To trash, or not to trash

There is a new thing happening - I saw it on some wedding photographer sites and on some stupid wedding show on cable once - trashing the dress.

The idea is that you won't ever wear the dress again, so "trash" it in a fun photo shoot so you don't have to keep it in your closet forever. Brides destroy their dresses by hopping in pools, wading in lakes, taking a dip in a fountain, rolling around in the dirt - whatever. And - it seems - brides get all made up again, and grooms get to look more casual.

So, our photos are back - they're wonderful, but B's smile wasn't all it could be - he was recovering from his facial palsy still. I'm not a traditional bride, or a prima donna type who would want a photo shoot, but I'm a little tempted to trash.

It'd be a chance to be silly, get some cool photos of B's dreamy smile which has returned completely now, and find a good use for this dress...

What do you think?

Invites and the creation of a logo: A+B

By no means are we original, but I'd like to think we were at least a little original with our use of a logo, right?

When Shachar of Bates Meron Sweet Design started working on our invitations he helped us figure out that we wanted to focus on the location and keep everything else pretty simple. So, we used photos from Murphy's Irish Bistro and the beautiful font Gotham to keep everything clean and simple. The color photos, which we used on our invite helped, I hope, set the mood for the wedding - an old-school but modern bar-bistro, or something.

A+B is easy and fit nicely in the circle that Shachar used on the front of the invite. Gotham, the font we used, is the same font that Barack Obama used for his campaign. Organizing For America continues to use Gotham - it's modern, easy to read and crisp. It's very regular looking, too, which is actually a kind neat thing for a wedding invitation, we thought.


A+B turned out to be an excellent choice, logowise. It's easy to type, easy to say and cute. My parents set up our favors - including A+B shot glasses and awesome pencils. Even if you rarely use a pencil (I mean, everyone uses a pencil once and again!) it's nice to have a cool A+B CHEERS pencil, right?

Lots of people wrote cards to A+B and we've started signing things A+B too. I routinely call Brian B, but he calls me C for my last name - never A. As for the CHEERS that found its way on to our invites, shot glasses and pencils - totally Shachar's idea, but a brilliant bit of whimsy and celebration - not stuffy, but maybe a little Irish-Pub-y? Maybe.

This design-type stuff was important to us, but it's not important to everyone. I think we probably spent more time on fonts, design and the invitations than on the ceremony or the details of colors, matching and coordinating. This totally worked for us, and it turned out beautifully.

Our last A+B touch - my mom found A and B Christmas ornaments and affixed them to the card birdcage with a ribbon that (what?!?) actually matched the bridesmaid dresses and gentleman's ties. Woot!

Nerves

Here's me working on my vows before the wedding - just before the pre-wedding party started.

We've reviewed the wedding and determined it was the most fun ever. We're working on thank you notes for so many wonderful gifts/favors/etc... We're also finding places for some of the new things we've got - like beautiful Fiesta dishes - and some of the not-so-new things we're moving out to make room.

We leave for our honeymoon on Saturday - 14 days in California!

• August 7: Arrive in California, visit UCLA, grocery store, drive to Oxnard.
• August 8-10: Take a 9 a.m. ferry to Channel Islands National Park! We're going to hike, set up our awesome hammock, camp and pretend that we're on Lost. We go back to the mainland on August 10. We'll quickly head to eat, shower and sleep in a non-tent space - the Kon Tiki Inn.
  
• August 11: Lounge and enjoy the coast.
• August 12: Visit the Hearst Castle and set up camp near the coast at a state park.
  
• August 13-14: We'll camp but also drive to the towns along the coast, see redwoods and visit a farmer market festival of some sort. Excited for all the produce in California!
• August 15: Head north to the 17-mile drive, Monterey and its aquarium. Should be beautiful.
• August 16-18: Napa - wineries, dinners, cool doors, tastings, wine farm fun. My parents gave me a good guide to Napa - can't wait to sip some fresh(?) wine and use my adjective card to describe it.
• August 19-21: Drop off the rental car and venture into San Francisco. We're seeing an Oakland A's game and otherwise just strolling and bumming around the city. We hear it's pretty awesome. On Saturday we head back to Chicago - yikes!

We'll post from the road, too - using our sweet new iPad! We're skipping Yosemite and trying to make this adventurous and relaxing. That sounds like a tall order but I think my husband and I can handle it. Yay!

Oh, what a night!

Turns out Murphy's gives the person who pays for a wedding the grand total with an itemized list of what was eaten (all food we ordered from the catering menu), assorted fees and each drink ordered.

B is promising a few charts (perhaps a bar chart of my favorite pies and a pie chart of my favorite bars?!?) about these drinks, but I'm here to tell you some awesome news: Chicago beer was heavily favored at our wedding!

Goose Island Green Line and Half Acre Gossamer were two of the top-ordered beers - and deservedly so. Both are perfect summer beers and pair delightfully with things like BBQ chicken sliders and a potato skins bar. Green Line is only available by keg - it's that green! No waste for that beer. Gossamer comes from a brewery right next to our grocery store.

We'll continue to post a few wedding lessons and highlights from our big day, but let me just boast like a bride and share a few excellent things:

• Murphy's Irish Bistro was amazing. The space was perfect for our wedding and reception - we had a few vases of flowers and the whole bistro just shined. We were excited to share one of our favorite places with so many friends and to share so much delicious food too. The Irish Bistro's potato skins bar was a complete hit -- my sister-in-law is already discussing what next event we can hold there so that we can again enjoy a potato skins bar.
• Getting my hair and makeup done at Lather was lovely - I'm glad I was calm about it, and glad I shelled out for the 'do and makeup. I felt beautiful and ready to go, though I do think that there's something to be said for doing this yourself. My wedding party and I, however, were much better off away from the madness of my apartment and in the air-conditioning of Lather.
• I'm glad we didn't invite more people - it was so hard to talk to everyone. I'm sad I didn't get to sit in on every conversation all night. If some sort of time machine could facilitate that, I'd be down with that. We did have a completely spectacular crowd - nary a rowdy wreck in the bunch!

