Eileen and Travis are Getting Married

Under the Harvest Moon: First Dances

2010-11-30T22:47:00.000-08:00

I would like it to start this post out by letting it be known that Mr. Moonbeam did enjoy himself, see proof below, he may 'hate' dancing, but that smile on his face makes me think otherwise.

After the Grand March, we began our first dance as husband and wife surrounded by all of our guests.

Photo taken by Aunt Annie

We chose to dance to 'This Will Be Our Year' by The Zombies. It's two and a half minutes long (a short song was a big want from Mr. Moonbeam) and I'm in love with the lyrics. 'The warmth of your love is like the warmth of the sun' would have to be my absolute favorite line.

I don't know if it's warmth or confusion with dance steps in his face, but I'll take it.

Mr. Moonbeam also loves all things Zombies (the walking dead kind, not just the band), so it was kind of perfect.

We never got around to dance lessons (maybe Mr. Moonbeam refused to do them), but I did convince him to follow along to some online foxtrot tutorials in our living room We learned enough to move around the dance floor and execute some twirls rather than just sway for 2.5 minutes. It ended up being just fine, and check out my dress in action!

Then Daddy Moonbeam and I danced to 'It's a Wonderful World' by Louis Armstrong. Daddy Moonbeam narrowed it down to a couple of classics and I picked this one. It's just lovely.

Mr. Moonbeam and his mother danced to 'You Can Never Hold Back Spring' by Tom Waits. Mr. Moonbeam chose this one all by himself. I don't really think it had much sentimental meaning, it's just a danceable song by his favorite singer of all time.

Photo taken by Uncle Chris

Then we had a dance with all of the bridal party paired off and guests joined in towards the end.

All photos taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me unless otherwise noted.

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Under the Harvest Moon: The Grand March

2010-11-16T22:35:00.000-08:00

Our first anniversary is this Sunday, and while it doesn't look like I'll finish my recaps by then, I am close and I'm really happy my favorite part of the night is up next in the recaps. It's been quite a year and I'm really glad to look back on this extremely fun half hour.

I have a feeling 'The Grand March' changes itself up for various cultures around the globe, but Mr. Moonbeam is part Czech and it's that part of his family that partakes in this fantastic tradition.

Mr. MB's Aunt and Uncle led everybody throughout the dance. All of the ladies lined up behind Aunt Debbie and all of the gents lined up behind Uncle Mark. (Leaders first, then bride and groom, then bridal party, then the guests).

The only real rule is to follow the person in front of you, and it's not terribly necessary that there only be ladies in the ladies line or gents in the gents line, or that there even be a pair of people in each section. As you can see, we had all kinds of links in our chain.

They snaked us around the dance floor by simply marching to a polka beat with an occasional twirl for the ladies.

Then the ladies line diverged from the mens line and we had two lines snaking around the dance floor. The lines got a bit tangled, but I think that's supposed to be part of the fun.

After a bit of that the two lines met up again and started making a human tunnel. Go through the tunnel and add a piece to it, once everyone has gone through the leaders start unmaking the tunnel and going through what is left.

For those who have never done this, apparently pinching and mildly inappropriate patting is the norm, especially if you're the bride and have on a huge skirt that no one can actually feel your anatomy through.

Then a little more snaking around the dance floor until the bride and groom are pushed into the center surrounded by an inner circle of the bridal party, then an outer circle of guests.

The bride and groom dance around in the center and the circles of guests keep dancing around, occasionally raising their arms and moving inward to crowd the bride and groom for a bit before moving outward again.

At some point, the first dance song comes on and the guests stand around and allow the formal dances to start.

Photo taken by Aunt Annie (and definitely my favorite picture of the night)

The whole thing takes about 20-30 minutes and is a great way to get everyone in on the fun. There's no real skill involved, so even non-dancers can partake, but I was still twirled a lot and was therefore supremely happy.

All photos taken and edited by John and Whitney Canales unless otherwise noted.

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Under the Harvest Moon: Cake

2010-11-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

Now it was time for cake. I think the general rule is to save this for a little later, because apparently many people think it's the 'end' of the reception. I didn't really know that, and I just wanted cake, so we cut it. A few people left earlier because of it, which kind of stinks, but I needed cake.

Photo taken by London 'Maid

My sister and her friend made 'the' cake (chocolate with cream cheese frosting), I made the topper. I'd just like to mention how in love I was with the homespun look of our cake. I talked with my sister a few days before the wedding, when on a whim I decided I wanted a 'faded Tiffany blue' cake. I sketched her something about 2" square and she and her friend made it happen.

Photo taken by London 'Maid

Daddy MB made a couple of the cakes (chocolate pound cake, nameless cake, lemon chiffon cake) and some cookies (snickerdoodles, ginger snaps) with help from Grandma MB. My Great Uncle made some impossible coconut pies, and my old roomie made a flourless chocolate cake.

Photo taken by London 'Maid

Mr. MB's family got jam filled kolaches from the small town his Nana and Papaw are from. (It was a great stop for Mr. MB and his family on their way into San Antonio from Houston, he met some distant relatives, saw the church his grandparents were married in and saw the house his Nana grew up in).

The groom's cake was made at Haby's Bakery in Castroville, it was brownie cake with chocolate frosting. Mr. MB loves films, so he got a movie camera on his cake.

Seriously, it was a great spread, and with my overwhelming love for dessert and all things baked, it was really appropriate.

Then, I decided that right before we cut the cake (and everyone was already standing around watching) was the perfect time to explain to Mr. MB how it was all gonna go down.

Now that we had a plan, It was time to get down to business.

We also cut the Groom's cake for good measure.

Do you notice my face, full of hope and excitement that the piece of cake won't fall on my dress.

Mmm, seriously, it was good, and I tried almost every dessert on that table. But I did let everyone else dig in.

Hungry yet?

All photos taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me, unless otherwise noted.

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Reception: Part 3

2010-11-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

It's speech time. Momma MB gave a little welcome and thank you to everyone for coming out and then introduced our MOH and Best Man for the speeches.

Sista' MB was up first. She gets a bit nervous with public speaking, but she had it all planned out and had been memorizing. I even got to hear a practice run. I love that she took her role so seriously, and it worked out perfectly.

She started off giving Mr. MB his new title: BBILF (buh-bilf). Best brother in law forever, stress on the forever part. Then she gave him a few tips on how to deal with me (his doubly married, super for real wife). You know, the usual: make sure I'm fed and make sure I get enough sleep.

Photo by Uncle Chris.

She got laughs from us and everyone else. It was a very appropriate welcome for Mr. MB into our family and Sista' MB was super excited to be done with her most nerve wracking MOH task.

Then it was BIL MB's turn. His speech was more of the heartfelt variety. He talked about how caring Mr. MB is and how great it was to see him with somebody that made him happy (that would be me, cough).

Below is my make-a-weird-expression-to-avoid-crying face. Thanks BIL MB.

Then a hug or two and the speeches were done.

On a side note: we had the toasting flutes that have 'Bride' and 'Groom' written on them. I noticed in some of the pictures (very magnified) that Mr. MB had the 'Bride' glass and I had the 'Groom' glass. Eh, details.

All photos taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me unless otherwise noted.

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Reception: Part 2

Reception: Part 1

Our portraits

Under the Harvest Moon: Reception Part 2

2010-10-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

The Food!

I'm not going to lie, I didn't put much thought into the food. For apps we had standard veggie, fruit and cheese trays that were gone before Mr. MB and I even got there, whoops. And for dinner I knew my budget, my location and the limits of catered food and went for the old Texas standby: BBQ.

Source

Momma MB is from the south side of San Antonio and remembered going to Snoga's when she was younger. Since our wedding was just outside of southern San Antonio, she knew that was where we'd be getting our food. Lucky for us, it was unbelievably reasonable, downright cheap. I think it came out to about $5.50/person for brisket & sausage topped with lovely bbq sauce, potato salad, pinto beans, cole slaw, white bread and iced tea. Side notes for non-Texans, the cole slaw was vinegar based (immensely preferable to mayo based) and white bread is an absolute must with BBQ.

Photo taken by London 'maid and edited by me

Usually BBQ goes hand in hand with a not-so-great thing: styrofoam. I didn't want dinner to be served on styrofoam plates, so we ordered compostable plates for dinner, and small little compostable trays for apps and dessert. Unfortunately, I forgot about the styrofoam cups the tea was being served in. Well, I tried. I bought the plates and trays from WorldCentric, an online biocompostables retailer. They were sturdy, I liked the unbleached color and I thought they were well priced.

Photo taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me

Now, we often hear brides talk about not getting a second to eat, but that was never going to be me. No one wants to see me hungry in my everyday life, so hunger, plus lack of sleep, plus stress of being 'on' all day meant that eating was necessary if a meltdown was to be avoided.

I personally love how much space my dress takes up. Ladies, keep in mind the fact that you often have to make room for your garment.

