Treely, Madly, Deeply: The One Thing I Would Change & The Cake Cutting

After the speeches, we ate. We had a buffet, Hive, and although the food was fabulous, we don't have any pictures of it. One of my biggest pieces of advice to other Brides: know your guests. I work for a catering company that is known for its high-quality, 'trendy' food. . .and had we opted to serve this type of food at our wedding, it would have been lost on our guests (Mr. Palm Tree and myself included, if we're being honest). We aren't foodies and something like a served, three-course dinner would have been completely pointless and time-wasting for us - yet an open, full bar was an absolute must. Obviously, this isn't the case for everybody, but that's why I stress the importance of knowing your guests.

Our menu was what Mr. Palm Tree and I refer to as typical Western PA event fare: Seasoned Baked Chicken, Penne Pasta in Marinara Sauce, Italian Sausage with Peppers and Onions, Roast Beef with au jus, Green Beans with Almonds, Rice Pilaf, Tossed Salad and Freshly Baked Rolls. Seriously, you guys, I think I've eaten some version of this at almost every graduation party, wedding, family function, etc. - but it never stops being so damn delicious. Almost everyone in the wedding party commented that they wished they would have went back through the buffet line because it was so good. 

Mr. Palm Tree and I inhaled our food because I was so insistent on visiting all of our guests. I had this vision that we could totally get to everyone while they were eating their dinner, since we ate ours so quickly. I'm just going to say it now: I wish we hadn't done this. Not so much the inhaling, but placing such a high importance on visiting every table. We barely made it through one half of the room before our DJ came up to us, saying we had to get the rest of the evening started. I remember semi-battling with him, saying we had to finish the tables, and him saying that we needed to cut the cake and do all of the other things, otherwise we'd never have time for dancing - which is what I said to him was the most important part of the evening. After we cut our cake and had our first dance, we immediately flew to the other side of the room and tried to visit people. Again, I just wish we hadn't done this. I swear, we spent at least an hour, maybe longer, on this. If I could change one thing, I would have visited some of the family tables, maybe some of the older guests, and let everyone else come to us on the dance floor. I would have strategically planned: okay, we have to hit Tables 1, 3, 6 and 7 before we do anything else. I would have made an effort to seek people out when on the dance floor, but not making a point to go to every single table. It took so long, and even after we got the 'traditions' out of the way, our DJ was still trying to chase us down and say that people were requesting songs for us and that our dance floor needed us. I hate that I didn't listen to him, I hate that I was so stubborn and caught up in everything. I'm not saying that it ruined our wedding or even had a damper on the evening, because it didn't by any means. I didn't even think about any of this until long after the wedding, when I was reflecting bit-by-bit. It's still an amazing night and it was still everything I could have imagined - maybe even more than I could have imagined - but if I could change anything, that would be it. 

Advice from a Married Lady

I'm sorry to keep you all waiting, Hive - I pinky promise that recaps are coming, I'm just waiting on all of my ducks to be in a super straight and organized row before we go Live. 

In the meantime, though, I wanted to share with you all some reflections that I think would be helpful to those of you in the planning stages. There are so many decisions that go into making a wedding freaking happen, it's so easy for some to get lost in between the cracks, some to be forgotten, some to be rushed into, some to never have been thought of, some that standout as amazing. . .so on and so forth.

I guess I should technically throw in a Spoiler Alert! here, since I'll be discussing specific details of our day - feel free to bookmark and read it post-recaps. As I mentioned above, I just wanted to make sure to share these things with those of you still planning, in the hopes that it may help you all with your own decisions.

Musings & Observations: A New Vision For Our Wedding

Small Disclaimer: I am so, so sorry for my absence, hive. As a reader, I would always be all 'pfffft where did she go?!' when Bees would be MIA for a bit and then when they'd post this exact disclaimer I'd think to myself that I'd never do that - well, I'm eating my crow, folks. Life definitely got in the way of EVERYTHING over the past few weeks, perhaps the biggest change being my career. I left my full-time job as a Lease Analyst and accepted a full-time position at the catering company I mentioned in this post as the Assistant Catering Director and Catering Supervisor. It's kind of a dream job, it's a lot of planning and coordinating and I LOVE it, but it came out of nowhere and was definitely not planned. I would never have actively chosen to leave my job twoish months away from my wedding, but when there's an opportunity for a dream to come true, you have to take it. As corny as it may sound, I almost think that become a Bee (another dream come true) inspired me to open myself up to other things. . .just a slightly revamped, more positive mindset. Anyway, this new position is vastly different from my old one, especially because I went from working 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday, with occasional extra hours as a part-time caterer, but now my hours vary, there are no set days or times and it's very go-with-the-flowy. For instance, I worked 47 of the past 72 hours - but I loved every second. I promise I'm finding my groove, though, and I have TONS to share with you all, so consider Miss Palm Tree back in action. :)

