Weddingbee Blog

We had an engagement shoot last weekend in Pasadena, California with an up and coming photographer named Herman Au. The pictures were emailed to us today. I’ll provide more details later, but here are a couple of teasers. I’m IN. LOVE.

Read more…

I play this little game when I get overwhelmed with wedding details called, “I can’t wait until…” I think about all of the things that will come after our wedding, from the mundane like health insurance for my guy (no more hearing him complain about phantom aches and pains) to the rock-our-world things like becoming parents.

And the best part is that, a la Operation Perspective, every time I think about my photographer, I end up in playing the game. Why? Because she specializes in family and maternity photography, and she’s AWESOME.

See for yourself (all images copyright Angela Herzog Photography 2009)….

Read more…

I thought I had a pretty firm idea as to what I wanted my hair to look like on our wedding day. I even posted a few favorites of mine that I’ve seen online, and they’ve all fallen into a “structured bun” category. I think brides often feel that if they don’t have hair down to the derriere in preparation for the wedding day, then they’re out of luck. I’ve felt it too, as I continue to grow it out and refuse to snip off more than the very ends.

However, Wed in the White City got me thinking about this whole hair thing this week (thank you for sharing your hair plans and cute new ’do!). She took control of her locks and got the cutest bob, and then shared her inspiration for her wedding day hair. I love it!

I’ve been hating my hair for months now and keep on telling myself that after the wedding, I’ll be free to chop it off. I’m no stranger to short hair—I think throughout college I tried out every length from 2 inches on down—so I keep on dreaming about the sassy cute cut I’ll have. But what if I don’t have to wait? I still have 5 1/2 months until the wedding, so I possibly have enough time to play around a bit. And if I take inspiration pictures with me, I can at least tell my stylist that I need a cut that could do this or that.

So, I’ve gathered some inspiration. I won’t lie—it’s difficult to find good styles for short hair. But what I did find, I was pleasantly surprised with!

Style #1: Elegant Chignon
I love how this feels a little bit 1960s. It’s simple, and yet has some great volume to it. I’m no stylist, but I don’t think you need a lot of length to get this accomplished!

Source: Easy Hairstyles

Read more…

I love paper. I love different colors, patterns, textures and weights. I buy scrapbooking paper because it’s pretty, without ever really needing it for one of my scrapbook pages. (And those six for $0.96 sales at Jo-Ann’s are hard to pass up!) When it came to wedding invitations, I never really considered any other option but making them myself. I wanted to experiment with different papers and try my hand at designing them on Adobe Photoshop Elements. (Elements is great version of Photoshop for people who either lack the money to pay for the full version of Photoshop or don’t need all of the bells and whistles the pros need. If you want to try your hand at Photoshop, Elements is great entry-level software. It costs less than $100 and you can get a free trial here.)

My first step in designing the invites was deciding on the paper. I had grand dreams of doing pocket fold invites because I like how they look, but in reality, I didn’t need them. With our ceremony and reception in the same place and the vast majority of our guests not needing overnight accommodations, I didn’t need a pocket to hold all the extra information cards commonly held in the pockets of said pocket folds. The extra cost of postage and paper weren’t sitting well with me either, making it that much easier for me to justify not doing them.

I started to search online and in invitation catalogs for designs and styles that I liked.
Read more…

I woke up this morning a little tense from an apparent nightmare. It was about underpants. (?)

Source

I vaguely remembered something about the reception room not being set up. But what really stirred me was that I didn’t have underpants. That is, I didn’t have the right ones. Sans proper pantalones. Eeek. My first morsel of panic working its way into my wedding planning psyche.
Read more…

In a true procrastinating form, I have not yet buckled down to finish my recaps… but guess what? Our wedding movie trailer arrived in my inbox last week! And even better? We love it! It’s gotten me back into rosy wedding thinking, and might even motivate me to finally pick out our photos for our album (I know… I know…). Maybe the other married bees can relate to my utter lack of motivation to tie up all the remaining loose ends of the wedding. I loved planning our wedding. I loved our wedding day—it was perfect. I feel like I love it so much, I’d be quite happy to keep it tucked away in a little box cased in all its perfect glory. But I still have to pick out our photos, or start working on a honeymoon album, or gather all our wedding momentos and put them into show box or scrapbook. I will get there eventually.

But for now, I present to you our little wedding trailer. It’s about three minutes long and really captures the spirit of our day. We hired Ray Estrada of Timeless Treasure Films to shoot the wedding and tea ceremony and they were, in a word, fabulous. From the moment I emailed Ray, I knew we were working with a true pro. He answered all my questions without hesitation and almost immediately. And his packages are all quite reasonable for the caliber of work produced.

On our wedding day, Ray and his assistant showed up bright and early. They were completely unobtrusive. I did not even notice that they were there the entire time. They captured moments and shots that I don’t even remember happening!
Read more…

Image source

I was very hesitant to post this out of sheer embarrassment (please don’t flame me!). I’m really ashamed to say that I’m back to 251 lbs. I was in the 240s, full steam ahead, and I just slowly stopped caring about weight loss. I’m still 13 lbs. down, but it hurts to read that scale in the morning with the weight I currently am. I think I have a curse in my head, because I’ve teetered around the 250s/260s and I want so badly to teeter in the 230s/240s!

I could blame birthday season, ice cream, or the stress of planning, but I blame myself and my dwindling willpower.
Read more…

Some Joey friends are getting married this weekend in a small town in North Carolina. Mr. Joey is headed there tonight, but I’m staying behind. I feel bad about it, but when we RVSP’d, I thought I wouldn’t be able to go. I was told that I’d be taking a trip to Tanzania in early April and I knew if that was true, I’d be missing our friends’ wedding.