Photo taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me

Photo taken by Aunt Annie and edited by me

Oh, and sorry for the short hiatus, I was in the Philippines!

Personal photo

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Reception: Part 1

Our portraits

Under the Harvest Moon: Reception Part 1

2010-10-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

We didn't really do an entrance, there wasn't an announcement or anything. We just waited until everyone was there and settled (and we'd taken some pictures) and then walked into our reception, hand in hand as
a team.

Photo taken by London 'maid

We waved 'hello', got some applause and started mingling.

We ditched our bouquets.

Checked out our jazz band

Then I had a mini portrait session when our photographer caught me up by the photobooth. (edited by me)

What am I supposed to do here? (edited by me)

(edited by me)

And what would a Texas reception hall be without some antlers? (Taken by Uncle Chris)

Up next in reception posts: cake, dancing and speeches.

All photos taken and edited by John and Whitney Canales unless otherwise noted.

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Our portraits

Pics of the bridal party
The ceremony
Walking down the aisle
Getting ready
The last night
Rehearsal dinner
Some last minute projects
Sorry for the delay

Under the Harvest Moon: Pictures of a Couple in Love

2010-10-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Next, we headed over to an area near the reception hall and took a few shots of just Mr. Moonbeam and I.

We stole a kiss

Grabbed a seat

Checked out our new hardware

Took a moment to reflect

Kissing is much less awkward without your siblings watching

This is pretty typical of us: Mr. Moonbeam kissing my nose, me scrunching up my face in mild protest

Just being close and happy about our recent declarations in front of friends and family.

All photos taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me

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Under the Harvest Moon: Bridal Party Photos

2010-10-04T22:03:00.000-07:00

After the ceremony I grabbed my ladies, Mr. Moonbeam grabbed his guys and we walked around the church grounds and took some pictures.

Sista MB helped me with my dress

edited by me

We showed off the flowers

We played it cool

Then we struck a silly pose, I have no connection to Charlie's Angels, I don't know why we did this, I should've thought some things out.

We got ready for a jump (edited by me)

We caught some air (edited by me)

We smooched (I'm not gonna lie, this felt totally awkward)

For some reason I thought a game of Red Rover was a good idea

Don't ask me why, again should have come up with ideas beforehand

I guess Red Rover had it's moments

maybe?

Loved this picture so much, you get it twice

Color edit by me

So suave

Now for 'the poses'.

All photos taken and edited by John and Whitney Canales unless otherwise noted.

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Walking Down the Aisle

Getting Ready

Under the Harvest Moon: The Ceremony

2010-09-30T23:20:00.000-07:00

When I left off, we'd just made it up to the altar. Our priest then welcomed everybody and proceeded to pay our flower girls and ring bearer for doing such a wonderful job.

Photo by Uncle Chris

Some flower girls...

ended up with more than the $1 they were paid by the priest, while some might have been swindled for flower petals during the ceremony. Tricksy flower girls.

Then he made sure Granny got her purse back, someone held it for her at the back of the church for her walk down the aisle and he wanted to make sure she got it back.

Photo by Aunt Annie

Our ceremony was fairly standard, I found this website helpful in choosing. My Aunt read Tobit 8:5-7. Mr. Moonbeam's cousin read Corinthians 12:31-13:8. For the Gospel we chose, John 15:9-12

During the ceremony, our priest had Sista MB and BIL MB tell our guests what they thought our greatest strengths were.

Sista MB getting her instructions. Photo by Uncle Chris

And I let her know (via a sneaky face) that it better be good. Photo by Aunt Annie.

Sista MB told our guests that my independence was my greatest quality (I was super pleased to know that's what she thinks). Our priest (a longtime family friend) commented that independence is great, but that I shouldn't really let it edge over to stubbornness like Momma MB had. This led to a pretty good laugh from the guests (Momma MB was probably laughing the hardest).

Photo by Aunt Annie

BIL MB was caught off guard, but pulled it together and told our guests about Mr. MB's caring attitude towards others (I'd have to agree with this).

Then it was time for the actual marriage part (we did the traditional vows for this ceremony) and for me to cry.

Photo by Aunt Annie

We exchanged rings

Photo by Aunt Annie

and a kiss.

Then our cousins brought up the Eucharist.

Photo by Uncle Chris

At this point it was time to remember our loved ones, lost. We had our grandmothers light candles of remembrance for our grandfathers who had passed. This was especially important to us because Mr. MB's step-grandfather had passed only a few months before.

Photo by Aunt Annie

Afterward our uncles acted as Eucharistic Ministers for communion (the great part of a full Catholic mass is that there are so many ways to get family involved).

Photo by Uncle Chris

Then my favorite part of mass, the Sign of Peace, who doesn't love a few hugs from your new family.

Photo by Uncle Chris

After the ceremony, we were announced as 'Travis and Eileen, husband and wife' (thanks for finding a nice way to avoid the Mr. and Mrs. shared last name that I didn't take).

Photo by Uncle Chris

We walked down the aisle,

Aunt Annie snapped this picture from the balcony.

Photo by Aunt Annie

And we waited outside to greet our guests.

Some people were asking me during the planning stages what would happen at a Catholic ceremony if you were already legally married. I wasn't terribly worried about what was going to happen, I just wanted to be married by our family's favorite priest. But, for those who want to know, our priest chose to reword some parts of the ceremony, they were subtle and I didn't realize it until well into the ceremony, but he said things like 'recommit to each other', 'kiss for old times sake' instead of kiss the bride.

All photos taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me unless otherwise noted.

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Walking Down the Aisle

Getting Ready

Under the Harvest Moon: Something Involving an Aisle

2010-09-28T23:28:00.000-07:00

So, we were running 30 minutes late (sorry guests), but the time had finally arrived. All the guests were seated, our guitarist was playing and it was time for the processional.

Grandma Moonbeam started it off with an escort from my cousin.

Up next were Daddy Moonbeam's parents.

Followed by Mr. Moonbeam's Granny, escorted by BIL Moonbeam.

And Mr. Moonbeam's Nana and Papaw.

Then Mr. Moonbeam's parents made their way.

Next, Momma Moonbeam made her way down, escorted by Brother MB.

London 'maid and Groomsman Greg started off the bridal party.

Followed by Seattle 'maid and her entourage, Groomsmen John and DW.

Brother Moonbeam made another appearance, this time escorting Cuz 'maid.

Our traveling troupe of adorableness came next. (I never posted about it, but they're carrying wire and wicker baskets with sheer, iridescent ribbon knotted to the top wire)

Then, Sista Moonbeam headed down the aisle.

Now, it was time for Daddy Moonbeam and I to head down, one last picture outside.

Picture taken by Aunt Annie.

And, we're off.

Still going, but Mr. Moonbeam's in my sights now.

The hand off.

Just a couple of steps to get to the altar (please no tripping).

And, we've arrived. Up next the ceremony.

All photos taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me unless otherwise noted.

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Getting Ready

Under the Harvest Moon: Getting Ready

2010-09-22T23:28:00.000-07:00

I woke up way too early the morning of our wedding day. No one was up and since our reception venue was steps away from the cottage I was staying in with my bridesmaid's I headed over to see it again. Linda and her helpers had put most of the flowers in the venue refrigerator, so I checked out the centerpieces. The tables and linens were being put up, but what I was most excited about was the fact that it was glorious and sunny. It was a welcome change from the buckets of rain from the night before.

So, my ladies and I headed out to a huge breakfast at a local diner, everything really is bigger in Texas. Then we went back to the cottage, checked out what was going on at the venue and did a little setting up. Lots of family members were there lending helping hands, thanks again everyone. Then Seattle 'maid tore me away from setting up and forced me to go and shower and start getting ready. I showered, submitted some job applications (I was still unemployed at the time) and started to feel bridal.

I had great friends and family around

I had Cuz 'maid do my makeup, she may be younger, but she is far superior than me in her knowledge of makeup, hair and other things that some ladies know about. She's a whiz at all the girly stuff and helped all the bridesmaids and myself out. Thanks Megan!

I consulted with some friends before the wedding and came up with this makeup cocktail.

Smashbox Photo Finish Primer (light)

Dior Airflash Spray Foundation (color 300)

Bare Minerals Bronzer

Maybelline Superstay Gloss (color 105)

Maybelline the Colossal Volum' Express Mascara

Whatever eyeshadow my cousin had on hand and that was it. I had my first facial a few days before the wedding, so my skin was feelin' good and in keeping with my standard style the makeup was pretty simple and clean.

For hair, I might have put some texture putty in my hair or not, don't remember. But, to get the birdcage veil in there I took the advice of my old neighbor (a makeup artist and hair stylist).

Tease a tuft of hair for the veil comb to go into, spray it with hairspray and tease again, spray one more time and stick the veil comb in. Then lay the veil where you want it, and hairspray it into shape. It came out once when someone got a piece of it in the middle of a hug, but I stuck it back in and it stayed in place all night.

