Our Wedding Day

I always wondered if brides, on the night before their wedding, actually sleep at all. Turns out, they do! Well, I did anyway. I woke up feeling rested, excited and calm. Almost all of the people I loved were in one state, the sun was shining and hey — I was getting married!

By 9 a.m. I had JLo pumping from the speakers and I was running around the house in my pink bride bathrobe dancing up a storm. I knew a dance party was crucial to setting a fun tone for the rest of the day so when the beat dropped, so did everything else. “Ten-second dance party!” I yelled and, just like that, everyone stopped, even the flower girl, and got down with their bad selves. Yes! I thought. Today was going to be a great day for dancing.

The best advice I got leading up to the wedding was, “Let the chaos happen around you.” So it was with this tidbit in mind that I made it a point to sit calmly and chat with people while all the moving pieces of the day came together. Getting ready, as you can imagine, was a blast, but taking a moment to reflect on why each person was there, after years of friendship, helping me get ready, really magnified the blessing of it all.

 

The best word I can think of to describe the day is happy. I was so overwhelmingly happy. Simple as that. It was the happiest day of my life.

Post-wedding tips: 

1) I call it the “Day After Christmas” feeling and yes, you should prepare yourself for the feeling that comes over you once all the cake is eaten, the gifts are opened, the dancing is done and your loved ones return home. Choose instead to focus on the best part, the part that lasts forever, your marriage! You’ve done it! Paul and I felt a crazy sense of accomplishment once everything was done. Just getting through the wedding planning process seemed to have brought us closer than I ever thought possible.

2) You’re not done yet! Writing thank you cards is a daunting task! Prepare yourselves for this as well. We divided the guest list and knocked out a few cards every night. It is an impossible task to adequately thank everyone for all they’ve done for you but it is a crucial and important step in wrapping up your big day.  Take your time, avoid generics and reflect on what that individual has meant to you.

3) Very few brides talk about it but I’d like to touch upon post-wedding regret. The moment you log onto Pinterest after your big day you’ll be slammed with images from the wedding boards you follow or you may return home to find the most recent issue of Brides staring you in the face. You’ll start ruminating on all of the ideas floating around the wedding world and start critiquing your own big day. Don’t bother! Your day was fabulous. The wedding industry is much like the fashion world, there’s always something new and beautiful happening. I bet if you looked at your own wedding Pinterest board you’d see how well you applied your favorite details. Focusing on details you didn’t include will only take away from the magic of what you did do — so go ahead and pass that Brides off to your newly engaged colleague.

**A note on videographers: Totally, 1,000% worth the investment! Someday our kids will watch our wedding video and get to see for themselves just how magical the day was. Additionally, we were able to share our wedding video with those who couldn’t make it out for the big day. Lastly, years from now Paul and I can look back on the best day of our lives, hear our vows exchanged again and relive all the magic. I would even recommend cutting budget in other places to make room for a videographer, if need be. I can’t tell you how special our video is to us. If you’re in New England, we cannot recommend Waves Media enough!

To see our favorite black and white photos from the big day and to read my vows to Paul, visit AutumnSundays.com.

Kate + Paul – Short from Waves Media on Vimeo.

Bride’s dress: Paloma Blanca // Groom’s tux: BLACK by Vera Wang // Photographer: Zac Wolf Photography // Videographer: Waves Media // SOWA Entertainment, DJ Doug Boucher: //Caterer: Fireside Catering // Cakes: Frederick’s Pastries // Location: LaBelle Winery, Amherst, New Hampshire // Floral arrangements: Celeste’s Flower Barn // Weather: By God, Heavenly

 

So we did it. We tied the knot and what a glorious day it was! Overflowing with friends, family and love. Before we break down the entire wedding, I wanted to give you a sneak peek. Below you’ll find a short list of some of my favorite details from the big day.

With so much commotion, noticing little things can be tough. Knowing this, Paul and I made a conscious effort to stop, stand still and pick up on the tiny details that made the day so memorable. Here are some of my favorites:

Kate Spade crystal toasting flutes with the words ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ engraved onto them.

(A wonderful gift from Paul’s mom).

My grandfather, at nearly 94 years old, was our guest of honor.

Making our tee time, of course.

The way the sunlight poured into the church.

The flower girl, smart enough to nap before she danced the night away.

The weather.  No humidity, light breeze, 75 degrees. Perfection.

The groom. I mean, c’mon! Just look at him.

The best man’s bow tie. It was as charming as he was.

Matching monogrammed robes for getting ready.

Wrapped around my bouquet was the handkerchief my Grandfather sent my Grandmother while he was away at war. It reads, ‘To my dear wife.’ It’s the ultimate love letter if you ask me. I wanted it as my ‘something old’ on the day I, too, became a wife.

Having a giant bouquet of flowers delivered to my mom on the morning of the wedding, in the midst of all the commotion, was special. It was important for me to recognize how much she had done and given to make the day so spectacular.

(All photographs by Zac Wolf Photography)

Dear Brides, all y’all, current, and future,

Hear me when I say, there will be losing battles, and that’s OK. For instance, we put a lot of energy into making sure our DIY invitations didn’t look cheap or tacky so to top things off we splurged on nice stamps. You know, the ones with the pretty roses? As it turns out, you need to stamp the return envelopes too as a courtesy to your guests (duh). Our first mistake was that we only bought enough postage for the main envelopes. Oops. May you learn from our mistakes!

