Weddingbee Blog

Herding Cats IKEA style!

Video via YouTube (The behind the scenes video is amazing, too)

I love Baconator’s family; they know that I love them. They have also taught us some very good lessons in wedding planning/activating. It’s no fun to be the loving family member that drives in for the wedding and spends every moment doing last minute wedding activities like steaming tablecloths with one corner in your mouth or decorating a reception hall an hour before the reception starts with no input from the bride or groom. It’s just not fun, and you end up sweaty, cranky or both.

So when my commanding aunt who has a voice that carries and planed her own wedding offered to coordinate our wedding, it was so hard to turn her down. In the end though, we knew that she’d be bummed that she was in the back of the room when I walked down the aisle instead of crying beside my mom. I found myself back on the ‘Bee looking for suggestions and decided that the best place to start would be contacting Honey Bee Weddings that coordinated Mrs Stiletto’s wedding. She wrote rave reviews about them and from what I understood from their website, their DOC rates were exactly what we wanted to spend.

Marilyn was really nice and set up a meeting with one of her coordinators, Laura. (Let me interject and say that I’m a creeper and a Wedding Bee superfan.) She sent over a quick bio on Laura’s experience with the company and also sent me a link to her professional Facebook which had a link to her hubby’s photography website. Hmm, that website looked really familiar, as did his name, so I quickly rummaged through my old board posts asking for photographer suggestions. Just as I suspected, the lady we were meeting within a few days was a BEE! Not just any Bee, she was a Chicago Bee whose wedding I went back and read all about once we were engaged and loved. This was last October, so when I ran and told the Baconator that we could potentially have a Bee as a DOC, he was like “Uh, awesome, honey.”

Once we met at yet another coffee shop (see a theme?), we find out that she and the Baconator work in the same building (fate?), and she confirms that she wrote as Mrs Stiletto on Wedding Bee. I tried to play it all nonchalant, “Oh, really? That’s very cool; must have been really fun.” I had to do everything I could not to be all, “OMGIalreadyknowthat&readallaboutyourweddingitwassopretty&I’mdyingtobeabeeeeeeee.” I quickly realized that sure she was a Bee, but she’s also just really nice and funny and helpful, I wanted to book her even more. I kept meaning to email other wedding planning companies, but I just didn’t. So a couple weeks went by, I confirmed with the Baconator that he liked her and a check was in the mail holding our date and securing Laura as our DOC. She has already started helping us develop a schedule for the wedding day and giving us advice on the best way to spend the morning of hair and makeup shenanigans - way more than most DOCs would be willing to do, especially over 5 months out.

Besides, she, more than anyone, totally got it when I sent her an ecstatic email once I found out I was going to be Miss Bacon. I was too chicken to let her know that I was applying, but since the day back in January, I’ve definitely looked to her for guidance on improving my posts and how to tread delicately with vendors I haven’t decided to use. It’s been really awesome knowing someone that has been through both planning a wedding herself and has experienced blogging on the ‘Bee that I can lean on.

Are you having a DOC? Has she gone above and beyond?