After the prettification, we headed over to the church.

When we got there the rectory was buzzing. Corsages and bouts were being handed out. Flower girls were dressed (in Momma Moonbeam couture) and ready to go.

My cousin helped me behead some roses, so that those sweet little ladies could have some petals to throw around.

Grandma Moonbeam did a final pressing of my dress.

Photo by Aunt Annie

And my ladies were on hand to help me get into it!

Photo by Aunt Annie

The guys didn't get together to get dressed, but they were all at the church on time (unlike me) and ready to go.

A quick shot of Brother and Sister Moonbeam. Brother Moonbeam even shaved without me asking him to!

Photo by Aunt Annie

And back to me... and my dress. In all it's French-seamed-by-Momma-Moonbeam loveliness.

The requisite army of people to put the thing on without messing up hair and makeup.

Attaching the family heirloom lace train, it's removable so other ladies in my family can use it. But I get to keep it, sorry first daughter's right.

Aunt Eileen putting on the heirloom necklace that I borrowed from Daddy Moonbeam's side of the family.

Then London 'maid helped me with my garter.

It started out innocently enough... and then giggles, lots of them.

A few pictures of me and my ladies.

Check out the flowers! So bright and happy.

Taking a second with Momma Moonbeam.

Then it was a short walk to the church doors, where my littlest cousin met up with me.

And here is a gratuitous shot of my train and full skirt.

We had a few minutes outside as everyone started making their way inside, and pretty soon it was all gonna go down.

But since I had a few minutes to kill.

Aunt Annie took a couple of shots of my flowers, complete with embroidered handkerchief from Mr. Moonbeam's family.

And me.

All photos taken by John and Whitney Canales and edited by me unless otherwise noted.

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Under the Harvest Moon: The Night Before

2010-09-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

After the rehearsal dinner, we stopped off at the girl's cottage so that my bridesmaid's and I could choose which flowers we wanted in our bouquets. Momma Moonbeam and I bought about $250 worth of flowers from HEB on Thursday afternoon and we just kept the flowers in buckets of water and left them on the front porch in the evening (it was cool out at night in November).

We laid out garbage bags and just started out trimming all the extra foliage off. There were sunflowers and lots of mums.

There were more mums in tons of colors.

We also used a lot of filler, dried (and dyed) eucalyptus, million star, I think the green berries are called hypericum and I don't know what the yellow is called, but I really liked it.

Then we left Momma Moonbeam, her best friend and my Aunt to bouquet making duties.

Thanks so much to Linda for heading up the flowers, she had a lot of helpers as well, but she's DIY-ed wedding flowers before and knew how to get them done.

Most of the bridal party (those of age anyway) headed out for a fun evening. It was great to meet up with family and old friends from San Antonio, college and Seattle. We started out chatting and catching up at a dive bar. Then we headed out to a more lively bar for some dancing (I even got Mr. Moonbeam to dance with me for about 5 whole minutes).

Having a good time with my gals from Seattle.

And to round out the night, we hit up a taco truck before heading home for a few hours of beauty sleep.

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Under the Harvest Moon: Rehearsal Dinner

2010-09-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

So, it all happened on a crazy, stormy night in Texas, which left me slightly worried about our outdoor dance floor the next night. But, the only real effect was that I switched my shoes for the night from heels to flats because of the mud (though, let's be honest, I totally would've wussed out on the heels anyway).

I don't seem to have any pictures of the actual rehearsal, but London 'maid did steal my camera for a sec to get these shots.

London 'maid (fresh from her long journey) and I

Mr. Moonbeam, seems like he was in a good mood

After we rehearsed we headed over to the party, graciously hosted by Mr. Moonbeam's parents at the Alsatian in the Hotel Alsace. This was the hotel that many of our out-of-town guests stayed at, and where Mr. Moonbeam and I spent a couple of days after the wedding. It was already booked (and admittedly a bit out of our price range) for the date of the wedding, but I would recommend this place for anybody hosting events in Castroville. We chatted with the owner (very nice and professional), had many meals there (very good) and it's a great looking place (I'd call it contemporary Hill Country).

There were a few entrée options in the buffet, plenty of iced tea, and a beach themed cake and 'sandy' cupcakes for dessert (a nod to our beach wedding).

It was all very yummy.

I don't seem to have close-ups of the dessert, but they're in the back there next to our signature photo-mat.

Then it was time for Mr. Moonbeam to give a toast. I think he really enjoyed clanging a knife on the glass. I honestly don't remember much of what was said, but I'm sure it involved thanking our parents and families for being awesome.

It also involved a shout out to his Mother. Our rehearsal dinner fell on her birthday, and I think she was very touched that we took a moment to acknowledge it.

Then, it was time to hand out gifts to bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls, our ring bearer, readers, ushers and of course, our parents.

Our ring bearer looks excited.

Momma Moonbeam with her gift (the parents got picture books of our beach wedding)

And then MIL Moonbeam brought out the best surprise. She printed out copies of Mr. Moonbeam's original email to his parents about the girl he met on his study abroad program in Italy. He told them I was a tall, dark-haired girl that looked like Logan Tom (she had shorter hair back then and had recently been all over the Olympics). It was just a few lines, but I don't think I had ever read it before.

It was the sweetest detail, and it got a few laughs.

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Under the Harvest Moon: Some Last Minute Projects

2010-09-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

I went to Texas a little over a week before the wedding to take care of last minute things, visit with family and give my Mom a chance to work on the dress while seeing it on me.

One of those projects was our favors. I had a grand scheme of having recipes for all the homemade desserts we'd be serving, but that ended up excluding too many of Mr. Moonbeam's family recipes. His family had to travel in, which made it harder to bring a dessert, and a lot of his (and my) family favorites were savory dishes. So, we ended up with general family recipe favors and a lot of homemade desserts. They weren't totally coordinated, but there was some crossover.

Like other bees before me (apple cider, cowboy boot), I got my hands on some muslin bags and stamped them with our custom stamp. Make sure to use fabric ink for the stamping (I believe it's the kind that says 'permanent dye').

I gathered most of the recipes by email, but with some of the older folks it was just easier to get it on paper or over the phone. The method of selection for inclusion in the favors was devised to be as fair as possible. If you actually responded to my email and sent any recipe(s) one of your recipes got in the favor bag. Then I did a little personal hunting/asking to make sure I had equal numbers of recipes from each side of the family.

Unfortunately I couldn't work on these in LA as planned, because my laptop died about a month before the wedding. Luckily Momma MB was buying us new laptops for Christmas and when I arrived in San Antonio there was a new laptop waiting for me to load it with Adobe programs that I missed desperately. Then it was a mad dash of laying out recipes, finding a printer that worked (there were 2 at my Mom's house that refused to work properly, so I had my sister bring over her new one), cutting out the cards (super easy since I took them to a copy shop) and stuffing them into the bags I stamped in LA.

I laid them out, 4 to a page, and printed the covers on cream cardstock. Then I printed the recipes on white cardstock. The main reason for doing this was the varied amounts of leftover cardstock I had on hand, but it ended up defining the cover, since the weight of the paper was the same.

Outsource the cutting, it's cheap and saves your sanity.

I had 160-ish people at my wedding, and I gave up after making 80 favors. I put a little sign in front of them that asked guests to take 1 per household, but I heard that some cousins lost their favors when they left their table to go outside for a bit. Seattle 'maid told me later that she had enlisted a friend to stash her favor in her purse so that no stealing would occur. I suppose I should have made more, but at least I didn't end up with a lot of leftovers.

One of my all time favorite family recipes, and of course I forgot to have my Grandma make some for the wedding, but I'll share it with y'all instead. (Oh, and if you put marshmallows on the hot cake and then pour on the hot icing, when you spread it around they sort of melt and mix in and make some amazing gooey heaven in your mouth.)

Under the Harvest Moon: Sorry for the Delay

2010-09-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hello there hive! I'm finally going to start my recaps. For those of you who don't remember me, I married Mr. Moonbeam (for the second time) in November of 2009 in our large, Texas, family-oriented ceremony. We were married (the first time) in July of 2009 in a small civil ceremony in Malibu (for oh-so-romantic health insurance reasons). Both were great days for the two of us, but the stresses of our big ceremony have definitely contributed to my recap hiatus.

Confession: I really dislike my pro pics from our November ceremony. I will be forever grateful to our shutterbug relatives (Aunt Annie and Uncle Chris) who took some of my favorite pictures from our big day.

