Weddingbee Blog

Tamika371 is selling an Audrey Hepburn-inspired custom-made reception dress. The size 8-10 dress is made of ivory satin. She’s asking $70.

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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I think I’m ready to talk about Mr. HD’s and my relationship. I have a lot of skeletons in my closet relationship-wise (who doesn’t?). We were both really young when we met. We have so much history that I’ll just hit the high (and really low) points. Ready? Me, too (I think).

(personal photo)

The first time we met was in high school. He was a year ahead of me. The first time I saw him I thought he was a total hunk, though he looked WAAY older than his 17 years. He later admitted that he was attracted to me too, but I looked WAAY younger than MY 16 years. So, nothing happened. But I REALLY wanted to pursue something.
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One last stop before the wedding day! I thought this would be a good time to show you all the “papery” details from our wedding. I say it in quotations because we didn’t get many real life photos of our menu, ceremony card, etc., so I have a few screen captures from Illustrator instead.

Our Wayne Theibaud inspired evite

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Presents have already started arriving on our doorstep (which, BTW, is an AWESOME perk of getting married—every day is like Christmas!). A few have been off of our registry, one or two have been a little, um, special? And some, like the ones I’m about to show you, are simply gorgeous.

Enter Michael Aram. He’s an American artist who works primarily in metals and whose pieces are clearly inspired by nature. I would never have known about him if we hadn’t received 2 separate presents from his collection. Both were from different stores (Macy’s and Bloomies), so he is clearly a well-known home goods designer. Who knew?

Then, a recently married friend of mine told me she and her fiance actually registered for their wedding at his online store! An amazing idea and clearly, worth taking another look-see.

Here’s what we’ve received:

Hydrangea Picture Frame

(Source)

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One of (many) difficulties in planning such a long engagement (18 months when all is said and done) is committing to getting in shape for the wedding. Now I didn’t just want to lose weight because I want to look amazing in my wedding dress (although that is also a motivating factor)—I wanted to drop a few pounds because I met Mr. Spaniel in the best shape of my life (unemployment will do that to you), and gained ten pounds since I’ve been with him. Harrumph. I don’t like feeling like a sausage in my favorite clothes.

I purchased Buff Brides a long time ago (years before I met Mr. Spaniel) for a friend who broke her engagement. When she gave me back the book, I kept it instead of returning it (is that bad luck?). I have restarted Week 1 of the 24-week program about twenty-five time since then—I’ve never gotten past Week 11, because that’s when it changes from a 3-day per week workout to a 4-day per week workout, and I don’t adjust well to changes in my routine! Not only that, but the stronger I got, the more reps I needed to do to get my workout in, and it started to be too time-consuming.

But the results I’ve had from the workout have been so incredible in the past that I decided to start the program again—the short program, that is, starting 12 weeks from the Big Day. Until recently, I had definitely fallen for the myth that heavy weights make women “big”, but I’ve been weight training for a few months with weights 2-3 times what I used to use when I do the Buff Brides workout, and I haven’t popped out of my clothing yet. Because really: when you are fully capable of benching at least half your body weight, why should you be doing 50 reps of chest presses with 8-pound dumbbells?? That’s just a waste of time.
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Jingle96 and her hubby-to-be steal a kiss. The meter announces their wedding date!

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.

Okay, maybe not THAT dress, but a white dress, nonetheless! I couldn’t bear the thought of trashing my actual wedding dress, so I ended up finding this VS maxi dress on eBay for $30! My mom and I dressed it up a bit by adding a loooong white ribbon to tie in the back, but that’s about it. It didn’t really need much for us to just trash it!

See what I mean?!

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The changing of the last name is something that most brides-to-be spend a lot of time debating. Should I take his? Should I hyphenate? Should I just keep my own? Coming from a Polish family that I like to refer to as “hardcore traditional”, some conventions are not to be messed with. One of those traditions is the name change; even if I decided to keep my maiden name, my stubborn grandmother would still refer to me by my husband’s surname. Why fight city hall? Also, I like the symbolism of sharing a name with my husband. To me, it represents the coming together of a new family unit (although I agree that you do not necessarily need to take the man’s name for this to happen - he could just as easily take yours). Also, as a teacher, I hate the fact that sometimes a mother and child do not share the same last name. I know that this is a pet peeve based purely on my laziness, but looking up the proper name of the mother is a pain!

Nevertheless, to me, the process of changing my name is particularly bittersweet. This is in large part due to my quite complicated and impossible to pronounce first name. You see, my name is a very, very popular name in Poland. In 2004, the name was the 5th most popular baby girl name in Poland. My name is the equivalent of a Jessica, Jennifer, or Amanda in Poland. My name is hard to pronounce and impossible to spell. Somehow, the “z” in the middle always throws people off. Nevertheless, it is a very pretty name, and once people get past the shock, most of them love it.

When I came to Canada in 1992, I didn’t speak a word of English.
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