Once Upon a September

One year ago we wanted our wedding to be as personal and unique as possible.  We wanted our closest friends and family to be involved in our special day as much as possible.  

 First Mark and I thought it would be nice to have someone who we know personally to be our officiant.  There were a few people that we knew and were considering.  We decided to have Kevin to officiate our wedding, and we could not have picked anyone better.  Kevin is one of the few people I trust in this world.  He's been a friend of mine since High School, competing together in the Drum Major competitions. 

 

 

A wedding day is a day for the Bride and Groom.  But we wanted to honor some very special people in our lives.  So of course we wanted to honor our parents. We did the traditional rose ceremony for them and we placed pictures from their wedding day on our cake table.  We also wanted to honor our loved ones that were no longer with us.  For my Grandfather, Marks Grandparents and Uncle we had a special song ("Footprints In The Sand" by Leona Lewis) dedicated to them at the reception.  Just about a week before the wedding my Dad had a wonderful idea to wear something that belonged to my Grandfather to represent him.  My Grandmother didn't have much of anything that he could wear but a Canucks hockey pin.  That gesture from my Dad meant so much to me because when I was in High School, before Chico was part of my life, I always said when I get married my Grandfather was going to walk me down the aisle.

During the time that we were looking for ideas for our wedding favors, I was looking through a magazine at my work.  I saw a section that said you could donate to St. Jude's Research Hospital.  I thought this was an awesome idea.  So Mark and I took the money for our favors and donated it to St. Jude's.  We also had a special display for a friend of mine that had passed almost 3 years prior.  I will not go into the long story the display told.  But if Chau was still here today there is nothing I would have loved more then for her to be there.

A few accessories I was wearing during the day were small personal items.  A small little thing that was special to me was my necklace.  My necklace wasn't just my "something borrowed" it was the necklace my Mom wore at her wedding.  And my hope one day is to have a daughter who will also wear that necklace at her wedding.  My veil was homemade.  I bought the veil from Joann's Fabrics and lined it with crystal ribbon scrapbooking stickers.

There is a story behind the bridesmaids dresses and the color of the wedding.  First Mark and I were considering a blue or a purple color for our wedding.  But when I found my dress and I saw the bridesmaid dress that was very similar I wanted to go that direction.  The bridesmaid dresses in particular to me looked like rose buds and I love the look of deep pink rose buds.  So we decided to go with the color the dresses and to have roses at our wedding.  Some people asked why I choose pink over red since I don't care for the color pink.  That's easy, I hate the color red more.

Probably the largest personal detail of the wedding was the talk of the Crystal Room, the Grooms Cake.  I still can not believe the cake we were able to get.  When Mark and I talked about a Grooms Cake of course I knew he was going to talk about Mater.  Since a Disney Wedding is something he always wanted, I was not going to tell him no on his Grooms Cake.  When we first got engaged my Mom told us about a friend of hers that makes beautiful wedding cakes.  I looked at her work and wanted her to make our cake.  However, since we decided to get married through the Christian Wedding Center, the cake was part of the package.  So we asked if she would make the Grooms Cake.  At first Mark and I were talking about having a simple sheet cake with a picture of Mater on it.  When "Cars 2" came out we thought it would be cool to have Mater with Holley on the cake.  However when Ildi showed me the sample cake,  I just let her do her thing.  I could not believe what she was able to do after she said she never made a cake in a shape of a car and has never heard of the character "Mater" before then.  

We Thank You!

Hello everyone!  It's been a long time since we have posted a blog entry and there is a reason for that.  I do not want to get into specific details because I do not want to give satisfaction to others.  You see, I started this blog because I wanted to create a different kind of memory besides the pictures and the video that captures the close intimate details of our wedding.  After the wedding, Mark and I agreed not to continue with the blog because we did not want a large group of people to know any aspect of the wedding.  However, now that it has been a year later, we don't feel that it was fair to ourselves to let others change our plans.  So as part of my one year anniversary gift to my husband I am going to continue this blog as planned.  Happy First Anniversary Mark!  I LOVE YOU!!!!

