Vote Today!

Today is the last day to vote in the Project Wedding's DIY contest! I would encourage you to vote for the DIY Calligraphy project for 3 reasons:

1. It's brilliant! 

2. I'm totally using this cheat to address my envelopes

3. It was thought up by my friend Jenn over at With This Ring. She's marrying a guy from my high school class!

One year ago, I was victorious

in the Georgia ING Half Marathon. And by victorious, I mean that I finished. I have to admit, I was pretty surprised by that fact, since it was the longest distance I had ever run in my entire life. 

And I didn't actually do to badly. In fact, I realized that long distance running may be my athletic calling [as opposed, to say, any sport at all that involves a ball . . . or hand eye coordination . . . or rules]. 

I did three halfs total in 2008. Here's me and Sissy/MOH Bird finishing one on Thanksgiving Day.

Unfortunately, after that great race, I didn't run another step all winter. I went in to serious hibernation. Yeah sure, some light yoga here and there with bff bridal brigade member Julia, but not much else. Not anything else.

I certainly wasn't able to do this year's ING race. Instead, I jogged the 3/4 mile to bff Kate's house to congratulate her on her approx. 289th half finish. Let's just say I was more than winded upon arrival.

So, I'm getting back on the horse. I'm already signed up for the Peachtree Road-race, Atlanta's 4th of July tradition and the largest 10k road-race in the WORLD. And there is a new half marathon starting in Atlanta this year on October 4th, just 20 days before the wedding. 

What better way to ensure I'm in tip-top wedding shape and have these post-Title IX arms?

She is HOT. 

Where to Moon with your Honey

Ok, so the honeymoon. I love Victory Bird's dream of Egypt- I had the pleasure of going in 2005 and it was pretty magical! As a former luxury travel agent and a bit of a travel fiend, I've had many ideas swirling in my head for where to spend those special days or weeks following a wedding.

Working with clients, I found that island destinations were the most popular- people tend to think that hot and steamy places are, well, hot and steamy. There are many options in terms of culture- you can head to the trendy and fashionable French-speaking St. Barths in the Caribbean, the wildly exotic Maldives in the Indian Ocean, the lush, fun and American-friendly Hawaiian islands in the Pacific, or the spiritual and culture haven of Bali in Indonesia. Tropical vacation choices go on and on! Tahiti, Cabo san Lucas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Antigua, the Seychelles, the Riviera Maya, Fiji, Barbados- those are just a few of the options. (An over-water bungalow in the Maldives is pictured below.)

Some couples, however, prefer a siteseeing destination and use the honeymoon as a chance to go somewhere they've always wanted to see. Trips to Thailand, India, China, Turkey, Italy, Greece and France tend to fall into this category. Some choose to see many countries on a cruise- my favorite cruising scenario would stop in Cyprus, several ports in Turkey, Greece, Croatia and Italy. Yachting lines- like SeaDream and Seabourn- are great alternatives to the traditional cruise, as some carry as few as forty couples.

There is yet a third set of honeymooners who tend to be the most adventurous in spirit- these are the honeymooners who board flights of umpteen hours to go on safari in Kenya and Tanzania, go trekking around New Zealand and Australia, hike and wine-taste in Patagonia or maybe, if they're really full of wallet, take a private jet trip around the entire world. Yes friends, I know one couple who did this!

Mr. Livalittle and I have toyed with all sorts of options and had a bit of a time making a decision. The first hump is that we already live in Hawaii (ok, I'm not complaining!), meaning that we probably wouldn't want to do a tropical destination. Also, we're getting married at the end of September, when the weather is not completely ideal in some world destinations of interest (hurricane season is in full swing in the Caribbean and monsoon season is threatening in parts of Southeast Asia). Thirdly, we are getting married in DC, but will end up in Hawaii, so flying to Europe or Africa would mean a terrible flight back home at the back end. What to do? We toyed with the idea of Patagonia- hiking, biking, wine-tasting and utter beauty- but the places of interest are REALLY far away.

So, at the risk of being prosaic, we decided on the Canadian Rockies. Initially, I thought, "meh," but over time, the idea has grown on me. The physical beauty is breathtaking, there are many fanatasic chateaus in which we can stay and it will be crisp and lovely, a great contrast to the warm and balmy air of Hawaii. The outdoor activities at the time of year are cool and there are actually some sites to see- the great divide, etc. The best part is that it is half way between DC and home, so the flights will be easy breezy after so much commotion. Oddly enough, my parents also went to Canada for their honeymoon, so in a way, it's tradition. Perfect!

