One Week...

Wow. Where did the time go?

One week from today, I will be waking up early with butterflies in my stomach. I will rush out of the house at 8 o'clock in the morning to get to my hair appointment. I will hang out with my sisters (both new and old ;) ). I will have my make-up done by my not-to-distant future mother-in-law and I will step into the most beautiful dress I have ever worn.

My godfather will be there, my flower girl, my sisters, my mothers, and my dad all to support me on what is sure to be one of the most important days of my life. I'm sure the goodbyes will be sentimental as we break into groups to head to the church. My sisters will then step into the car with my godfather, and my own father will chauffeur me to the church. Perhaps on the car ride I will read the letter Mishka is writing for me to keep me company during our "can't see each other" period.

When we get to the church I'll be hiding in the back until I hear my music play. The parents will be seated, then the bridal processional will begin, and finally Canon in D will signal that it's my turn. I won't even try to imagine what seeing Mishka for the first time on our wedding day will be like, but I'm sure it will be truly magical.

Our friend and officiant will take us through our wedding mass and before we know it... we'll be kissing for the first time as Husband and Wife :).

As for the rest... the reception is going to hold a lot of surprises I'm sure. Drunk relatives, heartfelt speeches, and delicious food (which may or may not end up on my dress O.O). I can't wait to start recapping it for you all, but to start envisioning what might happen... Well I just don't think I could even imagine :).

Man I can't wait!

Bridal Shower Recap

It is difficult to write my bridal shower recap. But, if I ever plan to make it through my wedding recaps, I guess I'd better try.

The reasons I'm having difficulty is that it's hard to capture the emotions I felt that day in words. It was most certainly, one of the happiest days of my life. I ran the gambit of confusion, surprise, elation, and an overwhelming sense of being absolutely and completely loved. There was love everywhere in that room.

But I should start at the beginning no?

It all started when my two friends, D & H (who I rarely ever see) invited me to lunch. Invited me to tea in fact. It was only a week earlier so I was totally unsuspecting. They played it very cool in the car with me (they offered to pick me up - still I had no clue ;) ).

In fact, even after seeing all my friends and family gathered around me, it still didn't really hit me that my shower was finally happening. I was busy making my confused face:

It wasn't until everyone yelled "SURPRISE!!!" that it all hit me in a wave. Let's cut to my "OMG I'M SO HAPPY!!!" face:

Yes, I look gross, but one of the prices of a surprise shower is that you're not as prettified or styled as you'd like to be.

Let me pause for a detail shot of what greeted me upon arrival:

That was a picture of the most delicious cake I've ever eaten. Thanks Cake Boss! And also the crossword puzzle my FSIL designed and the recipe box my FMIL had customized for Mishka and me! Yay!

Anyway, the point is, I was surprised. And that was what my mom and my bridesmaids had been desperately trying to do for months. I know it was hard, with me living in the same house, but it was important to my bridal party and my moms (both blood and "in-law") so I tried to keep my eyes shut and ears closed when I sensed Bridal Shower planning afoot.

But back to the day. If we can backtrack just a little... it seems there is a lot of this shower that I can't strictly recap because I wasn't there. Due to the fact that the shower was a surprise, most of my guests arrived well before I did. So there was a lot of mingling of people who really didn't know each other (special thanks to my future mother-in-law and future sister-in-law for arriving so early so that no guests would be without a host). I've heard it went pretty well, and my proof are facebook pictures like these:

Some of these people are my friends, some are my family, and some are my future family. The last picture is a shot of three of my beautiful bridesmaids who made my day so special. Unfortunately, my fourth bridesmaid was taking this picture so I don't have a picture of the four of them together :(. It's unfortunate, but it's something I'll be sure to rectify at the wedding :-D.

Anyway, this is what they all looked like as they waited for me to come in the room. Talk about people coming together ;):

Another unfortunate is that I don't have any pictures of the yummy food we ate. I think we were all too focused on the fun party and socializing to take the time to photograph the food. At some point during the meal, my bridesmaids all got up to make a beautiful heartfelt toast. My maid of honor even started to cry (quite unexpectedly) which got me all teary eyed too!

Eventually it was time to move on to gift opening. I know this is one of the most dreaded activities by attendees since it can get rather boring, but as I mentioned my future sister-in-law had a solution for that. She had me tested on "Mishka Trivia" before I opened the gifts and I had to get the answer right before I could move forward (side note: I actually did pretty well! I think there were only 2 out of the 20 questions that I struggled with).

I'd like to say the whole thing was as relaxed as this picture makes it look:

but it was really more like this:

with a flurry of people and activity around me. You can see that most of the people in the background are blurred because they're all moving.

And who's that in the background? Why yes, it's MISHKA!!!! He gave a little testosterone to our all-girls bridal shower :).

And one of my favorite shots of the day is me with my ribbon hat put together from all the wrappings on my gifts. Super fun :).

Whew, We Dodged a Bullet.... or rather a Blizzard!

