9: Top O'the Cake to ya!

So because I am incredibly cool and have so much of a life outside of this wedding (sarcasm alert), I have joined several online communities dedicated solely to wedding planning. These are venues in which women far and wide come to discuss their weddings, to bitch about their future inlaws and to agonize over critical decisions with other brides across the nation (“Should my centerpieces be 37 inches or 25 inches tall? What about their width?”).

There is even a fancy lingo that you must know in order to be accepted as a true bride-to-be planner. Acronyms such as “FH” and “BM” float around these threads and are used without a second thought. For any bride who is considering getting into this line of planning, I will share a guide with you so that you aren’t lost:

FH = Future Husband (just when I figured out how to spell fiancé correctly!)
MOH = this one is pretty straight forward and means Maid of Honor
BM = not what you think, this one means Bridesmaid
BM = confusing huh? This is a contextual one, it could mean Bridesmaid OR it could mean Best Man, pay attention to usage and the pronouns associated with it
GM = Groomsmen
FMIL = Future Mother in Law
FBIL = Future Brother in Law and so on (though every time I see this, my brain automatically names that individual Bill, I just can’t help it.
STD = This is by far the best one for obvious reasons. I mean, seriously, if there was a good reason not to go trough with a wedding, you'd think it'd be that. I saw this one floating around the forums so many times that I wated to get up, go wash my hands and see a doctor. But all was ok my loves because as it turns out, that acronym means Save The Date!

I encourage you to bookmark this and check back frequently for reference. (don’t fall behind).

Here’s one that has stumped me however, and because I don’t want to be seen as a noob (and also because I am too lazy to bother) I haven’t yet asked for clarification about this. Some girls say FI in reference to their FH’s (check the reference guide for a refresher on what FH stands for!). What on Earth does the I represent? I have no idea. Advice anyone?


So the other day I was perusing one of these communities when I saw what is perhaps one of the cutest things of all time ever (and that’s saying a lot because I have seen Ryan (aww) but more accurately, I have this as my desktop picture):



What did I find that could possibly top that?

The answer, my loves, is handmade cake-toppers that are designed to look like the bride and groom.

Yes, you read that right, your eyes are not deceiving you, something THAT CUTE does exist. And it is because of the fact that I have very little life outside of these wedding communities and the internet that I was able to find them. Thank God.

These cake toppers are done by Nicole Clark, an artist who I believe is working out of Ontario. She is amazing and can even include pets in the cake-toppers for a small additional fee. Our birds, for example, would only cost $5 extra per bird, a price that I consider to be quite the bargain (and which is only a mere 8.33333% of what we spent per bird in the first place when we bought them).

I emailed her an excited and enthusiastic message last night praising her work and asking for more information. Afterwards, I literally fell asleep with visions of mini-Groom Ryan and mini-Bride me standing atop our cake.

My dreams came true this morning when I awoke to a friendly email from Nicole in my inbox. She explained the procedure and assured me that I am not, in fact, emailing her too soon because she is booked through March of 2008. This made me proud of myself for being ahead of the game and being able to snag her services before she is booked. (Not to mention that I am more than a little excited to brag about this in my own post in the planning community; brides with weddings before March 08 shall turn green in their pretty white gowns with the envy they feel when they see my precious cake toppers).

Now, somehow (and the reason for this eludes me completely), not everyone shared my total enthusiasm for this part of the process at first. For example, this morning while visiting my parents, I asked my father if he wanted to see the cake toppers. He replied instantly and almost without hesitation a brisk and firm “No.” and then quickly tried to leave the room. After a whine and a bribe (on my part), I was able to convince him to come take a look. Cuteness prevailed my friends because at first sight, my father was swayed.

With a laugh he commented on how cute they truly were.

He then asked me if we were going to have versions of he and my mother made for the cake as well – aren’t we a family after all? What about his two dogs?

Clearly this was the part of the process where I ended the conversation.

Nevertheless, the point is that we have found our future cake toppers and I can cross another crucial item off of the list in my massive bridal planner (where is that thing anyway?). I know that you will all rest easier with the knowledge that I will not have a barren and depressing wasteland of a cake top at my wedding.

So with that I venture off to another day of working and planning and never fear, I will keep you all updated. I know how anxiously you await the next portion of this journey.

love and cake-toppers (is there a difference?),

Rhian

8: Save the Whales…I mean, the Date! Save the Date! (and Ferris)

So while it seems impossible that anything could be so amazing, there is even MORE to this story of the magical venue and the perfect wedding plans. "How can that be?", you ask? Read on dear reader, read on...

We viewed Venito Perfecto (not proper Italian) for the first time in October. This was a wedding planning faux pas (gasp!) because it was only 11 months out from the date we had originally wanted which was September 27th 2008. (interjection: this is another piece of wedding lingo to become accustomed to - someone will ask you "how far out are you?". The first time this happened to me, I thought they were rhetorically stating how cool I was by using 1950s lingo. They weren’t. It means, “how far away is your wedding in terms of months?” weddings, like babies, are measured by their months. The typical gestation period for a wedding is between 12 and 18 months)

So anyway, we were only 11 months out. This is dangerous, wedding-shark-infested-water to be in without a venue. The solution usually becomes: sacrifice your venue or sacrifice your date.

And that is the twist that our happy little fairy-tale took when Perfect Venue didn’t have our date.

Cue sad music and an agonizing decision, right? Nope! Wrong.

In all honesty, Ryan and I weren’t really feeling our date anyway. Ryan picked it because it corresponded with my lucky numbers and we needed an answer to give to the five hundred people asking us what the date was. Truthfully, we both had the nagging intuition all along that that day of next year was probably not going to belong to us.

