Mrs. Spaniel, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 28, Law Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Psychologist
Wedding Date: March 2010
Venue: Calamigos Ranch
About Me: I'm a third-year law student trying to balance graduating with starting my career, keeping up a relationship, and, oh yeah, planning an Old World, multi-cultural, "mountain lodge" wedding for 180 guests! A South Asian Jewish girl getting ready to marry my handsome Catholic Dane, I'm hoping to blend our cultures in our wedding just a bit more gently than by providing samosas as appetizers and offering æbleskiver for dessert. (Although that would also be awesome.)
After changing my mind about fifty times, Mr. Spaniel and I were finally able to reach consensus on the great name change debate of 2009-10: we will both change our names. This is a pretty big deal for us, since he was totally unwilling to discuss it until pretty recently.
Mine will definitely still be the harder one, since people will know me by a completely new surname, but we will both be known as First Middle Mylast Hislast, as will any children we may decide to have in the future. It’s not an ideal solution (that would only happen if he said to me, “You know, Miss Spaniel, you’re right! You shouldn’t change your name!” but that statement does not appear to be forthcoming), but it’s a solution I can live with.
(source)
I know this isn’t actually relevant, but it’s still funny!
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Mrs. Moonbeam, Los Angeles/San Antonio
Age and Occupation: 26, Intern Architect
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Studio Analyst, aspiring Screenwriter
Engagement Date: May 20, 2009
Wedding Date: November 2009
Venue: Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church (LaCoste, TX) and Mary Gray Events Center (Castroville, TX)
About Me: I was born and raised in Texas, but after college I moved to Seattle for a couple of years and loved it. Then I followed my beau out here to LA and we're getting settled in. I've been making things since I can remember. I was raised by crafters. I love to sew, draw, paint, build, cook, bake (anything with a tangible end result is fair game). In that same spirit, I've been hosting since I was old enough to cook and set a fancy table. I kind of take after my grandmother, who believes that your morning OJ always tastes better out of the good crystal.
It’s all over, and like many brides, I’ve got mixed emotions about the big day. There were things I loved and for most of the evening I was truly in the moment and enjoying myself. But there were some things that keep playing over and over in my head and are keeping me from getting some much-needed shut-eye.
source
Let’s start with the bad (I’m hoping that getting it off my chest will allow me to sleep).
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Miss Dew Drop, San Francisco
Age and Occupation: 31, Attorney
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Managerial Type at an Internet Company
Engagement Date: December 12, 2008
Wedding Date: September 2009
Venue: Ralston Hall Mansion
About Me: I'm a food-and-baking-obsessed, occasionally sword wielding Bay Area native who is quickly becoming overwhelmed with planning a wedding and opening a law practice at the same time. (Brilliant move, that one.) I love reading, online shopping, ice cream, my Macbook, Bollywood movies, hoodies, the UCLA Bruins, and of course, Mr. Dew Drop.
Yup. That’s me. Mrs. Dew Drop, wedding blogging procrastinator extraordinaire.
But a little sympathy, please—it’s kind of tough taking this big, emotional, life-altering event and reducing it all to writing. It’s been almost two months after the wedding, and I’m still not sure what to say.
You see, I really wish I could tell you that the lead up to the wedding was perfect. Or at least pretty good. Instead, I spent the couple of weeks before the wedding feeling like an absolute train wreck. I was terrified that we had chosen the wrong wedding to have. Maybe we had compromised too much. Maybe we wanted something else all together.
But turning back seemed impossible, and before I could blink, it was time to get married to my favorite person in the world and, strangely enough, people kept telling me I was the calmest bride they’d ever seen. Trust me, I’m still mystified by that.
Besides, if all’s well that ends well, then I have nothing to complain about. The wedding itself turned out beautifully. Nobody cared about the couple of details we dropped at the last minute. Everyone who attended claimed they had a wonderful time.
And now Mr. DD and I get to live happily ever after. How cool is that??
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Mrs. Cheeseburger, Baltimore, MD/State College, PA
Age and Occupation: 25, Medical Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Medical Student
Engagement Date: June 28, 2008
Wedding Date: March 2010
Venue: Catholic Church Ceremony & Hotel Reception
About Me: I'm a passionate girl from Pittsburgh, currently living in Baltimore for school, who loves Penn State, seeing movies, football, thunderstorms, black and white photos, Christmas, good beer, my amazing friends and family, and of course, my mister! We met, fell in love, got engaged, and will be married at our alma mater (go lions!) in a traditional Catholic ceremony followed by a hotel reception with lots of DIY details. It means so much to have our families and friends meet at our favorite place on earth to celebrate our love for one another - I truly couldn't ask for anything more!