Did I ever mention to you all what Mishka and my original plan for our wedding was? We had a fun idea about a Halloween wedding? We'd have a masquerade reception and our wedding colors would be black and orange. And what better weekend to take place than the Saturday before Halloween? My mom pointed out that a weekend in October would be ridiculously difficult for my busy college student sisters to attend so that idea ended almost as quickly as it began.

So, of course, I took notice when that particular weekend passed and thought to myself "wow, we could be getting married right now". However, it was less sentimental and more in shock that Mishka and I dodged a serious weather bullet by choosing a wedding date in the middle of January. Of course, for those of you who live in the Northeast, you already know where I'm going with this...

source

Yup.. October blizzard. I didn't actually take that picture, but it very much resembles our front yard. There were tree branches down, power outages, dangerous driving conditions, broken windows... you name it really.

I've told several people (mostly my family) about the Halloween blizzard wedding that could have been and I got some mixed response:

"Well you know that means you're going to have beautiful weather at your actual wedding"

"Oooooh, it's a sign you're going to have snow on your wedding day!"

"Oh, wow, well I'm glad you went with New Year's Eve..."

For my part, I'm torn. Do I believe that the blizzard was sent to warn me of future weather problems? No, not really. But am I much more concerned about inclement weather than I ever was before. Because if we can have a blizzard in October, who knows what we could have in December...

But it also makes me feel prepared for the worst. Because I know people who went to weddings during that blizzard. And if they still got married during power outages and "states of emergencies" then so will I. Because really, all I need is myself, Mishka, and someone to marry us (and probably a witness or two). It's not the wedding I've been planning for over a year, but I know that in the end, no matter what, Mishka and I will get married.

And that's really all that matters.

RSVP Special Edition: Our Firsts Have Arrived!

Well I don't think I need to tell you that our family was placing bets on which of our guests would respond first. If you want you can see our spread:

My guess: My aunt P or my Uncle R

My mom: my grandparents

My dad: FSIL K or our neighbors Mr. & Mrs. K

MOH G: Grandparents or Aunt and Uncle J

Most of us were wrong, but it turned out my dad was right on the money! My neighbors down the street must have checked yes and put it right back in the mailbox because it arrived at our house not 5 days after we sent out our invitations (must only be 2-3 days after they received it).

But as an extra surprise, we got a second RSVP on the same day! And it was from someone none of us expected! Mishka's groomsman A also decided to get his RSVP business done early. He even wrote in a special note about how excited he was to be attending. Receiving response cards is definitely one of my favorite wedding tasks so far :).

Our Invites are In... and Out!

We sent our invites out last Monday, so I couldn't let such a momentous occasion go by without a detailed post. I have to say that as pretty as I thought our invites were going to be after ordering them, I was not prepared for how gorgeous they were when all put together. I loved what I saw when we got our proof, but the colors were off and the proof did not show the ribbon. So the entire package was a bit of a surprise. And my what a pleasant surprise it turned out to be:

That's a picture of our invites and all the little pieces that comprise our invitation: the invitation, the response card, the response envelope, the direction card, the accommodations card, and the reception card. I know, it sounds like a lot of pieces but our guests need a lot of information!

I should probably mention that aside from the font, most of the design choices were Mishka's. He loved the idea of having everything be gold and a snowflake motif was the perfect way to nod to our wedding season. I will admit I had my doubts about gold everything, but the moment I opened the box of invites, and even more when I saw the completed look (with ribbon), my breath was taken away I was so happy.

Also, you know that ribbon I mentioned? Well our invitations came with some assembly required. In fact for 3 days our family evenings looked something like this...

You had to be extremely careful threading the ribbons through as it was very easy to rip the invitation. Luckily, I managed to avoid that, but some of my helpers weren't so fortunate... (oh and that's double sided tape in the corner there to attach the two ends of the ribbon together in back of the invitation).

Ahh my puppies, sleeping soundly in the background, totally unaware of the hard work going on around them. What a life, eh?

Even my parents got in on the fun! I believe we are watching Dexter when that picture was taken. Which explains why my mom is having a difficult time taking her eyes off the television :).

But I also mentioned that our invitations are out! And it's true, after a week and a half of assembly, guest list discussions, address chasing, and label printing, our invitations were ready to be mailed. And we did! (Side note: my dad happened to be with Mishka when he took the invitations to the mailbox and he said that Mishka was absolutely GLOWING with excitement as he mailed our wedding invitations. Goodness I love that boy <3).

As I mentioned, in the eternal "caligraphy vs. labels" debate we went with clear labels. And I have to say, I'm so glad we did. I'm sure caligraphy would have been gorgeous, but it would have taken extra time and extra money. Time which I definitely was not willing to sacrifice. I wanted these invites OUT!!! More to the point though, the labels did not take away from the look of the invitation at ALL. They really are not very noticeable and we printed in gold ink and Baskerville Old Face font to match the inside of our invitations. All in all it is a very nice affect. One we would not have been able to recreate with calligraphy.

TL;DR We love our invites. They are amazing. I'm glad we ordered extras so that Mishka and I have mementos. Mishka is a great designer!

