This Will Be Our Year: The Spaniels Are Married!

Really! See, here it is, happening!

(guest photo)
The year and a half that we spent preparing for the day—and the four months I spent blogging here!—really paid off: once we got started, everything felt effortless. Which is not to say I don't have some blips and bloopers to tell you about, but you'll just have to wait until I get to those parts of the story. ;)

We don't have pro pics yet (but, what difference?—I don't even have time to go through the three gigs of guest photos we've managed to collect so far), but I wanted to check in with you lovely people and leave you with a little something-something from the wedding before I settle back into student mode for the next month or so.

Up next: the honeymoon!

Until then, signing off briefly,
Mrs. Spaniel

Oh my, how time buzzes on by!

They say that the older you get, the faster time flies. It seems that's true of engagements, as well! When Mr. Spaniel and I got engaged back in September 2008, March 2010 seemed impossibly far off. And when I became a Bee blogger in November 2009, it still felt like I had all the time in the world to share all of the wedding details with the 'Hive!

Then it was 2010, and I started to realize that time was running short. And now it's the day before my wedding! It hardly feels real; it all happened so fast!

Thank you so much for allowing me the honor of sharing my planning journey with you all. It's been such an adventure, and you have no idea how much I'm looking forward to sharing the results of all of these months of planning with you!

Until then, yours (for the last time!),

MISS Spaniel

The right way to do a Jewish-Pakistani wedding

For some reason, I've been somewhat resistant to playing Hava Nagila at the wedding. Then I accidentally heard this version, and was sold.



Of course, after further consideration, I realized that people trying to run in circles on a dance floor at a pace to keep up with this tempo could be dangerous! So, armed with the realization that traditional songs could be made fun and new, I searched on! And what I found? Pure gold, I tell you, pure gold.


(The good stuff starts at about 0:22.)

Tell me you've ever seen anything that funny anywhere. Go on, I dare you. You're lying.

And it smells like Easter eggs!

Mr. Spaniel and I often joke about needing a counselor for our green disputes—I get really annoyed sometimes when he chides me for using plastic "Tupperware"-like containers for my lunch, while he fails to appreciate the genius that is my request for a more vegan lifestyle. I think his "greenness" is motivated by health concerns, whereas mine are more ethical/environmental (and sometimes financial). But we both agreed that commercially-available household cleaners are just bad, and, as I mentioned last week that I make my own household cleaners.

Even though I saw the need, giving up my Windex, Clorox and 409 was kind of rough. I'm kind of a neat freak, and I have a thing for Old English lemon-scented furniture polish and freshly-bleached toilet bowls (yes, really). I wasn't totally on-board yet when he picked up a book of organic and homemade "recipes" from the library that he thought would work just as well. Happily, I was wrong! They work just as well, they're safe to to keep around the house (no fumes to hurt you, babies or pets!), and they're really inexpensive to boot! I'll share the recipe for a few of my go-tos, and you can try them for yourself.

Almost all of the recipes I've found revolve around water, vinegar, and essential oils. We get our essential oils online, but they sell them at Whole Foods, too.

All-purpose cleaner
I use this one on tiles, tubs, glass, and spot cleaning on the floor. It's pretty much good for just about any household surface except for wood (and it's okay for that, too).
- Distilled water
- Vinegar
Mix in equal parts. I store it in a spray bottle, so it's always ready to go.

Kitchen and bathroom "scrub"
- Water
- Baking soda
This seriously works on everything, and better than my soft scrub bleaches ever did. Sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda on the area you want to clean (for me it's usually burned food on the stove or a pan!), and scrub with the abrasive side of a damp sponge. Just don't spray the all-purpose cleaner on it like I stupidly did at first; they neutralize each other and nothing gets cleaned.

Wood cleaner/polish
- All-purpose cleaner
- Olive oil
- Rosemary essential oil (antiseptic) (optional)
Put a few drops of olive oil and rosemary essential oil on a cloth, spray the wood with the all-purpose cleaner, and rub the oils in. Easy!

If you'd like more "recipes," the best resource I've found is Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living, which has an organic version of pretty much everything I ever use at home, including some really good skincare mixes.

Let me know if you try any of these!

Juggling my stressballs

I thought about writing this post as part of my recaps, but, truth? I don't want to think about these "dark days" again after the wedding, so it's now or never!

