One year ago today, I became an Olson

Yes, friends, today is our one year anniversary as husband and wife.

 

 

 

Can I believe it has already been a whole year? No!

I love my husband. We exchange good morning hugs everyday. I look forward to a lifetime of them.

I'm one super lucky gal.

Make it real - WEDding WEDnesday

I encourage brides {and grooms} to meditate, communicate, and stay focused on the real reasons they are planning a wedding;  whether it is a big blow out or small intimate event, be on the same page.

It was important to both Gabe and me to include our guests as much as possible in the festivities.  Everyone played a part in the ceremony and reception, from showering us with flower pedals as we walked as husband and wife down the aisle, to forming a circle around us on the dance floor and passing around a microphone to share warm {sometimes surprisingly blunt} wishes.  Also, as I have shared with you before, our guests wrote us personal notes on comment cards.  We didn't want our guests to just be our audience, feed them and send them off with favors, but to {in a sense} play supporting roles--one person just as important as the next person.

Several gave speeches.

And everyone got to say a little something ... followed by a huge group hug.     

 

If it wasn't so important for us to make our guests a special part of our day, we would have just eloped.  Which, I'm not gonna lie, sounded like a mighty good idea when we reached the one-month mark before the wedding day.  So many things come together in that last month that really test one's tolerance level.  It was well worth it looking back, but I wouldn't do it again.  Luckily, I don't have to. ;)

This is probably my last WW post.  I hope you've enjoyed reading them the past few months, and been inspired to take the DIY route when planning your own wedding.  I have been delighted to share my wedding with you.  :)

.group hug.

next weekend, i will have a new SIL ... {WEDding WEDnesday}

That's right, my little brother is getting married.  To my best friend from high school.
Life is funny, and rewarding, that way.  Their relationship is young, but their chemistry is undeniable, and I could not be happier with whom my little bro chose to spend {and make us spend} the rest of his life.  And if he thinks she and I are crazy when we're together now...just wait til we're related.

Anyhow, Sarah, my brother's bride, actually inspired today's WEDding WEDnesday post.  She left me a voice mail the other day asking what I used for the money dance at our reception, in terms of a pouch or bag.  First, let me say that I was not always on board for having a money dance, but our DJ eventually convinced us to go for it and call it a honeymoon dance.  That tasted better going down.  Mom was thrilled we were having one, and in the end Gabe and I were too.  Not only did it allow us a chance to dance with several of our guests with whom we would normally not get the opportunity to dance, but we made a healthy chunk of moola!  I won't divulge the dollar amount, but in case you are curious, let's just say we could have bought this, this, these, this {in both colors}, and these, and still had change leftover for a couple of coffees.  So, having the lovely experience that we did, I reassured Sarah of the benefits of having a money honeymoon dance.

{that's little, well, bigger, but younger brother}

{and yes I realized my lipstick desperately needed re-freshening, but no time}

While the pouch definitely came in handy, keep in mind not everyone will want to follow suit, and you'll have bills sticking out of your cleavage throughout the dance...good times.

And Sarah, if you are reading this, I used an Anthropologie muslin drawstring bag.  You know, the one in which the sales associates roll up and stuff your receipt?  Yeah, that one.  Free & effective.  Simple as that. I could make you a custom pouch, lickity-split!  You just say the word and I will bust out the ol' sewing machine.  :)

 

 {full pouch!}

{anthro pouch photo source: juliebidwell}

Do we have time for an ensemble montage? {WEDding WEDnesday}

Any chance I get to create a montage, I take full advantage of it.  Our ring bearer's mom asked me to give her an idea of what to dress her little man, Dino, in.  So, to make it easy, I put together an outfit that included pieces he already owns, like his school uniform pants and shirt.  And just like the groomsmen, I bought a vintage bow tie for little Dino too.  He loved it, cuz he felt like the men.  Here's the montage I gave her:

She delivered, and Dino fit right in with the groomsmen.

I think he was relieved when he got to take off the vest at the reception, though. ;)

Fun kid.

Happy hump day!

WEDding WEDnesday: If your hubby-to-be's got style...

