Weddingbee Blog

After we found and finalized the bridesmaid dresses, I remember thinking (somewhat wistfully), “Huh. Well, that was easy.” Don’t get me wrong. Easy is great. I love easy. But, I also enjoyed the brief time we spent perusing the racks and having my girls try on dresses of floaty tissue taffeta and supple silk.

Then, Mer, Tiff and Sherry — the three additions to the Bruschetta wedding (henceforth referred to as the Bruschetta bridal attendants…unless you’ve got some more suggestions for me!) — decided they’d like to wear matching dresses. So, I’m starting the bridesmaid dress search anew, and I could really use some help from the hive!

I’d prefer this new dress (because yes, we all want another look for these girls) also be knee-length and in a similar fabric to the tissue taffeta Amsales. (So chiffon and satin dresses, while lovely, won’t work.) Color? I’d still like neutral — maybe black, but I’m open to dark grey or deep purple as well. I’m looking for something that coordinates well with the bridesmaid dress, too. (Here’s a look at the Amsale the Bruschetta ’maids all loved as much as I do!)

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Mr Piglet and I are on a mission to find a slim cut suit for his small, yet buff, frame. I will be the first to admit, I know absolutely nothing about suits - the terminology, styles, armhole positioning, etc. Nada. I care to know as much as he cared about the neckline, silhouette, and bodice of my dress, to be honest.

My two-cent contribution was that he consider other suit colors aside from tan. I have no qualms about tan suits. With our wedding being an all day event, I’m just worried he’ll spill something like our friend, Dr Ko, did last year. Hindsight is 20/20, and eating noodles with black bean sauce (jja jang myun) in between the ceremony and reception probably wasn’t such a hot idea.

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Reader jessie4212 is selling a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. They are size 8, brand new, and have 3″ heels. They feature gold satin covering the heels, and a lighter gold crepe material on the tops of the shoes. She is asking for $350 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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There are SO many creative and unique options out there for save the dates now! I fell in love with many before we finally decided on ours.

I saw these on Brooklyn Bride and totally fell in love with them:

They’re from here. (They placed all the relevant info on the back.)

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So. Here we are. I am getting married in 10 short days. I’ve finally started stalking the weather, checking in hour by hour to ensure that our outdoor ceremony will go off without a hitch. But that’s a different story. This story is about the various accessories I have been collecting that will complete my wedding day ensemble.

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As I started formulating a vision for our wedding, I’ll admit that one of the first things I started thinking about was decor for our reception venue. I wanted something that was:

1. Unique
2. Could be used again if possible
3. I could put together myself
4. Within our budget.

And so, I began my search for the perfect centerpieces. I knew that creating 20+ table centerpieces was not something I would be able to accomplish in the last week or two before our wedding. The solution? Non-floral centerpieces (at least not fresh floral centerpieces). And actually, I really wanted to avoid incorporating any fresh flowers in the entire wedding. Gasp! No fresh flowers? Yes, you heard me. I wasn’t against potted plants or flowers, I just thought (and still think) it’s such a waste to purchase fresh flowers that will just die in a few days. For a while, I was obsessed with the likes of succulents.

Here is a variety of succulents clustered together to make eye-candy. I love the color combination that the result produces.

source

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Congratulations to the winner, lollylolly!

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You still have time to enter this contest! Our very own talented Mrs. Pineapple is the owner of Emily Ink, and makes fully customizable save the dates, bridal shower invitations, wedding invitations, and announcements. Today we’re giving away a $200 gift certificate towards any stationery in her shop!

She’s currently offering 10% off and free shipping to Weddingbee readers. Just mention Weddingbee when you check out! To enter this contest, check out Emily Ink’s great designs and tell us which design is your favorite. You have until tomorrow at midnight PST to enter. Good luck!

Where have I been? Well, things have just been crazy, and I have lots of posts to catch up on. I’m two weeks away from finishing my last semester of my graduate program! However, the first thing I absolutely have to share with you are the engagement pictures! I last left off telling you about the wonderful makeup advice from Lo.

After getting ready, we jumped in the car and headed up to LA to meet our photographer, Mike Larson, and his wife Rachel (Remember when I talked about them way back when?). Mike and his team had just gotten back from Costa Rica a few days before and spent the whole weekend shooting a wedding in LA, but were willing to spend the afternoon with us shooting our pictures. Mike was taking pictures, assisted by Chloe, who is one of the associate photographers. We originally were going to start shooting at the Getty Museum, but the place was packed, so we started heading towards the coast.

Mr. Ducky and I met at Pepperdine during our undergrad years, so it made sense that we’d return to our beautiful campus for some engagement pictures. We have so many memories from this place and we felt like having pictures taken there would give them extra meaning.

We started off in a little patch of wildflowers that overlooks the campus. Mike warned us that we would feel super awkward for the first five minutes, but then it would be okay. Well, he was definitely right. We just giggled awkwardly for the first five minutes and slowly relaxed with the fabulous coaching and encouragement from Chloe.

All photo credits are to Mike Larson Photography

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So, I had originally planned to dedicate this post to finding our wedding colors with your help. But after spending a few hours brainstorming at my one of my bridesmaids’ houses along with another BM, I have not only found our colors, but also some choices for their dresses. Thank you Ashley and Brittany!

Color Palette Made Here

Here they are! We’re going with shimmery deep chocolate (the color shown doesn’t do it justice), taupes, champagne-brown hues, and a deep red. It’s hard to really show it online, but I think the pictures of the BM dresses will help get the point across. We’ll be using the brown colors as the main hues for the BM dresses and my dress sash. The red will be used as an accent in the flowers, on the men’s ties, and in some decor.

As for the BM dresses, I found some Jim Hjelm designs (my fave bridal designer) that I absolutely loved a while back. But I put them in the back of my head because they are a little pricey, and didn’t want to put my girls in an awkward position of possibly not being able to afford them. But after receiving a catalog from Jim Hjelm today and showing the girls the dresses, they both agreed that they loved them, and have more than enough time to save for them (the dresses average around $210-$250). We haven’t decided on long or short dresses, but we’ve picked out a few style choices with our wedding color combo. We wrote down the pros and cons for having long and short dresses, so once we see them in person, it’ll be easier to make a decision if we haven’t by then.

Here goes!
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Hi Everyone,

Just wondering what the protocol is for the vendors (photographers, florists, etc.) that you end up not choosing. Are you supposed to send them an email letting them know that you didn’t choose them, or do they assume as much if you don’t get back to them? I’m not sure what people usually do.

Thanks!

wheresmydessert

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Please comment on the thread here.

I finally bought a DVD ripper so that I could tear apart the footage from guests’ home videos and put them back together. Here’s the processional from last week’s recap:

The embedded blogging version of this video is of pretty poor quality - so make sure to press “HQ”!

Yep. That was the name of a mixed CD I came across while house-sitting recently. Sappy Love Songs. Mr. Cowboy Boot and I were cooking dinner at this gorgeous house when I was sifting through the house owner’s CD collection. Since we haven’t decided on any of our song choices yet for the wedding, I thought, ’Perfect, let’s give it a whirl and possibly, find a first dance song. Maybe we’ll be inspired? Or maybe we’ll hear something unexpected that will fit in perfectly?’

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We love music and are thinking we’d like to hire a bluegrass band to play the wedding. Some of these songs would sound so awesome bluegrass-style. We’re both really drawn to the Pink Floyd song Wish You Were Here, but there’s something so sad about the line “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl”.

We have a lot to plan out: ceremony songs, what to play during our cocktail hour, our first dance, any other important moments. Whew—it’s a bit overwhelming.
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Last time I gave you guys a sneak peek into our invitations, and now I can say that everyone (well, almost everyone—things take a long time to get to Norway) has received our invites, and despite one mishap* the results are all positive!!

Since I’ve already talked about my bridal blunder in ordering the invites, let’s jump straight into the wording. The one request from Mama Peep was that we include their names on the invite, but since our in-laws are also contributing, we thought it’d be best to include them as well. They aren’t married any longer, so we had to get crafty, which worked well for us since tradition isn’t really our thing. And if I do say so myself, I think it sounds great! (Peep Toe= Last Name)

Papa and Mama Peep Toe
Along with MIL Peep Toe and FIL Peep Toe
Joyfully invite you to celebrate the marriage of

Miss Peep
& Mr. Peep

Saturday, May XX
Two Thousand Nine**
At half past xxxx in the afternoon

The Outdoor Terrace***
Hotel Vitale
San Francisco, California

Reception Immediately Following

**thanks to Mrs. Cupcake’s advice, we removed the ’and’
***Mama Peep thought it was important for people to know the wedding is outside

We also had to make a BIG decision regarding the RSVP card. We’ll be having a sit down dinner and our guests need to choose between two entrees. Papa Peep made some grumbling about avoiding chicken, so even though we haven’t (as in, to this day) had a tasting, we decided to throw caution to the wind and serve beef and fish. We incorporated a little line on the RSVP card and asked people to initial their choice. Out of the few RSVPs we’ve gotten, NO ONE has actually initialed their choice. They’ve Xed their yesses, but they haven’t initialed who wants what. So, a word to the wise: make the initial line big enough so your guests can actually add their initials. D’OH!!

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… in life, in love and especially in wedding planning! A lot of people have asked me why we sent invitations so early, and my response has been, “Timing is everything.” I know I’ve mentioned it a lot before, but I have been doing a lot of traveling for work over the last 3 years. When I add up all the time I spent away from home last year, it comes to about 4 full months. I don’t leave for months at a time, but I do leave for 2-4 weeks, several times a year. Besides being gone a lot, I also have to deal with travel notice, or lack thereof. I’ve gotten less than 10 days notice for every trip I’ve taken for work. That seems like a reasonable amount of time, until you factor in getting your everyday work done ahead of time or covered by someone else, packing, vaccinations, booking flights, and rescheduling personal commitments. I’m not complaining (I know, it sounds like I am). I love traveling for work and I love seeing the “real” work get done, but the traveling can disrupt life.

I don’t know how many concerts, weekends away, birthdays, and weddings I’ve missed because of travel. Last year I missed my own birthday. I hope Mr. Joey didn’t have a surprise party planned! I also almost missed our vacation to New Orleans. We had our tickets booked for months, and days before we were scheduled to take off, I found out I was headed to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia the day after we got back from New Orleans. Fun! We got back to Seattle on a Thursday around lunch and I went straight to the travel clinic to get vaccines. The next morning I boarded a plane for Addis via DC, and of course got a fever on the plane because of the Yellow Fever vaccine. I told you, I shouldn’t travel. So this is my life, and we deal with it.

When we thought about a wedding, my first reaction was to do it fast because of my work. Not elope, but just get married in 2 or 3 months.
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I love how I’ve been having all of these moments lately where I feel the closeness of the wedding date approaching. The reality of the upcoming marriage is really sinking in. I mentioned in my post about mailing our invitations that I had some excitement and a realization that I was, in fact, getting married. This is officially happening, people!

Just the other day, Mr. Deviled Egg gave me another one of those “this is really happening moments” when he said the words “my wife” in one of our phone conversations. (Talking about me, of course!)

Cue the excitement! Cue the butterflies!

Source

Here’s the back-story on how this conversation came about.
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