Burning River Wedding: Hodge-Podge of Events

I could tell Rachel was chomping at the bit to take pictures of me all dressed up. Right after I had everything on we got to work. Since you guys are going to get REAL sick of seeing my silly mug, I'll try to limit these to my absolute faves.

We started out against the wall,

then moved our way to the couch,

The only thing I see when I look at this picture are my pointy shoulders.

and finally to the window where we took some of my favorite shots of the day.

At some point one of the groomsmen (Tyrone, maybe?) brought me a gift from Josh. All together now: aaawwww :)

So of course I got all weepy reading his card (in which he finally revealed our honeymoon destination!)

but then got all giddy when I saw a little blue box!

Ok now, full disclosure, I basically picked out this gift. I told him I'd *really* like a gold necklace from Tiffany's and gave him about 5 to choose from (making a note next to my favorite.) This may not be the most conventional way of doing things, but I know Josh wanted to get me something I really loved and well, he can sometimes be a bit clueless when it comes to things like that. 

You can't really see it, but you get the idea.

Sometime while we were getting ready our flowers came. Let's just say I was less than enthused with how our bouquets turned out. They're pretty, don't get me wrong. But not quite what I pictured in my mind. Here are a few non-pro pics that capture them nicely.

Photo courtesy of BM Nikki

Perfectly nice (and damn expensive) bouquet, I guess. What threw me off were the size of the hosta leaves. I knew they would be there, I guess I just had no idea how overwhelming they would look (to me, at least.)

 Photo courtesy of BM Nikki

Ok, these? Were not at ALL what I expected them to be. Again, they're perfectly fine, but not what was described to me and not what I envisioned. I thought I was getting a big mound of green hydrangea with a few small orchids thrown in. What I received were a bouquet of orchids with a few stalks of hydrangea. I also didn't really like those leaves, but whatever.

Basically the bouquets were fine, beautiful even, just were not what I expected. Maybe there was a miscommunication along the way or I misunderstood our florists vision. I should have asked for a bouquet mock-up or a more thorough description. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, right? Luckily, the rest of our flowers were RIDICULOUS in the best way possible.

Burning River Bride Tip: Even if you don't think you care about certain things, make sure you at least double check to make sure you know what you're getting. I was perfectly happy to give creative license to our florist, but I did give him ideas of what I wanted. It was my fault that I didn't ask him more specific questions relating to the design of our bouquets.

Next Up: What have those boys been up to?

All photos, unless otherwise noted, are courtesy of Linczak Photography.

Burning River Wedding: The Ugly

When I returned to my room at the Marriott I was starving and exhausted. I scarfed down some mixed nuts provided by the hotel and kicked myself for not giving myself an OOT bag. I probably could have hunted down some food, but I was drunk and knew I had to get some sleep. Also, my cable wasn't working so I drunkenly called the front desk (trying to sound as sober as possible) to find out the problem. Apparently all of Northeast Ohio was experiencing a cable outage. Fantastic. Luckily it started working soon after that phone call.

Because of said drunkenness, I knew falling asleep wouldn't be a problem at all. "Man, I'm gonna sleep goooood toNIGHT," I thought to myself. HA! Ha ha ha ha ha WRONG. SO WRONG. Sure I FELL asleep with no problem, but staying asleep? Yeah, that was a different story.

How about I just let my tweets tell the tale (with a bit of commentary from me thrown in). Please take note of the timestamps:

Again...HA. Ha ha ha ha ha Emily you are so STUPID.

I ended up falling asleep right around midnight. I was so excited at the prospect of getting over 6 hours of sleep the night before my wedding! But then...

 I knew I was tweeting to dead air, but I had to get it out.

I tried EVERYTHING I could to fall asleep. I turned on the TV. I read from a book (My Fair Lazy, Jen Lancaster. Buy it!) I played Bejewled on my phone. I went pee (sorry, TMI). Nothing worked and as the hours passed, I knew this was bad. 

