Happy Birthday!

Today JewishGuy's sister (BigSIL) had a baby girl! Happy birthday to her!!!

Florist meeting!

The chuppah is going to be four bamboo poles (held by friends) with a white cloth on the top. JewishMIL is making it! At the corners there are going to be a couple of these pink & yellow daisies plus some greenery:





The rest of the flowers are going to be these white daises (and also some smaller, also white daisies):


The daisies will be mixed in with the felt and button flowers from Princess Lasertron (click flower for link to etsy shop):



Except the flowers will be in this color palette:



so... YAY!

I think I am going to have the bouquets be a mix of a couple of white gerbera daisies with the button flowers, mine having more button flowers than the bridesmaids'. I don't know if anyone else is having button flowers, it depends on what they want - I know my mom wants a button flower corsage but I don't know if anyone else wants, so I will have to ask :)

The centerpieces as they are right now (subject to review, I think) are going to be two white gerbera daisies and one button flower in one of three clear vase designs (ellipse, rectangle and square).

Also I want to have little tea lights on the tables with the centerpieces, I think that is pretty easy to coordinate.

Overall I think everything will be simple and fresh, I don't want to compete too much with the mansion.

Grandma & Grandpa (dad's side)

I figured since I was going to post a picture of my mom's parents I should post a picture of my dad's parents so you can see where (I think) I get my face from (my grandma). At least my eyes and my nose.

Fashionable Grandma

I would wear exactly what my grandma is wearing in this picture (this is from their wedding day). Look how fashionable! Sadly, the outfit is long gone.

Well maybe I wouldn't wear the heels, not because they aren't cute, but because I do so badly wearing heels. CankeyB wants me to wear heels but I would be so uncomfortable and would probably fall at some point.

You can't tell but my grandma has bright red hair - she is 95 and she still has natural red hair.

Hair pieces again

Lalala... looking at hair pieces on etsy on Christmas morning.

Two things I like:

1) The headband. Super easy for me to put in my hair, since I am planning on not wearing it during the ceremony (veil only) and then during yichud (the time when the bride and groom are alone together after the ceremony) I will take off the veil and stick something nice in my hair, like a nice headband.

2) The crown. I like this because it's also super easy, and also makes me look kind of like a woodland princess. I think it looks really fresh and playful.

I am looking at clips but clips and combs tend to annoy me because they slip around in my very fine hair and I end up having to constantly adjust or just take them out.

All the images are links to the seller but not the individual item. I've decided not to do that for etsy anymore because things tend to disappear and then I can't find the seller again!

Anyway, I think I can go a little elaborate on the hair piece, since I won't be wearing any jewelry except the wedding ring and my dress is going to be as simple as it gets.

ALSO NOTE... these are custom made pieces, none of these are actually for sale, if I wanted something like this I would talk to the seller and design my own piece.

The Make-up Consultation

I guess I will preface this by saying I have a lot of hang-ups about make-up and my face in general. I have low self-esteem and have always had low self-esteem, and sometimes when people talk about make-up on my face, and about how important such-and-such is, sometimes (okay, all of the time) I get the thought in my head that my face is not really all that pleasant to look at on its own and I would be doing a service for humanity by wearing make-up. When someone tells me about the make-up I SHOULD wear, it always comes out to me like a list of the faults on my face: you have bags under your eyes so you should wear concealer, your eyebrows are light so you should darken them, and on and on. Instead of hearing, there is natural beauty in your face, let's highlight some things, I hear, here are your faults, let's cover them up.

In general, in life, I don't wear make-up, and when I do it's for a fancy occasion and I can't wait to wash it off after. If I didn't feel like my dress would completely wash out my face in all of the pictures because I am super-di-duper white, I wouldn't bother with make-up at all.

I am pre-wired to be defensive about my face. Or really about anything. (This is something I am working on)

I guess I should have told the make-up artist that before I went, because after I told her I didn't wear any make-up ever nor did I know anything about make-up or what looks good on me, I kind of felt defensive the whole time. I felt defensive because I don't use a different moisturizer in the winter than in the summer, or an eye cream (because of my previously mentioned bags under my eyes), or have an extensive make-up routine, and on and on. I said, I concentrate all of my face-care efforts on preventing acne.

I am so sensitive about comments on my face. Like, "oh you have big eyes!" which should be a compliment, I guess, but it was followed up with, "oh, this one is bigger than that one," which is my NUMBER ONE anxiety-producing aspect of my face, the thing I see in every picture and every time I look in the mirror is that one eye is bigger than the other, and I had it pointed out to me by someone else. And she said, well, it's natural for one side of our body to be bigger than the other, which is true... I know that's true, but it's not exactly a compliment.

She did a very nice job with the make-up but I have to say I felt kind of down during the consultation.

I also felt defensive because we had only scheduled an hour and a half for make-up, nobody knew how long it would take, etc etc... "You aren't having a wedding coordinator?" "Isn't the bride's family the one who pays?" "You're letting your fiance see you before the wedding?" (We are doing the picture-taking before the ceremony) And all these questions and I was just like ........... I just wanted to see what you would do to my face...?

Dress Nightmares!

I had the most annoying dream this morning. It was annoying because it played on my worst fears of the dress-deciding process.

