Weddingbee

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!

From the extremely close poll results, it looks like you guys were just as torn over the dress dilemmas as I was. Well, I’m happy to announce that I’ve made my decisions!

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In regards to where I should get my dress altered, you voted

I did some more research and inquired at a handful of Manhattan-based tailors who specialize in bridal alterations.

Glenda of Manhattan - $250 - $300 (She’s on the Upper West Side and has altered about 300 wedding dresses)

Pinpoint Bridal - $225 minimum (Upper East Side. I had a very difficult time communicating with the people who worked there. Their command of English was not strong enough to make me feel comfortable)

Sivan Bridal - $320 + tax (For some reason, I thought she was based in Manhattan, but she’s actually located in Princeton, NJ.)

Ann Hamilton - Unavailable (She’s located in Nolita and came highly recommended by NYC Knotties, but she was difficult to get a hold of and later told me she was booked)

In the end, I decided to stay with the in-house alterations at Kleinfeld. Despite the initial sticker shock ($450 flat fee?!!), I learned from my comparison shopping that wedding dress alterations are expensive everywhere, period. Plus, Kleinfeld offers an incredible team of seamstresses and the resources to provide a solution in the unlikely case that my dress is ruined. The hundred or so dollars extra is worth my peace of mind.

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As for whether to A. keep the different bridesmaid dress or B. rush order a new dress that matches, you voted

Before I go into what I decided, I want to thank netbride.com for their wonderful customer service. I ordered the bridesmaid dresses in mid-June and they arrived in about 10 weeks. The color mis-match was an error on my part, not theirs. They shipped me the exact dresses that I ordered.

When I emailed a representative about my concerns, she got back to me immediately and addressed all of my questions. Sorry, it was too late to rush order a new dress to be made. But, they could find out if there were any suitable dresses in stock. Yes, they called the factory and found there was one celestial blue dress available! And, they would only charge me $95 for the dress and shipping, and it’d arrive within the month. Unfortunately, it was satin, so it didn’t solve my mis-match problem.

I ended up declining the stock dress and have decided to keep the dresses the way they are. Well, I didn’t really have much of a choice. It’s probably better that way.

Earlier this year, Hewlett Packard introduced digital cameras with a “slimming feature” that takes 10-15 pounds off the subject in the photo.

In my mad scramble to make crafts, find a new makeup person, and see Mr. Caterpillar off to his first week of school, I seem to have forgotten to find a brooch for my dress.

I kind of love this one from Doyle & Doyle.

I should probably go with something less goth and less than a thousand dollars. Any suggestions?

Do you think you can cover the “etiquettes” of a destination wedding?

My fiance and I are finding contradicting information on what we need to provide for our guests. We want to do it right for our guests, but we also don’t want to go over the top if we don’t need to.

I would also like to note that our wedding is at the Outerbanks, North Carolina, which is still driveable for most of our friends. Most likely, the guests (family) will fly in Friday and leave Sunday - just as they would if our wedding was in Philadelphia. Some of our good friends have already decided to rent a house for the week and make a vacation out of it as well (since it’s pretty affordable down there).

What do you think? Thanks!!!

Sincerely,

Chris and Christina

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Dear Chris & Christina,

As weddings go, destination weddings are firmly in the “new kid on the block” category. So new, in fact, that I think it’s more about “do’s and don’ts rather than formal etiquette. I’m having a destination wedding myself (in California), so I’ll share some of my definite do’s:

*Give plenty of notice: with a destination wedding, save the dates are an absolute must. People need time to book tickets, plan reservations, get time off of work, etc. Personally, I think you should try to give at least six months notice for your guests.

*Provide Information: Since you will be asking your guests to travel, it’s only fair that you make it as easy as possible. Either set up a wedding website or include a travel and accommodations card with your save-the-dates that provide flight information, hotel options (make sure to list several in different price ranges) and any other important info (i.e. if you are planning an international trip, you should mention any special visa or vaccination requirements).

*Make sure your guests feel welcome: I think welcome bags or baskets in hotel rooms are a wonderful way to say a special thank you to your guests for traveling to your wedding. You can be as creative as you’d like with a welcome bag/basket, but many brides like to represent the theme of their weddings with them (i.e. for a NY wedding you could include a black and white cookie, a subway map, an I love NY t-shirt, etc).
Also include a wedding weekend itinerary in your guest’s hotel rooms, so that your guests know all of the wonderful things you have planned for them over the weekend.

*Keep people busy: If you know that many of your guests will be there for several days, don’t be shy about planning some extra activities. Perhaps a bar-b-que one evening, or a day at the beach with volleyball. This is, of course, not mandatory, but nice to offer nonetheless.

*Rehearsal Dinner: Others may disagree, but I think it’s only appropriate to invite everyone who has made a special effort to travel to your wedding to your rehearsal dinner. Typically the rehearsal dinner includes your family, bridal party and closest friends. But I wouldn’t feel right about asking someone to travel all that distance and then not include them in the rehearsal dinner.

*Day-After-Brunch: Though not mandatory, planning a special brunch for your guests for the morning after your wedding is a nice way to say a final “thank you” on your special weekend.

*Extras: Keep in mind that some of your guests might need a bit of “extra help.” This ranges from extra trip planning assistance, to hooking friends up to share rides on the day of the wedding. I know you’ll be a busy bride trying to make sure everything is perfect, but I always think it’s nice to go the extra mile when you can, since people are really putting forth some super-sized effort for you in the travel department.

As I said, none of these “do’s” are hard and fast rules, but I think you’ll end up with a pretty fab weekend that’s unforgettable for both you and your guests if you follow them.

Bon voyage,
Erica