I so did not expect to be writing this post already, but in a bizarre turn of events, I just booked our honeymoon!

When we left off, Jason and I decided that we did not want to go out of the country for our honeymoon. We also didn’t really want to go anywhere within the US that we’d have to fly to — we wanted to take the car so we’d be able to do day trips, not worry about what we had to pack, always know where our luggage was, and, y’know, to save a boatload of money.

Things within driving distance (under 8 hours away, preferably) greatly limited our options, so we sat down and brainstormed a list of “must-haves” to narrow down where we actually wanted to go. Our honeymoon must-haves were:

-Relax on a beach/laze around in the hotel for a week
-Microwave and fridge in hotel room
-King-size bed
-Balcony with ocean view
-Jacuzzi tub for two in room
-Indoor and outdoor pool
-Places to go for day trips if we wanted

Our first thought was the Outer Banks in North Carolina, with images of white linens, adirondack chairs, lighthouses, and quiet beaches dancing in our heads.

Ahhhhh, this is the life. {Source}

However, then I started to research hotels, and my vision fell flat. A 4- or 5-night stay immediately blew our meager $2000 budget out of the water on accommodations alone — and that was before I realized there was a ridiculous hotel tax in the OBX. So, um, we could go and stay there…but we wouldn’t be able to afford the gas to get there or get home, we wouldn’t have any souvenirs, and we couldn’t eat. Sounds doable, right? WRONG. With a heavy heart I crossed Outer Banks off our list and moved on to find something else.

I freakin’ love the grey tile siding. {Source}

My next thought was Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. The hotel prices were very affordable, the scenery was picturesque, and it seemed like a nice, quaint place to get away from reality for a week. However, the more I researched it, the more I thought that it was maybe a little too quaint. It started to seem more and more like a place to go for a low-key anniversary trip, not a celebratory honeymoon. I also figured that, being so far up north, it might not be as warm as we would hope for a weeklong beach trip. So, Nantucket Island was off the list too.

My third idea was Virginia Beach. I’ve been to VA Beach before and I really enjoyed it, and it has the added bonus of being close to Colonial Williamsburg, which would be fun for a day trip. I suggested this to Jason and he seemed on board, and so I began my research. Immediately I had much better luck here than I had at any of the other locations I’d looked at thus far. There were a plethora of oceanfront hotels to choose from, and many of them were within our price range. Many of them also had a “resort” feel to them, with jacuzzi tubs, rooftop infinity pools, swim-up bars, spa services, and so on. I clicked through a couple websites and then opened up my trusty Google Docs to create a spreadsheet which would track the price of all of our different options.

After a couple of hours of research, I had about five different options to choose from. We weighed the pros and cons of each one, and felt that we had come to a decision on Hotel A. However, their website was a bit confusing — I couldn’t tell if the room type we wanted was an oceanview balcony room or not, and I also couldn’t tell whether it had a jacuzzi tub. If it was lacking either of those (which I was inclined to believe it was), then we would have to find something else, because those two things were must-haves for us. I filled out their info request form on their website asking those questions, figuring my email would fall to deaf ears (or…blind eyes?), and that if I didn’t hear back I would just call them to ask.

Well, surprise of surprises, today at 10am I got a call from a representative at Hotel A, saying that she had received my questions and wanted to discuss my options. She said that Hotel A did not have jacuzzi tubs or oceanview balconies — to get those things we would have to upgrade our room to one that cost almost $400/night, which is way out of our price range. She continued on to say that she had a few other options for us if I was interested. I was very impressed with how helpful, kind, and professional she was — I’m a stickler for good customer service, and she did not disappoint.

She asked me what my budget was and pulled up a few different options. Apparently Hotel A is part of a small hotel group in Virginia Beach, so reps from one hotel are able to pull info for the sister hotels and recommend the best options within their group based on your needs and budget. My rep went through a few options with me and I stopped her on one that sounded good. It had:

-King suite
-Guaranteed private oceanview balcony (every room in the building has an oceanview balcony)
-Jacuzzi for two
-Fridge and microwave
-Rooftop outdoor pool with poolside bar/grill
-Heated indoor pool with separate kiddie pools
-Spa facilities on-site
-Restaurant in hotel

If you’re comparing lists, you can immediately see that this Hotel B met and even exceeded our must-have list. She said that the price was listed as $290/night plus tax, but that she would be able to bring us down to around $260/night. This hotel was everything we wanted and more, how could I say no?

