Weddingbee Blog

So here’s how I remember it.

One day I was minding my own business; the next day complete obsession had set in.

I had become a bona-fide Flickr stalker.

It all started when we had our engagement shoot with our super talented photographer Erica Berger. A day or so later, I saw on Facebook that Erica had posted some of our pictures on her Flickr stream. I scrambled on over there as fast as I could. (Luckily, all I had to do was click a link.)

And here’s what I found:

Read more…

So… you want to be an expert procrastinator like me?

Here’s my 12-step plan for sending out wedding save the dates:

Step 1: Look online for ready-made save the dates. Decide none of them will work. Inform your fiance that you’re going to make your own!

Step 2: Look online for inspiration on making your own save the dates. Repeat this step frequently until you’re completely confused about what you want your save the dates to look like. Remember: If you’re only partially confused, you’re not quite done with this step.

Step 3: Ask your fiance what he thinks. When he’s given you an answer, wait until the next day and ask him again. You know, just in case he may have changed his mind since you last asked.

Step 4: Download a free program from the internet for use in designing your save the dates. Lament the fact that you don’t own Photoshop. Contemplate whether it would be worth it to buy Photoshop just for wedding purposes. Get this idea shot down by aforementioned fiance. Wonder if this is payback for asking him too often what he thinks about save the date designs.
Read more…

Back in April, Mr. DD and I had a week where we found ourselves completely over wedding planning. Note that I didn’t say completely over with wedding planning. We had just been working hard to knock a few wedding tasks off our ever-growing list, and this, coupled with work stress and moving (and a lot of swearing and vowing to hire professional movers next time), had us just plain worn out.

So, we broke out the wine. Actually,we broke out a lot of wine.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the evidence:

Read more…

This wedding is making me think that there are major gaps in what I know. For instance, I know next to nothing about flowers.

Hmm, maybe I need to get Mr. DD to bring me flowers more often?

I’m not sure how this happened. I mean, I do know some basic types–roses and daisies and tulips and orchids. And it turns out that my sister had hydrangeas at her wedding. But peonies? Ranunculus? I don’t think I knew what either of them looked like until I got engaged.

A lovely peony bouquet from Martha Stewart
Read more…

So, yes, Mr. DD and I are exchanging Indian floral garlands at our wedding.

(Although sadly, ours won’t be nearly as exciting as these.)

(Source)

But that’s not what I’m talking about. For some reason, I keep contemplating garlands like these:
Read more…

It never really occurred to me to wear a veil for our wedding. Maybe this is obvious—as I’ve mentioned before, I’m wearing my wedding dress for the reception only. I’ll be wearing a sari for the ceremony. And although I could pull the pallu (loose end) of my sari over my head to keep covered during the ceremony, I’m not sure I feel comfortable doing that. I mean, I just got used to wearing a sari with the pallu over my shoulder. It’s better not to jinx things, right?

Since my hair will be uncovered, I thought it would be nice to dress it up a little bit. Surprise, surprise: when I bought my dress, I noticed that the bridal salon had a large selection of hair accessories. (A bridal salon selling bridal hair accessories? Who knew??) I filed that away for future reference and started to look online while waiting for my dress to come in.

Originally I thought I might like a headband of some sort.

Something like this:

Petite Crystal and Satin Headwrap by Jennifer Behr

Read more…

So, as you may have noticed by now, I’m Indian and Mr. DD is not.

He’s German-and-Welsh-and-Scottish. Not Indian at all.

This somehow causes everyone we know to immediately imagine we’re going to have some sort of über-Indian wedding. I’m the bride, after all. Shouldn’t my childhood dream wedding win out?

As I mentioned earlier, my family is Ismaili Muslim. That means no mandap, no fire, and no red wedding sari. (Mine is ivory-colored, instead.) So there’s pretty much no way Mr. DD and I would have the Bollywood-style über-Indian wedding of everyone’s dreams, anyway.

And, really, if I had a childhood dream wedding, it was all-American soap opera:

But I’m pretty sure that type of wedding would require Mr. DD to have a strap-on eye patch and me to lose my hearing and my voice and get my hearing but not my voice back before the wedding and then miraculously get my voice back during my wedding vows…

Strangely enough, Mr. DD isn’t quite on board with that.
Read more…

But I really want them.

A lollipop flower in a cupcake. Genius, right?

From Martha, of course

We’re having a shower this weekend. And while I would have dropped shameless pointed hints to my mom and to bridesmaid R that I would really love to have these cupcakes, it seems there’s already a different, super-cute cupcake decorating idea in the works. Who can argue with that?
Read more…

Waaaay back when (or maybe around five months ago), I was already starting to feel so, so behind on my wedding planning. Do real people actually manage to get their wedding planning done early?

That spurred me on to thinking about what exactly we were going to do about our save the dates. I knew I wanted to send them out—a reasonably large number of our invitees are from out of town. But, as usual, I was having trouble making a decision.

