Weddingbee Blog

For all obvious reasons, I’m thrilled to announce the FIRST St. Louis Bee Meet Up! For all of you St. Louis Bees out there, we will be meeting at Baileys Chocolate Bar in Lafayette Square on Wednesday, February 17 at 6:30 p.m.

Image courtesy of Dave Bailey

If you are interested in making an appearance, send ejs4y8 a private message and let her know! She will be making cute name tags for everyone attending (and, a big KUDOS to her for organizing this).

Hope to see you there!

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I have a confession to make: when it comes to hair, I’m completely helpless. I don’t own a blow dryer, a curling iron, a flat iron, or any other heavy equipment. I don’t know the first thing about extensions or updos and I can’t imagine waking up any earlier than I already do in order to DO my hair.

I only have myself and my freakin’ amazing hair stylist to blame. I tell her to make it choppy and that I’m never going to blow dry it and then I sit back and enjoy a head massage while she works miracles. A little goop, oil, or salt spray and I’m on my way in the morning. I like my messy hair.

And yet. I’m totally enamored with how glamorous my mom looks in this picture that hangs in our hallway:
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Last time I wrote about how Mr. Pug and I already have a lot of popular registry items. So, where did that leave us in terms of registering? Oh ho, don’t worry, we were not at a loss. Not here. I am happy to report, to what I’m sure is your great relief, that we indeed found some items that we are really really really excited to put on our registry.

Want to know the fancy* stuff? (Because who cares about the Microplane I registered for to replace my dying one…)

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It’s an end-grain, 20×14 inch cutting board. End-grain boards are the sturdiest, least prone to warping, and supposedly keep your blades in shape longer. But also, isn’t it pretty? At first I thought it looked kind of funky but now I LOVES IT.

*I realize at this point it may be dawning on you that my version of “fancy” is pretty lame, but I can’t hear your thoughts. Lalalalalala….

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I always wanted to be a ballerina as a child. And if I actually became one that could go en pointe, these are the pictures I would want on my wedding day.

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“All you need is love!”

“She loves you, yeah yeah yeah! And with a love like that, you know you should be glad.”

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Well, if you haven’t guessed by now, those are all quotes from Beatles’ songs. To put it bluntly, I. HEART. THE BEATLES. Like, know pretty much every single song, most of them by heart, and could listen to only Beatles songs for the rest of my life and be quite content.

So it made sense to ditch the traditional Canon in D for the processional, embrace the hippie-dippie vibe of our wedding and request the lead singer of our band to play a few acoustic/instrumental Beatles songs for the processional and recessional. Plus, he agreed to do it at no extra cost since they’ll have to be at the venue setting up anyways, so I managed to save a few hundred smackaroos by not hiring ceremony musicians.

While Mr Trail Mix, his parents and our bridesmaids and groomsmen walk down the aisle, The Characters will be playing an instrumental version of “Here Comes the Sun:”
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This is a bit out of order as far as the relationship, engagement, and wedding planning story goes. I mean, I haven’t even told you about the theme of the wedding yet (I’ll get there, I promise). But, for now, I’ve got a bunch of random ideas stuck in my head and I want to write them down before I forget.

Today’s random idea: S’mores

I don’t really want to do favors or anything for out of town guests, but I think gift bags are cute, I’d like to try and do some sort of DIY project, and I somehow really want to find a way to incorporate s’mores into the wedding. I LOVE s’mores - I grew up making them at campfires at my grandma’s lake house, but I’ll even make them in the microwave when I’m desperate. And, you can be assured that at every camping trip Mr. Gingham and I go on, these delicious little treats make an appearance. I even have my own special s’more stick (real metal, not just some tree branch). Another thing to note: I’m a burn-that-marshmallow-’til-it’s-super-black-and-crispy kind of girl. None of that light, golden brown stuff for me. And I like them with peanut butter. If you haven’t tried them that way, you must. It is amazing. Although, don’t try PB on them when having a beach bonfire… you’ll just get a mouth full of sand.

OK, back to the actual blog topic. I’ve been thinking about putting the s’more supplies in cute little bags with maybe a candle or something? I don’t think we can have outdoor burning at the barn, but we are hoping to get down the beach with everyone at some point (maybe after the rehearsal dinner).  Anyway, here’s a cute bag idea that would work:
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Back to programs. So we were going for Mrs. Cupcake, with a round twist.

With a general shape and size in mind, I got to work “designing” our programs. Let’s talk words first. Believe it or not, I actually couldn’t decide what to have on the cover. Here are two popular options:

• “The marriage celebration of…”
• “The wedding ceremony uniting…”

I couldn’t decide, so I mushed them together. Our programs read: “The marriage celebration uniting Deanna & Daniel.”

Now, lets make it pretty.

Step 1: Open PowerPoint (Cheeseburger Style, I told you), and change your slide size to 11 x 8.5″- Landscape.

