Hint

Just in case anyone who's name is David would like to know about a nice present for me for Christmas which is my most favourite time of the year. I think this is real pretty. Just sayin.

New Weddings

My lovely lovely cousin is getting married in January at this lovely house in the freezy breezy Highlands of Scotland and, this time, I get to be a bridesmaid. I've never been one before and I'm thrilled to the teeth.

Some Things....

....I really like about being married, three months in.

Now that we are married, David makes me tea every single morning and every single evening and sometimes he peels my oranges for me. He used to do it sometimes but now he does it all the time.

Now that we are married, I can tell David I really hate his new haircut and he doesn't mind that much because I'm not going anywhere.

Now that we are married, when my dog nearly died and David went with me and my arms full of westie and wool tartan blanket and my red, puffy, sobby face to the vet and didn't say anything about it when I cried really loud and ugly in front of all the vet people.

Now that we are married, we have our money, and our dogs and our cat and our flat and our car and our computer and our bed and our dinner and our lives. Which is much easier than having to mind your own life and car and flat and dog and computer and bed and dinner and money. Much much easier.

P.S. The dog has been in the doggie hospital for two days and while for normal people this might not cause heaps of sobbing and ghashing of teeth and sleepless nights, for me this is it. So send Susie happy thoughts.

BRB

I'll be back soon, don't go away. I just moved and am looking for a job and drinking lots of tea and every now and then screaming at my husband and throwing things. Because it's a bit hard right now.

A Brief Aside

I am not one of those cool girls who never wanted to wear a white dress and didn't think about weddings. This is the evidence. I wore this for a whole year.

P.S. Dear Four-Year-Old-Hannah: I want yo shoes. Love, Twenty-Four-Year-Old-Hannah

Let Them Eat

The cake came from our friendly neighborhood farmer's market cupcake lady. She made the cake, dropped it off with Meghan-the-day-of-coordinator and then at the last minute we decided that my little tiny peg people should go on the regular cake. Because I'm crafty darn it. Crafty. She also arranged some extra flowers around it. My youngest sister at it for breakfast every day for a week after the wedding. It was so unbelievably delicious. I remember reading somewhere on APW about a couple who served cake to everyone and we hadn't really thought about who was going to serve the cake so I ended up doing it. Which gave me a chance to speak to everyone who wanted cake and made me feel like a real hostess, I loved it. I also managed to resist feeding David cake. Which. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Do.

Feeding cake to my sister-in-law, which I did want to do. Please ignore my double chin.

If anyone in Western or Central Maryland or South Central PA wants a fantastic farmers market cake tasting like magic, shoot me an email and I will hook you up. I have all the hook-ups.

All photos by Shaun Yasaki

Snap Dragons and Lavender

Way back in the pre-engaged engaged phase where we were getting married but he hadn't asked and I was scouring the interwebs looking for beautiful things I decided that if Meg and Peonies could do their own flowers than so could I. I found a DC area floral warehouse, ordered online and Friday morning Dad and my sister Jessie (yeah, I have three sisters, and a brother, there are a lot of us floating around) went to pick them all. My favourite flowers are snapdragons and I basically took the two colours of snapdragons that the warehouse had and then picked six other things in basically the same colours, a tiny bit of greenery and some berries and that was that.

I had been saving jars upon jars to pour the candles into and we used the rest for the centerpieces. None of them looked the same and we all just kind of went for it. People advised me to do a test run but I was poor and lazy (and still am) so I just decided to go for it when the flowers arrived and we did.

Gorgeous bridesmaids and sister put together flower arrangements

We arranged all the flowers in buckets and cookers and two of my bridesmaids, my Oldest-and-Best-Friend who DIYed her flowers in December and my sisters and I went to town. We made our own bouquets just sort of gathering them up and handing them off and that veteran friend wrapped the bouquets with floral tape and navy ribbon (something blue!)

Littlest sister rocks the hell out of flower arrangements

Maid of honor turned out to be florist extraordinaire

Now for the specifics: I kept looking for these when I was planning and I couldn't really find much. I had 400 stems, and spent less than $500 and we had SO many flowers. There were six bridesmaids bouquets, my bouquet, two little flower girl bouquets, twenty-table arrangements, four alter arrangements and heaps and heaps left over. We filled every vase in my parents house and there were flowers everywhere. It took a lot longer than I might have anticipated, there were seven of us and it took several hours to sort everything out. And the mess. There was a really big mess. My dad got the job of carrying all the stems and leaves to the compost bin.