Bunnies has house keys... to our new home together.

Need some family crest animals?

Real Bride. Real Cool.

  

For my first ever Real Bride feature I will be sharing a delight of a gal who is currently less than 2 weeks away from gettin' hitched (9-10-11)! Her and her partner are crafting a fabric-pennant-banner-fabric-flower-red-barn-salt&pepper shaker-escort-card wedding of amazing cuteness. And it's mostly found at Mighty Market, a kind of handmade swap meet shop. I first found her on a blog I no longer read where we both lost a photography giveaway! Her name is Emily Pauline Fanny Dart-McLean and she has the best/funniest/shortest/randomest/craftinest blog ever. She has really cool weekly features like Cat Whisperer (in which Ava and I have partaken), Bedazzled, Workin' for the Weekend and more.

Here is what she would like to share!

1. What is your and your partner's names?
Emily Pauline Fanny Dart-McLean & Alexander Timm Harris

2. How old are y'all (optional)
twenty six years old

3. How long have you been together?

six delightful years

4. How long have you been/will you be engaged?

One year and three months (at the time of the nuptials)

5. What is the theme/main idea of the wedding?

It has quite a few themes, rustic, whimsical, outdoors, vintage (a real amalgamation if you know what I mean).

6. How are you sourcing items for the wedding?

It's a combination of our own loving labor (not to mentioned bickering labor...not often), as well as thrift stores, rental spaces (for the essentials: tables, chairs, etc.), as well as donated items/ time from our dear family and friends.

7. Any difficulties? Unforeseen? Anticipated?

We have attended quite a few weddings in the last couple of years. As observer we've noticed that something always goes a little wrong. Alex's lovely aunt passed on some wonderful advice early on in our planning "if you are married at the end of day, everything went right." That has been my mantra, which has kept our planning spirits high!

8. Are animals included in the wedding in any way?

The wedding is taking place at Alex's parent's beautiful abode. They live out in the country, 5 acres, a barn, the works. Their beloved family dog, Bailey Anne (a beauty of a golden retriever), will be greeting guests. I tell that dog every time I see her "to start practicing not jumping  on my dress." I imagine she will wear a handmade flower on her collar (or something of that nature).

9. Honeymooning?

We have the good fortune of going to Costa Rica for two glorious weeks. Alex's older brother (my soon to be brother-in-law) is graciously buying our honeymoon flights. He's a generous man....and ladies he's single.

10. Favorite food to eat together?

It's tough, we have so many favorites. Monday night Pho dates (Mo Pho), Thai food, anything with  spice.

11. What does a good day spent together consist of?

A good day spent together, is a day spent together. We thoroughly enjoy one another's company in many respects (this looks like laying around the house listening to music, going for walks, traveling somewhere, talking...listening).

12. What don't you like to do together?
hmm...

13. Care to share a blog/link/youtube (cat) video?

me: http://www.himynameispaulinefanny.blogspot.com/

Alex: http://www.work-party.com/

I highly recommend going over there to visit and catch up on all her amazing finds and projects that are completed, and to wish her and Alex well for their big day fast-approaching!
UPDATE 09/30/11: WEDDING PICTURES!

Us : 1 Day Before Marrieds

Found this in Shawn's mom's camera shots from the rehearsal. Awwww...

Happy Met-you-Versary, my Love

Shawn... 4 years ago now, at this moment, I was finishing my first day at Urban Outfitters getting the store opened with dozens of strangers I knew no more than you.
Unknown to us we were about to do something that would forever change our lives: we were about meet for the first time ever after finding out each other existed. This huge monumental thing that gave me a partner I have never been without since and will never be without happened exactly 4 years ago in a little over a half hour.
Can you believe it?!
I love you Shawn. Forever and a little longer just like I promised at our wedding.

Mr. + Mrs. Shoes

Well... Mr. has shoes...

Ovarian Cancer Awareness

I'm sorry I have been MIA lately. Without going into too much personal detail, let me say that I had some pain in my abdomen that spread into my lower back and down my thighs. It was episodic at first but it took a hold of me today so hard that I, who NEVER goes to the doctor evar, called and begged the nurse to let me come to the office. After several, ahem, fun tests it was found I have a two inch cyst on my right side. Cancer runs in my family and the only thing that made the pain better was knowing it wasn't cancer.

I found some sad and shocking facts about the rates or ovarian cancer, which is the deadliest form of ladies-only cancers:

Ovarian Cancer Statistics

In 2007 (the most recent year numbers are available)—

20,749 women in the United States were diagnosed with ovarian cancer.†

14,621 women in the United States died from ovarian cancer.

†Source: U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group. United States Cancer Statistics: 1999–2007 Incidence and Mortality Web-based Report. Atlanta (GA): Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Cancer Institute; 2010.

Bear in mind that the number of women who lose their lives every year from ovarian cancer do not all have a diagnosis of having the cancer. So please, tell your sisters, mothers, aunts, friends and any other ladies you love to keep up on their yearly checkups. They're not fun, but neither is dying from cancer.

I dedicate this post to all my family members who have had cancer. Some include my Dad, Aunt Carrie, Shawn's momma Donna, and many others.

Entirety of Wedding Photos

Long story short, I was having a bit of a time getting all of the wedding photos back... well, let me tell you two things: it was worth the wait, and WATCH OUT for swooooony pictures ahead!

All by Dawn Pohlen

Catch the Bouquet

My MOH Meaghan was hell-bent on catching my toss bouquet. However, when the time came for the bouquet toss, she was nowhere to be found!!! I am so glad I picked "This Will Be" by Natalie Cole for the toss music; I always want to hear it twice and we had to in order to kill enough time for Meaghan to run in from wherever she was (decorating my car, I now know)!

She ran in, I stood on a chair and heaved!

I heard giggles, skittering and gasps. Apparently the bouquet hit the porthole windows!

I turned around and our friend Maren who works with Shawn's sister Heather had caught it perfectly! We all had a giggle and continued to party!

PS: Sorry I don't have any pictures of the toss... (and that's all we'll mention about that...)

Godfamily

I was born in Michigan, and I am an only child.

The fact I was an only made it very important to my parents to select Godparents for me when I was very young, should something ever happen to them before I grew up. They picked a couple who had 2 daughters of their own, who they had known for a long time. I grew up with their girls, we had Christmases together at their log cabin home, and have played dress-up with them many, many times with their (amazing) dress-up collection.

Our families were best-friends. I loved their kids and them, and we all loved each other like, well, family. Then we moved out to Nebraska. I hadn't talked to the family for a long while when Shawn + I got engaged; I never expected them to come to the wedding, especially not all of them. But they did! And they gave us lovely gifts to boot.

Cheyenne, Me, Marissa

D.Pohlen

Uncle Tom

D.Pohlen

That day a lot of my family and friends surprised me by showing me just how much they loved us. And I learned what family really is and how large ours is now. It's wonderful!

HiLLjO's Flowergirls + Kate Moss's Flower Girls



D.Pohlen

Similar lighting and softness. And they're ALL cute.



From VOGUE

 Thanks for coming by if you're coming from Green Wedding Shoes! Long live GWS!!!

Jeannie Gold - 3: Colored Shadows

This week I am inspired by colored shadows.

No, not the museum exhibit! Actual shadows that have color to them from light casting through a translucent/transparent pigmented object!

I caught a glance of my heart sunglasses in my shadow last week and have been in love with translucent colored films since.

I have found some mod-comme-80's inspiration with contemporary artis Martin Neuhaus. He makes lamps from retro plastic neon-colored cups.

So this is what the Jeannie Gold for next week will center around: neon, hearts, + 80's. I'll see if I can't design another gown to go with this.

And NO it will not be similar to the November Rain video's gown. lolz.

Did you just have a flashback, momma?

Homemade Wedding Cake

Quite possibly the first thing I envisioned for our wedding was a DIY cake made by myself.

I have made many cakes in the last 4 years or so for family and friends. Birthday cakes, graduation cakes, groom's cake... some had my homemade buttercream on them, some had fondant coverings, some were sheet-cakes, some were tiered cakes. They were all delicious, of course ;o)

But I have never had the opportunity to rise up to the challenge of making a wedding cake. They have to look and taste good while being structurally sound.

So I prepped for this cake like any other cake I make: I made a sketch, made recipes, and designed it up. We chose to make a 3-tier multi-flavored wonderment covered in ivory textured buttercream and fresh flowers. Of course we got the bunny cake topper!

My Design

You may or may not know but Shawn and I are organic foodies. So choosing the ingredients for my cakes is not as typical as picking out a box-mix and walking to the checkout at Hy-Vee. I use whole wheat pastry flour, farm eggs, non-homogenized whole milk, real unsalted pastured-cow butter, and the like. This makes for a high-quality texture cake with an amazing fresh flavor. I was even told by the neighbor [who mills his own wheat] at the wedding that "I make good cake."

The top layer was green tea for us, middle layer was animal cracker (everyone's request and favorite), and the bottom was good ol' marble.

Unfortunately, being a bride and baking your cake doesn't always work out. Fortunately I was able to bake it. More fortunately, while Shawn and I had to run off to meet with the DJ (before all hell broke loose Wednesday night starting with the bachelor/bachelorette) my wonderful Maid of Honor Meaghan and Shawn's (and now my!) Aunt Dee helped to ice it and assemble each layer! I showed them my design, what I wanted the icing to look like and they. just. did it. Like freakin' Nike.

When I finally got to see it after Aunt Dee assembled it at the wedding venue, I just got all teary! I had made a wedding cake, finally! And although I didn't get to decorate it all by myself, it was even more special to me that I was able to let it go and trust my family to help me. I learned so much just from that cake!

PS: At the end of the night, one of Shawn's friends who had jokingly told me he would be taking the rest of they cake home--did. It was half of that large bottom layer there. The whole thing. Gone.

PPS: At least someone got to eat it! We only got the piece we gave to each other... oh well!

FREE Favicon Design

I don't know if you have noticed but lately blogger has come out with some new features to brand your blog! One of these is using a Favicon. Instead of the Orange Square with white Blogger B, you can now use any square image 100KB or less!

If you would like one but don't care to make one or you don't have time, I would LOVE to make you one for free. It just gives me a happy skip in my heart.

Just email me or leave a comment here and I will get on it!

LoLz...Bun can u beleevs we were at teh zoo last year today?

Indeedz... I do haz a happy!

Shawn and I were engaged precisely a year ago, give or take a half hour!!! Here's the story that you can find on the proposal page, in honor of today!

-------------------------fake page break!-----------------------------------------------------------------

Shawn had asked me the previous week to take off the 9th and 10th of August to "look at some houses to buy." The plan was to both have two weekdays together to drive by some houses and then Tuesday hopefully look through some. Shawn also said there would be more than enough time to go to the zoo on that Monday, as we LOVE to frequent the zoo.

He dressed up a little, which made me dress up a little, and we left for the day. We got there and looked at several exhibits before Shawn made the suggestion to me that we go to the butterfly house, which is my favorite. I happily agreed and we made the long journey up the giraffe hill, sweating all the way.

When we arrived there, we were the only two entering the exhibit. We walked in and I started down the path to take a closer look at a larger butterfly while Shawn appeared to be looking at the large pond in the middle of the pavillion.

Happened right here, people!!!

He called me over all excitedly to the pond where he was bent down over the water. As I went over to him, he held his cupped hands out to me and said "I got one!" As I looked at his hands, he opened them slowly leaving me to find the strangest butterfly I'd ever seen... an engagement ring!
I looked at him with tearfilled eyes and we hugged as I said "YES!" over and over. It was perfect.

Our Wedding Jewelry

Lucky Elephant Bracelet that I won!!!

Shawnie in his handmade bunny plugs from etsy seller arksendeavors. She makes RAD plugs.

Close up of Shawn's jewelry with the bunny plugs!

Shawn's Nana's Necklace.

Shawn's mother wore this the day she was married (my to-be birthday years before) but we didn't realize it until after she let me borrow it.

Clockwise from upper left: Daisy ring from my parents for my 16th birthday; I wore it the night before when my ring was taken away for the wedding! My mother's grandmother's ring made of blood coral; Lucky Elephant bracelet again; wedding ring. PS: Yes, I did get a manicure but no, I did not wear fake nails! I just wanted them painted a nice light-almost-white pink.

Photo I took of our hotel-gift champagne cork; Shawn's pocket watch from his Papa in California; and my resting bouquet.

My "Something Old." Shawn's Grandma's hanky with my hand embroidery of the monogram and date in white. The pin is one of two that my mother's grandma gave to her. I wore one and mom had the other!

Nose ring! Or should I say Naath? I wish someone would have said "Come here..." and brushed my bangs out straight. Immediately after the wedding I started looking like myself, with disheveled hair, once again!

What do you guys think?!

Wedding Pictures of Us

Credits: D.Pohlen, friends, & family.

For more photos, click here.