Love’s Valley of Dreams: DIYing the flowers, sort of

I really didn’t elaborate much on this before the wedding because there wasn’t much for me to talk about.  One of my bridesmaids, AC, is a florist.  I never considered hiring anyone but AC to design my florals.  In fact, we discussed it before I even met Mr. Crabcake.  This is why I say I sort of DIY’d my flowers.

After months of harassing AC about my flowers, she placed the order and had them shipped to my mom’s house where we would take over my brother’s cottage and transform it into a floral design studio!

The first (and probably most important) task at hand was to go to my mom’s house and sign for the delivery.  AC was tracking the delivery from her home in Texas and told me that the flowers should be delivered by 10am EST.  I got to my mom’s house around 8:30, prepared to settle in and work on some projects while waiting on the delivery.  I was surprised to see my mother’s boyfriend there and decided that I’d let him sign, gave him instructions, and went on my merry way.  (After all, I had a ton of errands left to run that morning!)

About an hour later, AC called and said according to FedEx, the flowers had been delivered, but there was a notation on the tracking site that said wrong address.  My first reaction was a reasonable one.  My mom lives in a historic district where backyard studio cottages are a normal thing.  Our cottage happens to have its own little address (1540 1/2) and I had instructed mom’s BF to have the flowers put in the cottage, so that must be the problem.  Nevertheless, I drove straight back to Mom’s to check it out.  Much to my dismay, my flowers weren’t there.  This is when I started panicking.  AC was on the phone with FedEx trying to locate my flowers and my mother’s BF and I were frantically walking up and down my mom’s neighborhood looking on people’s porches for a giant box of flowers.  No lie.  I even stopped a little old lady weeding her garden to interrogate her about whether or not she’d seen the FedEx truck on the street.  Ten minutes passes and still no word from my bridesmaid.  Mom’s BF is three blocks away and I am pacing in front of the house.  Off in the distance, I hear the characteristic rumble of a large truck (y’all know what I’m talking about!) and start to get excited.  As the truck crests the hill leading up to Mom’s house, I see the most beautiful site I’d ever seen: that white FedEx truck coming over the hill.  Never have I loved FedEx so much.

Apparently, the address was one street off on the shipping label, but correct on the packing slip (Thank God).  Hooray for diligent FedEx delivery men!

AC arrived from Texas later that evening and we got to work processing the flowers.  Basically, we just clipped the ends of the stems and stuck them in buckets of water.  Easy enough.

The next morning we set to work putting together the arrangements.  My brother’s cottage smelled better than it ever had and I was so thrilled with how pretty my flowers looked hanging out in their buckets.

AC started putting together bouquets.  The first one she finished ended up being the Maid of Honor’s bouquet.

Bridesmaid TK is getting married next June and considering arranging her own flowers, so she took lessons from AC.

yes, we were drinking while we worked!

By the time suppertime rolled around, we had finished all the bouquets except mine, boutonnieres, and church arrangements.  I’ll save the pretty for later.  I don’t want to spoil all the details!

A Bee’s Life: The CrabCake Edition

Like Mrs. Penguin, I was totally oblivious to blogging before I started looking for wedding inspiration.  Sure, I’d heard of blogs, but the internet wasn’t something I spent a lot of time with.  At least, not like I do now.  And to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how I stumbled across Weddingbee.  I just remember thinking how cool these girls were, how creative, and honest, and AWESOME!  Soon, I was obsessed.  Like, refreshing my browser every 5 minutes or so, needing another hit (you know you do it, don’t judge!).  I never really got involved in the boards (and still struggle to keep up).  Shortly after discovering Weddingbee, I decided I wanted to share my experiences with the hive.  I wasn’t sure where to start, or what to talk about.  My first posts are awful, seriously, rambling messes.  I still find myself rambling…

When it came time to apply to blog the the Bee, I filled out the application and waited on pins and needles for days.  Instead of refreshing my browser, I was refreshing my mailbox.  Then, one day, there was an email from WB.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.  I had been turned down.  Depressed, totally.  I even avoided WB for a few days.  But seriously, like a true addict, I had to get my fix, and came right back within a few days.  So, was I discouraged?  At first, yes.  But after getting over the embarrassment of being turned down (even though no one knew but me and Mrs. Bee, or Pengy, whichever), I was even more determined then before.

For the next month, I read archives.  I mean, like a novel, every night a different Bee.  Then I wrote.  And I tried to stop rambling.  I stopped trying to be someone I wasn’t.  It was so much easier to just be me.  Yes, I’m a huge dork.  I’m awkward and I always have been.  But being me was natural and easy.  The posts started to come a little easier.