 What we hoped for. (Oh So Beautiful Paper)

The mini return envelopes were the first part of the invitations to be finished, so naturally I started stamping them with the pretty rose stamps. About halfway through I realized we wouldn’t have any stamps left for the main envelopes, so off we went to the post office to get more. On that particular day, all they had were sunburst stamps, so we snagged some of those instead. Not ideal, but sunbursts are nice too. We finally finished the invitations about a week later and brought them to the post office. A good wedding hack to remember is never just drop your invitations into the mailbox. Always take them directly to the post office and have them weighed. I knew someone who put all of their invitations in the mail and it turned out they didn’t have enough postage so the invitations got sent back and a few went missing. Save yourself the headache by having the post office officially weigh them.

Our second mistake was not buying forever stamps. Again, may you learn from our mistakes. A week or so had passed and it just so happened that the national stamp price increased to 49 cents and we had stamped everything with 46 cents stamps. Shockingly, the United States Post Office would not just comp us 3 cents an invite. Shucks.

Turns out the only 3 cent stamp they had was an ugly red one with a silver coffee pot on it. And just like that we went from pretty roses and wedding sunbursts, to coffee pots. COFFEE POTS!

This is what we ended up with.

Full confession? I thought, “So what?” No one ever said, “Remember the stamps on those wedding invitations? Those ugly things ruined the whole event for me.” Trust me, no one will remember the stamps. So yeah, our guests received great invitations with really ugly looking stamps (sorry guest!). And that’s how this wedding planning thing goes—there will be mistakes, hiccups, and detours but if at the end of the day you end up married to your best friend, ya done good kid.  Ugly stamps be damned.

The coolest thing yet to happen in our wedding planning process occurred last weekend: we got our wedding bands.

Photo

Yes, the bands! (No those aren’t them, they are being engraved as I type.) I know, I know, that’s not nearly as exciting as the dress or as sexy as the honeymoon plans but it has been, hands down, my most favorite moment until now. I went into wedding band shopping with the idea that it was one more thing to check off my massive wedding to-do list. Shamefully, I had given the wedding band part of this 0% of my attention.

And so, Paul and I jumped in the car on a sunny Saturday afternoon and headed out to get the envelopes for our wedding invitations. We had no intention of shopping for our bands. We love a good weekend drive to anywhere outside the craziness of Manhattan so we ventured over to Summit, New Jersey, where we found a lovely paper store with the envelopes we needed for our glorious DIY invitations.

After a quick and fun time picking out envelopes we decided to grab lunch from Tito’s Burritos. Two very full stomachs later we decided to stroll for a bit, walk off the extra quesadilla, and head back to the car. As we did, we passed a cute little jewelry shop called, Frederic Goodman Fine Jewelers. I stopped in my tracks, pulling Paul’s hand back as I did. “Want to go try on more wedding bands?” He whined for a quick second, in no mood to go looking, yet again, because he already planned to use the same jeweler who made my engagement ring in Manhattan.

I pulled the ol’, “It’ll be fun,” line and dragged him in. We had a fabulous lady named Dianne greet and help us. From there, things went weirdly perfect. For instance, the ring on display that Paul liked fit him perfectly. At the same time Paul was trying it on, a middle-aged man with salty-grey hair and Patagonia jacket walked in. He had a certain glow about him. He looked down at us and made some funny comment about how rings never seem to come off once they go on. I asked what kind of ring he had and he slid it off and tossed it to us. Dianne, after a brief fumble, caught it from behind the counter. It was a well-worn, simple gold band. I asked how long he’d been married and he said going on 28 years this June. “JUNE!,” I thought. That’s when we’re getting married! On his way out he looked at me and said, “It only gets better from here.” He patted Paul on the shoulder and told him it was the best thing he’s ever done.

Paul and I were so taken aback by his gentle spirit and cheerful championing of marriage in general. A favorite song of mine played softly over the speakers and the winter sun came pouring in. Paul had found his ring. It just felt right. Just as unexpectedly, I tried on a band very different, yet very complimentary, to my engagement ring and, sure enough, it too just felt right.

We walked out of there with both rings, tucked into the prettiest blue ring boxes you could ever imagine.

Even more than my sparkly engagement ring, I love, full-heartedly, my wedding band. And not because it’s big or flashy or made by some fancy designer–it’s not any of those things. No, I love my wedding band because it symbolizes a promise–a promise to spend every Christmas together for the rest of our lives, a promise to bring each other buttered toast and medicine when the other is sick, a promise to raise a family full of chunky babies, a promise to rush home every night for the rest of eternity just to see each other, crawl into bed together and fall asleep holding hands (like otters). This wedding band is what it’s all about–a promise to love, unconditionally and without reservation for the rest of our lives. There is an overwhelming sense of peace that comes along with this. And that, dear Reader, is something so powerful I’ve never felt anything like it.

As we inch closer and closer to our wedding date, it’s time to finalize the ‘little’ details that come along with the big day {table numbers, escort cards, favors, dress alterations, etc.}. My dress is almost perfect, just a few more tweaks here and there. I have the shoes and jewelry picked out, but what is left is the final piece to tie everything together – the head piece. Our wedding is traditional and while I can see myself wearing a veil when I walk down the aisle, I am also very much a head piece kind of gal. I love the concept of fascinators, which may stem from this blog post I wrote ages ago. After doing research I came across Handmade by Sara Kim and instantly fell in love with her pieces – one in particular – but I wanted to share my top four head pieces from the collection.