A Sunday Kind of Love: Gifts for my Gals

During the rehearsal, Mr. Ly and I presented our bridal party with part of their gifts.  Mr. Ly gave his groomsmen each one personal gift ranging from a blu-ray collections to bottles of whiskey.  He also gifted them personalized cuff links the next day when they were getting ready.

For me, it was really important to show my bridesmaids how much I appreciated all they did for me over the past year.  I have expressed my thanks so many times, but I'm a gift giver by nature and every time I saw something I thought my bridesmaids would like, I bought it.  Sure, I could have bought one big gift per girl, but I opted to buy them all lots of smaller things, which ended up being not so small after all is said and done.

The first thing I bought was more for me than it was for them.  And I told them that when I presented them with their gifts.  It was a bonus gift for them, because I really didn't need to keep them, and I could have sold them, but I wanted them to have everything I bought, and I think they're pretty useful gifts.  Since the weather forecast was unknown up until the days before, I wanted to be prepared for any possible situation.  I bought nine matching blue bubble umbrellas that looked like these:

Frankford Clear Bubble Umbrella - Blue Trim

I had these for almost a year before the wedding, and when it was apparent we weren't going to need them, I decided to include them in the bridesmaids gifts anyway.  

In each bag I included a small bottle of VS lotion, Bath & Body Works shower gel, and a tube of C.O. Bigelow Strawberry & Cream organic lip balm.  

Bath & Body Works, Spring 2011 Organics Lip Shines - no longer available

Another small gift I got for each bridesmaids was a small quote sign that reminded me of each of them (I bought this one for 2 of my bridesmaids, but that was the only overlap!): 

Quote Box Sign 

These were the smaller gifts, but I think they were appreciated, nonetheless.  

Bigger parts of their gifts included a pair of matte silver CitySlips that they could use at the wedding if their feet started hurt: 

CitySlips in Matte Silver

I also wanted to get my bridesmaids something practical they could wear while getting ready, but not a robe. Something comfy that they could wear again after the wedding, like a hoodie. So I found these really cute Banana Republic tan hoodies, that I am certain are no longer in stores - since I got them on clearance - and I am a terrible blogger and didn't take a picture of them.  There are lots of pictures of the girls wearing their hoodies while they are getting their hair and make-up done,  here's a sneak peek of my MOH, waiting to get her hair done, in her hoodie: 

And last, their "real" gift (as if they weren't all real gifts) but I guess you could say their big gift from me were a pair of Kate Spade earrings.  I bought 2 different pairs, since I had 4 girls wearing shades of navy, they got these: 

Kate Spade New York "Treasure Chest" in Navy - no longer available

The other 5 girls received these:

Kate Spade New York Metropolitan Pearl Studs - no longer available

I did end up getting my girls robes for pictures, and matching slippers as well.  And these I gave to them the morning of the wedding.  I had big plans of making them each their own personalized hanger and having them all hanging up in the suite when they got there.  That didn't happen, but they all appreciated the robes & slippers - and we got some good shots in those which you'll see later.  

Overall, I probably spent over $1,000 total my girls' gifts, which I never really thought much about when I was spending it, but is easy to do when you have 9 bridesmaids!  I didn't really have a budget for the gifts, I just bought things when I saw them. If I knew originally how much I was going to spend total, I might have just bought them each one really nice gift, but I think they all appreciated the little touches of the gifts as well. 

Did anyone else go a bit overboard with your bridesmaid gifts? 

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.
I needed to get some perspective the week of the wedding.
Personally brewed beers gave our rehearsal lunch a special touch!
I spent a fantastic last day as a Miss.

A Sunday Kind of Love: My last day as a Miss

The Saturday before the wedding was a gorgeous, winter day.  It was probably more March-like than most of March has been in New Jersey this year, with highs in the mid 50s, and lots of sunshine. 

I started the morning with a few of my bridesmaids and my mom getting our nails done, which despite my best planning ran later than I had hoped.  I still had a ton of wedding errands to run, like we still needed our photobooth sign printed and part of Mr. Ly's gift for the next day needed to be printed as well. Of course since I hadn't had a day off in 12 days, I was rushing around on my only day off, which happened to be the day before the wedding. I arrived home after 11, and we needed to really be at the rehearsal lunch by 12:30 - since it started at one. I somehow managed to shower, do my hair & make-up and look psuedo presentable in time, and we weren't terribly late to our own rehearsal lunch. 

The lunch was wonderful. Since we didn't have any true rehearsal until about an hour before the ceremony, the lunch was just more of a big meal with our nearest and dearest to get to spend some together before the crazy whirlwind of the following day. We had family traveling in as far as Hawaii and Arkansas, and we knew we wouldn't get to spend too much time with them once the wedding was in full swing, so we were grateful for the time we got to spend together. 

