Weddingbee Blog

I’m totally in love with this particular bridal bouquet.

I think the gown that I might be going with - if it doesn’t make me look like a heifer - is ivory, and the colors of these flowers will be magnificent.

Something a little similar, but smaller it seems.

I absolutely love peonies, but my venue wedding planner Francesca made it sound like they might be more expensive depending on what the weather is like the month we get married.

Then there’s always the option of going with a bouquet of lavender roses. I’m not sure what I want to do yet.

Bridesmaid Bouquets

Of course, I would not expect my girls to walk down the aisle holding a mint julep cup…

Centerpieces

Mine would involve different colors.

I love these arrangements.

I am currently on a site called Yelp! - it has reviews on businesses by real people like you and I. I use it a lot especially for wedding related things such as invitation/print shops and bakeries. So if you’re ever on it, go look at my reviews, add me or whatever else! I like it since it has a bunch of cities and you can see the good and the uglies of what others think. I hope this helps you as much it has helped me. You can find me here.

ps: my wonderful brother in law showed me this site gotta give him the credit!

We’ve talked about Spanx to death here on weddingbee, and I’ve heard nothing but raves about them. But now I really need your help deciding which one to purchase because I’m planning on wearing them to the next wedding I attend (the couple reads weddingbee so now they’re gonna know I’m wearing Spanx! ).

These are the three I’m deciding between:

Slim Incognito Seamless Control Panty, $42

Slim Incognito Seamless Mid-Thigh Shaper, $58

and the Power Panties, $25.

My dilemma is I’d like tummy and thigh control, but not so much the bootay control ‘cuz I need help plumping, not slimming there. Also the mid thigh shaper and power panties look similar, but there is a big price difference. Is the mid thigh shaper just a higher quality product?

Have you tried any one of these? Which one would you recommend?

I love Iomoi’s bold, modern graphic designs! They carry a great selection of custom invitations, stationery, address labels, paperweights, coasters and matches - it’s a one stop shop for wedding stationery and gifts.

(via veiledremarks)

I am SO happy to be a new member of the Wedding Bee team! Thanks Mrs. Bee :). My name is Gina (aka Miss Sunflower) and my fiance’s name is David - we’ll be married in April 2008. I’ve been consulting weddingbee for weeks now b/c of the wealth of information available, and have gotten so many fabulous ideas. It has inspired me to share the details of my planning process and hopefully provide some helpful information to other newly engaged couples.

We’re having our reception at Jericho Terrace. Anyone can tell you that I’ve been obsessed with this establishment for the past three years. Everytime we drove past, I would gaze at it lovingly and dream. After the initial bliss of our engagement, we decided to get moving on the process of reserving a venue for the reception. I’m not ashamed to say that the Jericho Terrace is the first and last place we went. It’s fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. Now comes the journey of finding everything else - entertainment, photographer/videographer, florist…and making sure that we don’t go bankrupt in the process!

Anyway, that’s about it for now. Thanks again, Mrs. Bee, and happy posting!

Mr. Spider has long said that he wants diamonds on his wedding band. I thought he meant small dispersed diamonds in one of those uber modern bands like this:

Blue Nile: Platinum Burnished Diamond Band

Worried that he might be thinking more along the lines of a P. Diddy blinged out pinky ring, we went down to Chinatown this past weekend to cruise the jewelry shops for ideas. Turns out he was thinking more along the lines of a woman’s diamond band. I kid you not, he grew attached to one that looked very similar to this:

Blue Nile: Platinum Diamond Band (Men’s)

Mr. Spider has somewhat feminine fingers which was confirmed by one sales lady who exclaimed “omigod, he has lady fingers!” So you can imagine how much more feminine the above band looked on his hand. Babe, I told him gently, men with fingers like yours do not get diamond bands like that. Maybe you’re right, he agreed stretching his fingers out in front of him like he just got his nails done. Lord.

