Honeymoon Day 3 (Sunday): Jazz Brunch Champagne Cruise

We woke up around 8:30 am, on the bed that consisted of a box spring and thin mattress that totally sagged when we laid on it, and creaked like hell when we rolled over, but it was surprisingly comfortable.  The first thing we did when we got up was I took a walk and my husband ran (he is training for a half-marathon). 

We had a small breakfast.  I had some cereal because I knew at 12:30 we would be on a jazz champagne brunch cruise on Lake Winnepesaukie.  I showered, dressed, put a little makeup on, and decided to paint my fingernails.  I thought since we were on our honeymoon, and I knew we would be taking a lot of pictures, I should look nice.  My nails were looking great until I went to paint a second coat and couldn't get the nail polish bottle open; my hands slipped and I messed up three of my nails.  I proceeded to get very upset.  My husband attempted to help me fix my errors with nailpolish but in the end we had to leave early, stop at the store, buy cotton balls and nail polish remover, take of the polish on the three nails I messed up, and I had to repaint them.  I only did one coat because now we were running late and I didn't want to miss the cruise.

At Lake W., my husband let me out of the car to run to the ticket window and pick up our tickets I had pre-purchased while he went to park.  We arrived at 12:15, 15 minutes before the cruise was supposed to leave.  I got our tickets, we were standing in line, and all of a sudden there are all these teenage and 20ish looking girls dressed up: full makeup, hair all done, heels and mini dresses all around me.  Suddenly I felt very frumpy in my corset shirt, black capris, and flat fuschia sandals.  Apparently we were on a brunch cruise with all of the Miss Teen New Hampshire's and Miss New Hampshire's.  Fabulous.

As we were standing in line, someone asked us "are you waiting for the two and a half hour brunch cruise?"  We said yes, then my husband said "Oh, it's two and a half hours?  I parked in two hour parking.  Should I move the car?"  I said yes.  He took off running to move the car, seemed to take forever getting back to me.  I was afraid the ship would leave without us.  In the end, he got back in plenty of time for us to board.  I think we left the port around 1 pm. 

We got on the cruise and right away people were hitting up the buffet.  We were going to grab a drink and wait for food since there was a long line, but we didn't know exactly how the free champagne thing worked.  Instead, we got in the food line.  Then my husband decided he would check out the situation at the bar.  While he was gone, I heard one of the buffet workers tell someone she needed to stamp your hand and give you a ticket and that's how you got the free mimosas.  My husband had my ticket in his pocket, so after waiting in the food line for about 20 minutes I had to get out of line when it was my turn to go look for him and get our tickets.  He will still waiting in the drink line.  When I told him what happened he said "Oh WTF!!" and got really pissed.  I said "Chill out!  Why are you yelling at me right now?  We will get back in the food line, get some food, and get our hands stamped.  It's not that big of a deal".  But that put a damper on my mood for awhile. 

We got our food.  He apologized.  Life was back to normal.  Except that we were in the middle of this giant lake, on a huge cruise ship, with multi-million dollar houses surrounding us, and beautiful scenery all around.  We ate, I got a mimosa, he got a beer, and we went to stand outside on the balcony in the sun and enjoy the trip.  We took a ton of pictures.  He loved how my curly hair was blowing in the wind and just kept snapping shots of me, as well as of different intricate details of the boat.  It was really a great time. 

After the cruise we drove over to where my dad, step-mom, and brother were staying in Alton on Half Moon Lake.  We hung out there, had some chili and salad for dinner, took more pictures.  Then we headed into Alton Bay for ice cream.  I had low fat chocolate peanut butter ice cream; there was nothing low fat tasting about it!  I felt like such a heffer that day.  All we did was eat and drink!

On the way back to camp we stopped to pick up some essentials at a Rite-Aid.  That's when we saw drug stores also carry beer and wine!  Since we were on a budget, when we saw a $3.50 bottle of Cabernet we thought that was a great idea!  It wasn't.  I had two glasses and woke up with a headache.

We hung out again at my aunt's for a bit and then headed to our cabin to sleep.

Honeymoon Day 2: The Cabin

I woke up in the tent at 7:30 am, after finally falling asleep some time around 4:30 am.  I had a splitting headache from laying on the ground and from not sleeping well.  I knew we forgot to bring bottle of water into the tent so I could not take the Ibuprofen I had in my purse, which was laying right next to me.  I closed my eyes and prayed to fall back asleep, which I did until an hour later.  My husband woke me up by tucking me in tighter with the comforter and telling me he was going to start a fire.  I begged him for water, took my pills, couldn't fall back asleep, and got up a little while later. 

For breakfast my extremely resourceful husband boiled coffee in our cast iron skillet over the roaring fire, cooked us bacon in that same skillet when the coffee was done, and then toasted some English muffins that we ate with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and tomato slices.  We checked out around 11:30 and headed over to Newfound Lake, where we had planned to spend the next week in my family's cabin.

We unpacked the car and tried to settle in which took about an hour.  For lunch the husband made us some Ramen noodle soup with onions and hot dogs cut up in it.  We had a couple beers.  We layed down at one point to take a nap.  I could not sleep but I let him sleep for about an hour and a half.  I noticed some ants crawling around in the cabin and killed them.  Later on that day we took a 3 mile walk in the fresh mountain air.

During the day my aunt and two cousins had arrived to camp as well.  We got together with them for dinner at my aunts cabin.  My aunt made a huge tricolored pasta salad with marinated grilled chicken, black beans, and onions.  I made a salad of red onion, tomato, and cucumber with Italian seasonings, salt, and pepper.  After dinner we grilled dessert, just about everything we could get our hands on: pop-tarts, s'mores, oreos, and so on. 

Later we played poker with Teddy Grahams as our poker chips.  We played, and laughed, and laughed some more. 

After cards, it was dark out so my husband and I went and laid out on the tennis court to admire the stars.  First we went to our cabin to grab a drink.  There were more ants crawling around so we light two citronella candles, one on the screened in porch and one inside the cabin on the kitchen counter. 

The sky in NH is so much darker than home and you can see SO MANY STARS.  The actual milky way was visible!  It was amazing.  I have never seen a sky like that before!  While we were out there we heard something beeping, over and over and over again.  I mentioned to my husband I wondered what the noise was and it was very annoying.  We saw a few shooting stars and finally called it a night.  As we were walking back to the cabin I had a thought.  I remember saying "I hope that beeping is not our fire alarm!"  Oh, but it was.  It was 10:30 at night, "quiet hours" in camp, and here was our fire alarm, going off for about 20 minutes because we had lit a candle!  OOPS.  We actually had to take down the fire alarm and put it under a pillow until the smoke cleared from the cabin enough to put it back up.

Honeymoon Day 1: Camping in New Hampshire

Just like our wedding which was a graduation/engagement party that we turned into our wedding, our New Hampshire vacation that was already planned became our honeymoon, but we made it work!

Day 1: we left mid-afternoon for New Hampshire.  We immediately proceeded to get stuck in traffic where there usually is NO traffic, but that day there was road work.  Of course.  In Vermont we stopped to use the bathroom and get a coffee, around 4:30 pm.  Coffee was provided for "free" with a donation by the Free Masons.  I don't even know what that is, but the coffee was good, and there were brownies. 

The first thing we did when we checked in at the camp ground was to set up our tent, ask for a wood delivery, and start a fire.

Camping in New Hampshire.  I am not one for camping.  It's hot, uncomfortable, dirty, and buggy.  Last year we camped for one night and it was great!  It was cold in NH, thus no bugs, no sweating, and we slept on an air mattress in a tent.  This year, it was chilly again, but our air mattress was broken.  We slept on top of tree roots.  It was uncomfortable! 

