Weddingbee Blog

I am really excited to share with you my ideas for bridesmaids dresses. There are so many I love, but these are the ones we are hunting down.

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Part 1

So we met in November 2003. Mr. Bee flew to southern California to visit me the first week of December, and we drove down to La Jolla/San Diego for 4 days. In retrospect it seems a little crazy that we went away for the weekend the second time we ever saw each other. But we’d been talking on the phone every day, including a record breaking 10 hour conversation, and it felt like we’d known each other forever. The weekend was relaxing and wonderful. Spending 4 days, 24 hours a day together without fighting is a good sign - we really got along.

I flew to New York to spend Christmas and New Year’s with Mr. Bee. We did all the couple-y things like go to Rockefeller Center, ice skate at Wollman Rink, romantic dinners and drinks out on the town. On Christmas Day we had tons of presents for each other. The first Christmas together as a couple is always so exciting. This was my favorite present - I’m a scrapbooker so Mr. Bee bought me a scrapbook and filled it with scrapbooking supplies…

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If you have been reading my posts throughout the planning process I apologize for regurgitating this information for the third time, but can you blame me for wanting to visit such a hilarious event one last time?

Pokładziny-The Bedding Down

In ancient times, putting the bridal pair to bed was a normal and expected part of the marriage customs, and was done with much joking and hilarity. The young couple was directed by the entire wedding party to a room that had been specially prepared for them.

The swat, still overseeing that all went according to custom, placed himself on the marriage bed to “warm it up”. The womenfolk jumped up and down on the bed to make sure it could hold up and now break down. Rocks or sharp straw or thorns might have been placed underneath the sheets are removed. The swat and swata then chased everyone out of the room and took the bride and groom to the bed and left them alone. The door was locked behind them and after serenading the bridal couple with some very warm and bawdy songs, along with vodka toasts and admonitions “not to be lazy”, the couple was left alone.

The next morning, musicians awoke the couple and gave them kasza cooked in milk and vodka that had been dyed red as a sign of lost virginity. The sheets were inspected for the expected stain that meant the loss of virginity. This made everybody happy and was the cause of more singing and dancing.

From “Polish Customs, Traditions and Folklore” by Sophie Hodorowicz Knab

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I bought a book at Kinokuniya in New York that has hundreds of 3-D packaging forms, covering lots of shapes and purposes. I think it’s one of the best book investments I’ve ever made. I put together one of the forms as packaging for the boxer shorts that I gave to my husband for Valentine’s Day.
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Over the past few months, I have fallen head over heels for Etsy.com. It is the planning resource that I think every bride should utilize - with a network of such creative individuals and a wide variety of prices, Etsy falls within everyone’s grasp.

I made my very first purchase on Etsy last September. I found a pair of earrings that I just had to have, and it didn’t matter that our wedding was a year away, or that I didn’t even have my dress. I needed these earrings, and the details of our wedding would just have to work around them!

Emily at Precious Meshes does an amazing job on all of her work. You can see the craftsmanship that goes into each piece, and almost every piece she creates is perfectly suited for wedding jewelry, but at the same time, doesn’t scream “wedding”.

I wanted something unique and special, while keeping away from pearls (they’re lovely, just not for me). These netted crystal earrings could not be more perfect - they have an amazing presence and yet they’re still delicate. They sparkle. And they’re made from “vintage faceted glass chandelier crystal”. They could be my something old!

Source: Etsy

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I have long touted my obsession with spicing up Weight Watchers and making my wedding weight loss plan a way of life! Mr. Dragon and I have been eating more consciously for a couple of years, and now we are eating with a mind to be Hottie McHottersons for our wedding. For as long as I have been a blogger on Weddingbee, I have preached the helpfulness of Weight Watchers, and this week I am going to show you what I am talking about! I do NOT work in any way for Weight Watchers, but I truly believe in it because it is a life change, not a diet, and no foods are “verboten”. WW has made a huge difference in my eating habits, and I love it! So this week, I am taking you grocery shopping with me and Mr. Dragon. On the menu this week… Shrimp and Basil Tabbouleh and Spaghetti and Meatballs from scratch. I am going to show you my favorite flavor-inducing tips, as well as exploring the eternal grocery shopping question… where on God’s green earth is the bulgur???

