Unlikely Wisdom from a Paper Mache Doll

Do you ever pass by something every single day without really looking at it, and then suddenly one day it just seems to stand out to you in a way that it never did before?

If you're a New Yorker, you've probably had this experience before. We are so bombarded with images and faces and debris that we tend to tune it all out as a defense mechanism. It works really well. It's how I seldom notice things like this on my commute:

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Anyway, I recently had that experience in my own apartment. In our kitchen, we have these tchotchkes that sit atop our shelves. Here they are in all their glory:

It's kind of a strange collection of gifts, souvenirs, and memories of my different animal decor phases (to elaborate, I was really into decorating with elephants my sophomore year of college, then it was pigs, then it was owls, and now it's pretty much exclusively cats). These objects are very much out of the way, but they add a splash of whimsy to our kitchen, and that's really what life is all about, isn't it?

Anyway, I'd like to zero in on one item in particular here. I've taken it down so that you can get a better look.

This little paper mache man hails from San Antonio, Texas (and possibly Mexico before that). He was one of several purchases we made at Market Square to use as table decor in our fiesta-themed wedding (again, whimsy). Here he is in action:

I'm not going to lie, he was not my favorite guest at our wedding. In fact, I only bought him because my mom found him and thought he was really cute. He wasn't my thing, but this little statue made her happy, and that made me happy, so I let him stand on a table on the big day.

He was then put in a box and forgotten until we moved to New York. We threw him up on that shelf, knowing that he would give me nightmares if I happened to put him somewhere more visible.

I passed him every day without a second thought, but one day he caught my eye. There was something different about him. I approached him semi-afraid that I was going to discover that he was alive like that girl who gets turned into a doll on Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Not as scary as I remember it, actually.

When I got closer, I noticed there was a strange watermark on him, maybe some kind of picture. I reached for a chair so I could stand on it to get an even closer look. Immediately, it became abundantly clear why he'd caught my attention. 

I screamed for Daniel, who wrongfully assumed that I was crying out in pain (my bad). When he found me, I was clutching the paper mache statue, cackling to myself. 

Here's why:

Are you seeing it? Let me help you.

WHAT?! 

Yes, friends. Right on the crotch of my dear paper mache friend here, clear as day, is a picture of Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants.

Now, it is possible that over time, while sitting on that shelf, the paint on this cheaply-made paper mache doll faded to reveal its original paper. I, however, like to imagine that it was like this when I bought it, and I was so lazy about planning my wedding that I didn't notice that SQUIDWARD was making an appearance at one of my tables. FLIPPIN SQUIDWARD, guys!

 By the way, here's a little bonus I found a few days later.

eeeeYEP! That's Sandy Cheeks, another Spongebob character, sitting right atop the ass (or rather, the cheeks) of my unwanted paper mache doll. Who the hell made this thing?!

For the record, this is now possibly my favorite item in my home. I just love it. I will probably pass it down to my grandchildren.

This stupid, Squidward-riddled statue serves as a reminder of the kind of person I hope to be. I want to be the woman who foregoes the veneer and instead allows my flaws to be exposed.  It is so easy to live a life that extinguishes identity. Any opportunity we get to hide our true selves, we often do. We like to paint over the undesirable aspects of our lives, but I want to be the one who makes it plain that I am so very far from perfect, and that it's okay. 

And how very fitting that this dumb statue was at my wedding! There is no day where you seek perfection more than your wedding. You wear a pristine, white dress. Your groom brushes his hair for once. Everything is beautiful, nothing is supposed to be out of place. And yet here at my wedding, for an entire table of people to see, stood a giant statue with a Squidward crotch.

This all reminds me of a joke my dad used to tell me.

You know what they call the guy who is dead last in his class in medical school? Doctor.

And folks, do you know what they call the couple who put a statue of Squidward out on a table at their wedding to be seen by at least ten of their guests, if not more? Married. 

