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BIL Bee has done it again - we now have a new and better search function powered by Google! Woohoo!
It searches posts, comments, tags and more oh my! You can find it in the exact same location our previous search box used to be. Please try it out and let us know what you think! 
I finished the invites for the bridesmaids’ tea last week and just got around to taking pictures of them to share with you.
I really wanted the invitations for the tea to be special, as each of my bridesmaids have been a huge help and done so much for me. I’m really excited about hosting a tea for them and have a bunch of fun ideas in store… I’m actually working on the menu today and will share everything once I get it put together.
So, here they are!!!
I was so excited when a big flat box arrived at my office yesterday. My photo guestbook was here! I have heard many reviews of MyPublisher, good, bad, and ok. Overall, the reviews were more positive than negative so I decided to use MP to design my guestbook using our engagement pictures by Dennis Lee. I also left a good amount of white space so that guests can sign their names or leave little messages. I must admit that I borrowed Miss Tomato’s idea of incorporating love quotes into my book (thanks Miss T!) 
.So here are some pics!
Dear Weddingbee:
Our wedding date is August 11th. We originally wanted a wedding with only 100 guests and picked our site based on that number. We thought that we could easily invite 120 guests and expect 20% or so not to show; unfortunately, as things tend to go, my mother added immediate family members from her side of the family that she conveniently did not say we needed to invite but who were obviously offended, my fiance’s mother added a friend, etc. until our guestlist expanded to 148 guests (including ourselves, the photographer, and his assistant). I am not narcissistic enough to think that everyone is coming because of us–unfortunately, we’re in the SF Bay Area, where people have relatives and like to make a trip of for personal reasons; many of my parents’ friends who we thought would not make it are coming.
I’ve been getting an early start on the headcount because of course, people state they are bringing guests when “& Guest” was NOT even on their invitation and then there are other cousins we didn’t invite trying to invite themselves to our wedding; I’ve told them no but stated that I have a waitlist open.
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After much searching, calling up various jewelers across the country, and the help of a very good friend, I was finally able to locate the perfect wedding present for the Hubs.
This whole series we’re doing on budgets is super exciting because it’s something that you don’t really see in bridal magazines. We’ve already received a bunch of submissions for Real Reader Budgets and will start posting them on Monday, so get yours in today!
Ok now on to the bees’ budgets. We’ve tallied them up and here are the results:
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Okay, so let me be honest here. I do not consider myself to be a Christian. I was baptized in the Episcopalian Church since my father’s family is Episcopalian, but religion was never very important to my family. I think my parents only baptized me because of pressure from my grandparents. I grew up in a very secular family and it has certainly had an impact on me. When I was younger, I was curious about religion so I went to several different kinds of churches with my friends from school, but nothing ever really made sense to me. I started going to a Unitarian church with my older sister in my early twenties, and it was probably the closest I have ever come to adopting a religion.
Mr. Radish also considers himself to be agnostic, and yet we are having a Catholic wedding. You may wonder why, so I will try my best to explain our reasoning.
Mr. Radish’s parents are devout Catholics and he is the youngest of their six children. My future father-in-law actually attended seminary school for a couple of years before he decided that he wanted to marry Mr. Radish’s mother and become a math professor instead. Mr. Radish is named after a French-Canadian monk (who has been nominated for sainthood) whose heart is preserved in a jar in Quebec City. His parents make a pilgrimage to see this heart in a jar every year. Anyway, I guess my point is that their beliefs are very important to them and they made it known early on in our engagement that they were hoping for, as my future mother-in-law put it, a “holy matrimony.”
For most of the beginning of the wedding planning process, I figured I would just buy a bunch of hydrangeas from Costco, slap them together the day before and call it a wedding.
But I have started having doubts about my ability to do all the flowers in the days before the wedding, and I can’t seem to find ANY feedback on the Costco flowers. I mentioned this to a colleague of mine who is also getting married in September and she said that I should give her florist a ring.
Because I absolutely love sugar and pretty much anything sweet, e.g. I put sugar crystals all over my spaghetti, it was a no-brainer that we were going to have a candy buffet. (Disclaimer: My actions in regards to my spaghetti are not necessarily endorsed by my family and friends).
