Regrets, I've had a few, but then again...

Too few to mention, right? Amiright?! This post has been a loong loooong time coming. It's almost not worth spending time on. And yet, it struck me today that Kyle and I are slowly approaching our one year anniversary and this is not a post I would reserve for a one year anniversary post, so I decided to make it an almost one year anniversary post.

Moreover, I've had a lot of time to think, to talk to other brides, to discuss stuff with my photographer, who we still keep in touch with (Remember?! He just had a baby!!!). I cleared out my Google reader today and unsubscribed to a few of the wedding blogs that I was STILL READING and not surprisingly, I'm getting a little tired of wasting time on wedding blogs.

What? Oh you're not surprised either? Oh, you're surprised it took me this long?

Well the answer, my friends, to why it's taken me this long to let go is... Regret.

Finally not looking at wedding dresses any longer has made me realize I'm letting go of it, and talking candidly with my photographer has made me realize I'm letting go of it, and all that made me realize I could finally post about it.

Instead of being even more long-winded, here are my reflections in pictures (all courtesy of Ben Weldon):

Ohhhh if only I could go back and not let that crazy-slow chick touch my face!!! Although I've let it go... mostly, one of my biggest regrets is not doing my own makeup. Not only would I have appreciated the shots better; my funny makeup faces, my huge brushes, but she took about 45 minutes to do my makeup! It ate up half of my getting-ready time!! As a result, eeeeeeeeverything after that was rushed and I wasn't able to get a lot of the other shots that I wanted to get.

 

The left picture is me RUSHING through opening Kyle's gift to me, which was a really really nice strand of pearls that I would have liked to have had more than one picture of... with Mia doing God knows what in the background... And on the right is one of only three pictures "bridal shoot" style that Ben squeezed in before we had to go to the ceremony. Side note: all the while, I thought to myself... ummm, good thing we weren't planning on a first look, I barely had time to get ready myself!

This left us time for one shot of wine that I didn't even taste. And that face that suggests I'm not enjoying this? That's because I know that I didn't get any shots with my girls, I didn't get any shots on the balcony, I didn't get but a couple sexy shots of myself... all because of that stupid makeup chick taking 45 minutes on my makeup!! Oh, and remember how Kyle got to have plenty of sexy glamour shots by himself because he didn't waste 45 minutes on his makeup?!

I'm not bitter anymore though because he's so damn handsome and everyone always wants to see the bride and here he got his own couple moments. Go grooms!!

I had planned on another walk-through of the reception space because I had left other people to set it up and... you know me. It wasn't till after the ceremony I realized how stark our cake table looked and how the banner wasn't placed right. Silly little thing to be angry about right?! Of course!! THE POINT IS if I had done my own makeup it would have taken me 15 minutes max with another half hour to check on the setup of the reception space and say "Oh hey, could you put some moss around the cake stand?" and "Oh hey, the banner is supposed to be stacked so you can actually read 'Love Is Sweet' not wrapped around the table so it looks like one bizarre word."

Again, you and everyone else might say I'm being a bit too bitter, but like I said, it would have taken five minutes for me to look at this and fix it, but I didn't have five minutes to spare anywhere.

Moving on!!

Can you guess what I hate about this picture?? I'll tell you, it's those stupid pavilion plastic flaps!! I was so mad that I couldn't get those to come up. The venue had a very strict rule that the flaps go down if it's below 65 degrees out and do ya' wanna' know what the high that day was?? Sixty-frickin'-three!! Two degrees separated me from a gorgeous, rustling breeze and natural sunlight. Let me just say I was more than comfortable in my strapless gown and I know for a fact that Kyle was sweating profusely AND had plastic-warped sunlight hitting him in the face. I KNOW there is nothing I can do about it and I need to let it go, but if there is one other thing I'm still having trouble getting over it's Riverdale Manor and their intransigent staff. EVERYONE WAS HOT!! IT WAS GORGEOUS OUTSIDE!!! But hey, they got an extra $250 out of me for having to run the heater because it's an automatic charge if it's below 65 degrees. Gotta' love those Riverdale coordinators!

Oh yeah... no one even knew these were here. I had meant to tell my parents, his parents, our grandparents, my girls and guys to blow bubbles when the ceremony was over so everyone else would follow suit, but I forgot, so no one blew bubbles, and so we had no send off, we had no bubbles... just a small regret, more funny than angering; the bubbles were just completely forgotten! Sorry bubbles!

