May I show you to your seat?

Confession: this is Javier's post, but I (Audrey) picked the pictures which is why they are the most ridiculous that I could find :)  See our wedding website for more adorable (and recent) pictures of these fellas!

As Audrey noted the other day, I have neglected to introduce you to the strapping young gents who will help us keep the day in order and help you find your seats at the wedding: our ushers.  Three friends of ours will be on hand to help that day:  David Hartmann, James Anderson, and Matthew Classick.

Hartmann:

As Hartmann so brilliantly describes in a bio he wrote himself, we met on our first day of high school.  Both equally shy about jumping in on a “spit race” we decided that we’d hang out instead of joining the other group, and we became fast friends.  Dave remained a great friend to me through high school and college, even visiting me at UVA when I was in the hospital. (Okay, I was voluntarily doing a medical study to make some cash, and his a capella group happened to be performing at UVA that week, but it sounds way better when I embellish it).  We both moved back home after we graduated from college – Dave from Haverford and I from UVA – and I had mentioned a wonderful girl named Audrey to him, saying that maybe I should set them up.   Instead, I decided that I should date Audrey, but that I’d love to have her meet my good friend Dave – and I think everyone is glad with the way that’s turned out!  Dave recently graduated from George Mason’s law school and will be moving out to Chicago this summer.  He’s a great friend to both me and to Audrey, and we’re very excited to have him join us in Charlottesville this fall!

Ando (James)

I first met Ando at the final audition for the Whethermen, an improve group down at UVA.  Neither of us made the group, but we remembered each other (no doubt for the perceived humor) and would say hello around Grounds.  We both joined Resident Staff during my third year (Ando’s second year), and would see each other a bit more frequently around Grounds through various organizational meetings.  I still didn’t know much about this mysterious, funny Australian, but I knew that he and I got along in our brief 5-minute encounters with one another.  So when I was able to choose my staff for my dorm fourth year, I used my #1 draft pick to ensure that Ando was the other male RA in my building (and yes, RA’s at UVA do pick their staffers with a snake-style draft, just like in fantasy football).  It was that next year that Ando and I really got to be good friends.  He and I had many walks from Old Dorms to the Corner and back; many nights where we stayed up late for no good reason, sometimes working on papers, sometimes distracting the other from papers, and Ando even spent that Thanksgiving with my family in Bethesda, MD.  Gradually Ando became my confidant on Grounds who I would approach for some outside perspective and advice.  And I think I served that role in return.  After graduating from UVA, I knew that Ando would stay a lifelong friend of mine.  He has visited me in DC, and both Audrey and I have had the INCREDIBLE chance to visit him in Australia.  He’s a great guy, and I’m excited for everyone to meet my friend from Down Under.

Classick

Matthew Thomas Classick and I didn’t meet until Audrey introduced me to him in 2009.  Classick and I became fast friends, despite my transgression of repeatedly calling the Phanatic the dumbest mascot in all of sports the first time we spent a significant amount of time together.  I think this calculated obnoxiousness won over his heart, and we quickly discovered that we enjoyed many of the same things: sports (playing or spectating), various brews, words and wordplay, and foosball (still undefeated at Whitlow’s lifetime, baby!).  Our friendship has grown into one of mutual respect, fun banter, and a go-to for each other for someone to talk to when things go awry.  Classick has come to be one of my best friends over the last few years, and I am very excited that he will be there to support me and Audrey on our wedding day and beyond.

Suit Up!

That's right, the men in our wedding won't be naked (sorry to disappoint ladies), but they actually won't be wearing suits either...Javier and I finally made some decisions this past weekend regarding our male members wedding garb.

This has been a decision that we've struggled with quite a bit.  I think we knew early on that we didn't want tuxedos, they just didn't fit our outside Ash Lawn celebration, but I kept telling Javier that I wanted his wedding attire to feel special too.  For months now I've been sending groomsmen pics from blogs I read and he did a decent amount of browsing around himself and eventually came up with: vests.  We both liked the look, it would add a little something extra to keep the day unique and when he took his jacket off (which he inevitably would) he would still have some sweet digs underneath.  Great!  Just to be sure we headed to Joseph A. Banks to try on a vest (since I had never seen Javs in one...because he hasn't worn one since his senior prom...).

Can everyone just pause a moment to admire how good my fiance looks in that three piece suit (ignore the flip flops...)?  They didn't have a brown suit for us to try on, but we learned quickly that Javs could rock the vest :)  We both liked the three piece, but, as I said above, knew that Javs would probably take off his jacket fairly soon after our ceremony so we did a little experimenting while at the shop. 