I remember asking him recently, “do you think we’re really going to get married on September 27th?” In typical us fashion, we both kinda shrugged and moved on. With us, nothing is ever certain, even the answer to things like “Do you think you are going to keep your first name as Ryan your whole life?” or “Do you think I will decide not to quit my job without warning this week?”

At least we’re exciting.

So flashback story time: A week or two before the venue was discovered in the rough, we were up really late talking. This memory has dream-like qualities and is foggy in my mind. That leads me to wonder if I were drinking when the event took place but Ryan assures me that I was just tired. Either way, details are elusive but I remember us talking about how we wanted to get married on a different, specific date AND how much fun it would be to celebrate our wedding AND that date at the same time.

That night, in my late-night-exhausted-drunken state and Ryan’s whatever state, we jokingly decided to switch our whole plan and get married instead on the date we came up with. We were excited and fell asleep shortly thereafter.

The next morning, Ryan looked at me and said, “S0, did we change the date?” I guess all of the excitement had worn off by then because I said “I don’t know if we should or not…” and we let it go at that.

Until the Fates stepped in on the day we found The Venue .

That day, after touring the magical building and nearly crying of joy, we sat down to discuss availability. I kept my little fingers crossed hoping that somehow everything would work out and we would get Our Date (at this point, I thought Our Date was still Sept 27)

I got my wish and we did get Our Date. It just wasn’t the one I misguidedly thought was supposed to belong to us.

Why? Because they didn’t have the 27th of September. Oh no.

But they did have our other date, our magical, swirly, should-be-a-song-in-a-musical date.

The 31st of December.

That's right, my dears, New Years Eve!

So you’ve heard it now and you’ve heard it right. We have changed the date hallelujah!

And our wedding will be held on December 31, 2008.

How lucky are we that we get to begin our whole new lives with a whole new year!? So here’s to December 31st, 2008.

Love and confetti falling from the ceiling,

Rhian

7: Location, Location, Location.

Once upon a time, about one month ago, a young bride-to-be with dark hair and dark eyes and an increasingly exasperated disposition threw her hands into the air and with a pout and a glisten in her eye said, “I don’t think we will ever find a place to have this wedding!”

She called her mother crying and said “I give up. I am going to Vegas. I will be married by Elvis and Ryan will wear a powder blue tuxedo with frills and I will have showgirls as my bridesmaids.”

Her mother was a kind and loving woman and was used to these tirades from the young bride-to-be and so she simply sighed and said “Love, you must be patient, you must relax. Go run a bath, I am confident that something magical will happen soon.”

And so the bride-to-be took a bath and went to bed. The next morning she decided to do a proactive activity because she has a background in self-improvement and knew that she wasn’t being very empowered by her recent actions. The bride-to-be took out a notebook and a pen and wrote at the top of the page:

My ideal wedding venue

And underneath it she described this ideal wedding in as much detail as she could. It said something like the following:

My ideal wedding venue would feel more like a fancy dinner party than a big ballroom event. There would be many rooms, there would be a fireplace that me and Ryan could get married in front of. Everyone could mingle with one another and there would be a ballroom for dancing. It would be elegant and gorgeous, unique and beautiful. It wouldn’t be one giant, hotel ballroom with giant ugly tables. There wouldn’t be one of those ugly dance-floors in the middle of the room with the ugly wood veneer. This wedding would feel elegant, personal and beautiful.

The next day, her mother sent her an email with a few different wedding venues to check out. The first one she looked at was a gorgeous mansion that glowed with yellow bricks and spire rooftops. There was a Great Hall, a Music Room, a Library and a Ballroom.

The Bride-to-be cried tears of joy and immediately made an appointment to see the venue – that day. She whisked her mother and father there, toured the venue and gasped at its beauty. This place felt just right.

That night they returned with her groom in tow. They toured the venue together and he fell just as in love with the venue as she did. They had found it – it was their castle for their romantic and fairy tale wedding. It was magic – just like the bride’s mother had said it would be.

And so it is booked and the wedding shall take place there.

But wait…there’s more…

Love and happily ever after’s have to start somewhere,

Rhian

6: blogs are back!

So I have unfortunately been a bad bride-to-be-blogger and have allowed my blogging to lapse in the months since planning our engagement party. I am vowing here and now that said lapse will end and I will continue writing and updating with the steadfast intention of creating memories for the future!

That said, there is a lot to cover and catch up on so off we go:

First, in this blog, I would like to address where we left off: The Engagement Party

The Engagement Party was held on September 15th at my parents house. It was a beautiful event.

My parents had decided to repair and basically redo their entire house in the weeks leading up to The Engagement Party. Not only did my fiancé get in a lot of male bonding with my brother, father and brother in law by putting in a brand new floor in the dining room, but I got in a lot of bonding with my mother by going to fabric stores and rearranging all of her furniture. I even got to put my Interior Decorating skills to work (my first time using those skills since I got certified in 2005) and rearrange her parlor.

The party was a vast success and was catered by Lee’s Hoagie House, Acme and Chic Fil A; exactly what we wanted.

And I learned some valuable lessons (some of which I will be taking with me to the wedding):
- Beer Pong on the Porch doesn’t work
- Ryan and I didn’t get time to see one another at all, seriously, we barely spoke
- Those gossipy cousins that I dislike, will remain gossipy and dislikable even at nice events and will therefore not be receiving invitations to the wedding.
- If I don’t eat anything at all, I will get tipsy from one glass of wine
- Flower petals in the pool sink quickly to the bottom
- Unless you tell people to sign the signature photograph and frame set, they will not. A pen is not enough.
- Photocakes are pretty in concept and kindof scary in execution – at least when the photo being used is an emo-tastic one of the two of us without smiles

It was wonderful though and I make it a point to use one of my new glasses every single night.

Love and there's more to come,

Rhian