If You Don't Like the Weather in the Mid-West....

....Wait ten minutes. It will change.

When we set our wedding date for mid-April in Michigan we knew we were rolling the dice. There could be a blizzard, eighty degrees and sunshine, or anything in between. Mr. Aardvark and I even toyed with the idea of putting a poll on our wedding website so people could guess the weather at 2:00 on our wedding date.

Papa Aardvark was adamant that the weather would be perfect. I didn't mind if we got a little rain (or snow) it would make for cute pictures. FMIL Aardvark gave me the cutest umbrella for Christmas that will go really well with our colors and I have little lacey rain boots that I've been jonesing to use for almost a year now! I have a beautiful shawl that I purchased on vacation last year just in case it gets cold! I am clearly a bride prepared!

There was one thing I had not really thought about, Papa Aardvark being right! Today, for the first time our wedding date showed up on the ten day forecast and I could.not.believe. what I saw:

Image from The Weather Channel.com

Sixty two and sunny?! With zero chance of rain?! Whhhaaa? Can anyone say perfect?

Now, I am not naive enough to think that this will stay the same for the next 9 days, however, it is a pretty good start! Here's hopping the forecast is right (for once)!

Has weather played a part in your planning? Married Bees, what was it like on your wedding day?

A Rose by Any Other Name...

...Would wilt by the time it filed all the paperwork.

Ok, time to throw my two cents in on the name change jazz. I always figured I would change my name when/if I married. I think it is a social signal that you are married and it reduces confusion when/if there are children involved. I also think it is respectful to you new family. (However, should add that it would be equally respectful  for the groom to take the bride's name and/or combine names.)

This was never any kind of question for me. It was simply what I was going to do. Now, I have started the ball rolling and it is not a cake walk. I even am using the very helpful services of Miss Now Mrs. They auto populate all the forms for you after you answer their questionnaire. Save time tracking down forms and filling and re-filling out the same info.

Aside from that help, I am kinda dreading the rest of process. Unlike all of the other wedding tasks I dread doing (seating chart) Mr. Aardvark will not be struggling through this with me. I have to go this one alone and that really bugs me. I know he would (will) help if I ask but he does not have to learn how to re-sign his name or anything! I never thought of the name change game as SUPER unfair, but now that I am in it, it really seems to be.

I am still going through with it. I think I will be happy in the end (and yay for moving up alphabetically).

For now though I am truly struck, for the first time, by the inequality of the whole process. Are you changing your name? Why or why not?

Being a Bada$$ vs. Being a Bride

(Sorry for the swears in the title... I was hopping that the dollar signs would make it less offensive. If you don't like the word badass, please skip this post. See you soon!)

Ok, now that that's out of the way, we can get to the point of this post. I have recently gotten re-involved in my very very favorite sport. Roller Derby:

So I am not actually roller derbying here just goofing off.

When Mr. Aardvark and I moved a few months ago I had to give it up, or face a three hour commute to and from the rink. While I love the sport, that much car-time and wedding planning and working full time was a no-go. But I missed it SOOOOOO much. Lucky for me, I found a new team that was just getting of the ground and was located a convenient 30 minutes away. SIGN ME UP!

Now, while I don't claim to be the most badass chick, or even a highly badass chick. I believe, and I hope you agree, that there is a minimum amount of badassery required to play any contact sport, including roller derby. This is becasue there are risks involved. Mostly risks of rink-rash on your hip, or bruises on your bicep, but occasionally the risks are greater, like breaking bones or black eyes.  Knowing this, but loving the sport anyway is what makes someone a badass.

With all this in mind. I recently posted a flyer on my facebook wall about an up-coming bout. Two of my non-derby friends quickly commented that I should be careful because of my fast approaching (15 days!) wedding. While it is true that I don't want a black eye in my wedding pictures, and hobbling through a first dance on crutches would be a drag, I felt like their concern was a bit of an overreaction.

One of the things Mr. Aardvark loves about me is that I am a badass (or that I try to be one). Why would I give that up pre-wedding? And if I did, how far would it go. People get hurt in cars all the time. Do I stop driving? Stop wearing heels for fear of rolling an ankle? Stop handling paper products for fear of cuts? Stop eating at restaurants for fear that someone will choke on a chicken bone, get the heimlich and shoot the chicken bone at my face, blinding me for life?? Ok so the last one may not be SUPER likely, but you get the point.

