Lucky In Love: Planning Our Wedding

Engaged to be married in July of 2012 we really are one of the happiest couples you will ever meet!

It seems that we are almost always having fun and laughing about one thing or another. I laugh more now than I have ever laughed with any previous relationship, and the only time I can remember having so much fun was when I was a carefree teenager and in my early 20's. What can one say but this enjoyment of each other is so very important to have with the love of your life.

Photos found on this article are ©Jolene Belmain.

Other images are from Karen Whimsey

Proposal Day

It happened one Saturday while I was at work. Otto brought the kids (I have 3 from a previous marriage) into the living room and asked them all to sit, because he had something very important to ask them.

Once they were all sitting, he pulled out a ring, and asked all three of the kids if it was okay if he asked "Mom" to marry him.

Since Otto has filled the role of being their stepfather for almost a year now he felt that it was very important to get their approval first before asking me. The reply was one huge, excited "YES!!!" from all of the children unanimously.

The girls wanted to see the ring (who says diamonds aren't a girls best friend?) and my son just kinda made a "that's cool" gesture and went on his way.

Otto arranged sleepovers for all three of the kids, then dropped them off, so he would have plenty of time to set up our special night. Four-thirty rolled around and he came to pick me up from work. He told me he was going to take me out for dinner. This meant that we had to go home first so I could change out of my work clothes.

As soon as we got home he flipped off his shoes and went straight to the bedroom. I took off my shoes, hung my coat up, and then made my way to the bedroom as well.

When I walked through the bedroom door there he was on bended knee with the tiny box in his hand, slightly opened, so I could see the beautiful ring before me. When he asked the big question, I was so surprised that at first I was speechless. Then allowing the words to enter my brain, there was nothing more I could say but "Of course I will". Honestly, nothing would make me happier than to marry my best friend.

Was this the actual song we ended up using? Did our wedding day go off as planned? You'll have to read my "Lucky In Love Wedding Day" article to find out.

It didn't take us very long to figure out what the theme of our wedding was going to be. Four leaf clovers and the theme "Lucky In Love" just seemed to fall into place absolutely perfectly.

We wanted our wedding colours to be easy to match and find things for. Obviously, with four leaf clovers as our theme, we wanted green as our main color (that and green is my favourite colour). Then we added in black and white into our secondary theme colours... simple enough.

We did some research on the internet looking for four leaf clover wedding theme items and found the most beautiful confetti..... from HONG KONG of all places. I was pleasantly surprised when I ordered them on a Wednesday and my shipment arrive the following Monday. The other great news was that there were no hidden fees showing up at the last minute. Talk about excellent service... I was thrilled to say the least.

Not all weddings need to be traditional... step out of your shell a bit, and just have a blast with it!!

If this is the just the ceremony can you imagine what the reception will be like?

I made our invitations from scratch, even purchased a program for designing cards etc. I had scanned our four leaf clover confetti, and placed it as a background on our invitations and Otto printed off a bunch of pictures of us. A couple of the wedding party came over one night to help me do up some of the invitations.

Once I had printed them all off of our computer, and cut them using a scrapbook cutter, we started gluing all of the pictures on them. Second came the ribbon on the side (Most of those I had pre-cut as well). The finishing touch was gluing one single piece of our special confetti onto the top corner of our invitations.

The poem on our invitations read:

Best friends forever

we will be

walking hand in hand

for all to see

for this very day

we shall wed

please join us today

as our vows are read

It took me an entire day to build our card box, but by the end of it, it was worth every minute. Not to mention is came out looking EXACTLY how I had pictured it in my head.

I started with measuring and cutting all of the white ribbon, then glued the strips going downward. After I had them fastened with glue, I reinforced it with what else but... DUCT TAPE!

Then I measured and cut all of the black ribbon. The weaving and straitening took quite a bit, but I couldn't have been happier with the result.

Now to add in some green.... my Aunt gave me a four leaf clover scrap booking paper punch, and I had purchased these beautiful sparkly green papers from the dollar store. At the time of purchase of these I had absolutely no clue what I was going to use them for, but knew I would find something. The papers were so thick I had to use my foot to get enough force to punch out the clovers, but yet again... it was well worth the effort. Countless hours later, and my finishing product looks great!!

This box also doubles as our keepsake box that I can store and keep our most cherished wedding memories in.

Since we are having an outside ceremony, and our wedding theme is good luck, we were wanting the guests to be able to "shower" us with good luck. Throwing rice is not allowed, and we did not want to make a big mess with paper confetti (plus it is frowned upon now-a-days as not being too very environmentally friendly.), so we had to figure out what else to do.

Upon a bit of thought, we have decided to package up little paper bags (for recycling purposes) of birdseed for the guests. It seemed like the environmentally nice thing to do and it would make the birds happy too. Rice used to be thrown at weddings but if birds eat too much rice, it will swell up in their tummies, causing them to get very ill, sore, and perhaps even die. Gosh but we did not want that to happen on our wedding day.

With birdseed our guests would be able to "shower" us with good fortune and fruitfulness. While at the same time the birds (and not to mention the wildlife conservationists) will be pleased as well.

Here is what poem I made for the bags of seed...

Please grab a bag

and read the rhyme

so you know when to use

this bird seed on time

After all of the vows are said

from the groom and bride

the rings, kiss and papers

have all been done in stride

It's time to open up your bag

and very gently shower

love, luck and happiness

upon the couple of the hour

Please recycle these bags

when you are through

be good to Mother Nature

as she is good to you.

As we did further further research into our wedding planning we decided to make our own four leaf clover chocolates for the wedding. We found plastic four leaf clover chocolate molds that would work wonderfully with our wedding theme.

We also ordered green dye so we could make some of the four leaf clover chocolates in our theme colour. We are also thinking about possibly making fudge instead of chocolate. I guess you'll find out on my Lucky In Love Wedding Day article to see what we decide on.

We decided that we would be wrapping the chocolates or fudge in either black, or white tulle, and tying them with the opposite colored bows (black tulle with white or green ribbon, white tulle with black or green ribbon).

We also found our main parting gift on yet a different Internet site. They are beautiful votive candle holders which are customized with our names, wedding date, theme, and even a picture of a four leaf clover on it. We sure did a lot of Internet shopping for the wedding and it really helped to simplify things.

Guest list... all friends and family... DONE!

Our main parting gifts are also going to double as table decor... we will put 4 of the votive holders on each table (which are rectangle tables for 8 people), two of the holders will contain lit candles and 2 of them will contain white and green after dinner mints for the guests.

We are going to print our invitations from home. Using white card stock paper, and our scanner, we are going to scan our green confetti in a boarder type pattern so we can type our text within the glittery green clovers.

We are also planning on either placing 2 or 3 pieces of clover confetti in each envelope or attach the clovers to the invitations themselves we send out. That way people can really get a sense of what that evening will look like through our personalized invitations.

We have a friend who is going to show me how to make these beautiful tissue paper flowers, in our theme colours of course, which we will hang from the ceiling to beautify our space even more. Girls night of crafting wedding decorations here we come!

When it comes to the head table, we haven't quite gotten that far yet, but since we still have 13 months until our big day... I'd say we are well on our way.

I was looking at wedding stuff at the Dollar Store one day, and came across this plain, black guest book for $2.00. I figured I could pretty it up at home with some ribbon and our four leaf clover confetti... and this is how it turned out. Pretty darn great for a dollar store guest book, I'd say.

I also put two pieces of confetti onto each and every page on either side of "Guests". It's easy to save a little here and there if you are just willing to put in a few hours of time and a little bit of effort.

you'll have to check out my article called:

Love Of My Life and Soulmate