Full Disclosure: I found our photographers off of Craigslist, we paid about $600 for their services. I wasn't expecting blow-me-away amazingness, but I was expecting competence. (I found our beach wedding photographer on Craigslist as well and she was awesome). Our contract guarantees something like 30 images an hour, but what I would really like are 30 images from our hour long ceremony that are properly colored/exposed without a line through the center of every image. We hired our photographers, a young husband and wife team that is new to the biz, because we liked the images we saw, they seemed nice and we thought it'd be great to have two shooters. What we ended up with was a photographer and a babysitter. They brought their infant to the wedding. I didn't know this until said infant made an appearance at our reception. Ask anyone, I love children, but if they had hired a babysitter, I would have had two people shooting my ceremony and maybe one of those people would have been able to take clear pictures. I know they have two cameras, because he mentioned the gear used at our wedding on his facebook page. And since there was a red line through every image of our ceremony, I wonder if something might be wrong with that camera, and maybe the other camera would have been just fine. I really hated coming to this realization about our photographers upon receipt of our disc of images because I quite liked them in person at the wedding, but in truth, I don't think they're ready to be charging for photography services.

Taken by John and Whitney Canales Photography

It's not a crazy zoom in trick y'all, I promise. This was the first thing I saw in every ceremony picture.

Yes, it was late in the afternoon, strong directional sunlight, but Mr. Moonbeam's Uncle Chris snapped this from his seat, so I would expect a professional photographer to be able to shoot competently in the same conditions.

Taken by Uncle Chris. I didn't do any editing, It's just a clear shot.

After some back and forth with the photographers, I convinced them to send me everything in an unedited format, because they could tell the color was off and just sent me a bunch of black and whites. And though I like some of the editing that I've been able to do to the originals, the colors are still off and they're still odd. And truthfully, seeing their unedited images upset me a bit more, because it became so obvious that they're playing around with and learning how to use their settings. They have not mastered them, by any means and auto settings would have been more competent in most cases.

A picture from Aunt Annie (thanks again) using the auto settings on my entry level DSLR. (On a side note, isn't the church gorgeous?!)

Since our wedding some great things have happened, and I can partially blame the lack of writing on that. I got a job (being unemployed certainly gave me more time to write, craft and bake a lot of bread, but it was definitely leaving a void). We've had six different visits from out-of-towners this summer, and some even stayed with us. We've moved to a new apartment. And I've been out of the country for almost a month this year (2 of those weeks were our honeymoon, recently recapped). But in truth, I haven't been writing because I haven't felt like sharing. It's been almost a year since the big wedding and I haven't even sent out pictures to most of my family or made a wedding album, because it's not fun to show off pictures you're not in love (or even like) with.

So, to any of you budget brides out there, I wish you the best of luck in finding an affordable photographer (like I did for 1 wedding), but I also urge you to spend as much as you can on your photos. Also, it's important to know your area. I think I got a great deal on a Craigslist photographer in Los Angeles, because there is an over-saturation of talented, creative types out here. In San Antonio, not everyone on Craigslist is 'straight outta art school awesomeness', not saying you can't get burned in a big city, but I think the odds are different. I know it's an overheard phrase in all of this business, but they really are the only thing you take with you from that day, and if you're a part of Weddingbee, you've probably seen a lot of beautiful things that you will constantly compare your big day to, and having images you love will make your memories that much better.

Rant Complete: next up a couple of last minute projects.

Honeymoon Part III: Our Friends Get Hitched

2010-08-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

We made our way to the chateau exhausted and weary from our travels thus far, but we were excited and pretty amazed at what we saw as we pulled up.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the chateau and the grounds just falling in love with everything, except maybe all the taxidermy (we're talking giraffes, baby elephant, chimp, lions, it was ridiculous).

Our Room! For reals.

Some of the taxidermy we could have lived without.

The next day the I headed into town with our friend, the soon-to-be-groom and rounded up provisions for that night's dinner. We roasted chickens, made my Grandma's recipe for rice pilaf and haricot vert with almonds for dinner. Dessert happened to be some lovely fruit tarts from the local patisserie, and we also grabbed some amazing cheeses and cured meats for everyone to snack on, oh and over 40 bottles of wine.

The groom, with seven French hens.

Mr. Moonbeam helping with the wine.

On a side note, the 40 bottles lasted us approximately 1.5 days.

Good thing there was a wine tour scheduled the next day. We learned about terroir and appellation and some quick tips for picking yummier wines. Oh, and we sampled a lot of it as well.

Then we headed back to the chateau for a hog roast. It was pure yumminess.

And there were mustaches, because what's a wedding without 'em these days.

Dinner was followed by macarons, and various other pastries that tasted even better than they looked.

The next day was the ladies luncheon, it was held at an adorable bistro in the nearby town of Cande.

While we were enjoying our food, the guys were out shopping for dinner provisions.

Then a few of us headed down to the kitchen and started making dinner. I made a flourless chocolate cake, a nut tart and a lemon tart. Dinner that night was fish, mashed potatoes and various veggies. But the main event was the Murder Mystery Dinner! The maid of honor, her husband and her twin brother spent the day setting up the mystery.

I wish I had gotten my camera out, but sometimes you're just having too much fun, and a big shout out has to go to Mr. Moonbeam. He played the murdered Earl's old friend who was just released from prison. In Mr. Moonbeam's mind this meant that he had a paunch, cigarettes, an empty bottle of wine and a surly, half-passed out attitude all night. He split the prize for best character with the Maid of Honor's Dad, also a standout.

I highly recommend a murder mystery as a fantastic group activity for a destination wedding, maybe even a rehearsal dinner (which, technically, ours was).

After the dinner, we danced in the basement until the wee hours of the morning, I can not overstate the willingness of the British to have a good time dancing, singing and drinking all night.

The next day was the 'Big Day'. We woke up at some time and everyone sort of helped out where necessary. I was helping with the steaming and ironing of various garments. Then Mr. Moonbeam and I got our fancy duds on and hung out with the groom until it was time.

I found out that getting ready on the guys side involves things like ice cream (if you go to Europe, get Magnum bars, as many as you can find) and sandwiches.

Then there all the last minute things happened, lint was removed, bouts were pinned and it was time to go.

We all went out to the garden for the short and sweet ceremony.

There was a reading from the Mother of the Groom, a poem written by the Bride's Uncle (officiant) and read by her Aunt (his wife).

Vows were said, rings were exchanged, there was a kiss and they were Man and Wife.

We all went to a lovely treed area for cocktail hour. Then the Bride and Groom finished their portraits and joined the party.

Check out the radiant Bride.

Hair flower perfection.

After cocktails we headed to the front of the chateau for some group shots.

The guys picked up the Bride.

So, naturally the girls picked up the Groom.

Love the backdrop.

Then it was time for dinner, there were slideshows, and then the Groom announced the honeymoon surprise, they were going to Corsica. Perfection. And dinner was amazing, I can not overstate the decadence of a French roasted duck. Then there was croquembouche, I've always wanted to try it every time I see it in a picture. It was great, but I had always thought that there was cream inside and I was wrong, it was something with hazlenut and it was super yummy.

Then came the formal dances.

After that it was time for the happy couple to head to their honeymoon.

I'm in love with this dress, btw.

Next, we took over the foyer for drinking and dancing.

Dancing with old friends

A crazy Frenchman

And all of our new buds.

Many of the people there were Texans, and there were a couple of Scots in attendance as well, so we traded cultural info. Some of us Texans taught everyone how to Two Step, Line Dance and Cotton Eyed Joe. The man in the kilt taught us the Gay Gordons and Whip the Willow.

Cotton Eyed Joe.

Whip the Willow

I have determined that Scottish dances are mainly about drinking large amounts of alcohol, running and spinning around in circles. They are great and even if you're not Scottish, I'd recommend them at any wedding.

Then we caught a few zzz's and head into town for our way-too-early train to Charles de Gaulle to head back home.

Ah, we had the best time and how I wish I could go back. My favorite part was definitely at the chateau, we met some great people, got to hang out with a few people we never get to see any more, and we got to teach the Brits about breakfast tacos.

And, I'll leave you with a pic from our mini photo session on the grounds.

Honeymoon Part II

2010-08-05T00:06:00.000-07:00

After our Eurostar ride, filled with the loving sounds of a crying child, we arrived in Paris. We rode the Metro over to the Marais district and walked around for a bit trying to find our hotel. The Hotel Place des Vosges was a great little place that is currently undergoing renovations, and we were lucky enough to get a renovated room on the top floor. It involved some stairs and the tiniest elevator you can imagine to get up to, but it had great exposed beams, neat little woodwork niches and an awesome bathroom entirely clad in a cool grey stone. We had a skylight and, if you needed them, there were two pull out beds.

After a quick shower we headed out to find dinner in the cool-ish Paris evening. We had crepes and cider at a cidrerie. I didn't know chilled, fizzy cider was a French thing, but it was perfect after the hot day travelling. I didn't feel like pulling out a huge camera at dinner (hazards of a DSLR), but I can safely say that my crepe with a pan seared disc of goat cheese on a bed of mixed greens topped with balsamic and candied walnuts was lovely and yummy. We saw this random church on our way home and it was off to bed for us.

The next morning I woke up at an unbearably early hour due to jet lag, so I headed to the nearest pastry shop. I got us a sampling for the morning and have to say the the chocolate pistachio was my absolute favorite, there could not have been more butter in there and it was delicious.