I don’t know about you ladies, but for me, cooking healthy meals during the week is really difficult!
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Reader jenrhea is selling her Sottero & Midgley wedding gown. It is style #ASM3040, ivory, size 10, and features a french bustle. She is asking for $400 via PayPal.

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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What’s fun about planning a Chewish wedding is that our families get to learn about wedding customs from another culture. My uncle, for example, recently asked me whether all of the men were going to wear “Yamahas” at the wedding.  The image of Mr. HC with a piano on his head made me laugh so hard I almost choked.

Image Source

He meant yarmulkes.

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Okay, okay, I realize there have been a lot of J. Crew posts lately. But who can blame Miss Peep Toe, Miss Lemonade, Miss Latte, Miss Meatball, and me for loving on J.Crew when you can order bridesmaids dresses and get them THE VERY NEXT DAY! Or even RETURN THEM if they aren’t what you wanted! Or possibly find them ON SALE! I love it! After the Melissa Sweet debacle, I started to look into other options, and I just loved the idea of NOT WAITING SEVERAL MONTHS FOR OUR FLIPPIN’ BRIDESMAID DRESSES!

So, to jcrew.com I went. Way back when we were going to have an aqua, chartreuse, and sapphire wedding, I fell in love with this J. Crew “Lydia” dress (in a lovely sapphire shade).

Source

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I know menus aren’t the most exciting aspect of planning a wedding, but we really wanted our guests to see some of the menu items we had chosen because they were sort of themed around our location. So where’s a gal to turn for DIY menus? To my trusty Gocco, of course. Our monogram is literally going to be EVERYWHERE at our ceremony, reception, and even on our OOT bags. Our menu is no exception! I put our menu on Stardream opal text paper and taped it to Stardream Onyx cardstock. We’ll place them inside the napkins on the tables.

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I was overwhelmed by the amazing response to my “Calling All Short Dress Brides” post. Thank you so much for sharing your images and stories. I’m honored that I inspired so many of you, or gave you that little push or added bit of courage to step outside the box and wear a short dress on your wedding day. There is so much talent and creativity in all the submissions I got.

Weddingbee reader Emma (from Dublin) had her dress made by Sarah Foy in Dublin, Ireland. Inspired largely by my dress (this is why I LOVE Weddingbee), Emma had a top, skirt, petticoat and reversible bolero made. To go out after the reception she had a black pencil skirt (not pictured), kept the top and turned the jacket inside out so the peacock colored side was out. She’s worn the top and petticoat again already and hopes to wear all the separate pieces often (a girl after my own heart)! Photos are by Therese Aherne
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I’m so sorry for being MIA! I have so many things to blog about, and it’s all swimming around in my head. But I have been so busy with non-wedding related events that have been preventing me from finding the time to sit down and blog about everything that has been going on. I’ve also been trying to concentrate on losing weight before my last fitting next week (I forgot my camera for the first fitting, but I will definitely take pictures for my next one), ever since the woman who is altering my dress told me that she could not close the buttons on my dress, and recommended I lose a few pounds…. but in a nice way of course! Then about a week ago, on the day I had long reserved to spend catching up on everything, I woke up with neck spasms which left me pretty much immobilized for 4 days. Mr. Martini thinks that it was caused by stress, but I blame it on the new pillow that we got for free just a week before (more on that later). The funny thing is, after I got a nice little prescription of pain killers and muscle relaxants out of it, I have been pretty much stress-free.

So, about this dreaded pillow. Mr. Martini and I got this pillow for free with the purchase of our hanboks for our Paebek ceremony. A Paebek ceremony is a Korean tradition that symbolizes the welcoming of the bride into the groom’s family. It involves bowing to the groom’s family before they throw dates and chestnuts for the bride and groom to catch. The number of chestnuts (boys) or dates (girls) caught will determine the number of children the newlyweds will have.