Moving right along: I worked my first wedding in my new position this past weekend and I caught myself getting choked up at really random times. One was when the bride and groom were cutting their cake. Honestly, Hive, as I sort of insinuated previously I've never given much thought to cutting the cake. It's so low on my list of things I care about - a few pictures, a smear of icing, and then we're done. But as I watched them (admittedly, somewhat hawkily, because we had to swoop in to retrieve the cake for cutting and serving), I got teary! I told my co-worker, "I'm having a moment and I can't believe it." It was just such a symbolic moment between the two of them. All night, they had been dealing with others and posing for pictures and being pulled in different directions, but this moment was just about the two of them. It was beautiful and so sweet. . .see what I did there? ;)

Later in the evening, I was walking through the hall to check on everything and I caught a glimpse of the bride and groom dancing. They weren't the only ones on the dance floor and (cliche warning) the song wasn't even a slow one, but they were swaying in each other's arms and just looking at each other. True Confessions: tears actually leaked out of my eyes at this one. It was another intimate moment shared by the two of them. I obviously don't know what was going on in their heads, but to me - an outsider - it truly seemed as they were the only two people in the world.

I'm always a super sap and probably would have gotten emotional over these moments at another point in my life (and probably will in the future), but I really feel as though the meaning of these moments was heightened for me. I know that might seem like a Captain Obvious statement, but I feel as though I was meant to see them. I've been so caught up in tracking down RSVP's (infuriating) and thinking about meetings with our vendors and getting my dress altered and making sure I'm on top of my to-do list that I've been busy thinking about everyone and everything else. I would honestly think about the wedding and think of all of the fun with our friends and family, the drinks and the laughter and the awesome pictures from our photo booth, but admittedly, I didn't often think of Us or Our Moments. 

Mrs. Unicycle's post about her strategy to never separate from her new husband inspired me and put the same thought in the back of my head, but I dismissed it thinking "of course there will be some times when we'll HAVE to separate." When I went for my hair and makeup trial (post coming, I promise!), my hair and makeup artist told me a story: on her wedding day, in the middle of the reception, her husband came and grabbed her hand and said "come on, we're going to eat our cake." She protested, insisting she didn't want any cake and wanted to dance but he insisted. "Everyone else got a piece, so we're going to take a minute and eat a damn piece of cake!" She said she was so grateful to him for that moment because otherwise, she doesn't know if she'd have spent time with him that evening.

All of these combined have resulted in a new vision for the Palm Tree wedding: although I still think that we'll end up separated at some points, I am going to make it an active goal to spend time with him and to take a moment with Mr. Palm Tree and just breathe it all in and realize that THIS is OUR wedding. Everyone says that the day goes by so quickly and I don't doubt it, so I intend to make sure I grab my new husband and step back to observe. Thankfully, our room's balcony will make for a perfect reflection spot. ;)

What I'm Learning from Wedding Planning

I've been in a really reflective mood today. . .I think partially because I spent a chunk of the weekend in my hometown surrounded by people I considered my second family for most of my childhood and adolescence. BM Tiny Dancer recently graduated from college and as I imagine it goes for any Milestone Event, I got pretty reminiscey.

I digress, though. My point is that as I sat buried in a never-ending pile of crap at work (seriously, people, I'm in Professional Purgatory right now), my mind was in reflective mode. As usual, BM Y and I were e-mailing throughout the day and I was sharing most of my reflections with her.

None of these are particularly mind-blowing or stunning, mind you, just things I guess I never actively thought about so when I realized where my mind was going today I had a sort of "huh, how about that?" reaction. I wanted to share them, though, because I'm sure I can't be the only one who overthinks (understatement and a half) everything.