Weddingbee Blog

I have to admit something. In a past life (read: when I was a teenager growing up in Los Angeles, otherwise known as La La Land), I’d made some very superficial moves. Hey, I was in the land of falsities, right? Nothing really mattered except for what brand adorned your denim, if the hood of your car read BMW, Mercedes, or Audi, and how recent your last mani/pedi was. Yes, I’m exaggerating a little, er, a lot—the entirety of the LA population doesn’t fall under the above prerequisites—but there is a lot of pressure put on material things and what “perfect” means.

All of the above is a little abstract, yes, but let’s apply it to guys and the reasons I broke up with a few of them. These are going to sound absolutely ridiculous: one wore a mustard-colored shirt I just couldn’t get past, one turned on gospel radio on our first date (I was more into pop), one had small teeth, one was short, one was a Sunday school teacher (cute, yes, but not for me), one was a year younger than me (wha? I like ’em older), one called his shoes “sh*tkickers”, and one drove a maroon car. In hindsight, all of these guys were probably good catches. Heck, I listen to gospel-y bluegrass nowadays and love it. But at the time, er, not so much. And, for whatever reason, I couldn’t look beyond these very, very minor blunders.

And then I met Mr. Cowboy Boot. I lived in Boston at this point and was a wee bit further from my previous self. But, just a wee bit. He charmed me, regardless of the fact that I wasn’t a big fan of his shoes, the way he wore gel in his hair, and that he didn’t fall under my “must-be-a-surfer-from-Southern-California” guidelines. Nonetheless, he surprised me for lunch more than once, went dress shopping with me all day for a work event, and schooled me with his cooking skills (seared tuna, anyone?).
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mypurplewedding

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Start your own Weddingbee Bio and you could be featured on the blog!

Reader indebride is selling her BCBG Feather Hem Dress. It is in size 12, retails for $400 but she is offering it for $300 + s&h.

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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Anyone got that song stuck in their head?

Anyhoo, I started formulating the content of our programs a few months ago, before I even knew what the actual programs would look like. We were told we had to get the content of our programs OKed by the ceremony coordinator (aka Mr. Joey’s school’s secretary). I wanted to get her the content before school was out because it would be easier for Mr. Joey to stop by the office and talk to her in person if there were any problems than it would be to go back and forth over email.

I guess I didn’t need to rush, because she said it all looked great and there were no problems.

First to decide on was how to organize the information. After playing around a bit, I came up with this template.

I liked the design alright, but wasn’t sure I had covered all my Catholic bases. I then went to Catholic Wedding Help to find examples of programs for Catholic blessings. There definitely seemed to be a prescription to Catholic programs, but nothing I couldn’t work with.

I played around with designs and finally came up with this:
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Reader mdarrah posted this inspirational photo of her wedding decor. The theme was “tropical elegance” and her wedding coordinator and floral design duo pulled it off perfectly!

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.

As most brides are, I am trying to get in shape before the big day. I have been working at getting in shape for the last year. I have been working out more, I got a trainer at the gym, and have generally been trying to get healthy.

As most of you know, I had hip surgery in April that left me on crutches for 6 weeks, and basically out of commission for a solid 2 months. It was a major setback, but I am committed to getting back in shape and finally off crutches and cleared to work out full time.
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Shortly after our engagement I was itching to get one of our vendors booked - the baker! Seriously, this was the first thing we booked, because I LOVE wedding cake. I’m such a huge Martha Stewart Weddings fan, mostly for the cakes. So much so, that years ago I purchased a huge MS cake decorating set in hopes of making some fabulous cakes myself. Yeah… that’s still in the dream stage, but you can imagine my utter delight when I learned that Wendy Kromer, the woman behind most of Martha’s fabulous cakes, had a bakery two hours from my hometown in PA!! We were undecided if we would have our wedding in PA or CA at that point, but that just meant twice as many tastings, and Wendy Kromer’s Bakery had to be one of them!

Source

When I scheduled our tasting, I was told Wendy would be in NYC and someone else would be helping us with our tasting, much to my disappointment. So I wasn’t expecting to meet her when we went for our tasting, but when we showed up… she was there!
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When I was a little girl I knew that a pillowcase held on by a headband made a perfect veil and my mom’s long white bathrobe could pass for a dress train if I needed it to. I also knew to hold my flowers low near my waist, even if they were just really a hairbrush. I remember standing like this in front of my parents’ full-length mirror. But I was not playing dress up; I was practicing.

So, it’s no surprise that I planned to be all business when it came to finding THE dress. I planned a day to go to a few shops in the area, knowing just the kind of dress I wanted.

(MR. CLOUD– THIS IS WHEN YOU STOP READING! Thanks babe! Smooch smooch!!)
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I’d always been enamored with the Daily Candy illustrations because they were so iconic — as soon as you saw them, you instantly thought Daily Candy.  I wanted similarly iconic graphics for Weddingbee, so I scoured the net for a graphic designer until I came across the work of Paige Pooler, whose cheery, girly work instantly resonated with me. We worked together on the bride illustration until it had that perfect fun, friendly vibe that I envisioned for Weddingbee.

With the bride ready to go, I came up with an idea that I think has largely shaped Weddingbee’s brand to date. Instead of using our bloggers’ actual names, I decided that each author would blog under a character handle. Since my name is Bee, I would be Mrs. Bee, and our initial authors would select another character within the bug generation.

Working with a very limited budget at the time, I purchased the following illustrations off istockphoto for about $2 each.

Using characters like Miss Ladybug and Miss Caterpillar has served many purposes: 1) it allows bloggers to maintain some anonymity because they don’t use their real names, 2) it’s much easier for our readers to remember Miss Ant rather than Jane, especially when you have 25+ bloggers at any given time, 3) our bloggers really identify with the character they select, and 4) it adds to the fun Weddingbee brand.
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Matching the invite suite I designed for MOH-Ho, here are her thank you cards:

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Becky stood guard by the door like my own private security detail, ensuring that I was well hidden until I made my grand entrance with my father. We heard a knock at the door, faint at first, and growing louder with a hint of impatience.

“Um, can I please come in?” a familiar male voice came through the miniscule crack in the door. Becky was about to send him on his way when someone in the room yelled, “It’s Ryan!!” Excitedly I gave her permission to allow our Best Man and my best friend to enter our fortress.

When he entered the room I felt my eyes well up for the first time that day. Seeing my “little brother” all decked out in his fancy tux just minutes before he’d be waiting with my groom at the altar hit me hard. It took all I had to crack a joke about holding him responsible for any makeup malfunctions due to tears. Ry looked like he was having a hard time keeping his emotions under control as well so after a quick embrace and a high five for good luck he was on his way out the door.

Winfield Little

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Two bees planning West Coast weddings from Chile? What are the odds? Meet our newest bee, Miss Poodle, who joins Miss Bear Cub as our 2nd bee blogging from South America!

Miss Poodle, Santiago, Chile/San Bernardino, CA
Age and Occupation: 27, Industrial & Web Designer
Fiance’s Age and Occupation: 24, Firefighter & Mountain Patrol
Engagement Date: February 25, 2009
Wedding Date: January 2010
Venue: Mr. Poodle’s Grandparents’ Ranch, Hesperia
About Me: I’m a Chilean girl who’s crazy about nature and swimming. I enjoy carving, drawing, reading and sewing; I drool over computers, fabric, pretty paper, purple and patterns. To me, chocolate should be one of the seven wonders, right next to lemon pie. I never thought an exchange work experience program was going to change my life forever, but while working in California, I met Mr. Poodle, and ever since my days are better and brighter. We are two goofy souls that, after finding each other, couldn’t help but want to be together forever. It has being a long and sometimes hard road, since we have to deal with such a long distance between us, but we are now facing the last stage of our Fiancé Visa, and soon we will be together. You know the best part? We will be married! So I’ll be blogging from Chile until just a few months before our “green and purple” wedding.