Weddingbee Blog

Miss Piggy asks:

Speaking of bridesmaids… my fiance and I are stuck on how many to have. I want 4, he wants 5 in his party, but I don’t want an odd number (I think it looks strange in pictures). but we both think that 6 is too many. Any advice?

Uneven wedding parties are actually quite common. I wouldn’t worry about whether your pictures will look odd (they won’t). In fact, I attended a wedding last year where there were 10 bridesmaids and 8 groomsmen in the wedding party.

How to solve the walking down the aisle together issue? One bridesmaid on each arm!

And their pictures were gorgeous - you didn’t notice there were an uneven number of wedding attendants at all. What really matters, is that you have all the people who are important to you by your side on your wedding day.

But if you’re absolutely set on having an even number of bridesmaids and groomsmen, what about asking some of them to be ushers? gift attendants? read a poem? escort your mother? escort a grandmother? That way they can still have a special role at your wedding.

Hope this helps!

June 10-17 is Caribbean Week in New York! The event celebrates the sights, sounds, cultures, and vacations of the colorful Caribbean.

On Tuesday June 13th, a Caribbean Fair will be held at the South Street Seaport from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm. A Caribbean Vacation Mart will be there were you can meet with travel representatives and purchase vacation packages at discount prices. The US Postal Service will also be on hand from 10-2 accepting applications for US passports. Finally two weddings, sponsored by the Conde Nast Bridal Group, will take place on the stage at 11:00 am and 3:00 pm.

If you’re planning on having a destination wedding or honeymooning in the Caribbean, this might be a great information gathering resource!

Originally Mr. Bee and I were going to get married in Los Angeles while we were living and planning the wedding from New York. The first area of business we had to decide was the budget. Based on the number of guests we were having, factoring in a full-time wedding planner, and what my friends had spent on their weddings, I came up with a general number - $40,000.

But I really had no idea how to set a budget at the time so I visited messageboards and asked other brides what a reasonable number for the Los Angeles area was. Let me tell you — those girls were mean, mean, mean. They scoffed at my budget and listed how much they were getting done for half that amount, a quarter of that amount, a tenth of that amount. They made me feel horrible, and to tell you the truth it kind of turned me off to messageboards for awhile.

I don’t think having a bigger budget necessarily translates into a better wedding, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a big budget either. All that matters is that the couple is happy and in love and that the guests have fun - that’s the formula for a successful wedding.

And now for the forbidden question…

I was munching on some m&m’s I got from the last bridal show I attended, when I noticed that they said David Tutera on them. David Tutera is a party planner to the stars up there with the likes of Preston Bailey and Colin Cowie. So I decided to check out his website…

He has an awesome website with a great photo album feature, cocktail recipes, and project ideas from his show on the Discovery Home Channel called Party Planner with David Tutera.

Whenever I see the over-the-top work of these party planners to the stars, I usually think that it’s just too much for a simple gal like me. I can’t imagine having such an event even if I had an unlimited budget - it only seems appropriate for celebrities and the fabulously wealthy. But I’m sure they can create simpler designs too - they just showcase the biggest and baddest ones.

It was fun flipping through his portfolio for ideas. Check out the rest of his portfolio on his website.

Check out these FREE offers at Vista Print. The postcards and magnets would make great Save the Dates!

Offer ends May 31st, so this can be a weekend project.

These are wedding fonts I am quite fond of using. I downloaded them for free by googling them. I won’t link them here in case it’s illegal to do that or you get a virus and sue me. We live in a litigious society after all.

I could not figure out a way to upload up the actual Illustrator files for the wedding programs I made. I suspect it is not possible to do so. The layouts are below - you can either retype everything yourself OR email me and I’ll send you a copy of the files so you can play around with it.

(double click images to enlarge)

I’m trying to figure out the timing on my wedding, and I’m looking for a little guidance.

New York is supposed to be the city where everything is available, regardless of time or season. But what about dresses for mothers? Why is everything either naked or covered in sequins/buttons/epaulets/braid? My mother doesn’t want to look like a drum majorette, or worse, a bellhop. She doesn’t like satin. She won’t wear anything without sleeves. And above all, she needs something COMFORTABLE. Nothing that requires a 60 year old woman to wear a bustier qualifies as comfortable. So, what to do?

