special somethings

i'm a sentimental girl compounded by a love for antiques ( hence the draw to have our wedding in a barn filled with antiques) so choosing my something old and borrowed were not difficult tasks. we had many treasures with family history incorporated into our day.

the cake topper on our cake was the cake topper my great grandmother had on her wedding cake, it was passed down to my mother only a year or so ago and the family was thrilled to have one more wedding in the generation to reuse it.

my mom is also an antiquer. when i was little i used to love looking through her boxes of vintage broaches. when i was pondering what to do with my hair, add a flower? a little veil? i revisited her box of broaches and picked one that i thought could be used as a fascinator for flower or what have you. in the end it was used to secure my lace detail, i love how personal the embellishment was, how unique to me and special to my mom.

the bone rose earrings i wore were my moms, and i also used the same purse that she used on her wedding day AND my sister used on hers.

and my something blue? my shoes of course, from Nina, i loved them...

(all photos rise photography, please do not reproduce with out proper credit)

the smallest members of our party...

the little ones always steal the show don't they? they are just so cute everyone wants to be around them, they add joy to joy.

my niece is almost one and a half and she was such a good little "flower girl." she is my first and only niece, i watched her 4 days a week the first year of her life and i am just in love with her. i wasn't even sure if she'd be able to walk for our wedding but i wanted to put her in a little white dress and let her be a part of the party.

we were very lax about it. if she was in the mood and got down the aisle then fine - if not no biggie. we thought maybe my sister would carry her, we just wanted to play it by ear. we didnt waste money on flowers or petals or anything and decided that if anything she could carry icculus, our stuffed sock monkey with her or at least play with him.

well with her mom leading the way she strutted down the aisle like a champ with the monkey as a force field and the crowd LOVED it. i mean, how cute? she even stayed awake long enough to boogie with us, we were very very impressed.

ok, here is some monkey explanation. why the hell do mike and i have a sock monkey? and why do we love it enough to make him a bow tie and invite him to our wedding? i mean a wedding is a pretty grown up event right? and we seem kinda normal as far as you can tell?

well, a few years ago now mike was the victim of a random act of violence, he was attacked by two bikers with a ball peen hammer on our way home from a bar one night. it was horrible, one of the worst nights of our life, but it helped make us solid as a couple...(apparently he started to look for engagement rings the following week.) well, when i picked up his prescriptions the following morning i also picked up this sock monkey to be his "helper monkey" to help him get well, and make him smile. in the years that have followed the monkey has become a symbol of our love for each other, in times when we were living different schedules and mike was asleep before i got home from school i would come home to the monkey doing ridiculous things on my side of the bed - he became our device to say i was thinking about you while you weren't here - just look what this crazy monkey got into this time. silly i know, but it's us. all of our friends now know about him, he comes on vacation with us, friends ask if he can come out with them, and he even has a facebook page.

a magical place

(all photos rise photography, please no reproduction without permission)

mike's uncles' farm is beautiful, perfectly beautiful and on our wedding day it glowed with picturesque perfection. in the days leading up to the wedding mike's uncles pulled out all of the stops to get their home and grounds in order for our celebration, tending to landscaping and even replanting some of the garden that would be our altar so that it was at optimal beauty for the wedding. for the two of us who thought it was perfect as it was, we were completely touched by how hard everyone pulled together and went above an beyond to make sure we had a great day.

i loved watching guests arrive to the farm from my perch hidden away in the house. watching my friends and family take in the magic of the place for the first time was a treat, we worked hard to create a wonderful experience for our guests and the pay off was in their faces every step of the way.

rehearsal and out of town dinner

the party before the party was really almost fantastic as the wedding, it was over the top, full of love and FOOD.

as i mentioned before, we had a swarm of guests and family members flying in from out of town so for all extensive purposes this was a destination wedding. my family came in from wisconsin and we had friends from los angeles, dublin, seattle, new york and even new zealand converging on a small vacation town in southern maine.

friday morning a small group of us got up early and got to work setting up the farm. by the time i got back to the hotel for a bite to eat and a shower before the rehearsal the hotel pub was full of family i hadn't seen in years, my parents and siblings, and friends from around the globe. i remember being so pumped full of adrenaline i was buzzing like a telephone wire. i ordered a beer and a sandwich i couldn't eat ( and not only because i wanted to jump up and hug every person who came through the door) i think my body decided to stop digesting, it was too busy keeping tabs on all of the other physical phenomena occurring.

seeing peoples faces when they arrived at the farm was one of my favorite parts of the wedding. it's such a magical beautiful place that any preparation or description really didn't do it justice. and if i do say so myself the hodge podge of seating that we put together looked fantastic.

