Weddingbee Blog

One of the biggest strategies I have for keeping costs down with all of the wedding “stuff” we have to buy, is to shop online. Even when I factor in shipping to Canada, I can save typically at least 30%, and often get a higher quality product than I would have in stores.

Image via Ocean Centre

For example, when we were just looking at rings, we found exactly what I wanted in a chain jewellery store (minus the colour of the diamond being a bit low for our taste): a .75 ct pear-shaped solitaire, which was retailing for around $4700 CAD. Well, we were shocked. We didn’t have that kind of money, especially because we needed two rings, not one! Fiancee Eagle ended up purchasing my ring online for just under $2000 USD, and got a higher grade of diamond.

This was just the beginning of my online-wedding-shopping addiction.
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Wedding planning isn’t all cupcakes and flowers and smiles all the time. One thing that I’ve been reluctant to blog about is the fact that my grandmother may not come to my wedding. Yup, you read that correctly. My own grandmother may choose to sit my wedding out.

I understand and respect that some people just don’t agree with same sex marriage. And that is fine! Especially when they are 85 years old. My grandmother was raised in a different time. She grew up in a time where racism and homophobia were the norm. I can’t judge her for that. I can’t judge her for not accepting gay marriage. But it still hurts.

Why? Because I’m her granddaughter. I’m the one who she taught how to bake and sew. I’m the one who went to her house every day after elementary and junior high school. I’m the one whose education she bragged about to her friends. I’m the one who she actually dubbed “her favorite grandchild.” I’m the one who taught her how to fill her car with gas when my grandpa passed away. I’m supposed to be loved and accepted by her, so why can’t she come to our wedding?
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I got proposed to on Valentine’s Day! Well, I also got proposed to long before this, but yesterday Fiancee Eagle surprised me again and proposed all over. Except it wasn’t a diamond this time. Just gold. She got down on one knee and proposed all over again, just to be cute. It was very cute.

I had been wanting a plain band that I could wear while I am in Africa for a month, and just in general when I don’t want to wear my engagement ring. A “fakeagement ring“, if you will. Even though we have already bought matching diamond eternity bands as our wedding bands, I couldn’t help but try it on with my engagement ring.
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When we first started planning our wedding, we thought that we’d have an iPod reception. Our venue offered up their iPod deck and said a lot of couples choose to use it. It seemed like a great idea.

Image via Apple

But I swooned over the idea of having a string quartet for our ceremony music. Something about it seemed so classic and pretty. And just very wedding. But it got me to thinking…why not have live music for the reception, too? Well, it’s expensive. That’s why. And it wasn’t something that we had thought about before, so the imaginary budget we had doctored up didn’t include an extra couple thousand for live music.

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No, I’m not buying a second dress for the reception.

I’m talking about Fiancee Eagle! Remember her? The other bride, in this two-bride wedding equation?

The Eagles @ Lethbridge Pride Fest

She had no problems finding a dress whatsoever. Do you remember those 150 wedding dresses I tried on, before settling for a dress I couldn’t try on? Not her shopping style at all.

She found her dress in one shopping trip. It was the 8th dress she tried on. Not fair!
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It’s no secret around here that I have had a horrible time trying to find a wedding dress. I tried on many lovely satin dresses, but after trying on over 150 wedding dresses, I was ready to be done. I was ready to either order a replica Pronovias dress online or give up. I gave myself until the end of January to find a dress in store, or I was going to order online.

I called salon after salon inquiring about dresses I wanted to try on, that I had found online. I had five dresses I picked out that I wanted to try on. Not a single salon carried them in my whole province. Not a single one. I literally felt defeated. But then…Mommy Eagle said I should come down to Lethbridge. You know, that little small town I left behind the day I graduated high school and moved to the city. My hometown. So off I went for the weekend, sans Fiancee Eagle.

I was reluctant to say the least. I really despise my home town…I’ve been back probably under 10 times since in the past five years. But, I will admit…if there is a place to buy a wedding dress, Lethbridge is it. There is a huge LDS population there, and there are always a ton of weddings going on every weekend. There even is a street that has three wedding dress shops owned by the same owner, so they really do have a little bit of something for everyone! I bought my dress from Bella Fiore, which is the sister store of Once Upon A Bride and The Wedding Cottage.

But hive…I have to tell you something. I committed a wedding dress sin.
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Hive, I have to tell you something. I tried on over 150 wedding dresses. Yup. I’m that girl. I tried on a TON of dresses. I was not one of the lucky few that we see on SYTTD who found her dress in one appointment. When I told sales associates at the bridal salons just how many dresses I had tried on, I could see the look of fear on their faces. They knew I was going to be hard to please. They knew they weren’t going to make a sale.

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Our photographer search left me a little stressed out. In fact, I took a week long break from the vendor search because I just couldn’t handle it. Fiancee Eagle and I really wanted to choose a photographer that “got us” as a couple, someone who supported marriage equality… someone whose work was phenomenal. I honestly thought we would have to settle, because we were setting the bar too high.

And then I remembered something… something so big, that I couldn’t believe I forgot it. I already knew the perfect photographer. I had spent hours poring over her blog when I was doing my Bachelor’s Degree, because she was one of my classmates! It takes serious talent to be a scientist AND a photographer. And serious talent she has.

Image via Brittany Esther Photography

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Photography is pretty dang important at a wedding. When we first started talking about our wedding, we knew that the two things we were willing to spend “big” on were the venue and the photographer. I was absolutely horrified when my mother suggested that we just let the guests take photos, and ask my aunt (who did photos at my mom’s 1984 wedding) to take our “formals.” Not happening! She is a great hobby photographer, but she’s my aunt (and Godparent). She’s a guest at the wedding. She shouldn’t have to be working.

