Weddingbee Blog

Actually, it’s our e-pic (engagement picture) movie posters. We’ve taken to calling them epic, because they will be legendary!

I adore our engagement photos, taken by the amazingly talented Hannah of hannahelaine photography. We used two of them on our Save the Dates, and we thought it’d be fun to display a few more at our reception. Instead of surrounding our family and friends with lovey-dovey photos, we thought, ‘How can we play this up? Make it a little more fun?’

Enter the Epic Movie Posters:

Read more…

Everyone has their vice… their go-to splurge that makes them feel absolutely wonderful. For some, it might be Starbucks, splurging on a new pair of shoes, or a stiff martini. For me… it is a pedicure. There is just something amazingly relaxing about sitting in a massage chair with your feet in warm water while having your feet transformed from something that resembles Hobbit feet to a beautiful set of piggies ready to be shown off in a cute pair of sandals. The only problem with pedicures? They cost money… and at the moment, I have very little of it. Saving up for a wedding has really made me take a look at what I spend my extra money on, and then cut back. Typically, I treat myself to a pedicure around once a month, which sets me back about $28. I haven’t had a pedicure since July 2009… which means that I have saved about $224 at this point - yay!

So… how have I managed to not drive myself nuts in the meantime? I taught myself how to DIY my beloved French pedicure (and manicure)! After countless times sitting in the chair, I observed my nail techs, and decided to give it a shot myself. OK, here we go…

To start… let’s gather our materials! You will need:

Read more…

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Guinea Pig’s family threw an absolutely amazing bridal shower for me. Mr. GP’s mom and godmother planned a fantastic afternoon, and his godmother went all-out in decorating her house to make sure it was beautiful! Everything was color coordinated with our blue and yellow scheme, from the amazing floral arrangements:

to the candles, plates, and silk rose petals on the tables:
Read more…

Okay, let’s be honest – I’m pretty lame about coming up with post titles. Bear with me.

This past weekend I made an appointment at my favorite local spa (Ginger Bay). Mom got me hooked on this place a long time ago (probably a bad thing, for my wallet, but not for my mental health). Last year, Mr. A bought me a few treatments for my birthday, and with all the wedding planning, grad school, working full-time and moving keeping both of us busy, I completely forgot about them (whoops!).

So, somewhere in my search for something completely unrelated in my Gmail, I stumbled upon my gift certificates. With the good news, I made an appointment to have the Self-Renewal Facial Treatment done this past Saturday. Now, I’ve had plenty of facials in my past, but this one seriously takes the cake.
Read more…

… and I lived to tell the tale.

Participating in the Running of the Brides was what you might call “a life experience”. Another way to say it would be “absolutely ridonkulous”.  My running team and I did a lot of prep work in the weeks leading up to the big day—there may or may not have been PowerPoint presentations assembled—so I thought some personal experience might be helpful to any other running brides with dreams of a cheap dress and a healthy sense of bloodlust.
Read more…

Yep, I said our wedding license, not our marriage license, but there’s a reason. See, I told Mr. Fro Yo that we needed to figure out a time he and I could both leave work to get our marriage license (and I used those words). Finally, we decided that Good Friday was the day to go. I had to work, but Mr. Fro Yo was off, so it was the best time. We got there, and there was only one person in front of us. We grabbed our number and waited to be called.

After we were asked if we were related, delinquent on child support, currently married to someone else, or divorced within the last 30 days, we had our marriage license in hand. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. As we were walking out, I thought we should take a picture to commemorate this moment. Luckily, I had my camera with me. Mr. Fro Yo went up to a police officer standing nearby and asked if he would take our photo because we just go our “wedding license”.
Read more…

I (once again) found myself at the Solutions Bridal in Gainesville last summer. I went in with two of my lovely Gator bridesmaids (we all went to UF together) to show them my garden/vintage/awesome wedding dres.

Kari greeted us and told us the sad news that the store sample of my dress had been sold last week to a bride who would be getting married in the Caribbean in 2 months. At first I was a little bummed I couldn’t show the dress to my gals but Kari immediately cheered me up by asking if we still wanted to ’hang out’, talk wedding, and try on accessories (who wouldn’t want to talk wedding??). Since I was at a crossroads as to what type of veil I should have, it was the perfect opportunity to try some out. Also, I wanted to hear all about what Kari had been up to. She has a super cute/helpful wedding blog, Keetoyourheart, and was three weeks out from marrying her man at the time.
Read more…

Our lovely invitations, chosen by Mr. Oyster, are probably the only thing I’ve been 100% consistent about throughout this entire wedding planning process.

When it came time to order them, I’d decided that the wording should be simple and formal. Easy, right? I arrived at the shop with all the information in tow (typed up, no less!) and a day later, I got the call.

They wanted to change our invitation wording because it was improper!

Emily Post, who frightens me a little.

Specifically, they want to change my “half past five” to “half after five” and we disagree about the usage of “two thousand ten” vs. “two thousand and ten.” (They prefer the latter, by the way.) All my research says that both are acceptable, but it seems that “half after” and “two thousand and ten” are most likely related to British usage and are therefore more formal.

