Perfect Palette

You've seen hints of our color scheme in my wedding party invites, so I thought it was high time for me to put together an honest-to-goodness palette picture because...  umm... because I've seen other people do it?  Oh, stop laughing!  You know you've succumbed to the 'all the other brides are doing it' pressure at some point, too.  Kinda like when I made that inspiration board - which I've never really looked at again since the fateful day I spent about 6 hours working on it.  But that's a post for another time.

Let's bring it on back around to the point of *this* post.  I know you're waiting with baited breath (btw, what does that even mean?!  Sounds disgusting.).  So without further ado, I give you our perfect palette.

{black, white, dove gray, cobalt blue, gray, charcoal gray}

We are really drawn to monochromatic color schemes with bright pops of color.  As proof, please witness our bedroom:

The only reason we didn't go with the black/white/yellow palette for our wedding was because it's everywhere right now (for good reason, I might add - it's fabulous!), and I wanted something a bit more unique.  I adore me some gray/hot pink and gray/purple combos, but I knew Mr. FW wouldn't go for those hues.  I also love black/gray/red together, but coming from a Georgia Tech family, there's *no way* I would ever even hint that there's one iota of Georgia Bulldog in me - so that was out. 

Looking around the house Mr. FW and I decorated together, we realized that we almost always gravitate towards cool colors (bedroom notwithstanding), particularly the colors of the sea.  We both can't get enough of the ocean, so our initial thought (oh, about 2.5 years ago) was to use green as the accent color.  I was down with that at first, but lime green really is Mr. FW's favoritest color ever, and eventually I realized it felt like I wasn't reflected enough in the color scheme.  So then we turned to cobalt blue, and we never looked back.  It's fresh, it's bright, it's different, and it will look great with my eyes.  Oh, I kid! no i don't. I kid!  At long last, a perfect palette we can stick with! 

How many color schemes did you go through before you finally stuck with one?

Boxed Booklet Wedding Party Invites

Once all the *duh-rama* of choosing my Party People had subsided, I was finally ready to tackle that whole 'asking them' thing.  Being the creative and crafty woman that I am, I was jumping out of my skin to get elbow-deep in some paper and adhesive.  Based on a lot of inspiration I'd culled from the far-and-wides of the interwebs, here's what I put together:


{clockwise from top left: box top, box bottom with pleated paper medallion, booklet invite (with name blurred)}

And now here's the step-by-step process, in case you wanted to know.  ;-)

First I purchased the boxes that my booklet invitations would go in.  I found these shiny black jewelry boxes on eBay for $2 each, after shipping.  Usually I would scoff at spending $2 for a little box, but because I already owned the other necessary materials, it seemed like a reasonable expense. 

Using ribbon I had on hand (but that I admittedly bought months ago for potential wedding projects), I began to layer them until I found a design I liked.  I trimmed the ribbon long enough to wrap around the edges of the box top and melted the edges to prevent fraying.  (Sorry, forgot to take pictures of this part.)

I ran permanent adhesive onto both the top and bottom edges of the ribbon.  Then O just stuck the ribbon onto the box top, wrapping it around the edges and tucking the raw ends into the inside of the box top.  Once I had layered the ribbons until I was satisfied with the overall effect, I had an easily removable and totally chic booklet box ready to be filled!

{3" wide silver satin, 1" wide black patterned, 1/8" wide cobalt blue} 

Moving on to the insides - I planned to make the booklet 1/4 inch smaller than the box measurements so that it would be a perfect fit.  So if your box is 4 x 6 inches, your final booklet size will be 3.75 x 5.75 inches.  To cut the correct size of cardstock for the orientation of this booklet, you keep the height measurement the same and double the length measurement (because you'll be folding the cardstock in half).  That means my cardstock booklet covers were 3.75 x 11.5 inches.  I cut these using my paper trimmer.

In order to have a "spine" for the booklet where you will bind it together and that will allow the front cover to easily open, I scored the front cover.  I didn't allow quite enough room for my spine, so I would suggest scoring at 1/2 inch in from the cover fold. 

