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?

A Surprise for Mr. Lion

I love when a bride's wedding day accessories reflect her personality.  It's even more adorable when she sneaks in a little something to reflect her significant other's personality.  And what better place for that than the garter?  It's discreet, intimate, but not any less fun!  I thought that my garter would be a good place to do just that.

...because my garter is actually a practical joke.  Mr. Lion and I do not have the most serious of relationships.  We're kinda silly together.  Exhibit A:

Personal photo: dressing up like cows for free food

Basically, he knew this was coming.  So how is my garter a practical joke, you ask?  I've mentioned in the past that Mr. Lion is a huge Yankees fan, while I'm a huge Red Sox fan.  Welllll....

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Words cannot express how psyched I am to see the look on his face when he sees this.  Don't worry though; it's all in good fun.  Besides, I'm making it up to him with a Yankees-themed groom's gift.  You'll see!  Stay tuned!

A Bee's Life: Lioness Edition

How did I find Weddingbee?
Mr. Lion and I had been engaged for about, um, two days when I got a phone call from some random company telling me that I had won a FULL SET OF COOKINGWARE AND THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION TO BUY OMG SO EXCITING!  Naturally, I was skeptical.  If you have to say "no obligation to buy," there's usually an obligation to buy!  Just sayin'.  However, I do have a soft spot for kitchen toys cooking, so I decided to Google this company before writing it off completely.

The Weddingbee Boards were the first hit.  According to a post on this message board, this company was part of some kind of bridal scam.  I read through and found all sorts of unbiased opinions about this and other scams.  I appreciated the honesty, but what really drew me in was the sass.  One post on this board topic said something along the lines of, "No!  They're definitely not a scam!  I went to the meeting at that hotel by the airport and I got a free set of cookware AND THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION TO BUY OMG SO EXCITING!"  As you can imagine, the posts following this one exposed the fraud.  "Clearly, you work for them sooo take your nonsense somewhere else," and responses like this caught my attention.  These gals had moxie.  They had spunk.  They had...personality.

But, I moved to Boston for my three-month clinical affiliation, Mr. Lion and I did the long-distance thing for a little bit, and wedding planning was put on the back burner.  I put those sassy girls and their fun wedding-related comments out of my mind and moved on to other things...like teaching people how to walk after they get a liver transplant!  Okay, okay, so I didn't put wedding planning out of my mind completely.  There was still some brainstorming going on.  The first true wedding-related idea I had was that I wanted a DIY photobooth, a fauxtobooth if you will.  One day, I was on the phone with Mama Lioness and I was trying to explain the concept to her.  She's such a visual learner, I thought it would be easier if I had a visual aid to convey my vision.  So, I Googled it.  Mrs. Avocado's post just so happened to pop up!  I saw that little bee logo and instantly recognized the site.  Well hello again, old friend!  Weddingbee was bookmarked and brainstorming officially turned into planning.

My Application Story:
I've always loved to write, and I'd had a cooking blog for a little while, so I felt like I was at least on my way to "finding my voice."  At first, I didn't think I would be able to smoothly transition from food blogger to wedding blogger because I was afraid I would run out of things to talk about.  As we got deeper into our engagement, however, I found that all I talked about were weddings!  I knew I just had to be a part of this community so that I could share my ideas and give back for all they had given me.  I counted down the days until I was eight months away from our wedding, started up a wedding blog for the sole purpose of applying, and decided to close my eyes and leap.

Sister Lioness started to read Weddingbee recently, too (probably because I talk about it so much).  She's not wedding planning (though she is MOH in the Lioness wedding!), but she appreciates the DIY projects, the witty writing, and the sense of community throughout the Hive.  She'll text me things like "Did you see what Stripes posted today?!  Her DIY projects are amazing!" and "Haha!  Starfish and Sister Starfish remind me of us!"  I didn't want to tell her when I applied to blog because I didn't want to have to tell her that I got rejected.  Well, I didn't have to!  I got that beautiful email from Pengy and just texted Sister Lioness with "Mrs. Penguin thinks I would be a great addition to Weddingbee."  Squealing ensued.

On Being a Weddingbee Blogger:
I'm not gonna lie, it's hard work!  I write as often as I can, though not as often as I'd like to.  You know what though?  It's so worth it.  I love every second of it.  Every comment I get just makes my day!  I really appreciate all of the feedback and all of the ideas.  I feel so ridiculously lucky that I became a Bee as early on as possible; it's like I get to go into overtime with you guys!  You, Hive, are shaping my wedding journey so much and I am so appreciative for that.

