last minute projects / random thoughts
PHEW. we did our site visit with the caterer on tuesday. i got a ton of questions answered and felt such a rush of relief when it was over. while we were there we saw seven deer traveling together throughout the grass! i hope deer show up at our ceremony.
cory’s suit situation got worked out. he visited a tailor in town that we found through citypaper and she is making the men’s wearhouse suit work just fine. cory said she just put in a few pins and made the suit look incredible on him. she also took a look at the thrift store suit and said it would be fine to wear to more casual social situations, but that the men’s wearhouse suit was of good quality and should definitely be worn for a wedding. i’m so glad that’s taken care of. he’s picking it up on wednesday.
i’m worried about a petticoat i ordered online in the beginning of april. it still hasn’t come in and i need it, like, now. i gotta remember to give them a call first thing monday morning.
today we did a bunch of wedding shopping and i finally got down to business with some of the projects that needed to be taken care of. i stamped our jam jar favors after realizing burlap would not work on such tiny little jars (they’re only 1 oz):
and i stained the wooden numbers that will go on each of the reception tables:
we also found this little chalkboard we’ll be using in our makeshift photobooth so that people can write messages on it when getting their picture taken:
fun, right? jocelyn (our photographer) is helping us out by bringing her own big standing chalkboard to indicate that the photobooth is indeed a photobooth. it’s gonna be so cool.
i’ve been checking the weather as much as possible ever since i was able to access the ten-day forecast. here’s what was predicted when i checked it yesterday:
!!!
other things that are done: hair trial, makeup practice (i’ll be doing my own), seating arrangement (cory did a fantastic job) and the program and menu design. (will be printing those tomorrow. thanks, kat and whit!)
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wood slices in progress
cory’s parents worked away at creating beautiful wooden slices to be used in the centerpieces (and possibly elsewhere) at the wedding. here’s the email and photos i got from mary, cory’s mom:
after 3 hours of tough work the wood slices are shaping up nicely. the wood is damp so we are letting it dry and will plain it one more time later this week. we started with logs from fallen trees in the yard. used the chainsaw to cut off 2 inch slices. then we put the slices through the plainer to smooth them. this wasn’t going too well since the wood is wet and bogged down the machine. so we now have it drying downstairs next to the gas fireplace and will attempt to plain them later this week.
aren’t they the best in-laws ever?
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ceremony readings
am i allowed to post our readings before the ceremony? well, i want to anyway. the three people we’ve asked to do the readings all agreed to it, so that’s exciting. the readings will be scattered throughout the ceremony to break it up a little.
(right after greeting)
What is a friend? by C. Raymond Beran
Read by David Uribe (one of my closest friends)
What is a friend? I will tell you. It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with them. They seem to ask of you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. They do not want you to be better or worse. When you are with them, you feel as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard, you can say what you think, so long as it is genuinely you. They understand those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you.
With a friend, you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meanness, and absurdities and, in opening them up, they are lost dissolves on the white ocean of their loyalty. A friend understands. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse them, neglect them, tolerate them. Best of all, you can keep still with them. It makes no matter. They like you. They are like fire that purges to the bone. They understand. You can weep with them, sing with them, laugh with them and hope with them. Through it all and underneath they see, know, and love you.
A friend? What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself.
(before vows/ring exchange)
The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams
Read by Mary Griffin (cory’s mother)
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
(before ceremony closing)
All the Leaves Say Yes, by Ruth Daigon
Read by Jean Wisenbaugh (my mentor from the Maryland Science Center)
In the other, the sunken life,
in the world of green feedings,
all the leaves say yes, meadows
of curved stems say yes and warmth
flows from the depth of this yes
out toward horizons where hills
are still transparent and the ground
white with drippings from the moon.
Waking from this memory of green,
we’ll face the skirmish of each day,
with hostages retrieved from the night.
This time will be different, new patterns
for the feet, wings for the eye,
rhythms for the heart, and our names
everywhere like grass.
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shoes / invites / guestbook / cory’s parents are visiting
i’ve been wearing my pretty yellow heels around the house to start breaking them in. they’re so cozy and i have a feeling i won’t need to take them off once the reception gets bumpin’, which i’ve read is quite common.
we’ve decided to start finding black shoes for cory instead of using the brown shoes we got. when tyler put in his order for his suit, the guy who was helping him said it would go much better with black ones, so we trust him. they’re both going to be wearing black ties anyway so that’s works for me.
we finally finished off the invitations earlier this week and got them sent out. here’s how the envelope looked with with mailing label and stamp:
whitney surprised me today by telling me that she wants to make our guestbook as a wedding gift to us! what a sweetheart. she’s a very talented bookmaker and is very sensitive to making sure things are perfect (she prints almost everything at gilah press + design, after all) so i cannot wait to see what she comes up with. thanks so much, whit.
cory’s parents are coming to baltimore tonight so that we can take care of a bunch of wedding stuff tomorrow. we’ll be checking out the hotels to clear up rehearsal dinner details, visiting the ceremony/reception site, and meeting with the caterer to make final edits to the contract and ask them lots of questions.
i made some small edits to the vendor list. i think we’re nixing the “local activities” section. it’s a little overwhelming to think about adding to it right now.
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more stuff done / invitations are almost ready
i ended up caving in to those gorgeous yellow heels. unfortunately i had to return them due to an obvious defect on the side of the right shoe, but other than that, they were beautiful. i can’t wait to get my replacement pair.
we took today off to take care of a bunch of errands, wedding-related and not. including what we did today, i couldn’t believe how much we’ve been able to get done in the past two weeks. i returned a bustier that didn’t fit me correctly (already got a replacement in the mail thanks to a great deal on ebay), cory purchased his shoes at dsw (he also got a new pair of casual shoes), purchased cory’s suit at men’s wearhouse, got our bonne maman raspberry jam favors in the mail (adorable little 1oz jars so that people can take them on the plane if needed), ordered a custom stamp at baumgarten to use as a finishing touch on the invitations, sent out a check to our awesome florist (hi, ellen!), and made an appointment with our caterer to go over the final details that we’re still 100% confused about.
here’s a little peek at our wedding invitations. huge thanks goes out to my gilah press + design peers for some final critiques and a special thanks to whitney for cutting everything down for me on the big, scary paper cutter. (i think i finally get it!) since the photos were taken, they’ve been stuffed into their envelopes but still need that final rubber stamp touch and their mailing labels:
invitation card
three colors printed on on mr. french’s cement green backed with waste not paper’s chocolate brown
rsvp card
two colors printed on mr. french’s cement green (front) and mr. french’s whitewash (back)
envelopes
waste not paper’s chartreuse green with vintage postage stamps and buff scorebak sticker paper for the mailing label. heart monogram will be hand-stamped onto the back.
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printing the save the dates
printing the green part (in action!)
Originally uploaded by nathalie.wilson
here i am printing the save the date postcards that you got in the mail! cool, huh? the process is called letterpress printing, and i’m using a century-old machine to do it (it’s called a chandler & price). in this video, i’m printing the green part onto the cards. i had to print the wood grain part and brown part separately. it’s a very time-consuming process, but in the end it’s totally worth it.
don’t worry, wearing flip-flips isn’t dangerous when operating this type of machinery (at least i don’t think so…)!
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