Weddingbee Blog

Hey everyone, just a reminder about the meet up tonight! Thanks to sarahbabs for initiating!

Who: Any Weddingbee reader—waiting, engaged, married, and friends! You do not have to live in NYC to attend this event—you just have to be willing to come from wherever you are!

What: A meet up to get to know other Weddingbee devotees and talk weddings, life and just spend some good time hanging out!

When: Monday, September 19, starting at 7 pm

Where: The downstairs section of Croton Reservoir Tavern, 108 West 40th Street, right by the corner of 40th and 6th Ave (across the street from Bryant Park)

Why: It’s a great opportunity to put faces behind the names that you see and interact with every day!

Feel free to jump to this post and discuss, or respond right here! Hope to see you tonight!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to pop in and make sure that everyone in the New York City area knows about the meet up planned on the boards! Thanks to sarahbabs for initiating!

Who: Any Weddingbee reader - waiting, engaged, married, and friends! You do not have to live in NYC to attend this event - you just have to be willing to come from wherever you are!

What: A meet up to get to know other Weddingbee devotees and talk weddings, life and just spend some good time hanging out!
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Hello there, Hive! I have missed posting here regularly, but I have been popping around the boards just to make sure I don’t miss anything. I wanted to jump in with a post about a Jewish tradition that I haven’t yet talked about here, and one that I think many people will like.

Every year on the Jewish calendar, is a relatively unknown holiday called “Tu B’Av,” or the 15th of the Hebrew month Av. It occurs in the summertime, usually in August. This year, it falls on the eve of the 14th and until sundown on the 15th of August (and the dates almost never line up like this!). Historically, the holiday was known as a day of matchmaking, when women would dress all in white, and dance outside the city walls, and choose who they wanted to marry. It has been said that “There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av…since on these days the daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife).”

Today, it something like Valentine’s Day in the Jewish community—a day to celebrate love and relationships, and the magnitude of choosing your partner, and may include dancing and singing together into the night.
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“To turn around and walk away… / Maybe another time, another day / As much as I want to, I can’t stay”*

Hive, it’s that time. I have been dreading writing this post for so long, and trying to think of ways to put it off. But now, on our first anniversary (OMG can you believe it’s our first anniversary?!?!), I think it’s time.

Way back in 2008 I stumbled on this crazy site called “Weddingbee.” Quickly, I became addicted to the massive amounts of inspiration and advice, and how friendly everyone was. One year and one month ago I was introduced as Miss Hermit Crab (and I still get butterflies when I think about my acceptance email!). We had a whirlwind month together as I caught you up on all my planning, and we got to know each other. And one year ago today I married the most amazing person in the world—my perfect match.

This year has had its share of ups and downs for us for sure, but Mr. HC become partners and friends and a team more and more every day, and every day I feel luckier to be able to be married to this amazing person. Here’s a tiny peek of my gift for Mr. HC on our first anniversary:

Charlene Kim Photography

And I owe HUGE thank you to you, Hive.

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Just like Mrs. Octopus, above everything else (you know, aside from actually getting married), we wanted to throw the most-fun-ever-talked-about-for-years-most-banging-bash any of our guests had ever attended. I can’t possibly capture the energy in still-motion photographs, but I sure did try. Every guest was on their feet for at least a few songs, and months later, people are still telling us how much fun they had (and would we please throw an anniversary party?)! And Mr. HC and I had the most fun of our entire lives!

Time to get real for a minute: I debated whether or not to go into detail about the things that happened at our wedding that were not so magical. In an effort to keep it real with you guys, there were several incidents that were upsetting. First, the timeline got a little wonky in the morning, and I wound up being late to the tisch. Second, we had a family member toast made that was the opposite of what a toast should be—it was actually offensive and upsetting. So upsetting that I decided to omit the toasts altogether from my recaps and just show you the fun stuff. It took me several months to get to where I am now, which is not quite so upset, but still working on getting over it. Third, there were a couple of seriously minor things that were not exactly right and I decided to ignore those completely and have even mostly forgotten what they were!