Bulging Brides

Hey friends! Well Thursday in Hawaii was Prince Kuhio day, which is a state holiday, meaning that I didn't have to work! Since I rarely get the chance to watch TV, I tuned in to the Fine Living Network, where I enjoyed watching the show "Bulging Brides."


Each episode of the show focuses on one woman and her quest to look great in her wedding dress. They start off by weighing the bride, taking her bust, waist and hip measurements and then making her try on her dress, which normally doesn't look very good! They take an unnatractive picture of her in the dress to serve as motivation and then she starts the reformed diet and exercise regime. At the end of the four or six weeks, the bride and her fiance do a final challenge together (10k, 20 mile bike ride). By the end of the show, they weigh her, take all of her measurements and tell her how much she's lost. The moment of truth is when she tries on the dress!
Has anyone seen this show? Do you like it? What are other people doing for bridal body beauty?

I love this man.

Some day, I may run away to Egypt to follow Dr. Zahi Hawass, because few can compete with his badass title: Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

I've watched Zahi on hundreds of Discovery Channel Egyptology documentaries since I was a kid. And last night, I got to see him IN PERSON (thank's Emory!) at Atlanta's gorgeous Fox Theater, which probably deserves a post all of it's own. 

The Fox was inspired by the 1922 discovery of King Tut's tomb, a fitting place for Zahi's lecture on the latest archeology discoveries he's made this year. It was one of the first buildings in America to get air conditioning, even beating out the White House. And it has GORGEOUS ball rooms that are available for weddings.

The main theater (georgia.org)

I guess you could say I'm pretty passionate about ancient Egyptian art (I learned how to read hieroglyphics in college. For real.). And let's just say I was excited (JEALOUS) to see Zahi give away a trip to a little brown-haired girl and her family to Egpyt.

I would love love love to honeymoon in Egypt. Imagine walking the Valley of the Kings with your new husband, floating along on a Nile cruise or seeing the sun set on the pyramids. Romantic to me, most definitely.

Unfortunately, Mr. B just isn't into it, specifically for a honeymoon. And he's right. I would probably have the hiccups from excitement (did I ever tell you that we are Lilly & Marshall from How I Met Your Mother?) the entire time. And Mr. B really doesn't do well in the heat.

But if you want to go, this company is offering guided tours of Egypt's major archeology sites WITH ZAHI in October 2009 and January 2010. 

Happily Ever After

Hey friends! Recently, one of my lovely bridesmaids told me that she will be able to come for the week before the wedding to help with last minute stuff. I couldn't be more excited! She and I discussed watching some wedding movies that week, if we have time, which made me think of the best and worst wedding movies I've seen. According to the web, the highest-grossing wedding movies of the last twenty-five years are the following:

1. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
2. Wedding Crashers
3. Runaway Bride
4. Mamma Mia!
5. Sweet Home Alabama
6. My Best Friend's Wedding
7. American Wedding
8. Father of the Bride
9. The Wedding Singer
10. 27 Dresses

If you think about it, in all of these movies, the same thing happens: everything goes terribly wrong before it is all perfectly right! This is why I love the wedding movie genre. The more I watch, the more excited I am for my own wedding because I know that no matter what happens, it won't be as bad as, say, Mamma Mia, when the bride is trying to figure out which of three men are actually her father. I don't think I'm going to have this kind of drama. I know that something is bound to go wrong, but if wedding movies can teach us anything, it will all turn out ok! Below is my favorite scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Enjoy!

Members only?

Here's a new idea: achieve a not-overly-match-y bridal party with jackets. I don't think I've ever seen it done before.

Inspired by this fun evening many moons ago with three lovely Y&BB ladies, plus Ms. Livalittle! We all wore black blazers to dinner, and called ourselves the Black Blazer Brigade. Bonus points if you can spot the theme here . . .

So, imagine this. The five bridal brigade members are invited to wear their own grey dresses. Any style, as long as it matches the beautiful [recession-friendly] custom made jackets in mustard yellow. Courtesy of the fantastic Esty seller Ananya.

Thoughts?

OMG, I want to go to there

I'm pretty sure I HAVE TO HAVE THIS. Seriously, how baller is this statement piece? To go with my personal pearl-fetish and vintage-esque, bead-free dress? I'm thinking a big yes.