Sometime around 5:30-6:00 I fell asleep. My alarm was set for 6:45. When it went off I hit snooze a few times and ultimately woke up around 7. I got up, showered and nearly passed out/threw up while doing so. I was shaking and I was a mess. 

After I got out of the shower I called BM Bree to see if she had any food left over from her OOT bag and if she would bring that and a pop to me when she got to my room. I'm sure I sounded pathetic as I was on the verge of tears. Not long after, I tweeted this:

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Bree arrived with a granola bar and a pop a little before 8am. As the girls filtered into my room one by one, I sat in bed crying, thinking this is NOT how my wedding day was supposed to start. Oh, and it was raining.

Burning River Bride Tip #5: Wherever you stay the night before your wedding (hotel, parent's house, etc), make sure you have some food for a midnight snack. I know if I'd had a bit more food at my disposal (even a damn candy bar) I would have fared a bit better in the sleep department.

Brides: how much sleep did you get the night before your wedding? Brides-to-be: promise me you'll learn from my mistakes!!

Next Up: I suck it up and get ready.

Burning River Wedding: We Eat (Well, Some of Us)...and Drink...

In my "stuff that went wrong" post, I alluded to the fact that I had a wee bit too much to drink and not enough to eat at my rehearsal dinner. I can laugh at it now, but seriously gals (and guys) don't let this happen to you. Today's tip is going to come at the beginning of this post (and in bold) because it's just that important:


Burning River Bride Tip #4: EAT at your rehearsal dinner!!!

I got so caught up in talking and entertaining (I kind of love being the center of attention) that I kept refilling my wine glass and hardly sat down to eat a damn thing. I insisted that I wasn't hungry (probably nerves) but luckily my MIL forced a few bites of chicken parmesan, potatoes and green beans on me.

Due to my drunkenness, I decided to grab Tyrone for one of our typical bathroom photoshoots. On a similar note, we use the same bathroom...got a problem with that?

There are more...but I'll spare you.

While we were busy vamping it up in the bathroom, the rest of our group was busy mingling and getting to know one another:

I told all of our rehearsal dinner guests that we would leave some time for anyone interested to take the floor and give a speech/toast. I limited the wedding day toasts to Josh's Best Man, and 2 of my BMs (Claire and my SIL Bree), but I wanted to give anyone else an opportunity to talk as well. This worked out so well!!

Josh's parents kicked things off with an incredibly emotional and heartfelt (with a few good-natured jabs thrown in) toast. I don't remember what was said probably because I was crying pretty hard. This is a great picture of the toast:

Love all of our expressions: Brian is saying something smart-ass-y, Nancy is loving it, my mom is shocked, I'm giving Brian my "I'm warning you" look, and Josh is tickled to death. Such a good representation of the family.

*Photo courtesy of BM Claire*

BM Nikki and GM Mike also said a few words that made all of us laugh and of course, cry. I was so happy that our family and friends spoke. It was probably the highlight of our rehearsal for me. 

Since my the tip at the beginning of this post was fairly doom and gloom, here is another one: Try to carve out some time during your rehearsal for speeches/toasts. People might feel more comfortable speaking in front of a smaller, more intimate crowd.

Not only are our ceremony space and rehearsal dinner restaurant housed in the same building, but there is also super-fun piano bar in it! Have you ever heard of Howl at the Moon? It's a dueling piano/sing-a-long bar with locations throughout the country. After dinner, we headed here for some more drinks and a bunch of singing. Some family that didn't attend the RD came and it was a blast! I'll let the photos do the talking:

L-R: Josh's Florida cousins Sarah and Steph, me, SIL Bree

 Josh got on stage and sang "Ice, Ice Baby." He knows every.single.word.

The performers learned that I was a bride-to-be and serenaded me with some raunchy song. 

Also, why the EFF am I drinking a Corona?!?! Some one should have cut me off by then!

