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Weddingbee Blog
I’ve never been too keen on the idea of favors. I don’t know why, but I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea, and definitely couldn’t justify a large price tag for them. Of course, what I thought before planning a wedding and what I think while planning a wedding are often two different things, it turns out.
No lace/beading/detailing on my wedding dress? –> Sure, I’ll buy that lace dress!
No need for flowers to decorate the ceremony space? –> Yes, why don’t we add some arrangements at the ’altar’!
Why waste money on fancy shmancy printing techniques? –> Swoon over, then “must have” letterpress invites!
{Sigh… don’t worry, I’ve reined it in elsewhere}
So, it’s really no surprise to me that after swearing off expensive (or any?) favors, I fell in love with an idea that’s sure to prove pricey. I’ve had this idea in the back of my mind since I first saw them, so I decided it was finally time to figure out how much they would actually cost, and whether it is reasonable. Curious what it is, yet? The title of this post really gives it away…
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Last week, all of us Chicago bees got together for a holiday party and it was, to say the least, a blast! Mrs. Emerald was so gracious to host the party at her gorgeous home and I was very excited to meet the local bees. Everyone brought a dish to share and we ended up with a huge assortment of yummy treats…
So… my Christmas was an interesting one. One that was a little sad and a little stressful. Let me explain.
See, wha’ ha’ happened was…
Mr. Rainbow and I decided to forgo Christmas gifts for the most part this year. When we first got engaged, we were planning on having a lot of help from my family. All in all, Mr. R and I were only going to be covering about 40% of the wedding costs ourselves. Of course, Murphy’s Law stepped in, and due to some unforeseen circumstances (i.e. the craptastic economy), at about the 7 month mark we realized that we’d basically be footing the whole bill ourselves, or at least a good 90% of it. As I said, we decided not to do Christmas presents this year in an effort to save every extra dime we had in order to be able to pay for the wedding. Needless to say, my “Christmas Spirit” was something akin to a lump of coal covered in reindeer poo.
Christmas has always been a really special holiday for me, and the fact that we were essentially treating it like every other day of the year was really bothering me. It was the second year in a row that I wasn’t able to see my dad for Christmas (I’m a total daddy’s girl, I cried at work last year when I found out he wasn’t coming to FL for Christmas), add that to the fact that there were zero presents under the tree when I woke up (guess Santa really isn’t real), and I had absolutely no desire to spend the holidays with my extended family if my dad wasn’t going to be there. So, I woke up and 5am Christmas morning and spent the first 30 minutes of my day taking down our Christmas tree. It sucked.
When Mr. Rainbow saw what I was doing, he asked me what was wrong. We sat down and talked and talked and crunched some numbers and talked some more.
I hope you had a wonderful holiday! We’re kicking the new week off with a new bee! You might also recognize her as a prolific member on the boards, and we’re thrilled to welcome her as a bee!
Miss Buttons, Blacksburg, VA/Clearwater, FL
Age & Occupation: 24, “Working on it”
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 28, Financial Services
Engagement Date: June 13, 2009
Wedding Date: May 2010
Venue: Carlouel Yacht Club
About Me: I’m a self proclaimed perfectionist and a professional nomad (seriously, I’ve lived in TX, WI, MI, FL, NC, and now VA!). I love wine, cooking, curling up with a good book (nerd alert!), spoiling the furbaby, and of course, the wonderful Mr. Buttons! We are planning a lighthearted and whimsical wedding (with a good deal of DIY projects) in Clearwater, Florida, but from a distance of 800 miles away! We are looking forward to sharing our day with our family and friends, and most importantly, starting our lives together as husband and wife!
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.”
When I last left you, we had just completed our marathon day of registering. As we got into the car to head home, I became overwhelmed with feelings of guilt. Registry guilt. Catholic, Italian, registry guilt (I hear it’s the worst kind). 
I couldn’t help but think about the moment that our guests first looked at our registry…
“What are they thinking registering for $400 pots!?!”
“A 300 dollar mixer, are you kidding me!?”
“What do they need all these extra pillowcases for!?”
I. Felt. Horrible.
Mr. Burger tried to calm me down, and when that wasn’t working I called Cheeseburger Mom. At first, she didn’t quite know what to say, but eventually she assured me that people would just not buy us things that they couldn’t afford - no big deal.
While I had known that all along, and also that a registry is “just a wish list,” I guess the honest truth is that in the past I have been the one saying “a 300 dollar mixer, are you kidding me!?!” when looking at other peoples’ registries.
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When I started out on this adventure called “planning our wedding” 15 months ago, I wanted to do it all, and had the time to get it all done. I had a very extensive DIY list, which included: invitations (and all wedding-related paper products), pomanders, napkins, a DIY photobooth concept, and many other projects that I can’t even remember.
Well…I think that John Lennon said it best: “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” I had big wedding DIY plans… and, one by one, they’ve started to fizzle out as we’ve gotten busy in other non-wedding areas. We got a puppy! We worked on our house! We went on vacation! We rekindled our love of DVR! (OK, that one never really went away.) The point is, I managed to get the pomanders done (and I’m so proud of them!) but the other projects? Yeah. About those. I’ve procrastinated, and hemmed and hawed about them, and realized that while I might be crafty, I may have bitten off a bit more than I could chew.