To make it short, because I know reading dream posts is boring, in the dream I was in the car with some people from school and I said, let's stop at the mall and I will try on some wedding dresses, it won't take very long. It ended up taking 6 hours and I was unsuccessful. After trying on no fewer than 15 dresses, other people modeled them for me, and my friends were getting impatient. In fact, all of them at one point or another had gone into the mall to do their own shopping because they were bored. I wasted their entire afternoon and didn't even have a dress to show for it!

This is honestly my worst fear about dress-deciding. This is why I'm having a trying-on party at my house. At least then if it takes a while, everyone's sitting down and eating and drinking and talking to other people. I don't want to waste my friends' time. I know when people volunteer to help me shop for dresses they know that they are just watching me, but I assume they don't mean for hours on end with a picky shopper who also always thinks she looks fat. It's exhausting, I'm sure.

Mysterious Dress

This dress... I saw it a year ago, before I was even engaged, and I said, that is the dress I want.



Unfortunately, this dress doesn't exist anymore. I looked on the designer's site and it isn't in the last two years' collections. It's an old dress.

I don't think it would look good on me but it is so pretty.

Also, since the trying-on party isn't until January, I am still looking around. Ha!

(EDITED TO ADD: I think I need to say why I was looking at wedding dresses before I was engaged. My friend was getting married and SHE was looking at dresses and sending me to those sites. Of course I looked, too! I wasn't pre-planning the wedding :-P )

Arrivals!

Two of my dresses and my fancy underwear arrived! So now I'm waiting for the other dress and my trying on party will be in January ... I kind of want to take them out now but I think I will save that for the party.

Invited Conundrum

I have written before about what to do about inviting people from our current city, since we have a lot of friends in the synagogue and I would want to invite my whole graduate program class.

We've decided to invite our closest friends from shul to the wedding and then have a separate party for the people in my class when we get back. The reason is, there are a lot fewer people from shul we want to invite, and we simply can't invite another 27 people. Additionally, if we only invited a few people from the program (because there are a few people I would really like to be there), there is a good chance they can't afford to come anyway, so all I would accomplish by inviting them would be to point out who are my closer friends in the program. We're all getting along really well right now and I don't want to start any drama, like why did she invite her and not me, and I don't even know if that will happen but I don't want it to happen.

So that is the solution. I'm not 100% happy with that, but there is no way to invite everyone from the program. I feel bad inviting them to pre-wedding things, like my dress-trying-on party, but not inviting them to the wedding. I wish they could come. But we are really overbooked, and I don't want to put pressure on people who are already spending tons of money on school (and who likely don't have jobs, very few of us are working at all and those who are do so in order to pay back loans immediately that are gaining interest) to spend $200-300 on a plane ticket and $100+ on the hotel room per night.

Well, we weren't invited to our friends' wedding here when we first moved here because we'd only been friends a few months and they didn't have any more space. We weren't offended! We understood guest list limits and whatnot. I hope everyone understands for us!

Hair pieces

Here are some hair pieces I like today. If I had a hair piece, it would go in after I take the veil off, between the ceremony and the reception. So I wouldn't wear two things at the same time. (All images are links to seller)

This is just what I like today from looking around on etsy... Yes, my coursework is done, you can tell because I am posting like crazy and don't feel guilty about spending the entire day looking at wedding stuff.

Right now my hair is really short and in the best haircut I think I've ever had. So I am going to keep my short hair and just put something pretty in it. I kind of like the headbands because there's little danger of them falling out.

On the other hand, I might not want anything at all.

Mantilla

For a while I was pretty sure I didn't want a veil. Then it was the question of, so what happens at the bedeken if there's no veil to put on the bride? But then I remembered this entry about the photographer and the veil that I wrote back in October and decided to try to find out what kind of veil that is. It's called a mantilla. It's a Spanish style veil. I don't know how it will go with the dresses I already ordered but I think it's pretty.

I kind of need to decide on the dress first, but I think all of the dresses I ordered are simple enough to go with a mantilla veil. Also, I am going to see what my mom's dress and veil look like when I take a trip home next week.

Question about dresses

Wow a lot of posts today.

My question is, why is it assumed a man will rewear the suit he was married in, like the purchase is not a one-time-only deal, but a wedding dress is not to be reworn? Something about it is weird, even if you aren't buying a bridal gown, the idea of wearing the dress again is weird. I know some people do it, but there's the element of surprise - wow, that's your wedding dress? And you're wearing it again?

I mean, why not wear it again? But it feels weird somehow.

Bridezilla

Dresses Ordered

Here are the dresses I ordered:

from jcrew.com


from nordstrom.com


from nordstrom.com

They are all somewhat similar but I think they are nice. I had some dress drama last night as you can tell from the one-liners. But I think this will be good.

And here are the shoes I want, but haven't ordered yet:



I like the silver shoes because I think I can wear silver shoes again, but white shoes probably not as often. I have these exact shoes in black and they are so cute, except I really need to have them stretched. They are rubbing hard core and are really uncomfortable, only because the leather needs to be broken in. So maybe I will have them pre-broken in.

So I ordered these dresses to my apartment and I am going to invite some people over to see if they look good on me. I am thinking of it being some kind of little party. I have talked to many people about this, it makes me so uncomfortable for people to sit around and wait for me to try things on, but if they are at my house and eating and drinking and hanging out, it will be a lot more comfortable for me and probably fun as well. :)

Dress

Three dresses have been ordered! Now I am arranging a dress-trying-on party...

