Chocolate Delights

While shopping online for some bachelorette staples (i.e. penis cupcake pan) for my friend’s upcoming party, I came across this wonder:

Apparently it’s a great gift to get your bride-to-be friend for her wedding night:

With this Chocolate Clone-A-Willy kit, your bride can worship her man while enjoying a tasty treat! Each kit includes everything you need to make an exact milk chocolate replica of your favorite penis. In 4 easy steps this kit will make her wedding night truly unforgettable!

Yes, who can forget the time you pulled out the Clone-A-Willy in the heat of the moment and said ‘hold that thought while I make a chocolate replica of your dick.’  Honestly my biggest problem with this gift (aside from the obvious creepiness of making an edible version of someone’s wang) is that it’s milk chocolate.  Seriously.  If you’re gonna go there, use dark chocolate.

If if this elementary-school-arts-and-crafts-looking chocolate thong (for him) is any indication, I’m guessing the Clone-A-Willy is a waste of $29.95:

Me Oh My Oh

This is embarrassing. I was looking for a certain photo in my files and I came across some photos from last year, when wedding planning was my raison d’être. It’s so weird to think back on the year leading up to last June – wedding planning ruled my thoughts and dominated most weekends. I can’t exactly say it was a waste, because I loved my wedding, but gosh, how strange to think that this time last year I was studying up on butter cream vs. ganache, and staying up late worrying if my Flattering Me low-back bustier would indeed come through for me on the big day, or if I should go the sticky silicone route.

I applaud those of you who plan low-key weddings. I really do. I’ve written about this before, but while I think some traditional aspects of weddings are great (wearing a pretty white dress, gathering all your friends and family together, eating and drinking and dancing), others cause needless worry. One of those areas is makeup. I’m not a big wearer of makeup, and because of (or in spite of) this, the task of choosing how to do my wedding day makeup kinda stressed me out. I decided to do what’s called, in the wedding world, a makeup trial. I went to a makeup artist in a nice salon in Berkeley and paid $60 to get made up like this:

All I can say is, I’m glad I tried this lady out before I paid her to make me up like (in the words of my husband) a 19-year-old Latina’s MySpace photo.  Why she felt the need to brush my eyebrows upwards and then shellac them elludes me. Needless to say, I wasn’t digging the thick black eyeliner, liner on the outside of my lips, and pinkish lipstick.  This, I thought, is why the idea of someone else doing my makeup freaks me out.

I decided to do another trial, this time at an Aveda store.  I figured that I would then buy some products and either make myself up or entrust a friend.  Here’s a photo from that session:

Yes, both photos were taken by me, in my car.  Hawt.  As you may also be able to tell, facial symmetry doesn’t really run in my family. This session was much more promising.  It made me even try to recreate the look at home:

Which was not terribly hard.  HOWEVER, makeup nerves got the best of me, and I did yet ANOTHER trial with a co-worker of mine, who offered her services to me.  I can’t seem to find the photos of that session, and it’s all for the best since I consumed too much wine that night and suddenly found the idea of photographing the outcome gut-bustingly absurd. The good news is, my co-worker came through for me in the end.  My wedding day makeup was, in my opinion, pretty close to perfect.

Here she is applying it the morning of:

 And the final product:

Not the cutest face I’ve ever made, but for some reason the only closeup I can find of my face, before the lipstick faded.  At any rate, makeup was one of my main worries, and either I got really lucky (which I think I did, in having a very talented friend do my makeup for free) or it wasn’t such a big deal afterall.

Broken Engagements

I still follow Weddingbee, the wedding community I visited daily during my year of wedding planning.  For a few months after my wedding I couldn’t or didn’t care to look at the site, but now that both a close friend and a cousin are getting married this summer, I have weddings and wedding research back in my mind.

An interesting but very sad occurence at Weddingbee in the past few weeks is that two bloggers have announced that their weddings have been called off.  In one case, the groom-to-be got cold feet and told the bride-t0-be that he didn’t think he could hang with the whole marriage thing.  They canceled their wedding three months before it was to occur.

