Weddingbee Blog

Although I’ll have the traditional “something borrowed” on our wedding day, I am thrilled that I’ll be wearing something borrowed for our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, as well. Two of my bridesmaids are my cousins on my mom’s side of the family; both have gotten married in the last 6 years, and they both wore the same beautiful lace dress on the eve of their weddings. My aunt graciously offered to let me borrow the dress for my own last evening as a “Miss,” and I happily accepted.

When I first tried on the dress, though, it didn’t exactly fit, and I was very bummed. I’ve lost some weight in the last few years and feel very happy with where I am physically, but I’m still not quite as lean as my cousins. The dress was originally custom made to fit the first cousin, and she has broader shoulders than I do, but a narrower mid-section. As such, the dress zipped up to the middle of my back, and would have been fine at the top where the zipper meets, but it wouldn’t fit around my ribs. No matter how much weight I may lose, I don’t think I can do much about my ribs!
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One aspect of the wedding that has been stressing us out for a while has been finding a charming place for us to take photos at that won’t impose on the brief time frame we have to take pictures. I know that our fab photographers, The Wiebners, will compose fantastic photos no matter where we are, but I still wanted to find something with a little charm and interest.

Enter Mama Cupcake, who came to the rescue after scouting out a few places around our reception site, The Desmond. Only two minutes away is Valley Creek Park, which, aside from being perfectly convenient, has an adorable spring house and a larger house (we think perhaps the groundskeeper’s residence?) that have just the charm and character we were looking for:

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Although I was very, very tempted to make our rehearsal dinner invitations as complicated as humanly possible (an unfortunate personality trait of mine), a wise friend strongly advised me to keep them simple—our guests would never know that I had originally planned on doing a layered invitation with the top layer having rounded corners, and I shouldn’t create more work for myself! Although I’m sure I would have loved the complicated result as well, the less complicated route saved me a lot of time (and sanity) and I was still happy with them.

Our bridal party and close family members received this invitation for the festivities that will be occurring the night before our wedding:

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Bridal Shower, Part One: A Ladies Luncheon
Bridal Shower, Part Two: A Family Affair

My third and final shower was hosted by my supremely spectacular bridesmaids. This bridal shower to end all bridal showers went down at my mom’s house, and all of my girlfriends were invited to celebrate with me. I knew the where and when, and I knew that it was a cocktail party shower—a shower “with a twist,” if you will—but that was all I knew. My ’maids did an amazing job of keeping the rest of the details top secret. Unbeknownst to me, my girlfriends had all received this flapperiffic invitation in the mail:

Guests were instructed to wear their “1920’s ritzy rags.” Invitation designed by the one and only SIL Cupcake

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Bridal Shower, Part One: A Ladies Luncheon

Two weeks after shower #1, Mr. Cupcake’s family hosted a surprise bridal shower for me. However, I have a confession to make… it wasn’t a complete surprise. This nosy Miss Cupcake wasn’t fooled by Mr. Cupcake’s attempt to trick me with the “family picnic” scheduled on our shared Google calendar, and it made sense that his family might be having a shower for me, so I eventually put two and two together. From that point forward I couldn’t help but giggle every time Mr. Cupcake talked about the “picnic” (without being able to look me in the eye).

Nonetheless, I was still surprised by how pretty everything looked and my hostesses did such a nice job of making it a special day for me and welcoming me into their family. Two of Mr. Cupcake’s aunts planned everything, and his cousin’s wife (whose wedding invitations I designed just last year) created adorable invitations using a Martha Stewart invitation kit:
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The day after my bachelorette party, I had my first of three (yes, three!) bridal showers. I know that you are probably thinking that three showers is ridiculous, but it actually worked out quite well. Shower #1 was a luncheon hosted by my mom’s best friend, with my extended family and my mom’s girlfriends invited. Shower #2 was a surprise afternoon shower hosted by Mr. Cupcake’s aunt, with his extended family (who don’t live near us) invited. And shower #3 was an evening cocktail party shower hosted by my fabulous bridesmaids, with all of my spectacular girlfriends invited. Having three showers helped to make things more intimate (and the opening of gifts didn’t become painfully long for my lovely guests).

Shower #1 was at Overbrook Golf Club in Villanova, PA. Overbrook is a stunning place and I always feel a little unworthy of its fanciness when I’m there. The day began at noon with mimosas and chit chat with approximately 35 guests, and continued with a delicious lunch, yummy cake, and pretty presents!

How pretty is this cake? It tasted even better than it looked! Unfortunately I have no idea where it was from. Read more…

part one: And… They’re… OFF!

Thank you all for the generous and wonderful compliments on our wedding invitations. It is nice to know that all of my hard work didn’t go unnoticed!

After I posted about our invites, I realized that I forgot one of the prettiest parts: the calligraphy! This part I cannot take credit for, as this was again done by a talented colleague. Here’s an inside look. (I even had the calligrapher do a 100% fake address so that I could show her handiwork in all its glory here on Weddingbee!)

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Our invitations, that is!

After months of obsessing over the design, then changing it, then finally reaching something I truly love and feel proud of, our invitations are in the hands of our guests. Which means not only is this wedding really happening, but it means that I can finally share the final product with the hive! Without further ado, our invitation suite, designed by yours truly (click on the photos to zoom in a bit):

The whole shebang, my pride and joy!

