Weddingbee bios

I live in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I'm 28 years old and I love cars, sugar and shoes. Mr. Mary Jane and I like digital photography (we have matching cameras!) and watching movies together when we're not bogged down with our homework (we're grad students too). We bought a house in May 2009 and we're enjoying making it in to a home together.

Mr. Mary Jane and I have been dating since early 2008 and were engaged on February 28. 2009. The Mary Jane wedding was September 9, 2009. The Mary Jane honeymoon (to Jamaica!) took place in July 2010.

I joined the hive in April 2009 and no longer regularly write for Weddingbee, though I pop in from time to time. [Here's my personal blog, where I write very often!]

(Mr. Mary Jane and I at Logan Pass in Glacier Nat'l Park in Sept. 2008 for Mr & Mrs. Cherry Pie's wedding.)

Related Posts

• My "Hello" to the Hive
• Our House (slightly off topic ) [Part 1, Part 2]
• Our city
• My experience as a Bee

To make a long story short, we met at work in 2007.

To do the story more justice: Mr. Mary Jane and I went to the same school, in a small town in northern Minnesota, starting in 4th grade in the early 90s. Our school and town were small enough that if you went to school with a person, you knew their name. We were both very introverted however, each having just a small group of friends, so we really did not talk to each other at all throughout our high school years. We never thought twice about each other.

Fast forward to 2007. I had moved to Oregon, gone to college, and moved back close to home (Grand Forks) for graduate school. (It was a  huge coincidence really - there were only a handful of schools in the country with a good program in Instructional Design, and I did not want to move to the south, so I ended up right back in the region I'd tried to originally escape from: the upper midwest. And just minutes from my hometown, too. Mr. MJ had moved to Grand Forks after high school, attending college here.

Then within a few months of each other, Mr. MJ and I each got jobs in the same department in a much larger organization. As in: there are hundreds or thousands of employees, but we became members of the same 8-person-team. Like I said earlier, if you went to school and/or lived in our hometown, you know each other at least by name. And that got us talking. We found lots of similarities about each other: we both like photography, we value education, we hate rude people... the list goes on. We even found out that we lived a mere 6 blocks from each other in Grand Forks!

The rest, as they say, is History. We were definitely "meant to be"! I wrote a post about how we met (it doesn't quite mirror this one; has a few more details!) Check it out below.

Related Posts

• How We Met
• How We Decided to Get Married

Mr. Mary Jane proposed to me at home on February 28, 2009: a Saturday. A few hours later, we went to dinner with members of his family to celebrate.

Related Posts:

• The full proposal story (and tons more e-ring photos!)

My dad used our camera and his to take these photos of us. I wouldn't exactly call them engagement pictures, but they're the closest thing we have. We asked my dad to shoot these photos for us so that we'd have something to put in our picnic invitations. We wore coordinating colors and stepped out in to my parents' back yard, where my dad snapped dozens of photos. These were the best three. I did all of the post-processing work on them.

The photo above is the one we used in the picnic invitations.

I'm a "four dress bride," haha!

Here's the dress I finally chose after much flip-flopping between styles:

My dress is by Cachet, and it was simply called "Strapless Tiered Dress". Which is odd because when it arrived via mail, it actually did have spaghetti straps on it! (I elected to cut them off.) I purchased it from Belk.com for about $200. It was listed in the Mother of the Bride section: Could you imagine a bride's mother wearing this? Seems a little too... "Bridey", don't you think? "Bridey" works for me though!

Related Posts

• Trying on dresses at bridal stores
• Trying on dresses I ordered online
• Choosing to wear a brown suit instead of a white dress
• Dumping the brown suit for a cheap white sun dress
• Dumping said cheap white sun dress for another cheap (free!) white sun dress
• Asking the readers for help finding yet another dress
• Picking my favorites from the dresses readers sent
• Finally finding MY DRESS! (Whew. Thought that'd never happen.)
• My first attempt at making a green sash (to match my shoes).
• A more successful sash!

Mr. Mary Jane and I bought his suit at Macy's. It's black with a subtle pinstripe.

Related Posts:

• Suited up!

Spring colors for a late summer wedding? Why not? It's my wedding and I did what I wanted. :) Here is the first inspiration board I made for my wedding.

Here's the post about this board. Sources for the photos above are listed in the post.

