Bee Meet Up in Austin!

Attention Austinites:  we're having a Weddingbee meet up!  Come out to Taqueria Arandas for some delicious interior Mexican food, refreshing margaritas, and stimulating conversation.

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Join us on Thursday, June 3rd at 5:45 at the Taqueria Arandas on Burnet Road.
Here's the address:
6534 Burnet Road, Suite 3
Austin, TX 78757-2840

We hope to see you there!

Our Rainy-Day Wedding: The End

If you guys hadn't noticed, I've been putting off my last official Weddingbee post.  I'm not quite ready for my time here as a blogger to end!  But I guess it's better to finish my recaps while a few of you still remember me, so here goes.

When I left off, everyone was having a great time at the reception:  there was drinking, dancing, toasting, and faux-tobooth mayhem!  We didn't want the party to end, but we had to leave our venue, so I got over my fear of public speaking to make an announcement about our after party.

Pretty soon it was time for us to make our grand exit!

Gorsh, I love the colors in the shot above.

The photo above shows just how we felt to be married:  ecstatic.

These photos are so amazing they're making me rethink my original stance on black and whites. 

Even though it was raining all evening, some awesome Mouse friends decorated our getaway car anyway (my mom's Prius).  (Probably because I kept dropping not-so-subtle hints about how "the car must be decorated!")  I think it was my brother and his girlfriend.  Thanks, guys!

Photo by me.

My poor mom had the car detailed for us, and we got the carpet all muddy.

Photo by me.

Good, I can rest easy at night.

The Dude and I had to be chauffeured to our hotel/after party location since we'd already had a few too many drinks each.  So instead of a dramatic driveaway, we had to sit in the car and wait for our driver and MOH Deniz to finish gathering up all of the goodies and get into the car with us.  But then we were on our way!

We hung out at the Hotel San Jose bar until it closed at midnight.  One of our good friends decided to jump in the pool, only to be informed that it was for guests only.  Hmm, how did they know he wasn't a guest?

Photo by MOH Deniz.

His very pregnant (and patient) wife--also a dear friend--does the point-and-laugh.

When they kicked us out of the bar area, we crammed into our hotel room, only to be told every ten minutes or so that we needed to shut the hell up or we were going to get kicked out.  Apparently they have a strict "no after parties" policy.  It was hard keeping these biotches quiet!

Photo by MOH Deniz.

I wish I had more photos from this part of the night.  There were probably 25 or 30 people who made it to the after party, and most of them stayed until the bar closed.  We were so overwhelmed with love!

But you know what they say.  All good things...

Photo by MOH Deniz.

...must come to an end.

Like our wonderful, rainy-day wedding, my time as a blogger here is over.  I don't get mushy very often, so you guys better appreciate this!  Blogging for Weddingbee has been one of the best experiences of my life.  I love this community so much.  Thank you to everyone who ever left me a comment, read one of my posts, or hell, even skimmed through my recap photos.  You guys are the best!  If you ever get curious about what I'm doing now as a "smug married," you can check out my personal blog. I'd love to see some familiar faces!

xoxo

Mrs. Mouse

All photos by the Nichols, unless otherwise noted.

Previously, on Our Rainy-Day Wedding:
The Rehearsal
Bridal Party Gifts
Getting Ready
First Look
The Dude (Still) Looks Pretty Hot in a Suit
Da Bride
Just Us Part I
Just Us Part II
The Super-Fly Bridal Party
When Stuff Gets Wack Pre-Ceremony
Here Comes the (Bride) Sun
Ceremony Part II
The Vows, the Rings, and an Eff-Up
You Can Stand Under my Umbrella
Detlef Schrempf
The Soundtrack
Dinner Gets Rickrolled
The Toasts
The Cake
The Deets
The Faux-tobooth
The Guestbook

The Fun Part

Our Rainy-Day Wedding: The Fun Part

After the toasts, I quickly headed to the bathroom to pee, and after that is when the fun really began.  By this point, everyone was relaxed, full, and ready to have a great time.