I asked for her name and phone number and told her that I would definitely call her back with our decision. I immediately emailed Jason and asked him what he thought of this, and checked reviews for the hotel in the meantime. Now, here’s where I started to feel some doubt. The hotel is only rated 3 stars on TripAdvisor, and has more 1-star reviews than 5-star or 4-star. Immediately that threw up giant red flags, but as I read through the countless pages of reviews, I noticed something — almost all of the 1-star “THIS HOTEL SUCKS!!!” reviews were from 2009 or earlier, which is before it was renovated. Most of the reviews from 2011 are 4- or 5-star, and the lower ratings were for silly things like, “There was a fly in our room!” (Um…sh*t happens?) or “The carpet looks outdated!” (Get over yourself?) or “Our sheets had a rip in them!” (Call concierge and get a replacement?)

Basically, all of the recent bad reviews were for petty things that, overall, wouldn’t impact our stay, or could easily be fixed. Plus, I looked at reviews for hotels I’ve stayed at and enjoyed, and found that they all had 3-star ratings on various websites too. So, hey, maybe I’m just easy to please, or maybe everyone who rates hotels online is a hotel snob, but I’ve never had a problem at any of those other 3-star rated hotels. I let Jason know about this, too (he’s a big fan of online reviews), but he shared my sentiment that people were probably just being snobby — because seriously, if the outdated-looking carpet completely ruins your stay, well, you really need a reality check.

So it was decided. On my lunch break, I called back my hotel rep and told her to go ahead and book it. I requested a renovated room (just in case) and asked that we have a room on a higher floor so that we would have a good view from our balcony. I’ve never seen a sunrise or sunset over an ocean before so I’m very much looking forward to enjoying that oceanview balcony!

But enough talk. Want to see what we have to look forward to? :D

Look. At. That. VIEW! {Source}

I plan to spend every morning just like this. {Source}

Hopefully while enjoying views like this. {Source}

Oh, and another random benefit of this hotel? It’s pretty far towards one end of the beach, so that section of beach/boardwalk doesn’t attract nearly as many crowds. I’m hoping for a fairly empty shoreline most days, because all I want to do is sit under a big umbrella, sip a cold drink, and r-e-l-a-x.

For as much as we hate traveling, we are both crazy excited about this trip. We can’t believe the awesome deal we found on this hotel (and we’re crossing our fingers that the 1-star review days are in the past!) and we can’t wait to be lazy bums for a week straight. Plus, now I have an excuse to buy a fun new bikini or two (or three)!

Did you run into any amazing deals when planning your honeymoon?

While we debate about where to go on our honeymoon, let’s talk some more about music, shall we?

Like I said before, music is a big thing for Jason and I. I think, especially in my case, sharing music with people is the one thing that can inevitably bring a smile to my face to matter what. There is nothing I love more than sharing one of my favorite songs with someone and seeing their face light up as they fall in love with it too, or hearing a song I love in a grocery store, at the mall, in a restaurant, and hearing someone at the next table humming along quietly to it just as I am. Sharing music creates an instant bond between any two people, and I am so hoping that our reception dance music can create a bond (even if only a momentary one) between the many groups of people from many walks of both of our lives. There may be a lot of strangers coming together, but for those few moments that everyone is on the dance floor belting to “Don’t Stop Believin’”, grooving to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, or having a crazy dance party to “Every Time We Touch”, the gaps are bridged and everyone has something in common. Creating our reception dance playlist is like creating a giant mix CD for everyone to love and enjoy, and I’m really having fun with the process.

One of the big reasons we wanted to self-DJ the reception (besides the budget!) was because we wanted complete control over what music is played. Our “do not play” list got dizzyingly long, to the point where any DJ would have looked at it and said, “Okay…so what can I play?” Our “do not play” list included common things like The Macarena, Cha Cha Slide, Chicken Dance, and all other dance routine songs. It included anything remotely country, and anything from the top 40/pop/rap/R&B artists except for very few songs that Jason and I can stand. Our “do not play” list became so long and limiting that it essentially became like we were making our own playlist by saying that X, Y, and Z songs were okay to play, but A through W songs were off limits. When we realized how much easier it would be to just be our own DJs, the decision was made. I “hired” a friendor to man the playlist switching for the night, and that was that. We were officially our own DJs.

Jason and I do have slightly different music tastes, though. We have a lot of overlap in the classic rock area, but for the most part we like a lot of different music. And let’s just say that Jason’s music is, for the most part, not dance-able. At all. When we first talked about creating the reception playlist, we decided that he would primarily take care of cocktail/dinner hour music, and I would primarily take care of the dance playlist. We’ve both had input on the other’s playlists, but we’re trying not to have too heavy a hand in the other’s playlist.

Now, those of you who know me in real life know that I’m a huge oldies fan. Specifically, I have a particularly strong love for Motown and similar music. For that reason, and for the reason that Motown seems to be the kind of music that fits my dancing style (I’m seriously an awkward dancer, guys), our reception playlist will have a lot of oldies on it. Some people might think is a recipe for disaster as far as getting anyone under the age of 50 to dance.

I promise our reception won’t look like this {Source}

However, I hold true to my belief that more people are oldies fans than realize it. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been iPod DJing in the car or at a party and played some Motown hit and everyone says, “Ohhh my gosh, this song!! I haven’t heard this song in years, I completely forgot about it!” and then thoroughly enjoys it. I think (I hope!) the same thing happens at our reception. Of course I’ll be throwing in some modern favorites as well, and some belt-your-lungs-out 80s ballads, and a lot of things in between as well.

My ultimate goal for the reception music is to have a mix of songs everyone loves, songs I love, songs that are good for dancing, songs that are fun to sing to, and songs that people have forgotten about and will be reminded of how much they love when they hear them. I want there to be a little bit of something for everyone: I want our grandparents and great aunts and uncles to dance just as much as my college-age friends. I want the people who go clubbing every weekend to have something to dance to just as much as I want my fellow awkward-dancers to have something to awkwardly dance to. I want couples to have plenty of slow songs to enjoy, and I want single people to not feel left out of all the fun. Most of all, because I know that no matter what I do there will be some people who just don’t want to dance, I want every single person to at least hear a song that makes them smile, evokes a memory, starts a conversation with a stranger, something.

So what kind of music am I thinking of playing? I don’t want to spoil all the fun, but I’ll share a few songs I’m really excited about.

Something for the older crowd…

{Ain’t No Mountain High Enough video via Youtube}

{Crocodile Rock video via Youtube}

Something for the younger crowd…

{Dynamite video via Youtube}

{Every Time We Touch video via Youtube}

Something for people in love…

{Just You ‘N’ Me video via Youtube}

And something for everyone.

{Don’t Stop Believin’ video via Youtube}

I’ve got about 2.5 hours of music so far, and I’d like to have 4 or more — not that I think people will dance for that long, but because I’d rather have too much music than not enough. Because I’m pretty sure people would notice if we repeated the playlist and they heard “Don’t Stop Believin’” twice in one night :)

Are you self-DJing your wedding? How did you make that decision? What kind of music are you playing?

Lately we’ve been thinking about where to go on our honeymoon. (Spoiler: it won’t be anywhere near the Seine.)

We also won’t be as fab-looking as these two… {Source}

Originally we weren’t going to take a honeymoon. We don’t really like to travel, and we figured it wasn’t really in the budget anyway. But as time went on, I started to think…maybe we should go somewhere. At least hang out in a nice hotel for a few days. After all, this is our one and only wedding, we might as well do it up right, right? Jason agreed. Honeymoon it was.

So then the question became: where are we going? Like I said, Jason and I kinda don’t like to travel. We’re homebodies. We both hate dealing with the logistics, the budget, the hassle of packing and unpacking, and especially flying. We hate trying to research things in a town we’ve never been to, like where to eat and what to see and how much it’s all going to cost. We’re still too young to rent a car, so that posed a huge transportation problem: if we flew somewhere, how would we get around once we got there? It all just seemed like such a headache.

