Weddingbee bios

I have to say, he pulled a fast one on me. I pride myself in being a good guesser, but I admit, I didn't see this one coming. Sure, I knew that he was going to propose eventually... but didn't know the when/where/how of it all... well done sir, well done indeed...

We got home from work on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 (A YEAR AGO TODAY!). Our friend G (who is our best man now!) had invited us to dinner to congratulate us for buying the house - so we jumped back into the car to meet him in Portsmouth for dinner.

I was already tired, and a little frustrated about having to go to Portsmouth on a work night, figuring if he wanted to congratulate us, he should come to Manchester! But we hadn't seen G in a while, so off we went.

We got to Portsmouth, and the restaurant we were planning to go to, was closed. FI texted G to have him meet us at the my favorite restaurant... only to get word back that he was stuck at work until 7:30 and wasn't going to be able to meet us after all.

I admit, I was more than a little irritated - he invites us out to buy us dinner, and then he backs out on us? But we decided to grab dinner at the my favorite place anyway, and figured G would meet us for drinks afterward.

After dinner, we took a walk down to the waterfront at Prescott Park - we had spent time there when we first started dating, and it was a nice night for a walk - and since G hadn't called us to meet up, we had some time to kill!

There was an "Arts in the Park" festival going on, and a live performance of "Grease" the musical going on at the park... FI wasn't too thrilled about this, since he had planned to propose at the park, and there were hundreds of people there for the festival! But we walked to a lesser-known area of the park that wasn't crowded, and sat down at a picnic table overlooking the harbor.

We sat chatting for a bit, and it was getting a little late. I told FI that we probably should head back home, that I didn't think G was going to make it. FI turned to me and said "I have a confession to make... I never called G... I've been pretending to text him all night, and this was just an elaborate ruse to get you out here..." He got down on one knee. "...because I couldn't think of a better place to ask you to spend the rest of your life with me... Will you marry me?" 

To which I responded, teary-eyed... "of course!!!" 

And the rest is history!  

Okay, so we're a couple of nerds. It's true, I wear my nerdiness on my sleeve. FI, however, claims to be an "undercover nerd" - he doesn't like people to know of his nerdiness until he's ready to show them.

And after 6 years, he still doesn't like to show his nerdiness in photos - in fact he HATES photos... so I was pretty excited when he agreed to do engagement pictures.

My aunt (who is also a bridesmaid!) offered to take our photos for us, free of charge (we got her a present to thank her!)... We didn't get a whole lot of nerdy ones, but I'm loving the lawn chess - which is why we chose to do our pics at the Mountain View in the first place... yeah, forget about the gorgeous 360* views, I want to play on the lawn chess board!

So without further ado, here are my favorites!

I have a confession to make... I... love... shoes.

I obsess over shoes. Two dress bride? Not me. 20 shoe bride? You bet. I've always said, the only issue I have with shoes is that I can only wear one pair at once!

So it should not have come as a surprise to anyone who knows me that I would hem and haw over my shoe decision. What shoe would I wear with my ivory trumpet dress with a sweep train?!

Would I go with a classic ivory wedding shoe? Well, that's what I bought first, but a few months later, fell in love with the idea of a colored wedding shoe...

BORRRRINGGGGG... FI was shocked I had even considered an ivory shoe, to be honest, since it was only this year that I bought my first ever pair of black shoes! So colored shoes it is!

But then, what color?!? I love red shoes with ivory, provided that the color was correct... So along came these beauties:

The color was perfect, but the height was a little higher than what I was hoping for, since FI is not that much taller than I am... (I ended up keeping these anyway cuz they're just so darned awesome!)...

What about animal print shoes? That may look fun with my ivory dress...

Then I talked to one of my bridesmaids who informed me that I looked like Wilma from the Flinstones... And now that's all I can see in these, big dinosaur feet.

Then I considered a blue shoe... low heel... found these and they looked great online... and were reminiscent of the "Something Blue" shoes from SATC, but with a lower heel!

But then they came, and FI caught me trying them on in the kitchen and asked me "why are you wearing elf shoes?" Welp, scratch that.  How about these blue ones?

Nope, the blue isn't QUITE right for my ivory dress, they looked neon...

Okay, so maybe blue wasn't going to work for me after all... I still love the idea of the dark cranberry red with the ivory, so maybe I could find another pair like the BCBG Ariel's but with a lower heel? Or maybe pink?!

Nope, those don't look right with my dress either... And although colorful, they just don't have the pizazz that I am looking for...

Then it hit me... PURPLE! My wedding colors are chocolate brown and pale green, so why not have purple shoes that will match the colors of the wedding AND give me that pop of color I so want!?

