It's Official, We Have Our Officiant!

My parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary yesterday (congratulations, Mom and Dad), so I'm taking some time today to write about how we found our wedding officiant.

Mr. Blue Moon and I were both raised in Christian families, but in different denominational traditions. Mr. Blue Moon was raised in the Presbyterian tradition, and I was raised in a church of Christ. As we have gone through the process of finding a church to marry in that we can both agree on, thinking about what we want to incorporate into our wedding ceremony, and asking someone special to officiate it, we have talked a lot about how we can compromise and incorporate elements from both of our backgrounds. 

We decided pretty early on in our engagement to use our hometown's Presbyterian church, about five minutes down the road from both of our childhood homes, for our ceremony. Though we had several choices, Mr. Blue Moon ultimately felt that it was good to marry in a church that follows the same tradition that he was raised in. It was not important to me to get married in my church or another different church of Christ. 

However, I thought a good blend might be to ask someone from my religious tradition to officiate our ceremony. Mr. Blue Moon agreed, and we decided to ask my mom's cousin to do our ceremony. He has been a lifelong member of the same denomination, officiated many church of Christ weddings, and actually married my parents in 1991!

My lovely parents and cousin 25 years ago. Personal Photo.

My mom is really excited that we asked her cousin to officiate the wedding. We are talking with him about using some of the same scripture readings from my parents' ceremony. Since our wedding is focused on family and those traditions that get passed down, I am really happy to be able to mesh my religious upbringing with Mr. Blue Moon's, give a nod to my parents' wedding (they are seriously one of the strongest couples I know), and have a family member I have grown up with officiate our ceremony. I think that will really help us feel relaxed on the big day. 

How will you choose your wedding officiant? How are you blending denominational or religious differences in your wedding ceremony? 

Virtue Has a Veil

Via Quotes Library Online

Mr. Blue Moon, please don't read this one! You'll see pictures of the dress. :O :O :O

This is one of my favorite Victor Hugo quotes. He was a French poet, and this is one of the many examples of my English major nerdom coming out. But it does tie in nicely with what I have spent this week doing: beginning to accessorize my wedding gown! 

I have been able to get back into the sample of my beautiful dress TWICE this week, which was a rare treat since I haven't tried it on since January. My nanna and Mr. Blue Moon's mamaw were able to meet us at David's Bridal to help pick out bridesmaids' dresses, and my mom really wanted me to try on my dress for them again. I was only too happy to comply! 

Personal Photo

Mama Blue (my future mother-in-law) requested to see the dress without a crinoline or belt in the middle, and this is what it looked like without either one. I am leaning towards going without a crinoline like she suggests. Nanna thought I looked more like myself without the crinoline underneath, and I sort of like the way the dress looks hanging all softly instead of standing out so stiff. 

I definitely think I am going to pick out a belt once my dress comes in, though. I think my hips look massive without something nipping in my waist a little more. Of course, once my dress is altered in perfection and I can see it in the solid ivory (this is ivory over champagne), I may change my mind. I'm also open to suggestions, so let me know what you think! 

The real purpose of trying the sample dress on again, besides to show the grandmothers, was to choose a veil to go with it. I probably tried on half a dozen, but I narrowed it down to two choices. 

Two-tiered veil with beaded stitched edge from David's Bridal

With Blue Mom

Choice #1 was a two-tier veil with beaded edges. This was the crowd favorite. All of the benefits were duly pointed out to me by my entourage. We could use the first tier as a blusher, which I've always wanted for my walk down the aisle. It's short enough that we can see the back of the dress. I can keep it on for the reception. It won't get slammed in the car door. I just really wanted to try on some long veils, because a long veil is what I've always pictured. 

Chapel length veil with pencil edge from David's Bridal

Here is Choice #2. The chapel length veil with a simple pencil edge was my favorite. My maid of honor pointed out that it gets lost in the dress once it passes the center of my back, and the rest of my entourage said I don't need to overwhelm such a detailed dress with a long veil, and hey, they might be right. But I loved this look, and it is what I was envisioning on my wedding day since I was a little girl. 

My mom could sense that I was starting to waffle and lean towards Choice #1, even though she knew that's not what I had pictured, so she suggested that we come back the next day without an entourage to make the final decision, and that's exactly what we did.

The next day with Blue Mom, it was an easy choice for me to purchase the chapel length veil, and a matching blusher veil to wear over my face for the walk down the aisle. When my dad flips it over my head, it will be a beautiful two-tier look, and I'll get the best of both worlds!

