It’s almost that time, friends. The big day is almost here. Tomorrow, our third anniversary, Mr. Mole and I are getting married! Hurray!

Back in mid-October, when I first started blogging for Weddingbee, I couldn’t imagine how rewarding this experience would be. I just wanted to thank you for all of the connections that I made throughout the last three months, both on the blog and on the boards. Hive, your caring and critical feedback has made planning this low-key wedding a (mostly) stress-free process! I value every single comment that has been left on my posts, from suggestions about which glasses Mr. Mole should wear to opinions about cross-cultural name changes to stories of personal experiences with ideal marriage timelines to encouraging statements about my wedding weight loss goals. I thank you one and all. I especially thank you bees who challenged me to think deeper, to write better, to reach out more. I am so honored to be a part of this wonderful community.

I also need to thank Mr. Mole. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For being here. For being you. It’s hard to express in words how much I appreciate you and all that you do. You are my person, my partner, my friend, my love. You are a wholly amazing person, and I thank the universe every day that I was fortunate enough to meet you. (Online, no less!) Everyday you inspire me to be a better person, a more generous person, a more kind person, a more loving person. I cannot wait to make my vows to you in front of all of our loved ones. I cannot wait to be your wife. I cannot wait until tomorrow.

I can’t imagine being any happier

So, I’m signing off now as Miss Mole. I’ll see you on the other side!

Yours,
Dana

Needless to say, I have a lot of wedding-related lists shared on Google Docs. Most of them are crossed off. We’ve booked all of our vendors. We’ve paid all of our deposits. We’ve finished all of our projects. The only thing left to do is pack! I always make a packing list and lay all of the items out before I put them in a suitcase. It might take more time to pack this way, but doing so means that I won’t forget anything important.

Here’s an example of my packing method before the 2009 Boston Marathon

Because we have a destination wedding, we really need to make sure that we don’t forget anything important. Vegas is about a four-hour drive — on a good day — from our home. If we forget the rings or the place cards or the programs, we can’t just turn around and get them. So our second bedroom has been turned into a packing staging ground. Items are separated into different wedding related categories: ceremony, reception, hotel room, rehearsal, etc. We even have one of my whiteboards set up to keep track of the list!

Just a small collection of the things that are coming with us to Vegas!

Here’s our packing list:

• Her Wedding Attire: wedding dress, crystal belt, blue underwear, blush heels, gold flats, hair comb, pearl and crystal earrings, pearl necklaces, engagement ring, wedding band, ivory cardigan with pearl buttons, “something old,” “something borrowed,” silk clutch
• His Wedding Attire: JCrew suit and vest, black dress shoes, dress socks, white undershirt, boxers, tie, tie clip, wedding ring
• Her Getting Ready: robe, wedding dress hanger, perfume, sewing kit and safety pins, breath mints
• Her Toiletries: Warby Parkers, lots of extra contacts, contact solution, contact case, makeup, face wash and lotion, nail file, nail polish, nail polish remover, curling iron, shampoo and conditioner, electric toothbrush and toothpaste, razors, deodorant, body wash, mouthwash, brush
• His Toiletries: Glasses, face wash and lotion, nail clippers, shaving kit, electric toothbrush, body wash
• Ceremony: marriage license, extra copies of readings on notecards, programs, multiple copies of VOWS
• Reception: candles, vases, framed photos, photo mat guestbook, photo mat guestbook sign, silver Sharpies, place cards, favors, seating chart and instructions
• Misc: joint account checkbook, joint account credit card, digital cameras (2), prescription sunglasses (2), parents’ gifts, “bridesmaid” gifts, “groomsmen” gifts, extra suitcases, thank you notes
• Her Clothes: jeans, blazer (2), lace top, lace tank and undershirt, rehearsal dinner dress, green flats, cream and black heels, black sweater, tank tops, shorts, strapless bra, bra, underwear, lingerie, black purse, jewelry
• His Clothes: jeans, button-downs, blazer and slacks, tie, t-shirts, red wings, boxers, socks

How does my list look? What are you packing for your wedding?

Teaser shot

Mr. Mole had a lot of fun with the process of designing and assembling these programs. He was able to incorporate some meaningful details into the design, like our love of crossword puzzles, that really represent our relationship. Mr. Mole hadn’t done any print design work in the last 10+ years — not since his sophomore year of undergrad! — but he insists that it was actually a pretty easy process. Here’s what he did.

Step One: Brainstorm
Mr. Mole started out by thinking of all of the components that his ideal program would have. He came up with the following list:

1. A multi-fold layout
2. A ceremony schedule
3. A list of the ceremony participants
4. The full text of our two ceremony readings
5. A crossword puzzle
6. Our logo

Step Two: Create Mock-Ups
Mr. Mole then created some very basic mock-ups of the programs. First, he created a drawing in Adobe Ideas on his iPad using his awesome drawing skills.

