Weddingbee Blog

When it came to choosing a photographer, I thought it was going to be a very hard decision. Early on, I scoured photography blogs, poring over hundreds of wedding photos. After a while, I started realizing what I don’t like – trends. Nope, none of that trendy stuff for me – I don’t really like the grainy/color saturated/distressed/uber Photoshopped look. I like photos that are classic, sharp, and that capture emotion. I love the candid photojournalistic approach. Once I knew what style I liked, I started contacting photographers that I’d heard good things about from our venue, from Yelp, and from friends. One by one, it seemed that all the good ones were already booked. ‘How could this be?’ I thought. ‘It’s still over a year until the wedding!!’ Luckily, one of those booked photographers recommended Cliff Brunk, a San Francisco-based photographer. The minute I started looking through his portfolio online, I was hooked. His photographs were so beautiful that they remained seared in my memory. They were like images out of a magazine. We quickly made an appointment with him and really liked him as a person, too. Knowing that we weren’t going to find anyone whose work we liked as much (and believe me, we’d been looking for weeks) we decided to take the plunge and book him! And now, after taking engagement photos with him, we’re so glad we did.

We had our engagement photo session with Cliff and his lovely wife Malarie a little while back, and I’m excited to share our photos with the hive!
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What do these penguin suits have in common?

Source, Source

That’s how Mr. Lobster’s gonna look on our wedding day. Previously in the Lobster Wedding, we were deciding between a tux and a gray suit.

Mr. Lobster has decided to wear a tuxedo. Since he’s worn a suit to work almost everyday for the past 7 years, only a tux would make our special day feel special to him. Our next step would be to find him a new one.

Honoring My Lobster Brother-in-Law

This year, Mr. Lobster’s older brother and best man passed away.

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In my opinion… that color dress is reserved for the bride.

(source)

I’ve had multiple discussions about this with friends, family and within the online wedding world. It’s definitely a heated topic, depending on who you talk to. Personally, I live in the camp that respects the tradition of the bride being the only person in a white dress on the wedding day. I know some people probably think that’s kinda bitchy, but as a soon-to-be-bride, I have waited a long time to wear a beautiful white wedding gown and can only hope that guests will understand and respect that.
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Though the DIY process for our programs was not quite as involved as our invitations, they still caused me a bit of stress. You see, I had a pretty good idea of the way I would have liked our invitations to turn out before I started to make them. This was not the case with the programs. I knew I wanted a booklet, but as far as the design or what to put in them? No idea. In fact, other than the names of the bridal party I really didn’t know what to write for our programs. A timeline of the day? Well, that required me to finalize the ceremony. There was so much involved, and with about a month left until the wedding I figured I should probably get started.

First things first, I gathered my inspiration. I searched Weddingbee for posts on other bees’ programs and fell in love with the sewn booklets made by Mrs. Cream Puff. Seriously, they’re so cute. I tried a few mockups and, while cute, they would’ve just taken way too much time. Not to mention I was worried my sewing machine would have a hard time sewing through two layers of cardstock and multiple layers of printer paper.

After a bit of fiddling around, this is what I came up with.

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The morning of our wedding dawned bright and blue. When my alarm went off at 8:30, I felt a two things simultaneously: intense calm and utter excitement. I wanted to take every second in, spend the morning with my friends and family, and enjoy this amazing day I had spent so long imagining and planning.

I began by laying my dress out to air in preparation for a big day, then ventured down to the breakfast bar for some cereal and water with CW and AM.

Slowly, my girls, mom and mom in law filtered into the suite where our hair and make up would be done later that day. Before it got too insane, I sat down to write my last blog post for you all, as a single lady. I also took some time to online order our Chipotle food request for the day.
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The city of love. Zuzu2and11 and her future husband on a spring morning in Paris.

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.

Perusing the internet one morning for an eCard for my mother’s birthday brought me to a lovely little tongue-in-cheek, off-color resource for ANY eCard worthy occasion. And, some occasions you would really never consider sending an eCard for. Like weddings. I realize some bees have shared Some eCards in their posts, but here are some (more) of my faves from Some eCards:

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My posts are coming to an end, but let’s face it, there was no way I was going to let you get away without seeing a some of the sizable share that our pugs had in our wedding photos…

Sometimes I wonder if my dad wishes I had been born as a pug instead of a girl

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Simply put, I need a cheongsam/qi pao/Chinese dress to wear at both of our receptions.

