Wedding Dress

I'm told that, at some point during the first year after your wedding, all brides encounter "the dress". The perfect dress. The dress that would have been the one, but didn't exist, or at least didn't exist in your awareness, until it was too late.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present mine:

To be fair, I really enjoyed my actual wedding dress. And, in truth, I'm just not a wedding dress kind of girl. So this is not a big deal at all. I just think it's pretty & wanted to share.

Bookplate Identity Crisis

I almost forgot, I also finally took a picture of the bookplates that I picked up in Florence!


I just love them. They remind me a bit of Billy Hazelnuts.

My only issue is that I'm still not sure what name to write on them. I'm still having an identity crisis with regard to which last name to go by. And unfortunately, we still haven't received our certificate of marriage. So I'm actually starting to wonder if we're even legally married.

Wedding Pictures

I know it's been kind of a wedding free zone here for the past few weeks, but I received my wedding pictures today so please indulge me.

Here's one of my favorites:


It's my flower girl and I right before the ceremony begins. I think she looks like one of Degas' dancers.

Wedding Readings

It's a lot more difficult than I thought finding wedding readings that aren't overly poetic, sentimental, religious, etc and that will please two picky book nerds.


Here's what BB and I are going with:

First Reading - Colossians 3:12-14

Second Reading - "Song of the Open Road" from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Prayer - "Wedding Prayer" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Also, Peonies and Polaroids has posted a beautiful reading today from Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer that I highly recommend.

The Train is Rolling...

The wedding is awfully close now and it seems like every day we're accomplishing something major. BB and I applied for our marriage license this morning. When we raised our hands and took the oath about not being related and whatnot I said, "I do" rather than, "Yes". I guess I jumped the gun.

BB ordered our favors yesterday, which are a pair of Burdick's almond-citron macaroons. They'll look like this, but paler, with white backing and a black ribbon:



The wedding/almond kitchiness still delights me. I may have a small bowl of almond dragees next to my guest book. I associate them so strongly with the Long Island weddings of my youth. At least I refrained from ordering an ice sculpture of a swan. See? We learn and grow.

The program is at the printers. The menu tasting is early next week. My gift for BB is in the mail. The train is rolling, people. It's rolling.

Stodgy

As I often do in times of stress, I find myself turning to life's stodgier comforts. I've been toting a collection of P.G. Wodehouse novels everywhere I go and reading a biography of the man himself before bed.



A darling student of mine just stopped by and gave me a tin of biscuits from Harrods (she studied in London over the summer) and I'm over the moon. All I want is a nice cup of tea, a biscuit and my book. And quiet. Oh please let me get some quiet time soon!

The wedding is closing in. There's really only a month left. It feels like every moment of our time between now and then is booked up. We're meeting with the planner at the restaurant tonight and the officiant tomorrow. My final dress fitting is on Saturday. My Mom is coming up for the weekend to help with some last minute details. Maybe I can have tea with her...

What Would Laura Do?

So there have been a few wedding setbacks... The event planner at the ceremony/reception location won't respond to any of our emails or phone calls. The flower girls dress arrived and is completely bizarre looking in person. It made my BB's gamine, willowy cousin feel like "a chunk monkey" and "a Christmas tree" alternately. And our budget is stretched to capacity.

But, on the bright side, the Mommies are happy. And we're making progress with the last minute-y stuff like programs and menus.

So I think that I will take this Friday off from thinking about the wedding and will, instead, re-read this illuminating article and ponder the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder...

Curious Boston

BB and I have been compiling a list of suggested itineraries for our wedding guests who are spending the long weekend in Boston. We've got the expected Historical Route (Paul Revere's House, The Freedom Trail, The Old North Church), the Sports Fans Route (Fenway Park, The Cask n' Flagon, The Garden) and even a Shoppers Route (Charles St, South End). But I'm mentally assembling a Route for those who want to see the curious, charming sometimes hidden sites of Boston. I'm thinking I'll call it the Curious Boston Route.

