We Did It!!

It's official Hive -- the Camels are a married couple at last! The day was absolutely, positively perfect and it exceeded all of my expectations. I had so many people tell me that it was one of the most beautiful weddings they had ever attended, and for someone who has poured her heart and soul into this event for fourteen months, those comments had me grinning from ear to ear. I'm also pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye in the house after we read our vows. My only complaint? It went so fast. Everyone tells you this, but I was so overwhelmed with everything that it all seemed finished in a moment. We blinked and it was all done. The entire weekend was an intense building of emotions from so many different places that I'm still carefully sorting through them. Anyway, I have so much more to say and share, but it will have to wait for another time. Until then, here are some teaser guest photos!

Getting Married & Wedding Miracles

Last night at our rehearsal dinner, I had the first photo taken with both my mom and dad in 15 years. I saw my mother meet and hug my stepmother for the first time. I saw my mom chatting casually with my step siblings. In essence I saw two worlds which I thought would be forever disconnected finally joined. It was easily one of the most emotional moments of my life. A lot of old wounds healed last night, and not just for me, but for everyone. I bawled my eyes out. I couldn't stop the tears even if I tried. I sobbed like a baby in front of basically everyone I knew. To see everyone so happy, to see not two families joined but four families joined -- it was something very, very special. My aunt called it a miracle. She hugged me and looked into my eyes and said, "I know how much this means to you. This healed a lot of hearts tonight." And now we are really joining these families by marriage. The power of what this union really means hit me in full force as I witnessed all that love, love that was practically palpable, love bursting at the seams.

Anyway, I guess I will just say that this is my last post as Miss Camel. I will be marrying my best friend today, the guy who makes it all worthwhile. The guy who held my hand as I cried and cried as I watched my two families rejoin after so much emotional pain. The guy who makes me laugh, who always encourages me, lifts me up out of the darkness. The guy who loves me unconditionally. The guy who makes every day brighter, every place feel like home. I can't imagine any other person to start this journey with. 

And just so that this post isn't all emotions, here's a video clip from a movie I watched repeatedly as a child. 

Thanks so much for your support Hive. I have so enjoyed blogging my wedding plans with you and I can't wait to show you how it all comes together in the end (I can't wait to see it myself!) I will see you soon on the other side! 

Our Wedding Programs

Well guys, I am getting married this weekend. Our 14 month engagement is finally at an end! But what would a wedding be without some last minute DIY crafts? I made these programs and had them printed at a local print shop for cheap. With a dedicated assembly line including my dad, Mr. C, and myself we were able to assemble 80 of these wedding program fans last night. We tied on little blue, cream, and pink ribbons to tie in with our wedding colors. I ran out this afternoon and bought a basket to put them in for the ceremony. And here is the final product:

I used the wreaths and cameo graphics that I made for our save-the-dates so that made these pretty simple to create. I was really inspired by the layout that Mrs. Bunting created for her wedding programs and used that as a guide for ours.

The front of the fan program.

I bought the fan sticks from Daisy Days. They are a little more expensive than your average popsicle stick, but the idea was that we would only need one sheet of paper to slip into a pre-cut slot (see the website link to see what I mean) and it would save us money on having two pages printed and the double-sided tape. Wrong! 100lb paper is way too flimsy to serve as a fan, but paper any thicker would probably break the little fan slot. In fact, I broke one by accident just fiddling with one sheet of 100lb paper! This is just a heads up in case you were considering buying these fan handles. They are cute though, but maybe not worth the extra cost. We ended up attaching the paper the old fashioned way, basically exactly as described by Mrs. Bunting in her post, but we used regular double-sided tape and it seems to be working fine. 

The back of the fan program. 

I know it seems crazy to be doing so much before the wedding, but I've had plenty of time to relax too. I've been going to the pool to get just a bit of sun and I had a 75 minute "deep sleep" massage yesterday that was absolutely amazing. My biggest stress factor right now is the fact that we have NO time after our wedding to pack before leaving for our honeymoon on Monday. So I am simultaneously finishing some projects, trying to keep the apartment from looking like a disaster area, spending time with family, AND doing laundry and frantically packing for the honeymoon. It's a little stressful! But it looks like the weather is going to be amazing (0% chance of rain -- that's a number I like!) and low humidity which is great for Georgia. I just can't wait to marry my best friend! 

I am still making a chalk board seating chart tonight too, but after that we are done!! Let the festivities begin! Did you have any last minute wedding crafting to do before your wedding? 

Healing the Past: Family Drama and the Wedding

My parents divorced when I was 13 years old, and it was a nasty, bitter split. My dad left my mom for another woman. Not an upgrade or trophy wife, but a woman his age with three young children. He moved to the other side of the country and several years later he remarried. While I have since forgiven my father, my mother has not. In fact, my mother has never met my stepmother. My mother understandably has a lot of old wounds from the divorce. She had a really hard time recovering (it took years) and I think even now, even though she has remarried and moved to Illinois with her husband, she has not forgiven nor forgotten the past. 

The last time my parents were in the same room together was in 2006 when my mom was seeing me off at the airport when I was moving to Japan. My dad also happened to be there as he was flying through Atlanta (he's a commercial airline pilot) on a trip. I won't lie -- it was awkward. I remember standing there and feeling red in the face, hands sweaty. My dad looked incredibly uncomfortable. I was so thankful when it was over, but then I cried realizing it was the first time I'd seen them both together, at the same time, in ten years. Even at 30 years old, the idea of having a photo taken with my mom and dad at my wedding still makes me tear up. Old emotions like this don't heal and disappear, they lurk under the surface of your skin; they resurface at Christmas, on birthdays, whenever I think about being able to go "home" which doesn't exist anymore. 

Always over the years, the one thing that has been cycling through the back of my mind is: what's going to happen when I get married? Even when I was in relationships that I knew had no future potential, even when I was single, it was always a worry that would surface from time to time: what happens when my mother, who can be at times very volatile and irrational, finally meets the woman who she believes destroyed her marriage? 

I don't want to get too detailed about the events of the divorce or what my older brother and I endured in our teen years, but suffice it to say that very little was handled with dignity or, in many cases, sanity. It was bad and things were crazy. Even though I love my mother very much, it's actually been a lot harder for me to forgive my mother for her actions and behavior than it was for me to forgive my father. I know people may have a hard time understanding this, but without airing everyone's business you will just have to withhold judgement.

To further complicate things, Mr. C's parents are also divorced. His father remarried and his mother is now single and living on her own. Of course, there are always going to be old, bitter or perhaps resentful emotions in such situations. I know that there have been some situations between Mr. C's parents in the past. Thankfully they both have a working, amicable relationship together so it's not quite as intense or drastic as my parents' relationship (or lack thereof). But it's still something I worry about. 

So here we are, days from the wedding, and all of these emotions that I've been pushing away under more pressing concerns (work, planning, projects) are suddenly resurfacing. What's going to happen? Will everyone behave like adults and enjoy themselves? How will things go at the rehearsal dinner when we will all be there together for the first time? Weddings are incredibly emotional for everyone and I hope it's not enough to push anyone over the edge. 

It may sound weird but really my biggest concern is that everyone is able to enjoy themselves at the wedding. I don't want my mom to treat the wedding as a competition. I want her to relax and enjoy being with her family and meeting Mr. C's family for the first time. I feel the same for my dad and stepmother. They are paying for a considerable chunk of our wedding and I want them to enjoy it. I don't want them to worry about my mom acting out. I don't want them to shy away from being affectionate with each other or dancing together. I want everyone to get along and I want everyone to have fun. I hope the wedding provides some closure for our families. 

I don't know what's going to happen on my wedding day. I hope that what everyone keeps telling me is true: that our parents will realize that this day is about Mr. C and me and our love and not about their pasts. I want to believe that is true, but I also have seen things in the past that haunt me today. But I will have faith and believe that everything will go smoothly. And the best part is that the day is about Mr. C and me rising above our pasts and forging a new union. Together we are creating a new family, a new home, and not one split by divorce and resentment, but one with love, laughter, and adventure.

So my question to you is: If you have parents who endured a highly emotional or possibly even destructive divorce, how did things go at your wedding? 

A Venue Update

Mr. C and I are getting married at Cloverleaf Farm a relatively new venue that has only hosted a few weddings thus far. Actually, its very first wedding was just in November but we booked them in August before they had even finished renovating the property. There was a lot of work to be done--a barn to clean up and repair, painting in the house, a bar to be built. We booked them on good faith that by May most of the major projects would be completed.

Well, our good faith and patience paid off! We visited the property just last week and I was blown away the beauty of the property. We arrived at 6:00 pm, around the time we will be getting married in a few weeks, and the light was absolutely gorgeous. All the rustic, rolling fields and pecan trees behind the property were aglow with the golden hues of the setting sun. I'm not usually a very weepy person, but I actually started to tear up looking out over the field where we are getting married in a few short weeks. The barn has been renovated with cafe lights and rustic chandeliers strung from the ceiling. The coordinator directed me towards their blog with even gorgeous photos from their recent April weddings. You can see them on the property website under their photos section, if you are interested. I am just so excited to be getting married at this venue!

Image via: Cloverleaf Farm / Photography by: ZoomWorks

I took a few photos with my phone that I wanted to share, since I really didn't have many photos of the venue to share when I first posted about it last fall. You can read about how we chose Cloverleaf in the venue entry. I was trying to capture that lovely golden hour just as the sun is setting.

