Wedding portrait by my uncle Marv Chait

My beloved cousin Eleanor Dubinsky played Dodi Li on the cello as I walked down the aisle with my parents.
Photo by Steph Yiu

Under the Chuppah with my wonderful Rabbi and Cantor, Brant Rosen and Howard Friedland.
Photo by Steph Yiu

My non matchy-matchy bridesmaids looked perfect!
Photo by Steph Yiu

The Converse AllStars
Photo by Steph Yiu

My husband, his dudes, and me.  Collin Patrick, the lead singer of Cavalry, is showing off his tattoos.
Photo by Marv Chait

Our BEAUTIFUL cake from Kaufman’s Deli, which matched my flower arrangements perfectly!

I think I maintained a look of horror the entire time I was up in the air!
Photo by Crystal Martinez

“Are the witnesses present?” (video stills of the ketubah signing)

Jamie Solock, my maid of honor and best friend, signs the ketubah.

Mikael Carson, my god brother, signs the ketubah.

Rabbi Brant Rosen signs the ketubah…

And we are MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!

As strange as this sounds, I think Facebook was referenced a total of 4 times during the wedding! Additional shoutouts were given to JDate (under the huppah) following the Sheva Brachas by the Rabbi. And yes, it really felt like another “wedding ceremony” changing our FB statuses to married.

We received so many wonderful gifts from our friends and family.  The one that touched me the most (made me BAWL) was a fair trade Haitian Mahogany honey pot and honey, given to us by dear friends Sarah Chandler and Ariel Vegosen.  Traditionally during the first year of marriage couples use honey on their Challah on Shabbos instead of salt. Their gift felt so familiar, so Jewish, and so much from the heart…  I was speechless.

And lastly, our thank you cards… which are taking longer than usual because we decided again to make them ourselves. This time we are using a drawing created by Loren’s cousin Jenica (the beautiftul flower girl pictured above) during the rehearsal dinner. I love Loren’s hair! :)

*******

Thank you to everyone who put so much time, energy, and love into making this day happen.  We love you all and will never forget how magical YOU made our wedding!!!

The Peacock Skirt by Aubrey Beardsley

Time is drawing in nearer and nearer to my wedding this weekend, and I still need to figure out what the reception tables will look like! We are expecting around 250 guests and have 30 round tables that can each seat 8. In order to keep in line with my Jewish Reform Congregation’s eco-friendly guidelines, we cannot use disposable tablecloths. Unfortunately this regulation really put a damper on my early design ideas, which included black paper tablecloths…

In the end, my mother determined it would be significantly cheaper for us to make the tablecloths ourselves, using queen size sheets instead of renting tablecloths, which would come to about $18 each. However, we quickly discovered that individually sold queen size sheets are incredibly difficult to come across, especially when you need 30 of them! Between my mother in Chicago and me in St. Louis, and three Target stores later, I had 30 cream colored queen size sheets ($12 each). Sadly black was not an option :( Against the recommendations of most, we got black plates and napkins, so I think the tablecloths will fit in nicely with our white, ivory/cream, and black color scheme.

Centerpieces

Over the years my mother has acquired a huge number of vases from second hand stores. We’ve decided to use the vases to hold the flower arrangements I will be making with my bridesmaids the night before my wedding. We are planning to tie black satin ribbon around neck of the vases and place them in the center of the table on top of black doilies.

One of the many gifts I received at my wedding shower was a book on Jewish paper cuts. I have always loved Mexican paper cuts, so this particular gift felt very close to home. I started to think about how I could incorporate the design and imagery of paper cuts into my ketubah and wedding decorations.

Paper cuts by Mexican artist Margarita Fick

Making a Stencil

A few years ago, when I worked as the art director for Camp JRF, I created a stencil for the Illuminated Manuscript my campers made of Lecha Dodi. Using a sharpie, matt board, and surgical knife (which works much better than exacto) I made a floral stencil, which I used to produce the gold brocade design on each of the Lecha Dodi panels. I found this process to be incredibly time consuming but VERY rewarding!

Lecha Dodi Illuminated Manuscript 2007 Camp JRF.

Unfortunately my mother is rightfully concerned it is far to close to the wedding date to experiment with the tablecloths. So I am thinking that I will probably use a combination of found black and white decorative papers and black and white illustrations to create the centerpieces.

Gift for the Groom

Sterling Silver Guitar Pick I got for Loren (with letters LW) on Etsy

Gift for Bridesmaids

Along with having my bridesmaids wear black dresses, I also wanted to give them cool but sensible gifts. Because I have so many bridemaids, and am working on such a tight budget, that was a real mission! But I was able to find 2GB flash drives online for a price I can actually afford! These will be included in a little gift bag, with other contents that are still to be decided.

Working in my studio at Washington University in St. Louis

My girlfriends and me at my bachelorette party at Cafe Iberico

Loren and me at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation

As for the ceremony, we determined that the sheva brachos will be chanted in both Hebrew and in Spanish, that Loren and I will be circling each other seven times, and that the ketubah (which the two of us are designing) will only be in Hebrew.

The inside of our kippot

In light of Loren’s wedding footwear, the silliest addition to the service will be the boot that Loren’s best man will hand him to put on before breaking the glass!

Wednesday before leaving for St. Louis, I went to find some flowers.  I will be making my own arrangements the night before the wedding.  I know it is crazy, but I am so picky and the flowers and the dress are the only two things that I REALLY care about, so I will be doing it myself.

Purple Irises, Calla Lilies, Yellow Tulips, and Red Gerber Daisies

]]> http://www.jewishweddingnetwork.com/down-to-the-wire/feed 6 http://www.jewishweddingnetwork.com/i-found-my-dress http://www.jewishweddingnetwork.com/i-found-my-dress#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:34:32 +0000 Maya E. http://www.jewishweddingnetwork.com/?p=2074 Just when I had given up all hope, when I thought I might end up looking like an unsightly birthday cake, it happened…  I walked into BCBG looking for a dress for my rehearsal dinner and there it was…  MY WEDDING DRESS!

Wedding dress shopping- still much too poofy for me!

Loren’s band Cavalry performed at night

Our friend’s wedding the next morning, held in the patio of an art gallery!

Loren and I at their reception

2 hrs later, Loren dropped me off at my Wedding Shower.

Opening my dishes!

Eventually Loren returned and helped me open up gifts. Together we tried on almost every household good as a hat.

After my graduation, my fiance Loren and I, along with our parents went to our favorite Mexican Resturant in St. Louis,  Mi Ranchito. I wanted to wear my graduation cap all day, but it was so hot that it only lasted through lunch.

After lunch we went to Target to add items to our wedding registry. And yes, I registered and registered, but the only thing that I am still 100% entirely devoted to are these Jade Moon dishes.  I know, I am such a freak, I registered for 4 sets!  But I have been dying to own these dishes for the last 3 years…

I wrote a note on the registry saying that these dishes are what Maya wants MOST!

Then we decided to get creative on MyRegistry.com and registered for the things that reflect who we are. Our picks included Mahzor Leyamim Nora’im, Halachot of the Ben Ish Hai,  and The Metsudah Midrash Tanchuma.

THE RING:

I have a thing for BIG rings.  I LOVE them, yes I often lose them, but again I LOVE them! Here is a photo taken of me in Madrid in 2005. I think I am wearing 6 rings!

My engagement ring is turquoise, lapiz, and garnet (my birthstone).  We got it from a Swedish hippy named Martin in Guatemala in 2006.

Jamie, my amazing Maid of Honor is trying to help me find a wedding ring.  We haven’t yet found “the one,” but here are some options that she picked out for me. I think we’re getting pretty close.

Tomorrow we go wedding dress shopping. Stay tuned…

SAIC Graduation 2007 , celebrating the completion of my BFA and 1/2 my debt

Things we want

How about the Adobe CS4 Master Collection or Final Cut Studio Pro?  These are both things that Loren and I want, but they are REALLY expensive.  So my question is, is it okay to register for things like that, that would require multiple people to go in on together?  Or will people think that we actually think that one person could afford either of these things on their own?

For now I am sticking to simple things.  I registered online at Target, CB2 and My Registry.  At My Registry you can register for anything on any site, so I registered for iWork and iLife.  Somehow I have two registries open at Target and I can’t delete one of them.  The one I can’t seem to be able to delete has a  set of  5 dishes that I thought were pretty and a state of serious madness registered for 5 months ago … these must be deleted!

I asked my bridesmaids to wear black, because I figured everyone would have a black dress and that way they wouldn’t need to buy anything new. Each of them will have a different color flower in their hair (naturally in rainbow order). Loren is having his groomsmen wear black suits, white shirts- slightly open with no tie, and Converse All Stars. I wanted his groomsmen’s boutonnieres to match my bridesmaids flowers, but he wasn’t having it :)  He said his dudes weren’t going to wear anything floral!

I love things in rainbow order. These are some spools from my art studio.

As for my own dream off-white mermaid cut/ sevillana style wedding dress…  it still  has to wait another two weeks… My thesis exhibition opens May 8th, I graduate May 15th, then on May 16th I will FINALLY go wedding dress shopping!

In addition to being an Articles Editor on the Law Review and an up and coming Rock Star :), Loren is also an incredibly talented illustrator.

Hillel and Shamai, 2007

He was planning on making a cartoon of us specially for our invitations, but due to our time constraints we’ve decided to go with an already existing image.  I was hoping to get some feedback on what everyone thought would make for the best invitation…

Option 1) a Google image search of our names

(I should add that I am mildly obsessed with Google image searches and the structure through which information is disseminated)

Option 2) A composite image of  video stills from when Loren proposed to me.

(This is at my family’s home in San Antonio Suchitepequez, Guatemala.  It was about 102 degrees that day, and I was setting up my hurdidora warping board in preparation to weave.)

Option 3) My art piece: Napkin for my Husband 2007.

or Option 4)   the cheesy photobooth pictures

Which image option do you like best for our wedding invitations?

With that I leave a video of a much quieter, more tranquil time. Day 1 of our wedding planning.