Mrs. Pencils, Washington DC/Frederick, MDAge and Occupation: 24, Program Director, Education Non ProfitFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Administrative Assistant, Ocean Conservation Non ProfitEngagement Date: July 26, 2008Wedding Date: May 2010Venue: Morningside InnAbout Me: I'm a nerdy Northwestern girl who always knew she was meant to live in the East, harboring a deep love of ice cream, underwear, Diet Coke with a splash of Coca-Cola, pashminas, scrapbooking, stationery, wall calendars and books written for preteens. I think every day should include good thin crust pizza, chocolate, an obscure historical monument, lots of laughter, a dash of wedding planning and, of course, amazing Mr. Pencils! I'm loving the adventure of planning a Maryland wedding and Rocky Mountain reception, and most of all, I just love love!
Lush, luscious, lovely les fleurs. That’s what we Pencils immersed ourselves in a few weekends back. We went on a flower scouting trip with Mr. P’s grandmother, who has graciously agreed to make our reception centerpieces, to the local flower mart. It was cold but fun! Even if you’re not doing your own flowers, I recommend visiting a wholesale flower shop. We were surrounded by such wonderful flowers on a dreary March day!
We were looking for lush round flowers to go with our square vases at the reception tables. We found some great possibilities! Of course, all I had was my Blackberry camera, so please forgive:
Mrs. Frozen Yogurt, DallasAge and Occupation: 28, Special Projects CoordinatorFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Equity TraderEngagement Date: March 19, 2009Wedding Date: April 2010Venue: Marie Gabrielle, DallasAbout 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.
So, I was thinking about this the other day: I really wish my wedding dress had a cool name like other dresses that I hear about. “Oh, I’m wearing the Marisa,” or, “I’m wearing the Lola.” Is there one named Lola? I have no idea, but if there was, it would be way better than my dress, which is named 1900. Yep, 1900. I get that it’s practical and it’s probably the stock number, but why couldn’t Mr. Casablanca (I’m assuming it was he who made the decision to name my dress) get a little more creative?
Don’t take this post to mean that I’m not in love with my dress, I assure you that I am, BUT, I think I would love it even more if it had a catchy, cool girl name. Perhaps something Moroccan? Maybe Laila, Zahra or even Amina. Or if they have shoes or dresses named Kelsey (my name) I am automatically drawn to them.
How cool would it be if you fell in love with a wedding dress that shared your name? It would be like it was made specifically for you without that custom price tag, like this dress: Read more…
Mrs. Sewing, San Mateo, CA/Honolulu, HIAge and Occupation: 24, Electrical EngineerFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Electrical EngineerEngagement Date: June 27, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Anela Garden Chapel & Japanese Cultural Center, HonoluluAbout Me: I'm an easily entertained, compulsive idea-scheming machine who loves good art, good food, and a good engineering challenge. I'm planning a half-destination wedding on the beautiful island of Oahu - imagine a plethora of movies, art and games; savory Hawaiian food; blended Chinese and Japanese cultural details; lush, fragrant tropical flowers and all the air conditioning a NorCal native could want! And once I marry the love of my life, we'll come back to the 'mainland' to party it up all over again in my hometown of Salinas, the salad-bowl capital of the world!
Right off the bat, our red, black and white color scheme was picked, because it’s manly, easy to find, and it matches our home (as much as one could match a home full of anime).
Done deal, right? Not so much. The bakery asked what shade of red to make our red ribbon. The florist wanted to know how dark a red rose to use in our bouquets. My mother asked what hue of red my sister’s dress needed to be. Mr. Sew’s brother wanted to make sure his red tie matched the red in the invitations.
Okay, he didn’t really ask that last one, but you get the point. Does shade matter? It’s debatable. For me, exact matches aren’t as important, but since they were asking…
Mrs. Jellyfish, Pleasanton, CAAge and Occupation: 27, Law StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Air Force PilotEngagement Date: February 21, 2009Wedding Date: September 2010Venue: Casa Real at Ruby Hill WineryAbout Me: In a nutshell, I’m the most optimistic worrywart you’ll ever meet. My family emigrated from Romania to San Jose, CA when I was 8, and I've been a Nor Cal girl ever since! My fiancé is also a Bay Area native, so it’s funny that we met at UCLA, as college freshmen living on the same floor (go Bruins!). Between his career as an Air Force pilot and my path to becoming a lawyer, our relationship has been anything but typical. We currently live together in Berkeley with our puppy Stinson. In addition to spending time with the loves of my life, I enjoy crafting, attempting complicated recipes, environmental law and non-law school reading (Us Weekly, anyone?). Follow along as I plan an elegant 200-person winery wedding, graduate law school, take the Bar exam, get married and get used to the always unpredictable but never boring life of a military spouse!
While I’m still mulling over the possibility of shelling out the big bucks for letterpress invites*, I’ve decided that other stationery items—like Thank You cards—are less of a priority for me. And as much as I’d love to have personalized Thank You cards, even the digital offset ones on Wedding Paper Divas cost around $1.63 each. Of course, I could just DIY these, but … I’m too lazy? Luckily for me, I found the most adorable Thank You cards online the other day. Behold! Affordable, adorable letterpress Thank You cards from Target:
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.
Mrs. Starfish, Boston/NewportAge and Occupation: 25, Operations AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, SalesEngagement Date: October 8, 2008Wedding Date: October 2010Venue: The Atlantic Beach ClubAbout Me: I'm a perfectionist who is a planner at heart. I don't do well with surprises. I love planning, crafting, Newport RI, family and friends, and most importantly, Mr. Starfish---all of which will be big components in our October wedding in our favorite little city by the sea.
After my first trip to Madeleine’s Daughter, I needed to plan a second trip to bring my bridesmaids to help me make a big decision. Which dress to choose?
When we arrived in the store, eight months since my last visit, they no longer had samples for me to try of the two dresses I was deciding between. I was left with only my pictures and memories of how I felt trying them on. Luckily, I did have the pictures. One of the two is shown below, and I had thought this was the one. It wasn’t until getting home and staring at the photos of the two dresses that I knew I’d made my choice.
I loved this dress in person, but after looking at it in photos, I felt the bottom half was a little too flowy and not as flattering as the other one I liked. Read more…
Mrs. Quiche, Chicago/Montego BayAge and Occupation: 28, Interior DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 42, Telecom GuruEngagement Date: July 2, 2008Wedding Date: May, 2009Venue: Coyaba Resort, Montego BayAbout Me: I love Chicago and can’t imagine living anywhere else (Well, except Paris. Or anywhere in France, for that matter!). I’m a full-time worker, part-time student, soon-to-be-step-mom, indie music lovin’, architecture and design fanatic, macaroni and cheese addict, vegetarian, Francophile, Ohio State football obsessed, wedding planning girl. Mr. Quiche and I are “Partners-in-Crime” and cannot wait to celebrate our marriage surrounded by our family and closest friends. I plan on DIYing my little heart out (or as much as a suitcase to Jamaica will hold).
I hadn’t planned on blogging about our honeymoon, but we had such a lovely (lov-i-lee) time in Ireland, I thought I’d do a brief overview of our trip. The day after the wedding, we flew back to Chicago, unpacked our bags, repacked our bags, slept, woke up & went back to O’Hare to fly to Dublin. It was a whirlwind travel day & was quite exhausting, but luckily we conked out on our trans-Atlantic flight, missing everything from beverage service to meals & woke up when we landed.
Here was our itinerary:
Days 1 - 3: Dublin
Days 3 - 5: Galway (base point for the Cliffs of Mohr and The Burren)
Days 5 - 7: Dingle
Days 7 - 8: Kinsale
In Dublin, we stayed at The Westbury. It is centrally located on Grafton Street, which is a great boutique street bookended by Trinity College and St. Stephen’s Green. I highly recommend checking out the Book of Kells at Trinity. I am fascinated by illuminated manuscripts, and these did not disappoint.
Our hotel room that was bigger than my first apartments in Chicago. Combined
Mrs. Oyster, DallasAge and Occupation: 30, Music TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 46, Art TeacherEngagement Date: January 9, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: The Tower ClubAbout Me: I'm a Texa-Californian with a penchant for sparkly things and a tendency to think a lot. I've been known to sing random songs or dance when there is no music on. My fiance and I love world culture, we love to travel, and we have an incredibly eclectic taste in music. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to celebrate our marriage with our family & closest friends. We're planning an “urban black-tie” wedding and hope to incorporate our personalities and some of our own interests. We look forward to a life of love, laughter, good music, beautiful art, and to creating our home together with our four (!) cats.
So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I want to look at my wedding, and I started doing some research. As it turns out, many of the dresses I thought were a possibility suddenly weren’t.
By now, I wonder if every bride hasn’t heard of the “bridal sizing shock”, but I certainly hadn’t until I was a few months into planning. Luckily, many designers include patterns for their dresses up to size 24, but many simply don’t go up that far. I knew this, but thought I could get the dress custom sized. But then I started looking at the extra fees! Most of them are not too bad.
