Weddingbee Blog

After months of searching, debating and prioritizing, we finally settled on a honeymoon to Greece. We postponed the trip until Lambaliscious’s spring break which afforded us extra time on the trip and to plan. We were going to spend a few days in Athens before heading to a relaxing resort on Crete. We bought a few guide books, a myth refresher, and a phonetic pronunciation guide. I went on a shopping spree for cute sundresses to wear in the coastal towns. Judging by the title of this post, you can guess that we didn’t make it to Greece after all. When we tried to check in to our flight the night before, we were informed that our flight had been canceled and that Greek airport workers were striking.

The 12 hours following that realization was a whirlwind. I remember my in-laws calling a few times as they tried to figure out if they could get their airline miles back to use on another trip for us. I remember looking at last minute travel deals and cruises, considering a weekend at a B&B in North Carolina, and wondering if we should just have a stay-cation. Simultaneously, the Lamb-in-law’s parents heroically researched, talked with airline agents, and pulled in favors for lodging. Sometime around midnight it was decided that the honeymoon could be salvaged in our given time frame if we rerouted to Italy. A quick “Ciao bella!” and we had packed our bags bound for gelato, art, and the other great pillar of western civilization.
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If you have vintage taste and a pauper’s budget, there are alternatives to the albeit lovely, but expensive Posh Girl Vintage and similar type shops. Of course there are local thrift stores, eBay, grandmothers’ closets, and Etsy, as well as vintage patterns waiting to materialize at the next sewer’s whim, though it can be a chore to sort through. However, the reward is pretty great for those persevering enough.

I’ve always loved vintage and antiques, so I thought I would share the process I recently went through while completing a fashion challenge of sorts. I was looking for a vintage inspired wedding outfit that was under $100 and would pack easily for a plane ride. The entire process took about three weeks, and I searched every day for new items on eBay and Etsy. On the last day I had to order items if I wanted them to ship in time, I ran across 3 perfect pieces (that’s part of the process - hit or miss and then JACKPOT!).

First I searched for the dress because all of the other accessories depended on the era, shape, and texture. I used “white dress small” as the search terms in the vintage section of Etsy. I sifted through roughly 35 pages and marked potentials as favorites to return to later. As soon as I found this little number, I knew that I really had something that I could build a vision around.
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“Oh, thank you! Just what I always wanted! This jewelry box that will only hold two pairs of earrings will go really well with the other 6 I’ve collected from graduations, sweet 16s and Christmases!”

None of the Lambaids would ever say that in real life, but I knew that if I got a jewelry box with my initials on it, that’s what I would think in my own head. I love the 6 I already have, but I just feel that my collection is complete now. In light of this, I had a hard time figuring out what I thought the Lambaids would all appreciate. I had thought of personalizing each gift and began to ask them what they wanted. I’m practical like that. My family asks what I want for Christmas, they get what I asked for, and though there are few surprises on Christmas morning, everyone seems happy that they didn’t waste a million hours shopping and we all got something we liked. The Lambaids’ consensus was that they wanted something sentimental and would leave it up to me.

I really wanted to treat the girls to something nice, sentimental, that would appeal to all of them, that had a tinge of vintage appeal, and that was within my budget. I’m not going to lie, this was a tough tasking for me.

Working on the assumption that if I should choose something that I would love to have for myself, I narrowed it down to a few options.
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I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to say to you all when I got to the “other side”. For some reason, during the planning process, I couldn’t bring myself to write it because I didn’t want to disappoint certain people or to come across as ungrateful. I talked it over with some fellow bees. I mulled it over while reliving some wedding memories as we reminisced on our belated honeymoon (we just got back and it was delightful - more later). And then I read this today as I caught up at Meg’s blog. Now is the time to let a few things hang out and to keep it real.

You’ve seen the joy on my face that is captured by photographs on my wedding day. I will always treasure that day in our lives. Not captured were the many frowns, the foot stomping and the flat out meltdowns (my Dad calls it O.B.E - overcome by events) that led up to that day. Here, I blogged about details, crafting, funnies, etc. because the blog world was my refuge from what I found to be an all together stressful and frustrating planning process. Much of the stress was self-inflicted as I took all criticism personally, tried to please everyone, and contorted myself to fill the various expectations that I perceived people had of me. However, some of the stress originated from truly stressful situations of navigating family emotions or the growing pains of bringing two lives together.

While I’ve shared most of the work that I did for the wedding in terms of crafting, this post is about the real work that it took to plan the wedding and prepare for a marriage.
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Before we determined that Lambster needed a slow song if we were going to rock the reception, I had in my head that we do an elaborate routine to the Police’s Everything Little Thing She Does is Magic or to KC and the Sunshine Band’s Boogie Shoes. The former involved several props and ended with a flash bang while the latter featured ridonkulous tap dancing solos during the instrumental portion. When you stop laughing, I’ll tell you about all of the dancing that did actually take place after we opened the dance floor with the rumba.

When I say that EVERYONE danced, I pretty much mean that every single person took to the dance floor at least once over the course of the evening. Even our friend Wendy was out there! She decided to “announce” that she was with child when she went through our receiving line. When I say she announced, I mean that she just walked up to us, we pointed and screamed, she nodded and said it was true, then I did the whole dreaded preggo tummy grab and rub because she was just that cute. I was so excited and happy. I apologized as profusely as I could in the 20 second greeting as they walked down to meet my parents, but woohoo! Good news. So yeah, she was accosted by me and still rocked the dance floor.

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Mr. Twinkle Toes Lambster was shocked when I told him that I had a wedding present for him. “Do I have to get you one?”

