Our Wedding: The Second Day & DIY

 Hi. First I think I owe you guys an explanation as to why I have disappeared from the blogosphere. If you are following me on Instagram, you already know what has been going on. If not, I'm not going to go too deep into it but I'll make a short summary. For the last few months Kessi has been struggling with skin inflammation and other nasty things. We had to shave her whole body and last week after months of antibiotics and other medication that has not worked, we have a diagnosis. Demodex mites. Now we have the right medication and she should be on the mend. But all this has had a massive impact on our finances and lives. We have been under a lot of stress and I have been taking on as much work as I possibly can in order to stay on top of all the vet bills. For a while I felt like having a panic attack any minute and during that time blogging felt wrong somehow. It's hard to gush on about clothes while your fur baby is in pain. But now she is on the mend and while money is still extremely tight, it feels good to blog again.

Hugs all day every day.

Our second day of our wedding started quietly in our home. We did our morning routine, I applied my makeup and then Mr.Man's cousin started doing my hair. We were very relaxed and had no nervous feelings. Then we packed our overnight bags, gathered everything we needed to bring to the venue, picked up the cake and the bouquet with the flower pin for Mr.Man. After that we started our one hour road trip to the venue. Here it's usually a custom to have a "wedding train" with all the guests in cars that drive after the bride and groom's car, honking their horns and driving usually from the registration to the reception. But as we weren't going to drive anywhere at the reception, we joked that the trip from home to the venue was our train. It was composed by our car followed by a car with Mr.Man's cousin and my brother. 

Once we arrived, it was time to give the workers last things(strong alcohol and cake), place the place cards and other trinkets and get dressed. And get our beauty shots taken. We took a little bit of a risk with the photographer and hired a relatively cheap one(165€ for the whole thing) but I think overall he did a great job! The weather was neither cold nor hot but it was slightly drizzling rain. But not too hard so that we'd have to move the shoot inside.

Once the shots were taken, we had to pile into a car and drive away while the guests arrived. As it was a surprise that Mr.Man's cousin was home for the wedding(she is currently living in  Australia), she agreed to be the driver. Once the guests were all there, the wedding host called us and we drove back. Mr.Man walked down the isle with his cousin(the ta-dah moment) and then my dad opened the car door for me and walked me down the isle and gave me away to Mr.Man. All I said to my dad was "Don't let me fall". Heels+grass+clumsy people don't go together, but we got there all in one piece. We exchanged our vows that we made up on the spot. We couldn't decide even on the last moment whether we'd make some joke vows or say something real. I said to Mr.Man that whatever he'd say, I'd follow suit. In the end we said sweet vows that came from our hearts and mixed them with a bit of humor.

After the ceremony was over, it was time for the guests to congratulate us and join us for a glass of champagne. We also made sure there was a glass of kid's champagne for kids and non alcoholic champagne for those who can't drink. 

Then came time for more pictures with guests and then time for food and party!

The box you see here was for the guests to put in their gifts and cards. As we have heard from other couples that some guests aren't the best at giving gifts(200€ decorative garden dove anyone?), we told all the guests to fit their present in an envelope. I have an acquaintance who loves all sorts of paper crafts and sewing and as a thanks for giving her sewing advice whenever she needs it, she made this box for us. She covered it with some lovely white floral paper and I decorated it with our wedding lace and pearls.

Groom and Bride

As place cards and guest favors I made these cute chocolate covers. It was quite the challenge to find chocolates that were wrapped in silver paper and not in vacuum paper. But I found some and printed all the names of the guests on papers, cut them, folded them, and glued the lace and pearls on them.

I guess you can see a theme here. These are the samples of our wedding invites. I wrote the name of the recipient on the silver part by hand and printed out the text and details of the wedding on the back on some peach toned paper. I went through three big glue sticks.

Another thing we wanted to have was a guest book. I originally wanted to decorate one in our wedding colours, but I didn't have enough time. Then Mr.Man remembered that we had this handmade book I made in high school. It might not be in the right colours but it fits the slightly vintage vibe and looks pretty. 

Another tradition we have here is for the bride to send her old name away or give it back/away to her father/brother/male from her family. But I was keeping my old last name and adding Mr.Man's to it. So sending my name away would feel wrong and weird. So we wanted to somehow add them together. So we came up with the name bonding ceremony. I made the initials of our last names and we tied them together. I took some white and peach felt, had Mr.Man cut out the letters while I cut out the bases. Then I attached the letters on the base and embellished them with pearls. I hand sewed the pears and it took me about four hours in total. Half of that was hair rehearsal, which in turn meant killing two birds with one stone.

We had Mr.Man's give us his initial and my dad his so they both were included in the ceremony. Our mothers lit the wedding candle which should shine a light on our marriage and our path together.

Tieing our names together for forever.

We have a ton of traditions when it comes to weddings. Another one is handing selected guests "occupations". Most of the traditional ones felt weird to us( for example Wedding Stamp, a single woman, who has to kiss all the single men at the wedding), so we came up with our own(with the help of the wedding host). 

Wellman-Starts with "Well...." and is followed by the Speechmaker

Toastmaker- After Wellman says "Well..." he has to make a toast. The toast can be assigned to any of the guests and usually most of the guests say a toast by the end of the wedding.

Bitterman. After the Toastmaker has said the toast, the Bitterman yells "Bitter" and the Bride and Groom have to kiss to make the alcohol sweet again. The kiss is followed by everyone drinking or taking a shot.

Wellman's Handler. As my brother was the Wellman, I was afraid that he'd make everyone drink too often. So we gave one of my cousins the important job of putting a veto on Well. We did not need it, luckily.

Drink Handler. Who would make sure that the bottles aren't empty and are not being refilled to fast.

Selfiemaster. A guest who had to take a selfie with every guest.

Mobile Police. To make sure no one would spend the evening staring at their phone. This person had the right to confiscate phones from everyone with the exception of the Selfiemaster. 

Modern Musician. He had to push Play on the music system when the time was right. We did not have a band or a DJ, so we put together a few playlists on our iPods, it worked just fine.

Language Master. A problem we had was that one of my best friends, who is Scottish was a guest in our wedding which was all in our native language. Which meant he had to have a translator. We gave this job to Mr.Man's other cousin, a lovely girl and they got along great.

Dancelion. A male guest who would bust out their dance moves to get the party going.

Dancelioness. A female guest who would bust out their dance moves to get the party going.

The occupations are mostly a joke and an honor and are accepted very well by the guests. 

For all the occupations I made these pins that said the name of the occupation and the guests got to keep them as a memory. 

All masked up with my Mom.

During the party, the photographer set up a photo corner with different accessories which the guests loved.

Mr.Man and two of his cousins. Charlie's Angels.

Flowergirls in masks

My two dads. Father in law on the left and my dad on the right. Looking fab.

When it came to tossing the bouquet, it was slightly dark outside and it was drizzling again. But it didn't bother us. We headed outside, I tossed the bouquet while Mr.Man supported me so I wouldn't tumble down the stairs and one of the single ladies caught it. By luck it was Mr.Man's cousin's girlfriend. His exact reaction was "Whaaaaaaat?!?!?!" Hahaha. 

Next victims.

Then we cut the cake, ate the cake, had a drink or two, partied til the morning, sent the guests to bed, spent half an hour on undoing my hair and went to bed. It was a lovely day with our closest friends and family. The day went by so fast and I couldn't have asked for more. The guests were all very happy with everything and had a great time. All I can now ask for is our many cousins to take the plunge and repeat what we did. We are waiting for invites, haha.

Thank you for reading. This has been the third part of Our Wedding story. Here are all the parts.

Our Wedding: The Dress

Our Wedding: The First Day

Our Wedding: The Second Day & DIY