Pickles & Dimes

Some pictures, courtesy of Becky (Jason’s mom) and my coworker Keiko:

Walking down the aisle with my Dad. We sped-walked during rehearsal, and were admonished by everyone to walk slower! during the ceremony.

I look nervous here. This must’ve been the part where the officiant asked Jason’s parents if they accept me into their family.

Our officiant rocked. Besides my dress, the venue and the sand ceremony, everyone commented on how funny and awesome our officiant was. Remember, he’s super tall – we are not dwarves.

Performing the sand ceremony. Luckily we practiced beforehand, or there would’ve been about 57 more glass clinks.

Mini pumpkin cakes made by my aunt and decorated by my 93-year-old grandfather. They were delicious. The cupcakes, not my aunt and grandfather.

Close-up of the cakes. Stalkers, now you know the first initial of our last name!

The t-shirts we wore the day after the wedding. I think only we thought they were hilarious.

• The venue had ivory tablecloths, as requested, but white napkins. It took us over an hour to reset all the reception tables with white linens. We told everyone the night before they didn’t need to help decorate because the tables would already be set. HA.
• The florist only made three bridesmaid bouquets instead of four. We had talked about four bouquets all along. But on the contract that I, a proofreader, apparently did not look at carefully, it said: “Three bridesmaid bouquets.” HA. (Luckily, the florist quickly created a stunning fourth bouquet and also filled out the boutonnieres since he couldn’t get the brown calla lilies I had originally hoped for. And his work was stunning.)
• I got about 35 minutes to relax between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., when I had to get dressed, since I spent an extra 2 hours decorating. I didn’t eat anything until my personal attendant nicely split her sandwich with me.
• My personal attendant made my hair look awesome. This never happens.
• I only cried when my mom told me I looked beautiful. And when the videographer and photographer had me “meet” Jason for the first time all dressed up. And when the videographer unexpectedly interviewed me for prosperity by asking me why I love Jason. But I didn’t cry at all during the actual ceremony. This is a miracle.
• Our parents were fantastic.
• Pictures took almost three hours. That is a long time to be smiling.
• Our wedding officiant is nearly 7 feet tall, so when you see us in photos with him, please know that Jason and I are not dwarves.
• Since the wedding was in a public place that closed at 6 p.m. (and the wedding started at 5:30), I stood hidden in a corner waiting to make my grand entrance with my father while two teenage girls eating ice cream cones crossed our path. That was kind of surreal.
• About 37 people stepped on my dress.
• Twice as many people pulled on my veil as they were hugging me.
• Jason looked super handsome.
• I felt super pretty. I even had on eyeliner.
• I spoke my vows loudly and confidently. I even made a short speech at the reception.
• It was 86 degrees on our wedding day. It rained in the morning, but was perfect in the afternoon. We got married in an indoor park because I was worried about the weather. HA.
• Our dinner was delicious. It cost $6.75/person.
• My bridesmaid Kelly ran the Twin Cities marathon the morning after the wedding. She is some kind of crazy person. Or a total inspiration. Either one.
• I did dance badly (on purpose) to “Now That We Found Love” and “What is Love.” In fact, I danced a LOT at the reception. I am not a dancer and since I am not a drinker, this is somewhat unbelievable.
• We did the sand ceremony instead of the unity candle and now appear to be wedding pioneers in the eyes of our guests.
• My aunt made mini pumpkin cakes that were sinfully delicious.
• Jason’s parents thought of everything.
• It took a lot of people a lot of time to construct the wedding arch.
• My dad carved a pen holder out of bark to fit in with our fall theme.
• I loved wearing my dress so much that I wore it to the bar after the reception just so I could spend more time in it.
• I should’ve changed my shoes though, because my feet got so swollen it was almost impossible to remove my sandal straps.
• The little kids dancing made the best entertainment of the night (and some of them had some serious moves!)
• The wedding was the most fun I’ve ever had, bar none

Hi! We’re back, and we’re married! Everything went perfectly and we had a blast on our honeymoon. Now we’re back to reality and digging ourselves out of all the things that piled up in our absence.

More pictures to come later, but for now, I’m revealing the winner of the Email Guessing Contest. In a shocking turn of events, I got hardly any email during the 8 working days I was gone: less than 10 per day. This is incredible, especially since I typically receive 50+ in ONE DAY. So, the final tally was 77.

Technically, Jason won, but since he’s ineligible, the next closest guess was from Sara. Congrats, Sara! Email me your contact info and I will send you a set of 5 handmade, fall-themed thank you cards.

And, just a reminder: we’ll announce the winner of the second So you think you know us? contest tomorrow. So keep those (hilarious) guesses coming!

This one was a lot of fun. I wanted to do a masthead with our wedding theme, using our planned colors. I used a free background from Squidfingers, used a free Photoshop brush from Design Fruit to create the design over the leaves, found an image of the leaves and the white cake, and topped the cake with a topper that inexplicably resembles Monica Lewinsky. I replaced the guy’s noggin with the dime’s face, and replaced the bouquet of flowers with a bouquet of pickles. All that was left was to add a scripty font, and presto! A wedding masthead.