To make the names on the front I used my Bosskut Gazelle (omg-how-i-love-this-machine!), which is sort of like a Cricut except that it doesn't use cartridges.  Instead you design the cut files yourself, and the thing I might love the most is that you can use *any* of the True Type fonts on your computer.  I cut out the name and then backed it with blue for contrast.  I chose that oh-so-trendy technique where you round opposite corners, and I liked the modern funky vibe that gave my design.  Mounting that on the patterned paper brought in some of the wedding style and gave it a finished look.  

{the bottom left corner is rounded, too (kills me to blur out all those lovely letters!)}

For the inner pages, my theme was "reasons you should consider being in my wedding party."  I made a list of all the reasons I wanted to include, then I went searching for images to fit the sentiment.  I didn't give photo credit in my booklets, and I don't recall where the images came from.  But I can tell you that I found all of them through Google images. 

Once I found my images, I laid them out in Microsoft Publisher within rectangles that were the size of the booklet.  I printed them on my home printer and trimmed them with the paper cutter.  I included a blank sheet at the back so I could write a personal note to each Party Person.  I ended up making a second document containing the white circles with words, which I cut out and adhered onto the printed booklet pages.  In hindsight, I wish I'd just printed the words directly onto the images.  Having the circle cut-outs didn't add that much (in my opinion), and it would've saved me a step in the process.  Oh well, live and learn. (and then get Luvs!  Anyone recall that commercial?  Anyone?) 

Here are all the pages I included (after it was bound - I'm getting to that step next):

At this point you have the completed cover and all the inner pages.  I quickly scored the inner pages at the same measurement as the front cover.  Now you stack it all up and you're ready for "binding."  For this I used my Crop-a-Dile Big Bite to set two 1/8 inch eyelets into the spine.  To use the Crop-a-Dile you first set it to punch the appropriate size holes.  Then you insert the eyelet and squeeze.  (The full instructions are a bit more complicated than this because there are so many different things this tool can do, so I encourage you to read the manual.) 

For the finishing touch I included a small pleated paper medallion/rosette/pinwheel/starburst (yes, it's called all of these names depending on where you find it online) to sit under the booklet and again give a little hint about the wedding style.

And that's about it.  Hope you enjoyed the first of many tutorials! 

How will you/did you ask your wedding Party People?  Any other happy Bosskut Gazelle owners out there?

Standing Up For Me, With Me

If you're following me here, you know I left off at the agony of trying to decide on my side of the wedding party.  After talking about the sibling dilemma ad nauseum with a lot of people in my life, I took a risk and decided to ask just Brother N to be in my wedding party...  and he nonchalantly declined. 

image by Natalie Dee

Now, I can reason this out logically - he's kinda young, he's a guy, he didn't know what a big request this was, blah, blah, blah - but it was painful nonetheless.  This did, however, confirm for me that the wedding party was not going to be the right way to involve my family in our wedding.  Once I recovered from the hurt of this realization, it was actually a rather liberating thought.

Giving myself the freedom to involve more of my friends (a.k.a. family of choice) came with its own set of worries, but it felt exhilirating to imagine my bridal-ly self surrounded by people who have loved me and supported me for the *whole* time I've known them.  If there's anything I want for us on our wedding day it's to be surrounded by people have loved us - not just as individuals but, at least equally if not more importantly, as a couple. 

image by Rab3ah Al via Flickr

Here's where that whole "non-wedding-crazy" friend group comes into play.  I want to preface this by saying that I absolutely truly madly deeply love my friends.  Yet asking them to be a part of the wedding party felt like I'd be asking them for a really, super big favor - a favor that I wasn't sure any or all of them would actual want to participate in.  My worries stemmed from a number of reasons including, but not limited to personal/political anti-wedding beliefs, geographic barriers, and relatively short length of friendship.  Combine all that with the fact that I'm not very good at asking others for things I want (hey, nobody's perfect - I'm working on it!), and you end up with one ridiculously (and somewhat unnecessarily) nervous engaged lady. 

Mr. FW (bless his little heart) really had to step in and help me here because I couldn't really talk to my friends about this given that what I was debating had to do with... them!  He helped me to clarify what I wanted and needed out of those who would stand up - for me and with me - on that day.  He also assisted me in brainstorming a title to take the place of "bridesmaid" cuz to be honest, I just wasn't feeling the connotations of that word.  So we decided our wedding party would consist of "Ms. Ferris Wheel's Party People" and "Team Mr. Ferris Wheel."

image via Gay Guide Toronto

Here are the things I realized when I put together the Party People:

1)  You don't have to pick a "person of honor" just because that's how it's usually done or because people expect you to.  Yes, it may make some things more complicated, but choosing someone under duress only cheapens the role you ask them to fill.  It's okay to let everyone be equally important in your wedding if they are, in fact, equally important in your life.  And with that I decided not to have a Party Person of Honor.

