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Weddingbee Blog
One of the best things about our summer camp venue is that the staff is so easy to work with!
They have their own kitchen and staff of chefs, and they’ll cater our wedding, if we want (we’re not even required to use their catering!). You might think, ‘Um.. camp food? For a wedding? Really?’
Really! The weekend we toured Westwind, there were a whole bunch of weddingers bopping around the place in preparation for the nuptials to take place that day. Once a couple of them learned that we were there scouting for our own wedding, they got super psyched to endorse the food at Westwind!
You have to remember, this is the Pacific Northwest. Especially in the Portland area, people are really serious about their gourmet food here. Portland is quickly becoming an “it” city for foodies! With restaurants like Wildwood, Toro Bravo, Tabla, Andina, Bijou Café, and so many more, it’s no wonder! Seriously - whenever Mr. Bear Cub and I are in town, we have to make a list of all the restaurants we want to fit into our schedule!
So, with rave reviews from the local weddingers of that weekend, we decided it could be a great idea to have Westwind cater our wedding. The best part? We have the freedom to design the meal to be completely original.
Mr. Cubbie and I love to cook together, and we’re always inspired by new foods we try on trips.
When we were in France two years ago, we went to this adorable little restaurant in Lille (northern France) called La Petite Voute.
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Jacobschar is offering 4,000 ivory rose petals and 12 ivory pomanders with brown ribbon for $50.
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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With less than three months to go, is it too late to change our venue and move the wedding to the East Coast?
*SWOOOON*
I recently saw the DREAMY ceremony site on Style Me Pretty. It is straight out of a fairytale!
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Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
It’s been a really long time since I’ve posted, but I swear I have something relevant to post about.
Something you may or may not know is that during the entire 18 months that we planned our wedding, (we planned for a hella* long time) Mr. GB was unemployed. I have mentioned that he did as much planning as I did, he was at every meeting, did every craft with me, and was actually the point of contact for all our vendors. Well, he had no freakin’ excuse not to be there because he didn’t have anywhere else to be! But seeing as our wedding was no longer able to rely on Mr. GB having any regular income, we blew our budget on buying our home (and decorating, because I can’t stop myself) and our wedding.
That meant no honeymoon. Instead, we went on our minimoon to Tokyo to visit friends, get a post-nuptial puppy**, and eat. Mainly eat. Eat things to make me gain the pounds that I’m supposed to gain over the next 40 years of marriage in about a week. No point in hiding what Mr. GB would have to lie next to for the rest of his life; I’ll all about ruing the mystique early. Like peeing with the door open, I generally do that within a week of dating someone… usually when they’re brushing their teeth and can’t escape. I know, I’m so romantic.
People seemed to pity us and kept telling us they felt bad we weren’t going on a honeymoon. They felt terrible asking where we were going, only to find out we weren’t going anywhere. We got a lot of those, “Oh…. but… you’ll have PLENTY of time later!” comments trying to throw out a ladder of sunshine from the deep ditch they felt they had fallen into.
Honestly, I can’t imagine having done it any other way.
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I’ve been having a hard time lately. I’ve been feeling kinda insecure about our wedding. As I am sure you’ve seen from my posts, I do love weddings, but I’ve been feeling a little weird about mine. One of the first reactions when I found out that I got picked to be a bee quickly went from “Yay! How amazing!!” to “Oh #%@$, Mr. Swan! People are going to be looking at our wedding!!” I mean, being a wedding blogger, I do feel some pressure to have this totally cool and interesting wedding, ya know? I know that for many people my wedding may have some of the little pretty details, but compared to my fellow bees and you, dear readers, I kinda feel a bit… inadequate. I know you all are not whispering Kate Hudson’s line from “Bride Wars” about your weddings kicking my wedding’s butt (at least I hope not), but I think you can’t help compare too, right?
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Our ceremony room was a little bit of a decorating challenge. Its maroon carpet and lack of lighting really made the place seem dark and more suited for a fall or winter wedding. To help spring-ify the place, I put together some floral arrangements to display in the front.
Just like I did for our unity candle and door wreaths, I used silk flowers purchased at clearance prices last summer. I also snatched up two matching urn-style containers at Michaels for just under $5 each.
I started by placing floral foam into each container and making sure it was in secure by using hot glue and smaller wedges of floral foam. From there, I divided up my floral stems so the arrangements would be identical and just started placing each stem in the foam, cutting them to specific heights as desired.
Here is a photo of one of the finished arrangements:
We’re really not trying to be P.I.T.As. (That’s pain in the, um, you know what.) But early in the planning, Mr. Bruschetta and I agreed we wanted to encourage our guests to embrace a dressier look for our summer soiree. After we secured the date with our two venues — the St. Thomas of Villanova Church and the F.U.E.L. House (both gorgeous buildings inside and out) — we discussed precisely how formal a wedding we were envisioning.
And, although Emily Post would cringe and scoff, we’ve decided to print the guest attire on our invitation, so there is no confusion or uncertainty among our family and friends — and no one arrives under-dressed (and ultimately feels uncomfortable).
What makes me uncomfortable, though, is the notion that wedding dress code should correspond to the time of day the celebration takes place. I’m opting to focus on the evening start to our reception (a 5:30 cocktail hour, with the reception concluding at 10:30), rather than the afternoon ceremony — since I really don’t feel that an earlier celebration should dictate less formal attire. Mr. Bruschetta and I have agreed that male guests should consider a dark suit (or a tux for anyone who wants to kick it up a notch), while females could select a gown or cocktail dress (as my girls will be proving that knee-length can still be formal). But I’m struggling precisely how to define our guest attire.
Weddingbee reader El Capataz recently shared a link to a helpful resource filled with information about what to wear to a black tie event.
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On Friday I woke up bright and early again, this time in my parents’ living room. Mom and dad were up shortly thereafter and we set about gathering caffeine and our wits for the day. My sister/MOH was still dead to the world, but since it was MY weekend I cracked the whip, and soon we were all bright eyed and bushy tailed.
MOH Kelly/Sister and BMChristina chilaxing at the salon
The ladies and I had a big day ahead of us as we had early morning mani/pedi appointments for the entire bridal party and my mom’s sisters, followed by a leisurely bridal lunch at (my fave!) California Pizza Kitchen and an errand or two before the rehearsal and welcome dinner. I was a ball of nerves as I was super excited about all of the fun ahead of us, and scared to death about the weather. The sky was still ominously dark at 10:30AM and you could cut the humidity with a knife, the air was so thick. When we arrived at the nail salon it began to drizzle and I started to shut down. I tried to put on a happy face and made small talk with my girls and the super sweet nail techs, but I don’t think I was very successful.
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To celebrate the premiere of their new season this Sunday, we’re hosting a little Bridezillas quiz! Enter for a chance to win a $200 gift card! Both Mr. Bee and I took the quiz, and sadly both of us only got 2/5 right — the same ones at that! How well did you do?
Believe me when I tell you I can’t wait to start breaking down my wedding with recaps and photos, but I feel that waiting for the pro pics is only fair. The guest pics that have been pouring onto Facebook, however, are even dreamier and more wonderfully evocative of the whimsy and ferocious fun than I remember. It makes me even more drunk with gleeful anticipation to see them reflected through Dan’s glorious lens! But, I must wait. And so shall you. 
In the meantime, it’s time for a long overdue dose of wedding porn… MAPO’S WEDDING - what what!?!? For you newbs, MaPo is my bestie back in the Windy City. She was responsible for helping Mr. M and me get together, and I later set her up with her (now) husband, Feta. We planned our weddings alongside each other and each stood up as each other’s Maid of Honor/Best Lady. I threw her a raucous bachelorette party in LA, and she threw me a sick hen night in Chicago. She got married in January, and I’m excited to share her enchanting, fairie tale winter wedding with you!
She got married at the Barn of Barrington - a medieval castle crossed with a barn in the very best of ways - which sadly closed last month (RIP). We all got ready in a room there, singing and laughing all day long. I made her a sweatshirt with a $10 kit from Target, for her to wear while getting ready…
MaPo enjoying her last homemade Diet Cherry Vanilla Coke of singledom, while Feta’s cousin styles her hair.
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I’m not gonna lie; Trying to plan the wedding w’d like to have for our guest list (170) on our budget (veeery small) is one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever taken on.
At first, I felt like it was impossible. Thinking about it stressed me out so much that I didn’t plan anything until three months into our 10-month engagement. I lay awake at night with my thoughts racing trying to figure out a way to make it work.
I couldn’t decide on colors, or style, or anything. I’d been reading wedding blogs and was just so overwhelmed with the beautiful possibilities and the reality of our budget. It wouldn’t work. It just wouldn’t.
I had booked one thing — our venue. Unfortunately, its size constrains us to seating 150 people for dinner, with no space for dancing or anything else. The one thing, the ONLY thing, Mr. Bunny had asked of me in planning this wedding was that we could invite everyone. Our family, our friends. Everyone. And our families are so big that they amount to 140 of our guests!
But then one night, I had a breakthrough. What if we… didn’t serve dinner? What if we offered mini hamburgers, chips, fruit… Fourth of July cookout-style finger foods?
Okay, so maybe we don’t quite have our marriage license yet - one thing at a time.
We are, however, diligently working on our registry!
There are obviously a million and one ways to make your registry, and even more things to put on the registry. Ever the joker, Mr. Cubbie intro’d our registry as follows:
“Hi! When we’re not out gallivanting around the universe, we have realized that we need a few basic things for our house/life. Things like sea kayaks and industrial grade baking supplies. Here is a short list of things we would really appreciate.”
Like many couples, we really don’t need the basics anymore. We have plates (from college), we have a couch, we have linens (from college)… what else is normal for a bride & groom to get? The only things we don’t have are the things we don’t really need. Like a two person sea kayak. And a sweet KitchenAid stand mixer. Mr. Cubbie wants the KitchenAid almost as much as I do!
The other little snafu is geography. How the hell are we going to get all the crap from the wedding down to Chile? And if we don’t bring it to Chile, where are we going to store it (really!?) for another two years?
When we move back to Oregon in a few years, we both plan on going back to school. It would be such a shame if all the money we diligently saved in Chile was bled into rent!
Realistically, what we need is help buying a house.
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Lately we’ve been loving creative uses of vintage books and book pages for wedding decor and craft. Love this paper wreath from Simple Joy.
Gorgeous book vases from Sweet Paul.
To say Mr French Bulldog has had some bad roommates would be a gross understatement. I could write a post on each one of them, but that isn’t the point, so I’ll just run by a few of the highlights…
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