Mr. Mole should be a computer illustrator

Then, he made a paper version using white paper and a sharpie pen. He taped together two pieces of white paper to make one tabloid-sized sheet. Next, he taped both “tabloid” sheets back to back to mimic double-sided printing. Doing so was important to make sure that he nailed down the correct size of the pages and the placement of the folds.

Third, Mr. Mole and I sat down together with a notepad to create the crossword puzzle and its clues. We wanted the clues to be meaningful to us and our relationship. We also wanted some of the clues to be tricky enough that both sides of our family would have to work together to solve the puzzle. (For example, the name of my favorite childhood toy? Le Mutt! That’s right, my beloved stuffed dog had a pseudo-French name.) After creating the clues, we fed them into a free online crossword generator to get a rough sense of the puzzle’s overall layout.

Step Three: Design
Mr. Mole used Adobe Illustrator to lay out the content. He used the guides to set the borders and folds based on the paper mock-up. He then tooled around for a bit until he was happy with everything’s placement.

We work better in our pajamas

At this point, everything was still in black and white. We decided that things were looking a little too stark, so Mr. Mole added color. He used the eyedropper tool in Photoshop to match the exact colors from our invitations. He added those colors to our logo. Next, he created a gradient design using dots to go behind the text of our list of participants and our schedule of the ceremony. Last, he grabbed some clip-art from one of his favorite (and highly recommended) websites: NounProject. This website is awesome when you need to find iconography for a variety of different purposes. Mr. Mole did a quick search for “dog” and “union” to add in some vector-based drawings behind the text of our ceremony readings.

Screenshot of Side One

Screenshot of Side Two

Step Four: Proofread, Proofread, Proofread
We probably proofread our programs dozens and dozens of times. Good thing too: we found two or three typos and one pretty epic error in the crossword puzzle. I always like to print things out and edit with a pen in hand. For whatever reason, it’s much easier for me to miss a mistake on a computer screen than it is on paper.

Step Five: Print
We decided to outsource some work at this point. There were two main reasons for this. First, our printer doesn’t print in tabloid size and eats a ton of ink. The price of buying three new color cartridges plus paper would have been more expensive than getting the programs done elsewhere. Second, we were feeling pretty iffy about cutting the programs down to size. I kept imagining that I would accidentally chop Mr. Mole’s hard work in half.

So Mr. Mole checked out reviews of local print shops on yelp. He then called the places with the highest reviews to get quotes for paper, printing, and cutting. One place seemed especially promising, so Mr. Mole took the pdf files to the shop to print out a test program. It looked great! Our decision to go with this company was reinforced when the printer gave Mr. Mole some important tips about how to better format the file.

We ended up getting them printed on white 65lb paper. The final dimensions of the unfolded program is 8″x16″.

Step Six: Assemble
We set up a short assembly line for this part. Mr. Mole folded the programs and then passed them to me. I then used our leftover Divine Twine in a baker’s cross to attach one one of our moo mini-cards and a pen. I wanted the overall look to be reminiscent of our invitations. The mini-card is to say thanks and remind our guests of our wedding website, which has an group log-in for a photo upload site. The pen is to allow people to work on the crossword puzzle while waiting for our ceremony to begin.

Here are some photos of the completed project!

Front Cover

Pages 2-3

Pages 4-5

Pages 6-7

Back Cover

Are you having programs for your ceremony guests? If so, are you making your own?

Let’s start with a before picture, shall we? This picture was taken in early July on one of our Las Vegas scouting trips.

In the Wynn Casino

Now, let’s see the after photo. This picture was taken today by Mr. Mole. (Thanks, Mr. Mole, for helping so much not only with the wedding but also with the wedding blogging!) My hair is a little nuts here, sorry.

In front of what has become our picture taking wall

I feel so much better, both in terms of my physical fitness and my self-confidence. I have not been weighing myself, so I don’t know exactly how much weight I’ve lost; however, I do know that my wedding dress had to be taken in a few inches around the waist. I also know that I can fit back into some of my old bathing suits, just in time for our Mexican honeymoon. Hurray!

I still have a way to go in terms of some of my fitness goals. I’d like to be able to run a comfortable 10 miles again. I’d like to get back into a more consistent strength training routine. I’d like to learn some more advanced moves in my step aerobics class. But I feel pretty proud of what I have accomplished so far.

Getting some muscles back

The wedding date was a good motivator to change my lifestyle (again) for the better. Now I just need to make sure that I remain motivated to be healthier, to feel healthier, for the rest of my life (and, accordingly, throughout my marriage to Mr. Mole).