Getting started on the first course of the meal. We had four long tables of 10-12 guests at each. / Personal Photos 

For our food options we could choose from either a seated 3 course meal with the option of a fourth if we brought our own dessert, or a buffet with more options for the meals.  We chose the seated, served meals because we thought the food options were plenty!  Our guests started off with a salad, followed by a family style pasta course of penne vodka and ziti pomodoro.  The main course, the guests could choose between chicken parmigiana, chicken saltimbocca, and veal milanese. My mother-in-law and sisters-in-law generously made a ton of desserts as well, which were delicious! 

Dessert! Brownies, Cupcakes, Mini Pies, and Homemade Snickers 

At one point, Mr. Ly and I stood up before our family & friends and thanked them all for being there for us, supporting our marriage, and playing such a crucial role in our past and our future. Mr. Ly did most of the talking, I just stood there and smiled a lot. 

Photo by Jeffrey Fehder
(How lucky that my supertalented MOH has an equally super talented husband?) 

We gifted our bridal party with some of their gifts (more on that in the next post), and really just reiterated how lucky we are to have each of these people in our lives! 

With my beautiful bridesmaids 

Mr. Ly with his groomsmen

Mr. Ly's family (minus spouses)

My family, with spouses 

We took lots of pictures with family and friends: 

Love my MOH

Mr. Ly with his sister, BIL, and groomsman Dan

My best friends since elementary school! 

Yet, despite all these pictures, we didn't take a single (posed) picture of just the two of us.  It never really occurred to us, or anyone else I guess.  There are plenty of candid ones, and we would have so many pictures of the two of us to come the following day - but I like that the day was more about the people who were there for us, and not really about us. 

After all the food was eaten, the wine and beer were drank, and we packed up to head over to the hotel, there were some logistics to take care of.  My dress had to be transported safely and without Mr. Ly seeing it (which we managed thanks to my SIL and BIL!) Mr. Ly and I hadn't really packed for the weekend, and never got what we needed printed for the next day. We didn't end up at the hotel until after 7, where we spent most of the night at the hotel bar with our guests who were spending the night before the wedding there, too.  It was really relaxing, and I was exhausted. 

 By 10:30 or so, I was ready to call it a night, and go to sleep, my last time as a Miss. My SIL spent the night in my huge penthouse suite with me, while Mr. Ly spent the night in a room with his BIL.  I could see our venue out of the floor to ceiling windows in the room the overlooked all of Independence Hall, and I marveled at how lucky we were to be having such a perfect wedding weekend. 

The Curtis Center is the building on the left of the photo (looks like a large tower is coming out of the top, but that's a taller building in the background) 

 I could only hope that sense of calm and serenity could carry me through an easy night's sleep and an uneventful wedding morning! 

Up next, gifts for my bridesmaids, then it's (finally!) our wedding day! 

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.
I needed to get some perspective the week of the wedding.
Personally brewed beers gave our rehearsal lunch a special touch! 

A Sunday Kind of Love: Brewing Beers

Early in the fall, one of our groomsmen, Kevin, very generously offered to brew us our own beer for the wedding.  We didn't know if we were allowed to bring in outside alcohol into the venue, and since it's home brewed, we weren't sure if they would even serve it.  We decided to not even approach our venue about it, and had it at our rehearsal lunch instead.  Our rehearsal lunch venue is BYO, so we were just planning on driving up to the only Trader Joe's in NJ that sells alcohol and buying lots of wine & beer for our guests - now we only had to worry about the wine!

He asked each of us for our favorite beer and brewed us each our very own batch of "wedding beer."  I chose Raison D'Etre by Dogfish Head Brewery and Mr. Ly's favorite is Sam Adam's Cherry Wheat.

Over the next few months, we would get text messages with photos like this:

The Raison D'etre style beer near the end of it's brewing

Testing out the Cherry Wheat 

He came up with names for each of them, and when they were finished, they got their own labels as well:

Look familiar?  He used the same image we used for our Save the Dates, which is a free printable from The Wedding Chicks.  I think the labels match the beers so very well.  Mine is dark and serious (and so lovely!).  And if you look at the ABV, you know that's a serious kind of beer.  While's Mr. Ly's is light and funny, and refreshing.  Which both describes what Mr. Ly is like and how the beer tastes.  

Our guests at the rehearsal lunch LOVED them.  They were a big hit, and people really enjoyed both of our choices. 

We started out with 2 cases of each beer, and over the course of the afternoon our guests drank enough that we ended up taking home only a case of each.  I wish more of our guests could have enjoyed them, but I am so grateful that we were gifted this, and all of our bridal party and family got to enjoy them. Of course, I haven't tried any of them yet, they apparently are both VERY strong beers, but I can't wait to try them both out this summer!!