(ps. isn't my niece the cutest little girl you've ever seen?)

once we got the house keeping out of the way it was on to dinner which was literally a feast. mike's dad was our host, as he runs the hotel we all stayed at, and because he knew we had so many people flying in to maine from afar he decided he HAD to do a family style lobster dinner. it was decadent, over the top, and such a crowd pleaser. friends and family were laughing all over the room teaching each other to crack open lobsters, all in their bibs, it was amazing.

our florist also decorated the rehearsal dinner. the small bottles and vases with wild flowers were moved into the barn the following day to decorate the surfaces, and the 4 gorgeous wreathes that were in the windows were hung on the barn doors.

after everyone was pleasantly stuffed, a few cocktails in, and we had made our speeches and delivered our gifts, we headed to the hotel pub for a special treat from my sister. she made a slide show of mike and i's childhood photos and then photos of the two of us together. it may sound cheesy but it was a true tear jerker. not only is it overwhelming to see your life flash before you but i had never seen any of mike's baby photos. they are the subject of much grief due to divorce and it was just the sweetest thing i'd ever seen...he was so cute!!

(mike copping a feel, getting as much as he can before we retire to separate rooms)

10 days to go

as most of you have have gone through this already know that this time is just nuts. we're on the phone all the time, we're emailing lists, we're making trips to drop off furniture and props and buying insane quantities of booze from across state lines where there isn't sales tax (woohoo!) and just exhausted in general.

some things are going wrong, some problems are bigger than others, and some stresses are bigger than others. we've found ourselves drinking much more than normal - which i can only assume is to be expected after these long crazy days to relax with a bottle of wine together - we laugh and wonder if all wedding planning couples go through wine like we do, we like to assume they do.

today, i am focusing on the fact that we already have our marriage license, we got it a few weeks ago, so if all else fails we will still be getting married in 10 days. here is our photo from city hall.

exhale.

... thats such a stress to me

i found myself overwhelmed - just at my limit today. and for some reason i kept thinking of that 12 days of christmas spoof that the jokester radio stations sometimes play around the holidays...(you know...stringing up the lights, annnd finding a chriiistmass treee...) while trying to sort out exactly what it was that was stressing me out and realized it was just lots of things swirling at once, so if you don't mind the vent...ehem.

on 12th day til wedding (ok its 30 but still) thats such a pain to me...

ALL OUT OF ROOOOOMS,

UNINVITED GUESTS,

LATE WEDDING DRESS,

GENERAL FAMILY STRESS,

CHANGING DINNER TIMES,

A WHITE SHIRT WILL BE JUST FINE,

WHERE ARE OUR RIIIINGS??!!!!,

FRIENDS NEED TO ACT LIKE GROWN UPS,

I DONT CARE WHAT NIGHT YOU COME UP,

A LITTLE THING CALLED PRENUP,

ANNNNND PLEASE SEND BACK YOUR RSVPPPPP.

thanks ladies i needed that.

i'm looking so forward to my bachelorette party this weekend and laying by the pool with margarita - after margarita - after margarita.

BeatTrain wedding mix

as we're less than 5 weeks out from our d-day mike and i have been doing a lot of final meetings with vendors and drawing up schedules and contact lists, you know the fun stuff...

luckily we love all of our vendors so the process is going rather smoothly and we are getting really excited. we met with our dj, ari rosenfield of beat train productions, last week for a friendly dinner and to get down to business and discuss the sequence of events, the vibe we're going for, and to start discussing our play lists (though we love ari and his taste in music so we want to give him lots of freedom to let loose and take the party where he wants.)

ari spins at clubs and functions around new england in addition to weddings and has some fantastic dance party ready mixes on his website that really showcase his abilities and his diverse range, (i'm partial to the shake a tail feather mix.)

well, he made a new mix just for me (an you guys of course!) of some jazzy, loungy tunes that he might play during dinner or a cocktail hour for a wedding. i thought some of you might enjoy it either for inspiration or to go directly on your i-pods if you're planning on providing tunes yourself. enjoy!

beattrain dinner mix (follow link to download mp3)

Into The Blue by Karminsky Experience Inc.
Le temps de l'amour by April March
Comment te dire adieu by Francoise Hardy
Chez Les Ye-Ye by Serge Gainsbourg
House of Bamboo by Andy Williams
Spooky - Dusty Springfield
Humdrum Blues by Elaine Delmar
Why Don't You Do Right by Cleo Jones
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Nancy Sinatra
Hi-Heel Sneakers by Jose Feliciano

Thirteen Men by Ann Margret
Swingin On the Moon by Mel Torme
Hit That Jive, Jack! by Diana Krall
Box Cars by Ken Jenson
Trav'lin' Light by Billie Holiday
Hold On by Dodo Greene
Pneumonia by Joe Tex

beattrainnyc.com

beattrainproductions.com

no cost recycled out of town bags

ok, let me preface this post by saying - i've been unemployed for a long long time now. so long i passed stir crazy weeks ago and have just today moved into the "act like an insane person when your fiance goes to work because you can't stand another day of nothing to do" phase. after apologizing for above referenced behavior i decided that today i was going to put on some records, finish a little gift i've been thinking about for a while and take a stab at making my own paper bags for no other reason than i needed a task to keep me busy.

since we have such a large number of guests flying in from California, Wisconsin, and well all over the world (Dublin and New Zealand!), we've made an effort to take good care of them in exchange for them spending their hard earned cash on attending our wedding. we've transformed the traditional rehearsal dinner into an out-of-towners feast and we want to provide our guests with at least a little something in their rooms to make them smile when they land if possible.

the thing is, the out of town bags keep moving down the priority list and the financial allotment list. what started as a dream to make fabulous one of a kind silk screened cloth bags started to look much more like a packet of useful info, a bottle of water, and a map.

somewhere in my online or design school classes someone mentioned making bags out of newspapers and i've been thinking about it ever since. mostly thinking about it in ways like -man i'd be insane to make 50 bags by hand... seems like a lot of effort to save a measly couple of bucks... people are just gonna throw them away... it's not greener than buying new if i buy bags made with recycled paper...who has the time for that really?

well today i came to terms with the fact that i have the time. so i took an old LA Weekly out of my stack of newspapers and magazines that i use for art projects and gave it a whirl. i watched a couple of different online tutorials and ended up using a hybrid of sorts using only the papers and two pieces of tape each.

i love the way they came out. i love that some have bright crazy bansky graffiti art on them while others have concert listings, one even has a huge flight of the concords poster on it, i just love them. the best part is, the LA Weekly was free to begin with and something i had and intended to use for art projects of some sort. it's a perfect size and i made about 15 double ply bags out of one paper. i'll be using the boston pheonix to finish out the lot i think...

aren't they cute? i really don't think i'll ever buy a gift bag ever again. are any of you interested in a how to??

crafty goodness

i've been a bad updater lately i know...but i have been a very good crafter. ( i kinda hate the term DIY kinda like STD i dunno why? but anyway...)

in addition to settling on a playlist and burning cd's for favors (with mikey's help of course) I've been making trolley tickets, designing cd covers, and welcome packets with important times and directions for our out of town guests - i've been playing around and making some of the fun stuff.

i've aged the key tags (stained with one morning's left over coffee) for our seating cards so that i was able to add names as the rsvp's came in. they were just a little too crisp and clean as they were...

after searching for a cheap collection of vintage slate chalk boards for table numbers without too much luck i found these cheap little wood frames at michael's (like 59 cents) that were actually a better size to not overpower our water pitcher centerpieces as well. so i got myself some chalkboard paint and stain to age a bit and made my own...

i'm not sure if i've ever mentioned this to you guys before, but our old landlord bequeathed the mother load of old ball jars, milk jars, and old medicine bottles to mike and i before she sold her house, she even gave them to us in a stack of amazing old wooden wine and milk crates. needless to say they will be a part of our decor. we decided to make a bunch of the old jars into candles (fearing that tea lights might not last all night and not wanting to mess with rocks or sand or any of that stuff to hold up the mini pillar candles) and the rest will be used as extra vases for the bars, cake table, gift table etc...