There are inherent risks in every single thing we do. In some cases it is the risk that makes them enjoyable. No matter what happens, Mr. Aardvark will be marrying me, not some super polished, air-brushed perfect version of myself with no flaws. Often times, it's the stories behind all the little scrapes and bumps that makes us who we are: a badass.

So ladies (or gentlemen) you don't have to decided between badass or bride, you can be both! I say, if it isn't harmful to the marriage, it won't be harmful to the wedding.

Do you think of yourself as a badass? Have you been warned to cut back on anything "for the wedding"?

Things Could Get Ugly.

Alright, so here's the deal. With less than three weeks to the wedding, my beauty routine has headed into "The Home Stretch". I am not a very fancy person most days. Makeup consists of concealer (boo adult acne) and eyeliner if I'm feeling jazzy. Once in awhile (usually for roller derby) I will do "full makeup" and while that is fun, I am too lazy to deal with it on a daily basis.

As far as other grooming goes, I got my eyebrows waxed years ago and have more or less kept them up with tweasing.

Now, for the ugly part. Thanks to religious use of Pro-Activ my skin is...Ok. It is not perfect or totally clear, but it is better than it has been in years. At this point I am going all out skin pampering mode. I have stopped wearing make up to work. Gasp. It is not really that big of a change. I don't even know if anyone besides me noticed. But my skin is a bit happier and that is what we are going for!

On top of the uneven skin tone, I have stopped tweasing my eyebrow in prep for having them waxed in a week and a half. This have been much more difficult than the no-concealer bit. I feel like I look like this:

Like Frida Kahlo but less cool.

Ok, so maybe it's not quite that bad... but I am so looking forward to getting some shape back!

Are you shaking up your beauty routine in the weeks leading up to your wedding? Do you believe things have to get worse before they get better?

Deadline.

Our RSVP deadline was yesterday. If you recall, we were in a bit of a pickle due to inviting too many guests for our venue. while we are not out of the woods yet, we are doing pretty well.

Here is what the side of our refrigerator looks like currently! If you don't feel like counting, that is 120 guests attending. WELL under the 175 person limit. We also have had 51 people send their regrets. And while we will miss them, we are relieved that our attendance is trending in the correct direction.

Now for the part where we are not yet out of the woods. 120+51=171. We invited 222 guests and 14 +1s for a total of 236 people. I have always struggled with math but I'm pretty sure 171≠236. This could only mean one thing! There are people who have not yet RSVPed! (gasp!)

I had read enough wedding blogs to know that getting RSVPs back can be a  challenge. There is just something about checking a box and dropping a postage paid card in the mail that people struggle with. But I did not think I would end up with 65 question marks on our due date! I was thinking more along the lines of 10.  Oh well.

Nothing to be done about it now but pick up the phone and start calling. If you are good at math, you will have noticed that we are in fact pretty close to being safely under the venue capacity. 120+65=185. SO, if everyone who is yet to RSVP comes to the wedding, we will be 10 people over. But I don't think everyone will. Of those who are left, some are families with lots of kiddos so if one or two of them decide not to come (which is likely) or decided to come sans kids, we will be totally golden.

Once we get our final numbers I will share our percentages and a better break down with you.

Have you started getting RSVPs yet? How many people missed the deadline and had to be tracked down by phone?

This Little Light of Mine

Hive, I must admit that I have not put a lot of thought into our center pieces. A LLLLLOOONG (ok, not that long) time ago, I saw a post right here on Weddingbee by the lovely Mrs. Macarons and decided right then and there that I had my centerpieces solved.

I figured I would do it on the cheap and instead of buying candle holders, I started hoarding salsa and pasta sauce jars. I told my friends and family to start hoarding too. MOH MD's Mama donated a large stock of jars and then they sat in our garage for a few months.

When I told FMIL Aardvark about my plan she too came to the rescue of my budget. She had about 100 yards of lace that she cut off some old curtains because she figured it could be re-used, and she was right!



After I had the jars and the lace I sat on this project for a few more months before starting. You see, I was feeling sheepish about the whole shabby-chic look of it. I was worried it was way over done. I was worried that even if my guests had not seen a wedding with mason jar decor, the hive will be unimpressed with my trendy-band-wagoning (wagoning?). So I drug my feet. 

But there came a point when I could not drag my feet for another second. I had collected all of  the supplies and it was time to get a move on. I told myself I had (barely) enough time to come up with a new concept if I ended up hating these.

Well, it turns out I love them. We did not use lace on all of them, at Mr. Aardvark's suggestion we "manned some of  them up" with twine. I was so excited to see Miss Dragon use this technique in her post earlier. I honestly think it is super cool! (Also I have hardcore yarn envy)

Long story short I adore my mason jar candle holders. I like that they are recycled. I like that they were pretty much free, I even enjoyed making them! AND I think they will go great for our micro-brewery reception. They are trendy yes, but they are also super cute, so I'm just going to let my little light shine!

Enough jibber jabber on my part, would you like to see how that impressive pile of glass, ribbon and lace came to be?

First off we had to clean the jars. The jars we saved and many of the ones from Mama MD all had labels. A little hot water and Goo-Gone did the trick though!

All clean! Not a label or sticky mark in sight!

Then I went about trimming the lace or twine to the correct size for the jar it would be wrapped around.
After cutting a stuffed the lace/twine into it's jar for safe keeping.

At this point I was still on the fence about theses. They needed a little jazz. A little sass. I decided to use some of the ribbon left over from our programs (I tend to way over buy craft supplies) and tie them around the neck of the jars.

I think the pop of color is what sold me on them in the end. As I tied bows, Mr. Aardvark hot glued.

After just a few hours we were done! I really like the combo of lace ribbon and twine. I also really like seeing our wedding colors together in this way.

For a split second I panicked when I realized that some of the doilies I ordered were a different shade of white than the lace on the jars. But really, I think it's okay.

So there you have it, a few jars on a doily with the table numbers (can't wait to show you those!). Simple cheap and cute. OH, and they look fantastic with candles in them:

So Pretty!

The twine does man this up! Well as much as a jar on a doily with a bow on it can be manned up!

Have you settled on a center piece?  Are you forgoing flowers? Do you ever feel pressure not to be too trendy?

March Madness

This weekend has been a blitz of wedding crafts and basketball. After taking a week off of planning/crafting, I realized I needed to get my booty in gear if I wanted to make a dent in my craft list before the wedding. Well, with the help of Mr. Aardvark and some basketball on TV, we got a a ton done.

One of the biggest items that I was SO excited to check off our list was the ceremony programs. Originally I figured we did not need a program. We could save time, money and effort by just skipping them all together. Then I realized we had a pretty sizable contingent of non-Catholics who would be attending. It would only be polite to include some kind of instruction for all of the standing, sitting and kneeling.

Mr. Aardvark and I used the ceremony planning worksheet our priest gave us to come up with the content. a bit of fiddling around and we figured out how to print half sheets front to back. After a quick trip to Staples, the easy part was done. We had 100 copies of our 7 page (half page) programs. Being the crazy person I am, I decided these would be SO much cuter if we used the same corner punch we did for the invitations... I now realize that meant 2,800 corners to punch....The result of which was:

This was about 1/3 of the confetti we made. After all of the corners were prettied up we punched holes in the sides for binding. Honestly, after the all of this punching I was feeling the March madness, and it had nothing to do with basketball!

Mr. Aardvark stepped in right when I thought I was going to go bonkers if I had to punch one more hole in anything. If it hadn't been for him intervening the programs would be in a crumpled (possibly burned) mess and the hole punch would be buried deep it the woods somewhere.

There are so many cool ways to bind programs, but by the time we were ready for that, I was ready to be done. We figured a simple bow would be cute, easy and fast. We were right. With Mr. Aardvark cutting and me tying, we were done in no time.

I was so glad to cross these off our to-do list. I was also really happy to see our wedding colors in action again! Yay color!

Are you doing programs? Was it a project you dreaded? How excited were you to get done?