My First Etsy Purchase

So Etsy is all the rage on weddingbee. I had never purchased anything on Etsy (or Ebay for that matter) but was sucked in today because of Miss Lovebug's post about cufflinks for Mr. Lovebug.



She blogged about Etsy seller Keys And Memories so I had to check it out. And I ended up, in a matter of minutes, ordering the beautiful cufflinks pictured above as Mr. Onion had admired a similar pair months ago that were almost $100 more expensive (the above were a steal at $40). I'll put them away for his birthday (love having a great gift months in advance).

So this is where you come in -- I need your help bees and bee readers. I had intended to have custom cufflinks made for Mr. Onion for the wedding but ran out of time (and to be honest, money). Here was my idea: Mr. Onion is a car enthusiast and he used to own a first edition VW R32.


Photo from www.thecarconnection.com

If you didn't know, you would think it was a GTI, but it was actually a pretty awesome sports car. He pre-ordered it because there were only 2000 being sold in the US, so it was a big deal. He LOVED that car. But he loves me more, so he sold it when we moved to NYC. I wanted to have custom cufflinks made with the cars logo.



Can any of your help me find a custom jeweler? I'd love to start on this project now so I can have it for our 1 year anniversary. He gave up the car for me so I'd like to give him a little piece of it back.

Thank you kindly,
Mrs. Onion

A non registry item we LOVE

We got a number of things that were not on our registry some of which, I'm not gonna lie, weren't good. But there were a few pleasant surprises. Among them -- the Cuisinart Griddler which was a shower gift from my MIL.



I went on-line to find some more pictures of the Griddler in action and came across this video on a NBC news clip. See the video here if you'd like.


Photo from Linens 'n Things. The Griddler has two different plates -- one set flat seen above, and the others that make grill marks, seen in the photos we took below.







We made a grilled veggie panini with goat cheese for dinner earlier this week and it was really good. We simply marinated the vegetables in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and then grilled them on the Griddler. We grilled some cibatta bread and then spread soft goat cheese on and piled on the vegetables. It was nice to have the option to grill even with our limited counter space! I think we'll get quite a bit of use out of it for sure.

Did you get any unexpected wedding gifts that you really loved?! To share so those who are still working on their registries can jump on the band wagon!

The big reaction!

I got a lot of questions about Mr. Onion's reaction to his wedding gift -- the album of "intime photos" that Tony Yang took. My earlier post, "Tony's Girls," created quite a stir and was a great conversation. You all seemed to have very strong opinions about the subject of "boudoir photos" but this is what weddingbee is all about -- sharing experiences and opinions!



Here is the hard cover album I ordered from www.mpix.com as my wedding gift to Mr. Onion. I'd highly recommend mpix -- the quality was much better than the Shutterfly album I'd ordered a few months earlier and the prices were competitive. $30 for a 10x10 hard cover book with 20 pages and it arrived so quickly! There was a choice of paper at no additional cost -- glossy, matte or linen. I chose linen because I wanted the album to feel soft and romantic. I'll be ordering from them again for sure.

Below is a quick glance inside the book






Right, so onto Mr. Onion's reaction. He gave me his gift first -- of course there were tears and lots of hugging! Then I gave him the book all wrapped up. I was really nervous. A little piece of me was worried he'd be jealous or uncomfortable that the images were taken by another man. But I got over that very quickly -- if I really thought that would be the case then I wouldn't have had the photos taken to begin with.

He was blown away. He opened the book to the first page, read it and kissed me :) I printed some text that read "With all my heart on our wedding day." I said -- "wait wait...there's more!" I watched him flip page after page with a smile on his face. It was a great feeling. When he got to end I said "Well?!?!" He simply said "You're hot" and laughed...then proceeded to kiss me some more. It was just the reaction I was looking for -- for him to be excited and thrilled.

I'm glad that I gave the gift to him in private two days before the wedding instead of on the morning of the wedding in front of our photographers and/or his groomsmen (his dad was one of them -- not something I want my FIL to be thinking about)! Haha. All in all I'm really glad that I had this experience and was able to share these images with him. It will be a wonderful thing to look back on some day.

The gift of love

Mr. Onion and I drove from New York to Burlington, VT (6+ hours) the Thursday before our Saturday wedding. This way we had time to get our errands done and relax for the rest of the weekend. After we ran around on Thursday we took some time to rest at the Willard Street Inn before going out to dinner at our favorite French restaurant in town -- Leunigs Bistro. This is when we decided to exchange gifts. I gave him a nice album with my "intime" photos taken by Tony Yang and he gave me a journal.



But this was a very special journal.



The instructions inside told me, when ever I needed to be reminded of how much he loved me, to "submit a request" and the journal would be returned in 24 hours with "a recodring of [his] hearts essence." He's such a romantic and I LOVE him!



It's the gift of love that keeps on giving! All I have to do is ask and I get a poem or just his thoughts about why and how he loves me at that moment. Did your husband get you a thoughtful non-material gift like this?

Groomsmen Gifts

What to get the wedding party as a thank you is a difficult decision. I blogged early on about the gifts for our bridesmaids, and now wanted to give the men a turn. Our groomsmen are Mr. Onion's best friend, father and brother.




We decided to help them with their attire and got them lovely ties and fun argyle socks to wear for the wedding. The purple, brown and green socks on the left are for Mr. Onion and the black, green and white pair on the right are for the groomsmen. They don't match the tie perfectly, but as Momma Onion says "It's close enough for government work!" I just wanted a cute sock photograph with all the guys. Plus if we didn't buy them socks they'd most likely forget to bring there own! I kid, but this way they're all set.

Now, Mr. Onion's best friend really went above and beyond and was very involved and excited about the wedding. His gift to us was he paid for a significant portion of Mr. Onion's wedding suit that we had custom made. He researched the custom tailor and came with us to almost every appointment/fitting. It was so much fun to have him be a part of the whole process.


Here they are together at the first fitting

So we wanted to do something extra to thank him. He's a fan of great gin, so we got him a bottle of Henderick's Gin (arguably the best gin out there) along with some of the most amazing tonic water we could find -- Fever Tree.




As you can see Fever Tree sells a number of beverages. We got a six pack of the lemonade, the tonic water and the ginger ale. Part II of the gift -- continuing with the gin theme, is the famous Pimms #1 to make a Pimms Cup with. I see that Miss Peppermint is planning on making Pimms Cup her signature drink.



We plan to bring all the ingredients for the Pimms Cup with us to Vermont and will present him with this gift on Thursday night before the wedding.



This way if Mr. Onion and his best friend wish to enjoy a drink in the beautiful solarium at the Inn they can. I think we hit a home run and I hope he enjoys and appreciates the gift.

"Tony's Girls"

Recently I posted a few proofs from my "intime" (aka boudoir) session with NY/NJ area photographer, Tony Yang. Tony is also a talented wedding photographer who photographed the stunning wedding of our very own Mrs. Ant. Well what I didn't tell you is that I'd arranged a "marathon" shoot three nights in a row with two beautiful NY knotties. After the shoot we shared our proofs with each other and helped each other pick our "top 10" that Tony would then post process. So here we are...we jokingly referred to ourselves as "Tony's Girls," but now the secret is out!

First the beautiful knottie Soon2BeMrs.Kocal:






Next up, another beautiful knottie who wanted to remain anonymous -- very mysterious she is! If you have any questions for her please direct them to me at onion@weddingbee.com.





And here are a few more of my proofs (you can see the first few from my last post: "Intime Proofs are Here").






We each did this as a gift for our fiances for our upcoming weddings. What we discovered along the way is that it was also a liberating experience for us and we are all so pleased to have this special time in our lives documented in this way. Hopefully when we all old and happily married our husbands will remember us this way!

Note: All proofs are untouched -- Tony will be post processing 10 for each of us and I'll post again with a few "before and after" photos.

All photographs from the talented Tony Yang. Learn more about his "intime" photography here, his wedding photography here and his recent work on his blog.

And lastly, "Tony's girls" got together for dinner a few nights ago which was a blast! Here we are:



Any questions about the process, what to wear, to go alone or with someone else -- whatever you are curious about -- ask them here!

Meringue? No problem!

In June my future in-laws hosted a BBQ that was a reunion for my future father in-law's side of the family and was intended to be my introduction to all of them. Well Mr. Onion's aunt couldn't wait 3 months, so she gave us our wedding present on the spot. I present the coveted Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer:



And over a month later we finally "broke it in!" I'm so proud of us. We made a lemon meringue pie, which I've never done before, and it came out beautifully and tasted great too. Here is our handy work:



Any other brides out there using wedding gifts you've gotten already pre-wedding?! What's your favorite gift so far?

BBQ welcome

Today my future in-laws hosted a BBQ at their house to introduce me to my future father-in-laws side of the family. Some of my fiance's uncles he hadn't seen in going on ten years, so this was a big family gathering. Because they aren't very close non of them will be attending the wedding, so it was nice to get to meet them all in a casual setting. I had a really nice time and was glad to meet many members of my fiance's family.

There were also a number of my future mother-in-laws family there all of whom I've gotten to know quite well over the last two years. My fiance's aunt and uncle gave us our first wedding present at the BBQ because she just couldn't wait. Apparently she bought it in March and because the BBQ was in our honor and she got our wedding invitation in the mail yesterday, she figured why not!

So I present to you our first wedding gift:



Oh yes, that's right! The coveted Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer! I'm SOOOO excited. It was very generous. The bargain hunter in me hoped she'd gotten a great deal on it. My fiance assures me she did as she had him take it of our Crate & Barrel Registry months ago. So excited.