What keeps you motivated to stay healthy and in shape?

These small, intimate events won’t be featuring any dancing: no first dance, no father-daughter dance, no mother-son dance, no chicken dance, no line dances. Well, I guess I have to qualify this statement a bit. We won’t be preventing people from dancing a la Footloose, but we aren’t going to be doing much to encourage it. It’s just not us or the vibe we are going for.

Inevitably, when reading about other weddings that don’t schedule in a specific time for dancing, I notice a couple of main concerns from guests:

1. The wedding won’t be any fun.

I really think this is an example of how important it is to know your guests. Our guests are more the type of people who like mingling and talking with each other with a drink in hand rather than living it up on the dance floor. Accordingly, our iPod playlist is less designed to get people dancing than to allow for lively conversation. (That being said, there are definitely some “danceable” songs on the list. And there will be room to dance, if people so desire.)

We fully understand that our reception won’t be as long as those that feature dancing. That’s okay with us. We definitely aren’t planning to have a six hour reception. From first cocktail to last call, we are planning on somewhere between three and four hours. We just went to a wedding like this, and we thought it was perfect.

2. The wedding won’t seem like a wedding.

This one is tougher for me to understand — and I hear this comment about a lot of non-traditional decisions that people make. It’s not a wedding without dancing / a tiered cake / the groom in a tuxedo / a surf and turf entree / the ceremony in a church / etc. So what exactly is a wedding? What does a wedding have to have in order to be wedding-like? I figure that we are getting married and then hosting a celebration afterwards. That seems like a wedding to me!

So, hive, what do you think? Are you opting against dancing — or any other traditional wedding “must-have”? Are you getting any flack for your decision?

I imagine that you can guess how this story ends, right? I ended up purchasing a dress with a long lace and organza train. One that is just begging to be dirtied and stepped on. One that I still love and want to keep.

Here she is, pre-alterations.

This meant that I needed to start thinking about my bustle choices. Project Wedding’s Guide to Bustles was a great resource, but it just left me a bit overwhelmed with the amount of options. All I knew is that I didn’t want what I like to call a “big butt bustle”: where the bustle is so voluminous and predominant that it exaggerates, ahem, a certain body part.

Does this dress make my butt look big? / Image via Wikipedia

My seamstress suggested an under-bustle, with the top points starting well below my bottom. I agreed, and she got to work. I recently got to see the bustle for the first time.

That bump is all my own, friends

The dress still needs to be tweaked and steamed and pressed and fluffed, but otherwise it’s all finished! I get to pick it up next week so it can make the car trip with us to Vegas. I can’t wait to wear it, train and bustle and all.

Are you bustling your dress? How did you decide what kind of bustle to use?

Cover of US Weekly / Image via The Hollywood Gossip

This cover and subsequent article got me thinking about marriage ultimatums. Can they ever work? Or will they just cause bigger problems down the road?

I think most people will agree that an ultimatum in the strictest terms — where one partner threatens to leave the other if a ring isn’t offered within a certain time period — is not a great way to start a marriage. It just leaves both partners feeling threatened. The first partner is literally threatened by the other. The second partner becomes threatened by the idea that the engagement was forced and the proposal was not heartfelt. Bad news all around.

I think an interesting question is the ways in which issuing an ultimatum is different than putting forth a timeline. I have a friend who made herself a promise that if her boyfriend didn’t propose by their fifth anniversary, she would begin dating other people. Marriage was incredibly important to her, and she felt that a five year relationship was more than sufficient for both sides to determine whether marriage was in the cards or not. If her boyfriend were not ready after five years, she reasoned that he would never be. (Or at least that he would never be ready with her.)

My friend’s boyfriend proposed to her shortly before their four year anniversary, so their story has a happy ending. But, if she would have waited for five years without a ring and then told her boyfriend that she was leaving and why, would that be a kind of ultimatum? (I suppose it matters if she would have taken him back if he later proposed.) Or is that just an example of her knowing what is important to her — in this case, marriage — and making the choice to go out and get it?

Is it ever okay to give an ultimatum in a relationship? Is Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake’s relationship now doomed? What do you think?

Then, I remembered that I already had the perfect shoes in my closet: a pair of cream and black patent leather heels. I wore these heels on our second date. The shoes’ main appeal, though, is not because of nostalgia; it’s because I was able to walk a pain-free mile in them that February night from my apartment in Ravenswood to catch the #9 Ashland bus. We’ll probably be doing a lot of walking the day before the wedding, so I want to make sure that I have something comfortable on my feet.

The only problem? A series of mile long walks meant that these shoes were scuffed to hell. There were black marks all over the cream patent leather. I thought these shoes were goners. However, I was wrong!