My good friend Amanda (the one who did the e.e. cummings reading), had wanted to do a toast for us, but somehow that never got communicated to our coordinator, Rick.  Since she didn't get to give an "official" toast, she gave us a sweet and heartfelt unofficial one afterward.

That's Amanda on the right, saying very sweet things about the Dude and me.  She is one of the few people who knew us both individually before we met; and she's the reason we met!

Cheers!

Here, MOH Deniz and I share a candid moment, pre- tequila shots.

I'm usually not a huggy person, but I was feelin' the love at this moment.

More tequila shots all around.  I love the look on the Dude's face here.

Couple shots.

And my sour-lime face.

Flower girl Grace and I get ready for a faux-tobooth photo.

Classic, right?

My law school friends and I pose for a portrait.

Mrs. Kitten tries to give me a hug.  She thinks it funny that I don't like hugs.

SIL J-Dawg and my friend Lauren start the dance party off right.  Would you believe that our wedding was the first time they ever met?  My brother's girlfriend overheard perhaps the funniest line of dialogue of the night:  after their dance sequence, Lauren turned to the Dude and said, "Your sister is a fah-reak!"  (If you knew Lauren, you would know that this was a complement.)

The bride and groom make their way onto the dance floor.

The Dude and SIL J-Dawg are doing something here.  I'm just not sure what.

Something called the Pyramid, maybe?  Whatever it was, it was a big crowd pleaser.

Flower girl Grace is entranced as the Dude does the robot.  At least I think that's what is happening here.

Jessa, my brother Daniel's girlfriend, breaks it down.

Pretty sure we're dancing to "Ignition" here.

From this angle, it looks like I'm rapping.  I probably am.

So maybe everyone didn't get out onto the dance floor and get down to our playlist.  But those of us who did dance had a great time, and we got some pretty good photos out of it.  I consider it a success.

One of my favorite moments was when I was dancing with Flower girl Grace, and she asked who was singing the song we were dancing to.  I told her it was Michael Jackson, and she said, "He died.  It's sad."  I agreed, and we kept on dancing. 

Up next:  Our grand exit and the after party!

All photos by the Nichols.

Previously, on Our Rainy-Day Wedding:
The Rehearsal
Bridal Party Gifts
Getting Ready
First Look
The Dude (Still) Looks Pretty Hot in a Suit
Da Bride
Just Us Part I
Just Us Part II
The Super-Fly Bridal Party
When Stuff Gets Wack Pre-Ceremony
Here Comes the (Bride) Sun
Ceremony Part II
The Vows, the Rings, and an Eff-Up
You Can Stand Under my Umbrella
Detlef Schrempf
The Soundtrack
Dinner Gets Rickrolled
The Toasts
The Cake
The Deets
The Faux-tobooth

The Guestbook

Our Rainy-Day Wedding: The Guest Book

I actually purchased the guest book and pens months before the wedding, but for some reason I never blogged about them.  And I ended up not getting too many photos of them at the wedding either. 

But that's OK.  I took some yesterday just for you guys. 

Instead of the traditional plain white guest book with lined pages, I chose this repurposed hardcover children's book that Etsy seller Ex Libris Anonymous turned into a journal.  To the original book were added 60 pages of unlined, acid-free paper:  perfect for sweet little messages from our guests.  The messages ended up looking more like a yearbook than a wedding guest book, but that was OK with us. 

The pens are from Etsy seller Banana Tree Art.  I probably could have made these on my own, but these were a great price, and the cream colored garden roses blended right in with our real flowers.

Here you can see one of the original pages from the book.  I picked the Matisse book for no other reason than I love Matisse and I thought it was pretty.  Didn't match our theme at all.  Didn't care.

Oh look!  This next page kind of goes with our theme!  Doesn't she look like she's ready for an English garden tea party at night?  Heh.

