Weddingbee Blog

Like many brides before me, at the beginning of our engagement (a whole 15 months ago) I vowed to lose weight and get in better shape.

Don’t get me wrong - I consider myself to be fairly thin, and understand that I am not overweight for my height and body type. However, I had gained weight in the years since college, and wanted to look more lean and toned. Not only that, but I wanted to feel better. We’re talking about my wedding day, after all! I wanted to look as good as I possibly could, and be healthier to boot.

So, alongside Mr. CA, I started eating even better than we had been previously, and exercising.

The real kick in the butt was when I went to try on wedding dresses. I was shocked that the dresses I tried on had such tiny sizes. To give you an idea: I generally wear a size 4 in dresses. The dress I ended up purchasing was a size 10. A TEN. What is the deal with that?? How is that possible? I honestly do not understand how their sizing is so different from regular clothing. Even though I knew the sizing was irregular, it made me really self-conscious and worried about my weight.

Nevertheless, I waxed and waned in my exercising over the next few months - going through spurts of sustained work-outs, then lapsing into indolence.
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As we are now in the home stretch, it is time to talk about something that Mr. CA and I have been thinking a lot about lately. What might that be? Well, it’s the backbone behind this whole wedding shebang—our nuptial mass. Yep, our wedding ceremony, where Mr. CA and I will pledge to stand by each other for the rest of our lives, in front of God, our family and our friends. That’s deep stuff right there, and sometimes it gets a bit lost in all of the floral inspiration, the oohing and aahing over invitations, and the meal choices.

Now, none of this ceremony stuff is a secret, per se, but, well, wouldn’t you guests of the CA wedding prefer not to know about every single little thing beforehand? I didn’t think so. Let’s keep some of the mystery, shall we? Okay, then…

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A few weekends ago, we trekked out to California for my sister’s college graduation. Why is this relevant to weddings? Well, luckily enough, Mr. CA’s Auntie also lives in the same town, so we were able to get together with her. Bonus? She is also my wedding hair and makeup artiste extraordinaire!

So, of course, we simply had to do a trial while I was down there, right? I mean, come on, who doesn’t love getting themselves done up all nice and pretty like? No one.

Armed with my hair-spiration, we set off. Unfortunately, due to terrible weather across the country, flights were delayed out of Newark, and we missed our connection in Phoenix. Which meant we landed in Phoenix around 1am. Meaning we had to sleep in the Phoenix airport to catch our super-early-morning flight. I was not pleased. Airport-sleeping does not make for a beautiful, fresh-faced Miss Candy A. Yep, I looked pretty haggard. Poor Auntie, she wasn’t going to have much to work with.

Once we landed, we met up with Auntie and Uncle CA for lunch, then the appointment. I dragged my mom along and pressed her into service as our photographer for the day. Mr. CA and Uncle CA also ended up joining us, so it was just a big ol’ Candy Apple party!

Get ready - lots of pics coming your way!

Me, fresh off the Phoenix airport floor with less than an hour’s sleep. Dehydrated. Tired. Sexy. Wait, which of those doesn’t belong?

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Like many bees before me, I am a Moo Card bride. You know, those cute little mini cards that you can customize? Yeah, they’re pretty neat.

Surprisingly, I actually did not find out about Moo cards through Weddingbee. Shocking, I know. Our photographers included a box of Moo cards with our e-session DVD—they had a selection of our e-pictures on one side of the card, and our future wedding gallery information on the other. They suggested that we set them out somewhere on our wedding day, so that our guests knew how to access the gallery after the event. Excellent! I fell in love with Moo’s packaging, and the teensy little cards. Right then and there, I knew I wanted to somehow work additional Moo cards into our stationery suite. I had a pretty firm idea on how I would use them, and it was fun to trawl through WB and see how various other bees have used them in the past. I was officially hooked on Moo.

So, I bit the bullet and designed some Moo cards! This means we will not only have the Moo cards to set out on the wedding day itself (from our photogs), but I was also able to incorporate them into our invitations.

Yes, it is exciting. I’m telling you - their packaging kicks butt.

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Ideas in-hand, I sat down for a conversation with Mr. CA regarding my idea for using silhouettes on our invitations. Nervous. Hopeful. Ready for a Wild West-style showdown in case he didn’t like the idea. Miraculously, I got the green light from him to proceed with the concept. Yes!! Admittedly, we were a bit worried that plastering silhouettes of ourselves all over our wedding stationery might seem slightly vain, but in the end we decided that we wanted our wedding to be as personal as possible, and the silhouettes would give them that little special personalization that I wanted. Plus, they just look cool.