Our mothers wanted to get a matching pair of hanboks to wear during the ceremony and cocktail hour (when the Paebek ceremony will take place), and then later change into dresses for the reception. As for Mr. Martini and me, we will only wear the hanboks for the duration of the Paebek ceremony, a total of about half an hour. We will probably never again in our lives wear them again, so we didn’t feel it was necessary to buy brand new hanboks for us, and thought of options to borrow or wear old ones. The Paebek gown (which is rented) is worn over the hanbok and hides most of it, so I really didn’t think it was a necessity, and preferred to spend the money on other things.

However, our moms insisted that we do it the “traditional” way, and purchasing hanboks for the wedding is part of the tradition of getting married.
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I originally posted this story on my personal wedding blog over 3 years ago.  It was transferred into the Weddingbee archives so some of you may have read it, but since the vast majority of you haven’t, I thought I’d repost the series this week!

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I joined xanga, a blogging community, in April of 2003, and little did I know that it was soon to become a part of my daily life. The site is very addictive if I do say so myself! In June of 2003, I posted about a serious problem I was having with my family businesses. I was stressed, overwhelmed, and just venting. Mr. Bee contacted me through an email link on my site, after he read the post, because he thought he might be able to help me out. I’d never had any prior contact with him, but I gave him my work phone number, he called, and we talked briefly. He gave me some advice about different things I could do and if that didn’t pan out, he said he’d call in a favor from someone he knew in local government. Luckily, the problem worked itself out soon after, and I emailed Mr. Bee to thank him for offering his help to a complete stranger.

Months went by. We commented on each other’s sites from time to time, but we didn’t really have any other interaction - not a phone call, not a text message, not an email, not an instant message. One day I blogged about coming to New York for a vacation in November (I was living in LA at the time), and through a series of comments back and forth on each other’s sites, we somehow decided to meet up while I was there. I didn’t know anything about him other than his job and his age because he didn’t really blog often, but I wanted to thank him for trying to help me out. He had an unfair advantage because knew me thru my xanga where I had detailed pretty much every moment of my life for the past six months.
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Mr. Apple Cider and I have been together for 5 years and 5 months. We have been “apart” 3 long years and 5 grueling months. We haven’t lived in the same town/city since college, and the most consecutive time we have spent together since college has been around 10 days.

I will be honest and say that it has been tough. There have been ups and downs. We have had to learn to communicate, trust, believe, be patient (more me than him), and so much more.

my favorite postcard from Rarrar Press

Our time together is always wonderful, and while we are apart we have had to explore different ways of communicating. When we only talked on the phone, we found it difficult to get into really in depth conversations every day. When you live together (which we never have) I think you communicate differently. You are able to talk about your day, current news, and issues. So, we had to find a way to do that being apart.
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Since I have been engaged, one of the most common questions I’ve been asked is, “Have you found your dress?” or some variation of that question. I usually respond with, “No, I haven’t even gone shopping yet. I’m not sure what I am looking for.” And it is true. I’ve been engaged since May, but have not gone dress shopping yet. Why? Well, first of all I am so busy and I often do not know what my schedule will be, so I don’t make the appointment at the dress shop. I want to lose weight and have worried that the dresses will look different once I do so. I think this is me just delaying, because I want to lose 15 pounds, and that probably won’t make too much of a difference.

In all of my wedding planning, I think I enjoy the things that aren’t “me” oriented. I love planning the decor, colors, details, stationery and graphics. I love planning and creating things for others to enjoy. But I don’t like being the center of attention (I can’t stand the Happy Birthday song on my birthday, for example) and so I feel weird about doing the part that revolves around me. I know that as the bride, all eyes will be on me, but that is a little nerve wracking. So maybe even the idea of being on a pedestal in a bridal salon with all eyes on me is even scarier.
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