When I first moved to Boston ten years ago, the whole city struck me as curious and magical. And sadly, a lot of the places that made it seem that way are no longer around; I'm thinking of the Avenue Victor Hugo Bookstore and Deli Haus, specifically. But there is still certainly wonder to be found in Boston and here's what I have so far:

1. The Diorama exhibit in the Wiggins Gallery at The Boston Public Library


2. The courtyard at The Boston Public Library


3. Caffe Vitoria


4. The Boston Athenaeum


5. The Mapparium (More on the beaten path than off, but still worth the trip.)


There's plenty more, but I've just started thinking about it. I'll follow up with a more thorough list soon. Please feel free to contribute!

Great Wedding Deal

This is too good not to pass on. Ajalon Printing & Design is running a special where you can get 100 single color, letterpress wedding invitations (plus response cards and envelopes) for $398. Letterpress for $398! But the special is only good through August 31st, so you'll need to have your order placed by then.

They have a ton of designs to choose from. I'm partial to Brenda at the moment:



And if you need help with your wording, I suggest using the Invitation Wording Wizard.

All Better

I could tell you about how I'm frantically searching for a picture of a wedding bouquet to send to my florist. Or how, although he does great work, I'm feeling a bit patronized by him.

Or I could tell you about my killer migraine. Or how many times I've stepped in/sat in gum over the past few days. Or how awful public transit has been.

But instead, I will show you this:



There, see? All better.

Lance Romance

The restaurant that we're getting married at has a set up that allows us to project movies or slides onto a white, brick wall during the cocktail hour. While the popular thing to do, as I understand it, is to project pictures of ourselves and our families, BB and I have decided to go in another direction.

We've decided to project a loop of clips from classic movies of people kissing, embracing, getting married, etc. Music will be playing through the cocktail hour, so the clips will be silent, almost like an art installation.



So far, here's what we've got:

1. Cinema Paradiso
2. From Here to Eternity
3. Breakfast at Tiffany's
4. Notorious
5. Casablanca
6. The Lady Eve
7. Meet Me in St. Louis
8. It's a Wonderful Life
9. A Place in the Sun
10. Roman Holiday
11. Rear Window
12. To Catch a Thief
13. The Seven Year Itch
14. Some Like It Hot
15. Umbrellas of Cherbourg
16. Manhattan
17. It Happened One Night
18. Young Frankenstein
19. Bringing Up Baby
20. The Philadelphia Story
21. Tillie's Punctured Romance
22. Easy Street
23. Seven Chances
24. One Week

We want it to be cheeky and not just straight up romance. I'm even considering including the Planet of the Apes kiss.



Any suggestions? We need them, folks. We've got a lot of time to fill!

Flower Lady

As a child, one of my most closely cherished wishes was that I would be asked to be someones flower girl. I come from a very small family and all of my cousins are really very close to my own age, so my being a flower girl wasn't in the cards.

But now I get the opportunity to do one better, because I was able to ask my best beloved's little cousin (one of my favorite people in the world) to be my flower girl. Actually, because she's nine years old, I'm calling her my "flower lady". "Flower girl" sounds a bit babyish to a sophisticated nine year old. And I just don't like the sound of "junior bridesmaid". Mainly because I'm not having attendants at the wedding and if she's a junior bridesmaid, I'll have to stop secretly squee-ing "I don't have any bridesmaids!" in my head.

I want this to be a lot of fun for her. I want it to be just what I thought being a flower girl might be like when I was eight or nine. So I've picked out a little bouquet that I think successfully strikes the balance between too babyish and too mature. I'm trying to find a dress that does the same, that also won't impede her from dancing and playing, but it's not easy. Here are a few contenders:







What do you think? I'm afraid the last one may be more First Lady than flower lady. A fabric flower pin at the waist might lighten it up some.

I'd also like to put together some kind of Thank-You-For-Being-My-Flower-Lady package for her with some fun candy and probably a book. I was entertaining the notion of throwing in some Bonnie Bell-type, barely tinted, lip gloss. I'm not sure what else. Any suggestions?

Wedding Invitations

As I mentioned before, I'll be getting married soon. In about two months, actually. Yeeps!

I thought I'd show you the style of invitation we went with. I think I've been pretty relaxed about the whole wedding planning process, but I have to admit that I was really picky about the invitations

They're New Calligraphy by Bella Figura and I'm completely in love with them: