Weddingbee Blog

Once we got settled into our rooms, I couldn’t wait to get outside and do a whole lot of NUTHIN’. Unfortunately, Mr Breezy had other plans. Uh… that came out wrong. What I meant was, there was a whole lot of unpacking to do… of OOT (Out Of Town) bags for our guests.

Remember the logo/monogram thingy that we made? Well, here’s what we used it for…

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Hive, I need your help, stat!

While Mama and Poppy Peep were in town over the Holidays, we all went down to Hotel Vitale and met with the new Events Coordinator. The meeting was fantastic. Since we had never met before, she wasn’t 100% sure about everything in our contract, so she and I sat for over an hour answering each other’s questions, while everyone else just sat and soaked it all in. I have to admit, the coordinator I met with originally was nice, but this woman is AWESOME. It felt so nice to talk to someone who was just as concerned about the details as I was.

That said, I found out one pretty important piece of news. The hotel does not have all white linens like I thought. Instead, they have olive. Here they are in all their glory:

source.
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Previous posts:
One Ringy-Dingy… Two Ringy-Dingy…
The Perfect Accent, Part 1: Earrings
The Perfect Accent, Part 2: Bracelet (and Bridesmaids’ Jewelry)

I professed my vendor crush on Twigs & Honey a while back, and had such a great experience working with Myra, who created the beautiful flower for my hair that you see above.
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Let me first say that I am a dedicated reviewer.

If I enjoyed a service, or felt that it was extraordinary, I write a letter or review the service/product immediately. I depend on honest reviews for purchasing things off of Amazon, and the honest reviews of brides on Wedding Wire. After our engagement ring purchase I emailed Tiffany & Co. to let them know how fantastic our experience was. I’ve never really questioned the legitimacy of a review.

Perhaps I was naive. We’re pretty happy with our current caterer selection. My father is currently hashing out the contract. I REALLY wanted to find a caterer who used local, organic ingredients and that hopefully would be in our price range. I was excited to find a local caterer who met those requirements, so even though we had met with Caterer A and Caterer B, we decided to look into Caterer C since they were the only local food/organic caterer we had come across.

When the caterer first called they kept Mr. D’orsay on the phone forever, and kept talking about how detail oriented they were. Afterward, the caterer sent Mr. D’orsay an email addressed to something along the lines of “Mr. J’orsay”. This automatically put me off. If this caterer was so detail oriented, couldn’t they get Mr. D’orsay’s name correct? Mr. D’orsay’s email even starts with Mr. D’orsay! Their price was also a bit higher than Caterer A or B, so we moved on with Caterer B and set up the aforementioned meeting and tastings.

Mr. D’orsay received a voicemail from Caterer C letting us know that due to the market they had lowered their prices. I began to think that I could overlook the previous gaffe and air of pretentiousness until…
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Remember those SAT analogies we all despised back in high school? Yeah, I blocked them out of my memory too. C’mon, let’s try one together…

Miss Latte : Mr. Latte ::

(A) East : West
(B) Lunch : Breakfast
(C) Bed Time : Video Game Time
(D) All of the Above

Answer: D

Get it??? This shouldn’t be hard… refer to my previous post for a clue. OK fine, I work in education so to be fair, here’s a bigger clue for you visual folks.

(A card I made for Mr. Latte early in our relationship)

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In addition to the Chinese Tea Ceremony, Mr Peony was also eager for us to participate in Chinese Wedding Door Games.

I am not too familiar with the tradition, so I will let China Bridal do the explanation:

Door game originated from ancient time which implies that the bride is a lovely girl and her family and friends do not want to marry her away. The groom will be blocked at the bride’s door, and her friends will try to stop him from entering by asking questions about the bride, a way to test if he really cares about her. They may also do other tricks to delay the bride’s leaving. The groom will try to buy his way in by presenting “Li Shi”, token money wrapped in red envelopes. The entire “bargain” process is joyous and good-natured.

There is a large variety of games that can be played, and some of them can be rather embarrassing! For some examples of funny door games, see here and here. Many times, the groom is not able to fulfill the task by himself, so his groomsmen will need to step in and help out.

Since our wedding party was at a hotel, we decided to keep the door games relatively short and painless…

The boys arrive at the girls’ suite:
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..until our invitations need to be mailed.

All of the invitations have been printed, and the envelopes addressed. However, they are not quite ready for take off. Why is that, you ask? Because I can’t choose between two belly bands.

BAND A:

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Reader ems2esm is selling a Melissa Sweet wedding gown. It is style “Daria”, street size 0/2, with a custom bustle. The color is ivory and has been professionally cleaned and hand pressed. To make an offer, contact the seller!

image

Have a wedding item for sale? Post it with pictures in the Weddingbee classifieds and you might see it featured on the blog!

