turkey dance ...

So, among the list of to-do items we still need to finalize the music for the reception. After looking at the DJ's top 200 songs I was having major high school dance flashbacks. This could be because our H.S. DJs always came from Medford. It could be because there is some weird time warp happening in that part of the country. For whatever the reason, going with the pre-packaged music is less than desirable.

Last Sunday, Dave and I sat down with our respective laptops and began to go through music to see what we would like to include. It was kind of like dueling PCs. He'd play a song snippet and then I'd interrupt with one and so on. Towards the end of the bottle of wine, the songs that were being added were somewhat questionable - yes, I did put David Cassidy "I think I love you", but I avoided his brother Shwan's "The Do Run Run."

So before, we start entering them into the DJs online play list (yes I was surprised too), here they are (all comments are welcome):


Artist: Song
10000 Maniacs : These are the days
Alanis Morissette : Head over feet
Aqualung : Strange & Beautiful
Bachmen Turner Overdrive : Takin Care
Band of Horses : part One
Beach Boys : God only knows
Ben Folds : The Luckiest
Billy Idol : Rebel Yell
Brad Paisley : She's Everything
Bright Eyes : The first day of my life
Cameo : Word Up
Cindy Lauper : Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun
Counting Crows : Accidentally in Love
Craig Morgan : A little bit of life
Cyndi Lauper : Time after time
Dead or Alive : You spin me round
Death Cab for Cutie : I will follow you into the dark
Deepeche Mode : Personal Jesus
EMF : Unbeliveable
Fat Boy Slim : Praise
Frou Frou : Holding out for a Hero
Gwen Stefani : What are you waiting for
Gwen Stefani : The Real Thing
Hot Chocolate : You Sexy Thing
Israel Kamakawiwoole : Somewhere over the rainbow
Jeff Buckley : Hallelujah
Joaquin Phoenix : Get Rhythum
John Denver: Annie's Song
Johnny Cash: In My Life (What a wonderful world?)
Josh Turner :Would you go with me
Kieth Urban :Making memories
Kylie Minogue :Can't get you out of my head
Little Big Town: Bring it on love
Louis Armstrong: What a wonderful world
Magnetic Fields :The Book of Love
Maroon 5 :Sunday
Men w/o Hats: Pop Goes the World
Nat King Cole :Unforgetable
Nora Jones: Come Away with Me
Oasis: Wonderwall
Pink Floyd :Paint me at the sky
Pretenders: Angel
Queen: The Wedding March
Queen: Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Richie Vallen :La Bomba
Rod Stewart: Have I told you lately
Romantics: What I like about you
Shawn Colvin: When you know
Shikira: Hips don't lie
Sister Sledge :We are Family
Sixpence: Kiss Me
Sonny and Cher: I got you Babe
The Brian Setzer Orchestra :Crazy Little Thing Called Love
The Cure: Friday
The Foundations: Buttercup
The Pretenders: Angel of Morning
Usher :Yeah
White Stripes :We are going to be friends
Young MC: Bust a move

turkey w/ stuffing ....

So, even though I am trying to go cold turkey... I would still like my own blog to reflect the hours of work that I have put into my wedding obsession. So here it is turkey w/ stuffing...

My family was DIY before DIY was cool. Mostly it was out of necessity but now that I am at the point in my life where I have the resources to buy "store bought" there are still somethings I would prefer to do myself.

My first DIY project for the wedding was our Save the Date cards. We are getting married on April 15th, tax day! One of the things I most value in our relationship is our sense of humor. When we looked at the traditional cards they did not reflect our relationship. So.... we decided to send tax forms to our friends and family instead. Unfortunately, a fair percentage of our guests thought this was a solicitation or worse yet, information from the IRS. But, those guests that got the joke, seemed to really enjoy our unique approach.