Imagine these types of marks over all sides of both shoes

All you need to fix scuff marks on patent leather are two incredibly common household items. I’d bet that you have them in your bathroom right now. You need non-acetone nail polish remover and cotton pads. (Or cotton balls, although even typing their name makes my teeth hurt. I have a weird aversion to them.)

I need to clean my bathroom counter tiles

I’d recommend that you do a small test on your shoes first, just to make sure that the nail polish remover does more good than harm. I did not set a good example on this point, as I just started attacking the shoes. It worked. I was incredibly surprised.

Almost as good as the day I bought them from DSW

I figured that I should pass this along, in case anyone else is looking to wear patent heels to a wedding (as a bride, a bridesmaid, a guest, etc).

Do you have any surprising household tips that might help others save some money for their wedding?

Man, I have to answer yes to both of those questions. I just got back from Nordstrom Rack. Again. I know, I know. The store is way too close to where I am going once a week now for wedding dress alterations. I ended up finding another dress to be part of my “other wedding dresses” collection. I am justifying this purchase in my head for three reasons:

1. I will wear it to our rehearsal dinner, thus making the original rehearsal dinner dress into a honeymoon dress. And, seriously, can you have too many honeymoon dresses? (Rational Brain pops up to say, “Yes. Seriously. You can. You are getting preeeetty close to that point.” Wedding Brain quickly shuts her down, though, by humming along with “Somebody’s Getting Married” from Muppets Take Manhattan.)

2. I got it for a steal. This Milly dress cost me $50 plus tax. (My general advice: unless you are looking for a particular dress, always look at Nordstrom Rack before Rent the Runway. I’ve been able to purchase three or four dresses, including this Milly dress, for the same cost as renting them. If you are truly never going to wear the dress again, you can then take it to Crossroads/Buffalo Exchange/etc and get some money back!)

3. I think it’s darn cute. Here’s some photos.

Milly Ivory Lace Flutter Dress / Image via Rent the Runway

I am using my left hand to try to conceal the tag. Classy.

Of course, this one dress is not the only thing that I’ve allowed Wedding Brain to justify. I bought new eyeshadow. I bought a travel wallet (because, clearly, my passport needs to travel in style). I bought extra aloe and suntan lotion.

We aren’t going broke from these purchases; in fact, a lot of the money was given to me as birthday and Christmas presents from my parents. But would I be spending the way that I am now without a wedding in the horizon? Probably not.

So, hive, make me feel like I am not alone. What extra purchases has your Wedding Brain allowed you to justify?

Mr. Mole and I are so excited about our upcoming wedding! It’s coming up pretty quickly now. We are also excited about the possibility of celebrating it with you. We really hope that you will be able to make it to our event. So, please, let us know if you can by sending in your RSVP. 

I know that we probably made a mistake in having our celebration in Milwaukee the day before the Super Bowl — especially considering the fact that the Green Bay Packers are still in the playoffs. (GO PACK GO!) I imagine that some of you are thinking about attending the big game in person or, at the very least, going to a party where you can watch it on a huge television while eating nachos and seven-layer dip. However, I know that many of you don’t care about football at all. You don’t even care about the Packers. So, please, you guys, send in your RSVP.

You could probably send it in today! If you look at the upper right-hand side of the postcard, you will see that there’s already a 29 cent stamp there. You can just drop it in one of the blue USPS boxes on the street or leave it in your mailbox for the mailman! I just mailed a letter today, and I found it was a pretty fulfilling task. And, not to scare you or anything, but USPS is raising stamp prices on the 22nd, meaning that you will have to add more postage to the card after that date! You will save money by acting sooner. So, please, send in your RSVPs. Pretty please.

Don’t worry about hurting our feelings if you can’t come! Obviously we really want you to come; that’s why we sent you an invitation. But seeing an RSVP marked “no” in our box won’t send us spinning into a deep depression. In fact, we will be happy knowing definitively that our invitation made it to you in the first place. So, please, send in your RSVP. Please, please, please.

I want to make sure that you are sitting with a group of people that you love (or, minimally, tolerate). I am just starting to think about the seating chart now, so an early RSVP gives you a better chance of sitting next to your friends and family! If you wait too long to send in the card, I might have to put you at a table with all of the other late-RSVPs in a completely random fashion. So, please, send in your RSVP. Pretty, pretty please.

Again, we hope to see you — and your RSVP cards — soon!

Love,

Mr. and Miss Mole

Obviously this letter is a joke, and I won’t be sending it to anyone who has yet to RSVP. I imagine, though, that many other brides have drafted a similar letter in their heads, particularly once their original RSVP date has passed. Which ours now has.

This photo roughly illustrates our feelings about our missing RSVPs

How did you find the RSVP process? Did you have to track anyone down who didn’t send in a card?