Look, brides. I know the details of your wedding are really stressful. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy. But at the end of the day, if your wedding doesn't end up looking exactly like your Pinterest board -- if your cake looks like a boob or your bridesmaids all decide to wear Billybob Teeth, guess what? You'll still be married.  

This would actually be awesome.

Trust me. At my wedding, all kinds of crazy stuff went wrong. The DJ was having technical difficulties, and our first dance song sounded like a band of demons belching the alphabet. I forgot to smile while walking down the aisle, and now my pictures look like I was being dragged down it against my will. Plus, we didn't have a receiving line. But guess what? By the end of that night, we were still married.

So whether you're getting married or just trying to make it through the day, let's take a lesson from my creepy paper mache doll. Let's leave our conceptions of perfection at the door and instead be the real freak shows that we are. Believe me, it's way more fun. 

Case in point...

Cheap Bridesmaid Dress Alert!

After being complimented for the zillionth time on the following dress, I decided it was too good not to share. It's nothing super fashion-forward, but for whatever reason, it really does the trick. When I discovered this pretty little thang at OLD NAVY, I thought to myself blllaaaaAAAAHHH THAT WOULD MAKE A GREAT BRIDESMAID'S DRESS.

$25 at Old Navy

Now, why was I thinking about bridesmaid's dresses? Because, for the record, once you become a bride-to-be, you never stop being one, even two years into your marriage. You are always looking at things that would look great in a wedding. That should be evident from my wedding do-overs posts.

But I was also thinking about it because I will soon be the maid of honor in the wedding of my beautiful friend, Emily!

Here we are on my wedding day. I can't wait to do something awkward to her on her special day!

She's been doing this very smart thing by including all of her bridesmaids on a wedding Pinterest board. One of the girls ended up lighting it up with a ton of gorgeous navy dresses (the colors of the wedding are navy and pink) like the following:

Nordstrom - $148

J Crew - $275

Tommy Hilfiger - Macy's - $109.99

I think we can all agree these would look awesome in any wedding, and they are dresses we would all wear again in real life (unlike the ones I picked for my wedding...sorry, Emily).

But then when I was browsing my way around Old Navy, I found that TWENTY-FIVE DOLLAR gem pictured up at the top of this post. I had a mini seizure and started texting Emily frantically. I ended up reserving, like, every size and buying one for myself. Emily was into it, and I felt like a hero. After a discussion with her mom, they ended up going with another dress (a really affordable, gorgeous number from Piperlime), but regardless, it still felt like a victory.

This is me the day I found the dress at Old Navy:

STOKED

This is me when I went home and dressed it up a little bit:

STOKED AND ACCESSORIZED

It's 100% cotton (crazy comfortable), and in case you can't tell from the picture it has a scalloped hemline and what oldnavy.com calls "sheer eyelet details across the front" (whatever, I would have called them fabricy cut-outy things with a solid lining).

Oh, and did I mention it comes in a bunch of COLORS?

Anyway, if you are a bride-to-be, a bridesmaid, or just a girl looking for a cheap dress, head to Old Navy TODAY. This dress is on sale, and some of the other colors are as cheap as $20 (can you seriously imagine if your bridesmaid's dress was actually $20?). 

Does anyone else have any cheap bridesmaid dress options? Life is expensive, so don't keep this good news to yourself!

If I Had It To Do All Over - Wedding Planning PART TWO

In second grade, I got a pencil stuck in the palm of my hand for about an hour, and that is the last time I remember being as popular as I have been in the past month. Overnight, one of my blog posts started making the rounds on Pinterest, and BLAM-O, I had a bunch of new followers. Welcome, new friends! What are your names? Where are you from originally? Tell me two truths and a lie (or just a bunch of lies, if you want. I'm not going to fact-check.).

Anyway, this post is a continuation from the original, If I Had It To Do All Over: Wedding Planning. Now, I will give you the same warning I did in my first post. Don't mistake these wedding planning regrets as regrets over my marriage. That is not the case. My husband is kind of the grand prize of husbands. I mean, just look at this guy:

Nope. No regrets whatsoever.

But a few months after I got married, everyone started getting Pinterest accounts (this was around the same time that mason jars started being utilized for things other than pickling) and that's where most of my regrets stem from. None of these are things that keep me awake at night, but if I can help anyone feel more confident about their creative choices on their wedding day, that sounds pretty great to me.

Anyway, let's do this.

Do-over #8 (I left off at #7 on the first post): I would have shopped around for wedding dresses.

It is possible that I have seen every episode of Say Yes To The Dress. I don't really know why. I am mostly bored and horrified by some of the friends and mothers on that show...like this one: 

Is this not the exact reaction you hope to hear from your mother?

This exasperated mom is definitely not a fan of this perfectly lovely strapless dress worn by her disappointment of a daughter, Kelly. By the way, be sure to watch the above video roughly 145 times in a row, if possible. Each time you do, you will gain a new appreciation for the disdain with which the mom says KELLY. Also note Kelly's laugh as she puts her hands on her hips. She could not care less.

But anyway, for as much as Say Yes To The Dress should have prepared me for this sacred moment in a woman's life, I still don't think I did it right.

Here's how it went down:

I took two of my bridesmaids, my sister (also a bridesmaid), and my mom to a giant store in Austin. We waded through the sample dresses like we were walking through a magical forest and picked out the ones that we could discern as acceptable. In the midst of all of this, a sales associate selected a couple herself and then she ushered me to a dressing room. I wasn't wearing any of the right underthings, so she basically got an eye-full of all my best bits and pieces. I kept apologizing, and she kept saying wonderful cliches like, "You've got nothing I haven't seen before."

I tried on a few, and every time I tried on one of my friend's picks, they were like YES, YES THIS IS THE ONE. And I was like...meerrrr...maybeeeeee.

But then the sales associate brought in a new dress (which I suspect she had been keeping from me all along for dramatic effect). I tried it on, and I kind of had that moment of...Oh hey, that's my body in a wedding dress...and it looks really good...I could wear this on my wedding day...hey...I'm getting married...to a man...a man I love! Look at meeee!!

I walked it out to the rest of my group, and while no one began convulsing or anything, everyone was in agreement that I looked awesome. In total, I tried on maybe 5 dresses.

Now, this is totally a personal preference, but I really wish I hadn't made my decision that day. It was my first experience shopping, and I was so overwhelmed by it all. Not only do I wish that I had shopped somewhere else in addition to that place, but I also wish I had tried a different kind of store altogether -- a small boutique or some place more modern. I might have landed on the exact same dress, but I would have felt a peace-of-mind knowing that I couldn't get that dress out of my head.

And, by the way, I love the women I shopped with. They were perfect on this day. Not too pushy, very good listeners. But I wish I could have just gone with my mom. She's seen Say Yes To The Dress too, and that day, she was doing everything she could not to be an overly opinionated you-gotta-be-kidding-me-kelly kind of mom. She was basically an angel, but in that, I didn't get to have a quiet moment with her to really reflect on the tradition and meaning of the whole event.

I'm into that kind of thing though. If you're not, you do you.

Do-Over #9: I would ask my friends to be my bridesmaids in some deliberate way.

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I like a lot of what it is happening in the above picture save for the word "maid". To me, that word is synonymous with "housekeeper" which is a fine profession, but you don't really need to paint a box to ask someone to be your housekeeper. If you want to ask someone to be in your wedding, say "bridesmaid" so that it doesn't feel all Downton Abbey up in here.

But anyway, that's beside the point. Making a cute little box with little remembrances and letters to ask your friend to be a bridesmaid -- that is the way to go.

The way I did it is not necessarily wrong. Basically, I just straight up asked them. Some, I asked over coffee. Others, I conveniently asked in the midst of a great conversation wherein I was thinking about how much I loved them. This happened with my friend Kaley who I asked to be my maid of honor while standing in a bathroom. She mentioned this during her speech at my wedding, which probably should have made me slightly embarrassed, but I had lost all self-awareness at that point.

This is pretty much how I felt the entire time at my wedding: deliriously happy knowing that I looked good and everyone loved me. 

The women who you ask to be in your wedding party are unique creatures in your life. They have been in the trenches with you. They love and support your relationship with your husband. They know you. They have literally watched as boogers fall out of your nose and into your mouth as you are crying. These women deserve to be shown some serious love before and during your wedding.

Which reminds me...whichever bride first decided to write heartfelt letters on the bottoms of your bridesmaid's shoes...

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...I love you in that I think you are probably an incredibly thoughtful person who I would love to spend some quality time with. I am frustrated with you because almost nothing in this world has made me want a time machine more than the above picture. Why. Did. I. NOT. Do. This?!

Do-Over #10: I would wait a day to leave for my honeymoon.

We woke up at 5:30 AM the day after our wedding to catch a plane to Playa Mujeres, Mexico.

The view from our balcony at Excellence Playa Mujeres

You might not want to wait to get going on your trip either after seeing the above picture, but believe me, you should because the thing about having the best day of your life is that you are exhausted by the end of it. You have spent the entire day of your wedding getting ready, the entire evening partying with your favorite people in the world, and the entire night doing some very grown up things. By the time it's all over, you're like:

Waking up at 5:30 AM the day after your wedding feels like waking up in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. You will not be able to recognize any person around you, not even your new husband, as someone who loves you and does not want to eat your brains. Everyone is the enemy at 5:30 AM the day after your wedding. There is really no reason that you should know what the world looks like at that time ever, especially the day after your wedding.

Just sleep in, stay in bed all day, count each other's fingers and toes (or whatever it is you do alone as a married couple), and leave the next day at 10 AM.

Stay in Playa Mujeres for as long as you can, and while you are there, consider never leaving.

Do-Over #11: I would skip out on the unity candle.

If you get to a part of your wedding ceremony where you think to yourself why am even I doing this? chances are, you shouldn't be doing it (I am hoping that in your case you are not asking this question about getting married in general).

We had that moment when lighting our unity candle. Everything up until that point had been all about gracefully holding hands, looking longingly into each other's eyes, and feeling like every moment had incredible meaning.

I could have done this all day.

When it came time to light the unity candle, we were kind of like, oh wait, we have to do something now? Our flow was just totally interrupted. We waddled over to the little table, fumbled with the candle sticks, said aloud, "Are we doing this right?", lit the big candle, narrowly missed setting my dress on fire, sweated a little bit, and then waddled on back to our spot in front of our pastor. It felt absolutely pointless.

My point is this: Wedding traditions are great, but feel free to skip out on the ones that are just not right for you. Even when we were planning our ceremony, I was not on Team Unity Candle. Nothing against anyone who has done it for their wedding. Several of my friends went the unity candle route, and they loved the symbolism. But it just wasn't for us.

If it's not for you either, try planting a tree, painting a picture, or if you're really awesome...

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...do what this couple did and have a Unity VOLCANO!

Or just don't do anything at all. Cross my heart, no one will notice and if someone does say something to you about it, feel free to have some body-builder cousin remove them from the wedding.

Do-Over #12: I would hug my mom and dad before getting in the getaway car.

This is probably a no-brainer to you because you are not a heartless monster like me, but y'all, hug your parents before you leave your wedding. As soon as we drove off, I realized immediately that I had not done so and I almost made Daniel drive back. 

It's an easy thing to forget because, if you're lucky, this is what your exit will look like:

Sweaty bubble MADNESS! 

How can you remember your own name in this mass of insanity, let alone, remember the fact that you have parents who changed your diapers and sent you to college? 

Regardless, find them and hug them. Assuming you have good parents, they are worth honoring in this way. Also, parents, make yourselves findable and huggable! I'm not sure my mom and dad were even around in this mess of people, so had I remembered, I would have had to wait for them to push through the mob scene. 

P.S. While we are on the subject of getaways, I would also change into a comfortable exit dress. Before my wedding, the thought didn't even cross my mind. This is the most expensive thing I've ever worn! I am keeping it on until it disintegrates. But by the end of the night, that dress was basically just a huge sweaty curtain clinging to my body. To me, there are only two options: change your dress or be less of a sweaty person.

Do-Over #13: I would have remembered certain details.*

I had a fiesta-themed wedding and no piñata! Again, this will not be the death of me, but how cool would it have been to smash a piñata while wearing a wedding dress?!

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Answer: So damn cool. Man, this bride just gets it. You can also use the piñata as a substitute for cutting the cake together, which as I'm sure you can imagine, feels plain weird. Why is it that I have been cutting cakes just fine on my own my entire life, and now that I'm married, suddenly I'm too weak to do it by myself? It just doesn't seem right. 

Anyway, the silver lining is that we had little piñatitas on the tables. They were kind of the cutest thing I've ever seen. 

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Another fiesta-related detail we missed...we didn't have a mariachi band!

Okay, cool it, Julia Roberts. A mariachi band would have been great, but again, it's not the worst thing in the world. 

There were also some details that we did plan for and then just totally forgot about the day of. For instance, we had this strange obsession with getting the groomsmen to wear matching socks so that they could take a picture like this:

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We bought the socks, handed them out to the groomsmen to their giddy surprise. We also bought a fancy sombrero with which to take quirky fiesta pictures with. Then, the day of, no one told the photographer about any of this stuff.

And by the way, we had the best photographer, I think, ever (Lauren Guy Photography...Texas wedding or event? Check her out). But even the best photographers in the world aren't mind-readers. How was she supposed to know these guys were wearing matching socks or that I had secret dreams of wearing a sombrero with a wedding dress? If you have specific requests like this, tell your photographer. They would be happy to hear it. 

Again, silver lining, all of my pictures were better than I could have ever planned for them to be. Your photographer always knows better. 

*Here's the thing about this do-over that made me hesitate to even write it -- Try as you might, you are going to miss some details. Two weeks from your wedding, you are going to realize that one thing that was so blatantly obvious that you can't believe you missed it. 

But who cares? You're married. 

My heart breaks for the woman who plans so feverishly for this one amazing day that she hardly has a moment to contemplate how different everything is going to be for the days that follow. Marriage is this beautiful, powerfully confusing, sometimes nauseating, complex covenant that has an effect on us in profound ways that we are all woefully unprepared for. It is something with gravity. It is something worth your meditation. It is something precious, but it is also something hard. 

If you miss every single detail of your wedding, but you honor your marriage for the rest of your life, I say, best wedding ever. 

If I think of anymore Do-Overs, you'll be the first to know. I hope that in some way my experiences have been able to help give you a peace of mind for your special day. Trust me. You're going to be fine. Just don't trip, and if you do trip, turn it into some kind of artful tumble, if you can. 

And by the way, to be sure, I also did a lot of things totally right at my wedding. To bring this mother of a blog post on home, here are my....

Wedding Do-All-Over-Agains:

1. I would skip the receiving line and just dance with everyone instead.

And I would be sure to make this fabulous face as often as possible.

2. I would serve alcohol...because dancing.

3. I would use cornhusk flowers for my bridesmaids bouquets because they are on-theme and super cost-effective.

4. I would relish in public displays of affection.

5. I would request that my maid of honor wear the following hat while we get ready.

6. I would blow this fan up my dress because Texas is hot, y'all.

7. I would write my husband a letter for him to read while he's getting ready.

8. And speaking of my husband, my Lord, I would marry that guy all over again and again and again.

Please be sure to pin this on Pinterest so that other brides can learn from my mishaps! 

Also, if you're liking this advice and the baby GIFs, feel free to follow Avoiding Atrophy (you can do so on the right-hand side of this page). 

Thanks for being here today, and special points to anyone who actually made it through every word of this thing. 

