Weddingbee Blog

For some reason I’ve noticed some really amazing programs lately. Most of the time I think people will just quickly glance at programs, fan themselves, or as my brother and sister did at my college graduation, write notes to each other because they were so bored. In their defense, our speaker was really boring. I even noticed a fellow graduate sleeping through the ceremony. Anyway, I still want to do really cute programs. If for no other reason than to get a great picture of it, or keep one in a scrapbook somewhere. Here is my latest inspiration from We Met in a Bar:

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Travis Hoehne Photography captured this gorgeous quiet moment.

Don’t forget to check out all the professional inspiration from the top wedding vendors in the industry in the PRO Folio!

You could probably tell by my previous post about the sash I made that I wasn’t entirely pleased with my sash-sewing skills.

I looked at the original sash (the black one) and made the realization that it was nothing special: it was just a piece of ribbon! *I* am capable of cutting a piece of ribbon! This was one craft I could definitely handle without too much of a time commitment!

Except for one problem:

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After sharing two glasses of wine, exchanging rings, a reading, and 7 blessings by our Peeps, it was time to read our vows.

As I stated months ago, Mr. Peep insisted that we write our own vows, which scared and challenged me. Needless to say, this personal touch was what made the day perfectly ours.

Again, I’d love to add some music to this post, so please listen below, and read our vows.

First up, Mr. Peep:
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Well sorta… I’m (obviously - it’s been less than a week!) waiting on our pro pics to begin my recaps, but I just wanted to buzz by and say hi. And that our wedding was awesome.

It really was. In lieu of providing you with recaps, I’ll start by providing you with several posts I started and stopped writing in the weeks right before the wedding. For you immigration gals, I’ll be detailing our experience in applying for the AOS (Adjustment of Status) so we can actually, you know, stay together once we’re married.
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After we departed our reception location, Mr. Powder Puff and I made our way over to Grand Rapids, where my dad had reserved us a room at the J.W. Mariott. Swanky, yo! We took the elevator to the top floor, and entered our beautiful room, where I proceeded to sit on the bed and wail. I cried my little eyes out.

My new husband, thoroughly distressed, asked me what was wrong. And this was my reply: “It’s *sniff* oooovvveeerrrr!!!!” Yes, on my wedding night, I bawled my eyes out because the day was over. True, I was overly tired. But the wedding was the most fun day of my life thus far. There was so much love and support. It was truly awesome. And to have it be over in what seemed like a flash was a very bittersweet moment for me.

All those months of work and planning. Over, just like that. It really is true what they say—the day FLIES by. So girls, if I could give you a piece of advice, it would be to savor every moment. Yes, not everything about planning a wedding is sunshine and butterflies. But if you do it right, it will be the most amazing day you’ll ever experience.

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I went to an intense six-year architecture program for college, worked for a couple of years as an architect after graduation, got burned out, and defected into the world of art museums (yay!). I sometimes feel a bit sheepish for doing so, but I know I made the right choice. It just didn’t make me happy. But, I am happy to say, the schooling was not for nothing. If it were not for those six years, I would not have my finger calluses from using the X-Acto knife for hours on end, building little models of houses and hospitals! These calluses are going to come in handy when I attempt these lovely paper projects!
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Although I am no longer a bride, like other married bees, I do get super excited to help my bride friends. Last night, I made out-of-town bags for a couple getting married at Stage Six, Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in September. Since I ran out of time to make bags for my own wedding guests, this was a chance for me to live vicariously through my friends!

Instead of a monogram, the bride created a “chop” which included the bride and groom’s last names, that was printed on their invitations. I love it—elegant, classic, yet very minimalist and modern. I used it as the theme for the entire out-of-town package.

The components of each tote included:
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After a year of wedded bliss (ha!) we’ve definitely settled in with all our wedding loot and have figured out what we love and use most often, and what we wished we’d registered for (or registered for more of).

My number one tip for registering is: Don’t register TOO early! You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment. We got engaged 16 months before our wedding day… and registered 16 months before the wedding. The entire engagement was spent rearranging our registries to accommodate products that were constantly going out of stock or being discontinued. UGH. 8 months out would have probably been a better idea. We wasted a ton of time by registering too early.

