I'm Married!!

It's true. I'm married! Thanks to Ms. Victory for posting a most wonderful video of our sword arch. How fun! Everything from the whole day went off without a hitch and we feel so lucky that it all went as planned.

The honeymoon was totally fantastic- we stayed in very secluded places, which were great after all the hubbub of the wedding. I highly recommend the Banff and Lake Louise area, particularly the places we stayed- Mount Engadine Lodge and Moraine Lake Lodge! They were the perfect mix of luxurious and rustic. Each of our rooms had a fireplace. We enjoyed many a bottle of wine next to those fireplaces!

Over the last few days, at the suggestion of my brother, I have been writing down all of my recollections of the wedding day. Future brides: I highly recommend this! Not only is it fun to remember all of the little details from the day, but it will also be great to have in a few years when things get fuzzy. Even my friends who were married within the last year have said that they've forgotten many of the little moments. To me, those are the best!

I'll be posting some pictures and will give you all a blow by blow, but for now...here's my picture to you!

V: Mrs. Mission accomplished!

Introducing for the first time as Mr. & Mrs. Livalittle:



Wow. What a beautiful, elegant, FUN wedding. Last weekend, our nation's capital played host to the Livalittle nuptials, and boy were they awesome. From the beautiful church, to the military uniforms, to the drama of Samantha's veil, to the view of the waterfront from the reception restaurant--it was solid.

The video was created using Animoto, and omg it is SO AWESOME. Just input photos, video clips, music and text, and WHAM, they automate the video creation process. It maybe took me all of seven minutes to create this masterpiece. Thirty seconds of video for free, and a measly $3 for longer lengths. And only $5 for a high resolution, DVD-quality download [coming your way shortly Mrs. Livalittle!].

Hope you are enjoying your honeymoon in the wilds of Canada.

V: Natural Disaster Barley Avoids Wedding (MY Wedding)

This was our runner-up wedding venue. You know, the wedding in exactly 32 days. The lovely restaurant Canoe sits on the scenic banks of the normally tame Chattahoochee river here in Atlanta.

But yesterday it was walloped by the flooding [the water is actually much higher today than in this photo from yesterday. Just check out CNN's broadcast from their parking lot]. Oh, did you know Atlanta has been flooded?

Not cool, flood. Not cool.

No reports from Piedmont Park, where our ceremony venue is a dock on Clara Meer Lake. Hopefully it hasn't overrun it's banks too badly.

V: Talk about 'Practical' Wedding

On Monday, a bar on our street hosted a totally awesome, unstressful, sounds like fun wedding. The couple met and frequented at the bar, and logically decided that was the place to make it official. Invitations went out via text message.

I love it. It seems relationships today are on much more of a sliding scale between stages than ever before. From college hook-ups to living together for years, it isn't nearly as now-we're-dating, now-we're-married, black & white.

However, I'm certainly expecting more pomp & circumstance this weekend at Samantha's wedding!! I will definitely be posting video of their freakin awesome military sword arch, so stay tuned:)

V: Posting has been light

Because bootcamp has begun, and OMG I have to wake up at 5:30am everyday.

However, we are very VERY much looking forward to Miss Samantha Livalittle's wedding on SATURDAY in Washington, D.C. OMG!!!!! Can't wait!

V: The Great Bridal Shower Compromise

Momma Bird graciously desired to throw a traditional Bridal Shower for her first daughter to marry. Normally, this would be a lovely occasion for the ladies, however it seems all my friends have flown the coop to go get advanced degrees. Before their departure, they planned a rockin Wedding Weekend, and I just couldn't see them coming back to Atlanta for another party in my honor.

So, rather than a formal Bridal Shower for girls only, how about a Fiesta?? They called it an Engagement Party so it was clear this was a girls plus boys minus presents kind of affair. Casual, fun, Taqueria del Sol extravaganza.

Thank god it's cooled off in Hotlanta. Our building's courtyard was the perfect setting for the Moms to conspire.

Party begins! Love Sister Bird's beautiful blue & green maxi dress.

