Registry Stalking

If y'all are anything like me, you've been busy attending holiday parties, baking cupcakes and cookies, and wrapping presents.  It's just that time of year!  The holiday season has got me thinking about presents.  When I was little, I was that horrible child who climbed up into my parents' closet (which they thought was a good hiding place) and shook each wrapped Christmas and Hanukkah present to try to guess what was inside.  Well, apparently I'm no different with wedding presents.  Yes, I'm aware that I'm an adult now.

Hive, I am guilty of registry stalking.  You know, your online registry shows what you want and what you have.  As guests start buying gifts, that little "fulfilled" column starts to fill up.  Well, occasionally I like to check out that little fulfilled column to see what's new.

The sad part is that we received our first registry gift before I acquired this stalking habit...and that surprise made the gift that much more special!  We had just sent out our Save-the-Dates, so we were a little confused when we received a wedding gift in the mail 10 months before our wedding.

Confused Lions

When we opened it up to find the following gift, the surprise got even better!

Lion Corgi was not nearly as entertained by my matching apron as I was.

You'd think after enjoying the surprise of our first gift so much, I'd stop ruining surprises by registry stalking.  What can I say?  I can't help myself!

How about you?  Are you resisting the urge to registry stalk or are you as guilty as I am?

Somewhere Between Greedy and Guilty

Disclaimer: This is a money-related post.  I will try my best not to offend, but I'd also like to be honest.  Bear with me :)

Lately, I've been experiencing a good bit of guilt about our wedding.  Not only are we spending a lot of money on things I would usually find frivolous, we're also asking our guests to spend money on presents, on top of all of their travel expenses.  This makes me feel as though I come across like this:

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I wouldn't go as far as to say that I had a humble upbringing.  Especially when I compare my parents' background to that of Mr. Lion's parents, who came to this country with very little, I feel incredibly fortunate.  My parents were comfortable, but not nearly wealthy.  Even if my parents had been well-off, I think Sister Lioness and I would still be raised with the same morals and values when it came to money.  My parents prioritized travel and education, but they were pretty thrifty with everything else.  As soon as I was old enough to work, I did.  My parents were more than happy to give me everything I needed, but if I wanted something, I worked for it and bought it myself.  This taught me to spend conservatively and carefully consider every purchase.

I now have an internal conflict brewing between the usual scrutiny that takes place over purchases and the more liberal spending I've been doing with our wedding.  This makes me feel guilty/sad/awkward/bad.  Like this:

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We're spending $20,000 on our wedding, which, according to Cost of Wedding, is below the average cost of an Atlanta wedding.  But to me, it seems like a fortune.  My car was $8,600 when I bought it at age 16.  Mr. Lion and I do not own our home.  I've just never spent that much money on one thing!  So when I look at all those zeros in our budget, I feel a little overwhelmed.

I know what you're thinking: "Sooo don't spend that much money.  Tah dah!  Problem solved!"  Well, the issue is that I want certain things for our wedding...certain things that end up adding up to about $20,000.

When we first got engaged, my parents offered to contribute $8,000.  Anything beyond that was up to us.  Could we have a wedding for $8,000?  Of course!  I've seen some beautiful weddings that end up costing even less than that!  But, it's not what we wanted.  We made a list of everything we wanted, we researched to determine approximately what those things would cost, and the figure we ended up with was $20,000.  After the $8,000 contribution from my parents, we were left with a $12,000 contribution from our own savings.  Given our 20-month engagement, we decided that saving this amount was doable.  Doable, but still not necessary ethical in my mind.

After over a year of wedding planning (and wedding purchasing), I still have moments where I feel incredibly guilty for the amount of money I'm spending.  For example, when we decided to have cupcakes at our wedding, we decided to top those cupcakes with little pinwheels.

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Cute, right?  And they match our whimsical theme, yes?  The only problem was that there was no way I was DIY-ing hundreds of these.  I don't have the patience of Mrs. Guinea Pig :) I found an Etsy seller who made pinwheels like these at a price that fit within our budget.  Still, I debated about buying them for an embarrassing amount of time.  It just seemed so silly to spend money on paper that would attach to a toothpick, stick into a cupcake for a couple of hours, then get thrown away.  After a ridiculous amount of discussion with many people, I finally sucked it up and bought them.

I feel the same way about wedding gifts.  Mr. Lion and I were thrilled to create gift registries.  We greedily ran through Bed Bath & Beyond with our registry gun, zapping everything in sight that we even slightly liked.  Then, our friends (who are also engaged) told us that they are not registering for their wedding.  "We've lived together for a few years already," they said.  "We've already built our home.  We already have everything we need."  Well, when you look at it that way, I suppose we have everything we need, too.  Sure, our kitchen is full of hand-me-downs from the 1970s (and not in the cool, retro kind of way), but everything works.  I was instantly transformed from greedy to guilty.