After receiving a tip towards BlueClara on Etsy (I love the Hive!), I went and checked out her Etsy store. It was love at first sight! Her silhouettes are awesome—very clean and well-done. I love that she gives you different options: full body or just heads, digital or print. What a great steer!

I immediately placed an order with the shop about doing our silhouettes, and then attempted to take the side profile pictures that were required for them to do our silhouettes. Um, why was this so difficult?? Someone please explain.

Having looked at quite a few silhouettes on various invitations, I had a very clear vision of how I wanted the silhouettes to look.
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I mentioned in my last post that I went through a brief invitation hiatus after Mr. CA and I made the decision that Rifle Paper Co.’s invitations were out of the running. However, I did bounce back eventually—mainly out of necessity, as we were getting closer and closer to the wedding, and I had no idea what to do about invitations! So, I moved on, and found lots and lots of invitation inspiration.

Want to take a peek? My first light-bulb “a ha!!” moment came through a site that I visit every day. Etsy. Curious?

{Etsy}

Yep, that’s right. It’s the default avatar for Etsy accounts.

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As I may have mentioned in the past, I love paper products. Fonts, paper weight, colors, design—I love it all. It’s probably a good thing that I ended up in publishing, where I get to immerse myself in beautiful lovely books every day. End papers! Cover designs! Love.

{Calligraphy by Love, Jenna; Invites by Swiss Cottage Designs}

So, I knew that the invitations would be a high point for our wedding. They set the tone, the colors, the feel of the day, with their scrumptious typefaces and delicious paper textures. I couldn’t wait to jump in and get my hands dirty!
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On our wedding day, I want to keep a reminder of the Hive with me—you all mean so much, and this has been such a wonderful outlet as I have continued my planning. So, I thought it would be fun to carry a little pint-sized bit of bee love with me!

Like Pain au Chocolat and other bees before me, I decided that I absolutely needed an itty bitty candy apple charm that replicated my adorable moniker. Mrs. Tartlet pointed me in the direction of Etsy seller Petit Plat. I checked out her work and was blown away by her teensy, amazing little creations. Her food miniatures look so life-like! (I am really infatuated with her mini “English Breakfast” plate.)

Anyway, she didn’t have a candy apple on her site, but she said that she could whip one up for me. I could not be more pleased with how it turned out!

I am a little bit in love with cool Etsy packaging. Sellers are really stepping up their game in the creativity department!
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This past Sunday, a group of Philly, New Jersey, and Delaware gals got together at Bar Ferdinand for brunch. What a great turnout!

It was my first Weddingbee meet up and I had a blast. It was so fun meeting such a great group of Hive members! Lots of wedding talk (of course!)—the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was fun hearing all of the different venue and vendor suggestions flying around, although I was lame and couldn’t contribute to those discussions. I guess it’s what I get for having a “destination” wedding!

Bar Ferdinand is an awesome restaurant, by the way—they serve a tapas-style brunch that was amazing. I enjoyed the patatas bravas and cangrejo croquettes, which were delicious. The churros and hot chocolate looked divine, as did the carne asada; I may need to make a return trip. They also let us mob on their little back room, so that we basically had a private room to ourselves. Sweet!

Fun ladies, wedding talk, a visitor with a crazy outfit/ hat, and drinks—what more could you want on a Sunday?
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I have never been one to worry too much about my nails. I generally keep them cut pretty short, because I have long nail-beds, and I never really paint them, because I am always too busy to take the time to sit down, paint them, and then wait for the paint to dry. I always get impatient, walk around and fiddle with things, and, of course, end up smudging the not-yet-dry polish. Which means I need to remove all of the polish and either a) re-do it, or b) just say ’screw it’ and leave them not painted because I hate having dinged polish. (Yeah. I’m weird. We already know this.) The whole thing just didn’t seem very time-or-energy-efficient to me. And, I’m too cheap to pay someone else to do them for me.