After hanging out in our room until a reasonable hour we went for a run around the city. It was lovely, quiet and a great way to check out our surroundings.

Place dus Vosges (the plaza near our hotel)

Afterwards we found some of the other people we'd be travelling with as guests of our friend's wedding (not surprising, since we were staying in the same hotel as almost all of the other guests). We hung out in the local cafe catching up with old friends and meeting the new people we'd be hanging out with for the rest of our trip. After that we decided to spend the rest of our only rainy day on the whole trip (lucky us) in the Louvre, it was certainly big enough to spend an entire day in.

Random artist sketching in the Louvre

It was huge, and overwhelming, but ultimately something we were glad we experienced. As an architecture student I've heard about the building for a while, and I did love the space underneath the pyramid.

Oh, I. M. Pei, how you make the most of a grey day

After that we grabbed a quick bite, met up with the bride and groom and some friends and made our way to Crazy Horse. The girls ended up sitting in a row behind the boys and watched them gape at the lovely ladies on stage. I definitely recommend it, if you want to see something a little risque in Paris.

Then we got a few drinks at a nearby cafe and Mr. Moonbeam, another girl travelling with us and I decided it was a brilliant idea to run to the Eiffel Tower (about a mile away) in our dressy clothes. It turned out perfectly, because we caught the midnight light show.

The next day we saw Notre Dame, Centre Pompidou and took an ill-advised venture to try and find the Dali Museum in Montmartre. I'd heard it was neat, and I'm sure it was, but we never found it because we only had the Metro map. Word to the wise, if you head to Montmartre bring a very detailed map if you want to find anything but Sacre Coeur.

Sorry about all that, but seeing Notre Dame in person was cool, and all of the incense from the Priest made the inside even better.

That evening everyone gathered for dinner in Montmartre, Mr. Moonbeam tried the tartare and loved it. We went to Sacre Couer and took in a lovely view of the city.

Then, on our way home we found the very closed Dali Museum, we had been soooooo close (hand slaps forehead).

Early the next morning we all got on a bus for a tour of the Normandy Beaches. We had a pit stop in Bayeux to pick up our tour guide.

Then we went to Point du Hoc and learned about the battles of World War II. It was eye-opening to see just how difficult these battle situations were for soldiers on D-Day. And with all the Texans in the crowd, we were a touch pleased that the largest crater was made by the U.S.S. Texas.

Then we stopped for lunch at Omaha Beach (another amazing crepe) before learning more about the specifics of that battle. Our last stop was the American Cemetery (as seen in Saving Private Ryan). It's really beautiful and definitely instills respect.

Then we all slept on the way to chateau!

Honeymoon Part I

2010-08-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was the anniversary of our legal ceremony (we went to a lovely brunch in the morning, fit in a run and saw a play in the evening) and a handy reminder that my recaps are getting stale fast. I'm going to start these things in earnest, real soon, cross my heart.

But first, I thought I'd share our belated honeymoon-type travels. For about 2 weeks (06/28-07/10) we roamed around Europe (London, Paris and the French countryside) visiting friends, making new friends and going to another set of friends' wedding (in a chateau!). We totally didn't mind mini-mini-mooning back in November for our big wedding because we knew this trip was on our horizon. And we loved spending our 'honeymoon' with friends, since our friends are so far flung it was great to see people we haven't seen in a while.

Part one has us visiting my old friend (and bridesmaid) from architecture school who's making her life out in London. Our trip also coincided with another architecture school friend's stop over on her way back from South African World Cup madness, so we had a smallish reunion, British style. The first day consisted mainly of finding food and nice places to take naps throughout London, any park was fair game. Then we made a quick dinner at her flat and slept as much as we could during the few hours of nighttime (it was light out from about 5 am to 11 pm).

Day two involved the standard tourist's intro to London, because Mr. Moonbeam has never been and there are certain things you just have to see. We started out down by the London Eye and walked over to Big Ben and Westminster Abby.

Then we made our way over to Trafalgar Square.

On our way to lunch we saw guards on horses somewhere.

Then we found a sandwich shop, picked up some lunch and walked over to a church yard that was filled with Londoners on their lunch break. After that we walked around St. Paul and headed over to the Tate Modern to walk around in an air-conditioned gallery (we were definitely there during a heat wave).

St. Paul's

Crossing the Thames to get to the Tate

After all that we finished up the day with meat pies and fish and chips at Canteen (sort of a nice dinner chain that uses organic and sustainably raised ingredients). I think I've had better fish and chips at places that only do fish and chips, but my beef and tomato pie was really, really good.

The next morning, our other friend made her way from South Africa with her boyfriend. They were all hopped up on vuvuzelas and ready for a crash tour of London.

The four of us headed down to the center of London (grabbed a quick pasty, mmm) and made a day of it. There was a city-wide architecture exhibition going on so we tried to see some of that. The Victoria and Albert had 6 installations of architectural work to see. They were a diverse group of spaces and I loved this one.

It's made from split trees, the ground is bagged mulch and the tops looked like palm fronds to me, but they were another tree product. The inside had been polished smooth with carved words and the outside had been left natural. Mr. Moonbeam liked this one, he is the quintessential bookworm, and wants nothing more than a place to hang out surrounded by books.

The V&A is really cool and I definitely recommend it.

After that we took a long time to find 'Brick Lane' (or Indian food heaven). For those who may try to find it in the future, it's near Spitalfields Market. We walked into one of the first places we saw and had some yummy food. I found out later, that locals know how to make the most of it. The kind of bargaining that happens, is I want to spend 'x' amount, I want to bring in my own wine and that's that. Apparently if they say no, you just move onto the next place. They are literally every other establishment on the block. And with that it was back to our friend's flat to hang out and catch up.

Walking through Spitalfield's

The last day, we had to catch the Eurostar at about 5, so we had a good bit of the day to walk around and get a little bit of exploring done. So the two of us set out to find Hyde Park and I think we just found Kensington Gardens (a smaller part of the park).

We think someone lives here in the park, lucky.

It was still lovely and that was enough for us, so then we went off in search of a Swedish zombie novel that was out in the U.K. but not in print in the U.S. yet. I don't think you can truly appreciate the joy on Mr. Moonbeam's face when I found that book behind another book on the store's shelves. He was filled with about as much love for me in that moment as he was on our wedding day. (Darn, why didn't I take a picture)

So with that we set out to St. Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Paris. It's a pretty ride and I recommend it if you have to get between London and Paris, but book your tickets early, Eurostar is like airlines in the way that prices go up the longer you wait. I thought it was like trains that just have a set price, oh well you live and learn.

Making the Dress, part 3

2010-02-07T20:24:00.000-08:00

So, we had the materials and a mockup and then I finally met up with Momma MB in Texas and we got down to business.

I stood around like this a lot. I spent 3 days straight in leggings, with a stick on bra taped to me with painter's tape (so that we wouldn't waste the stickiness) and a tank top, so that I could easily turn into a human dress form at a moment's notice.

It looks easy, but it's actually quite tiring. Anyhoo, many subtle reshaping of pattern pieces later, we ended up with this top. Momma MB did french seams on this lovely, so everything was perfect.

So, small and insignificant when compared to the ridiculous amount of fabric in this skirt.

Here are the two pieces put-together, waiting for the finishing touches.

And this is Momma MB after she fell asleep hand-stitching the horsehair braid at the hem. It helps the skirt to keep it's shape. It was something like 7+ yards (that's 21+ feet) around the circumference of the bottom of the skirt and she had to do it twice! For those using it, you have to stretch the horsehair braid as you sew, so that when you turn it under it fits your hem correctly.

And here's the lovely train, with all of the lace left intact.

You'll notice that the train is detachable for any other cousins who would like to just use the train. The buttons are from that same heirloom dress that the lace came from, and below is the simplest bustle ever. There's a simple loop strategically placed in the middle of the lace and you just hook it around the center button.

And there's the dress, I can't wait for the pro-pics so I can see it all done up.

Making the Dress, part 2

2010-02-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

So, what to do with heirloom lace that is 50+ years old? If your mother is an avid quilter, you wash it with the same stuff that quilters use to wash antique quilts. A little goes a long way, I only used the soap left on the protective seal after opening this product and there were plenty of suds. The spoonful that comes with it is enough to do a whole quilt, so don't use a lot or you will be rinsing forever.

Don't worry, we didn't just dunk all of the lace in and keep our fingers crossed, we tested a small piece of it first to make sure it didn't disintegrate. Then we dunked it all in a big soapy pot. We then proceeded to rinse it about 12 times. That much lace got really heavy and with all that 'careful kneading' to make sure we didn't rip it, our arms got tired.

Then we laid it on some old sheets to dry in the evening sunlight. Make sure to shape it as you lay it down. You don't want it to stretch in any weird ways. If you'll notice, that piece of lace is the entire skirt of my Grandmother's/Mother's dress. In the finished product you'll see all of this left intact, in case future brides in the family want to use it.