(source)
When I first started blogging for the 'Bee, I got a few comments from engaged and married ladies trying to balance wedding planning with law school (or who had already done it), asking me how I was juggling them. The truth is, I am a very bad juggler, and one ball or the other is just about always getting dropped (I'll give you one guess as to which one!).

Those of you who are in/have been through law school can attest to how stressful it can get right around the middle of the term and onward (and I'm sure most graduate students have a similar experience). Throw an imminent wedding into the mix, and I'm finding myself dissolving into tears over not being able to find my parking permit in the morning before my 1.5-hour commute to school (which became two hours because I hit more traffic after the lost time crying in the carport and trying to calm myself back down after I found it). I've got myself so worked up over inconsequentials that I actually need to add another thing to my to-do list: scheduling a massage to work out the debilitating knot I've developed in my left shoulder!

I am trying to delegate as much as possible—Mr. Spaniel has taken over handling the DJ fiasco (an update: we've found another DJ—thank goodness!—and have been promised a refund for the old one, which I am sorry to say I will believe when I see it) and scheduling transportation (etc.), but I can't delegate studying for exams or packing for the honeymoon. I can't delegate working out or remembering to feed myself (oh, and I totally understand now why so many brides accidentally lose weight before their weddings... I have NO TIME TO EAT!). I am thinking that it might have been smart to pick a date that wasn't in the middle of the semester. :)

Anyone face more stress than they expected leading up to the wedding? How did you handle it? Would you have done anything differently in hindsight?

Week of

HOLY SHIT it is the WEEK OF MY WEDDING!!!

This week I have to

• Reconfirm arrival times with all vendors
  I've sent emails to everyone, and my coordinator is on it!
• Delegate small wedding day tasks to friends and family
  I haven't given this much thought, to be honest... I am hoping the coordinator will let my family off the hook. ;)
• Send final timeline to bridal party
  Done! But I'm going to send it again so no one forgets!
• Make arrangements for the dress to be delivered or pick it up yourself
  I brought it to my mom's house yesterday, and she'll be bringing it to the hotel on Friday.
• Supply photographer with a list of moments you want captured
  On it!
• Set aside checks and tip envelope for vendors
  I'll be taking care of that this week.
• Book spa treatment
  Like I'd forget!
• Send final guest count to caterer and venues
  We do this at the rehearsal on Thursday!
• Break in shoes
  I've been wearing them around the house since I got them!
• Assemble welcome baskets and distribute
  We are not providing welcome baskets.
• Pack for honeymoon
  I'm doing that this weekend. Is it weird that I'm totally looking forward to packing?

I also have to make sure arrangements are all taken care of for the Rehearsal and Rehearsal dinner on Thursday night, the mehndi on Friday afternoon, and, like, make sure I don't go crazy before then.

Maybe I'll get them a toaster...

One of the items Mr. Spaniel and I were really excited to register for was a soda siphon.

(source)
We sort of fancy ourselves as (future) DIY-ers: he has a little herb and vegetable garden growing outside of our apartment door, and I like to make things (both for fun and to save money—mostly we make a lot of our own household cleaners and usually cook from scratch). We also are both really into healthy living, but not because it's always pleasurable—sometimes we have to find little hacks to make doing what's good for us into something we like doing.

Specifically, for me, giving up caffeinated, sugary sodas was (and continues to be) a huge struggle—the only thing I've found that helps at all is drinking coffee or tea in the mornings (getting my caffeine in, which I hear isn't that bad in moderation), and carbonated water with lunch. So I've got the healthy part, but what about the money-saving part? Bottles of San Pellegrino sparkling water are expensive, yo, especially when you go through as many of them as I do, so we both thought it would be great(!) to add a soda siphon to our Amazon.com registry.

Now Mama Spaniel likes to keep abreast of what has been purchased from our registries—it's like a new hobby of hers; she checks more closely than I do!—but when she told me that the soda siphon had been purchased, she was laughing. I didn't understand why—it's such a cool and unique gift! But then she explained: apparently, the same way an American couple without a wedding registry is sure to end up with three toasters and two blenders (or so the warnings go), my step-father told her that in Israel, where he's from, every couple ends up with a soda siphon or two as a wedding gift. Huh... how useful! :) Who knew?

Did you learn anything interesting in the registry process?