The best advice I can offer for those thinking of applying to blog is to "bee yourself."

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The posts that I write while I'm in a goofy mood are the posts that receive the most comments.  Y'all seem to like me for who I am, and I'm sure this community would be no different for any of you!  So write in a way that reflects who you are and be proud of it.  Even if it's a little quirky at times.

Whew!  Did you read that whole thing?!  Did it put you to sleep?!?!  I know Lion Corgi's wiped out...

{personal photo...please excuse Mr. Lion's 5:00 shadow}

Playing with Paint

Remember how we got engaged on a hot air balloon?  Remember how I found that random old mailbox while antiquing?  Remember how I'm a huge Disney geek?  Yeahhh I'm not gonna link to that last one...I'm sure I've mentioned it once or twice :)

One of my new favorite love stories is Disney/Pixar's "Up."  One of the film's scenes features our hero, Carl, decorating his new home with his new wife, Ellie.  They're painting their house all kinds of fun colors, when they decide to take the paint a step further and "personalize" their mailbox.  It was so sweet, so simple.  Hmmm...maybe a mailbox with similar decorations would make a nice holding place for photobooth (more on that later) props!  Behold, the inspiration.

Sources (clockwise from top left): super robot monster, The Best Things in Life Begin with J, Wildflowers Photography via Wedding Chicks

Materials:

• One giant aluminum mailbox.  Bonus points if it looks like it has a story behind it (i.e. a dent on the side).  I don't know why.  It's just more fun that way.
• Acrylic paint (I chose acrylic because it would be safe on skin and tough on the aluminum)
• Paintbrushes
• Little to no artistic skills.

 I used a paintbrush to paint Mr. Lion's hand to prepare for handprinting:

He's making that face because "it's the first step towards becoming a Ninja Turtle"

Next, Mr. Lion gave his stamp of approval:

Then, I added my handprint so that our prints were holding hands:

Then, I used a paintbrush to write our names next to our handprints:

Tah dah!
{all personal photos unless otherwise noted}

It's probably the easiest DIY project on our to do list, yet it's probably the one I'm the most excited about!

Inviting the VIPs: Batting .250!

Good news, everyone! (Did you say that a la Professor Farnsworth?  You were supposed to.)  You may recall that we sent out a few wedding invitations a bit early in order to provide ample opportunity for our VIPs to send us some brag-worthy responses.  Well, that didn't take too long, now did it?!  I opened our mailbox the other day to find this:

Figures.  Disney World is the first one I get back.  It's like they know me!

I ignored the fact that it was all bent up and shoved into our tiny mailbox (despite the "DO NOT BEND" in red ink) and hastily opened it to find this!

You called it, Miss Giraffe!  Why, thank you Cinderella and Prince Charming!  We're very much looking forward to happily ever after.  The only problem?  We invited Mickey and Minnie, not Cinderella and Prince Charming.  Um.  Awkward.

{all personal photos/screencaps}

Will we hear from the President, the Pope, or Disneyland?  You keep checking here; I'll keep checking my mailbox!

Personalizing the OOT Bags

In addition to our groceries, a map, and a list of our favorite local places, I wanted to include a personal note in our OOT bags.  Sticking with our local theme, I found these lovely letterpress notecards:

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Yes, they're beautiful, but I had my reservations.  First of all, they were a little too expensive for me.  My main concern, however, was the wording.  "Greetings from Atlanta?"  It may sound trivial, but I really wanted "welcome to Atlanta."  I know, I know, cue Luda soundtrack.  But seriously.  We're welcoming them into our home, not greeting them from afar!

Well, if you can't find the right notecard, you just have to create it yourself!  There's a sign on Ponce (a major road here) that I knew would be a perfect setting for a photo shoot.  We grabbed a prop, called up our photographer friend, and brought along Lion Corgi for a little doggie cameo.

{photos courtesy of Weddings by Evan Hampton}

I love Lion Corgi's face in that first one...she's like "Do you see my dad in the background?  Is he for real right now?"

How are you personalizing your OOT bags?

OOT Scoot Boogie

Every time I see "OOT," I start singing "Boot Scoot Boogie."  Maybe that's not normal.  But that's just what happens.

Of course, I'm talking about OOT bags, or out-of-town bags!  Approximately 84% of our guest list will be coming into Atlanta from elsewhere.   Most are from Florida, we have several from Massachusetts, and even a few from overseas!  Many of these loved ones have already expressed that they plan to attend our wedding.  Mr. Lion and I are just so humbled by the fact that these people would inconvenience themselves just for us; the least we can do is give them a little somethin' extra to make their stay more comfortable.

