Weddingbee Blog

The next day, Mr Breezy and I woke up and looked at each other. Could it really be true? The morning of the wedding had finally arrived!

That’s right, we had stayed in the same room the night before the wedding. I actually wanted to be separated but Mr Breezy didn’t think it was a big deal so I went along with it. It was a bit complicated to figure out and at that point, our heads just could just not handle any more logistics. However, if I had a do-over, I’d have tried harder. It was sort of weird to walk into the buffet restaurant together that morning to grab a bite before the craziness of the day began.

Back at the suite, we kissed goodbye and… I closed the sliding doors.

Because we had a big suite, the guys got ready on the lounge side, and on the other side of the sliding doors, we girls were primping. I loved that setup because I could still yell at - um, I mean yell to - Mr Breezy through a crack in the doors whenever I remembered something we’d forgotten to do (yes it happened). Plus our awesome photographers could go back and forth between the guys and the girls easily.

Before long, the wedding party and a few others started trickling in.

The guys got off to a slow start…

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Reader TrostleUniversity is selling a pair of brand new Badgley Mischka shoes. They are light ivory, size 6, and come with individual dust bags. She is asking for $150 OBO.

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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I hate running. I just can’t do it… after a mile and a half, my body hates me and wants to break down. Put me on an elliptical machine and I’ll go for hours. I’ll take an hour-long spinning class that will turn my legs to Jell-O, but run? Uh, no thanks.

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One of the highlights of the wedding was when our bridesmaids performed a “special song” during the reception. It was supposed to be kept a secret from me, but it slipped from my aunt’s mouth. Despite the fact that I knew what they were going to do, I had such a great time watching their performance. On top of that, all our guests absolutely LOVED it!

Thank you girls!! All that practice really paid off!!

Nobody - by the Wondergirls (A very popular Korean pop song)

In this age of cutting costs and finding ways to save (on everything, not just weddings!), Freecycle can be an invaluable resource. I joined the Chicago Freecycle group quite a while ago, mainly just to see what it was all about. I was blown away!

Freecycle is a network geared towards the individual (and non-profits) that provides an electronic “recycling” forum. Their mission is “to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources and eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community.” We all throw so much away each and every day that someone else might need or want. Did you move in with your fiance/hubby and now have duplicates of everything? Freecycle it!

You can post “OFFER” items that you no longer want. You can also post a “WANTED” message for things that you well, want, natch. Sometimes people just need a little reminder that they have an extra queen-sized box spring squirreled away in their storage unit, taking up space (that’s how we got ours!). And just think, that box spring didn’t end up in a landfill and we didn’t have to go out and spend money on one.

Freecycle can be a great resource for finding wedding items as well.
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I left you wondering what I was going to do with my bridesmaid dresses. Of course, the first person I called was Mama Peep. She always gives sound advice. Both of us weren’t worried about the dresses arriving on time, but we were worried that if they didn’t fit, they wouldn’t have time for alterations.

All of my bridesmaids are super busy gals. Wait, aren’t we all? No, these ladies take it to a whole new level: one runs her own business and she will be completing her MBA two weeks before my wedding, anther one is about to move across the country, and we all know that my sister now has her hands full with two little munchkins and a new business.

So, I came away from our phone call with two great options:

1. Skip the expensive dresses and have them choose a J.Crew dress.

2. Let them choose which dress they want individually—J.Crew, Melissa Sweet, Vera Wang—their choice.
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Miss Rye Bread - you’re onto me (and my sister). This is what you said in a comment on my Bad Bride post:

“… I’m also “that sister” who didn’t ask her only sister to be the MOH. Are you asking her to be your MOH? We’re such different people, I feel like she hardly knows me. I absolutely want her by my side on my wedding day, but I felt my closest friend would be able to anticipate my stresses / “get what I mean” when it comes to wedding-ness. At least for my sake, don’t judge her so hard. Maybe talk to her about it some time. If my sister’s ever upset about anything, I find out about it through my mom. She said she’s happy being a BM, but I don’t think she’d ever say what she really felt.”

For the majority of our lives, my sister and I have been very different people. Very different people that fought with each other almost constantly. I wouldn’t say I assumed I would be her MOH, but I did expect a conversation about why I would or wouldn’t be. To me, I really wanted to put the past behind us and help her plan her wedding. She’s very laid back and has difficulty looking at both the details and the big picture, whereas, I am a planning nut job. She chose her dress and her photographer and that was pretty much it. She expected our mother and I to pick up the slack on everything else.

Her MOH was nowhere to be found during any of the planning and told us all about the bachelorette party the day of!
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I am a beach baby. I LOVE the beach and all things tropical. Papa Pig was actually born in Honolulu, and his entire family still lives on the island. Growing up as a military brat, we were fortunate to be able to spend two years in Guam, which I consider to be a miniature, less commercialized version of Hawaii. I’ve always known I wanted to have a destination wedding. The one setback was knowing that some of our family might not be able to attend. To remedy this, we decided to hold our wedding and ceremony on the island of Oahu, and hold a second reception locally in Baltimore, Maryland. We researched a ton on TheKnot Hawaii community boards (thank you Hawaii Knotties!) and our top contenders for the wedding ceremony/reception were:

• Hale Koa - budget friendly, military hotel. Since the Hale Koa Hotel is a federal entity, prices would not be subject to the 4.7% sales tax. There’s a garden area were we could host our ceremony, but we really wanted an oceanfront ceremony. How could we go to Hawaii and not have an ocean backdrop? This was our first choice for the reception, but the aesthetic of the room wasn’t quite what we were looking for and it was without windows. Being a military hotel, brides do require sponsorship in order to host an event at their facility.

