That’s right, we look good…but only when we have AMAZING photographers cracking us up and working their mad skillz.
As I discussed previously, I was completely indecisive when it came to engagement pics. All of a sudden, we were just a few months out from our wedding and I realized it was time to get my stuff together. Thanks to all those who left comments, because it helped me realize e-pics are a great way to document the love Mr. Squirrel and I have. That’s it. No pressure, people. I realized the best possible engagement pics would be ones where we were relaxed and comfortable. We decided to first get some pics at Ballast Point Park on Tampa Bay where there are lots of luscious trees and great views. Then we went super casual and picnicked it up nearby at Fred Ball Park. Thankfully, our photographers were amazing enough to let us end the evening by starting a campfire, complete with s’mores and a few smooches.
Tampa Bay brides, I cannot rave about Sarah & Ben enough. I mean, their tagline is: Photography for Storybook Love. Did you just melt? I did…
They are this adorable married couple who are so in love themselves. They are all about capturing the little moments…the soft smile, the stolen glance. I think our pictures turned out wonderful and, while we may not use them specifically for the wedding, I am so excited to have some printed on big canvases to hang around the house, er…apartment (wah wah).
To top it off…Sarah and Ben are hysterical. They had us cracking up the entire shoot, even as Mr. S was not so gracefully about to let me drop me off a dock. We also had a bit of a trespassing incident, and the women from Grey Gardens chased us away. Oh the things we do for art…
Enough yammering, here are some of our favorites!
All photos by Sarah & Ben
Marcie B. is selling vintage-inspired bridal belts. She is asking $80 per belt.
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:
After our recessional, we snuck back into the church so that everyone could sign the marriage license! We also had asked the best man to bring envelopes with money to pay the musicians, but he, of course, forgot them. So Mr. CA had to explain to them that we were, indeed, honest and trustworthy people, we were not trying to swindle them, and we would drop the money off at the parish hall the next day. Thankfully, they were very understanding, we left the money at the hall the next day just like we promised, and it all worked out fine. Whew! Another crisis averted.
Fr. John, always thinking about the photography, had us sign everything right up on the altar so that we would get good light for the photographs. He also draped my bouquet artfully next to the certificate. He should be a wedding planner!
Mr. Mongoose and I have a serious case of wanderlust. As I mentioned in my intro post, we LOVE to travel. We travel mostly for pleasure, but Mr. M also travels a ton for work. So when deciding on a honeymoon location, we narrowed down the numerous options by asking ourselves a few simple questions. What area of the world have we never been to? Which countries are in our top five of places we’d love to visit? Where else can you hug a koala or go on a Lord of the Rings tour? The answer to each question was without a doubt, Australia & New Zealand.
I’ve reluctantly accepted the fact that you can’t ride a kangaroo. / Image via Down Under Views
Hello, hive! Valentines Day is fast approaching and, of course, we couldn’t be more excited to take an entire day to celebrate L-O-V-E! We’re excited to team up with Avocado, a brand new app made especially with couples in mind, to bring one lucky Weddingbee reader a $200 Gift Card for Valentine’s Dream Date + a lifetime subscription of Avocado unlimited.
Avo-what-o?
Avocado is the app made just for couples. It’s a reliable, secure, and fun way to privately stay connected to your fiancé no matter where you go and features fast messaging, photo sharing, and mobile Hugs and Kisses (yes, really). Engaged couples who use Avocado love using Avocado’s shared lists to get things done before the big day, and the shared calendar makes reminding their sweetie about upcoming appointments a breeze! Avocado is available for Android and iPhone and on the web: avocado.io
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To win, participate in our Mates for Life Madness vote off, then let us know you voted in the comments! We’re pitting furry lovebirds against adorable pet friends in the ultimate showdown, just in time for Valentine’s Day! Avocado has scoured the web for their eight favorite animal “couples,” and over the next week, it’s up to the hive to decide which animal duo will be crowned Mates for Life! Think: March Madness, but on cute overload.
What’s up for grabs? There will be a total of 3 winners, with prizes just right for a Valentine’s Day celebration!
Ready for the vote off? Here we go…
WHICH COUPLE IS CUTER:
WHICH COUPLE IS CUTER:
WHICH COUPLE IS CUTER:
WHICH COUPLE IS CUTER:
Voting in the first round will close tomorrow (Tuesday, February 5th, 2013) at midnight PST. We’ll tally up your votes and pit the 4 winners up against each other for round two, this Wednesday, February 6th, and continue to narrow it down until one pair of furry friends reigns supreme. And remember, everyone that comments on any of the four “Mates for Life Madness” posts is eligible to win! The more rounds you participate in, the higher your chances of winning.
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More about Avocado.io:
Our society has created soooo much software and social tech, but no one—aside from Avocado and the very few other couple-focused apps—have made technology JUST for couples. Avocado is a fun, fast, reliable, and private way to stay connected to the one you love most. Head to Avocado.io to use Avocado on the web, and download it for free on the App Store or for Android.
Avocado tip #1: Share your grocery and shopping list with your sweetie using Avocado! Is your other half running to the grocery store after work? Go ahead—put the ingredients for your favorite late night snack (or healthy slow-cooker recipe) on the list and make sure they get the message!