Though I've never actually received an OOT bag as a wedding guest, I've run into quite a few in the wedding blogosphere.  My personal favorites are the ones with a theme:

A Baseball Basket by Kate Parker Weddings

I like the idea of building a basket around the couples' interests (like the baseball one above), but what better theme for an OOT bag than a local theme?  As an OOT guest, I would appreciate some exposure to local fare and flair; I'm sure some others would feel the same way.  Most city-specific OOT bags that I encountered included a map, a list of fun local places, and some local delicacies, not unlike this Miami bag:

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I found all kinds of inspiration for cities across the Northeast and the West Coast, but it was slim pickins for little old Atlanta.  Then, I found some inspiration where I least expected it:

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A light bulb went off over my head during one of my cherished weekly trips to TJ's.  What if we bought groceries for our OOT guests?!  And not just groceries...Georgia-themed groceries!  So naturally, I bought as many of these babies as I could get my paws on (Get it?  Lioness?)

{personal photo}

Trader Joe's makes these reusable grocery bags for every major city (Sister Lioness has a really cute NYC one with a fun spin on Lady Liberty's "Give Me Your Tired").  They're only $1 and they're fabulous.  We decided to fill our Atlanta bags with:

• A glass bottle of Coca Cola
• Peaches
• Pecans
• Peanuts

Aaaand that's about all I've got so far.  "Cotton" balls?  Maybe some vidalia onion jelly?  Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thinking Ahead

Remember my Save the Dates that I blogged about here?  Remember that gorgeous template that I used from Wedding Chicks here?

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Oh, you do remember?  Great!  Well, you may recall that templates were available for 2010 and 2011 months.  2012 brides, you're in luck!  Wedding Chicks recently updated the template to accommodate your plans as well.  You'll find the 2012 template here.  Just wanted to pass that along!

The Final Florals

Hive, I've been really psyched about this post.  Flowers used to be totally out of my comfort zone, but then I educated myself by searching through tons and tons of inspiration pictures, and by brainstorming with our florist.  The more knowledgeable I became, the easier it was to choose the right flowers to convey the look I was going for.  If you share my flower personality of romantic and whimsical with a hint of fluffy, I hope you will find the following somewhat educational.

In our case, finalizing the flowers didn't just bring together our style.  It also helped to establish a palette for our wedding.  We had already decided on shamrock green and pool blue, but those two colors are hard to find in flowers.  Sister Lioness also pointed out that those were two "cool" colors.  She thought it would be a good idea to add in an accent color just to brighten things up.  Our florist suggested yellow, and my excitement towards our flowers grew even more.  I love yellow, but with Irish skin and hair, it's not always something I feel I can pull off.  But as an accent to two colors that I know I can pull of?  Sure!  Why the heck not!

Our final palette, courtesy of Color Combos

With that style and palette in mind, we decided on the following:

White Peonies

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Peonies definitely satisfy the "fluffy" criterion.  In fact, they exemplify it.  These things are huge, soft, and sweet.  The downside?  They were actually the most expensive of all the flowers we used...so we didn't end up using a lot of them.  These flowers are most easily available during late spring and early summer.

White Garden Roses

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Garden roses are a bit more offbeat than traditional roses.  They're typically cut and arranged after they've had a chance to bloom a little bit, rather than the tight-knit buds.

White Ranunculus

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I love ranunculus.  Ranunculi?  Ranunculuses?  Anywho.  To me, they look like the quirky cousin of the rose.  Their layers of petals seem to spiral around the center of the bud, creating a sense of whimsy.  The best time of year for them is April or May, so they were perfect for us!  Fun fact: buttercups are members of the ranunculus family.  True story!

Green Hypericum Berries

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Hypericum berries are probably my favorite way to add a touch of color to a mostly-white arrangement.  They're so dainty, but they can add so much contrast.

Blue Thistle

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Okay, this is the part where I start squealing a little bit.  But really, look how cute they are!  They just remind me of "Horton Hears a Who" or something.

Yellow Tea Roses

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Tea roses are similar to the garden roses above, but they're smaller and more delicate.  In yellow, they reminded me of something from "Beauty and the Beast."  (Sorry.  You knew that was going to be in here somewhere.)

Cotton Blooms

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Wanna know the easiest way to save money on flowers?  Don't use flowers!  Seriously though, I've seen so many brides use fabric or paper or brooch bouquets, and it always looks stunning.  One of my new favorite trends is cotton.  It's fluffy and it fills a lot of space.  Best of all, it doesn't matter whether it's real or fake...no one can tell the difference!

