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Lavender is the herb of choice to inspire a natural (or nature-themed) wedding—just ask Miss Trail Mix or Mrs. Bear Cub. It’s clear why, what with the beautiful scent and the pretty purple tips that add visual interest and a country-chic feel. But there just doesn’t seem to be a lot of love for my favorite herb, the plain green rosemary, in weddings these days.
(source)
I’m sure you all have been holding your breath, just waiting to hear about our venue. 
Well, now you can breathe easy - here it is, the place Mr. Guinea Pig and I fell in love with on our venue adventures!
The Chesapeake Bay Beach Club
In particular, the Beach House Ballroom!
Let me start the pictures with the part that sold us on the venue (again, keeping in mind that I took my pictures in February on an overcast day, when things aren’t exactly leafy green and flowering).
(The ceremony lawn we’ll use, with the Chesapeake Bay - and bridge - behind it)
A while back, I asked all of you for help with our reception signs. You offered up your best rhymes but nothing clicked until I got home and looked at my stamp collection. I’d bought an adorable stamp from Hobby Lobby with the word “Love” on it, which I used on our out-of-town bags. I decided I’d make the signs cohesive by incorporating the stamp into each sign somehow.
I sent the stamped stationery off to Pretty Pen Jen in Texas and here’s what I got back. I used samples of Crane’s Lettra letterpress paper for this signage. Yay for free paper!
Photo by Amanda Wilson
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
Yes, the holidays are approaching quickly, but what’s a holiday season without a few parties to attend? The wonderful Mr and Mrs Dahlia invited all the New York City bees (and other bees who happened to be in the area that day) to their beautiful home for some eats and treats, along with mulled wine, eggnog and specialty beers. It was quite the food feast (bacon-wrapped dates=best thing EVER!) and so much fun to get to know some of the bees in real-life.
Although the weather outside was frightful, the atmosphere inside was delightful. Mr and Mrs Dahlia were incredibly gracious hosts and served up a smorgasbord of appetizers, including pizza rolls, stuffed mushrooms, spinach croquettes, various cheeses and other goodies that we made short work of.
A few highlight pics (all by the beautiful Mrs Caramel!)…
Mr and Mrs Dahlia (Mr Dahlia rocked that apron, let me tell ya!)
Lazy people like me!
In my last post in what has got to be the largest number of posts that one can squeeze from their save the date creation, I want to quickly tell you about the return address. The idea of handwriting our address 30 times (not to mention the outer invitation envelope, RSVP envelope, and many mess-ups I’m sure will ensue) did not appeal to me. Yah, I know this number is way less than for most people, but please see “lazy” apart above.
I started looking into custom rubber stamps and came across Impress Rubber Stamps , which has been blogged about before on Weddingbee. They have a good selection of sizes, and I bought a 2″ x 3″ customizable stamp for $13.50.
All you have to do is, after placing an order, email them a pdf of the exact image you want on the rubber stamp. To determine what image (i.e. my address) to send, I used a really advanced design program called Microsoft Word, drew various boxes to represent the envelopes and experimented with different font types and sizes (downloaded for free from Urban Fonts) to come up with our final font size and style. For fonts, I was deciding between:
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Here are a select few engagement photos that Mr. Nachos and I loved and we got great feedback from…
Hi ladies!
First of all, let me apologize for not blogging for so long! There has been a lot of drama in my life in the past three weeks (work, wedding, etc.) but I am slowly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, a glimmer, anyway. The good news is, I found a dress!! Hooray! As you might remember from this post, the last “decision” I had made was to have the Monique Lhuillier dress custom made for me at a cheaper price. Since my parents live in Taiwan, they were going to see if they could have it made there. They found a tailor who was going to make it for me, but then backed out because she didn’t want to make the bust without me being there. So I stalked Fashionbride’s blog for a couple of weeks and looked through J.Crew’s wedding dresses (again). Then last week I heard from a friend that Mia Couture, one of the first stores I went to, was having a sample sale! I first went to Mia Couture back in February of this year with MOH Sis and BM Lil’ J. I love the store, and my sales lady, Emily, was everything you can hope for: friendly, understanding, with impeccable taste. However, at the time, I couldn’t afford the two dresses I loved (hey, a girl’s allowed to have expensive taste! 
) so I left the store empty-handed. Here are the two dresses I picked out back in February:
(Mr. Chick: STOP READING HERE!)
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This whole “first look” idea isn’t something I’ve ever completely understood. I didn’t think it was super important to not see Mr. Sprinkle all day, but he did. Then suddenly, we had to look at each other and probably get all teary with people watching?! Weeeeeird. Really, the whole reason we did it was so we could make sure to get some fancy drinks and eat snacks and give hugs during cocktail hour, instead of posing for pictures.