Save The Date Card

Map / Memento : Memento / Map

Once the cards were sent, it was time to find invitations. Again, we wanted something unique and a little bit different. When I started researching invitations I went into sticker shock! $6-$10 per invite is not unusual but seemed a bit unreasonable. Fortunately our friend Anandi recommended Not From A Box and they did a great job printing a very simple invitation. I decided that I did not need to pay someone to tie the ribbons (how hard could that be - note, it is very hard) and we decided that we would add a map to finish off the package.

The map became a bit of a challenge. You see "map" can be defined differently by different individuals. For example, if you are marrying a extremely bright scientist, he may define map as a tool to get from one destination to another. I on the other hand defined map as a piece of art that would symbolize our lives while making note of where the wedding would be held. After much conversations and many different versions of the map we settled on a solution that would meet both of our requirements one side would be defined as a pictorial memento and the other side would be a Map.

Never a bridesmaid ...

I've always wanted to be a bridesmaid. However, as I get older I realize that this dream of walking down the aisle in a brightly colored ball gown is not shared by any of my girlfriends. So, we decided we would give the honor of being dressed up in funny clothes to people who would truly appreciate it - the children in our lives. Our wedding party will consist of 3 bell ringers (this is apparently an English tradition where children enter before the wedding parties and ring bells to announce their arrival), 2 flower girls and one best person (Dave's sister who is by far the best person either of us know. My mom has spent the last couple of months at the sewing machine creating the costumes for the big event. Below is my niece Rawine modeling the final product (which is "itchy" but "twirls"). She says that she is going to wear it to school after the wedding to show and tell. "It's a ball gown you know"

DIY DAVE

Fortunately I am not the only DIY person in the family. Dave, albeit not a DIY with paper and scissors, is a wonderful DIY in the computer and developed a great web site for us (the logo doesn't begin to do it justice.)

daveandlisa

My favorite part of the site is the story of how we met:

Lisa and Dave met......over pink drinks at the "Life's a Beach" bar in Maui...
where they both were attending a wedding...
the wedding of Dave's cousin Lynn from Seattle...
Lisa being a friend of Lynn and Dave's other cousin from Seattle, Beth...
with Lisa having been introduced to Dave's cousins by Dave's mother and father...
when Lisa went to visit Dave's parents cabin in Etna...
a visit where Lisa was accompanied by her parents...
who lived just down the road from Dave's parents cabin...
because Dave's mother and Lisa's mother had known each other for years...
and even worked together...
and Lisa had worked for Dave's father during the summer...
on a tourist train run by Dave's father...
where Dave sold coffee(we hope that answers all your questions)

The Dress and Shoes! Glorious Shoes!

so, now we are on to attire! Yay! This is truly one of my favorite parts. The dress looks something like this:

Dave and I arrived at my parents house the day before Christmas in part so that I could see and try on the dress. After two of my mother's tremendously yummy cinnamon rolls I went in to see the dress which was hanging on a dress form. "I am not that size" I said to my mom. "That is the size of your other dress," she replied. "That is not going to fit" I said. "Try it on," she said. I did, it didn't and we've now been on a diet since Christmas. Fortunately, when she came up to Seattle a few weeks ago the dress was a little too big. So now, I am on the maintenance diet which goes something like - one day on, one day off. I seem to be at my heaviest on Monday and lightest on Friday - go figure ; )

My fabulous mom has now made this dress 3 times. The first time in muslin so I could see what it looked like. The second time in silk (after I called her and told her that I had reached my goal weight) and the third time because the modifications she made to the second dress did not come out as she would have liked. I really thought the second dress is perfect. I can't wait to try on the third - sans the cinnamon rolls.

Here are the shoes I am not wearing but will forever be remembered as the shoes I wanted to wear:

Great, huh. Too bad they snagged the dress when I walked and were tremendously uncomfortable.

Da,da,tada ...

Finally we get to the wedding!

Our wedding is going to be a three day affair (10 days for a few lucky friends).

Day one - Family Dinner (we are not rehearsing therefore no rehearsal dinner)

Day two - Latin pre-party. I work in the Latin America region and many of my friends are making the trip up so we decide to hold a pre-funk at a cool club the night before the wedding. Mojitos and Salsa dancing - how fun!