I tried ALL BLACK's Cartier flat, but the pearls were a dark grey color even though they looked ivory in the picture...

Then I found these at Macy's for $49, they had a little sparkle on the toe, and were a good height...

They still weren't the shoe though, although cute. They didn't have the WOW factor I was looking for with my dress.

So then I discovered Menbur on endless.com. I found one pair of slingbacks that I fell in love with at first sight, they looked as though they were EXACTLY what I was looking for, but the color description said "midnight blue"... so I ordered them anyway, because they looked purple in the picture... then I found another pair that was listed as purple, and looked cute too. So I ordered both.

I put it out to a vote among my friends/family on facebook, as well as the Bee's... it was a close vote, and in the end, I decided that the slingbacks were my one and only!

So here they are! After buying and returning over 20 pairs of shoes, I finally found "THE ONES"... and to make things even MORE exciting, I found a matching clutch!!!

Oh VistaPrint, how I love you and your free business cards!

Our venue included placecards with the package that we bought, but when they came in, FI and I both agreed that we did not want to use them - they were weird, they said our names really big along with our wedidng date, and then just had a line for us to write in our guests' names and table numbers...

Enter VistaPrint... using the same free business card design that we used for our invitation inserts (telling guests about our website, etc), I threw these puppies together today, and plan to write guests' names in an ivory gel pen on the dark brown section in the middle.

Then I am going to get one of those tiny hole punches and use it on the upper right hand corner, then tie different colored ribbon in bows on the card - the color of the ribbon will indicate the guest's meal selection. Our wedding colors are ivory, chocolate and pale green, with accents of purple - so ivory will indicate chicken, chocolate will indicate beef, pale green will be vegetarian, and purple will be for kids meals!

Then it was on to favors - as some of you already know, FI and I wanted to incorporate our love for Nintendo into our wedding reception somehow. First we found the fabulous cake topper:

Then we were on the hunt for some awesome favors... we came across www.animecastle.org and found these little beauties:

They're tins full of candy! We got them in red and in green!

FI and I wanted to incorporate those who couldn't be with us on our special day in some way... grandparents and greatgrandparents who have passed on...

So in keeping with our color scheme of pale green, ivory and chocolate brown, I was on a hunt for something awesome that could be used somehow... and then I found it - a beautiful cloth & ribbon memo board at Home Goods! While the one shown below isn't the EXACT one (mine has flowers instead of polka dots), it gives you an idea!

 

We decided that would be the perfect way to display photos of our grandparents and great grandparents, which I scanned in and made uniform by applying a sepia tone:

Then we decided to add pictures of those grandparents and great grandparents who are still with us, as a tribute to those who have helped us to become the people we are today!

How have you incorporated your loved ones who couldn't be with you on your day?

Our ceremony was held at the beautiful Bailey's Hill Park in Nahant MA (in the North Shore)...

It was a perfect day - 80 degrees with a sea breeze, our chairs set up down by the water, our wrought iron (painted ivory) trellises anchoring the front of our ceremony space.

We had help from friends to accessorize the chairs with our 2 for $1 pew bows from Dollar Tree!

The boys arrived first and got their posed photos out of the way - a first look for the gents?! 

Look how handsome they all look! They clean up nicely! Haha!

The groom walked down the aisle with his dad, and then our groomsmen escorted the "ladies of honor" down the aisle! (Moms, my gram and my great-gram!) before taking their spots up front next to my future husband! Meanwhile, BM Heather was playing "Everything I Do" by Bryan Adams on her violin!

 

Sweet ride, right?! That's our 1939 Cadillac Limo that we arrived in... hot! BM Heather switched gears, and began to play Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" as the bridesmaids made their way down the aisle wearing their Victoria's Secret Convertible Dresses...

Then my dad met me at the door of the limousine to walk me down the aisle I gave him a hug and a kiss before getting ready for that slow sweet walk (Edwin McCain's "Walk with You" was our father/daughter dance) - BM Heather began playing Firehouse's "Love of a Lifetime" (which was also my first dance with my husband at the reception)! We're huge 80's nerds, but it sounded beautiful on the violin!

 

Dad handed me off to my hubby to begin the ceremony - who gives this woman away? "Her mother and her Daddy Fred" <3. MOH Alayna fixes my train!

We exchange vows in our short/sweet ceremony...

WE DID IT!!!

What a perfect day it turned out to be - save for a few minor glitches (the gate appearing locked when the shuttle full of guests arrived... the limo parking MUCH closer to the ceremony site than what we rehearsed which meant BM Heather had to rewrite the songs in her head to time it right... yikes!), but all in all, a PERFECT wedding day and now I'm married to my best friend!