- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee Blog
After getting our hair did (yes, I realize that is grammatically incorrect), my bridesmaids and I took a quick stroll to my hotel room at Sofitel Philadelphia, where we got dressed and ready to head off to the museum. The shot above is of me failing to tie a bow properly—the only way I know how to tie a bow is by doing it the old school way and “pulling the rabbit ears through the hole”. Luckily, my bridesmaids were much more savvy in the bow-tying department. We even ran short on the brown ribbon my gals wore, which I was fairly oblivious to at the time, but my maid of honor improvised by doing a cute cross-over sash on her dress.
Read more…
Sorry for the delayed posting. I just wanted to make sure everyone received their Valentines before posting the photos. I am in awe of the talent and creativity of all the bees and readers. Wow! You are all crafting superstars. We had a total of about 50 swappers and hopefully everyone got theirs by now. If not, just write me at canary [at] weddingbee [dot] com and I will see what I can do. Otherwise, enjoy the beautiful Valentine creations (posted in no particular order) courtesy of the hive! Also, don’t forget to rate your fellow swappers on Swap-Bot.
Mrs. Candy Corn’s delightful hand-illustrated cards.
There’s no other way to say it: I am disappointed. THE Dress that I had been coveting for months (and was ready to wait for for 2 months) arrived a mere 2 days later. Mr. Quiche brought up the package and asked if I had ordered anything else from Nordstrom because there was a (badly abused) box waiting for me. I racked my brain to see if I could remember making and late-night purchases, and came up empty handed. It had to be THE Dress.
I had built up this dress so much in my head that the thought never crossed my mind that it wouldn’t be perfect. I’ve seen pictures of it posted on the boards by readers and fellow bees and they all looked great in it!
Am I ever glad that it arrived early!
I did not like it on me. It just wasn’t what I expected, and I also suspect that, due to the high demand, the quality and construction of the dress just isn’t what it was a couple of years ago. (Also, if you have this dress, let me know your thoughts and/or experiences!!)
I’ve found myself yet again getting sucked into wedding trends. First it was the candy buffet. Then, wearing two veils (a veil and a hair flower, in my case). Now, I have fallen for the signature drinks trend.
While signature drinks are trendy, they are also very budget friendly and user friendly. Instead of stocking a whole bar, we will only have to provide the ingredients for the signature drinks, along with wine, beer, and soda. Additionally, the bartender will only have to make a few types of drinks, and the guests will hopefully have an easier time choosing a drink.
Mr. Spring Roll and I have decided to offer three signature drinks: the perfect pear, the blushing bride, and… well, we are still deciding on a third choice.
Read more…
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.”
…and the Latte wedding party is complete! As promised, Mr. Latte went to visit his favorite little girls this weekend, and with felt bouquets in tow, asked them to be our flower girls. They said yes and I’m so excited that they can both make it out to NYC for the wedding! They are so cute and will definitely steal the show on the big day. Don’t be surprised to see me up at the altar, turning around to sneak a peek at the cute girls all dressed up!
You saw our special little guys last week… are you ready for more cuteness???
(It was Valentine’s Day so Mr. L tied heart-shaped balloons to the bouquets.)
Now comes the fun (edit: hard) part.
Read more…
Reader annie1102 is selling the guestbook tree that she used at her wedding. It is made of metal, and is somewhat hard to ship. She is selling it for $40 and would prefer to sell it to someone in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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:
Read more…
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I had my hair and makeup done by Ai Sakai for a recent event (Ai also did Mrs. Snow Pea’s wedding hair and makeup). This is a horrible self-portrait taken in my bathroom after a very long day, but you get the picture. Ai is so sweet, and she was such a pleasure to work with! She started out as a hair stylist, so I especially loved my curls, but she also did a fantastic job on my makeup!
I typically stick to very neutral colored lipsticks, so I love that she used a bolder color on me.
Read more…
Before he was “Mr. Stiletto”, my personal photographer/paparazzi, or fellow parent to our two kitties, he was “BlueMixes” and I was “tnns82grl”. Yes, that’s right, match.com made the love connection for this romance. I “winked” at him, the emails flew back and forth, and a week later we were on our first date.
I’d like to state for the record, however, that there was no match right off the bat. Our first date consisted of a dinner at a cute little Italian place in the Bucktown/Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, followed by a couple of drinks at a nearby bar and watching the Illinois basketball game. I spent the dinner struggling to hear what this guy was saying from across the table in the noisy restaurant, smiling and nodding as needed. He, apparently, did the same.
As we watched the basketball game following dinner, we had a little wager over who would win the game. If Illinois was triumphant he won the bet, and he set the stakes of me owing him a kiss. I wondered how cheesy this guy really was, and if he honestly thought I would kiss him. Fortunately for me, Illinois lost and I didn’t have to make good on the wager.
But then he started doing sweet little things.
Read more…
I’m talking about chairs and chair covers today. I know, don’t get too excited. 
But, when you think about it, even though chairs are such a minor consideration compared to other aspects of the day, they will probably sneak into a good amount of the wedding photos. And I don’t want them to look out of place. Yet, in the same vein, our budget didn’t and still doesn’t have a wedding chair contingency plan. Hmm, what’s a girl to do? Let me relay our mini-dilemma.