Looking for more of my wedding wisdom and tips? Check out Avoiding Atrophy's wedding section! 

If I Had It To Do All Over: Wedding Planning

A working knowledge of 90s country music was an essential and inescapable aspect of growing up in Helotes, Texas. In PE, we would run laps to Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" and we would often quote George Strait's "Check Yes or No" in carefully crafted love letters. No matter what level of hipster you are, if you grew up in Helotes, chances are you know this song by Alan Jackson (don't deny it).

This song came into my mind recently when I was thinking back on my wedding day. Like my good friend Alan here, I would marry the same person all over again. His name is Daniel. He looks like this:

On our wedding day, he looked like this:

Obviously, it's a no-brainer. Given the chance to redo my wedding, I would choose Daniel every single time. However, there are some things that I would definitely do differently. Don't get me wrong -- I loved my wedding. It was the best day ever. Most of my regrets are just details that stem from the fact that Pinterest became a big thing about a minute after we said "I do". Now I have a constant feed of incredible wedding ideas that seemed otherwise unavailable to me at the time that I was planning my wedding. 

Anyway, I don't have it to do all over, but maybe my hindsight could be someone else's foresight. Here now, for your bridal edification, is my list of Wedding Planning Do-Overs:

Do-over #1: I would wear an objectively sane outfit 

whilst getting ready.

If you can't make out exactly what is happening in the above picture, that is because it is a HOT MESS. I am wearing bright pink shorts and a tank top that features a rhinestone octopus. Grace Kelly wore a similar ensemble the morning of her wedding (in a nightmare that David Tutera once had). My bra straps are proudly visible and I am eating Wheat Thins like it is my job. Feel free to Pin this because it's clearly a style you will want to emulate on the most important day of your life.

Wait. I can't even joke about that. Don't save this picture to your Pinterest or anywhere, for that matter. Forget you ever saw it. Always remember that you could be immortalized in a photograph at any moment during the day of your wedding. Just channel Beyoncé and everything will be fine. Flee from bedazzled sea creatures. Hide your bra straps like your life depends on it. Wear a delicate robe like this:

Pssst...if you're totally smitten, here's a link to buy this robe!

and stop eating all of the Wheat Thins (although, seriously, how can you?). 

Do-over #2: I would paint the soles of my shoes blue.

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I don't really get the point of most wedding traditions (throwing rice kills birds and garters itch like hell), but I wanted to adhere to them because it was like a game for me. I don't think I had something blue, which probably destines Daniel and I for destruction. I could have prevented that if I'd painted my soles blue. Plus, they'd be so cute in pictures! If you're digging this idea, there are also some fabulous slip resistant sole stickers that might be a better temporary solution.

Do-over #3: I would have a videographer.

Ladies (and gentlemen maybe?), I am here to tell you that, regrettably, I do not have video footage from my wedding. 

You are crying for me right now. I know it. This is the saddest thing you've heard all day.

Trying to do as much as possible on the cheap, I thought that moving images from that day would be something I could do without. What a fool I was. I would give anything for any kind of video documentation of our wedding. 

Get a videographer, folks. If you cannot afford a videographer, slap a GoPro on the head of your five-year-old cousin and see what happens (this is actually an amazing idea. Do this regardless of your financial situation.) There is so much going on (drunk people fighting, amazing dance moves, YOU WALKING DOWN THE AISLE). You will miss something, and a video is a great way to relive it. 

You probably already knew this. I'm the only idiot I know who doesn't have a wedding video.

There is a silver lining, though. I had an amazing photographer (Lauren Guy Summersett...book her) who captured so much of my day in great detail. Without video, I am able to leave pictures like the following up for hilarious interpretation:

Do-over #4: I would remember to smile 

when walking down the aisle.

I super dropped the ball on this one. In imaging myself walking down the aisle, I always assumed I might cry a little. I mean, I once cried watching an episode of Full House. To be fair though, it was the episode where Papouli dies, and I had mono so I was a little disoriented. 