One of the hardest things to do throughout the wedding planning process is to stay true to yourself, because a bride has a lot of people to try to please! My mom was the perfect reinforcement for making sure I picked what I wanted, and I am probably going to stick with wearing a belt at my waist, too. I want to feel good in my dress, and ultimately, I know that's what my family wants for me, too!

Have you gone against the crowd favorite or majority ruling on anything in your wedding planning? Is it easy for you to stick to your guns, or do you tend to give in to peer pressure?

Dressing the Ladies: Part I

I have bridesmaids in...you guessed it...three different states. My two hometown bridesmaids are my maid of honor and best friend from childhood, MOH K, and Mr. Blue Moon's little sister, BM E. We also have our flower girl, Blue Blossom, in the hometown. I decided to get everyone together to try on dresses, and it was some of the most fun I've had so far in the planning process. I did not have a big entourage when I picked out my dress. It was just my mom on the first try, and then my mom and MOH K were with me when I finally found my dress. An entourage is fun, just not for the finding of the wedding gown!

I want everyone in my bridal party to be in a dress that she feels good in, so I decided awhile back on using the same color from the same store, but different styles of dresses.

By Kai Heeringa Photography via The White Dress

We are choosing all the bridesmaid's dresses from David's Bridal, since I got my dress there and it will help them out with a discount. I also like the look of short dresses, so I instructed them all to look for those. 

While the big girls were looking for the perfect dress, our sweet flower girl had already met her perfect match. While I was picking out my dress, I had already selected this style for my flower girl. She tried it on, it fit perfectly, and she happily lived in this dress until it was time for us to make our purchases and leave. 

Empire waist tulle dress with beaded neckline from David's Bridal

MOH K found her preferred style super quickly: 

It's tricky to see with such a dark sample dress, but the top is lace and the skirt is netting over chiffon. BM E was having a harder time finding a dress she loved. E is in middle school and in the stage where she is almost two tall for junior's dresses, but too petite for misses dresses. 

There's Blue Blossom in her flower girl dress. I think she features in all of BM E's pictures. Two peas in a pod!

This is one of my top picks, but BM E felt the neckline was funky. 

Finally, my future mother-in-law decided to put BM E in a long dress that she will be able to hem when it comes in. We found this one, and decided it is a perfect fit. 

Sleeveless mesh dress with ruched waist from David's Bridal

Happy with our selections, we made our way to front of the store to get everyone paid for, and that's where the teensiest bit of drama went down. Our consultant told MOH K that her dress will not be available until a week after the wedding date.The consultant began to pull out other purple fabric swatches for me to choose from, which sent me into a minor panic attack. I just really had my heart set on the shade I picked out, and the only shades our consultant could get in on time were really dark, like plum. Rather than ordering a dress in a different color, my maid of honor graciously pulled two other dresses she liked to try on, and settled on her favorite. I am kicking myself for failing to get a photo of her in it, but like I said, it was our first (and hopefully last) dress emergency. 

Illusion lace halter dress from David's Bridal

I know that my beautiful maid of honor will look just as lovely in this dress, but when I shop with my other two bridesmaids this Friday in Atlanta, I am definitely going to make sure that the consultant only pulls dresses that we can get in on time for the wedding. 

Will your bridesmaids match, or do you plan to give them some freedom? 

Dressing the Menfolk

Since Mr. Blue Moon and I were both in our hometown this weekend between our spring breaks (his was last week, and mine is this week), we decided to knock as much wedding stuff out of the way as possible. We purchased our wedding bands last night, and today we did tuxes, bridesmaids and flower girl dresses, veils for me, and a two hour long meeting with our wedding planner. Yeah. I know. It was a doozy.

Today, I'm focusing in on our process of picking out tuxes for the boys. Though Nashville is full of suit and tuxedo boutiques, we decided to streamline the whole thing by going to Men's Wearhouse. We have groomsmen in three different states, and it simplifies things for them to be able to go to their local store, get measured, and place their order.

Today, we had Mr. Blue Moon, three of our groomsmen, and both of our dads measured. As you might recall, I have been petitioning for some time now to have gray tuxes with brown shoes.

By Brooke Parker Photography via Boho Weddings

I was not entirely sure how successful I would be in this undertaking. It is really nontraditional for our two mothers' tastes, and Mr. Blue Moon was not totally sold on my inspiration pictures, either. I also have known for awhile now that I love the look of groomsmen in suspenders. I honestly thought this would be an easier sell than the brown shoes. 