Step 2: Draw a circle. Since our circle cards measured 5.5″ in diameter, I made mine 5.25″ and changed the color to a light grey.

Step 3: Add Text! I did each line in a different text box, so that I could squeeze them together vertically. Not surprisingly (if you read my last post), I chose peach sundress as the cover font (except for the ampersand, which is Little Lord Fontleroy).
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Originally, Mr. Sew and I hadn’t planned on fulfilling the tradition of folding a thousand paper cranes. We didn’t think we’d have to time, or want to take the effort.

Yet inevitably, I found myself with four 300-sheet packs of square origami paper.

We folded during our favorite TV shows and during our train rides home, mostly. And we finished in about a month. 1,001 in total.

Here’s a video we made to commemorate the feat:

1,001 Cranes from penga on Vimeo.

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ZoeZhang’s vintage teacup centerpieces were a dainty addition to her tablescapes!

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 want to make sure that we continue the whimsy of our decor on to the gift table! The one that Carlouel sets out is a very long rectangular table… and with so many OOT guests, I am not anticipating many gifts to be delivered in person on the wedding day. However, I really don’t want the table to look empty, so I wanted to spice it up a little bit! I collected a few odds and ends, and I plan on arranging them in some way.

Here are a few of my trials thus far:

I found the “Love” sign at Jo-Ann Fabrics on sale for 40% off… $5! The blue pillar candle holder was also a Jo-Ann’s steal…

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We didn’t just have a wedding cake. We had wedding cakes. And we put them in the middle of every table so that our guests could feast with their eyes first.

I wish I could give you each tastes of this cake… if you’re ever in Norfolk or Virginia Beach, go to No Frill Bar and Grill and order a piece of the 4 Layer Coconut Creme cake. Moist, flavorful, perfect - these are all understatements. Just eat the cake and become a believer like me. I made one call about the cakes. No Frills put me in touch with their baker, I gave the name and number to my wedding planner, and 12 beautiful cakes met me when I saw our reception set up.
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Have I mentioned this? We had an icebreaker at my most recent all-staff meeting (my organization lurves icebreakers) where everyone had to give one strange fact about themselves and we all tried to guess which fact matched which person. I went with my old standby: I own over 300 pairs of underwear.

I digress.

One of my favorite things to consider are underthings. Underthings that will be under my dress. Oh yes.

I am of the belief that what you wear under your clothes should be for your own enjoyment and to make you feel beautiful/comfortable/sexy/pretty/wild/sweet or whatever word and feeling you’re going for each day.

On my wedding day, I want my underthings to make me feel gorgeous and simple. My dress will be lace, the whole day will be pretty intense, and I want to just feel gorgeous and simple. So, the hunt begins for my wedding day underthings.

These could do the trick, perhaps:
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Hiya! How’s it going? I am back and ready to do a little more planning with you all. Not wedding planning this time though… now we’re on to HONEYMOON planning!

In case you’re new and don’t remember the Mary Janes, we got married on Sept. 9, 2009 in the courthouse. I just spent a shit-load of time updating my bio so that you can check out my wedding details in one nice little place. Enjoy!

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Last year, Mr. Mary Jane and I made the decision to postpone our honeymoon. We had a lot of reasons for doing this, ranging from unstable finances to busy semester schedules. But boy, did we feel it! Going right back to work and school after getting married kind of sucked and really didn’t put the “exclamation point” on our wedded bliss. (So if you’re on the fence, definitely take some kind of honeymoon right after your wedding if at ALL possible. I highly recommend.)

Due to a friend’s May wedding an some classes we’re taking in May/June, our honeymoon would be pushed to July. Early August would be OK too, but we don’t want to return home and go directly back to school. And my job gets kind of busy during August too. Long story short, we’re now focused on finding something unforgettable and awesome to do between late June and mid-August.
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We nailed down our colors pretty early. And, as cliche as it is for a fall wedding, we really want to go with reds and oranges. I had contemplated navy blue for a short period of time, but reds and oranges beat it out.

And, even though our wedding is in the fall, and reds and oranges are everywhere, I want to use them in a different way. My initial thought was to go with the color of fall foliage, but it just seems too overdone. And, after I had redesigned our invitation suite the first time (there were many revisions after that), I thought the best thing to do was stick with fresh and bold colors. So, with that being said, here are our colors:

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I created an inspiration board right off the bat. The goal was to keep it modern and fresh and to replace traditional elements with new ones, and make the style more about us.

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My mom got married in the late ’60s and she still has her veil and some extra lace. I was recently in Dallas and she suggested that I use it for something on my wedding day. As you all know, I’m not the craftiest of girls, so I need some ideas! But first, let me show you a picture of me in the veil:

That’s right, it has a little hat attached, and I do mean little.
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