US meets UK

I really do. I started dreaming about cake stands after I saw this one on Mrs. Penguin’s blog. le swoon:

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I let my mind wander to the cake buffet idea and decided to search out cake stands to share with you all. I bake all the time so I can easily justify cake stands as wedding/life purchases. I can’t really purchase any cake stands in England because I worry about their fragility in transit. So I’ll just share my day dreams with the hive.

Sunny Yellow? Why yes…I did just add this to our registry…

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It’s also available in olive and chiffon.

I’m not usually a huge glass cake stand fan, or the “plate attached to base” cake stands. But I think this city cake plate is adorable!

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I like the details on this one – but would I honestly use it past the wedding day?

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Oh Martha, why do you do this to me? I can’t find this one anywhere, but I think it’s very pretty.

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Poppies? Cake? Cake stand? Yes please!

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There are tons of gorgeous milk glass and jadeite cake stands on ebay – I had to fight the power to bid!  Cake stands are the one wedding purchase I can think of that I’m quite happy with making. Particularly because I know I’ll continue to use them long after August. Thanks for following along in my cake stand day dream!

Are you making any combo wedding+life purchases?

They call me Stacy… Okay, well no one actually calls me Stacy and I don’t know what I want to be called after August 2009. After Miss Cheese’s name changing post I tried really hard to avoid thinking about our own situation. Since I haven’t made the decision yet (though I have reserved all possible email choices) I thought I’d share what other people in my life have decided.

• My friends Holly and Mike were recently married and went through the same debate as most couples have gone through. She wasn’t sure about changing her name, he wanted them to share a last name and they wanted their future children to share their names. They both decided to hyphenate their last names to become Holly and Mike Jones-Smith

• Possibly the most original idea I’ve ever heard? Make up a last name. MOH MB’s friend’s last name is Posil. His mother’s last name is Polovvy and his father’s last name is Silverman. Get it, Po-sil? They each retained their pre-married names and their child received a combination of their names. I suppose you could always create a family name for the two of you as well.

• My friend Stephanie married into a culture where you take your husband’s first and last name. Which would make her Stephanie Jay Kapadia. She really likes her middle name (her first name was chosen by her mother, her middle name was chosen by her father) and she didn’t want to get rid of it, nor did she want her husband’s name as her middle name. She ultimately decided to take on her husband’s last name and keep her own middle name. Since she was able to retain her middle name she didn’t feel as though she needed her maiden name.

• My sister stayed with her maiden name because she felt it was such a hassle to go through all the paperwork required to change. She says she’ll change it when they’re ready to have children so their whole family will have her husband’s last name.

As for us? Every family member in my generation is a girl, so I really do worry about our family name dying out. I can remember clear as yesterday learning about someone with my last name in 4th grade. I ran home and made my mother find our genealogy to see if we were related. Like Miss Peep Toe, I enjoy being on that first page of google results. Plus according to this site (thanks mrstye!), there is only 1 person in the entire United States with my name. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but I think it’s pretty neat and I don’t want to lose the history or individuality that comes with it.

Have you decided to go the non traditional route?

When Mr. D and I met I was living in AZ and my fur-child Max was still living in Maryland. As far as Mr. D was concerned I didn’t really have any pets. So when Mr. D moved to Miami and I decided to get Max a sister, Mr. D was pretty wary about it. He never had a pet and wasn’t really sure how he felt about it. Since he works from home and I worked long hours in Miami he knew he’d be spending the majority of time with my new cat.

Though the first few days were a bit rough Millie and Mr. D eventually got used to each other and all of us finally started sleeping through the night. Since they ended up spending so much time together Mr. D became very attached to Millie and considers her “his” cat. When we returned to Maryland we suddenly had our entire family together under one roof. Max, Millie, Mr. D and I were all together and Max was not happy that I hadn’t come back alone.