*Picture courtesy of BM Nikki*

By 11ish it was time to go...for me and my mom, at least. The rest of the party stayed out til lord only knows when. Josh met some famous baseball team manager (Dusty Baker of the Cincinnati Reds...anyone know who that is?) I heard that SIL Bree gave her brother a stern talking to around 1am. Thanks for having my back, gal!

So clearly our rehearsal dinner wasn't a low-key affair. That's just not how we roll. Tell me about yours or your plans for it!

Next up: wake up in the mornin' feelin' like...Ke$ha.

Guest Post: Tips for Getting (and Staying!) Organized

Hi, Burning River Bride readers! My name is Amy and I blog over at Little Miss Wedding Planner. I am so honored to be guest blogging for Em during her Honeymoon Week! We have been Internet-friends for quite some time now, and I am so happy for her and Josh.

So why did I call my blog Little Miss Wedding Planner? Because Planner should definitely be my middle name! I am Type A to the extreme, and as Emily put it in an email to me, “super ahead of schedule” when it comes to our wedding. I have set one goal for myself during wedding planning, and that is to have nothing to do during the wedding week.  Honestly, keeping that mantra in mind—and knowing how awesome it will be to have a few days off of work to just relax and welcome family and friends to town—has helped me to have a relatively stress-free experience because I am constantly reminding myself to stay ahead of the game.

I’ve always been really organized—ever since I was a little girl. My closet is color-coordinated, my DVDs are alphabetized, and my work life? Looks like this:

So you see, wedding planning is cause for me to be equally organized. It appeals to my Type A freakishness—to the extreme. Case in point: I have not one, but TWO wedding binders: one for general wedding planning and one solely for the guest list. 

I thought it might be helpful to give you guys a few tips and tricks for staying organized both during wedding planning AND in real life…so with that, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Lists, baby. I am constantly keeping to-do lists. I just love the feeling of checking stuff off. [Wow, Nerd Alert!] Whether it’s wedding planning or grocery shopping, find a list format that works for you and stick with it. I love the wedding templates on the Russell and Hazel website, and even though I am not a mom yet, I am pretty much obsessed with the Mom Planners by MomAgenda. 

2. The key to organization is to make it your own. As soon as we got engaged, I ran right out to the bookstore and bought the biggest, baddest wedding planning binder I could find. Guess what? I hated it and never used it. It was big and bulky and out-of-date. If I had done a little research, I would have saved that money and gone ahead and made my own…which I did eventually. Lesson learned—and now I LOVE using my binder because it’s exactly what I need.

3. Get ahead, and stay ahead. I may be organized, but I can sometimes fall prey to that nasty habit of procrastination. Shocking, I know…but I have to say, wedding planning has helped me with that bad habit sooo much! We are in the midst of a super-long engagement (23 months total, when all is said and done), and I have knocked out so many projects that a lot of people would wait until two or three months before the wedding to do. (See also: bathroom baskets, all aspects of the rehearsal dinner, and day-of survival kits.) Get stuff done early and you’ll be thanking yourself later.

4. Give yourself a break. I’ll go on benders where I am working on projects multiple days in a row and into the wee hours of the night. This inevitably leads to a crying jag when I get tired. The key to avoiding this—and not having a lot of stress when it comes to this stuff—has been having self-imposed moratoriums on wedding stuff. If I feel like I am getting too bogged down, I take a break—even for a couple of days or a week, if necessary. Just stop thinking about it for awhile, and then you can come back to it feeling really refreshed. Same goes for other areas of your life. Spring cleaning got you overwhelmed? Work on one closet or room at a time before moving to the next. And if one closet takes all day? That’s fine! But after that, give yourself a break! Have a glass of wine and watch some crappy reality tv. You can get back to cleaning—and wedding planning—tomorrow. Trust me, it will definitely save your sanity!