One-liners at 3:30am. Hooray.

Kittel

Are there kittels for women?

... I am exploring a range of options for bridal attire, apparently.

The Invitations!!

The last image is what it looks like all together.

We decided to do one piece of paper that is folded into three parts, the final section being a tear-off postcard RSVP!  We are leaving the whole back of the RSVP postcard free, so maybe people will write us notes or draw pictures for us, who knows.

The colors look a lot brighter on my computer screen than they do in real life.  The pink is a deep fuschia, the yellow is quite bright but the brown is a little darker, like chocolate brown.

Our benchers will have the same design as the first panel of the invitations in a bright green!

The invitations are from OrangeBeautiful :)

Invitees

OK Here is my conundrum.

Someone else in my program is getting married before me and she invited the whole class.  That was really nice of her!  I am definitely going to the reception, the ceremony unfortunately is still on Shabbat and I can't get there (but the reception is after Shabbat, so I can make it!).  The thing is, she is getting married in Chicago, so it's different, kind of?  I'll explain.

Our wedding is in Maryland.  There is a good chance most people in my program won't be able to make it because flying is too expensive and it's a 12 hour drive.  Plus, on top of that, the hotel costs, etc.

So then, should I invite everyone in my program, or just the people I am close with?  We are having numbers issues, and are cutting back on invitees because we are running out of space.  I don't want to invite the whole program because we just don't have room for many more people.  I don't want to invite select people for the reason that BECAUSE most people won't be able to come anyway, all that would accomplish is making some type of statement as to who my "real" friends are in the program.  Or, should I not invite anyone from the program (I don't really like this option, I have already become good friends with some of my classmates)?

On a positive note, a surprising number of our friends have already said they have booked hotels or flights!  People we were unsure of because of financial concerns are coming anyway!  How exciting!!  They are sharing hotel rooms, shacking up with friends in the area, etc.  Some are even coming for the whole weekend!

Updates & Clarification

HEY everyone,

#1, I wanted to clarify something important about the blog, because I think I have given the wrong impression to some people.  This blog is where I post things that I like, things that I think are pretty, not necessarily things that I *have* to have.  I'm not actually a bridezilla.  I just think things are pretty.  Mostly, I am flexible about the wedding, and have in fact given up control over most things because I don't have time or I'm not overly concerned with how it turns out.  I do have general ideas as to what I want, which I post here, but it's not set in stone!  So what I post here is the same as a bride-to-be buying bridal magazines and clipping things out that are cute.

Also, just a note, I lapsed in renewing my domain name, so images may not show up on the site for a couple of days.  They will be back soon, hopefully.

#2, Updates!  We are having our invitations done by OrangeBeautiful, and they are pretty awesome, so check them out.  They also have a blog, where they post pretty things that THEY like!  I'm having my second meeting with them next Thursday, when we'll go over some designs they are working on for our awesome invitations.  The invitation is going to have a tri-fold, with the third section being a tear-off RSVP postcard.  How fun!  They're going to play off of the cuteness of the imagery of our Hebrew names, which mean Bird and Tree.  WE ARE SO ADORABLE.

Also, I am taking a trip to Maryland in December to meet with florists and wedding planners.  We are thinking of hiring someone for the weekend to make sure things go smoothly, and if not the weekend then definitely a day-of coordinator.  My mom is putting together the itinerary of my meetings and I'll just go to them and chat (maybe we will go together?)

Things are coming together without me having to do too much, which is also awesome.  My mom and JewishGuy's dad are working on Shabbat services, the whole family is participating, reading Torah or Haftorah or having aliyot or leading services.  It's going to be awesome.  I am really excited. :)

DesignerChick is working on setting up a consult with her make-up artist for me also for my trip in December.  I probably won't have the dress yet, but we are going to design my make-up concept.  Ha!

CankeyB along with my other bridesmaids are hard at work on my bachelorette party, although I don't know much about it other than it will be a slumber party the Thursday night before the wedding.  OBVIOUSLY I am ridiculously excited!  (Also... I have a sneaking suspicion there might be a "surprise" bachelorette party for me here in Chicago thrown by people in my program...)

I think that's it for now in terms of updates...!

Long Time No Post

Well, it's really been a long time since I've done a wedding post.  Basically, I am overloaded with grad work, so I have pretty much given everything away that I can give away for other people to do.  I am immensely grateful for the stepping-in of family and future-family!  I don't know how this would happen if it were just up to JewishGuy and me, seeing as how we are both working our butts off and JewishGuy is traveling at an average every other week.

However, things are getting done.  My mom is working with a florist for various arrangements, JewishMIL is going to MAKE the chuppah (woo!), we are going to do our own centerpieces, we've booked our print media contract (OrangeBeautiful, check them out, they are awesome).  We've made some decisions, like no wedding cake but heaps of desserts.  People are volunteering for Torah reading, JewishGuy is doing the Haftorah, for our aufruf.

Still have no dress!

And on and on.  One day I will be finished with the major assignments and I can go back to posting!

Gorgeous!

I took this photo from Jessica and Ben's post about a featured photographer, Tec Pataja.

