Weddingbee Blog

I’m not crazy about the idea of spending a lot of money on flowers for the wedding. Not only are flowers expensive (especially in Grand Cayman, where everything has to be shipped in!), but they just aren’t very useful and they die! With the ocean providing a beautiful, natural, setting for the wedding, we are going to try to spend as little on flowers as we can. I’d rather spend that money on some other frivolous item, like lounge furniture around the dance floor, or pretty twinkle lights inside the tent.

One idea I have for saving on flowers is buying handmade boutonnieres and corsages off of Etsy. At 13 bucks a pop, I can’t imagine that they are any more expensive than fresh flower boutonnieres. Plus we can either resell them after the wedding (would it be tacky to have someone track down the groomsmen and ask for them back?) or have everyone keep them as keepsakes from the wedding. Here is one I found on Etsy, and it is conveniently in the aqua and poppy color scheme! Isn’t it cute?!

Image via Etsy seller Twigs&Honey

Are you considering non-live florals? Where are you buying them?

Finally, after two years of being engaged, Mr. Kitten and I had engagement pictures taken! I don’t even know if you can call them “engagement” pictures after two years, but better late than never! We had a hard time deciding whether we wanted an earthy, natural setting for our session, or the colorful, eclectic backdrop of downtown Austin. Our fabulous photographer, Jennifer Nichols, made the decision easy on us—we could have both! Mr. Kitten and I spent a lovely afternoon with Jennifer first in downtown Austin, and later at a beautiful spot in the hill country.

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The view from the deck of the Grand Old House

I have been blogging about the wedding for a couple weeks now, but have yet to talk about the location of our wedding and reception!

We are getting married at the Grand Old House, a 100 year-old coconut plantation-turned-restaurant overlooking the ocean. The Grand Old House is a popular spot for anniversaries, weddings, and other special occasions in Grand Cayman.
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I’ve always loved the idea of using mason jars as wedding decor. Martha Stewart Weddings featured these mason jars a few issues ago and I instantly fell in love:

Aren’t they pretty? I plan on adding a bit of sand to the bottom and using poppy ribbon!

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Aqua and poppy!

Thanks to everyone who voted—it was a tough decision between pink/black and aqua/poppy, but I think we made the right choice. Now that we (finally!) have wedding colors, we can move on to picking out bridesmaid dresses and decorations! I also came across this gorgeous wedding on Snippet and Ink that used an aqua/poppy/gold/black color palette. I love these colors together. They complement each other really well and don’t look too “matchy”.

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A couple of days ago I sent out “Will You Be My Flower Girl?” cards to my two sweet flower girls, Cousin Kitten and Future Niece Kitten. I basically used the same method as my “Will You Be My Bridesmaid?” cards. But since my crafting skills had developed ever-so-slightly since my first round of cards, and I had a little more time on my hands for these, I did a few things differently.

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Black and Pink:

Image via Snippet and Ink

I love this color combination! It’s retro and sweet, but not overly so. I especially love those light pink anemone flowers on the top left—they are so different! I never thought we would want to incorporate pink into our wedding, but I think the black really balances it out so that it’s not too sugary. If we chose this palette I would add a chic black sash to my wedding dress to tie it all together. But is pink and black overdone? And is it fitting for a wedding by the sea? Hmmm…

Sapphire, Turquoise and Chartreuse:

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So, there I was with two gorgeous Monique Lhuillier dresses that I got for a steal at the mother-of-all-sample-sales. I had a REALLY hard time deciding which dress I liked better. I polled my friends and family, and although Amelie got more votes, it was by no means a consensus. I loved the ivory color of the Ava dress, while Amelie was a latte/ivory shade that looked questionable on my skin tone. But the trumpet shape of the Amelie dress really flattered my figure (and somehow created an illusion of curves on my body!), whereas the A-line silhouette of the Ava dress was… just… okay. I started having major regrets about both dresses, wishing I could combine the two, creating a curve-hugging, trumpet shaped, ivory dress.
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Save the dates, that is! I’m still not totally accustomed to this new use for the acronym STD. I think high school heath class has drilled the less-desirable version into our heads! But writing STD is so much easier than spelling out three whole words!

Anyway, about those STDs—I had always intended on being thrifty and making our own. I thought it would be a great way to save some money and do something creative at the same time. I scoured the internet for ideas, and these were my three favorite choices:

I love photo booths, so I had planned on using this photo strip design ever since we were first engaged (way back in 2006!). It’s cute and unexpected (or at least it was in 2006… everyone has probably seen one of these by now), and would be really easy to make!
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So, after a few setbacks, I had put my wedding dress search on hold. That week, I had a chat with Jennifer Nichols, our wedding photographer, about what we would wear for our engagement photos. Jennifer suggested I wear something brightly colored. When she saw me visibly cringe at her suggestion (I’m a neutral kind of girl), she suggested that I wear some sassy shoes to the shoot. I was thrilled about the idea and left her studio for Neiman Marcus Last Call (the Neiman Marcus Outlet) in Austin.

As soon as I walked in, I spotted a wedding dress in the front of the store and a big “SAMPLE SALE!” sign. Although I knew I had my mind set on the Lia and Amelie dresses, I had to check out the sale. I walked to the back of the store, past the doors, and into the warehouse, where I discovered racks and racks of designer gowns! They had Vera Wang, Reem Acra, Carolina Herrera, Monique Lhuillier, and others! And what did I find among the racks and racks of gorgeous gowns, but my coveted Amelie dress! I also found another, similar, Monique Lhuillier dress named Ava that I loved. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better so I bought them both! The best part is that both of these dresses were in AMAZING condition and cost a fraction of the original prices!

Amelie

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After pushing our wedding back a year, I decided I wouldn’t start looking at dresses until the summer before our wedding. After seeing Melissa Sweet ads in bridal magazines, I knew I wanted to try on a few of her dresses. So, on a weekend trip to Dallas, my friend Bri and I went to the Priscilla of Boston salon. After trying on about 25 dresses, I fell for the Lia dress; it was the one in the magazine ads that drew me to the store.

Lia– I love how simple it is!

However, I did not fall for the price of the Lia dress. It retails for over $3,000–throw in alterations and that was way more than I wanted to spend. So I kept looking. I tried. I tried REALLY hard to find a cheaper dress that I loved. I went to every bridal salon in Austin. And guess what I found?
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Hi Hive!

I am so ELATED to be the newest bee! I’ve been a huge Weddingbee fan since I discovered it last year. I was so excited to find a place where other detail-oriented brides share ideas and help each other navigate through the wedding planning process! The wedding industry doesn’t exactly encourage brides to save money and “DIY”, so the amount of information sharing, cooperation, and support on Weddingbee blew me away! I’ve been hooked ever since, so it is pretty surreal to see myself on the site!

The inspiration behind my cuddly icon, my adorable kitty Toby!

If you’ve seen my bio you may have noticed that I’ve been engaged for over two years!
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Over Thanksgiving I (finally!) officially asked four special ladies if they would be my bridesmaids. Because we are having a small destination wedding, Mr. Kitten and I opted for a small wedding party. All of our friends will be traveling to the Cayman Islands to attend our wedding (and dropping a substantial amount of dough along the way), so we didn’t want to have 16 people adding bridal party expenses to their tabs. Because Mr. Kitten and I have quite a few siblings between the two of us, and since we are close to them and would have included them in the wedding party anyway, we decided to keep it all in the family.

Mr. Kitten is having his two brothers and my brother as groomsmen. He called them a few months ago and asked them if they would do him the honor. They all said yes, and to Mr. Kitten’s delight, each expressed interest in buying a tan suit for the wedding, as opposed to renting a tux.

I am having my cousin, two sisters, and sister-in-law as my bridesmaids. The numbers will be uneven, but one of my sisters is twelve, so she is actually a “junior bridesmaid” (and very proud of that title, having graduated from her prolific career as a flower girl). When I was back home in Houston, I took my sisters, sister-in-law, and mom (Cousin Kitten lives in North Carolina) to a “girl’s lunch” where I gave them cards asking them to be my bridesmaids. I made the cards in a flurry of finals-induced crafting procrastination.

Here is the front of the card I made for Cousin Kitten (who is my Maid of Honor):

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