Weddingbee

So I was just like “okay, fine, sure!” My only caveat was that I didn’t want to throw my actual bouquet (because it was huge and heavy) so I told her I’d throw one of the bridesmaids’ bouquets if she wanted. She thought the MOH’s bouquet would be better since it was a little larger and also had some of the coral peonies in it like mine (and unlike the BM’s), so I said she could ask the MOH and if she didn’t mind, I was down! She didn’t, so we just started yelling “Hey we’re going to do a bouquet toss now!!!” randomly, and I trotted off to find Jane (our awesome photographer) to make sure she caught it on film, since I’d previously told her we wouldn’t be having one. So, picture time now!

<All photos by Jane Heller.>

First, the bridesmaid who insisted we do the toss, yelled out instructions to me on where to aim.

I tried to turn as I tossed to make sure she caught it….

So so close….

…but NO!!! Instead it was caught by a family friend….who is twelve years old!!!

Luckily, my uncle (above) had seen the whole story play out, so even though my begging bridesmaid was acting very brave and nonchalant, he asked the 12 year old if she wouldn’t mind giving it to “that tall girl who really wants it.” The twelve year old (who’s soooo sweet, and seriously, would you ever guess she was 12?!?) agreed, but, hehe, I don’t know if she misunderstood, or if my uncle (who has a tendency towards making things dramatic just for entertainment’s sake) suggested it, or what….but she decided to throw the bouquet again!!!Note how no one else is even trying to catch it in that picture. Aaaand….
She finally caught it!!! Look at the pride in her face as she gazes lovingly at it!

So yeah, all in all, I am very glad we had our surprise bouquet toss, and that these two girls caught it! An extremely entertaining if unexpected addition to the wedding!

Has anyone else ever seen a second bouquet toss? Or anything else unconventional about the bouquet and/or garter toss? Would you be up for a last minute change like this if the situation were to present itself?
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My uncle, from rural South Carolina, loves to sing (and has done some local musical theatre). So when he saw Mr. Bluebell’s great aunt, the professional Chinese opera singer who sang during our ceremony, after dinner, he couldn’t resist a duet! Despite the language and musical-style barriers, they settled on Moon River as a song they both knew and it was awesome to see them sing it together!!!!

Awww aren’t they the cutest?

We had a bonfire just a ways outside the tent for anyone who got cold or just wanted a bit of fresh air. People were gathered around it all night!! We had a few tree stumps around it as well, so people could sit if they wanted.

You can’t really tell in the night time pictures, but the lanterns were pale blue, red, and pale orange. There were 12 blues and 6 each of red and orange, so we alternated them blue, not blue, blue, not blue so that the blue would tie them all together but they still had a casual festive look.

My awesomely cute cousin decided that we should play Copycat - where she does ridiculous dance moves and everyone has to imitate her. I would guess that at least 30% of our guests were copying her at one point or another throughout the night!!

More Copycat!

Even the older relatives were gettin’ down!

After a good bit of Copycat, my cousin started challenging people to DANCEOFFS!! One of my bridesmaids accepted every DANCEOFF challenge, and got quite competitive. The only truly important rule in a DANCEOFF is that the person who is not dancing at the moment has to cross their arms in front of them and look sassy.

One of my cousin’s awesome DANCEOFF moves!!

Haha we don’t even know what this one is! (Back to Copycat now)

A little husband-wife-crazydancingcousin bonding.

Mr. Bluebell hand-crafted all of the playlists for our wedding, and did all the wiring etc himself too! It worked out really well and he only occasionally had to pop over to the laptop to adjust anything. Behind him is my cousin that got CRAZY HIGH by chugging many many bottles of our maple syrup favors. Oh man, he was out of control.

Oh yeah, you know it’s another DANCEOFF!

A quiet moment by the bonfire as the party winds down…

…and back up the lantern-lit path to the house we go!

[a separate post about my surprise (!) bouquet toss coming soon…]
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I also found out that the “rule” with which I was taunted was NOT a DMV rule, but a NYC marriage bureau rule. If you get you marriage license in New York City, you can’t have “two last names” so your only options are to:

1. Not have your maiden name anywhere in your post-marriage name
2. Keep your maiden name as your last name, and not have your husband’s name anywhere
3. Hyphenate

…and that’s it. According to my online research, the reason is that they claim they are not authorized to change “middle” names, only last names, so they can’t give you a new middle name, even if it was previously a part of your legal name. Which seriously, is bunk. That’s legal (and incredibly common) everywhere else. But whatever.

So I decided that my best bet DMV-wise was to just skip all the way out of New York City to a place where they didn’t even know about this silly nonsense rule, and since the town clerk where I got my marriage license happily wrote my name out just the way I wanted it, I thought that would be a good place to start!

For Labor Day weekend, we trekked up to the Adirondacks late late Thursday night so that we’d be there when the DMV was open on Friday during business hours.

