Hive! I hope your weekend was lovely! McGlovin and I were sitting on the couch on Sunday, when it occurred to us how nice it was to sit and drink coffee and read the paper in companionable silence, without trying to cram every spare minute with wedding planning and logistics and to-do lists. 
Speaking of planning and logistics, though…in my last post, I listed all of the awesomeness that is Google. In this post, I want to zero in on why Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) is so incredibly helpful. [Disclaimer: I know that you all are very bright, and can likely figure this out for yourselves. It’s just, when I started planning, I had no idea where to go or what to use to get organized, and I wish someone had made a few helpful suggestions!]
So, what made G-Drive so helpful? Well, a few things. First, it was like our online wedding binder—it had all of our information in it, and was easily accessible. Since everything is online, we could access it from work, home, our parents’ homes, wherever. Also, there’s an app, so even if I was standing in the aisle at Michaels, I could go into my phone app and see whatever document I needed. You can also edit documents from your phone—crazy helpful.
What all was in our drive? Everything, and I mean everything. Here’s a run-down:
I adore my dress. I’d say that I pull up a picture of it about…maybe once a week. Don’t remember what it is? Well, I’ve got a picture on hand.
Image from Lis Simon
The end. Just wanted to look at my dress again.
Happy Monday Hive!
We’re so thrilled to announce our newest generation of bee blogger icons: the Honeymoon generation! Our amazing icons artist Mrs. Bunting created the 15 little masterpieces below:
With our newest release of icons comes our newest call for bee bloggers! If you’re a current personal wedding blogger and would love to have your wedding journey featured for an adoring hive, check out our application guidelines to apply to become our next bee! We’re currently accepting applications from brides getting married through October 2013.
Do you have the travel bug? Which icon from this generation is your fave?
It’s time to declare the winner, both of the Mates for Life Madness, AND the 3 winners of this Valentine’s Day giveaway!
What’s up for grabs?
A little about Avocado:
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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AND THE WINNERS ARE (DRUM ROLL, PLEASE)…
Read more…
I hate talking about money. I detest it. I don’t like thinking about money, talking about it, or listening to other people talk about it. But the average American wedding has a pretty hefty price tag, and if you’re planning an event for a lot of people, chances are, you’re very conscious of your budget. I know I was—from day one of wedding planning, I was very anxious about setting a budget and sticking to it. I worried, “am I paying too much for these burlap runners? Is my DJ more expensive than average?” So, to help out brides in the planning process, here is the Wallaby budget breakdown.
Guests: 130
Original budget: $20,000
Attire
ATTIRE TOTAL: $2350
How we saved: My Badgley Mischka shoes were originally $200, but I bought a once-worn pair off eBay for $70. The best bargain in this category, though, was Mr. W’s free tux rental, which was part of a deal from Men’s Wearhouse—the five groomsmen rented tuxes, and Mr. W got a free rental.
Rings
Last post, I talked about some of the inspirational pictures that I had for our winter engagement shoot. Well, what did we end up doing? I must admit we kind of took the lazy (and way smarter) route and just let our wonderful photographers pick a location. Our photographers, Kim and Tom, chose a beautiful historical mansion nearby where we had a whole range of different backdrops and I just let them work their magic!
I must admit, I took the lazy way out in terms of preparing for this shoot. I picked a dress that I had in my closet for many years, while PBear’s jacket was stolen from my dad’s closet. Any coordination was purely coincidental. I didn’t change out the accessories I usually wear, and I definitely didn’t wear makeup. I know it’ll be a big change from our look on the big day, but I’m so happy to have some pictures of us looking casual.
All images via All-Star Photos
When we went out to our photo shoot on a “warm” 45 degree day a couple days after Christmas, we really didn’t have any idea what to expect or what to do. I think it really did give us a good idea of what to expect, come wedding day, and I’m so glad we got this opportunity! It took a while for us to loosen up, but those are the pictures that I like the best. I had been anxiously waiting to see the pictures. But boy were they worth the wait!
I am so thrilled with how the pictures turned out. I love how so many of the pictures really feel like us.
