UPDATE: Cat accidentally sent me unedited photos, so here are the edited photos below!
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I flew in on the redeye from Los Angeles this morning! It’s freezing here in New York! But I’m glad to be back because I have so much to blog about! 
While I was in LA I was supposed to have some headshots taken with Weddingbee PRO Amelia Lyon, but I ended up canceling the shoot (next time Amelia!). Since I’d already booked Joyce Luck to do my hair and makeup, and she lives 5 minutes from my parents’ place, I got my hair and makeup done for the LA Bee Meetup. I lucked out that the talented Cat from Next Exit Photography came to the meetup and took pictures! Prepare for Mrs. Bee overload…
It looks like the majority of Dallas WB readers that wanted to attend Bride Wars with us aren’t able to make it this weekend. So, how about we try to reschedule instead?
Mrs. Avocado and I would really like to meet the rest of you and have a big group of gals to attend! We’ve started a new thread in the DFW Weddingbee forum so that we can all compare schedules and come up with the most convenient time.
The more, the merrier - so check out the thread and let’s set a date!
We live together. Is that so bad? I wish I had some amazingly interesting story as to why we live together, but I don’t. We aren’t doing it for financial reasons. We don’t have a pet that needs to be shared. Heck, we both even prefer our own company from time to time. We just live together, because… well… we just do.
I love waking up in the morning with him right there, and going to bed at night with the TV blaring his favorite show, The West Wing. We know what makes each other happy and what pushes each other’s buttons. I know exactly the kind of food to buy him, right down to the brand, and he knows that I can’t go to bed without a glass of water on my nightstand… even if I don’t touch it. However, it makes me wonder if we are missing out on some “growing up and getting married” rite of passage. You know what I’m saying—living with your parents or roommates right up until your wedding day and then moving in together and discovering all sorts of things about your new spouse? Sure, we went through that when we first decided to live together, but it’s just not the same thing somehow. I hear stories from my friends about their sob-filled last night at their parents’ house and packing up their old room to take to their new husband’s house and I’m a little jealous sometimes!
Does that make sense?
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Previously: 1. Prelude, 2. Tea Ceremony, 3. Getting Ready, 4. The Kids, 5. Wedding Party, 6. Down the Aisle 7. Ceremony, 8. Group Shots
After the obligatory group shots, it was time for the obligatory couple shots. This one is my favorite coz you can’t make out my face:
You see, I HATE having my picture taken. I’d like to say I look awkward in pictures, but that’s probably a lie. I’m pretty sure the awkwardness is around whether I’m in front or behind the camera, and the more I try not to be odd, the more it shows…
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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.”
My cousin was married for several years and has a couple kids. About 7 years ago, he came out and (of course) got divorced from his wife.
Now I didn’t think I needed to invite his ex-wife, since we weren’t inviting their kids (another cousin of mine did invite his ex-wife to her wedding, but she came with the kids, which, IMHO, would be much less awkward).
Well, I sent out the STDs last month, and when I went to my aunt’s house for Christmas, she was all upset that her ex-daughter in law wasn’t invited. In fact, she said to me, “Xxxx didn’t get her magnet.” Well gee… maybe because we didn’t send her one?
I feel like my family sees their divorce as less real because he’s gay, and that it would be different if he were dating another woman or something, which to me is completely ridiculous.
What would you do, hive? Invite her, or not? We’re already inching closer to our venue’s max capacity as it is.
And to quote my dear friend Mugatu, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
dotcommer
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Dear dotcommer,
The “gay” question is a red herring–situations like these can happen in any divorce situation, particularly if the split was relatively uncontentious. The question is, although she is no longer related to your family by marriage, and regardless of how close you are to her personally, to what degree is your ex-cousin-in-law with the children still regarded as part of the family?
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I suppose I’ve kept y’all in suspense long enough. I continued to debate on the veil issue. I ordered swatches from several companies, looked at the tulle at my local fabric store, scoured the internet for veil tutorials, and was ridiculously frustrated with the whole thing. One night, I looked over at Mr. CC and asked his opinion. It was something like, “I don’t care, but I want to be able to flip it back.” Ok… so, that kinda meant having a blusher. Back to the drawing board.
All of this happened before Weddingbee. Y’all will remember this post about HoneyComb Veils. I fell in love with her work, and we worked together on a custom design to match my dress. I sent her pictures of my hair inspirations and my dress. She sent me some sketches to choose from and then tulle samples and bead samples. We discussed the things that were important to me, and she proceeded.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Hey hey hive! Please join me in welcoming our newest sweetly-scented bee, Miss Perfume!
Miss Perfume, DC
Age and Occupation: 36, Consultant (and Part-Time Professor)
Fiance’s Age and Occupation: 41, Consultant
Engagement Date: May 13, 2008
Wedding Date: May 2009
Venue: The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia
About Me: I’d like to think that I’m a modern day Little Edie Beale. Only not as…”talented”. More realistically, I’m a foodie who can’t bake; a dancer and dilettente; an art collector with a penchant for the whimsical and subversive. I live in the city and adore the country, but not much in between. I like smart design, great craftmanship and good value. Most of all, I love the new vintage aesthetic: classic, sweet, delicate, bespoke. If I had to do it all over again, I’d go for a culinary arts degree rather than a PhD; but wouldn’t trade Mr. P for the world.
Mr. Latte and I love kids. Many of our friends have children and we’ve been privileged to watch them grow from tiny newborn babies to loveable, huggable kids. Most of them are between the ages of 3 and 5… making them the PERFECT age for flower girls and ring boys!
Now the hard part… which of these kiddies do we ask to be with us on our big day? We finally decided that to be fair, I would ask 2 of my favorite little boys to be our ring boys and Mr. Latte would ask 2 of his favorite little girls to be our flower girls. I’m all about fairness.
The 2 flower girls are twins and will be 3 1/2 years old by our wedding date. They are actually flower girls-to-be, as Mr. Latte hasn’t asked them yet! They are adorable little girls and our wedding would be their flower girl debut. For this reason, I wanted Mr. Latte to give them something special when he asked them. I’m sure they would’ve been perfectly content with a lollipop or a cupcake, but c’mon peeps, those aren’t wedding related! Plus, I was feeling the urge to craft so I decided to make (little) lady versions of my bridesmaids flower ideas…felt flower bouquets!
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Our officiant stepped forward and everyone quieted down. He welcomed our guests, thanked them for coming, and introduced himself. We call him President Christensen because he is a member of the area priesthood in my hometown. He was also a close friend of my dad’s in high school (and sources report he even dated my mom a little bit!). It was important to have someone that knew one of us well officiating, as well as someone with authority in the Church.
Hello hive! I’d like to apologize for the lack of post-wedding beecaps on my end. I’ve been so stressed since the wedding ended; I haven’t found the time to get back in the swing of things. I’m still job hunting, while Mr. Candy Corn is in school full time until he graduates in May. You may recall that we had planned on doing a double honeymoon with our friends to Italy, which we were super excited about. Now, it seems, we probably won’t get to have a honeymoon at all, at least not for a few years (and can you really even call it a “honeymoon” at that point?). The savings we have from our wedding gifts seems to be trickling out of our account to help pay for bills and crazy health issues our pets have been having (who knew chinchilla teeth could grow into their eye sockets!?). I suppose we could always try to save up for a mini-moon, but we’d much rather just keep saving over time for a vacation overseas, since I’ve never been outside of the country apart from a brief trip to Canada.
In an effort to avoid seeming too grim, I’d like to provide you with a grainy, zoomed-in photo from our wedding, in which I was making my “holy shazbot, I’m about to get married!” face.
When Sister D’orsay was married we blew bubbles as they exited the church. I’d seen several couples having rose petals, bubbles, sparkles, eco-fetti, confetti, etc. thrown on them as they headed back down the aisle as well. I’d also seen photos where it looked like the couple was leaving for the night, or ones that looked like they were being announced into their reception.
Do you guys feel as though there is a set time to do this? We’re having our ceremony/reception at the same place, so I’m not sure at what point we would feel the least silly to have a “throw things in the air” type of reception. We’re also likely to use car pooling to get back, so we probably wouldn’t do it as we leave at the very end of our reception, either.
Here are a few possibilities:
Sparklers: I LOVE how these look in photos, I just have a fear of feeling like we’re on Monday Night Football, or getting burned:
This wedding is so gorgeous and fairytale-esque, I just knew I had to share it with you all.
All photos by Braedon Flynn
Seth and Dionna were married in Santa Barbara at a beautiful public beach, which has camping areas and cabins overlooking the water. The wedding party stayed in these cabins, and as they and all the guests walked the forest path down to the water (where the ceremony was being held), a bluegrass band played “Down to the River to Pray”. AMAZING!
After our walk down memory lane it was time to cut the cake. The cake was displayed in the room adjacent to the dining area (the same place where we watched the video).
{Photo by SIL Pinot}
EDIT: The new design is live! Thanks to everyone for your feedback. We’ll continue to make little tweaks here and there, based on your comments and on our collective experience using the redesign on the live site.
It’ll take a little time to make all the little adjustments that optimize the new look, so please give us a few days to sort it all out! And keep the detailed feedback coming!
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Ever since we launched Weddingbee PRO, we’ve been wishing we could redesign Weddingbee to have a wider look. It’s awesome having up to 600 pixels on PRO to showcase photos.
There was a challenge though: PRO uses a two-column layout, which means that the button ads from our sponsors end up lower on the page. (You can see what I mean on Weddingbee PRO.) Implementing that on Weddingbee wouldn’t be fair to our sponsors…
Still, we craved the wider look of PRO. So we brainstormed about it with a designer, got some feedback from our Bees, and came up with this:
It’s funny how the design has come full circle - the big bride in the upper left takes us back to our roots, as it’s very similar to one of our earlier designs!
I know I said the last site redesign was our hardest one yet, but this one was even harder! Still, I like that the new design is so simple… and that it evokes our old school design with the big bride. It was a sad day when we had to shrink her down, so I’m kinda excited to blow her back up!
What do you think?
Here are the few short-lived moments I enjoyed with my D-SLR the day of the wedding. I do somewhat regret not making use of it when I had it in tow and had a bit of down-time throughout the day, though it was perhaps a little more silly of me to forget about our credit-card sized point-and-click the whole day.
I made everyone’s jewelry (which literally took place within 14 hours of these photos being taken), and aimed to create chunky, opaque necklaces, which proved to be just as stunning and bold as I thought they would be. Just look how these necklaces stand out in the photographs! I spent an exorbitant amount of money on gemstones, despite my fifty percent wholesale discount, with the intent of using just a few stones from each strand for each necklace. However, each one of my girls, completely independent of each other, picked up one particular strand, and immediately wrapped it around her neck. While certainly not expensive, it was the only one I had, and this gal below ended up getting it in the end:
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