These Are My Confessions...

I know, I know, you might be a little confused about why I'm confessing things after I was all "My wedding was awesome, etc" in my last post.  Well, I mean,  it was awesome! 

BUT...I feel like before I get to all the giddy, fun, giggly, exciting and heart-sighing moments, I have to put this out there: I cried at my wedding. And not out of happiness (Ok, fine, there were many moments of happy-crying as well.  I'm a crier. We know this.) Remember how I said it wasn't perfect? Um, yeah, that part is most definitely true.

Honestly, the two hours before the wedding were some of the most stressful moments of the entire planning process.  Between missing dance floor pieces, rain, a behind-schedule set-up crew, rain, the bouquets being different than I had envisioned and did I mention the rain? There were several moments of tears and panic pretty much up until the processional started.  Oh yeah, and because of the rain, we had to do pictures under an awning outside the ceremony site and every single guest saw me before the ceremony.  Drat.

And then to top it all off, the power went out on our band during their second set.  Twice.  The first time, it was quickly and easily fixed but the second time took about 10 minutes to figure out the problem.  After five or so minutes, I started to break down.  I was having visions of the power being completely blown and everyone leaving the reception early (this happened around 9:30 pm.) Thank god we had some electrical geniuses as guests because we did eventually get the band back up and rocking, without noticeable mishap.

So there you have it: I cried several times during the wedding out of frustration, disappointment or anxiety.  I'm so not proud of myself for doing this but I also know that my extreme Type A personality combined with very high expectations basically set myself up for this type of reaction. To be honest, I might have cried even if it hadn't rained or the dance floor had been the size we requested.  Heck, I might've cried if the florist gave my mom a pin corsage when we ordered her a nosegay (oh wait, that actually happened.)

You see where I'm going with this? Basically, it's OK to cry at your wedding.  Geeez, I mean, it's your party and you can cry if you want to, dammit!  Try not to but don't feel guilty if you do.  I've definitely struggled a bit with my reactions during the past few weeks, feeling upset with myself for not being a Zen bride, the laid-back, low-key bride whom nothing could bother the entire night.  Nope, not me, unfortunately...And for a while, I was kicking myself for getting so upset on such an important day.

But ya know what? Two weeks later, all these stories are starting to become kind of funny.  Even my reactions are becoming mildly humorous (or ludicrous, depending on how much you like me or not...) And here's why: 

When I think of our wedding, I think of the dancing, the smiles, the vows we wrote, the food, the relatives, the laughter, the friends, the love that enveloped us that night.  These are the things I have taken away with me from the wedding and these are the things that make me cry happy tears whenever I think about them. 

So in short, if you cry unhappy tears at your wedding, it's alright and don't beat yourself up over it. Don't let the small negatives become the focus of the evening because even if there are some low moments (which, let's be honest, this will happen for most of us during our weddings) the highs are so high, the rest doesn't even matter.  I promise.

Alright, I aired my dirty little secrets, whose with me? Who else cried (not out of happiness) at their wedding? Did you feel guilty for not being a Zen bride? What went wrong at your wedding? 

"It Definitely Lived Up To The Hype"

Hola amigos, we're finally back from our honeymoon and I've got so much to talk about, I don't know where to start.  First of all, in spite of many mishaps and uncooperative weather, our wedding was incredible.  Hands down the best day of our lives on what was hands down the best weekend of our lives.  The love and happiness that filled the weekend was something I remember feeling so damn lucky to experience.

And the honeymoon? Well, I hate to sound repetitive here but again, it was the best trip we've ever taken together and it was for sure the best vacation I've ever been on.  Between snorkeling with sea turtles, hiking behind a 250-foot waterfall and swimming underneath Angel Falls, everything exceeded our expectations.  What's not to love about eating freshly-caught seafood under the stars while sharing a bottle of wine on a Caribbean island? And while sleeping out in hammocks with mosquito netting during our trek to see the waterfalls wasn't exactly the most romantic of settings, it was definitely memorable (and for the record, in spite of the mosquito nets and copious amounts of bug spray, I still have more bites than I can count.)

Back at our post-wedding brunch, in between bites of an amazing bacon-mushroom omelet, my friends and I were discussing the fun of the night before and someone said something to the effect of "It definitely lived up to the hype." I loved this and it has become something of a catch-phrase for me when thinking of our wedding and then Mr Trailmix and I continued saying it during the honeymoon too.  Don't get me wrong, it was far, far from perfect.  But it was ours and damn if we (and most of our guests) didn't have the best time ever.

To all our family and friends, if you're reading this, thank you, thank you, a million times thank you.  You all made our wedding and it was amazing because of each and everyone of you.

