Weddingbee Blog

One thing about Weddingbee is the ridiculous amount of inspiration. This little double-edged sword really made itself apparent in our invites. I saw so many different things that I liked and was just trying and trying to figure out what to go with. Some of the different resources I used were the Martha Stewart’s doily images that have made their way onto some of the bee’s paper goods, an image of my grandmother’s lace, a floral background from BittBox, an ornamental brush set from BrushKing and the aquiline and civilian fonts from abstract fonts. I used Papyrus as well, but I think that’s a standard font. I was working with a square format to fit those blank CD case envelopes.

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But sometimes, I also call it my bling.

I was not 100% set on a diamond engagement ring. I said several times that it wasn’t the ring that mattered to me. However, I knew that the woolly counterpart likes to follow tradition and that his impeccable jewelry taste would probably be bestowed upon me in the form of an engagement ring.

One winter, 7 of our friends/acquaintances, got engaged in the span of about 5 weeks. Seeing all of the rings, one right after another, was an excellent impromptu crash course in engagement ring buying and styles. I learned the Lamma-bama-Mister wasn’t a fan of pave settings, or any other stones around the middle stone. He learned that I liked princess and round cuts.

I actually had very little to do with choosing the ring. We went to one jewelry store together and browsed for a little over 2 hours. About 10 weeks later, he proposed.

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One of the biggest dilemmas Mr. Ramen and I have faced with our manzanita branches (and let’s just say there have been NUMEROUS dilemmas, including cleaning the branches, scraping all of the bark from the branches, trimming the branches… etc.) was how to get them to stand up.

While it is easier to transport the branches if they are free and not attached to anything, you run the risk of the centerpiece tipping and falling on your Aunt and her dinner at the reception, especially when you want to hang things from the branches, which we of the simple taste (HAH!), of course, want to do.

We ran a few dry runs of sticking the branches in a vase, and placing a ton of rocks around the branch to secure it. This was not exactly a success. So, I began to scout for inexpensive ways we could secure the branches. We had met up with the owner of Blooms and Branches* in Rancho Cucamonga (he’s a really sweet man) back in July, and he had suggested either plaster, or this yellow foam sealer/insulation in a can. Since we wanted to put the branches in glass vases, we decided to go with the plaster, and used these directions that you can find on Nettleton Hollow’s blog.
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This morning, Mr. Star and I were awakened by the doorman buzzing up to tell us that the post office was delivering a package we needed to sign for.

The package was pretty unassuming, except for the cute little note written in red that said, “do not bend”.
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Today is your last day to enter the contest!

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Bare Escentuals has always been wildly popular on Weddingbee, so when they contacted us about a hosting a contest to celebrate their new BareMinerals Matte Foundation, we were super excited!

Weddingbee and Bare Escentuals is teaming up to offer one lucky bride a makeup artist who will fly out on her wedding day.  The makeup artist will expertly apply Bare Escentuals makeup for the bride and one attendant!  In addition, two Weddingbee readers will receive a year’s supply of BareMinerals Matte Foundation!

To enter, please visit the special Weddingbee contest page on the Bare Escentuals website.  You have until midnight PST tonight to enter.  Good luck!

I’ve had this post idea in my head for quite some time now, but I held off because I hadn’t come to a conclusion about what we will use. But then I decided that I should reach out to the readers to see if they have any ideas, because I’m getting desperate!

So let me start from the beginning. I was told I needed to bring something for the wedding guests to put cards in should they bring them to the wedding. I don’t want to bring a box that is reminiscent of the boxes I used to create in elementary school for my valentines, because I have zero crafting ability.

Source

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Here is a collection of inspirational photos for our farm wedding, courtesy of Green Wedding Shoes:

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TGIF bees! We just wanted to do a quick poll to figure out who out there is reading Weddingbee these days. Tell us:

Your answer will help us to improve the weddingbee experience! Thanks for taking the time to weigh in!

In the last installment, you saw us walk down the aisle. Now it’s time to do the actual ceremony and getting married part. It’s really self explanatory at this point, and since we had a traditional Catholic ceremony without all the interesting personal touches that most of the other bees had in their weddings (kinda jealous…), I’ll let the photos do most of the talking.

