Weddingbee Blog

In an email I got from Mr. Martini recently, he added:

“Btw the dollar is still rising… vs the Euro, it has gone from $1.67/ 1Euro to $1.28 / 1euro. That’s like a 25% discount for us… let’s hope it keeps going.”

Why has he been keeping an eye out for the dollar fluctuations in Europe? Because we’re desperate to go to Europe for our honeymoon! France, to be exact. The only time I’ve ever really left the country as an adult were a few trips to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side is soooo much better than the USA side), and Jamaica last year with Mr. Martini.

When we were thinking about where we could go on our honeymoon, everyone advised that we go the Caribbean. “You’ll want to take it easy,” they told us. We considered going to a beachy location, but neither of us are beach people and dangit, we don’t want to relax! Jamaica was great fun, but we didn’t relax one bit, and actually felt as if we needed a vacation from our vacation by the time we got home. I think we spent an hour max just sitting on the beach the entire duration of our stay. It didn’t take long for us to get restless, so we signed up for just about every activity we could get our hands on. We literally came back to the hotel just to eat and sleep. Sometimes I think it was a bit of a waste because we didn’t take advantage of the gorgeous resort, the Gran Bahia Principe, which at the time was the newest and largest resort in Jamaica.
Read more…

During our journey of finding a photographer, we realized that we had a list of things that we felt were important to us:

1. We both want a photojournalistic style. But as I mentioned before, Mr. Martini preferred a more conservative approach to documenting our wedding day, and although I do love the edgier look, I agreed that it would probably be better not to go too nuts with our wedding pictures because we will be using the pictures for our parent albums as well.
2. Giving each of our parents a really nice, leather bound parent album is something we really want to do. We need a good deal on three albums, not just one. I noticed that a lot of the parent albums were of lower quality, and we want something nicer.
3. Since we’re sticking with a conservative style for our wedding, Mr. Martini has agreed to a more creative engagement photo session. He still wants Central Park, and I still want cobblestones and yellow taxicabs. We need a photographer who could not only meet our need to visit more than one location, but also want someone who has the vision to give us what we are looking for artistically.

Read more…

We finally booked our photographer! With only five months before the wedding we are feeling behind, so I definitely breathed a little easier once I was able to check off “find photographer” from our To-Do list.

I have to admit; deciding on a photographer was probably one of the hardest decisions we had to make. For some reason, everyone knows a photographer! People were sending me links left and right. And they were all very talented, in their own way. Mr. Martini and I also have very different tastes in the type of photography we prefer, so it was a bit of a challenge for us. The way we found out about our different tastes however, is pretty interesting.

(image courtesy Bella Pictures) 

Read more…

Jason, who is responsible for the MTV Cribs spoof at his own wedding, just attended a wedding in Seattle last weekend and saw what he thought was one of the most creative best man speeches ever. He knew I’d appreciate it to the fullest, so he sent the youtube clip my way. Two thumbs up to the best man for such a great speech!

I decided that as of today, I want to make my own thank you cards. You can almost see me standing underneath a ray of sunlight streaming down from the heavens, wide eyed at my revelation, as angels sing Hallelujah!

And then… you notice that I’m standing at the edge of a cliff just about ready to fall off.

I know our wedding is still about five months away, but I had this sudden urge to… craft… so I had to share my big news. Actually, this urge was more like an itch that started a while back when my FSIL hand-made a thank you card for me:

I totally fell in love with the card because the picture of her with her son (and our future ring boy) seemed so much more personal to me.  Although she insisted it didn’t take much time at all to make it, I thought it was cuter than any old Hallmark. However, it never occurred to me that I could make something like this myself.
Read more…

If you know me, you will know that I’ve always had this strange hate relationship with shoes.

First of all, my shoe size is an annoying 5.5. Do you know what it’s like to browse through zappos.com, to see pages and pages of gorgeous shoes, then as soon as you filter to the size 5.5, watch all the shoes disappear as a single tear rolls down your cheek? That is my life story. Finding shoes in size 5.5 is an extremely frustrating task. I am also convinced that my small shoe size is the reason for my being so clumsy. Cracks in sidewalks somehow find me. Pebbles always end up in front of me. Sometimes I trip, then look back to see what the heck caused me to trip, only to find nothing there.