When Javs had been looking for vests on his own, he seemed to gravitate towards the darker, chocolate look, often with a lighter khaki pant.  Did we dare?  So he tried on this tan suit with the dark grey vest so we could start to get the feel for how the contrast might look.  While this isn't perfect (because he is still wearing flip flops) and the vest wasn't exactly the color we wanted, we did feel confident that it would be a pulled together look fitting for any fashionable groom.  YAY - Javs attire decision made!

Now for the boys.  I'm (personally) still really happy with the fact that each of the lovely ladies on my side will be sporting their own dresses and looks for the big day and thought it seemed silly to have the guys counter with perfectly matching vests and ties.  I had been stock piling 'vest' pictures for a while and asked Javs to take a look and see what he liked and didn't.  In the end, he agreed that having the guys mix matched a bit would work better for our feel (and give the guys some flexibility/options for what they  decided to wear).  These are some examples of the look we are going for...

Each of the boys (best man, groomsman and the ushers - who I realized today we've never introduced you too....a post soon to come!)  will wear slacks or khakis that they already own and a vest in a brown of their choosing.  I had done some perusing on Etsy (every bride's saving grace) and found a shop that specialized in vintage men's fashion.  I saw that they had put together some custom wedding vests before and asked them if they could have vests to us by October.   They could!  and each vest would be $40 (totally reasonable based on suit rental costs or department store prices I had seen!).  We didn't want the boys to have to spend a ton of $$ on new clothes and thought this would work out nicely.  (and hey! they'll have a trendy vest to keep for future festive occasions.)

We decided that my Daddy-o would sport a brown suit of his choosing sans vest (kind of making Javs the culmination of all other male attire on the day).  Then we'll use ties to do a little bit of coordinating and connecting (orange ties: Javs, groomsman and Dad, green ties: ushers).  Whoop whoop!  Happy to cross another decision off the list and super excited to see how fabulous these boys look on the big day.

Al's getting ready for the fall! (a bit early)

Folks, I'm happy to bring you some breaking news regarding our favorite DC memorial (thanks to Javier's cousin who alerted me of it)! 

Feel free to read the full DCist article about it, but good ole Al appears to have been covered head to foot in YARN!  Artist Olek, is considered the number one suspect for providing the early winter sweater for our favorite DC fixture.  In the article she is described as 'a Polish-born crocheter and sculptor whose principal motif is to drape large objects and public installations in colorful yarn.'  COOL :)

Happy she chose such a worthy object to drape this time around :)

PRE-wedding chop!

Its become somewhat of the norm/tradition/trend for ladies to start one wedding task as soon as that ring is slipped over their fingers: growing their hair out.  It makes a lot of sense, longer hair gives you more options for up-dos and is obviously very femine.  Then, often, brides chop it all off (cause we're probably talking about a full year of growth) shortly after their honeymoon.  Its been coined 'the wife chop' (cause you know...you're a wife by then and basically chop all your hair off).  I'll use Kels as my example...

Kels shortly after her wedding
(holding a child that is not her own)

Kels' gorgeous hair at her wedding



Now, I have always been a short hair person.  Sure I've had a few instances where I decide to grow it out, for something 'different.'  But I inevitably grow sick of it (rather quickly) and chop it all off.  Besides I think I really do look better with shorter hair (usually chin - shoudler length).  But with the ring on my finger (and some self-inflicted pressure) I started growing my hair out too.

horrible pic from our engagment night
my hair is shoulder length

horrible pic from July 4th
(I was trying to use a recent one)
my hair is curled, but straight would be 2-3 inches past my shoulders

And sure enough, last week hit a 'I can't stand my hair this length' wall.  I think it really came after looking at myself in some of the pictures from our recent weddings. Even with my hair 'done' (as in I put in some effort to try to make it look good) I thought it looked stringy and, well, kind of awful.  So this weekend I decided to get my wifey chop pre-wife.

Nothing drastic.  Just back to my good ole,
shoulder length self.

Great!  I'm feeling relieved already.  Until I think of the wedding....what am I gonna do with my hair for the wedding?  No seriously, I'm asking you guys. What should I do with my hair for the wedding?  Its one area of the day/my look I really haven't flushed out...

Here is what I know:

- I will maintain this length hair for the wedding (as in I will probably get it cut again before October)

- I think I look better and would prefer to wear my hair 'down'

- Sometimes when you curl short hair it gets BIG

- I'm planning to wear a birdcage veil

- most brides I see wearing birdcages have their hair (at least partial) up

Alright, so what do you guys know?  As in, what ideas do you have? 

Raise your hopeful voice...