Day three - Wedding!!!

Day 4-10 - We are bring 6 of our friends on our Honeymoon to Hawaii! We've rented a house on the big island and plan to spend 6 days having a great time with our friends followed by 4 days enjoying married life together and just the two of us.

so there you have it - the stuffing. I think I will still post on the other side dishes ; ) we've had some great pre-events which deserve to be captured.

cold turkey .... or should we serve duck?

8 months ago Dave and I became engaged. Within the first week, I had a PowerPoint presentation created that outlined our venue options, flower choices, dress selection, color pallet, and I think even the timing of the conception of our first child. All of this was done without the help, or knowledge of the "wedding blog." Now you'd think that I, with my unabashed admiration for all things internet, would have thought to search out the blog world for the latest and greatest in wedding design. I did not. Within 3 weeks of our engagement the flowers were ordered, the photographer hired, the venue set, the dress pattern purchased (thanks to mom), the save the date cards designed and sent to the printers, bada bing bada boom I sat back and patted myself on the back. Why are there so many shows and magazines on weddings? Who are these Bridezillas and what is their problem? This wedding thing is a snap!

We are now at 31 days and counting and I have become addicted to the wedding blog. Weddingbee to be exact. This isn't your average wedding blog with one gushing BTB waxing on and on and on about every detail of her (note it is never "their") impending nuptials. This blog features multiple BTBs waxing on and on and I can't tear myself away! I wonder if Miss Strawberry has found her shoes, I worry about Miss Kiwi's lack of excitement about her intended, I lust after new links to more blogs that will feed my need to know more wedding details and find more suggestions that I, in my ultimate quest to be organized, failed to consider when I drew up my original PowerPoint plan!

Like any addiction, this started out as fun. I would spend a few minutes at lunch or after work reading the daily posts and perhaps check out some of the offered suggestions and links. No harm and certainly no additional investment in things I didn't already know I needed for the wedding.


Then the visits became more frequent, the "to do list" began to grow and all of a sudden I found myself designing a "wedding logo" which can be placed on all of our "wedding accessories" such as: menus, cocktail menus with custom drinks names, favor tags, thank you letters for the out of town guests, napkins, programs, CDs with the music from the reception, lapel pins for our guests to wear to identify themselves to others (blue would be the grooms guest, pink mine), decals for the walls of the hotel, gobos (lighting template) for the dance floor, coloring books for the kids and coasters, we need lots and lots of coasters!

Like any addiction, I have now felt the need to hide my obsession, sneaking internet time before sitting down to watch TV (which of course is turned onto Whose Wedding Is It Anyway.) Searching out unique tiaras which should be considered (if not for myself at least for the flower girls.)

Perhaps this is a manifestation of my having lost control of the wedding planning process. After trying to work with the hotel long distance, I finally admitted defeat and called in my wonderful sister and her business partner to take over. They are dealing with the issue of why the champagne can't be served after the ceremony instead of before the cake, and how to accommodate our vegetarian guests (it is apparently hard to explain to someone who lives within cattle country why anyone would not eat beef. Who are these people we are inviting anyway?)

And so, like a good 12 step participant, I am going to take it one day at a time. I've promised Dave no new projects (which I am assuming means no new internet purchases for the wedding as well.) And, I am going to not read the wedding blog, search for wedding related materials, spend hours on illustrator designing wedding accessories (read above), watch wedding TV, or look at anything that could be used in a wedding in any way. That's it! I am going cold turkey!

of course .....

we still need to outline the ceremony
write the vows
take a photo for the NY Times and one for the Siskiyou Daily ; )
finalize the programs
pick the music for the ceremony, dinner and reception (chicken dance anyone?)
finish the guest book(s)
pick up the rings
get gifts for the kids
etc...
etc...
etc...

does anyone know of a recovery center for wedding addiction?