Recaps: Penguins

I admit it, I love penguins. My first stuffed animal was a penguin (named Applesauce because my sister read the label saying “applause” incorrectly.) I squee at the sight of penguins – it doesn’t matter what kind. I thought that March of the Penguins was really depressing because the narrator was always saying: “And then this happened and more penguins died.”

Well, I think that paints the picture for you. So how did we incorporate penguins into our wedding? First of all, our colours were black, white and red. You’ve already seen the penguin cake topper, but because I like it so much, I’ll show it to you again.

Next up are our ceremony programs. Instead of creating a nice stamp with our names or something on, it I decided to use a special kind of stamp:

And last, but not least, were our table numbers. All the pictures were taken at my parent’s cabin, but some in March and others in July. One of our friends gave us this board and we hung it up in our closet to show wedding paraphernalia, such as our remaining table numbers.

On the backs of the table numbers were just a plain number, tying in the theme of the rest of our stationary.

What mini theme did you/do you want to incorporate in your wedding?

Well, I think that’s pretty much it for my recaps. I might post a few more general ideas for things and recap the weddings I’m going to this summer (but, that’s a ways away.) What would you be interesting in reading about? Ideas and inspirations? Our Stationary? Our honeymoon? Pictures and ideas from previous weddings I’ve been to?

First photo taken by Kathleen Goertzen of Precious Portrait. The rest of the are taken by me and my terrible photography skills.

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6-month-a-versary!

Was Yesterday! We didn’t do much special for our first 1/2 anniversary last night, but we did go out to Field on the weekend. For those of you who didn’t know, Field was the location of our honeymoon. I think the Rockies are a great place for a honeymoon or a romantic weekend getaway!

Us by Emerald Lake (hidden in the background) on our somewhat wet honeymoon. (It rained a lot. But we still had lots of fun!)

Where is your ideal weekend getaway?

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Recaps: The Reception – Details

I realize that my “details” might not be quite as exciting as some people as about a month or two before the wedding, I just kind of stopped caring about them and I was too busy doing other things.

First, let’s start with some florals:

This is my tossing bouquet with the type of wine we ended up choosing. It was pretty good!

Our semi-economic centrepieces – 12$ each. I kind of wish I did something a bit more original, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. But I can stil wish…

My gorgeous bouquet. I dried it by hanging it from one of our lamps and now keep it in a vase in our kitchen.

I love Shirley Temples. I’m not a huge alcohol drinker and I didn’t want to be drunk on my wedding day, so Shirley Temples it was. But, I’m not the only one:

Most of the paper related items in our wedding were very simple: usually a white paper with information on it with a red or black frame. Here is our Reception schedule:

Here is kind of what each table was set up like: flowers and electric candles on mirror (we weren’t allowed any open flames), one bottle each of red and white wine, reception programs and place cards.

We had really funky looking napkins. Originally, they were supposed to be erect cylinders, but you know how well that would go over with a bunch of engineers *rolls eyes*.  You can kind of see part of a place card on the bottom left.

Here is our dessert table – too bad I couldn’t really eat anything from it! (We also had a fruit platter. And I ate cheesecake with the crust cut off, for that’s how I roll.)

How much effort did you put into “the details” at your wedding? Did any one notice and/or appreciate them? If you’re not married yet, is that a priority for you?

Next up: A Penguin mini theme.

All pictures taken by Kathleen Goertzen of Precious Portrait.

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Recaps: The Reception – The Kissing Game

I have to admit that I’m quite proud of our kissing game. You got a hint of it with my brother earlier. So what was it? Here were our rules:

When someone rolls the dice:

Even numbers: Bride and groom kiss

For Odd numbers to get us to kiss:

3 – Roller has to kiss another person to get the bride and groom to kiss

5 or 7 – Roller has to give a piece of advice, tell a joke or a favourite memory of either the bride or groom

9 or 11 – Roller has to wear a feather boa until someone rolls a nine or eleven

It didn’t quite work that way, but that’s okay as people seemed to enjoy themselves.