However, since I have started working near New York City, I have noticed that the majority of young women in my office have very nicely manicured nails, and they all have some sort of cool, en vogue polish on their nails at all times. (I won’t even get into their amazing sense of style when it comes to shoes and clothes, because I’m too jealous to talk about it, and they make me feel immature and not-stylish in comparison. We’ll stick to nails today.) I have become quite jealous of their awesome nails, and have convinced myself that pretty nails are, in fact, part of the whole put-together look and that I absolutely must polish my nails. Plus, it makes me feel super girly, which I love.
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Alternatively titled: Mind the Gap.

Or, Candy Apple Shares a Million Pictures.

That’s right. Are you ready for a post with tons of pictures? Yes? Good, because I am slightly obsessed with my wedding band, and I want to share that obsession with as many people as possible. I’m sorry, but it’s a fact. And a problem.

Way back in the day when Mr. CA and I visited Seattle for our engagement session and epic planning weekend, we had about 10 spare minutes of free time, so we ducked into the Tiffany’s in U. Village to check out some rings, and to try to get an initial idea of what we wanted for our wedding bands. Going into the store, all I knew was that I wanted something super thin. I’m not a big fan of chunky rings; they make my fingers look even fatter than they are. I also knew that I wanted either platinum, or white gold (to match my e-ring), and I was pretty sure I wanted this ring specifically:

{Tiffany Novo Band Ring}

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Around the same time that he picked out the suits for the groomsmen, Mr. CA also found a suit for himself. He knew that he wanted to wear a slim-fit, light grey suit, sort of like this one, but a bit lighter. He also wanted to make sure he looked similar enough to the groomsmen. Mr. CA was also willing to shell out a bit more for his suit, because, duh, it is his wedding, and, since he wears suits every day, he was in need of a nice grey suit anyway.

{Photography by Erin Hearts Court, via Style Me Pretty}

For some reason, it was really tricky finding a nice suit like this in just the right shade; the ones we found were all a bit too dark.

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You know one thing I don’t really care about? Men’s fashion.

Okay, okay, I suppose I do care that Mr. CA doesn’t leave our house dressed like a slob. But, I don’t really need to worry about it—I know he would never do that. Let’s be honest, he has way more style than I do. And because I bought him a subscription to GQ (you’re welcome, Mr. CA!) and he wears a suit every day for work, he knows what looks good, both on him and on other people. Well, I like to think so, anyway. Since I trusted him to do a good job with the boys’ suits, I happily handed over the reins for the groomsmen’s and groom’s outfits to Mr. CA.

Well, let’s be honest—I maintained right of refusal because at this point we all know how much of a control-freak I am, yes? Yes. But still. Trust.

We both knew going into the process that we didn’t want tuxes:

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First, I wanted to start this post by saying that we women (okay, and I suppose men too) need to give ourselves a big, ol’ pat on the back, and we need to raise a glass of something to the women who came before us. Why? Well, because we are at the point (at least in America) where there actually are name change debates, discussions, questions, thoughts, concerns, considerations. 100 years ago, it would have been very rare for an American woman to keep her last name after she was married, and I am incredibly appreciative that it is socially acceptable now for me to either keep my last name or take the last name of Mr. Candy Apple. Or, for him to take mine. Or, for us to merge our names via hyphen. Or, for us to form a completely new last name. There are so many options! It makes my feminist self leap with joy and happiness, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I am so glad I live in a time when we are making such big strides. (And yes, I say strides. Because I don’t think we’re actually there yet. But, we don’t need to get into that right now.) I don’t want to make this a post about feminism (what it is, etc. etc.)—I merely want to state my thoughts and feelings on the issue.

Anyway, yes, the Name Change Game (aka NCG). You know the one—lots of bees have hashed this out before their weddings. I know that for many people this is a touchy subject, causing large amounts of stress, heartbreak, annoyance, grief. I am sure it can also be somewhat of a make-or-break issue in relationships.

To me, the whole NCG mainly boils down to one issue.
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I am having some real issues figuring out how I want to top our cake. I just cannot decide what look I want to go with—figurines, or pennants? Or, something else entirely? There are entirely too many options!

To give you a sense of how what the topper will be placed on, we decided to go with the multiple cake rounds look, rather than cupcakes. They will have floral decoration on them, because I need flowers on everything, but I do want some sort of cake topper to go on one of the cakes.

{Photo by Greg Blomberg Photography/ Cakes by Sugar Bee Sweets/ Floral Design by Bows and Arrows/ Via Style Me Pretty}

I just am having trouble figuring out what, exactly, that topper should be. A little help?

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