ducksandbooks

I’m nervous about the fact that I told my cousin that I wanted her to do my hair and makeup. She’s was a semi-pro, licensed cosmetologist who is currently working in PR. Anyway, what makes me nervous is the lack of trial. I don’t want to end up looking like a painted whore, or having my hair fall apart and look like a frizzy mop by the end of the day.

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That’s how I want my hair to look, long-ish, wavy, pulled back/out of my face, with volume, and with a veil. The problem is that to have hair that full looking, I’ll need extensions and my hair is not going to blend well with any of the more affordable extensions because I’ve got baby-fine, light brown hair with natural reddish highlights and all the fake hair in my color family is more blond than strawberry highlighted. Blech. Maybe I’ll have to buy a piece that’s too light and then have it dyed.

Then there’s makeup. That, I’m less worried about. I won a 1 hour makeup lesson from Groupon with Katelyn Simkins, and I’m comfortable doing my own makeup (just not eyeliner, but I don’t wear eye liner). Maybe fake eye lashes too, but MiMi will be there to help me with that.

I’ve just got general anxiety about paying lots of money for a dress and photography and there being 150+ people coming in from out of town to see us an me just looking OK and not the best I’ve ever looked. Blech. Maybe my gramma was right, nudist colony with pearls, everyone will be so self conscious of how they look that my appearance will be inconsequential (though I wouldn’t spend the money on a photographer for that event, eww).

how I want to look/feel at our wedding

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I still want bubbles. But Ben doesn’t think we should have bubbles because I’ll be wearing a silk dress and I want to be able to dye it afterwards (to wear to Andrea’s wedding!). He’s worried that the bubbles will stain my dress. Very cute and thoughtful, but we’re going to miss out on photos like this:

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And I want that! I don’t want rice/flower petals/bird seed thrown at me (and landing in my cleavage), I WANT BUBBLES!

Will bubbles really stain raw silk taffeta? Or will it just come out at the cleaners (I’ll have to have it cleaned before I can dye it). Ivory -> royal blue with ivory trim (the lining and tulle are poly).

Uh, er. I’m not sure how I missed this, but we have to pay individually for our beautiful engagement photos, just like everyone else. %$&^%$# I got it down from 56/269 favorites, then 30, and now 10. But where is the money to order these beauties going to come from!? I haven’t worked a traditional 40 hour week since February, and that was making minimum wage at the bakery! Ben certainly doesn’t feel comfortable spending our date night/entertainment money for the month x2. How did I miss this in the contract? I’m so disappointed in myself…. I was just so excited to find cool photographers who’s style I liked, that I may have glossed over the boilerplate (legaleese for fine print). Ugh.

Time to dig through the couch and clean out the care for change. I guess date night is going back to packing a picnic and/or climbing something, instead of eating out and people watching. Do you have any idea how frustrating people watching is on Pearl Street while denying yourself Glacier Ice Cream, fruit smoothies, italian ice, shaved ice, frozen yogurt, and cupcakes?!

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My mom recently decided that my post two weeks ago about out of town bags was well timed and that these are something that is necessary. This is due to the number of people who will travel to be here (just over a dozen of the 215 people we’re inviting are locals), some from as far as Japan, the UK, and Switzerland!

Here’s what you can look forward to in your goodie/welcome bag!

• SPF 30 sunblock (1 oz) and SPF 30 chapstick (mint)
• Boulder Canyon Potato Chips (snack size bag)
• some sort of candy TBD
• information on altitude sickness/sun precautions/alcohol consumption
• Boulder Chamber of Commerce Map
• my wonderful hand-drawn map of Boulder

please wear me!

I’m going to be gone from July 3-19, traveling with my bestest gal pal and visiting my mom. Just letting the internets know before I forget to tell you why I’ve fallen off the web next weekend for 2 weeks.

Machu Pichu, from last August's trip to Machu Pichu -this photo looked better before I degraded the image file to upload it faster :(

See more (and better quality versions) of my photos at viola_in_peru.

We got our engagement photos on Wednesday! Some of them came out really well too. WOOHOO!

http://www.pictage.com/795846

Now we just have to figure out what to DO with them. Other than sending a few choice ones to grandparents, I think we’re just going to have a few of our favorites printed out and then make our own photo album.