There were a couple of small stains. I used a soft toothbrush and a stain stick of some sort and gave it a shot.

It made it a little lighter, but a 30-50 year old stain isn't necessarily going anywhere.

And months before the big day, Momma MB sent me the first mockup. Then I proceeded to text her pictures of how it fit.

I thought it was fine, but Momma MB had other ideas and the top was adjusted multiple times from this iteration. She wanted me to look like I had a chest and I didn't want to wear a bra. Because if it was going to work with my backless dress I thought it would have to have boning, be one of those crazy tie around bras or cutlets, and none of those options were appealing.

Luckily we found a solution. Victoria's Secret stick on bra, not the cutlet kind. I think it was this one. I got the nude version and it stayed on the whole night and was totally comfortable. And this is coming from a girl who wears sports just about every day of her life.

Anyway, I'll show you the finished project next time. But at least you didn't have to wait until 2 days before your wedding to see it! Love you Momma MB!

Making the Dress, part 1

2010-01-31T13:00:00.000-08:00

Since I've been married for a couple of months now, I guess it's safe to talk about the dress. Momma MB swore me to secrecy before the wedding, but now I can let y'all in on the process of having my mother make my dress.

We started with two patterns from Vogue. I liked the geometric quality of this top, but, clearly, those weird little points had to go. They don't really say 'timeless' to me. And be warned that this top has absolutely no darts and for the non-sewers out there, darts are what give shape to a bodice. They are usually the way you make room for 'womanly' curves. Luckily, I don't have many of said curves up top, so it was possible, though it definitely still gave Momma MB a headache.

V8576
Then we added it to this skirt. We opted for the version without the train because we were going to be making a train out of some very special lace. When I started the whole wedding planning process, I didn't expect to be in such a full skirt, but as Momma MB and I discussed and tried on a few dresses, it became clear that with no bust and a somewhat 'ample' rear, it was going to be the best for my body type. And at 5'10" a full skirt is not going to 'overwhelm' me like I've heard some other ladies talk about. It would also prove to be the most comfortable. It didn't matter what was going on under there, no one was gonna know.

V2979

And here is my crudely done hybrid of the two line drawings above. You can see that we removed the notches from the front and the center piece from the back. It turns out that my back is so narrow, in comparison to my length, that Momma MB just had to remove the center piece and those two points that were a couple of inches apart in the original design were suddenly kissing on my back.
We used 10 yards of dupioni silk. There is a lot of yardage in this skirt. We may have been able to get by with less, but Momma MB ended up cutting out a few versions of the top so that we could get the fit just right. And since there is a very obvious direction to the weave of dupioni silk we wanted to make sure that we had enough room to fit our pieces with the weave going the way we wanted. (Momma MB wanted me to clarify that this is not the same as the 'grain' of a fabric in sewing. That is referring to the amount of stretch in each direction of the fabric there is and makes a difference with how it drapes on the body. I'm just talking about the fact that you can see lines in the fabric from the difference in thickness of the pieces of 'yarn' that the fabric is woven out out. Dupioni has almost no stretch and can probably be draped in any direction you like.)

personal picture of my dupioni silk

10 yards at $15/yd

Momma MB lined the top of the dress with cotton batiste. Batiste is usually used for christening gowns and ladies underthings. It's very smooth, fine and lightweight, it also feels lovely against your skin.

batiste

2 yards at $5/yd

We used poly satin to line the skirt, it's better for holding up the weight of the skirt.

8 yards at $7/yd

And in order to give some strength to the entire garment we used silk organza as an underlining. It was cut out and sewn individually to every piece of dupioni silk. You cut the pieces together, then sew them outside of the seam. In essence, you're just making a thicker fabric.

organza

10 yards at $10/yd

The other ingredients of this dress were 8 yards of horsehair braid for the hem, good thread, a zipper, buttons (along with their silk cord closures) from my Grandmother/Mother's dress, and the lace from the same dress for the train. I would also recommend buying pattern weight paper because if you're anything like my Mom (read sewing perfectionist) you'll be demolishing the paper that comes with the pattern after all the changes that sometimes need to be made. In my case there was a lot of lengthening, and some adjusting for the smallish nature of my chest.

So, budget breakdown:

$150 for dupioni silk

$100 for silk organza

$10 for batiste

$56 for poly satin lining

$30-40 for patterns

$20-30 for the horsehair braid and other notions

$20 for other fabric to make a mock up of the dress before using the real stuff. Often people use muslin, but Momma MB used something similar to the poly satin lining so that the drape would be more similar to the silk.

So then add tax and such and you're looking at...

Low $400's for all the dress materials.

Certainly not bad for a one-of-a-kind, super important to me wedding dress. But if I had to pay Momma MB for her time, this dress would certainly be getting into $$$ territory. Thanks Momma MB!

And just for fun, here are some other patterns that I liked and considered. I was all over the map, like most of us are at some point in this process we call 'wedding planning.'

V2965

V1030

If any of you are out there making your dress, or having it made, don't be afraid to mix patterns and look in non-bridal patterns. There really aren't that many bridal dress patterns out there and many of them are 'dated' to put it nicely. Oh, and watch out for pattern sales, we were in a hurry to buy something while Momma MB and I were in the same city so she could put the pattern pieces on my body and take a look, but patterns go on sale seasonally and it can mean a savings of $15-20 sometimes. And good luck to Miss Sewing on her dress adventure.

Faux-to-booth

2010-01-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the absence, I'm still waiting on pro photos and happily I got a new job after the wedding, but it's been busy. Well, here it is folks... The Flower Wall!

And to be honest, I love it. The wall itself was gorgeous and we got some super fun photos out of the whole thing, but there were some lessons to be learned.

For those of you who've been following along, tutorials are here, here and here. I also added some really big accordion flowers (for lack of a better term) and I really think they added some necessary dimension. The biggest one is 18" in diameter.
But first things first. Thanks to this woman, my Grandma! She assembled way more of these flowers than any 82 year old should and I couldn't have done it without her. At least not if I hoped to keep my sanity.

Some of the guests got into it and we got some great photos, ranging from these cute bubble makers.
To myriad of inside jokes from my college friends. This joke does involve alcohol, but truthfully I wasn't that undignified.
This one doesn't involve college drinking antics. I simply had a dream that I was riding a peanut butter and jelly sandwich shaped like a donkey. What? Confused? Anyhoo, it was a thing for a while among us.

(Oh, lesson from this pic, put a mark where people should stand in front of your photobooth, we've got more than a few that are less than centered.)

And of course, who could forget the bridal party acting retarded.

Look at the intensity in those eyes!

And well wishes from the guests. This one advising chocolate will surely be taken to heart.

Closing thoughts:

Clear and simple signage. We had a little tiny sign that said to write on the board and use the remote to snap a picture. Eventually a bridesmaid stepped in and instructed people, but if I had to do it over again, there would have been pictorial instructions. I also might have added signs on the tables, so that people could figure out what's going on while doing other things.
Put down that center mark and get your camera framed well to the wall. We just had the flower board leaning against the wall and the camera on a tripod (that was guarded by dessert tables, so people wouldn't trip over it) opposite the wall, with a remote attached to the wall with string.
Make a couple of announcements, so people realize you'll be using this as your guestbook. If you'll notice most of the pictures I have are of young people, they're camera savvy and understood the concept. I don't have pictures of all of the grandparents and sadly I don't even have pictures of Momma MB and Mr. MB. I mean I have other pictures of them, but none in front of the flower wall.

I'll still be popping in here and there, but I'm waiting on those pro photos. I did get a promising preview though. Oh, and to those who tried to buy this wall from me after I was done with it, I'm sorry, I just couldn't get organized enough to get that together, but it was really fun to make and I'm sure there are a million background ideas out there.

Ornament Inspiration

2009-12-21T16:45:00.000-08:00

This ornament is as cute as they come. I found it on the Dancing Gnome etsy shop and I couldn't help but imagine the whimsical woodland wedding that could come out of it. I think the ornaments would make great cake toppers and then a few gnomes could be sprinkled throughout for some fun decorations. Gnome illustrations could be used as table numbers, and those little red hats are the perfect pop of color.

cakebar, invites, illustration, old gnome, bride and groom, lovenest and the random forest/tree pics were taken by me while we were snowshoeing in Sequoia National Park this weekend. So pretty.

And since it's the holiday season and I love wrapping gifts, I thought I'd share a tip on what to do with excess doilies with the hive. Solid paper from Target, various sizes of doilies and raffia from Michael's and cardstock from Paper Source equals too cute gift wrap. You can also see a handy brown paper bag in there.

All of these were wrapped with one roll of paper, 2 packs of doilies and one roll of raffia.

For cylinders (like wine bottles and candles) just make a ribbon of paper and wrap around the perfectly cylindrical part. Cut a long strip of paper and fold over the sides to get neat edges and wrap around. Slap on a doily and some raffia and you're good to go.