Now, here's how my wedding actually came out:

And here's how I kinda 'wished' I had done things differently.

(This post contains the sources and more chit-chat about the above images.)

Related Posts:

• My original earrings and necklace
• My Hair Flower
• My Bracelet
• My *new* necklace

My engagement ring + our wedding rings are from River City Jewelers of Grand Forks, ND. Mine were designed by Levy Creations. Both the designer and jewelry store worked with us to customize them for a larger stone, add a euro-shank shape and extra side stones, and create room for one flush-fit wedding band. Mr. Mary Jane's were designed by us, based on a design we found online (scroll down for the "inspiration" pic). Corey at River City Jewelers made Mr. Mary Jane's ring.

Related Posts

• Finding the perfect e-ring [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]
• Proposal Story and tons of E-Ring Photos
• My wedding ring
• Making Mr. Mary Jane's perfect ring [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4: (his thoughts about it)]
• Pictures of Mr. Mary Jane's custom ring

I love my DKNYC Foxy Pumps! They were great at my wedding, and I can also wear them for work and play!

 Related posts

• The shoe search
• The shoe search conclusion

I made it myself (and the bout too!), on the morning of the wedding.

Related Posts:

• My "bouquet trial"
• Buying the flowers for my bouquet (WEDDING RECAP #1)
• Making the bouquet on my wedding day (WEDDING RECAP #2)

Related Posts:

• The original vision for this project.
• Finding a new, better vision.
• The new plan and a crisis averted.
• Getting down to business: printing and chopping it up (see the design proofs here).
• Assembly: Mr. Mary Jane was the best helper EVER.
• The finished product (lots of pics!) and a price/supplies breakdown.

I made these postcards for FMIL and FFIL. They're not for our wedding though: they're for the picnic my in-laws were having to honor our marriage.

Related Posts:

• The beginning of the project.
• Creating them in Photoshop
• Addressing them with Mail Merge (includes more pics of the finished cards)

Related Posts:

• We got ready together, in our house. (WEDDING RECAP #3)

We were married at the courthouse on a weekday afternoon in September. A civil ceremony generally only lasts a few minutes and is not customizable.

Here is some Background....

• How we decided on a civil ceremony
• How we dealt with keeping it verrrrry small
• How we avoided questions about when it was
• How we picked our middle-of-the-week date

Here are some of the recaps!

• Mr. Mary Jane got me a gift! (WEDDING RECAP #4)
• We took some pics before the ceremony (WEDDING RECAP #5)
• We married! (full civil ceremony wording is in this post). (WEDDING RECAP #6)
• More portraits post-ceremony! (WEDDING RECAP #7)

*photos in this portion of the Bio are by Shawna Noel Photography.

We had dinner with our guests after we got married. We weren't planning a reception at all, but Mr. Mary Jane's mom and dad graciously offered to have a celebration for us. It was a casual barbecue/picnic at their home. All of the family, and our friends were invited. I was thrilled that my parents will be able to attend, since they were visiting from the east coast at the time.

The in-laws booked a caterer, and the main entree will be ribs! Mmmm. Mr. MJ and I love us some ribs.

Background Posts:

• We were offered a reception
• Ribs were on the menu!

Recaps!

• The wedding day cake cutting at our home on September 9. (WEDDING DAY RECAP #8!)
• The picnic on September 12 (WEDDING DAY RECAP #9 - final recap)

Our cakes (yes, I said cakes) were made by a family friend. Our only stipulations were that it must be buttercream icing (I am addicted to the stuff to the point that people are disgusted), and the cake itself should be chocolate, white or a combination of the two. When it comes to cake, we're not fru-fru.

There was a small cake for our dinner after our wedding (just immediate family). Then, mooooooaaar CAKE for our reception a few days later. The cake style we chose for the after dinner treat was loosely (and I stress LOOSELY) based on this... lovely... '80s sucker.

It came out great!

We had tons of leftover cake, which I may or may not have eaten for breakfast and lunch for a solid week. OmNomNom.

Mr. Mary Jane's mom picked out the cake for the reception, which was made by the same baker and was also DEEEEELICIOUS.

Related Posts:

• The cake discussion begins: we're getting cake made by a friend of the in-laws.
• Our cake emerges from the era of puffy sleeves and cascading plexi staircases
• The topper I chose

Pork!!