Another small, really small regret: Ben suggested we do formals after portraits; we had better chance of catching the light for the money shots- me and the man- and then we would do family formal shots right after. Well no thank you, I said, I will not be the one in charge of trying to find everyone at the cocktail hour after Kyle and I get done with our portraits. Everyone was there, so I thought, no, we should just get this done and over with. Lo and Behold, I find out only after the pictures come in, that all the magical sunset light was used up on the family formals. Ben said there was no way to know because of the tree line, but there it is, that beautiful burst of light. Not that it was gone to waste! But it would have been better placed here:

 Or here:

 Or somewhere here or here:

 

These shots still make me swoon, and I can't praise Ben's handy work enough, they just would have been that much more amazing with amazing sunlight. Anyway, not at all angry, just moving right along.

I have almost completely let go of my dress drama! Whoo hoo!! I still never had THAT MOMENT every bride thinks she needs to have found the one, but this dress was awesome. There, I said it. So why am I even bringing it up??

I had to buy three dresses to find 'the one' ya'll! And I still can't get rid of the third (Priscilla of Boston), so I'm still super mega pissed I wasted my money on it! Second, I still wish I had been bold enough to throw some ombre in there somewhere; I said I was going to get a blush underskirt (off-white dress, blush underskirt, plum shoes... ombre!) or a nice deep burgundy sash to go across the middle, and I never did, and to this day, the whole ensemble is just a little too white for my liking. Once again, not a huge deal, just being real.

Finally, third, it. still. didn't. fit!! I was too worried about being thought a bitch to press the seamstress to pull it in more. I had a good inch around my waist that it could have been taken in, and I selfishly thought that I could have looked a little slimmer if it had fit me properly. I was kind of opposed to corset tops and was happy initially that this one was a zipper gown, but when it came to fit, if I could go back, a corset top would have made sure it fit no matter how poorly the seamstress listened to me. Yet another small thing that I should never have been bitter about at all, but hello, you're lying if you tell me you don't want to look sexy on your wedding day when you picked a relatively fitted gown!

Anyway, I never meant to be this long-winded about any of these things and here I am, super-justifying everything! You can tell who I'm really trying to convince ;) Just a few more things, promise!!

 

These shots are the only ones that captured some of the stuff (junk?) that I collected to get the whole primitive (that's Amish speak) feel in our venue. Anyone who's been following knows how much I love stacked crates, and I collected quite a few to decorate the reception area, and I have no photos of them. The other pictures is the only shot that captures any of the pitchers I collected and that my Mama lovingly stuffed with wheat stalks. Did you know that those bowls had river rocks and flowers and candles floating in them? Neither will anyone else, because there's no picture of them besides this one. Remember how I also made chair ribbons for the bride and groom's chairs that match the altar? No? That's because there's no picture of them. Now, as I've said, I've talked candidly with my photographer about these things. He made fun of me at the time for having such a long list of photos I wanted taken and that made me feel embarrassed that I was being a bridezilla. When he finally had a bride who had a longer list than me, I was finally able to admit to him that if I had not felt so self-conscious, he would have gotten a much longer list :)

And hey, if it hadn't taken 45 minutes to do my makeup, then I would have had him follow me around the reception area before the ceremony and said "Oh, and take pictures of this, and this, and that over there!" Stupid slow makeup chick!

There's no hard feelings between Ben and me though, especially given the other simply amazing detail shots that he captured:

 

 

 
Sigh. He gave me more than I could have asked for, and in the end, life is way too short to dwell on little missed opportunities. I still have all the crates and wine bottles and I'm in the process of decorating my house with them! Because it's like living in my wedding fantasy world everyday!! This weekend I should have time to do some arranging, look out for pictures then!

Last beef (and another fabulous detail shot from Ben):

I thought I had been very clear with my florist that I wanted a bouquet with less structure, more whimsy. And I knew she was capable of such; we talked about how we both were not a fan of the "lollipop" bouquet. Here's some shots from her own portfolio:

 

 

So, you see? I knew she was capable of astonishing things and this is why I picked her! I showed her her own photos and said (while trying not to drool) 'yeah yeah, like this!!'

Did she still make beautiful bouquets?? Absolutely! Were they as cool and out there as I had hoped for? No, sorry, they were one step away from lollipop. Am I being nit-picky? Quite possibly!! But hey, that's what this whole post is about, it's been almost a year and I'm letting go of all these little hurt feelings and it feels good, but I still acknowledge that not everything was perfect. Not everything is going to be perfect.

