Category: regular

It’s July 2012 – the month that will forever be my wedding anniversary month. On one hand I’m so very excited for July 28 to come…and on the other hand I’m freaking out (in a good way). In 26 days I will become a WIFE. MURPHY. MARRIED. So wonderfulcrazyexciting! 

Saturday my Bridesmaids threw me a Bridal shower, and it was perfect. It was literally like we were sitting inside of Pinterest. They did an amazing job on everything – the food, decorations, games. Everything was so beyond what I could have ever imagined my friends would do for me. I told Manfriend it was like Christmas and my Birthday all rolled into one. I’ll have some photos to share soon :)

On Saturday I also took my wedding dress to be steamed and have the bustle added. It was a little surreal to put on the dress again, knowing that in a month I’ll be wearing it on my wedding day. So cool!

On Thursday we leave for Oahu for a 5 day trip. We are attending a friend’s wedding and enjoying a little down time in the sun. Manfriend has never been to Hawaii so I’m excited for us to get a little vacation before the last weeks of the wedding prep.

In all honesty the wedding planning hasn’t been insane or crazy. There’s a lot of things to figure out and remember – and checks to write. But, it’s nothing to freak out about. I’m thankful for our short engagement. Yes, we didn’t have a year to save up for our wedding – but a small budget is keeping us focused and true to our vision. We want to share the day celebrating with friends and family, that’s the main goal. The wedding is one day (an important one) and the wedding is a tiny blip on the radar of marriage. 

Today marks our final day of premarital counseling. We decided to do the counseling at the request of my parents. We both knew it would be a good idea, and talking about potential relationship challenges would be helpful – but we feared it might cause a rift in our relationship. Totally not the case! We feel that it’s made our relationship stronger, and we are more certain that we should be married that ever before. I highly recommend that anyone considering engagement, currently engaged or even married think about taking a class. Who knows, maybe someday Manfriend and I will teach a class ;) 

All of the wedding vendors are locked down, deposits have been set and we all have something to wear. I still have a good amount of little tasks, and some DIY projects remaning…but nothing I can’t accomplish in 26 days, maybe with a little help ;)

Time to focus on the trip to Hawaii and get packing! I really just need a bathing suit, sunscreen and a dress for the wedding, yea? 

Happy Monday!

We sent our wedding invitations out last week. Happy to have that one checked off the list. It’s quite the chore getting people’s mailing addresses. Email addresses? No prob. Mail? Uh, people still mail each other things?

For our STD’s (that’s wedding lingo for Save the Date – not the other thing) we did an email since we had so many emails on hand. When we sent the STD email we asked people to reply with their mailing addresses – and it worked! 

We’re super classy and did our photos for the STD on my iPhone. I know – looks so pro, right?! We thought it was cool – and set the tone for the wedding. Happy, fun and casual. After a few weeks of gathering mailing addresses I was finally able to mail out our formal invitation. 

We tossed around the idea of just emailing a wedding invite – but decided it would be a nice personal touch to mail something…if it was affordable enough. 

We’ve already discussed that wedding shiz is super pricey…well, invitations are no exception. Sure, the more you pay the fancier they are…but, we’z no fancy folk. We’z casual. 

So, I consulted one of my favorite websites, ESTY.com. I found a graphic design shop that would customize the design and email me the high resolution file for a grand total of $15.00. The shop I used was great, and they made the few minor changes I requested. I had the file in a few days and all I needed to do was print!

I could have printed everything at home, but I knew I would need envelopes so I used another favorite site – Vista Print! I was able to print 150 invitations on good quality paper with 170 envelops for under $50.00. Score! 

Hand addressing the envelopes was not high on my list of wedding loves…so, I exported my Excel File into my Word Label Marker and I had them ready to rock in 5 minutes. 

Postage is expensive, and since we have a short turn around we decided to have people RSVP (per an inserted instruction card) to a gmail account or my cell. We saved on printing the extra response card, and return postage! Win. 

Moral of the story folks, if you put in a little effort you can save yourself a lot of money on this wedding stuff. It’s silly how much we could be paying if we just did everything theknot.com was telling me. 

I really like my name. Daniella Joy Beintema. I don’t love when people mispronounce it, but I’ve gotten used to it. I really love my first and middle name, and I hope to pass my middle name onto my future daughter.

My last name, pronounced Ben-Ta-Ma is Dutch. And 9 out of 10 people will pronounce it wrong. They don’t mean to…it’s the whole “i before e” thing that throws people off. I was more than prepared the first day of a new class, to have my name slaughtered. When I was showing I can’t remember how many horse show announcers would attack my name with their midwestern drawl. Even at my college graduation – it.was.a.mess. Lucky, I was so sleep deprived I didn’t even notice. <— That’s a story for another day.

I really do love my last name – it has history, and it’s unique. I’ve never met another person (besides family) with my same last name. I like that. I’ve also hardly ever met a Daniella – even better :) 

In college I watched a documentary titled “The Sweetest Sound.” It’s written and directed by a man named Alan Berliner. Alan decided to conduct and experiment. He searched the globe for any man with the name Alan Berliner and invited them all to a dinner party at his house. Alan felt his name made him unique, but what would someone else with the exact same name be like? He was very surprised to find that many of the men shared comment traits. Jewish. Balding. Mid 40’s. Married. Wonder what another Daniella Beintema would be like?

If you haven’t heard…I’m getting married. Crazycool, yea?! Manfriend’s last name is Murphy. It’s clean, and short, and people know how to spell it! His family name has history too – it’s Irish. 

My attitude about taking my husband’s last name has always been this: If I am established and known within my industry with the last name Beintema, I would keep it. If I was still working toward becoming established, I would take his name. Not very romantic, huh? My bother is the only male left to carry on the last name in our family – no pressure bro! 

I’m proud of my last name because my family is proud of our name. I think you bond over having it misspelled and hacked up. If my Mom hadn’t changed her last name from Christopher to Beintema I might think different. But, she got married and jumped into the Beintema family, setting an example for me. It’s much more common nowadays to retain your Maiden name, or hyphenate your name. Let’s be honest, Daniella Joy Beintema-Murphy is a pretty serious name. 

I also want my future children to be proud of their Murphy last name, just like I’m proud to be a Beintema. My legal name will no longer read “Beintema” after I’m married, but that doesn’t change me. It just changes the logistics.  

So, I’m changing my last name. I’ve already reserved my new email address. And even ICEE the Mini Cooper is getting into the spirit. On Monday Manfriend and I went to AAA and reserved this:

Because every MERFMAN needs his MERFETT.