It took several months for everyone to get used to each other, Max would attack Millie so naturally Mr. D wasn’t a fan of him. Mr. D and I even got into fight about which cat was at fault – his or mine! We each wanted “our” cat in our bedroom at night, but our cats weren’t too keen on the idea of being in the room at the same time. Both cats were finally getting along when we left for England but since they’ll have been split for 6 months we’re pretty sure we’ll be returning to kitty WWIII.

Did you and your SO combine your furry friends? How’d it go?

and saw the field behind us on fire:

Sometimes life in England is weird. I say this because I was the only person in the house startled by the fire.

Once again, wtf England….

Many of you suggested I post in Etsy’s alchemy section to see if I could find an artist to create those elusive feather fans I was looking for. Then I found this photo on Project Wedding:

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Not only do I think it is completely adorable, I also love the little posy on the side. It’s a fan I could really see gifting to my girls and the posies could be personalized to each fan. This vintage beauty had already been sold so I contacted the creator. Cindi at Brass Paperclip has already started the hunt for those hard to find “not too wide” fan staves with snappy sass.

Have you ever used Etsy Alchemy for an item you couldn’t find?

Since I’m not British I don’t know if I’m really qualified to broach this subject, but it is a fun one! As you may have seen from movies like Four Weddings and a Funeral, ladies can really rock hats and fascinators at English weddings.

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The easiest way to encourage ladies to wear hats is to put in on the invite. Since we’ve kind of missed the boat on the invites we’ll probably make a mention of it on our website. The other part holding us back? I’m not sure if my mother will be wearing a hat and traditional etiquette is guided by the bride’s mother. Here is an excerpt from UK photographer Dan Johnson:

Unless Betty Windsor and Phil are going to turn out for it, the etiquette at an English wedding is that ladies keep their hats on until the mother of the bride removes hers, which will normally be when the formality of the wedding breakfast is completed and gentlemen are free to remove their jackets i.e. when the coffee comes out.

That’s the theory, which assumes that there actually is a MOB on the top table, that she knows the score, and that she’s not wearing an enormous creation which makes things difficult for the waiting staff (in which case she should take the thing off when she sits down).

In practice, most ladies nowadays keep theirs on until either the MOB or the senior lady on the top table takes hers off – unless of course everybody else takes theirs off as they go into the marquee or dining room.

Fascinators count as hats, and watch out in the ladies loo for the seasoned veteran of many a garden party and wedding. She’s the older lady who will remove her hat, take out the rollers that are in her hair under it, produce a hairbrush from her handbag and in due course return to the fray with immaculate hair, carrying her hat.

Finally, be prepared for guests contacting you or your mum for guidance in the run-up to the wedding when they realise that (a) they need to get a hat and (b) they’re not sure when it comes off …

FMIL Mrs. D isn’t a big fan of hats either, and most of the women on Mr. D’s side plan on wearing fascinators instead of hats. In my opinion, Hats > Fascinators for a wedding. Why? Because I can wear a fascinator any night I go out, but I only get to wear hats to Steeplechases and such. So I relish any opportunity to wear a large hat.

This fascinator found on flickr is pretty neat:

But what about a big wide brim hat for a sunny afternoon wedding?

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I’m going to ask my cousins to help spread the word, but don’t know how into the tradition people on my side will be. Since English weddings tend to happen earlier in the day hats certainly make sense for shielding you from the mid-day sun. Our ceremony starts at 6:30 in the evening, which doesn’t make hat as functional as they would be for an afternoon wedding. I should probably note that Mr. D could care less about hats and doesn’t really understand my excitement. Do you guys have any suggestions for getting more hats on my guests heads?

Are you trying to incorporate traditions from your fiance’s culture into your wedding day?

When I A. am not sure myself anymore and B. am 7,000 miles away from her? I scour the internet looking for purple bouquets. By scour I mean that I went through 5019 multi coloured “purple” images on Project Wedding and a paltry 217 on The Knot. Where is the love for purple flowers people?

purple bouquets – by MsUsUk

(sources available here)

Like Miss Perfume I’ve gone in circles over what bouquets I like (we even have one of the same pics!). Except I began with wanting more structure, but still round-esque. Like this one but with deep purples, greens and there shall be no NO lavender…

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Then, of course, I saw peonies.

