Mrs. Waffle, AustinAge and Occupation: 31, Costumer/ArtistFiance's Age and Occupation: 33, AnimatorEngagement Date: July 27, 2010Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Hummingbird HouseAbout Me: My life is pretty much spent in a sea of fabric, paint, sequins and drama. When I’m not working, I play on a trivia team, take Broadway dance classes, read, buy shoes, and occasionally geek out on video games. I am an American girl who loves all things British and Mr. Waffle is a Brit who loves all things American...I guess it was meant to be!
The lovely, wonderful and sweet Miss Tartlet recently wrote a inspiration shoe post that had me drooling on my keyboard. On this post, I saw these lovely Vivienne Westwoods…
Now, this past week I have had the flu, bronchitis, etc. and have therefore been on a slew of interesting drugs. I have looked and felt like this for the past 5 days…
Mrs. Eggs Benedict, SeattleAge and Occupation: 29, AttorneyFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, AttorneyEngagement Date: December 5, 2009Wedding Date: February 2011Venue: IslandWoodAbout Me: I'm a Northwest girl who spends my time goofing around with Mr. Eggs Benedict and our dog, hiking, traveling, drinking wine and planning a wedding that will showcase the best of what the Pacific Northwest has to offer. I also love photography, beating Mr. Eggs Bene at Mario Kart, and watching the most ridiculous natural disaster flicks you can think of (seriously, how can you deny the awesomeness that is The Core or 2012?? That's right, you can't). We are planning our weekend wedding adventure at an environmental educational center, and I can't wait for the fun to begin!
One of my bridesmaids gave me this book (along with the companion How to be the Almost Perfect Husband) and, while I thought it would be more of a laugh or a how-to type of book, it actually contains some interesting advice from husbands and wives about how to maintain your relationship and what you need from your spouse.
Mrs. Crepe, Queens, NY/Nashville, TNAge and Occupation: 28, Jewelry DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Animation DirectorEngagement Date: September 28, 2010Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: A church in downtown NashvilleAbout Me: I'm a native New Yorker who has always been a DIY kind of girl and loves tackling creative projects while getting the most out of a dollar. I'm marrying my college sweetheart and we love frequenting antique stores, exploring together, and playing with kittens. We're planning a fun, "us" wedding in his hometown---with as many handmade touches as we can pack into a day!
At this stage, this was probably the most stressed I’ve felt about wedding planning. These two are the most important ladies in my life, next to my mama. I wanted them to be happy with what they wore and feel comfortable, confident, and beautiful.
What makes them so special to me is that they always offer a uniquely different perspective to me because of their contrasting personalities and life experiences; that translates to a different sense of style as well. There was also the problem of my own little ideas. I had fallen in love with this wedding and thought the idea to outfit the girls in Anthro dresses (and vintage cocktail hats!!) was so cute:
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.
Mrs. Plaid, AustinAge and Occupation: 26, Pastry ChefFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, Cabinetry CarpenterEngagement Date: August 8, 2009Wedding Date: October 2010Venue: Kindred Oaks, GeorgetownAbout Me: I am a Jersey girl born and raised but have since migrated to Texas and embraced its twang and Tex-Mex. I could probably eat chips and queso every day but instead I eat popcorn. I use the word “awesome” way too much but I just can’t seem to stop myself. I am addicted to all things DIY and am planning what I call a Texas-Chic wedding. I love snuggling with my two adorable dogs and of course, my adorable fiance. I can’t wait 'til I can call him my husband some day! October 2010, here we come!
In the joining of hands and the fashioning of a knot, so too are your lives now bound.
Two lives entwined in love, bound by commitment and fear, sadness and joy, by hardship and victory, anger and reconciliation, all of which brings strength to this union. Read more…
Mrs. Jam, ChicagoAge and Occupation: 25, Writer/Associate Wedding CoordinatorFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Structural EngineerEngagement Date: December 23, 2009Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Hunter’s Ridge, Princeton, ILAbout Me: I’m a penny-pinching cat lady getting ready to marry the frugal dog lover of my dreams. Our ideal Saturday morning includes rummaging around people’s junk at garage and estate sales followed by an afternoon date to our favorite café, where we only eat sandwiches that include the word “salad.” We actually love it so much, it’s sort of our unofficial wedding theme: Look at our delicious finds, eat homemade ham salad, and celebrate our love…barndance style. When we’re not obsessing over our love-fest shindig, we’re planning themed parties for our best friends and jamming to '90s music.