P.S. I am now waiting patiently for our first response in the mail. I hope it's a yes!

Wedding Almanac

So, like every bride I've been wondering what the weather is going to be like on the day of our wedding. We're still too far out for me to find any answers on weather.com (my usual go to site), but I did make an attempt to find out what I could from the Farmer's Almanac. The online farmer's almanac that is.

Even the farmer's almanac couldn't give me specifics about what they expect for New Year's Eve 2011, but they did give me the news that there's a more than fair chance there will snow on the ground:

"Winter will be drier than normal, with near-normal temperatures but above-normal snowfall. The coldest periods will be in mid-December and early and mid-February. The snowiest periods will be in mid-December to mid- and late January, and late February."

Source

So if the Farmer's Almanac gets it right, we're going to have some snow this December. How much will fall? How much will accumulate? How long will it last? I don't have the answers to any of these questions... I guess I'll have to wait until the middle of December to find out the snow situation.

As always, will keep you posted...

Wedding Week?

As a bride I always assumed that you get ONE day, your wedding day, to be a bride. But, as I read recap after recap, they always begin with the "wedding week" activities. And I realized... I don't really have any "wedding week" activities planned.

Of course there's the rehearsal dinner, which we will be having, but that's not what I meant. I've read recaps about spa days, going for mani/pedis with the bridesmaids and family, I even read one recap of a wedding party "hike up a mountain"! I hadn't planned on doing anything like this with my bridal party. Most of our groomsmen won't even be in the state until the Thursday or Friday before.

I recently found out that my bachelorette party will be the Thursday before the wedding so we could count that on the list of "Wedding Week" activities. But I had no plans for bridal party mani/pedis or hikes. And, perhaps most practically, I had no plans for any bridal party fun on Friday morning or afternoon. All my bridesmaids (and most of the groomsmen too I think) will be here already for my bachelorette party. So, assuming we don't have any last minute work to do, we could theoretically have some bride and b-maid chill time.

I'll probably start pondering some ideas of things we could do once it gets closer to December. After all, our friday activity could be a bridal party snow shovel of our driveway if we have a freak snowstorm like last winter..

As always, will keep updated :).

Certified to Wed!

In the Catholic Church that is!

That's right, we just completed our Pre Cana marriage prep. It was definitely an interesting experience. Mishka and I were the youngest couple there, as well as the next to be married so we had a bit of distinction ;).

I don't know how much of a recap you want/need, so I'll just give you a bit of a "coverall" rundown:

There were three couples there who spoke on a variety of topics from intimacy to finances to spirituality in a marriage. Some were more interesting than others. We even found some of the couples more relatable than others. There was one couple in particular who we particularly liked.

We also got a chance to chat with some of the other couples at our precana and experienced a lot of different types of love and a lot of different relationship dynamics. There's not one universal type of love, I can tell you that.

We ended with a mass where all the tables wrote an intention to be read during the mass. I read the one for our table :). You know, 'cause I don't mind public speaking like that :). I was also excited that one of our wedding readings made it into the precana mass. I'm sure Mishka's father will read it even better, but it was nice to have that as part

Finally, we wrote love letters, which was one of the things I was most looking forward to. We did not share our letters during the actual precana, but instead chose to wait until we were by ourselves, sitting in the car alone in the parking lot. We swapped papers and read silently the words our counterparts had put down for us. I have to say, I almost cried reading Mishka's. I wanted to have it framed so that the world could see it at the same time I wanted to put it in some secret place so that only I could appreciate the depths of love my Mishka is capable of. I'd like to say my letter was as wonderful (Mishka seemed to think so), but I believe Mishka is the one who hit it out of the park.

If nothing else than for that moment in the car in the parking lot, I would call Pre Cana a smashing success :).

But as a more objective look, I don't know how much Mishka and I really learned about each other had we come to Pre Cana unprepared for marriage. They had a lot of cool activities and a lot of ground to cover in very little time. We only had opportunity to talk for 5 minutes after each activity. Their suggestion was to mark down things you discover you need to talk about and have the necessary conversations over dinner that night. It's a good idea, but I don't know how realistic it would be to assume that people who were unprepared would universally take the time to address their unpleasant issues once they no longer have to. Luckily for us, Mishka and I didn't discover any areas we hadn't already worked through.

I'll be interested to compare notes with my FSIL who did engaged encounter to prepare for their Catholic Convalidation ceremony. We'll see what the similarities and differences are.

The Question on Everybody's Mind

Since I am a reasonably young bride I have been anticipating the day when people would start questioning whether or not I'm nervous about making this important life decision. I managed to avoid the question for most of my engagement, but as the big day draws nearer I find myself running into "the question" more and more often.

So... are you nervous?

Granted it's no uncomfortable prying about how unlikely it is that you can find "the one" at a young age (something I wholeheartedly disagree with obviously). But it is getting rather annoying. Because my answer is always: "No, not really." Am I nervous about something big going wrong on the day of the wedding? You betcha. Am I worried about a New Years blizzard? You better believe it. Am I keeping my fingers crossed that all my guests have a f***ing awesome time at our New Year's Wedding? Hell yeah!

But the whole marriage part? Not really nervous about it. It's impossible to know what Mishka and my future holds, but I know Mishka well enough to know that we will face any future problems together. The question will not be "is this the dealbreaker?" but "how do we fix this?" This has always been our attitude, from our first date to just a few minutes ago when Mishka watched one of my favorite shows (that he hates) over his new favorite series which he is dying to work through.

That's a little more long winded than my answer of "No, not really." But since it's mostly complete strangers who pose the question I figure the answer is appropriate.

This is all not to say that it's not ok to be nervous about getting married. It is a huge step to be taking and there are a whole range of emotions that people can and do feel while they're planning a wedding. Many people have second thoughts which help them work out their doubts and truly reinforce their love for their partner so that they can enter into a truly successful and happy marriage. That just hasn't been my particular experience.

If I had followers on this blog I would ask if you were questioned on being anxious about your wedding. If so, how did you answer?

Our Programs

We are having a Catholic ceremony with Ukrainian traditions woven in which means that our ceremony will be a lovely mix of traditional elements from our respective cultures. However, there are few guests which will be familiar enough to participate in all aspects of our ceremony without guidance. And we want everyone to be able to participate as much as they can in our ceremony. After all, the reason we've invited these people is so that they can celebrate with us in the beginning of our lives together and what better way for them to do it than to be an active and knowledgeable participant in our ceremony.

But how do we convey what is admittedly a large amount of information to every single one of our guests (we are expecting our guest turn out to be quite large)? For the answer to this question we took a cue from my parents.

My parents also had a traditional Catholic Wedding Mass, very similar to ours though you would replace the Ukrainian elements with a Unity Candle ceremony. However, they were inviting many guests who were either not practicing Catholic, or not Catholic at all. How best to make these types of guests feel comfortable in a religious setting where there are specific traditions and rituals woven into every aspect of the mass? My parents answer was a DIY project that is all the evidence you could need of how much my parents cared about each and every one of their guests.

Their program.

My officiant, who was also their officiant, saved some of my parent's wedding programs as the example of a "perfect has everything you could need" program. It is essentially a mass script so that each person knows exactly what to expect, what to respond, and when to respond. It's more than most people put in their programs, but for them it allowed all their guests to feel they were a part of the wedding proceedings. And that's exactly what Mishka and I want for our guests as well.

So, as we've been pulling together our ceremony, I've also been pulling together a mass script. A script we will at some point transform into our super long wedding program. And even better? We're going to translate it into Ukrainian for our guests who are not extremely comfortable with English. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of love, but hopefully it will be worthwhile to our guests.

Also it will be great to look back on what is essentially a full script of our story and remember every word that was spoken :). I think that will make Mishka and I very happy in our years together.

Someone Got Married...

But it wasn't me!

Remember how I told you I had an engaged buddy? Well her wedding was the last weekend in September so... she's married! As I said in my previous post, I've known her since I was very little, but I only got the opportunity to meet her fiance quite recently. We met when the two of them (along with a host of others) were helping remove downed trees from my aunt's front yard. They were one of the most down to earth couples I have ever met. They were 100% partners. In love, but in quiet, "known each other for years" love, even though they only met a year or two ago.

So congratulations Kim and Chris! May you have many more years of quiet in love happiness. And I'll see you both soon I'm sure :-D.

Our Music Minister is Awesome

I know I've done many many introduction posts. You probably figured I couldn't have any more people to introduce right? Well you'd be wrong! (Very wrong actually since there's still a bunch of people I haven't introduced yet, but those are posts for another time)

Last weekend we met with our music minister to discuss the music for our ceremony. She's the music minister for our parish so it was the kind of thing where "you get what you get and you don't get upset" (to quote my teacher self). She just started at the parish in September so we had never met before while going to mass there. We were both curious as to how we would get along with her.

We needn't have worried. She's awesome!

I came prepared with our little "ceremony script" and our music minister was very impressed. She actually told me I was the most prepared bride she had ever worked with. A title I feel I deserved since we've been working on our ceremony, perfecting everything we could, for almost a year.

However, there were a few sections where we were looking for some advice- specifically in the recessional. I knew we wanted something upbeat, and something that would make Mishka and I feel like running from the church because we're so excited we're MARRIED!!!! But we had no idea what we wanted that to be.

Good thing we had Music Minister M to help us out. She played us a few songs and then we had it. "Ode to Joy". It was perfect. Even the title describes exactly what our wedding recessional will be: "joyful".

As prepared as I was, M helped us make our ceremony just a little more awesome.

Flowers. We Finally Got Around to You.

In my previous post about wedding wedding colors I mentioned some things about flowers and boutonnieres and my bouquet. Well the reason I know all that stuff is because we've finalized our flowers (for the most part).

