what makes a wedding fun?

Back in 2011, someone in an online wedding planning community I participate in asked what differentiates a "fun" wedding from a "boring" wedding?  I reposted my answer here on the blog, with some elaboration and some sneak peeks from our wedding. I wanted to share it again today, since I still believe so much in this message.

The things that make weddings "fun" for me are:

Happy guests!  Photo courtesy my college Apartmentmate Senora M.

1. Not feeling awkward at dinner; getting to sit with people I know, or at least people who are close in age/interests. As wedding hosts, don't invite people out of guilt or because you feel like you "should," invite them because you can't imagine celebrating your marriage without them, and it will be easier to seat cool people together. I've always appreciated it when I could tell that a bride and groom put in the extra effort - like one where even though I didn't know most of the other guests at my table, we were all alumni of the same college so we had a lot of common ground.  I got really stressed out about our seating chart, so I let Mr. Spin make some of the final decisions about who should sit where.  When he had to put someone with people they didn't know very well, he made sure they were people who would get along and maybe even form a great friendship.  We ended up with some awesome groupings of people and I saw several of my friends from different circles adding each other on Facebook after the wedding- proof that new acquaintances, at least, were forged.

Bridesmaid Philly and another college fellowship friend getting their groove on! - photo from BM Philly

2. Good music. Even if there is no dancing, play a thought-out set of music during dinner rather than the "smooth jazz" most DJ services bring. We worked on our playlist for a longtime, digging through everything from our old CD collections and our parents' favorite music, to the soundtracks of our favorite movies. But really, dancing is going to make a wedding much more fun- that's why I knew our wedding reception would not be held in a Baptist fellowship hall. Sure, alcohol helps loosen people up, but so does playing the cha-cha slide!  If people are sticking to their chairs even after the dance floor has opened up, the bride has the right to drag them out.  It's an actual rule of weddings that no one can say no to the bride, so milk that moment while you can!

The centerpiece at our wedding party's table - Photo from Vinton War Memorial

3. Personal touches - like, "oh, those J. Crew bridesmaid's dresses with pockets are SO Carolyn, and they match the flowers on the invitations she designed!" or "Katie and Aaron are cyclists and there is a bicycle on the program, cute!" or "Susie is quoting Journey in her vows!"  People loved the book centerpieces at our wedding because they know we are nerds, and some were even finding "hidden meaning" in the books at their tables - a coworker asked if the Emma table was more special than others since she knew I re-read that particular Austen novel every year.

The sparkler exit did not go perfectly, but our photographer got some great pictures!

4. Some way to be involved as a guest - give me some confetti to throw, a "we will" to say during the ceremony, a word search, a photobooth, something cool to sign, a sparkler to hold... some way to feel like I'm really a part of the celebration, not a spectator watching a performance. We call it a wedding ceremony for a reason.

Our "Social Hour" bar menu - Photo from Vinton War Memorial

5. Keeping the serious parts meaningful but efficient: you do not need to make your guests sit through "The Wind Beneath My Wings" while you stare lovingly at one another and light candles. That's just cruel. If you do photos after the ceremony, give guests something to do (photo booth, crossword, puzzle, scavenger hunt, neat venue to explore, cool guest book), something to eat (cocktails, appetizers, crudites, milk and cookies, something!) and somewhere to sit if their feet hurt (high heels are killer). If you aren't doing a fancy choreographed first dance, invite your guests or at least bridal party to join in halfway through so guests aren't watching you do the seventh-grade sway for three minutes.

We burst into giggles during our first dance.  Photo from Senora M.

6. MOST IMPORTANT: the bride and groom at a fun wedding don't take themselves too seriously. You are not auditioning for Four Weddings, and your wedding is not really going to be The Best Day of Your Life (because in reality, that would suck- the best days are still to come!). Loosen up, don't sweat little details, and take time to enjoy having all your favorite people in one place because it probably won't happen again.

What details and decisions have made weddings you have attended FUN?  Are you adding any special FUN touches to your wedding day?

three.

Happy anniversary to my everything.

two years ago today...

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life.

our story (love and marriage series)

I stumbled across the Love and Marriage Series at Lindsey's blog A Dollop of My Life.  Lindsey is teaming up with five other bloggers for a month-long series of posts and linkups about relationships.  Hmm... seems relevant to this blog.  Let's do this thing!  Who's ready for a love story?

I've mentioned many, many times on this blog what a big part of my life my involvement with 4-H is.  I bleed green and white.  Well, in a roundabout way, I might not have ever met Mr. Q if not for 4-H!  I worked at the 4-H camp I'd attended as a kid when I was in college.  My second summer working there was a crazy summer - one of my coworkers dubbed it "the summer of love" because so many couples were forming.  For me, it was like a weird switch had flipped and all of a sudden boys liked me.  I wish I knew what it was, but I had three guys flirting with me at the beginning of the summer.  Totally unprecedented.  

Anyway, it was also the summer of one of my best friends' weddings.  After all the wedding craziness, my BFF B and I needed a night out on the town, and our hair and makeup were already done, so off we went.  While we were downtown, we ran into one of my coworkers from camp.  Who introduced us to her best friends, one of whom was Mr. Q!  We hit it off pretty much instantly, grabbed a booth and spent most of the night talking about everything from music to faith to football.  Except for football teams, we were on the same page!  From that moment on, I pretty much forgot about those other guys - Mr. Q and I went on dates around the lake area on my nights off from camp, and at the end of that July he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Mr. Q got sucked back into college life!  Even though he attended our rival, Virginia Tech, he sure did fit in at UVa.  I was a resident adviser that year and also very involved in a Christian fellowship on grounds; Mr. Q became beloved by my fellow RAs, brothers and sisters in the fellowship, and even by my church family.  Mr. Q spent many a weekend at Mr. Jefferson's University with me.  He was constantly pushing me to do things that were outside of my comfort zone, like sing karaoke in front of all of his friends.  Since we had very similar musical tastes, one of our favorite things to do was go to concerts together.

Our relationship progressed at a faster pace than most because I was also dealing with the most serious thing that had ever happened to me: my father was terminally ill.  I'd gone into counseling when my dad's kidneys failed, because I knew what was coming eventually.  When it came, it wasn't what I expected - my father's death was caused by a brain tumor that my parents didn't tell me much about because my dad wanted me to stay in school.  Going back to school in January to finish my senior year was difficult, and I don't know how I would have survived that year without Mr. Q.  We'd only been together for about six months at that point but it was clear that he was in it for better or worse.  He was there for moral support and was my rock through my year of graduate school as well.

clicks of note: must be dreaming.

get your week off to a colorful start...

LISTEN.

• Bruno Mars' new song "Locked Out of Heaven" is super catchy.
• I've loved Frou Frou's "Must Be Dreaming" since I heard the band for the first time on the Garden State soundtrack in college and had to hear everything they'd ever done.  Imogen Heap's voice is magical and the song is so upbeat.

SWOON.

Style Me Pretty

• I love this magical, stylish New Orleans wedding at Style Me Pretty.
• Elisabeth Millay Photography features a Brooklyn Bride with a chic gray and white dress.
• EAD spotlights one of the most unique flowers for winter bouquets:  silver brunia.
• This ballet-themed inspiration shoot at Utah Bride Blog is so romantic.
• Wedding Chicks features vintage-meets-modern flair and an adorable sweets table.

SMILE.

• There's no such thing as too many foxes.
• I liked Wax Wane's suggestions for what President Obama should wear to his inauguration (young American designers!), but I have a feeling we're more interested in what Mrs. O will wear - any suggestions?  Share 'em in the comments.

FLASHBACK.

• Last year, I recapped our wedding reception entrance, Southern comfort food dinner, first dance, and the details behind our cake table setup and DIY pennant banner.

clicks of note: made for you.

get your week off to a colorful start...

LISTEN.

• This month, as we celebrate gratitude, I want to share some of my favorite feel-good music.  "Made for You" by OneRepublic is the most played song on my iTunes- it's the first song on their Waking Up album, right before "All the Right Moves" on the album.  I think the piano is my favorite part of this one.

SWOON.

100 Layer Cake

• At 100 Layer Cake: hip farm to table party inspiration - these ideas would work great for a wedding, a dinner party, or even a Thanksgiving celebration.
• At The Bride's Cafe, Janie features a roundup of non-traditional altar decor.
• If you loved last week's anemone wedding inspiration, check out this Friday Flowers post at Elizabeth Anne Designs.
• Once Wed features a chic Parisian wedding.
• Did you see this pumpkin patch inspiration shoot from Style Me Pretty?

SMILE

• Keiko Lynn and Bobby basically won Halloween with their Moonrise Kingdom costumes.

FLASHBACK.

• Last year, I shared our indoor formal wedding portraits, recapped our guests' social hour, showed off our outdoor casual bridal party portraits, the ones of just me and Mr. Q.  I also posted about gratitude, shared my recipe for slow cooker baked apples and a peek at how we used cedar and teal as our main kitchen colors.

a manifesto.

As we celebrate our first full year as real live married grown-ups, I'm realizing that our lifestyle pretty much matches up with our wedding planning style.  There are a few things we believe that are equally applicable to meal planning, getting dressed, decorating a room, or planning an event.

The fewer ingredients, the better.  This was a major principle of the metabolic boot camp program I enrolled in to become healthier prior to the wedding and I apply it to just about everything now, whether I'm purchasing food, soap, makeup, or putting an outfit together.  For our wedding, dinner and dancing provided plenty of activity - we didn't feel like we needed a mashed potato bar and a cupcake station and a photo booth.  Conversation is the best entertainment.

Simple is beautiful.  My eyeballs nearly fell out of my head when the florist I'd shared my wedding inspiration with e-mailed me an estimate of what the arrangements I liked in magazines would cost.  I remember thinking, "I like it when my mama throws flowers into a Mason jar or an old vase and puts them on the table."  Our wedding centerpieces were wholesale flowers hand-arranged by my bridesmaids and I in Mason jars and white vases from Goodwill, and we don't get much fancier than that in our home decor, either.

clicks of note: never let me go.

get your week off to a colorful start...

LISTEN.

• I heard this Norah Jones cover of Elvis' "Love Me Tender" on the So You Think You Can Dance performance finale and was swept away.  What a perfect wedding song this could be - apparently it was recorded for the soundtrack of a Princess Diaries movie, but don't let that stop you!
• I'm so happy that Glee is back!  My favorite performance last week was Blaine's version of Imagine Dragons' "It's Time."

SWOON.

Snippet and Ink

• Snippet and Ink features a simple and dreamy Tennessee love shoot.
• This elegant Buddhist wedding featured on Elizabeth Anne Designs is so unique.
• I like the magically romantic forest engagement shoot featured on Glamour and Grace.
• Over at Intimate Weddings, Sarah and Zac share how they handled a "we know everyone in town" guest list situation.
• Uschi & Kay feature a vintage-to-trendy time traveling engagement shoot with a super cute couple.

SMILE.

• I want to rock a school spirit crackle manicure like Micah's.
• The Party Dress magazine features the cutest tailgate.
• Pantone has announced the color forecast for Spring 2013. 
• My favorite NYFW hairstyle seen so far is this braided, twisted & bejeweled updo from Honor.  It would be a great look for an indie bride.

FLASHBACK.

• One year ago:  I shared my bridal portraits and recapped our prelude and wedding processional.

our wedding: i heart thrifting.

Note:  I was doing some blog cleanup and realized this post never got published with our other wedding recaps... so here it is in all its glory!

Our wedding incorporated a lot of DIY and thrifted elements.  Since we did not hire a wedding planner, we were able to have total control over the design of our wedding- but had to get creative about how to get the vintage-inspired, elegant look we wanted on a tight budget.  That's where thrifting and DIY came in, and it was a nice coincidence that our wedding date was I Heart Thrifting day in Roanoke!