And I can rent it for only $41.

Wedding Chicks is giving away some earrings from I'mOverItOnline.com, which is the pretty rad jewelry rental site offering aforementioned glorious jewels. 

Need convincing? Check out these terribly rough photoshopped images of it with The Dress.

Hotness. What do you think?

Curious combination

It would seem that this solves the age old dilemma of traditional long pretty veil or fun trendy birdcage veil. Just have both!

Do you think it works? I'm on the fence.

Photos by John Rozier via Brooklyn Bride

More dress ideas for the bridesmaid brigade

Liking the tights idea! I think, however, that I would do the tights in a lighter color than the dress. Perhaps light grey with a charcoal shift dress? Or-- GASP!-- light grey with mimosa short dresses? Could be cool! Your maids would be a walking version of your color scheme! Wouldn't it be pretty if they carried white/ivory flowers? mmmm.
Speaking of bridesmaid dresses, I came across the following book yesterday in the Kailua Public Library-- You Can Wear It Again: A Celebration of Bridesmaid Dresses. Fairly hilarious. It basically features some pretty hein frocks of the past few decades. I would recommend bringing the book along before unveiling your bmaid dress...just for some comic relief. It might also help them to remember that even if they don't love it, it could be A LOT worse.

Tights?

A funky way to break from traditional bridesmaid attire AND keep your dear friends legs warm.

This outfit wouldn't have half the impact without them. Dress by Simple Silhouettes. I can think of bridesmaid get-ups with shawls, clutches, skirts and more, but never tights. Thoughts?

Real live sword arch

SO this is a sword arch at the wedding of one of Mr. L's friends! Fun!

The military wedding!!

It's time friends. Time to do a feature on the military wedding!

I am very excited to be marrying a Navy pilot in September, who will be wearing his dashing uniform during our wedding! His uniform is called Dinner Dress or "mess dress" in the service, but is far from messy! It's quite hunky, if I do say myself.

His looks quite similar to dear old Will's uniform, except black. I'm a fan. We're inviting all of our military guests, retired or active duty, to come in uniform too. Shall be quite festive. Mr. Livalittle's five brothers are all in the military, so they'll be decked out as well!

Two weeks after we had met, Mr. L told me that he wanted a sword arch at our wedding (I know, two weeks, right? Look up "whirlwind courtship" in the dictionary and you'll see us). The notion of the sword arch is quite romantic to me; I remember seeing one at a royal wedding in a movie as a child and still sigh dreamily just thinking about it.

Although the crossed swords are a big part of the idea of our wedding, it only lasts about one minute! For just one minute, there are many rules. First of all, there must be between six and twelve sword bearers, wearing the proper sword-bearing uniform of their service; second, sword archmen standing across from each other must be of similar height (or all tall on the groom's side, all short on the bride's side) and in the same military service; finally, the last two sword bearers must drop their swords and the couple must "kiss to pass," after which the last swordsman smacks the bride on the behind. At this point, they normally say "welcome to the Navy!" According to tradition, the bride and groom walk through the arch of swords to "ensure the couple's safe transition into their new life together."

When reading about military weddings a few weeks ago, the phrase that stuck out in my mind was the following: "the military wedding features extensive use of weaponry." Of course, Mr. L thinks that this is the best thing that has ever happened and has since asked if we can use fireworks, canons or other incendiaries. What if we did fire a canon? What if we had a civil war reenactment wedding? There could be some pretty terrible worst case scenarios if that were to happen; my vivid imagination is providing all sorts of insane possibilities. This is why there will be no explosives.

In a military wedding, the highest ranking officers and the groom's commanding officers must be seated near the front, in the second row or in the first row if the parents are not present. Also, the groom's sword is frequently used to cut the cake. This makes me highly nervous, however, seeing that my lovely fiance has already threatened to behave inappropriately during the cake cutting. Adding a sword to this mix may not be the greatest plan. I mean, look at the image below! She's holding the sword like she's at a firing range. The most hilarious part about the whole cutting the cake with the sword thing is that Mr. L will have to somehow transport his sword to DC for a weekend. I don't imagine that it classifies as a carry-on. Oh well!

