Weddingbee Blog

So many applicants ask us all the time what it takes to be a bee, how they can improve their blogging, etc. and I always feel a bit strange giving them advice, because who would know better how to answer these questions than all the bees, collectively? Every bee has a different experience when it comes to how they became bloggers, how they became wedding bloggers, and how they came to Weddingbee.

In the next few weeks, the bees will be sharing their stories of how they came to blog, how they came to ‘bee’, and will offer any little nuggets of advice that they have for blogging! We hope to give you a little peek into each of our experiences, and I’m personally excited to learn some new blogging tips from all my fellow bees!

~~~

My story…

Penguin. Who are you. How the heck did you get here? How did you focus your blog? Why are you Penguin? Do you have any blogging advice? I’ve always meant to write a post about this, but never did.

To be perfectly honest, before I found Weddingbee, I was completely unaware of the world of blogging. I thought (no joke) that all blogs were political blogs, because I’d definitely heard about blogs while watching CNN, but that was it. Mind you, this was 2007, not 1987. I feel like I spent a fair amount of time on the internet back then, but really limited myself to looking at YouTube, restaurant websites, and Yelp. Sometimes I think about how odd it is that I lived this entire life 2 years ago having never read blogs. Now, blogs are practically my entire life. It’s how I keep up with my friends and family, it’s my own form of self-therapy, and it’s how I make my decisions for everything in life: clothes, gifts, cleaning products, restaurants… EVERYTHING. I’m hesitant to try anything unless it’s been extensively blogged about by real people.

How the heck did you get here?

Anyway, I got engaged, and really didn’t think I’d care that much about the details of our wedding, even after being engaged for several months. But, I knew things were expensive, and I was looking for a little advice to trim the budget and get the maximum bang for my buck. I looked for a little support on the Yelp boards, but ultimately landed on the Knot, where I met Mrs. Lemon, a bride with a former life oddly and scarily similar to mine. We instantly bonded, and, as any good stalker would do, I scoured her Knot bio, and from there, followed her links to Weddingbee.

I read through Mrs. Lemon’s entire archive, and then tried my best to read through Mrs. Bee’s (Uh… Mrs. Bee had at that point written over 1000 entries, so that didn’t go very well). And then I found myself reading through others’ archives: Gummi Bear, Ladybug, Spider… and I just became enamored with the bees. They were all so willing to share their stories, their finds, their triumphs, their failures. They all had these incredible strengths: from being incredibly crafty, to hilarious, to honest, to helpful. Each bee had something amazing to offer. And, after exhausting the archives of a few of the current bees at the time, I knew I had to try to get in on the action.

How did you focus your blog?

But how? I had no voice. I’d never kept a diary. Never really crafted. Don’t consider myself particularly helpful, or funny, or emotionally honest. But I felt like every bee seemed to have her own strength. So, I just started writing. I focused my blog on our wedding, of course, but I just tried to think of everything that I loved about all the bees. Although I was my own person, I thought about all the common threads that ran through my favorite bees. And I thought that while I could never be as crafty, or helpful, or funny, I could be very, very honest with myself. I’ve never in my life taken myself seriously. I’ve never tried to prove myself as being worthy for anything: a school, a job, a relationship. I wake up each morning and think, “Let’s just do this shit.” Perfection has never been my goal. Just survival, and finding humor in the world around me. I’m not funny, but I feel like the situations I find myself in are. My husband is hilarious. My parents are insanely quirky and always let me know that I’m not anything if I’m not humble. And my dog, well… she’s redonkadink. And so, I wrote my blog chronicling my journey as a bride, always remembering along the way that I don’t take myself too seriously, and that perfection for myself or for our wedding was never my goal.

Why are you Penguin?

I wrote in my blog for a few months, filled out the application, and as luck would have it, was chosen to be a bee. The bird generation had recently come out, and I had my pick of almost all the birds. I liked Peacock and Flamingo, but Mr. Penguin said there was no way I could be anything else but the Penguin. And he was right. A little round, a little silly. That’s me. Pengy.

Do you have any blogging advice?

I’m not sure if this qualifies as advice for blogging, but I always find that the most engaging blogs I read are the ones of those people that play up the strongest, most prominent quality that they value most in themselves. If you are funny, write a funny blog. If you are emotional, write an emotionally raw blog. If you’re girly, write the pinkest, frilliest, most cupcake-and-tea-sandwich-filled blog you can write. If you don’t take shit from anyone, then… well. You get it.

~~~

Weddingbee has changed my life in so many ways. All in all, I’m just grateful to ’bee’ here. To have “met” all the bees. To have learned from their life stories. I can’t speak for all the bees, but it’s very therapeutic to be able to blog in such a public forum; the collective comments (be they complimentary or critical), support, and all around camaraderie of the hive is something in my life that is utterly irreplaceable.

MUAH BEES! MUAH!

I look forward to hearing all of your stories!