Weddingbee Blog

I’ve been thinking about our must have photos for a LONG time. Actually, it all started with a post from Ms. Mascara featuring this picture:

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Mr. Joey’s a teacher, and we’re getting married at the chapel at his school. We talked about doing a shot where the bridal party is in “class” and he’s teaching. I also thought about making a dunce cap so one of us could wear it and sit in the corner.

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Okay. It’s time to be real about this detox.

It. Is. Hideous.

The food is pretty foul, despite many of their deceptively delicious sounding names. Cucumber, basil, and lime juice? Shudder. Teriyaki chicken and steamed greens? Tastes like bung when made with 1/2 balsamic vinegar and 1/2 agave syrup.

Am I eating chicken? Am I licking a toad’s rear end? Who knows.

Day 1 was quite the tease. A nice salad for lunch, a handful of nuts for a snack, soup for dinner. While it doesn’t sound substantial, it was actually a great day. The salad was yummy, the soup, tolerable. And I likes me some roasted pumpkin seeds!

I could do this.
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Source

Hair flowers - they are everywhere! I rarely see a wedding today where the bride’s not wearing one. Well, let me say that my mom wore flowers in her hair, and I had been intending to do so as an homage to her. I actually never told her that (Hi Momma Sunbeam!), so I feel a little bummed that everyone and their flower girl has a flower in their hair now. On the flip-side, that also means choices! Everyone’s making them and some artisans have it down to perfection. With my dress in mind, I went searching for the perfect hair flower.
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This is the color palette I put together to show how cute our colors look together. I mentioned that purple is my favorite color, and green is Mr. Poodle’s favorite.

I don’t know if it’s normal, but I keep imagining that everything that I see is purple and green, but yeah, I’m kind of weird.
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Reader jekgirl posted this breathtaking picture of her engagement picture.

We are currently hosting a Gallery contest in which we are giving away 10, $40 coupon codes for My Publisher PhotoBooks. To enter the contest all you have to do upload your wedding pictures on the gallery and if we feature your picture on the blog, you will receive the prize! Remember, your images must be under 1MB in size, or they won’t load.

A few days ago, FMIL and I got together for supper and some shopping. We discussed wedding elements including the paper products, centerpieces, and the replacement of the sash for my dress.

I will write about the centerpieces and sash soon (nothing’s been bought yet), but today’s post is about a wedding element I didn’t think we’d be doing: Save the Dates.

It’s mid-July and our party/reception is in mid-September. I’d say it’s borderline too late to send a Save The Date, especially given that we’ll be pushing out the invites in less than a month! But FMIL wanted to do these, and I definitely understand: she doesn’t want people to book vacations or other engagements on the day of our party (which is near Labor Day). We both agreed that we wished we’d discussed Save The Dates earlier, but since we hadn’t, it was time to light a fire under our asses now and get them out.

And by we, I mostly mean me. A long time back, I volunteered to create the paper products. I love to craft! But boy did we give ourselves a deadline. We spoke about them on the night of the 14th, and we wanted them in the mail by the 17th. So there wasn’t really time to order anything pre-made, either. Did I mention that I also work full time, and am taking two classes which have homework I must stay on top of? ’Cause I do. When FMIL left, I had this.

And yes, there were two glasses originally. I didn’t drink that whole bottle alone!

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This past weekend, Mr. Cloud and I made the trip to Scituate, Massachusetts where my parents live, for my second bridal shower! While we were there we took care of quite a few wedding tasks, and saw lots of old friends and family. The entire weekend was hosted by Mama and Daddy Cloud, including the shower on Saturday and a big cookout on Sunday. I just can’t think of a better way to spend a few days!

I should probably share a little back story. I have mentioned this before, but I wanted to clarify a bit how everyone ended up where they are. Daddy Cloud was in the Army when I was young, and we landed in Northern Virginia. Brother Cloud and I both left that area to go to college (I to Richmond, and  he to Virginia Beach). After being empty nesters for a while, they decided to move “home” to Massachusetts. Going from being about an hour and a half away from them to over a ten hour drive has been harder then I could have imagined, especially now that I am planning the wedding, I miss Mama Cloud more and more with every big decision we make about the wedding.

I knew she was going all out this weekend. Like mother, like daughter! Very few details were going left untouched. Right down to the special hand towels to be placed in the bathroom (I promise I will blog more about the shower soon!). After all her hard work, I couldn’t go without giving her at least a small gift of thanks (even though she insisted over and over I didn’t). When she was down a few months ago, she mentioned that a neighbor had given her a basket of fruits and muffins with a tiny card tucked in. She was looking for similar cards, but was striking out everywhere. Well, my creative wheels started turning, and the night before we headed up north, I decided to make her the cards she had been searching for!
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Remember how I had decided to take the cap sleeves from my dress and use them as an embellishment around my waist instead? While in the dressing room, I convinced myself I liked this (even though I’ve always been into more simple things). The oohing and aahing from my mom and the seamstress had me going. But, I got home and looked over the pictures again and again, wondering if this was really, well, me.

This hint of beading added a silver-y tint to the overall look that I thought I could get past. You see, I’m much more into warm, golden tones, but then I started looking for jewelry and realized gold earrings just weren’t going to jive. This silver hurdle was kind of throwing my whole mojo off.

Then, while flipping through my J. Crew catalog today, I stumbled across this silk sash.

(source)

And it just made sense. Look how cute you can tie it? And I only imagine it looking twenty times more gorgeous on a wedding dress than on these everyday clothes.
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I’ve waited 2 1/2 years to write this post.  I’m officially 19 weeks pregnant with a baby boy!

This entire pregnancy has been fraught with worry, and I prepared myself for the possibility that I could miscarry at any time. I haven’t dared plan a single thing lest I jinx the pregnancy. But we’ve miraculously made it to 19 weeks. We had an incredible full anatomy scan today, and everything is 100% healthy!

(It’s not my SS# above. )

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve thought about what I’d say in this post many, many times, but I didn’t allow myself to type out any actual words until after my doctor’s appointment today.

Some of you know that it has been a long journey for me getting here. I miscarried at 6 weeks with my first pregnancy. After several rounds of clomid and IUI’s, I got pregnant a second time, but miscarried again at 9 weeks — even after we’d heard the heartbeat during three different ultrasounds. We saw a reproductive endocrinologist, we had genetic testing done, we had an autopsy done to try to find out what could possibly be wrong with us (although I always believed that the problem was me).

In the end, we got pregnant after a bottle (or two) of wine when we weren’t trying. It always seems to happen that way doesn’t it?

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We’ve been working with Yvonne and Ally from Yvonne Design on our floral and reception decor. Unlike our fabulous Mrs. Latte, I lack the flower gene. I deserve a slap on the wrist, because I was one of those brides that came empty-handed for our first flower consult. After hanging up the phone, I promised to send inspirational photos of what I envisioned for our wedding. And I did… 3 months later. See? Very bad.

We’re taking a minimalist approach to the ceremony. We ordered nothing but bouquets, boutonnieres, and a wedding arch. See those flower adornments on the arch? Take those out, and that’s what we’re getting. Seriously, though, how much decor is needed when you’re in Hawaii?

This will be the first visit to Hawaii for many of our out-of-town guests. For this reason, we wanted a tropical feel for our floral selections.
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Okay hive, this is really it. Are you ready? I promise, no more flower posts from me (unless they’re recaps). Because I’ve finally decided on the flowers, and there is simply no turning back. Yay for making decisions!

Since changing our color scheme, and flowers, and the flowers again, our florists (rightfully so) wanted to re-meet with us. I headed back over to their house armed with my many pages of print outs. I’m serious, I had over 10 sheets with more than a photo per page. They must think I’m crazy.

I had gotten hooked on Michelle Rago’s Elegant Bride cover bouquet waaaaay back in the day, and it still remains the most beautiful bouquet I’ve ever laid eyes on. However, as we all know, if you’re not getting married in the spring, you may have to stay away from a lot of your favorite flowers. Peace out sweet peas and grape hyacinth!

(source)

Instead, my bouquet will be composed of the following:
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I’ve been looking for the perfect initial necklace forever because my first name is, well, an initial.  While catching up on my blogs recently, I saw it on Oh Joy! and instantly knew that I had found the one.

(J&B are Mr. Bee and my initials.)

Each of these delicate initial, number, symbol and chains from Albeit are made of 14k gold.  It’s amazing how the unique positioning of the pendant gives such a different feel to the piece.  It’s definitely the most I’ve ever paid for a piece of jewelry, but I know that it will get tons of daily wear, and they’re offering 20% off through the end of July.

Perhaps a gift for your stylish maid of honor?  Or a gift to yourself with your new last name initial?

I have something old - a vintage broach turned hair clip.

I have something new - (well, many somethings, actually :), take your pick)

I’m lacking something borrowed,

and maybe something blue - (I have a pair of blue VS ’bridal’ undies that I will probably wear)

Obviously, I Googled ’something borrowed’ to figure out what I should be looking for, and got this:
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Before last March, if you had seen me on one of the rare days that I wore my hair down, you might have noticed a glaringly obvious line where my highlights stopped and my actual hair color began creeping down around my ears. Normally I would be cringing, too. But the neglect was intentional! A week before we got engaged, I got my hair highlighted and chopped (thanks for the warning, Mr. Sunbeam)! They must have taken off something like 5 inches. Siiigh. Ever since, I’ve been watching the highlight line move down my head, silently cheering on the growth! Look at that sweet progress:

Day after engagement (May ’08):

NYE (7 months later… mmm, bridal diet whaat?):

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