One day we were visiting with Jason’s recently-married cousin and her husband, and they mentioned going to an all-inclusive resort. They went to one in Cancun for their honeymoon, and everything was included in the cost of the trip: roundtrip airfare, hotel room (in an adults-only resort!), private beach, every meal for every day, a 24-hour snack bar, and unlimited drinks. They said they paid around $2000 for the whole thing, which was right around what our budget is too. And the all-inclusive thing sounded like heaven. Spending a week lazing around a hotel and a private beach, eating as much as we wanted, whenever we wanted, without worry of spending more money than we have? Yes, please! They told us which travel agent office they went to and we headed there the next day.

And it was a complete failure. I could tell from the start that the woman who helped us was giving us that you’re-too-young-to-get-married pity look, and was treating us as such. She was the only person in the place, her desk was right by the front door, and we stood there looking at her awkwardly for a full minute in silence before she droned, “Yeah, what do you guys need?”

We sat down tentatively in front of her desk and told her that we were looking for an all-inclusive resort in the US. She gave a derisive laugh and told us that all-inclusives don’t exist in the US, and if we wanted that, we would have to go to Mexico. Immediately I could tell this appointment wasn’t going to go well. Jason and I were suddenly put on the spot, under the piercing, judgmental gaze of the travel agent: stay with our all-inclusive dream and go to Mexico, or stay in the US and have to plan and budget every meal and every penny spent ahead of time? This is kind of what we felt like:

{Source}

We had a half-hearted, muttered conversation with each other (while the travel agent’s eyes continued to bore unblinkingly into us, waiting impatiently for an answer) and finally the travel agent butted in and said she’d show us some options for all-inclusives in Mexico within our budget. This was not the direction Jason and I were leaning in (we were pretty much ready to leave right then and there) but we figured we’d stay and listen to a few options, so as not to be rude. She listed a few hotels in our price range and we listened patiently to the perks and disadvantages of each, all the while my head spinning with the logistics of traveling to Mexico: we would need passports, which is another expense, and what if we don’t get them in time? How can we be sure that the water we’d get at restaurants would be safe? It’s going to be really, really hot down there in July, which just sounds miserable. There are probably all kinds of gross (and poisonous!) bugs to deal with. What if one of us had to go to the hospital — how would we communicate with the doctors? What would the food be like? Would I be able to communicate my food allergies to them thoroughly? Would we have indigestion all day, every day? What if our luggage got lost on the plane? What if I got motion sick on the plane?

Clearly with all that going through my head at just the mere thought of going to Mexico, I would have no fun at all and be worried sick the whole time about everything if we actually went there. (I know it’s probably not as bad as I’m imagining, but still, there are real concerns there.) We politely told our travel agent we’d keep these options in mind and let her know if we had any further questions, took a few catalogs she handed us, and left as quickly as we could. When we got to the car, Jason echoed some of my concerns about traveling internationally. It was pretty clear to us from that point on that we would not be leaving the country, and would not be flying anywhere. Like I said — travel really just does not agree with us, and we’re perfectly okay with being boring like that.

But the question still remained. Where would we go? Where in the US would satisfy our desire for lazing-on-a-beach-for-a-week relaxation, without breaking the bank or becoming an itinerary nightmare? We certainly had a lot of research ahead of us.

How did you decide where to go on your honeymoon?

I’ve touched on centerpieces before: I mentioned that MOH Emily’s mom gave us a bunch of mason jars for free, and we had planned to use those in our centerpieces (because, despite trying to avoid the rustic/country/Anthropologie trend at all costs, we can’t say no to free). But I was torn about what to do with them: use them as vases, paint them, frost them, submerge flowers in them, forego flowers altogether and use them as luminarias…?? There were just too many options. I put centerpieces to rest for a bit while I focused on other things.

Last week, though, we found ourselves at Pat Catan’s (a local craft store — do other states have them too?) killing time before going to visit family. I wandered into the floral department, thinking that I’d just peruse to get ideas for my bouquet. Well, I was pretty stunned to find that Pat Catan’s has beautiful silk flowers and an even bigger selection than Michael’s. Immediately I began pulling stems and creating mock-up arrangements for tables, bouquets, boutonnières, and what-have-you. I was ecstatic at what I had come up with, but didn’t want to purchase anything that night. So, reluctantly, I put everything back and we left the store empty-handed (well, sort of — we did buy two yummy-scented candles, but that’s neither here nor there).

Fast forward to a few days ago, when we were back at Pat Catan’s once again to purchase a Christmas tree. We had a $10 off coupon, so I figured I might as well get the most of it — why not pick up some centerpiece flowers, too? I had centerpieces on the brain lately, anyway, after seeing the pretty green flowered centerpieces in the table mockups from the linen site. Remember these?

{via WeddingLinens.com / designed by me}

I had never really been a fan of the green flower look before, but the more I’ve been looking at bouquets and centerpieces and whatnot, I’ve grown to really like it. Seeing those green centerpieces on “our” tables really sealed the deal for me. So at Pat Catan’s that night, after setting down our Christmas tree next to the register so we could continue shopping without lugging it around, we headed back to the floral section and I spent an embarrassing amount of time picking through the green and white flowers to put something together. I knew I wanted something a bit “wild” looking — my favorite centerpieces look something like this:

{Source}

{Source}

{Source}

Kinda all over the place, but I think that the uniting factor is that they’re all “fluffy” looking: not too uniform or “put together”, but rather asymmetrical and balanced, which adds some visual interest and personality. I also like that some of them didn’t involve many stems (read: would be cheaper!), because I knew that a full 12″ bouquet for each table was definitely out of budget.

So, after a way-longer trip than we had planned, we came home with this:

{Personal photo}

Whaaaat the heck is that huge awful bush on the left?!, you might be asking. Don’t worry, I only bought one of those, to use tiny sprigs of in each arrangement/bouquet/boutonnière. I’m not using one bush per centerpiece :)

After a quick stem chop (for which I had to use my tin snips…hardcore) and some finessing, I lit the candles, turned out the lights, and had this:

{Personal photo}

I know, I know, the lighting is awful in that photo, but work with me here. It’s atmospheric. Actually, it’s just really hard to take low-light photos without a tripod. So, just for you, I broke my “never use flash ever” commandment so you can better see what we’re looking at.

{Personal photo…ignore Jason’s blue shirt draped over the chair in the background. Oops.}

Oh my goodness. I love them SO much. For $10 worth of silk flowers stuck in free mason jars, they turned out absolutely beautiful (if I do say so myself). They are perfect for our wedding, with their casual-yet-sohpsticated feeling, the greenery, the hint of pink (which is difficult to see in the photos) in the peony…gah. Love. The candles add the perfect amount of soft, glowing light. And perched atop our celadon-y tablecloths and surrounded by shiny wine glasses and silverware…it’s just going to be perfect.

We won’t purchase all of the flowers for all of the centerpieces at once, because a) we don’t know how many tables we’ll have, and b) we could potentially have up to 15 tables, which would mean around $150 for flowers, which is a lot of cash to drop at once. We will, however, be keeping an eye on Pat Catan’s to make sure they don’t discontinue any of our selections — if we get wind that that’s happening, we will snatch up 15 of whichever stem it is at once and know that we’re covered for our maximum number of possible tables. Otherwise, we’ll wait for sales and coupons, and buy our flowers a little bit at a time over the next seven months. That’s the benefit of using silk flowers (one benefit of many!) — no worries about them wilting in the interim :)

What are you doing for centerpieces? How did you decide what to do?

I’ve always been obsessed with having nice nails. Ever since I was allowed to start wearing nail polish, I’ve been completely enamored with keeping my nails nice, neat, and painted. I love the look of a perfect, shiny, square nail, but wearing fake nails really isn’t my thing, so I’ve always made an effort to keep mine long enough and filed into shape so that I can achieve that look without actually wearing falsies. For a while this was working out great, and with the addition of Shellac gel polish, I was able to get that mirror-finish, perfectly-polished look without feeling like I had plastic glued to the ends of my fingers.

Now, for the wedding, I’ve always known I wanted a French manicure. There is something about the perfect, square, “fake” nail look that is very “bride on her wedding day” to me. French manicures look so clean and polished and really make a plain hand look beautiful, and I really don’t think I’ll feel completely “like a bride” until I have French nails. I figured I would just grow my nails out, shape them into squares, and get a French manicure done in Shellac, easy peasy. I already kept my nails fairly long and square with hardly any problems, so it wouldn’t be much different for the wedding, right?

Well, one day a couple months ago, that all changed. Suddenly my once-beautiful nails were peeling, tearing, and flat-out breaking. They would peel and flake off in thin layers from the top surface of the nail, which would cause the nail that was left attached to be extremely thin and soft. Eventually that part of the nail would tear, and I’d have to cut down the whole nail to avoid that horrid nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling every time I touched anything.

It finally got to be too much, and in a fit of desperation I clipped them all down to below the tips of my fingers (shorter that I’d had them in years), getting rid of all the peeling tips and cutting down to the healthy part. I figured I’d grow the healthy parts back out into my former long, square, perfect nails, no problemo, and that my plan for a natural-nail French manicure for the wedding was still on.

Well, you can see how well that plan is going as evidenced by these pictures:

{Personal photo}

{Personal photo}

You can see the lovely diagonal breaks I’ve been getting on practically every nail, where half of the tip of my nail breaks off while half remains intact, creating a weird angled edge on my nail. I’ve been growing my nails out from the most recent mega-chop for, oh, maybe two months now — and this is all I have to show for it. What gives?!?

I was starting to get frustrated. My plan to grow out my own nails back to their original state was failing miserably, and I was at my wits’ end dealing with broken, scraggly nails catching on everything. Plus, I now had no idea if my wedding nail plan would work — if I couldn’t grow my nails out, I’d have to get falsies put on. There was no two ways about it. And, because I so badly hated how my nails currently looked and felt, I thought I’d just make the falsies a regular thing, so I wouldn’t have to worry about my stupid natural nails.

This was a bad plan because:
a) I hate wearing fake nails.
b) They damage your natural nails.
c) They are expensive.
d) Nail salons gross me out.
e) They don’t really solve the problem; they just cover it up (while making it worse at the same time — fun!).

Despite knowing all of those things, I felt determined to enter into the world of fake nails. I called a couple of salons to see what they offered, but turned each one down when actually faced with the reality of making an appointment. I went to Sally’s and contemplated investing in a gel nail kit and UV light, so that I could do gel nails with extensions/tips at home. I even went so far as to consider just using those awful glue-on nails from the drugstore. I was desperate for a fix for my now-awful nails, but nothing seemed to fit my needs.

Until one fateful day, I read a post on Weddingbee about something called Nailtiques. Nailtiques is a nail protein and conditioning system specifically designed for three “types” of nails: Level 1, for maintenance of healthy nails; Level 2, for soft, peeling nails; and Level 3, for dry, hard, brittle nails. A few of the bloggers on Weddingbee had nails like mine and used Nailtiques Level 2 with amazing results — within a few months, their stubby, peeling, fragile nails had grown out strong, long, and beautiful, with no breakage to speak of. I was sold.

I picked up my bottle of Level 2 at Ulta last night and did my first application. You are to put one coat on every day for a week, and at the end of the week, remove the lot and start over. Repeat this every week. When you see marked improvement, you can start applying every other day, and then only apply as needed once your nails can maintain their health on their own. Easy enough, right? The best part is the price — my bottle was $9.50 at Ulta, and it should be enough to last at least a couple of weeks. That’s way cheaper than upkeep on any type of false nails.

I can’t speak to the long-term effects of this product, but in the 16-ish hours I’ve been wearing my first coat, I can say that I already am noticing a marked difference in how my nails feel. They’re still somewhat bendy, but I can feel even as I’m typing that they’re much harder than they were without the Nailtiques. All the peeling, flaking layers have also seemed to disappear — like they’re bonded back together into one solid nail. I can’t wait to see how my nails improve with long-term use, and I really can’t wait to have my nice, long nails back again — just in time for the wedding!

How are you doing your nails for the wedding? Do you have trouble growing out your natural nails? Have you ever tried Nailtiques?