Many brides often give gifts to their bridesmaids. I wanted to show the girls who were dear and patient with me during this hectic time how much I appreciated them, and how much I wanted them to relax after the wedding. I spoke with the manager at a Lush store in Edina, and together we made a wonderful bridesmaid thank-you gift set, filled with vegan products. I think it's important to give gifts that people with use, and Lush has many wonderful things, and they have a good business ethic that is well-known for their earth friendly beliefs. This was almost my first choice for party favors, but I didn't think that Taven's friends would love a bubble bath as much as I know the girls do!

It took my mother a while to accept the idea that I was divorcing my first husband, and then it took her a while longer to like Taven (even though there was almost a seven year gap between the divorce and my meeting Taven). Once my mother met him, she loved him. He is such a nice guy, with such a big heart, and I think my mother knew right away that he would make an amazing father. Which was probably why her present to us was the honeymoon suite at the Crown Plaza. I had been to weddings there before, and had snuck into some rooms, and they are awesome! The room my mother had got for us was even better. There was flowers and champagne waiting for us, and room service even brought us hot chocolate. Everything about the place is swift and quick and efficient. My mother, who is usually very sweet and subtle, told me right before Taven and I left the restaurant for the hotel that she wanted more grandchildren.

When planning for our wedding, we saw that we could create a webpage about our wedding on mywedding.com. Originally, I don't think I would have sent a 'save the date' card, just because of the cost of postage, and also because this wasn't something that we did in my family. It's also not always necessary to send invitations, either. But as we had lots of friends and co-workers that we wanted to be there, and also because so many of our younger relatives are on the Internet, we thought it was a good idea. It was fun, also, putting up pictures. The best part was that we were able to use our own template, and we got this template from etsy.com. The graphic artist on the etsy made us a really cute template for only ten dollars, and it was much cuter than anything they had. I would have paid more!

When planning for our wedding, we saw that we could create a webpage about our wedding on mywedding.com. Originally, I don't think I would have sent a 'save the date' card, just because of the cost of postage, and also because this wasn't something that we did in my family. It's also not always necessary to send invitations, either. But as we had lots of friends and co-workers that we wanted to be there, and also because so many of our younger relatives are on the Internet, we thought it was a good idea. It was fun, also, putting up pictures. The best part was that we were able to use our own template, and we got this template from etsy.com. The graphic artist on the etsy made us a really cute template for only ten dollars, and it was much cuter than anything they had. I would have paid more!

We choose this place because it is located right by the park, and also because Taven loves Italian food and the food here is amazing. The chef is from Italy, and the antipasto here are the best in town. The décor of the place is also phenomenal, and you feel like you're in a small restaurant in Italy. The pillars and the vaulted ceilings really give the place an enchanted feeling, which I felt even more during the dinner. It is possible to book the entire restaurant, because they do handle large parties. The staff was well able to handle all of us, but to make it easier for everyone, we had our guests RSVP the meal that they wanted before hand.

At the ceremony, Taven actually slipped my high school graduation ring on my hand, and I did the same to him. We had talked about spending a week in NYC as part of our honeymoon, and so Taven agreed that we could go get wedding bands at Tiffany's in NYC on Fifth Avenue. I don't want to say that I am obsessed about the store, but I am a big fan of Charlotte on the TV show, Sex and the City, and loved the 'alrighty' scene. We made an appointment before we left, just because we didn't know how busy it would be, and then we got dressed up when we went to the store. I didn't let Taven wear jeans. The service was incredible, we were both treated like royalty. Most of those who worked there had a good sense of humor, considering the number of tourist that want to walk through and the other shoppers that spend millions. We were ready to spend about $3000. We had already looked online and had talked over what we wanted and how much we wanted to pay, but it was fun trying on some really expensive rings and play pretend. I could have left the store with a tie clasp and had been happy, but I love the story of how we got our rings.

We found out about Minted as a source of wedding card invitations from the webpage, mywedding.com. The invitations we chose were beautiful, on excellent quality paper, and we appreciated how efficient they were with time. We also had the option of having eco-friendly cards, which was very important to both of us. The site allowed us to be very specific with how we wanted the cards to be, without speaking first with a representative, which was very impressive and worked very well. Because the majority of our guests were from the Twin Cities area, we didn't need to send in maps, but it's always good to know what options you can get.

We stayed at this hotel for our honeymoon, and had a beautiful trip. I love NYC!!!! It's NYC!! You can buy purses on the street, and you can go eat amazing street food, or you can go eat at a fancy restaurant! It's amazing. The city has such vive!

This took a bit of time management, but somehow Satori and her mother and my brother found time before the reception to get to the market and get several bouquets of fresh cut and locally grown flowers. I had give them a hundred dollars for flowers, forgetting how many flowers that can buy you! They brought them back to my apartment, and along with the bouquets, which Satori turned into one big bouquet for herself, my Brother Biso bought really beautiful potted plants and had the idea to bring them with him to the park in his mini van. It was really nice, having them mark the top of the alter. I'm sad, though, because no one thought of going back and getting them afterwards.

My husband and I are both environmentalists (we both ride our bikes to work almost months of the year), and wanted to share this sentiment in our wedding. We felt that our guests would appreciate a gift of seeds. Seeds are a nice idea because they represent growth and new life, and it's fun to imagine their future. I spend a lot of time on the computer at work, so I had lots of time to research sites and reviews. I chose plantamemory because I really liked the reviews that company had, and once I started exchanging emails, I felt confident in my choice. The packets were lovely, and we got lots of compliments on them, my only reservation is that I found that this could have been done locally! I never thought to ask some of the farmers at the market in St-Paul, and it turns out that this is very common request! Oh, well.