In another case, the bride-to-be caught wind of her fiance’s affair.  Talk about heartbreaking.  They were set to wed in June.

I’m amazed at the two bloggers’ candor, especially in a community that is mainly devoted to talk about invitations, dresses, flowers, and other (fun) wedding frivolity.  Weddingbee is a very welcoming community, but once you’re not planning or reflecting on a wedding, well, there’s no point in being a part of it anymore.  Unless it’s to pawn off your wedding purchases.  One minute you are trying to find the perfect shade for your bridesmaids’ dresses; the next you are trying to find someone to take over your deposit on a banquet hall.  

These women have brought up some very heavy issues about the meaning of marriage and commitment.  A few other ‘Bees’ have brought up relationship topics before, but man, nothing is quite as grounding as a canceled wedding or a cheating groom.

At any rate, I applaud their honesty and their connection with the community. It’s sobering but in some ways reassuring, especially when you are going through some of the hard times that everyone faces in a marriage, to be reminded that it’s not all puppies and rainbows and dyed crinolines and specialty cocktails.  It’s a weird dichotomoy we’ve created between the day of the wedding and the years and decades that follow it.  Much as I loved my wedding, I’m glad I’m past that hurdle and into the thick of it.

eHarmony: Gay is OK

According to the LA Times, eHarmony is going to start allowing same-sex matches on its dating site. eHarmony has been known for its policy of only allowing hetero matches up until now, and this ignited a controversy over at Weddingbee when it announced its sale to eHarmony in October.  Though the change apparently comes as a result of a settlement with a member who filed a complaint with the company, at least it’s a step in the right direction (albeit a forced step).

Though I find the site kind of awful for reasons unrelated to its historic stance on gays, I do believe in equal rights.  Let all of us, gay, straight, bisexual, and transgendered be allowed to participate in whatever super lame dating sites we choose!

We’ll see if this is enough of a change to get Mrs. Gingerbread and Mrs. Hummingbird, and other LGBT or LGBT-sympathetic ‘Bees’ to resume blogging about their weddings once again on Weddingbee.  Interesting timing too, what with all the outcry over the passing of Prop 8 here in California.  What do you think?

Travel Dreams Dashed

So even before the salary cut was official, we decided to cancel our trip to South Africa. Again, not a life-altering event (like losing your job and savings in stock market crash), but a bummer. I guess we will have to have a belated-belated-honeymoon.

Wedding Reception Table ‘Numbers’

I bought fourteen adorable animal portraits from Berkley Illustration to use as table ‘numbers’ at my wedding. I didn’t use words of any kind to tell people where to sit (aside from their names), just pictures.  (see Exhibits A-B).

Exhibit A:

Find your escort card

Exhibit B:

Find your table

Now I’ve finally gotten around to hanging some of them up in my apartment (see Exhibits C-D).

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

What do you think?

We Can Make it Shine…

If I could marry myself*, this is definitely the song I’d choose for the first dance:

And here’s an adorable couple living my dream:

*I married someone else instead. We learned a lindy hop dance and our song was Bobby Darin’s version of “I’m Beginning to See the Light.”

Top 5 Things I’m Glad I Did

All right, we’ve been through the regrets already. Let’s get right on to the things I don’t regret for a second. I’m glad to say that the entire wedding weekend was a fabulous raucous party, and was overall a great success.  Here are my top five best decisions:

1) Having one wedding.  We didn’t realize until late in the game that we could have the county deputize our officiant to marry us.  We had planned to have a civil ceremony with our parents a few days before our wedding. I know many couples do this, and we were fine with the idea.  However giving our friend the power to marry us, and knowing the in the VERY MOMENT that we said our vows in front of our friends and family that we were now married… this was a powerful thing, and made for a poignant memory.

