Alternate title: “How I Will Inevitably End up Gluing My Hand to Something”
True confessions: I am the farrrrthest thing from a do-it-yourself’er. My arts and crafts capabilities mimic those of a five year old.
You know what? Scratch that. The two little girls I babysit (who are also our flower girls and two of the cutest girls in the entire universe) are super adept at arts and crafts, and they’re both under 10. In fact, as I told a friend this morning, they often ask me to do arts and crafts and I end up having to dissuade them. (“Don’t you want to play Simon Says?”)
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Image from Amazon / This is about as arts-and-craft-y as I get, folks.
As I’ve been perusing websites, I’ve been finding more and more awesome DIY ideas.
I have briefly touched upon my groom and his tininess. A petite little fellow, my man is five foot four and very slim indeed! He very much lives up to his Italian heritage and is actually the tallest in his family!
But the downside is that we live in England, not Italy, and dress sizes here are not favourable to men of his stature.
We went off to look at suits for him the other day at a very very beautiful shop in Brighton called Gresham Blake—a place which has created suits for various celebrities, such as Eddie Izzard, Ray Winstone, Matt Lucas, Plan B, Christian Slater, Richard E Grant, and Tom Felton, to name but a few!
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Image via Gresham Blake Ltd on Facebook
An expensive shop, but we had to go here for a specific reason—Jack has to have a bespoke suit. We tried on the off-the-peg suits, but none of them fit. Even if he had the sleeves shortened to fit, it would still be too long, and he couldn’t be wearing clothes that didn’t fit him on his wedding day.
Years ago we used to laugh that his suit would cost more than my dress, and the reality is looking very close. Bespoke suits are rare outside Savile Row, and Gresham Blake was the only place in our area that we knew would make a fully custom suite from scratch.
The store is just wonderful. Situated on a corner in Brighton’s North Laine district, it is the display window that catches most eyes.
Victoria is selling kraft paper “Tie the Knot” save the dates. She is asking $1.59 per invite.
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Once we finished taking formal photos on the altar, it was time for even more photos. We had three hours between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of cocktail hour to take photos around Chicago. If you’ll recall, we hired a trolley for the occasion.
We made our way out of the chapel and paused for a few photos in front of the building.
As you can see from all of my previous honeymoon posts, we did quite a bit of sightseeing while on our honeymoon! Mr. B and I met several other honeymooning couples at our resort, and when we all compared what activities we had done, for the most part the other couples spent their days at the hotel by the beach. We could have totally done that too because it was an amazing resort with a beyond gorgeous beach, but we wanted to see the island, and the funny thing is…we didn’t even make it to the other side of St. Lucia! There’s a whole other side by the island’s capitol of Castries that we just didn’t have the time to explore! (We plan to make it over there on our next trip.)
With that said, we did do quite a bit, but it never seemed like we were constantly on the go. The activities we did were all fairly close to the resort and enabled us to return by lunchtime so we could enjoy a nice meal by the water. We then spent the rest of the day beach side! After watching the sunset by the shore we would relax by our private pool. It was pure paradise!
Sorry for the lame title, folks: I’m just too excited to think straight, and if left to their own devices, my fingers would type:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was at work when I received my email from Mrs. Penguin, so I could only squeal so much. I put my technological skillz to work, though, and started blowing people up the ways that I could: inter-office IM, GChat, email. “I’M A BEE!!!” was pretty much the gist of it. I am so excited to be a part of this community and to share everything with you all.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way, shall we: why Miss Palm Tree? Let’s not lie, all of the icons are adorable, no matter which generation. In the interest of full disclosure, I had my eye on Miss Fairy from way back when, but it wasn’t my time. When I saw the Honeymoon Generation and first laid eyes on the palm tree, it was the end game. The be-all and end-all. I’m a beach and sun loving Pisces who was born in Las Vegas, palm trees all around her, currently living in the pine-and-other-green-tree land of Pittsburgh. Does it get any more meant to be than that? 
I love palm trees so much, in fact, that:
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Personal photo / Yes, folks, that is a palm tree on my ankle (and yes, those are TOMS—more on those later, I promise!). Apologies for the sock indentations, dry skin, and uggo carpet. This was taken in stealth mode at work.
We don’t have a car.
Well, I have a car—but it’s parked in my parents’ garage 300 miles away. In this city, there is no need for a car. And if you bring a car, you will have to park it outside the city and either walk or get a bus in, because you’ll be lucky if you find a parking space anywhere near where you want to park.
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Image via Newham Council
Bad news for our guests who are traveling 200-plus miles to see us! We are suggesting traveling by train as there are two stations nearby, and recommending long-stay carparks just outside of the city for those who really need to drive.
But that’s only for parking for the weekend! There is nowhere around to park near our church and reception venue, so we are going to provide some transport between the two.
Now that I had my invitations and Moo mini-cards with website information, the only thing left to do was assemble the final product. I could have just dropped the Moo cards into the envelope with the invitations, but I was a little nervous that people wouldn’t see them—and I wanted to do something a little more special, since I wasn’t doing much else with the invitations.
I took my heart hole punch (you knew that was coming) and, well, punched some heart holes. Pretty self-explanatory, right?
Personal photo
After doing all 100 Moo mini-cards, my hand was a little sore and I was bored. (I did all of them, not just the 25 with this shot. I had them stacked by picture.) Guys, if you’re like me and your mom/fiance/a lot of your friends live 800-plus miles away from you, doing wedding planning by yourself gets boring. Start a good show at the beginning of your wedding planning and just watch it through. And if you’re like me and really bored, start a second show when you finish your first.
Anyway. All I needed now was a way to attach the cards to the invitations. I picked up two rolls of thin coral colored ribbon. It looked like this. (I couldn’t find the exact ribbon, so just pretend I was a good blogger and took a picture of the ribbon.)
BakeosaurusRex shared this photo of her DIY strassed wedding flats. So sparkly!
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The budget breakdown was the last post of the Boa recaps and it also marked the end of my wedding blogging days. It’s been thirteen months since I started blogging for Weddingbee, nine months since the wedding and about time I wrapped it all up.
Happy Friday Hive! It’s a pleasure to announce our first bee from the Honeymoon Generation. Say hello to Miss Palm Tree!
Miss Palm Tree, Pittsburgh, PA
Age & Occupation: 23, Lease Analyst
Fiance’s Age & Occupation: 25, Associate Systems Analyst (Computer Engineer)
Engagement Date: December 22, 2011
Wedding Date: May 2013
Venue: The Fez in Aliquippa, PA
About Me: I’m Miss Palm Tree – an opinionated, loyal and outgoing bride-to-be. I currently work as a Lease Analyst by day and a catering assistant by night. Mr. Palm Tree is a Computer Engineer with a love for all things cats. Mr. Palm Tree and I are absolute soul mates. Having grown up across the street from each other (I have the scars to prove it), we have been a part of each other’s lives for almost as long as we can remember. We are far from perfect: we fight, we get annoyed with each other and we certainly take advantage of knowing one another so well when pushed to the edge, but ultimately, what truly defines us as a couple is our love. He is a textbook Virgo, a true good guy with a laid-back and easy-going attitude and a penchant for finishing video games on the ‘Advanced’ level the first time through without any guidance. I am almost a textbook Pisces, a living embodiment of the ‘exception to every rule’ adage with a serious passion for reading, writing and all things pop culture (furthermore, I have ‘beat’ two video games in my entire life). Together, though, we spend more time laughing and making adventures out of a grocery shopping trip than we do anything else.
