- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee Blog
Here are some dresses that I would say yes to without hesitation…
I love the top of this dress.
Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Michael and Anna Costa
The way this dress is wrapped looks so soft and elegant, but it still has a modern flair.
Originally published on February 2, 2009
One of the questions that comes up quite often here in the hive is, “how long did it take for your photographer to get your proofs to you?” Ms. Gazelle nominated Mrs. Avocado’s post on why your photographer may tell you it will be 8 weeks (or more) before you get your wedding photos back.
~~~
As soon as I saw this post on the blog of Ksenija Savic (who might just have a harder name to say than I do!), I commented and asked her if I could re-post it here. I loved Anne Ruthmann’s post on Weddingbee PRO that talked about this very subject (and in fact, Ksenija’s post was inspired by Anne’s post). Ksenija took things a step further and broke down in hours how long each step of the process takes.
All the words and photos past this point are by Ksenija herself. I hope this helps you understand just a little bit better what it takes to process a wedding.
—–
Why does it take so long to receive my wedding/portrait images?
(Heather & I decided to collaborate on the verbiage for this post!)
While we haven’t had anyone ask us these questions, at times we wish they would! We wonder if people might be asking themselves these questions, or if they perhaps want to know more about the logistics of it all!
Let’s use a wedding as an example! Here are the basic steps of the process we fine art photographers go through the minute your session or wedding is over.
Step one:
Read more…
Lately I have been trying to catch up on the smaller details. Mainly my Google, Pinterest, and Etsy searches have been dedicated to one thing—card holders. To any “normal” person this may seem a little boring and possibly crazy. But to all of us engaged ladies, I think you can understand my obsession.
What would be the perfect object to house any cards that might show up at the wedding? There are many options: box, bird cage, mailbox. Or how about Mrs. Earrings’ beautiful vintage suitcase card holder. I love all of these, and so my obsessive searching began.
I still came up empty handed, though. You know when you obsess over something too much then all of a sudden you just give up and stop caring? Yeah, that’s what happened to me. I decided to let my brain have a rest and just forget about it.
Well, good things do come to those who wait.
Read more…
It’s the Tuesday before Christmas, and boy, do I have a present for you!
A recap!
Oh myLANTA! A recap?
I know. It’s been a while (weeks? months?), and I’m really sorry for the impromptu disappearance! I have missed your company, your comments, and the reliving of all the special moments of our wedding SO, SO much! But life has been a whirlwind! We took our annual trip to Tennessee (the place where Mr. Brooch proposed) …. I ran a marathon!! …and we’ve been busy nesting our little apartment (hello, whole new world of DIY!!).
Well, I’m BACK and I’m ready to blast off! Will you jump back into the Brooch wedding with me? Do you even remember me? Haha. (If not, there’s tons of pictures below to remind you who the Brooches are!)
My last post revealed our emotional first look, which was directly followed by this time of bride and groom love. These photos hold a special place in my heart. We’ve used them more than any others from the day in our home. We’ve framed them and displayed them; so much so that if you didn’t know us, you might think we were a little narcissistic. 
What can I say? I’m smitten with us; having seen each other for the first time on this, the most special day in our lives. Our photographers (Meredith Perdue & Graham Terhune) did an amazing job capturing it all on film.
So here you have it: the Brooches, full of love and wedding day bliss.
Photo by Meredith Perdue and Graham Terhune
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.”
I’m sure what I am about to describe has happened to some of you. You stand in front of the mirror at the bridal shop, trying to decide if this is The Dress. You smooth down the fabric around your hips, adjust the neckline, check out the way that the train lays in the back. “Hmm,” you say, almost to yourself. Then, almost out of nowhere, the bridal consultant sweeps in and plops a veil on your head. “There! A bride,” she exclaims. “Perfect!”
In bridal stores, as well on shows like Say Yes to the Dress, the veil seems to function as the ultimate transformative piece (and hard-sell accessory): you put it on, you become a bride! But what happens when you don’t want to wear a veil?