I just think this is a gorgeous veil.  I don't know if it's what I want, but it is so pretty!

6 months!

Exactly 6 months and counting!

Also, Shana Tova!!

Strength in Numbers

Two other people in my grad program are engaged (not to each other, separately engaged to other people).  It's exciting because now I don't have to feel so weird saying my fiance this or that.  I can also talk shop - ie: "wedding plans" - with them and not be too afraid of boring them!  Hooray!

Photographer: Booked!

We have a photographer!  Amy Raab will be with us all day.  Hooray, things are getting taken care of :)

Check out her blog! blog.amyraab.com

I didn't actually find or talk to the photographer at all.  JewishGuy did a quick search, sent some links to his mom, who contacted photographers and booked Amy.  Sounds good to me.  Her photographs are gorgeous. :)

Weird Gift Dream: Pyrex?

I had a dream that, for our wedding, someone gifted us with a new Pyrex bowl that had one of their awesome vintage patterns:

I used to drool over the awesome old patterned Pyrex bowls at the thrift store.  The problem?  You can't kasher Pyrex.  IE: No vintage Pyrex on our registry (unless the previous owner kept kosher).  If only they made them new with those patterns. :(

(Click the image for more items with that pattern on pyrexlove.com)

Chuppah (?)

I think we want this chuppah:

I made an inspiration board (click for large version) but it's not as nice as the centerpiece one:

I just want to make sure it will look good in the two possible settings (indoor/outdoor).

Cutiepants (my future) Nephew

DoraBoy, JewishGuy's nephew, is turning 3 years old in October and he is a cutiepants.

SportyJew, JewishGuy's younger sister, just bought her dress for the wedding recently.  She was explaining that the dress was for our wedding to DoraBoy when she was trying it on for BigSIL (JewishGuy's older sister).

Later, they were listening to Rafi, and my name happened to come up in one of his songs.  I have one of those names that comes up relatively frequently in children's songs from the 20th century.  DoraBoy exclaimed, "Wedding!"

BigSIL and BigBIL were confused.

DoraBoy said, "[JewishGal] and [JewishGuy]!  Wedding!"

We have a fan :)

Centerpiece Inspiration Board

I made this today (click for larger image) to give to my mom so she can go to the florist with my ideas for the decorations.  Lots of different, interesting vases and simple flowers (white gerbera daisies and cherry blossoms?).  The top left is a picture of the room we'll be in for the reception so hopefully she can work with that.

Next up, inspiration board for chuppah, etc.

Outta Controlllll

After visiting two potential printers/designers for invitations, I emailed the parents asking for final guest list numbers so that we could have an accurate quote.  I had been telling the designers that we were going to invite a bit more than 200 people because we were expecting around 150 guests.  It turns out we are now inviting almost 370 people to the wedding (so even if 50% of those invited decline, we are still higher than JewishGuy and I originally wanted).  Not to mention the venue - an old mansion - only holds 200-230 people in its largest room, so if more than 60% of our guests come we cannot legally have them all in the building!

This of course was Friday afternoon, so imagine the freaking out that happened by me this Shabbat!  Much.  I think we were just totally shocked by the difference between what we thought we had discussed back in March/April, and what it turns out the reality is today.

JewishGuy and I have talked about it and it seems like we have a major breakdown in communication - the bottom line is, email lists don't seem to be working out so well right now. I think we've come up with a viable solution: A google page!  We spent a lot of time this evening setting up our google page for the parents to use.

Here's a cropped screen grab:

Hopefully this will work and keep us all organized and communicating effectively (I realize this will only work if people check it relatively frequently).

Every section has a To-Do list that is organized by who is in charge of the item, what it is, how it was resolved, and whether it is complete.  Every section also has a "notes" section, so that JewishGuy and I can write in what we were envisioning for this particular part of the wedding.  This way we can delegate, have everything all in one place, and not have to send long emails back and forth!

For example: I am asking JewishMom to be in charge of the florist.  So that she doesn't have to keep checking her inbox, searching for the email I sent her about what I want, or searching around the house for the pictures I sent of examples of center pieces I like, she can just go to this website.  There it is: Decorations -> Decorations Notes.  Pictures will be in Share Files -> Decorations Pictures.

JewishGuy and I talked about this a lot this Shabbat.  We talked about how much control we really want to have over the wedding, how we're feeling about things in general, and especially about this guest list thing (which shocked both of us, I have to say).  I was feeling very overwhelmed by the planning process, I think mostly due to the way we were going about the planning, where I was being held responsible for final decisions on things but I felt like I wasn't actually in control of the planning - for example, I would get a list of things I needed to accomplish, like someone else is in control and I was reporting to that person, but then I was asked for advice about something I was told to do...  I don't even know if I'm making sense anymore!

It's not that we didn't appreciate the help - I don't know what we would do without the parental support!!

The point is, I think us taking more of an active role in organizing the planning will help us to not feel quite so overwhelmed.  We still plan on only being in charge of the few things we want to do, but now we have a system where we are also overseeing the progress of the other elements.

This doesn't quite resolve the guest list issue.  It may happen that we will have to pare the lists down, as it's now T-7 months and we may not be able to find another venue that will be large enough to comfortably hold about 80% of the people we are planning to invite.  If these lists are the absolute minimum, there really is no way that we can comfortably fit 300* people in that venue.  We will be back to square one in that respect, which I am not looking forward to, but we'll deal with that if it comes to it I suppose!

* The event planner in me doesn't feel comfortable with inviting so many people over the legal maximum occupancy of the largest room.  I would like to plan so the largest room can hold 80% of our potential guests - just in case!

I need this veil

I know, these posts are hilarious and have no real wedding planning value.

BUT.

I must have this veil.

Wedding Cake - Hilarious Disaster!

OH MAN.

Click the cake to read the story of the disaster.  Then, you must visit Cake Wrecks.  I found it this afternoon.  The latest post is extremely sad, but the posts about previous cakes are amazingly hilarious.

Luckily, JewishGuy and I have decided not to get a cake anyway.

New top contender?

One of the brides on my reading list recently bought a JCrew dress.  There is another one on the site I really like (I think this is the one she bought!), but I think this one might be more what I want.

Simple Chuppah

Pretty... (click to see florist)

I like the more simple chuppah design, with some little flowers near the top.

Ball is a-rollin'

Seriously, it is amazing to have a supportive fiance, future family in-law and family in the wedding planning progress.  I have to say: I LOVE delegating!  Love, love, love.  It means I can focus on working on a few things rather than feeling like I am in charge of everything.

 

Today I feel good about the delegation and am now working on invitations.  We've talked about this (fleetingly) and basically decided we want a local (Chicago) printer, preferably letterpress printer, to do our invitations.  AND they have to be done by Thanksgiving-ish.  Hopefully that's not too much of a time crunch.

My employer has a good friend who is a letterpress printer so of course I emailed her first.  I also emailed a few other printers who are actually in my neighborhood - as luck would have it - so hopefully I will hear back from them soon.

The main issue is that we will need Hebrew on the invitations.  At least our names will be in Hebrew, if not more.  I'm not a huge fan of the whole invitation being in Hebrew and then translated, although it can look nice, so it really depends on how that all works out.

ALSO...

We are looking for a photographer.  We really like Akil, as he did our friends' wedding and was fantastic.  The downside is he is in Houston so we would have to drag him all the way north for the wedding, which adds to the cost, of course.  We are looking for photographers in the area who offer a similar package with similar quality, but to be honest I don't think we are going to find it.  We're still looking, so we'll see...

JewishGuy is in charge of the band.  He's taking on that responsibility, and I'm glad to let him have it.  He's going to contact the 5 bands we've narrowed our search down to, get some samples, we'll both listen to them, then he is going to make the appointments for auditions so that my parents (and hopefully also CankeyB) can listen to them.  We got some great recommendations from Jewish couples who were recently married in DC, as well as family members who know people who know people.

CankeyB has found her yellow dress, and although I haven't seen it yet I'm sure it is great!  This is exciting - the yellow dress was going to be the hardest one of the three to get, since yellow is not in season anymore she had to brave the sales.

I've decided I want a button/felt flower bouquet by Princess Lasertron.  I have to run it by the parents but I am sure this is the best option for me.  They are soooo cute!

I am thinking of alternatives for bouquets for the bridesmaids and boutonnieres for the men.  I think I might want to go with the herbs for the boutonnieres, but I don't know about the bridesmaids.

Anyway, yay, progress, things are moving, can you feel it?

Need to get on the ball!

As you may have noticed, this blog has gone pretty quiet lately.  It's because the planning has also gone pretty quiet!  We are falling a little bit behind, partially due to the move and starting grad school and whatnot, and also partially do to a little bit of burnout perhaps.

Last weekend JewishGuy's parents and younger sister and my parents and younger brother came to visit and meet for the first time.  It went really well, we hung out and saw some Chicago-y things as well as a Cubs game (who knew Cubs fans break out into song when they win? Maybe it's because they don't win so often?).  But I think it made us realize that we really are running out of time and we need to get on the ball.

JewishFIL sent us a check-list of things we have to do, or delegate.  So last night we went through the list and assigned ourselves parts to take care of.  I'm assuming the list will then be passed around and we'll all assign ourselves things to do and then things will get done.  I also assigned some of my bridesmaids things to do, although I've talked with them before about it... like the possibility of CankeyB being involved in the band selection (as my proxy haha), DesignerChick in charge of hair and make-up.

Hopefully the vague-ness is still okay and things will work out all by themselves...!

Don't Worry, it will calm down

Today I was talking to someone who is recently engaged, as in, a few weeks ago.  Now she is getting the calls about setting a date.  I told her how within 24 hours of being engaged I was asked the date.  I told her how I was already crying about the wedding in 72 hours.

I have to say the first week of being engaged was probably the worst.  Picking the date was the hardest thing I've been involved in regarding wedding planning so far.  Either it was too far away, too soon, on someone else's wedding date, on an anniversary of death (family, national tragedy or poetic), or somehow inconvenient/difficult for important people to attend.  I considered asking to elope.  I don't know how that works for people who want to be married Jewishly.  I guess we could just find some rabbi here and two witnesses and print a ketubah off of the internet.

I'm glad that week is over.  And now I find myself in the position of reassurance.  Eventually, people will either stop asking, or you will pick a date and it will be over.

EEE!