Music.  Like food, its something that can evoke powerful emotions for me.  It often reminds me of people I love, special moments and many memories.  I cannot hear How Great Thou Art without thinking of my Nana or a Johnny Mathis Christmas carol without thinking of my mother.  When I hear Goo Goo Dolls' Slide, I still think of the sinking feeling I got when, in the 7th grade, I told Sean Beville 'I love you, too' because my best friend told me I had to say it back even if I didn't feel it (b/c it was the song playing on Z104 during this magical moment).  And at Kelsey's wedding, when I heard the first few notes of  Ben Folds The Luckiest as she began her walk down the aisle, that was when I really started to lose it.

The walk down the aisle is a big one.  It'll be the first time Javs sees me in my dress :) and has some obvious (although slightly outdated) symbolism of me leaving my childhood, i.e. walking down with my daddy-o, and starting a family with my husband, i.e. being passed off to Javs, getting hitched and heading back down the aisle with my husband.  Anyways, Javs and I started batting around songs we loved, thought were purdy and (shocker..) felt 'us.'  Not surprisingly, a lot of the songs we came up with were from musicals that we had seen/heard together and loved. 

This song is called Falling Slowly and is from the musical Once (it won the Oscar for Best Original Song back in 2008, their acceptance speech was adorable).  Once started as a low budget film (which is awesome and you should all watch), but is now a hit on Broadway (they kind of did it backwards, but it worked) that won 8 Tony Awards (including Best Musical) this year!  It was a musical Javs introduced me to back in our woo-ing days (when he was still trying to impress me with his vast and varied musical knowledge) that we've listened to countless times on car rides and during movie watching.  In all honesty, its a bit of a sad song if you read the lyrics, but there are some moments of hope peppered throughout and I love the theme of coming home.  This was it.

Now, how to have it played?  We've been working with Sam Hill Entertainment in Cville (both for a band and now for ceremony musicians), but debated if we wanted a guitarist or pianist to play.  (The song is written as a duet for both, but we listened to several versions via youtube that just had one or the other that were fine!)  We listened to three suggested guitarists on their site, reviewed the playlist each included and looked back to Sam Hill for advice (they all sounded good?).  Which was willing to learn and play our song?

it kind of looks like he is sleeping
in this picture, but I think he's
just getting into the music

Peter Fields was our guy!  Javs and I liked that his songlist included lots of options.  I loved his Classic Rock hits and he even provided a 'Broadway' section to his songlist.  Since we will probably be selecting some less tradition music for our pre-ceremony and processional - he felt like a good pick!  Oh, and he'd learn and play Falling Slowly for us (win!).  He also had a pianist that could join him for the ceremony if we wanted (at an additional cost of course). I was extremely tempted....since our song was designed as a duet, and for these instruments no less, I knew it would sound better with both....and per usual (or maybe it was the heat) as we discussed the options on the beach my parents threw up their hands and said if we wanted both, we should get both (the few hundred bucks wouldn't break the bank).  How wonderful are they?  We'll have our special song played as beautifully as it is written for the big walk down the aisle :)  Lets hope it doesn't make me too emotional....

**Advice Alert**  Just ask.

I think I've already given this advice, so I'll keep it short: if you want something, ask for it.  You may not get it.  But you definitely won't get it if you don't ask.  Javs knows I am not the world's biggest negotiator.  I hid in the car when he started to negotiate on the price of his mattress (it was very embarrassing...).  But I've tried in a few instances, wedding related, to negotiate a cost/service here and there.  While I haven't always gotten exactly what I asked for, I think every vendor offered an alternative (that favored us) or part of what we had requested.  (My goodness is that what negotiating is?!?)  Having both musicians pushed us to the high end beyond what we had budgeted for ceremony musicians, but when I asked if there was some wiggle room (yes those are the words I used verbatim) on the costs we ended up getting them lowered!  YAY - victory is mine.

So just ask.  (you never know)

Lights, camera, action!

Hello, lovely readers.  Audrey has been steadily blogging away, letting you know about some of her our accomplishments, so I figured I'd give you a little update.  Audrey and I had talked about things that we'd ideally want at our wedding, and one of them was a videographer.  At least I was hoping to possibly have one to at least record the ceremony and maybe some of the reception.  You know, cuz we won't be able to see it the way one of our guests might.  But we also knew that it would potentially cost a lot of money, and we definitely wanted the timelessness of clean photography.  So we cast videography aside and decided that photographs would be more than fine.

But through some blog reading, both Audrey and I discovered the company StoryMix.  We both had learned about this crowdsource-leveraging company that basically lets you film the footage but then edits it for you.  We had thought it was a cool idea, but even still, it would cost about $500 to get, and it just seemed like too much for a fancy extra addition.  But when I stumbled upon a Giveaway Contest I felt like I had to enter.  There were only 75 entries with a day to go, and you could enter 31 times!  So stuffing the ballot is exactly what I did, and I got my name in there 31 times.  So with approximately 125 entries (across 83 entrants), I felt like the odds were ever in my favor.  And they were!  My name got drawn to win one of the videography packages!

