It's just Meant To Bee

I was at my Mom's this weekend for a mother's day purge session.  She's working on cleaning out her entire house in the hopes to put it on the market filled with just the bare essentials.  After years of holding onto everything that might be of importance or sentimental value for her, and the four of us whom she has raised, it proves to be a daunting task to sort through it all and decide what is really worth keeping.  In the two and a half days I was there my brother packed the Town & Country to the ceiling and delivered it to Good Will.  While he was gone, another half a load worth made it's way out to the garage.  During the numerous breaks I took from my task of clearing out my old bedroom closet, I made my way down to the kitchen for a snack or yet another cup of coffee from my Mom's fabulous Keurig.  "Isn't that thing wasteful" says my guy when I came home ranting about the disgustingly convenient contraption yet again.  "well, yes, but it comes with a little mesh filter to use over and over again with bulk coffee."  That shut him up...I think that means I won.  Sorry, I've gotten sidetracked.  

        On one of these ventures out of the confines of my "project" I talked with a visiting friend of my Mom's who popped in every now and then throughout my stay.  I have to give this background first.  In my occasional window shopping of the internet wedding world, I had found a really cute idea for favors.  Little jars of honey with a corny little saying on it that combined the wedding motif and the actuality that it was honey.  Back to my Mom's friend (we'll call her Mel, for the Latin naming of the Western Honey Bee, Apis mellifera).  Mel, a now retired, high energy lady who loves projects and will do whatever she can to help a fellow sist-a out.  In our on and off conversation of this little thing called Our Wedding says "I'm just putting it out there, so think about it, but a nice idea for favors might be honey."  I say "OMG Girl, that's totally a route we had discussed taking!"  Come to find out, her and her husband have bees and it would be their honey!  She can also do candles and is working on soap!!  It's for shizzle!  All we have to do is find jars and make a little label for them!  So easy!  I think we might try to do something else to go with it so at least there's some element of surprise to those readers who are also guests.  

        In preparation for this post, I looked some of those jars up that I found so that I could have a pic of what we're thinking of.  In the search I found out a few things that make this idea even more appealing:

"In early Greece and Rome honey symbolized fertility, love, and beauty. Furthermore, in Greek mythology, it is said that Cupid dipped his arrows in honey to fill the lovers heart with sweetness." -www.e-weddingfavors.com

         What a great gift!  Local Vermont Honey in a reusable glass jar!  It fits all of our ideals and even has historical meaning!  It's pretty much a done deal and we still have 466 days to go!  All for getting things taken care of ahead of time.

Also, my great friend M is a newly inaugurated bee keeper and just a shout out to her!  Hey M! 

Thank you to www.e-weddingfavors.com for the use of their jar-o-honey pic.  

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3030/2934975197_1cc6b8027a.jpg for the use of the comb pic.

http://www.mwt.net/~fry/MessyHouse.jpg for the use of the messy house framed saying. 

A Homemade Wedding You Say?

The first things I started to think about when I finally wrapped my head around the fact that after 7+ years of this relationship, we're actually getting married, was the kind of wedding I envisioned us throwing ourselves.  I knew that we'd be paying for it ourselves so budget was going to be a huge factor.  I knew we didn't want to have all the same things that accompany most cookie cutter events.  We want our day to be different and unique.  A perfect example of our very personalities that everyone will enjoy and remember for years to come.  What this ultimately means is that anything one could buy, someone else could buy.  Anything that we want to be unique from what anyone else could have, we'll have to alter with our own touches or make for ourselves completely.  And so we have ourselves a perfect little homemade wedding in the making.  

       This concept started with the ring.  Nate designed it himself and using a hand me down stone from his mom, had it made especially for me.  We'll do the same with the bands.  This is a good example of how some things can be still unique to us though we are unable to make them for ourselves as our skills do not, at this point in life, include metal work.
       We also plan to make the save the dates, invites, hand stamp the cocktail napkins, the center pieces, the groom and groomsman's boutonnieres, my head piece, favors, even the tables and seating!  I'm sure there is more that I've forgotten but essentially anything that one would take time creating or searching for the perfect item, we'll make specifically to our liking.  It's a lot of work, but we've got a bit of time and with a trusty planning binder and drawn out time line, we'll have no problem having everything done in time.  And if we don't then you'll have the pleasure of reading about the chaos right here!

       So please share with friends and other brides-to-be and you will all be sure to enjoy reading about all the excitements, failures and achievements of this homegrown handmade wedding of 2011.