It took me awhile to to figure out what containers to provide for our candy buffet because there were so many choices. I narrowed it down to glassine containers vs. white take out boxes. In the end the cute take out boxes won. I placed pink stickers on each box with our names and wedding date on them. I absolutely love how they turned out. I also cleaned out the local dollar store and bought all their stainless steel scoops. What a deal!
1/2 pint white take-out boxes from Paper Mart at .09 cents each or $4.65 for a package of 50
Our search for a venue continues…
Next we went to Spencer’s Restaurant. We had high hopes coming in–always dangerous, I know. But after reading the review in “Here Comes The Guide,” it sounded perfect for us. Rich in history as a hangout for old Hollywood (in Palm Springs Tennis District) and known for its delicious food, it seemed like it could be perfect.
The first red flag was when we walked up. The place was decked out with poinsettias and Christmas trees (we later asked and they would not remove these if we booked our wedding there). Now, ordinarily this wouldn’t be a bad thing. I LOVE Christmas and the whole holiday season. But Mr. Peppermint and I had been clear on the fact that despite our wedding being during December, we didn’t want it to be holiday-themed.
As we met with the coordinator here she took us through the facility. The building was retro, but not in a cool way. Instead, more in the they-haven’t-updated-this-building-since-the-’80’s sort of way. To be fair, on the day we came, there had been some mysterious leak from their indoor waterfall that forced them to clear the room and work on drying the carpet. The space, I’m sure, could be decked out to look really gorgeous. However, that day was not its best day.
My skin is a mess. Let’s just say my face is not reacting particularly well to the stress I’ve been enduring… or the fact that my monthly visitor is in town… or the summer sweat and heat… or life in general. It’s a gosh darn mess and I needed to end the vicious cycle before it got any worse.
That’s why I escaped in the middle of the day yesterday to get myself a facial, and fast! I really have no excuse as to why I didn’t go get one earlier (especially since I live steps away from Bliss), except that I usually have trouble spending money to primp myself. I wanted to get the job done without the frills, but also wanted to make sure that the results would be good enough to last until next week (and beyond!). So, I went to Santa Monica and visited the Dermalogica spa on Montana Avenue.
In recent weeks, I’ve received two sweet emails from wedding service providers that I’ve written about on the Bee. Both emails were from vendors thanking me for a positive review. One vendor (my makeup artist, Nam Vo) mentioned that she received many inquiries for her services after I posted my pictures. These vendors had never heard of Weddingbee, so I’m happy that they are now exposed to the wonderfulness of our little forum!
This also brings up the interesting topic of vendor referrals. As a bride-to-be exploring the unfamiliar world of wedding planning, I often feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland. Every aspect is foreign and requires tons of research. Where do I order candy for my candy buffet? How do I get things printed? What’s the proper wording for invitations? What is a reasonable price for everything? Referrals from other brides and my own wedding vendors have been priceless through this process. Most of my vendors have been discovered through recommendations:
I’ve often felt that brides have a disadvantage in a world of service providers charging sky-high prices and providing poor customer service. I’m begining to realize that we actually do have power in our voice. A bad review can draw business away from a vendor and also tarnish a reputation while good words can create more business. We actually have a big responsibility here in our forum!
In the current issue of Martha Stewart Weddings, these pins featured in the “Good Things” section immediately caught my eye. They’re a functional and elegant way to have escort cards that do double duty as ice breakers.
Martha’s website was recently updated to include the latest “Good Things” from her MS Weddings Magazine, so check it out. Read more…
Our cake topper has just arrived (took two business days from the shipment notice). At first I had assumed I would be buying it just to see if I’d like it for the top of our cake, if not I was just going to use it as decoration around the house.
Apryl was amazing, I had asked for a custom order (citrine and carnelian, clear yellowish/gold and reddish orange colors, respectively), and she didn’t charge me more. My tree came impeccably packaged in a clear plastic box, with enough paper to protect my precious cargo. The wires that make up the “branches” are such a rich gold, and the stones that she used were great quality - all for $25.00 with $6.00 USPS shipping.
The amount of stones on each branch looks perfect for an autumn cake topper! This is kind of blurry, but you can see the stones okay (and the agate base).
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