All The Live Long Day

Thursday, 18 August 2011

With This Ring...

My engagement ring. The funny feeling of wearing something on my ring finger every day. And now, the funny feeling when I forget to wear it. A Canadian diamond from a Canadian gem. A surprise on top of another surprise.
Our wedding ring: the symbol of our love. Being aware that we're connected, inside and out.The comforting notion of belonging somewhere, to somebody...
Spending our wedding day knowing that our gold bands hold a secret message each. Reading the engravings just before falling asleep in each others arms.
Husband & Wife. Family. Us.
What I want him to know: You are my sun, my moon and all my stars.
What he is asking of me: Travel with me forever, my Love.
I sure am enjoying our journey!
I love you!

Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Corn & Blueberry Salad

This is another salad that was served as part of the wedding buffet. I think I first saw the recipe in a copy of Canadian Living, but I am not 100% sure on that. I thought the combination was too wacky not to try it - I had never had anything savoury that contained blueberries before - and the resulting salad was very fresh and zingy. It has been a favourite in my kitchen ever since I first made it.

Corn & Blueberry Salad
(serves 4)

Need To Have:

1 can sweetcorn, drained

200g blueberries

1 cucumber, cubed
1 small red onion, finely diced

1 red chilli, seeded & finely diced

bunch of fresh coriander, chopped

juice of 1 lime

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp ground cumin
salt

Need To Do:

In a big bowl, combine the corn, blueberries, cucumber, onion, chilli and coriander.

To make a dressing, mix the lime juice, olive oil, honey, cumin and a little salt. Add the dressing to the salad & mix well.

If possible, let marinade in the fridge over night for the flavours to infuse. It's worth the wait!

Tuesday, 16 August 2011

I Am Totally Endorsing Listmaking!

You might know that I am a loyal list lover.

So naturally I am taking part in:

Are you? A month of writing a list a day! What could be more fun!?

An Instant Guestbook

Hello There!

If you ended up on this post via a link or a search, can you please let me know in a comment or an email what you were doing just before you clicked to get here? This post is getting SO many hits and it's driving me crazy that I do not know who or what is sending this much traffic my way!

Ta!

***

Our guest book was probably one of my favourite details from our wedding. Well, apart from saying "I Do", mind you! Marco and I both really appreciate photography, and our guest book was all about taking pictures!

Initially, I had looked into hiring a photo booth, but that turned out to be somewhat too expensive for our budget. I had bought an old Polaroid camera from eBay a while before the wedding, and that gave me the idea for a different kind of guest book that was more interactive than our guests just writing a proverb and signing their names in an actual book.

There were a few decorative vases with shrub-like branches dotted around our reception venue. We tied a lot of pretty ribbons around these twigs and arranged a little table with the Polaroid, a few film cartridges (also from eBay), some Sharpies, a bucket with clothes pegs and the following instructions:

I was really happy when I saw that the idea worked and our guests had loads of fun taking their pictures. They all live in an album now and are such a great reminder of all the lovely people who celebrated with us. I only wish Marco and I had remembered to take one of ourselves!

Monday, 15 August 2011

Check Me Out!

They are talking about me at CraftGossip.com

My Save The Date idea was featured over at Craft Gossip! Woot, woot!

Get With The Programme

It's Monday and the last week of Wedding Month! Hope y'all had a good weekend! Just 6 more days and Marco and I will celebrate our first full year as husband and wife! Yay us!
I have a few more wedding related posts planned for you, and then on Friday, I will share the love and host a little giveaway. I thought I'd better dangle this carrot in case you are getting slightly bored with my wedding self-indulgence!

I will start the week off with showing you what I did for reception programmes. I designed them in MS Word, using our stationary fonts, Home Sweet Home & Georgia. I printed the front cover on label paper and stuck it to coloured A4 cardboard, which I had folded in half to make a booklet. I bound the cover and the pages with a selection of cheerful ribbons.
The programmes contained the order of events and the menu and were again written in both English and German. But in addition to the essential contents and for a bit of fun, I also included a little English-German love glossary to help with cross-cultural conversations and a crossword puzzle for which all the clues had something to do with Marco's and my relationship. For the latter, I used the demo version of Crossword Maker, a software that I found online. The first person who was going to fill it in completely was given a choice of dance with either the bride or the groom as a prize!
I scattered a few little pencils across each table for the guests to use for the crossword. I made these by gluing pretty craft paper around those little free pencils you ~~can steal~~ get given at IKEA. Easiest project ever!