So…who wants to know how Jack and I met?
When I was 19 I got my ears pierced four times in each ear. It wasn’t a clever thing to do—they became really swollen. But it was the start of my mini-obsession with tattoos and piercings. The tongue piercing came next—then the double navel, the nose ring, and my very first tattoo.
In the space of two years I got over 20 piercings (mostly in my ears!) and seven tattoos. A craze like this is typically accompanied by an equally crazy obsession with an online forum. I was hooked. It was busy, but not super busy—all the regular posters were well acquainted with each other and it was a really nice little community. We learnt things, got ideas, and encouraged people to be safe and not stick safety-pins into their skin.
After a while, one of the members suggested a little meet-up with anyone who was local. Most people in the UK headed down to London for the weekend. We met, had dinner and a few drinks, and had a really good time. After the success of that one, they wanted to do another—but a bigger event that needed some proper organisation. I was asked to help, and help I did! I organised another weekend in London for around 60 people, and it was whilst I was organising this that I got talking to a guy who was going to attend.
BrittaniMV shares a photo of her groom’s Excel Spreadsheet cake.
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!
Somehow, I feel like I have to write a how-to post in order to be a legitimate bride. OK, I know that’s not true. But I’m still excited to write about my biggest project so far—and definitely my favorite.
I told you before about my Scrabble obsession inspiration. I was innocently scrolling through Pinterest when I saw a picture of a card box labeled with “Cards” in Scrabble letters.
I loved the idea of labeling with Scrabble letters! Except, as always, I had to take it one, or two, or three steps further. First of all, I wanted them to be made out of wood to mimic as closely as possible the smaller Scrabble letters I had already ordered. Second, I wanted to label all the tables with matching letters. Third, I wanted to make them myself, with a budget of…basically zero dollars.
Originally I was all like “We’ll just make the words ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’! It will be easy! It will only take us a half hour!” Somehow that morphed into 61 letters of two different sizes and five people spending over 15 hours combined on the project. Oops.
It started off like any other trip to the PO Box. Since Mr. Sword has been traveling for work every week, I’ve been doing all of the heavy lifting and car loading and unloading of wedding related packages. That said, it’s hard to complain about receiving lots of great packages and letters, and on this particular day I had SIX boxes to bring into the apartment and a handful of letters. Immediately after unloading I wanted to begin opening the packages (obvs) but something caught my eye in the stack of mail, it was a letter from the UK.
Now it’s not unusual for us to receive mail or cards from the UK (hello Scottish fiance) so at first I set it aside, eager to open everything else. But something made me do a double-take. This letter was special. It looked different, regal, important. My heart began pounding and a scream left my mouth, “WILLIAM AND KATE SENT US A LETTER! OHHH MYYY GOSH OHMIGOSH! AHHHH!!!!”
True story.
These deets aren’t really dirty. I just wanted a more interesting title than “The Details.” Like I said a few posts ago, I’m going a little out of order. Technically, if you’re a Unicycle Wedding Purist, you should know that we took a peek at the reception set-up before the cocktail hour and before we took photos on the golf course. But I’m showing you the dirty deets now because I can do what I want!
When we got up the stairs, the first thing out of Mr. Unicycle’s mouth was “Uhh…they got the cake wrong.” I was about to go apeshit, you guys. I’m talking throwing cake around the room like an animal, or like Kristen Wiig vs. Giant Cookie in Bridesmaids. I had had quite a comical conversation with the bakery a few days before the wedding, going back and forth about the damn colors. Every time I said “gray,” they said “okay, so yellow?” And when I said white polka dots they were all “gray polka dots?” It turns out they were just confused because Mr. Unicycle had told them the wrong thing. And the cake at our reception was, in fact, correct! And this just goes to show how stereotypical Mr. Unicycle was as a groom: when I told him the cake was actually right he just shrugged and said “Oh, okay. It looks good.”
Photo by Jennifer Shaffer Photography
This is the post where things get real. Where you get to see how much we spent, where, and why. No doubt it’s a tough thing to write about…money, and it’s here for everyone to see, but I feel it’s an important and instructive tool for planning brides.
Thanks to our 19-month engagement, we had more time than the average couple to sock away money. I took full advantage and saved 20% minimum of my take-home pay each month. The trick is to start early to beef up your savings—it’s like retirement! The best part? Those funds were hardly missed.
We intentionally did not set a budget until we had real numbers to base it on. I mean, we could have easily set an arbitrary number and worked backwards, but you can imagine all the lovely conversations resulting from that idea. (You’ve probably had some of those yourself.) What we had were priorities. If it was important to us and cost a little more to get exactly what we wanted, we were fine with that.
Budget: loosely defined as $25,0000-30,000. We realistically expected to spend more than $25,000 given our desire for certain splurges, but hoped not to exceed $30,000. Thirty grand seemed to be our magic threshold. My parents were extremely generous and gifted us money equal to almost a third of our total expenses. Totally unexpected and unnecessary, but wholeheartedly appreciated!
Guests: 85
Venue: $2,165