The first time we toured our venue, our ceremony room was set up for a business conference. Picture long tables covered with white linens and mauve cloth covered metallic legged chairs manufactured in the 1980s, possibly the early ’90s. I perused the room, completely skipping over the chairs, because in my bratty (albeit naive) bridal mind, I assumed that our venue would be providing us with those pretty, “ladies lunching”, delicate chairs that I had seen at friends’ weddings before. Something like this:
Do you have that one weakness when you go shopping? You know what I mean… the times that you can’t really afford anything, but you make an exception just to have the “must-have” item? Well, my weakness is shoes. I love shoes and have resorted to not going anywhere near a shoe department if I know I should not spend anything. Because when you have an addiction, you will sacrifice, justify, and find a way to satisfy the craving.
So, should it surprise you that I can’t wait to find the shoes that I will wear on my wedding day? Maybe I’ll be a 1 dress, 4 shoe bride and change them throughout the wedding. Just kidding… I won’t do that. But I really do want to find some fun shoes to wear under my dress. I don’t want plain white ones because I want to find something I can wear again and have just that pop of color and personality on the wedding day.
Just look at the cute pictures you can get…
When we arrived in Polebridge, there was still over an hour until the ceremony. I had expected to have maybe half an hour to prepare… a time that I could have easily filled with setup and organization. But given all the time we then had, I didn’t know what to do with myself except make sure that Mr. CP didn’t accidentally stumble upon me before the ceremony.
At the end of my last recap, you saw me holding my veil over the bus window to prevent him from looking in as he exited his bus and went into the saloon. I had definitely decided that his “first look” would have a bigger impact if it were as I was walking down the aisle. Unfortunately, we hadn’t exactly planned the logistics of how we’d be sequestered once we arrived at Polebridge.
Playing “hide and seek” like this seemed like fun at the time. But if I had to confess my one major regret of the whole day, it’s that we didn’t spend the hour before the ceremony together. I wish we’d had some quiet time to talk, have a drink, and maybe take a few casual photos. I made him wait to see me because I thought it would make our ceremony feel more significant. In truth, I think it would have been worth it to have had a few minutes with my future husband beforehand.
Instead, I spent my time before the ceremony pacing and preening, and nearly dumping Coca-Cola all over my dress. Here’s how it went down:
As Mr. CP stepped into the saloon with his groomsmen, the bridal party started to unload the second bus. Our arrival was met by family and friends who had come early, and by the better part of Polebridge’s residents. This little girl poked her head out the back door, seemingly to get a better look at the city folk who were storming her country home:
Hey hive, Mrs. Penguin here! We really need your help on the Wiki of the Day today. “Makeup Trial” is an entry that is largely unfilled, and we’d love to get your input! Makeup trials are kind of intimidating, especially if you’re not the type of person to wear makeup on a daily basis, like me. I had huge issues with my makeup trial and wasn’t sure if I was going to like my makeup at all on our wedding day! I thought my makeup artist (MUA) did a great job, but I was totally afraid of looking like I was wearing too much makeup. My MUA did a great job at listening to my concerns, and did a perfect job on the big day! I was so glad I went for a trial—it is well worth the expense, because if you don’t like your makeup on your wedding day, you might be too stressed out to fix it, or running too late to have time to do anything about it.
What are some of your tips for a smooth makeup trial? Are there questions you should ask your MUA before and after the trial? How much direction should you give your MUA before, during and after the trial? Are there specific products you’ve used for your wedding that you must recommend to others? Share all your tips and ideas with us in the Makeup Trial Wiki:
If you’re unsure how you can contribute to the wiki, take a peek at this wiki article on how to edit a wiki. Check it out and share your expertise! Or, if you’re shy, just leave your tips in the comments, and we can add them to the wiki for you!
I fought against having a color scheme. Oh, boy, did I fight it. I’m not sure why, but to me, the choosing of a color palette for our wedding was like giving in to the pressure to make it an event rather than a celebration. We don’t really color coordinate Thanksgiving, right? But we do tend to stick to certain colors for Christmas and Fourth of July, and I’ll begrudgingly admit that it’s rather festive. So I gave in.
Ta da!
For months, I’ve been winging it when I’ve been asked about colors, most often saying, “Green like the grass, blue like the sky, yellow like sunlight, and any flowery colors.” While I love a nice, calm, restrained palette (like our original invites), in personality I’m more of an explosion of color. So is the mister.
Read more…
This is fo’ shiz how I’d propose if I were a super nerd. This way, he/she would have no room to gripe about the geeky life the marriage would bring. “Can’t say you didn’t know what you were signing up for, honey!”
Check out more geeky proposals here.
Why do I feel compelled to point out these fabulous weddings? They’re sometimes referred to as “budget” or “DIY” weddings, and while I feel that those terms should be a source of pride, I think they’re often seen as second-tier weddings. I saw this thread on the boards and I was mildly miffed about the part where the colleague said he couldn’t afford a wedding.
Why does this miff me? Though I have my sneaking suspicions that his excuse was exactly that: an excuse, I wanted to address it from my heart. Weddings are about marriage, and if you and your partner want to be married, then cost shouldn’t hold you back. I know that it often feels like we need a dove release, a 10 tier cake, designer gowns, Manolo Blahniks, peonies, and the like. Those aren’t needs, they’re wants, and this should be the message we all keep in our heads when we start to get overwhelmed.
These weddings are at courthouses, backyards, restaurants, and other beautiful venues. I know it isn’t everyone’s dream to be married at one of these venues, but should we rule it out? I think the saving grace for Mr. D and I has been to set a budget and to create the wedding within it. If we started creating the wedding before the budget, I would have easily been heartbroken over things like peonies and Monique Lhuillier gowns.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 |
