Weddingbee Blog

Avatars have been one of our most popular features ever!  It’s only been four days since we launched the feature, and already hundreds of you have uploaded avatars. I love seeing what you guys look like (or at least, what your avatars look like).  It’s definitely been one of my favorite features ever.

One thing I’ve noticed is that some of the uploaded avatars look a lot like Bee icons!  That’s not a big deal or anything, but it reminded me why we launched Bee icons in the first place (back in December of ‘07):

We recently had our first Bee impersonation! Whether it was purposeful or not, a reader left a strongly worded comment using the name “Spider”. It’d be awful if someone thought that Mrs. Spider had left that comment! A number of our readers were fooled, even though the comment wasn’t left from a Weddingbee account.

So we realized we have to make it even more clear when a Bee is commenting. At first we were going to put some color trim around comments from the Bees, but then BilBee came up with the idea of using the Bee icons next to comments.

I almost forgot that we actually launched Bee icons to prevent Bee impersonations!  With avatars on the site, that protection is no longer in place… so just to be on the safe side, we added a discreet dotted green border around Bee icons.

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I’ve wanted to share this with you long before I even thought my blogging would take me this far.

I “met” Ashley and Daniel in September when Ashley updated our LiveJournal group on her wedding plans. I fell head over heels with her flowers.

Daniel has been folding paper since he was a toddler. His Aunt Marilyn realized he always had to keep his hands busy, so she gave him paper to do just that. Throughout his childhood he learned to create very detailed origami models, all using one piece of paper folded multiple times. When I met him in high school, I learned how talented he was at this. Later, he taught me how to make basic origami. When we were dating, he would always fold me little things out of paper at restaurants or other places we would go. I ended up with tons of little origami pieces he created during our relationship over the years.

Daniel proposed to me two days before our five-year anniversary (5/19/01 was our “dating” anniversary). He laid out a trail of 519 origami cranes, with rose petals in the middle, and candles at the end of the trail. He waited at the end of the trail. I came home to a great surprise, and the proposal was so beautiful.

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This contest is now closed!  Congratulations to the winners Rob, who won the panty set, and HolyVataha who won the Secret Seduction Set and Vintage Teardrop Earrings!

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Perfect Details has come up with a special two part contest to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  Part I is for the guys to enter, and Part II is just for the gals!

Part I - For the Guys

We won’t make you work too hard, so just comment below and you could win this fun “7 Ways to Say I Love You” boy pantie gift set for your FI! Gals get your guys to enter!

Part II - For the Gals

You have a chance to win this fun, kitschy Secret Seduction Gift Set that includes bubble bath, lotion, soap, and a body puff… and a pair of Perfect Details’ #1 selling Vintage Teardrop Earrings!

To enter this contest, please tell us which earrings or shoes you like on the Perfect Details site, so we can determine what to give away in our next contest!  You have until 12pm PST Friday to enter.  Good luck!

So, on a recent post, I got called out on the fact that I’ve been blogging about planning a wedding, and not actually telling you about the plans.

And whoa, boy, have I been busy. You’ll be proud (and if you’re not, can you fake it for me, because I’m rather proud?) of how much I’ve done in a few short weeks.

What prompted the flurry of activity, you ask? Why, a BRIDAL FAIR! Uh huh, a whole bunch of vendors in a big convention center all asking, “Do you have a caterer? Have you ordered your linens? Who’s doing your rentals? Have you taken dance lessons? Where are you getting your dresses? Do you need a room for your wedding night?” does WONDERS for getting your patootie in gear and getting things done. And let’s be honest, so does the fact that at some point, y’all were bound to catch the fact that I was all talk and no inspiration. {Thank you for loving me anyway.}

If you haven’t yet been to one, I do have a couple of hints to offer (most of which I failed to do and could have kicked myself over):
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We’re thrilled to welcome our two newest Hive Hostesses! Say hello to niki and mightysapphire!

Niki is a graduate student in the Public Health field and got married last May!  Niki will be hosting the newlyweds and the Omaha boards.

Mightysapphire is a Naval Officer currently residing in Bogota, Columbia. She will get married on July 4th of this year! Mightysapphire will be hosting the favors and the San Diego boards.

Both ladies have already contributed so much to the Weddingbee community, and we look forward to having them spread their warmth and knowledge in the boards. Welcome, welcome, Hive Hostesses!

We want to remind you guys to check out the great posts over at Weddingbee PRO, so we’ve decided to do a daily roundup of each day’s PRO posts!  Please click on over and give our amazingly talented PROS some bee love!