(source)

Unsimply put, I haven’t really started looking for one yet.

Obvious, right? Go to Chinatown and buy one. Well, I sort of tried. But I got lost in the chaos by myself. Plus I’m deathly afraid of the store owners since a) I don’t speak the language b) I kind of, uh, don’t know what the heck I am doing, and c) I read on Yelp that they criticize you if you’re fat. Well, okay, because of letter “a”, I probably wouldn’t know they were criticizing me, but still!

So bring my mom with me, then?
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I had such a wonderful time at my first bridal shower! In my last post, I showed off the beautiful flower arrangements designed my friend and bridesmaid, Julz. There are so many other cute details that stand out to me when I think back on that afternoon, and none of them would have been possible without my four beautiful bridesmaids:

From left to right: Bridesmaid J-me, MOH Camo, Me, Redhead Bridesmaid, and Bridesmaid Julz

(Don’t I have the prettiest friends ever?)

These four girls set aside so much time to plan my bridal shower in the midst of their already busy lives.

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A long, long time ago our Save the Dates went out to our guests. Soon after, Mama Seashell got a flood of phone calls and word from friends and family that they’d received our magnets in the mail. (And of course, heard that everyone was so excited for the Seashell wedding.) After a few weeks we also deduced that a few people hadn’t received their Save the Dates. Oh no!

First, don’t even get me started on my anxiety about our actual invitations getting lost in the mail. Those suckers aren’t going to be cheap! Second, where had they gone? That whole “lost in the mail” idea wasn’t making me too happy. And third, what to do?

Fortunately I had extra gold envelopes and magnets. I figured I could Sharpie on (in pretty letters of course) the addresses and throw them in the mail. However, the sheen of the envelopes made for a poor result. I searched my desk.

What do we have here? Cute little circle labels that have nothing to do with our color scheme? Ah, heck these people are technically getting their second Save the Date. Beggars can’t be choosers.

And matching return address labels that I’d already had from a previous project? Not too shabby!
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It’s a beautiful guest book! Alright, maybe it’s not quite exciting enough to warrant that title but it’s really effin’ pretty and I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Mom Trail Mix took the reins on this one, working with a local artist to create a one-of-a-kind book that is truly a work of art.

Here’s the cover. It’s a textured paper and the binding was hand-sewn by the artist. She does some kind of swirly paint thing (that’s a technical term, folks) to create this marble-pattern.

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I recently ordered my garter, and I can’t wait for it to come in so that I can ogle it. If you remember, I was set on doing a garter toss, and found some beautiful garters that didn’t make me gag. In the end, I chose none of those garters that I drooled over, but a different (set!) entirely.

Mr. Scissors, if you’re reading now, which I doubt you are, stop. You’ll get to see this soon enough!

Everybody else may continue reading after the jump…
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Congratulations to our winners,

1. Nemos
2. Amira
3. sapphirebride
4. jenandchris
5. CObee
6. eileen marie
7. cramirez228
8. Mrs. Star
9. ibblues
10. juhneenee

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Fodor’s is going To Europe! Want to go, too?

Not sure which European destination to choose? Fodors.com has 60 itineraries to help you plan your perfect European vacation. You can even enter their To Europe! sweepstakes for a chance to win an eight night, seven day Viking River Cruise package for two through the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Switzerland.

Browse through Fodor’s 60+ itineraries covering 25 countries. There’s something for every type of traveler – from archaeology to beaches, food and wine to natural beauty. Each itinerary includes transportation recommendations, photo slide shows, and quotes from Fodor’s community members.

To celebrate Fodor’s to Europe, Fodors is giving away European guidebooks to 10 lucky Weddingbee readers. To enter, just tell us your ideal tell us your ideal European destination in the comments below. You have until Wednesday, June 2 at 11:59 PST to enter. Good luck!

Mr. Dolphin and I had a fantastic time on our honeymoon. We had the time of our lives. We never held back—if we wanted to go do something, we did it (which I think is a state of mind everyone should try and be in on their honeymoon). I could just post a bunch of pictures from our honeymoon… but what’s the fun in that? Instead, my awesome husband made this cute little video to give you a better idea of the ’feeling’ of our honeymoon. Enjoy!

Just Mauied :: Our Honeymoon from Mrs Gator on Vimeo.

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