Well, it’s early April and I’m still here. I do feel bad about not making it to the wedding, though. I knew a few weeks ago that I wouldn’t be traveling for work and could have opted to join Mr. Joey, but I decided against it. I know, I know.

My biggest reason for not going is financial. If we both went to the wedding, it would cost us about $700 each, not including food and a present. Another reason I opted not to go was because I shouldn’t take too much time off this month. We’re headed to a wedding in San Diego in a few weeks. I took off 3 days to enjoy some sun. Yes, I’m spending money to go to San Diego, but in the end, because of a flight coupon and awesome condo deal, we’re each only paying $400 for 6 days. We also knew about the wedding 3 months before the North Carolina wedding.

Mr. Joey knew he was going to this wedding from the beginning.
Read more…

Hi everyone!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been over a week since Mr. M and I got married! I’m actually a MRS! I know this may sound cheesy, but to us, the wedding was perfect. Our friends and family had a great time, and that was really all we ever wanted. I must have been floating on a super high cloud or something, because it seemed as if nothing could bother me on that day. Even when Mr. Martini broke the news to me about how he couldn’t find a missing groomsman for hours before finally discovering that he’d just overslept, I shrugged my shoulders. When the Maitre d’ came up to me holding one of the menus that we slaved over to tell me that one of the menu items was wrong, my response was, “Eh, nobody’s going to notice - it’s fine!”

There were so many memorable moments, and I’m happy to say that most were caught on camera! I’ll be sure to post some of the crazier pictures soon for the recaps. We’re talking crowd surfing and human pyramids!!

I did get to see a short teaser slide show of pictures from our awesome photographers, Cly Creation. I am so incredibly happy with them, and I seriously can’t wait to see and share the rest!

After the wedding, I was wiped out. I had been going on four hours of sleep a night, and I was super stressed. I didn’t get the chance to write about this before, but Mr. Martini and I also made the tough decision to postpone our honeymoon until the fall. With the economy the way it was, and our job security on thin ice, we thought it was the right thing to do. When I mentioned this to Mr. and Mrs. Bee, the first thing they said was, “You should still go on a minimoon!”

Read more…

That’s right, our wedding is one month away. I don’t even know where the time has gone! Luckily, things in the Quiche wedding planning household have been smooth sailing!

source

I have one of those daily desktop calendars at work, and it contains a French phrase for the day. Looking ahead and hoping to find one about love on or around our wedding day, I came across this phrase for May 1st: “J’ai perdu mon passeport”, which translates to, “I lost my passport”. And for the day we’re flying out, the phrase is: “Je n’ai qu’un sac de cabine”, or, “I only have carry-on luggage”.
Read more…

My brother is my best friend and he enjoys partying. However, he’s very concerned about my bachelor party because I told him there can’t be any strippers (nothing against the ladies, I’m just not interested) and I’m hardcore straight edge. So, since I’m not a party person, I’ve decided he can just have my party at a strip club or whatever and pretend to be me and hang out with all my friends while I chill at home and play video games. Everyone I’ve told this to thinks it’s wrong, but I don’t see how. My solution allows all my friends and family to have fun *and* I get to have fun the way I like it—in peace.

Thoughts?

Kenny

~~~

Please comment on the thread here.

Now that I had my heart set on a designer gown–the Amy Michelson had spoken to me–I had to figure out how I could get one. At a discount.

A consignment Alvina Valenta. $2,300 from $4,631

(source)

I mentioned that I grew up in LA and that I love to shop in boutiques. What I didn’t disclose, though, is that I love to shop boutique sales. Sample sales. Factory sales. All of the wonderful benefits of living in a major fashion metropolis (LA or New York) that you don’t get elsewhere include designer duds at deep discounts. If you know where to look, of course.

Mr. Cowboy Boot: EXIT WEDDINGBEE NOW. PLEASE.

Read more…

Hi hive! I know I’ve been MIA recently, but now that work is slowing down a bit, I can finally crawl out from under the piles of college applications to say hello. Hello! Wheeeew… (stretching arms)… that feels good!

I definitely fell victim to the wedding planning “BLAH” period. You know, the period of time when you just don’t want to hear, think or see anything wedding-related. Over the past month, my answer to the ever so popular, “How’s the wedding planning going?” question has been, “Eh…it’s OK.” After we booked all our big vendors, I was pooped. All the research and agonizing over costs and details tired me out BIG time. But now that we’ve reached the 3-month mark (WOAH!), it’s time to buckle down and start putting ideas into action. And I have much to share!

In the next couple of weeks, the Lattes will be taking our e-pics, meeting our florist for a mock-up, booking a rehearsal dinner venue, and starting to work on the little details that will make our wedding US. So there will be lots of sharing of information and ideas… as well as desperate pleas for advice and suggestions. There may even be some begging involved… ain’t no shame in a little begging.

But there will be no begging today, as I want to share something FUN!
Read more…

In the center of the courtyard space adjacent to the Betsy Ross House (where, weather permitting, we’ll be holding our cocktail hour), is a stone fountain.

(source)

Added during renovations in 1974, the fountain apparently has no connection to Betsy Ross (unless anyone can prove she was partial to felines, since three [bronze?] cast ones rest, rub and play in the stone ledges!).

Mr. Bruschetta and I agreed we won’t decorate the courtyard — it’s beautiful and historic without any embellishments — but I have been wondering how we should utilize the fountain. I’m hesitant to have it running: Something about guests in dressy attire and dirty running water doesn’t seem like the best combination. Since it’ll be light throughout the cocktail hour, floating candles in a pool of water seems unnecessary.

If water won’t work in the fountain…what about ice?

Read more…

Reader kellypena1 is selling custom made black and white damask table runners. They were made for 60″ round tables and feature white tassels at the ends. She has 13 available. Make an offer!

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…