There are two things at work here.
Read more…

Last week I told you all about our plans for the Thursday night before the wedding, and how we’re going to do dinner and a sunset cruise with our wedding party. And I’ve already discussed the rehearsal dinner on Friday night that we’re having at a garden center, but I haven’t talked much about our after party or Sunday luncheon, both of which will be pretty simple to set up for.

Our after party will be open to anyone who doesn’t want the partying to end, and we’re just relying on word of mouth to let people know about it. So, it will probably mainly be attended by our friends and Mr. Cola’s cousins who are staying at the hotel. It will be taking place after our reception (duh!), back in our hotel suite. Or actually, back in our suite and my sister’s adjoining suite. We’ve offered to pay for her and her boyfriend’s room if they let us open up the adjoining door, so we’ll have more room for the party. This will be especially useful, since I have a feeling the upstairs loft of our suite will be pretty trashed from getting ready that morning, so this will give us a nice, open area for the party in the downstairs areas.

{Source}

Mr. Cola and I will be sneaking out of the reception a half hour before it ends, to give ourselves enough time to change our outfits and get ice for the party.
Read more…

(You thought I was going to say something gwoss, didn’t you?)

I have this awesome “unexplained tremor” in my right hand. It comes out when I’m nervous, tense, doing fine detail work, or just at the worst possible moments. So basically, all the time. Video for proof…

There’s nothing “wrong” with me… I’ve had tests out the wazoo, I’m not a former alcoholic, I wasn’t a hardcore drug user, I’m just unlucky, and it’s just “unexplained.” No worries, for real… except for in the DIY-wedding-stuff realm.

Read more…

MMMM…. I love food. I’m a real meat-and-potatoes kind of girl. I always love a good steak, grilled to perfection. Throw in a glass of iced tea and a loaded baked potato and I am a happy gal. Mr. Hot Dog is the same way, so we knew that we wanted this type of food at our ranch shindig. We were thinking maybe BBQ ribs or brisket and all the fixings. Yum!

Initially, because of our budget, we planned to cook all the food for the wedding ourselves. We’re definitely enlisting the help of our family and friends! It seemed like a great money saving option. But now that we’re less than 5 months out, I’m starting to FREAK out about the logistics involved in doing it on our own. Aside from having to do the actual cooking, there’s also the problem of how it’s going to be served and who would be doing that. Also, we don’t have chaffing dishes and warmers and all the things necessary to keep the food the correct temperature… This list of variables is endless.
Read more…

Hello hive! I’m back from the bowels of deep-seated literary study and exam-taking. I’ve emerged not much worse for wear and ready to show you our entire invitation suit.

Our invitations were designed by a certain Ms. Snapdragon. I contacted her last summer inquiring if she did invitation suites as well as her now-famous maps. She hadn’t yet added invitation suites to her shop but was willing to give us her time and design skills.

I’m convinced she’s actually a wizard, since she was able to take my incoherent ramblings about “summery… scooters… fun… Narragansett-y” and turn them into this:

There we are, on a scooter! Vroom vroom!!

Read more…

Sister Starfish had big plans for DIY projects, and we had a lot to accomplish during her engagement. So to kick it off, we went with something easy.

Sister Starfish and BIL Starfish got married on “The Sweetest Day”, which is the third Saturday of October. According to Mrs. Pineapple’s post,

It is pretty much Valentine’s Day to celebrate people you just like a lot, in addition to those you love. It is described by Retail Confectioner’s International as an “occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed.

So as part of their Sweetest Day wedding celebration, they had a candy bar as the favor for the guests, which oddly enough, they had planned on doing before they even knew their wedding was on the Sweetest Day. It was only when searching Weddingbee for candy bar ideas, that she realized her wedding date fell on the Sweetest Day.

Once Sister Starfish knew that, the candy bar became a little more fun and a little more meaningful.
Read more…

It is safe to say that I have started a lot of different projects for the wedding at this point. However, now that we have hit “crunch time” before the big day, it is essential to either 1) complete them, or 2) scrap them. So, I have created a list of the DIY projects I have on my plate, and placed them in order of importance. As you can imagine, the projects that are higher up on the list get priority. In the beginning of the planning process, it is easy to gather a plethora of inspiration, and projects pile up. However, I have had to come to the realization that I might have to part with some of my ideas in order to remain sane.

One of the projects that lands smack dab in the middle of the “importance scale” is a faux-to booth. I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place on this one… because I have seen some amazing results from previous bees’ booths… such as:

Mrs. Cowboy Boot

Read more…

… Which means I can finally show them off. My aunt who used to run a stationery and invitation store for years offered to do them for me, which I eagerly took her up on. I may occasionally churn out a successful DIY project but never did it ever enter my mind to try and make our invitations. No, hi ho hi ho, it was off to a printer I would go. We used Encore Studios of New York City and they were dreamy to work with and I am so pleased with the results.

The suite includes a lined envelope, single-matte formal invitation, the RSVP and lined mini-envelope (love it!) and the rehearsal dinner invitation. I made some very problematic direction slips that were also included.

Invitation Photo Overdose!

Read more…