Weddingbee Blog

No, I’m not leaving Weddingbee; you’re stuck with me! So don’t worry about that. But I have received some PMs about this topic already, and the other day I got a comment which I will paraphrase (I butchered it for length) here:

… can you please drop the phrase “(non)wedding” from your titles? I’ve been following your wedding details with interest, because most weddings among my family and friends (including my own) tend to be very similar to yours… But still very much a wedding. I understand you’re trying to differentiate between your type of wedding and the standard wedding featured on the blogs, but maybe you could come up with something not so offensive to those of us having a wedding like yours. I’m getting married. I’m having a wedding. It’s pretty “traditional” in my neck of the woods, completely “untraditional” by the wedding industry’s standards, but a wedding all the same…

You guys know that I’ve struggled with what to call my wedding. I don’t really like calling it the (Non)Wedding; I just do it because I otherwise feel like an impostor among the amazing women (and men) devoting several hours per week planning larger or more elaborate “fairytale” weddings. But the commenter above is right. It is a wedding, and I don’t want anyone (including myself) to feel like their wedding is any less special just because it didn’t involve a hired band or a rehearsal dinner.
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This week, we implemented two of your ideas, and hope they make surfing Weddingbee easier!

• A big shout out to Samisomsam, who suggested we add a page where the bee bloggers are sorted by the month and year of their weddings.  After learning how to use the wiki, she created a “Bees By Month” page and implemented her idea on her own!  Check it out! You go, Samisomsam!
• We also implemented MightySapphire’s idea to add an engagement pictures section to the gallery. Check out all the great e-pics that have been loaded to the gallery this week, and upload your own!

Keep those ideas for improving Weddingbee coming! We’ve received a number of great ideas this past week, including:

• jdelaney3 suggests making external links open in a new tab/window, rather than navigate away from Weddingbee
• azula suggests adding a Caribbean, or Destination Weddings board
• chelseamorning suggests adding a chat room, so when you’re logged on to Weddingbee, you can chat with other online members
• LoriLori suggests making it mandatory for a classified poster to include their location, making it easier for brides to find goods and services in their own specific location
• tachee suggests being able to search for members by location, so that you can easily connect with brides in your area
• Mrs. Cupcake suggests adding a Weddingbee app for the iPhone

By checking out and voting on ideas you’d like to see implemented, you can help us improve your Weddingbee experience! Check out and vote for others’ suggestions, or submit your own by heading over to the ideas section of the site.

You are probably wondering how crazy I must be to constantly be talking about the ups and downs of wedding planning.

But yesterday, Mr. Peep and I found out that our honeymoon is a real pain! Before we could jet off on our fantastic honeymoon to Panama, we needed shots!!!

Source

While at my annual check-up a few weeks ago, not only did I have to get a Tetanus shot, but I found out that our health care provider also suggested us to get Hepatitis A shots and Typhoid shots.

So yesterday, we took a shot in the arm for love, and a safe and happy honeymoon.
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Honestly, a honeymoon suite was the last thing on my priority list. I really hadn’t thought about it at all until someone at our venue asked where we would be staying after the wedding. Staying? Um… at our house? I mean, we live together, and what better place to sleep the night after our wedding than in our own bed, right?

Of course, living together offers up other obstacles. Specifically, who gets to stay at home the night before the wedding. We aren’t supposed to see each other, right? So, someone has to get out.

Fortunately, Crabby Daddy came to the rescue and got me a suite at the hotel all my guests are staying in for the night before the wedding. We opted for a double queen suite, so that a few of my bridesmaids can stay with me.

There were talks of extending the reservation for Saturday night as well. It would be convenient, since I could leave all my stuff there and not have to worry about actually “checking out” before the wedding. But, we really wanted a little more privacy than a suite in the same hotel as all of our guests.

We went back to considering just coming home.
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Today’s photo of the day was uploaded by unicorny. This vibrant pink and green color palette makes me want to sip cosmos at a sunny daytime wedding!

Create and share your own board and load it to the inspiration board section in the gallery! Or, just head on over and check out all the great boards that have already been loaded!

Sharon Naylor has written a whopping 35+ books on weddings, and she’s also the wedding expert for Nokia!  We’ve asked her to share some of her expertise with us, and we’re also giving away a Nokia 7205 phone for Verizon to one lucky bride!

Details on how to enter this contest are at the end of this post.  But first, please check out some of Sharon’s incredibly helpful expertise!

What are some creative ways that couples can cut back on their wedding budgets?

They can plan a destination wedding, but keep the distance to an hour or two out of town in a great little village, mountain area with family resorts, ski or shore town; some place with a nice array of things to do.
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Miss Bruschetta’s recent post on wedding band decisions not only got me thinking, it lead me to a great site to search for the perfect wedding band! I’ve had in my mind what I thought I wanted, but I always struggle to find a good example. Michael C. Fina was a great place to go to ooh and ahh over beautiful, sparkly rings!

My engagement ring is exactly what I’d said I wanted… a simple, classic, round-cut solitaire. Mr. S took a lot of time and care in picking out this sparkler!

Now, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall the day my ring was purchased.
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I was thinking about our wedding schedule for the summer, and our new house time line, and I got a little worried. Our house is going to be a little behind schedule. The City of Seattle is over 3 weeks behind on approving building permits. They laid-off part of their workforce late last year, and are now short-handed. Apparently we aren’t the only people trying to take advantage of lower building costs.

My worry isn’t about our living situation. We haven’t given our landlord notice, so we still have a place to live in the event the house isn’t done by mid-August. I’m not worried about the money. I think we have that part sorted out. What I’m worried about are our wedding presents, and the thank you notes.

About 80% of our guests live in Seattle. It’s very likely that the Seattle dwellers will be bringing their wedding gifts to the wedding. This isn’t a problem, except for the fact that I’m worried we won’t get around to opening gifts and sending out thank yous until after we get back from the Honeymoon. No, that’s not a problem either, until I realized we’d be living in boxes, literally. Either we’ll be in our new house, living in boxes, or in our current apartment, living in boxes.
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Dear J Crew,

I finally found the perfect shoes for my bridesmaids to wear. BM J can wear the flat, because she is 6’1″.

Source

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The few months before we were “officially” engaged were torture! At this time (late February, 2008), my mom and dad, and his mom, dad and step-mom were the only people we had told of our intentions to seal the deal. They were instructed to keep their lips sealed tight.

We saw one potentially MAJOR issue to the wedding – when?? Mr. Bear Cub accepted the position in Chile with a start date of Oct 1, 2008. I was in the application process for a job nearby in Chile, but I had no idea if they would select me (this was the first “career” job I’d ever applied for!). If I was going to move to Chile with Mr. Cubbie, what would my visa status be if I didn’t get the job? Would I be a tourist? … Really?? I’d have to leave the country every 3 months! The thought alone was a nightmare. What if one of us got injured while we were living abroad? The other wouldn’t have legal power of attorney over the injured loved one! (Remember those legal reasons for which people actually marry?) They wouldn’t be able to see them, decide medical/legal issues… and probably worse things I don’t even know about! It’s really only for this reason that we told our parents we were “engaged” before it was legit – for legal counseling! (I know! So romantic, huh? ) None of our parents are attorneys, but c’mon, parents are always the best place to start for life advice!

My parents told us about power of attorney and all that scary “what if” stuff. At this point, we toyed with the idea of being legally married before we left the country, and then getting “weddinged” the following year. We both would love for the wedding ceremony to contain the entire process in one fell romantic swoop, but for the time being we kept the courthouse wedding as an option if I were not offered the job in Chile.
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AND I FINALLY GET IT!

Driving down the road today, I was unexpectedly choked up. Why? Because I had an armful of fantabulous peonies sitting in a bucket of water right next to me that made me smile, and suddenly, I got it.

I get it! A, ha!

Some things you do because you must – parking, tent rentals, chairs and tables. Other things you do because they’ll mean something later – ceremony readings, honoring family and friends, nods to your past. But the very very best things? You do those because they make the people you love the most laugh, or dance, or hug with joy.

My shoes make me smile. The peonies (that I bought at the Fresh Market from the nicest woman ever) are just happy fluffy wedding-y flowers. My family spent all sorts of money to get here, but they’re here, and my brother and sister are practicing the songs they’ll be singing at our wedding (my freaking wedding!) while lounging in my freshly painted bedroom.

Life is good.
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(source)

I’m actually not referring to the usual frying and other kinds of pans, but rather, the steel drum, otherwise known as the steel pan. It’s an instrument that was created in the Caribbean in the 1930s on the island country of Trinidad & Tobago.

The steel drum is a descendant of the hand drum and is essentially a large oil drum container that has been dented to produce a specific tone. Actually, it’s now very common for many steel drums to make sounds that correspond to standard musical notes. Most of the time they are printed on the portion of the drum that will produce that particular note, as you can see below.
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I was up late last night pasting on the labels for the favors and emailing back and forth with Lindsey on the menu and program designs.  Mr. P has been doing a lot of coordinating and is really on the ball with managing Esme and logistics (even while he’s in Seattle). Things are really coming together! Hopefully by Saturday we’ll be done with everything and we can relax!! My goal is to have nothing to do next week!!!

Instead of table numbers, we’re doing table “places”. They’re the cities to which Mr. P and I have traveled together. Our wedding website’s gallery (shamelessly goes to cheesetown and) documents all the major excursions of the four years of our relationship.

So I thought, ‘why not continue the theme of travel’ (sans our grinning mugs, which I’m sure our friends and families are sick of by now!)?

I worked with Lindsey Ryan (once again!) to come up with VINTAGE (yes, more vintage) images and postcards of each city. Here they are:

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This week has been straight up insanity. There have been so many tears, and so many laughs, already.

It started with Mr. M catching a cold. I had to give him a shot of B-12. in. his. bum. I ain’t scared of that… Ninja please, needles don’t scare me! He’s doing much better today, thank god.

My parents and siblings are here, the loving worker bees. How lucky am I? Mom has done about 12 loads of laundry - she’s a saint among women for that duty. Dad is designing our paper goods, ‘cuz we just finalized the ceremony order yesterday. Procrastinate much? Sisters and Brother and significant others are just kicking major ass in every direction. It’s so comforting.

Major pre-wedding crisis? Check. Let’s hope it’s the first and last of the wedding. I may blog about it later, it was a dooz.

Me? I’m stuck at work. It SUCKS. Today is my last day, though. I feel horrible about it; my job is definitely suffering for my wedding-brain. They’re so nice here though; I am so lucky.
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… to the list of wedding music!!! SSSSSS— AAAAAA— FFFFFFF— EEEEEE— TTTTTTT— YYYYYY— SAFETY DANCE!

This was the email that I got from Mr. Peep today. And I have to admit—this song wouldn’t be on my list!! But I am totally OK with that! I am just excited that Mr. Peep is excited to bust a move on the dance floor!

Here’s the thing: up until a wedding last June, I could NEVER get Mr. Peep on the dance floor. It almost made me want to break up with him at his cousin’s wedding. Seriously, this Peep likes to bust a move (like the white girl I am) whenever I get the chance. I couldn’t marry someone who didn’t dance.

Enter DJ David.
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