Both Fiancee Eagle and I were firmly set on hiring a professional photographer who had a good track record (and pretty photos!), who also was supportive of same-sex marriage. We looked on the So You’re EnGAYged preferred vendor list for photographers, but we couldn’t really a find a photographer in Alberta or even Vancouver, that we loved. Everyone on their list had technically “good photography” and was obviously fine with gay weddings… but none of their work really stood out as something we were willing to shell out thousands of dollars on.
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So, I’m sort of ass-backwards and shared our rehearsal BBQ invitations with you all before I even told you why we chose to have a BBQ in the first place! Please forgive me, hive. Since we don’t have a groom in this wedding equation, I knew that we would have to plan it ourselves. But I really freaked out at the thought of planning a rehearsal dinner…I mean, it’s pretty expensive, and I knew that our parents would want to invite out-of-town guests, further racking up the bill. Since our venue is so popular, they book Friday evening weddings as well. This ruled out having the traditional Friday-night rehearsal, and this made me want to just skip the rehearsal dinner all together. Our ceremony rehearsal is going to be on a Thursday evening, and I felt like having the rehearsal dinner on a Thursday just sort of defeated the whole pre-wedding excitement that the rehearsal dinner gives to the weekend.

I expressed my whole rehearsal dinner ambivalence to Mommy Eagle, who then suggested we have a BBQ in a local city park. Honestly it seemed like a great idea to me—we could easily buy hamburgers and chicken breasts from Costco for the main dish, and make up some salads and sides, the day of. And since it wasn’t going to cost much per head, we could invite out-of-town guests. Perfect! Mommy Eagle to the rescue.

We were able to book a local city picnic area that comes equipped with charcoal grills, and access to an electrical outlet for $100. I’m estimating that food will cost us max $500, and decorations may come in at $100. I’ve tallied up our guest list, and I think we’ll invite around 50 people…so the whole shebang should be approximately $14 a head. This is very reasonable considering quotes from restaurants were closer to $50.

A rehearsal BBQ isn’t all that un-common in the wedding world. I’ve found tons of great photos and inspiration!

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I’m sort of a private person. I know that may seem strange coming from someone who is blogging every detail about her wedding… but I really am! I don’t share a lot of details about my life or feelings with people around me that I don’t consider close friends. I’m sort of a “closed book,” and I kind of like it that way.

When I first got engaged, I really didn’t tell anyone at work. I just felt like it was my business and if people saw my ring and wanted to ask, that was fine! I would tell them if they asked. One of the main reasons I didn’t share my wedding news with work is because I work in an incredibly cerebral environment with very scholarly people. These people know more about science and medicine and evolution that I could ever imagine, and I read their papers in awe before I started to work with them. They are all really smart, like Darwin-of-our-times smart. It can be incredibly intimidating, and I really didn’t want to look like the dumb 22 year old who couldn’t stop gushing about wedding dresses and flowers and invitations (I’ll save that for the hive!). That being said… I don’t think that people who talk about their weddings at work are dumb, I just felt like I would be perceived as such in my particular work environment.

But then something changed:
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I shared with you all in my last blog that I designed my rehearsal dinner invitations in Adobe Illustrator and ordered them through Vistaprint. I felt comfortable using Vistaprint since we’re just having a rehearsal BBQ and the invitations don’t need to be super fancy. Plus, I had used them for my Save-The-Dates, and I was impressed with the quality of the paper, for the price.

We went from this design:

To this printed product (plus I rounded the corners):
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I left off my Illustrator tutorial with showing you all how to make a background and edit vector shapes that you can find online. I know that this is all “heavy” learning—but I promise, if you stick to it, it becomes easier and you eventually get the hang of it.

Now, starting up where we left off… we had just finished the background, and placed the squiggly background image on top of it.

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Ever since my Vistaprint STD post, I have been getting lots of messages from hive members asking me how I used Adobe Illustrator to design my invitations. Learning how to use Adobe Illustrator was NOT easy, mostly because I taught myself. I learned how to use it for work to make figures for academic publications, but the same skill-set works for wedding stationery design.

Now, first things first: Adobe Illustrator is expensive. It comes in a package called “Creative Suite 5″ (or CS5 for short). It includes things like Photoshop and InDesign as well. Right now, it is listed on the Adobe website for $1299 USD. Yikes. I purchased my CS5 Design Standard for around $200 at the University I attend, with an education discount. If you’re in the market to purchase CS5, try to use this discount. It literally saves you hundreds of dollars. But: the website does offer a free 30 day trial. So: if you can teach yourself how to use Illustrator and design your invitations in under 30 days - you can avoid purchasing it.

The most important thing to understand about Illustrator is that it is a vector-based design program.
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Dear Miss Eagle,

Last Friday, January 6th marked the anniversary of the day we first met and began a friendship. I know our first date wasn’t until the 28th of January and we chose to celebrate that day, but I would like to take a moment to remember the conversation that started it all.

The conversation was about an Angelina Jolie movie that we both enjoyed more than a person should. Girl Interrupted. Remember that one? Well our common love for that movie and Miss Jolie lead us to discovering what other interests we shared… other than that and Grey’s Anatomy, there wasn’t much. You were a beautiful, intelligent student, partying every night in the big city. I was the shy girl from a small town who had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. But that night after hours of getting to know you, I knew that you were the one for me and I would be stupid not to pursue you.

You’ve heard this one hundred times already, but that night when I went to bed, I dreamt of you and I ten years down the road. We had two children and were getting family portraits done. I don’t know about you, but I am so very excited to see that dream come to life. I know it won’t be for a while - grad school and then more school and all… - But we’ll get there eventually.
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