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As I hinted in my previous blog, Mr. Butterfly and I have been researching hotels for several weeks now. We first wanted to have our hotel close to our OOT guests’ hotels, just in case something happened. But it turned out that we only booked 3 rooms total because everyone is staying with relatives, friends, and cheaper hotels. So this freed us up to choose a hotel anywhere in Manhattan. Well, anywhere within reasonable distance from the venue.
Anyway, I know I haven’t ranked my vendors in awhile, so I thought I would rank some of the hotels that we checked out.
Pros: The people who took our reservations were perfectly nice and polite. It is a very clean hotel with all of the amenities of a luxury hotel. Priced very reasonably compared to other hotels around the city.
Cons: This hotel is not creme-de-la-creme by any means (its not the Ritz).
Overall Rating: B+
I’ve never had a skin regime in my life. In fact, the truth is, I practice “gift bag skincare.” This means that I basically just use whatever products I get from give-away gift bags from different events I attend. I would not necessarily recommend this plan of action, but a girl does what she can. However, with one month left until the big day, I decided it was time to get serious.
So, I scheduled a 90 minute facial for myself at the Aveda Institute on Spring Street, and man was it a little slice of heaven. Since the Aveda Institute is their teaching school, I was a smidge worried about having a student cleanse my pores and pop my pimples, but as it turns out there was not a thing to worry about. In an hour and a half, I had a footbath, a tourmaline mask, all sorts of cleansing, extractions, hot towels, a foot and leg massage and a neck and back massage. In truth, I found that my student was even more conscientious about doing a good job than a normal facialist might be. Best of all, the whole shebang was only $55! I was so relaxed and rejuvenated by the time I left, I scheduled 3 more facials for the upcoming weeks.
Best of all, when I got back to my apartment my doorman Elliot said “huh…you’re kind of glowy today.”
The only downside is that the treatment “rooms” are these spaces separated by curtains. They offer privacy, but you occasionally hear other people chatting. I was still totally able to relax, but if you are looking for a lush, luxurious spa setting, this might not be for you.
“I don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.”
Oh, Linda Evangelista, you sure knew what time it was. Taking engagement photos modeling is *tough* work, sister! I get it. That’s because last Thursday Mr. Daisy and I traipsed around the city for our engagement shoot, smiling and being casual and relaxed for hours on end. Try being casual and relaxed on cue. It’s not easy! I much more fully understand what Tyra goes through trying to school those bitches on America’s Next Top Model. For reals.
Anyway, morning of the shoot I a) worked out with my Bridal Boot Camp trainer Matt Hayes. Despite my knee injury, he has found alternative ways to torture help me workout; b) met my mom at Jimmy Choo to go over bridal footwear options, then; c) headed to Paul LeBrecque for a much needed haircut with my hair guy Adolfo (I didn’t want “styling” per se, just neat hair for the pics).
I finally got my save the dates in from Tag and Company. This particular style, the one we chose, is called “luxe.”
They’re really great quality and relatively cheap too - only $3 per invite/save the date. This company specializes in save the dates, but they’re perfectly willing to change the wording to make it into a formal wedding invitation for free. 
They’re great and come in really fast too!
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
This days of the week undies set is super cute for bridesmaids gifts! $68 at Urban Outfitters.
(via prettyprettythings)
In my not-so-humble opinion, all future brides need a few failsafe methods of stress relief. Amid our hundreds of vendor meetings, countless DIY projects and endless phone conversations with ‘maids, moms, and MILs, the stress can really start to build up.
Now, we can take this out on our hapless fiances (which I’m sure Mr. Blueberry would really appreciate) or be attuned to ourselves. Being aware of what stresses you out, as well as having a method or two of relieving that stress, can be the difference between this:
and this:
When I need to de-stress, I’ll go on a long walk, veg out in front of the TV with my cross-stitching, hang out at Starbucks for a while or, if I have no time at all, close my eyes and count to 10 really slowly.
After I’ve had a while to rest and refresh–even if it is just 15 minutes–I always find I’m better prepared to tackle whatever task is at hand.