And that is where you all come in!  If you download the WeddingMix app for your smartphone, you can be our videographer!  Audrey and I will get to see the wedding from all the various perspectives of our friends and relatives who are at the wedding.  Or at least the ones who download the app and share clips with us.  So stay tuned for more information about downloading the app so that you can take some fun videos.  Now we'll get to peruse our pictures and watch some fun memories on video, too!

Take Aways at 100 Days (was supposed to post July 5th!)

That's right ladies and gents.  We're 100 days away.  I told myself early on that once we reached double digits, things would be real.  Real close that is.  But instead of dwelling on the slight craze I feel now when looking at my calendar count down, I thought I'd focus on some of the take aways I've gained from our recent weddings :)

Javier and I had the pleasure of attending wedding number 3 on our 8 wedding tour of 2012 this past weekend.  (those are weddings we have been invited to for this year and it does include our own...cause hey - we'll be at that one too)  It seems like most people have a marathon year and this one happens to be ours.  I'm excited for it, especially since most are taking place before ours, which means an opportunity to snag all the good ideas I see at other folks' celebrations.

I'll start with our June 16th wedding; one between one of Javier's high school buddies and the groom's high school sweetheart.  It was a great occasion and another opportunity for me to visit the gorgeous, Georgetown Prep campus. It concluded with a wonderful outdoor reception at a manor nearby on a night accompanied with perfect weather. 

My take aways:

1) Remind your best man to remember the rings.  Its important, trust me.  Just ask the groom's brother.  Javier and I were enjoying the ceremony when I couldn't help but notice one of the best men, pop up and make a swift exit through a side door of the church.  I leaned over and whispered to Javs, 'Bob just left?' (the names of the guilty have been changed to protect the innocent)  Javs responded with, 'Bet you anything Bob forgot the rings...' and sure enough, after the service we got to hear Bob, himself, regale us with the story of his record breaking sprint out to his car mid-ceremony for a ring retrieval mission.  He made it back in time (and impressed some attendees with is speed), but an easier course (for next time) might be to remind the best man to bring the rings!

2) Signs and clear directions!  Early in our engagement, Javs and I asked some of our friends for advice regarding missteps they had seen at other weddings (hoping to avoid them at our own celebration).  One couple mentioned that giving guests clear directions is a small, but incredibly helpful thing to do to improve the enjoyment of the reception and help everyone relax.  It also happens to be a trend these days to include adorable signage throughout your venue directing attendees as needed.  Therefore I was super happy to see these signs at the wedding :)  Since Javier and I are taking advantage of all the space available at Ash Lawn - signage will certainly be something we need to consider for the day! 

June 30th wedding take aways:

1) We cannot control the weather.  I know, you're shocked at the realization, but apparently its true.  The wedding this weekend was combated with 90 + degree weather, that with humidity felt far beyond 100 and scattered thunderstorms complete with hail and strong winds.  But if I had only the faces and attitudes of the bride and groom, the wedding party and our kind hosts to go off of, I would have thought the day was a mild 70 degrees, with a light breeze that smelt of sweet honeysuckle.  I mean, they were stoked.  They were all so happy. 
They certainly did what they could to make their guests as comfortable as possible: adorable fan programs, cold bottles of water and large fans blowing under the reception tent, but they really seemed to accept the weather for what it was: an uncontrollable portion of what would absolutely be, the best day of their lives (so far).  And their joy dissipated through their guests to make for a wonderfully happy celebration.  While I doubt we see 100+ degree weather on October 13th, we certainly may see some rain.  I know myself well enough to know that I should start preparing now for that possibility so that I can be as equally joyous on our day should the weather not go as I would plan.  It will still be a celebration, and Javs and I can help remind our guests of that with our own smiles :)

2) Ceremony flower solution.  During our florist search and after receiving a number of proposals, Javier and I decided that we would handle the flowers used to decorate our ceremony site ourselves. We did not have a great vision or plan for what we wanted, but knew that the flowers would be minimal. We were lucky enough to find our picturesque additions needed at this wedding.  lining the aisle, hanging on each chair was a mason jar filled with wild flowers and tied by ribbon.  They were delightful.  I don't think we'll include flowers on each chair, but I do like the idea of including a few sprays of color for the walk down the aisle.  Problem solved and DIY added to the list!

There you have it - more great ideas I'm picking up for those that go before me.  I'm so lucky to have the chance to attend these beautiful weddings of the ones I love.  Just think, you readers will be attending our (hopefully beautiful) wedding in just 100 short days...