Weddingbee Blog

We embraced for a few hugs with our friends and family after our first look, but Zak quickly pulled us away for our bride and groom pictures. We spent a little time in the heart of the snow storm…armed with an umbrella, which happened to be a lifesaver during this time.

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The girls and I piled into cars, I jumped in with BM Candace and her boyfriend G, we traversed the snowy roads a couple miles back to the venue. This was the most suspense filled moment of the day…I had jitters, swelling tears and excitement bubbling over. Not only was I going to see what would be the final presentation of our hand-crafted wedding space but I was going to see my groom and I was ready. We pulled up and waited as the photographers situated Mr. Honey so that he couldn’t see me when I stepped out of the truck. I’m hidden in the big black truck below; my parents seized this moment to make their way over to me and catch the first glimpse of their daughter all gussied up as a bride.

Annnd cue the waterworks.
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I’m gonna take a break from all things bridesmaids-n-girls and switch to the dudes of the Honey wedding. All morning long, I was (un)selfishly basking in a bridal glow, getting pampered and pretty…all the while thinking my groom was basking in some sort of groom haze, drinking beer with his guys. When our photographers arrived at 10:30AM, Karlee stayed with the ladies and Zak headed over to take the guys-getting-handsome pictures. Only, he showed back up at the girl’s house a short hour later. I inquired as to why, but all he would say is they were busy…not getting dressed. He assured me it was fine, but that my groom was actually working…at the venue.

Apparently, falling snow had caused my groom to shift focus from getting dressed to getting the ceremony site just perfect. Mr. Honey didn’t have near the amount of visions I had for our wedding, but he did have visions of a perfectly crafted, snow-covered stage, so the morning of our wedding he was in his Dickies, leather gloves and snow boots, working up a sweat with some shovels. That’s my man!

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The girls and I left the warmth of the crackling fireplace and ventured outside…I was first out the door, leading my group of girls into the snow. A very vivid memory I have is turning around and seeing my eight bridesmaids looking just amazing. I chose to go with the mismatched bridesmaid dresses and never once did I regret that decision. There were eight different styles/fabrics/lengths of various navy blue dresses and it worked fabulously. Tied together with the matching cardigans, my heart swelled with how perfectly my girls looked.

We took a little stroll down the snow covered dirt road…the girls held hands and latched arms, paying special attention to my two pregnant bridesmaids, as Flower Girls S & B led the posse of girls. I wonder how many residents caught glimpses of the crazy winter bride and her bridesmaids!

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We had a lot of girls getting ready in the house…eight bridesmaids, three flower girls and one bride. We set up the kitchen table as our “get pretty station” where the hair stylists did their magic, nail painting occurred and a full length mirror was set up to apply makeup.

The flower girls transformed from Disney princesses to Wedding princesses…
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When I think back to the morning of my wedding day, there are very vivid memories in my mind…the kind that were captured on camera (hello, bridal details!) and those that weren’t. Perhaps it was because it was the calm before the storm or because it was the transformation from leggings to the dress; here’s how I remember my morning. I spent my last night as an unmarried lady in a king size bed, with my eight month pregnant MOH and her two little girls. It was actually quite sweet…there’s nothing like being spooned by a five year old the night before your wedding! Fortunately, all the excitement from Friday wore me out and I slept ridiculously well…and I was wide eyed and bushy tailed by about 5:30AM that morning.

I woke up and brewed a big ol’ pot of coffee, sat down in an overstuffed leather chair and wrote my vows. My bridesmaids actually didn’t believe me when I told them the night before that I still had to write my vows and in all honesty, I couldn’t believe it either. I knew what I wanted to say but I knew if I had tried to write them any earlier, they would have morphed and changed a gazillion times. So there I sat, as the sun came up on my wedding day, writing out what I was going to promise to my husband…that hour was incredibly clarifying.

