Weddingbee Blog

A few years ago, Mr. Firefly’s cousin from the Boston area had a wedding with a cash bar. Cash bar?!?!?!??! Like, they made you pay for your drinks????

I was shocked; I had never heard of such a thing. Cash bars would simply never fly in New York. If you need to save money (and heck, who doesn’t), you decrease your guest list, skip the favors, cut out the flowers, dance to itunes, sleep outside the steps of Vera Wang’s sample sale for a cheap dress… you can do anything, but ask people to pay for their booz. Since I’ve been lurking on the knot’s message boards, I’ve come to realize that in many parts of the country, cash bars are not just acceptable, but sometimes expected.

There are some regional differences even within the NYC area. In the outer boroughs, Long Island and New Jersey guests expect that cocktail hour will be a virtual smorgasbord - pasta stations, carving stations, stir-fry, peking duck, raw bars, caviar, sushi tables, even make baked potato bars.

This is, of course, followed by a three or four course dinner. Dessert often, if not always, includes a Venetian hour where anyone with an elastic waist band gorges on cakes, pastries and chocolate-dipped everything. I grew up in Brooklyn and Mr. Firefly is from Staten Island, so this is what we’ve always expected at a wedding.

Things run a little bit differently in Manhattan and Westchester; cocktail hour is just that, an hour for drinking cocktails, eating some passed hors d’oeuvres and maybe munching from the fruit and cheese tray. Well, you can take the Bride (and her parents) out of Brooklyn, but don’t think for a minute that her guests will go hungry!

We had our tasting this week; everything was yummy, but my father was concerned that there wasn’t enough food at the cocktail hour. After he added a thing or three, this is the waist-expanding menu for cocktail hour:

Passed Hors D’oeuvres (Vegetable samosas, Baby lamb chops with date & mint pesto, Crab cakes with spicy peanut sauce, Coconut chicken with lemongrass & coconut milk sauce, Crab & artichoke stuffed mushrooms, Marinated baby shrimp on tortillas with guacamole spread, Heirloom tomato bruschetta & Tuna tartar in cucumber purse)

Mediterranean, Cheese & Fresh Fruit Display (often called a Tuscan Table)

Made-to-order Pasta Station (even the pasta itself will be made fresh!)

Carving Stations: braised short ribs & whole roast salmon

Seafood/Raw Bar (we’re Russian, so we’ll also be bringing our own caviar )

Sushi Station (Daddy Firefly: people will “talk” if we don’t do sushi)

… yes, all of this will be followed by dinner, dessert, and wedding cake… but, alas, no Venetian table!

I LOVE carnival food - hot dogs, cotton candy, caramel apples, churros - I love it all. In fact I would love to throw a carnival themed party one day complete with games. So what does that have to do with weddings? For an outdoor summer wedding, I think renting a snow cone maker is a really fun idea.

The kids will love it, the adults will love it (super nostalgic), and everyone can cool off while taking a break from dancing.

Frankie’s Carnival Time in the Bronx has all kinds of food machine rentals - hot dog, popcorn, cotton candy, ice cream and more.

And I bet no one else has a snowcone maker at their wedding.

Hello, this is Mr. Bee. Mrs. Bee isn’t feeling well today, so she asked me to guestblog… and like the DH that I am, I said “yes”.

It’s been a lot of fun watching Weddingbee grow. The site’s only been live about two months or so, and the response has been tremendous! Traffic in the second month is over 6x what it was in the first month. Maybe there’s something to this weblog thing after all…

Speaking of which, check out this list of the top 100 blogs out there… every year, more and more of them are from professional writers and journalists! But most of them are about “boy” subjects like gadgets, politics, and technology… other than the gossip blogs (written mostly by men), where are the blogs that interest women?

I think that female friendly blogs are the Next Big Thing. So far, there haven’t been that many professional blogs in the genre, although *ahem*, hopefully Weddingbee is an exception! But in the next year or so, look for that to change. Weddingbee is just the first in a series of blogs coming from Busy Bee Blogs!

How are you liking Weddingbee so far? And what other female friendly topics would you like to see covered in a blog?

2 pyromaineiacs may have the hardest name to spell, but they do have the cutest matches.

I love cute matches because they look nice next to a candle. Another good, inexpensive favor idea.

The main flower that I picked is the Peony. I love it. I love its fullness, and the size, and that perfect pink and dark pink shade. I’m mixing it with white hydrangeas as well. I know a lot of you have also picked this flower for your wedding as well so here are some photos for inspiration.

Bouquets

Centerpieces

Annie Siu - San Francisco
Art In Bloom - NE Cali
Artfool - New York
Bella Signature Design - Seattle
Belle Fleur - New York
Carl Alan Creations - Philadelphia
Chestnuts In The Tuileries - New York
Elegant Wedding Flowers - Central Cali
Fleur De Lis Florist - Baltimore
Flower Sculpture - SE Pennyslvania
Flowers By Madison - New York
Flowers Of The World - New York
Kampo Floral Design - New York
Kate Healey Flowers - Central Cali
Lilla Bello Studio - Los Angeles
Lilly Pilly - Oregon
Loop Florist - San Francisco
Michelle Rago - New York
Blooms Boutique - New York
Murphy & Klein Floral Studio - SE Pennsylvania
Petite Fleur - Los Angeles
Reve Design Studio - San Diego
Simply Blooms - San Francisco
Soiree Floral - Connecticut
Stonekelly - New York
That Girl Creations - Ontario
The Flower Exchange - Online Resource
Unique Floral Expressions - Georgia
Magnolia Florists NYC - New York
Tapestry Flowers - San Francisco

Check out these cute chocolate bars from Chocolove made from premium Belgian chocolate!