I really love having the groom in a vest for photos, and the groomsmen in suspenders. Of course, they can put on their jackets during the ceremony. By Neil Thomas Douglas Photography via Rock N Roll Bride

I knew that if I could get either Mr. Blue Moon's best man or Mr. Blue Moon's dad (Blue Moon Senior) on board with these styles, that everyone else would come to agree. They are sort of like paragons of menswear style in my book. The best man immediately jumped on the brown shoes suggestion, and so did Blue Moon Senior, but we all ultimately decided to put everyone in a gray vest instead of putting suspenders under tuxes. I was totally willing to concede defeat since Mr. Blue Moon REALLY did not like the suspender idea.

Our overall look is something like this: 

Personal Photo

This is the gray tux by Black by Vera Wang with brown matte dress shoes. We are going with ivory shirts to match the shade of my dress, and Mr. Blue Moon is pairing his ensemble with an ivory bow-tie. The dads are going with black Euro ties, and our groomsmen will have iris bow-ties (a light, light purple) to match the bridesmaids' dresses. 

Fabric swatch from David's Bridal

I think all my favorite guys are going to look fabulous on the wedding day! I was surprised by how quickly we were able to pick everything out. We spent maybe thirty minutes making our selections. It took longer to measure everybody, especially since we're in the midst of prom season. It was cute to see how excited Mr. Blue Moon was to try everything.

Personal Photo

Of course, this handsome devil would look amazing in anything. :)

How big of a part will you play in helping your hubster-to-be pick out tuxes for the wedding? Will he have free reign, or are you a micromanager like me? 

Dreaming of Veils

Even though I have seen tons of brides with beautiful tiaras, and gorgeous flower crowns, or rocking amazing hairstyles without any kind of decoration at all, I have known since I was a little girl that I want to rock a pretty, floaty veil with my wedding gown. When I chose my dress back in December, they let me try on a few veils with it, but I didn't decide to buy one at the time. I was so in my feelings after having my bridal moment with the dress that I didn't want to immediately decide on a veil, too.

 

 Personal Photos

These are two veils that I tried on with my dresses in store. I know they're hard to see. The top one had some bling around the edges, which I hated. the second veil was beautiful, but it only comes in champagne, and I ordered my dress in ivory. I hope to try on some more veils next week while I'm on my teacher spring break and home with my mom, but in the meantime, I've been oogling some of my favorites online.

 

Mimi: Juliet Cap Veil with Beaded Floral Lace from AgnesHart on Etsy.com

I love the look of this Juliet cap veil with beaded lace. I think Juliet veils are so dramatic and unique. I do not see a lot of brides wearing them in real life, though I have seen several bees who've rocked them. I guess my concern is that I don't know if I could pull off this look, or if it would be too much with my dress, which is covered in lace appliques. Maybe something more girly and less edgy is called for. 

 

One-tier halo cathedral length veil from David's Bridal 

I really like this halo-style veil from David's Bridal. I really like the idea of a flower crown anyway, so this might be an easy way to incorporate that look. It is a little simpler to me, but on the other hand, I might rather have fresh flowers. It seems like I gravitate towards the long cathedral length veils, but I wonder if a short one might look better with my dress. 

 

 Multi-Layer Scallop Edge Mid-Length Veil at David's Bridal

I find this veil more simple, without all the lace and bling, and I think that could be very pretty with a dress that has a bunch going on. The scalloped edge still gives it something special though. But I always go back to the long veils because I think they're beautiful, and I guess that's what I've had in my head since I was little. 

 

Chantilly Lace Veil from CoutureBrideBoutique by Etsy.com

My mom wore a Chantilly lace wedding gown, and even though I could never wear her gown (she was slender, and it's not my size), I think it would be nice to incorporate some elements of her wedding look into mine. Lace is so beautiful anyway, and I love the edged look on veils. So pretty! 

Complicating the whole shopping process, though, is the fact that I have four veils on offer to be my "something borrowed." 

 

My parents. Wasn't my mom a stunner?

 

Mr. Blue Moon's parents. 

 

Mr. Blue Moon's grandparents on their wedding day in the early sixties.

 

Our dear friends and the parents of our flower girl. 

So as you can see, I have four gorgeous options to borrow. I think it would be so nice to incorporate something that was used in the wedding ceremony for any one of these successful marriages. That seems like some pretty good luck! I would have to double check, but I think most of these veils are true, true white. My dress is ivory. I guess I would have to try them on to know if they would work together or if the color difference would be too much. They're also all shorter veils, so that may or may not work with the overall look I'm going for. I'm still deciding!

Are you wearing a veil on your wedding day? Did you decide to purchase your own, or are you borrowing one from someone else?