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When we first got engaged, I daydreamed about Mr. Cupcake and I seeing each other for the first time during my walk down the aisle. So traditional, so picture perfect…

So not a good idea for two major criers like ourselves.

I have admitted before that I am a big-time crier, so I know that I am going to cry on our wedding day. If you were to bet against me shedding tears on our wedding day, you’d lose. It is a done deal. I will cry. Probably more than once.

I know that Mr. Cupcake is also in touch with his emotions, and although he doesn’t cry nearly as much as I do, he still tears up when he talks about Maggie, his golden retriever who died of cancer seven years ago, or when a good sob story is being told on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (he’ll kill me for that one, but it’s true!). And when he sees me cry, his eyes get a little glossy and he says “please don’t cry, please don’t cry” because eventually it becomes contagious.

The more I thought about seeing each other for the first time during my long walk down the aisle, the more anxious I started to feel, and the more I questioned my desire to wait to see each other.
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After my Nana passed away last Friday, I was, of course, very upset and felt like it would be wrong to go out for my bachelorette party that was scheduled for the next night. I didn’t know how much I wanted to be celebrating after such an emotional and heartbreaking event. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a night out with my girlfriends was probably just what I needed after a stressful and sad time. I had already requested something low key that wouldn’t break the bank for anyone, which ended up being dinner and drinks with 10 of my fabulous girlfriends, so we went ahead with everything as planned that Saturday night.

We headed to El Vez, a Stephen Starr restaurant in Philadelphia. Stephen Starr is known for owning some of the coolest restaurants in Philly, and El Vez is no exception. It’s a contemporary Mexican restaurant with perhaps the greatest guacamole I have ever tasted. (The pitchers of margaritas and sangria weren’t so bad, either!) I was surprised at how reasonably priced everything was, and it was the perfect atmosphere for my fun-but-not-crazy night out.
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Last Friday was filled with mixed emotions—we excitedly received our wedding invitations, my mom’s dress for our big day finally arrived…and my wonderful Nana, the last of my grandparents, passed away.

My mom’s parents died before I was born, so my dad’s parents, whom we called Nana and Pop Pop, were the only grandparents I ever knew. Pop Pop passed away 10 years ago, and since then I feel like I really got to know Nana better (and although many pronounce it “Nah-nuh,” my brother, cousins, and I have always called her “Nah-Nah”—it’s just our thing!). As a shy child I didn’t always know how to handle her loud Italian demeanor, but over the years I came to adjust to and love her outspoken nature. She was truly one of a kind.

I have so many great/funny memories of Nana. When we were kids, Nana and Pop Pop would have us all over for dinner. Nana made the most amazing chicken that she called “Spitzat”—it had “a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.” It was her specialty and it is what I remember always eating when we were there. If any of us kids ever left any food on our plates at one of our family dinners, Nana would say “eat birdie, eat!” As a picky eater, I heard this phrase from her a lot while growing up, and eventually Nana’s nickname for us turned into a nickname that we affectionately called her— “Birdie.”
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… to these adorable vintage Parisian Bridal Gown Cards from Crate and Barrel, on sale for only $2.95 for a set of eight (down from $12.95):

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Let’s face it: the cake is pretty much the most fun part of wedding planning. I mean, what about the wedding cake isn’t fun? It’s pretty, it’s yummy, and it has two of my favorite ingredients: sugar and butter. Mmm.

A while back I had posted about the fabulousness that is Sweet Jazmine’s, and our desire for a cake that looks like a hybrid of these two:

by April Reed

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Yesterday was a jam-packed day of wedding appointments for Momma Cupcake and me. I took the day off of work so we could have meetings with the florist at 11 a.m., the baker at 1:30 p.m., and the catering manager at our venue at 3:00 p.m. In a matter of 6 hours, I feel like we got so much accomplished!

Although a little chaotic, I am really glad that I arranged things this way. With about two months left until the wedding, having all of these big meetings on the same day forced me to get organized with all of my final ideas a little earlier than I may have otherwise, since, aside from the catering manager at our venue, I likely won’t meet with the florist and baker again before the wedding. It was also really helpful to have vendor conversations fresh in my mind while meeting with the catering manager, so no detail goes overlooked.

I am not going to lie — I was definitely up until 1:30 in the morning the night before, making sure I printed all of the right photos and wrote down all of the questions I needed to ask. But, the feeling of having handed over the reigns to at least two of my vendors does feel somewhat blissful, albeit a little scary!
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I swear — the closer the wedding gets, the more mysterious ailments I have.

Saturday morning I woke up, showered, and was getting ready as usual, when I noticed that my left ear was all red and splotchy. Huh? How did that happen? It wasn’t around my earring hole, it was more at the bottom of my earlobe, and I couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on. I hadn’t slept with my earrings in, there was no sign of a bite, it wasn’t swollen, and it didn’t hurt. It was just icky-looking and red. Not very bride-like at all.

Mid-week, it’s a little better, but still red and more annoying then anything. I know I’ve mentioned that I’m klutzy so I am clearly expecting a few paper cuts and bruises to accessorize my wedding dress, but I’m really not in the mood for any more mysterious bridal ailments to make an appearance in the next 2+ months.

Have you had any strange bridal diseases appear as your wedding gets closer?