How do you de-stress?
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I’m starting to do research on makeup and hair for the wedding day, plus I’m seriously considering having my makeup/hair done for my engagement photo session coming up soon. I’m trying to stay away from wedding photos and styles since they all look very similiar each year. So I’m heading to the celebrity sites for Oscar 2006 photos or Asian music sites. They are great sources to steal ideas, or tweak them to fit your face shape, hair color, or style. Here are the ones that stuck out like a sore thumb.
Zhang Zi Yi, you’re so stunning.
I think with all of the things going on with the wedding, Mr. Butterfly and I have gotten dumber. We apparently take days to come up with such simple solutions to all of our problems!
Example 1
For his parents’ friends who are not coming to the wedding but need an invitation anyway, we decided to give out just the invitation mounted on a backing layer. I had only 4 backing layers left, so we mounted them and put them aside for later. Then I realized we needed to send out 4 more invitations for our B-List guests. I went to Kate’s Paperie, but alas, they did not have any more backing layers left. I decided to just mount the invitation layer onto the actual pocketfold without a backing layer. I also bought extra backing layers in a different color, which did not match the pocketfolds for more extra “courtesy” invitations.
Mr. Butterfly and I were discussing how this new invitation would look and whether or not it was the best solution. It took us two days, but we finally realized that we could use the original courtesy invitations to send out to our B-List guests, and then use the different color backing layers for the courtesy invites. Duh~. I can’t believe it took us two days to figure out something so simple.
katiey brought up the topic of exchanging wedding gifts with your groom in our beehive today. My mom wanted to buy Mr. Bee a fancy watch, which is a traditional groom’s gift in Korean culture. But Mr. Bee didn’t want it, so he got nothing. 
Poor Mr. Bee.
If you are, what type of gift are you giving?
In today’s hive:
To add your question to the beehive, leave a comment below and we’ll update this post to include your question. See all past beehives here.
This past weekend, I went to D Wedding’s (one of my favorite bridal magazines) sponsored event, Haute Weddings - I completely forgot to bring my camera 
but there was so many great things to see there!
Congratulations Erynn! Your 5 hour movie quote/rose bouquet surprise proposal is the winner of the Most Romantic Contest. We’ll be sending you a copy of The Engaged Groom, Happy Anniversary, and a Paperbride Tip Kit.
Here’s to always keeping the romance alive!
Entry #1 - Joy
For one of my college friends, the maid of honor wrote out “The Story of Jes and Jim” (bride and groom) and turned it into a madlib. We were all given sheets to fill out adjectives, nouns, verbs, etc. Afterwards, we took turns reading our completed stories. It was a lot of fun because we all tried to guess how the story would go and put in adjectives we thought were appropriate (they were both on the crew team, so there were a lot of rowing references) but were so far off.
Entry #2 - Katerose
Before my bridal shower, my bridesmaids asked me for 20 pictures of my fiance and I in different locations. I included everything from right after he proposed, to favorite date nights, to vacations and holidays. They shrunk all the pictures down so each girl had all the pictures on her piece of paper, and had to guess where my fiance and I were in each one. They had to look in the background of each picture for clues. It was a big hit and a fun way to get to share some of our favorite memories with the women at the shower.
For a couple months now, I’ve been gathering suggestions on what food we should serve at the wedding. And while we can’t please absolutely everybody, since everything will be delicious (when aren’t desserts delicious?) I think people *should* survive if their most favorite-ever-pastry isn’t on the 20-foot buffet.
And with no further adieu, here’s the list:
(Note: the new Justin Timberlake song is on in the background, and there’s a slight possibility I was just twirling and dancing around my apartment singing, “I’m bringing dessert back!”. Maybe.)
Foods:
I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile, and I think it’s about time we have a weddingbee meetup for all our readers! It would be something casual, probably at a bar, after work. If it goes well, we could have one on a regular basis! It would have to be in New York so I apologize to all our national bees and readers who can’t make it.
Would you come to a weddingbee meetup?
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