I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to wear a veil. That’s not to say that I didn’t admire veils. I love long, lace-tipped ones, like this one from Rohm. It’s also not to say that I didn’t try any veils on; I had veils dropped on my head whenever I seemed remotely interested in whatever dress I was trying on. Having the consultant do so, however, just reinforced my feeling that a veil just wasn’t for me.
I did know that I wanted to accessorize my gown with some kind of hairpiece. Like I had done so many times before, I turned to Etsy. I first started looking at different hair flowers. (I just realized that several of the ones that I bookmarked have tiny tulle netting attached!)
Image via Amie Noel Designs
ash811 wore the gorgeous San Patrick Eresma on her wedding day
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!
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
…handwriting.
As I mentioned, we received our save-the-date envelopes early so that I could get working on the calligraphy for the envelopes. My main artistic skill has always been my penmanship—since I was a kid (sorry—no long lost samples of my journals to insert here). And to answer one of the most asked questions—no, I did not attend a Catholic school.
I thought it would be fun to do the calligraphy for our paper products but, somewhat more importantly, I thought our friends and family would expect it. Seriously—for those who know me well, if I had paid for calligraphy it would have been…I’d argue…disappointing. Even Mr. Turkey took it for granted.
So, to start, I looked online to get style inspiration. Like our paper products, I was going to go more modern with the save-the-date calligraphy and more classic for our invitations. I saw a lot of fabulous work on the web—so many talented people!!
Besides the bright color, I liked the extension of the letters. / Image via The Social Life of Paper
Hi hive!
The fun folks at YouTube sent us a round up of the top viewed wedding/proposal videos of the year, and we’re here to share them with you! I spent the morning watching them, and I’ve got tears running down my face!
1. Greatest Marriage Proposal Ever!!! - MattandGinny (Views: 20.2M):
Originally published January 20th, 2009
Mrs. Penguin nominates Mrs. Cupcake’s detailed check list on things to consider when creating your own invitations. The post came a little late for her, as her wedding was the year prior—she caught a few mistakes on her invitations after reading this post! This post is totally save- and share-worthy…make sure you pull it up when it’s time for you to create your invitations!
~~~
In designing our wedding invitations, I was definitely at a huge advantage over other DIY brides, and for that I know I am very, very lucky. I design wedding invitations and stationery for a living, and have been a graphic designer for six years, so there wasn’t a lot of guessing about how to begin or what to include. But thinking back to when I first designed wedding invitations for a friend over four years ago, I remember how overwhelming it was, which is what a lot of you may be going through. I thought I’d share some of my knowledge with you all, since it seems like a lot of brides go the DIY route for their invitations. I am certainly not claiming to be the end-all, be-all authority of wedding invitations… but I hope this can help a few of you out who may be struggling.
1. Make sure you give yourself enough time.
Designing, printing, assembling, addressing, and mailing your invitations will take a very long time… I’m not going to lie. It may be one of the most time-consuming tasks you will encounter while wedding planning. I’m not trying to scare you — just prepare you! If you think you can complete the task from start to finish in a month, give yourself two months. Everyone works at their own pace but it is better to err on the side of caution and give yourself plenty of time to account for your learning curve. A good rule of thumb is to mail your invitations 6-8 weeks before your wedding date, leaving your guests at least a month to reply before your response date, so try to plan things out so everything is completed several weeks ahead of this timeline in the event that you run into roadblocks along the way. I mailed our invitations on July 22 and our reply by date was September 1 (for our September 20 wedding), so our guests had ample time to let us know whether or not they would be attending.
2. Think carefully about your “reply by” date.
Read more…
Now one of the most frequent questions we get as a lesbian couple is, “Who proposed to who?!” and “Who gets the ring?” Well—I’m here to tell you that we BOTH proposed, and we both got rings! We’re both fairly “girly” girls and we both wanted a proposal and rings. We’re both a little…lipstick. Props if you got that reference!
Image via Ambiente
Anyway—because we both wanted a ring and we both wanted proposals, this wasn’t a “surprise.” We picked out rings together and set out a day we were going to propose to one another. Yes, we are GEEKS. We wanted it to be on the same day, so that we could say that was the day “we” got engaged. I’m a scientist, what can I say?
Today is the last day to enter this contest!
~~~
How many bridesmaids’ dresses do you have gathering dust in your closet? Probably at least a few, right? If you want to spare your bridesmaids some cash and closet space and don’t want to say “you can totally wear it again,” today is your lucky day!
Little Borrowed Dress is a new online wedding boutique that offers stylish bridesmaids’ dresses FOR RENT at a quarter of the retail price (under $100!). Designed with fit in mind, their dresses flatter a variety of body types without requiring alterations. To learn more about how the rental process works and see their initial capsule collection, visit their website. And stay tuned—many additional styles including full length options will be coming in January!
The only thing better than being able to rent bridesmaids’ dresses is being able to rent bridesmaids’ dresses for FREE!
Real Weddings by Little Borrowed Dress!
To celebrate their new collection launching soon, Little Borrowed Dress has teamed up with Weddingbee for a great giveaway—one lucky hive member will win dress rentals for her entire bridal party (up to $400)!
For a sneak peek at the new collections and to hear about special discounts, sign up for the Little Borrowed Dress newsletter.
To enter the contest:
You must complete both steps to be entered. You have until Tuesday, November 22nd at 11:59 PM PST to enter this contest and a winner will be selected at random on Wednesday November 23rd. As an added bonus, everyone who enters will receive an email code for 10% off any rental from the new collection when it launches!
To up your odds, don’t forget to have your bridesmaids enter too! Good luck!
I thought I would take an afternoon off from wedding tasks and shift my focus from said wedding to Christmas. I needed a way to display Christmas cards our friends and family have been sending us. Well, leave it to bride brain to turn a Christmas project into a wedding project.
Heading to Pinterest for inspiration, I found the perfect solution and immediately picked up my supplies. A $5 picture frame from the thrift store:
And clothespins and jewelry wire from Wally World:
Read more…
One of my favorite new wedding trends: overhead decorations. There is something whimsical and celebratory about Chinese lanterns, chandeliers, fabric, or even umbrellas creating a new ceiling for a wedding venue.
I’m not sure I can pull anything like this off at our wedding, but I sure am going to try!
These simple, colorful paper lanterns take this venue from a party to a unique wedding reception.
Image via Real Simple / Photo by Debra McClinton
I love this unique idea from Duet Weddings. They stripped the traditional wedding tent so that the guests could experience the trees overhead, but still used the tent structure to hang draped curtains and beautiful rustic chandeliers.
Our photographers arranged our first look at Granville Island. Granville Island is a place we love to visit every time we are in Vancouver so it seemed perfect for our first look. I was running late, but now all I could think about was that I was so close to seeing Mr. Gazelle for the first time on our wedding day. While our photographers were on the phone coordinating our first look the girls adjusted a few pieces of my attire, including my necklace which kept twisting.
Mr. Gazelle was waiting for me on the marina with his groomsmen.
Read more…
Hive, I’m going to be honest with you. I finished writing my recaps a few weeks ago. I’ve been sitting on them editing them over and over again to “make sure they were perfect,” but in reality, I was just putting this post off. For the last 15 months, you’ve let me share my wedding with you. That fantastic day took place eight months ago, and I suppose it’s now time to quit dragging my feet and face the inevitable farewell. After all, a lot has happened since our wedding day. Mr. Lion left his job with family law and now works in insurance defense. I left my large trauma hospital, and I now work in a more specialized neurorehab setting. Most importantly (at least it’s what we’re most excited about), we bought a house! We’ve had a lot of change in the past eight months, but all of it has been good change. Best of all, we’ve had each other to rely on.
Mr. Lion and I have been friends since 2003, we’ve been together since 2005, and we’ve lived together since 2007. I really didn’t think being married would feel that different. I suppose in most ways, life still feels the same. We still enjoy the same things, and every interaction between us still reveals the goofy dorks that we both are. Our relationship is the same for the most part, but our plans feel different.
Read more…
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 |