Ring Bearer Pillow and Mr. MB's Ring

2009-12-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

You might remember my ring, from this post, but here's Mr. MB's ring (with mine) on a handkerchief gifted to us at the rehearsal dinner with our names and wedding date embroidered for posterity.

We also found this jeweler on etsy, but then just ordered it over email since it was a special (cheaper) order. We switched out the metal to 10K white gold to get this ring within our reach. Jim Dailing (the jeweler) couldn't have been better to work with, he was lightning fast and didn't make us feel lame about downgrading his beautiful design.

And for fun, here's the ring bearer pillow that Momma MB whipped up in the last days before the wedding. It incorporates the silk and lace used in my dress and a button from my Grandma's dress is in the center.

The back has a handy dandy handle for our ringbearer. We used our old cohabitation rings as stand-ins on the big day (mostly because I forgot to buy some decorative ones).

And for those curious readers out there, here's a quick quilting 101 lesson. Sorry for lack of pictures, this thing got made in the wee hours. But the diagram above can be printed out to whatever size you want for super simple pattern pieces. The grey is where the lace went and it's important to pay attention to the grain of the silk when you're putting this together. It's just for aesthetics, but just make sure you're putting the nubby dupioni silk 'stripes' in the direction you desire.

Cut your pieces with the 1/4" seam allowance all the way around (4 squares and 4 triangles out of silk, 2 triangles out of lace).
Pin your lace triangles on top of the silk ones and baste together very close to the edges. Sew your lacey triangles to their non-lacey counterparts (along the diagonal) and open into a square. Use a low setting on your iron to press the seams.
Sew each of your triangles to their squares, open and iron seams. Sew the two halves to eachother, open and iron seams.
Momma MB added a decorative zigzag stitch along the center seams. If you want to do this, just play with your sewing machine settings until you find a decorative stitch (and size) that you like and topstitch over the seams.
After that take your large square for the back of the pillow and pin to quilted top, right sides together. Sew together almost all the way around (leave an inch or so open to turn out and stuff).
Turn the pillow right side out and be sure to push out corners (the blunt end of a chopstick or something similar would be good).
Stuff with poly-fil or whatever you'd like in there (some of you might want to add a lavender sachet).
Close up the 1 inch opening by hand stitching (keep your stitches small and unobtrusive).
Grab a button and a long needle. Place needle in the center, push through and pull tight to tuft your pillow. Sew on the button.
Momma MB handstitched on the handle and ring ties at this point (but it might make more sense to sew those on before you put the two sides of the pillow together).

There you go, pillow done!

Gifts For Those That Wore What We Told Them To

2009-12-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Mr. Moonbeam got his guys flasks with their initials monogrammed on them. It's standard, I know, but the guys loved them and used them immediately. We picked up ours at Things Remembered.

Source

Mr. Moonbeam's brother (his best man) got the deluxe kit below. It came in a nice box and we had his first name put on the plaque.

Source

My ladies got some cute little items from Ulta along with some bronze necklaces from Macy's. Ulta was having a sale and you could pick up stocking stuffers at the great price of 5 for $5. They got lotion, a mini make-up brush kit, nail polish, lip gloss and a nail file.

Look at these awesome necklaces, I really should have bought some for myself.

I might have to use some of those leftover gift cards on this.

The flower girls got these adorable little purses, they match nothing and I didn't care. I picked them up at Claire's for 8 bucks each. They were filled with some Ulta loot as well: sparkly silver nail polish, a mirror, some lip gloss and very pale eyeshadow (don't want those little kiddies looking too made up.) The older girls also got an awesome candy necklace kit and the littlest flower girl got some Dora the Explorer candy. The candy necklace kit was such a big hit, my bridesmaids were a tad jealous.

And the ringbearer got a travel Scrabble set. I simply had no idea what sort of wedding-related gift to get for a boy, so I just got him something he'd like.

Pic by Aunt Annie

Since he made his Grandpa dig right in, I think it was a good choice.

In the end, they were pretty standard gifts, but at that final push, you're too tired to reinvent the wheel and everyone seemed pretty pleased.

Anyone else have trouble gifting boys/men? I never have a clue.

Craft Night!

2009-12-02T17:10:00.001-08:00

In the week before the wedding we had some ladies over to help finish up some crafts. Sister MB, Momma MB, Grandma MB, Aunt Eileen, flower girl Abby and Aunt Annie were there to help and so was Mom's friend Linda. Thanks for all of your help ladies!

I felt it was only fair to give my workers provisions. I made panzanella and minestrone, both were a big hit.

Quick recipe, because it's so easy and yummy.

Panzanella (Bread Salad)

1 loaf of bread

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Bell Peppers

Garlic

Lemon

Dijon Mustard

Olive Oil

Cube and toast the bread.

Dice all your veggies.

Smash some garlic cloves into a bowl or vinaigrette bottle, squeeze in some lemon juice, olive oil, dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Mix it all up and strain over your veggies. Toss with bread at the last minute.

Top with some grated parmesan (the real stuff, not the can, trust me).

It's my kind of salad (more croûtons than veggies).

Aunt Annie and flower girl Abby stuffing recipe cards into favor bags.

To make the vases for the reception we gathered a bunch of mason jars. We used the quilted jars. They seemed a bit more appropriate for our family that has made 100's of quilts. Get a bunch of cotton fabric, some ribbon lace, buttons, fabric flowers and hot glue. We ripped the fabric into appropriately sized strips and removed all excess threads. To rip fabric just notch the fabric and rip apart. Important note: you can only properly rip along the lenghtwise grain of the fabric. Lengthwise means parallel to the selvedge. Selvedge is that finished edge that runs along the length of a bolt of fabric. If it's puckering as you rip it and not ripping straight, you're ripping the wrong way.

Then it's really just a matter of hot glue. Wrap your fabric around and glue in place. Wrap ribbon around and glue in place. Attach fabric flower with hot glue and then add the button with, you guessed it, hot glue.

We had two sizes of these cute little vases. Larger for the tables and smaller for filler on random tables. We also had little tiny jars with little tiny plants in them.

Here's the only shot I've got so far of a vase in action. This was either taken by my Aunt Annie (the family shutterbug) or London 'maid. Either way thanks to both of them for taking pictures, especially Aunt Annie, she got a ton of things that we forgot about. And, of course, there were things that didn't make it onto that table. We could not find the tea lights and I wanted squares of the same fabric we used on the vases in the center of the table, but at some point you just let go of things. I try to remind myself that I'm the only one that notices.

The Good!

2009-11-24T14:47:00.000-08:00

Alright, now that I've got all the bad off my chest, let's get to the good. I won't go into too much detail, so that I can save stuff for the recaps which will be a while from now, when I get the pro pics, but here goes.

The ceremony:
Though it was late and I goofed on the first kiss, it was absolutely perfect. Our priest did an amazing job, it was personal, he got the guests involved and everybody loved it. Even the non-Catholics didn't whine about how long it was. (Though I have no idea how long it was, I'm assuming that a full mass is longer than some are used to.) I couldn't have been happier with our decision to have the whole wedding in the LaCoste/Castroville area solely because of the priest.

My bridesmaids:
Sister MoH was there for me whenever I needed her and made my cake with her friend.
Little Cuz 'maid was a makeup and hair maven for all who needed it and helped me out with last minute projects whenever her class schedule would allow.
London 'maid traveled way far to be there with me and rocked out the dessert table and helped folks out with the photobooth. And a shout out definitely goes to London 'maid's momma, she was such a help.
Seattle 'maid also did some traveling and was there to take care of everything she could think of. This lady gets things done.
I could not have picked a better crew! And even though most of them had never met each other we all got along famously.

All the Ladies:
This is for those ladies that helped so much. Couldn't have pulled this off without Linda, Aunt Kay, Genni and Gerri, Aunt Eileen, Grandma MB and of course our Mom's.

My Dress:
Momma MB had it down to the wire, but she rocked it out and I can't wait to get a really great picture of it to post for you guys.

The BBQ:
Seattle 'maid had never had Texas bbq and was so looking forward to it. It didn't disappoint.

The dessert table:
I love the homespun look and almost everything was homemade. It all tasted fantastic and there was plenty for all.

The Grand March:
A Czech tradition that I was so glad to have included in our big day. Definitely a highlight, but since this deserves it's own post, I'll leave it for another day.

There were many more great things and for most of the evening I was really excited about everything, but I wanted to make sure you guys weren't left with a sour taste after that last post. So, now it will be some last minute projects and as soon as I get those pro pics, I'll start the recaps.

Doubly Married

2009-11-23T00:43:00.000-08:00

It's all over and like many brides I've got mixed emotions about the big day. There were things I loved and for most of the evening I was truly in the moment and enjoying myself. But there were some things that keep playing over and over in my head and are keeping me from getting some much-needed shut-eye.

source

Let's start with the bad (I'm hoping that getting it off my chest will allow me to sleep).