On the theme of photography, I’ve realized how disappointed I am that there won’t be any photos of our auf ruf or of shabbat dinner on Friday night (it’s not OK to take pictures on Shabbat in our congregational ethos, or Ben’s family’s for that matter). Our families and friends are starting to make their travel arrangements and are getting excited about coming out to Boulder, I’m realizing quite how important it really is to me that they’re going be here.When we decided to move the wedding here, from DC, I’d girded myself for the fact that this was going to be a destination wedding for most people and that we’d have low-ish attendance. Now it looks like most everyone we thought would come is coming!

my "I'm hot stuff" photo from our e-photo session

Tonight, we’re having our 3rd (of 6 or 7) meeting with our rabbi to discuss our wedding. Our homework was to write letters to each other about why we want to marry the other, and not share them but make them so that there’s nothing in there that our rabbi would be uncomfortable reading. We’ve had 3 weeks, and I’m got just over a page of stream of consciousness rambling, or 2/3 of a page of bullet points. Yeah. Ask me to write an essay on a literary work, symphony, movie, etc. and I’ll give you a 5-7 page essay with sub headings and footnotes, but ask me to write about my feelings and I’ll clam up and get stuck. Oh well, I’ll knock something out, but I feel kinda badly that I haven’t put more time and effort into this (though I’m not entirely sure it would have helped).

I wonder what he’s going to do with our letters. I’m sure it has something to do with gleaning personal details to talk about during the wedding ceremony (which is why I want it taped, I want to be able to actually listen and hear what he has to say, because I think I’ll just be a flighty/bouncy ball of emotional giggles on our wedding day).

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Eeep. Our other homework was to call and try and make an appointment with one of the two counselors the rabbi recommended. He wants us to meet with a pre marital counselor at least once or twice, though we’ve been reading through the pre marital counseling coaching books from URJ and haven’t found anything to provoke any concerning thoughts. I kinda wish it did though, then we’d at least have something to go to the counselor with and say “This is what we’d like you to help us work through,” instead of “Hi, I think we’re pretty much the perfect person for each other and our rabbi wants you to confirm that.”

Our friends, D and J,  had their auf ruf (calling up) where they were called up to the torah for an aliyah (an ascent to the bimah to say the prayers before/after reading the torah) on Saturday at services. We were asked to hold two corners of the rabbi’s tallit (prayer shawl), to represent the chuppah they’ll be standing under this coming Sunday. Ben read torah for them between their blessing over the torah, then Rabbi Marc said some prayers for them, and finally the congregation pelted them with candy!

I’ve never been at services when someone had their auf ruf who was a friend, or at all connected to me. It was kinda awesome, especially when thinking that it will be our turn in less than 4 months.

Our auf ruf will be the day before our wedding, and I hope that everyone we know through the congregation can come! If we have people that are meaningful to us, and our families there, I’m going to cry the second I make eye contact with anyone; I just know it. Adrenaline will keep me from being too emotional on our wedding day I expect, not unlike during my recitals (when I’m sick as a dog, but play to the best of my ability anyway).

A smaller, more day to day, way that I’ve been preparing for our wedding is drinking lots of water and trying to watch my tan lines (something I’ve been failing miserably at). I apparently suck at putting on sunscreen and have blochy blobs of sunburn on my arms and that little white triangle above my boobs, and various strap marks. I’ve either got to go out more with a strapless top on, or stay indoors/covered in SPF 100 for the rest of the summer. I think I’m going to go make myself some more strapless shirts.

my tan line/sunburn fears realized

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PS- want to see some funky tan lines? Click here, I think they’re beautiful.

Oh boy. Invitations have caused much drama. We decided to stick with the original modestly priced ones, from weddingpaperdivas.com. I ordered a sample for $1, and they invitations were great, but I decided that the envelopes aren’t opaque enough. This sent me on a wild goose chase all over creation for better envelopes, but I ended up back where I started, but with inner envelopes!

Pure Style, weddingpaperdivas.com

Inner envelopes, and a return address embosser, in the same font as the invitation! These invitations are turning out fancier than I’d intended, but Ben thinks they’re perfect because they convey the tone of our wedding well: modern/not casual/not fancy. Sweet. Happy Ben = happy Deena!

My parents actually already have a hand held embosser with return address plates (it came with the house), but for some reason it was printed upside down. My dad mailed it to me because I thought it would be useful, but the only thing it’s good for is stamping book pages or making your own stationery because you have to stamp from the top to get it to print right side up. Envelope flaps need to be stamped from the bottom, or the text will come out upside down!

While I was in a stationary state of mind tonight (and ordering the embosser plates), we also ordered a 100 sheets packet of cover paper for wedding programs, matching escort cards, ribbon (for binding the programs), and my bouquet. I’m going to be walked down the isle by both parents, and will be holding a family Tanakh (with all of my maternal family’s births, deaths, weddings, etc.) so I’m not going to have flowers, but I figured I need something to keep my hands busy during photographs and paper is much more me than flowers. As an added bonus, I know I’m not allergic to PAPER mini magnolias!

Mini Magnolia Flower Kit, paper-source.com

WOW, this is the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever seen. The only thing I’d change if it were mine would be the flowers (no roses). WOW.

from photographer, Kate McElwee's blog

Kate McElwee‘s blog is full of wonderful goodies, but I’m especially in love with Karen and Phil’s Boston State Room wedding.