Xapa to the World

Tag: wedding

  • Getting Married: 40 Weeks – Flowers!

    This week, I had my official meeting with the florist about the flowers for our wedding. I love flowers so much! When I was in Japan, there were so many new kinds of flowers that I didn’t know that I was taking photos all over the place of them, earning myself the nickname of “hana-otaku” or “flower nerd.” I also love the meanings behind flowers. For this reason, I do not like the idea of having lilies as wedding flowers (completely personal preference. I think they’re lovely flowers, I just don’t want them in my wedding flowers), since they have been traditionally funeral flowers. I’m allergic to mums, don’t like orchids (in wedding flowers), and don’t want daisies or roses. Where in the world does that leave me!?

    Our colors are red and yellow, which you can see together on my Pinterest board. I would have thought this color combo would be easy to find examples of, but it’s not really. I like the idea of having a uniquely colored wedding, but it makes the prep work a little tough. I’m glad to have another 40 weeks to get this all together.

    The primary flowers are sunflowers! I absolutely looove sunflowers. I even have a Pinterest board completely devoted to sunflowers. (I also have one for elephants, if you’re interested.) The great thing about sunflowers is that they’ve increasingly been dyed a lovely red color, so this works will for my plan.

    sunflowers – pure and lofty thoughts

    I just needed a good red flower to complement the yellow suns. The first one that came to mind was the lovely red poppy.

    poppies – pleasure

    There were some that grew as wild flowers in Japan and I loved how light the flower is, but how deep the color is. Unfortunately when I spoke with the florist the first time, she said that poppies are hard to get in June. So, we had to come up with an alternate. Enter the ranunculus.

    ranunculus – I am dazzled by your charms

    Making its debut here in a gorgeous red and yellow (hmm…can anyone say, perfect?!) I was just looking up the meaning for ranunculus, and you’ll see above that it means, “I am dazzled by your charms.” There was also a funny little story that accompanied this:

    Legend has it that the mythological Coyote was tossing his eyes up in the air and catching them when Eagle snatched them. Unable to see, Coyote created eyes from the ranunculus/buttercup.

    …

    Interesting, huh? And notice that the buttercup is part of the ranunculus family? I love buttercups and have always wanted them in my wedding bouquet.

    buttercups – riches

    *sigh*

    We also thought about including anemone, which looks quite a bit like poppies. Oh, and don’t worry, I am having fake flowers for the reception, so I’m sure I can get poppies in there somehow.

    anemone – unfading love

    Last but not least, woman cannot live on red and yellow flowers alone. I love the idea of having white accents in there too. There was one flower that the florist mentioned, but I can’t remember its name. I’ll try and look it up for you. But also, jonquil works really well, especially with a yellow center. Also known as a daffodil or narcissus and called “suisen” in Japanese, this flower has a special place in my heart. The woman who I began to call my Japanese Mother loved these flowers so much, especially since they are an early indicator of Spring coming, much like the crocuses here in the states. That reminds me, I’ll need to plant those in the garden beds. 🙂 The yellow ones.

    jonquil – return my affection

    There you are, the flowers…or the gist of them. This week, we also went and scoped out wedding bands. Rather, a wedding band for Matt. I’ll post more about this later. No purchases were made as yet.

    We perused the kitchen section of Target a bit too, and tagged some pics of what we really liked. More to come on that in the future too. Thanks for stopping by!

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    I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!

    My Pinterest Wedding Board

    Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

    Related articles

  • Getting Married: 46 Weeks

    I was looking forward to the week following the last post since I figured we had the two big things booked and locked away, so I could relax a bit, enjoy being engaged. Sadly, southwest Ohio weather had another idea. I started getting a bit of a sore throat by Sunday night which progressed to a full-on sinus infection by Thursday. That made for a miserable week with barely any sleep, lots of coughing and a Z-pack.

    While I haven’t been up to par, that doesn’t mean we didn’t make any headway on the wedding plans. We decided to do our own invitations to save some money. I’m excited and have been brainstorming ways to make them fun and creative without going overboard. Matt met me near my work place on a half day to have lunch and hang out a bit before going in to work the afternoon. We stopped into Michaels to peruse. I’m glad we did. They were having a fantastic sale on paper and stationery. We got an amazing deal on the blank card stock and envelopes we need for invitations including some card stock for embellishments and our separate reception invitations. When I say, “We got an amazing deal…,” I mean, we got everything paper that we needed for under $50, plus some fun red/yellow flowery things that we can use to decorate for the reception. I can’t wait to start experimenting with designs and trying out different things. I will post some of the outcome on here for you all when I get them going.

