The Wedding Day - The Ring Ceremony

Since family and friends couldn't see our sealing ceremony in the temple, Cody and I decided to exchange our wedding rings at the beginning of our reception. We also thought a ring ceremony would be good at our reception because we didn't have a receiving line. People have their opinions in favor of lines and people have their complaints about lines. It's very true that receiving lines let you address your guests, everyone, individually. Which is great, really nice, and very appropriate.

But, my mother and I decided not to have one at my reception. A receiving line would have held up my dinner reception and often seems more appropriate for a calling reception. Not to mention that I personally, when a guest at another reception, find meeting family and wedding party of my friend's spouse awkward. I really only want to say hello to my newly married friend and spouse and will find them at the reception when there is no receiving line (which I usually ditch if there is). Plus my Mother-in-law would have died (she's shy) and so would have my mother (she has plantar faschiitis).

Our ring ceremony was a vehicle for Cody and I to include our guests in the tradition of exchanging rings, address every guest, thank them for coming, and let them know how in love and happy we were. Cody and I spoke during this ring exchange and didn't have anyone officiating to make it more intimate and personal.

The way it worked is that I thanked people for coming, told everyone how happy I was to be in love with and married to Cody. Cody spoke and did the same. Then our ring bearrers (my nephews) and flower girls (Cody's young nieces) brought up bird nests which had our rings. My mom made these nests.
We exchanged rings, kissed, and thanked the heavens this portion of our day was over!

We were so nervous to speak to everyone at the reception! I had sweaty pits over the whole thing. When the time came, I was lost. I just didn't know how to articulate my feelings of love and happiness. It was almost like there weren't words created in the English language to describe the intensity and depth of my emotions, but then Cody spoke and I realized how one goes about speaking on such things. He was so thoughtful, sound, and he really spoke from his heart.

Umm - Hello! How cute are these munchins?!



THE NERVES!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!


At least I get a wedding band out of these nerves!



This is us after the ceremony. We are thinking, "We are so happy...It's OVER!!!"


And my father thanked everyone for coming as well (after the ring ceremony).

The Wedding Day - The Cake

Sick of wedding posts yet? Well...TOO BAD!! Mwahaha, ha, ha...Ha. I still have a couple more for the scrapbook :) I'm being self-indulgent, but stay with me.

Here are some pictures of our cake and us cutting it at the reception. I loved my antique silver cake stand, the little love birds on each layer, and the two love bird toppers, nestling together. My mom and I decided on the bird stuff, and I provided the baker with the pipping detail I wanted on each layer. The florist provided white hydrangeas and willow branches for the cake table.

The cake details:








Oh, and for those of you who think Cody should have smashed the cake in my face, or vice versa, --- come on, really?! I heard your chants at the reception for some smashing. I just don't get it at all. We weren't in our young twenties when we married. We weren't in our mid twenties either. Cody was the Big 30 and I was half way through my 29s. Messing a pretty face with cake, or pie, or the like stopped being funny long before we tied the knot. Am I off on this point? I don't understand why someone in a lovely (expensive) gown, with their face all made up pretty, and at an adult affair would want to make cake cutting a moment you could see on "The Three Stooges".

Plus, I much prefer sugar in my mouth than on my face. If you don't believe me on this point, just ask my fillings and flabby abs. They can attest.

Well anyway, this last picture shows the view beyond the cake. The quality of the photo isn't that great, but it's the only one I have from this angle.

The Wedding Day - The Decor

My mother kills herself over "details." Which makes a fabulous reputation for throwing parties. Well, my mother did it again (with my opinions in the mix of course)!

The gift table - has a bird cage of course, with lit candles inside of it, ivory leaves on its cage floor, and people placed their cards inside.

I don't have a picture of of this table :( Not a good one anyway. If anyone out there does...send it my way!!! Mom, do you?

The party favor - My mom made the "sweet tweet" wedding favors and assembled their packaging. Of course there were sugar cookies made by her inside. In the shape of a bird. How appropriate, right? See below.



The "feather" and pedal filled cones - all ivory and black - used to shower us during our send off. My mom had the sticker on the cones specially made to say "Feather to toss on Robin and Cody - October 24th, 2009." It was hard to find the ivory and black print for the cones too. More on the send off later.



The Bill of Fare (or menu card) - had on the back of it an Introduction to Robin and Cody, for those guests who didn't know Cody or myself very well.



The Seat Assignment table - my mother did hand calligraphy for each guests' card. It was a lot of work! She also hand glued the black and ivory feather. Get it? Bird theme!