This is the field where we will be getting married (weather permitting). If you look carefully you can see Mr. C way back there sort of in front of the large pecan tree. The plan is to have it underneath that tree with a crystal chandelier hanging from the limbs. We are renting a chandelier from a local antique shop.

This is the chandelier we are renting, but we are going to remove the hurricane glass covers because I think it makes it look a little outside of the time period we are going for (if that makes sense). I think it's beautiful though and it will look perfect hanging from the pecan tree.

This is the left side of the house with a cute little garden which leads into a sun room. We will have our cocktail hour out on the lawn here with highboy tables. The guestbook will be inside the sun room on a table which is conveniently on the way to the bar. One of the April brides decided to actually hold her ceremony in this space and it was really gorgeous. That's one awesome thing about this venue -- there are so many options for the ceremony, the reception, the cocktail hour, the bar, the band--everything! In fact, there were so many options that our meeting lasted over two hours as we hashed out the details and updated layout for the reception. All of our original plans were turned upside down!

This is the main dining room which we were originally going to use as the ballroom area for the DJ and dancing. However, our coordinator suggested that if the weather is nice we should hold it outside under the patio and have cafe lights strung up with the tables leading back into the lawn instead of being throughout the house. The door you see in these photos leads out onto the back patio/porch you see in the photo below. For months and months I have only visualized our wedding reception as being inside the house, but now that it can be held outside under cafe lights I am starting to really get excited. Now we just need to pray there is no rain! You hear me Georgia weather, no rain! Please!! 

The back patio where an April bride had her dance floor with the DJ up on the porch. The cafe lights were strung from the patio back to where I am standing taking the photo with the guests all sitting at tables out on the lawn. It was so beautiful!

Now that our venue has a few weddings under its belt, the coordinator had a much better idea of what would and would not work from our original plan. I'm so excited about the changes we've made, even if it has placed us closer in the hands of the capricious Georgia weather. I guess the good news is that the large house can certainly accommodate all of the guests in case the weather turns sour. The bad news is that our ceremony will have to be in the renovated barn and not out in the field under the trees which is my ultimate vision. Ah, but the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.

Did you have any last minute changes with your wedding reception or ceremony plans?

Le Petit Prince

Since the beginning of our engagement I've always known that I would like to have a reading from  The Little Prince at our wedding ceremony. If you haven't heard of it, it's a children's book written by French author and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I was first introduced to the book as a child when my dad read it to me. I always loved the simple tale about the world of adults and the world of children. 

One of my bridesmaids recently gave me the Little Prince popup book, which is so beautiful! I love it so much that I actually bought one for my dad to give him as a thank you gift before the wedding.

Our reader is a dear friend and coworker, the English department chair at our school. She actually played a large role in hiring me at the school where we work, which in turn played a role in me meeting and falling in love with Mr. C! So we actually owe her a pretty large debt of gratitude, and we thought she would be the perfect person to be a reader at our ceremony, especially when she reads in her gentle, eloquent teacher-reader voice.

Here is the excerpt we would like to include in our wedding ceremony: 

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

". . . If you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." 

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

I realize that this excerpt is rather long. Do you guys think it is too long? The worst part is that I've already abridged this text slightly. I'm not sure what more I could cut out without detracting from the meaning of the story. We do plan on having a short, simple ceremony so maybe this won't be so bad, especially if I plan on it being our only reading. What do you think? 

Mad for Macarons

I love macarons. Specifically Ladurée macarons, but any will do really so long as they are made with care. In another blogger bee life, I would have loved to have blogged as Miss Macarons from the tea party generation. Macarons were present on the day Mr. C and I got engaged. We were at Versailles and of course Ladurée has a small boutique inside the palace to satiate your sweet tooth. There is nothing more decadent than sitting on the beautifully manicured grounds of Versailles or the whimsical gardens of the Queen's Hamlet and munching on some dainty little macarons in all the colors you know Marie Antoinette herself would have loved. I remember my first visit to Versailles in the summer of 2011. I was there with my stepsister and I knew I had to try the macarons I had seen photos of so often online. I sat on the lawn munching away thing, "This is the life." My stepsister, however, was not as impressed. Well, more for me! 

I knew I wanted to try and have macarons present at our wedding, either as favors, features of our dessert table, or both. Sadly I just didn't know if it would be possible. I'm not as hardcore as Mrs. Perfume in thinking that I could bake my own. Not only do I already have a lot on my plate right now, we also don't own a stand mixer which I feel is a pretty crucial tool in the creation of macarons. I also didn't know of any shop or bakery in Athens that sells them. 

My first taste of macarons at Versailles.

Luckily a friend of mine in Atlanta discovered a Korean bakery called Mozart that makes and sells their own macarons. Mr. C and I ended up paying the bakery a visit for a little test taste and they were certainly delicious! It doesn't hurt that the bakery is next to a really awesome Japanese ramen restaurant. I miss real, authentic Japanese ramen so much. 

