Weddingbee Blog

Um… hello. (crickets)

I’m not very good at public speaking, but I guess I’ll just jump right in.

How did I find Weddingbee?

I am an official venue stalker, just like Miss Cola, and on one of the many venue-stalking days I was Googling my little heart out and I came across this girl named Mrs. Apple. What? So I clicked and realized that there were so many posts about her wedding, and it all took place at our venue. Score!! And then I realized that not only was Mrs. Apple a Weddingbee blogger, but so were a lot of other awesome girls. I was officially hooked. But, although I went to Weddingbee daily and clicked refresh more times than I care to admit, I was not a girl that commented often. Entering a blog community is overwhelming, and I was just a little scared to take the plunge and comment.

My application story:

I started a blog shortly after we got engaged in March and I didn’t apply to Weddingbee until August. When I initially started blogging, it was not with the intent of applying to Weddingbee. To be honest, I didn’t even know if I was going to tell anyone about my blog. I kept it a big secret for a while and let my ideas and voice develop. Slowly I grew more confident about my blog and started telling some friends. The response I got was really positive, so then I started telling a few more people. My blog was most definitely my place to organize my thoughts and ideas and I would even send links to vendors so that they could understand what I was hoping to achieve on our wedding day.

My photographer read my blog often and told me that she thought I had real potential. I thought it was sweet, but just put her comments aside and kept doing what I was doing. Well, then Pengy posted about the new generation of bees and I got excited about all the junk food options and started thinking that maybe I should apply. The night I applied, Mr. Fro Yo and I went out to dinner and I had a couple margaritas and got the courage to go home and apply. When I filled out my application, I just said the first things that came to mind and didn’t dwell on it (which I think was a good thing). Who knows, maybe I had the shortest application in Weddingbee history, but it worked! Then, I ran around the house saying, “I hope they pick me,” over and over. I was pretty sure that Mr. Fro Yo hoped they did too, so that I would shut up. I applied on a Saturday night and got an email on Monday morning saying I was a bee! I couldn’t believe it! I could not stop smiling the entire day.

On being a Weddingbee Blogger:

My first day as a bee was one of the most exciting days ever. I was on cloud nine waiting for my post to go up. Once it did and everyone was so welcoming I was hooked on comments! People warned that maybe I would get some snarky comments so I should just brace myself, but for some reason I just thought, ‘nope, I won’t get bothered.’ Well, my first snarky comment definitely had me a little sad. OK, a lot sad. But seriously, this has been such an amazing experience and I feel very lucky. There are so many times that I was uncertain about how to accomplish something, or needed help deciding which item to choose, and you wonderful girls here have pointed me in the right direction. Oftentimes too, girls will PM me and ask me a question about something I’ve blogged about, or share their experience or advice with me, and I am so appreciative. I love hearing from everyone and your comments are definitely much appreciated! It’s sad, but when a post of mine gets very few comments, I start to think that my ideas are boring. But, I think that sometimes post topics just have to hit you at the right time in your planning process to speak to you, so I’m working on not thinking I’m lame because 25 people didn’t say, “good job, Fro Yo!”

Tips for writing for the ’bee:

I don’t know that I have any ideas that haven’t already been shared, but I’ll try my best:

1. Be yourself. There are so many different personalities, ideas, and interests around the blog, someone is going to identify with you and your ideas. Don’t try to write like someone else you’ve seen because people want to get to know you and your ideas. Plus, you won’t be able to keep up your fake persona in every post, and why would you want to?
2. Use pictures, and more pictures to represent the ideas you’re blogging about. Oh, and credit these photos so that you don’t have to go back and find the sources for all the photos you used before you were a bee and were too lazy to credit things because you didn’t think anyone was going to read your blog anyway. They might, so it’s worth it. My intro day was delayed because I had to do that, and it took FOREVER.
3. Realize that blogging takes time (like this post, I think I’ve been working on for about an hour and it’s not even long). So know that it’s a time commitment, and readers do get upset when you’re gone for long periods of time.
4. Start posts as you think of them and leave them in draft form. I do this ALL the time. I’ll think of a post idea, but then forget it about 5 minutes later. One way I avoid doing that is to just start a post and write something so small, like “being a bridesmaid and a bride” or “Mr. Fro Yo’s ring” and then I’ll fill the rest in later.
5. Don’t think you need to be a crafting genius like Martha to be a bee. I’m the most craft challenged bride, and somehow I got picked. So, don’t avoid applying because of that. We love all types of bees around here. Even the ones that rely on Etsy for their crafty items, like me.
6. Lastly, don’t get discouraged. Period. Many of the bees applied a couple times. Afterward, they went back, reworked some posts and tried again, and I’m so glad they did.