At some point in wedding planning, I came across pictures like this:
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Featured on Weddingbee
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
Featured Product: Laura Ashley Delicate Damask Invitation
Mrs. Parfait, Chicago
Age and Occupation: 26, Teacher
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Senior Online Consultant
Engagement Date: February 14, 2009
Wedding Date: April 2010
Venue: Signature Events
About Me: I have a soft spot for all things sweet and romantic. Desserts, love songs, sappy movies? Yes, yes, and ohh yes. My fiance and I enjoy singing to our dogs, creating crazy ice cream sundaes, and generally being lovey dovey cuddle bunnies. We also do socially acceptable things like dancing, throwing Frisbees, playing high stakes board games, and taking unreasonably fun road-trips. We're planning a Korean/Serbian wedding with plenty of playful, personal touches!
I’ve been a little torn about our color scheme. Since we haven’t met with our florist, there’s still time to switch from our bright citrus scheme to something that would match our reception hall better. I love our colors (especially bright pink!) but burgundy, brown, and taupe would look perfect in our ballroom. Those colors aren’t “us”, but sometimes I wonder if it would be classier and more eyeball-friendly if our colors matched our venue.
Because of this little conundrum, it’s always a pleasure to see examples of cheery colors in dark spaces, as shown in the pictures below!
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Mrs. Frozen Yogurt, Dallas
Age and Occupation: 28, Special Projects Coordinator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Equity Trader
Engagement Date: March 19, 2009
Wedding Date: April 2010
Venue: Marie Gabrielle, Dallas
About Me: I was born and raised in Texas, and have lived in several of the cities across the state, but I currently reside in Austin. I went to college in Boston and have a special place in my heart for the Northeast. I love reading, shopping, wine, reuniting with college friends that are scattered across the country, reality TV, trying out new recipes, and attempting all the DIY projects that come along with wedding planning. I'm a "bleeding heart, save the world type" and thankfully my job allows me to work on legislation and policy to help out those in need. I met Mr. Frozen Yogurt in a bar, though he doesn't even drink! And now we are planning a modern yet vintage wedding in Dallas while dealing with the trials and tribulations of first time homeownership.
Yeah, I went there. Do you like how I found a pink bunny to use to make it cuter?
We started to read How to Love Me as Mrs. Star suggested. One of the questions was about watching porn and the response choices were:
a. No, never
b. Only when you’re not around
c. Only when we are watching together
d. It’s taking over my hard drive (no seriously, this was the actual response)
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Ms. Potato Chips, Boston/Narragansett RI
Age and Occupation: 29, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Personal Trainer/Business Owner/Physical Therapy Assistant
Engagement Date: January 1, 2009
Wedding Date: June 2010
Venue: The Narragansett Towers
About Me: A semi-professional bookworm, if I could be a literary character I’d be a cross between Jo March and Jane Eyre, only better accessorized and much lazier. My hobbies include sleeping in, seasonal brews, running, Trader Joe’s, and watching Unwrapped and Good Eats with Mr. Potato Chips. I harbor an irrational fear of tulle, crafts, things that are fussy, and overuse of the phrase "Your Special Day". After a year or seven together, down the aisle we go, slouching toward adulthood and planning a Rhodie party with equal parts whimsy, cheer, and pizza.
Last night Mr. Potato Head was outside scrapping and hosing—with a garden hose—moldy leftovers from my Crock Pot.
An indeterminate amount of time ago, I attempted to slow-cook veggie curry. It was all right. I didn’t love it. So I, uh… left it in the fridge. For… a while.
Source
I’m the first to admit I’m not the best roommate.
Potato Head’s like, “What is wrong with you??” and I’m all, “You knew this when you proposed to me!! I leave clothes on the floor and food in the fridge. That’s the reality!”
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Mrs. Meatball, Hollywood
Age and Occupation: 30, Actor/Writer/Office Maven
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Actor/Writer
Engagement Date: October 7, 2007
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: September 16, 2008
Venue: Private Garden/The Bungalow Club
About Me: I love melty cheese and diet coke almost as much as I love my man. I'm from Chicago, he's from NYC, and we both miss public transit and great pizza. We have an adorable muppet dog called Paco. I'm part hippie with a healthy dash of hip hop superstar, have excessive empathy for animals, and have not one, but two bionic eyes (long story). We're broke and it ain't no joke. It can't stop us from planning the bold and whimsical wedding of our dreams, but we've had to get pretty creative to make it work, yo!
I’m decidedly against breaking your budget on wedding cake. There are plenty of ways to save on cake and still have it look and taste great! From the sheet cake/dummy cake swap to finding a pastry student to help, or simply keeping the design simple - wedding cakes can easily be made budget-friendly. Or, maybe you’re like us, and aren’t so attached to the cake tradition and so opt for an alternative dessert.
