Weddingbee Blog

About a month before the wedding, I began a mad search for the perfect hair flower to wear at the reception. I am not sure why I waited so long. Oh yeah, I procrastinated. Anyway, my wedding hairstylist had previously warned me that fresh flowers might wilt. So, I jumped on good ol’ Etsy.com and tried my hand at finding a flower hair fascinator.

I knew exactly what I was looking for: something romantic, beautiful, whimsy, and (yes) affordable. My goal was to find something under $40. I got lucky and stumbled across the gorgeous creations of Aundrea and Erin. I was instantly sold!

Aundrea and Erin are beautiful and super sweet twin sisters from Kansas City, whose Etsy shop, MeadowBelleMarket, showcases their talents in creating jewelry, flowers, and accessories.

Here is just some of their floral goodness:

Buttercream Peony

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I have been wanting to write a post about wedding anxiety for a while now, but as I was going through it, I couldn’t find the words to describe it. Now that I am a newlywed, my thoughts seem to be flowing much more easily. So here goes…

Keeping busy with wedding tasks helped distract me from the fact that I was scared sh*tless of my wedding day. Not about the marriage and “happily ever after” part (because I knew I wanted to marry Mr. G), but the actual wedding part. Being the center of attention is never my style, and having 250 people staring at me was a daunting thought. I put on a calm face to the outside world, but inside, I was a panicking, nervous wreck. Ahhh, it feels so good to finally admit that.

I’m not usually a very nervous or high strung person. I swear, I’m not. However, planning for months on end for one big day is a lot of pressure. My mind was constantly racing. I second guessed many decisions I made. I obsessed over outlandish things like if I would faint or vomit while walking down the aisle. My stomach hurt constantly. One evening, I wondered if I was giving myself an ulcer. Then I Googled “stomach ulcers” and spent the rest of the night worrying that my worrying was giving me an ulcer. I guess you could say I had issues.

Two weeks before the wedding, I couldn’t sleep most nights. I would wake up with my heart racing.
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Last Saturday, Mr. G and I got married! It was a surreal day filled with love, laughter, and pure joy. Every detail of the wedding came together wonderfully. I was floating on a cloud the whole day. Everything was so beautiful!
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To Mr. G,

Has the day finally arrived?! My cup runneth over. Soon we will become husband and wife. I remember when we first met. I felt like the world sort of melted away. It was as if no one else existed but us. My heart grew a little bigger that day. And I don’t think it has stopped since then. You mean more to me than I could ever say in words. Take good care of my heart, it’s yours now and forever. I love you!

And to the fabulous Weddingbee community,

Blogging for Weddingbee has been an amazing experience. I never realized how much the kindness and support of you, the readers, could affect my life in such a positive way. You don’t know how much your encouragement and sweet comments helped me get through all the happy and challenging experiences of this process. Wedding planning is a roller coaster of emotions. It’s fun, exciting and terrifying all rolled into one. Thank you all for making my journey a memorable one! See you on the flip side.

Love,
Miss Glitter

Mr. G and I, always the happy procrastinators, finally got our marriage license. Nothing like waiting two days before the big day…
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I am finally back with the second half of my dress fitting story. Sorry it has taken so long! The wedding is less than two weeks away, and I’m swamped with errands. Anyway, when I last left you (Part I), I had my first dress fitting with a very questionable tailor. As many of you noted, I should have stormed out after the tailor’s first, second, or third insult. But, in my defense, I was kind of stunned. The next part of my story is kind of embarrassing. I have struggled over whether to share it, but I figured, why not?

Immediately after my bad fitting, I started questioning my dress. Was it too plain? Not formal enough? I even got online and began stalking other dresses. A couple of days later, I did the unthinkable. Late at night, with a guilty conscience, I put in a bid for a dress on eBay. I never thought my bid would actually be accepted, but of course, I won.

A minor bump in the road had quickly metamorphisized into a dilemma involving insecurity, indecision, and dress jitters. I didn’t have the time nor the money to be having this meltdown, and I still feel bad that I had it (hence, the feelings of embarrassment). But luckily, as soon as I put the second dress on, I felt like I was cheating on my first dress. I fell more in love with my original dress and my mind was set right pretty quickly. In retrospect, I think strangely I needed to go through the whole “second dress ordeal” in order to truly appreciate my dress. I immediately knew what I had to do.
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A few weeks ago, I had a dress fitting at a local tailor. I went alone and was really excited. I hadn’t tried my dress on in months, but I knew it needed a bustle. The rest, I figured, was in the tailor’s hands. I wish I had a sweet story to tell you, but to put it nicely, the appointment was a disaster. How? Let me count the ways.

First off, L.A. was experiencing scorching 100 degree weather, and the place had no air conditioning. In short, I was a sweaty mess before we even started. But I needed to get fitted, so I changed into my dress behind the severely shortened curtain and scooted my way out. The first words out of the tailor’s mouth after he looked me up and down with a judgmental eye…

“Is that your wedding dress?”

Umm, no sir, it’s not my wedding dress. Actually it’s a big flowy ivory gown with a train that I plan to wear out clubbing. What a stupid question. Sorry, but it was a stupid question said in a very condescending way. Strike one.

Then, I told him that I would need a bustle.
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Our wedding will welcome guests from ages 1 to 85 years old. You can’t please everyone, especially when it comes to music, but I wanted our song list to appeal to a wide range of peeps. It’s tough because we have several older guests coming who are notorious for not dancing. We want everyone to have fun and get up and dance to at least a few songs! It is A PARTY after all.