To close, let me emphasize the most important point. The MARRIAGE is perfect, and that's all that really counts, the WEDDING was just a day, and it was still pretty freaking awesome. And let's not forget the end result currently kicking me in the bladder right now and giving me mild indigestion, that's totally awesome (not the indigestion).

So for the sake of the blog, these are my thoughts on what was not perfect, but for the sake of my life and your life and every other happily married woman, this is NOT to be confused with 'oh, well there must be something deeper that's wrong' because that's malarkey! Pure MALARKEY!! Don't not let yourself be a little upset about things that didn't go quite as planned. I am fully aware that relationships take work and raising kids takes work and life takes work, but I plan a party for that party to be perfect, thankyouverymuch! For everyone who's ever heard me talk about the things I regret, and judged me or rolled their eyes, this is my soap box, I no longer feel bad about being a little bitter. Take that.

Inspiration vs. Reality, part IV

OK, so where are you? (movie reference anyone??) Some motel room. (there, I gave you some more) Maybe I'll get another freaky tattoo to remind myself... anyone??

But seriously, my head is in a billion places right now, and looking over wedding pictures is how I calm the storm. That's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it! My paper for work is almost done. Once the paper is done, I get to start writing my thesis and defend. I've got five months, I should be done in four :) I don't have a huge amount of confidence in my writing skills so I'm always scared when I write something that it's going to be total rubbish. So while publishing this paper and officially getting the OK to start the final countdown is an awesome prospect, the fear of failure is stressful.

I got my first 'job offer' yesterday. I call it job offer but put it in quotes because it doesn't work the same way in science, you e-mail a prospective professor, and if they say 'Yeah, let's meet and talk' you're in the position of leverage. That doesn't mean you have the job BUT you'd have to really mess up at this point. If I can keep it together, Kyle and I will both be in great positions, both of us having good jobs, both working only ten miles from our new home! It's pretty intense... and stressful.

The home inspection is today. It's when we find out if there's some massive structural problem that we don't know about. This is highly unlikely because the house isn't that old, has little to no damage, and looked and felt great. BUT you never know of course. And there is a slightly higher possibility of there being something not massive but still expensive wrong with the house, and if the current homeowners don't agree to fix it, and we can't afford to fix it, then we're at an impasse, and the whole deal might fall through. Again, highly unlikely, all this, but still... stressful.

So there's a little look at why I'd rather be looking at wedding pictures. Ha, actually even that's kind of stressful because the man and I swore we are going to do thank you notes this weekend. Not really the most exciting of Saturday activities. ANYWAY, I'm almost done with inspiration boards. I'm slowly starting to shift my Pinterest use from wedding photos to kitchen and bathroom photos, but NOT TOTALLY! Still subscribed to a few of my favorite wedding blogs. So, without further ado, styling inspiration:

Succulents, fiddle heads, feathers, big hair flowers, big hair... yup, that sums it up! So there's no need to beat around the bush, here's out inspiration-turned-reality board; stylin'!

In love = me! I knitted my own shawl, made those hair flowers and the hangers, my Mama made my garter, the florist did a FANTASTIC job on the flowers, and Ben captured it all! Oh, and I am so glad I wore flats, so so glad; every muscle in my body ached the day after the wedding from all the dancing, but not my feet! The only thing I wish was that we had more time for portraits of me and the girls before the ceremony, but that was no one's fault but time; that fickle mistress... bitch...

Anyway, what do you think?! Thanks for the comments so far, I really enjoy these inspiration boards, and I hope you all do too!

Eleven Twenty Five Eleven: The girls get pretty!!

So while the guys got ready, obviously the girls were already well on their way. We went even earlier in the day to a salon in Lancaster to get our hair done (all except me, 'cause I'm easy like that) and got to Riverdale a little late.

Let me set this up for you: we had two hours to get our hair done, it took longer than two hours, we got to Riverdale maybe a half hour late, and then it took about an hour to get the ceremony space ready and go over last minute stuff with the coordinator and officiant and DJ. So now I've got an hour and a half until the ceremony... to do three hours worth of ready-gettin'! Already a little panicky...

Our makeup artists were already there (as well as Ben, duh), so they got started right away on my sister and Keri while I went over last minute stuff with our coordinator/DJ/officiant/future husband:

They looked awesome sauce! Our makeup artists consisted of a lovely young woman and a charming, flamboyantly gay guy, who was awesome. But eventually, the former lovely young woman got her dirty mitts on me... People, I had stuff to do... How long is this going to take?