So I don't spoil all the decor for the blog readers before the wedding day, I'll just give you a peek at our attendant flowers. None of this is exact so hopefully readers will still be wowed by everything day of.

First of all, our Bridesmaid bouquets:

The bouquet is calla lilies with gold beaded stems strewn throughout to give the bouquets the gold accent I mentioned before. Our flower girl, instead of dropping flower petals, since this is not allowed by our church, will have the same bouquet (but a little smaller) with a big gold ribbon tying it together.

To go along with the bridesmaids, our groomsmen will be wearing calla lily boutonnieres:

They will also have some golden beaded embellishments. Bogdan will have a white rose with a more pronounced gold embellishment.

And finally, there's the breathtaking color palette that is my bridal bouquet.

That last picture is a sort of approximation of what my bouquet might look like. It's stargazer lilies and dark roses, but I'm not sure if they're the right shade of red. Also the picture quality isn't that great.

But anyway, if you remember what my bridesmaid dresses look like, you'll remember that they are all in very bright colors. That is why, for the bridesmaid bouquets, we decided to keep them all in white and save the striking colors for my bouquet which would only have to stand out against the ivory white of my gown. I think it was a good call because I can tell you that finding colorful flowers to match bright pink and bright blue? Not an easy find...

Everybody Loves Recaps

Or, at least I do.

I'll admit that I have never been a weddingbee girl. Though the forums did prove useful for some honeymoon help and invitation etiquette advice, I've never really caught the "forum fever". However, in recent days, the weddingbee blogs have been up almost constantly on my computer. The reason for this? Guaranteed recaps. In fact, I can even search "recaps" and filter their blog posts down to just the things I'm interested in reading :-D.

Why am I so interested in recaps you might ask? Well, I'm at the point in the wedding planning that every bride gets to, where they've been working for months and months and months and you're really ready for the big day! But... the big day's not here yet. Reading recaps is like a vicarious "the wedding day is here" thrill. It fills me with the rush of excitement, the joyful tears, and the wide smiles that I'm sure I'll have on my own wedding day (though in exponentially larger amounts).

I've even reread the wedding recap I wrote of my FSIL's wedding, as short as it is. It's a particularly fun wedding to recall as I was actually there, and actually experienced the ceremony, the love, and the dancing (heck, I even caught the bouquet!). I wish she had done her own prolonged recaps so I could draw out the thrill ;), but I take what I can get.

They make me more excited than ever to eventually write my own recaps. I want to record everything I can remember from the wedding so that years and years in the future, I will have my wedding story to read. Because even if it's only one day, I want the memory to last my whole lifetime.

But seriously... Why isn't it December yet!?

Double Digits

OH MY GOD!!!! We're in the double digits! We're no longer several hundred days away. We're not even 100 days away! Just over 3 months away! Oh my goodness! I can't believe we're getting so close!

Extreme Make-Up Trial

I probably didn't mention, but Mishka and I went up to visit his parents this past weekend. My Future MIL, who graciously offered to do make-up for the wedding, did my first (and only) make-up trial for the wedding. But, just because it was my only make-up trial doesn't mean it wasn't intense!

First of all, the make-up trial itself took several hours. Close to four. My FMIL even woke me up early so we could have the perfect sunlight.

First we figured out my eyes. Let me give you a quick reminder of the eye make-up my FMIL bought for me:

The name is "Molten Shore", which sounds like it should be a summer eye color, but in reality it turned in to a fantastic winter palette. We tried the colors in several different combinations, but our final eye configuration looked something like this:

Although there's a little more purple and brown and a little less silver. But you get the idea. I! LOVE it! I thought it turned out crazy gorgeous :-D.

Then, we moved on to the lipstick. Which might seem like it wouldn't take that long since we had finished the eyes, but you would be wrong ;). We had 19 different lipsticks we wanted to work through. I didn't end up trying all 19, but I tried at least 10. We decided on something very close to this:

So all in all I'll have a very dramatic winter look. I'm very happy with it :).

Oh, but you didn't hear the most extreme part! I wore the make-up ALL day! And not just around the house. It survived a walk by the ocean with the spray of the sea, an extended play on the swings with the wind blowing in my face, and I even went grocery shopping with it on (I got some looks, i'll tell you).

And if my make-up could survive all that and still look gorgeous (I didn't see my parents until the end of the day so they got to experience it after all of the above and they loved it!), then I know I'll look fantastic all throughout my wedding.

I'm so excited :-D!!!!

Family Talents

I've been told time and again that if people want to help you with your wedding planning, try to use their talents. Up until this point, I think I've been doing a pretty good job of that.

My sister C is great with music and makes our family newsletter every year so she's been tasked with creating our wedding program and helping compile a list of songs to play during our "d.j." period.

My sister G is the most organized person I've ever met and she's been an amazing help planning and organizing tasks for me (as well as helping my mom with my super secret bridal shower ;) ).

My mom knows more than I ever will about weddings and is always there with advice and to come with me to any appointments that Mishka cannot because of work.