Fixation

I needed a focus for all of my wedding anxiety, and I picked the DJ, who I found through The Pros. I was afraid that she wouldn't show up on the day of and I wouldn't know until it was too late, and we'd have no music. I acknowledged that this was completely irrational, but I clung to my fear. We booked with a big corporation that wouldn't let us contact our DJ in advance (the one DJ who specializes in the bhangra music we wanted at the wedding), but put on every contract that she was "confirmed", so I made my final payment over the weekend.

Monday evening, my DOC calls me and tells me she got a phone call from someone at The Pros, saying that my DJ is unavailable and I have to choose between one of the two remaining DJs in Los Angeles—let's call them BoyBand and PipSqueak, neither of whom have any background in the kind of music I booked the company for. I won't be music-less, but if I want to hear the music I'd been so excited about for the wedding, I will pretty much need to collect all of the music for them. I don't have time for that!

Why they called my DAY OF COORDINATOR (I told them to add her as a contact for the day of only, but that didn't stop them from calling her instead of the person who just paid them, go figure), I couldn't tell you, but since The Pros is based on the east coast, there was no one to take my call, on top of my contact there being out of the office until the 11th.

I'm actually sort of frothing at the mouth right now/in the middle of one of the worst headaches I've had in a long time because I'm so mad. Don't book with The Pros! Not if you care who your DJ is.

So I have a couple of options: I can use one of their DJs and bust my ass trying to put together the play list that I shouldn't have had to work on myself, I can use one of their DJs and just forget my Bhangra music, or I can go to the bank tomorrow and close my account so that they can't get the balance payment I made, and find a new DJ. What would you do?

Anyone else's vendors throw down some last-minute shenanigans?

Too cutesy for my own good!

Unlike many of you, I didn't get creative asking my bridesmaids to be, well, my bridesmaids.

(Unlike mplnewsdallas, who had these beautiful cards custom-made!)
I asked most of my ladies in person, and one over the phone. Luckily they all said yes, despite my lack of effort. ;) Speaking of which, if any of my bridesmaids is reading this, shoo!

Well, I decided to make it up to them with more thoughtful thank you cards. After all, I kind of knew they would all say yes, being my three best friends and my two step-sisters. I mean, they're kind of stuck with me! But that didn't mean that they had to do anything for me after agreeing (and, hey, some of them didn't, but that's a story for another day!)—so I made up for my early laziness with some homemade thank you cards.

I know I'm not much of a DIY bride—printing some thank you cards and lining an envelope or two...hundred does not put me on a level with our most talented Bees!—but when I saw these adorable cards on Etsy, I couldn't help but think, "HEY! I can do that!"

(source)
So I started by assessing my resources. I still had quarter-sheet size ivory envelopes and ivory card stock from the thank you card "project," and black linen cardboard scraps that didn't get used for the programs or rehearsal dinner invitations.

I started by printing up a background or "frame" in Microsoft Word. I made a two-column document and inserted two clip art images (also known as, the same image twice) that were the size of a quarter-sheet of paper on the right top and right bottom.


Because I was feeling cutesy, I also wrote in a little "Handmade with ♥ by [Spaniel]" on the left, and printed three copies on my black and white laser printer.

Then, looking at a picture of the bridesmaid dress, I drew a rough silhouette of the dress on black card stock and cut it by hand.

(bridesmaid dress photo source)
Then I used the "template" and traced the waistline onto a piece of ivory card stock to draw the sash in the correct size, and cut the bow/ribbon from a separate piece of ivory card stock—an extra layer for texture. Then I glued them all together onto the card and, voilà! Bridesmaid thank you card!


I love that it didn't take too long, because I plan to pour my heart out into the content, instead. :)

How are you thanking your bridesmaids?

Spaniel in the shower

I know makeup trial pictures, but with the wedding right around the corner and only a limited number of posts left in me until I'm an old married blogger, this one is going to have to do double duty! So now that I have pictures, I can finally show you what happens when Spaniels get showered!

(source)
Ahem. Since BM-Y was organizing my bachelorette party with some of my bridesmaids, Spaniel FMIL offered to host a bridal shower for me last month to help keep the bridesmaids' burden light. She threw an awesome party!

(All photos below by Aunt Spaniel)



There was cake! There were also other desserts (including some red velvet cupcakes that have threatened to derail my fitness plan because they were so good I now want them all the time)!


There was loot!



There was bridal bingo! BM-Noe called items with her teacher voice.