5. Similarly, while it’s a great idea to make a plan, it’s also important to allow yourself to be flexible. Easier said than done, right? Especially if you are a perfectionist (ahem, like me). Just be realistic when you’re taking on new tasks. Example: I designed and put together our Save-The-Dates and envelopes (with liners!), and while it was a fun project and I love how they turned out, I learned a valuable lesson in doing so: DIY invitations are not for me. So the new plan is to order our invitations, but make all of our other paper products—menus, place cards, favor tags, etc. Originally, did I want all of our paper products to match? Yes. Am I ok with the fact that because of the new plan, the invitations will look similar to the menus but not exactly match? Yes. Why? Because I’m the only one who will notice, and honestly? I don’t care. Your reception paper products will still look cohesive, and I promise no one is going to notice that they don’t match the invitations. 

So, that about wraps it up for my quick tips on how you too can be a freakishly organized bride (or wife!). Give them a try! Now you tell me: what are your best tips for staying ahead of the game?

Guest Post: Blog, baby, blog!

Hi guys! I was so excited when Em asked me if I’d be interested in writing a guest post for her while she was on her honeymoon. It’s hard to believe she’s seriously married! We’ve been ‘blog friends’ for several months now and our weddings used to seem SO far away. Now she’s a married woman and I’m less than 3 weeks away from my wedding!

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to blog about, but I decided what better topic than blogging itself? When I started my blog last July, I had NO idea what a great experience it would be. Now I encourage all brides to blog about their planning process!

First, I have met some of the BEST women and fellow brides in the world, hands down. I’ve gotten feedback on ideas, assurance for my silly worries, and most of all friendship from these ladies. While I’ve only met two of my blog friends in person, I seriously hope I’ll have the pleasure of meeting more of them in the future. I talk to several of them almost every day, and I honestly count them as some of my favorite friends.

There are also SO many resources available to brides through wedding blogs. If you’re a DIY bride, there are tons of free tutorials and templates that are incredibly helpful. And if you’re not, there is so much inspiration and so many gorgeous weddings that can help you find the feel you’re going for.

Lastly, I’m a huge sentimentalist and I want to remember how much I loved (most of the time) planning my wedding. There are a couple different sites out there that allow you to turn your blog into a book, which would be such a fun keepsake! Blurb offers a product called Blurb Books and Blog2Print offers books as well. All you have to do is put in your blog hyperlink!

(Source)

I can’t emphasize enough what a great experience blogging has been and how much I’ve gotten out of it. If you’re already reading this you’ve obviously discovered blogs, but if you haven’t started one of your own, DO IT! You definitely won’t regret it. 

Em, I’m sure you were an absolutely gorgeous bride and I seriously cannot wait to see your pictures! I’m so thankful for your friendship and that our blogs provided us with an opportunity to get to know each other! Enjoy every single second of your honeymoon, girl!

For the rest of ya’ll, feel free to come visit me at my blog: Lucky in Love

Guest Post: 10 things I learned from my wedding

Here to kick off Guest Post Week is Kelly and all you need to know is that she's hilarious. And awkward. And she loves pugs. And her husband. But I think she may love pugs more.

So. I'm married. For about two months now! My wedding was awesome, but not without drama. If you've ever read my blogs, you know that drama and awkwardness tend to follow me. I stressed out before the wedding about small details and things that could go wrong. Few of those things went wrong - but plenty of others did. Here are the ten things I learned from my wedding planning, in some cases things I wish I knew before, others, things I'm glad I did. I hope they can help you guys who are engaged... but also, I want to hear what the marrieds think! Anything you disagree with or could add would be welcome!

1. If you dislike someone before your wedding, you're not going to like them at the wedding. Just ignore them. My hubby's aunt wore a full on white dress to our wedding. I cringed during my MIL's impromptu speech at our reception.

The uninvited uncle who brought a date didn't bring anything else by way of a card, gift, or even a kind word. These people, who make your lives miserable on a daily basis, they aren't going to kiss your feet cause it's your wedding. They're there for free food. Ignore them, limit the time your photographer spends photographing them, and move on. No use being shocked. Prepare yourself now.