    After chatting with my sister one night, I decided I should go ahead and schedule my wedding dress shopping date. There has been a great summer sale going on at David’s Bridal this week, but it seems too soon to go get my dress already. We’re planning to go on Labor Day weekend, hoping for a sale, and also hoping that I can get myself in a little better shape by that time. There are going to be 10 of us there if everyone can show up! It’ll be so much fun though, and I want to try on the truly awful dresses too, so I’ll have some pictures for you.

    Well, here’s hoping that this week is much better than the last!

    —————————–

    I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!

    My Pinterest Wedding Board

    Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

    Related articles

  • Booked! (47 weeks)

    There were just two things that I have been stressed about to get booked for this wedding, yes, even 11 months before the aimed-for date: a reception venue and wedding photographer.

    This week’s post is to let you know that we have them booked! I am so confident about my vendors so far, that I’m going to do a quick review/plug for them.

    RECEPTION HALL – Barn N Bunk – Trenton, OH

    Borrowed from the Barn N Bunk website

    First, here is the website: http://barnnbunk.com/

    Both Matt and I have been to wedding receptions here, so when we found out how economical the place was, we knew we had to get it. Located in Trenton, OH, a very farming-heavy community in Butler County, OH, this venue is ideal for weddings and receptions. Barn weddings/receptions have become super popular in the last few years and this 1893 barn is definitely up for the challenge.

    The owners, Bev and her husband (Tom, I believe…I did meet him, but it was for a split second), have been doing this for years. their granddaughter works in one of the shops. You can tell that the whole place is a labor of love. During the growing season, the fields surrounding the barn are filled with a variety of vegetables and beans. They have a farmers’ market and a slew of community activities throughout the year.

    What amazed me was how excited Bev was about our future marriage. I’m thinking that she must see about 52 weddings a year and yet she was still so thrilled that we are getting married and having our reception there.

    Here’s the breakdown of the deal:

    For 200 people, we were quoted a price of $3200. This includes catering for those people of a hot buffet (there are two other buffet options available) with three meats (sliced ham with pineapple, turkey breast in gravy, and roast beef au jus) and four sides or salad options. We chose mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans with ham chunks, tossed salad with dressings, and applesauce. Matt hasn’t insisted on too much so far, but he pretty much said it was a deal breaker if we didn’t get those mashed potatoes. Naturally, I accommodated. I love potatoes too. They also provide iced tea, lemonade, water, and coffee.

    Any guests above the 200 is an additional $11/person, which is a very good price based on what I’ve gathered from friends and family who have planned weddings before. We can also bring in pop, if we want, but we would be responsible for clean-up and monitoring of that. They will allow alcohol, but again, you are completely responsible for organizing that. They do have china dishes and silverware available, but they typically use Styrofoam plates and plasticware. This is where I expressed some concern. We have plans for repurposing things for this wedding – reducing our waste and lowering cost. I asked her if we could buy thick paper plates instead of styrofoam, so that the material would at least be biodegradable. Bev is in a recycling mode so she was very glad to help out and said that she would price-check for us and if it wasn’t much more than the styrofoam plates, then she would just consider it in the original cost. Just a testament that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask about something that is important to you – you may not get the answer you want, but you also just might.

    I will probably do another review of the place after the wedding, but for now, I leave you with the above. I’m very hopeful for what our special day will be like.

    WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER – Images by Sadie – Sadie Hodge

    Here’s her website: http://www.imagesbysadie.com/

    Just about every one of my friends have commissioned Sadie to do photos for them. She runs the gammut of Senior pics, engagement shots, weddings, mom-to-be photos, baby and kid photo, and full family shots. She first came into our lives when my matron of honor (who will be doing our engagement photos) married her super-cool rockstar hubs. I believe that he and Sadie knew each other from school, but regardless, she did some promo shots for his band and then she did their engagement and wedding photos…then my other bridesmaid had her do mommy-to-be shots, then it seemed like just about every other of my friends had her do their engagement shots and weddings. Most recently, she has done pics of friends’ new baby boy and she was brought in for a surprise proposal session at a Cincinnati Reds game.

    I have wanted her to do my wedding pics for a long time, years even! So I was so excited to hear that she was available for our wedding date. She has some different wedding packages which are on her pricing page. I have had too many friends who didn’t get a very good photographer and their groomsmen ended up with a mullet from the shadow, or heads chopped off, or missing whole segments of the night because the photographer sat down to eat his meal during the dinner. I do not plan to be a picky bride, but a top-knotch photographer is one thing I am not willing to compromise on. Sadie is the best and has very reasonable pricing for the quality of her work.

    Another really great photography couple that I would have used had Sadie not been available is her friend Tammi Harris and hubs Rudy. You can find their website here. I really like the stuff that they come up with and as a husband/wife team, they work super well together.

    Thanks for stopping by!

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    I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!