I put Mr. C in charge of contacting the bakery and obtaining quotes. He even drove into Atlanta a few Saturdays ago and placed the order, but not before picking up eight macaron samples so I could pick which colors and flavors we would purchase. He called the baker back with our decision and paid for the order over the phone. What an awesome man I am marrying! I'm just glad that the favors are taken care of and that I will have mounds of gorgeous macarons at our wedding! 

Right now each guest will receive their own individually wrapped macaron while we will have extra macarons on the cake table as decoration. I bought a few domed glass platters at thrift stores and antique shops so that we could stack them and make it look like a scene straight from Sophia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette. 

This is how they will be wrapped and presented for guests -- one sitting on each place setting. We will add our own flair with hand-stamped thank you tags.  I'm so glad that not only will we have edible favors (supposedly the most popular) but also favors that really reflect our theme! 


What are you using as favors at your wedding?

Life After the Wedding

The days have been flying by lately. I feel so consumed by work and wedding tasks that I look up and a week, two weeks, three weeks have flown by. Everything is moving so quickly and I feel that we are going to reach a critical mass soon! I'm starting to wonder why we decided to get married one week after the school year ends. But despite the mounting stress of work and the wedding, I'm glad that we will be getting married early in the summer so that we can enjoy the rest of our time off without worrying about wedding tasks. We can enjoy our much-earned break and enjoy being married to each other.

Even though I'm feeling burned out and overwhelmed by the wedding -- I'm still going to be sad when it's all over. I think that I am probably very susceptible to experiencing the dreaded post-wedding depression. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, I have a stressful job that isn't always easy. In fact, most of the time it is not easy. Mr. C and I work at a Title I high poverty high school and there are a lot of emotional issues that are attached to what we do each day. Not only due to the current state of education, but also with the daily issues that students come to us with each day. We both teach "high stakes" test subjects which puts a lot of pressure on us to bring in good test scores with students who, even as 12th graders, often struggle with basic reading comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills. Needless to say, the wedding has been a very happy, positive distraction this year.

It's been so nice having something fun and positive to talk about with coworkers. Everyone loves a wedding and of course ladies always want to hear about the details. It's provided a topic of conversation for coworkers I don't know as well as I should. I regularly have coworkers pop in my classroom to ask how the wedding planning is going. "Are you getting excited?" they ask, "It's getting so close!" I have students begging to be invited and oohing and aahing over pictures of my dress (well, the female students anyway). Because Mr. C and I work at the same school, everyone knows us and they have been so excited about our wedding. They were witnesses to our dating stage, us moving in together, the engagement in Paris, and now on our journey to the altar. Weddings are something that people smile about; a bright spot during rough times.

Of course outside of work the wedding has been something fun to bring friends and family together. I've had excuses to hang out with girlfriends that I rarely get to see. I receive calls from my fiesty grandma and I can tell how excited she is to be attending the wedding and picking out a new dress to wear. My mom has been buzzing with wedding preparations. My parents split when I was thirteen and for maybe the second time in the last decade I will be able to see them and spend time with them both on the same day in the same room. I will have pictures of myself taken together with my mom and dad for the first time in my adult life. For me, our wedding has been more than exchanging vows, it's also been seeing and spending time with my often distant family.

I've also really enjoyed crafting things and utilizing my creativity. I'm a terrible procrastinator and it's nice to have a purpose and deadline for projects. It has forced me to sit down, learn how to use Illustrator, utilize the skills, and create a final product in a defined time period. I've never felt so creatively productive! And I've loved blogging for Weddingbee. It's given me an excuse to sit down and write about my wedding. And honestly it feels good to have a reason to write. It's also provided an excuse to break out my camera which seems to be gathering a lot of dust these days.

I'm the type of person who needs some type of event to look forward to and I think that after fourteen months of planning, suddenly having this big event over and done with will be sad. I know myself too well. Yes, I will be relieved to finally have my free time back, time to rest, relax, and read books and prepare for the next school year. But putting so much energy and emotion into one day can only end in sorrow. But who knows. Maybe I will surprise myself and I will return from our honeymoon ready to move on with my life. And knowing me I will have some other trip or project to work on in no time. Or I might just spend the summer catching up on all the sleep I've lost in the last nine months.

I know that regardless, life will move on after our wedding, but I think I will be sad that the one excuse to see all of my nearest and dearest friends and family at once is gone. But the good news is that I will have a lifetime of love and happiness to look forward to with Mr. C -- and at the end of the day that is all that really matters. We have so much to look forward to as husband and wife: traveling the world, buying our first home, maybe starting a family (or adopting 50 cats?), and simply moving through life as a team.

Did you have (or do you think you will have) post wedding depression?