2)  It doesn't matter if some friends aren't particularly crazy-pro-wedding for themselves, as long as they can be crazy-pro-wedding for you.  And with that I asked dear friend E to be a Party Person.



3)  Long friendships should not be a necessity for choosing a wedding party.  A good friend is someone who you feel like you've known forever, even if you technically haven't known them for that long.  And with that I asked fab friends K and N to be Party People.



4)  #3 notwithstanding, there's no replacement for your longest-running friendship, even if there's a strong possibility that person will be on the other side of the globe when your wedding rolls around.  Because sometimes the asking means more than the answer.  And with that I asked special friend L to be a Party Person.



5)  When given the choice between flower girl and "junior bridesmaid," your 9-year-old mini-best friend will almost always choose the perceived "older girl" role.  And with that I asked incredible mini-bestie M to be a Junior Party Person.

6)  Boys can be more than ring bearer, and it's doubley-awesome if they want to throw flower petals.  And with that I asked the indomitable C to be the Flower Boy.

There you have it - Ms. Ferris Wheel's Party People.  Having made these decisions, I feel just as incredible as I hoped I would.


Were you happy with how you your wedding party came together?  And will you have any honorary members who won't be able to make it to your big day?

The Agony and Ecstasy of Picking the Party

Have you ever seen happy dreamy pictures like these: 

photography by Babylon Productions

photography by Jennifer Echols Photography

photography by Luster Studios

photography by Whitney Lee Photography / image via manolobrides.com

photography by Lexi Photography / image via So You're Engayged

...and mused about how choosing people to stand up with you on your wedding day would be one of the most effortless, joyous parts of the whole planning process?  I certainly did. In pictures of other wedding parties it looks like everyone's relationships are so perfect and easy. I know, I know... pictures don't tell the whole story. If I'd really thought critically about it perhaps it would've occured to me that couples don't necessarily automatically know who they want to have in their party from the moment they get engaged. But at first I didn't think that.

So, being an overly-obsessive-researcher-bride-to-be, I went looking for some words of wisdom on this whole wedding party thing.  And then I found this post on A Practical Wedding.  You truly must go read it right now.  No, really - I mean it.  Look, I'm even giving you the link again right...  here!  Click it! 
Alrighty then, now that you're back, here's my favorite part:

But we, over in indie-wedding-world, have made it even more complicated. Since the myth of matching dresses on matching size-two blond friends doesn’t work for all of us, we’ve created our own indie wedding party myth. We’ve looked at the outsides of other peoples blogg-y weddings, and come up with a story of what the inside of our wedding should feel like. We should all have friends in mismatched outfits that reflect their different, but equally hip personalities. We should have a band of quirky and arty friends, who know each other, and love us exactly the way we are. These friends should be talented (so they can help with the wedding) and generous (they are excited to help with the wedding).

Agh - you got me!!  Yes, yes yes!  I thought I was totally going to have that whole indie wedding thing because I'd seen it done in blogland and I knew I didn't care about matching outfits or equal numbers or same-gender bridal/groomal parties.  Having had a cadre of fabulous gay men as some of my closest friends in college, I'd always assumed I'd have a mixed-gender wedding party. Mr. FW is less extroverted than I am, so maybe I'd have more people stand on my side.  And why would I want to pick someone else's clothes for them when I have a hard enough time picking my own?  It all seemed so easy-peasy.

What I didn't account for in this blissfully happy bubble world was... the reality of my actual relationships.

For starters, many of my friends are unmarried (for personal, political, and logistical reasons).

{unmarried friends, out on the bay}

{back when everyone in this picture was actually single}

Of those who are married, most were married before I knew them. I've only been a bridesmaid once and I haven't been to that many weddings. To sum that all up - I don't have a wedding crazy friend group, and let me just say *wow* how that has changed the way I approach my wedding party.


And then there are the family matters. Mr. FW has possibly the best brother and sister on the planet, and there was never any doubt that they'd stand on his side on our wedding day.

{Mr. FW, Sister S, Brother S}

But my siblings and I are not as close.  We love each other the way family should, but it's not a... friendly love.  Does that make sense?  My youngest brother and I work really hard at our relationship, but my relationship with our other brother is complicated, which in turn takes it toll on my relationship with our other brother.  I worried that if I didn't ask them to stand on my side, that they'd feel bad being in the crowd and seeing Mr. FW's sibs up there.  Then I worried that, if they did stand on my side, they'd only be there out of obligation.  And I sure as hell don't want anyone - friend, family, or otherwise - feeling obligated to participate on our wedding day.

So many mixed emotions!  Up next: how I reached a happy resolution.

Has there been any agony involved in that ecstatic process of choosing your wedding party?  Do share...

Make-Believe Budget Land

How do you create a wedding budget?  No, seriously, how in the world do you decide how much to spend on your wedding when you have no idea how much weddings cost, how much you can afford to spend, or what needs to be included in the total?  Frankly, I have absolutely no freaking idea.  This budgeting tale of ours that I'm about to spin is by no means a "suggested method" of creating a wedding budget.  It's just the random, kinda messed up, pretty-useful-but-not-perfect way that we went about it. 

image via yesandyes.org

Back before I knew anything about the world of wedding blogs (and life was dark and dreary), I started the budget research in the same way I assume lots of other people do - I googled something like "wedding budget calculator."  Apparently, to effectively use those budget calculators you need to first know how much you want to spend.  Well, there was only one other person we'd known who'd gotten married in a quasi-similar location and we thought we had a general idea of how much that wedding cost (although we had no idea how "all-inclusive" or not that number was).  We then decided that number was much too high for us, so we reduced it by 1/3.  Based on what, you ask?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  We arbitrarily slashed a budget total amount by 1/3 because we wanted to.  Thus our entrance into Make Believe Land.

image via The Funny Pages

I took this make believe number and plugged it into the budget calculator, which yielded many smaller numbers attached to discrete categories (attire, accessories, jewelry, gifts, ceremony, reception, officiant, etc. etc.).  Again, with the whole not knowing what the hell our wedding was going to include thing, I made some totally arbitrary decisions to cut certain categories and move some of the money around.  In particular I focused on the two categories most important to us - photographer and ceremony/reception costs.  I allocated 75% of our make believe budget to these categories, figuring that I'd just magically be able to find photographers and venues that would work within those budgets and that there's no way we'd spend more than the additional 25% on all those other weddings costs (cuz, ya know, I'm gonna do everything myself...  And also I was living in Make Believe Land). 

image via musicchartheaven.com

Related to these arbitrary decisions I made, a controversial wedding budget topic I often see talked about is what exactly gets included in the budget.  Do you wanna include engagement ring(s), honeymoon, rehearsal dinner, other wedding weekend activities?  The list goes on and on.  In my particular Make Believe Land, it only felt necessary to include the *really big* wedding purchases - the ones where a lot of money would come due all at the same time.  I also had strong feelings about what should not go in the budget, namely things that other people might contribute to (like the honeymoon, because we'll have a honeymoon registry), things we didn't yet know what we'd do for it (like the rehearsal dinner or other wedding weekend activities), and things we would re-sell after the wedding (like candy buffet jars or linens).  In my mind, this is a totally reasonable way to approach our budget - 1) because we're having a long engagement so we have significant time to both save and spend money, 2) because smaller costs would just get rolled into our regular monthly credit card bills so we'd never really notice the difference, 3) because we could decide at a later date what we could afford for all the things we didn't include in the original budget, and 4) because money we spend and then re-coup later doesn't feel like money spent to me.

Unfortunately (for me), Mr. FW approaches budgeting very differently.  For him, budgets should account for every dollar spent on anything wedding-related - things that are outside the realm of our regular purchases.  He was not a fan of Ms. Ferris Wheel's Make Believe Budget, no-sir-ee.

 

Where does that leave our budget?  Good question, to which I have a less make believeish but equally fantastical response.  Right now our budget exists as what I might call a 3-tier system.  The first tier is the original budget I put together all those many months ago (venue/catering, photography, miscellaneous).  The second tier is less researched and less specific, and it consists of estimates for those bigger ticket items that should be covered by the miscellaneous category in the first tier but that we're not yet sure we'll actually be spending (photobooth, DJ, lighting, rehearsal dinner, honeymoon).  The third tier is the most frequently updated, where I'm keeping track of every single penny spent on anything remotely wedding-related no matter how small the purchase ($5 for photo printing, $2 for ribbon).   The hope is that, as our wedding date nears, we'll have an up-to-the-minute totaling of *all* our expenses from which we can base our decisions about those second tier items where we have some flexibility.

{3 tiers - these are full of goodies more palatable than budget items}

image via Rose Petals Cakery

For sure the final budget is not as pretty as the make believe budget, it's way more complicated than it probably needs to be, and it will likely change as time goes on...  but it's working for us.  For me, for now, that's enough.

Who else began with an idealized budget that morphed into something less attractive over time?

Partying with the In-Laws

Now that you know the story of our engagement(s), let me tell you the story of the first real wedding-related event we attended - thrown by my incredible future sister-in-law!  Not only have she and her husband given me and Mr. FW the most amazing niece ever (just in time to be a flower girl, no less!)...

{a picture I took of Flower Girl S, just a few hours after she was born}

... but she organized the sweetest engagement dinner for us shortly after we made it all *official.*  Just to clarify - this would've been amazing no matter what, but it's particularly meaningful because it was the first time I truly realized the emotional big deal-ness of this whole engagement/marriage thing.  I guess I thought that because we'd been together for so long, and because everyone knew we were in it for the long haul, and because it doesn't seem like the marriage part of our relationship will concretely change anything about our day-to-day lives, the engagement would just feel like normal life except we would have rings on our fingers and I could be more unabashedly open about our wedding planning.  But I was so wrong.

{us, with FBIL}

{FBIL with niece/flower girl S}

{FSIL and us}

{FFIL, FMIL, and Flower Girl S}

I don't know the words to describe the feeling that washed over me during that dinner, but all I can say is I became aware of this...  beautiful emotional weight...  the heaviness and the awe of this historically-valued institution of marriage that so many before us have entered into.  And I felt so very, very loved. 

Among other thoughtful gifts (*yay* for a big stack of weddings mags, that I wantwantwanted but needed like I needed a hole in the head), FSIL organized other family members to provide us with individualized 'words of wisdom' cards that were both touching and hilarious to read aloud during dinner. 


{"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."  - Mignon McLaughlin; from FSIL}



{To keep your marriage brimming with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it.  Whenever you're right, shut up.  - Ogden Nath; from FMIL}



{Realize that your spouse is looking at every situation the two of you face with completely different eyes than you.  If there is any area of agreement, it's usually a mistake and you need to embrace the mistake and treat it as you would a rare flower, for it may not come your way again.  - FFIL}

I am so lucky to be marrying into such an ah-ma-zing family. 

When did the the historical and emotional weight of marriage hit you for the first time?

The (Second) Proposal

Equality is an important and abiding ideal in my life, and one that significantly affects my relationship with Mr. FW.  See, as excited as I was about "getting engaged," I harbored a lot of guilt about how traditionally one-sided the whole process is.  Even for couples who plan together for an engagement, the situation I've most frequently encountered is where one partner (for heterosexual couples, typically the man) sustains the entire cost of the engagement ring. 

That just wasn't going to work for us, so a big part of our engagement discussions revolved around fairness of costs.  Eventually we were able to arrive at an arragement that felt financially equitable for both of us.  Mr. FW had no interest in blingy jewelry, but he did want something else that was rather expensive - specifics to be revealed later, but semi-related to this picture:


{name blurred to protect the innocent}

I gave him his engagement gift several months before I received my ring.  But that still didn't feel quite equitable enough to me.  So I planned my own proposal to him!  Without Mr. FW's knowledge I bought him a super cool "engagement" ring on Etsy,

{ordered in green}
ring by MinterandRichterDes

with the plan to carry it around with me at all times to ensure I'd have it on me when he proposed to me.  Then I would casually whip out his ring and return the proposal.  I arranged to have the ring delivered a full 2 months before the time I knew he would propose to me - plenty of time!  Oh, what a lovely plan!

Unfortunately, because he surprised me so completely with my proposal, his ring arrived 5 days too late for me to propose to him on the same day.  Boo...  But I don't think it mattered all that much because Mr. FW was surprised anyway.  Five days after he proposed, he took the dogs down to the backyard for their last outing of the night.