When I got to the supercute county building Friday morning, there was literally one person in line in front of me, so as soon as I’d filled out my form, I stepped up to talk to Cheri (got her name this time!). I explained the problem and she instantly understood exactly what I wanted to do, but wasn’t quite sure if the documentation I had was enough to change my current post-marriage name (”Maiden-Newlast”) in the DMV system, since this was no longer a simple maiden-to-married name change. She asked a coworker who also wasn’t entirely sure, and then said she’d have to call the main Albany office to double check, but she was optimistic that she would be able to do it since it really appeared that the NYC DMV had done it incorrectly so she should hopefully be able to fix it.

Once on hold with the Albany line (for DMV employees only) she said that it might take a long time since it was around lunchtime, so if we had a local phone number she could just give us a call after she got an answer, but we decided to wait it out. After about 45 minutes on hold, she finally talked to someone in Albany. The highlight of the call was when she yelled “Well I know that and you know that, but they still wrote it that way on her license!!” Cheri and the Albany rep agreed that my license had been issued incorrectly in NYC (), and the Albany person authorized her to make the fix!

After filling in all the appropriate paperwork (The license will now say “First M. M. Newlast” instead of spelling out both middle & maiden names because they can’t write out two middle names, so you must use initials if you have more than one middle name), she took my picture, and asked which one I liked best (!), then let me try to sign my name on about 6 different signature cards since I kept involuntarily writing my full maiden name instead of just the initial. She was extremely nice and helpful and it was all in all a very pleasant experience - and I finally got my license straightened out!! VICTORYYY!!! Take THAT NYC DMV rep from hell!

There is also a really entertaining post-script to my whole saga…. After I first blogged about my horrible experience at the NYC DMV, a reporter from SmartMoney (the Wall Street Journal’s magazine) contacted me for an interview for an article she was writing about the DMV!! She said it’s mainly an informative piece, with a few anecdotes for color, so it’s not really “about” me, but I still feel very special. The only sad part is that the fact checker called to confirm the details right before I went upstate and got my sweet sweet victory!! I wrote the reporter back to ask her to include how Cheri saved the day and the head office in Albany explicitly said that the NYC DMV was completely wrong, but unfortunately the story had already gone to press. But look for me in November’s issue!!
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5) Were you married/will your first marriage be after the age of 25? (If yes, risk of divorce decreases by 24%)
If Yes: give yourself 3 points

Scoring:
If you scored less than 4 points you are “doomed for divorce”
If you scored between 5 and 7 you might have some issues, but can potentially work it out
If you scored between 8 and 10 you’re probably fine

Is anyone else underwhelmed by this quiz?? Isn’t this a perfect example for a statistics teacher on how not to use statistics? The first two questions especially irk me as they seem to be saying “unless you’re really rich and well educated, then your love life is going to suck too!” which, honestly, does not seem particularly helpful or even relevant. Because wouldn’t everyone rather make lots of money, have happily married parents, and a fabulous education? So don’t tell me that just because I don’t have something else that would be nice, that I have no chance at a successful marriage!! Because whether or not there is a statistical correlation - you can’t really prove causation, not to mention that even if all of your percentages show that you have a higher risk of divorce than someone else, that doesn’t mean you will get divorced.

Okay, I seem to be taking my Tyra a bit too seriously.

But most of these questions are based on circumstances that a) you can’t easily “fix” and b) they have nothing at all to do with who your partner is. Wouldn’t you think that an individual who scores a 10 based on these questions might still marry the wrong guy on occasion? Or that a 0 might find their perfect mate? Or that Mrs. Bluebell needs to stop watching Tyra if she just can’t handle it?
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We had our first dance just as dinner was winding down to “Look for Me As You Go By” by the Innocence Mission.

Hang my head low, so low.
Don’t see me only as I am but
see me how I long to be.
Shining like a flowering tree
under a gray Pennsylvania sky.
Look for me as you go by.
[musical interlude]
Hang my head low, so low.
Every burden shall be lifted.
Every stone upon your back slide into the sea.
It’s me for you and you for me.
[last line repeats a zillion times]

Yes, some of the lyrics might be a teensy bit odd for a first dance, but we looove it, and the last line repeating forever just keeps building and building into this really emotional moment. Haha I’ll shut up now.

Since we’re not big dancers and this isn’t really a “dance”y song anyway, we just swayed for probably under a minute. Then we gestured to the pre-selected several couples we had told to join us on the dance floor for the rest of the song, and everyone caught on and we had a big group dance which was exactly what we wanted! We really enjoyed having a moment to ourselves, but after everyone else was there we were still just in the moment together, only less self-conscious about other people watching us.

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<picture from www.nytimes.com>

I must admit that we only registered for one type of glass, even though we drink a decent amount of wine and I feel like we have a fairly good grasp of different types, but…we were given a completely different type of glass! And you know what? They are just fine. So, picky wine glass people we are not.

Can you taste a difference when you have the same type of wine out of two different glasses? How important is having the “proper” type of glass to you, even if you can’t taste a difference?
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One of my bridesmaids also knew the song, so she joined in!