HOW cute.  So cute.  (click image for info/link to site)  Besides the fact that it's sold, it's actually kind of yellowy (according to the site), so I don't know that that will work for me.  BUT the silhouette is adorable.  Thank you, CankeyB for pointing me towards Posh Girl Vintage!

Sorry so few updates recently... swallowed by class and job hunt... will be back on the wedding planning train soon!

Flowergirl: an 8,000lb "big sister"

"It's not uncommon for a groom to include his sister in his wedding party. The story becomes significantly more unique when you find out his "sister" is an elephant.

Joshua Schacht, 22, and Ashley Glass, 18, were married last night at Mendon's Southwick Zoo in a wildly entertaining ceremony. Dondi, a female Asian elephant, served as the flower girl in the couple's wedding.

Better quality photo:

Read the whole article here.

Dresses... sigh

So many pretty dresses at Nordstrom... (click to go to dress page)

I might end up ordering a bunch of dresses and then returning the ones I don't like.  It sucks, but none of the ones I like online are in the store.  I still love this dress the most, but I don't know how it will look on me.

I know I was talking about getting a custom dress, but I think if I could find one without having to go down that road, that would be best and easiest.

Potential Invitations..!!!

This is a long shot... BUT.

Today I just had an interview to be a studio assistant for a woman who makes items with cute little illustrations on them - items like pillows, sketchbooks, bags, ceramic things like cups and pendants.  The interview went really well, so hopefully I will get the job.

Anyway, she has a background in letterpress and actually has a 102 year old letterpress in her studio.  She said she would show me how to use it and I could play around with it!  She said she would be happy for someone to use it, since she almost never gets a chance to use it anymore.  At the end of the interview, she joked about making things for my wedding - LIKE INVITATIONS - and giving me an employee discount. (I'm telling you, the interview went really well!)

So I'm thinking, if she shows me how to do the letterpress then maybe I could even make the invitations myself, or at least design them exactly how I want and have her make them!

I really want the job... they kept talking about what I "will" be doing, rather than what I "would" be doing, which I take as a good sign.  Plus there was a lot of laughter and it was really laid back.  And she loves robots!

Here's hoping!

Wedding Review!

Last Thursday night we went to JewishGuy's friend's wedding in Toronto.  It was really great and especially interesting for me, because I've never really been to a traditional Jewish wedding.  (Well, I think I went to one when I was younger but I don't remember)

So here's the summary of what happened:

It was at a synagogue - most of the interior was decorated such that you would not know you were in a synagogue (aside from the posters for events and whatnot that managed to peek through).  There were hors d'oeuvres all along the hall, with multi-colored martinis and interesting things on plates circulating.  Everything was delicious but unfortunately I didn't see all of the food, because I missed some little meat things people were talking about before that were apparently hidden somewhere.  Everything was pretty fancy.  JewishGuy went up this huge staircase to the room where the groom and his men were.

This is from JewishGuy's retelling:  In the groom's room, he was giving a little sermon about the week's Torah portion (for non-Jewish readers: Jews read a selection of the Torah every week, it's standardized so all Jews are reading the same selection of Torah at the same time, and we get through the whole thing in a year).  He barely could get out a sentence or two before the rabbi would interrupt him by breaking out into song.  This is apparently standard, for the men to heckle the groom before the wedding.  Also, there was drinking.

Then the groom was escorted out of the room with dancing and a clarinet player, down the huge staircase into a small chapel where his bride waited, and everyone else was allowed to enter to watch.  The dancing was pretty hilarious.  The bride sat in this huge white chair while the men sat at a table and signed marriage contracts, including the civil marriage (she signed them as well but she was on her own separate chair).  Then the groom put the veil over his bride and we all left to get some more food and then take a seat in the main sanctuary.

The main reason why I'm not a huge fan of weddings in synagogues is because it's hard to hide the fact that you're in a synagogue.  Mostly, this wedding was able to accomplish this, except the main sanctuary still pretty much looked like a sanctuary.  But what are you going to do.  The chuppah was beautiful, it was basically a simple frame with white cloth draped around it and a chandelier hanging from the middle.  There were little tree branches on the four posts with candles and beaded details on the cloth.  Very nice.

The procession, the circling the groom 7 times, the blessings, etc.  The cantor was very ornate with his singing.  The cup they broke was a kiddish cup that the groom had gotten for his bar mitzvah, which was cute.

Then they walked out for their time alone together, we went back out for more food and drinking before going into the hall.  The hall was really well decorated, I think you wouldn't have known this was in a synagogue if we hadn't just been in the sanctuary.  The centerpieces were tall so that you could see everyone at the table, like they were on little glass pillars.  My only complaint about the hall was that the band was a little too loud (also we were positioned right next to them), so it was very hard to have conversations and JewishGuy's voice became hoarse by the end of the night.  However, everything was beautiful, from the silver chairs to the white drapery on the windows.  This was actually the same color theme as our friend's wedding in Houston, which was basically purple, green and white.  The kippot at this wedding actually matched the dress I was wearing!

The bride and groom entered the dance hall under arches held up by the wedding party with flowers on them, and then we did some circle dancing and lifted them up on chairs.  They even did the thing where the bride and groom hold a piece of cloth between them as they're lifted up on the chairs, like the very religious people do (because they aren't allowed to touch in public).  It was funny.  There was separated dancing for this part, but it was spontaneous I think, as the men were all dancing around the groom and the women were dancing around the bride.  The rest of the time it was mixed dancing.

