Weddingbee Blog

Augustitis [aw-guhst-eye-tis]: inflammation of the calm, rational, stress-free portion of a bride-to-be’s mind, caused by her impending August wedding.

To my knowledge, there are only two known cures for Augustitis: an elopement, or enhanced planning and organization. Fortunately, Mr. Bruschetta — another useful antidote to my particular case of Augustitis — recently stepped in with a simple, manageable way of tackling the to-be-completed items. (We were both inspired by Miss D’Orsay’s decision-making time line — it seems to have helped with her Augustitis, too!)

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I love hanging dress shots, but I don’t love gorgeous dresses hanging on ugly plastic or wire hangers. So in addition to the emergency kit and bathroom basket I made for my friend Sophia, I also purchased this nice padded hanger from the Container Store for her to hang her wedding dress in style.

I also snagged this Foot Petals Bridal Stiletto Style Kit in a gift bag from a recent bridal event that I included in my care package to her.  It has 6 different types of foot petals, so Sophia can dance the night away in comfort!

I’ve learned so much about weddings through Weddingbee, it’s fun planning a wedding again!

I decided what I wanted my bridesmaids to wear approximately three years ago. Yes, you read that correctly, THREE YEARS AGO. Long, long long, before we were engaged. One of my adorable bridesmaids, BM N and I share a wonderful obsession—our mutual admiration of all things J.Crew. About two years ago we fell upon the Cotton Cady Lindsey dress.

[Photo Source: J.Crew.com]

We wanted it, we needed it, and we had nothing to wear it to.
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I promise I’ll start my official wedding recaps soon; I’m just waiting for the pictures to come in. Until then, I’m cooking up some great wedding fodder for you all. Including…

Back by popular demand… Flab to Fab! That’s right kids. After losing 20lbs leading up to the wedding, I am determined to not fall back into my lazy, food-addicted, compulsive and guilt-ridden ways. I achieved my dream of being a buff bride, but I still want to be a hawt newlywed, yo! Who says marriage is the time to let go?

I admit, I fell off the wagon with a loud *clunk* for the month after the wedding. Lots of excuses abound, mainly my sprained ankle and post-wedding blues. But enough is enough. I’ve gained back 6lbs and I’m saying the flab stops here!

How am I getting back on track, you ask? Welp chillins, let’s have some show and tell, why don’t we?

1. Friend-spiration. There are so many great weight-loss and fitness blogs around the internets, but my favorite new one is Bikini by 30. Sure, maybe I’m biased because this gal is my friend, but she’s also a real, funny and interesting woman working to overcome bad habits and replace with new goodness. Check it. Got one to recommend?

2. Some new food goodies to shake things up. Variety is the “do” of diets. If I don’t try new things, I burn out. Fast. Meet my new lunchy lust.
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Mmmmmnummynummynummynummy.

Let me just tell you that it is a little amazing what a nice letterpressed business card does for your mood. If you’re having a stinky day, just a quick swipe of your finger over your name in letterpress, and the endorphins are magically released!

Both Mrs. Bee and Mr. Peng convinced me to go with the normal format cards. It was a tough choice! I really liked the smaller format cards, but Mr. Peng said that he wouldn’t know how to staple that thing into his Rolodex. Apparently Mr. Peng still lives in the 1970s, which is very… retro.

So, what does being the Editor in Chief of Weddingbee entail? My day is a flurry of interestingness. Sitting on my couch, occasionally shifting my butt cheeks as to not incur bedsores… it’s all very fascinating. So, I thought I’d share a little day in the life of Mrs. Penguin!

The beginning of Weddingbee’s day actually starts the night before.
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Sarah and Rob are a beautiful couple, who had a great wedding weekend! I loved working up at the Retreat at French’s Point. Hope you enjoy the photos!

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I have to be honest. Our ring budget is small. Veeeerrrry small. Like $400 for both of us. Luckily, Mr. CB was feeling generous one day and told me I could have $300 and he’d take $100. Well, to be honest, $300 doesn’t get you very much at all in the land of diamond and platinum.

I like to think I’m very resourceful. I find bargains on everything I can, and that includes my wedding band. My first thought was to find a jeweler to make the ring. Luckily, I had a friend of a friend who happened to be a very talented jeweler: Katrina Lapenne. She doesn’t necessarily make wedding jewelry, but she makes some very cool stuff and I had faith in her that she could make a great wedding band.

We chatted about my budget and what I was looking for and I started sending her inspiration photos. I also sent her pics of my engagement ring so she could try to create something that matched.

The first ring I loved was Ms. Perfume’s first ring. Even though Ms. Perfume didn’t love it.

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Yes, everyone! It’s time to talk food. While I have not talked about food very much in my blogging, I am somewhat of a foodie. I keep a running list of restaurants for me and Mr. Swan to try and read about food and chefs for fun. I’ve also been known to spend too much time looking for the right spice for a new recipe. Needless to say, I was pretty excited for our tasting at Battery Gardens.

We had a perfect early evening in June right on the water in Battery Park.

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I was really, really productive while Mr. Joey was away. I started and finished the assigned seats, designed the table numbers, made good progress on the centerpieces, figured out the bouquets for MOH Joey and myself and I finally found the wedding inspiration I’ve been searching for.

Despite the progress, I’m really, really glad he’s back. His return has reminded me how little time we have left until the big day. We’ve got a month, or a little less than 5 weeks left, and our to do list is still pretty long.

We’ve managed to get a lot of the big things out of the way like collecting RSVPs and finishing seating assignments, but we have a lot of the little details still left to complete. Now that Mr. Joey is back and done with school, he has lots of time to take care of the details. Some of the ones I trust him with are getting the liquor license, picking up the beer, mixers, and wine orders, and assembling the table numbers/menus. I say, “trust,” because Mr. Joey isn’t the most patient person when it comes to detailed crafts.

I might have to outsource a few tasks or eliminate some altogether (gasp!).

What items on you wedding to do list have to delegated to your FI?

Reader Honeysweet1010 is selling her Casablanca wedding dress which is a size 8 and is brand new, never worn. She is asking for $225, which includes shipping.

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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Because our venue package includes a cake in the deal, we haven’t done the traditional shopping around for a bakery. In fact, we haven’t done a whole lot of thinking about cake, period. The Dude is more of a cookie person, and I’m honestly just not that into sweets. (I know, it’s practically sacrilegious!)

I kinda thought we’d go the safe, somewhat boring route: three-tier round white cake with some coordinating flowers plopped on top. Our baker/florist/venue owner showed us some of her work, and most of the “basic” cakes had these little dots on each tier.

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It’s a lovely cake (and I like the fact that it appears to be buttercream icing, and not fondant), but I really don’t have strong feelings about it. Cakes are expensive, so why should we spend so much money on something that I feel pretty blah about?

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Like, breathtakingly awesome.

On my way to Fargo yesterday with a friend, I got an opportunity to stop and visit the Traill County Courthouse. If you recall, this is was 6th courthouse I called, and the first one that offered marriage ceremonies on the day we wanted. My friend and I also got to meet and speak with the woman who’ll be performing the ceremony, and she was very nice: even better!

Now, feast your eyes:
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I left you with my six month POA. Since so many of you liked the idea of creating your own POA, I’ve sprinkled my best lessons learned throughout this post.

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Come January I was ready to go with my POA. And how could I fail? I only had to go to the gym twice a week. This turned out to be super simple for me. I found two classes that I adored—one was Total Tone and the other was Core Fit (which used the famous Bosu Ball).

Even though the classes were at 6 AM, by starting off my flab to fab plan easy, I was able to put 110% into each workout. And not drinking during the week, super easy. I drink mostly water with dinner, but when I needed something different, flavored carbonated water usually did the trick.
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Trillby posted this beautiful photograph of the couple’s wedding shoes. Aren’t her blue shoes amazing?!

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.

A few weeks ago we spent the day with the amazing Laura Taylor from The Darling Life Photography. I have been a big fan of her work for years and she kindly agreed to take our photos. We had a great time gallivanting all over New York City taking pictures with Laura. She was patient and fun to shoot with.

Here are some of our favorites (CLICK THE PICS TO MAKE THEM BIGGER):

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