There was wine! I drank it, as I am wont to do. (Also: I have decided that I mostly like my makeup, but I do not look like Penelope Cruz.)


There was a ribbon bouquet! Step-sister/BM-M assembled it. She's actually a great artist, so maybe this will be worth something someday. ;) (Did I mention that I mostly like my makeup? I'm going to ask for a slightly smokier eye, and either a more brown blush or just less of it. More eye, less cheek, I think. What do you think?)


There was a huge group shot! A few people had to leave early; the group was even bigger than this!

Fun times!

Make me over: Trials and tribulations of a brunette bride

I had every intention of doing my own wedding day makeup. I don't wear much on a regular basis and I'm a total klutz when it comes to precision application (eyeliner scares the bejesus out of me), but I'd be damned if I was paying $250 for makeup I wasn't sure I'd like. I'd checked out every portfolio the Internet could offer me, and what I found was a lot of this:

(source)
and this:

(source)

Do they both look amazing and beautiful? Absolutely! But do they look anything like me? Not in a million years! I just couldn't imagine this kind of bridal make-up transplanted from a fair-skinned blond, or a woman with beautiful East Asian features, onto my face. Let's just say my make-up needs were different.

Not to be quickly discouraged, I started looking at MUAs who specialized in South Asian make-up, or looking for inspiration among Persian brides who tend to share my coloring. But most of what I saw was far too dark for my taste. It's hard to go from wearing almost no color to imagining such saturated color on your skin.

So then I was discouraged.

I sat on this for a little while and didn't start thinking again about wedding make-up until a few weeks ago. I wasn't feeling so great about doing my own makeup anymore. My lashes always disappear in photos, and despite Miss Rainbow's awesome lash tutorial, I couldn't seem to get false lashes on straight without multiple applications. And I still can't get a damn straight line with my eye liner. I didn't want to have to be worrying about reapplying botched eye makeup on my wedding day, so I started looking again for an MUA that I could afford (and who would offer a free trial, because I still didn't find a single woman in any Los Angeles area MUA's portfolio who had my complexion but wasn't covered in super dark makeup).

I finally found someone whose other work I liked and whose prices weren't going to kill me, but I needed to find some inspiration pictures to bring in. Without many real bride photos to share, I started to think of celebrities. Who did I want to look like?

Well, that was an easy question. How do you say "gorgeous" en español?

(source)
Obviously I looked nothing like Penelope Cruz when we were done (DAMN IT!), but was I happy with the results anyway? Find out... next time! ;)

Was there a celebrity's look you tried to emulate for your makeup style?

Penumbra

Mr. Spaniel and I both spend a lot of time on the go, and that means that we're pretty hooked on our Google Calendars. I would have missed a lot of appointments if I didn't have a web-based calendar that I could access just about anywhere.

As we are becoming more of a social "unit," it's become harder to make plans without knowing each other's schedules. We already have a fully-shared calendar for our mutual commitments, but to further combat the problem—to make mutual appointments without waiting for a response on when the other is free—Mr. Spaniel shared his calendars with me a few days ago. We both use multiple calendars so that we can color-code them on our own accounts; he gave me full views of all of his (of course he left his work calendar more private so that I could see when he was busy, but not exactly what he was doing or who he was meeting with) and suggested I do the same.

The downside of sharing calendars: I feel even busier than ever!
I started to share my calendars, but left the details hidden—on all of them, not just my work calendars (which aren't confidential, anyway). Of course I have nothing to hide from Mr. Spaniel, and I don't anticipate needing to in the future. But just like we don't share our passwords with each other, I held back. So we both thought it was a good time for a discussion about privacy in our marriage and how much we wanted to share and keep back from each other.

We ended up deciding that, for us at least, it would be healthier if we didn't have to always answer to each other about where we would be at every hour of the day. It's helpful for me to know that Mr. Spaniel I shouldn't schedule a vendor appointment that he wants to go to because he's with a client, or that we can't do a double date on an evening when he already has plans with a friend. But I don't need to know which friend or where they're meeting (not that he wouldn't tell me anyway) all the time. I suppose, since I trust him completely, it feels healthier for us to just be able to live our lives without a constant accounting of how time is spent. We may decide to revisit this in the future, but for now, I'm pretty happy with our arrangement. I know when he is busy (and he knows when I am busy), and more information is on a voluntary basis.

Did you and your partner discussed privacy with each other? What solution did you come up with?