After we got down the aisle and sat down, we settled in for the long ceremony. We didn’t have a “full” Mass, which would have included communion, for different reasons. Most importantly, Mr. Dumpling is Catholic and I am not. I might have forgotten to mention a while back that I have been in the process of converting to Catholicism. It’s quite a long process actually, and I’ve been in the process since March 2008. I asked why I couldn’t just “sign up” to be a Catholic—you know, like why wouldn’t they want more members or whatever? They told me it was about quality, not quantity. Okay then. Anyhoo, I’m not finished going through the process yet, so they considered us a “mixed religion” couple and we couldn’t have communion. (Side note: non-Catholics can’t take communion during Mass. Don’t kill me—I’m just reporting what I learned.) So instead of a priest performing our ceremony, we got a Deacon (who also can’t say Mass). This turned out to work in our favor in the end though, because the Deacon and his wife (yeah, Deacons can have wives) did our marriage counseling/prep courses and we got to be pretty close with them. They have been married for something like 52 years, so they were really great to work with.

Ramble ramble…
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Vsyren17 is selling her gorgeous white Oleg Cassini (style CE239) gown. The size 4 satin gown has a cinched bust, beaded lace bodice, pick-up skirt, peek-a-boo lace hem and chapel train. It’s in immaculate condition, has never been hemmed, and has the asking price of $600.

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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Previously: Paris | Lake Como

We arrived in Venice on Wednesday, June 10, by train. We had decided that since we would only be in the city for a few days, we would just take our carry-on luggage and store our large suitcases. There was a luggage storage area in the train station, so that was our first stop.

With small bags in tow, we then tried to figure out how to get to our hotel, the Comfort Hotel Diana which was right off of St. Mark’s Square. We finally figured out which water bus we needed to take and climbed aboard. The trip down the Grand Canal was incredible.

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We had these made a couple of years ago, a few months after we moved in with each other in Seattle. They’ve got three garnets (we had been together for three years when we got them), each other’s first initial and the dents sort of look like tree bark. They kind of reminded us of carving each other’s initials in a tree. The insides are engraved with ’exclusive rights’.
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Well, hopefully my coordinator isn’t going to run off with my groom… but I’m very excited that we decided to hire an event designer/wedding coordinator!

Early in the process, we knew that we at least wanted “day of” coordinating services. My parents did not want to be worrying about the processional, paying the DJ, or putting out favors while their guests were left to fend for themselves. Deciding on the right company and the right package was much harder than I thought, though.

I began my search with these considerations in mind:
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She’s here! She’s beautiful, more beautiful than I remembered…

And yeah, I’m talking about my wedding dress. SIGHHHHHHHHHHH. I would LOVE to post a picture of my dress, but a) Mr. Ramen is quite dedicated to reading my wedding blog now, because he says, “it’s my wedding too!” And b) I actually want it to be a surprise for him, to see me in THE dress. So, I’m going to just tell you about my experiences dress shopping, and show you some of the ones that didn’t make the cut…

Since we got engaged in January, I’ve spent the majority of my time in SoCal, slaving away at school, and so I have visited just about EVERY SINGLE DRESS STORE in Orange County, not to mention a few in San Francisco, San Diego, and Phoenix. Seriously. I am not kidding. I’m a tad bit of a perfectionist, and had to see every single dress that I could before I made a decision.
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I obviously can’t speak for couples worldwide, only the couples I know. But I’ve noticed this peculiar difference between men’s and women’s bachelorette parties and I’m wondering if you all have noticed the same.

Mr. Penguin and I had similar, yet very different bachelor/bachelorette parties. While we went on two different weekends, we both went to Las Vegas. Vegas is a natural choice for Californians; transportation from the airport is easy (and if you use the shuttles, very cheap), people from LA can drive, and flights from Nor Cal are pretty reasonable. This is exactly why I personally chose Vegas. For Mr. Peng, and his many friends that hold their bachelor parties in Vegas, this is not the case. They choose Vegas because it is an adult male playground, with anything they’d want at their fingertips… luxurious suites, great steak houses, and strip clubs.

I was talking to Mr. Peng last night about how peculiar it is that there is this huge disparity in the attitudes of brides in our social circle about their bachelorette parties vs. the attitudes of the men and their parties.
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