...let him pick out and purchase the jewelry for your bride ensemble.

Thanks, babe.

That's all this week. :)

{all three necklaces are J. Crew. headband is Urban Outfitters. earrings are vintage cameos}

Easy {free!} cake topper - WEDding WEDnesday

Isn't he cute? This was our final product, although it wasn't our original plan.

I spent months rummaging through Google Images for pictures of campfire scenes, s'mores, tents pitched in the wilderness and so forth, gathering inspiration for designing a custom cake topper to represent one of our favorite pastimes: camping.  Everything I thought to do seemed so tacky, though.  I could only imagine two figures holding tiny branches roasting mallows over a fondant log fire looking too whimsical for our taste. {haha. taste. punny!}  It wasn't until after we met with our baker, the awesome Kristine of Babycakes Bakery, that I decided against the camping scene for the cake topper. Gabe and I told Kristine we wanted a mini cake on the top tier of our cupcake tower, so we would have our own special treat for the day as well as something to cut into at the reception for the traditional cutting-of-the-cake-and-smashing-it-in-your-newlywed-spouse's-face moment {read on for more on that moment}.  When it came to deciding on the flavor of our mini cake though, there was only one choice on which Gabe and I both agree: lemon meringue.  :::Drool:::  Kristine suggested covering the entire thing in stiff meringue peaks, something she had never done before, and for us to decide on a simple cake topper to complement {not compete with} the textural mini cake.  From a design standpoint, this made total sense to me, and was also the moment I scratched the mental picture of the roasting scene.   

At that point I hadn't made any decisions, and in fact I didn't decide on what I was going to top our cake with until a couple of weeks before the big day.  Enter: Abby.  My dear friend with excellent style volunteered {along with other friends} to help my mom put on my bridal shower, and called dibs on the tablescapes.  And best of all, her gift to me was letting me keep all of the goodies from the centerpieces!      

 

 Gabe planted the purple flower plants in our front garden and they love us.

I fell in love with the chubby blue birds that held photos of me and Gabe throughout the years, and thought one would be just perfect atop our little cake at the reception.  Gabe loved the idea and chose the picture that the birdie would hold--one of his favorites.  

When it came time to cut into this beautiful scrumptious looking cake, we realized the restaurant forgot to provide us with a cake knife as promised.  Upon realizing this in a half-second, my Virgo problem-solving-mode kicked in to high gear.  I turned to our guests, who were all readying their cameras and shifting their weight to get a good view of our sweet moment, and asked {laughing}, "Does anyone have a butter knife we can borrow?"  The room burst into laughter and two people came at us quickly with the knives from their place-settings.  It was such a great moment, all the way through smearing meringuey goodness in one another's hair.  

Good times.  And now the little chubby blue birdies sit on our fireplace mantel, holding some of our favorite photos.  

Happy hump day!

When you have artists in the family...

Today's WEDding WEDnesday post features some super cool art from our ceremony, made especially for us by Gabe's older brother, Cameron.  Cam is a master origami sculpturist, IMO, and has created everything from stars to balloon animal lamps (not their technical name).  We turned to him when we found our wedding site and decided the gazebo could benefit from adding some personal touches.  When searching on various wedding blogs, 100LayerCake, Green Wedding Shoes, snippet & ink, and the likes, I came across a photo of a couple at the altar, surrounded by Japanese origami cranes, and thought: hey, I know a dude that can do origami.  Just after saving that photo, I learned that a person who folds 1000 paper cranes will be granted a wish.  While that sounds awesome, I wasn't about to ask Cam to take on that big of a feat--I'd rather not have our new-sibling-relationship start out with him hating me if I could help it.  Instead, we asked him to create a few stars to hang around the gazebo to form a framed altar area, and he was so honored.  We gave him full creative license to use whatever colors he wanted, whatever materials, and whatever sizes to create these stars, and he totally delivered!  Check 'em out:

We joked that he should slap a price tag on them after the ceremony so guests could purchase them right then and there.  But I ultimately pulled the greedy bride card and kept them for myself.  And now they hang over our dining room table!

Being resourceful not only saved us money on say, traditional altar floral arrangements, but also showcased the talents of a family / wedding party member.  So proud.  

Cam makes all kinds of cool origami sculptures, which are available for purchase, so I've posted his contact info below in case you are interested.  One year, he surprised each family member on Christmas with sculptures he made special for us--ours is a howling wolf lamp inspired by our howling husky, Bowie.

In my experience, people are uber-flattered (why won't blogger let me put in umlauts?!) when you ask them to help make something for your wedding, so ask away!  It's a win-win. 

Thought I would need navigation to return to the blogosphere + WEDding WEDnesday

Last week I was sick--random for this time of year--and had four birthdays back-to-back, plus a family wedding, which all add up to a pretty good excuse for being MIA in blogland, folks.  Weird how just a few days out of the loop can make me feel so out. of. the. loop.  However, I am back just in time to bring you another WEDding WEDnesday post, although this time I am changing it up.

Ordinarily I share with you the wonderful DIY projects and pretty photos of great ideas that actually materialized for our wedding, but for this week I am shoving my ego aside and laying out for you the plans that did not work out so well--some so bad I am still suffering.  Intriguing, no?

As a creative mind, I thought up a good billion ideas for my wedding day, some even before the ol' man proposed.
...Bouncy houses for all the children!
...Have our wedding turn in to an all-weekend tent-camp-out!
...$5000 Claire Pettibone dress!
None of which {thankfully} happened.  And in order to help reign myself in throughout all the planning, I started a file to organize all these ideas, and many many more, in what I named "Didn't Make the Cut."  I named each file using the reason I decided against it, just as a reminder.  This helped.

I shall begin with the worst.  What makes it the worst?  How about I'm still suffering the consequences of one seemingly harmless decision to this day, over a year after the fact.  This is also a {rare} case when my Virgo frugality and resourcefulness worked against me.  Here goes.  One of the perks of my job is having customers treat me to their product, and it so happens in this case, the product was two sixty-six pound sacks of milled rice {total: 132 lbs}.  At the time, I thought I had majorly scored!  I had no intention of eating it, but the creative juices were flowing for wedding projects.  Silly rabbit.

       Me & Megan.  So happy.  So naive.

As you can see in the photo above, my plan was to fill mason jars with the rice and enough pens for each table at the reception for people to write notes to us on our comment cards.  Buddy Megan and I knocked out this project in a couple of hours, several months before the wedding, and I stored the prepared jars on my bar countertop.  Well, in the subsequent weeks, I was noticing a bit of a pest problem in our house.  Yet, it took me a {too long} while to figure out the source of this problem.  In fact, I didn't figure it out.  Hubby did.
In our garage {or, ground zero} were the two giant sacks of rice, lying in wait to be used for my next project, infested with rice moths.  You've heard the expression, "breed like rabbits?"  Not even the same ballpark when compared to rice moths.  Luckily, we were fumigating one of my facilities at work, so I shared my huge household pest problem with my "fume guy," and asked his advice.  He sent me home with some pheromones and traps, and a number of terrifying images in my head.  He also told me to immediately dispose of every last kernel of rice, then go through every grain item in my pantry and either freeze the safe foods, or toss everything that showed signs of infestation.  Ewe ewe ewe.  Bye bye bulk organic cous cous, quinoa, rice, cereal, granola... And bye bye wedding-pen-holder-rice-jar-things, because when I popped the top on the cardboard box sitting on my countertop: the horror!  

Even after following fume guy's instruction, after killing roughly three hundred moths, and after a year, moths are still mysteriously hatching and showing up in my kitchen.  But, back to the wedding.  Since the rice was trashed, we instead used much smaller glass jars we had been saving from our pantry and fridge, cleaning and removing the labels from the jars as they were emptied.  We saved our jars from common items in our house like capers, olives, jam, sun-dried tomatoes, mustard, etc.; and instead put the pens in them for the reception tables. 

 {source unknown, sorry}

Another plan I had for the rice originally was to hold each guest's seating card, similar to the photo above.  Once we found the venue, though, this didn't really fit the aesthetics.  So instead, we made a poster using a photo of us taken at Disneyland, a frame from an old picture in our house, and my coworker's large scale printer.

All in all it was a free project that turned out beautifully, and most importantly, no bugs. 

The next few examples of projects or ideas that didn't pan out aren't as dramatic as the rice fiasco.  The first is kind of bittersweet.  My hubby was dead-set on growing all of the flowers for our wedding.  Sweet, huh?  He built a huge planter box and planted several varieties of wildflowers in the spring/early summer: sunflowers, ranunculus, dahlias, daisies, you name it. 

{Side note: Our yard is landscaped now and doesn't look anything like these photos.}  For months we got all excited watching our plants sprout and bloom...then came the bugs.  We only used organic methods to try and repel the insects that attacked our wildflower box, but were ultimately powerless against the damn things.  The sunflowers made it, but they bloomed way before our wedding day, so we enjoyed them in vases around our home.  When the big day was rapidly approaching and our plants looked like this:

...we had to make the call on Plan B.  Enter: Auntie Cheri!  Gabe's aunt used to be a wholesale florist, and she still had her "card," so she volunteered to help us order and arrange our flowers from a local wholesaler with whom she used to do business.  What a life saver!  By that time I was reaching my breaking point with wedding projects, so Gabe quickly took the project over, and together, he and Auntie Cheri worked magic.

       
They went over possible varieties that were in season, how to group the different varieties in an arrangement, and even had a few surprises up their sleeves that weren't revealed to me until the big day.  After visiting the wholesale florist and their {freezing} freezer of flowers, flowers were chosen, delivery was set, and prices negotiated.  I think we ended up paying less than $100 for all the flowers for our wedding day, including: bouquets, boutonnieres, tablescapes, etc.  I highly recommend going the wholesale route if you can, brides.
My cousin Heather and my sister's boyfriend Tyrel jumped in to help Cheri, Gabe, and the groomsmen the morning of the big day arrange all of the flowers in their vases/jars/wine bottles, the bouquet for the bride toss, the bridesmaids' bouquets, and boutonnieres for the groomsmen.  Here comes the sweetest part:  Gabe picked out all the flowers and helped arrange my bride's bouquet, which Auntie Cheri told me minutes before the ceremony was an old tradition for the groom to do for his bride.  Swoon!  He used the trim from my gown that was removed during tailoring for wrapping around the base, and added my favorite flowers: craspedias and Gerbera daisies.  :)  He even found a way to still use the handful of flowers that survived the bugs in our planter box for our guests of honor's boutonnieres, grouping them with some rosemary branches from our garden and wrapping them in leftover hemp twine from previous wedding projects.  The man is a rockstar.  One would think he had Martha Stewart locked in a basement the way these mini bouquets turned out.

   Cousin Heather touching-up Gabe's boutonniere before the ceremony.

My amazing bouquet and our 'first look' before the ceremony.

Gabe's grandpa, step mom, and dad with their salvaged-wildflower-and-rosemary boutonnieres.

In these cases, things turned out for the best.  We learned some valuable lessons along the way, and we had a fantastic support system to help us.  I've got more projects I could share, but I think this post is long enough already.  Perhaps I'll continue in an upcoming WW post.  Perhaps.  

Happy hump day!  Check your pantry.  ;) 

WEDding WEDnesday: giving thanks to our wedding party

Never being a fan of the Things Remembered trinkets, I knew I wanted to gift our wedding party with personal items they would use.  One would think a bride would know her attendants very well, since she chose them to support and represent her in the, arguably, most important day of her life.  And, same goes for the groom and his attendants.

Our wedding party consisted of mine and Gabe's best friends as our MOH and BM, respectively, along with all of our siblings: my two sisters and Gabe's sister, and Gabe's two brothers and my brother. 

 
I spent months gathering each of their gifts, as they weren't all found in one place.  And I had a blast doing it, mostly because I was taking a break from making decisions for my wedding day, and shopping for others {Virgo}.  Gabe and I really enjoyed watching our attendants open their gifts at our rehearsal dinner, the night before the big day.  Also, I didn't want to leave out Gabe's young step sister who was not part of our wedding party, but whom we had asked to help greet and seat guests at the ceremony, so I gathered all the new and vintage blue embroidery thread I had and wrapped it up in a cute gift box--her favorite color is blue and she makes these awesome friendship-style bracelets with this kind of thread--and gave it to her to open at the dinner with everyone else.  She was so tickled, which made us really happy.

Each groomsman received:
2 bars of homemade beer soap
1 vintage bow tie
1 Crown Royal bag

I found the beer soap on etsy, from a seller who makes them herself from several different brands of beer.  I custom selected each kind to give to each guy, wrapped the bars in a vintage silk bow tie {also carefully selected from a local thrift store Cheap Thrills, which they wore on our wedding day}, and packaged them in a Crown Royal bag.  And since my co-worker--who acted as our officiant--was watching over my shoulder as I purchased the soap and whined about how cool it was, I bought him a couple bars as well.  He told me a few weeks after our wedding that his teenage sons got a kick out of them! :)

Each of my bridesmaids received:
1 J.Crew tote
1 vintage magazine from the month & year she was born

The canvas and leather tote bags were luckily on final sale at my local second home J.Crew.  I wasn't shopping for them, but I saw a whole rack of the pink totes in the sale section while I was meeting with the tailor, and I couldn't resist.  I already owned this same tote in camel and use it as my everyday purse, so I knew the ladies would too appreciate how handy it is.  The magazines took the longest time to track down, as I had to find all of them on ebay.  I looked at local used bookstores and thrift shops, but did not have any luck.  Eventually, and all in good time before the rehearsal dinner, I found fashion mags from each gal's corresponding month/year.  The one shown above is a June 1989 issue of Cosmo, for my sister Hannah. Aaaand... Bonus!  My MOH is only a day younger than me, so her month/year Cosmo {September 1984} is mine as well, so I had a blast flipping through her's before I wrapped it up.  Note: there were several more cigarette ads back in the 80s in Cosmo.  And a helluva lot more text in the articles, in comparison to the 'gist' the writers give readers nowadays.

Lastly, as a gift to our parents for helping us with all the wedding planning and for, well, giving us life, Gabe made rosemary {from our garden} and garlic infused olive oil, bottled in the small green S. Pellegrino glass bottles, with a neon orange pourer, and handed them out to each set of parents at our rehearsal dinner.  They were so cute, and all the parents loved them.
 
Almost a year later, none of the guys have told me they have again worn their bow ties, but they did use up all the beer soap, so that's good news.  And the ladies all use their totes either for purses, overnight bags, beach bags, or shopping totes, which makes me extra super happy.  I love that we gave our wedding party gifts they could use and were happy to receive, because that truly means a lot to us.  Gifts should be meaningful.  Period. 

I hope this has inspired at least one bride/groom to rethink the flask or shot glasses and instead dream up a more appropriate and special gift for her/his special attendants.  It will really mean a lot to your party that even though planning your wedding has you totally stressed, you still found the time to hand-pick a gift especially for them. 

Peace and happy hump day!
 

WEDding WEDnesdays: for the kiddies in the wedding party

Wedding junk is expensive.  You with me? 

I could not bring myself to buy a fancy basket for the flower-girl or a fancy pillow for the ring-bearer to carry down the aisle.  So, being the crafty girl that I am, I made my own.  Luckily, I already had an old Easter basket that would work splendidly for the flower-girl to carry if I dolled it up a bit. As for the ring-bearer's pillow, I enlisted the help of my MOH, the talented Vicki, to help me make it from scratch. 

She sewed the pillow from a roll of muslin I had leftover from a college project (years ago!), using a cool zigzag stitch in dark blue thread.  Me?  I drank wine while plotting the pillow's ornamentation.  Yes, this is the same muslin I used to line the inside of my vintage train case that housed the guests' comment cards at the reception {mentioned here}.

My dining room was our sweatshop;  and although it looks insane, we were actually done with the project in only a couple of hours.  Put two Virgos on a project together in a time crunch, and you will see magic my friends.