Also at one point the bride was up on a chair again holding an umbrella with multi-colored strings hanging off of it and people were holding the strings and dancing around her.  I thought that was cute.  I don't know if I would do it at ours but it was definitely funny and cute.

The bride and groom were glowing!  They were really eating up the attention and you could tell they were having fun.  That was the best part.  They were going around and we actually got to talk to them for a couple of seconds as they made their rounds (there were over 300 people there so you know they must have been busy).  JewishGuy and his friends from university took some reunion shots, which was funny, although some random guests decided to jump in for some reason.  I met a lot of JewishGuy's friend's significant otherseses, usually because the guys were taking pictures or drinking together and we were at the table ABANDONED. (hahaha)

All in all it was a very fun evening.  I wish my dress hadn't been so tight at the top, I was somewhat uncomfortable for about two hours during the evening, but I got used to it.  I felt like a victorian lady.  Now I realize for my wedding dress that I'm going to have to sit down and really push out my stomach as big as I can and see if I feel comfortable like that.  I was fine until I ate, and after I ate (when my stomach was a little bigger) I was uncomfortable, but after a while it was fine again.  SO.  Lesson learned.

I'm not sure when I'll be going to my next wedding!  We have been invited to two weddings (one in August and one in October), but I don't think we will be able to make either of them because they are on Shabbat and they are far away.  We'll see...

Wedding Tonight!

Tonight is JewishGuy's friend's wedding :)  I am excited because I think it will be really fun, I am going to get super dressed up (I bought a really nice dress just for the occasion) and JewishGuy is going to get drunk and I'm going to go to my first Jewish wedding.

Well, that's not entirely true, I have been to two other Jewish weddings.  However, one was a second marriage, so it was small, and also I was pretty young so I don't remember most of it.  The second one was not a traditional wedding (from what I can remember, I was also pretty young) so it wasn't much different than a secular wedding.

From my understanding, this one will be fairly traditional, but we'll see.

The only part of the evening I'm somewhat worried about is the kabbalat panim, when the bride and groom welcome guests separately - ie: boys and girls are in different rooms.  This wouldn't be an issue except I only know JewishGuy's friends and all of them are male, which means they will all be in the other room.  It only lasts an hour and JewishGuy said he would introduce me to some ladies before disappearing for drinks and heckling, so it should be fine.

After that we'll be together for the rest of the evening, or at least most of it (I assume he'll be doing a lot of drinking and merrymaking with his friends, as it's basically a university reunion).  I am, of course, the designated driver.  I'm always the designated driver because I very, very rarely drink to get drunk.  We also have a long drive back to Chicago tomorrow morning so I will be taking the early shift so he can be hung over a little.

Will report back later!

Engagement Party! (not mine!) & Status

This weekend we went to my friends' engagement party in Chicago!  We joked about my blogging the party so here I am, blogging it.

I am really glad that we got to go to the party.  It was really nice, everyone was so friendly and warm.  It was great to see my friend again and meet his fiance :)   They're not actually living in Chicago so it was funny that we happened to be here exactly in time to go to their party.

One day I will post again about wedding plans, but we just moved across the country and we're about to go to a wedding this week so everything is crazy.  However, soon I will update everyone with the Shabbat menu for our wedding weekend!  Yes, the menu is already planned, how exciting.  (That is the menu for the weekend, not for the wedding itself.)

So this post was more like a, where-have-I-been-for-the-last-week-or-two, so there you have it...

Engagement Party!

I suck at taking pictures, is what it comes down to it.  The thing is, if you take pictures during your own party, you end up missing out on the party.  Since it was only 2 hours, I opted for only taking these pictures from a distance and then spent the time hanging out with everyone.

From a distance

One of the tables

I think it went really well!

The menu was cake, brownies, fruit, cookies, wine, soda and water.  The water was actually the most popular drink because it was quite hot.  I put out candles in my little pots I made in ceramics and flowers in the vases I made.  The candles worked out really well because they melted down and turned the pot into a candle!  So now I have useful little candles instead of stupid little useless pots.  I had my little ipod speakers playing in the background.

I think everyone had a nice time :)  It was laid back, mostly.  Someone asked if we were going to do toasts or something, but it's weird if we host a party and then make people toast us!  Someone else asked if we were going to have a cake, but again I thought it would be weird to have a party and buy our own cake so everyone could congratulate us.  SO... we had cake, but it was cut up and distributed around (I made the cake from a mix......... but I did make the icing myself, apparently I got a lot of compliments about it).

We started making a schedule for seeing people before we leave at the party.  I think we made 4 dates at the party!  Haha!  This was an engagement/going-away party so it was happy and sad at the same time.

It was only two hours but I think that was a good amount of time.  People came and went, a lot of people had apparently double-booked their evening!  But it was good, and I am glad we got to see everyone at least one more time before we head out.  Even my old roommate came by, and I haven't seen her in at least 7 or 8 months.

Yay :)

Status Update!

Since we'll be interviewing our first (and hopefully only!) photographer tomorrow, I thought I may as well post a status update.  What has been done so far, and what does theknot.com say we have to do soon?

