredibly drunk, which definitely happened, and I only remember the night in sections. My mom ordered lots of pizzas. Lots of us were rrreeeeeeeeallllly wasted. The night definitely ended with me barfing on purpose to feel better and then sitting on the ladies' room floor in the hotel lobby with my aunt, at least one or two cousins, and some friends, and talking about what a lovely place it was to be. I probably haven't been that drunk ever, but didn't mind getting sick and had a great time.. oops!
Did you want to see some wedding pictures? Here are some wedding pictures. I will put a few in this post, actually, to illustrate my story...
We tried to be low-stress on it. We had lots of help from our family and friends to try to reduce costs (but it was still super expensive!). Our place was a banquet room at a restaurant a few minutes from our house, which was on the small side - we had room for about 110 people including ourselves. We sent out our invites.. and had NO declines. There were three people from my Ohio family who weren't coming (but the other five were), and that's about it. Then we had a bunch of people ask if their SOs could come, so we made seating arrangements to fit them all in. It worked out, but we had to switch from buffet to family style serving to accommodate all the tables. I guess the sheer number of guests (and not getting to invite some people I wish we could have) was the most stressful part.
The invitations were from etsy - these, but the seller did them up in a green and blue palette.
I also got a guestbook from etsy. It's small and has an alligator on it. My mom picked up some pens that were wood carved to look like alligators.
For the decor.. I had the coordinator at the restaurant rent lime green tablecloths. My mom has worked in wholesale/farming with flowers for a long time, so she got all of that together. Since our cake, tablecloths, and my dress were all in shades of blue and green, we chose gerbera daisies in all their simple pink, yellow, and orange glory, in several different sizes and stem lengths. Mom also picked out a few bunches of a purple flower that I can't remember then name of. She also has tons of vases in all shapes, sizes, styles, and colors, so we picked out a whole bunch of them and supplemented them with inexpensive glass ones from Ikea, Target, and Michaels. On Friday afternoon the restaurant was setting up the tables, so we came in and put a cluster of three different vases on each table.
Bill's mom had M&Ms made with the cats' faces and our names and the date on them. She put them in little turquoise tulle bags for the favors.
All of this together:
We ordered our cake from Vegan Treats bakery in Bethlehem, PA. We aren't vegan, but Vegan Treats is THE BEST CAKE. We got 70 cupcakes in addition to the cake, so people would get to try a few different things. I'm pretty sure all of it got eaten - we weren't going to save the top layer, but the restaurant did it. Oh well, more cake for us. My friend Michelle helped me put together little flags for the cupcakes - they're chopsticks and construction paper, held up with vintage wooden spools of thread.
And my dress.. This is a bridesmaid dress from the company Saison Blanche. I don't do white or offwhite or whatever; and I'm just not a giant gown kind of person. I was also quite averse to the idea of making my own dress from scratch - I am a competent stitcher in general, but my experience with wearables is low. So I picked up a dress I liked on its own, but one I could easily modify just a little bit to make it a little bit more me-ish. The company lets you buy extra fabric in any color, so I picked out another blue and a green to use for the mods.
So it went from this..
To this:
Here are the scallops all piled on top of each other before being put on the dress:
The fabric I used to back the green part is vintage barkcloth my great grandmother bought in Hawaii. She gave it to my mom to try to convince her to take up sewing, but it clearly did not work, since I have it now. I wanted to use it because I thought it would be nice to have the super bright fabric peek out of the bottom, and for the symbolic thing to make my mom get weepy (my great grandmother died about 22 years ago).
I wore a turquoise yo-yo barrette from etsy in my hair.
And speaking of hair, I got my hair and makeup done here.
These are the shoes I wore, from a company called Poetic Licence. They are absolutely ludicrous (so are the brand's other styles!) and everyone was taking pictures of them during the reception, haha.
Our rings.. Um crap, I don't have pictures. Bill bought his from the same craft gallery/store that he bought my engagement ring. It's multiple metals layered together to be sort of stripey. Since my other ring is somewhat oddly shaped, I asked my friend Melody (who is an awesome jeweler) to make me a band with a cutout that would fit against it. She made a model and had it cast in rose gold. It is super cool and they fit together awesomely.
We decided it would be awesome if our friend Micah was our officiant. After laughing for two minutes when we asked, he agreed to do it. So we got him ordained on the internet. Bill searched for nonspiritual/nonreligious text to use, and we picked out things we liked and jammed them all together. Some of our friends had a bet on how long the ceremony would last - the over/under was six minutes, and it came in at about four and a half. WE ARE VERY TO THE POINT.
Then there were a bunch of pictures taken of us doing various things like air guitar,
and then more pictures with people in our families,
and then food and cake and dancing,
and our parents inexplicably disappearing and returning in Three Wolf Moon tshirts,
and more dancing,
and then suddenly it was time for the traditional wedding-ending "Livin' On A Prayer" singalong,
Lots of people went to the hotel to hang out. Bill and I went home for a bit of between-party resting and to get changed.
Then we went to the hotel with a lot of my family and our friends, where my cousin Mia and possibly some other people conspired to get me incredibly drunk, which definitely happened, and I only remember the night in sections. My mom ordered lots of pizzas. Lots of us were rrreeeeeeeeallllly wasted. The night definitely ended with me barfing on purpose to feel better and then sitting on the ladies' room floor in the hotel lobby with my aunt, at least one or two cousins, and some friends, and talking about what a lovely place it was to be. I probably haven't been that drunk ever, but didn't mind getting sick and had a great time.. oops!