Second, I have NO taste in shoes. I wear the same black shoes to work everyday, whether I wear black, brown or blue pants. In the summer I wear the same beige sandals. Everyday. On casual Fridays, I wear the same black flip flops; the same ones I am wearing now as I type this.

I starting casually searching for shoes a couple of months ago. I figured I had a lot of time so it wasn’t a huge issue for me at first. But as time went on, I realized that this was harder that I thought! I couldn’t find a single pair of bridal shoes I liked.
Read more…

I thought we had our officiant in the bag.

Early on in our wedding planning, Mr. Martini expressed that he had a specific person in mind when it came to who would preside over the ceremony. He became close with this person at the church he attended during college, and although it has been years since they’ve spoken, this man held a special place in Mr. Martini’s heart and he wanted to reconnect with him. Of course, I agreed.

Over the next few weeks Mr. Martini did give him a call, caught up on the last 10 years, and eventually met for dinner. Unfortunately when Mr. Martini popped the big question about whether he would be kind enough to preside over our ceremony, he found that he was not ordained and is currently serving as a counselor at his church.

We were sad that he could not marry us, but excited that he will be able to witness our marriage as a guest after losing touch for 10 years. But now we had another issue. Who was going to seal the deal for us?
Read more…

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to attend my friend Jason’s wedding in DC. When I met his wife Lynda for the first time, I thought that she was exactly the perfect person that I would have pictured for him. In the years that I’ve known him, he has been one of the most creative and hilarious guys I’ve ever known, and he totally brought that personality into his wedding. For starters, the MC walked into the reception room wearing a full Winnie the Pooh outfit while singing “A Whole New World”! I almost doubled over in laughter when he finally took the suit off, and I saw that he was drenched in sweat.

For the slide show segment of the wedding, Jason created a surprise video for his bride to welcome her into his home – in the form of an Mtv Cribs spoof. To this day I have not seen anything so creative and funny at a wedding. While thinking about what Mr. Martini and I wanted to do for our own reception, I suddenly thought about his video again. I wish I can be this creative but alas – all I can do is bow down to his idea. I quickly asked him if I can share with you all, and he agreed. Enjoy!

Read more…

To be honest, I wasn’t too happy with my appointment with the florist. It actually wasn’t her fault, it was mine – I was unprepared for the meeting and really didn’t know what I wanted. I thought that if I got a chance to see her work, I would be able to get an idea of what I was looking for. I warned her that I was clueless when it came to flowers, and she assured me that she would help me. Instead, by the time I left I was even more confused than when I walked in. I didn’t even know what colors I wanted for the bridesmaid bouquets and my bouquet, or what type of flowers to use.

Did I want to use roses or orchids for the men’s boutonnieres? *Mouth drops open* Did I want to get corsages for the moms or mini bouquets? *confused look on my face* Do I want to acknowledge the grandmothers with corsages of their own? Uhhhhh….

My first mistake was that I was concentrating so much on the centerpieces and assumed the bouquets were well… the easy part. Boy, was I wrong.
Read more…

Forgive me. I’ve strayed from wedding planning for a bit because I made the mistake of reading the first chapter of the book Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. This book isn’t for your average rocket scientist, but talk about a guilty pleasure! For the next few days, I was so engrossed in the book and anything Vampire related, that I forgot I was getting married. Planning halted to an erupt stop and even my conversations with Mr. Martini changed.

Mr. Martini: I love you!
Me: I guess you’re okay, for a human.

There are three more books after Twilight, and although a friend (who has also read the books) suggested that I postpone wedding planning for another week to finish off the series, I realize how dangerous it would be to do that, and decided I’m better off not going anywhere near the rest of those books until after the wedding. Luckily, Mr. Martini humored my Vampire obsession and patiently waited for me to snap back into reality. In fact, he welcomed it because I was no longer stressing about wedding things that needed to be done.
Read more…

This past weekend I attended a bachelorette party for my friend S, who is getting married in less than a month in Rhode Island. We started out with dinner at a drag queen bar/restaurant called Lips. That was my third time there—I’ve been there twice before for two birthdays. I’ve always had a blast there, and this time was no different. Only this time, one of the queens, who happened to be exceptionally well endowed, grabbed my face and smooshed it in between her breastesses. I started screaming, thinking the whole time, “Ahhhhh my eyebrowssss! MY EYEBROWS!!!”