Other great items for sale:
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This past weekend over dinner with BIL GT (aka our officiant), I confronted him about the biggest mistake he made at our wedding…

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I’m going to preface this post by saying that I’m shooting weddings for three friends this upcoming year as a free gesture, and I’d love to get some more intense, day-of practice under my belt. So if there’s anyone in the Seattle area, and potentially Vancouver, BC, that is interested in having Mrs. Milkshake follow you around pro-bono, photojournalist-style for your big day in the next few months, please let me know by making a comment here in the classifieds section. These are some photos I took purely as a guest at the end of December at my cousin’s Hawaiian wedding.

I flew to Hawaii for one night to go to my cousin’s wedding, by myself, because I couldn’t get any more time off work and my husband couldn’t get time off, period.
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As I mentioned in my teaser post yesterday, my amazing bridal party threw me a fabulous Bat-chelorette Shower-Mitzvah. Wonderful women from all parts of my life braved an impending snow emergency to travel from New York, Connecticut, and D.C. to Massachusetts to celebrate… me! I was so touched and awed by the experience that I felt slightly out of body the whole afternoon/evening.

The shower portion of the day was craft themed — designed to inspire my inner Martha. Of course, while my Martha is deep deep inside of me, my friends have no problems channeling their inner Martha. Behold the chic, DIY details:

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While the boys were golfing and us girls were gallivanting around taking photos, our DOC Tiffany, Hotel 1000 coordinator Donna, Aunt, and a few cousins were putting the finishing touches on all of the setup.

Jamie Smith

I felt really bad about asking my aunt to hang the chandelier for me, because I felt like I was asking her to work on a day of celebration. She’d already driven all the way out to Seattle for the weekend, taken time off of work, and now I wanted her to climb up on a ladder and hang things up.
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I have to be at work very early in the morning. Thus, I wake up at an ungodly hour every morning, long before Mr. Lemonade or our furbaby, Vida, even consider opening their eyes.

Yesterday morning started off like any other. I woke up about 15 minutes before the alarm went off, headed downstairs to start my pot o’ addiction and trotted back upstairs to continue on with my typical morning rituals.

After applying my face and picking out a suit for the day I rummaged through my jewelry drawer to find my pearls, watch and engagement ring. Pearls, check! Watch, check! Ring… um, not so much. The ring wasn’t in the drawer. So, I checked my second jewelry drawer, one that I use for costume jewelry. No dice. At this point I was starting to feel a bit concerned. I dashed back to my closet and checked the pockets of everything I wore the day before. No ring. Emptied the contents of my briefcase and purse. Again, no ring.

So, there we were at 5:45 in the morning and I was tearing through the house emptying drawers, tossing pillows and cushions, searching every crevice, nook, and cranny I could find to no avail. I must have uttered every four letter word in the English language and turned on half the lights in the house, yet the damn ring was nowhere to be found. As much as it pained me to do so, I had to leave for work so off I went with my left hand ring finger totally exposed and naked.

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Tip 1: Pick out a dress for your team, have 2 of the girls purchase them. Then VOILA! Change your mind completely.*

I have a confession, because although I may seem like a nice person, it turns out I’m a pretty terrible one! After purchasing these dresses from David’s Bridal, I decided I didn’t like them anymore. Not just didn’t like them…HATED them.

Thus began the search for the long lost perfect bridesmaid dress. I went from wanting something not “too bridesmaidy” and fell head first into a shiny taffeta/silk shantung/silk dupioni/duchess satin-fever. I was looking for a tea or knee length, V in the front and V in the back straps (you’ll see why later) and I wanted it to be SHINY. I told you, I had the fever!
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Part I

The problem is that I want it all. I want it all because I don’t want to have regrets, but if you’re the kind of person who is afraid of regrets, chances are you’ll find them no matter what. (I know of what I speak.) I want a traditional wedding, an intimate wedding, and a private wedding all at once, and I believe I can make that happen.

So, I sat myself down and made lists: what appealed to me about eloping, what appealed to me about a traditional wedding, and anything stressing me out. The rest of this post is taken directly from my private notes, and I made a sincere effort not to edit in case my thought process is helpful to anyone else. Yes, I’m nutty. I’m okay with that.

• Elopement (my version - a private ceremony with a reception to follow): private, personal, low-stress (less stress about other people, anyway)
• Wedding: public, higher-stress (all around), meaningful
• Stress Factors: catering/ food, seating, expectations, “guests”, wedding parties, walking down the aisle

I can do this! Stressful things first (in reverse order, for some reason):

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