Our little rings with so much significance, ready for their debut at the altar

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This is kind of a ’fluff’ post, my recaps would probably be just as complete without it but in my mind the weekend wouldn’t have been complete without my Friday night. Why? Because girl time is of utmost importance to me…and I always envisioned my Friday night before the wedding being spent with my girls.

Not because I didn’t want to be with Mr. Honey but because I wanted my last night as a single lady to be surrounded by my girls. I rented the Mountain Serenity Home through VRBO for the girls to sleep in Friday night and get ready in Saturday morning. This home was spectacular and was beyond perfect for setting the mood for our winter mountain wedding. Complete with two fireplaces, Rocky Mountain decor and loads of windows to take in the scenery, it was just right. I had all eight bridesmaids and our three flower girls with me that Friday night. As soon as we got to the house we promptly put on our comfy clothes and the three flower girls surprised us with their Princess outfits. How cute are they?!

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After the rehearsal we headed up the hill to my parents’ rental house for dinner…I never talked about our rehearsal dinner and that’s because it wasn’t finalized until the Monday before the wedding. We went back and forth on having either burgers catered in a restaurant at Vallecito or pizza brought in to my parents’ rental house. Ultimately, the pizza party route worked better for our wallets and for the vibe we wanted at our rehearsal dinner. My parents rented a large house with plenty of space, a pool table and a ping pong table so we all gathered there.

Mr. Honey and I ordered 20 pizzas from Domino’s and had my cousin T pick them up for us on his way to Vallecito that afternoon. We picked 20 different varieties of pizzas from pepperoni to BBQ chicken to spinach and white sauce. For sides we picked up bread sticks and marinara and my mom made some favorite appetizers. To top of our pizza party, we tapped a keg of Tecate. It was so fun! It was casual and laid back, but just perfect for what we wanted. Seriously, who doesn’t love a slice-o-Domino’s with a cold beer?!

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After we set up, all my bridesmaids and I went back to our house to get pretty before the rehearsal. I had bought a few new dresses for wedding events and was stoked to finally be putting on the one I had picked out for the rehearsal. After we were all prettified, we piled into BM K’s Swagger Wagon, Tecates in hand, and headed back to the venue for the rehearsal.

Photo by BM Mae BM Scoot, BM Candace, Me, BM Fawn

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One of the best things about our venue was that it was a blank slate. One of the hardest things about our venue was that it was a blank slate. This meant we had to do all of the setup and decoration, so we called in the troops for help. Our entire wedding party, family, and even some super-generous friends came to our rescue Friday morning to get the place just perfect.

My dad called in friends to plow out the parking lot. My mom called friends to help with flowers. The groomsmen offered their muscle and the bridesmaids brought their finest decorating skills. It truly was an effort by our nearest and dearest! The four hours of setting up was beyond exciting for me. Putting together all the decor elements that I had envisioned for so many months was surreal…finally getting all those visions from my head to real life so that everyone could actually see what I was seeing? Amazing!

We set up the rows of tables with the white tablecloths and burlap runners:

Photo by BM Mae

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When I came across Weddingbee, I loved being inspired by the bees in planning, and seeing so many different kinds of weddings being created. But what really drew me in was the recaps. When I was freshly engaged and facing the daunting task of creating our wedding, reading the recaps  made me feel like I could really do this; seeing so many other brides pulling off all their to-dos and DIYs made me feel more confident when facing my own task list. Seeing a project from creation to implementation was right up my alley and I couldn’t wait to recap my own wedding (even before I got the honor to blog as Miss Honey, as the followers on my blog would have been reading my recaps!). Needless to say, I’m super excited to be starting the Honey recaps!! Follow along as all the bullet points on my previous planning list get documented in pictures and trips down memory lane.

There was a lot I felt like I didn’t address before the wedding, like my hair trial. That’s because a lot of things fell into place the week before the wedding. So let’s start there, with our wedding week.