And now my dad has even found a way to contribute to my wedding planning. Something that he's super excited about and will be able to put his own personal touch on. You see, he's a wine guy. A real wine connoisseur. And so, for a discount on our food and alcohol, my dad has arranged to supply our venue with wine for our reception. He's even customizing his own wine list based on my menu so that each meal pairs well with what will be available.

He's even including a surprise for my future MIL ;). I know she'll love it, but I'll let exactly what it is be a surprise for her (since I know you read my blog).

I can't tell you how touched I am that he decided to do this for us, and it is also great to see how excited he is. He even woke me up early one morning just to confirm some choices on my menu :). Love it!

Ring Bearers and Flower Girls

It seems that over the past few months I've noticed a lot more wedding talk going on around me than I used to. Maybe that's because I'm running with a different crowd, or maybe I was just never paying attention.

Anyway, recently I've picked up on a lot of talk about flower girls and ring bearers can be "too young". I've been getting some strange looks from people when they find out that my flower girl is twelve and even a few because my ring bearer is ten. Half the reason you have a flower girl or a ring bearer is because children between the ages of zero and seven are SO DARN CUTE!!!

But you know what else they like? Attention. And you know what gets a LOT of attention? Misbehaving.

I can't tell you how many horror stories I've heard over the past few weeks. Crying, screaming flower girls, ring bearers who refuse to walk, tantrums, accidents in their pretty clothes... the list goes on. This all culminated in finding out that one of my students committed many of these offenses as the ring bearer in his mother's friend's wedding. He refused to walk, screamed and cried, even threw the pillow with the rings on it on the ground. His mother was mortified and the bride became very stressed (who could blame her?). Whatever can go wrong might go wrong right?

And so I'm actually really happy that my flower girl and ring bearer are older. I know that they're potty trained, are old enough to respect that the day is not all about them, and are mature enough not to throw a tantrum at the slightest provocation. Though the cuteness of the 5 and under crowd is undeniable, I know from experience at work that you do take a risk when you give them the responsibility of being a part of your wedding party. A risk I'm glad I don't have to take.

Hand Binding

While we're on the subject of wedding colors, there are a few other colors I feel we should mention. In a previous post I talked about the Ukrainian (and Celtic) tradition of hand-binding. While we will be doing it in accordance with the traditions of Ukrainian Catholicism, we will be incorporating the Celtic standard of using colored ribbons, each with a different blessing for one's married life:

Pink: unity, romance and joy

Blue: patience and devotion

Brown: grounding and home

Gold: prosperity, wisdom and longevity

Red: passion and strength

I love how many different parts of our ceremony will be filled with symbolism. Every second of our wedding will be filled with love and meaning as created by Mishka and myself. I could not be happier with how it's turning out.

Wedding Colors? Yeah We Don't Have Those...

It's funny because I know that for my FSIL Katerina and her husband, wedding colors were one of the first things they chose. And for many couples I know that is the way. Things become so much easier when you have a color direction in mind. Mishka and I, before we were engaged, used to talk about the colors we would like in our wedding.

But when it came time for the decisions to be made... it began to look like we were including every color under the sun! Want a look at our very inclusive list of colors? First there are the two different colors of our bridesmaid dresses. The first is Azalea pink, kindof like this:

Then there is the peacock blue dress my FSIL and Maid of Honor are wearing:

From the bridesmaid's bouquets, to my dress, to the baby's breath in my ceremony crown, there will a lot of different shades of white:

The ornaments in our centerpieces, as well as my bridesmaid's shoes and the New Year's Eve paraphernalia we provide to our guests will be silver in keeping with the season:

My sexy husband will be sporting the color black in his tux, both in his jacket as well as the vest underneath. It will look something like this (but no bow tie lol):

The church and reception hall will be filled with the colors of winter and, more specifically Christmas:

And finally, my bouquet will echo a few of these colors, but with a twist all its own (because the Bride always wants to do her own thing ;) ). The two flowers are the Stargazer Lily and the Black Baccara Rose. Just try to envision the unusual gorgeousness:

But with all these different colors, it began to feel as if there was no unity to our wedding. We began to fear that our bridal party would look like a mish mosh several different weddings and that our decor would not have a cohesive, beautiful feel.

Then, Mishka came up with the perfect solution. There should be one unifying color. A color that would not be dominant in any one respect, but would appear in little accents throughout our wedding. And of course, it would be a color we both loved and that was fitting with New Year's Eve:

Gold.

There will be tiny gold beads in my bridesmaid's bouquets. The groomsmen will wear gold striped ties, Mishka's boutonniere will have gold accents, the centerpieces will have some gold in them, as will our invitations.

So though we have MANY wedding colors, we now have a central color which will tie it all together in the same way a gold ribbon will be tying my bridal bouquet together. And it will certainly be lovely :) (and seasonal!).

Our Menu

Our menu is crazy. There is going to be so much food at this wedding that I think it's only fair to warn guests about the amount so that they don't fill up too quickly. Because in addition to appetizers, there's essentially going to be TWO full dinners. Seriously.