 

Then it was time for FOOD! Our caterers were Stone Soup from Burlington, Vermont. (I posted a bit about them here.) It was all soooo yummy!!! 

Here’s Avery putting the finishing touches on the panzanella salad:

 

A nice shot of the vegetable polenta:

 

Probably my favorite item from dinner, a roasted corn salad (sooooooooo good!!):

 

Here’s roughly how the buffet was set up (before they put the food out or lit the candles):

I love how you can see the barn behind the tables!

Stone Soup decorated the buffet tables themselves (with a little help from our mini Adirondack chairs and river rocks), using things like these gorgeous garlic shoots! Who knew!

 

The plates and linens were also exactly what we wanted (Avery at Stone Soup got the linens for us from a restaurant supplier, and the plates were rented from Vermont Tent)

Jane also got some great shots of the Stone Soup guys cooking (even though we don’t have photos of all the final dishes):

The cook tent was set about 100 feet back from the reception tent, so it wasn’t too close to be in the way or feel cluttered, but it was nice that people who were interested could go watch them cooking or chat with any of the extremely nice Stone Soup workers!

After eating, we cut the cake and had some fruit. I apparently don’t have any good shots of the fruit, so here’s the pic of the Stone Soup guys carrying our cake (from Mirabelle’s) out, but you can see the melon balls, watermelon balls, fresh figs, strawberries, cherries, etc. here in the bowls on either side of them! The only other shot I have of that area was taken about 10 minutes later when most of the fruit has already been eaten - it was all local and super fresh, so it went quickly!!

Next up…first dance!
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The maid of honor (left) is in a dress from Banana Republic, and the bridesmaids are in J. Crew dresses (different styles all in the same fabric). I told them they could pick their own dresses as long as they were all blue, but they were having a lot of trouble coming to a decision so I had to lay down the Bride Law. They all picked their own shoes (obviously, hehe), and did their own hair and makeup and I think they all looked just perfect!

Me with MOH.

With one of the bridesmaids:

I love how you can see the barn in all of these photos! It was built in the mid-1800s.

Jane also took a few individual shots of the bridesmaids while we were getting ready.

And now…the most hilarious sequence of photos from our entire wedding!

First…best man sniffs?!?!? the side of Mr. Bluebell’s head. Mr. Bluebell has no idea.

Best Man realizes he got away with it!

And now…a normal picture. Mr. Bluebell seriously had NO IDEA about this and thought they were all normal photos until we got them back from Jane!!

And hopefully we’ll actually get to reception pictures next!!
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This is when my senses started heightening a little. They’ve been together nearly five years, and we were at a fancy restaurant and it was her birthday….

Then she pulled a CD out of the bag! They talked about that for a minute, and he said, oh and here’s the second card. She gave him a loooong look before opening it, and then, predictably, got a bit choked up after she read it. He then said “Should I?” and Mr. Bluebell and I, on the edge of our seats, are like “SHOULD HE WHAT?!?!?!?” But he explained that the card said all those mushy things they usually say to each other in cards, but don’t say aloud. Since C had previously pointed out that R is only ever mushy in card form, he ended the card with “and I want to say them aloud to you now.” So she nodded and he gave a beautiful little speech about how much he loves her.

Surprisingly, by this point, my guard was down. I thought it was a really sweet card and moment, but he’d already given her the birthday gift so we were about to go home now. But then at the very very end of his speech he suddenly repeated the same sentence about three times…and really, he’s an intelligent and well-spoken guy in general, so I was thinking “why would he just say the same thing over again?” before I realized it was because he was really really nervous.

Then right at that moment, he said, “C, will you marry me?”

Her first reaction was “Are you f***ing serious?!?”

Followed a moment later by all the appropriate mushiness and the shock at trying on the ring, and giddiness, and crying, and staring at the ring, and all that jazz.

The waiter came by after a minute to clear our plates and politely didn’t interfere in what was an obviously emotional moment, but I could tell he was trying to surreptitiously figure out what had happened, so I told him they had just gotten engaged! He was soooo cute and delighted and brought us over some celebratory pink champagne on the house! He said he had gone back and asked his manager if he could please comp it for us, and then she got all excited too and insisted upon it!

Regardless, the ring is gorgeous and we are so so happy for them!!

But mainly, CONGRATULATIONS C & R!!!! And thank you for letting us be a part of your proposal!!!

(image via citysearch) 
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My maid of honor’s toast was totally awesome. First she made everyone laugh…

…and then she made me cry!

The Best Man’s toast was similarly awesome even though it didn’t make me cry. Largely about how he and Mr. Bluebell used to play ninja-assassin when they were teeny kids.

And of course my family’s dog was the center of attention!

Even licking himself, he gets all the good photos.

Supercute pic of two of our friends watching the toasting.

Apparently, our dog thought it was getting a little dull at one point, so he started rolling around scratching his back and grunting in the middle of one speech!

The end!

Next, we’ll finally get to real reception photos!
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