Okay, enough talking, more pictures. It was so hard to narrow down the pictures, but here are just a couple of my favorites. Many, many pictures of us trying not to look cold ahead:
Jack found this photographer on Facebook when it popped up that one of his friends had “liked” the page. This was long before we were engaged, but when the topic of photographers came up this guy was one of the first we looked at. I was blown away by them—they were exactly what I had envisioned.
Image via Luke Woodford
Alternative title: “I’m Lazy”
Just a quick post today to show you a preview of a project my sisters and I worked on over Christmas. I knew from the beginning that our budget (would it be helpful for me to post a breakdown of our budget?) wouldn’t allow for a huge flower allowance. I toyed with the idea of buying flowers wholesale and just arranging them myself—but I discarded the idea after realizing that one, I’m not a florist and two, the week of the wedding is already going to be insanely busy with graduation. In fact, in the entire planning process, we have the most events (wedding or non-wedding) scheduled for the week of the wedding. Also known as—we need to get everything done ahead of time. So, even though some bees have rocked doing their own fresh flowers, this girl needs a fake alternative!
The good news is that there are a lot of different ways and materials to make flowers. First up were crepe flowers.
Image via Design Improvised
I actually tried making these beautiful crepe flowers. Mine didn’t turn out quite like the ones in the picture, however. First off, I couldn’t find crepe paper sheets to experiment with, much less anything in coral. Second, I couldn’t get the hang of manipulating the floral tape and wire. Basically, I’m lazy and this was too hard.
There are also paper flowers, which are absolutely beautiful (especially out of pages of books or music)…but incredibly time consuming.
Gguss shares a photo of her church ceremony decor with baby’s breath.
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!
Hi hive, I’m here with a short post this Monday about a quick DIY project I did recently!
I actually missed the boat on taking photos of this particular project, but it’s so easy it doesn’t even need a tutorial.
One day while browsing JoAnn (I’m there on a weekly basis), I found these boxes on sale for half off! I was drawn to this set because of the quotes on it and because of the black and ivory color scheme. Sold!
I was looking for two boxes of different sizes because I wanted something to hold possible cards from guests and a spot to keep the writing utensils for our guestbook. Since they’ll be at the same table I wanted them to match in some way, and I’d also hoped to find something that fit our theme. Since all of our guests’ tables are named with words, and I’m putting up framed quotes around the reception, I knew these boxes would fit right in.
While I was there I also picked up some black ribbon, small wooden letters, black paint, and a small paint brush.
Here’s the finished product:
After I had gotten myself together post-emotional first look, Mr. C and I had a small amount of time with our photographers for couples portraits. For the most part, these photos speak for themselves; there was a lot smiling (with some gigging mixed in on my part) and we just walked around for a few minutes while Megan told us where to stand and then worked her magic.
All photography by Megan Fortner
We started out next to the arbor through which I had passed during our First Look. It was a simple (and impromptu) back drop, but I really loved the texture of it.
Wow, we are almost 100 days out from the big day. Where has the time gone? We are almost in the double digits. The thought of double digits makes my hands sweat. So much to do! So little time! I need to go back and read my wedding planning advice post and take a deep breath.
I like to reminisce about the days when I had free weekends and, well, free time. Right now my free time is usually absorbed in being exhausted and unwilling to even contemplate completing or researching wedding crafts. I open up Pinterest and my chest tightens with anxiety. Totally overwhelming. According to Pinterest I should be cooking amazing dinners, baking incredibly decadent deserts, working on my six pack of abs (and toned strapless dress-ready arms), stockpiling a week’s worth of healthy snacks for work, all while planning the most mind-blowing, handmade wedding in the world and secretly pinning crafts that will someday make me a super mom when I’ve popped out some kids. Oh and let’s not forget about my real job where I work 50+ hours a week and grade stacks of AP World History essays. Because on top of all of this, I am expected to be an amazing teacher. Seriously ladies, I don’t know how you can spend any amount of time on Pinterest without feeling like life’s biggest failure.
But hey, we’re making it work over here! We got some stuff done. Want to hear about it? Good, because I want to tell you about it so I can feel better about our wedding planning progress. I might not have visible abs, but by God I’ve gotten some wedding stuff accomplished!
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| Mr. C puts our save-the-dates into the mail! |
Things we’ve crossed off the to-do list:
