Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving: there are SO many things to be thankful for this year, including anyone who's reading this blog! Wow. I'm not sure we quite understood how much love there was out there before the wedding. Honestly, we tried to avoid having expectations to avoid being disappointed by anything, and any that we did have were exceeded to the point of being blown out of the water. Thank you. Oh, and if you haven't received your thank you note yet, we're working on them. They will be done by the end of the calendar year. As will donations to Mazon, Hillel, and Bonai.

We had a big Thanksgiving/Ben's birthday extravaganza with a turkey (all weekend) and everything. Sorry, there are no pictures. We weren't dressed for photos anyway, most of the long weekend was in PJs, except for when we had friends over for Thanksgiving dinner, a little black friday shopping (PJs and a new backup hard drive), and shabbat services at Bonai.

Hopefully, I'll soon be thankful for a new job. Or at least going back to the bookstore for buybacks and spring semester books. I HATE APPLYING FOR JOBS and I'm getting bored of spending 3/5 days by myself on the couch. Thankfully (there's the word of the day again) my brothers got us a Wii and as soon as I scrape together the funds I'll get a Wii Fit Plus so that I can practice skiing without spending gas money to get up to the mts.

Anyway, happy belated Turkey Day!

before our first look

After I was all zipped up, my mom, girlfriends and I took the elevator from the 4th to 2nd floor. In the elevator, I looked in the mirror, twirled, and said "I'm a bride!" My girlfriends primped me one more time before they disappeared, leaving my mom and I to hang out on the landing while the photographers made sure Ben was in the rotunda for our first look photos.

I'm 99% sure that in the above photo, I'm talking to my mom about her jewelry. My mom's engagement ring is 1/2 of my paternal grandmother's eternity band (his brother proposed to his wife with the other half), and too big on my mom's finger, so she wears it stacked behind her wedding band (when she wears it at all).

I love how both of us have the same look on our faces and the same stance. I guess we're related :-D

thanks mom!

also not shown yesterday: my mom, she made Ben's kittle. She spent something like 24 hours over 3 days sewing in our apartment while I had mushy bridal brain and wasn't useful at all. She even put up with me after I got pissy and yelled at her on the street, in front of the hotel!

My mom is kinda awesome. The biggest, most awesome thing she's done lately is come out to Colorado for a few days a week ago (en route back from a business trip) and cleaned our apartment for me. I was really sick and sat on the floor like a puddle while she brought me piles of stuff to go through. I was on so much sudafed that it would take me a really long time to go though each pile (which is good, it gave my mom more time to tackle the cleaning). We even went to the used furniture store and got a china hutch to replace a shabby bookshelf. Our apartment looks so grownup now!

we're beautiful and our photographers were awesome!

I posted this photo to the Weddingbee Gallery, and I was featured on The Bee!

Thanks to all the vendors who made this photo what it is:

Kokoro Photography

St. Julien Hotel & Spa

Boulder Blooms (flowers and chuppah rental)

Something Classic Events

not shown: La Bella Brass Ensemble

frustrated [rant]

I'm bored and frustrated with looking for a "real job" and therefor avoiding the internet and blitz cleaning our apartment some more. Also practicing viola again without having to worry about a "viola hickey" AKA practice mark, or having short stubby fingernails in photographs again! Oh, and skiing too; I plan to do a lot of that over the next few days. Thank goodness for Loveland.

When I've recovered from my internet aversion, I'll post more wedding recaps. In the mean time, I leave you with a photo of Ronya, the beloved daughter of our good friends, Miri and Dan. They were taken while I was getting my hair done. Miri (Dan had to work) dropped a VERY fussy Ronya in my lap, where she instantly calmed down, while she went to set up the video camera to record the ceremony for us. [We were afraid we would be too adrenaline high to be present and want to be able to go back and re-listen what Rabbi Marc said. In retrospect, I wish more that we'd been able to video tape the bideken! Oh well.]

do-do-do… puttin’ on the dress

I did my own makeup, wearing just my underwear in the bathroom, so there won't be any of those photos here to share with the interwebs.

The photos of Andrea/my mom zipping up my dress are funny. I'd asked my mom to zip me up, but while I was standing there and holding up my dress Andrea swooped in and did it for me. Whoops! So there are two sets of photos of zipping up my dress!

Remember all those password protected posts about my dress? (The password is DRESS, if you want it). I think that my dress is perfectly twirly! It was perfect.

I really look forward to wearing my dress again in March to Andrea's wedding in the Berkshires. Don't worry, I'm not tacky, I'm going to have it dyed Williamsburg blue. Only the dress and strap will take the dye, the exposed tulle and inner-lining are polyester and won't take silk dye. It will be my formal dress for anything I can get away with wearing it for! Ben's got a suit and a tux and now we can go to the Nobel award banquet or an inaugural ball, or something!

Up next: going to meet Ben

personal portraits - the dude

While I was getting prettied-up, Ben had some portraits taken (and some with his family too). I think he's the most handsome man ever, but then again I'm the one that married him!

I'm not sure why all of his photos were posted in sepia tones, but he does look good in black & white! Thanks, Kokoro Photography ladies!