August 31, 2011, the wedding we had planned for September 24, 2011 started to fall apart.  Along with approximately 20 guest, the lady who was planned to do my hair and make-up, as well and my girls make-up decided she wasn't coming to the wedding.  Two life long friends who were part of the ceremony to bless the rings and give the blessing for the meal at the reception flaked out on me three weeks before the wedding.  You better believe I was a very hurt and stressed bride.  It's amazing how you can feel you have hit rock bottom and God just comes and sends his blessings.  It was in our time of need that so many stepped up and did all they could to save our wedding.  First, I want to thank my girls Kristina, Stephanie, Nicole along with my Mom and Mother-in-Law Prudy for helping me find a new hair stylist and make-up artist for me and themselves.  We want to thank Nicole for doing my nieces hair and Dee for helping with the bridesmaids hair.  Thank you Pat for my hair, I never though my hair could look that good.  Thank you Julie, for not just my make-up but also my girls make-up as well.  They were beautiful.  Thank you to Kevin (our Officiant) for covering the blessing of the rings even though that was not the original plan.  Thank you to Kathleen for giving the blessing of the meal on such short notice.  You all were a blessing from God and saved our special day.

Of course there are other people we want to thank.  Thank you to Elsa and Stephanie for setting up the Crystal Room.  We will never forget how beautiful the room looked.  It was perfect.  A very special thank you to Ildi for staying up all night baking that fabulous Grooms Cake, which by the way, had to be the hit of the party.  Thank you to our beautiful wedding coordinator, Bonnie.  We were sad that Bonnie wasn't able to make it to the wedding, due to being hospitalize that morning.  But she did a fabulous job helping us plan our special day.

And finally, thank you to all of our guest who came and gave us your blessings.  
You made it our perfect day, a day neither one of us will ever forget.  

 

Tying the Knot and Sailing Away...

Well, Our wedding is just around the corner, and we just finished with all the major details of the wedding.  We are very confident that our wedding is going to turn out to be beautiful, classy, and hopefully everyone will enjoy it.  We are both very excited for our big day but are probably more excited about the honeymoon.  Yes, we are going on a Disney Cruise for our honeymoon.  Great compromise...the Bride loves the ocean, the Groom loves Disney, could it be any better?  It's little compromises like these that makes us realize how perfect we are for each other.  So anyways, here some videos that we found on YouTube about the Disney Cruise we would like to share with you. Enjoy.

THE BOAT

THE ROOMS

THE CRUISE

THE WATER SLIDE

THE HORN

A WAKE-UP CALL

Good Advice : )

Marks Wedding Nightmare, Vol. 1

Our Room of Requirements.

Mark and I got to go to our "Idea Room" appointment.  The Idea Room is something unique to the Christian Wedding Planning Center.  The idea room was full of flowers, linens, cake ideas, centerpieces, lighting ideas, candles, and everything else you can think of for weddings.  This so far was the funnest part of the wedding planning for us.  We were joined by our Mothers and Kristina, my Maid of Honor, to help us design our table settings, centerpieces, the cake and everything else.  Above you can see the picture of our final decision.  LOL!  Just kidding.    

Table Setting Ideas

A Thought for a Centerpiece

Bonnie, who runs the CWPC was very helpful with helping design the centerpiece.  I was very pleased when I showed her a picture of a centerpiece I found off of Google and she made it better for us.

The CWPC has so many different choices for flowers, I know when the time comes for me to make a decision on flowers it's not going to be easy.

Cake Designs

Mark and I have decided on our cake, since we both agree not to share final details, it's not here.  But these were some designs we were looking at.

I just love this picture.

What's so fascinating?  Well, that is just something you will have wait to see.  : )

It's hard to believe that our special day is almost four months away.  The planning is starting to get busy but very exciting.  Special thank you to my Mother in Law to be for taking the pictures.  : )

My Montage 1/17/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com