Yellow Ranunculus

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I love the pop of color this adds.  I'm especially excited to see it next to the white ranunculus.

Fiddlehead Ferns

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I love this one so much, even the name makes me smile!  I'm so excited to use this on the boutonnieres.  It's whimsy at its finest, in my opinion.

White Hydrangea

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These will only be in our centerpieces, not in the bouquets.  I love hydrangeas, but they are thirsty little devils.  They do not do well outside of a vase for a very long time.  Additionally, they're late-summer/early-fall flowers; so even though you don't need a lot of them to fill space, the fact that they were out of season during our wedding made them too expensive.

Overall, my bouquet will be more colorful than my bridesmaids'.  Most inspiration that I found was the opposite, but I feel like my girls are wearing enough color.  Something simple and mostly white would balance them out nicely.  Conversely, something bright and vivid would contrast well with my dress!

And now, allow me to leave y'all with a few money-saving tips that I picked up during my floral adventures:

1. Buy local. Less travel means less additional expenses.
2. Buy seasonal. If you have your heart set on something that's off-season, that's fine, but I would highly recommend supplementing that feature flower with some complementary seasonal blooms.
3. Size matters. Bigger blooms means fewer blooms!  Sometimes this can look a little funny, but choosing fillers like berries or thistles can help to fill the gaps.
4. Bridesmaids' bouquets don't have to be for the ceremony only.  We're having the girls place them somewhere during the reception.  We haven't decided where yet, but that's one less thing that will need flowers!
5. Mix it up.  My favorite idea that my florist had was to do two different kinds of centerpieces.  Seven tables would have larger centerpieces, and six would have smaller centerpieces.  When looking at the room as a whole, it still looks pretty full.  When looking at it sitting at the table, you don't really notice if your centerpiece is smaller because you're busy eating and talking!  Paying for seven large centerpieces instead of 13 can save you quite a bit.

Flower Personality

We began our florist search just like we did for any other vendor.  We did some googling, we read some reviews, we looked at some websites and blogs.  It was rather mundane.  I just didn't feel too strongly about flowers.  We had so many other priorities when it came to our wedding plans; flowers just weren't one of them.  All of that changed when we actually found our florist, Angie of Birch Blooms.

It all started with a phone call.  After making a list of potential florists, I called Angie to schedule an interview.  I left her a voicemail, to which she promptly responded by email.  The surprising thing about this email was that she commented on my phone number.  "954?" she asked.  "Are you from South Florida?"  A few emails later, and we had figured out that we went to the same high school.  How crazy is that?  Now, maybe it's the baseball fan in me.  Maybe it's the Disney brainwashing.  But I feel like I know a sign when I see it.  I held off on scheduling interviews with the other potential florists, and I started researching flowers so that I would somewhat know what I was talking about at Angie's interview.

She had asked me what my favorite flower was.  As I'd mentioned earlier, it's the tulip.

{personal photo}

I didn't know if the tulip really fit our wedding flower personality.  I love them, but I think I like them better for birthday presents than for decorating our wedding.  So, I started pulling together some inspiration pictures...

Source: Charlie Pappas via On Occasions of Atlanta

Source: 35 Atlanta via On Occasions of Atlanta

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I brought Sister Lioness with me to a local Starbucks for my appointment with Angie (she was in town visiting and had nothing better to do than lend me her artful eye).  When Angie looked through the pictures I had brought, she said, "Sooo it looks to me like you're going for soft, romantic, and whimsical...with a hint of fluffy."

Sister Lioness kicked me under the table.  Her eyes said, "Dude!  It's like she's in your head!"

I responded to Angie with, "Well, the fluffy part hadn't occurred to me...but yes!"

Upon discussing which particular flowers we would be using, we indeed confirmed that my flower personality included "fluffy."  We discussed how much and how little color to include.  We discussed seasonal options, larger blooms, and we examined other possible ways to save money.  The meeting went really well!  When the quote came through a few days later, I was pleased.  Angie definitely got what we were going for, and she managed to stay within our budget.  So what did we end up going with?  Stay tuned!

Inviting the VIPs

Of course, all of our wedding guests are VIPs!  But the people I'm talking about here are the ones who don't fall under the "family," "friend," "coworker," or "strange neighbor" categories.  I'm talking about the people who are invited but who are not exactly expected to come.  Mrs. Lemon previously discussed inviting the president, among others, and we decided to do the same.