Was anyone else gifted something personal and useful for your wedding?

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.
I needed to get some perspective the week of the wedding.

A Sunday Kind of Love: The Wedding Week

Before we get to the good stuff, we need to discuss the nitty gritty... The week of our wedding was very chaotic.  We had to have everything done and dropped off at the venue (except the chuppah) by the Tuesday before our wedding.  Going into the weekend before the wedding we had NOTHING done.

I didn't take off any days before the wedding, and the weeks I work at the public library I work straight through 12 days without a break.  That weekend before our wedding was, of course, a weekend that I had to work.  So leading up to the Saturday of our rehearsal, I hadn't had a day off in 12 days. I was stressed.  There were so many details that just weren't coming together.  We couldn't figure out how we were going to get our chuppah to the venue when there only drop-off time was right in the middle of our rehearsal lunch.  We didn't have programs or place cards, our hotel bags were not done, we didn't have a card box, or bathroom baskets, the list goes on and on. Not to mention I was stressed about our upcoming 12 week ultrasound, which just happened to be on the same day that everything was due at the venue (they would NOT let me come in any earlier, UGH.)

We decided to print our own place cards & programs using the same design that was on our wedding invitation, and I decided I could do this on my own.  I spent hours working on the program Friday night, and then ALL night Saturday into Sunday morning working on the place cards. We were printing the place cards on the Avery double sided tented cards, and of course nothing worked the way it was supposed to. It took ages, but finally I had the place cards and the programs ready for printing.  Off to Staples we went, only to be told that they wouldn't print our place cards using the pdf I created, so we had to do it ourselves anyway. But our printer wouldn't print on the style that we bought, they had to be laser printed, and we ruined an entire package of place cards. Mr. Ly dropped me off for work at the library where I proceeded to freak out because A. the place cards weren't printed, B. I had to work all day, and had to trust that he would do things that I would have liked to oversee (like buying new place cards), and C. I hadn't eaten in about 3 hours, and was looking at a long work shift with no food - and I was getting HANGRY (and worried about getting sick if I didn't actually eat for 8 hours.)

All of this is to say, Mr. Ly is the best EVER and not only brought me food after my melt down, but went with my bridesmaid, Sarah, and her husband to pick up the chuppah from my brother's house and borrow their birdcage for our cards (seen here), and then went to pick up the correct place cards to print so we could get those done in our own printer. Seriously, he should be nominated for sainthood for what I put him through some times.

Sunday night, we went over to my parents house and got it all done:

Finished Place Cards. 

While I printed and organized the place cards, Mr. Ly and my mom stuffed our hotel bags with goodies for our guests.  

Hotel bags included: Tastykakes, Hershey Kisses, granola bars, Utz Chips, a pack of gum, Lifesavers, 2 bottles of water, 2 pairs of gloves, chapstick, and Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer 

Philadelphia themed hotel bags that I designed and had printed by Vistaprint

Mountains of flip flops that we organized by size into baskets for the bathroom 

Bathroom basket for the ladies room made by my mom's friend

By Monday, I was feeling so much better, and on Tuesday we were able to drop everything off without a hitch, and go on to our ultrasound where our stubborn baby boy hung upside down the entire time and they couldn't get the measurements they needed. But regardless of that, seeing Mr. Ly see his baby for the very first time was by far the sweetest thing I've ever witnessed, and it just reminded me of what was so important about this week in the first place.

Stubborn Baby Lyre @ 12 weeks

While we did eventually get everything we needed done, seeing Baby Lyre was the best way to ease me back into the wedding week - with the perspective of what is really important.  Were the place cards and hotel bags and bathroom baskets really worth the stress? In the great big grand scheme of things, no.

I know lots of brides have breakdowns the week of the wedding, and my circumstances didn't help matters, but I strongly suggest to any bride who has lots to do in the week leading up to her wedding to take at least ONE day off to get it done!

Up next, we kick off our wedding weekend!

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.

A Sunday Kind of Love: The Lyre Recaps!

As promised after our big announcement, I'm back with the Lyre recaps!  

Two months ago on a crisp, gorgeous Sunday in January, Mr. Ly and I got really dressed up, traipsed around Philadelphia, and promised one another to be partners for life. We ate, danced, and partied under sparkling chandeliers, and we had never been more in love than we were that night.

Our wedding was such an amazing day on all accounts, I'm hoping I can do it justice in these recaps.  There was tons of laughs, some tears (mostly happy ones!), and enough love and joy to last us a lifetime. 