The Table Tags - my tables were named after birds. Cody and I had the "Lovebird" table. My relatives with the last name Henn sat a table of the name. Other tables were named Robin, Dove, Swan, Swallow, Peacock, Quail, Woodpecker, Bluebird, and so on.


The Candy Table - I wanted a candy table at my wedding, so I borrowed my dear friend Ali's candy jars and my mom adhered the black ribbon and hand calligraphied candy tag (with the same bird from my invitation). This table was more work than you would expect. We had to find the candy cups (had to be ivory or black you see - and not too big or too small). We had to find tongs or scoops for the candy, not to mention that the candy itself had to fit the color scheme. This candy table almost didn't happen!




The Photobooth Table - this was next to the photobooth we had at our wedding. My mom and I thought to have the photo strip of the night Cody proposed to me in a photobooth at the Orange County Fair. A simple vase of ivory roses also graced the table.


The Cocktail Tables - My mom did the flower arrangements!


The Sign-In Table - We did a picture sign-in book. I made the picture book online and it had all our engagement pictures in it - with tons of space for people to say whatever they wanted. I just thought "What would I ever do with a book with people's signatures and one line congratulations." The table also had our wedding invitation framed, our official engagement picture flanked by pictures of both of our parents at their own weddings on either side. We didn't get many pictures of this table.

1 year ago today...

My love asked me to marry him...at the fair...in a photo booth.

It's been a crazy year - a great year. I've planned a wedding, became a wife, explored Spain, became a frozen yogurt shop owner, moved to Arkansas. I don't know if I want every year to be like this one. I'd go nuts over all the changes - too many transitions!

But I do know that I want every year to be spent in the company of that boyfriend who one year ago today made me the happiest little fair goer ever! He is my favorite, my Cody, my husband.

Hick much?

I'm in Montana, without the companionship of my husband :( He couldn't leave our baby (the yogurt shop) unattended for 10 days to frolic with my family at the cabin. So he so selflessly stayed behind to work his butt off while I came to vacation with my family. He's such a good husband. It's been so much fun and I still have plenty more fun to experience before I fly home tomorrow.

I did want to share a thought trail I had on my flight up:

"I'm flying right now from Arkansas to Montana. Huh...

"Does this make me sound like a hick or white trash? Hmmmm.

"People would probably say a hick or a hill billy. Shame on them if they even think white trash. A Hill Billy. Where did that title even come from? Bill from the Hill? Would the female version be a Hill Jilly? Robin stop. You dork."

"We are descending! My neck hurts. Wow ...look at that view! Heaven. The green trees, the mountains, the crisp clouds, the blue water of that lake (which ever one it is), this view is unbeatable. I think I could cry over this view in a couple of years. Maybe it's Ashley lake? No. Who cares? Take a mental picture."


Arkansas to Montana might make me sound like a total red neck, but folks let me tell you that it only makes me TOTALLY AWESOME! I'm so LUCKY to know first hand about the beauty of both my departure and destination states. I'm sad to be leaving my Montana tomorrow. I'm so in love with Montana right now I would stop time and enjoy it for longer if I had two wishes. The other wish would be to transport my husband here so that I could enjoy this all with him.

My 30 year old wife

As many of you who know Robin can attest, she never answers her phone. When we were dating, she would always answer on the first ring, but now that we have been married 8 months, I have joined the ranks of the frustrated folks who try in vain to get a hold of her via cell phone. I thought that maybe since she is in Montana for the week and I am staying here in AR, I would finally have more success in reaching her. No such luck.

Robin turned 30 last month. Her birthday sucked, even though she won't admit it (actually, she probably has admitted it to everyone but me). I thought that since I can't talk to her on the phone, and she rarely reads her email these days, I would go to the one place that I know I can reach her....the blogosphere, to belatedly provide a list of 30 great things that I love and/or find adoring about my 30 year old wife. (in random order, as they come to my mind)

1. Her incessant need for compliments. I have a love/hate relationship with this quirk. I love it because she melts when I give her a compliment, even if it is the same one I have said 100 times before. However, she is very stingy with the compliments, she doesn't want me to compliment anyone else. If I say some random little girl has pretty eyes, she will ask "what about my eyes, you don't like them?", or if I say that an old man moves fast for his age, she will respond with "I'm fast too, don't you think?". I have to be careful with compliments now.

2. Her love of candy. I love this because I also have a candy addiction, so we always have a good stash. Our kids might not have a college fund, but at least they wont ever lack for something to satisfy their sweet tooth.

3. Her ability to get people to confide in her. No one has secrets from Robin, she can get anyone to spill their guts out to her. I'm not sure if this is due to her professional training, or she chose her profession because of this ability, but she has definitely got it.