(image source)

And lots of it.

Mr. MJ's mom and dad selected a caterer from Badger, Minnesota called the Twins Corner Cafe. They served barbecue ribs, chicken and stuffing, and other delicious dishes at our picnic.

The beverage selections ranged from soda and juice to beer and wine.

And of course, there was cake. :)

After a rather annoying (thought not quite "exhaustive") search, we finally found a courthouse that we were excited to get married at: The Traill County Courthouse in Hillsboro, ND. 

We originally planned to marry at a courthouse because we thought it'd be easy. Like getting a new driver's license: just walk in and get 'er done, right? After calling a few counties, I found that it wasn't as simple as I'd hoped. By then I'd of course fallen in love with my "vision" of a courthouse wedding and I was determined to find one that would work for us. I had 12 courthouses to call, and Traill County was the sixth one I tried (but the first that offered weddings on our chosen date).

It was cute, close to home, its deputy clerk was friendly and flexible, and it was even on the National Register of Historic Places - cool! I can't say enough about our positive experience going here. Very nice people, very accommodating. They told us we could stay as long as we want to take pics - they lock the building at 4:30 but we could just let ourselves out! I love country hospitality like that!

Related Posts:

• Our home county wasn't going to work out.
• After trying a few more counties, I was starting to get discouraged.
• Fargo suggests a motel, but Hillsboro seems happy to oblige us!
• A visit to the Traill County Courthouse (and tons of pics)
• After the Wedding: Reflecting on our Courthouse Experience

(An ongoing list I'll add to as time goes on...)

DIY Materials:

• Any and all ribbon (incl. floral tape) used in my projects was purchased at Michael's.
• All card stock was also purchased at Michael's.
• Corsage pins (for the bouquet), also from Michael's.
• Brads for the invitations were purchased at Michael's.
• Pink sticker-seals for the invitations were also from Michael's.
• Envelopes for the invitations were purchased at Office Max.
• Gold paper clips for the invitations were purchased at Office Max.

My clothing and accessories:

• My Dress is by Cachet, from Belk.com.
• My engagement/wedding ring set is from River City Jewelers; by Levy Creations.
• My necklace was purchased from River City Jewelers.
• My earrings are Givenchy, bought from Macy's.
• My shoes are DKNYC Foxy Pumps from Endless.
• My hair flower is from seller BowSweet on Etsy.
• My bracelet was purchased from Buy.com.

Mr. Mary Jane's clothing and accessories:

•     His jacket and pants were purchased at Macy's. They are Alfani Separates.
•     His pants were hemmed and tailored by Pins & Needles, a local alterations shop.
•    His shoes were purchased at Macy's. They're Bostonian Duralite black lace-up Oxfords
•    His wedding ring was custom made by River City Jewelers in Grand Forks.

'Day Of' Vendors:

•     Photography: Shawna Noel
•     Traill County Courthouse, Hillsboro, ND

 

 

Our honeymoon will take place in July 2010, about 10 months after our wedding. We're both students, so we needed to wait for summer to take any lengthy vacation. 

We're going to Jamaica! 10 luxurious days at the new Secrets Wild Orchid resort in Montego Bay. We're looking forward to all-inclusive goodness, including a jacuzzi on the balcony of our suite! 

Related Posts:

• Why we didn't go right after the wedding
• What we were looking for in an h-moon
• Our top choices
• How we made our decision to go to the Secrets Wild Orchid
• RECAP #1: Our Experiences and Overall Trip
• RECAP #2: What We Ate (yes, this needed its own post!)
• RECAP #3: Comprehensive Review of the Resort

This is a list of some of my favorite posts that I've written for Weddingbee.

• How I became a "ringzilla"
• My perspective regarding professional photography
• A reminder to involve the groom

Since our wedding was so small and private, I didn't expect any showers or bachelorette parties. But I'm glad I ended up deciding to register at a few places because Mr. Mary Jane's aunts held a lovely shower in my honor on August 29, 2009. We enjoyed cake, salads, sandwiches, and ice-breaker games (including the TP wedding dress game)!

I was floored by the amount of wonderful women who attended the shower. It was a ton of fun. And later in the evening, the men of the family showed up too! Read the details in my post (linked below).

Related Posts:

• About the shower