As it has become somewhat of a tradition here on Weddingbee, I will begin our recaps with our Same Day Edit video.  The SDE was one thing that drew me to our videographer in the first place, having this memento of our wedding day, seconds after the day was done, was amazing.  We opted to not show the SDE during the reception, we didn't want to interrupt the party with a video, but it was still such a great thing to walk away with at the end of the night.  It highlights our day from getting ready through the hora after our first dance. Some of my favorite parts include the ridiculous face I make right before our first look, because my bridal party was shouting out me from across the street,  watching me mouth Mr. Ly's vows in Hebrew along with him (which I didn't know I did until I saw this video), and of course watching my beloved watch me walk down the aisle (seriously, makes me melt every.single.time.) Oh, watching my brother struggle with his suspenders is pretty comical, too.

I feel this short snippet of our wedding highlights how much fun we had that, how much love we shared, and how much joy was felt between us,our friends and our family. But trust me, there is so much more than this.

Without further delay, our same day edit:


 Kenneth Stillman Video 

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!

Before we get this party started...

I have some news I need to share with you all. It has seemed like I have dropped off the face of the earth, I know.  And I am sorry, but it's good news I promise!

You see, in November, Mr. Ly and I decided to go away for our engage-aversary.  We went to Williamsburg, VA, which seemed so appropriate because we got engaged while we were staying in Williamsburg (Brooklyn). I had every intention of blogging about it, too. We had just sent out our invitations, we didn't have much to do planning wise, and we were looking forward to popping our bottle of engagement champagne we had been saving for a year. We had a wonderful weekend, except I wasn't feeling great.  I was tired, like bone-crushing tired.  I had to nap every day, which is not like me at all.  I first suspected that I might be pregnant, so I took a test and it came back negative (way to spice up a romantic weekend - right?). There might have been a really faint evap line, but it was definitely negative.  So we popped the champagne and drank the bottle between the two of us in the hot tub!

The next day, I still did not feel well, and felt really faint while we were shopping at the outlets.  I chalked it up to too much champagne the night before.  By Tuesday we were home and back to work, but I was still having weird cramps and twinges, and yes still SO tired.  Mr. Ly told me not to take any more home pregnancy tests until I actually missed my period (it was due that Thursday), but I couldn't wait.  I stopped on my way home from work and picked up 2 boxes (one regular - pink lines - and one digital.) Didn't do a 4 hour hold, or use first morning pee or anything... and it was positive. Like really positive.

Tested again in the morning, and it was still positive. AND I add a digital in for good measure.

Yup, I was definitely pregnant. So, for a few days Mr. Ly and I walked around in a daze and complete and total shock.  We were planning on TTC after the wedding, and I was charting, but apparently I hadn't quite figured the whole thing out yet. Of course the timing could have been better, if anyone had ever told me I'd be 13 weeks pregnant at my wedding, and 100% happy about that - I would not have believed them.  But wedding stuff just seemed so much less important from that moment on.  Sure, our all inclusive honeymoon to Jamaica seemed a bit over priced when I couldn't drink all day, but we made up for it plenty with lots of good meals, and I had my fair share of virgin daiquiris and coladas.

We told people early, like 6 weeks. But my bachelorette party was happening that weekend, and I obviously couldn't get away with not drinking all weekend.  I was so glad we had planned something low-key, because there was no way I would have made it out all night dancing. I knew it was risky, and I was just hoping this baby was going to stick. Over the next 6 weeks I stressed more about baby stuff than I did about wedding stuff.  I celebrated every single week, and every single successful doctor's appointment. And yes, I let blogging kind of slip away, but mostly because I just wanted to tell EVERYONE and I was afraid I'd let it slip! I had a very easy first trimester, very little symptoms and virtually no nausea or morning sickness.

Fast forward to our wedding day, we had our 12 week scan a week before, and baby was looking great. I was 13w4d pregnant at the wedding - and we wanted to find a way to incorporate a reveal into our wedding some how.  Since we already told so many of our friends and family, we thought a gender reveal would be really cute. We obviously didn't know at the time what we were having so after the ceremony we snuck off with our photographers to the park across the street and took a set of pictures with pink shoes, and a set with blue shoes.   We had an elective ultrasound on Valentine's Day and found out that Baby Lyre is....

Photo by Mike Landis Photographer  / Text added by Mrs. Lyre

A BOY! This is the inside of our thank you notes that went out this week (well, it had our last name instead of "Lyre" but you get the picture!), which is why I had to wait until these went out before I could reveal it on the internet!

He's been kicking and moving around a lot these days, and we are so very excited to meet him in July!

My goal is to have my recaps done long before the baby gets here, but I couldn't really tell the story of our wedding day without this very important detail.  Look for the Lyre recaps starting soon!

Did anyone else have an unexpected surprise before your wedding?