Weddingbee Blog

In preparation for our engagement session, I’ve been gathering some inspiration from my photographer’s blog and from e-shoots I’ve adored on the web. Are you ready for some Friday photography overload? I sure am!

Amazing light and intimate moments:

{Lorraine Daley Photography}

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It’s my pleasure to introduce our first bee in the accessories generation and all around well-traveled gal: Miss Earrings! Please join me in giving her a warm welcome into the hive!

Miss Earrings, Fresno, CA/ Nelson, New Zealand
Age & Occupation: 20, Student, Wannabe Writer
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 19, Photography Student
Engagement Date: February 14, 2010
Wedding Date: January 2011
Venue: Gardens of the World
About Me: I’m a girl from down under who grew up in Indonesia and I’m marrying a California boy. I’m addicted to all things sweet, have never met a chocolate silk pie than can get the better of me, and have dreams of one day being a fulltime novelist. I go weak in the knees for lace, tea cups, and a beautifully crafted sentence. When I get excited about something (whether it is historical linguistics or the Beatles) I tend to go overboard in research, and planning this wedding is no different. Mr. Earrings is my high school sweetheart, my best friend, and somehow we combine all our quirks into one big happy mess.

Congratulations to our winner, krazeekat!

~~~

Chippendales is the #1 male review in the world, based in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino. On the bees’ recent trip to Vegas, we all got to experience their fantastic show, perfect for bachelorettes! And today, they’ve got a great giveaway for us! This giveaway includes an official set of the famous “Cuffs & Collars”, a Chippendales tank top, an autographed Chippendales 2010 calendar and poster and a set of 4 tickets to the Las Vegas show.

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Despite the fact that by the end of November I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for in a wedding dress, I didn’t actually plan to go shop for one until March. I was really excited to plan lovely adventures with my bridesmaids involving me trying on lots of amazing dresses followed by brunch.

I didn’t get any of that.

Nope, I found my dress by accident when I wasn’t even looking for it. I was shopping with one of my bridesmaids in early January, a full 11-and-a-half months before my wedding. We were poking around Second Time Around, a consignment store in Yorkville when I found a dress that looked almost exactly like what I was looking for.

I tried it on and it was lovely.
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We’re working behind the scenes on developing our next generation: Brunch/Breakfast bees! A few weeks back we put the subsequent generation up for vote to the hive, and the favorite of the bunch was…

Safari animals!

image

So, what say you, hive? What animals should we include in this generation?

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! (Just kidding, no bears—that’d be too close to our fabulous Mrs. Bear Cub!)

JWeekly.com published an article today about the life of a bridesmaid that features an interview with Mrs. Bee! Here’s a preview:

Check out the entire article here on JWeekly.com!

When I first told you about my Out-Of-Town bag ideas, I talked about the Maryland-themed treats we were going to include, and I’m happy to report that everything was a big success! Here’s a quick peek inside a nearly-finished bag:

(Everything except one missing component, which you’ll see below! We generally gave one bag to each couple)

Do those bags look familiar?

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Today’s review comes from Soon2BeeMrsLewis of her florist, LaVonne’s Florist!

Jean from LaVonne’s Florist was incredible! I worked with her off and on for the fourteen months leading up to my wedding and she was fantastic to work with.

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Hi gals! I’m kind of back! At least… for a few posts. Because soon, Mr. Mary Jane and I will finally be taking our honeymoon! And I know you’ll want to be hearing about that — especially since we’re planning to visit a brand-spanking-new resort in Jamaica.

[source]

Now, here’s the thing.

Like I said, the Secrets Wild Orchid/St. James resort is new. It opened in late March and while the approval rating is going up steadily, most reviews are still so-so. I’ve been monitoring message boards, Facebook, and Trip Advisor since opening day, and I have seen a few trends that have left me feeling a wee bit unsettled.

The continuing trends seem to be:
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Last Tuesday I attended a launch party for the first ever J Crew bridal boutique here in New York City. Darcy Miller hosted the event, and with Darcy + J Crew teaming up, I knew that I was in for a fabulous soiree.   What I didn’t expect was to see so many fabulous bridal bloggers there!

(image courtesy MS Weddings)

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My wedding jewelry and my “somethings” were some of my favorite parts of my wedding attire.

I spent a lot of time choosing a wedding fragrance. Then Chanel came out with the new Chance - “Eau Tendre” and I knew I had to have it. It was delicious. I put that on first.

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One of my best friends from college is getting married and I’m so thrilled to be a part of her wedding. She lives in Fresno, and damned if I’m going to drive down to sweltering Central CA to help her out, so I’m helping out as much as I can from my temperate 60-degree Berkeley living room. I kid. But seriously, Fresno is freaking hot.

Anyway, her shower is coming up, and I’ve been dying to make some fabric backed invites ever since I saw Miss Pudding’s fabric backed save the dates. How fabulous they were! How labor intensive they were! And so, I thought it’d be fun to make them for Lauren’s shower. I mean, how many people usually get invitations to showers? Like, 30? (My showers.)

Hmm… have you met Portuguese people? They LOVE their families. And they have big families. And Festas. Anyway, the point being that she is inviting 80 of her closest family and friends to her shower, but I’d already committed to the fabric backed invites before knowing the final count. Mrs. Pudding only made 30 for a reason. These things took a very long time but turned out pretty cute!

Lauren had 3 requests: green, purple, and a beach theme. I gladly obliged.
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I am a huge bookworm. I love reading a lot, and I would say that getting new books from the library is one of my favourite pastimes (yes, I’m a proud nerd). I’m also the kind of person who, if I’m interested in something, I will read about it obsessively. I’d say now that the Internet is, hands down, the best source for wedding information, but before I figured this out, I read quite a few wedding books. Even now, as a very internet savvy bride, I still like turning to books every so often. Here is a selection of my favourites.

All photos are from amazon.com

Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides by Ariel Meadow Stallings. While the author Ariel and I have very different styles, it was wonderful to see how she made choices for her wedding that were right for her and her husband, without worrying about whether or not they were traditional “wedding choices”. Basically, she gave me the freedom to make my own choices. She also has a fantastic website called Offbeat Bride, which I love and has tons of great inspiration.

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Gonna get married??

After leaving dinner with our families Monday evening, Mr. Bear Cub and I got the opportunity to spend some time alone, strolling the streets of downtown Portland. This was such a welcomed breath of fresh air! We talked for a little while about the days to come - last minute plans, tactics for avoiding stress - and then Mr. BC asked me the question.

“Let’s get married!”

“Umm… OK dude. Sounds fantastic. How does Sunday work for you?”

“No, let’s get married tomorrow.”

We had planned to go to the courthouse the following morning (Tuesday) to get our marriage license. My dear fiancé was suggesting we get the license and sign it at the same time!

This caught me a little off guard.
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With so much beautiful inspiration out there on the web and here on the ’Bee, my ideas for how I wanted to dress my girls has evolved over the months.

Thank goodness for inspiration boards! I had begun to feel like I’d lost all direction in the bridesmaids dress department— used to be very firm about wanting the dresses to be short to the knee, detaily {love pleats or bows or an interesting ruffle or neckline}, texturey fabric, possibly all different:

{I made this here}

But… I feel like I’m being pushed pulled and prodded in a more formal direction…
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