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My favorite post is one of the many millions (or 6) from our actual wedding ceremony: our vows. Mr. Pencils and I spent many hours crafting our words for each other and we wanted a balanced, similar-toned but also personalized vows. The few hours we spent one Friday night creating them is one of my favorite evenings to date with my now-husband, and reading this post reminds me of the most important part of a wedding day: that physical moment when you and your chosen person look into each other’s eyes and say, “yes, I want you, now and always.” This post also resonates with me when considering my second favorite post alongside it, where I expressed some superficial as well as deep-set fears about our wedding day and marriage. Three months prior to the moment below, I wrote that I feared “I won’t be the wife that Mr. Pencils thinks I’m capable of being. I fear that my messiness, my long work hours, my addition to chocolate/Coca Cola/bad TV will drive him to drink.
I fear that all these fears will surface and Mr. Pencils will wonder why he chose this crazy, loud, irreverent, over-thinking, uncouth woman to be his wife.
I fear that in all this hoopla, I’ll forget the real reason for it all—us. Mr. P is my other half, my self’s reflection, my counterpart.
Our wedding day and our marriage itself is the beginning of something bigger, better—but it’s still just us. He is the man that will be my children’s father, his hands will hold mine as we create the life we’ve imagined. We’ll dream together, laugh together, cry together, FEAR together.”
When I read these fears, six months after our wedding and nine months after I wrote them down for all of you to read, I realize that the fears I had, the fears you may have, are silly, over-thought, justified AND ridiculous worries all at once.
Instead of taking you through day by day, I’ll break up our honeymoon into chunks to make it easier for you to plan according to your interests (if you plan on going to the Finger Lakes for a vacation).
The day after the wedding, we hopped in our car, left the hotel and the city behind, and drove home to drop off all of our various wedding crap that we had stuffed in the car. Then we made the five-hour drive to the Finger Lakes in New York (stop “B”)!
I liked this post because I learned so much about Chinese traditions through the Chinese cookie party tradition. Weddings are as much about joining families as they are about the couple. Respecting and honoring traditions of the past, no matter how strange they may seem to us today, is a way to honor our families, too.
~~~
I wouldn’t consider myself traditionally Chinese in the cultural sense. My Cantonese is at the same level of a three-year-old and my family doesn’t really celebrate any of the Chinese holidays, the Lunar New Year included. But when it came to my wedding, my mom insisted on going through the whole shebang of Cantonese wedding traditions.
This weekend, my family threw me what Cantonese people call a “cookie party.” The tradition goes something like this:
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How I found Weddingbee:
Well, I got engaged on March 5th, 2009, on vacation in Mexico. We got home from vacation on March 9th…and it wasn’t more than a week or two later that I discovered Weddingbee!
(Personal photo from our Mexico trip, little did I know, I’d be engaged 2 days after this photo was taken!)
I already knew about the other big wedding website out there, and had tentatively looked at the prices of a couple local venues (hey, I knew the ring had already been purchased, just wasn’t 100% sure when I would receive it!), but it was through a Google search while looking for wedding inspiration that I found Weddingbee. And I never looked back—it just felt like home!
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Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
A little while ago I read this article from The Guardian talking about post-wedding depression. It really got me thinking. Was something like this going to affect me?
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Some of you have partners that are super-involved in all aspects of wedding planning. Others have a more laid-back groom (or bride). I would say that Mr. Hamster fell somewhere between the two, with a slight-to-moderate lean towards the laid-back variety. While this was great in some respects (“Font with serif or sans serif? Tall or short centerpieces?” “You pick.” “Sweeeet!”), sometimes I wanted his opinion. Or rather, I wanted him to want to have an opinion. Or even, I wanted him to know that I wanted him to have an opinion, which would make him want to have an opinion and thereby provide one accordingly. You confused yet? Yeah, me too.
Then we had our wedding. No one cared about our serif fonts. I’m pretty sure our guests didn’t experience greater wedding celebration happiness because our short-to-tall centerpiece ratio was just right. But I did have 20 minutes with my groom, where he was 100% involved, 100% present. Those 20 minutes were the ceremony, and he cried. He cares! He really cares! Right then and there I let go of any “want” and “want to want” thoughts lingering from the planning days. Yes, I occasionally commit the cardinal sin of teasing him about that moment, but freedom from all planning responsibilities because of a few tears? Personally, I think he got off easy. 
~~~
It was time for my walk. I was walking into that room as a “Miss”, walking out a Mrs.
Let’s set the mood shall we?
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Goldilocks1107’s stylist took her blonde curly locks and transformed them into this wedding day ’do!
Keep on loading your inspirational wedding pics to the Weddingbee Gallery to see them featured here on the blog! Remember, your images must be under 1MB in size, or they won’t load.
If your photo is featured as the Gallery of the Day, you’re eligible for a special Weddingbee badge for your blog or website! Check out instructions on how to grab the badge here!
