Weddingbee Blog

Hello hive!

I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to share my wedding with you! I feel the pressure of being a part of such a wonderful group of crafty, beautiful, creative, supportive, and talented women, but I sincerely hope to bring some new ideas and thoughts to the hive from the perspective of an actress-bride who’s on the young-ish side and trying to plan a budget NYC wedding with the love of her life!

I thought that the character name Miss Star was particularly appropriate, given the running drama/theatre motif our wedding has going on, and even more so because my very sweet Fiance always calls me his “movie star”!

I thought I’d share an e-pic with you, so you can get to know us:

We’re only a few months out, so I already have a ton of stuff to share with you all!
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I haven’t mentioned it before, but I’m actually a soon to-be bride myself! My fiancé and I are getting married on July 17 in Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands, and we’re having a really fun two-day event with a private ceremony and cocktail party on Friday and a reception for 175 on Saturday evening. Naturally, a girl can’t married without a proper bridal shower, right? Last month my amazing bridesmaids hosted an incredible shower for me, and I wanted to share some photos to help inspire your own upcoming bridal events.

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I saw the pictures from this wedding (via my photographer’s blog, Anna Naphtali Photography’s) and was completely floored. Everything about it is amazing. It is so nontraditional, yet breathes inspiration, romance, and joy. Anna from did a great job with this one!

The bride is PRECIOUS. I love the flower in her hair and her short dress. I also love the groom’s style.

(all images from Anna Naphtali Photography)

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As our guests were enjoying their cupcakes, Mr L. and I decided it was a good time to start doling out the gifts we had prepared for our parents and bridal party.

We had spent months trying to decide what to gift our parents, as collectively, they are the types of people who are notoriously difficult to shop for. We picked a loose theme of “buy them things they love but might not spring for themselves” and set a budget of roughly $100 per parent.

The dads ended up with some of their favorite things – booze.
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Kelly30 is selling her new white informal dress. The dress is a strapless floor-length gown in size 14, and she is willing to negotiate the price.

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…

When I started planning our wedding, there is one thing that I kept looking for and had a hard time finding: the budget breakdown of a real wedding. Of course, the budget depends on a lot of factors. Location, date, and amount of guests, but still I wanted to have some sort of idea. Who wouldn’t?

What was particularly difficult with our situation was the Mr. Flamingo was in school the whole time we were engaged, and even after the wedding. So, planning a wedding on one salary wasn’t the easiest thing to do… but doable, nonetheless. We simply needed to have an extra long engagement in return (2 and a half years) but it was worth it.

Here is the breakdown to our glamnuptials (budget in Canadian dollars, check here for exchange rates):

Date: June 21, 2008
City: In the suburbs, approximately 30 minutes from Montreal
Budget: $22,000
# of Guests: 145 (including children, vendors, & excluding guests (30-40) who came in the evening)

Wedding Day Costs

Ceremony Site: $475
This included the officiant and helpers for no extra cost. We basically had a mini church coordinator, so everything ran quite smoothly.
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I’m happy to report that after some thought and a visit to the jewelry store, Mr. Mary Jane is much closer to making a decision about his ring!

When we entered the store, we were armed with a printout containing all of the rings I showed you in this post. We spoke to the jeweler together for a few minutes, and then I left to go get my hair cut. When I returned 45 minutes later, Mr. Mary Jane had narrowed down his choices to two rings.

[sources: left; right]

How did he choose these two?
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Check out reader loralie’s beautiful blue Nina Elkes!

Keep on loading your inspirational wedding pics to the gallery to see them featured here on the blog! Remember, your images must be under 1MB in size, or they won’t load.

Probably one of the most difficult things to learn in a marriage is teamwork. There’s no milk left in the fridge? He picks it up on the way home. The dog needs to go to the vet ASAP, but he’s stuck in meetings? Maybe you can drive the dog there, while he agrees to pick the kids up from school later. This give-and-take cooperative isn’t always easy; most of the tasks we need to learn to share end up changing daily!

When Mr. Bear Cub and I moved in together, we tried to tackle this aspect of our relationship with a game plan. The easiest thing to pin down is house chores - they’re always there, constantly needing to be done. again. and again. We decided that if there was one chore that either of us detested, and the other was more ambivalent towards, that person could be off the hook. That’s to say, if you can’t stand doing any one particular chore around the house, your partner loves you so much that they’ll always do that chore for you.

Obviously this works best (most visibly) with big chores, things that always stack up. I hate doing dishes. I hate it. My skin is left really dry and my nails really brittle. I cook the most often, so it’s really tiring to have to wash dishes after hours of cooking. He, on the other hand, hates doing laundry. He’s not really familiar with separating lights and darks, and only knows one setting on the washer. Solution: I do all of the laundry, and he does all of the dishes. Always!

Before you start thinking that I got the better end of the stick here, it’s not all black and white.
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Bad Bunny! I should have been working on my makeup tip post for you tonight. Instead, I procrastinated by doing wedding crafts …

Somehow, I don’t feel very guilty about that. Sorry, guys. There’s not much time left!

These were easy to make and could have been even cooler if I’d cared a little more. But heck, they’re $1 Frisbees from Michaels that I picked up on a whim one afternoon.
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The planning of our ceremony has been a bit piecemeal. A little bit here. A little bit there. So far, we’ve nailed down the box idea (no pun intended) and are on the hunt for the perfect box, wine, and stationery for our love letters. I know exactly what song I want to walk down the aisle to (more on that later) and who will play it. Besides that, I only have one other detail figured out.

But, a little background first to explain why it’s important to us: I come from an extremely musical family. My grandfather was a composer who moved to the states from Austria during World War II and won the Oscar for the soundtrack to the 1960s film Exodus. My grandmother was the singing voice for many a movie actress in quite a few classic movies (Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady), but she was also an actress in her own right; She played Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music. Here’s a quick clip of my grandmother’s accomplishments. You might recognize a few:

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We returned from our honeymoon in Italy yesterday. These two-and-a-half weeks have been sheer bliss, and I’m almost sorry to see it all come to an end!!! But I am very happy to be married to my lovey and look forward to many more happy days with him!

The wedding weekend was full of joy and emotion–we had so much fun!!!! I have much to tell, but I’ll just let some of the images do the talking for now…
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Our newest bee has a fitting moniker: she’s an actress! Join me in welcoming our newest NYC bee, Miss Star, to the hive!

Miss Star, New York City
Age & Occupation: 22, Actress
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 24, Casting Assistant
Wedding Date: October 2009
Venue: Ceremony- The Kraine Theatre, Reception- Midtown Loft & Terrace
About Me: I’m a professional actress who’s always had New York City in her blood and is finally getting the chance to live my dream of making a home in Manhattan with my fiancé, my dog, and my big dreams! I love polka dots, craft projects, Dunkin’ Donuts’ iced coffee, and anything sparkly. I’m having a blast planning our elegant/dramatic/New York City/acting-themed/largely-DIY wedding and am thrilled to be the youngest current Miss Blogger!

June 14, 2001: Mr. Bruschetta and I had met up at a local diner, and were sitting across from each other in a booth. I don’t remember what either of us ordered, but I do recall why we were there. About two weeks previous (following my uncharacteristically bold move), Mr. Bruschetta had been my prom date. And although I was graduating high school in less than a week, I liked him. A lot. I wanted to figure out if he felt similarly, and if we could start a relationship while I transitioned to college life. We were embarrassingly awkward, but sealed our evening with a kiss — and the intention to refer to one another as boyfriend and girlfriend.

It’s been 2,922 days, innumerable culinary experiences, countless (much less clumsy) kisses, and one proposal since the official start of “us”. And we’ve celebrated annually with Flag Day dates — below, we’re posing for Mama Bruschetta before heading out to celebrate the first year with dinner and a night at the theatre.

Today is our final dating anniversary before we’re married. So how did we commemorate our own elite eight?
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I went back and forth on whether to change my name after marriage. My first instinct was to just do it. It seemed so romantic and symbolic, taking the name of the person I love. My last name is constantly mispronounced and misspelled, and the Dude’s never is. Plus, I’d get to jump ahead a few letters in the alphabet (and who doesn’t like getting their name called earlier?).

But the Dude and I have been engaged for a while, and I’ve had time to change my mind about pretty much everything that I originally thought I wanted, at least as far as the wedding goes.
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