{not actually our yard, and taken several years ago - but you get the idea}

When he came upstairs he found me waiting in the dark (scared him to death, I think!), on one knee and holding his ring.  I expressed a bunch of heartfelt and meaningful sentiments with tears in my eyes.  I'm pretty sure he promptly forgot all of it, but no matter.  We hugged (again) and kissed (again) and felt all giddy (again) about being so "official." 

Here's where I'd normally show you a picture of Mr. FW and me with his ring, but silly me ordered the wrong size and it wasn't a good fit.  After my proposal, Mr. FW got excited about the prospects of choosing his own engagement ring, so back to Etsy he went.  The seller, Minter and Richter Designs, allowed us to exchange the ring and pay for the difference in cost between the old one and new one.  Yay! 

{he preferred blue}

These rings take a LONG time to ship (longer than it took to custom design my ring - more on that later) and we didn't receive it until 8 weeks after the exchange.  After such a long wait, there was finally a ring for each of us!
 

{perched on Mr. FW's Giants cap}



{atop our lovingly hand-painted dog treat jar}

 

{the "f*ck up jar," into which we make frequent contributions}

 

{elegant finial +lovely rings = breathtaking}

Would you ever consider a double proposal?  Why or why not?  Discuss...

The (First) Proposal

Mr. Ferris Wheel wrote a lovely and funny description of his proposal on our wedding website so instead of trying to out-do him here, I thought I'd just let him speak for himself.  (Being a good blogger, though, I've added some pictorial excitement to the whole shebang.)  Take it away, Mr. FW!

"Ms. Ferris Wheel expected a proposal in July.  Naturally, then, Mr. Ferris Wheel knew the proposal should take place in May since the one thing Ms. FW loves more than having a detailed plan is a good surprise. 

{not OUR surprise proposal, but a fantastic one nonetheless}

photography by Joe Elario Photography

He began working with Chabo Jewelery to design and create a custom ring (Ms. FW is a woman who appreciates having something unique on her finger) roughly a month before the proposal.  Soon Chabo became like his second family, and he began to have trouble coming up with excuses for all the mysterious trips out of the house!  Luckily for him (or unluckily, from his perspective), he was also furiously working towards dissertation defense, so Ms. FW didn't think much of it when  he had to "go to the cafe to study." 

Photo by austinevan via Flickr 

He planned to propose the night of his defense, May 21, 2010 (he passed, by the way).  After planning an elaborate fondue "defense celebration" dinner for that evening, there was a delay in shipping the ring, and Mr. FW told Ms. FW he was "too tired" to do dinner that night.  He picked up the ring Saturday (this one was "a trip to Target"), and hid the ring in the back of one of four drawers in a rarely-used filing cabinet in the basement until the next evening.

photo via The Old Mill Store

Naturally, Ms. FW picked that night, the first in several months, to decide to get something out of the filing cabinet.  Mr. FW was sure the secret was out when Ms. FW came upstairs and mentioned this, and he (not so) discreetly asked which drawer she had gone into.  Luckily for him, she had chosen the first and fourth drawers, and the ring remained safely tucked away in the second one. 

The next evening Mr. FW struggled through the entree portion of the fondue feast, trying to remain casual while also rehearsing the words he had been carrying around in his wallet for the last month.  When dessert rolled around he placed the box on the center of the dish surrounded by sweet dipping morsels for the chocolate, brought it out, and fell to one knee. 

It was then he promptly forgot half of what he had planned to say, but managed to get the important stuff out.  It turned out not to matter much, as Ms. FW later recalled only the word "wonderful."  It is possible this was because she went through half the proposal thinking Mr. FW was "practicing" with a fake ring because, in the moment, this was a more plausible explanation than Mr. FW actually pulling something like this off (he is not generally a good liar).  Mr. FW then instructed Ms. FW to say "yes," even though he had pretty obviously made a statement ("I can't wait to marry you") rather than asked a question. 

Six hundred photographs of the ring and an accidentally broken camera later, the couple was officially engaged on May 23, 2010."

Did anyone else have a general idea of when the proposal was coming?  And was your fiance able to surprise you?  (And yes, he did use the word's "sweet dipping morself."  What can I say - he's one of a kind!)