Speech! Speech!

As dinner came to a close and Jacob and I completed our rounds, our best man and matron of honor gave their speeches.

I was lucky enough to have my good friend Josie as my matron of honor. I've known her since high school (more than 10 years now... yikes!). She knows a lot about me, and knows a different "me" than many people will ever meet now. It was nice to be able to have her give a speech. She told about how awesome I am (aw shucks!) and then about my relationship with Jacob from her end. As she lives in Iowa, this was a serious of phone calls along the lines of "I met a guy", "I like this guy", "This guy is moving to Canada with me", and "This guy proposed!". lol It was kind of sweet. Josie had only met Jacob once before we got engaged, so it was kind of funny to hear how the relationship grew from her point of view. =)

** All photos courtesy of Justin at Sky Blue Iris Event Photography

Jacob's best man, AJ, has been in Jacob's life since college. As you can tell by the photos below, he gave quite the animated speech!




His speech was fantastic and had everyone cracking up laughing. He told a story about first getting to know Jacob when they worked together in a hamburger joint on campus and the misadventures that they had one day. It was hilarious...

... however, back in our hotel room that night as we were recapping on the events of the day and I mentioned how much I enjoyed AJ's speech, Jacob said, "you know, like, 90% of that was made up, right?"

!!!

Apparently AJ is quite the performer and pretty good at the art of exaggeration and taking some creative liberties. But, it was still a damn good speech! lol

Yay for MOH's with High Tech Jobs!

I've been stressing about my reception venue the last couple of days. When we looked at the place the room was empty so I couldn't really picture how many tables/etc. could fit. I asked the coordinator and I was told 125 with a dance floor and 150 without. As we are planning to have about 100 people this was just perfect for me.

Then I started getting ideas for decorations and realized that I needed a little more information... like, the dimensions of the room. I e-mailed the coordinator and asked, and she responded back with table and room dimensions. They sounded very disproportionate to me. So, yesterday I created a little mock up of the room and tried to make everything to scale to figure out how we were going to fit 12-13 tables dinner tables, buffet tables, cake table, gift table, etc. in this room. I was NOT finding a way to do so without having about 2 feet between each table. I started to stress a little bit.

As a joke, I told my MOH that she should figured out how to make it work. She lives halfway across the country and isn't going to be easily accessible for the majority of the wedding planning stuff, so I'm trying to keep her involved however possible. =) She sent me an e-mail back saying the same thing I feared... "I don't think it's going to happen".

Then I remembered that there was another section of the room that was being used as storage when we were there (it was blocked off by a removable wall) but we were told that we'd be able to use that space as well. I e-mailed the coordinator again asking for those dimensions and then forwarded them off to my MOH. About 10 minutes later she sent me this:


LOL... NOT what I was expecting! What I guess I should have mentioned is that my MOH is some sort of aeronautical engineer or something (I don't REALLY know what she does! lol) and has access to all kinds of fun programs at work... one of which, apparently, figures out banquet seating! Yay! =) Obviously there are a few obstacles that she didn't include in this (doors, the bar, etc.), but it's a huge relief to realize that I have this sort of brain/technology at my disposal! =)

Thanks Josie!

Yellow Dresses?

Our wedding colors are blue, yellow and white. The picture in my head was always white table clothes, with blue bridesmaids dresses and yellow flowers. I can just SEE it.

Then I ran across some wedding pictures...I know my MOH will kill me if I put her in yellow, but I am REALLY digging these marigold dresses that the bridesmaids wore for the wedding of We Met in a Bar blogger, Heather.

Changing My Name

When my mother got married she kept her maiden name as her middle name. I have a cousin whose husband took HER last name. It was really never a question for me if I would take my husband's last name, I always just assumed that I would (unless the last name was REALLY weird!). Fortunately Jacob's last name is pretty normal (Corey) so I lucked out. However, the question now stands of whether I want to "honor" my maiden name by retaining it in some way.

My MOH sent me a HUGE box of books when I broke my engagement news to her. One of the books had suggestions on how to incorporate the bride's former last name into the new one.

For example, the book suggested (as my mother did) using the maiden name as the new middle name. However, when I say this out loud I just don't like how it sounds. I like my middle name and I think I want to keep it.

Another suggestion was to hyphenate the two last names. I don't like this one. I want my name to show some kind of unity with my husband. I don't want to have two "different" last names.