A month passed and I re-applied.  I tried not to get my hopes up.  I didn’t want to be disappointed again.  This time, when the email from the Bee showed up in my inbox, I was ecstatic.  I was home alone when I received the email.  I spent about 30 minutes jumping around the house, a bundle of energy.  I started composing my introduction post, but was a little to excited to focus on it.  When Mr. CC got home, I think he was concerned about my mental state.  I was talking about a million miles a minute and jittery.  I wanted his help picking a character, since he would be Mr. whatever.  The shoe generation had just come out, and I considered some of those pretty seriously for a while, but they just didn’t seem to fit.  I wanted something that spoke to my Southern side and CrabCake definitely did!

Things haven’t always been smooth.  It’s hard writing for such a large audience.  I wasn’t used to anyone reading my blog except Mr. CC’s aunts.  Seriously.  I’ve said somethings that didn’t go over well.  But that’s me.  I don’t always think things through before they come out of my mouth.  I do it in real life all the time.  I’ve gotten better about proof reading my posts before I publish them, although a few things still creep through.  And I try not to take it too seriously.  After all, the wedding was just a big party.

I wholeheartedly agree with Penguin’s advice.  Write what you know.  Blogging has become an addiction to me.  As soon as the wedding was over, I started focusing my energy on my personal blog.  It’s so much easier now that I’m not bound to one subject!   I just write.  Don’t try to be someone you aren’t.  I try to avoid emotions.  I don’t try to be funny (but if it comes out funny, great!).  I write about my daughter.  I write about my cooking, my knitting, my sewing.  I write about how tired I am of being fat (even though I still haven’t lost a single pound..boo).  I write about my successes and failures with various and sundry crafting projects.

Writing for Weddingbee has been an incredible experience!  I never ever thought I would actually get to do this.  My fellow Bees are some of the most amazing, kind-hearted, talented women I have ever met.  The hive is so supportive and friendly!  Y’all were my sounding board for the last 7 months of my engagement.  You made decisions that I couldn’t make for myself.  You all have influenced me more than you can possibly imagined.  Seriously, most of my DIY projects were inspired by something another Bee did!  (I mean, really, why else would a nurse with no graphic design experience decide to design and print her own invitations other than the fact that she was brainwashed into thinking it would be fun!  Oh, wait, it was fun!)   I love each and every one of you!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Bride wore…

Wool?

I saw this wedding this morning featured at Craftzine.com.

The Bride and Groom are sheep herders.  Apparently, his waistcoat is made from the same wool as her dress.

How wonderfully creative!!  Read the whole article here.

Mommy CrabCake’s Wedding Album

A few years ago, my mom passed down her wedding album.  My parents were married in 1979 in a very small ceremony.  The reception was held in my grandparents backyard and my grandmother’s homemade spaghetti was the only thing on the menu.

Needless to day, it was a simple affair.  Her album is similar.

Yes, my maiden name was Seeds.  Like you plant in the ground.  Blech.

The pictures are surrounded by construction paper, and each page is a different color.

The photos are held to the back of the paper with scotch tape.  You can see the adhesive eating away at the construction paper.

Over the years, I’ve flipped through this album with fond memories of my parents and their marriage.  I’m sad that the album is deteriorating right before my eyes. With the advent of services link inkubook and shutterfly, I’ve been toying around with the idea of scanning all my mother’s wedding pictures and creating an album that will stand the test of time.

I’m concerned about destroying the original.  I want those photos around, but I’m afraid the damage has already been done.

So, hive, what do you suggest I do with the original once I’ve scanned the photos in.  Should I try to put it back together?  Or should I try to reproduce it with new supplies and acid-free adhesives?

Love’s Valley of Dreams: The Shower

In May, my mom and my MOH threw me an Around the Clock shower.

(source)

Not our information, I forgot to take a picture of the invitation, and can’t find them right now…

Instead of focusing on the clock theme, they focused on the blue dots.  My mom did a great job of keeping everything cohesive!

We played some non-competitive games.

Mini and I opened some gifts.

And there was some mingling and eating, of course!

Everyone had a great time and it was really nice to mingle with my friends and family.

A huge thank you to my mom and sister/MOH for throwing me a great shower!

Love’s Valley of Dreams: A Tale of Two Parties

I have an amazing group of friends.  Seriously Amazing.  They threw two Bachelorette parties in my honor.

