I knew I would be giving gifts during our rehearsal dinner, but I did not I would be receiving gifts, too!

While we were waiting for our food to arrive, my soon-to-be father-in-law gave a touching toast. He even choked up a bit when he acknowledged that his “baby boy” was getting married.

He then turned it over to my soon-to-be mother-in-law, who surprised me with a sweet little speech. She explained that when she moved from the east coast to the west coast, Nick’s sister gave her a Tiffany’s heart necklace and said that they would always be close in heart. Mother-in-law later gifted the same heart necklace to her daughter and daughters-in-law. And now it was time to welcome a new woman into the family! I’m privileged to join a family with such strong and devoted women. And what a sweet tradition!

(Side note: When Nick was shopping for a necklace to give to me on our first Christmas together, his sister told him he was not allowed to get the heart necklace. You know what that means … she suspected we may end up together even way back then!)

Next it was our turn. Nick and I presented gifts to everyone playing a part in our big day.

I already told you about the ruby red earrings (I chose The Peach Tree) and the clutches I got for my girls. They loved both! I also slipped chapstick and tic-tacs into each clutch because I didn’t think they should be empty.

In addition to the awesome frames that Nick assembled for the guys, he also had mugs engraved with their initials. After the boys unwrapped them, we collected them back to bring to the reception the following night. Also, our dads got mugs that said “Father of the Bride” and “Father of the Groom” with the date. And we couldn’t leave the bride and groom without sweet drinking vessels. Ours said “Mr.” and “Mrs.,” of course.

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Really though, what’s the story?

Birdseed, flower petals, confetti to send off from the church. Got it.

{ image from Seasons of Life }

But what about the getaway from the reception? Sparklers, bubbles, etc…

{ image from Seasons of Life }

Are you supposed to do two send-offs?

I like the idea of doing a ribbon wand send off from the church, but I also like the idea of a sparkler send-off from the reception.

{ photo by Birdsong Photography via polka dot bride }

Is it normal to do two send-offs? What’s the deal? I feel like making people line up and cheer for us more than once would be a lot…

What did you/are you going to do?

I know what you’re thinking. Wait a minute Mo, aren’t you having your wedding in a vineyard with Italian food? This blog post title says “big fat Chinese wedding”, what’s so Chinese about a vineyard and Italian food? Is your entire profile a sham?? Is your name even Mo??!

I can explain. Yours truly not only is having one wedding extravaganza, but TWO. That’s right, we’re having two celebrations, in two different cities, with two different guest lists, two different invitations, two different florists, two different outfits…I could keep going but you’re probably getting a headache.

It’s insane. I now refer to our events as wedding #1, what my parents refer to as “the western wedding”, and wedding #2—The Chinese Banquet. [If you're unfamiliar or want to know more about Chinese banquets, Chinese Weddings by the Knot has a pretty good run-down of what a wedding banquet entails, plus a lot of other Chinese traditions! Also, The Wedding Banquet, directed by Ang Lee, kept me laughing and is very educational. I love that movie, two enthusiastic thumbs up.]

The good news (or is it good?) is that the banquet is being totally planned by my mother and my future mother-in-law. 300 of our parents’ friends and relatives (and when I say relatives, I mean second, third, and fourth cousins), will be dining on roast pork, shark fin soup, and walnut shrimp. You read right. THREE HUNDRED. This banquet is making both our parents very, very happy, so I’ve tried to get over all the hoopla and am instead focusing on my only task: finding something to wear.

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As expected…while I was back home over the Labor Day weekend I was bombarded with wedding questions.  Most of them were typical, where’s the wedding gonna be, what does your dress look like, what type of flowers will you have…and then there’s my mom.

She tends to ask the most detailed questions and when I stare at her funny she says, “well people are asking!”…to which I reply…”really mom…people are asking you if we’re going to have programs for the ceremony?”  Not that this isn’t a legit question…in say 8 months when we are actually thinking about ceremony programs!!!  How am I supposed to think about programs when we don’t even know what our ceremony is going to be like?!