Thankfully, he quickly took interest in a few other styles sans diamonds. Who knew there are so many different styles to choose from? Mr. Spider had a grand time trying on different styles but narrowed it down to a few similar to these:

Blue Nile: Titanium Brushed Comfort Fit (only $125)

We won’t get titanium but Mr. Spider liked a few bands that had a grey tint and black outlines.

A. Jaffe: Platinum Comfort Fit

A. Jaffe: Platinum Comfort Fit

Mr. Spider really wants a platinum ring despite their tendency to scruff (my E-ring went from brand-spanking-new-shiny to what-the-hell-happened-to-your-ring in 2 months flat). Several sales people tried to convince us otherwise telling us platinum is too soft of a metal and is phenomenally more expensive than white gold but we are concerned with white gold eventually changing color.

What’s the final word, anyone know?

Please welcome the newest addition to the weddingbee team - Miss Sunflower!

Name: Miss Sunflower
Age: 26
Occupation: Speech-Language Pathologist
Fiance’s Age: 31
Fiance’s Occupation: Slave to the MTA
Engagement Date: August 12, 2006
Wedding Date: April 2008
Venue: Jericho Terrace
About Me: Mr. Sunflower & I have been together for 3 years and to this day, he laughs at me when I tell him that I knew on our first date that I was going to marry him. Well, the most recent events prove, yet again, that I know everything. Most of my time these days involves planning and getting inspiration for our wedding, but when I’m not doing that, I enjoy shopping, movies, reading, writing, and making attempts at being crafty.

I have secret love for opera length gloves. I especially like these from Carolina Amato because of the three pearl buttons at the wrist.

I have absolutely no use for them, and they would probably make me look like a crazy ninja or something (that model isn’t helping any), but I have great love for them nonetheless.

Available at Nordstrom and Perfect Details (for about $20 less).

Today we’re going live with our new site redesign!

This was our hardest redesign yet. We went through six iterations, trying to balance all the feedback we’ve gotten with the business needs of the site:

• We wanted to create room for small ad sponsorships
• But we didn’t want the site to look too busy or cramped
• Plus we got feedback that the tags module shouldn’t be public
• And a bunch of people suggested we use lines to “frame the sponsors in a separate box”

Phew! I think we finally found something that hopefully satisfies everyone? And while we were at it, we added Mr. Bee, Brother Bee, and a Guest Bee to a new “Other Bloggers” section (see the Bloggers tab above). This is all courtesy of Brother-in-Law Bee! He doesn’t post on the site and turned down my offer of a bee icon… but I’m deeply grateful for all of his help.

Also thanks to our first sponsor, Idealfavors! If you’re interested in purchasing a graphic ad on weddingbee, please go here.

Last night Mr. Spider and I met with our officiant, Pastor April Gismondi. I am Buddhist but Mr. Spider and his family are not religious, so we were looking for a flexible officiant willing and able to incorporate some Buddhist philosophies. I found Pastor April on the Long Island Weddings forum among raves about her personalized and natural style and her ability to make couples (okay, brides) cry. When we pulled up to her house in Long Island, she was sitting on her front steps waving at us with her gentle giant of a basset hound, Sebastian, at her feet.

With Sebastian in tow, we settled into her backyard and began what would become a 2-hour long chat. In those 2 hours, Pastor April helped us structure our ceremony to reflect our personalities, our values and most importantly, our own words. She gave our ceremony a soul defined not by generic fill-in-the-blanks but by the love we have for each other. Nearly every word spoken at our ceremony will either be written by her for us or by ourselves.

Pastor April has a way of making you feel so at ease. She asks you questions not so she can fill-in-blanks but as a way to allow our words to find each other and evolve themselves into vows. She asked us to talk about one another and I started crying when Mr. Spider told her what he loved about me. He said he also had to hold back tears when I spoke about him. It was a truly fulfilling and affirming experience.

Sometimes things feel so right, you’d think it was meant to be that way. Mr. Spider said it felt like we had just asked an old friend to officiate for us. He said if she were our neighbor, he could imagine spending Sunday afternoons chatting with her in her backyard. He said, “she was meant to do this.” And I said, “she was meant to do this for us.”