In March, my New Orleans bridesmaid threw me what was supposed to be The-Best-Bachelorette-Ever.  The plan was for a large group of my friends to meet in New Orleans and enjoy a Girl’s Weekend with my Bachelorette Party culminating the event on Saturday night.  Invites went out and the “No’s” started rolling in.  Apparently, we picked a very bad weekend.  There were so many declines that I begin to think my friends were playing a mean joke on me.  By the Wednesday before the party, we hadn’t received one yes.  Not one.  I was sad, but determined to go to New Orleans, spend the weekend with my girlfriend, and have a good time.  And we did.  We had a blast.  She had already purchased all the party supplies, so we pinned firehoses on firemen and did MadLibs.  We took a ton of pictures of our antics and, sadly, my memory card died and ate all my pictures.

Meanwhile, back in Georgia, my local girlfriends were (I suppose) feeling guilty about not making the party and decided that they would throw another party.  My friend LD’s husband was one of the guys helping with Mr. CC’s bachelor party, so the girls decided to plan them for the same night.

I had no idea what we were going to be getting into.  I received an official invitation about a week before the party and it said to wear plaid.  PLAID!!  I don’t have plaid.  Fortunately, LD texted me later that day and told me to wear black.  Huge sigh of relief, black I could do.

We started the night off at LD’s house, where everyone met so we could carpool around town.

LD, EF, me, and RA

By the way, I decided to accent my black dress with orange jewelry and had to find the perfect shoes to match.

I love these shoes!!  All the girls threatened to steal them!

Our first stop was our favorite Mexican dive in Uptown Columbus.  They immediately placed a sombrero on my head.

Remember how I hate things on my head?  Yeah, including stinky sombrero’s that who knows how many other people have put on their head.

The sombrero didn’t last long.  My friend’s presented me with a hand made veil.

The minute I donned that veil, we started getting a lot of attention.  It was painfully obvious that someone was getting married, and she hadn’t had enough to drink.

I started with a Margarita, an enormous margarita.

Then there was this shot that someone bought me (us?).  I don’t remember what it was.  But apparently it didn’t taste too good.

Ugly shot face!

By the time dinner was over, I was feeling quite nice.  I usually don’t drink liquor, so when I do, I’m usually a pretty cheap date.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one feeling pretty good.  Look at all the empty margarita glasses.

We left the Mexican restaurant and went next door to the piano bar.  Here is a good sign I’ve had too much to drink.

I’ve climbed up on the piano.  Oh dear.  It was apparently very, very funny.

After the piano player questioned my virginity (which was not funny, and I promptly hopped off his piano and walked away), I decided it was time to conquer my scavenger hunt.  Most of the pictures that were taken of the scavenger hunt are not appropriate for y’alls innocent eyes, so I’ll keep those to myself.  But here’s one of me attempting to get some poor man to answer a likely embarrassing question.

Please note the water in my hand.  It was not helping.

All the girls

At this point, it was time to meet back up with the men at LD’s house.  So we piled back into the car and made our way back to her house.

When we arrived at LD’s house, the Bachelor party, Luau style, was winding down.  I know it’s a little un-traditional to  party with the boys, but that’s how  Mr. CC wanted it, so we did.

I greeted Mr. CC with a big, sloppy, drunk kiss.

Please note my soon to be husband preparing to smack my bottom.  This is a daily occurrence at our house.

The Best Man (in red) decided to give a 20 minute toast to us before everyone headed home (it was only 2am).  I found something in me lei to keep me entertained instead.

When everything is all said and done

I still have one (ok, maybe several, but one for now) very big question.

What should I do with my gown?

I was busy getting married when we did the Bees’ Dress Budget Series.  Here’s a little background on my dress.

Dress: Alfred Angelo 1136 in Light Gold purchased at Formal Elegance, Columbus, Ga

Cost: $500 + $65 alterations

Not my favorite picture, but it does show off the dress well.

Anyway..I didn’t spend very much on my dress.  Well, not in wedding dress terms anyway.  Of course, Mr. CC see’s it differently.  He sees a $500 dress that will never be worn again.  And $500 is a lot to him.

I’ve tried to discuss this with him and he is no help whatsoever.  Except one thing is painfully obvious.  He does not want to spend any more money on this dress.

So, I’ve done some thinking, and here’s what I think my options are. Perhaps you all have more options.

Preserve it. This will cost money.  I’m also not sure of the purpose.  Sure, I’d love to still have my mom’s wedding gown (she preserved it and a naughty kitty got in the closet, scratched through the plastic and peed on it.)  But am I really going to let Mini play in it later?  I don’t know.  Will she be sentimental enough to wear it when she gets married?  I don’t know that either, but since she’s got my blood running through her, I tend to think not.