Truth be told…I actually have thought about what I want to include in our ceremony.  Along with the traditional stuff…music, vows, readings…there are a couple other “things” that have caught my eye recently…

Tree Planting:

Similar to the unity candle and the “sand mixing” alternative….in the Tree Planting Ceremony the bride and groom plant a tree together!

source

The general idea is to have a small tree in a pot, and then have the bride and groom both add soil.

found here

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So, you’ve met me and you’ve at least been introduced to Brian, but you haven’t had the pleasure of getting to know the other member of our family: Chambers.

Chambers is our one year old Vizsla and the above picture is by far my favorite of him.  Brian took it the first time Chambers saw snow this past winter (he loved it).

The reason I wanted to tell you about Chambers is to get your thoughts on having him in our wedding.  We are planning to have him be the ring bearer (he’ll be walked down the aisle by a friend of ours who knows him well), which, while I’m excited to have him around since he is a big part of our lives, I have to admit, I’m a little nervous that he’ll inadvertently cause a minor disaster… You see, he’s a little rambunctious and a smidge mischievous…  My big fear is that he lunges out of his handler’s hands when he sees me walking down the aisle and tries to leap into my arms, but instead ends up tearing a gaping hole down the front of my dress.

I do think much of this fear can/will be quieted by making sure he is exhausted before the wedding begins, but I’d love some tips from any brides out there who’ve had their dog in their wedding.  Are there any tricks for keeping him quiet during the ceremony?  What about what to do with him during the reception?  Any help you can give would be much appreciated!

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…have quickly become my biggest wedding pet peeve. You know the ones, the bride and groom are dancing romantically for their first dance when all of a sudden this beat comes out of nowhere (gasp, “what is going on here??” says the look on the bride’s face), and then all of a sudden, SURPRISE! The new Mr. & Mrs. are doing a full-out “running man” into the “robot”… Sigh.

{ image via DanceJam }

Let me preface this by saying that I majored in dance in college and therefore consider myself to be a dance snob. So, forgive me while I vent for a moment and please know that I by no means mean to offend anyone…we just will not be doing a choreographed first dance at our wedding since it is definitely not something that matches our personalities. Hope that makes sense? You know I love all of you :)

Now, I get it. For some people, it’s hilarious that the usually-quiet groom actually got roped into doing some romantic-waltz-slow-dance-UH OH-DJ-gone-wrong-turntable-scratch-into-baby-got-back dance in front of all his fraternity brothers. OR, like my friend Matt, some people are just natural comedians so it’s completely fitting to incorporate both the “sprinkler” and the “shopping cart” into the first dance. I just really don’t find it funny to watch strangers dancing poorly at their own weddings on YouTube. Am I crazy here?

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Personalizing our ceremony was of the utmost importance to us. If our guests hadn’t already clued in to our loose relationship with wedding traditions, they got a sense of what awaited them on the very first page of our program:

There were five key ways that we strived to make our ceremony uniquely ours: music selections, choice of officiant, family participation, readings/crowd participation, and vows. I’ll tell the story of how each made a difference at our ceremony by taking us through our wedding ceremony photos.

Half of Trevor’s family is Scottish, and while he didn’t feel the need to wear a kilt and have a traditional Scottish ceremony, we both thought that incorporating Scottish music would be a great way to pay tribute to his heritage. We decided to play up our beach location and take advantage of the open space by having the bagpiper lead Trevor and his groomsmen from the dunes overlooking the ceremony down onto the main deck, playing “Scotland the Brave” all the while. Trevor’s cousin, an accomplished Scottish drummer, surprised us by playing along with the bagpiper.

(All photos by Beach Productions)

My cousin is an accomplished violinist, and we chose to have her play music for the bridesmaids’ entrance as well as for my entrance. A more delicate instrument than the bagpipes worked well for the more intimate deck setting. As big music lovers, we thought long and hard about our selections. We wanted to make a transition to pop music with the violin, and set an upbeat tone for the ceremony. We chose The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love,” and it had guests grinning from the start.

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image from mondera.com

I’m not sure how to feel about the whole men wearing wedding rings deal. My dad has always worn his and my mom always wore her matching one, both plain yellow gold bands. I was actually pretty surprised to find out that women (now at least) tend to match their wedding band to their engagement rings, and that the husband’s ring doesn’t always match. I was probably just not that observant.

