Weddingbee

I stumbled across this article today, written by Miles Stiverson, and thought I’d see what the hive thinks.According to Stiverson, these are the 10 biggest mistakes guests make at weddings:

1. Not sending RSVPs
2. Sending RSVPs with extra guests
3. Bombarding the bride with phone calls and questions
4. Buying a non-registry gift
5. Showing up late
6. Bringing a big, heavy gift
7. Giving unexpected toasts
8. Requesting songs
9. Drinking too much
10. Crashing your wedding

Would I be a horrible Bee if I admitted to committing one or two of these party fouls? Is it my fault I thought my sister needed a pretty set of Vera Wang toasting flutes for her bridal shower? Can I really be held accountable if I thought the reception was sorely lacking a few Barry Manilow tunes? Should I have been more watchful of Mr. Chickadee’s drinks so he didn’t end up like this at the end of the night?

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I love finding things I forgot I owned!

A couple months ago, Mr. Chickadee and I had his parents over dinner. This, of course, meant we had to spend all day cleaning the apartment. For the first time in a while, all the surfaces of our apartment were cleared of the wedding magazine and half-crafted invitation clutter, revealing my savvy decorating scheme… which is less savvy and more like all the picture frames we’ve been given over the last 4 years. (We are slowly converting pictures of us to pictures of other loved ones, as we realized it’s awkward to put up 50 pictures of just yourselves all over the house).

Almost exactly a year ago Mr. Chickadee and I were in NYC with his parents for a week. In preparation for the theater we’d be seeing, I went out and doubled my fancy dress wardrobe. Mr. Chickadee’s mom picked this particular dress out for me to wear to Wicked, and though I wasn’t in love with it at the time, it’s sort of grown on me. Plus, I found it on major clearance for $14 at Von Maur. This picture is currently framed and gracing our dresser:

(Yes, with all of New York City at our disposal, this is a picture of us inside the darn hotel room!)

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Things I Learned From My Sister’s Wedding: #3

If you’re getting ready at a hotel, your house, or anywhere other than the ceremony location, you might want to invest in a hand steamer. We had a 20 minute ride between the hotel and the church, and when we climbed out of the limo we were all wrinkly. Luckily, my sister had thought ahead and had a steamer waiting for us at the church!

We were able to steam the wrinkles from all four of our bridesmaids’ dresses, my mom’s dress, and even the bride’s dress! If you’re worried about taking a steamer to your own dress, though, at least have one there for the bridesmaids’ dresses. The steamer worked wonders and brought us back up to looking picture perfect!

You can find hand steamers at any of your basic home stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond or Linens n’ Things…or even register for one like my sister and her husband did!

Taking turns steaming each other in the church basement.

What could be better on a rainy Friday than a DIY project!

A few weeks ago I tuned into Martha Stewart’s show and saw Darcy Miller showing off some of her great ideas for weddings. I absolutely fell in love with one of her table settings, which showed up on her blog soon after.

Photo courtesy of Darcy Miller’s blog.

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This afternoon Mr. Chickadee and I are having our second set of engagement pictures taken. We went down to Bloomington a couple weeks ago for a photo session with out photographer, Mark Romine, but the weather just didn’t cooperate. It was cold, overcast, and got dark way too quickly for our 5:30 appointment.

Luckily today is a gorgeous fall day! The plan is to dress up in the same clothes as last time and combine all the best pics into one set of fantastic engagement pictures. But one question is lingering over the whole thing…what are we going to do with these pictures?

Our photographer does offer a great option of creating a guest book out of the pictures, but we just haven’t decided if it’s worth the extra $300. There’s really no place for the pictures in our Save the Dates, either.

So what are you guys doing with your e-pics? Any fantastic suggestions or creative ideas for us?

Things I Learned From My Sister’s Wedding: #2

When making your honeymoon reservations, make sure you specify what your new, married name (if you choose to change your name) will be.

I think it’s quite common for the bride to really take control of the wedding planning, and this often includes the honeymoon. My sister was no exception. She made the honeymoon reservations in Cancun, used her account to pay for it, etc.

Well, as a result, when they arrived at the Dreams Cancun, they were greeted as Mr. and Mrs. H (her maiden name) instead of Mr. and Mrs. V (married name). Things were labeled in their suite as Mr. and Mrs. H, and when my new brother-in-law called down to the front desk he was referred to as Mr. H. Oops.

Luckily, my sister and her husband have a good sense of humor. Still, I would suggest making it quite clear to your honeymoon accommodations what your new name is going to be!

I have mixed feelings about wedding etiquette, to be honest with you. I firmly believe that only brides actually know anything about wediquette, which is why some wedding communities are full of brides complaining about their maid of honors that aren’t throwing amazing bridal showers or parents that aren’t coughing up $30,000 for a wedding. Not to mention the never ending discussions about whether or not it’s acceptable to include registry info in the invitation or, for that matter, whether it’s “two thousand and seven” or “two thousand seven” (because apparently the grammar books and Emily Post wildly disagree). All in all, I think these are things that only the bride thinks about.

That being said, I do know a lot of people who have gotten married, which potentially could mean they are etiquette experts, which potentially could mean they will kick me out of the family for not handwriting each and every outer envelope. Except, you know, they won’t.

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Last summer our local newspaper ran an article about the growing trend of bridal blogs. At the time it was particularly interesting because my family & friends didn’t know the extent of my own bridal blogging. The brides interviewed ranged from women who had created “wed-sites” to women who were letting online readers choose specific details of their weddings via online polls. Honestly, nothing there shocked me, as I was quite familiar with the online wedding planning sensation. Still, it did get me thinking about my own bridal blogging journal.

After getting engaged, I turned to such online sites like TheKnot and LiveJournal for ideas. It amazed me that there were always new posts appearing on these communities, and when I posted I almost instantly received tons of feedback from other brides just like me! It was only a matter of time before my involvement in these communities deepened from occasionally commenting and absorbing ideas, to rushing home after dress shopping and posting tons of pictures. It was then that I revealed my new obsession to Mr. Chickadee. He was indulgent at first, laughing good-naturedly when I talked about my “friends” online. However, when I told him not to go snooping around my websites because there were dress pictures there, he changed his tune a little.

“You put pictures of yourself online?”

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If you’re not willing to spend a bundle on day-of makeup or don’t feel comfortable with the gobs of foundation and powders your make-up artist slapped on during the trial, you absolutely can do it yourself (or at least have a trusted bridesmaid do it for you).

However, I do have a little caveat. If you’re doing it yourself, I’d actually recommend getting it done by a pro well in advance. Just let the make-up artist know that you plan on doing it yourself for the big day and let her/him teach you how to make yourself over! If you’re unsure about actually doing it yourself, take along a trusted bridesmaid or family member to learn how to do it. I would recommend, though, doing your own eyeliner and mascara, as it was nearly impossible for me to do that to someone else.

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Just yesterday I wrote about my dress. I ordered it in July (ok July 19th to be exact, and I’m probably going to take my dress out to dinner every year on our anniversary I love it so much). I wasn’t expecting it to be in until December or January, but surprise! It’s in now!

Right now in a little shop in Aurora, Illinois (which is woefully, 2 1/2 hours away) MY DRESS is hanging there, lonely and in need of me. Luckily my newly married sister lives there and I was planning to go see her this weekend anyway, so I’m sure we’ll make time to swing by and visit my darling dress.

My wedding is still a good 8 months away so I’d really rather not start the fittings/alterations process yet. Especially as I’d still like to lose a little bit of weight and haven’t even begun the process of looking at shoes/elaborate undergarments (probably Spanx? Anyone have other recommendations?)

If you, like me, just recently found out your dress is in, feel free to just squee and post pics in the comments. I promise I’ll jump up and down for you in excitement!