Weddingbee Blog

The past 11 months have been a rollercoaster of ideas, inspiration, wants, have-to-haves, needs, and chocolate (the last one more so in the last couple weeks). Along the way, I have semi-committed to plenty of things that I recently had to cut loose. There were also a few things that I swore up and down we had no need for (some of which vacillated between “we NEED” and “we don’t need”). So with 20-something-odd days to go until NUPTIAL TIME, I though it would behoove me to do a quick rundown of the things that have come and gone, as well as some of the minute decisions that we’ve finally settled on. No, really… there’s no time to change our minds again.

1. The cardigan-over-the-wedding-dress

Is there any wedding trend more controversial than the bride-in-a-cardigan? I think not. Most of you pointed out that a cardigan on an already stressful and sweaty day, in Florida—whether in November or not —might be a bit overkill. I had been going back and forth over whether I wanted one, or wanted to add sleeves to my dress. What finally made my decision? Seeing how awesome cap sleeves looked at my first and second dress fittings. That, coupled with a complete lack of cardigan-shopping and an aversion to sweaty pits, made the cardigan issue: Abandoned

2. Favor bell receptacles/trays/whatever

Just a couple of short weeks ago, I AGONIZED over what to use to hand out our farewell bells at the end of the night. I scoured websites. I took one too many trips to Home Goods. I finally came up with a few options from IKEA, all of which would have required a financial and craftiness outlay that I wasn’t prepared to make. Then, silver sixpence lent her amazing sense of logic to the comment box:

If the idea is for the serving staff to distribute these, why not just borrow a few of their normal trays—they could pass them out like they would canapés. Use some doilies to pretty them up a bit if you like, or a couple of napkins in yellow and grey to tie it to your theme?

For the amount of time the receptacles will be on show (the time when the servers are handing them out) is it worth it?

You know what? No. It’s NOT worth it. A quick and simple (OK, not really simple, more like rambling and slightly frightening) email to our catering manager yielded our result: They’d pass them out on nice white appetizer trays. Which made the farewell-bell-tray-issue: Solved

3. To favor? Or not to favor?

Store bought Italian cookies? Extra cupcakes? Homemade fudge? Any favors at all? The favor issue may have been the one that changed more often than any other wedding detail. Between what to have and whether to do it, we seriously got sick of talking about it. Hydrangea09 pretty much summed up the majority of the commenter’s feelings: “Who doesn’t love homemade fudge?” True! (Well, unless they’re allergic to chocolate.) Others added other ideas—candy buffet, dessert bar—and then silvergal provided the voice of reason:

I don’t want to be harsh but thinking as a guest, I think it would be very unlikely that I would take an extra cupcake home with me. It’s almost like getting a doggy bag at a wedding - “I couldn’t fit it in now, so can I wrap this to go?” or if I already had one, I would feel like I was taking more than my share.

I had not even considered this, but I think you are right! So, we decided to go the fudgy-fudge route. I cooked up a test batch a few weekends ago, and believe me when I say it was so easy it was ridiculous. It pretty much amounted to melting chocolate and pouring it in a pan. The results were delicious as always, and we’re still eating fudge, which makes the shelf life pretty awesome too (when stored in an airtight container, natch). I’ll be saving the recipe and tag reveal for a later post (I am beyond thrilled with the way these tags turned out!!), but let’s call this favor issue: Solved.

4. Bunting, sweet bunting

Oh, bunting. You held such a special place in my heart. I spent far too much time at the fabric store picking out your patterns and colors. I spent long nights watching episodes of “Modern Family” on my laptop while painstakingly cutting out triangle after triangle. I spray starched each and every one of you until you sat wrinkle free and ready for bunt…ing. And then I handed it off to MOH Ginger, keeper of the sewing machine. And then her life got super duper busy, and I realized I might not have enough length for the whole deck, and I just said, you know what? Forget the bunting.

Her relief was palpable, which made me see even more that I had made the right decision. For the record, yes. I could have gone without sewing them. But at this point, I really didn’t feel like taking on a half-done project in the final month, and came to believe strongly that with an outdoor wedding and as much color as would already be on the deck between the guestbook table, cocktail tables, and venue-provided Christmas lights, the bunting issue was swiftly and soundly: Abandoned

(P.S. The fabric triangles can totally be repurposed into bunting for later use! Backyard barbecue? Baby’s room? Random living room decorations? Not gone to waste, no sirree.)

5. Getting with the program

I was really firm that we would not do programs. I didn’t see the need. They seemed like such a pain. I’m such a stinking perfectionist. I couldn’t just do a one-sheeter and call it a day. Then, I came up with an idea totally randomly, that I got so excited about I just couldn’t NOT do it! The programs are ALMOST DONE, so I’ll be revealing them very soon, but the once-reviled programs are now definitely: Back in the game

What about you? Did you have pet projects that you just had to let go? Did you have others that you took on at a certain point just because you couldn’t restrain yourself?