The Kiddie-Poos

I know a lot of other brides struggle with whether or not to invite children to the wedding. We did too. At first I was like, "Absolutely not! No rugrats allowed!" Then I thought about having a flower girl and how can you have a flower girl and no other children? Well, that seemed ridiculous to me. But what we finally decided (after much debate and struggle) was this: the whole reason we were even having a wedding was because we wanted our closest friends and family to witness our union. We believe that the people we invited to our wedding will be those people who stand up for us through thick and thin. We think that when the going gets rough, these folks will be around. Many of these people we love and adore have children, especially since The Candyman and I are thirty-something. Lots of our friends got a running head-start on the procreation thing. In some cases, if we didn't invite the kids, the parents probably couldn't come. All that just seemed to negate what The Candyman and I were trying to achieve with our wedding in regards to the importance of family.

We were quite lucky that our venue offered the perfect solution. Since we had a whole house buy out at Mere Bulles yet we did not need all the space, we were able to sequester the kids away upstairs. It turned out AWESOMELY! One of the rooms upstairs had a drop down movie screen. So we hooked the ankle-biters up with a few DVD's, a kid-friendly menu and a few babysitters. Have I mentioned the babysitters? No? They are none other than fellow local brides Miss Kriss and Sarah Elizabeth!

Look how effin' cute they are!

These wonderful ladies came to my rescue in my hunt for babysitters! I was trying to go through a service to get some reliable sitters, but that was a dead-end. I did not want to sign up and pay for some lame service since I only needed babysitters for ONE NIGHT! And guess what folks? When you don't have kids, sitters can be hard to come by. I definitely wanted someone over the age of 18 so some of my friend's high school kids were not in the running. I was stumped as to how to find anyone. I was complaining to Miss Kriss one night at the gym (she was such a wonderful sounding board!) and she totally offered to help me! She enlisted Sarah Elizabeth and I was all set! You guys (meaning Miss Kriss and Miss SE) totally rocked my world with your willingness to help out a fellow bride-in-need! Many thanks to you both.

As I mentioned before the wedding I had a kid's table all planned out. Their favors were old skool Cracker Jacks and I had a massive centerpiece filled with candy. From what I hear, the kids were totally jacked up on candy all night long. Sweet!

It looks like this had already been raided.

Look at this little puffin face! How cute, right? I love how Mere Bulles hooked them up with kids cups too!

The Flower Girl and her brother reach for a well-deserved treat.

After the adults had finished eating and toasts were made, we invited the kids down for cake and dancing. A few of the older kids wandered down, but most of them stayed upstairs for the most part. Here are the Flower Girl and her brother again, totally zoned out on a movie.

Although, some kids definitely wanted to get their boogie on. I couldn't resist this one as a dance partner.

I find a few things odd about this shot. First, I'm clearly gettin' down with my girl. Second, the parents watching? Not her parents. Third, is my mom standing barefoot? I think this was at the end of the night anyway, but it sure was fun. I do remember I was dancing to a song that I LOVE to dance to, Blame It On the Boogie by The Jackson 5. It's back when Michael still had black skin, a real nose and Tito was stylin'.

Craving Michael's sweater vest and belt. Hot.

Our bad-ass ride.

First, I called Reggie today, our day-of driver-extraordinaire. We had originally planned for a 6:15pm pick up, but we needed to move it up to 6pm. I love talking to Reggie. I can't wait to meet him. How weird is that? Every time we get on the phone, I'm like chatting with the guy for an hour. He told me that he drove Holly Williams (grand-daughter to legendary Hank Williams) and her new husband this past weekend. They got married at historic Cedarwood. Amazing. I hope someone posts some pictures soon. Apparently, Kid Rock sang some tunes at the wedding. Pretty bad-ass, I'd say!

Things at Casa de Candyman and The Thirty-Something Bride are a little on the stressful side, but only because we're getting down to the wire and have a bunch of bullshit we have to deal with like insurance adjusters, car rental people, car dealerships and all that goes with one getting their car stolen. Happily, all we need to do now is wait for our reimbursement check and we are all set. Whew! Done! Who else has that crap on their to-do list?

Remember how I said I wasn't going to do the match boxes? I lied. I've been working on them sporadically and I finished them this weekend. They are cute as hell. I'll bet no one even notices them! I love them though and it was a good mindless-in-front-of-the-TV-activity.


On Saturday I delivered all the floral crap to my florist. I cannot tell you how happy I am to have all those bud vases OUT of my house. I sold a portion of them to her for the same price I bought them for (actually a smidge more as we just took off her delivery and set-up fee off the cost of our bill). Nice. After the wedding, I'll be selling 85 more, so get ready.

I also put together the centerpiece for the kid's table. I wanted to do something sort of fun for them. I really wasn't sure what, but I knew it would have something to do with candy. Last week I headed over to Party City, just to get ideas. I got one. I bought these crazy lollipops with really long plastic stick-things that were $.33 each. I also bought this gigantic bag of candy for $9.99.

Mmmmm, SweeTTarts and Smarties. I can make myself sick off those things!

I poured most of the candy into one of those glass hurricanes I was contemplating using as a centerpiece oh, so many months ago. Then I used the long "stemmed" lollipops like "flowers." I also went to the dollar store and bought a big bag of Pixie Sticks to use as "filler." My florist would be so proud of me.....

I'm going to take the extra candy and just scatter it all over the table too. Instead of the formal boxed favors, I'm going to put out boxes of Cracker Jacks I got for $.50 at Wal-Mart. Fun! These kids are going to be so jacked up on candy that by the time they get to the dance floor, they'll be going nuts! It's going to be awesome. I'm sure their parents will be so pleased....

I also got the drink menus printed out to put at the bar. It took me forever, but I FINALLY decided on the red wines. I bought a case of Puerto Viejo Reserve Pinot Noir (it will pair well with our chicken dish), two cases of Jean Bousquet Malbec (it's a favorite that I got ON SALE!) and a case of Dancing Bull Zinfandel because it was kick-ass cheap and actually, pretty darn tasty.


The Candyman and I also went to a party where I got a little sauced and I connected with a groovy chick who might get me involved in an area (business related) that I've been contemplating for a while now. We also went out for sushi. Our sushi guy made us this:

It was a really busy weekend, but it was a good weekend. The sun FINALLY came out on Sunday and it remains shining today. I wonder if it'll hold another 13 days??? Keep those fingers crossed people! Hope everyone had as good a weekend as I did. I'm tired, but in a good way.