Weddingbee Blog

I’ve been having these weird dreams lately.

It always starts the same. I am getting ready for my wedding. I’m not ready at all, but the ceremony starts. I start panicking, and realize that they can’t hold off the ceremony just for me. I end up having to walk down the aisle in white sneakers, untied laces, an unzipped wedding dress, hair in rollers, no makeup, etc.

As I’m walking down the aisle, I can’t seem to walk straight no matter how hard I try. It’s almost as if I’m really really drunk and can’t balance myself. To make it worse, none of the guys are ready either! Their vests are unbuttoned, jackets are off, their ties loosely hanging around their necks… it’s seriously a nightmare.

I get through the ceremony somehow, and start crying about how that was the WORST wedding in the world. My bridesmaids (bless you girls) - even in my dream, they comfort me saying that no one noticed anything wrong, and that everything was beautiful.

Then I wake up a bit disoriented. And realize that the wedding is still 5 months away. (eek! only 5 months!!!)

I know I can’t be the only one having nightmares about the wedding. So I ask you readers, what kind of nightmares have you had? I am geniunely curious, because if you guys have had weird dreams too, then I might just be normal. So please - if you want to help me feel like a normal bride, share your craziness!!

You’ve had blogs about creative wedding ideas and such but what about how to pay for them?! Know of any good credit cards that offer 0 % down for one year so when the year comes, our wedding gifts (cash) will be used to pay for the the credit cards? Anyone have any other ideas on how to pay for the wedding????

I’m getting married May 2007 so I need lots of help with the finances!!!

HELP!!!

~~~

Dear Thrifty Bride,

Weddings are insanely, ridiculously, earth-shatteringly expensive. No need to mince words here, it’s just a fact of life. In my experience, most brides fall into two main categories: those who are lucky enough to be filthy rich or have a filthy rich family so there is no concern about beluga caviar for all, 16 piece bands or $15,000 site fees…and then there are the rest of us. Budgets certainly differ in size and scope, but most of us have them. And whether your budget is $5000 or $20,000, budgets are darn difficult to stick to. Having a lower budget just means you’ll have to get a bit more creative!

In terms of credit cards, I would try to avoid that method at all costs. Even if you have a year at zero percent, things tend to come up. All of a sudden you might find your year is up and your 18% interest kicks in and you just spent all your loot on great Christmas presents. In terms of what you should do, I would suggest a couple of the following tips as starting points:

*Embrace the concept of DIY wholeheartedly: putting together elements of your own wedding is fun and way less expensive than letting someone else worry about it. You can, pretty painlessly, create your own wedding invites, save-the-dates, favors, even centerpieces. Gartner Studios has a pretty fab do-it-yourself invite printing program that looks easy as pie.

*Plan your wedding for an “off” day or time of the year. For the most part, everyone wants to get married on a Saturday night and spring and fall are the two most popular times of the year. If you plan your wedding for a Friday night–or even something more creative like a Wednesday night, you will find significant savings with almost every vendor as these nights are often left unbooked for them. If you choose winter over spring, you will also save.

*Start saving! I’m sure you and your fiance have already begun to do this, but it might not be a bad idea to sit down and go over every bill and every expense you have and see where you can cut back. Call your credit card companies and get the interest rates lowered; ditch Showtime and HBO from your cable bill or ditch cable altogether; switch to a VOIP phone service such as vonage to avoid expensive monthly phone bills. I would also recommend starting a separate savings account that you can use to put any extra cash you might come across for the wedding.

There are loads more ideas out there for saving money, but hopefully this will get you started. In the meantime, keep reading Weddingbee as there are always oodles of great specific tips from brides trying to make it work thrifty style.

a penny saved is a penny earned,

Erica
www.paperbride.com
www.papermama.com

Dear Weddingbee Readers,

I have (want ;)) to take a much needed day off today, but the other bees will be buzzing. See you all tomorrow and enjoy your Thursdays!

Mrs. Bee

Ok I admit it, the post below is my shameless attempt to inspire my BMs into planning a shower that will make me twirl and clap like a little girl. One of my BMs just revealed to me that the wheels are already in motion for planning the bridal shower extravaganza of the year - YAY~!!!

I told Mr. Spider over the phone just now and he got really quiet.

Me: What’s wrong?
Mr. Spider: I need to talk to Adrian (groomsman).
Me: What about?
Mr. Spider: I dunno, maybe he can plan me a grooms shower…
Me: OOoooOOoohhhhh nooOOo, you want a grooms shower?
Mr. Spider: maybe…
Me: awww with tiny sandwiches and flowers?
Mr. Spider: *sigh* that would be nice… maybe if you blog about it, Adrian will see it and plan something for me.
Me: OMG babeeee, I’ll plan you a grooms shower. I’LL DO IT~!!!!

Is there such a thing as a groom’s shower, I mean of course he’ll have a bachelor party but my little groom wants him a grooms shower and by golly Imma give him one.

We’re starting a new feature called the Beehive!

We get a lot of reader email at weddingbee, and while we’d love to help each and every one of you, unfortunately we can’t answer every single question. Well how great would it be, if we could tap into the collective wisdom of our readers? I’m sure many of you have oodles of great ideas, advice and tips to share!

I like to think of weddingbee as a community - kind of like a beehive if you will, where we help each other out. So if you have a question or need advice, just leave a comment on this post and the many wonderful readers out there in weddingbeeland can probably help! After all, many bees are better than one!