Here are two of my favorite (obviously non-professional) photos from the night.  Note my bare feet in the first one and Mr Trailmix's tie wrapped around his head in the second one.  Yeah, we know how to party :)

The three guys in this photo are all boyfriends or husbands of my bridesmaids.  We're a classy bunch.

During an impromptu group circling and sing-along during The Beatle's "Hey Jude" towards the end of the reception. One of my favorite moments of the night which will definitely be getting it's own post once recaps get going.

And finally, just to prove that we're not complete out-of-control, lunatic lushes, here's my favorite photo from the honeymoon.  Many thanks to the random Italian man we asked to take our picture who insisted on using the zoom function on my camera, positioning us as such and taking multiple shots to get the right one because this one is pretty much perfect...

Sunset in Los Roques Parque Nacional

So to sum it all up? It definitely lived up to the hype :) And I can't wait to share it with all you in the coming months! Thanks for awaiting my return with bated breath (what, you were desperately waiting for me to come back, right? And on second thought, what exactly is bated breath anyways?) I know I missed you all immensely during my two-week hiatus from the internet but don't stress, Trailmix is back! And married! Weeeeeeeee!

What a Long, Strange (Fun!) Trip It's Been

The day is here.  It's time for me to wear my beautiful dress (finally!), walk down the aisle and profess my love to Mr Trailmix in front of our family and friends.  And then it will be time to CELEBRATE!

To Mr Trailmix- It’s go time, babe! I’ll be your wife in less than 24 hours and then you’re stuck with me for good.  You know this already but you have all of my love for all of my life.

And to all you lovely readers- Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I’m sure I would have made it to this day without you all but it damn sure would not have been anywhere as near much fun. 

Thank you for your support, your ideas, your creativity and your comments; I read and took to heart each and every one.  Thank you for cheering me on in my successes and encouraging me to try again after each failure. 

I’m so excited that our wedding day has finally arrived! Adios, dear friends, I'll be back in a few weeks from our honeymoon.  Until then, take care of yo' bad selves and when I return, you can just call me...

MRS Trailmix

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

FOUR DAYS.  Yes, those capitals are necessary because when one's wedding is only FOUR DAYS away, it is impossible to think of it in any other way besides ALL CAPS. Anyways, I'm back home for the week and it's so refreshing being upstate, away from the giant sauna that is Manhattan. We've been knocking down projects right and left and for the most part, it's been smooth sailing.

However, there's been some thorns in my side, a few arch nemeses, if you will.  And so, with the wedding being FOUR DAYS away and all, here's my assessment of the good, the bad and the ugly:

The Good- I feel loved.  I've had so many texts, emails, phone calls, etc and it's wonderful to hear my friends get excited for this coming weekend.  My dad baked 212 chocolate chip cookies to put into the welcome bags, resulting in numerous extras ready for consumption while warm from the oven (wedding diet, be damned!) My brother's coming home from the West Coast on Wednesday. I'm so looking forward to being surrounded by my family and friends this weekend.

The Bad- Weather.Com is such a tease.  Granted, I started checking the 10-day forecast about 2 weeks out (I know, it makes no sense, don't ask me why) but the predicted weather has gone from a high of 82 and sunny to cloudy with 40% chance of rain to scattered thunderstorms, all within 2 days.  Can you say roller-coaster much? Stop teasing me, Weather Channel, and make up your damn mind about whether I should implement my rain plan or not because my heart cannot take it much longer!

The Ugly- The Motherfucking (pardon my french but it's really that bad) Seating Chart.  Seating chart, if you can hear me, I hope you die a thousand cruel, miserable, torturous deaths and once that's happened, I'll stab you over and over with my ballpoint pen until you are really and truly dead.  *Takes deep breath.  And that's all I have to say about that :)

June Brides, what's your good, bad and ugly?

Bridesmaid's Gifts, Revisited

A while ago, I posted about the gifts I bought for my bridesmaids from Satya Jewelry.  The pieces arrived in the mail shortly thereafter and I promptly buried them in our storage unit in the basement of our building and forgot about them.  

A few glamour shots...

As beautiful as these pieces of jewelry were, I knew that this would not be the only thing I would give them because I am obsessed with (giving and receiving) presents and well, I like to give good ones.  So as the wedding rapidly approached, I quickly picked out monogrammed Boat Totes from LL Bean and pale yellow pashminas from a street vendor.

Easy peezy, lemon squeezy...The bridesmaid's gifts were packed up, cards written and all arranged nicely.