The part before trying to sleep was fun.  We cooked on the campfire, chicken skewers marinated in roasted red pepper sauce and green peppers.  We also threw some potatoes into the fire to cook.  We soaked corn on the cob in water and then threw the whole corns in their husks into the fire to steam and roast.  It was delicious!  We drank beer and played board games by the fire.  For a late night snack we had hot dogs and s'mores. 

We went to bed around 11 pm.  My  husband fell asleep right away.  I was up until 4 am, unable to relax to fall asleep.  There were no sounds, until around 4 am when I heard footsteps and then an animal sniff our tent and I got scared!  It's nose was actually pushing into the side of our tent.  I sat up, trying not to breathe loudly while my heart pounded in my chest.  My husband, big protector that he is, lay snoring next to me, completely unaware.  Finally the animal went away and I had to pee so I woke up and had my husband walk me to the bathroom with the flashlight.  I could not fathom going out of the tent on my own and behind it to pee for fear of running into an animal, like a bear, or worse, a skunk. 

I had no contacts in and couldn't see a foot in front of me so I gripped his arm while we walked.  Getting to the bathroom was no issue.  Coming back, we walked downhill on rocks, slipping and sliding.  All of a sudden someone's dog started to bark in the dark, and reflexively I started giggling.  I tried to stifle it as we climbed back into our tent but by then my husband was laughing too.  All of a sudden you heard "Shh!  Stop it!" as someone yelled at their barking dog.  The next thing you  heard was a bunch of tents unzipping as people had been woken up and decided to go to the bathroom. 

Our Surprise Homemade Wedding!

Surprise!  We got married!  And we planned it in less than two months...read on to learn how it's done, on a budget, as a surprise, and it still turned out to be the most amazing day ever!

Our original plan was to get married in 2012, when we had saved up $15,000 to pay for a big wedding. However, the more I started to think about it, the more depressing that goal became.  Saving up for three years just to pay for our wedding seemed crazy.  Why not save up and buy a home?  That's what we really wanted to do. 

We had already sent out invitations for our party which was a combination of my graduation party (for getting my master's) and our engagement party.  Since my fiances family was going to be over from Russia, one night when I was getting ready for bed a lightbulb went off over my head: why not make our party our wedding instead?  And not tell anyone, so it was a surprise wedding?  I talked it over with the fiance and he agreed, that would be a good idea.  Everyone invited to the party was asked to bring a dish of food to share, so we did not have to worry about paying a caterer.  We would get a keg and we had already told everyone to BYOB so we didn't have to worry about booze.  This is how we managed to plan our wedding in less than two months, and managed to make it amazing:

First I called the pastor at my church, which is a protestant church.  Neither my new husband nor I are very religious but I do have family members that work in the church and I explained my wedding to the pastor, who said he would come to my father's house where the party was being held and he would perform our wedding.  The church asks for a donation so we decided to give him $150 to do the wedding.  (On the day of the wedding, I had totally forgotten about paying him and only had 2 $100 bills on me that I had gotten from my grandparents so I just gave him that.)

We told our immediate family  members our plans, which was a smart thing to do since my dad decided he had to do a lot of yard work to get the yard in shape for the wedding.  Also this way our family members were able to help us plan and prep and my husband's family was able to prepare to come from Russia for a wedding, not just a graduation/engagement party. 

I went dress shopping as one of the first things I did.  I explained to the girls at the dress store what the wedding was going to be like, and that it was an outdoor summer wedding so they showed me a lot of dresses that were more casual and summery and thus, less costly.  I tried on about 7 dresses before I found "the one".  I didn't think much of this dress until I came out of the dressing room and stood in front of the 3 big mirrors and all of a sudden started bawling my eyes out.  That's when I knew.  Before I even saw the price tag, we all knew that was the dress.  My budget was $300.  The dress was $700 and the veil that matched it perfectly was another $150. 