Since we were so, so behind, of course we hadn’t figured out what we wanted our invitations to look like yet. This meant that we couldn’t just go with matching save the dates.

Okay, so what to do? Mr. DD and I were trying to find something simple that could go on a magnet. Those were pretty much our only criteria.

So, I put on my wedding research hat and pulled out my laptop.

Here are some ideas I liked:
Read more…

Have I mentioned yet that I’m an auntie now? If I haven’t, it must be because I’m too busy shouting it out the windows and blabbing it to casual passers-by. I’m so, so excited!

My sister’s twins, a girl A and a boy K, will be just about seven months old when I get married.

I’m sure it’s not hard to guess my first thought on this: Clearly they need matching outfits.

Problem #1: It is impossible to find dressy clothes for baby boys.

Why is this? Do clothing manufacturers really think parents take their baby girls to fancy events but leave their boys behind???

Okay, okay, so it was easy to find white christening outfits and velvet wintertime dressy outfits. But how was that going to help me for a September wedding?

But eventually I came up with a few options that I thought might work:

(Source)

Read more…

Contrary to what some might believe, not all Indian weddings are the same.

When people ask about the wedding, I get questions about wearing red and walking around a fire. And this is in the Bay Area, where the Indian population just keeps growing.

For one thing, our wedding day won’t be very Indian. For another, I’m an Ismaili Muslim—Ismaili brides wear white on their wedding days, and only Hindus walk around fires.

And, also, even if you have two Indian families with the exact same background, the odds are they won’t do things in quite the same way.

Long ago, one of my cousins theorized that this was because Indians have too many obscure wedding traditions and no one could remember them all. I picture one auntie asking another, “What do we do now?” And the other auntie saying, “I don’t really know, but how about we just do it this way?”

That’s why I really liked something I read on a photography blog:

“It’s one of the most wonderful and baffling things about Indian weddings. No matter how much you think you know, and how many times you have seen things done one way, there is always the chance that you will be thrown a curve ball, and see something totally different and totally new.”

–Lauren from Rob & Lauren Photographers

Not convinced? Take a look at these pictures from Indian weddings. Even if you’re an Indian wedding veteran, I guarantee you’ll find something new to see. (And, honestly, can anyone actually resist wedding eye candy??)

Traditional Bengali wedding makeup application, photo by Sephi Bergerson

Read more…

Remember part 1 of my wedding dress search?

So, yes, my sister went into labor five weeks early. Three days after my birthday, in fact.

The good news was that my sister and her twins were all fine. And, yes, a new niece and nephew is really the best birthday present ever. My sister is going to have an awfully hard time shopping for me next year…

The bad news was that my mom left immediately for Connecticut and planned to be there for six weeks or so. But since I had already stalled for as long as possible, I couldn’t really wait another six weeks to order my dress.

So I did what any good attorney would do. I immediately hit the books. And by books, I mean the internet. I couldn’t help it. My name is Miss Dew Drop, and I am a research-aholic.

Keeping my favorite dress, the Blue by Enzoani Brighton, in mind, I started searching for pictures of similar dresses online. The more I looked, the more I realized I was looking for something exactly like it. Something with a mermaid silhouette, lace, a little bit of sparkle, and straps. Something a little out of the ordinary.

For reference, here’s the dress again on (a makeup-less) me:
Read more…

I know what you’re thinking. This is just a blog; it isn’t a confessional.

No worries. I’ve been soap opera free for, oh, two years now. I don’t need a 12-step program at the moment. (Well, at least not for soap operas…)

But back when I was a 10-year-old soap opera addict, I made a very resolute decision about my wedding. I decided that I wanted to walk down the aisle to Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. That was what they played at Steve and Kayla’s wedding on Days of Our Lives, and after replaying it on the VCR 563 or so times, I was hooked.

Oh, the clothing horror of an ’80s wedding… (Source)

Read more…

Did you dream about a white wedding dress when you were a kid?

Yeah, me too.

My mom, on the other hand, had grand plans of an intricately embroidered wedding sari.

And this is how I ended up as a two-dress bride.

(Well, you know, disregarding the fact that a sari isn’t technically a dress.)

First up, the wedding dress.

So here is where I admit that I stalled as long as I could to go dress shopping. I was completely freaked out about it. I thought all my body flaws would be magnified. I didn’t want to stand in front of big mirrors. I didn’t want to be pressured to buy something right away. And I really didn’t want random strangers to see me in my underwear.

But time was starting to run out, so I dragged myself out on a Saturday in February with my mom and Bridesmaid R.
Read more…

I’m not a stickler for etiquette by any means, but there’s a rule I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. It’s the one where the mother of groom should wear something similar to the mother of the bride.

But what do you do when this isn’t an option?

My mom will be wearing a sari. A fancy sari.

Not my mom’s sari, but I thought it would be useful for comparison’s sake. (Source)

Read more…