You know what sucks? Being a person who loves it all. Seeing random things here and there that you desperately try to interject into your theme, decorations, life. Changing your mind 5,000 times about wedding projects because you find new, pretty, shiny things to be obsessed with.
But the one thing I never doubted? My dress. Let’s gaze at a photo for old times’ sake, OK?
Mrs. Pain au Chocolat, Wilmington, DEAge and Occupation: 29, RealtorFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, RealtorEngagement Date: November 21, 2009Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Greenville Country ClubAbout Me: An ENFJ with an artistic streak who loves backgammon, sailing, graphic design, and sleeping in. Travel (near or far), good wine, and tasty food makes my heart sing. I'm a compulsive list-maker who lives to plan and organize. Mr. P and I have lived together for 4 years, all the while renovating our city townhome bit by bit. We're planning a whimsical, Anthropologie-inspired garden wedding in June 2011.
Put on your coat! It’s about to get chilly in here from all this ice!
We had a date yesterday—with Joel the jeweler! Mr. P bought my engagement ring from Joel (a friend of a friend) last year. According to my timetable, it’s time to start shopping for wedding bands. I left the ring file at home; I’ve got it all stored in my bride brain.
Walking hand-in-hand to the store, I was a touch giddy. Which faded into nervous-giddy as soon as we walked over to the first jewelry case. Peering into the cases, all of the rings seemed pretty similar: simple bands with a row of diamonds that either went halfway or all the way around the ring (eternity). None of them were really singing to me.
Mrs. Giraffe, ChicagoAge and Occupation: 23, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Music Student TeacherEngagement Date: October 23, 2008Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Trinity Lutheran Church & Idlewild Country ClubAbout Me: Coming from the suburbs of the Windy City, you'll often find me with my foot in my mouth while laughing for no reason or telling bad knock knock jokes. I've been crafty for as long as I can remember, and will DIY something twice over before I have someone do it for me. I'm a semi-awkward, typeface obsessed, design junkie and have been know to break out my dance moves for no reason as well as try my best to be ridiculous at all times. My love of pop culture, wordplay, and graph paper almost rivals my love of Mr. Giraffe (who is just the bee's knees). After a 2.5 year engagement, we're planning a modern-in-disguise traditional wedding, and cannot wait!
Mr. Giraffe and I are currently in the middle of a fight. Just thought I’d let you all know.
What is the fight about, you ask? Who knows. I’m pretty sure it was not a big deal and then got completely blown out of proportion and then, due to us being at least a little immature, we’re now in deep freeze mode and being frosty to each other.
Does this bother me? I mean, does it bother me that we fight? No, not at all. Everybody fights. I think anyone in a stable, long term relationship knows that relationships are, indeed, work and to make them strong and lasting, communication has to happen. Of course, there are those time where communication isn’t quite clean and lines get crossed and then misunderstandings happen. Totally normal, I get it; no sweat off my back.
Not to mention that Mr. Giraffe and I both have strong personalities. Read more…
Mrs. Lox, BaltimoreAge and Occupation: 33, Government WorkerFiance's Age and Occupation: 35. IT ConsultantEngagement Date: May 8, 2010Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Vandiver InnAbout Me: I’m an East Coast gal born and bred and a suburban brat turned city rat for the last year. Now Mr. Lox and I enjoy walking all kinds of places, having the coolest things around in our backyard, and especially our garage parking. I love gadgets, toys, Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby ice cream, monkeys, and our insane cats. I’m a blonde by birth and a redhead by choice. I’m that girl in the cubicle farm with all the cool toys and the file cabinet covered in magnetic poetry. I still use smiley faces in my emails, whether people like it or not. This is not the first rodeo for Mr. Lox nor me. And together, we are planning an intimate afternoon wedding on a budget we can afford by ourselves.
At the very beginnings of our serious wedding planning, way back before we even had a nifty to-do list, I shared an idea for a project with Mr. Lox in hopes that he would take it on. It involved visiting a home-improvement store, so he was all in. (Seriously, he’s that easy.) But, unfortunately, I have different timelines in mind than the poor, unsuspecting Mr. Lox. So with the wedding day getting closer and closer, I started to get nervous. That, dear hive, is the story of how I came to nag Mr. Lox into a Lowe’s shop to buy pieces for our faux-to booth.