The napkins? We might be renting linens, and they just wouldn’t fit with what we picked out. (I’ll be re-purposing the fabric into our guestbook… stay tuned for that!). The photobooth is still up in the air, but it’s kind of low on the priority list right now. And the invitations? Oh… the invitations.
You see, I had great plans for the invitations!
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
There are two dresses that I think about from time to time during my moments of dress-doubt. One of the hard things for me about shopping for dresses was eliminating all those that, for whatever reason, weren’t as good as the top choice. I know that sounds silly and obvious, but different dresses convey different feelings/moods/qualities and you’d like to be able to take advantage of all of those.
Here were my runner-ups. Please meet Anya and Arnaude.
I fell in love with the simple elegance of Anya. Anya hails from Amsale, and was so simply chic, elegant, and Jackie O. This is probably the one time I’m going to say this, but it looked better on me than it does on this model (probably b/c she is too emaciated to fill it out, even a little).
Alas, I felt that maybe she was *too* sophisticated for me, that the high neckline swallowed me up and imposed on me an older identity than I wanted.
Finally, there was Arnaude. Oh, Arnaude.
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Congratulations to winners krissycake, egg roll, Renee Libby, Cole B and asunw!
~~~
With its coastal towns, bustling metropolises, luxurious resorts and stunning landscapes, Mexico is a gorgeous and affordable honeymoon destination for newlyweds. Today we’re giving away five copies of Fodor’s 2010 Mexico guide!
To enter, just leave a comment below! And be sure to check out Fodor’s guide to top Mexican getaway locations. The contest ends tonight at midnight PST. Good luck!
A bird’s-eye look at White_n’s bright bouquet.
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.
I’ve been trying to think of what we’ll do for our signature cocktails, which will really just be cocktails made with the on-hand bar selection, but something that we can think up a cute name for.
I really want lavender martinis, and the bar manager at The Mountain Terrace is going to look into getting the lavender mixer for me, but that’s all that I’ve been able to think of that fits our color scheme. There’s a serious lack of purple drinks it seems, unless you want to do something with grape juice or food coloring.
One drink that I did try to make up with ingredients in our house was vodka, black raspberry liquor (it’s a dark purple color), then half sprite and half pineapple juice. It was purple and yummy, but an ugly, milky purple from the pineapple juice.
My mom also found a drink called an Aviation, which is 1 1/2 ounces gin, 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur, 1/2 ounce creme de violette, and1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice. It’s pretty, but after doing some research, creme de violette is pretty impossible to find.
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Or at least that’s how I felt when we got the first glimpse of our engagement photos!
That morning I was elbow-deep in solvent and ink when I heard my blackberry a-buzzin’. There was nothing unusual about that, so I kept on doin’ my printmaking thing. After I de-gloved and cleaned off, I went to go check my phone, and lo and behold, there was an email from Matt Miller. Our engagement shots were up on his blog. I (slightly frantically) packed my stuff up and drove like a demon home to check them. Was I going to look like an oaf? Did my lack of posy-cheese-smile and my massive amounts of being a spaz ruin the shots?
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I was pretty excited that Papa Spaniel’s sisters in Pakistan were having shalwar kameez made for me for the Mehndi (henna party), in addition to earrings and bangles for the wedding (I’ll tell you about the jewelry in another post). Well, Papa Spaniel has returned and brought all the pieces with him. Of course, as is bound to happen when you leave hardcore shopping completely in the hands of your sexagenarian aunties, you might not always end up with exactly what you wanted!
Since I was born and raised in Southern California without a lot of exposure to my South Asian heritage (only Papa Spaniel is Pakistani; Mama Spaniel is fourth generation Russian/Polish/Hungarian), and have always dressed… well, like the California girl that I am, I have no idea what is fashionable or current in Karachi right now. But I do know what I like, and I was really hoping Papa Spaniel would come home with something like one of these.
Now that we had a more substantial idea of what type of party we want – a fun excuse to get all dressed up, complete with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (ha, I have to look up how to spell that every time!), it was a lot easier finding venues to look at. Being so close to Wrigley Field plops us right smack in the middle of lots of places including restaurants, bars, small theaters, etc., so I sent out emails for quotes to most of the places I could think of. I learned early on not to mention that this was going to be anything wedding related because instantly, the price seemed to shoot up. So I simply asked for a quote for a cocktail party for around 100 people, although we really have no idea how many people we’ll have at this point, so that was my guesstimate. I received a reply from one of my all-time favorite restaurants that we order from at least once a week – Vines on Clark.
Outside at Night
On my birthday in November, I got a birthday gift from Mr. Guinea Pig, and boy oh boy was I excited: I got a sewing machine!
When I gushed to my friends about how excited I was that Mr. Guinea Pig got me a sewing machine, most of them looked at me suspiciously. As one (male) colleague put it, “He got away with giving you a sewing machine as a birthday gift?! That’s like saying, ‘honey, hem my pants, iron my shirts, and I’d like a souffle for dinner’.” What?! He went on to say that his girlfriend would kill him if he got her a sewing machine. I pointed out that I had pretty much straight-up asked for one, but that left most people unconvinced.
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