Weddingbee

Because I’m uber excited about the NYC Weddingbee Meetup tonight, I’m going to give you readers a special treat even though I was planning on posting about the DIY projects leading up to the wedding before posting any pro-pics. Enjoy and I’ll hopefully see some of you tonight!

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To go along with the laid back attitude of a destination wedding, never did I consider the idea of making up and writing down a timeline for the day. My mental timeline was this: 2pm - hair and makeup at the Dreams Cancun Spa and 5pm - showtime aka when the wedding ceremony was supposed to start. Looking back, a timeline would have helped!

I have no idea what time I woke up the day of the wedding. All I know was that I went to bed with three of my bridesmaids in my bed and one at the foot of my bed in a rollaway bed at what I think was like 3am, but it could have been something like 1am? (More on the night before in a separate post.) I am not a traditionalist by any means, but spending the night before the wedding apart was something I knew I always wanted. We didn’t even set an alarm or schedule a wake up call. I thought, as long as I get up before my hair and makeup appointment I’ll be fine….

Let’s say I woke up around 10am and called the boys’ room and asked, “is Mr. Lovebird with you?” One of the groomsmen replied, “yes.” Then I told him, “good, tell him to not go near the World Cafe (restaurant) cuz I’m going to go grab breakfast with the girls there now.” So the bridesmaids and I were off to have breakfast with my girls from law school. I also put on a bathing suit thinking I had time to even out any tan lines… surprise… there was no time for that!

While we were eating, I spotted Mr. Lovebird walking to the pool with one of the guys. The girls were all like, “don’t look” and I said, “calm down, I can see him, he just can’t see me. Plus, I’m not even in hair and makeup or my dress yet!” We finished up breakfast and the girls walked around as if there was some kind of bridal force field to make sure I didn’t run into Mr. Lovebird.

Our room wasn’t made in the time we had breakfast so we went to one of the bridesmaids’ rooms and my girls gave me a hand massage and pedicure. It was awesome! I wish I got that treatment everyday.

Then we went back to my room and my brother came by to go over the officiant speech. This was the first time I was hearing it by the way because I didn’t want to deal with it until then. I just said, “I trust you, you don’t have to run it by me.” But he was adamant on my input, which turned out to be a good thing because I laid on the waterworks then and spared everyone my ugly cry face at the actual ceremony.

After we finished with the officiant speech, the bridesmaids and my cousin, Steven who was an usher, and I went to lunch at Seaside Grill. Once again, the bridal force field was up and I sat in the restaurant in a hat and put a t-shirt over my dress because the last thing I needed was last-minute tan lines. Trust me, I looked absolutely ridiculous!

For some reason, I wasn’t in the mood to eat, must have been the nerves. I pretty much only ate my ceviche appetizer and some nachos and realized it was time for my hair and makeup appointment. My BM Denise was nice enough to also not finish her meal to go with me to the get my hair and makeup done.

This is another area I probably should have been more prepared about. A week to the wedding, I emailed Angeline and asked her to send me pictures of her hair and makeup trial because I absolutely loved how she looked. Angeline was nice enough to send me the pics and that’s all I brought to the Spa.

It was getting close to 4pm by the time I got back to my room. Gaby, my new wedding coordinator, dropped off the flowers, which I had worried about because I pretty much picked it out of this binder which had a mini post-it sized picture of them. Mind you, I also pick the flowers two days before the wedding. But they turned out great!!! I loved the flowers!

Then Vincent and Christian from Del Sol arrived! So now, I have pictures to go along with my story.

I got this phone call and the person on the other end says, “Hi.” I say, “Hi, who is this?” And they go, “It’s me, are you serious?!” I say, “Who is this?! And they reply, “It’s me, (insert Mr. Lovebird’s name), I lost my voice last night.” And “I’m like, are you sure? You sound like Ernie (the best man).” I thought this was some wedding day trick…. So I ask him, “provide it, say something only you would say” He did and I asked, “how the hell did you lose your voice” and I don’t remember the rest of the conversation - I think it was to send one of the groomsmen to pick up some stuff from the room like the rings and such.

Then my parents dropped by to pick up the corsages and boutonnieres for the parents and grandparents.

The bridesmaids were busy getting ready themselves and my BMs Denise and Michelle were writing up the officiant’s speech. Yea, 15 minutes to the ceremony, we were writing up the speech!

Denise is asking me if it looks crooked, and I’m thinking “Dude, it doesn’t really matter at this point.”

Looking back, this is where the timeline would have been helpful. There I was, all made up and ready to put on my dress and the girls were still getting ready. I just didn’t know what to do with myself and I was making myself nervous. The DJ still needed to be paid and I obviously couldn’t send one of the girls. The groomsmen were also nowhere to be found since they were still getting ready themselves. Luckily MOH Tina’s boyfriend Zach came to the rescue. I just gave him an envelope of money and told him to give it to a guy named Carlos… How he managed to figure out who the hell Carlos was is something I’ll need to ask him someday.

And then the moment finally came for me to put on my dress!

I think I’m in the middle of “yay, it fits” claps! I actually brought my TTD dress in case this one didn’t fit! Keep in mind, I was staying at an all-inclusive resort meaning unlimited food, drinks and 24 hour room service, so fitting into my wedding dress was certainly a cause for celebration!

Then it was time to put on my garter! Does the garter look familiar? I’m not even sure Mrs. Bee remembers, but I won the Spoylt Romance Garter in a Weddingbee contest, eons before I even became a bee. Here’s BM Michelle doing the honors.

I learned about the Turkish/Greek Shoe-Signing Tradition during the taping of the Martha Stewart Show and knew right away it was something I wanted to do! (Even though I am obviously neither of those things, I was going to Turkey and Greece on my honeymoon.) Legend has it that the first bridesmaid’s name to rub off is the next to get married!

Then it was finally time for the veil! Mr. Lovebird’s (and now also my) Aunt Cindy not only was nice enough to do my dress alternation for me, she also made my veil!

First attempt, too high! Try again!

It was already 5pm at this point and we got a call from the wedding coordinator saying the guests were running a little late. We had some time to kill so I said, “Let’s do a trial run of putting up the bustle.” Aunt Cindy had put in a three point bustle and did a hell of a job hiding the loops in the intricate lace. Their first response was, “What the hell is a bustle?”

Their second response was, “Where the hell are the loops?”

Question: How many bridesmaids does it take to bustle a wedding dress?
Answer: You can never have too many.

Then one of the BMs said, “We’ll just let the MOH practice it on her own since it’s HER job.” I think I was too busy helping find the loops because I’m not sure that’s actually correct?

And the rest just look on as Tina struggles with the little suckers.

“On yea, let’s kill some time with a photo op as Tina slaves away!”

The result, yea…. it’s not supposed to look like that. Here’s hoping they do a better job for the real deal.

The whole weekend, the girls were keen on taking Polaroids (you’ll find out why later), so we had Vincent take one for us.

Vincent then said, “That’s a cool pose, let me take one to add to my repertoire.”

Showtime!

*please credit all photos to Del Sol Photography

What say you, was I crazy not to have a timeline? What’s your wedding style, go with the flow or planned down to the minute?

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