~~~

In today’s hive, Ana wants to know about engagement rings.

Please feel free to add your own question to the hive!

Certain parts of wedding planning make you want to beat your own head with a shoe, and then certain parts make you wanna twirl around and clap your hands like a little girl. Mrs. Bee posted about Jin Patisserie on weddingbee a few months ago and I’ve seen it mentioned on other blogs, but I didn’t take a good look at the website until this morning and let me say, right now, I am hardcore suppressing the urge to twirl around my office while silently clapping my hands. Decide for yourself:

The next bridal shower I’m throwing is going to be inspired by these four perfect little creations. Now the only question is: Who will be the lucky bride?

Figleaves sale going on now.

Throughout this entire wedding process, I’ve been asking Mr. Butterfly what he thought of everything.

“Do you like these flowers?”
“What about the color scheme?”
“Which one do you like better?”

And all of us brides know that the wrong answer to any of these questions is “I don’t care.” It is so infuriating when he says that!! Especially when he backs it up with “It’s your wedding, honey!” Granted, usually my opinion wins out - but I want him to want to care, and more importantly, I want his opinions to match mine!!! (Shush!! This makes perfect sense!)

However, I’d like to announce that Mr. Butterfly has had a major breakthrough. Yay! Prior to going to the florist, he believed that no one pays attention to the flowers. Well, no one he knows. But after the florist meeting, he actually said that he thought flowers were very important and if we could, we should spend a bit more money on them. WOAH.

But what really excited me was last night . We were looking at invitation samples and he was giving his honest feedback on everything! I had given him samples of all different types of folios (gate, pocket, fold, etc) - and I purposely didnt tell him which one I liked.

Well, lo and behold, he picked everything that I loved!!!

I knew we were meant to be…

Beautiful and vibrant placecard arrangement by LMD Floral Events. Owner Lewis Miller (a Belle Fleur alum) does some gorgeously dramatic work.

I was wondering what are appropriate gifts for bridal showers? More specifically, how much should you spend?

Julie

~~~

Dear Julie,

By this time your friend has probably created a registry, so feel free to purchase anything off of it within your price range. If the bride doesn’t have a registry, common presents include small appliances or cooking utensils (wrapped together with a pretty ribbon would make a lovely present). Something thoughtful and homemade such as a cookie mix is also sure to be appreciated. One of my favorite (and relatively inexpensive) present ideas, is to purchase a scrapbook and have everyone fill out a page at the bridal shower so the bride can have it as a keepsake for years to come.

As far as how much to spend, it depends how close you are to the bride and what you feel comfortable spending. How much would I spend you ask? Probably around $50-$75 for a shower gift. But let’s ask our readers…

Looking to spice up a bachelorette party? Check out Pervartistry, a sizzling hot boardgame that’s like charades and pictionary with an x-rated twist. Gather 4 or more people and have teams race to draw or act out terms that range from innocent to XXX. It’s sure to guarantee a night of scintillating fun!

Pervartistry also sponsors an event called Titillating Tuesday at Madame X in the Village where you can join other pervartists for a night of fun. Sounds like an excellent kick-off for a bachelorette party.

I bought my wedding shoes the same day I ordered my dress. Alene told me to wait for my gown swatches to come in, so I would have a better sample to match when I dyed them. This would have been excellent advice had I ever thought about wearing satin shoes. But, really? I never thought about wearing satin shoes.

Now, I spend money on all sorts of useless things — $1,200 tent liner anyone? — but I just couldn’t see my way to spending money on shoes I would never wear again. Shoes that I guaranteed I would never ever wear again by dyeing them to match the ONE thing that I would only have occasion to wear once. So, I bought a pair of gold shoes.

I love me some gold shoes. They pretty much go with everything, and I think I’ll wear them forever. I saw these

at Thread last week and thought they were fantastic. Miss Ladybug threw out a link to the designer, BlueTux Shoes, a little while ago, but I failed the grasp the import of this until now.

These shoes are gorgeous, and nicely priced at $90.00. BlueTux also does traditional dyable satins, so there’s a little something for everyone.

PS: They have BLUE soles!

Hello weddingbee readers!

I have a confession - I’m obsessed with updating weddingbee at least 13 times a day. Sometimes when I’m feeling wacky, it’s 14, 15 or even 16 times a day! I hope we’ve sufficiently sucked you into the evil clutches of weddingbee addiction ~ muhahahahaha!

No but seriously, we do wonder if you’re getting enough, too much, or too little. So please let us know…

Victoria’s Secret is having their semi-annual sale with savings of up to 60%! Pick up some lingerie and a swimming suit or two or three for your honeymoon!

Check out our newly updated Author section on the right! The Miss Bloggers are now separate from the Mrs. Bloggers, so you can see who’s a bride-to-bee and who’s a married bee.

We’ve also added frames to all images so they look just a little bit nicer.

Thanks to my brother-in-law who made the changes for my computer illiterate self!

Hope you like!