4. Her ability to make friends. I always tell her that everyone she meets thinks that they are now her best friend, even if she doesn't even remember their name 10 minutes later.

5. Her amazing salads. This girl can make a mean salad (except cole slaw salad, that one was kinda gross). Must be all those hours with the barefoot Contessa.

6. Her penchant for singing any song I start to sing. I always try to act like I want to sing it alone, but it makes me laugh. Sometimes I will start to sing a song intentionally, just to make her start singing along. It works every time without fail.

7. Her love of all things entertainment. She loves her people.com, movie trailers website, TMZ. Ask her who the Secretary of State is, and she could care less, but ask her what Jennifer Garners daughter's name is and she will give you her middle name and the name of their dog.

8. Her love of travel. She loves to travel and discover new things. She was just as happy discovering Oklahoma City as she was on our honeymoon to Spain. Wish I would have known this 8 months ago. Could have saved some major cash.

9. Her love of sleep. I have never met a family that likes sleep more than the Bendheims. Robin can easily sleep 12 hours a night and still be tired. Her sister sometimes goes to bed at 7pm. That is a full hour before any of the nightly TV shows have even started! I love that Robin loves sleep because I do too, so I never feel lazy for sleeping in. I would hate it if I was in bed and she was up and showering or doing laundry or whatever. But that has yet to happen. She does all that, but much later in the day, after I have roused her from her slumber.

10. Her love of TV. Again, I love it for selfish reasons, since I also love watching TV. Life would suck if my wife was one of those who thought watching TV was such a waste of time, because it might be, but I love wasting time that way, and thankfully so does my cute wife. (compliment).

So, this is taking much longer than I anticipated. I think I'll do it in 3 segments. It is almost 3am now and I am missing that sleep that I talked about in #9.

The Wedding Day - The Flowers

I love, love, love flowers. And as a result, I was willing to spend more money on flowers at the expense of cutting costs elsewhere for my wedding (like not having a videographer, who my mother hired anyway). I found my florist online. She does arrangements out of her garage. Not a floral shop. But I loved her work and decided on going with her.

Cody only had one request with the wedding decor - absolutely NO YELLOW. I don't know why. I think he had just been to too many weddings with the color yellow. I think yellow is pretty, especially in summer weddings, but was game to follow his one request. My only request was that the flowers not be orange. With the bridesmaids wearing black and Halloween being one week after my wedding, I didn't want my reception to feel like a trick-or-treat fest.

As you can see, the question, "What are your colors?" in relation to our wedding was a hard question to answer. I started off by saying black and ivory, because that is what a lot of the decor was, but that wasn't really representative since the flowers, as you can see, were quite colorful. I ended up saying, "everything but orange and yellow."

My wedding had a bird theme. Because it worked, but mainly because my name is Robin and it pleased my mother so, so much. So the centerpieces had birdcages, the assignment table had a large birdcage as well, all decorated with flowers. Luckily, we didn't have live birds in the cages as my mother had hoped for. Can you imagine being at an elegant reception and out of nowhere, "tweet, tweet, poop, splat."

We did end up putting a fake bird in the cages though. Fake birds are much less germy, poopy, and noisy.

Here are the flowers:






My Bouquet - Ivory and Black to match the wedding party.

I ended up using garden roses, pompon mums, hydrangeas, dahlia's,chrysanthemums, curly willow, anemone, ranunculus (my favorite). I wish we could have had peonies, but they weren't in season. We also had some grapes and berries.

The Wedding Day - Bridesmaids and Groomsmen

Cody and I went around in circles with what to do for a wedding party. He only wanted a best man and I wanted more than just a maid of honor. Cody changed his mind 2 weeks before the wedding and had his brother and some friends from out of town be a part of his wedding party. I told him he should have groomsmen all along, but he didn't listen until the last minute. When will he ever learn to just listen to me? Huh? When? Ugh.

Well, I had some friends whose feelings got hurt over my bridesmaid decisions - and even more friends whose feelings were hurt because they weren't invited to the wedding. I hated this part of being engaged. I hated being restricted, limited. I'm more of an inclusive person by nature and I wish that my reception location could have afforded more guests (see previous post). I also wish that I could have had all my dear friends be a part of my wedding party, but that would have been too much.

I came to the sad conclusion during my engagement (thanks to my therapist!) that I don't have the super power to protect people from feeling a bad emotion, or fix people's hurt feelings and make everything all better, or make them feel loved, important, and dear to my heart. Reality sucks. Not having super powers really sucks. But more importantly, having friends with hurt feelings really, really, really sucks!!!

But enough of this downer note, Brooke made a fantastic Matron of Honor with her pregnant belly, don't you think?







And one of Cody and I during the pictures: