Weddingbee Blog

Good News: There is just over a week until our wedding, which means we are clear into 10-day forecast range.Bad News:

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Taking the advice of many in yesterday’s post, I decided to head to bed early last night. I’m not sure whether it was the exhaustion, the cold or the cold medicine, but I had a crazy dream last night.

It was a Sunday morning, which in my dream was the morning of our wedding. Only I didn’t realize this immediately. I went to church, was chatting with people and what not, and started driving to my parents’ house around 11:30am. Driving over there, I realized that I had totally and completely missed my hair and makeup appointments, and started freaking out because I was supposed to be at the hotel getting ready so that we could leave at 1pm for the church. I called the hair salon, but the person I spoke to said that they had wondered what happened to me, and that since they closed at 12pm, there was nothing they could do to help. I started panicking, but no one seemed to quite understand why I was so stressed out.

Then the dream ended. And I realized that there was no way that I was going to forget my hair appointment the morning of the wedding.

What crazy wedding dreams have you had?

And arms. And throat. And nose.Yes, it’s attack of the killer cold from Michigan. Sore throat, coughing, congestion, runny nose, the works.

Image found here.

Getting sick was not part of The Plan. And while I’m grateful that I’m getting sick this week, and not next week, it took Mr. Dahlia over a week to get over his cold, and I’m getting married in, oh, 11 days. And there is still quite a bit to do.

So. What is your best, fast working cold remedy?

One of the items on my checklist that I took care of this weekend was registering our honeymoon travels with the US State Department. Although I’ve never registered my travels before, since we are headed to Indonesia, I thought it might be a good idea to do it this time.

Basically, you just provide the State Department with your contact information when you are traveling, so that if there were some emergency, they would be able to contact you. And it’s really easy, since you can do it online. Took about 5 minutes or so, and now I know that if something awful should happen, it’ll be a little bit easier for the government to find me.

Has anyone else registered their travel with the State Department?

The due date for guest responses to our wedding was May 1 (which, as you all probably know, was yesterday). We received 2 more responses in the mail today, which I’ll consider on time, since they were postmarked April 30.

Anyways, we have 7 outstanding invitations remaining that are for a total of 17 people. (This includes a family of 5, where the mother is a reader, the father is our videographer and one of the daughters is our soloist. We know they’re coming, but don’t know whether they want vegetarian or chicken.) Still, that isn’t too shabby, given that we sent out 121 invitations to invite 227 people. That’s a response rate of 94%, which is pretty darn good.

Now begins the task of calling those who did not RSVP, and finding out what their intentions are- hopefully, it’ll be taken care of by the end of the weekend.

How many of your guests have you had to track down after the RSVP deadline?

Awhile back, Mrs. Tomato mentioned Brilliant Earth in her post about conflict-free diamonds. I wanted to share my brother’s experience working with them on his fiancee’s engagement ring.

As both of them are laid-back individuals heavily interested (and involved) in sustainable development and social justice, my brother didn’t want to involve himself with DeBeers. However, he also knew that DeBeers or not, he wanted to get his lovely fiancee a diamond engagement ring.

After a bit of internet searching, he came across Brilliant Earth, and quickly settled on this ring:

White Gold Halo from Brilliant Earth
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I’ve talked quite a bit about our honeymoon, and now that it’s coming close, I realized there are some things that I need to figure out.

Like what to pack. As we are traveling with carry-ons only (since spending a month backpacking in Europe, I have a hard time packing more than just a carry-on), space is pretty limited. I thought I’d share my packing list for other people traveling to warm climates who hope to pack light, as well as open it up to any suggestions for items that I have forgotten.

Clothes (including what I will wear on the plane):
2 knit dresses
1 pair shorts
1 pair pants
2 short sleeved shirts
1 cardigan or long sleeved shirt
birkenstocks
sneakers
socks
underwear
3 swimsuits
1 pashmina
rain jacket
(I plan on buying some nicer sandals once we’re in Bali.)
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In the process of blogging about the wedding, it turns out that quite a number of guests have started reading the blog. (Hi everyone- I can’t wait to see you in a few weeks!) As a result, there are a handful of things that I’m super excited about but can’t yet post about, as it will ruin some of the surprise. (Fear not- I will blog about everything in full detail after the wedding.)

I know I’m not the only one who has some things being kept on the down low, but assuming Weddingbee is primarily trafficked by brides to be (and not interested guests), I think it’s safe to ask the following question.

What secret surprises do you have planned for your wedding?

With the recommendations from a post a bit back for ways to get both my schoolwork and wedding stuff done, I took up the main suggestion to delegate.

First thing to delegate- my veil. I’d originally not wanted a veil, and then thought about a long veil, and then a shorter veil, then a longer veil, then a really short veil. Obviously, this indecisiveness needed to stop. I’d planned to make my own veil (why pay $200 for a veil when Joann Fabrics sells tulle for $1.99/yard?), but decided to scrap that.

After a quick google search, I came across Occansey Designs. Basically, they make veils completely custom- length, width, embellishments- everything. And after a quick price comparison of other online veil shops, I noticed that their prices are extremely competitive.

So what did I do? I thought about the types of veils I’d tried on that I liked.
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Although our wedding is looming ever closer, Mr. Dahlia and I have found that instead of being preoccupied with the remaining details (like finalizing the song for the soloist, or putting together the program, or anyone of a number of things left to be taken care of), we are focusing on life after the wedding. And not just the honeymoon- although I do find myself daydreaming about it quite a bit.

No, it’s the rest of life after the wedding, when we don’t have to spend our evenings calling vendors and running wedding errands. Life that might include a house with a yard, and a dog (which Mr. Dahlia really wants. Me, I’m ambivalent about it- except I don’t want a dog that sheds much. Nor one that is too big. Anyone want to suggest a favorite breed?) And walks after dinner, perhaps to get ice cream.

Basically, as cliched as it is, both of us are looking forward to settling down a bit.

What are you looking forward to after the wedding?

It turns out that no matter how careful you are, there are some things that just don’t turn out as you imagined. Like my headpiece.

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is the shots I have to get beforehand.

Image found here.

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This weekend, Mr. Dahlia and I took a surprise trip to St. Louis. Well, the trip wasn’t a surprise to us, or my parents, or my brothers. Nope, it was a surprise for someone very special:

My now future sister in law, seated next to my brother/her future husband!
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my lipgloss, cell phone and other important necessities for the wedding day.

I had, for the longest time, been lusting over a red clutch bag to use on our wedding day. Not just any red bag, no, this one only existed in my head. Sleek red gathered silk, it was absolutely gorgeous.

And then I saw it. Not just any bag, but the bag.


Image from Macy’s.
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With six weeks to go, things were looking pretty good. We’d sent the invitations, were working on the last details with the florist, sent our rings to be engraved- in short, we’d taken care of a lot of things. Same with 5 weeks to go- we ordered our guestbook, finalized some of the gifts for the bridal party, wrote shower thank you notes- and life seemed manageable. There were quite a lot of things left to do, but since classes have ended for the term, once my students’ exams are graded next week, I’ll be on summer break, giving me plenty of time to take care of the last things.

Cue yesterday.

For reasons completely unrelated to the wedding, the 4 weeks of summer break that I thought I would get has vanished, as things somewhat outside of my control have now inundated me with a ton of work to do. (My second comprehensive exam for my PhD is a paper defense. I thought I had the paper in good shape, but it turns out it needs a ton of work. Basically, I need to rework my entire paper in a different framework. I need to take the exam before the wedding, which gives me 2.5 weeks to redo the paper.)

Totally manageable, especially since classes have ended for the term, except that I am getting married in a month. Enter panic.

What have you done to keep things under control?