The Venue:

A week before the wedding it sort of hit me that back in October when I dropped off final payment for the venue the owner mentioned that we didn't have Friday set up time anymore as he had rented it out for someone else's rehearsal dinner. We, of course, were at a disadvantage because when we signed the paper work and my Mom asked that the Friday set up time be added to the contract, the owner said 'oh, don't worry I'm marking it in my calendar, my word's good'. Brides don't believe anyone when they say this. Even if it is small town Texas and you can't imagine anyone doing this to you. Nor can you imagine that when you're trying to resolve the situation the week before the wedding that the owner will start yelling at you about how he's 'going to give you back everything but your deposit, not let you have the venue, call his lawyer and sue you and make you pay so much money you wouldn't believe' because you let him know that you'll be writing about your experiences and his dishonesty on every wedding website you can think of (by the way, I was more 'on the verge of tears' upset, not yelling upset). I considered it fair warning, he considered it a reason to ream the bride out. Long story short, avoid the Mary Gray Events Center in Castroville, TX. Everyone we talked to about him in town gave us knowing looks and rolled eyes. I wish I'd listened to Momma MB when she said she wasn't getting a good vibe from him. He also lied about almost everything else. He said 250 people could be seated in the hall (we had 160 and it was jam packed). He said 8-10 people could be seated at each table, 8 barely fit). He told me the room was 100' x 60' when I asked for measurements. That's probably twice as big as reality. The room was so small that the music and dance floor had to be put outside, which seriously hurt my chances of getting anyone onto the dance floor. He said music could be outside until 11 pm, but we found out from anyone else that we talked to that an elderly lady starts filing complaints much earlier than that. And though the venue is very reasonably priced, you have to use their bartenders and alcohol, there are 3 toilets total, and the owner is a 'cut-throat' Los Angeles business-type who came back to Castroville and is doing his best to take over the town by undercutting all the locals. In the end, we got the keys around midnight and a separate storage room (in the building, but not the hall) to set up the large flower wall, so it wouldn't have to be brought in from far away. But I think I should note that we only got the separate room through dealing with his assistant and calling about 5 times to try and get some sort of help.

The Linens:

Because our set up time had been severely shortened, we now needed someone to set up the tables and linens for us. The vendor that the events center works with is Fantastic Flowers, and since they quoted the best prices for round table linens, we caved and went with them. Even though they're closely affiliated with the horrible reception venue owner and we really didn't want to use anyone that could benefit him. Well when I got to the hall I found out why they were cheaper. Their linens were square and only go about 1/3 of the way to the floor. Icky folding table legs were everywhere!

The non-DJ:

Our jazz musicians were great, but turns out that no one dances to jazz. And our laptop set up left for a seriously lacking music situation. I don't care how cheesy the DJ is, there probably won't be any 5 minute pauses after someone decides to cut off the song in the middle of 'Come on Eileen' (remember that's my name) to switch it to some slow, country drinking song. I had finally rallied some people into dancing and then BAM!

The things that didn't happen:

We didn't do a bouquet or garter toss, no anniversary dance, not as many extended family shots as we'd have liked, and some of the decorations I made didn't get used. In the end, I'm only sad about the family shots, but our ceremony started late and we needed to get out of the church for Saturday evening mass. With families as large as ours they never would have been coralled in time.

Alright, the next post will be the beginning of all the wonderful positives and the bjillion last minute things that Momma MB and I did in that final week.

And for listening to my rant, here's a snapshot taken by my aunt.

Less Than a Week

2009-11-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

And this is what my dress looks like.

But don't worry, I'm not. I knew that having my Mom make the dress would mean we'd be pushing it out to the last minute, but I know it will be done and beautiful. Every time I get to play 'dress dummy' I get so excited about how it's shaping up.

But, oh my poor mother. Momma Moonbeam is on her 4th version of the top. The pieces above are some of those pieces of what will hopefully be the final version.

And just for fun here are some pictures of a flower girl wearing my Mother's veil and my Grandmother's/Mother's wedding dress.

Yup, the one we'll be cutting up very soon for all that beautiful lace.

Wish us luck!

Hair Flower

2009-11-10T08:38:00.001-08:00

I used some scraps of raw silk, silk chiffon, lace and some beads that I had lying around. I ended up not using the pearls pictured.
I took the silk and ironed on the first side of the two-sided iron on stuff.

Then I ironed the silk chiffon onto the other side. Since there is a very loose weave don't hold your iron there too long and let the adhesive seep through. That would get your iron dirty.

Then draw on some basic floral shapes with tailor's chalk.

Cut them out in various shapes and sizes. Snip, fold and pin the lace.

Pin them all in place. The iron on adhesive sort of made everything curl up, which kind of worked well since I was trying to figure out how to give the flower some shape.

Tack down all the layers. It gets kind of thick, so a thimble probably would have been handy.

Sew on some beads, I would put the thread through slip on about 4 or 5 beads and sew it down so that there would be a little bead loop when it was all said and done. This gave it a little bit of dimension.

Then I sewed it onto the birdcage veil that I bought from brenda's bridal veils on etsy.

Shoes 2

2009-11-05T14:24:00.000-08:00

In my last shoe post, I thought I was very into those blue Calvin Klein's, but the bottom had a very 'sturdy' sole. I know it's silly, but I wasn't digging the black rubber. I even found them in person and just didn't love them enough. You do have to kneel at Catholic weddings.

So the search continued, I tried Macy's, because I'm trying to save a few $$ at every step, but was thoroughly unimpressed. So, I headed over to Nordstrom's, my trusty source for super-fun flats. They might be a little pricier, but their junior's shoes are well priced and cute, and if I had to spend a little extra on my wedding shoes, I'd live.

I scoped the website first to see what I had in mind and found some great options.

I love the shoe jewelery look of these. And they're 'something blue'.

These pearls and ruffles are too sweet and romantic to not consider.

These also come in bronze and the jewels on them are a perfect match to my wedding colors. There's even a teal blue jewel in there.

Just an adorable bow to think about.

These jeweled ruffles are so cute and modern when done in metallic.

A fun pop of color and a great jewel.

After my search, I decided that some of my favorite brands are Kelsi Dagger and Jeffrey Campbell.

So, I headed out to Nordstrom's to try these on, I still fear online shoe shopping, I buy so many other things online, but just can't do it with clothes and shoes.

Nordstrom's doesn't carry all of their styles in the stores (like Kelsi Dagger, hmph), but I found three to try on that I loved, I was sitting there staring, calling and texting my Mom and I still came home with 2 pairs. Now I've got to decide. The third that I tried on and didn't buy is that jeweled ruffle metallic above. It fit well and was made well, but I fear elasticized heels, they tend to rub my skin off.

I couldn't find these ruffly ones online but, they're made by BC (because we can) and were $45 (see, junior's shoes). I love how feminine they are and they certainly fulfill my something blue.
These are the bronze versions of the ones shown above. There are purple, mustard and other fall colored jewels, including a dark teal to be my something blue.

So hive, ruffles or jewels?

Wedding Cake

2009-11-01T20:06:00.000-08:00

I'm not having a big, traditional wedding cake. We'll be having a little cake, made by my sister (who works in a bakery). A groom's cake from a local bakery and a table full of other desserts that family members are making. So, I haven't put a ton of thought into the cake, but I have a few criteria. Not fancy, not too big, and the icing has to be just right. I don't like most icings, especially the white ones. But, luckily, I love cream cheese frosting, and the off-white color is perfect for my fall wedding. For the cake I was thinking red velvet or chocolate. But after testing out recipes for red velvet and not finding one that I'm in love with, I think we'll be going with chocolate. Now onto the look of the cake.

I tried out a red velvet recipe and making a tiered cake. Now remember, my sister works in a bakery and can actually ice a cake, I can't and this was me doing the trial run.

But this was my attempt. I used a 9" layer and a 6" layer for this cake. The decoration is a trace paper ribbon and a flower from my flower wall project. I like the subdued colors, but I think I might incorporate something similar to my belly bands.
For the cake, I would just use 1 fold, with an interesting stitch going all the way around.

I also love this look from Jeff Ruddell at Craftstylish.

How, cool would that be?! I'd have to practice a bit and get some more x-acto blades, but that would definitely be a showstopper. I just am unsure about what color paper to use. Trace paper would be too thin, so I'd have to introduce another color, but I think it could definitely work.

Then there are edible decorations. I'm not too into the pastry bag scalloped edges and such, so my sister has recommended a chocolate ribbon (to which I countered, how about white chocolate?) She said yes, so there's that option, but definitely no bow.source

But, after seeing how this can be when it's not perfect, I'm not sure. I like homemade looking things, when the lines aren't supposed to be straight. If the line is supposed to be straight and isn't (like with a ribbon) I can't get as into it. So, maybe not.

There could also be melted white chocolate drizzled around the edge. Kind of like this, but maybe not so regular, and no flowers.