Planning a Menu, aka People Have Lots of Opinions

When it comes to the wedding reception menu, this is one area where Mr. Blue Moon wants a lot of input. The two of us LOVE food, and we love to try new food. We love Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Indian, and Thai food, and we also both went vegetarian in 2013, so we like to try a lot of different restaurants, as well as creative recipes at home.

Of course, having tastes that are maybe beyond your average Southerner's (we've tried to no avail to share our love of different ethnic foods and vegetarian foods with my family) make it difficult to plan a wedding menu that will satisfy everyone.

 

Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I would eat this plate all day, everyday. And I would totally serve it at a wedding! Redi-et Ethiopian Cuisine via Veggin Out And About

For the longest time, I was dead set on brunch. Mr. Blue Moon and I love brunch, and I think brunch receptions are the cutest. I was picturing a coffee bar, towers of little pastries, buttermilk biscuits with all kinds of jams and spreads, an omelet bar with different cheeses and vegetable options, and a fruit display. I also had it in my head that this would be a cheaper option than a meal at a different time of day, and that people would miss meat a lot less if we were serving breakfast or brunch.

 

By Taylor Lord Photography via Project Wedding 

 

By Jill Thomas via 100LayerCake.com

Of course, Blue Mom, who is paying for the majority of the reception, and therefore, has a big say in what we serve our guests, really thought that people would miss bacon, sausage, and ham at a brunch. And for my part, I knew that we will have seven or eight vegan guests, who do not eat any dairy or eggs, and I thought there might not be enough in a brunch for them to eat. I also hate to wake up early. So we moved on. 

My next idea was to use one of my favorite vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Nashville to cater the entire reception. The Sunflower Cafe is a joint in Nashville that Mr. Blue Moon's mom originally found and turned us on to. They do an amazing vegetarian barbecue that I thought would be perfect for a Southern lunch or dinner reception, with lots of yummy sides. 

 

Vegetarian barbecue with collards and sunflower rice, by Yelp user Shawn T. via Yelp.com

When Mr. Blue Moon and I were home for Christmas, we took my parents to eat at the restaurant's storefront. They were really good sports about it, and liked some of the flavors, but Daddy Blue Moon commented that it did not taste like wedding food to him, and that he would rather keep looking. 

At this point, Blue Mom asked our wedding planner, Adriel, to step in and come up with some ideas of affordable catering for us to check out. She set up a tasting for us with CJ's Catering, who does tons and tons of weddings in our area and has lots of experience. The tasting was so fun, and the head chef has many options! Although they have a catering menu to choose from and a baseline price per head to start at, the head chef will work with couples to customize the menu in any way we want. So we decided to go ahead and put down our deposit, and now we are in the final stages of planning a menu for a 5:30 reception. Here's how it's going to break down. 

Passed Hors d'oeuvres

Caprese salad on toast points (vegetarian) and fruit skewers (vegan). The only place we are buckling under pressure from my family on the meat will be for one entree option, but otherwise we are not serving any meat. We will also make sure to have plenty of options for our vegan guests.

 

Caprese Salad via CJ's Catering

Salad

Strawberry and spinach salad with toasted walnuts, gorgonzola cheese, and some type of vinaigrette. We are either going to request that a small portion without cheese be set aside for our vegan friends, or allow guests to dress their own salad with cheese as they please since we're having a buffet. 

Entrees

Two options: Blackberry chicken or marinated grilled Portobello steaks

 

We're requesting the mushroom steak special, so our caterer doesn't have a picture, but I envision something like this. Via AllRecipes.com

Sides

Alabama Sin, which is whole kernel corn cooked in cream cheese and butter

Grilled squash and zucchini 

Mashed potato bar with vegan bacon bits, chives, butter, sour cream, cheese, etc. so that guests can dress to please

Deviled eggs are a special request that we are adding to our menu because Mr. Blue Moon and I are obsessed with deviled eggs and could eat them for every meal

Sweet rolls

 

Mashed Potato Bar by Short Stop Blog via BrideBox

Dessert 

Since CJ's also does wedding cakes, we are ordering our wedding cake from the same vendor, and we are also planning to order about two dozen vegan cupcakes from a local bakery to make a cupcake tower

Although I am not necessarily getting the "exciting" menu I might choose if I were the only one making the decisions, I think it is just as important to choose a menu that all of our guests can enjoy. If it were only up to me, I would never serve meat, but I knew how important it was to my parents and that many of our Southern guests would be giving them serious side eye if there wasn't a meat option. 

