After a long and ever so winding car ride from the airport, we were finally at our hotel, The Jalousie Plantation. We walked down a few steps and there was our villa. It was gorgeous! Linus, our butler for the week, gave us a tour of our new home and we were beyond excited with what we saw! It was super private and had a beautiful view of the Piton Mountains. He also gave us two Firefly phones that we were to use to contact him…whenever we wanted or needed to!
So here it is, our honeymoon villa…
Now on to the real wedding goodness. Reception details! I absolutely loved how everything came together at the reception. McKenzie did such an amazing job with the florals—they looked even better than I had imagined.
Here’s a big shot of the ballroom, all gussied up, as well as some closeups of the tables. I literally did nothing the morning of to set up, so when I walked into the ballroom, I saw everything for the first time. It was amazing and beautiful.
Samantha is selling this Yellow Hype custom invitation design. She is asking $3 per invite.
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:
So my organization is in two forms—online and also on paper. I was always a person that preferred to take notes by hand in class, rather than on a laptop, and I thought wedding planning would be the same. What proved to be the single most helpful part of my life, though, was my online organization. It’s excessive, so be prepared for a wordy post, interspersed with unrelated photos of Howie. 
Doesn’t he look like such a old man here? Or is that just me?
Right, so as soon as I wrapped my mind around being engaged, I went online and reserved two Gmail accounts—one with my married name (I knew I was going to need it in the future) and one that would serve as a wedding account. McGlovin and I both use and love our Droids, so I thought that Google would really be the most convenient source for us, and I was right. Here are just a few of the many awesome ways that Google was helpful:
The thing most people are surprised about when they ask about the wedding is that we’ll be getting married in a church.
I guess church wedding’s aren’t as common these days. Especially for couples that appear as “nontraditional” as me and Jack. People see the dreadlocks, assume I’m a hippy, and never think that a hippy would get married in a church.
In truth, not even I was convinced I’d get married in a church. Years earlier I would have told you I’d be a hypocrite if I got married in a church because I wasn’t religious, and I’d had mini fantasies of getting married in Brighton’s Royal Pavilion because, let’s face it, it’s stunning and as equally beautiful as Buckingham Palace.
Image via brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk
But the Pavilion has it’s downside…the room in which all marriage ceremonies take place holds only 40 guests, and there was something else that wasn’t quite right about it that I couldn’t put my finger on.
I always love the detail shots of the smaller parts of a bride’s look, and anyone who has ever met me knows I believe shoes come first and the outfit comes second. (I bought my wedding shoes two months before I picked out my dress.) My wedding accessories also represented my something old, new, borrowed, and blue.
beccanmatt08 shares a photo of her bridesmaids’ clutches; they’ll be carrying these instead of bouquets!
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Eventually we’ll catch up on my planning process—but until then here’s a quick note of what I’ve been thinking about recently. I was at Walmart in early January with exactly five things on my list—Kleenex, Advil, new screen protectors for my iPhone, and thin ribbon and a hole punch for my invitations. Side note: Apparently EVERYONE got an iPhone for Christmas, because Walmart was completely out of screen protectors.
So I found thin coral ribbon at 10 yards for $0.49 and grabbed two because that’s all they had. I’ll probably need more, actually—for the invitations I need to talk about still. Then I searched all over the store for a hole punch. Turns out the hole punches are in the school-supply section, not the craft section or the party section. I did find cute cookie cutters in the party section, though.
I grabbed the basic $0.97 hole punch and started walking toward the door. Then it hit me. Our invitations would be so much cuter with a heart hole punch.
Hi there, bees! Did you get a chance to vote in the first round of our Mates for Life Madness? It’s time for round 2!
Weddingbee has teamed up with Avocado, a new app just for couples, and we’re giving away a $200 Gift Card for Valentine’s Dream Date + a lifetime subscription of Avocado unlimited to one super-lucky Weddingbee reader!
Avo who?
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. Now it’s down to the Final Four of adorable animal pairs. It’s up to you to decide which two couples make it to the final round!