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You can bet your sweet bee bottom that I’ll be having feathers in my bouquet, but they probably won’t be ostrich and I really can’t afford those peonies…

So I started thinking about a multi coloured bouquet of purple, ivory, lavender and bright greens (imagine less pink/more purple)

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Next I went all cymbiduim orchid on myself…

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My current favourite – the kind that I now really, really want?

(The florist who created this lovely bouquet)

Look at all that lavender…go figure. Anyone else on the hunt for the perfect purple bouquet?

If I were to blog with you guys in perfect chronological order, this post would have gone first. Thats because we decided on our photographer before we made any other wedding related decisions. After the initial engagement excitement I realized that from that point on we had about 3 months to plan a wedding from the United States and that the rest of the planning would have to be done from England. I *may* have had a minor freakout. The kind in which I swore that we would plan the entire wedding before we left for England, that I would have contracts for all our vendors and every single detail picked out.

As you’ve seen, that didn’t exactly happen. My first stop was the WPJA, I searched by state and payed close attention to the costs listed to see if we were in the same ballpark. Then I used my stalker skills and stalked several photogs websites and blogs.

I was going about my day, searching through blog after blog, flash heavy sites crashing my browser until I found it! Drool worthy, in my budget aaaaagagagagah! A huge wave of bridal indecisiveness washed off my shoulders! I had figured out our first vendor, huzzah!

I’d like to introduce our photographer Evan Bishop of Bishop Photography to the hive. He used to live in the Baltimore area, but has since moved to San Diego and continues to work on both coasts. Here are few fabulous shots:

There are so many more I’d love to share with you, so I encourage you to head to his site to check out his work. Whenever I feel the wedding stress creeping up and I’m getting overwhelmed I check out these two slide shows, one is sunny and yellow and the other is classic and timeless. They’re both sweet, completely from the heart and usually make me tear up so much that I forget the word stress even exists. Although choosing other vendors hasn’t been as easy Mr. D and I are both excited to have Evan as our first draft pick.

What was the first wedding related decision you made?

I don’t get bridal envy often for things I know I can’t have, but this particular item has been quite the struggle for me.

Brides – by MsUsUk
(all photos via Rock-n-Roll Bride, except for bottom right from here)

What do these brides have that I can’t have?

Bangs – or “fringe” if you’re in the UK. I can’t get enough of these beautiful brides with their adorable, sexy bangs. I’ve had some type of face framing hair for several years and trying to grow it out has been a serious act of will power. In case you’ve never visited the mid-Atlantic in August, the weather is oppressively humid. No cute bridal bangs for me.

Have you struggled with growing your hair out?

Balls. My ring has a pair of balls. I’m sorry for the vulgarity, but it’s true…

Why you ask? When Mr. D and I finally found the perfect ring I had tried on hundreds of rings. Seriously, hundreds. All the settings were a size 6 which is just a bit too tiny for my finger. By the time I tried on my ring my finger was red, puffy, and very swollen. The sales manager sized my finger for the ring and we guestimated that although I was measuring in at a size 7 I was actually 6.75. He told us that we should only resize a ring twice to avoid damaging the metal.

Once the ring was on my finger we realized it was a bit too loose. It could spin all the way around my finger and I was terrified of going in the ocean with it. It even almost went down the drain while washing my parent’s dog! After that we decided something must be done so when we visited New York we swung by the Tiffany & Co.

They sent us up to the 6th floor where their customer service is located to meet with a jeweler.  Instead of resizing the ring, or putting a butterfly clip on it; the jeweler recommended putting two shots (technical ball term) in the ring.  It took about an hour and cost around $50 to do.  The shots can be removed in the summer when my fingers swell and replaced in the winter when my fingers shrink.  They were a bit uncomfortable at first, but now I hardly notice them.

Have you had any ring resizing adventures?