Le toss de bouquet

Most brides anymore forgo the bouquet toss thinking that it's outdated and repulsive to remind everyone that some of your friends are single. I can understand that as there were a few times that I got drug out onto the floor not really wanting to land a man anyway (I didn't have the right hooks).

But I still had it at my wedding as a lot of people still expect it and seem sad if you don't.

It also gave me the best story ever.

This is my tall flowergirl. She's been with her boyfriend for over a year and just had to attend two weddings (mine and her brothers).

This is my wedding coordinator. At the time she was two weeks away from getting married and a little um shall we say tipsy.

They are both great friends and so excited to be sisters now, but that night they had a slight competition going on. One claimed that she had to catch the bouquet cause she was getting married next (as within two weeks) while the other said that it wasn't fair and she deserved it (she's also had a slight case of wedding fever).

In the end my tossing of the bouquet ended in this:

It's a good thing that the toss bouquet was poorly made and, if I say so myself, quite ugly. I hear that after the end of that little wrestling match they ended up with a bruised hip and ripped dress.

And see all those petals and various green bits, the small flowergirl decided that she should full fill her duties by picking it all up and giving to me.

After that little surprise my biggest regret is not having the pro photographer there to snap the bouquet toss. These are sadly the best pictures we have but there is at least some video footage.

I'd suggest that if you are gonna have the toss you may want to make a little emergency kit full of band-aids, tape, mouth guards, and a spit bucket.

And if you've decided not to do it, well you never know what fun you may be missing out on.

Cute pictures

These are some early pictures before the wedding and then during that I just love.

This was at the dress salon, he was having a ton of fun playing with the sunglasses and the mirror.
While everyone was getting ready and dressed he told me that I had to take a picture of his drinks.

And well I just love the picture of her about to throw her shoes away.

Bits and Bobbles

I am happy to say that my tall flower girl has decided to stick with her original dress and they can easily enough let it out. Turns out she has a large rib cage.

She also bought her wedding day shoes on super duper sale so I took a picture of her in them and her dress.

I find it quite entertaining that while all of my friends are shorter than me in real life for the wedding they're all gonna be taller than me. It's gonna look like I'm melting! Melting!

Another thing we've been piecing together are all the guys costumes. If you haven't heard they're gonna be the Marx Brothers. My guy is gonna be Groucho, his best man Chico and the groomsman Harpo.

My guys was the easiest by far. We realized that he'd have to get a fake mustache instead of using Groucho's grease paint as I was gonna be kissing him all night and I didn't want to wind up with my own mustache.

The cigar was a nice find at a halloween shop. It has the little orange bit hidden at the end so it looks like it's lit in the right light.

The other two have been a bit of a challenge. We've generally left the costumes up to the other guys and gals. Though if we do find something that looks good we'll get it for them.

Harpo has been generally easy, bike horn, curly wig, and we found a top hat for him.

Chico is proving to be an interesting problem. He really doesn't have as signature a look so we've been looking for a hat that would work and so far the best we've come up with is getting an alpine hat and spray painting it black.

If anyone else has ever dressed up like Chico or knows someone that has if you ahve any tips to make a costume please do share.

Interesting Dilemma

This weekend I got a call from my tall flower girl. Right out of the gate she asked me if she could get the deposit back on her dress.

I'm sure I turned all kinds of white and red colors as I tried to figure out why she wanted to know that (it didn't help that I was sick and really tired).

I squeaked out a "Why?" while trying to hold back images of everyone abanding this wedding like rats from a sinking ship.

Turns out she's found a blue dress that she absolutely loves and is on clearance and she'd rather wear that than the one sitting at the bridal shop.

I paused for a minute as I erased all the images of her not being able to make the wedding for a myriad of reasons, took a calming breath, then attempted to tackle this issue.

I will admit I did for a minute think, crap she can't change dresses. Her dress is green so it'll match with the other ring bearer and she has a blue basket to contrast her dress. Blah blah blah. Luckily none of that came out of my mouth and I realized that it doesn't really matter.

She still owes around $100 on her dress and she's been having second thoughts on it for a while now. Thanks to the bridal shoppe not knowing how to use size charts she got a dress that is just a bit too small. I think it's still within alterations range but this Thursday she scheduled a visit with their alterations lady to get an idea of what it would cost and if they could do anything.

My suggestion was that if she could if she had to return the blue dress go ahead and buy it, then bring it with her on Thursday. She could try on the old dress as well as the new one and see which she likes better.

I've seen so many brides that in waiting for their dress to come in suddenly decide they don't want it anymore and get something new, only to want to go back to the old idea. So at least trying on the old one once before abandoning all that money for the deposit was my thought.

I guess we'll see on Thursday. I already said that I'd go with her if I wasn't doing anything too important at work. Man I thought I was done with this whole dress thing.

The official flower girl/ring bearer set

This is gonna be my first in a threeish day series on gifts for other people. First off I thought I'd start with the fun ones, the kids. (If any of the kids in my wedding are looking right now you better turn away. Or at least not be able to read yet).

I am not real big into the various gifts and keepsakes that wedding sites will advertise as the best things to get your flower girl or ring bearer (who wants a book on how to be a flower girl?). Instead I'd rather get them all toys. Who doesn't love toys? And it'll give them something to play with the day of as well.

The tall flower girl I'll show off tomorrow (as she can read and I want to give even more warnings and rent cerberus for the day to keep her away). For the short flower girl we looked high and low to get some ideas.Then we saw this play phone set. If she's anything like her mother she'll be addicted to the phone. And as sad as it is Disney by far had the best option. All the princess have a few different sayings (though all done by the same voice actor so it's kinda weird), and you can call them from the phone as well as leave a recorded message.

I just picture her the day of the wedding running around with a little phone in her hand (hopefully she won't smack her brother with it).To help her feel more like a little princess (or at least enjoy the dress up aspect) I got her a little hair comb. She doesn't have a really poufy dress but this will give her a little sparkle so she'll get to play dress up.

In the end her gift cost about $25. So for the price of a frame and a t-shirt she can wear once, I got her a toy she can play with til it gets broken or thrown into a puddle and some jewelry.

The boys were much easier (if you can't tell, I love looking at toys, they are so much fun to play with and figure out the good and the boring ones). They are about the same age range (one is gonna be 4 the other 3) and they both love trains. (For christmas I got my MOH's boy a thomas train set that had to be assembled and he watched it for hours as it went around and around, even jumping up and getting super excited when it dumped some coal).The first thing I found was a really cool engine (either Thomas or Percy) that has a switch on the back if you flip it to one side when you push the train it makes train noises and if you go faster the noises speed up, the other side plays the Thomas theme song (sure to drive mom nuts).

For an addition we also found some Thomas bubbles. Both of these kids love blowing bubbles (to the point where I was once covered in soap helping one of them) and the engine is actually shaped like a train whistle. Plus if we suddenly decide we want some bubbles, we'll have two toddlers that can help.

These two cool present cost about $18 total for each kid (actually got them on a 50% off toy sale) and as we realized later are actually our wedding colors. So even buying them at full price it's a bit less than an official ring bearer duffle bag, wallet, and frame set.

I just don't see the point of gifts that they can realistically use one day. Instead we went and got them some toys they can play with for a few years (assuming not put in the wood chipper of course) or at least it'll keep them distracted the day of. And the adults can play with them a bit too.

There may be some jelly beans too

Waay back when Easter stuff was first getting out we poked our noses around and found some really cute baskets; one green, one blue. That in total came to a cost of about $7. Much better deal than the $30- $40 ones that are just white.

And they've been sitting on our "wedding table" (which is actually the empty box that originally held our grill) ever since the crazy early Easter this year. For some reason this weekend I decided that I had to fancy up the baskets.

So we made a trip to Michaels (which has all of its fall stuff out, we had a raven that kept falling of off its shelf so we decided it wanted to come home with us. It's sitting on our bookshelf right now so I feel a lot like poe) and picked up some ribbon and some of those little flowers. I never really was sure what those little flowers were for but they sure are fun, especially the really little clay roses.

This is the final result:Lucky for me I needed very little glue (especially since we don't have a hot glue gun only rubber cement or super glue). I just wrapped the little flowers around the top and then wound the ribbon around it all (though I did at first forget what I wanted to do with the flowers and was over half way done with the blue one before I had to turn around and do it again).

I sealed off the last bit of ribbon with rubber cement (yeah don't do that, he he he) and then super glue, and for the um basket part I formed a bow (which was also a learning experience) and again glued that to the basket (all super glue this time). And since I had some leftover flowers I just sort of jammed them through the slots in the basket and wrapped the wire in and out so they'll stand up.

The end results are very girly and weddingy I think. And I didn't have to spend a bunch of money on something that is essentially a plant refuse holder.

No mini-me's here

It never entered my mind that my flower girl (the short one aka the 5 year old not the 21 year old) would wear one of those poufy white dresses that cost as much as a grown up dress. She's a lot like her mother anyway, and there's a good chance that if she didn't like the dress she'd rip it off and run around naked.

Instead we went wandering around Target one day looking for a bridesmaid dress (more about that whole idea later) and came across a perfect dress. It's quite simple with pretty blue polka dots and a really pretty sheen that makes it look a like fancier than it is. Plus it only cost $17 instead of $100.

While I don't know if you'd ever really want to say register at Target, they do have some really nice and cheap options for a flower girls dress. One pink, two pink, yellow fish, green fish.

If you have your heart set on white for your little girl(s) there are some better options than an overpriced bridal salon. Communion dresses are a good way to go, especially if you have an older girl. But if it just must be a flower girls dress, there are a few cheap websites out there to help you out.

On the ring bearers side of things we also got some adorable options from department and retail stores. One is from a Shopko, which I am sure most of you have never heard of and sadly I don't have a picture or link to. Just picture a really cute little buisnessman suit with a blue shirt. The other ring bearer will be sporting a really cute green shirt, vest and pants combo. (He also just had to show me his outfit when I last visited). Easter is a great time to find really cheap and simple outfits for girls and boys.

As my MOH is finding out for her sister's wedding (the green ringbearer for me) if you are just going to have your bearers of rings not in a tux do not demand that she find a certain color of button up shirt. It is about impossible to find a red button up shirt for a 4 year old.

And for accessories, I'm still thinking I should give all the kids some rub on tattoos so they'll look super hot the day of the wedding.

It's raining foliage!

If you have decided you want a flower girl, and your church will allow it, and it's the right time of year according to the gods of etiquette then at some point you have to decide what kind of flower petals (or leaves or snow or glitter) the cute little moppets are going to cover the church in.

For me, I got myself a free sample from Petal Garden, loved the blue and shamrock options, and got 100 of each. (I never thought of getting real as you can see I am deathly afraid of flowers) There were so many they barely fit into the cute Easter baskets we got for the girls to carry, and they look really cool. Some even have "flaws" to make them look more real.

For some really cheap ones to decorate all over an option is the much used Oriental Trading. There aren't even close to as many color options as others but if you just want white/red/pink you can't do much better.

If you want to go the freeze dried route (much better than regular petals as they won't stain), there are a few other options though they will cost you. (I wonder if you can get an assemble yourself flower petals where they just send you the rose and you pick them off?) Flyboy naturals has flower petals other than just roses (which is nice for those of us not that impressed with roses). Pick a petal doesn't have as many options but is a bit cheaper.

For those who just think rose petals are over done and boring there is the fall option of throwing leaves. And if you're getting married in June you could have your girls toss green leaves of grass clippings for that fresh grass smell.

And we can't forget those winter brides who want a winter wonderland but with central heating. Thanks to the power of science you can easily make some insta-snow without all that iced over freezer and a knife route.

Whatever you decide to have your girl(s) drop just make sure that she follows the exact calculations for the amount of coverage you laid out in a grid design. You may want to invest in some calculus lessons for her.