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. Sigh. What a romantic!

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As I wrap up my recaps (still a few more up my sleeve), I wanted to find a small way to commemorate my time blogging the wedding. Writing for the hive has been such an awesome experience and I wanted a sweet reminder. When I was in high school, I was cast as Annie Sullivan in “The Miracle Worker”. My parents gifted me a lovely necklace featuring a key and lock, symbolic of Annie’s teaching relationship with Helen Keller. I cherish that necklace and still wear it at times to remember my cast mates and the overall lessons and themes in my life at the time. After toying with several other ideas (like this cute trinket box), I came back and settled on idea of a necklace.

I typed “bee necklace” into Etsy.com and holy moly - 68 pages worth of results were returned! I combed through pages and pages, finally organizing my favorites into a few categories. Some of these I thought would be the icing on the cake for several lovely wedding related outfits (garden weddings, showers, etc.!).

First, the obvious and understated necklaces featuring bee charms:

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Since I haven’t been a bridesmaid myself before, I didn’t really know what they should do except for all sorts of contradicting notions thrown about the interwebs. I thought about what I wanted, which was ultimately to be surrounded by friends who would understand me when I had an emotional meltdown, who would laugh at my jokes, who would hold my hand, and who would tell me if I had a boogie hanging out my nose. My Lambaids were all that and a bag of chips.

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Just like the cakes, one band wasn’t enough. I didn’t start out thinking, ‘I’m going to have two bands at my wedding.’ Actually, I didn’t think we’d have live music at all. However, through the generosity of my in-laws, we were able to get our groove on with live music.

For our cocktail hour, we found a great local jazz quartet. Gregory Weaver’s Jazz Congregation set the tone for a very cool and relaxed time of mingling and imbibing. I found an ad on Craigslist, passed it on to my planner, and she solidified the plans from there. I was really glad that our receiving line was stationed so close to the band because I was able to enjoy all the music and my guests at the same time. The quartet was on time, did an amazing job, and we received compliments all around on their performance. A brilliant success, I’d say!

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We’ve had a couple newcomers to the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area and we’d love to meet everyone!  The ladies in the area have planned two events over the next few months. Our first meet up is going to be next weekend!

When: Sunday February 28th, 2:00 pm
Where: Starbucks @ Renaissance Center at South Point
6813 Fayetteville Road
Durham, North Carolina 27713
919-544-4132

One of my favorite combos is a tall vanilla latte with a side of wedding chatter! Leave us a note in the thread or feel free to show up - it will be a very relaxed and fun time.

Also, save the date for our March 20th get together at Mez! More info coming soon!

We didn’t just have a wedding cake. We had wedding cakes. And we put them in the middle of every table so that our guests could feast with their eyes first.

I wish I could give you each tastes of this cake… if you’re ever in Norfolk or Virginia Beach, go to No Frill Bar and Grill and order a piece of the 4 Layer Coconut Creme cake. Moist, flavorful, perfect - these are all understatements. Just eat the cake and become a believer like me. I made one call about the cakes. No Frills put me in touch with their baker, I gave the name and number to my wedding planner, and 12 beautiful cakes met me when I saw our reception set up.
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I used to believe in “the one”, of the wedding dress variety. After shenanigans, heartbreak, and subsequent laughter (read about it here, here, here and here), I let go of the “the one”, and said, “Hello” to a beautiful dress that served me well. I was not in love with my dress, but wearing it on my wedding day, and now looking back at photographs, I realize that she was the right dress for me.

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Music is not my forte. I love to listen and dance to it, but I’ve never been one to remember band names, composers, etc. Thankfully, I was able to outsource all of the music decisions for the wedding. You already know that the music at the reception was rocking, and when it came to the ceremony music, I punted the issue to my planner. Ms. P found a local violinist, Lauri, for us to use as the backbone of our ceremony music. We worked with Lauri and chose traditional pieces for the majority of the ceremony, which I’ll blog about more in a future post about our programs.

Lamma-bamma’s cousin, J, also plays the violin and we requested that he play a special piece for us. He suggested Meditation from Massenet’s Thais.

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If our wedding had been two weeks later, I might have been singing the new breakout “Pants on the Ground”. Instead, I sang an old standby. A song I’ve sung in the shower after a break-up. A song that draws women all over the world to the dance floor (I know, it happened in a German disco at least once). A song that certainly is in the Top Ten most karaoked songs of all time.

Our band (more on them later!) noticed I have a little bit of a flair for the dramatic (also, more on that later!) and as momentum built over the course of the night, they pulled me onstage to bring the energy levels to a crescendo. The crowd pulsed with anticipation. The opening bars pounded through the speakers. Oh, I WILL survive!

I took my role seriously. I brought it (just doesn’t have the same emphasis in the past tense), then I gave a little more! I grabbed hold of the mic like the rock star I know I am. I channeled every bit of soul in my body. I lived my American Dream fantasies.

Me and my “back-up” singer

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We’re a team and I was so touched by the many ways that my parents were involved in my marriage preparation. From wise counsel to financial support, they gave of themselves in every way. I certainly don’t want to make anyone feel badly if they don’t have this relationship with their parents, but I do want to appreciate our special relationship and give them a small nod. As I’ve become more cognizant of the wide spectrum of parental relationships, I’ve become more and more grateful for my parents.

I particularly loved dancing with my Dad at the reception. It was a small tribute to the deepness of our relationship.

My Dad researched Father/Daughter dances for the better part of a month. He wanted to hit just the right tone and feature just the right lyrics.

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