Sell it. I’m not terribly fond of this plan.  I’m not sure why.  It just doesn’t feel right.  Plus, it will need to be cleaned.  We tried to take it to the cleaner already, they wanted $225 to clean it and Mr. CC almost stroked out right there.

Donate it to Charity. If I do this, it’s going to Brides Against Breast Cancer.  If there was a Brides Against Alzheimer’s it would probably go there, but I’m a big fan of ta-tas too.  (BTW, I totally want one of those “Save the Ta-Tas” magnets for my car.)

Clean it and have it made into a christening gown. I can’t remember where I heard this idea, but I kinda like it.  But I think my mom still has our christening gown and it would be nice for future children to wear the same one I did (or the same on Mr. CC did, if his parents could find it). And, traditionally, christening gowns are white.  But so are wedding dresses.

Clean it and have it made into an Anniversary Dress. A possibility, but that’s a pretty fancy gown.  Maybe I could turn it into a cocktail length gown and dye it like Sherry did over at Young House Love.  (This may happen to my get away dress cause it’s really cute, but totally not going to wear it again in the color that it is).

So, hive, what do you think I should do with my gown?  Or, do you have a better idea?

To PWC or Not?

There’s been a lot of talk lately of the PWC (post wedding chop).

I’m torn.

I’ve always had short hair.  There’s only one time in my adult life I can remember having hair this long.

Shall we time travel?  Lets..

This picture is so dated…January 2001, I’m a senior in high school.  Check my enormous bangs.  They are hiding my caterpillar eyebrows (as I do not understand the concept of waxing yet).

High School Graduation.  Two days after Senior Prom (and a few weeks after a bad break-up), I whacked all my hair off.  It was liberating, kinda like, new life, new hair.  I still had not discovered waxing.

That’s me in the middle.  2003, sophomore year of college.  This was a good length.  Long enough for a ponytail, but still low maintenance.  I was so stinking skinny.

2005.  This is the longest it has ever been.  We’re talking lifetime record.  It didn’t last long.  Shortly after a trip to Mexico (where my hair did not get along with the water, and I thought it was my hair being too long), I hacked it all off again.

Then I let it grow back out.  Here I am at my college graduation in 2006.

Shortly (like days) before meeting Mr. CC in the summer of 2007, I chopped it all off again.

This is too short.

Once I was hooked on re-enacting, it was time to grow my hair out a little.  Then we got engaged.

Must have long hair for wedding.  Right.

It’s been trimmed, and shaped since our engagement in April 2008.  But it’s not been cut.

Here I am on our 5th day of wedding bliss.

Burnt to a crisp, but a very good representation of what my hair looks like on a daily basis.  Sort of messy, and just hanging there.  I’m totally deficient at putting my own hair up, so it’s all down or ponytail.

Hhmm… there seems to be a detail missing.  I started wearing glasses back in October.

I still wear contacts on occasion, but it is rare.

I’ve already made an appointment for later this week to get it cut, but should I leave it long or chop it off?

Love’s Valley of Dreams: The Bridals

I decided to title my recaps Love’s Valley of Dreams because they are lyrics from our song, Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller.  Thus begins the recaps!

About a month before the wedding (or 6 weeks ago, whatever), My photographer and I got together and did my Bridals.

Apparently, this is a Southern thing.  I didn’t know that.  Learn something new every day.  Anyway, we decided to do bridals instead of another engagement session since Mr. CC and I had one engagement session already and I couldn’t convince Mr. CC that we needed another.  I actually wanted to re-take our engagement pictures since I wasn’t very happy with the original session, but Mr. CC was not seeing the point in that.  In the end, I’m really glad I got to do Bridals.  It gave me an opportunity to try everything out together, including finding the easiest way to get into all that nonsense, lace it up, etc., etc.

Kristian and I decided that we would visit Callaway Gardens and do most of the session there.  The night before the session, we chatted about the weather, since rain was forecasted.  It had been raining for 7 days straight and was supposed to be clearing up some, but it wasn’t looking good for our particular day.  We decided that we would go for it anyway, since the wedding was closing in on us and it was too late to reschedule my hair and make-up appointments.  There were some areas inside the Gardens that were actually indoors, so we figured the worst thing that could happen is we were confined to those spaces.

Friday morning, I got a bright and early start.  I was up about 7, dressed and out the door with Mini in tow by 8:15.  My appointments started at 9 and I needed to get her to school before heading to the salon.  She was terribly upset that she didn’t get to go with me, and I had to bribe her to get her to go to school quietly.

