Pre-wedding weekend

I have less than six days before I marry my mister. And whew, am I exhausted! The parents were in town this weekend, we went over the ceremony, I attended my bachelorette party and finished a slew of projects.

Let's focus on the most important part: The bachelorette party!

Thanks to my wonderful friend and maid of honor Tracy for organizing it. Oddly, we all dressed in black, white and red, which was unplanned. Tracy showed up with a crown and a bachelorette sash. The crown meant people kept looking at me all night. I got a congratulations, a happy birthday, a "were you in a pageant?" and two guys who said, "don't do it!"

I also got a free margarita sampler at dinner on the house and the waiter said, "you can't share." That's what we're drinking below. Notice they're posing nicely and I'm drinking away. Nice.


There were gifts! I was not expecting gifts. I'm not quite sure what Tracy C. is implying by the booby boosters (cinnamon candies), but hey, I'm always up for candy. I think the shot glass is my favorite. In case you can't see, it says "drink skank, drink." Which is of course funny, because I am anything but a skank. Not that that needs explaining.

After saying goodbye to the girls, I met up with Mr. Fried Rice and his group of boys. I took the tiara off after the one female in the group, who I've never met before, said, "Oh you poor thing. Spending your bachelorette with guys?" Uh no, I explained.

Of course, the guys had much fun with the tiara. That's Trent below trying to hide the fact that he's wearing it when I pulled out the camera. Mr. Fried Rice though, has the confidence to pull it off.







And I think, looking at this pic, that it's time to go home.

We're ready for take off

Mr. Fried Rice finally got a down moment at work and was able to run out and get the marriage license. We are now legal and ready to be married.

The county clerk's office isn't the greatest place. Big giant signs about how they have no public restrooms and only 30-minute metered parking nearby.

We could see the room where they do the civil ceremonies from the waiting area and the cheesy arch covered in fake flowers, the "room o' joy" as Mr. Fried Rice sarcastically called it.

But we got 'er done. I wasn't expecting to take an oath. I teared up during it. How the heck am I ever going to get through the ceremony if I'm near tears with a bored county employee?



Mr. Fried Rice actually seemed to get a little excited after we got the license application. He entertained me by reading through the packet of health information the employee said the state required her to give to us.

On the part about STDs: "Genitals 101!"
On the part about asking your spouse if anyone in their family has mental retardation: "I think I might be the trail blazer on that one, honey."

Oh, and this pic totally makes me not want to have children. Do husbands turn into chubby versions of Erik Estrada with porn mustaches and strange hairstyles once they're fathers?

My made in china wedding

Planning a wedding makes you think about all the stuff you are buying, much of which will be thrown away after the wedding: favor boxes, invites, etc. Peeling the "made in china" stickers off the parasols was a reminder of this.

Another example: For the cupcakes -- in keeping with our beach theme -- I want to put a tiny beach umbrella (a drink umbrella) in each one. I found a deal at OrientalTrading.com and ordered 144 tiny "party parasols." They arrived and I opened one up to find the words "made in China" printed very prominently on the top of the umbrella.


Are you kidding me? That's not exactly what I pictured in the nice, close-up professional photo of my version of a cake. Plus, the cupcakes are made in Paso Robles, not China. Grr.

So I set off to find more parasols somewhere in town that didn't have such writing on them. God bless you, BevMo. They were actually out of them, but thank you to the guy who searched the back room for them, twice. He didn't even laugh at me when I told him what they were for, if they had writing on them and if I could return them if they were opened. So for a few bucks more I bought three more packages of party parsols. These ones are made in China too, but thankfully they say that only on the package.

They look like this:


I then called OrientalTrading, who shockingly said they would refund the cost of the umbrellas and shipping. And then they said I didn't even have to mail them back!

So, if anyone needs 144 party parasols with the words made in china on them, let me know. I also have about 120 of the regular umbrellas, minus the blue and yellow ones I picked out for the cupcakes.

Shoes Part III; Something blue

I think my shoes are finally ready. It's been quite the process.

Planning to dye my shoes a lovely color I took them to the dye guy. Actually hauled my whole wedding dress there because I coudn't cut a swatch. No go. Apparently dye guy can't dye to match any color, can only dye to match the swatches of colors with recipes in his little book.

My shoes are white. The dress is not. It was too late to return them and I had just thrown $70 out the window. Or so I thought. For some reason I thought Zappos.com had a one-month return policy. As some fellow knotties pointed out, it's a year. So the shoes went back (free shipping) to Zappos, and back came a lovely pair in ivory. Zappos rocks.

It was also my knotties who inspired my something blue, pictured below.