Each bar looks like a love letter and comes with a love poem. At less than $2 a pop, they’re perfect for a wedding favor!

We are still experiencing problems with our internet.

I got a deep cleansing facial 4 months before my wedding and another one 1 month before my wedding. I’ve had many facials at upscale day spas, and never noticed a significant difference in my skin. But the facials I got before my wedding were with the on-staff facialist at my dermatologist’s office - no frills, but the results were absofuckinglutely fantabulous!!

I swear I’ve never received so many compliments on my skin in my entire life! And I have really sensitive skin (with horrible eczema ).

Because I love you guys so much, I’m going to share my facialist and dermatologist with you. The facialist only works with the doctor’s patients (I tried to get Mr. Bee an appointment to no avail). But I promise they’ll give you the clearest, most blackhead free, glowing skin you’ve ever had in your entire life.

Dr. Karen Burke
429 E. 52nd Street (bet 1st ave and the river)
212-754-1100

I spoke with someone from Wedding Points at the New York Metro Showcase yesterday. From what I understand, you register your credit cards/debit cards online with wedding points. Every time you purchase something from a participating store (Best Buy, Dell, eLuxury, Drugstore.com, Home Depot, Office Depot, Target and more) either in-store or online, you’ll receive points that you can use towards cash, gift certificates, and travel.

You don’t even have to be getting married to register! I shop at all those stores all the time anyway. I’m registering!

One thing we should have done was make all our wedding purchases on a credit card that had rewards like frequent flyer miles. But we didn’t use credit cards at all. You can even sign up your rewards credit card for this wedding points program and get double the rewards!

With designs inspired by fashion icon Audrey Hepburn, Absolutely Audrey carries a line of vintage and modern shoe clips to spice up your footwear.

They have a bridal line, but their shoe clips can easily jazz up any look. I think they’d look great on plain black pumps, with jeans, on a purse… the possibilities are endless. They would even make a nice bridesmaids gift. Tres cute.

(source: bridalwave)

I’m not doing this but kudos to those of you who are. I think it’s a really cute idea. Here’s some additional info.

Bulk Candy
Candy Warehouse
Blair Candy
Groovy Candies
Sweet Nostalgia
Hometown Favorites
Oldtime Candy

* TeeGirl has put together a price comparison chart for some of the popular candy stores. Download here. *

Candy Jars
ReStockIt.com

InstaWares.com

RomanticFlowers.com

Crate&Barrel.com

Linens&Things.com

TheContainerStore.com

I was planning on writing a post about the pros and cons of merging finances after marriage, but looks like thenest beat me to it - they have a helpful article today on joint vs. separate accounts.

Also check out their tax prep guide which tells you the pros and cons of filing taxes individually or jointly. I actually sent an email to my CPA today about this very topic because I thought it’d be helpful for both me and weddingbee readers with tax day just around the corner.

Mr. Bee and I have a joint account because I wasn’t making any moola while launching this wonderful site. But I do have a separate checking account (even though I don’t use it that often). Eventually I think I would like for us to maintain separate checking accounts only because I think it’s easier to track spending (and saving) that way (I’m horrible, he’s not). But who knows - a joint account is working for us now.

What are your financial plans once you get married? Will you maintain separate accounts? A joint account? Or separate accounts and a joint account?

Last night I went to the New York Metro Wedding Showcase. They didn’t have as many vendors as The Bridal Event I attended last month, but the atmosphere was more upscale - they had high quality vendors and free wine and champagne. I also got to taste Godiva’s new chocolate wedding cake favor - delicious with a soft chocolately center.

Check out the gift bag they gave to each guest. I’m a greedy bastard that loves anything free. It was worth going for the gift bag alone.

Some highlights of the gift bag:

• make-up bag
• NY Metro Wedding Magazine (unfortunately I had already purchased one)
• Better Homes and Gardens New Decorating Book, Newlywed Edition
• Pommery Pink Pop champagne
• Vincent Longo lipstick in Nolita
• Amore Pacific Samples
• Malin+Goetz Samples
• box of cereality
• plus thank you cards, mints, coupons, and gift certificates.

I’ll be reviewing some vendors from the show in upcoming posts. I’ll also be at the 4pm Events bridal show next month. They’re going to be giving one sick giftbag. I can’t wait.

Mr. Caterpillar and I have been trying to get our registries together, and it’s taking forever. So far we’ve selected silver and china from Michael C. Fina and some bakeware from Williams Sonoma. Part of the problem is that I don’t actually believe people will purchase things from our registry. Yellow people always give cash, which is really ideal; and everyone else will just laugh at the idea of a $200 canape dish.