 

Love this picture of me and my Mama. Look how pretty she is!!

 

She and I were the smart ones who wore button down shirts! Someone's been doing their homework!

Already getting impatient... Mom's almost done. I definitely should have done this myself...

Flamboyantly gay guy makes funny comment, breaks tension.

At least Ben has the sense and skill to make a photo opp out of it. But this is getting out of hand.

Anything interesting on my phone?

Must have seen something to make me laugh. Maybe it was just Ben horsing around behind me:

OK, this is getting ridiculous, and at this point, I remember that our processional order has completely changed since the last time I talked to our DJ. If it was anyone else, I wouldn't bother, just play something, but I knew I could trust Nick to get this right, and I knew I could trust that he wouldn't hold it against me if I was disgustingly nit-picky about it. So someone found Nick so I could take my mind off how long makeup was taking... Oh, you see that Mia is now getting her makeup done... why aren't I done yet?!

 
 Also, see the gift on my lap? I needed to get Kyle his gift as well... and we're running out of time.

Not sure how I have it in me to still see any humor in this at this point... I think Keri went to deliver my gift.

I think I'm almost done at this point, but at this point, I've completely given up on the prospect of getting to take pictures with the girls before the ceremony or pictures on the balcony. I think I was too happy in general that it was my wedding day and I felt the way I was supposed to... But in hindsight, I'm beyond pissed makeup took AN HOUR! At this point we have a half hour to get dressed and get down to the ceremony... no extra photos... :( no balcony... :(

At least Mia looks gorgeous!! Now please go find some alcohol. It's time to squeeze Ashley into a dress!

I'm very happy that we have so many pictures of this, and that my mom and sister are the ones who helped me.

 

Ben, again, making excellent use of the mirrors!

 

 
Love how the dress looks from the side.

It took a long time, but only because they couldn't find the top hook. The dress was loose on me, I'll come back to that later, believe me.

 

Next Mama helps me with my garters (that she made!); my New (I wouldn't normally have made garters a 'New' but since my mom made them, I thought the wedding gods would make an exception, just for me). You can see my Old sitting next to me; my crappy, old dependable, cheap Payless purple-y loafers! I put on my Blue next; the blue emerald necklace my parents got me for my 18th birthday. I forgot to tell Ben that it was significant, so he didn't get any close-up shots of any jewelry.

Next came my hair flower, which I needed a lot of help with... and which took me a long time... so we have lots of pictures of it :)

OK, Mama, help!

Miracle-Worker-Mama got that thing in there so good it didn't move for the next several hours!

OK, so unfortunately, at this point, we have to get moving, but I remember that Keith came in with a gift from Kyle forever ago and I forgot about it till this point.

I told him not to get me anything because he paid for 75% of the wedding, but, when does anyone ever listen to me?! Why should I expect my soon-to-be husband to do so??

Just kidding, but seriously, he got me a very beautiful strand of pearls, very sneakily (he got it from the same jeweler as all our rings came from, so he was always using 'picking up or cleaning our rings' as an excuse to go there and order things).

I love them, I wear them anytime we go out someplace nice, but I couldn't wear them just then (and I knew he knew this) because it meant a lot to me to wear the necklace my parents got me for the actual ceremony. The pearls would keep nicely for the reception.

This was how I became not a two-dress bride, as is the trend now of course, but a two-necklace bride!


At this point, my mom surprises me with my Borrowed; a beautiful, dainty little hanky that my great grandmother made. Now, I was actually pretty blown away by this, especially because she told me she thought it would be too old or fragile for me to use since she also used it in her wedding! She waited until just a few minutes before the ceremony to break it out. While it was all very dramatic and touching (which I don't think my mom intended for it to be) it was also too short notice for me to turn to Ben and say "Quick, get pictures of all this stuff!" My Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue pretty much came together at the last second.

Shooooo! Got all that?? Again, thanks for sticking around, I know I wasn't this eloquent with yesterday's post about the boys, but what could possibly have been going through their minds?! They had plenty of time! We're at T minus minutes now and I need a drink. Thanks to Mia or Ben (I never did figure out which took care of this, but thanks), we had a whole bottle of white wine brought up from the bar... I would have chugged it all if they had let me...

We settled for a nice cup full. I didn't have as many smiles anymore, I was officially getting a little nervous...Next, Kyle and I manage to get in a few individual portraits before we finally see each other!