Can I be honest with you guys? Writing a post for this series and thinking back to my high school days was…a little difficult for me. At first, anyway.
High school wasn’t so long ago for this girl. Just over three years ago, in fact. My early high school days especially connote some not-so-happy memories and feelings of inferiority, ugliness, and self-loathing. If you have been following me for awhile, you might remember that I developed an eating disorder during high school, and looking back at photos from those days could have been a dangerous trigger for me back into unhealthy thought patterns.
Notice I said “could have been.” Because after I mulled over this post for awhile, I realised that writing it didn’t have to be a negative thing. Instead, I could use it as part of my healing process. I have looked back at those days with clouded vision in the past…they were just too raw to face yet. But looking through the old photos, remembering things I had forgotten…all that showed me that there was a lot of good in those days too. After all, I did meet and fall in love with Mr E during that time!
Goofing off in computer class together, 2006
Hey there, hive. I’d like your input on this one. Allow me to elaborate…We have friends who are celebrating their engagement with a fairly fancy-schmancy party (woohoo, I love fancy parties!) in a few weeks. Great, grand, wonderful, right? Right, but I want everyone’s opinions on something—the gift for the party.
I was browsing their registries yesterday (one was at Crate & Barrel and the other was at Bloomingdale’s) and couldn’t quite come up with a suitable present. (I’m mega-weird about presents. Don’t ask.) While the stuff at Crate & Barrel was nice, it lacked a certain j’ne sais quoi. I guess I think presents should be special, something splurge worthy, and nothing from C & B really jumped out screaming at me as the perfect gift.
Which leaves the Bloomingdale’s registry. Suh-weeeet! Well, here’s the thing:They registered (as many couples do) for a set of fine china for twelve. Beautiful stuff (from Bernardaud—yum), but fairly expensive for a plate.
We had a large wedding party. This makes for some difficult wedding party shots! I think we did pretty well, though. Again, we used the parasols.
I chose this post because it really was a spectacular day for us, from start to finish. It is one of my favorite stories from our history together, and I just love transporting to that feeling right after you get engaged and everything is new and exciting, and everyone is just happy and excited for you! It’s a time that you really only get to have once, and nothing really compares. Not to mention it was just the most ridiculous day ever—culminating with being onstage during an Alice Cooper show!
~~~
When I tell you about the 24 hours surrounding our engagement, you may not believe it. But I promise, every word is true.
Unless otherwise noted, all pictures from here on are personal photos.
It is October 2008, and Mr. Hermit Crab and I are heading out of town for a weekend in Alexandria Bay, NY and Ottawa, ON. I had planned this weekend months ago so that we could get away and spend some time together.
We arrive in Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands Region of Northern NY (4 miles from the Canadian border) at dusk. I had thought that I had found a great deal on a motel because it was nearing the off season; little did I know I was getting a great deal because we were staying in what I can only describe as the Bates Motel (or at least it seemed that way!).
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In my opinion, one of the most interesting things about wedding planning is how certain traditions vary from region to region. When I started reading the Weddingbee boards, there were a handful of things I’d never, ever heard of or seen at a wedding in or near Philadelphia. Dollar Dances? Jack and Jill parties?
I did an informal poll of the hive and was able to break down some of these traditions by region.
Cash Bar
This isn’t necessarily a tradition, but it’s definitely something that’s more acceptable in some regions than in others. I’ve been to a lot of weddings, probably 20 or 30, and I’ve only seen a cash bar once. That couple hosted beer, wine and a signature drink but the rest of the drinks were cash only.
According to my informal poll, cash bars were definitely most prominent in the Midwestern U.S.
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One of the funniest and most full-on “bridal” experiences I’ve had so far came from visiting a bridal expo in the early days of being engaged. And wow, was that an experience!
I should backtrack a little bit here and fill you in on a few more details—you see, after we announced our engagement, Momma Jaguar was so excited to finally have a wedding to prepare for that she took herself and my MOH, Miss K, off to experience a bridal expo that was in town while I was still in London. They had a great time exploring and had so many funny stories to tell me afterward that I knew I’d have to make it my mission to attend one as well. I made sure there was time in my whirlwind wedding-planning-extravaganza Sydney trip to stop by and visit, and Momma Jaguar quickly informed me that she wanted to come along again and make a day of it with me.
If you’ve never been to a bridal expo before, this is just a snapshot of what you can expect to experience while you’re there:
So. Many. Brides.
There are literally dozens of enthusiastic, newly engaged ladies in the building—usually escorted by their mothers or a female friend. Or two. Or seven. I’m all for people getting involved, but I swear some of the groups had their entire bridal posse there with them. You’ll see the occasional groom, though most of the time you’ll find them hiding out in the cafe or looking at the snazzy vintage wedding cars.
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