The guilt is something I'm continuing to work on.  The good news is that the people who will be attending our wedding would never even think about passing judgment on us or on our spending.  They love us, and they support us.  I take solace in the fact that this is only an internal conflict, not an external one.  I've been feeling better about my spending lately, but the idea of so many people spending money on us still makes me slightly uncomfortable.  It's new and foreign to me, but I'm sure that when the time comes, I'll just be happy to have received so much love from our guests!

Has anyone else felt this way about their wedding spending or their wedding gifting?

If I Had A Million Dollars

If money was no object when it came to our wedding, the first thing I would change is the amount of money I'm spending on my bridesmaids.  Out of the 6 Lioness Bmaids, 5 are in grad/med/law school and only one lives in Atlanta.  This means lots of travel expenses on very tight budgets.  These ladies have both literally and figuratively gone the distance for me, and I just wish I could afford to thank them more than I already plan to.  If I had the means, I would get them something like this:

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Hive, allow me to introduce you to 1154 Lill Studio, a custom handbag design company.  Sure, they have stuff like this on Etsy, but one of the things that makes 1154 Lill so fun is the experience.  You see, unless you live in Chicago or Boston where they have actual studios (or if you just shop online), you find a representative and design your own bag at a 1154 Lill party!  How fun would it be to have a handbag designing party with your bridesmaids?

You start with a blank canvas, which comes in every shape and size:

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Then, you choose your fabrics.  Note: you can also buy any of these fabrics by the yard...so you could make handbags to match your decor!

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I wish I could do this for my girls, but unfortunately it's just not possible.  Don't worry though; I have a few tricks up my sleeve in addition to the shoes and fascinators that they know they're getting!  What are you getting your bridesmaids as gifts?  What would you get them if you could get them anything?

A Surprise for Mr. Lion: Part 2

We last left off discussing how I planned to wear a personalized garter as a special surprise for Mr. Lion.  But there's a Part Two to my little surprise, so...

I promised you that I'd make it up to Mr. Lion after embarrassing him with a Red Sox garter.  Allow me to introduce you to the gift I will be giving Mr. Lion on our wedding day:

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Mariano Rivera, the relief pitcher of the New York Yankees, is arguably Mr. Lion's favorite baseball player of all time.  Nearly two months to the day before we got engaged, he had his 500th save.  To those of you not familiar with baseball, this is a really big deal.  Best of all, Rivera the last current player to wear the number 42, which is our wedding date.

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So, I got Mr. Lion an autographed baseball from Mariano Rivera's 500th save.  I will be giving him that baseball as a wedding gift.  Yes, Red Sox fans can be humble...but only when love is involved.

Well then.  That's enough baseball talk for one week!  Anyone else caught the World Series bug?

Good News!

Not only have I now graduated (Dr. Gringa?) but after two months of studying, I was FINALLY granted permission to take the boards.  It's a long application process, and not a very efficient one at that.  I took my exam this past Thursday on a computer at a testing center, and they told me that I should have my results by the weekend.  As soon as I woke up Friday morning, I checked the status online and saw this:

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So I should be able to start work within the next week because I am an officially licensed physical therapist!  Additionally, now that I'm no longer studying 24/7, I can be devoting full time to floating blogging (sorry, Disney references sneak into my diction every now and then).  Thank goodness, because I have a LOT to update you on!

Since this is the good news post though, I figure I should share some more good news: we got our first wedding present in the mail!  We still have eight months to go, so we were pretty surprised.  In fact, I was certain that there had to be some kind of mistake!  I'm a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding next weekend, and we had just purchased a gift for them from their registry at Bed Bath & Beyond.  So when the UPS man showed up at our doorstep with a Bed Bath & Beyond box, I was pretty sure that I had clicked "ship to billing address" instead of "ship to registered address!"  Sr Groom insisted that we open it just in case.

We opened the box to find a very large, very heavy, gift-wrapped box.  We got our friends some lightweight bakeware, so I was starting to think that this large box might actually be for us.

Sr. Groom and Miss Corgi looking VERY confused

We found a note that said it was from my mom's cousins, the lovely people who were generous enough to let me stay with them during my clinical affiliation in Boston.  Now, we had just sent out our Save the Dates (more on that soon!), which had our website listed on it, which lists our registries.  I suppose this means people are officially aware of our registries now, but I still couldn't understand why someone would get us a wedding gift this early unless they wanted to make sure they were able to grab something REALLY special before it got fulfilled by someone else.  But the only thing THAT special on our registry was...GASP.

I couldn't take pictures of what came next because I was simply too busy jumping up and down and squealing.

The.  Kitchen Aid.  Stand.  Mixer.

This was a few days before boards, so I told myself that I would leave it in it's box and play with it if and when I passed.  Well, as I mentioned earlier, I passed...so I rewarded myself.

I named it "The Glacier" because it's ice blue.

Sugar cookies with cream cheese buttercream frosting...and the frosting matches!  Oh, and so does my apron.

Miss Corgi's usual place, under my feet while I'm cooking.

I have to say, as far as first gifts go, this one was pretty stellar.  What made it even better was the timing of it.  It led to some long overdue fun, and it meant so much to me because we received it from such wonderful people.

What was your first wedding gift?  How was it significant to you?

Push the Button, Commander!

The title of this blog post is brought to you by one of our favorite married couples: Ryan (who is one of Mr. Lion's Groomsmen) and Emily (who is one of my best friends from grad school).  We were at Disney World (as most of my great stories begin), and we were on EPCOT's Mission Space.  For those of you who have never been on Mission Space, there actually is a mission.  You have to push a button.  The problem?  The ride simulates space and all of its super fun gravitational effects.  So, when you try to push a button, it's nearly impossible to lift your arm because it feels like it weighs three tons.  Each passenger gets a different role and Emily was assigned "Commander."  When it was her turn to push the button, Ryan kept screaming "PUSH THE BUTTON, COMMANDER!" but it was too hard for her to lift her arm!  He truly believed that if she failed to complete her part of the mission, they would be doomed.  Of course, it's a ride and that's not the case.  She finally made it and accomplished the mission, but not without giving us an amazing Ryan story.

But I digress.

This post is about our first engagement gift that we received.  Sister Lioness, who is my Maid of Honor, is an incredibly generous, thoughtful, and creative human being.  She wanted to do something special not just for me, but for the entire bridal party.  She loved the idea of custom tees for bachelorette parties and pre-wedding pampering, but she wanted something that we could use over and over again, something that would be versatile enough to be used for a variety of occasions.

Hive, allow me to introduce to you The Embroidery Shoppe.

Source: The Embroidery Shoppe on Facebook

The Embroidery Shoppe is a small business based out of Gainesville, Florida, home of my Florida Gators.  I'm a huge fan of artisans who are able to turn their craft into something lucrative (more about Etsy later).  I first heard about The Embroidery Shoppe through one of my sorority sisters.  This company is a Southern sorority girl's dream.  They hand-craft totes, koozies, and buttons with the preppiest of materials in order to create one-of-a-kind accessories.  Sister Lioness had this made for me about a year ago in honor of Timmy's last season with the Gators:

 Personal photo: Is that a gameday necessity or what?

So when Sister Lioness decided that she wanted something all of the bridesmaids could wear over and over again, she knew who to contact.  I had told her that our wedding colors would be some shade of green and white, with some accent color (which later turned out to be aqua).  She collaborated with the girls at The Embroidery Shoppe and decided on fabric, font, etc.  Here's what they came up with:

Source: The Embroidery Shoppe on Facebook  Yup, they totally featured OUR buttons!  How fun is that?!

If that doesn't say Southern spring wedding, I don't know what does!  They're even cuter in person, and The Embroidery Shoppe truly did a brilliant job when making them.  The quality really is amazing!  My girls absolutely loved them, and we plan to wear them for showers, the bachelorette party, and while getting ready before the wedding.  Most of all, I just appreciated the effort Sister Lioness put forth in order to have them made.  I'm certainly a lucky bride!

What was your first gift as an engaged couple?  What was sentimentally significant about it?

Meet Me Halfway

Mama Lioness is the antithesis of Mother of the Bride.  I grew up in the South and view myself as a Southern Belle, but that certainly doesn't mean I have a Southern family.  My family is from New England, but my mom grew up overseas.  My grandfather was a diplomat, so she lived all over...mostly in South America and the Caribbean.  Yes, Mama Lioness is actually more latina than gringa.  Hey, maybe that's why I ended up with a Cubano!

I'm Southern, so I grew up dreaming of grande romances comparable to Scarlett & Rhett's.  I'm Floridian, so I grew up dreaming of Prince Charming whisking me away as woodland creatures frolicked about.  She's slightly more practical than I am.  She loves Mr. Lion, she loves that we're happy, and she's super excited about the wedding.  But when it comes to every detail and every ridiculous expense, it's hard for her to see why it's important to me.

On the one hand, it's nice having her a bit removed.  I'm a control freak and I would not function well with an overbearing mother trying to be too involved in my decisions.  On the other hand, sometimes I wished she understood why the smallest, dumbest traditions were so important to me.

Fortunately, I've found a way to solve this problem.  Mama Lioness is super creative.  I figured if I could find ways to incorporate her creativity and her individuality, she could be the Mother of the Bride that I wanted her to be without changing who she is.  I've made an effort to stick to that plan, and so far it's been quite successful and I think she really appreciates it!  This is my first act of compromise:

 Source: Paperback Swap

This book was PERFECT for my mom.  It's dry, original, and realistic, yet still heartwarming.  She loved it, and it made me really happy to give it to her!

Did you find a fun way to get a family member involved in your planning process?