Usually, I’m also against the notion of people DIYing their own wedding cake. Spells trouble, almost every time. Hey, guess what you don’t really need right around your wedding day? The stress of baking and icing your freaking wedding cake! Unless you’re one of those type A-ers that gets off on the thrill of that kind of thing… in which case, have at it.
Image by Lucida Photography
Then I saw this. And my universe expanded. It’s the perfect, affordable, DIY friendly alt-cake, people!
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Mrs. Trail Mix, New York
Age and Occupation: 26, PE Teacher
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, MBA Student
Engagement Date: March 2009
Wedding Date: June 2010
Venue: Tannery Pond at the Darrow School
About Me: I'm a country girl who somehow found herself living in the Big Apple and loving every minute of it. I'm planning a rustic, country-chic wedding in my hometown in upstate New York and it's going to be a Party with a capital P. White wine, flea markets and running keep me happy and my friends, family and fiance are my world. I'm a little bit crafty, a little bit crazy but mostly just crazy in love.
The last DIY I attempted, while successful, was also not as easy as I originally thought and I was honestly beginning to think I might be a little craft-challenged…
Oh, the shame. What would Martha say?
This minor but cute project gave me my confidence back and it’s super easy, I swear! So without further ado, I present Miss Trail Mix’s (aka borrowed-from-Mrs-Taffy) drink stirrers. A minor detail no doubt, but it will be a (hopefully) cute touch!
I made my way to our beloved Michaels and picked up 2 rolls of grosgrain ribbon (blue and yellow, duh) some double-sided tape and some very thin, 24″ sticks of basalm wood that I simply eyeballed when cutting into 3 pieces using scissors.
Personal Photo
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Mrs. Cola, Mountain View, CA
Age and Occupation: 27, Product Communications and Promotions
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Managing Partner and Senior Designer
Engagement Date: March 5, 2009
Wedding Date: June 2010
Venue: The Mountain Terrace, Woodside, CA
About Me: I’m a Washington State native, enjoying life in Silicon Valley California with my fiancé, our three kitties and one leopard gecko. I like reading wedding blogs, Photoshopping wedding design mock ups, making lists, and planning, planning, planning! I’m a bit of an anomaly, on one side I’m a very girlie girl, I collect shoes, I lay out my outfits 4-6 weeks in advance, and I’d never leave the house without my hair curled and makeup on. But on the other side, I’m a total tomboy, I love to go camping and hiking, play drinking games (hey, I’m Irish!) and most of my closest friends are guys. My fiancé and I are planning a DIY-focused wedding with a balance between easygoing (what he wants) and chic and stylish (what I want), and are tying it all together with elements in lavender, sage, butter cream and chocolate.
Since Mr. Cola and I have lived together longer than we’ve been dating, we already have a TON of home stuff. Yeah, so what if a lot of it is from college (aka hand-me-downs and thrift store finds); it’s totally useable, and we don’t need more stuff to clutter up our already cluttered and messy kitchen.
But as I’m told, people expect, no, NEED wedding registries. Otherwise you could end up with twenty Crystal Bowls of Doom (seriously, the best wedding forum thread ever, if you have the time to read it all, you’ll be cracking up laughing!). So we started looking into doing a honeymoon registry instead. We love to travel, and will be spending about $8K on our honeymoon in Kauai, so we might as well let people give us “honeymoon memories” as gifts that we’ll actually use, instead of things that we don’t need.
However, all of the honeymoon registry sites charge around 7-10% for the service, either to you or the gift giver. Hello? Is that not crazy or what? The websites offset it by claiming it’s the same as a gift giver paying tax, but to me it seems pretty silly to charge that much.
OK, so back to the drawing board, because there’s no way we were going to allow a site to rip either us or our guests off.
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Mrs. Hot Cocoa, Boston/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 31, JD/PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Medical Student
Engagement Date: May 30, 2008
Wedding Date: March, 2009
Blogging Since: April, 2008
Venue: Ritz Carlton, Marina Del Rey
About Me:
I am a professional student by day and an amateur cupcake taster, bargain shopper, and wedding planner by night. I am obsessed with NPR, the Food Network, paper, dance shows, Anthropologie, post-structuralist theory, Weddingbee!, "The Office," and celebrity gossip. When not procrastinating from my dissertation, I spend time catering to Jellyby, our overly anxious shih tzu, and getting to know Mr. Hot Cocoa. We have only been dating for fifteen years, so it's like I'm in love with a stranger! From the East Coast, we are planning a Jewish-Chinese Extravaganza in L.A., where we both grew up.
I adore flowers, but I have to admit that I wasn’t one of those brides who obsessed about the personal flowers for the wedding. I had more of a “feel” than a concrete vision: I pictured slightly wild, romantic, not overly-manicured florals — more Grey Gardens than Cantitoe Corners. Kate, our awesome florist, took my vague suggestions and made prettiness happen.