The White House apparently has a separate greetings office that deals exclusively with invitations and announcements.  If you send your wedding invitation to this office, you may receive a personal greeting from the president.  I don't believe it's guaranteed, but it's certainly worth a shot!

So why is an April bride blogging about this in October?  Well, upon further research, it seemed that brides who successfully received a White House greeting sent their invitations approximately six months prior to their wedding date.  Sister Lioness designed our invitations and we're printing them ourselves.  We were putting off the daunting task of printing until just before sending them out in January, but we figured we could assemble some a bit early.  I wish I could show y'all the whole thing because I'm so psyched about Sister Lioness' fab design, but I gotta let the guests see them first.  Til then, enjoy these gray envelopes with wrap around labels!

{all personal photos}

As you can see, we chose to "invite" four households: the President and First Lady, the Pope (you may recall that Mr. Lion is Catholic), and Mickey and Minnie.  Okay, that's really three households...but we sent one to Disney World and one to Disneyland.  We figured this would help increase our chances of getting a response!  Here are the addresses in case you're interested:

The Honorable and Mrs. Barack Obama

The White House, Greetings Office, Room 39

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, District of Columbia

20502

Pope Benedictus XVI

Prefettura della Casa Pontifica

00210 Citta del Vaticano

Italia

Mickey & Minnie Mouse

The Magic Kingdom

1675 North Buena Vista Drive

Lake Buena Vista, Florida

32830

Mickie & Minnie Mouse

The Walt Disney Company

500 South Buena Vista Street

Burbank, California

91521

I'll definitely keep y'all posted if and when the responses come in!  Who would you invite?  I considered adding one more person to the list, but I wasn't sure Mr. Lion would approve...

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In Memory of Awesomeness

Unfortunately, Mr. Lion and I have both experienced loss and grief in our lives.  We would both like to include those loved ones in our wedding somehow, so we started exploring some options.  I've seen "In Memory" sections in programs, but that didn't seem personal enough to me.  I've always thought memorial candles are really beautiful, but I still had one reservation.  These options seemed perfectly appropriate for grandparents, great aunts, older adults.  What if one of the people missing from your wedding was someone younger?  It just didn't seem to fit.

I've mentioned before that my cousins and I are close, almost like extended siblings, and my cousin Mark was the big brother to us all.  I grew up worshiping him.  He was hilarious, he was kind, and he was never too cool to play with his little cousins.

Personal photo, circa 1987 (I'm the one in the floaties!)

At one of our favorite places in the world (10 points if you can name it!) in 2003

Mark passed away about five years ago after battling Hodgkin's lymphoma.  I hate to sound cliche, but not a day goes by that I don't miss him.  I knew I had to think of something besides a memorial candle to include Mark in our wedding.  If my grandfather knew that he would be memorialized with a candle, he would think it was nice.  If Mark knew that he would be memorialized with a candle, he would say, "Dude.  Seriously?"  His sister did something unique for him on her wedding day, and I knew I needed to do the same.

One of the things I admired most about Mark was his creativity.  He always had these crazy schemes, but he usually didn't follow through with them.  The one idea he did actually put into action was designing his own clothing company.  It's not exactly in stores (yet), but he did design and print a few items.  The company is called Freekware, and its intention was to celebrate the uniqueness inside each individual through positivity and inspiration.  The logo is supposed to look like a surfer on a wave...also, (according to Mark) it's apparently an "F" on it side.

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The Freekware logo has become a part of the Lioness clan's culture.  It represents so much of what we're all about and, more importantly, it represents someone who was such an important part of our lives.  Every time my cousins and I get together, someone's bound to wear it.  Mark's sisters have since taken over the company, and I can't wait to see what they do with it!  They recently distributed a new line of designs, which each of us threw on immediately:

Yeah, we make matching and coordinated family reunions look cool.

The symbolism behind the Freekware logo made it the perfect tribute.  But how to incorporate it into our wedding?  Allow me to introduce you to the bouquet charm:

 Source: HyStudio via OffBeatBride

It's amazing to me how something so subtle and dainty can come across so powerfully in photos.  I knew I had found my solution.  I found all kinds of bouquet charms on Etsy, but most of them were a little over budget.  Then, I stumbled upon Mrs. Crab Cake's post on bouquet charms, where she discusses the DIY option.  I followed her advice and looked into Etsy seller AnnieHows.  She did not disappoint.

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A DIY kit to make six bouquet charms with your own image...for $14.  For a reasonable price, not only can I represent Freekware (and Mark), my bridesmaids can too!  I can't wait to show y'all the final product.

How have you chosen to remember loved ones who couldn't be with you on your wedding day?