I'm glad we went in a super-casual direction with our guest book.  We ended up getting messages that looked like this:

And finally, I dug up one professional photo of the guest book and card box set up.  It was buried in with all of the dancing photos (which you will get to see soon--I promise).

All photos in this post by me, except the last one, by the Nichols.

Previously, on Our Rainy-Day Wedding:
The Rehearsal
Bridal Party Gifts
Getting Ready
First Look
The Dude (Still) Looks Pretty Hot in a Suit
Da Bride
Just Us Part I
Just Us Part II
The Super-Fly Bridal Party
When Stuff Gets Wack Pre-Ceremony
Here Comes the (Bride) Sun
Ceremony Part II
The Vows, the Rings, and an Eff-Up
You Can Stand Under my Umbrella
Detlef Schrempf
The Soundtrack
Dinner Gets Rickrolled
The Toasts

The Cake 
The Deets
The Faux-tobooth

Our Rainy-Day Wedding: The Faux-tobooth

My original plan for our faux-tobooth was to borrow a Polaroid camera, hang up a piece of fabric, and let people figure it out for themselves.  I realized there were some logistics to sort out, but I really had no idea how we were going to do it.  Luckily, our awesome friends, Katie and Ben, volunteered to bring their camera and equipment and set up a much more professional booth for us.  I provided the fabric (three yards from Joann's) and a Goodwill chalkboard, and they took care of everything else.

We got some pretty amazing photos out of it, so I'm really glad we went this route.  Our photographers offer a faux-tobooth package, but it was cheaper (free!) to have our friends do it, and this also meant we didn't have to sacrifice one of our shooters to the faux-tobooth for part of the night.

Not everyone took photos, but we did get a lot of great shots.

Here are the family shots.

The Dude and his mom

My uncle Tommy and cousin Julie (with a pun!)

My aunt Cindy, second cousin Kyndall, and cousin Scott (another pun!)

 The Dude and his sister (really not sure what is going on there!)

The Dude's mom and family friend Linda

The Dude's dad (on the right) and family friend Mark

My brother's girlfriend Jessa and her super-sweet parents

SIL J-Dawg and Best Man Curtis (don't know where the tape came from)

The Dude and me with my brother Daniel and his girlfriend Jessa

It kinda sucks that my mom and my youngest brother Andrew didn't make it into any photos.  But we got pretty good family participation.  We also got a lot of good portraits of friends, some more serious than others.

The Dude, Best Man Curtis, and Brandon

Best Man Curtis and his fiancee Kelly

J-Book and her son Zachary

Natalie and Dustin

Lauren and Colin

Ben and Colin

The faux-tobooth photographers, Katie and Ben

Colin

Rasheed

Lauren

Me and my two college roomies, Katie and Lauren

Just like old times

The teacup makes another appearance--not sure there's tea in it this time

 Our frickin' adorable photographers being cheesy

Bride and groom shot!

We got some pretty clever messages on the chalkboard, some very sweet ones, and, yes, some that were too inappropriate to share with you guys. :)

I'm so glad I finally found a chalkboard of a suitable size!  When I came across it at Goodwill, it looked like this.

 I covered over it with chalkboard spray paint--super-easy project.

 Kinda speaks for itself

They both really do love Transformers

Groomsman Cody makes an appearance--not sure if he's referring to himself here?

Anne is subtly mocking my nerdly love for legal history

Yuri gets the award for most creative use of mustache

Don't really know what to say about that

Definitely the sweetest message of the night

Andres channels Sartre, quoting "Hell is other people (except Jason and Holley)."  Aww.

  Haha.  Yeah, I'm definitely the only one who gets this.  Thanks for making me laugh, Amanda and Deniz!

Abi takes a rivalry a bit too far sometimes

 Some Weddingbee love

And I saved the best for last

I'm so glad we got to have a faux-tobooth at our wedding!  It was so much fun, and now we have these amazing photos forever.  Thanks again, Katie and Ben!