Well, everyone in the store including the manager knew how I felt about the dress and we all wanted to make sure we did everything possible so that I bought that dress that day.  The store owner actually knocked the price down to $500 and then my stepmother gave me $200 to put towards the dress.  The owner threw in the veil for free (or included it in the price of the dress) so I ended up paying $330 total, and then $75 for alterations after the fact.  My fiance at the time was very happy that I was able to stay as close to budget ($4500) as possible.

We figured $300 for our budget for rings.  I don't know where we came up with this figure, but we had a certain amount of money saved in the bank and knew whatever that amount was, we had to make the wedding fit that budget.  Since it was an outdoor wedding, we rented two tents so the party could be held rain or shine.  We also rented chairs for the 150 people we had invited, and the cost of all of that was $750.  That took up a very large portion of our budget. 

We actually found a great deal at a local jeweler's.  They were having a sale: buy one wedding band, get one free.  So guess what?  We bought my husband's band for about $300 and got mine for free, so we stayed within budget there!  (Both bands were plain gold)

Another big expense was party supplies: plates, napkins, cups, etc.  We went to a bulk wholesale place near us to get these items.  It took us 3 or more trips so it's hard to itemize the bills but we spent at least $300 on these items plus bottled waters, sodas, sternos, and so on. 

Since my father and step-mother owned a florist at the time, their gift to us was our beautiful flowers.  I had a huge bouquet, all of my 4 maids had bouquets, the guys had boutoneires and the moms had corsages.  Also there were flower centerpieces on the head tables.

The cost of other centerpieces was taken on by my step-mother who suggested bowls of fruit in our wedding colors (pink and green), so we had papaya, grapes, guavas, limes, and jalepenos.  They were beautiful!  I also made centerpieces for the tables: each of my 13 tables had a story about my husband and I throughout our relationship, like our first date, first kiss, and other such memorable events.  I made these myself so they were not expensive.

I made our guestbook from a scrapbook, so I was able to design it the way I wanted and leave plenty of space for people to write us messages about how crazy we were to have a surprise wedding :)

I also put together a photo album of pictures of us throughout the years for people to look at before or after they signed the guestbook. 

I bought inexpensive favors for the tables, not for every person to take home.  Walmart had a box of 24 bells for like $15, I printed tags to stick in the tops of the bells that said "ring this bell and the bride and groom will kiss!"  Since it was an outdoor wedding there were no glasses for people to clink their silverware on to get us to kiss so I thought this was a nice touch.

For lighting once it got darker out, we had dollar store candles in our wedding colors on every table.  We also had a bonfire and sparklers at the end of the night.

We saved money on our wedding cake because my mother made it.  My girlfriend is a makeup artist so she did my makeup. I hired a girl from high school to do my hair, she charged $45 for an updo and did a fabulous job! We bought candles and decorated our own unity candle which saved us at least $20.  We did purchase a unity candle holder, however. 

($16 Walmart tiara!)

For favors for the wedding party, I spent a little more money than the husband would have liked.  We bought a case of our favorite wine (Yellow Tail Cabernet-$90) and soaked all the bottles to remove their labels.  We then put on our own labels that we had printed ($12).  Our parents each got a bottle of wine, as did all of the members of our wedding party, and my makeup artist.  I got the girls each a wine bottle stopper with a crystal heart ($3 each) and a tropical candle ($5 each).  I put all of their gifts in really cute zebra print black, white and pink bags ($15 each). 

We did the rehearsal dinner at my dad's-pizza and beer ($80).  The church printed our wedding programs for free.

Our DJ was expensive, he cost us $1100 but I guess he was worth it.  I didn't get to hear most of the music because we were taking pictures forever, but our guests seemed pleased.  Our photographer was great, she charged us $1000.  She came to my bridal lunch, our rehearsal dinner, the wedding, plus she is doing another shot of just the two of us in August because we were so busy she barely got pictures of just the two of us.  Her price included a photo album with 74 of our fave photos, plus 30 thank you cards with our photo on them.  She was really great!

My husband made the wedding bread, which is a Russian tradition.