Pastor April Gismondi
516.785.4191 or 631.893.1241
http://www.churchofancientways.org/
(serves the Tri-State area)

Thanks to everyone who entered yesterday’s color scheme contest! Using our highly scientific method of selecting a winner (aka multiple coin tosses), imhkim is the winner of the Yasmena wristlet sport bag. She suggested the following color scheme for a summer wedding:

Cream base table covers w/ aqua and minty green contrasters on top. Put a mirror on the center of the table with lots of small votives tied w/ matching ribbons, and aqua and minty green hydrangea centerpieces.

There were many great suggestions, so be sure to check out the rest of the comments for color scheme inspiration!

Looking for a modern invitation? I just stumbled across Blue Skies and Daisies, which offers both wedding invitations and wedding Web sites. They do both custom and “ready to wear invites,” all in sleek styles. Looks like the run for about $7 a set. Here are some that I thought were cute:

INTERTWINED ZEAL INVITATION:

SWIRL + TWIRL:

CHERRY BLOSSOM:

In today’s beehive:

• Bebe is forgoing favors and asking guests to donate to a charity. She’s not having a seated dinner but is thinking of placing in “lieu of favors” cards thruout the venue. Do you have any other creative ideas?

See all past beehives here. To add your question to the beehive, leave a comment below and we’ll update this post to include your question.

I’m one of those crazy people who had to get the matching diamond band to go with my pave engagement ring…

BUT - I’m not sure I’m going to want to wear the diamond band alllll the time, since gunk could get stuck in between the diamonds, I’d be heartbroken if it fell off when I was swimming, etc. So I have decided that I need to get (at least!) one other wedding band that doesn’t have diamonds, that I can wear on its own if I go camping or swimming or anywhere else I don’t quite feel like wearing the diamond band.

My favorite site for gazing at cheap options is e-weddingbands.com which has a wide variety of both men’s and women’s rings, in a wiiiide variety of prices! We are most likely going to buy Mr. Bluebell’s real wedding ring here (in titanium I think?), and I am totally picking up (at least!) one backup wedding ring! Now that I’ve gotten this idea in my head and seen how cheap they can be, I kind of want to have tons of options.

My absolute favorite that also happens to be the absolute cheapest is:

at a mere FORTY FIVE DOLLARS!!

They also have these other lovelies:

Embossed leaf band for $185

Freeform scroll band for $92

All of these (and the other really cheap ones) are in white or yellow gold, but they also have a huge number of platinum, titanium, tungsten, and two-tone bands, as well as bands with diamonds! I have not personally ordered from them before, but I have seen great consumer reviews on Pricescope which is my go-to place for anything diamond or ring related. (The forums there are extremely helpful if you are searching for information on diamonds in general, vendors, whether a specific stone is a good deal, etc.)

E-weddingbands also offers engraving and what looks like a great return policy in case you’re not satisfied. I totally feel like an ad, but I swear I just like them!!

And if you can get multiple fun wedding rings for the price of one “normal” ring elsewhere, why not have a bit of fun with it??

Are any of you getting “backup” wedding rings to wear in different situations? Are you having diamonds in your wedding band or do you want one you can wear 24-7 no matter what? What great sites have you found for browsing and/or buying rings?

Do you believe in the bridesmaid curse? Supposedly if you’re a BM more than three times, you’re destined to be single for the rest of your life. I’ve been the BM twice already; first I was the MOH for my only female paternal cousin, and recently for one of my three bestest friends in the world. And, I’m currently being reserved for one more.

My dilemma is that I have three more friends that I would love to be bridesmaids for on their special day. One of them just got engaged last week, and I was one of the first three gal pals she broke the great news to. From our conversation, I get a feeling she wants me to be one of her BMs. It’s a great honor to have your friend consider you special enough to stand by their side on one of the biggest events of their life.

But, I’m superstitious, and really believe in the three max rule. I eventually do want to have my special day, too. How to I gently decline w/o hurting their feelings? Is there an alternative for this solution w/o being affected by the BM curse? Help!