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Mrs. Nachos, Chicago/St. Thomas
Age and Occupation: 33, Commercial Real Estate & Hairstylist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 36, Radio Producer
Engagement Date: May 22, 2009
Wedding Date: April 2010
Venue: Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort, St. Thomas
About Me: I'm a happy, laid back city girl that can find the silver lining in any situation. An optimist at heart, my motto is to turn your "what ifs?" into "so whats!". My fiance is a radio producer and the biggest Cubs fan you'll meet - our apartment decor definitely shows it. He and I grew up next door to each other and because of it, we have the best home videos and easiest holiday dinners. We are planning an intimate wedding in the Virgin Islands and a cocktail party in June for 150 of our closest friends.
Yesterday started out like any other day. I got to work at 7:30, had some coffee, and got the office up and running. And just like any other typical weekday, it got progressively bad. Demands were being made, I got stuck answering phones for hours (we let our receptionist go back in January and we now all have to take turns), and my normally chipper self was officially in a bad mood. I hate being in a bad mood and it really doesn’t happen very often, but today was one of those exceptions. After lunch, I got back to work and was counting the minutes, until that fateful moment, 2:36 pm to be exact, I got the email… I was officially a bee! Insert happy face here…
For the last few months, Weddingbee has been my obsession. I randomly found the site one day when I Googled my wedding dress style to try to see it on different people, and Miss Swan had the same dress.
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Mrs. Pudding, Greater Toronto Area/Vermont
Age and Occupation: 26, High School Teacher
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Computer Engineer
Engagement Date: August 2008
Wedding Date: July 2010
Venue: Catholic Ceremony, Cultural Hall Reception
About Me: Quite literally a citizen of the world, I was born in Poland, grew up in Canada, and now live in the beautiful state of Vermont. I love reading historical biographies, multi-tasking, teasing my hair, and, despite my height, wearing high heeled shoes. I am the ultimate klutz with an uncanny ability to put on a graceful front. Mr. Pudding and I have been dating for over six years, and are very excited to finally merge our (very large) families. We are planning a traditional Polish-Catholic wedding that is anything but predictable.
I have told you about my vision of having my bridesmaids wear long flowing dresses. I am still 100% behind this idea. However, I did have a bit of a wavering moment when Sister Pudding and her boyfriend came to visit a couple of weeks ago. We were enjoying lunch on a patio on Church Street in Burlington when we noticed a cute, short, navy blue dress in the window of a store across the street. Much to the dismay of my sister’s beau, we decided to drop in and try it on. They only had two dresses available, and even though the one on the floor was too small, the dress on the mannequin was in sister Pudding’s size! We had the sales girl take it out of the window, and my sister put it on.
Photo by me!
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Mrs. Star, New York City
Age and Occupation: 22, Actress
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Casting Assistant
Wedding Date: October 2009
Venue: Ceremony: The Kraine Theatre, Reception: Midtown Loft & Terrace
About Me: I’m a professional actress who’s always had New York City in her blood and I'm finally getting the chance to make a home in Manhattan with my fiancé, my dog, and my big dreams! I love polka dots, craft projects, Dunkin’ Donuts’ iced coffee, and anything sparkly. I’m having a blast planning our elegant/dramatic/New York City/acting-themed/largely-DIY wedding and am thrilled to be the youngest current Miss Blogger!
Perhaps the most fabulous memories of our “stellar” vacation in Greece are the glorious sunsets. They are so gorgeous that it’s worth planning your afternoon just to catch them from the perfect spot. We did a lot of that in Greece — just relaxing and waiting for the sunset:
I was all for taking it slow on our honeymoon and we were rewarded for our waiting and optimal sunset-viewing location jockeying for sure. Check out these pictures and tell me if you agree.
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Mrs. Spaniel, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 28, Law Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Psychologist
Wedding Date: March 2010
Venue: Calamigos Ranch
About Me: I'm a third-year law student trying to balance graduating with starting my career, keeping up a relationship, and, oh yeah, planning an Old World, multi-cultural, "mountain lodge" wedding for 180 guests! A South Asian Jewish girl getting ready to marry my handsome Catholic Dane, I'm hoping to blend our cultures in our wedding just a bit more gently than by providing samosas as appetizers and offering æbleskiver for dessert. (Although that would also be awesome.)
After deposits on the venue, our first wedding purchase was our Save the Date magnets.
We bought 75 mini-magnets from MagnetStreet Weddings (we were planning on sending about 80 invitations, but that includes separate invites for adult children living at home and I don’t think they need separate magnets for a shared refrigerator). 
I found a coupon at RetailMeNot.com for 25% off, which brought the total cost to $80.
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All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
Photo by me!
