Weddingbee Blog

Sources (from left to right, up and down) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

I spent a long time contemplating what our “wedding colors” would be. It seemed whenever I tried to describe what I envisioned for the big day, people just wanted me to get to the point and would ask, “what are your colors?” The problem was, I had no idea.

Was I a glamorous bride? A vintage bride? A nautical bride? All of these sounded wonderful to me, and each with their very own corresponding color palette. It was so hard to choose. But I did it!
Read more…

Here are a couple more pictures from the Modern Bride Trendsetters Dinner that the PR agency sent over. It’s the only pictures I have of myself accepting the award!

Christian Siriano looking fierce as always.

Read more…

There are some break-ups and divorces you hear about and think: ‘I saw that coming a mile away.’ Those are not what I sat down today to blog about. I’ve had this blank text box staring at me for hours now because I was unsure of how to approach this post (though I really feel that I need to say something). So here goes.

We all have them in our lives: “Perfect” couples. Couples everyone knows were meant to be together. Couples we envy because damn, they’re just sooooo right for each other. Couples who announce their engagement and receive reactions of “Well duh! Of course!” We’ve also known friends, coworkers and loved ones who’ve paired up and married partners who (in our opinions) aren’t very compatible with them. As non-judge-y as you may try to be, you can’t pretend that you never felt a lump of concern in your throat as a dear friend gushed over his engagement to That Awful, Manipulative Woman, or as your coworker emailed out elopement announcements for her quickie Reno wedding with That Guy She Met Online Last Month. I do have a point with all this, I really do. And I think it is this: we all mentally weigh the possibility of relationship success when it comes to our loved ones.

And that’s why it hits us (or me, at least) so hard when I find out that one of those “perfect” couples is calling it quits.
Read more…

Bet you’ve been wondering where I’ve been lately? In Busytown, that’s where. I started my final semester of classes (yay!), landed a second job (WTF was I thinking?!), and worked near full-time last week at my original job; all while continuing to plan this little wedding of ours.

We are *thisclose* to our 2 month mark and I am about to $hit bricks full of anxiety. No, I’m not being dramatic. My stomach churns just thinking about how little time we have left. But at the same time, I’m soooo ready for the day to be here! Conflicted much?

Somehow during a week full of 64 hours at work, 11 hours of class, and a coed wedding shower (pics soon!), I found the time to crank out our DIY wedding maps! I never really considered maps a priority, but after seeing Mrs. Ballet Flat make it look easy as pie, I decided to give it a try and shocked myself with the result. Here’s what I came up with in PowerPoint:

Click on map for more detail!

To be completely honest, I’m no stranger to PowerPoint. Mrs. BF’s tutorial was definitely thorough and easy to follow, but I’m also not a beginner. While the logistics were easy to me, it was still a tedious task!
Read more…

It’s time. After 8 months of blogging with you, my day is here. People have been asking me all week if I’m nervous, and I can’t figure out what they mean. Nervous about my marriage? Nope. Nervous that the centerpieces won’t be just right? Yes.

Such is life, though. Friends and family keep saying what’s important will be done, and what isn’t—isn’t important. HELLOOOOO? Don’t they know it’s ALL important. It’s been an interesting week of combining cultures, explaining customs, crafting, and hoping for the best. But you know what? The best is yet to come, because later today, Mr. D and I are getting married!

I keep waiting for the nerves to come and I wonder if I’ll get them right before I head down the aisle, like when I danced all the time and suddenly had to pee right before I went on stage. Let’s hope I’m not thinking about the restroom during the ceremony.
Read more…

Hey, y’all. I have to tell you, I’m really excited about this series because I really had no idea how this WB blogging thing worked when I applied, so I hope you get some insight into how it all works.

It all started with the blogs

I don’t remember when I started reading blogs or how I found Weddingbee, much like I don’t remember learning how to walk or when I ate my first French fry. I do know that I spent too many hours Googling things like “a simple wedding” and “minimal wedding” and “second wedding”. I kept finding sites on etiquette (apparently face veils are the prerogative of first-time brides), dealing with children (we had none) and eloping. But I didn’t want to elope, and I didn’t care about veils – I just wanted the straight story on how little you could do for a wedding and still call it a wedding. I wanted insight, answers, how-tos. I wanted bullet points.

So I started blogging. My first attempt was called “A Simple Wedding”, but it didn’t really work. I wasn’t sure I wanted a wedding, wasn’t sure I was ready to get married, wasn’t sure why people were even engaged. Who was I to tell anyone else how to plan a wedding I wasn’t sure I wanted? But I kept writing, and soon I found my voice. I scrapped my first ten posts and launched a new blog when I wrote this post. For the first time, my words got away from me and helped me find myself. For the first time, I understood that my perspective would be about the emotional journey of a bride, and more specifically, how you can fail at something once and still try it again.

My tagline became: “I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt (and divorce papers) to prove it. Here I am again, pledging my life to my (new) love with eyes wide open (and heart racing) knowing full well how emotionally traumatic this can end… and doing it anyway.”
Read more…

Waking up on the day of our wedding was both surreal and calming. This was it. This was the day I was marrying Mr. Espresso: the sexiest, sweetest, and funniest man I have ever met. He is my best friend.

After I woke up, I stayed in bed for almost an hour, listening to faint noises outside my door, smelling the waffles and coffee the owner of our B&B was in the middle of making, and soaking up every quiet, meditative minute I could before the busyness of the day swooshed in. Time was in slow motion, and I felt that I could actually be in every second that came and passed.

Read more…

It’s been a long while since my fabulous wedding day shoes have made their way into a post! I’ve had them for months and months, and while I’ve cheated on them a few times with some other eye candy, they’re here to stay. I feel sex-ay when I slide these on!

They don’t match my dress at all (they’re more of a yellow-y ivory and my dress is diamond white), but I would never abandon them just for that. Plus, they were a steal at $40! They’re the Nine West ’Gohana’ for those who want shoes like Stiletto!

Source: Overstock

While I can rock a pair of heels when the occasion calls for it, especially when I’m running high on adrenaline, me thinks my toes may want a bit of a rest toward the end of the night. Of course, I may do just fine in my heels, but I absolutely need to have a backup plan just in case.

Enter, my backup plan…
Read more…

The mister and I recently revisited our church (on the beautiful Villanova University campus) and reception neighborhood (in the Old City section of Philadelphia) to scout out the most “photogenic” areas for our post-ceremony pictures.

Since we’re crossing off the formals and posed pictures in the morning, this portion of the wedding day will focus much more on photojournalism — and perhaps will include a bit of TTD (but no actually trashing, don’t worry) in the mix!

I’ve mentioned before how strict our church is, so while we’re hoping to sneak some pictures in the church after the wedding, no one will be surprised if we get unceremoniously booted after the mass. (Especially since there still might be a 3:30 wedding after our 1:30 hour-long ceremony concludes.) Weather permitting (and at the moment, we’re all keeping fingers and toes crossed in the Bruschetta household), we could retreat to one of the grassy areas in front of the church…

Read more…

So, yes, Mr. DD and I are exchanging Indian floral garlands at our wedding.

(Although sadly, ours won’t be nearly as exciting as these.)

(Source)

But that’s not what I’m talking about. For some reason, I keep contemplating garlands like these:
Read more…

Our rehearsal dinner invitations excite me! I knew I wanted to make them extra special too, and started thinking of a design in my head. Our rehearsal dinner is being held at an old apple barn, so we decided to go with an old country theme. Not “cheesy” country, but simple, old country. We hired a bluegrass band and I have started gathering design elements!

I have so many talented friends, and among them is my friend Ashley (check out some of her work on her awesome blog!). She is an artist. Once I had this initial invite idea, I sent it to her to “clean” it up.
Read more…

After the cocktail hour was over, we sat everyone down and made our grand entrance. And it was grandly awesome, to say the least! Our bridal party took it upon themselves to organize hilarious, individual entrances.

Some went with a paparazzi theme…

Read more…

Even though we’re not sure if we are going to have a traditional cake or have towers of cupcakes, we are still looking at cake toppers because that’s one thing I definitely want, regardless of which dessert we choose.

I love the graphic letters on this cake. It makes it seem more vintage and less cheesy. I think I’ve had a hard time finding cute cakes because they so often border on cheesy-dom!

Read more…

Oh my gosh oh my gosh you guys (said like Elle Woods in the Legally Blonde musical), I can’t believe I’m a bee!! When I got the email about my newly-acquired bee status my jaw dropped—I was so excited, and frankly, shocked!! But I am so excited to share my wedding planning journey with all of you!

Okay, so why Miss Frozen Yogurt, or Fro Yo, as I like to say? Well, there is actually a story there. I heart frozen yogurt. So much so, that I once made Mr. Fro Yo drive a good 20-30 miles to the nearest TCBY to get some. Well, as we were circling the parking lot, we realized that our good ol’ Garmin had been tricked because I failed to update the maps, and the TCBY was now closed. As I quickly tried to type in yet another TCBY location, Mr. Fro Yo suggested we try a different frozen dessert. We ended up settling on a frosty—although delicious, it just wasn’t the same.

Anyway, so a little about us…

Read more…

I was very late to blogs. Why lie? I’m really slow with technology in general. We’ve only recently (like, a day ago) ordered an iPhone and I think Mr. Joey was the last person in the world to join Facebook (2 days ago - seriously). I never heard about blogs that I thought sounded interesting. People always told me about blogs that sounded weird. I passed on the blog about cats that looked like famous people.

I found blogs by accident, really. I was looking for ideas for what to make people for Christmas in 2007. I had this idea earlier that year that half of all the Christmas presents we were going to give during the holidays would be homemade. That’s when I did it—I found blogs—crafting blogs, to be specific. There were so many; it made my head spin. Crafting blogs turned into design blogs, and I was instantly hooked on Design*Sponge. But that was it. My blog reading stopped there, apart from a few visits to food blogs like Chocolate and Zucchini. It’s not that I didn’t like blogs, it was that I hated sitting in front of my computer when I wasn’t at work.

When we got engaged, I knew I wanted to do something different. All the weddings I had been to had all blurred together. I didn’t want mine to be one of those.
Read more…