My final gift was the gift of food.  I took three out of the four (one lives in Boston, not New York) out to dinner at Mario Battali's new resturant, Otto (by the way, in case you go, it's prounnounced Oh-to, not Ah-to, as the maitre d' rather snobbily corrected me. The food was great, but as you may have deduced, the service was not so hot.)  After two bottles of wine and some amazing pizza and gelato, I proudly handed out my presents.  Their reactions did not disappoint and I think everyone was happy with what they received!

My Boston maid will get hers on the Friday afternoon before the rehearsal, since she's doing my hair and make-up for the rehearsal dinner.  Hopefully she won't be bitter about missing the dinner fun (or maybe I just won't tell her...Shhhhhh....)

Even though I had to stalk Satya's website, waiting for a decent sale, I think the time, effort and money put towards these presents was worth it when I saw my friends' excited faces.  I mean, hell, they've put up with crazy, psycho-bride moi for almost 15 months now, they deserved these gifts and then some!

What did you get your bridesmaids?

Bachelorette Fun, Part 2

I last left off with our sangria-soaked salsa dance lesson and all the fun that accompanied it. Next up, it's time for Day II of the bachelorette extravaganza.  Before I get into the meat of this post, I just have to say one thing: Don't judge.  A bachelorette only happens once and we lived mine up to the fullest.  These are all actually the tamest of the photos that were acceptable to post, the rest you'll just have to use your imagination for...Heeheehee...

Alright, onward.  First up was a picnic in Central Park, complete with bagels, fruit salad, muffins and mimosas.  The girls also took this opportunity to have a lingerie shower, and each person had gifted me with some sort of lingerie, ranging from innocent and sweet to down-right naughty, as seen below.

Scandal! Mr Trail Mix was pumped about that one...

It was beautiful weather out and we lounged about in the park, stuffing our faces and just relaxed after our dance-filled previous night. 

After we'd had our fill and it started to get hot, we went to what I can only describe as my happy place: Manicure and pedicures.  I swear, if there is anything better on God's green earth than a good pedi, I challenge you to find it. 

Here's a few of us, luxuriously lounging about while prettifying our feet, trashy magazines in hand.

After all the day's chill activities, it was time to get our party on that night.  My favorite part of any night is getting ready with my friends beforehand, pedicure on our toes, toes, tryin' on all our clothes, clothes boys blowing up our phones, phones...and before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.  Oh wait, that's Kesha, not me but you get the idea :)

While some of us got ready in the other room, several friends appropriately decorated the living room with all manners of male paraphernalia.  Funniest story of the night: Bridesmaid D attempted to buy girl porn to decorate the apartment with.  Well, she got so flustered in the store that she ended up getting gay porn by mistake.  Needless to say, it resulted in peals of laughter and hilarious photos of enormous weenies. 

The peenie table!

I have to say, I know a lot of folks hate all the male genitalia decorations but I just thought it was hysterical.  A little cartoon penis gets me every time (because I am actually 5-years-old.)

A friend brought this adorable/hilarious hair clip to rock ( I felt so Blair Waldorf wearing it!) And ironically enough, I got so many compliments on it when we went out by other girls, who just didn't look very closely at it to realize what the hat was decorated with (take a closer look, you'll get it...) 

I was also given a "Final Fling Before the Ring" sash, peenie earrings, a blinking penis pin to wear and a gigantic (like, size of a softball) engagement ring to wear.  I had a blast being decked out in all my gear.

Yes, we had penis-inspired balloons that I was forced to blow up...

There also may or may not have been some Soulja Boy dancing going on as well...

We feasted on bruschetta, dumplings and make-your-own pizzas (using french bread as the crust, highly recommend this for a party, it was so fun and sooooooo yummy!) while making sure to demolish the copious amounts of champagne and vodka bought for the night. We played a few games and just had silly, girly fun together.

I got curious about the gay porn.  Bridesmaid JWills was just as shocked as I...

I even had a special straw that I ended up bringing out with me.  I loved that straw, don't know why, but was devastated when I realized around 2:30 am that I had somehow lost it.  There may have been a few drunk tears shed.

The girls coordinated to all wear black tops and jeans and had me bring my white jeans and provided that pretty pink shirt for me to wear, as well.  We did manage to convince bridemaid D's doorman to take a group shot before heading out to dance.

And that, my friends, is where the pictures end, mostly because I was too busy getting my dance on to bother to take any more.  But rest assured, it was a total blast.

We capped the weekend off by with a delish brunch the next day but my friends would actually kill me if I posted any pictures from that, since with two nights out in a row, none of us were looking our best.

It was a truly wonderful weekend and the perfect way to celebrate a weekend with my girls.  I couldn't believe how much thought, energy and planning had gone into it.  I was so happy to be surrounded by friends and touched by their generosity (they wouldn't let me pay for a single thing all weekend!) and by their genuine love and happiness for me. Girlfriends, if you're reading this, thank you and I love yas all so much!

Did you feel the love at your bachelorette party?

Bachelorette Party Fun, Part 1

I know, I know, I've been holding out on you guys with my bachelorette party recaps until I managed to collect photos from my bridesmaid who thoughtfully managed to document the weekend with her camera.  But now pictures are in hand and so let the insanity commence!

I have to say, one of the best parts of the weekend was that I had absolutely nothing to do with the organizing. Besides picking the weekend and emphatically requesting no male entertainment of any sort, I was completely in the dark about the events planned for the weekend.  All I knew was to arrive at my MOH's apartment at 8:00 pm on Friday night and to wear some sort of comfortable shoes. Anticipation is half the fun and I couldn't wait to find out what my friends had in store for me.

I arrived to find everyone putting the finishing touches on the first event of the weekend, a Mexican fiestita! They had balloons, red and white sangria, taquitos, chips, salsa and guac and amazing cupcakes from Billy's Bakery (yum, yum, double yum!)

Bridesmaid's D and J proudly show off our feast. I totally heart sangria in a big, big way.

Not only were there cupcakes of all varieties but they were cheekily decorated as well.

I would've been content to finish up the sangria and continue the girl talk outside, since it was such a perfect night, weather-wise, but no, there was more on our agenda.

We headed out into the city and I was still unaware of our destination.  I'm not going to lie, I was genuinely a little bit nervous walking to this next activity, especially after we arrived at a nondescript building that advertised a somewhat sketchy-looking massage parlor.

But not to worry, my girls are awesome and had arranged for a private salsa dance class that was accompanied by wine, cheese and an open bar.  Good times all around!

We each had a turn dancing with one of the two instructors.  Here's one of my best high school friends gettin' her Salsa on!

  I think we were being instructed to show off our "sexy pose," at which, I'll be honest, most of us failed miserably. Oh well.

Although her bus was delayed getting into the city from DC, another dear high school friend joined us a bit later and quickly got into the swing of things.

A group shot of the ladies who participated.  Much love to you all!

After the lesson was over, we started walking back to my MOH's apartment but between the dance class, sangria and the pure joy of reuniting with old and new friends, we were having a blast just hanging out on the street.

I love late-night fun on the streets of New York City and some of my favorite photos from the weekend came from our delirious walk back.

MOH Pip and I couldn't stop dancing after the lesson.  Here was are literally dancing down the street together!

A classic New York City shot.

By this point it was 1:00 am and between the sangria beforehand and the open bar during the lesson, most of us were, well, to put it bluntly, drunk.

The only obvious solution to that problem is pizza! So we made a quick pit stop at the local pizza joint and emerged with two entire pies.  For 6 girls.  Which we promptly demolished.  What can I say, my friends are champs like that.

It was such a fun night and the best start to an amazing weekend.  A group dance lesson is a great way to integrate different groups of friends and it seemed like by the end of the three hours, everyone had known each other for years. Although that could've just been all the alcohol. 

And don't worry if you're thinking this post seems kind of tame for wild and crazy ol' Trailmix, we kicked it up a notch the next night but you're going to have to wait another day for part II! 

Lookie, Lookie, Look What I Got!

It's a beautiful guest book! Alright, maybe it's not quite exciting enough to warrant that title but it's really effin' pretty and I had absolutely nothing to do with it.  Mom Trail Mix took the reins on this one, working with a local artist to create a one-of-a-kind book that is truly a work of art.

Here's the cover.  It's a textured paper and the binding was hand-sewn by the artist.  She does some kind of swirly paint thing (that's a technical term, folks) to create this marble-pattern.

Once you open the book, there's a full piece of marbled paper followed by two pages of blank paper for guests to sign.  This pattern continues for a total of about 20 pages or so, which will hopefully be plenty of space for guests to write us a nice note of some sort.

 

Aren't the swirls so dreamy? I never thought I'd be so head-over-heels for a guest book but this one has me waxing poetic and maybe even swooning a little bit. 

Here's a close-up of another blue-and-yellow delightful page:

So beautiful, right? I can't wait to display it, along with our card basket and the family wedding photos and the cocktail hour, right next to our Ketubah.  

Oooooh, and speaking of Ketubah's, my mom had ours matted and framed and I love it!  I picked out the frame at a flea market and she took care of the rest. I am confident when I say that this will definitely always be on prominent display in the Trail Mix household. 

Only a little more than a week until we sign it in the presence of our Rabbi and are officially married!!! Weeeeee!

Ok, that's all I got, you may now return to your regularly scheduled programming and I'm going to return to the endless pile of wedding-related emails that I can never seem to keep up with.