Chalkboards

Venue Photo

I had fallen in love with the idea of menu chalkboards after seeing them on lots of bridal blogs and in magazines, but ready-to-use chalkboards can be expensive.  Like many brides and craft bloggers before me, I discovered chalkboard paint.  To create each chalkboard, I bought picture frames from Goodwill, spray painted the frames with ivory Krylon spray paint, distressed them with sandpaper, and then painted the glass with chalkboard paint.  I used a chalk marker for the lettering.

Venue Photo

paper & clocks: how we celebrated our first wedding anniversary

Mr. Q and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary yesterday.  The first Monday after the 4th of July holiday is always a really tough one for him at work, so I wanted our house to be really cheerful when he came home - and to remind him of our wedding!  I am an equal-opportunity flower buyer; I picked up some purple chrysanthemums at Fresh Market and put them in an assortment of milk glass pieces from our wedding and glass jars decorated with washi tape (inspired by A Creative Mint) and pinwheels from our wedding (book page pinwheels by aubabi78 on Etsy).  I was feeling crafty and it was time to turn some of those ideas I've been saving on Pinterest into reality!

The traditional gift for the first wedding anniversary is paper; common gifts include artwork, books, memory albums, gift certificates, maps to special destinations, and concert or movie tickets.  The modern gift is a clock, watch, or sundial.  We chose to treat ourselves to... none of the above.

BIKES!

They have gears like clocks?  I also presented Mr. Q with a gift I shamelessly copied from the Internet...

I had seen Jennifer's date jar idea on Pinterest a while back and thought it would be perfect for those days when we want to have some sort of adventure but are tired of doing dinner and a movie or window shopping at the antique mall.  Instead of dying my craft sticks I used star stickers to denote dates that require money and planning (college basketball game, play at a local theater), money but no planning (wine tasting at a local vineyard, dinner and a movie), planning but no money (free Saturday at the art museum, hiking trip), and staying at home (homemade pizza, Firefly marathon!).  I came up with 45 dates in all for no other reason than that's all that would fit in my jar.

Another Pinterest idea (inspired by Brooklyn Limestone's Raven dishes) was to make cake plates with verses from our first dance songs and lines from our ceremony readings.  I used the Sharpie method from A Beautiful Mess and plates from the dollar store.  Mr. Q really loves them because they are one of a kind and in my handwriting.

In case any planning brides out there are wondering about the sanity of keeping a layer of wedding cake in the freezer for a year- our cake was edible.  It was wrapped in two layers of plastic wrap and in a box and we put it in the refrigerator to thaw last week.  The chocolate cake part was pretty good; the vanilla buttercream frosting had turned to something more like pure sugar.  We had saved a bottle of wedding champagne and had a toast with the flutes I won from Weddingbee (planning brides, the best advice I can get you is to enter those blog giveaways like it's your job!).  It was a simple and sweet first wedding anniversary celebration put together with love.

Linking up to the Summer Pinterest Challenge at Centsational Girl, Young House Love, Bower Power and Ten June!

wedding memories: the coolest kid i know...

Family photo - please do not steal.

My favorite little girl in the world, my best friend's daughter, celebrates her fourth birthday this week!  FOUR.  It shouldn't come as a surprise to me, since she was born the summer before I started teaching and I just finished my fourth year, but it seems like just yesterday we were sticking socks over her little hands to keep her infant self from scratching her own face.  She's important to me partially because her birth was the if you leave Virginia, you'll miss a lot wake-up call I needed to keep me in this valley for the forseeable future.  Now she's wearing a child-size flapper dress and Audrey Hepburn glasses and eating cake and a lollipop at the same time.  If the above picture does not demonstrate the utter coolness of this kid, I don't know what does.

Significantly to this blog, she was our flower girl a little over a year ago!  Was it a great idea to have a three year old flower girl?  Probably not - three-year-olds are kind of notoriously terrible and she didn't have a concept of how she should behave because she'd never been to a wedding before.  I could tell at our rehearsal that she was going to either be a hot little mess going down the aisle or have a meltdown and not make it at all.  I could also tell that Mr. Q didn't care, and neither did I - we'd have a little girl in a pretty dress at our wedding, and she'd be our favorite little girl in the world whether she made it to the end of the aisle or not.  

Happy Mother's Day - Sunday Simplicity #69

My mother and I on my wedding day

Our Wedding: Cake Table & Pennant Banner Instructions

I think that our cake table was one of my favorite parts of the wedding.  I'd been inspired by lots of images on wedding blogs and message boards, and was excited to bring my vision of a festive dessert table to life with help from Jeana.

I was very happy that we were able to project our monogram on the wall - so cool and modern looking!  The font used for our initial and names is Lily Wang and the date is Book Antiqua - the same fonts used on our invitations and programs.  (Lily Wang can be purchased from MyFonts).  It also ended up being a happy accident that the rentals outlet did not offer all of the linen sizes we needed in the blue pintuck, so we used an opaque purple on the cake table, sweetheart table, and buffet - it made them stand out (although looking at these pictures I wish we'd steamed the opaque linens!).  The cake stands are from Pier1, and the milk glass vases are thrifted.  I won our champagne flutes in a Weddingbee giveaway - blog contests are real, ladies - leave those comments!  But my absolute favorite part of the display was the pennant banner I made.

I think pennant banners are adorable and make cute home decor (I plan to string ours up in our guest room when we get our bookcase and day bed moved in!) in addition to being appropriate at weddings and parties!  Instructions follow under the cut - and I've linked this post to Literally Inspired's party!

Our Wedding: Our first dance

Our first dance song was Ray LaMontagne's "You Are the Best Thing"

Baby , it's been a long day, baby 
Things ain't been going my way 
And now I need you here 
To clear my mind all the time 


And baby, the way you move me, it's crazy 
It's like you see right through me 
and make it easier 
Believe me, you don't even have to try 

Our Wedding: Dinner Begins

Finally, it was time to eat, and I was seriously starving because my nervous stomach had kept me from eating  all day.  The guests got to find their pinwheel escort cards and head to their tables...

Our pinwheel escort cards were a labor of love - I would not have finished adding the names and table numbers if I hadn't had Bridesmaid Philly helping me before the wedding!  She is handy with a glue gun.  The plastic planters looked perfectly antiqued with their paint job and I think they matched the War Memorial's traditional decor.

Venue photo

I am so thankful that the War Memorial staff took pictures of the reception area set up before guests came in - our photographer was so busy following us that these are some of the only pictures I have of just our reception design.  Again, I am so thankful to my friends and family who set everything up so beautifully and made my vision a reality.

Venue photo

Here's the dinner playlist Mr. Spin and I put together...

Our Wedding: You've got my only heart...

While our guests and wedding party were inside enjoying snacks and mojitos, we were working hard outside... working hard at being fabulous, while we are actually big ol' goobers.

I look so sweet and loving and wifey in this picture... the truth?  

The sun was in my eyes if I looked toward the camera.

SECRETS OF GLAMOUR REVEALED!!!

Our Wedding: If your cup is full may it be again...

After our formal portraits in the ballroom, we headed outside for some more casual shots...

My favorite shot of the girls with our bouquets- it was such a sunny, gorgeous day and the terrace was a great (shady) photo location!

Our Wedding: Everybody's gonna jump and shout...

For our guests' social hour, we provided the music via an iPod and Mr. Spin's own sound equipment.  Here's the second half of the playlist...

Our friends making their way to the library, where drinks and snacks were served...

Our Wedding: You're the world to me...

After the ceremony, we snuck back into the ballroom for some portraits!

Here's a little music for your viewing pleasure:  the first part of our Social Hour playlist, which we could hear drifting into the ballroom from the lobby where our guests were mingling...

Our Wedding: An ever-fix'ed mark

Bless, O Lord, this ring to be a sign of the vows by which this man and woman have bound themselves to each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

I give you this ring, as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you; in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Guest Photo