Don't mistake my tone. I couldn't be happier that we're going to have so much food and so many options for the varied tastes of our diverse guests. Let me give you a picture of our guests' food journey....

Upon entering they will be given a glass of champagne with a sliced strawberry on the side and will be able to enjoy any one of the following passed hor d'ouevres:

Baby Lam Chops with Roasted Garlic Glaze

Gulf Crab Cakes with Tartar Sauce

Cajun Shrimp Crostini

Tempura Shiitake Caps with Soy Ginger Dipping Sauce

Mediterranean Bruschetta

Roasted Pepper and Fresh mozzarella Tartlet

Sesame Chicken with Oriental Dipping Sauce

Scallops Wrapped in Bacon

Prosciutto and Melon Canapes

Caviar and Creme Fraiche in a Red Bliss Potato Cup

Smoked Salmon Salsa in a Cucumber Boat

Veal Carpaccio on a Garlic Crouton

After about a half hour the staff will open up our cocktail hour stations which will appear suspiciously like a full meal to our guests.

There will be a few cold stations:

Chilled Seafood Display - shrimp, oysters, and clams with cocktail sauce and cajun remoulade

Antipasto Display - cold cuts, assorted cheeses, grilled marinated vegetables and assorted breads and crackers.

Seasonal fresh fruit

Bountiful Bread Display

And there will be even more hot stations (get ready for your mouth to water!):

Italian Station - penne pasta with choice of vodka sauce or tomato basil, foccacia, bread sticks, and infused olive oils.

Carving Station - brown sugar roast pork loin with honey dijon sauce & roasted turkey breast with cranberry relish

Mexican Station - beef and chicken stuffed fajitas prepared to order, stuffed jalapenos, tostadas and salsa/guacamole

Shrimp and Scallop Saute Station - sauteed to order with herb champagne cream sauce

After the stations we will move to the ballroom. There will be a champagne toast while we enjoy our two appetizers. Keep in mind that this isn't an either or, everyone will have both. Which makes me so happy because just the thought of either makes my mouth water:

Wild Mushroom Strudel with Armagnac Cream Sauce

&

Baby Bibb with spiced almonds, mandarin oranges and honey thyme vinaigrette

Then, finally, we're on to the main course of the sit down dinner. Often, when you have a seated dinner you need to put the menu selections on the invitation so that guests can make their dinner choices ahead of time. Not so at the grand summit. They have table side dinner service which means guests will have their order taken on site, which I think is kindof classy :):

Sliced Chateubriand with bordelaise sauce

Fillet of Salmon with Creamy Dill Sauce

or

Sauteed Breast of Chicken with Wild Mushroom, Tomato, and Tarragon Concasse

Then, after a bit of dancing and a bit of drinking ;), it will be time for dessert. I'm sure our guests will need the dancing time in between to work off some of their fullness from dinner (and cocktail hour). They will be able to fill themselves up again on:

Wedding Cake! - Hazelnut cake with Chocolate Fudge filling

Viennese Table - assorted french and italian pastries, assorted cakes, mousses, tortes, cookies, crepes suzette and ice cream station, italian cannolis piped to order

26 Years Ago Today...

It may come as a surprise to learn that this week there is not only one wedding anniversary in my family, but two! My parents, were married 26 years ago today. They'll be going out to dinner tonight to celebrate the occasion so their children will have to fend for themselves for dinner ;). I'm sure we'll survive.

To give you a little glimpse into their wedding... they got married at 10:30 in the morning if you can believe it. Apparently, their family was none too happy about that, but it was their day after all :). They had an early evening reception where they apparently left the dance floor only to cut the cake. My dad refers to it as the only time he forgot his duties as a host (which if you know my dad, says something about how happy he was on their day :).

Still, even with all that, my grandmother refers to their wedding as her favorite wedding of all her children. She said she thought the ceremony was the most meaningful and that the reception was a lot of fun. Which is definitely saying something since my grandmother is not one to play favorites :-D.

So congratulations mom and dad! 26 years and counting!

Get Your Dancing Shoes On!

My wedding shoes are beautiful, classy, and... well... 5 inch heels.

I love them to death, but I can't honestly see myself dancing all night in them. And I'm reluctant to take my shoes off and dance barefoot for two reasons. First of all, I did that at FSIL Katerina and her husband S's wedding and, by the end of the dancing section my feet were stained black and KILLING ME. Granted that didn't stop me from dancing at the time, but by the time I got back to my hotel room I could barely walk. And I still had to shower to get my feet back to normal color. Obviously this is not the way I want to spend my wedding night so that plan is out.

The other reason I don't want to go barefoot is that my dress is a little long on me when I'm not wearing heals. It would be dragging on the floor all night. Which rules out both going barefoot and wearing flats.

So it became clear that I needed to buy another pair of shoes for the reception, and that this pair of shoes needed to be both comfortable and have a bit of a heel. Seems an oxymoron no?