Fortunately for me, they stayed pretty much intact (whew!). Seriously, everyone should grow their eyebrows out—I mean, you never know when a drag queen might come along and stuff your face in her cleavage, running the risk of you looking like Whoopi Goldberg for the rest of the night. Anyway, Lips is a great place. It’s very popular for bachelorette parties and birthdays, and watching poor unsuspecting men get harassed by drag queens never gets old. These ladies have attitude and they really make your dinner into an experience.

After dinner, we walked over to the Meatpacking District to party.
Read more…

I have a confession.

I don’t have any eyebrows. Well, I DO have eyebrows, but if I let them have their way with my face, it would be a jungle! I get my eyebrows from my dad. They’re thick, but they look triangular. It’s a little hard to explain, but the first half of my brows shoot straight up, then the second half of my brows shoot straight down. Once I start plucking away at the second half, I pretty much end up with two little stubs of brows. I’ve been over-plucking my brows for a long time, and for as long as I can remember I have been at the mercy of my trusty brow liner.

I thought that was okay. I will even go as far as to say I thought my brows looked good! Yes, I have to make a run for it whenever it rains, but people get surprised when I confess that my brows are drawn in.

When it came time to find a makeup artist for the wedding, I knew I wanted to treat my bridesmaids to hair and makeup, and I also knew that I had to find someone who had a team, rather than just one person, since there are nine women who will be getting their hair and makeup done: two moms, six bridesmaids, and the bride. I was also looking for someone who did both hair and makeup, since that would have been the most cost efficient and convenient for so many people. I tend to wear a lot of makeup and I’m used to the smoky look, so I wanted someone who could give me a natural look, and still make me look good (It would take an army of beasts to drag me out of a house without make up on).

A friend recommended Blush to Mr. Martini, so we decided to check them out a couple of months ago.
Read more…

I mentioned briefly that I was first introduced to Mr. Martini during a happy hour in a previous post. I did not mention, however, that we knew OF each other via our blogs on Xanga. We realized that we had tons of mutual friends, but we had never personally met. When I met him for the first time, I just thought, “oh cool I just met a Xangan!” and I honestly did not think I would ever see him again. Little did I know he was actually interested in me! Not long after, my friend Susan invited me out to a group wine tasting trip in Long Island. I was surprised to discover that Mr. Martini was there, and he was a close friend of Susan as well. We started chatting, and he mentioned that he recently watched the movie Love Actually (my favorite movie!), which kick started the conversation that lasted pretty much all day.

We started out with long, book length emails during the day, and hours of IM chats at night until we finally upgraded to phone conversations. This went on for weeks until he said to me, “I have just discovered the perfect place to take you on our third date!” But at the time, we haven’t even had a first date. What a sneaky way to convince me to go on at least three dates with him! Nevertheless I took the bait, and we have been inseparable since.
Read more…

I was watching TV at Mr. Martini’s apartment and happened to come across an episode of Bridezillas.

I’d never watched that show but I had heard about it, so I decided to tune in for a while. About 10 minutes into the episode, my mouth dropped open and didn’t close for the entire hour. This particular episode featured a bride who actually said the following words ON CAMERA regarding her future husband:

“I’ve got him wrapped around my pinky! I can’t wait until we get married because I will OWN him! I will own him and he will never see his friends again for as long as he lives. The second I put that ring on his finger he will never see the light of DAY!”
Read more…

Registering started out being a bit of a pain. We had no idea what we were doing, so we just walked into our favorite store, Williams and Sonoma, and asked to register there. They promptly handed us a scanner, then left us to fend for ourselves. I think the person who helped us out was new, and she didn’t really know what to do with us either. We aimlessly wandered around the store for a bit wondering what to add. Mr. Martini adores cooking so he already had most kitchen appliances, and we really weren’t even sure what we would need at that point so we felt a little lost. We placed only a couple of things on the registry just for the sake of adding something, and then left thinking we would finish our registry online from home.

We registered at our second location, Bed Bath and Beyond, because we had heard that this store gives cash back on returns. I didn’t want to add anything we weren’t going to keep, but you never really know with these things so we didn’t think it would hurt to register there. Again, they handed us a scanner and promptly tossed into the wild.
Read more…