We also included a little message to our guests, thanking them for their attendance.

As usual, click on the individual pictures for a better view!

Friday, 12 August 2011

Cruising For A Bruising

My friend Eva and I are going to watch a Roller Derby fixture tonight. I am super exited, as I have been wanting to do this ever since I saw Whip It.

I have been wrecking my brains about what would be a cool Roller Girl name for myself, but inspiration has not struck so far.

I tried using a name generator for ideas, and while I liked Jane Ire, Minnie Pearl Jam and Pam D. Monium, I wish I could come up with something more personal. Along the lines of Stitches or Boils. Words that obviously represent my love of embroidery and cooking!

Can you help a Grrrl out? Any ideas? What would your Roller Girl name be?

Our Ultimate Wedding Party Soundtrack

First of all: apologies for failing to give you a wedding post yesterday. I had another lovely weekend away from the PC last week and am running VERY behind on my blog writing. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

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I believe that our wedding playlist is one of the things that I went slightly Bridezilla on. I love dancing and music, and Marco the music only, but deeply. Between us, we have quite the eclectic taste, including everything from 70s, 80s & 90s rock, over Swing, Hip Hop, Indie, Soul, Disco and R'N'B to pop anthems and Country. So I spent hours compiling songs with Marco, accumulating a playlist that would keep everybody on the dance floor. Non-stop. I even put them all in the "right order". Sue me.

We had first considered playing mp3s off a docking station, but decided against this potential fail factor and booked our DJ through Kill The DJ, an agency I found on the internet. Let the professionals do it and have peace of mind. If only!
Especially in the last few weeks before the wedding I really felt that acting out the company's name was what I wanted to do. Actually, the DJ himself was excellent and helpful, I just felt like inflicting some harm on the admin staff. We had purchased a package which would allow us to have a customized playlist and quite a lot of input on the choice of songs. We were told that we were going to be matched with a DJ who specialized in our kind of music and that they would download a certain amount of titles if the DJ did not have them in his repertoire.
But: the former head of the company sold his business during our wedding preparation and went off to pastures new, and the lady who used to manage our order had gone on maternity leave and apparently nobody else had felt inclined to look after us. So when our allocated DJ called me about two weeks prior to the big day, asking what we wanted played at our wedding, I asked him if he had not been forwarded my lovingly-put-together playlist. He had not. Nor had anybody from the office been in touch with him lately (or with us). When I asked him if he thought that his Rock-heavy (I assumed) routine would cover our requests, he said that he usually played mostly Brit Pop.
Grrrr.
At one point I even found a message from the DJ on my phone. He had accidentally dialled my number, but was pleading with his company to finally "transfer the money that was still outstanding".
Not good.
In the end, WE were compiling a CD for the DJ with the key songs that we did not want omitted. He helped us out with going through the list of tunes that I emailed him, telling us what he had and did not have. I was not a happy bunny, that much I can tell you!
But now enough of the bad stuff, and in with the funky music! May I present to you our playlist! Like I would have played at our wedding if it had been acceptable for the bride to spin the discs... Click on the song title if you would like a listen. Enjoy!

L-O-V-E - Nat King ColeThe Best Is Yet To Come - Michael Bublé

Come Fly With Me - Frank Sinatra

Too Marvellous For Words - Billie Holiday

It Had To Be You - Harry Connick Jr.

Let's Face The Music And Dance - Robbie Williams

You Should Be Dancing - Bee Gees

Get Down Tonight - KC And The Sunshine Band

I Say A Little Prayer - Dionne Warwick

Son Of A Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield

Single Ladies - Beyoncé

Gold Digger - Kanye West

Bust A Move - Young MC

Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry