My Wedding Ramblings

Friday, 23 October 2009

  • Tassy

     Even when you know something is coming, it can still feel like a punch to the gut.

    My cousin Tassy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the winter/spring of 2008 and given four months to live, but being the spunky Greek ass kicker we all knew, she defied the odds and fought back. Sadly for all of us, that fight ended this morning when she passed away about two weeks short of her 42nd birthday.

    Tassy was not my biological cousin (she was married to my cousin Derek) but she treated me and pretty much everyone else in her life like family. She was the type of person who was generous with her laughter and who would do just about anything she could to make others happy. She loved to travel and try new things and she was so ethusiastic and full of life that was hard not to be the same when you were around her.

    The week before Ben and I got married, she called the apartment bubbling with excitement and offers to help with the wedding. She asked me questions about my dress and questions about Ben and made me promise if I needed anything I would call her because she was just a phone call away. I didn't end up taking her up on it, but the phone call left an impression on me because she sounded so assured and confident whereas up to that point, I had felt a little like a big ball of nerves. Well, I thought, if Tassy can be confident with everything that's going on with her, I can be confident too.

    And I was confident. Confident about the wedding and confident that Tas would get better because she was smart and strong and good and because, frankly, that was the only way it seemed fair.

    Never in my life has it hurt so much to be wrong.

    I don't know what comes after life, but I remember seeing a movie once where everyone gets to live their best day over and over for the rest of eternity. So, I like to think that right now, Tassy is doing that and having the time of her life away from hospitals and tubes and all the other horrible things associated with being sick.

    Maybe she's on a rollercoaster or maybe she's eating ice cream with her family or maybe she's soaking up the sun on the beaches of Greece like she did when she went last year. Wherever she is, I hope she's happy.

    Rest in peace, Tassy. We love you and miss you muchly.

    J

    tassygreece
    November 8, 1967 - October 23, 2009

Friday, 02 October 2009

  • Well That Was Longer Than I Expected . . .

    Yeah, so that blog absence was definitely longer than I expected. I was thinking it would be like a month, two months, but now I've been married over a year and one of my best friends is getting married in less than a month so a lot has changed. (In fact someone reminded me today that it's almost a year to the day since the mass Weddingbee Exodus! Holy geez!)

    First, I just want to say thank you to all the readers who messaged me and all the readers who have stuck with the blog to this point. It means a lot to have people in your corner during hard times.

    However, the biggest shoutout I have to give is to my husband, who is truly the best partner I could have hoped for. In the beginnings of relationships, you look for the fluffy stuff. How cute the person is, whether or not you like the same movies, etc. But the thing is, that will only take you so far. You need someone who will take your hand when you're scared and hug you when you're sad and call you on your $h!t when you're looking for an easy way out. You need someone who will stay the course with you when things are hard just as surely as they do when things are happy, and I am lucky enough to have that in Mr. Hum.

    Secondly, I do actually have other stuff to blog about (about 10 more entries I think) and I am hoping I'll be able to start back up next week once I go through the pictures again and find my chronological place.

    So hello again from your long lost Mrs. Hum! I look forward to getting reacquainted with everyone in the coming weeks!

    Big hugs!

    Humms

Thursday, 08 January 2009

  • It's About To Get Very Unbridey In Here

    I'm going to stop lying about why I'm not writing here and just be honest.

    I haven't been writing because I've been depressed.

    Depression runs in my family and it's hitting me hard right now. My cousin got kicked out of the drug treatment plan for her cancer and there's no other treatment so there's nothing else we can do but wait and I am wildly unhappy about my work situation right now and there's no places hiring so there's nothing else I can do but wait.

    So most days I feel sad. Sometimes it's big and sometimes it's little, but it's pretty much a continuing theme of sad. There are bright spots, the main one being my fabulous husband Mr. Hum. He's been my cheerleader in all of this and he's a huge part of the reason that I can continue to get out of bed in the morning because he encourages me to think forward to happier times or backwards to happier times. And one of those happy times was the wedding. I truly love the memories of our wedding. And there is this part of me that doesn't want to taint those happy memories with this unrelenting funk of mine.

    So I'm not writing. At least not here. I've started writing over at another blog about ridiculous pop culture stuff because it's easier to deal with then all this wedding stuff, so if you want updates, that's where to go for now.

    I will eventually be back here to finish up everything. Just give me a little time.

    XOXOXO,
    Mrs. Hum

Wednesday, 17 December 2008

  • I Come Bearing Gifts!

    This month has been INSANE at my job and my workload has increased three-fold so I've been sucking at finishing my recaps. Very bad of me, I know.
    However, I have temporarily returned with a surprise in the hopes that I might be able to win back the love of my fabulous readers. And the surprise is? A three and a half minute wedding reel, courtesy of our friends Kim and Alex!
    I promise I will fill in the gaps later with my own unique brand of awesomeness, but in the meantime, here is something pretty to look at.
    Love you lots and look forward to catching up in the New Year!
    Happy holidays!
    Mrs. Hum

Thursday, 13 November 2008

  • Not Such Good News

    Hello out there in the land of the internets. It's been a while since I blogged and I fully intend on resuming my recaps soon but we got some bad news in my family recently that just kind of kicked me off of it.
    My cousin Tassy, who I've mentioned previously, was told by her doctors recently that the cancer is back and the growths are bigger than last time. The chemo has stopped working, so they're trying other treatments, but everything is experimental. We're all trying to be optimistic because she's a really strong person and she defied the odds last time, but the whole thing is kind of scary and shocking.
    I guess after the last round of treatments, as naive as it was, with the tumours shrinking and the doctors giving a good prognosis, I thought that everything was over. I mean as it was, when we all originally found out she was sick, I didn't believe that there was any other option than recovery. Even when I gave her a hug back at the wedding in June and felt for myself how skinny she'd become after all the treatments, I just thought to myself "This is all temporary. All there is now is for her to get better and stronger." And now, that all just feel so far away and I feel so foolish for not realizing what was happening.
    Anyway, I know that anything is possible and I'm convinced that if anyone can get better, it's Tass, but I figured it at least wouldn't hurt to put some good juju out there and to ask anyone who reads this to do the same.
    Thanks,
    Mrs. Hummingbird

    family
    A picture of my family. Tassy is the one on the far right.

     

Friday, 24 October 2008

  • How Mrs. Hum Got Her Groove On, Part One: The First Dance

    Okay, I'm telling you all now, you're in for a few dancing posts and it ain't necessarily going to be pretty. I am a gawky white girl who doesn't really tan, so much of my dancing involves the flailing of blindingly white limbs and the shaking of a ridiculously flat ass. So, with that in mind, I'm going to take it slow and expose you to my pale spasticness gradually, in the hope that, by the time we reach true busting-a-move territory, we can all get through it on a full stomach. Okay? Okay!

     

    Our first dancing entry involves Mr. Hum and I taking to the dancefloor for the first time as man and wife. As I mentioned way back in my blogging tenure, I am not a dancer. I took ballet as a kid and then quit because there is only so much humiliation a girl can take. Approaching the wedding, I had talked to Mr. Hum about taking dance lessons and in a moment of ultimate weakness, he agreed to, but as is the case with weddings a lot of the time, we just never got around to it.

      

    So, instead, we winged it (hahaha bird pun) and it actually turned out okay . . . 
    In terms of the song we picked, there was much debate over this, but we finally settled on "Falling Slowly" by The Swell Season from the movie Once.  It didn't have any secret special meaning to us, but we picked it because it contained a boat reference* and because it was pretty and short enough to dance through. Although, looking back now, I am not really sure what we did could qualify as dancing since we spent most of the time just kissing and circling dizzily around the dancefloor.

     

    I know it'll sound cheesy, but from the inside, it felt like floating. It was charged with this really intense emotion, very much like the kind you get when you start dating. Your hands touch for the first time and everything feels blurry and warm and electrified because you can't believe you're lucky enough to have made your way through the billions of people in this world to find this specific person. This someone who gets you and loves you. With all your nerves. With all your flaws. Without logic. Without question.



    I'm not a believer in soul mates because I don't feel like the world works in absolutes like that. I think love is about timing. If I had met Mr. Hum a year before I did, it might not have worked out because we were both very different people who were involved with very different people. But things changed, we changed, and when our paths crossed, we were both open to what the other had to offer. We were ready to keep in time with each other. Like music. Like dancing.

     

    People have talked to us about our first dance since the wedding. Over dinner one night a little while ago, a friend of ours commented that, watching us dance, she didn't know whether to cry, turn away or have an orgasm because it felt so intimate. I'm sure it's a weird thing to say, but the more I think about it, the more I think that's kind of the cool thing about having a wedding. It's a chance to crack open your relationship and share a bit the intimacy you share with your partner with everyone else you know. It's a day that is public, however it's still kind of private because no matter how many people are there, you're only making promises to one other person. You're vowing to be with them for a lifetime and although everyone else can hear it and see it, only you know what that means. Because you're the one who knows all the jokes, all the secrets, all the steps and all the $h!t it took to get there.



    God knows, as a woman with a video game themed wedding, I am not an advocate for doing things the traditional way, but if you have the chance, I highly recommend doing a first dance. Even if, like us, it's not really dancing. Because you can't beat the high.

    * The boat thing is an inside joke we have that I'm not going to share here, but regardless when the line in the song came up, both Mr. Hum and I cracked up.


Thursday, 23 October 2008

  • Heave, Ho and Away We Go!: The Bouquet and Garter Tosses


    A close up shot of my bridal bouquet.

    This was originally not in the plan. I loved my bouquet and was not particularly huge on the idea of tossing it off to whoever. But during the cocktail hour and the moments following the toasts people kept asking me about it. When are you tossing the bouquet? When are you tossing the bouquet?

     
    The crowd waits for the big moment.

    So I started to reconsider since I realized that it could actually be kind of fun and that it (the bouquet) would die a slow and painful death if I were to truck it up North on our honeymoon. Plus, to be honest, I was so happy and bewildered that by the time this suggestion came up, I was just willing to go along with whatever anyone said to me. Hahaha.
    (But on a serious note, I am actually happy that we did decide to do this since a couple of my favourite pictures came from this part of the wedding!)
       

    Prepping on the deck.

    Anyway, the light was starting to die a bit, so we had Uncle Tim corral our guests while we climbed the steps up Mr. Hummingbird's father deck to get things underway. We didn't think too much about it at the time because we were in kind of a rush, but this ended up being a good choice because it played on family tradition (Mr. Hum, Mr. Hum's Dad and Nick built the deck in the middle of the 2003 blackout to be ready for Nick and Erin's engagement party and it had served as the spot for our engagement party the summer before) and it gave us the height we needed for a truly epic toss.

      
    Hiking the skirt and going for gold! I could not stop laughing.

    To keep the girls waiting and to build suspense, we started the festivities with the garter toss. Again this was something we were not planning on doing (the power of suggestion!) but we figured since my MOH Erin had gifted me with a blue silk garter at my shower, it ought to get some use.


    Removal attempt #1 - Slipping it off PG style.


    Nick shaming Mr. Hum for a tame removal, ushering on removal attempt #2.

    Mr. Hum originally slid the garter off my leg with his hands, but when his brother called him out for not doing it the manly way, he relented and took it off with his teeth. Oh boys and their inability to ignore a dare . . .
     
     
    Sliding the garter back on . . .

    And taking it back off!

    And then, in lieu of a toss, he sling-shoted it into the crowd. Now as anyone who has ever been to a wedding knows, compared to the bouquet toss, the garter toss is kind of anticlimactic. To rip off an analogy from Friends, it's like the comedian before Pink Floyd comes out. It's fine and it's necessary, but no one really cares about it. And as per usual, this was the case with ours. The guys gathered haphazardly in a group, but the thing was only caught because one of them (the fiance of a friend of mine who got married in August) ended up sticking out his arm more in a manner of self defense than strategy (Ie. "It's coming at my face so I'd better protect myself.")

     
    Notice the lack of movement between the toss . . .

    And the catch!

    The bouquet toss however was another matter entirely. As a guest at weddings, I always hated being shoved into a gaggle of girls and forced to squeal with delight as a peony projectile was lobbed at my head, but we had a very enthusiastic group at our wedding.


    The twilight pre-toss.

    Prior to my toss, I had no less than half a dozen girls approach me to ask that I heave my hand accessory directly at them. In the name of fairness, I chose to close my eyes and turn around so I could not be accused of playing favourites.


    Ready and . . .

    And then I tossed!

     
    Lift-off!

    Looking at the pictures now, I see two things:
    1) I chucked that sucker up hella high in the sky!


    The girls catch some air jumping for the bouquet.
     
    2) The girls at our wedding were hardcore! Look at them jump!


    Lauren shows off her prize.

    In the end, it was Mr. Hum's step-sister that scored the spoils, but hotdamn did she have some competition! Yowza!


    John's girlfriend Jenn abandons her quest for the bouquet and defends herself against the throng.

    Anyway, that does it for the bouquet toss. Tune in for the next entry when I drag Mr. Hum out on the dance floor and schmoop it up for all to see!

Wednesday, 22 October 2008

  • Into The Tent: Entrances and Speeches

    Thanks to Mr. Hum who helped me with the pictures so I could continue posting! So now, without further ado, into the tent for poop jokes, potential f-bombs and numerous video game references (because you know, that is how we Hummingbirds roll! )

    After much partying, bouquet stealing, and rabel rousing during the cocktail hour, the caterers told us they were ready to start serving, so we ushered our guests into the tent. 
     
    People picking up their personal cards.

    And showing them off!

    After people found their little escort cards* on our giant board and took a seat in the muddy tent, there was only one thing left to do - enter the tent ourselves.

    Our tent full of guests.

    The group of us goofing off outside the tent.

    So after a muddy foot powwow, we entered the tent.

    Everyone's muddy feet! If you look closely you can see a couple of the mosquito bites I got that day. (I ended up with 47).

    First the Man of Honour and Best Lady . . .

    Sarah multitasks carrying her bouquet and second shooter camera.

    Then the Matron of Honour and the Best Man . . .

    Nick carries his trademark highball glass.

    And then us, the Bride and Groom!

    Mr. Hum and I carefully dodge a speaker to cross through the only dry spot in the tent. Hehehe.

    Now there was much talk of music with our wedding and for the most part, Mr. Hum let me have free reign when it came to what I wanted to play. However, pretty much from the get-go, he had one stipulation - we had to play the Halo theme. He didn't care where we played it, he just wanted it played, so we ended up using it for our reception entrance, a move which was awesome for two reasons.
    1) We were sitting at the Halo Table as Master Chief and Cortana respectively;
    2) We somehow magically managed to time it so we entered the reception at the perfect ass-kicking part in the song.
    If you've ever heard it, it's the part where it gets really loud and triumphant and is like "Hey grunts! We're here to kick some ass and take some names!" so walking in just then was awesome because it was like "Hey institution of marriage! We're here to kick some ass and take some names!"


    Us settled into our special seats.

    Anyway, once everyone got organized and after everyone had some time to get through the buffet line and have something to eat, Mr. Hum's Uncle Tim started up the speeches, starting with sharing a few words of his own.

    Now, something that you need to know about Tim is that, in addition to being one of the four people in the world who actually rocks a mustache**, he is innately lovable. He and his wife Anne have been very close to Mr. Hum (he lived with them for a few months while he was in school) and from the moment I met him, he was incredibly kind to me so having him MC was awesome. 

    After Tim, my dad shared a few words.

    My dad is kind of a shy guy, but he kicked off the speeches with a bang, talking about raising me and having to put up with the parade of losers also known as my ex-boyfriends (he was not a fan of anyone before Mr. Hum). His parental advice to the other fathers of daughters in the crowd? "Kill the first one and hope word gets out." His speech also mentioned poop (it didn't sound as weird in context, but oh yes, he went there) so you can see the kind of freaky sense of humour our gang has from that because everyone was laughing like mad.


    Me hiding my face as my dad teases me.

    After my dad, Mr. Hum's dad stepped up to the mic.

    We had a bit of a heads up with this speech as Mr. Hum's dad is a big fan of Reader's Digest and is known to pull out a specific article of relationship advice at weddings. Continuing the tradition, he read the same piece at our wedding he had at Nick and Erin's three years before. :)

    After Mr. Hum's dad, it was my mom's turn.

    Now although my mom pretty much stayed out of the way when it came to planning our wedding, the day of she was so freaked out that we ended up giving her a sedative at lunch.*** I'll admit, I was a little nervous about this because you never know with medication and I didn't want her to be out of it for the whole wedding, but it totally did the trick! Not only was she focused and totally on her toes, but her speech was one of the absolute funniest of the night! But most of all, she said something that I absolutely love - "Not only is it good to have someone who's at your side, but it's good to have someone who's on your side." So true!


    Me laughing as my mom cracks a joke.

    And with one mom speech came another as Mr. Hum's mom went up to speak.

    Mr. Hum's mom is a writer and a very creative person so, as part of her contribution to the evening, she wrote her speech in rhyming couplets! Detailing everything from our births to our meeting to our years together, it was very awesome and totally surprised me. Now a minor admission - Since the beginning of one of the couplets was "built like a truck," I (and apparently a bunch of our guests) half expected the second part of the couplet to end in the f word****. I was only slightly disappointed when it didn't.

    With the parents now off deck, the wedding party started their turn on stage, starting off with my Man of Honour Greg.

    As I've mentioned before, Greg and I met in college and basically bonded over our love of sarcasm and silliness. For weeks leading up to the wedding, he was vetting jokes with me, so I was expecting it to be a mix of pretty much every ridiculous joke we've ever had. However, what he said was very heartfelt, and culminated in a Navajo Prayer.

     
    All of us raising a toast.

    After Greg came Mr. Hum's Best Lady Sarah.

    Leading up to the wedding, I think Mr. Hum was bracing himself for the ribbing of a lifetime, but Sarah actually took it easy on him and even complimented his transformation from a goofy teenage boy (he was 18 when they met) to a pretty cool grownup man. Aw!

    And one lady followed another when my Matron of Honour took the stage . . . and read my blog post from the day before the wedding!

    I was totally shocked to hear my words read back to me but I totally appreciated being able to share them with all of our guests. Yay!

    And last but not least in the official lineup was Mr. Hum's brother and Best Man Nick.

    Growing up, they were kind of adversaries - they got along because they were brothers, but they were so intrinsically different, it was almost like they were a wacky sitcom pairing (He's a tidy born again Christian! He's a messy Neo-Pagan! See them battle it out Thursday nights on NBC!). Happily enough, over the time I've known Nick, they've become really close and I truly believe that he is Mr. Hum's best friend. And not only is he a cool brother-in-law, but I have to give him extra points for working the phrase "running over pimps with a car" into his wedding speech. Deftly done, my friend.*****


    The brothers share a hug.

    We were just about ready to do our little thank you to the crowd, when my grandfather popped out of the crowd and went running for the microphone.

    I have to admit, I didn't expect this as it wasn't scheduled (we didn't think anyone else would be interested in speaking) but it was really nice to hear him talk about the wedding and about his experience being married. As much as I love my Bubbi, the days approaching the wedding without my grandmother were kind of hard for me, so it was nice  to take a moment to acknowledge her and their life together.


    Another small acknowledgment of my grandmothers - the bouquet locket!

    After my grandfather's speech, Mr. Hum and I finally took the floor and, after weeks of people telling me I was going to turn into a marshmallow and me insisting I wouldn't, I totally ended up crying.

    If you haven't gotten married yet and think you are totally prepared to get in front of everyone you know and love without shedding a tear, my darling, you are dead wrong because I assure, even the hardest of us have been known to crack.

    Anyway, that wraps up the entrance and speeches - up next the bouquet and garter tosses!

    *I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mr. Hum did an amazing job with the escort cards. Even people who didn't get the whole video game thing loved them and almost everyone took theirs home!
    ** The other three are Alex Trebek, Tom Selleck and Wilfred Brimley.
    *** For the record, just so people don't think I drugged my mom, she requested it so we gave her a proper dosage as advised by my MOH's pharmacist father.
    **** This is not a reflection on my mother-in-law, who is a lovely women who I don't think has ever said a swear word in front of me, but more a reflection on me and the fact that I watch too many shows on cable.
    *****  The first time I met Nick he was sick and hiding out in his room playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas so we spent the afternoon kicking it on his broken futon and chatting while he played.

  • Why Does Technology Hate Me?

    Okay so the thing is I had a list of wedding recaps all worked out to post and then my computer, my brand spanking new laptop that Mr. Hum bought me as a belated wedding present, turned out to be a complete lemon and crashed. And not just crashed as in "Oops! Minor error! You lost the file you were working on!" but like "Holy crap! Blue screen of Death! You lost everything on your hard drive!" And, what was on my hard drive, pray tell? All of my carefully organized wedding pictures. You know, because computers hate me.
    Now this isn't as dire as it sounds because I am lucky enough to have the source disks so the pictures still exist in the universe. However, it does push my posting schedule (which was already messed up by our hosting Thanksgiving this year) back by a bit because it means I have to try to sort through the 1,200 pictures again and then load them onto my old wheezing laptop to post them. Blargh!
    Anyway, I just wanted to update to let you all know that I am still alive and that hopefully, I'll be able to plough through the rest of recaps again soon enough. I have a bunch of good stuff planned including our epic bouquet toss, my kicking it with a cardboard sign, and drunken dancing the likes of which you've never seen!
    XOXOXO,
    Mrs. Hum

Wednesday, 08 October 2008

  • Moving Forward

    Wow! Over the past couple of days I have received many e-mails and had over 2,000 visitor here at my little Xanga, so I just wanted to say thank you to those of you who have followed me here to hear about the rest of our wedding. I am touched and comforted by your support.

    I'll admit the last few days have been very hard - first, for the obvious reason, the Weddingbee-eHarmony merge. Over the past year, I've formed so many friendships with the girls I blogged with and talk to several on a regular basis, so there were a lot of emotions tied into it for me. But when it came down to it, I had to do what I felt was right for me and so I chose to go. I've talked to a bunch of my former blogmates since this went down and I fully respect all of their decisions, so I ask all of you who continue reading here to be respectful as well, as I do not want this to turn into the "Bash the 'Bee!" show.

    All we can do in life is make decisions for ourselves and slandering people because their opinions do not conform with our own is counterproductive as it only encourages a cycle of hate. The best thing we can do in situations like these is agree to disagree and move forward.

    And speaking of "moving" forward, this segues into the other thing that's been bumming me out this week - Mr. Hum's lovely Aunt and Uncle have sold their summer home. For those of you who don't remember the story, this is the place that was in the dream I had about Mr. Hum two years before we met and this is the place where we first really fell in love. When we first got engaged, I actually kind of thought about asking them if we could get married up there. We ended up deciding against it because it was too remote, but I had hoped that perhaps next year, we could go up for an anniversary trip and take some pictures to commemorate it's significance to us. Unfortunately, Mr. Hum's relatives have experienced a family issue and the house had to go on the market.

    So, as today is moving day in more than one sense of the word, I thought I would share some pictures of it with you.

    buckhorn
    The front of the house as you come up the drive.

    buckhorn2
    A shot of the back and the dock area from a canoe.

    dock
    A picture of the beautiful sunset on the lake.

    It's sad sometimes when we don't get to leave the places we love in the way we want to leave them, but it's nice to be able to look back on the good times we had, whether they're lying on a dock watching stars and satellites streak by or sitting at a keyboard writing with our friends.

    The wedding recaps will continue soon and I promise I will post some fun shots to make up for my emoness today.

    Your gal,
    Mrs. Hum