We hope to create two different “moods” at the reception. During dinner, we will stay safe, classy, and upbeat with Sinatra-like music. After the meal, we want an infusion of current and old school songs. If our all-night open bar doesn’t encourage people to get loose, well then… it’s hopeless.

Here is a sampling of the tunes list we gave our DJ.

Dinnertime Music (Sinatra, Buble or similar… but nothing too cheesy to the point that we will feel like we are eating at one of those old Italian restaurants. I love those restaurants, but I don’t want to overdo it at dinner.)

• Michael Buble – Sway
• Michael Buble – Summer Wind
• Michael Buble – Everything
• Frank Sinatra – You Make me Feel So Young
• Frank Sinatra- Nice ’N’ Easy
• Frank Sinatra – Night and Day

Reception Music (Mr. G and I love hip hop amongst many other genres. But we have tamed our list down so that guests like my grandparents don’t run out covering their ears.)
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Lately, I haven’t been too vigilant with my fitness goals. I guess I assumed that magically, with the pressure of our pending wedding, I would somehow become a workout machine. That never really happened. Oh well, I’m not going to punish myself now.

I noticed that a large portion of my day is spent sitting in front of my computer. Day in and day out, I sit with my shoulders slumped, and sometimes I think I can actually see my butt expanding. Anyhoo, I bought a little gizmo (aka a pedometer), so that now I have solid proof of my inactivity, and I can’t fool myself into believing that a simple trip to the bathroom counts as “cardio”.

I ordered this pedometer off of Amazon.

Source

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Source

I couldn’t be more excited and grateful that guests are responding to our invites and sending in their RSVPs in a timely manner. In the past, I admit to some bad RSVP behavior, such as sending it in right at the deadline, or after. I think once I even forgot to send one back all together, and had to email my response to the bride-to-be. Terrible!! I was in college, and absent-minded… but still, that was no excuse.

Now that I am on the receiving end of the RSVPs, I have been bothered by something.
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Ummm, how else can I say this? My floral designer is the sh*t. Yeah, that just about sums it up.

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One of the messes that resulted from the aftermath of our postponement was the invitations. Why was it a mess? Well, we had already ordered and received our invitations, and I cried when I found out they would no longer be of any use. (The actual invites couldn’t be used, but we found a way to salvage the envelopes…read on!)

From the get go, I knew a DIY invitation project wasn’t in the cards for me. I don’t own a Gocco and I couldn’t deal with the stress of designing (and possibly screwing up) our invitations. So, when it came time to figure out Wedding Invitations, Round Two, I was lost as to what I would do. This was the second time around, and our invitation budget was dwindling quickly.

Literally through luck, I was saved by the fabulous talents of Anne Rodriguez of The Paper Stylist. Anne is an amazingly creative graphic designer based out of Los Angeles. She helped me to find a vision for the invitations, and offered up her own design expertise throughout the process.

I provided her with these pictures for inspiration:

(Source)

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I am still a little self-conscious of the fact that Mr. G and I have been engaged for two years. Two years?! This long waiting period wasn’t intentional. We hoped to be married quickly. But around every corner, life seemed to get in the way.

Back in May 2007, I was newly engaged and thinking about a simple, small wedding. Enter: family, expectations, visions of a beautiful, elegant wedding, and every last detail that goes into the planning and execution of “one perfect day”. Our loved ones wanted a big wedding at a fancy venue. They wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. So we set the date for November 15, 2008 and hastily booked our venue; our most expensive vendor (by far).

One clause in the venue contract scared me. “In the event of a cancellation, party owes the entire cost of the event in full.” Brutal. But, at the time, we never imagined anything would go wrong.

Then enter the failing economy, lost jobs, and health-related issues.
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A while back, I wrote a post about how Mr. G selected my little brothers to be his best men. I was, and still am so touched by their close relationship to each other. Mr. G really wanted to get them gifts of appreciation and love for taking part in our wedding, but he kept coming up short. Leave it up to my mom (of all people!) to come up with the perfect idea.

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Many months ago, Mr. G and I were shopping and found ourselves at Macy’s. On a whim, we decided to start our registry. We were like kids in a candy store. Armed with our complimentary Swiss Army tote bag, we used the scanner to swipe anything we imagined might look “cute” in our condo. Eventually we grew tired and confused by all of the options, so we gave up and went home.

A few months later, we were at the mall and registered at Crate and Barrel. Again, we got sidetracked by looking at pretty things. I think I scanned three different cake plates, a dessert cookbook, and Mr. G scanned a ridiculously expensive chair. Are we sensing a pattern here? Yep, Mr. G and I were suffering from what I deemed “purposeless registry syndrome”. Purposeless registry syndrome usually occurs when couples get “scanner happy”, experience confusion over what they need versus what they want, and generally waste a bunch of time.

Creating a registry is a process, and I’ve realized a few things along the way.

1. Take On As Much As You Can Handle. The task of managing two registries stressed me out, so I made the executive decision to nix the Crate and Barrel registry. While I love C & B, I wanted to be able to look at one list and focus on one store.
2. Get Organized. Arrive at your store(s) of choice with a good idea of what you might need; perhaps bring a list of your own. Most stores provide a generic list of common registry items for you, but it never hurts to do your homework ahead of time.

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