Weddingbee Blog

Guess what just arrived!

(all pictures are personal photos unless otherwise noted)

Read more…

Recently, I showed you the wedding planning binder that I put together for myself and several of my friends. Now I am going to share with you a few of the resources that we have used and that I have subsequently shared with my friends as they are on their own planning journeys. The following three books have been invaluable to Mr. Hermit Crab and me as we plan for our wedding and of course, our marriage.

(source)

The New Jewish Wedding by Anita Diamant was the first book that I bought. I also bought it for all the women involved in the wedding planning with me.

Read more…

I have mentioned before that we will not be having a formal wedding party. Mr. Hermit Crab and I both have big groups of close friends from many different periods in our lives, and we felt that choosing some friends and excluding others in this way was simply out of the question for us. We will be including many of friends in other ways, however, so stay tuned for more information on that!

However, we will not be alone under the chuppah. In addition to our Rabbi, of course, we will have our siblings and parents stand up with us. Our siblings will be holding the chuppah, and our parents will be standing by our sides. (My little sister will actually be acting as flower girl, which is as close to a wedding party as we came, but hey, she’s 5!)
Read more…

(source)

I didn’t really know where to start looking for a dress. The internet is a great resource, and I got my hands on every magazine I could, but I had no idea how to begin trying on dresses and finding the right one.

My mom, with the best of intentions, made an appointment for us to go check out Kleinfeld in Manhattan. You can read about how I prepared for my first appointment here. In addition, I started watching Say Yes to the Dress in anticipation. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that helped. I was not looking forward to my first appointment because I thought of myself as a little more low-key than many of the brides that they feature.
Read more…

Are you ready for the big reveal? I think I’ve kept you in suspense long enough.

So, I searched online, printed out pictures, visited Kleinfeld’s with my mom, and found my dress, but I did not buy it. Catch up on Part 1 here.

Here’s a hint: the dress I fell in love with just so happened to be one of the pictures that I brought with me (and showed you) and also happened to be the first dress I tried on. I tried on several after it, but none of them felt just right like the first one.

However, my mom wanted me to mull it over, and we also knew that there were several other women that would love to be included in the dress search. That is why, several months later, I headed back to Kleinfeld’s with no fewer than 11 people in tow. Don’t believe me? Check it out:

If by any chance you are Mr. Hermit Crab and you are reading this point, you must close the window and walk away. Gone? Whew, ooootay.
Read more…

About 8 months out from the wedding, we decided to order and send the save the dates. We had chosen a date and booked the venue, and we wanted to make sure that our guests marked it down on their calendars! I thought for sure that I wanted to send an adorable save the date magnet from VistaPrint like the one below:

(source)

I even went so far as to actually design and fill out the whole save the date. I was a day away from ordering. And then… I found Mrs. Bear Cub right here on Weddingbee and her amazing invitations. I just fell in love with the sustainability and the creativity that she used on her invitations.

Read more…

(source)

In Barnes and Noble recently, I was reminiscing with Mr. Hermit Crab about one of the first few days after we had gotten engaged and returned home from Ottawa. I had gone to Barnes and Noble and stood in front of the Bridal shelves for about 20 minutes, occasionally leafing through one book or another, but mostly was  totally overwhelmed. I left with a wedding magazine in hand (I can’t remember which one at this point, but I’ve had them all - reviews to come), and a mission. I was going to create my own wedding planner. If you would like to purchase a pre-made one instead of make your own, Miss Pencils has written a great post about her research!

I went to an office supply store next to pick up my supplies.
Read more…

(source)

The New York Botanical Garden had a list of six or seven required florists that we had to choose from. I made a few calls, looked for recommendations, and sent out emails to my two finalists. Once I compared their bids, and what they offered, I chose one. I am happy to say that we will be using Diana Gould, LTD for our flowers. I spent hours admiring the beautiful arrangements on her website and began to figure out what I liked.

Since I am planning long distance, the sales associate asked me to send her pictures of arrangements that I liked so that she could prepare for our in person meeting.
Read more…

(Beware: Wedding gown overload up ahead!)

Very early on in our engagement, like many others before me, I started (compulsively) looking at pictures of dresses online. On a weekly coffee date with a friend, we decided to pop over to the bridal salon across the street. On a whim, I tried on my very first wedding gown. I was not expecting to like it, and to be honest, I didn’t love it on the hanger, but when I put it on, we both had chills! I knew the dress wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it is a wonderful dress! The gown was Maggie Sottero Ireland:

(source)

Now that I had tried on a dress, I knew that this was the style that I wanted.

Read more…

(MMM yum yum yum)

Just kidding, I was totally not that clueless! There were a couple things that Mr. Hermit Crab definitely wanted to have a say in, and food was the big one. Since we keep kosher, we were allowed to bring in an outside caterer. After some extensive research, and more countless hours on the phone, we narrowed it down to three. We met with all three caterers, and decided to set up a tasting. Unfortunately, one of the caterers was terribly unresponsive.
Read more…

(Source)

One of the first things that we had to talk about when after we got engaged was when. Many years ago, and kind of in passing, Mr. Hermit Crab had mentioned that he didn’t want to get married until after medical school. And this was before he even started! We got engaged during his third year of medical school, and after graduation still seemed to be a reasonable time. Graduation was set for mid-May 2010, and residency begins at the end of the June, so we decided to choose something late May or early June, so we would have time to move and take a vacation. The last weekend in May was going to be Memorial Day weekend, so we decided on a Sunday in early June and luckily for us, our venue was available.

Why Sunday?
Read more…

I was standing on the top floor of a beautiful building in downtown Manhattan gazing over the lights and the buildings as far as the eye could see, and I knew then, I had to be married in New York City. The fact that I had yet to find someone to marry was aside the point, this I knew for certain—whoever, whenever, we would be in good ol’ New York City.

Oh New York, you stop my heart! (Source)

One of the first things we discussed after returning from our blissful engagement weekend in Ottawa was our wedding venue. Several years after that moment gazing out over the Manhattan skyline, and now actually knowing who I would be marrying, I was still convinced that I wanted to be married with a New York City backdrop. Thankfully, Mr. Hermit Crab felt a similarly strong connection to the area, and we (alright, alright, I) began to do research.
Read more…

I have a hard time admitting this, hive, but for you, I’ll do it.

I looked at pictures of rings online for months before we were actually engaged. Whew, there, it’s out! I wasn’t sure what I wanted but, but I ogled over delicious sparkly, shiny baubles like these:

(Source)

You may notice that they all have colored stones. I definitely wanted something unique, non-traditional, and so I thought, colorful.
Read more…

When I tell you about the 24 hours surrounding our engagement, you may not believe it. But I promise, every word is true.

Unless otherwise noted, all pictures from here on are personal photos.

It is October 2008, and Mr. Hermit Crab and I are heading out of town for a weekend in Alexandria Bay, NY and Ottawa, ON. I had planned this weekend months ago so that we could get away and spend some time together.

We arrive in Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands Region of Northern NY (4 miles from the Canadian border) at dusk. I had thought that I had found a great deal on a motel because it was nearing the off season; little did I know I was getting a great deal because we were staying in what I can only describe as the Bates Motel (or at least it seemed that way!). It was a tiny strip motel on the side of a nearly desolate road with just a tiny lock on the door handle. To this day I’m still not sure why I did this, but I looked under the bed. You can imagine my dismay when there was actually a trap door under the bed! I also can’t explain why Mr. Hermit Crab went under the bed to look in the trap door. He found a cement cell. Seriously, Hive, I can not make this up. We spent the next 15 minutes deciding whether to put our suitcase next to the door or over the trap door. We decided to use it to bar the door, but I didn’t sleep a wink that night!
Read more…

10 gold stars if you can name the gem that this post title is from!

It is 2003. I am a shiny, new, fresh-out-of-the-box-and-ready-for-my-first-day-of-college-at-NYU-freshman as I head into my second college class EVER (Level 1 Hebrew in case you’re interested).

He is a laid back sophomore, already well versed in the language of college and jaded from a year of freshman dorms and introductory classes.

I had a crush on him from the moment I saw him. He would come around eventually.

A year and a half later, and three semesters of Hebrew class together under our belt, we ran into each other in the dining hall and decided to have lunch. Little did either of us know, but this would be only the first of many lunches, soon dinners, and eventually, daily, hanging out that would lead us here!

As a mascot at NYU (Go Violets!), I convinced Mr. Hermit Crab to come to the first basketball game that I would be performing at.
Read more…