2) Not spending a small fortune on my dress.  I bought my dress on eBay.  It was an Amy Kuschel sample and with shipping it cost $500.  Still a lot more than I’ve ever spent on any item of clothing, but not exactly outrageous for a wedding dress.  I loved my dress, even though it showed off my side-boob/arm-gina/whatever you want to call it.  Even though the bustle came undone during our first dance and I had to hold the train with one hand.  Even though I changed into a comfortable party dress a few hours in to the reception, I’m very glad with the decisions I made surrounding The Dress.

3) Getting married close to home.  We’d looked at areas in the wine country, but decided to get married in Berkeley (we live in Oakland and my parents live in San Francisco).  Being able to make several quick and easy trips to the ceremony and reception sites in the months leading up to the wedding was invaluable. Plus, I generally hate long car trips and I didn’t want to make our guests drive a long way once they arrived at the airport.  Nearly everyone stayed either at the reception hotel or within a few blocks of it.

4) Having a central location.  One of the reasons we picked our reception site was that it was a beautiful Arts and Crafts style boutique hotel and could house 40-50 of our guests.  We had all our close friends stay there (the older generation stayed in hotels very close by).  It made for SUCH a fun party atmosphere.  We had both the rehearsal dinner and the reception in the gorgeous banquet hall.  The rehearsal dinner turned in to a regular hootenany — my dad and his best friend from college banged away at guitars, my husband’s aunt sang with them, and people mingled at dinner, on the rooftop and in their rooms.  At every corner I turned, another mini party was going on — with old and young generations, cousins, friends, my husband’s family, my family… It was more fun than I could ever ask for.

5) Putting on a ‘big’ wedding.  We invited about 170 guests and ended up with 120.  If my husband was more of an introvert like me, I’m sure we would’ve had a teeny wedding.  But I’m so glad we were surrounded by so many of our cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and co-workers that day.  We were showered with an enormous amount of love.  Aunts from his and my family got out on the dance floor together.  There were romantic liasons between our cousins and our friends.  Guests contacted us weeks and months later to tell us that it was the most fun they’d had at any wedding.  Family members said it was the best family gathering ever.  

Whew!  It’s definitely more fun to relive the good memories than the regrets.  

Honorary #6: My husband, on our wedding night 😉

Top 5 Wedding Regrets

So I already gave you my tips for staying present on the day of your wedding.  I think I did a pretty good job of following my own advice.  I had a fantastic day overall, but I have to admit, there are a few things that went awry that still nag at me a *teeny* bit.  I present you with my Top 5 Wedding Regrets (TM).   I know it’s not good to dwell, and honestly I’m pretty much over all of this.  But perhaps there is a lesson or two in the small things that went wrong on my day that a bride out there will find handy.

1) I rushed my friends.  I got anxious about the schedule when my bridesmaids and I were getting ready in our hotel room, and was a bit terse with them while trying to get everyone out the door.  I wish I had just taken a deep breath and asked one of my BMs to help collect everyone and get us to the formal portraits on time.  I don’t think this was a biggie overall, and no one was late to the photos.  I will have to remember to cut my friends some slack when they get married 🙂

2) Our wedding party was announced by the DJ.  I hadn’t been planning on this, and I really wasn’t in to it.  It made me feel nervous and silly, and it was a pain in the arse getting everyone together in the lobby before making our entrance.  While not traumatizing, I would certainly have been fine without it.

3) I didn’t circulate enough.  I spent most of the evening at my sweetheart table with my husband (I loved having our own table) and the rest of the time dancing with my friends.  I was so excited to see my friends from college that I neglected to check in with my grandparents during the reception.  I had spent time with them in the days leading up to the wedding, so I didn’t feel THAT terrible, but if I had to do it over again, I would’ve made sure to spend a little time with them.

4) The reception music wasn’t what I had planned.  We’d given our DJ cds with the songs we wanted him to play.  He played about two of them in the first two hours of the reception.  Music is important to me, as it really sets the mood and expresses who the bride and groom are.  Plus, I’d been looking forward to rocking out to certain songs with my friends (and not to YMCA and the other usual wedding stuff).  I ended up having my only cry of the evening over this (which made me feel extremely lame).  The good part is that my friends rallied around me and asked the DJ to play more of the music that I’d requested.  I really appreciated this, as I didn’t have it in me to duke it out with him at that point.

5) I didn’t make a speech.  I’m not a public speaker by ANY MEASURE.  I think the idea of planning a speech would probably have been too much for me on top of all the regular wedding nerves.  But I would’ve liked to have thanked my family publicly and acknowleged all the love that I was feeling that day.  I think I was able to do this to some degree with thank you cards.

Overall, there was nothing drastically regrettable.  Like I said, my memories of my wedding are pretty much all wonderful.  The only negative association that I have with my wedding is the night shortly after the event where I got plastered on leftover champagne and proceeded to make a fool out of myself in front of my new husband’s friends from England 😦  Not my finest moment.  Anyhow, fret not — my top 5 ‘things I’m glad I did’ are coming up next!

Tips for a Wedding in the Present Tense

I wrote a little while ago that in some ways, I felt like my wedding was over before it had begun.  A reader (wow, someone’s reading!) asked if I had any advice for creating lasting memories of one’s wedding.  I’ve done some reflecting in the months that I’ve been married. If I had to articulate a thesis for ‘how to make lasting memories’ it would be this: live fully *in the moment* as much as you can on the day of your wedding. I’ve come up with the following suggestions for how to do so, culled from my own experience:

1) Hire a day-of coordinator, or ask a friend to coordinate wedding day logistics. We asked my brother’s girlfriend to be our DOC, and I honestly believe that having her handle the details allowed me and my husband to be IN the moment and not anywhere else.  Ten years from now you’ll want to remember enjoying the feeling of just being married, not the stress you endured trying to set up your escort cards, telling the DJ when to play the last song, and making sure everyone got their check.

2) Decide ahead of time what is mandatory (as in, ‘I’ll regret not having done this ten years from now’) and what you’re willing to give up. That’s right, even the best laid plans can get thrown off when you throw in a hundred or so guests and a handful of vendors.  Be prepare to throw a few items you’ve planned to the wind (e.g. I’m sad – but not crushed – to not have had a father-daughter dance).  Embrace any gaffes that may occur during the ceremony: these are usually funny anyway.  Let go and have fun during the reception.  Relax and let the professionals do their jobs.

3) Find your grandparents, your parents, your best friends, etc. and take a moment with each of them. It can be overwhelming to have so many of the important people in your life together in one room.  The idea of this really freaked me out in the weeks leading up to my wedding.  I kept wondering how I would spend quality time with everyone.  Realize that you don’t need to spend the whole evening with your friend just because she flew across the country to be at your wedding.  She is there to witness the event more than anything else. However, identify the people who are most important to you and take time out to spend a moment with them – whether it’s with your new spouse at your side or on your own.

4) Spend time with family before the wedding. We were lucky enough to have parents, aunts, siblings and cousins from both of our families in town a few days before the actual wedding.  The Thursday before the wedding, my aunts hosted a ladies’ luncheon with women from both families, where we spent time getting to know each other.  It sounds cheesy, but we shared laughs and tears.  It was touching to have all of them uniting because of their love for me and my husband.  We cemented a family bond that day.  Meanwhile, my husband got to go on a hike with members of his and my family.  They undoubtedly bonded in a manly way (beer was definitely involved).  These memories are some of my fondest from the entire wedding weekend.

5) Hire a good photographer.  And if you don’t get good shots of the two of you, take some shots together after the wedding. Hire the best one you can afford.  The portraits of the two of you will be the most poignant memory you’ll keep of your wedding day.**

**I liked (but did not LOVE) my photos. The ones I’ve posted on this blog haven’t been the best, since I’m not so keen on posting large photos of my face or the faces of people who may not want to be up for display on the internet.