Anyway, I was prepared to shed a tear, but nothing really could have prepared me for the moment those doors opened, and this amazing song was being beautifully sung, and my husband was standing there waiting for me. There's just nothing like that.

And it wasn't a pretty cry. Smiling through the tears was the last thing on my mind. I was a mess. 

The picture above is the BEST picture of me walking down the aisle. At best, I look slightly annoyed. At worst, I look like I've fallen asleep midway through. So remember to smile, ladies! Your photographer will thank you.

Do-over #5: I would recommend that my guests use a hashtag (#oshoneywedding) for Twitter and Instagram.

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I saw something like this on Pinterest like two weeks after my wedding and I was like....

It was very upsetting. Why oh why didn't I think of that?! I love hashtags. I love seeing pictures of myself with an X Pro II filter. It is the perfect marriage of things I love. 

We are now well into the 2000s at this point, people. Unless you do not care about this kind of thing, you have no excuse not to post a hashtag at your wedding. Not to be dramatic, but you might be clinically insane if you do not do this. I'm just saying...

Do-over #6: I would honor, in some major way, everyone who helped with our wedding. 

I could not be more thankful to the people who were a part of our wedding. Literally everyone who was there did something incredible for us. My dad risked his life hanging papel picado all over our reception space. We had four of the most giving women I've ever known literally set up every other decoration. Our musicians were our incredibly talented friends who set the tone for our beautiful ceremony. My five bridesmaids were rock stars. Emily and her now fiance, Michael, put together our entire rehearsal dinner. Kaley wrote and performed a song as her wedding toast. Lara traveled all the way from Knoxville so that I could steal the covers from her in the bed we shared the night before the wedding. My sister, Johanna, fed me grapes like I was Cleopatra or something. Daniel's sister, Jessica made me laugh so hard I almost died. 

We gave some small gifts to everyone, but I wish we had done so much more. As much as a wedding is about the bride and groom, it is so much also about all of the beautiful people that God puts in your life. There are two things from that day that will always be crystal clear memories for me. The first is when I walked down the aisle to Daniel. The second is this moment:

All of these selfless, wonderful people who have my deepest respect and love decided to dance like fools around us as Daniel and I danced to "Dream a Little Dream of Me". It was kind of perfect, and it was a moment that embodied exactly how loved we felt on that day. 

When we get famous, we'll probably buy all of these people corvettes or at least Target gift cards or something. 

Lastly, Do-over #7: I would have bought something nice on which to hang my dress.

Plastic hangers make the most expensive item of clothing of your life look like it was bought off the rack at Marshall's (no judgement if it was). 

Get yourself one of those pretty wooden hangers like they have at Anthropologie. Better yet, get one of these fancy hangers where the wire identifies who you are. You'll be glad you did. 

Buy this one here! 

There you have it. These are just a few small regrets from a day that brought me so much joy that I still can't stop talking about it. Just so you don't leave this post thinking that I regret my marriage, it is probably a good idea to show you some things from my wedding that I got right.

My Wedding Do-All-Over-Agains

1. I would wear this dress.

and I would make this same I-know-I-look-good face

2. I would spend the day with these beautiful women.

3. I would have a whimsical theme and not care if anyone thinks it's weird.

4. I would shake this maraca.

5. I would do my own makeup so that I don't end up looking like this:

6. I would have it in Austin, Texas.

Vintage Villas

7. I would marry this guy...all over again.

Please share this post on Pinterest and elsewhere so that future brides can learn from my not-so-terrible mistakes! If you'd like to learn about more ways to avoid weird mistakes in life, feel free to follow Avoiding Atrophy (in the column on the right side) because seriously I write about this junk all the time. 

Move on to Part Two of this post for even more Wedding Do-Overs! 

Lastly, I've compiled some product ideas from this post below. Hope these are helpful in prepping for your super stellar upcoming wedding!

What are some of your wedding planning do-overs?