We both chose to take off the week before the wedding.
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I think it’s safe to say that majority of brides imagine their wedding days with blue skies and the sun shining—a picture perfect weather day. I’m going to share the story of our wedding week weather with you because I was not in that weather camp and also because when I share our pictures with you in the recaps, I want you all to know how perfect the weather was for us.

We planned our outside winter wedding in anticipation of the weather being winter-y. We had outdoor heaters, we passed along wise words to dress warm, and my mom even bought 30 fleece blankets at after-Christmas sales. What we didn’t plan on was unusually warm weather. By January 10th, Durango had not even a flake of snow since the first week in December, and the highs were nearing the mid-50s. When trees are dormant and all that remains from the last snowstorm is brown ice and brown dirt, the landscape is far from pretty.

On January 11th, the day our 10-day forecast was available, it predicted sun, sun, and more sun all the way through our wedding day. What was the problem with all the sunny weather predictions?
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Three weeks before our wedding and I still didn’t have the slightest clue of what gifts to give to our wedding party. When you add our parents and officiant, we were buying for a total of seventeen people. We decided we wanted our gifts to be simple, meaningful and cost effective.

Let’s start with the boys. We briefly contemplated custom cuff links, but couldn’t decide on what exactly we would pick out…kayaks, skateboards, snowboards, states? We couldn’t pinpoint any one idea so we scratched it. We both really liked the idea of flasks, but felt like it was too common and expected. The solution came when I realized how much Mr. Honey really enjoys drinking beer out of a frosty beer mug (seriously the man loves an ice cold mug straight out of the freezer for his brew).

Ah ha! Custom made beer mugs for our groomsmen, dads, and officiant! We picked up this glass etching glue and this reusable stencil set from Hobby Lobby for a total of $13 (after a 40% off coupon). After browsing Ross & TJ Maxx for an affordable set of large (Mr. Honey requested they be large in size) beer mugs; we happened to stumble upon the Dollar Tree. Gigantic beer mugs for one dollar! The etching process was pretty dang easy: apply stencils, secure with tape, slather with etching glue, let sit for one minute and rinse!

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Quite a while ago, I posted about how we fell into a free photography contract with an acquaintance of mine who offered it up. Many of you expressed concerns, and at the time I had faith it would work out; it had to work out because we had no other option. I should have listened to you, hive! About six weeks before our wedding, I opened my Gmail to find an email from said photographer. My heart sunk. He was writing to tell me that his photography was going in a different direction and he “no longer needed wedding photography for his portfolio.” Six weeks before we needed him; six weeks in which everything else was coming together and many months too late to start a new photography budget. I was a mixture of emotions, from being completely pissed off to the feeling of total betrayal. We emailed back and forth, and it came to him agreeing that he would honor his contract and shoot our wedding “if that’s what it came to.” Long story short, I was getting the many hints that our photographer just didn’t want to be there for our wedding.

One night I had one of those wedding nightmares that so many Bees have written about. My nightmare? That this photographer just didn’t show up. I mean why would he? He had no vested interest in our day, no deposit to return, no money to collect. I laid in bed thinking how awful that would be and my mind drifted to a different thought. What if he did show up but was just so-so in his efforts? Which situation would be the worst?
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Seriously, I’m so giddy to be able to use those nouns! We used fiance/ee for so long that finally getting to say husband and wife is just…right. We’ve only been married for three days, but each time I stare down at my engagement ring that is finally accompanied by its partner, the wedding band, I feel so complete.

Our wedding weekend was amazing and our wedding day was perfect. My new husband (!!!) and I aren’t taking a honeymoon right away so we are settling back into the real world. I will tell you that Sunday morning we both woke up and sighed a very large sigh of relief. We had done it. All the planning, mind space, and money spent had actually concluded in us becoming husband and wife.

While we wait for our pro pictures, I have a few things I would love to share with the Hive that I didn’t get to before the wedding. But to hold you over, here is a teaser picture from good ol’ Facebook.

The Honeys really did get married in a Colorado blizzard:
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