I'm very happy with how these turned out. I bought some flat-bottomed rhinestones at Michaels and pulled out my glue gun. I had planned to do A&B on one shoe and possibly our date on the other shoe. However, when I looked at how much space I had that wouldn't be walked on I realized I needed to keep it small. My feet aren't that big!

So, I wrote the letters on the shoes in pencil first. Then I picked up each rhinestone with a pair of those tweezers that clamps down until you squeeze them to open them up, dipped it in a bit of glue from the glue gun and pressed them down. They're holding surprisingly well, though I may bring some extra rhinestones and some Elmer's to Cambria just in case.

The most annoying thing was the weird tension from the tweezers that sent every fifth rhinestone zinging across my living room. That and the cheese-pizza-like strings of glue that seemed to fly everywhere. I rubberbanded the straps of the shoes down so they wouldn't get glued.

Well, there you have it. My something blue.

Favors are finished!

Wow, I'm so glad I'm having a small wedding. I can't imagine tying ribbons on hundreds of favors like some people do.

Anyway, since Mr. Fried Rice has a reputation for his addiction to Chinese food, we thought it only fitting that our favors be fortune cookies. We ordered a whole slew of them from e-fortunecookie.com. The company lets you personalize up to four fortunes.

With a mix of personalization and Mr. Fried Rice's snarkiness, we chose:

She's not made of fried rice, but he married her anyway.
Help! I'm being held prisoner inside a Chinese bakery.
Only a fool would look to a cookie for words of wisdom.
It's about time I got out of that cookie.

I got miniature Chinese take-out containers from Michaels for $5.99 per 10-pack. I searched far and wide for a parasol/beach umbrella stamp and had given up when I found one at Dollar Tree. Same story with the ribbon. For some reason the store has started carrying a ton of craft stuff. They even had paper cutters! Too bad I spent $19.99 on mine.

The only drawback with the take-out containers is the bottom. In large black type, they say:

For decorative purposes only
Not safe for consumable products

Great. The cookies are individually wrapped, but still, not exactly what I wanted our guests to see. Oh well.

It took several colors of yellow paper to find a yellow and blue that didn't clash, but I like how they turned out. Each container has three fortune cookies in it.



And of course, you know who kept me company during hours of ribbon tying:

The bridal shower

I am now the proud owner of a wedding cake made of towels. Yep, Aaron's aunt, who hosted the bridal shower, had this made by a friend of hers. A roll of toilet paper is the base and the towels and decorations are wrapped around and pinned. I'm afraid to take it apart!

So this was my one bridal shower, which was thrown by Aaron's extended family. I decided not to do one with my friends since our wedding is so small and my family is out of state. I'm saving the bachelorette party for my friends. ;)

I was a tad nervous about the bridal shower as we aren't inviting extended family to the wedding and as I hadn't met many of the people attending. But I had a fantastic time. It really was a good way to get to know some of the family members in an easy, all-female setting.

I was a bit uncomfortable accepting gifts from people who aren't coming to the wedding (a big etiquette no no, not inviting them when they throw me a shower). But it was their choice, so I decided not to worry about it. Man, were they generous. We got so much stuff! Much needed supplies for our kitchen, silverware, a mezzaluna that will become my new favorite gadget and a beautiful turquoise platter that I'd love to hang on the wall.

I'm so glad Aaron has a sane, down-to-earth, fun family. So glad I'm not marrying into a bunch of crazies.

On another note, do you notice that little Mikey makes his way into almost every picture? He's always interested in what I'm doing. Sometimes his presence is deliberate, sometimes not. With that I leave you this photo of Mike's favorite present:

Pretty parasols

Is it bad that I'm just as excited about the parasols as I am about my dress? I ordered them online from AsianIdeas.com. The yellow parasols happened to be on sale at $3.50 each and since yellow and blue are my colors, that made the decision easy.

It's an unnecessary extra, but I love the idea of providing shade for our guests (I know mom with her skin cancer issues will appreciate one) and I love the look of them. Plus, they really look fantastic in photos and there's lot of fun to be had with the photographer. Just look at these photos below.

(knottie amyfelice)

(above three photos courtesy of theknot.com)

I decided to buy one parasol per female guest, plus a few extra. Of course, one just can't leave the parasols all alone. This was an opportunity for DIY. I scoured craft stores and found a stamp that said "with love." Some gold ink, blue paper, gold ribbon, a hole punch and one investment in a paper cutter later and I had tags to personalize the parasols with.

I bought the basket at Cost Plus. I plan to have my 11-year-old nephew hand out parasols to the ladies at the ceremony. I ran out of ribbon halfway through, so they're not all done yet, but I like the way they're turning out.