Ok, better post this. I promise much more - with photos - as we debrief from the biggest party we'll ever have.

Down to the wire

OK, so most couples would probably be relaxing and getting ready for the insanity to come. But I'm a Christmas-Eve shopper to the bone, and I've unfortunately dragged Amanda into my insanity. Certainly the Knot thinks we should be making only superficial preparations at this point; several of the items left on our checklist are from last month’s list. Whoops.

So here are some things we still have to get done, about 32 hours before the wedding.

Music
We’ve got three playlists, one for downstairs (dancing and high-energy), upstairs (more chilled out, classic rock, jazz and motown) and a third that will be played during the cocktail hour following the reception. I’m about 90 percent done with these; the songs are all selected and categorized, I just need to put them in the right order.

Program
This is mostly written, but needs some design flourishes. And to be printed. Amanda and Julie will be finishing it this morning.

Guestbook
OK, this one’s really up in the air. We’ve had some good ideas involving a photo album or creative scrapbooks, but haven’t really put anything together. As much as we want to have something cool and different, the guestbook might just get sacrificed on the alter of convenience. Anyone know where I can buy one?

Vows
Mine are done; Amanda is still putting on some finishing touches.

Wedding day scheduling and assignments
We’ve got a pretty good idea of who needs to be where when, but we should probably write this down so everyone is on the same schedule. Amanda and her wedding party will be getting ready at Murphy’s, the boys at my apartment. Which might necessitate the aforementioned window unit (see previous post). We also need to make a final decision on what everyone’s jobs are (who takes care of the presents, does the tipping, grabs the guestbook at the end of the night, etc.) Again, we’ve got a pretty good idea on this, but should really formalize it and write it down.

Looking good
Amanda and Co. have mani/pedi appointments today, and I’m getting a haircut this afternoon. The girls are going in for their big hair appointment tomorrow afternoon, of course, and I also have an appointment to drop in and get styled. What, you think I’m doing my own hair on my wedding day?

Rehearsal
This is one thing we’re right on schedule with. I mean, that’s what the rehearsal dinner is for, right?

I guess that’s not so bad. Hopefully there’s nothing large and glaring I’ve forgotten. I mean, what are the odds of that?

Come rain or shine

Unbelievably, we're now close enough to the wedding to look at weather reports. Like much of the country, Chicago is in the middle of a ridiculous heat wave. It's been in the 90's with high humidity for what feels like the last month, with little sign of letting up.

The Tribune is predicting Friday will be the hottest day of the year, peaking at 97. Which will no doubt feel like 105 in our non-air-conditioned apartment, especially when it’s packed with houseguests. Nothing like waking up the morning of your wedding covered with sweat. Or maybe not. There has been talk of a hotel.

Luckily, the day of the wedding is supposed to be cooler, with lower humidity. Most of the day will be spent in air-conditioned locales, of course, but no one likes to travel in heat while wearing a suit. It’s also supposed to be sunny, which is good. The Elizabeth Room on the second floor, where we'll be getting married, looks really great with sunlight streaming in from the west.

Finally, Sunday is supposed to be a lot cooler and generally lovely summer day. Sounds like a good occasion for some relaxation!

Into every wedding some Lyme must fall

For those of you who don't know, I have the best "why I haven't been blogging excuse" ever: Lyme disease.

Apparently, this all started at George’s bachelor party camping trip to Sugar River near Rockford. I do remember pulling a tick off my leg, but I don't remember having one on me for the 24+ hours it supposedly takes to spread Lyme, nor did I get the distinctive bulls eye rash that often accompanies it.

I spent the next four weeks being sick and generally dragging ass. Rather tackling our long-list of wedding tasks (including this blog), instead I was coming home from work and taking naps. I got what seemed to be pneumonia, followed by headaches and neck/shoulder/arm pain. All this culminated on the Friday I woke up with a stiff jaw that evolved into a paralyzed face. By the next morning, I was in the hospital. Four days, one spinal tap and a whole lot of vicodin later, I was home with bilateral Bell's palsy (paralyzed face) and a diagnosis of Lyme disease. Less than three weeks before my wedding.

First and most importantly, I'm fine. I have to take IV antibiotics through a catheter in my arm for four weeks, at which point I should be completely Lyme-free. Amanda's administers the antibiotics, which only takes about 10 minutes. In the meantime, I can't get the catheter wet or overextend my arm. I don't really have any symptoms, and generally feel pretty great.

Except…did I mention the part about my face being paralyzed two weeks before the wedding?

This has really been the hardest part. I'm usually pretty optimistic, but this time I've been trying to be brutally honest, preparing myself for not being able to laugh at my wedding, or really taste the food, or give a speech and have people understand me. For not being able to smile at Amanda when she walks down the aisle towards me, something I've been looking forward to a long time. Considering this is the only serious health problem I've ever had, I've tried to keep the self pity to a minimum. But it's hard not to curse the timing.

Except...last Tuesday, I was suddenly able to waggle my eyebrows. And by Wednesday, turn the corners of my mouth up in a smile. And today to flare my nostrils, successfully drink from a can and give a full-fledged (if mysterious-looking) smile to my niece. Two weeks is an extraordinarily fast recovery time for Bell's palsy, so this is beyond my wildest hopes.

Short version: pardon my lack of blogging, and don't mind my half-smile at the wedding; it could be worse.