I thought this info might be helpful for those just starting out with their dress shopping. When I started shopping, I was a little too intimidated to call around and when I did, often the bridal salon staff didn’t know or wasn’t sure. I mean, if you’re going to squeeze into a too-small dress, you don’t want it to be in vain, right?
For a “street size” 24/26/28, here are some designers whose dresses will definitely fit: Read more…
Mrs. Turtle, Central CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 21, Art Student/TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 22, English StudentEngagement Date: August 16, 2008Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Mr. Turtle's Grandparents' backyard, Arroyo Grande, CAAbout Me: I am a California girl who loves the beach and the mountains, but is quite satisfied living right in the middle where I can enjoy the best of both worlds. I am happiest when traveling to faraway places, wandering through museums, watching old movies, or baking up a storm. Mr. Turtle and I are high school sweethearts and fellow book nerds who both drive Mini Coopers and are most likely to be found browsing in antique stores. We're having so much fun planning our European garden wedding with a vintage twist and can't wait to share more of life's adventures together!
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II.i
I’ve always been inspired by fairy tales and the genre of fantasy. Last semester, in a Shakespeare course I took at school, I completely fell in love with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I had never read the play before, and the mixture of whimsy, beauty, magic, and surprise just struck me. At the end, I loved imagining what the double wedding between Lysander and Hermia and Demetrius and Helena would look like.
When I Googled “A Midsummer Night’s Dream wedding”, a lot of, let’s just say, interesting things came up, mainly along the lines of theater majors forcing their bridesmaids to dress up as fairies… But I did find this gorgeous photo shoot collaborated on by florist and event designer Tricia Fountaine and photographer Elizabeth Messina. It’s probably pretty dramatic for most people’s tastes, but between the stunning flowers and whimsical decor, I think these pictures can inspire beautiful details for a variety of weddings!
Mrs. Taco, San FranciscoAge and Occupation: 29, writer/editorFiance's Age and Occupation: 37, editorEngagement Date: May 13, 2009Wedding Date: August 2010Venue: The Green Room at the War Memorial Veterans BuildingAbout Me: I like laughing and talking with good friends over good food and good drink, be it wine, cocktail, or brew. I write and edit things for fun and profit, but I rarely "write" these days without a keyboard and high-speed internets. Favorites include Mr. Taco, my Boston terrier, San Francisco, getting out of town, and the Roaring ’20s. I was kind-of planning a wedding since roughly 2006, when I discovered "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?" on the WE channel. I ran and didn't look back with a theme I called "urban vintage," and it culminated in the most magical day a taco could ask for.
Saving the date? You can just do this verbally. Or with a YouTube video. Or via some other well-designed, adorable electronic way. Half the people receiving them probably know the date already, anyway, right?
But where’s the fun in that?
(Click that sucker for an enormous image; names and website whited-out from the middle)
Mucho thanks to stationery diva and friend Lisa at Good on Paper Design for the excellent work. We love photo strips, we love the look of old film, and we love Kevin, April, and the photos they took of us. With Lisa’s help, we now love Pantone color 1807 and sage envelopes from Paper Source. Read more…
Mrs. Scissors, LaGrange, GAAge and Occupation: 25, Photography & Graphic DesignFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Engineering Grad StudentEngagement Date: January 1, 2009Wedding Date: June 2010Venue: Ceremony - First United Methodist Church; Reception - My parents' house!About Me: I’m a six-foot-three bride with a fifty-foot personality! I love great art, fabulous design, intense color, tons of music, indie photography, watching movies on repeat, and being really awesome. This super-tall, Southern, loud, quirky, neurotic artist is marrying a German, quiet, silly, super-amazing roboticist in an eclectic, funky, fun, snazzy, technicolored June wedding. Anything is game for this shindig, for it is all about us! We’re bringing giant paper cranes, six-foot-tall portraits, fortune cookies, a photo booth, a club-circuit DJ, handcuffs, and possibly a kidnapping to this small Southern town. Watch out, y’all, and try to keep up!
Yesterday morning I was climbing the walls. Our invitations were in LaGrange, on the truck for delivery, but weren’t scheduled to be delivered until 4:30 PM. After refreshing the FedEx tracking page about 400 times, I began to consider chasing down the truck. How could I possibly wait all day when I knew they were in this tiny town? Right as I was contemplating how best not to sound like a crazy loon, the doorbell rang. By the time I realized what was going on, I was standing downstairs next to my father and Mr. Scissors, while my father was threatening to stab-open the box with a Swiss Army Knife. (Both he and Mr. Scissors enjoy pushing my buttons.)