When I arrived at the salon, there were some nasty looking thunderclouds above, but no rain yet, so I crossed my fingers, said a quick prayer, grabbed my veil and hair piece, and ran inside.

I brought my new hair inspiration collage with me and showed my stylist.  She seemed to think I had plenty of hair to pull the stle off, and got to work curling my hair.  Getting my hair done took about 40 minutes and then I scooted over into the make-up artists chair.  I tried to tell her what I hadn’t liked about my last trial and she got to work.  Unfortunately, she over corrected and I ended up with less make-up on than I wear on a normal day.  After dropping more money than I had paid for the first trial (I assume this was because there was a new make-up artist and therefore prices had changed, but I was a bit miffed anyway), I ran like a bat out of you-know-where to my mom’s house to get changed.  It was 11:30 and I need to drive 15 minutes to my mom’s, get dressed, and get to Callaway (30 minutes north) to meet Kristian at 12noon.  I was going to be late.  Very, very late.

Mom and I hurridly threw my dress on and ran out the door for Callaway.  On the drive up, the rain started.  It was just a little rain, but nevertheless, it was raining and I was not happy.  I got a call from Kristian letting me know that she was running late too, so at least I was able to relax about that.

When we got to Callaway, we hit a roadblock.  There was some sort of National Watersskiing event happening that day and Kristian’s corporate pass wasn’t going to get us in.  We would have to pay full admission, which was $20 each.  After mulling it over, we decided $60 was way too much money to spend on admission to the Gardens, especially on a day that it was raining and there was no guarantee the ski would clear up enough for us to make any good pictures.

So we left.  Kristian knew of a good field that was just outside the gates and should have been full of flowers, so we headed over there.

On the way, we found this nice big patch of magnolia trees, and decided to stop there first.  Mind you, for each different place we went that the ground was wet, Kristian and my mom would put this giant piece of plastic down to keep my dress from getting wet, so there was a lot of set up and break down for each back ground change.  Once I was settled on the plastic, they tucked it in under my dress so it wouldn’t show.

I made a quicky fake bouquet out of some silk peonies I bought last summer to use in our centerpieces and a couple of silk hydrangea from this season’s silk collection (all at Pier 1).  It actually turned out quite nicely for a girl with very little bouquet making experience.  Even the florist bridesmaid was impressed when I showed it to her.

We took a few pictures in front of the magnolia and then moved along to the field.  Honestly, the bulk of the good pictures were taken here.  We put up with a lot of dribbly rain, some nasty looking weeds, and some sticker bushes to get these pictures, but they were totally worth it.

Seeing these shots really made me glad I dyed my crinoline.  I was really happy with how well everything came together.

The rain was getting a little heavy, so we packed up and headed towards Uptown Columbus. By the time we got down there, the rain had moved on.  Yay!

I had spotted this beat up pink airstream months and months ago, and knew we had to stop to take pictures with it.  I’m so glad we did, the pictures turned out great.

Y’all have seen that one!

On the other side of the airstream was this busted up old phone booth.

I really with these would have turned out better.  They are still pretty awesome though.  We didn’t really want the street in the background, so it limited our angle possibilities.

Kristian uses these old suitcases for her baby sessions, but brought them along on my request.

I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about climbing onto the railroad, since it’s still active, but it was so worth it!

These are just a handful of the images Kristian took.  I’m really glad I had the opportunity to do this.  My hair and make-up survived the wind and the rain fairly well.

Now, I just have to decide what to do with them.  I put off the decision because I didn’t show the images to Mr. CC until last night and I wanted him to have some say in the decision.  I can either purchase the prints I like, or buy a cd with the images on them.  I’m leaning towards the cd.  I don’t know what I want to do with them right now, but I’m sure I’ll want to print them again later and I would hate to not have that option.

All Photographs courtesy Kristian Ogden Photography unless stated otherwise

We’re Back!!

Mr. CrabCake and I just returned from our most fabulous honeymoon on PCB.  We are well rested, de-stressed, brown, and kinda bored.  Ten days at the beach was about 2 too many.

Our wedding was spectacular!  It was a huge blur, the whole weekend.  But everything went perfectly smoothly and I couldn’t have asked for a better day.  The Mr. and I were perfectly calm, cool, and collected.  Well, after 3pm on Friday anyway, but we’ll get to that later.

We’ve only seen one photo from our photographer, but it is awesome!

I mean, is that really us?  I can definitely see this one over the mantel (or something like that, since we have no mantel)!

By the way, she told Mr. CC when she was leaving that she had over 20 gigs of pictures from our day!!

I’m so glad to be back!!