Yep, he's The One

Real email I received from Mr. B this afternoon:

____________________________________

You'd be so proud of me, I'm putting together a list of Wedding To-Dos for the weekend. Please feel free to add:

- Jewelry Store (ring fitting and wedding band ideas)
- Research/Contact musicians for ceremony (Friend? Band? Kazooist?)
- Contact reception restaurant again for the quote...threaten to break their kneecaps if need be
- Figure out officiants (Family? Italy Guy? Friend? Ponce Man?)
- Look into equipment rental (I know it's ahead of schedule, but I was looking for filler)
- Look into tux/suit rentals (ditto)
- Set up the Wedding Tracker (<== this refers to his MS Access database)
- Create business plan to make $20,000 from bake sales and snuggles

Love you!

____________________________________

Yes ladies, this dreamboat is taken!

Forgiveness doesn't reach the nose

Suddenly we're back to normal in Atlanta. Last week's snow has melted and faded from memory, and with the time change we're back to long lazy summer nights. It is glorious and I'm tempted to forgive my fair city for the horrible, cold, dark winter that has past.

What could possibly make me forgive the treachery that is SAD, parkas and closed restaurant patios? The dogwoods are in bloom.

There's no better symbol of rebirth in my book. These iconic blossoms line the avenues every March and shower passers-by with their spent petals as if reveling in the irony that a different kind of white fluffy stuff rained down mere days ago.

Now, wouldn't this be the perfect spring flower for a stately Atlanta wedding? They are simply devine! Oh, except for one minor thing: they reek like dog pee.

Which is why I can't understand how Martha Stewart worked them into this gorgeous bouquet. Literally, you can't stand to be within several feet from a full blooming tree for more than a few minutes.

The name game

Let's all agree to drop the 'bridal party' or the 'wedding party'.

We're going to be the Youth & Beauty Brigade. 

Partly because I'm a huge Decemberists fan and will be traveling with some of the Y&BB to BONNAROO in June to see them. It will be an incredible all-girl camping music hippy fun fest. Awesome.

Also partly because of this and this. It's great to see people customizing tradition and expectations to meet their own needs, and I highly respect their arrangement. I LOVE the idea of handing out a paint chip and giving the Y&BB free reign to pick out their dress.

And also partly because, like Juno, I am dealing with things far beyond my maturity level. Honest to blog! It's weird to think that in some of the geographies of my life, people my age are settled with a house and kids, and in others, the idea of marriage this young is laughable. It's a crazy world, and I'd like to remember that I'm only 23 once and a while.

I want stuff hanging from the trees and other rustic-chic decor musings

Is that too much to ask? I mean, we're getting married in a park, right? Therefore, I think me and my husband-to be-to will begin lovingly folding 1000 paper cranes as a couple's project we'll only work on together to adorn the trees [true story, that's what they did. cute, but slightly gag-inducing].

Hmmm, on second thought, maybe we're not folding cranes anytime soon [he's a lefty, and generally banned from paper crafting. Someone's GOT to teach the boy to use scissors asap!] But this stunningly beautiful, ephemeral, and let's not forget cheap, decor idea is a serious possibility. 

It comes from a wedding featured this week on Once Wed, which constantly reminds me I need to work on getting my own farm/pastoral backyard, or parents who have such accommodations, to host a budget-friendly, drippingly elegant rustic-chic wedding. It seems that's how all the best weddings get pulled off nowadays.  And even though our beloved Ponce [de Leon Ave] hosts plenty of folks plunking down in the middle of the road to celebrate, unfortunately our backyard just won't do.

Also found today and adding to the rustic-chic decor file: dollops of moss. Charming! And delicious. Mmmm.

Bachelor RANT!!

Ok, so has anyone been watching the Bachelor? What in the world? So for those of you who don't know, this idiot named Jason was rejected on the Bachelorette and he was asked to be the next Bachelor. So he goes through the season, picks one girl, actually proposes to her and then six weeks later, changes his mind and goes for the girl he rejected!! Oh, and did I mention that he does this all on national TV? What a colossal jerk!! The worst part is that he tries to come off as if he is completely genuine and empathetic, saying things like "I know what I did was totally horrible, but I believe that I was right." Self-absorbed, hedonistic, son of a monkey!! Who tries to find the person they will marry on TV?! I mean, honestly. I have to admit that I have watched this show quite enthusiastically season after season. However, the last few episodes of this Bachelor really crossed the line! Now that I am actually engaged, I think that I have more of an appreciation for the idea of willy-nilly handing out engagement rings and taking them back. Oy.

Thank god that I didn't meet Mr. Livalittle on ABC.