My father and the Swiss Army Knife of (possible) doom.
Ms. Stripes, Los AngelesAge and Occupation: 29, Costume Designer/StylistFiancee's Age and Occupation: 29, ChefEngagement Date: June 23, 2009Wedding Date: September 2010Venue: Heritage Square MuseumAbout Me: I’m a type A creative with a messy streak, a loud mouth, and an uncanny knack for combining clashing patterns. I can usually be found with my nose in a book, my feet (or at least my toes) on the ground, my head in the clouds, and my arm around the prettiest girl you ever saw- aka
Fiancee Stripes. Together we’re planning a FUN vintage/modern French carnival wedding extravaganza and rockin’ dance party on a dime. (Say that three times fast!) Good coffee, long lists, Uniball pens, and my iPhone keep me sane, and making art, making trouble, and making out keep me happy! I love urban adventures, bike rides that end with afternoon drinks, breakfast for dinner, beautiful light, photography, travel, my furry family, and of course, my beautiful fiancee! I’m super excited to be here and can’t wait to share all our adventures as we craft a joyful, budget-friendly, design-savvy and all-around AWESOME wedding!
Behold my latest Target purchase! Duh. It’s a three foot tall wire Eiffel Tower. You don’t already have one? It was on drastically reduced clearance (only $11) so I couldn’t resist snapping it up, and now that it’s sitting in my backyard I’m left wondering, What in the hell am I gonna do with a three foot tall Eiffel Tower?? Read more…
Mrs. Penguin, Northern CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 27, Weddingbee Editor in ChiefFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Doctor of Physical TherapyEngagement Date: January 29, 2007Wedding Date: June 7, 2008Blogging Since: September 14, 2007Venue: Winery in the Gold CountryAbout Me: I love the Spice Girls, dogs with underbites, bean burritos, making messes, high fives, avoiding showers, crossword puzzles, blogs, weddings, and blogs about weddings!
There will be a bit of site maintenance tonight, occurring between 10PM and midnight PST which may result in some downtime on Weddingbee. If you’re visiting the site tonight and would like to get a real-time update on the system status, feel free to check in here!
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Ribbons, Washington D.C./Bloomington, INAge and Occupation: 23, Research Associate for an international development firmFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Proposal Coordinator for contractor
Engagement Date: May 2, 2008Wedding Date: June 2010Venue: Indiana Memorial UnionAbout Me: I'm an Indiana transplant living in DC with my fiance and our pretty kitty. I enjoy the color pink, I'm obsessed with the Dior New Look and tulle, and I heart my level 80 paladin. I'm a sucker for bad TV, literary theory, and cakes of all persuasion. I also happen to be marrying the cutest closet nerd around! It's all about Bloomington for us because it's where we met -- on the college paper. If there's a theme for our small summertime wedding, it's Dior meets Dorothy Draper on a lark in Bloomington; think poofy, plus graphic prints, bold colors, and a whole lot of prettiness.
I just had my second fitting today, which means it’s time for the second installation of sash wars.
I brought along the organza sash my mom made and the grosgrain ribbon. I was amazed at what a different feel the dress had with each one.
If I do choose the organza, we’ll cut down the width by two or three inches — so those tails won’t be quite as wide. But I can’t decide! Read more…
Mrs. Jellyfish, Pleasanton, CAAge and Occupation: 27, Law StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Air Force PilotEngagement Date: February 21, 2009Wedding Date: September 2010Venue: Casa Real at Ruby Hill WineryAbout Me: In a nutshell, I’m the most optimistic worrywart you’ll ever meet. My family emigrated from Romania to San Jose, CA when I was 8, and I've been a Nor Cal girl ever since! My fiancé is also a Bay Area native, so it’s funny that we met at UCLA, as college freshmen living on the same floor (go Bruins!). Between his career as an Air Force pilot and my path to becoming a lawyer, our relationship has been anything but typical. We currently live together in Berkeley with our puppy Stinson. In addition to spending time with the loves of my life, I enjoy crafting, attempting complicated recipes, environmental law and non-law school reading (Us Weekly, anyone?). Follow along as I plan an elegant 200-person winery wedding, graduate law school, take the Bar exam, get married and get used to the always unpredictable but never boring life of a military spouse!
…never even made it to the registry. Since our engagement party happened about a month into our 19-month engagement, we hadn’t set up our registries yet and as a result, we received a lot of gift cards and checks as gifts. So, we ended up using that money to purchase a few of the items we really wanted ahead of time. Here are our favorites:
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