Mr. Caterpillar’s mama devised a neat solution to the dress issue — she avoided it all together. Mama Caterpillar is not your average mama. She’s a painter, played soccer for 30 years, and can make a perfect souffle without a recipe. Clearly, she would never be caught dead in a bellhop outfit. So, what did she do? She went straight to her favorite designer and picked out a few pieces. Voila!

She’s wearing a combination of things from the Spring/Summer 2006 collection of Dries Van Noten. See picture at top — Brilliant!

Bridesmaids’ dresses don’t need to come from bridal houses, and mothers’ dresses shouldn’t either. While wandering 5th Avenue yesterday, I noticed some really beautiful suits at St. John, which would be gorgeous on my mom — the jacket provides full coverage, and the elastic waistband on the pants would meet the requisite comfort standard.

The wedding is the perfect opportunity for my (otherwise very practical) mother to splurge on something really nice for herself. Maybe I’ll point her in the direction of Chanel . . . .

I’ve heard many statistics and studies on how living together before marriage can be detrimental to a relationship. The Rutgers University Marriage Project found that couples who live together before marriage have a much higher divorce rate, and that the quality of life is lower for unmarried couples than it is for married couples. (source)

Author Roland Johnson III of the book Cohabitation: good for him, not for her says that, “Only one couple in five who cohabitates ever ends up getting married. Now this is really ironic because when you study college females who are cohabitating, you will find the number one response is it is a trial marriage. Most females really believe they are going to marry the guy.” (source)

Meanwhile, are men thinking that living together is like marriage anyway, so why get married? I certainly know this is true of some of my male friends. In any case, more couples than ever before are living together before marriage.

New York based designer Kate Spade is most famous for her chic handbags, but I love her stationery, shoes, and colorful dishes too!

Fun, fresh, and feminine.

Christopher Knight (of the Brady Bunch) and Adrienne Curry (the first America’s Next Top Model) return this Sunday for a second season of their hit VH1 reality show - My Fair Brady.

The unlikely pair (she’s 23, he’s 48) met on VH1’s The Surreal Life and moved in together shortly thereafter - thus My Fair Brady was born. The first season of the show concluded with Adrienne posing an ultimatum and Christopher proposing to his girlfriend of seven months.

In this second season, My Fair Brady: We’re Getting Married!, the outrageous couple is planning their wedding. They face challenges like Christopher’s “cold toes” and Adrienne’s budget woes.

VH1
Sunday, May 28
9:00 pm

What an unlikely pair… then again anything goes in Hollywood. They actually look pretty good together in the picture above.

When my mom was shopping for a dress for my wedding, I think she had a harder time finding a dress than I did! She hit Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Macys, Ann Taylor… “Everything is too low cut,” she told me. She resigned to wearing a traditional Korean dress because she couldn’t find anything she liked.

But she persevered, braved the malls weekend after weekend, and finally found a dress. She wore a traditional Korean dress through both ceremonies, then changed into her reception dress pictured below.

My mama & me (People say we look alike. Do we? I can’t tell.)

Unfortunately there aren’t that many resources for mother of the bride dresses. I would say department stores like Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Macy’s, and Saks Fifth Avenue are your best bet. You may also want to check out RK Bridal which has a decent selection of mother of the bride gowns.

Do you have any suggestions on where to buy mother of the bride dresses?

Hey, it’s Mr. Bee again. In my role as Weddingbee.com handyman, I often install little gadgets and doohickeys for Mrs. Bee. Recently I installed one that logs the most frequently asked search terms. I thought the results were fascinating:

1. bridesmaid
2. veil
3. bridal shower
4. hair
5. flower girl

I was shocked by these findings. We’ve been so focused on brides, we’ve forgotten about bridesmaids! But it totally makes sense that bridesmaid would be the #1 search… after all, there’s an average of 4 bridesmaids for every bride!

Should we blog more about bridesmaids?

Looking for affordable invitations? I’ve heard great things about the quality of Not From a Box’ invites. Their invitations run from $2.50 - $6.50 for a complete set and include the invitation, a monogram or motif, RSVP card & envelope with address, inner & outer envelope with address, and 1 additional enclosure card.

Everything is fully customizable, and they carry several affordable versions of the pocketfold invitations that everyone loves.

When ordering invitations from an online company, I would recommend ordering a sample first to make sure you’re happy with the quality.

This is a follow-up to Mr. Bee’s post on proposals. Many of you commented that you cried when your boyfriends proposed and now I feel kinda bad because I didn’t cry. I was blinded by the ring I tell ya!