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Have y’all missed me?! I had planned on getting down to honeymoon recaps sooner, but my computer decided to kaput on me. I’ve been using the public library down the street, but the librarian wasn’t so keen on my using a public computer to blog. So now with a new computer and our hundreds of honeymoon pictures transferred, I’m ready to share!
I mentioned before I knew very little about the honeymoon. While we waited at our gate the (very early) morning after our wedding, I got Mr. Skunk to spill. The itinerary involved two days at Arenal Volcano and three days on the beach at Manuel Antonio. I was excited but also a little apprehensive. Mr. Skunk booked the whole honeymoon through LivingSocial. In case you didn’t know, LivingSocial is a flash sale site that has one deal per day. I usually research the heck out of vacation deals, and here I was leaving the whole thing up to Mr. Skunk and deal site? Call me converted. I think this post and the next will help convince you if you’re on the fence like I was.
My worries were eased as soon as we got on the plane and I managed to get a few drinks in me. We totally blabbed that we were on our honeymoon to get these babies fo’ free!
First off, thank you so much for your kind words and awesome suggestions on my last post about thank you notes!
Let’s continue with those recaps.
In the early afternoon, our wonderful wedding planner, Shelley, arrived! She stopped by the house to touch base with me and then headed off with her assistant to get started setting up at the venue. It was so nice having her there to take care of all the little details. I had collected so many little knick knacks over time, and I knew she’d use her creativity to get everything set up in a cute and creative way. And she didn’t disappoint! Between her and the rest of the guys, they took care of everything.
And then our wonderful photographer, Joy, and her assistant for the day, Lora, had arrived!
The entrance to the gardens
’Tis the season for new engagements!
Many of you may be stumbling upon Weddingbee for the first time as newly engaged couples! Throughout the years, bees and hive members have been uber inspired by some amazingly helpful posts, and we thought we’d take the time this season to highlight those posts for our newest hive members.
Through the season we’ll be publishing a few of the bees’ nominations for the most helpful posts they read while planning their own weddings. We hope you’ll be able to discover what the hive’s archives have to offer for your own planning.
If you have an old favorite Weddingbee post or boards thread that helped you a lot in your wedding planning process, link to it here, and we’ll republish it for the hive! These posts will live under the tag “helpful-series.” As we get going, feel free to scroll through them all via that link!
And to all you new brides and grooms out there: welcome! Leave us a little comment to let us know who you are, where you’re from, and when you got engaged. We can’t wait to inspire your journey to the aisle! 
Our wedding ceremony came and went, and now our reception was reaching its close. For our last dance, we asked the DJ to play All You Need is Love by The Beatles. Mr. Lion and I stood in the center of the dance floor, and a giant group hug quickly formed around us.
You’re probably wondering why everyone was looking to their right. Remember that balloon from our Save the Dates? Our photographer brought his along so that we could take these pictures…
Read more…
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.”
Hive, I’ve been a tease. I talked about all these DIY projects I had coming up, and then I immediately started talking about everything else but that.
While I did have my bridal shower this past weekend, I will give you at least one DIY post before I get to re-capping that loveliness. If my title wasn’t obvious enough (everyone hasn’t seen Despicable Me, although they should!), this screenshot should help.
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| Image via Hello Again Girls / Screenshot from Despicable Me |
What’s fluffy, but not a stuffed animal? A pillow of course! For my first DIY project I’ve (mostly) finished, I made the ring bearer pillows. Okay, okay, so I’ve only made one so far, but I wanted to share it. And the other will be identical, so there will be nothing new there.
Read more…
The other day, I told you about my trip to Hitched in Georgetown and how I added Jorge Manuel to the list of designers I liked after seeing his name on the salon’s website. I started gobbling up everything I could find online about Jorge because his dresses were unlike any I had seen before. While many of the silhouettes were traditional, the details were so different! I thought his dresses looked like pieces of art.
I had been searching for dresses with quirky or whimsical details and while many of the dresses I tried on were beautiful, none seemed to have a very special or original look. The Jorge Manuel gowns had me excited. The fashion lover in me liked them a lot and I also felt excited about them. Perhaps I was feeling the emotions that many brides feel when they find their dress?
Look at the detail on that train! / The Indus by Jorge Manuel
I tried on The Emerald gown at Hitched and it was a wee bit too slinky for me since I’m a little self-conscious about my hips. I kept searching and reading whatever I could about Jorge and his dresses.
Read more…
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Hive, have you seen the new Randomizer series? I have, and it’s awesome! It seriously put me into “wanting to do recaps” mode just so I could participate. I feel like before I can start recapping, I should share one of my favorite things with you: our invitations!
Our invitation suite was a DIY affair…and it ended up taking longer than I thought (which is how it always happens, right?!). I’ll break the whole process down for you, but it’ll probably be easy to do in pictures. 
The first step was to create the invitation suite. As much as I loved all those modern invitations I kept talking about so many months ago, I really wanted something that looked fresh, but ultimately traditional. I spend all day, every day designing hip, modern things…for our wedding, I decided to follow my little designer-heart and create something that I loved, even if it wasn’t exactly “cool” and seemed traditional. That was my inspiration…
Read more…
bethany wamsley is selling cupcake stands that hold six cupcakes. She’s asking $25 each.