That being said, here are 5 registry items we received that we love a lot:

Bamboo Cookware Stand

We live in a loft with NO storage space. Once we got this pot stand, we cleared out 2 entire cabinets in our kitchen! The stand is really cute too, and shows off our pots (ahem… still IKEA) in an organized and open way. If you’re a couple cabinets short in your kitchen, this is a great solution!
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While I’m waiting, sometimes not so patiently, for our wedding photos to be processed by the lovely Erica Lyn, I cannot help think about what I will do with them. Our photography package does not include an album (although we obviously have the option of purchasing one), so I have a number of options to consider. We could do a Blurb/MyPublisher-style album; the quality is decent and the price really cannot be beat. But then I see the professional photographer albums with their really thick, lay flat pages. I !start drooling and think it would all be worth it!

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Find a fabulous photo of the two of you, cut out all the background, and then simplify it in Photoshop using the stamp filter (duh). Mess with the settings, until you get it just so, and then save it as a .jpg or .pdf or whatever type of file your stampmaker wants. Take it to the stampmaker. I used ACE sign and stamp in Los Angeles, because it was on my way home from work. There are plenty of online companies for this. Send it off to be made, but just make sure the size of the stamp is correct for your save the date layout.

Get your layouts done in Photoshop or whatever program you feel comfortable in. Keep the top right corner clear for a stamp; only the address can go on the right side and the bottom of the postage side needs to be kept fairly clear, for that barcode thing that gets put on during mailing. This is the link to a company that makes postcards, but it shows the guidelines. Be sure to keep the layers for easy editing and address changes. Find some fun fonts at DaFont.

Print all the fronts and backs (meticulously changing the address each time). Then, it’s time for stamping.
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Okay, so some of my bridesmaids were going to come to Austin to go dress shopping with me. I thought I would get a head start and shop a little without them, that way when they came, I could actually show them ones that I liked, rather than waste everyone’s time with ill-fitted gowns. So, I recently visited 3 bridal stores in Austin—Serendipity, Belle Saison and Unbridaled. Unbridaled sort of lets you do things on your own and then just comes in to zip you up, while Serendipity and Belle Saison were there for it all. Thankfully, I was actually wearing decent undergarments.

So, I narrowed it down to several gowns that I like. Oh, and as a side note, I made sure to tell the girls that I wanted to wear a mantilla veil. But I actually said, “manzanita,” as in the trees, because all of this is unfamiliar and new. Thankfully she was nice about it.

So, here are the ones from Unbridaled:

Nicole Miller

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This post isn’t really about school… it is about a recent crafting marathon for a friend’s upcoming wedding. However, we used enough pencils, erasers, rulers, scissors, and paper that night to justify the title!

We had three goals for the marathon: create paper rosettes for the decor, cocktail flags for the reception, and flower pins for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Here is a sneak peek of our Martha Stewart-inspired rosettes:

You can find Martha’s directions for the rosettes here.
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We got the idea to register for vintage dishware after seeing the plates of our dreams on set at a television sitcom taping we attended. I was flat out drooling for them, and even Mr. M gave them a hells yeah. We scampered over to check the stamp on the plates, ran home to Google it, and mentally filed it away. After a long and painful search for something new (and more readily available) that we loved just as much, we finally decided to go our own way and register for the first dishes to steal our poppy lovin’ hearts.

Wild Poppies - Metlox: Aren’t they dreamsicle?!?

It was the perfect decision for us, and we love our dishes more and more every time we use them. In fact, we ended up buying vintage silverware to go along with it!

The benefits of vintage dishware are threefold:
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No, not this kind of change, silly! Now that we’re finally nailing down the details and making decisions for the big day that is just two weeks away, we’ve up and changed so many details that we previously thought were set!

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Head Table

I never thought we wouldn’t have a head table. The head was just… there. Standard. But as I started playing around with our seating charts, I kept on getting stuck. There was no good way to divide people up and have it make sense. I was particularly struggling with who would sit at the table with my parents. Mr. S’s parents won’t be involved in the wedding (a detail I haven’t really focused on, as it’s Mr. S’s personal business) and he has no siblings; my only sibling, my sister, is my maid of honor; I only have one grandparent still with us. So, any other family combination that I could come up with was forever leaving someone else out.
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