Naturally, Victory dives into the incredible Taqueria del Sol goodies. Did I mention we're fans?

Momma & Pop Bird with Mr. B's parents. Fast friends for years!

Bride and groom to be. Note the very timely coozies.

Sister Bird & Poppa Bird testing out the banana/chocolate ganache and chocolate/cream cheese cupcakes! Sister Bird is quite the talented baker.

Relaxed, fun, delicious. All words I hope our actual big day will live up to.

V: Shoe Saga Concludes--Black is Practical, but boots are more fun anyway

Behold, my closet's latest resident: Cole Haan Petra boots with Nike Air cushioning.

Perfect for a late fall honeymoon in Italy, don't you think? OMG, life is complete. And yes, these count as 'wedding shoes' in the budget.

Oh, and I got something to wear at the actual wedding too. Guess's Janesca is way on sale at Nordstrom, coming in at a much more wallet-friendly $52. My review: very comfortable and stable-feeling, with a manageable 2.75" heel.

It's pretty darn near impossible to find black pumps that are NOT patent leather this season, but these are technically just shiny black leather.

For the wedding, I'm thinking of dressing them up with a classic shoe clip. Then they will live on as a totally great pair practical of black heels. Perfecto!

V: Evolution of a Website

Guess we all need to carve out our own little piece of cyberspace [see: this blog]. We made a nice little website in plenty of time before our invites went out. But the night after sending everything out, I busted out a complete different site, sparked by the genius of friend Caitee, a web guru getting married in September.

Version #1: A free wedding website from BridalFever.com. They have absolutely incredible templates. The backend interface is very simple, but limited in capabilities [no images or embedding code into the pages]. The sites appear to be in Flash, which cannot be viewed on mobile phones or easily linked to individual pages. Still, very nice looking sites.

Version #2: Wordpress.com! While these free sites are technically a platform for blogging, but with the Pages feature and tagging/categories, you can create a very neat website. Templates are limited, but the ability to have comments, embed video, photos and special Google maps really make this a great option.

Front page:

Interior page with directions from Ceremony to Reception in an embedded Google map:

Either way, when making a wedding website, my advice to you is to definitely purchase your own domain name. It's so cheap, and if you don't have to worry about an ugly URL, you can just go with your favorite template.

Knot.com, you are crazy.

Ok. So has anyone else noticed that theknot.com classifies weddings based on either where they are, what colors were used, location (inside vs outside), etc.? Have you noticed that whenever someone non-white is getting married, they call it a "cultural wedding"? I, personally, think that this is both inappropriate and hilarious. I mean, HELLO! Knot.com, what are you thinking? Just because some asian guy is marrying a white girl doesn't mean that the only notable aspect of their wedding is that they are "cultural." They might as well say "an asian wedding in Denver", it's equally gauche. That's my two cents.

V: Wedding Night Lodging

Newsflash: Mr. B & I shack up. And I'm assuming our little apartment is going to be one standing levy short of a disaster zone come wedding week.

It's not exactly a special moment to come home to our every day place with it's every day mess.

So where to stay? Not with the family room block, let me tell you. How about an extremely affordable,  highly rated, non-chain, boutique, historic hotel? Sounds perfect. How does the Ellis do it?

SL: Seating Chart Software

Hello party people. I haven't been posting lately because my wedding is too effing close and I'm busier than a bee. Or something like that. Anyway, 19 days left and now it's time for the seating chart. I have found the key: Seating Arrangement, which is seating chart software! You can put in your guest list, design the floor plan and play around with the seating arrangements and people pairings! It's pretty cool, must say. You can import your guest list and your floor plan too. One of the neater features is that you can classify people by social group or age to help remind you what people you think should sit together. So, I split the groups into college friends, high school friends and post-high school friends to make things easier.

http://www.seatingarrangement.com/

Now that the science of seating people is squared away, what to do with people who don't know anyone? That's a completely different challenge that we'll leave to another day.

Speaking of awkward, check this out. It's hilarious.