DONE

• Booked hotel, venue and caterer
• Found an "officiant who suits [our] style and spirit" (JewishFIL)
• Put together an engagement party (happening tonight!)
• Begin working on wedding guest list
• Choose color scheme
• Start registering for gifts
• Choose bridesmaids, etc
• Begin looking at gowns
• Gave the bridesmaids guidelines for the dresses (well, I still have to send the packet to HillelLady!)

CURRENTLY WORKING ON

• Booking photographer
• Looking for bands to interview/get sample mp3s from
• Deciding where to go for honeymoon

NEED TO DO THIS MONTH

• Insure the engagement ring already!!! (it's going on our renter's insurance at our new place)
• Interview/book a wedding consultant (a day-of coordinator)
• Decide on a budget (haha)
• Finalize the guest list
• Book the band
• Talk to a florist

We liked the photographer from our friends' wedding so much we are going to try to book him for ours.  We're meeting with him tomorrow to talk about his rates and travel stipulations, considering he will have to go all the way to DC for the weekend.  I'm hoping that he will be excited to be there for the Cherry Blossom Festival and won't charge us too much for his travel!  We'll see.  There are also photographers in the DC area that CankeyB is pointing us towards, also JewishGuy's cousin is sending us amazing photographers but some of them are super expensive and high profile.

Also, I think we need to add the invitations to things that need to be worked on this month.  I think once we finalize the out-of-towner guest list (which should be almost finalized?), we should send out save-the-dates.  There's also some controversy about whether or not to send RSVP cards, but I'll talk about that another time.

In any case, I think we're in good shape considering the wedding is still 279 days away!

Posting on Shabbat

I'm taking advantage of how I'm not shomer shabbat yet by posting on Shabbat to tell you...

I added some blogs to my link list so if you want to check them out, they're on the right column at the bottom.  Some of them have little snippets of their most recent entries and some are just listed, but all of them are neat!

Also, I want to mention that JewishGuy broke into the babka last night even though it was supposed to be for the party.  Babka just doesn't last long in this house.  Luckily he only took a small piece (and gave some to me) so we should have enough.

(We are planning to go shomer shabbat once we get to Chicago so just two weekends left! haha)

Ketubah

We are casually looking for a ketubah at the moment. We both really like the ketubah that our friends in Chicago have, although they were vague as to where they got it. So maybe we will pry the information out of them, or else we will just have to find our own.

Anyway, this one is pretty.

We wouldn't get it with English on it, though, so I don't know what the bottom would look like. We bookmarked the artist's website, though.

We also like...

But this artist has no website, which is not convenient.

And...

This is what we know: we want the traditional Aramaic wording, we don't want it to be too bright and colorful, we don't want just text in a rectangle or oval with an intricate border, and we don't want English. We like trees and flowers but any nice design would be fine.

Engagement Party Planning......?

Last week someone text messaged me and asked if I was free to hang out.  I said that I was out of town so unfortunately no.  They replied, "Okay, well, see you on Sunday!"

I said to myself, "what's Sunday?"

Um... the engagement party!

Yes, with all of the craziness of traveling to Israel, Chicago and Maryland, trying to decide on how to move to Chicago, apartment silliness, and other things, I had totally forgotten about our engagement party.  I had all these plans for fun decorations and crazy whoseemawhatsises.  But instead I find myself somewhat scrambling at the last minute.  Not really scrambling.  I am cool and collected like a seasoned event planner (I did do event planning for 2 1/2 years).

Today I went to the grocery store and picked out some wine and cookies.  I did get a babka because I like babkas, but I am going to try to keep this from looking like a standard Jewish community event, which is what I did for my job for 2 1/2 years.  You may see a recurring theme in my wedding planning - I don't want this thing to look like a similar thing I did for my job, or that thing to look like that event I did, etc.

Our party is going to be in the courtyard of our apartment complex.  It's really cute with a nice fountain and little tables with chairs and some small lights hidden in the bushes.  I'm planning on putting the food on one table and the wine and water on the other, with candles as the decorations.  I was going to make little candles but it looks like a lot of work and I'm kind of busy/lazy.  I'm also planning on making a little guestbook so people can leave us a good-bye note or something.  I don't know if I'll do that, JewishGuy made a remark about it, it might be a little cheesy to do that.

More on plans later, if there are more plans!

Bridal Hair Dos

I have short hair and that's not going to change.  I am not going to grow out my hair, suffer from the mid-length in-between hair-cut woes just so one day of my life I can have an updo.  And anyway, I don't like updos.  And I don't think I look great with long hair.

I was browsing Googleimages for pictures of short bridal hairdos and basically all I saw was "stick a headband in it" or "stick a tiara in it."  That's fine, I guess that is the only option.  I'd have my hair cut and styled and then I would stick a headband or a tiara in it.  Except, I don't want a regular bridal headband or tiara.

myrakim

whichgoose

Both of these things are not exactly what I want, but both of these sellers custom-make bridal headpieces.

I don't know how these will fit in the picture re: the veil, but that's not so important in the brainstorming phase.  Also, since I don't have my dress yet, I can't really make serious decisions about accessories. But I wonder if one of these head pieces, when combined with a button bouquet, might make me look more hodge-podge than cute.  I may have to choose one or the other.