2. You are going to have no time before your wedding. Get things done early. When I tried to make plans, I pretty much procrastinated, thinking it was "too early." Prime example- the music and readings for our ceremony. I felt like making those assignments early was silly and would be laughed at. Who was laughing when I was cutting our program sheets the week of our wedding? The Kinko's man, that's who. I should have just sucked it up and figured that out months before - then I could have made the programs early instead of finishing them while my hair was being done.

3. Don't take shit from vendors. If you want something, yes, listen to their suggestions. But then decide on your own. No one should push you around. Do your research, ask around, and absolutely do not hire anyone who gives you crap. If a vendor ignores you (like my cake-topper maker did) or gives you crap, then just tell them they can give you a rim job for all you can. Then blog about them. It's fun and vengeful. Luckily I figured these things out pre-wedding and at the end of the day - my vendors were amazing. If you cannot hug a vendor, IMHO, either you need to loosen up, or you need to fire them. But then again I'm awkward and hug-friendly. Use your own discretion.

4. Tell your groom what to do. I tried to be hands-off and we were three weeks out with no tuxes and no groomsman gifts. Make your fiance a list early, and tell him to do it all. Check in monthly. I wish I had. Luckily we busted it out and got stuff done, but it could've been a disaster. And it wasn't fun showing up at Men's Wearhouse month of.

5. Eat. Ugh, nuff said. I didn't at our appetizer hour and ended up stuffing my face at the reception. Luckily I had a reception dress, but if I hadn't, my poor corset might've burst. Bring yourself snackies.

  
6. Give yourself at least a day between the wedding and honeymoon. I know, I know, not typical. But if you are a last minute idiot like me, you won't have time before the wedding to shop for bikinis and flip flops. We frantically shopped and packed the day after our wedding. Then we had a good night's sleep and an easy trip to the airport the next day. It's not required, but it definitely improved our situation.

7. Take pictures of EVERYTHING. Assign your camera to a family member without shaky hands who doesn't have their own camera. Make a list before the wedding of all the cute tiny elements of your wedding that you want pictures of. You don't want to go to blog about a detail, only to realize that it never got it's 15 minutes of photographic fame!

8. First looks- do them. Your flowers will only wilt more, you will only get more tired. I worried endlessly about taking pictures before taking away from our time at the ceremony. And yet, walking down the aisle was one of the most emotional moments of my life. I'm sure for some people, it's not the right choice. However, if it seems like it would work for you, but you're nervous about the ceremony being less important, don't. (Worry, that is. Don't worry.) Geez, let me just sum up my rambling with first look = convenient and special.

9. If someone/something is important to you.... have them be in your pictures. For me it was Pugs and my mom. They were in our pre-ceremony pictures. If you have a pet snail that means the world to you and you can't imagine your day without your precious snaily, then include snailypoo by all means. If it's not possible to have your loved one there for some reason, include a picture, or do something meaningful. Don't give a shit about anyone saying anything about "weird snail weddings" or "pug hair on black tuxes." That's what lint rollers are for.

10. Always wear sunscreen on your honeymoon. Seriously.

I'm still finishing my wedding recaps on my wedding blog, http://misspug.blogspot.com. You can find my regular blog at http://kjpugs.wordpress.com as well. Don't forget to check out Blog Buddy Appreciation Day this Tuesday!

A PSA

Because I love you all SO MUCH and want each and every one of you to look supa-fine on your wedding day, I'm sending out a PSA.

Mind your face.

Don't be like me and think "Oh, I know! I'll entertain my guests with reenactments of funny stories accompanied by "funny" faces! Yes, that will certainly make for a great day."

Because when you do that, you end up with photos like this:

 Why?

Also this:

Really, Emily?

And finally:

Not. Cute.

So please, learn from my mistakes. Don't look like an asshole on your wedding day. Thank god this was just my shower.

Are you known to take extremely unflattering photos? Care to share in my misery?