So the dice were rolled, and so we kissed:

Entertainingly, it became  a contest for two of Mr. Bean’s cousin’s kids to wear the feather boa. I smell embarrassment when they eventually get married:

We had to cut it off for the sanity of their parents. But that didn’t stop Anne and Laurel from wearing them:

Or prevent me from dancing with it:

I could go on to tell about our dancing, but I already blogged about it previously here and here.

What are your favourite kissing games at weddings?

Next up: The details!

As usual, the photos are from Kathleen Goertzen from Precious Portrait.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

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Recaps: The Reception – Cake Cutting

I’m not going to lie – I really, really liked our cake. The main reason is because of our cake topper, as you saw previously. Here is our beautiful cake:

The top two layers were gluten and dairy free. And it was SOOOO tasty. We picked an orange-white marble cake.  We also had a soy, gluten and dairy free cupcake for Mama Bean. The cake topper and flowers were hand made from sugar paste.

We couldn’t quite cut the cake normally…

Then, I guess we got boring and cut it normally.

Thankfully, no cake smash for us. It was too good to waste.

Everyone enjoyed our cake too – it was gone in about 20 minutes. I’m looking forward to eating it on our first anniversary!

Would you do the epic cake smash, or is it a waste of good cake?

Next up: Our Kissing Game

As before, the photos are taken by Kathleen Goertzen of Precious Portrait.

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Recaps: The Reception – Toasts

After we arrived, we sat down to dinner. We had a buffet of Roast Beef and Lemon Pepper Chicken and it was prepared REALLY well. (ie. my very picky and opinionated uncle said that this was the best wedding fare he’s had, which has to mean something.) We had my friend Dana (our DOC) and a few other people get the head table food from the buffet. I highly recommend having someone give you your food on your wedding as it prevents moments of extreme spasticity.

After Dinner, as you probably have guessed, came the toasts. Or should I say roasts for 3/5 of them.

First up was my sister Anne, the Maid of Honour.

Her speech was really heartfelt and included a fair amount of teasing – as is natural for the older sister to do to the younger.

Then was Ken, our Best Man. He did a pretty good job of relaying many of Mr. Bean’s somewhat ridiculous university adventures (or should I say misadventures).

Next up was Laurel, Ken’s wife. Hers was really cute because it was based on pi, which us somewhat fitting for a physicist and an engineer.

My parents were next. At first, my dad sounded like a robot, but the got more comfortable as the toast went on. Besides, what’s not to like about telling everyone about your daughter’s misadventures?

At this point, my brother wanted to put in his two cents as the rest of my family had, so he gave Mr. Bean this gem:

“Any married man should forget his mistakes. There’s no use in two people remembering the same thing.”

Next up were Mr. Bean’s parents, who proceeded to roast Mr. Bean about many of the embarrassing moments in his life. A large part of the toast was trying to convince me to become a Saskatchewan Roughriders Fan*.

Once the toasts were complete, Mr. Bean and I went up to say our thanks to everyone who came and/or helped our. I was incredibly incoherent, but that might have been because neither of us really thought about our speech before it was supposed to happen. Oh well.

This picture below emulates one of my parent’s token wedding photos. I think they had about 20 photos, whereas we ended up with 600+ professional photos and hundreds of others.

So, you might be wondering how the toasts were received. I hope the next few pictures will show you:

What do you like most about toasts at weddings?

Next up, cake cutting!

*Mr. Bean’s family on his dad’s side are crazy Roughrider’s fan. (Don’t know who they are? Well, they’re from the Canadian Football League.) Most people in Saskatchewan are obsessed with the Roughriders – so much as to even wear watermelons on their faces or heads to games. FIL Bean once threw out his Roughrider’s shirt because they were having a really bad season. Go figure that he bought another one when they won the Grey Cup.

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Penguin Cake Topper

Here’s a little teaser of our cake. I’m posting it in response to Weddingbee’s Mrs. Lollipop’s penguin cake toppers.

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PhotoinPress Coupon

I received this coupon from PhotoinPress in my inbox today, so I thought that I would share:

From February 2 to February 14, 2009
Get 15% discount
on your book order
Enter Coupon Code:
FEB15

 You can see my experiences with PhotoinPress here. PhotoinPress is especially good for any Canadians out there given the exchange rate and that you don’t have to pay customs!

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