What’s up for grabs? There will be a total of 3 winners, with prizes just right for a Valentine’s Day celebration!
Here we go…
WHICH COUPLE IS CUTER:
WHICH COUPLE IS CUTER:
Voting in the second round will close tomorrow (Thursday, February 7th, 2013) at midnight PST. We’ll tally up your votes and pit the 2 winners up against each other for the final round, this Friday, February 8th. 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 #2: Update the Avocado calendar so you’re both on the same page about upcoming wedding-planning appointments and deadlines. That way no one’s late to meet with the florist. Simplify your coordinating and save time!
It’s time for a “How To” on the necklaces MOH Big Eyes and I made for the women in the bridal party. I say this with the utmost sincerity, please do not try this at home. In fact, don’t ever attempt to make jewelry out of wool. It’s just a bad idea. Wool is not a good medium for creating pretty, dainty things. But DO make the necklace, just use different fabric.
THAT SAID, we did the best with what we had. And I think our necklaces turned out absolutely gorgeous, thanks to Sister Big Eyes and her ingenuity.
There were a lot of ideas thrown around over the past few months regarding bracelets and necklaces and the tartan fabric. The question was how could we gift the bridal party a piece of our family tartan? (The men will get to keep their bouts even though they’ll never have another reason to wear them. They’ll probably just hold on to them for sentiment’s sake, HA!) Ladies of the Sword bridal party feel free to read on about all the frustration love that went into your jewelry!
Let’s start with the inspiration for this necklace.
image via Pinterest
If you click on the link to Pinterest you’ll find lots of ideas and versions of this beautiful necklace. Most fabrics will move a lot easier than wool. Two things to note about working with tartan fabric, 1) It is very stiff and doesn’t bend well, 2) It frays badly immediately after being cut.
Great, now that you’re excited, here is the step-by-step version of how we made our very own washer necklaces with our tartan fabric.
STEP ONE: BUY YOUR SUPPLIES. You’ll need enough washers for each necklace and Sister Big Eyes says odd numbers look best, so we figured about seven per necklace plus quite a few extras. We also decided we wanted to paint the washers, so picked up ivory and forest green spray paint.
While we spent half the day getting ready, the men showed up 30 minutes before picture time, took 15 minutes to unload and pack the ice chests, 10 minutes talking, and five minutes getting ready. Before Mr. Scepter got dressed, MOH/Lil Sis Dolphin delivered his super secret gift. We had agreed that our wedding and honeymoon was more than enough of a gift for each other, but I had something small I had been saving for a while that I wanted to give Mr. Scepter as a reminder of how far we had come.
When I was 14 I had a friend who saved her movie ticket stubs and made artwork with them. I’m not very crafty, but I thought the things she created were cool looking so I decided I wanted to save enough and create my own project. The next movie I happened to go to turned into my first date with Mr. Scepter. I kept the ticket stub from the movie we saw (and hundreds more in the years that followed), but I never knew what to do with it. So I stole an idea I saw in a crappy Ben Stiller movie, and turned it into Mr. Scepter’s wedding gift.
Cake cutting is an incredibly bizarre tradition. Where did we come up with that one, seriously? As if there is anything less necessary than a second person helping to cut a cake. Honestly, adding a second person actually makes cake cutting MORE difficult. But it is a tradition, and one I was excited about because I love cake, and our cake was awesome and I couldn’t wait to show it off.
Mr. Cannon and I didn’t really talk about it beforehand. I assumed he would smash some cake on me because that seems like a pretty Mr. Cannon move, so I was prepared for anything.
As you can tell from this picture, we had no idea how this whole cake cutting business was supposed to go. Mr. Cannon started trying to cut the cake himself, and then I remembered I was supposed to help.
After an incredible morning, at 1:30 pm we said our goodbyes, gave our “I Spy” game winners a box of cupcakes to take home and asked all our guests to go downstairs for one final group picture.
As our guests made their way downstairs, Mr. Boa and I had a final dance in the empty reception space. it was a great quiet moment to giggle and commiserate about the day before heading off on the two hour car ride to the airport and then the ten hour flight to Rome.