with the help of my mother and sister we made almost 70 candles for the price of the bulk wax (and the hours of pouring and patience needed to tie off wicks without pulling of the bottom)

i have to admit some of the jars are so cool i couldn't bring myself to make candles out of them at first, but then i had a pep talk with myself, they've been sitting in our basement for well over a year, if we didn't use them for our wedding would they just sit there forever? i decided it was a good life for the pretties...and the really really fragile looking ones (or the ones that had formed bubbles in the glass) i saved to use as vases instead.

so things are trucking along, and it feels really good to have these crafts done and in boxes ready for transport rather than hanging out on the to-do list.

you guys are driving me crazy...

i mentioned before that the whole guy's suit situation was one of the points causing me some major stress in this wedding planning affair. once we got mike his suit and decided what we were going to get the guys ( my brother, his brother and his best friend) i felt a lot better about the whole thing for a while, we had even stumbled upon a fantastic tie, below for those who might not remember.

the plan was for mike to pick up the other 3 ties, just like his, when he went to pick up his suit after it had been tailored. road block. the store was out of that tie. not just the harvard square store but all of the stores in all locations, the tie was completely sold out and unattainable. cut to bride spewing profanities - why on earth did we not get all 4 ties when we were there a month before? and if the ties are selling out we have to get these boys to buy their suits asap because i may have a break down if god forbid a similar situation happens with them. yeah i know - it's not good for my health to stress out about these small things but adding extra steps at this point in the game just equals stress to me.

stress. a mad search commenced for suitable replacement ties that could coordinate with mike's tie but not match exactly. i like the idea of him being a little different anyway and nothing else in this wedding is going to be matchy matchy so whats the big deal. oh yeah and we need to get something for the dad's too. am i really running around stressing over ties? oh boy it's time to get married already...

after a fruitless search for an easy order replacement i stumbled upon etsy seller hand made by emy who makes custom ties for wedding parties and has a really nice selection of fabrics. after contacting her to pick her brain about some fabrics that might mix in with our orange and blue madras design it was clear we were in good hands. i choose an orange gingham, a little bit country, a little bit casual, and a little bit funky i think for the 3 boys. i just received them in the mail today and they are beautiful. they are so well made, beautifully lined, and even wrapped in perfect little packages...oh and did i mention extremely affordable? emy really saved my day and i very highly recommend her.

we ended up ordering black and white piccolo gingham for the dads from j.crew, the orange seemed a little too young for them, and now that i have them all here i think it makes a pretty nice picture.

i have to say i do feel relieved to have one more piece of the puzzle accounted for, less than 2 months out my check lists are running long and every item taken off the table is like oxygen to me.

we now have all but one of the guys ( ehem...) suited up but it wasnt without a little extra leg work. as i had feared i went to an express to check on the vests and slacks and they did not carry the gray any longer - they were switching it out for black - the fall lines were coming in, i almost lost it. luckily we found a store in the area that still had them and walked mike's brother - his best man - in to buy it immediately. they look super cute on and i'm a happy girl - well i will be once the 3rd guy gets his but i'm on my way.

the final huge road block was the off white dress shirts. are you guys encountering any of this? since my dress is an antiqued white everyone is telling us the guys need to be in ivory or off white otherwise my dress will look dirty. great, another search. have you tried to google an ivory dress shirt? or an off white dress shirt? or even eggshell or ecru? the results are few and far between, i checked retailers, designers, even wedding message boards and forums for advice. i was pulling my hair out and about to say - screw this a white shirt is a white shirt when at express on our suiting excursion we found a perfect solution, beautiful off white shirts - called "stone" - that work perfectly.

so yeah, i can't count the times "why didnt we just rent tuxes" whispered through the back of my mind.* this part has really been a lot of work and energy for me. anyone else having any suiting troubles? the saving grace is that they do look darn cute but really, there needs to be a place that does suit rentals for the modern groom already, they could make a fortune.

* i have a friend who is getting married this weekend and when the guys went to mens wearhouse to pick up their tuxes a few days ago they all had gray jackets and black pants, so i know that a rental wouldn't necessarily mean less stress.