Because I had read that it is a very bad idea to give a small child the responsibility of carrying your actual wedding bands at the ceremony, I faked it with two shiny key rings to decorate the pillow.  And because I have the corniest humor known to my circle of family and friends, I used buttons and one of Gabe's guitar picks to spell out the phrase, 'I Pick You.'

For the flower-girl's basket, I used the leftover muslin to line the inside of the basket, making it easier for her to grab the flower petals to sprinkle down the aisle at the ceremony.  I glued a strand of vintage ribbon around the outside of the basket, and wrapped a couple strands of pink beaded ribbon around the handle.  All of this material was supplies I already had on hand from previous craft projects, including the two faux dahlias I pinned to the base of the handle on each side of the basket, which were leftover from the bridesmaids' shoes project {mentioned here}. 

I used the same ribbon and dahlias, along with some vintage buttons and my old cheerleading hair ribbons, to make the flower-girl's headband as well.  Originally, my plan was for me to wear the headband, but after I finished it, I realized it would be much more fitting for the under-ten-aesthetic.  I gifted the headband to Taylor at our rehearsal dinner, and told her it was her's to keep after she wore it in the wedding.  I don't know who was more excited, her or me, judging by her reaction.

We gave Dino, our ring-bearer, a vintage bow-tie for his gift at our rehearsal dinner, so he would look just like the groomsmen in their vintage bow-ties.  But, that's another post.  :)

As you are probably noticing by now, if you have been reading the WEDding WEDnesday posts from the start, we did not go the traditional two-color-scheme route for our wedding.  Instead, we mixed patterns, styles, and colors, but for the most part kept within a certain color palette.  That palette was inspired by this photo:

{100 Layer Cake}

When I stumbled upon this beauty, there was no questioning what our 'colors' would be for our wedding.  We originally had planned on sticking to 'dark chocolate and raspberry' but eventually realized the visual was lacking.  I never wanted our color choices to be so obvious that they screamed theme, so we were satisfied with the palette we chose.  It also gave us focus in a world of chaos infinite choices, known as wedding planning.

More next week.  Happy hump day! 

WEDding WEDnesdays: low-tech, high-impact

When it came down to it, a photo booth was not in our budget, although we had always planned on having one at our reception, even before they were popular.  Our Plan B turned out to be a much bigger hit, and I am so happy we didn't skimp so we could ultimately afford to rent an actual photo booth.  What did we do?
We took down the Suzani-print drapes in our living room, gathered some twine and a vintage wooden picture frame, and we made our own photo booth at the ceremony site.

Guests were encouraged to take their own pictures while waiting for the ceremony to begin in the 'booth.'  These shots were from our photographer, Scott.  Gabriel and his groomsmen set it up before guests arrived in a very short amount of time, and the best part is there was no waste or expense.  The drapes and frame are now hanging in his music recording studio in our house (but that's another post). 

In the reception room, hanging on every wall behind guests' seats, were streamers of photos of me & Gabriel throughout the years.  Mixed in were childhood photos of each one of us, family photos, and the two of us during the past [now ten!] years.  He and I made a few of the streamers at our house, using ribbon and clothespins we already had on hand, but my mom and mamaw made all the others.  It was a lot of fun in the months leading up to the big day to have our friends' parents and our families contribute photos they had of us too.

This element has to be one of my favorites of all our decorations.  It was so touching to hear and see people mingling with others while reminiscing and commenting on all the photos.  It got people out of their chairs before and during the reception, and provided an easy ice breaker for guests who didn't know each other--not that it was necessary in our friendly outgoing crowd.  And, just as with the 'photo booth,' there was no waste associated with this project; all the materials and photos are either being re-used or stored for future use. 

I had heard horror stories about computer slide show malfunctions, so we chose to go the low-tech route with the photo streamers.  I'm so glad we did.  Not only did we save stress and $$ by nixing the slide show and all the technical equipment associated with it, but looking through the photos our photographer shot, I love seeing these streamers in the background behind the happy guests.  I think they helped set the tone and added to the homey mood in the room.

Never underestimate the power of personal touches, my friends.  

Perhaps that last line should have been the theme for 'WEDding WEDnesdays.'

{Suzani drapes were purchased at Cost Plus World Market.}