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I wrote earlier with a little invitation teaser, and I think it’s time for a follow-up.
After DIYing our Save the Dates, though we were pleased with the outcome, we weren’t overly wowed. The quality of the printing left something to be desired, and it was actually a lot more work than I thought it would be! Cheeseburger Brother had to do a million drafts because I’m super picky, and then our colors were off when it came time to print, and we had to adjust at the store (I felt terrible putting that kind of pressure on my brother). All in all it just sort of became obvious to me that DIY invites, though potentially cost saving (though still not cheap if you plan to outsource your printing!) may not be in the stars for us.
Then I came across this post and was BLOWN AWAY by the couple’s invite. It was so colorful and bright and cheery and just dripping with love (come on, a tree with initials carved in it? so cute!). I tracked down the designer, and it was Kristy Rice of Momental Designs (a Weddingbee PRO!). As you know, she does gorgeous, customized, INDIVIDUALLY HAND-PAINTED invitations. What?! Yes. Individually. Hand. Painted. I was (basically almost) sold. Once I heard the price, however, I was definitely sold. For a very reasonable price, we are going to get a gorgeous invitation suite from a professional who (did I mention?) hand paints details on each invitation. Right.
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Have you ever found a photo of an item that is absolutely perfect for your wedding, but then you’re unable to find said item from the photo? Well, that happens to me all the time. For one, there is an unbelievable amount of talent around Weddingbee and the many blogs I read, and a lot of these talented women make the items they photograph. That’s just not an option for this non-crafty bride. Secondly, I always seem to be a tad bit too late to bid on an item, and then it’s gone. An example?
This:
While wandering the aisles of Target (er, the picture frame aisle, more precisely, where I was looking for a 16×20″ poster frame for our seating chart and found one for $5.99, score!), I started thinking about what we might do for our table numbers. Should I pick up smaller, matching frames for those, too, I wondered?
The answer was, of course not! “Matching” is just so passé these days. Instead, one idea led to another and I started to get the idea in my mind that older—or at least distressed—wood would make great frames for old photos. Old wedding photos. Old wedding photos of people who are related to us, more specifically.
(source)
(Okay, so maybe these people aren’t related to us. But I swear I’ve seen family photos like this!)
So, this was it: we were all prepped and beautified, my ladies were already dressed and ready to go, and my lovely dress was just waiting to be donned.
You know all those lovely, ethereal pictures of wedding dresses just hanging gracefully, looking as though they’re dangling from a cloud? Yeah, I didn’t get those. Which doesn’t particularly bother me and wasn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just that our apartment was so stuffed to the brim with people and stuff that shots of my dress came out looking more like this:
Decidedly ungraceful, but perfect just the same, because these shots remind me so vividly of exactly what that day was like and how I felt.
One of the things my friend who recently got married used to joke about was the fact that if her husband wanted her to look her best on her wedding day, he better be prepared for some Spanx removal that night. I’ve heard this a few times actually, people debating between whether they want to wear something ’shape controlling’ or ’sexy’ under their wedding dress (especially if it’s a curve-hugging dress!).
A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that Spanx now has a line called “Haute Contour” (funny)! They say: “Have your shape and sexy too…” and I have to say, I quite like a couple of the pieces, and they all come in a color that would easily be disguised under a white dress! My favorites are these:
(Luxe Thong, in Blush)
..BBQ?!
Yes, the words spoken by my very own mother. She is the most generous, selfless, wonderful person I know, but when faced with the prospect of a “BBQ Reception”, let’s just say she didn’t take to the idea very well. The conversation went a little something like this:
Me: “So, we’ve decided we’re going go with a different caterer and have BBQ at the reception! Fun, huh?”
Mom: “BBQ? Don’t you think it’s a little messy and unsophisticated for a wedding?”
Me: Silence
Mom: “I would be worried that people would be thinking ’I came all this way for their wedding, and all I got was BBQ?!’”
Me: “Sigh… Yeah… I guess…”
Feeling defeated, I resigned myself to the caterer that we had already booked, but I just couldn’t shake the BBQ idea. Mr. Rainbow and I both fell in love with the idea of a BBQ reception as soon as I suggested it. We LOVE BBQ, no doubt about it. Sure, it’s messy, but it would create such a fun, laid back atmosphere, and really, that’s exactly what we’re going for. We certainly don’t want a fancy schmancy reception, and if we did, we wouldn’t be marrying outdoors with a 30 person guest list, am I right? Plus, who doesn’t like BBQ?!
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