Have a wedding item for sale? Post it with pictures in the Weddingbee Classifieds, and you might see it featured on the blog!
Other great items for sale:
Hi Hive! I’m coming up on my two year anniversary and was so happy to buzz back to say hello and revisit my wedding. I got married in Norfolk, VA on the coldest day of the year on New Year’s weekend. The loose theme was vintage black and white. Though it all looks pretty traditional in this selection of random photographs, I remember shocked family members asking me where I ever got the idea of red shoes from and how in the world I DIYed fabric bouquets. The wedding world has come a long way, huh? Looking back, I feel lots of joy. It was a fun day, but the best part has been being married to my best friend ever since!
The dance floor was packed all night and I love that this photograph shows off my beautiful bridesmaid in the middle. If you peek in the back, you can also see my event coordinator, Pavaune!
Read more…
I’m not great with surprises. I usually manage to figure things out beforehand—the engagement being an exception. However, little did I realize that just a few months later, there would be another surprise.
One May day, I received an envelope with a typed address on the front (no return) and this inside:
“What in the world?” I thought as I saw the card…the inside wasn’t much more help!
…even worse than the one I used to know. It’s been said, extremely misogynistically, that once you put a wedding ring on a woman, she blows up like a balloon. This statement makes me extremely angry. First of all, maybe women tend to get fat post-wedding because they’re having kids or their metabolisms are slowing down. Maybe it’s because women tend to have a higher percentage of body fat than men. Regardless, it’s really not anyone’s business, and it’s horrifying that not only do women have to struggle to look perfect on their wedding day, but now we also have to worry about gaining the newlywed nine and becoming a statistic.
That being said…I am really looking forward to being able to eat whatever I want after the wedding. OK, I’ll be real: my diet since the proposal hasn’t changed that much, but I am definitely depriving myself of some of my old favorite artery-cloggers, and my patience is wearing thin (unlike my waistband—not fair). Before the ring (B.R. from now on), I ate Frosted Mini Wheats with skim milk for breakfast; now I eat a banana. B.R. I ate a salad, two servings of fruit, and a bag of Triscuits with a Diet Pepsi for lunch. Now I’ve replaced the Triscuits with another serving of fruit (who knew those little buggers had so many calories???), and I’ve done away with the pop. B.R. dinner was a free-for-all, and weekends? I’m too ashamed to mention them. Now I try to eat a Lean Cuisine for dins. Weekends are still too shameful for me to write about. I may or may not be eating chocolate chips from the bag as I type…
Image via Kells Craft / Edited by me
Well, I’m not a total teetotaler. I drink the occasional glass of wine or beer, maybe averaging a drink or two per month. But Mr. Mole doesn’t drink. Ever. Not even a little bit.
Only one glass of wine at this table in NYC!
I didn’t find this out until our second date. Chicago offers liquor licensing for BYOB (bring your own booze) restaurants, and we just happened to go to one of those places for our second date. As we hugged hello outside of Habana Libre on Division, I suggested that we pick up a bottle of red wine from the liquor store down the street. “No thanks,” said Mr. Mole, “I don’t drink.” “Ever?” I asked, somewhat incredulously. “Never,” answered Mr. Mole.
Ask any one of my family and close friends and they will most likely tell you that I’m a fairly traditional girl with classic taste. And while our wedding ceremony will be quite traditional, there are some traditions that we’ve decided to do without.
The Bouquet Toss
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| Photo by Aislinn Kate Photography |
For some reason, I’ve been against this idea from the start, and I’m not exactly sure why.
Read more…
Today I signed into my registry to replace something that went discontinued (no worries—I’ve only had to do this 80 times already) and my jaw almost hit the floor when I noticed we are ALMOST at 100 days out. Crazy little registry countdown clock!
What the hell? I don’t think I ever took into consideration that all this planning would lead to the big day, because my mind feels boggled by the concept of me walking down the aisle and getting married. And, with my first dress fitting looming a few weeks away I realized I better stop slacking at getting my arse to the gym, and I better stop eating all those damn tacos (well except for Taco Tuesdays…).
Okay, a disclaimer. I know I am not a plus-size bride and I am not here to whine that my size 2s are just TOO DARN TIGHT (because I will never be a size 2!). But, my desire to be in shape for my wedding stems from my past. I was a chubster! Baby fat, chubby, chunky, however you want to put it I was overweight and unhealthy. I like food and I like to eat. I grew up in a clean your plate(s) family. I was the polar opposite of an active child. My hobbies consisted of doing things like poking out all the chocolate chips in my Chips Ahoys, eating the cookie, and saving the chocolate chips for dessert (yes, I really did this). So, Hive for you only (and I guess whoever else stumbles upon this blog post) I am revealing a teenage awkward photo of myself to prove that I am not BSing you. Here goes:
Yes, I am aware I had oddly un-proportional legs
Once my bridesmaids and Momma Thimble were dressed and ready, all hands were on deck to help me into my dress and to share the big, (fluffy), wonderful, highly anticipated moment when I became a bride.
NY MoH helped me get my dress down from its hanging place. No one was too keen on me standing on a chair to get it, but I can be pretty stubborn.
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