Now, in the previous months, I had sent him a link to Mrs. Pin Cushion’s lovely contraption. So he was good to go. And we set off to the home-improvement shop. Mr. Lox and I invented some dimensions and enlisted the help of a fine young gentlemen in our local Lowe’s. The end result was us leaving the store with eight five-foot lengths of PVC pipe (10-foot lengths will not fit into my car), two elbow joints, four T joints, and four endcaps. While I was figuring out how to document the process for all of you, dear Mr. Lox snuck up behind me and did this…
Mrs. Socks, Southern NJ/Philadelphia, PAAge and Occupation: 23, Web Developer/Marketing SpecialistFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Systems EngineerEngagement Date: September 7, 2009
Wedding Date: October 2010Venue: Ladder 15 RestaurantAbout Me: I am originally from the Midwest, but I love being an East Coast transplant! Mr. Socks and I are foodies and winos to the core---give us a hunk of cheese, some charcuterie and a glass of wine and we could die happy. We have two mischievous Wire Fox Terriers with completely opposite personalities but with a shared love of uprooting anything in our garden. Our backyard garden includes everything from tomatoes and peppers to a fig tree, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries! I love cooking, indie music, and spending time in our wedding city of choice---Philly!
After we were finished with our bridal party photos, we high-tailed it back to Ladder 15 where our guests had started to arrive.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really have a plan to keep me hidden from our guests’ view as I waltzed in the front door, so most of our guests saw me walk in and go up the stairs to wait until the beginning of the ceremony. Oh well, what can you do?
Everyone walked down the aisle to Joshua Radin’s Lovely Tonight:
Grandma and Granddad came first, looking adorable:
Mrs. Jaguar, SydneyAge and Occupation: 27, Primary School TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, IT ConsultantEngagement Date: August 8, 2009Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Curzon HallAbout Me: I'm an Australian girl who is a self-proclaimed nerd, loves all things stationery and would be lost without books, music and the internet. Mr. Jaguar and I have been together for the past eight years and he finally popped the question last August. Hurrah! We currently live in Sydney, Australia with our adorable cat who thinks he's a person. We're a couple who likes to multi-task: we've been planning a wedding abroad, a permanent move from London to Sydney, and preparing to build our own home all at the same time. Travelling makes me giddy...as does Mr. Jaguar, of course!
You bet I just referenced today’s blog post with HP nerd-ness.
I promised after showing you all of my DIY-failures that I had one project which I attempted and finished off successfully—so let’s celebrate the small victories, people!
So, I made ribbon wands. The inspiration from this came from a blog I discovered in 2009—he first I’d seen using grey & green together. I loved them so much that I ended up using them, along with white/ivory, as our own wedding colours.
Since our church has the pretty standard rules of ‘no flowers, no throwing stuff, no mess’ for the procession, we were left with…bubbles. I’m not a fan of bubbles. Making the ribbons was totally meant to be. I won’t go into a huge tutorial since they’re basically the easiest thing in the world to whip up, even for the DIY-challenged like myself, but I will show you a few pictures of the process.
We started off with 30cm wooden dowel rods, a hot glue gun with extra sticks, and lots and lots of ribbon. (It’s not all pictured here!)
Mrs. Barrettes, Tumon, Guam/Napa, CAAge and Occupation: 29, DancerFiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Licensed Building ContractorEngagement Date: November 16, 2008Wedding Date: October 2010Venue: V. Sattui WineryAbout Me: I'm an East Coast girl, living on a tiny little island in the Pacific, twirling, leaping, and shimmy-ing my way through life, and now, wedding planning! I'm equal parts nerdy and cool... okay, mostly nerdy. I love satin bows, red lipstick, black & white graphic anything, the shine of sequins and the sound of a champagne "pop". My favorite books are The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James, and Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I can also conjure a pretty good Patronus Charm. I started my appreciation for good red wine while traveling on the high seas, and it's only fitting that my passion for wine drinking led me to my Napa-bred honey. We bonded over bottles of Cabernet on my oceanfront porch and haven't looked back since. We're sealing the deal at a winery in the Napa Valley on a 'perfect ten' of a day!