Well then you've never worn an Aeropastale! I have a few shoes by them, and I have to say that they consistently make beautiful heels that are not a pain to walk in. So, while my mom, sisters and I were in New York enjoying my day off from work, we decided to drop in on Aeropastale to see what there was to see. We didn't necessarily think we'd find something, but they were having a clearance sale and the prices were too good to pass up.

Well, I found something all right!

Now I know what you're thinking. Brown? Honestly though, they'll be hidden by my long gown and... I don't really care that they're not white. I think the brown looks gorgeous on my foot and I'll be able to wear this shoe for a long time after my wedding, whereas a white shoe would be more limited.

And the best part? I decided to wear them out of the store as we walked (ended up running) to the train station and not a blister in sight. If I can run 2 miles of New York City in these shoes without destroying my feet, I can certainly dance the night away at my wedding.

Another thing checked off the to-do list!

Congratulations FSIL and FBIL

One year ago today I was a bridesmaid instead of a bride. One year ago today I witnessed the celebration of the love of my FSIL Katerina to my FBIL S and their being united in marriage.

They had beautiful weather, a riverside ceremony, delicious food, and loving friends and family present. What more could a couple ask for on their wedding? And what more could a guest want? As a bridesmaid and a guest I can attest that a good time was had all around.

So Katerina and S congratulations on your first year of marriage! May you have many more equally happy years ahead of you. And the next time I see you I will have a special anniversary surprise for you :).

Differences vs. Similarities

Mishka and I are VERY different people. In fact, if you take each aspect of our personality separately we appear as almost complete opposites. Ironically, the differences between us are what make us such a highly cohesive couple. We seem to be able to adapt to any situation thrown at us through the help of our combined strengths.

However, that is not to say that we do not have similarities, and I have to admit that some of my happiest moments are discovering things we both enjoy. The latest of which, is an online show/movie called Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

We've been watching it together somewhat obsessively and essentially know the entire show by heart. By the way, it's a fantastic piece of film if anyone is interested in a 41 minute musical tragicomedy.

But I can't tell you how much fun it is to sing duets to each other in the car, or giggle endlessly together over the idea of a supervillain mastermind named "Bad Horse" (the thoroughbred of sin!!!). And the end? Almost too perfect.

And so we're planning an encore encore (encore) viewing this evening while we play a game of St. Petersburg. And we'll sing along to all the songs at the top of our lungs, laugh at Captain Hammer's ridiculous macho mannerisms, and be in awe of Neil Patrick Harris's pitch perfect portrayal of the tortured nerdy Dr. Horrible.

So in a way it's less Differences versus Similarities, and more Differences AND Similarities. Because in my opinion, you need both. And we're discovering more of both all the time.

Why Cancun?

Why Cancun? Well, that's a very good question.

Originally, Mishka and I were planning on going to the Caribbean. But the more research I did, the more it seemed that the Caribbean was a great place for rest, relaxation, and beach. And, while those were all things I wanted in my honeymoon, I was also interested in just a bit more.

So while checking out a few sister resorts in Mexico, I found a description of the cave snorkeling and Mayan Ruins near Cancun. Immediately, I sensed we had found our honeymoon destination. And when Mishka saw that Le Blanc offered Swimming with the Dolphins he was sold too.

So let's take another picture walk shall we? Through some pictures of some of the sights and activities that are going to make Mishka and my honeymoon absolutely unforgettable.

One of the first places we'll be visiting is Chichen Itza, which was recently voted one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World":

Isn't it magnificent? I can tell you that I'll be climbing those steps all the way to the top of that pyramid (with Mishka trailing and probably complaining behind me ;) ). I can't wait to go exploring and take lots of pictures!

On another day we'll be heading to Tulum which is the ruins of a Mayan Castle. The ruins are located on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea. During this particular excursion we'll spend the first half of the day exploring the ruins, and the second half of the day snorkeling and sea kayaking in the Caribbean Sea. Check it out:

Next, we'll be heading to Holkan National Park. There are two different ways we can explore the park. The first is the traditional horseback ride. There are beaches and forests and it will be a beautiful slow way to see all the sites, though we will probably be saddle sore the next day... and I don't know if I want to spend a portion of my honeymoon unable to sit comfortably.

Our other option is to go ATVing (All-Terrain-Vehicle). I think it would be a LOT of fun, and exciting to boot. We would get dirty and the wind would whip through my hair, but at such high speeds, I wonder if we would really get a sense of the beauty around us. I think it's possible, but it might be easier if we were on horseback. We'll have to see what we feel like, when we get there:

And finally, on to the stuff that we're REALLY looking forward to (not that we weren't super excited about everything that came before this. We'll also be doing Swimming with the Dolphins, which is going to be a dream come true for Mishka and myself. I know I'm excited, but I can't even describe Mishka's feelings. I think he's going to explode when he gets his "dolphin kiss".

And finally, we'll be going to Xcaret, which is an ecological park with underground rivers and cave snorkeling. This is possibly what I'm MOST excited about. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

I can't wait. In fact, I'm putting in my vacation request for the honeymoon tomorrow. And then in just a few short months... Cancun here we come!!!