Since I know what it is like to go to somebody else's wedding and not be able to eat anything, I want to make sure we have enough for our vegan friends to eat a full meal and dessert, too. I feel good about the compromises I made, and Mr. Blue Moon does, too. I can't wait for our guests to enjoy a delicious Southern meal! 

How did you plan your menu, and what are you taking under consideration as you think about what your guests can and can't eat?  

 

 

Wedding Website Essentials

Even though my wedding is small (it will probably end up being less than a hundred guests), I knew that Mr. Blue Moon and I would need to coordinate a wedding website because roughly half of our invited guests are from out-of-town. I have extended family in Georgia, and since Mr. Blue Moon and I both went out of state for school, we have college friends all over the country. Having been to dozens of weddings since the rise of the wedding website, I have seen a lot of sites, some good, and some bad. Thankfully, since our engagement will be 2+ years long before it's all said and done, I had a lot of time to draft and revise our website before it went live with the sending of our save the dates.

I think a wedding website needs to do three things to actually be functional instead of another useless thing on your to-do list.

1. Give guests a taste of how your wedding will look and feel overall.
2. Provide information for guests, particularly those that are coming from out of town.
3. Tell your story as a couple for anyone who cares.

The Nitty-Gritty
We went with Weddingwire.com to build our wedding website. It had the most options for what I needed, and I love that you can organize your site either as a scrolling list, or into subsections with a sidebar. At first, we had all of our pages as a scrolling list, but as we got deeper into planning and added more information to the website, we switched to the sidebar layout.

As you can see, our website is divided into ten pages. We may end up merging Song Requests and Registry with q&a, but we're still deciding. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Wedding Look
To coordinate our wedding website with our overall wedding theme, we chose a design that featured one of our wedding colors and vintage-esque accents to help our guests picture our wedding day. When guests first reach the website, they see our wedding date and city, and one of our favorite engagement pictures on a Welcome page. I also thought carefully about the tone of the writing on our website. For a very formal wedding, I think I would keep my tone formal as I write about my love story and wedding information. Since our wedding is not very formal, I kept my writing personable and warm throughout.
 

"Thank you so much for visiting our wedding website! This space will include information for our family and friends. We are in the early stages of planning, so please check back often for updates!

We're so excited to celebrate our special day with our nearest and dearest!"

Important Information
Of course, you will want to start by putting down addresses for your wedding and reception venues. Weddingwire also allowed us to include a handy map, which is nice since our reception venue doesn't actually have a physical address yet.

I think that even if your wedding guest list is small enough that you don't have to book a block of hotel rooms, it is still important to provide accommodation recommendations for your guests in a variety of price ranges. We suggested two hotels and one bed-and-breakfast to our guests that are all within about fifteen minutes of the ceremony location.

Another important touch is our list of local activities. Since we are getting married in our hometown, which is right outside of Nashville, we provided a ton of ideas for food and fun. We want all of our guests to have a blast in one of our favorite cities. We divided this page into "Eats," "Sweets," "Sightseeing," and "Music," but you could customize what you want to include based on your location. For example, not every city would need a whole section dedicated to music-related activities. We also found a picture to go with every subsection to give guests who have never traveled here an idea of what they can expect. Finally, if we had a personal story or anecdote about a particular place, we included that, too.

Finally, we dedicated a page to our wedding registry, and a FAQ page of questions and answers that we thought our guests might want to know about. On this page, we explain the wedding's dress code (dressy casual), special traditions we will incorporate into the ceremony, as well as the basics, like when we are going to send formal invitations and what to do if guests have a special dietary need.

Your Love Story
I am not sure how many of our guests want to read about the mushy stuff, but I included a page about our love story just in case. There are some people in Mr. Blue Moon's family who have never met me, and vice versa, so we wrote short biographies of each other, described how we met, and wrote about our engagement. 

Guestbook
Finally, I absolutely recommend including a guestbook. It seemed really cliche to me at first, but I have really enjoyed reading people's sweet messages, particularly from some of my students who happened across my page one day. Apparently stalking your teachers online is a real thing. But I am really happy to have these types of memories preserved.

Final Tips

• Get someone, or several someones, to proofread your website before it goes live. Even though I'm a reading teacher, I had several typos. 
• Include lots of pictures. Pictures add visual interest, and it's also a really nice way to feature your engagement photos, too. 
• As you think about information to include, consider what you would want to know before attending someone else's wedding, particularly if it was out-of-town. 

If anyone is interested in looking at what I came up with in more detail, I'm not super squeamish about sharing personal information, so you can check out our website here.

Are you going to make a wedding website for your special day? How did you go through the process of creating it?

*All photos are screenshots.