With the guests seated in the barrel room, the DJ kicked on some fresh tunes and introduced our fun wedding party! Each couple entered to a different song clip and they totally danced their way in. So fun! Mike and John were my favorite. Read more…
Miss Oatmeal, Fresno, CAAge and Occupation: 25, Medical Device Sales RepresentativeFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Police Officer/Captain in the US ArmyEngagement Date: February 16, 2010Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Private Residence, FresnoAbout Me: I am a toast-loving, list-making, occasionally crazy California girl getting dangerously close to marrying her crime-fighting, patient, man's man fiancé. I’ve never left our hometown of Clovis, CA, I love Anthropologie so much it almost hurts, appreciate promptness, love that our 4lb. Chihuahua, Murphy, smells like Fritos, am irritated by windshield wipers that move too fast for the amount of rain, love me some cold weather, have an unhealthy obsession with boots, and wholeheartedly think that my family is everything. Mr. Oatmeal is, oddly enough, my brother's best friend. He's also the best thing that's ever happened to me, and together we are planning a vintage chic, backyard, spring wedding with a few nontraditional touches while trying to keep up with our crazy lives.
Why, oh why are we so obsessed with our shoes? I suppose that question could be posed to most women in general, without regard to weddings. Maybe that’s why our wedding shoes become such an ordeal. A mission. An obsession. But, they’re sooooooo pretty, so why wouldn’t we be completely overwhelmed by wedding shoe goodness?
Once I saw THE shoes, there wasn’t really a question of whether or not I was going to get them. I came across these lovelies on some fashion blog (this was so long ago—I honestly don’t remember where). Then I started doing some research. And then…I found them. I FOUND THEM. At Barney’s. The only problem about that is we don’t have a Barney’s in Fresno, so I would have to purchase them online. No big deal. The next day I went to do just that, and guess what? They were “no longer available.” I’m sorry, they’re WHAT? So I thought long and hard about it, took it as a sign that spending that kind of money on wedding shoes was a complete joke, and went along my merry way. Ha. Yeah right.
I mentioned to my wedding coordinator in passing that I had found the world’s most gorgeous shoes and that they were no longer available. And then, it snowballed.
Mrs. Hermit Crab, New York, NYAge and Occupation: 24, Youth Director soon to be Grad StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Medical Student - soon to be Surgery ResidentEngagement Date: October 11, 2008Wedding Date: June 2010Venue: New York Botanical GardenAbout Me: I love all things food, books, our furbaby, Rashi, and adventures with my amazing fiance (oh, and saving the world!). This summer I will not only be a bride, but a bridesmaid, officiant, and attendee as well---it's all about weddings in my life right now, full of so many exciting moments and projects. We're planning a fab New York City wedding weekend full of family, love and lots of color!
After we finished signing our marriage license and ketubah, it was time for another Jewish tradition: the bedekin.
We were seated again as we started this next part. We asked my childhood Rabbi, an inspiration to me, and a huge part of why I have chosen paths that I have, to do this part. And he blew it out of the park!
Mrs. Buttons, Clearwater, FLAge and Occupation: 24, "Working on it"Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Financial ServicesEngagement Date: June 13, 2009Wedding Date: May 2010Venue: Carlouel Yacht ClubAbout Me: I'm a self proclaimed perfectionist and a professional nomad (seriously, I've lived in TX, WI, MI, FL, NC, and now VA!). I love wine, cooking, curling up with a good book (nerd alert!), spoiling the furbaby, and of course, the wonderful Mr. Buttons! We are planning a lighthearted and whimsical wedding (with a good deal of DIY projects) in Clearwater, Florida, but from a distance of 800 miles away! We are looking forward to sharing our day with our family and friends, and most importantly, starting our lives together as husband and wife!
I don’t know about you, but the chilly winter weather this year has really made me…pale.
I live in Florida; I like to be tan. However, a trip to the tanning bed is not on my list of to-dos. Therefore, as the weeks have passed and the temperatures have been low, my skin has turned a nasty shade of…green (yes, green. I have olive skin, so I look pretty sickly when I don’t have a tan!). I’ve tried a few sunless tanning products in the past, but I have never been completely sold on one particular brand. One turns you a little too orange, one of them left some stains on my clothing, and many of them end up smelling funny. The stench follows me around all day and makes me incredibly self-conscious: surely everyone else can smell me from a mile away, right???