• Amelia Lyon’s stunning portraits of her brother and his wife
• Leigh Miller’s West Village engagement shoot
• Punam Bean shoots a wedding at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore
• Anne Ruthmann’s DC engagement shoot around the city’s landmarks
• Jerry Yoon shoots a civil ceremony at the San Francisco Civic Center
• Princess Lasertron laments the closing of Domino Magazine
• Chelsea Petaja attends the Southern Weddings Magazine launch gala, as she’s on the cover!
• Laura Hooper shows how to use small touches of calligraphy in your invitations
• Pictures from Hello Lucky’s 2009 Stationery Preview Party
• Wiley Valentine’s floral inspired invitations

Our engagement photos were taken by Sissy Piglet’s good friend Inhar. Even with her as our photographer, we were still a bit camera shy in the beginning. It’s really weird to have your photos taken! Despite being advised to NOT wear matchy matchy outfits, Mr. P and I amused ourselves with couple’s tee shirts (I persuaded him a teensy bit). He wore his sneakers and I wore my Ugg(lies), as one of my BFFs refers to them, and we were good to go as far as outfits were concerned. We wanted a variety of pictures, so we also brought along some props.

Prop #1: Jorge aka George aka Georgia May aka GEORGE! (We’re always screaming because she’s quite rebellious.) We gave her a fresh cut, trimmed her ears - and voila - she stole the spotlight. As you can see from the picture below, she camera shy as well, hence, the pictures of her behind.

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This is just a reminder for anyone who is interested:

Swap sign-ups close tomorrow on January 30. If you are still interested, please sign up following the directions here.

Also, many of you signed up for a Swap-Bot account and requested membership in the Weddingbee group, but did not sign up for the swap. Make sure you do! Otherwise, once the deadline passes we can not add or remove participants.

I’ve already started planning out my valentines and am looking forward to mailing them out!

I heard a rumor somewhere that you could save your already-burned Gocco screens in case you wanted to print the same design on a different day. Well, I put this rumor to the test and succeeded! Remember our return address I printed on our invitations? I just didn’t feel right tossing the screen in the trash when I was done, so instead, I wrapped the screen in Saran Wrap and stuck it in the freezer. I was too lazy to clean the screen, so I didn’t. I wrapped it up and stuck it in the freezer, ink and all.

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You’ve seen our gifts to the guys and girls, now it’s time to see the gifts for the guardians. Guardians meaning our parents, of course; I couldn’t part with my matching ’g’ titles, so please forgive my tackiness.

First and foremost, let’s meet the parents:

Mom Spring Roll is my everything, my (pun intended) guardian angel. I love her more than she knows, and am forever grateful for all that she has done.

FMIL Spring Roll if you are still reading, now is the time to click the little red X.
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Aqua and poppy!

Thanks to everyone who voted—it was a tough decision between pink/black and aqua/poppy, but I think we made the right choice. Now that we (finally!) have wedding colors, we can move on to picking out bridesmaid dresses and decorations! I also came across this gorgeous wedding on Snippet and Ink that used an aqua/poppy/gold/black color palette. I love these colors together. They complement each other really well and don’t look too “matchy”.

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I caught my first glimpse of the Great Room as we walked in for our first dance. When we sat down after our dance I took a few seconds to soak everything in. Tiffany (our DOC), my wonderful Aunt Janelle, my mom (because I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist helping), and Donna (the hotel coordinator) set things up even better than I could have directed, and I didn’t have to lift a finger to do any of it.

I love the bright splash of color that the punch adds. This is where not having a color scheme comes in handy.

Our little sweetheart table was just what we needed. We were very gushy throughout the entire meal, staring into each other’s eyes and repeating over and over, “We’re married. Can you believe it?”
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I wrote a previous post about how Priceline.com has helped Mr. G and I spend many nights in luxurious hotels at super cheap rates. Last week, the lovely Miss D’orsay inquired about Mr. G’s methodology and the mysteries of bidding on Priceline. I asked Mr. G how he works his magic, and to my surprise, he wrote up a whole outline on the subject!

So without further ado, I give you Mr. G’s Guide to Priceline Bidding.

Before you do anything, go research 4 star and 3 star hotel prices via Travelocity.com, Expedia.com, etc. This way you will know what the going rate is. The key to bidding on Priceline is to change ONE criterion at a time. First, change the area criteria one at a time. Then, change the star quality. A price increase does not constitute a “change”.

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Weddings tend to be creativity on Speed… theoretically. We all want our weddings to be personal, fun, and aesthetically pleasing. Although I am so excited about our Van Gogh theme, of course with all the wedding research, I inevitably run into other themes I wish I could incorporate, as well! Right now, the idea of a Frank Lloyd Wright wedding tickles my fancy. I wish we could have a second wedding so I could realize my visions of chandeliers, vintage martini glasses, and sleek, trim lines. Hmm, maybe one of YOU should have a Frank Lloyd Wright wedding and send me the pictures instead!!

What is the theme of your wedding?  And if you could pick an alternative theme, what would it be?

We’ve got this idea, and like most of my ideas, I’ll need the hive’s help to pull it off. Instead of having the traditional table numbers, we’d like to add a bit of romance to the theme. So this is what we’re thinking: Each table will be named after the word “love” in a foreign language.

Here’s the list we’ve got so far:

If you look at this list, you might see a problem. First, most of the traditional romance languages are very similar: “amore“, “amor“, “amour”. So that leaves us only one choice out of those. Secondly, how will guests realize that their table number really means “love” if they can’t pronounce it or decipher the language characters?
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