I think my thoughts on marriage have been greatly influenced by the people I grew up around and media. Thus, men wear rings if they are married, women look for the wedding ring when they are out hunting for men (this is where movies come in, and every conversation I ever had with another female about some adult male that is considered attractive), and men who don’t want to wear a ring or who take their rings off are up to no good. I’m sure lots of men have gotten in trouble for wanting to look single for whatever reason, or forgetting to put their ring back on after some physical activity, or just not wanting to wear one.

This brings me to a personal question: why do I want to wear a ring? I’m really not sure. I know part of it is because they are so pretty (my e-ring is a permanent fixture on my hand at this point), because I like jewelry, and because it signifies to other people that I am getting married. Which might be because I like for people to ooh and ahh and ask questions, and because it’s like an entry to the engaged club. I’m not saying I’m proud of the reasons, but they are there amongst the more noble ones. I never even thought about not having a ring. Partly because I do want people to know I’m taken. Women wear fake rings to ward off men they don’t want to approach them, and it’s kind of a polite signal when you are actually married (hey, don’t bother, I’m married).

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After The Professional Bridesmaid asked why I was bucking tradition by letting the boy see my dress, I thought it’d be a good post topic—traditions I am not following! I should preface this post by clarifying that I’m not disrespectful to all wedding traditions—heck, I’m a girl who will be wearing a white dress and has bridesmaids with {potentially} matching outfits! But I’ve definitely given thought to which ones I’d like to include and not include, and what would be best for the both of us.

Wedding traditions we are breaking:

+I am letting the boy see pictures of me in the dress.
If he was at all interested in dress shopping, I’d probably take him with me! But he’s not (*cry) and I don’t mind if he sees the pictures at all. I don’t feel particularly comfortable with him picking something to wear without me, so I showed him pictures of me in dresses and asked his opinion to be fair. We’re putting a lot of our energy and money into this event, and I just feel like each item we’re spending money on should be discussed. That includes the dress. Good thing the dress I fell in love with received a “looks good” comment from him, otherwise we’d have an entirely different problem on our hands. :)

+I do not want only my father walking me down the aisle.
I love my Dad. I’m pretty sure I fit the profile for “Daddy’s little girl” being the youngest in the family. But I’m uneasy about walking down the aisle with just my father, only to have him pass me to my fiancé waiting for me at the end of the aisle. I’m also uneasy about leaving out my mother in this equation. She raised me and took care of me like my Dad—why shouldn’t she be walking with us too? We have three alternative options we’ve thought of:

- The boy and I can walk down the aisle together –OR-

- The boy and I can walk down the aisle with both sets of parents -OR-

- I can walk down the aisle by myself

+I do not want our ceremony to end with 1) “I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss the bride” or 2) “introducing for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. His Name”.

1) I think we might change this to read “I now pronounce you married, you may now hug and kiss” or something along those lines! Any suggestions? Perhaps “you may now kiss the groom”? :)

2) Where did my name go? I find this introduction completely unfair. I have a name too! And it’s cuter than the boy’s!

How about you? Are you breaking any traditions?

Ok, so I have read so many blog posts about changing/not changing/hyphenating/merging names, so I thought I’d weigh in with my decision.

Vince and I have a very unique situation.  His last name has always been Klue.  He moved here 10 years ago from South Africa with his biological mother and his step father who has always been a true father to him.  Over the past 10 years this relationship has grown, and he and his step father are as close as a father and son could possibly be.  He has also had no contact with his biological father during these years.

When Vince and I began discussing marriage, I mentioned that while I love my last name-I definitely want us to share the same name.  However, the Klue name means absolutely nothing to me as I have never and will never meet the man who shares that same name.  I told Vince that as much as we both love and respect his “step” father, I would love nothing more than to take on his name rather than Klue.

Fast forward to this week.  Vince’s step father OFFICIALLY and LEGALLY adopted my 28 year old fiance on Tuesday.  This has been a very exciting and emotional week as we have been sure of this decision for a long time, and it means the WORLD to Vince and to his Dad that they are legally father and son.  SO, after the adoption was final, Vince was able to legally take his step father’s last name.