The next suggestion was for both the bride AND the groom to change their name to a combo of the two last names. This one intrigued me a bit. ;) A year from now we could be the Boreys, or, we could get a bit of a hip-hop inflection going and be the Boy'eys! lol

Another combo idea I came up with was to take the first three letters of Jacob's last name (Cor) and the last three of mine (Yer). If you flip my three around, put it after Jacob's and combine the two "r"s, you get "Corey".... lol... I think I may just go with that! =)

What do you guys think? Is it a jab at your family and "where you came from" to just DROP your maiden name when you get married?

Modern Bride

I bought my *first* bridal magazine today... I'm under the impression that it's some kind of right of passage or something... so I did it. I was at the grocery store trying to somewhat stock my kitchen (as I've been out of town for 2 weeks and everything in my fridge is moldy... including fake crab meat... I found that odd), and I saw two bridal magazines at the check out. I had NO idea which one to get, so, being the budget minded woman I am, I bought the cheap one! lol The Aug/Sept issue of Modern Bride.

I flipped through it and I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. There were a few cool things/ideas in there (which I'll share at the end of this post) but, for the most part I was not overly impressed. And, is it a bad sign that I only found a couple dresses that I 'liked' and none that I LOVED?

I have noticed that, as far as the wedding planning/dreaming process has gone, I've thought about EVERYTHING except "The Dress"... I'm wondering what that means. A couple people have asked me style of dress I want... I have very little idea... and, for the most part, I don't even know the NAMES for the styles! lol I know the "mermaid" and I know I DON'T want that... and I don't want anything TOO poofy... but that's about as far as my descriptive talents go in this area. I was hoping the magazine would help me out a bit... not so much. What's a good magazine to get to peruse dress styles?



** Here are some of the items/ideas that I found in the magazine that I DID like though... =)

The "XShot". I am FOREVER taking arm-extended self portraits... this would be FANTASTIC for the honeymoon! lol


Personalized M & Ms! I hadn't really put that much thought into wedding favors. I think the personalized matchbook covers/napkins are kinda a waste of money, and, up until this point I figured we wouldn't have favors, but I think this is sooo cute! Maybe just but a bunch and put a bowl of them on each table or something! =)


David's Bridal, style F13408. I really want to put my bridesmaids in a dress that they will wear again. I don't want them to pay a bunch of money for a hideous dress that's going to goodwill the next time they clean out their closet. So, I want my bridesmaids dressed in dressed that don't look like bridesmaids dresses! lol Plus, I want something short and cute. I like this one! Except for my MOH... I think I might put her in something more like this:

** Love you Josie! lol

Jessica McClintock gown, style 21194 Celine. This looked better on pg. 89 of the magazine, but this was the only shot I could find of it online. So, I would probably never wear this dress, but it DID catch my attention... and then I saw it was only $238 and that grabbed it more! =)


Private Label by G, Style 1370... so I really like this dress... I'm sure I wouldn't like the price tag though...

Wedding Party!

Yay! I finally have my wedding party finalized! Jacob and I will each have three friends standing up with us. Jacob has his brother and two friends from the U of O. I managed to get a representative from three different "eras" of my life... high school, college, and "beyond"! lol

My Matron of Honor (MOH), Josie, went to high school with me in JC. I was the MOH at her wedding (though she ditched all the wedding planning and 4 of us flew to Vegas for a Little White Wedding Chapel ceremony) and now she'll be returning the favor! =) I still remember when she was a bit of a tom boy in high school and I had to practically bribe her to wear a skirt to the homecoming dance... now I get to dress her up in a poofy-girly dress if I so desire. ;)

I met Jessica, one of my two bridesmaids, when I worked at Papa Murphy's while going to school in Ashland (come to think of it, Josie use to work at a P. Murph's too... lol). Jessica was a year ahead of me in school and moved up to Eugene when she graduated, and I followed a year later... ultimately getting a job at the same place she worked when she left to spend time with the Peace Corps in Fiji (I'm still a bit jealous about this! lol). Now, after two years on a tropical island, and a beach wedding of her own, she's willing to help me out with mine!

Holly is another of my craigslist finds. =) She moved down to Eugene a couple years back and posted an ad looking for some females to hang out with... as I was in need of some estrogen as well (Josie lives in Iowa (which is where Holly originally CAME from) and Jessica had just moved to Fiji) I responded... and, in totally platonic terms, it was love at first sight! lol She's FANTASTIC! So much fun and an awesome friend. She's currently finishing up her time at the U of O before she heads off to ride across the country next summer on her spiffy new bike with her two dogs in tow! (She just better make it back before the wedding! lol)