I’ve decided to share this with you now because despite everything, and believe me, these were big everythings, the wedding was hands down, no question, the best day of my entire life so far.
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I love those pictures that people get at their weddings of the whole group, but at nearly 300 guests, that was simply not an option! We were so lucky to be surrounded by loving friends and family, many whom we had spent the last three years far away from in Syracuse, and the wedding was a giant reunion! I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you a few of my favorite photos of friends and family who came to share the day with us!

This one and the next are two of my favorite photos in sequence! They’re good friends from my childhood and we’re all spread out now.

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Let’s get back to the party!

This is one of my favorite photos—how adorable is my little sister??

Want to know what she is watching?
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As we take a little breather from all that dancing, I thought I would take this chance to show you a few of our reception details.

Our place cards, with calligraphy by the wonderful and talented Fran Heider of Little Flower Calligraphy, who did our envelopes

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Just in case you didn’t get enough, I’m embedding the song clip again so please feel free to pick up wherever you left off! (Music by Nafshenu)

Our epic horah continued with the traditional chairs - as we were hoisted high up into the air!

I’m only a little (LOT) scared!
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Many of you have probably participated in some sort of horah, many of you may not have. Well, when I say we had the horah to end all horahs, I would not be exaggerating! I am giving you a quickie sound bite of many of the tunes that our band played for our over-45-minute dance session! I think you will enjoy this post more if you have it playing in the background—be prepared, it’s not your usual horah music! I don’t know if I can really show you the energy, the enthusiasm, the FUN, the awesomeness that was the first part of the dancing, but I will try!

I should say here, I don’t think I have said enough about our band. I found Nafshenu online, and I quickly became their biggest fan from the demo CD they sent me! They kept the party moving from start to finish, totally read our crowd, played every song just as I had imagined it, and were so amazing from cocktail hour through to the end. People were asking if they would stay and play longer! If you are looking for a band that can play a wide variety of both Jewish and secular music, and play it well, I will totally, totally recommend Nafshenu! I will be highlighting their Jewish music in my posts, but believe me, they played everything from “The Final Countdown” to “Living on a Prayer” to “Shout!” with ease!I wish I could put all of their music in, I loved it so much (I even have their CD on as I write!).

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After a few minutes together we mostly just looked at each other and said, “Oh my gosh, we’re married!” We scarfed down some hors d’oeuvres (thank you caterers!), fixed my bustle, and we were ready to join our guests for the reception.

The end of our program:

Seudat Mitzvah - The Wedding Feast
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The second part of the ceremony began:

“Nissuin” - Marriage

We conclude the ceremony with nissuin, the reciting of the sheva brachot, literally “seven blessings.” These blessings begin by praising God for the sources of joy we find in the world and lead into a more specific request that God grant joy to this couple. The final blessing poetically lists numerous manifestations of joy, such as dance, song, unity, love and peace, all of which the Bride and Groom are certainly feeling at that moment.
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After we all arrived at the Chuppah, it was time to begin. Before any words were even spoken, we circled. The tradition is actually for the bride to circle the groom seven times. In an effort to make our ceremony more egalitarian, I circled Mr. HC three times, he circled me three times, and then we circled together once.

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With a quick hair check and a peek at our guests hurrying to take their seats for the processional, I was giddy. We made our way to the ceremony site, and stood behind those green doors that you will see at the back. Waiting during the ceremony processional is one of my most vivid memories from the wedding—it was unbelievably surreal being at the back of the line, meaning this was my wedding—I was the bride!

Hiding behind those doors means we missed out on one very special experience.

My wonderful and amazing Aunt B had somehow arrived after everyone else had been seated.
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After we finished signing our marriage license and ketubah, it was time for another Jewish tradition: the bedekin.

We were seated again as we started this next part. We asked my childhood Rabbi, an inspiration to me, and a huge part of why I have chosen paths that I have, to do this part. And he blew it out of the park!

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