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I’ve collected quotes for a while, copied into the notes section of my email program. Here are a few more of my favorites:

She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.

~Toni Morrison, Beloved

A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

~ Charles Kingsley (1819-75)

You must never feel badly about making mistakes,” explained Reason quietly, “as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.

~Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.

~Anna Louise Strong
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… when you dislike shopping.

Source

I’ll just go ahead and say it: I’m weird. I’m weird because (among other reasons) I do not like the experience of shopping. Going from place to place looking, being accosted, jostled, and pressured, etc. EXHAUSTS me. Maybe it’s because I’m old. And if I have to do it, I go shopping at off-peak hours, online and (on rare occasion) by appointment. And, of course, I also don’t like parting with my money.

This is fine most of the time, but horrible for when you’re looking for something you MUST try on… for that one article of clothing that (has been more than once dramatically characterized as the thing that) could be the most important sartorial purchase of your life (shivers): The wedding dress.

SO, I went to ONE store with my mother early on.

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Update: I just found an invitation link on my account so I don’t have to send out individual emails.  Just go to http://www.gilt.com/invite/beekim and you can set up your account right now.

Happy Shopping — You’ll see me on the site at noon checking Vera and Botkier!

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Many-a-bee has blogged about Gilt Group before me.  I’m sure you’ve already heard of it, but in case you haven’t, it’s an online sample sale site that sells top designer brands like Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen, Vera Wang, J Brand, Seven, Marchesa… at up to 70% off (and even more during their final sales)!  I’ve seen things I’ve purchased off Gilt Group sell for much more on sites like Bluefly and in stand alone boutiques, and that makes me happy.

Yesterday a friend of mine was trying to purchase something off Gilt, but her size sold out by the time she’d made a decision on what she wanted.  Because it’s such an awesome place to buy heavily discounted designer clothing, shoes, handbags, and jewelry for bridal showers, bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners… I thought I’d share my Gilt Group strategy.
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A couple of days ago I sent out “Will You Be My Flower Girl?” cards to my two sweet flower girls, Cousin Kitten and Future Niece Kitten. I basically used the same method as my “Will You Be My Bridesmaid?” cards. But since my crafting skills had developed ever-so-slightly since my first round of cards, and I had a little more time on my hands for these, I did a few things differently.

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Update:  Congratulations to commenter #72, HBride!  You’ve won a copy of Real Simple Weddings!  HBride is getting married in September 2010 in Huntington Beach, CA. She’s been reading Weddingbee for two years now!  When it comes to wedding planning, HBride writes,

“I’m stressed about everything looking and going the way I picture it! I am most excited about seeing my fiance when I walk down the aisle and having all the DIY and planning over and knowing it’s time to have a great wedding!”

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The beehive is buzzing with so many new Bees, we thought we’d give you all a chance to introduce yourselves! If you’re new to the hive, or just haven’t had a chance to properly introduce yourself, comment below and say hello. As a welcome gift, we’re giving away a copy of Real Simple Weddings to one lucky commenter!

Tell us:

When did you get engaged?

What month/year will you marry?

What city will you marry in?

How long have you been a part of the hive?

What is the one thing that stresses you out most about wedding planning? And, on the flip side, what do you find most fulfilling and exciting?

Perhaps you’ll find that you have lots in common with some of the Bees in the hive, new and old!

P.S. - Don’t forget to check out the local boards to find brides in your area!

I have a problem with makeup. While it looks beautiful upon application, it wears off fast. I’m plagued by oily skin, Louisiana humidity, and the tendency to be overly-emotional. I’m thankful that I’ll have my makeup professionally done on our wedding day, so hopefully that problem won’t be too bad, but I will be enlisting the help of some products to give the makeup that boost to stay on throughout the day!

I would like to mention a HUGE thank you to Makeup Alley. This website is AWESOME (and free). It’s all makeup/beauty products and users review them, listing their age, skin type, what they thought, etc. to give you an idea of if the product might work on you.

First you go to the product review page and you get a search option.

Image source

Then, you are able to search by category (foundation, eye shadow, etc.), brand name (Maybelline, Smashbox, etc.) and product name (Oil Blotting sheets, Paradise Pink lip gloss, etc.)
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I’m going to go ahead and say it…. I had the BEST bridal shower EVER! It was perfect! Last weekend, my MOH, Mom and her friends threw me a little party to celebrate the big day. I traveled all the way to Tuscaloosa, Alabama and I was so excited to see everyone (and FINALLY get some Chick-Fil-A). They invited girls I grew up with that still live in the area that I had not seen since high school and college!

So much detail went into this shower. I have to send a big thanks to Heidi Jones, the wedding/shower planner who organized the whole thing. Heidi mainly works out of central Florida, but she was kind enough to make the 8 hour drive to Alabama to spearhead the party. If you’re in Florida and need a party planner, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with her.

First up: The Details

Please notice all the table runners, handmade by my Sister Dumpling, the co-hostess of the party. Isn’t she crafty? We do not share that level of craftiness, unfortunately.

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