How To Over-Complicate Decisions - Wedding Vows Edition

Mr. Kettle wants us to write our own, I don't. We're like the opposite of Miss Doily. Mr. Doily didn't want to write their own but she did.

Mr. Kettle is the king of compromise and taught me an awful lot about the beauty of compromising. My main issue with with the vows is that I've felt a bit on display with all the pre-wedding events. I know, I know. I'm a bride. And with a large wedding, I will definitely be on display. But I just didn't want to have to write those vows to him and have to feel like every one was watching and listening, and yes, maybe judging.

Hive, I know this is probably a ridiculous feeling, since everyone there is there to support the start of our marriage, but I just couldn't get past it. But Mr. Kettle really really wanted us to write our own vows.

So we came to a compromise.

We wrote our own vows. Together. We will say the same vows to each other. Mrs. Eggs Benedict is the one that first gave me the idea. I liked the idea so much that I included it in a Weddingbee post.

Mr. Kettle and I sat down the other night and wrote our vows. I won't share them until after we say them at our wedding, but I can say that they were ridiculously easy to write.

I was surprised at how easy they were to write. We focused on our tripod foundation for our relationship: Love, Trust, Communication. We knew we wanted to include lots of Jesus/God stuff as well. Since we talk about those four things a lot, the vows pretty much wrote themselves.

Also, Mr. Kettle is wonderful with words when he thinks them through first. After 20 minutes, we had 8 lines to say to each other. Well 9 lines. We're starting with a line we joked about including in our vows almost a year ago and decided to go ahead and put in just for us.

I didn't put a lot of thought into our vows before we wrote them, so it didn't add to my stress. Checking it off the to-do list, however, did relieve a lot of stress. Every little thing that gets checked off lifts weight off my shoulders.

Did you write your own vows? Did you write them together? Was it easy to choose what to say?

How To Over-Complicate Decisions - Father/Daughter Dance Edition

Daddy Kettle isn't a dancer. He doesn't seem to enjoy dancing very much.

Image via

Okay, Daddy Kettle isn't quite that bad. He can dance. I know this for a fact because we danced at my cotillion when I was a debutante. He just doesn't do it often.

For my wedding, I expect things will be even better. It's not a church event, so Daddy Kettle will probably have had at least a beer or two and will be more relaxed. Also, my dress is tea length and we won't have to do special maneuvers to avoid tripping and falling over a dress that's too long.

There's only one problem: we haven't picked a song yet. I've asked him at least three times. The first two times, he didn't even respond. Literally nothing. No looks, no words, no nothing.

My Daddy and I have a great relationship, so I don't take the avoidance personally. I just feel that it's a decision he's probably not sure how to make. The song selection is very important. I haven't been pushing the issue because I can't even think of a good song myself!

There's always My Girl by the Temptations. There are several others that are popular choices, but none seem perfect. We're down to 4 weeks, and we need to let our DJ know in just 2 weeks.

I'm at a loss here and I need help from the hive. Any good song suggestions?

The Kettles Approach The Finish Line

My wedding is less than a month away now. Yikes!! It's so exciting and so nerve-wracking all at once. I'm so excited to marry Mr. Kettle and I can't wait for our wedding day. But on the other hand, there are a million and one things left to do that I likely don't have the man hours to complete.

There are big things that happen around the 30 day out mark that any bride should be aware of. These things were not on any of my checklists!

1) Make final payments to vendors. Unless your vendors are magical elves who will take a credit card payment over the phone or internet, you'll need to schedule time to make these payments. Between Momma Kettle, Daddy Kettle, and myself, we've been running around the Chicago/Joliet area like chickens with our heads cut off delivering certified checks to all our different vendors.

2) Confirm all details on all contracts. Again, unless your vendors are magical elves who have Ivy League or Oxford proofreading skills, check your contracts. There were errors we caught in contracts from our florist, our venue, and our photographer. They were small fixes, but they were details that were important to the vision of the wedding.

3) Make sure your wedding party knows their schedule for the next 30 days. This is especially true if you have wedding party members who live out of town or have a hard time taking off from work. They need to know when and where you expect them in town. If you need to send out a newsletter or make 20 phone calls, make sure they know, otherwise you'll be missing a bridesmaid from your wedding rehearsal, and you don't want that.

4) You will have a lot of final details to decide, keep a list!! This one is important. You don't want to leave things like assigning someone to pick up grandma from the airport until the last minute.Sort out these final details and decisions as soon as you think of them, and keep a list so you know who is responsible for what. You will thank your self later when you aren't nearly as stressed as you could be.

These are things I picked up in the last couple days I just wanted to share with you. I climbed from underneath a pile of ribbon, satin, and tulle to keep you in the know. I'm looking forward to sharing posts soon about the frame I made for the sweetheart table, the (finally finished) ring bearer pillows (again!), and the flower girl baskets.

But before I go, I also want to share one of out final details. Mr. Kettle and I had a mini photo shoot with our wedding photographer. She was amazing and I'm so excited to work with her in a little under one month. The photos that she took will be used for our Poster Guest Book and also our personlized photo order cards that the photographers gift to the guests at the wedding. Want to see the photos we picked? Of course you do!

Image via Jolie Images

This shot will be for the poster. They are going to de-saturate the color so that the guests can sign all over the whole page. I've purchased purple, black, and gold permanent markers for them to sign.

Image via Jolie Images

This photo will be used at the photo card. This will go at every guest's seat at the reception so they know where to go to order photos from the photographer after the wedding.

Any tips for getting through the last 30 days before a wedding?