I love that we had this unique situation for a lot of reasons-one of them being the fact that Vince and I are BOTH getting new last names around the same time.  I am taking a last name that I am proud to have.  A name that comes from one of the most amazing men I’ve ever met (his father).  I feel so honored that he is going to be my father in law, and I’m so happy to share his name.  I also like the fact that I’m not the only one changing my name, and we are both going to have  a new name, and begin the first line of this name here in America!  Amazing!

So, that’s my situation. Unique, huh–but I think it’s pretty cool :)

Oh, and since I have to have a picture in every post, here’s a picture of my wedding band that I got today!  I am SO in love with it!  (although I don’t know why my hand looks so man-ish!)

What about you chicas?  Do any of you have a similar situation?  Anyone out there combine your last names to make a new name?  That is always so interesting to me, but I’ve never met anyone who’s done it…

One of the things that dr. dave and I had debated prior to the wedding was whether we would see each other prior to the ceremony or not.  While we both liked the tradition of not seeing one another until the moment I was walking down the aisle, there were a few factors that led to our decision to have a “reveal” prior to the ceremony.  The number one factor was timing…after all, our ceremony wasn’t set to begin until 7 p.m., with a reception to start immediately after.  Had we waited to see each other, we would have had to take all pictures after the ceremony, which would have taken forever! Because we had so many out-of-town guests who were on a different time zone, we figured it was better to just get right to the food!

We also had heard that the intimate “reveal” can be very sweet and special, allowing you to have a more private moment together before the madness ensues!  Thus, we decided to do a reveal before the ceremony, and take our bridal party pictures beforehand as well.  We decided to switch locations for these, and took these at the Colorado School of Mines campus.  Our photographers Andrew and Jessica were gracious enough to play along, and they helped loosen us all up and took some great shots, which I’ll show you later! For now, here are the pictures from the reveal…

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Okay, fellow brides-to-be out there, I have a confession to make about my feelings toward the whole bachelor party thing. This isn’t easy to say, but I’m hoping some of you out might be able to identify with what I’m feeling, which is that I’m not 100% cool with it. In fact, thinking about the bachelor party makes me kind of nervous.

Of course, I want A to have a great time with his buddies before the wedding. Of course. And it has nothing to do with trust. Not a bit, I assure you.

But this past week, as A has been putting together his bachelor party plans, I found myself feeling anxious about the whole thing. Now, given that I’m prone to anxiety in general, this isn’t surprising. But what is surprising is the polar opposite difference between what I think and what I feel.

What I think is, bachelor parties are great ways for the groom to get away from the wedding stress and just have a really great evening or weekend away with his dearest friends. And I think I’d be sad if A didn’t get that experience. This is what my head thinks.

But my heart just knots itself up into a ball of nerves thinking, bachelor party… drinking… carelessness… danger… ah!

I think part of the problem is the expectations that society places around bachelor and bachelorette parties. I take offense at idea that these parties represent your last chance to GO WILD before being trapped for the rest of your life. To me, that works directly against the very foundation that I want my marriage to be based on: trust, love, openness.

In a sense, I think getting married sets you free. Here is this one huge area in life that you have figured out. You’ve made your promises to each other, you have your rock, your home base now, and from there you can go out and conquer the rest of the world.

Case in point on society’s bachelor/bachelorette expectations? The Hangover. First let me say, that was a fantastic, hilarious movie. I was roaring the whole time. I’m talking, rocking in my chair, tears squeezing out of my eyes, laughing my head off, roaring. It was easy to do because the movie was so over-the-top and exaggerated. But I do think it represents the expectation that your bachelor or bachelorette party has to be the craziest time of your life.

In fact, I’m feeling a little anxious about my bachelorette party too (but I totally trust that my friends will show me a great time).

The way A and I are approaching the bachelor/bachelorette parties is by thinking of them as opportunities to have a great time with our friends and blow off some steam before the wedding. Yes, there will be some carousing. But no one’s getting so wasted they wake up with a tiger in their bathroom (or so I hope).

Still, I’m recruiting my friends to keep me occupied while A’s out of town for the bachelor festivities. No matter how sane I sound in this post, I know that I’ll probably need a little distraction from my little knotted up heart.

Can anyone out there relate?