Weddingbee Blog

Both of the caterers we have spoken to so far, have recommended the same tent/rental company as the best in the vicinity of our upstate wedding. I looked around their site and everything seems perfectly fine, so I think we’ll most likely go with them since that seems easiest, and they have working relationships with most of the caterers in the area.

However, I came across something on their site which drills fear and anxiety deep into my heart… CHAIRS.

First, I fell in love with the gold Chiavari chairs (the first picture in the chairs section, obviously):

The second picture, of garden chairs, was… okay. Nothing special, definitely pales in comparison to the Chiavari, but not unpleasant at all:

The third picture was plastic folding chairs. These, after looking at the first two pictures, were completely unacceptable, horror! But in truth, seem like perfectly decent chairs. (You can choose all white or all brown, so it wouldn’t have the hodgepodge look of this picture.)

After just looking at the pictures, I definitely wanted the first ones. But then I looked at the prices… $8.50 per chair vs. $3.50 per chair vs. $1.80 per chair. So now the question is, I know I love the gold chiavaris many times more than the plastic folding chairs, but do I really love them nearly five times as much??

To make this a little more tangible, the chair-only prices for 120 people would be:
- $1,020 for the Chiavaris
- $420 for the garden chairs
- $216 for the plastic folding chairs

And when you have it written out like that, it seems pretty ridiculous to even consider for one second spending $800 more just so your chairs are a little prettier, right? So I’m leaning towards the middle garden chairs, but part of me is still secretly lusting after the Chiavaris. And then the other part is saying, why double the price from plastic folding to garden in the first place?

So in recognition of what is probably my first of many adventures in Bridezilla-ville, I would like to ask:

1) How much do chairs matter anyway? As a guest, do you ever remember thinking one wedding’s chairs were particularly nice vs. particularly unattractive? Or is a chair just a chair?

2) What other ridiculous minutiae have you been obsessing over lately? Please tell me I’m not the only one! I literally have broken down to Mr. Bluebell about how we can’t even decide on our chairs!!!! He, strangely, just doesn’t quite get what all the fuss is over.

While we obviously care a great deal about having a million fabulous pictures of our wedding, we are currently weighing the pros and cons of hiring a professional photographer. We have several friends who are very good amateur photographers, and one cousin of my mother’s is definitely professional-quality (although he focuses on travel photography, not weddings or people).

Is it really worth the extra X thousand dollars for someone else to take pictures in addition to everyone we already have? We were thinking of offering to pay for film and development for the people who are really fantastic (& use real film), and asking the digital users to consider themselves to be “our photographers” and maybe asking that this service be their gift to us, or even paying them a bit.

I think we’d end up with a ton of amazing pictures if we did this. But then I see some professional pictures (like all of Mrs. Firefly’s, swoon) and wonder if this is really an area we should be stingy on. I want to have all those gorgeous pictures too!!!

I guess the question is: Is this an area where you would ever consider going the DIY route? I don’t care about formal portraits really, but I care a lot about having beautiful pictures. I’m also very picky and don’t like the majority of the cheaper photographers out there, so we can’t really compromise by getting a cheap photographer.

Is it worth several thousand dollars to be extra sure we have artistic gorgeous photos, or should we just stick with our friends and cousin who we would take great if not absolutely perfect photos?

Please also comment with any thoughts you have about how you chose what to do, and advice you might have for us! Thanks!

What are you doing for a photographer?

1. Nothing - I figure everyone will take pictures, so we can just get those from people. We might get disposables to put on tables to encourage people, but there will be no designated photographer.
2. Something like what you described above - there will be several people who we specifically ask to take extra pictures. We may or may not offer them some sort of financial incentive to do this, but we won’t be “hiring” them officially.
3. We will be “hiring” one friend/family member and putting him/her in charge, although he/she is not a professional.
4. We will be “hiring” one friend/family member who is a professional and/or in art school or the like.
5. We will be hiring the cheapest professional we can find who is decent. The most important thing is to have a record of the event, so the level of artistic quality is not as important as being sure that everything is captured.
6. We care a lot about having artistic photographs that match our sensibilities and are choosing our professional photographer based on the quality of his/her photographs. If this means upping our photography budget more than we wanted to originally, so be it - having beautiful pictures is a top priority for us.

Although I LOVE the look of fresh grass sprinkled with petals, my main concern for our outdoor ceremony is mud. So even if the weather is gorgeous at the time of my ceremony, I want to be prepared for the ever-present danger of a mud-drenched train.

At first, all I could come up with for aisle runner ideas were a traditional church aisle runner or red-carpet style runner, neither of which seemed at all appropriate for my wedding.

Then, I came across this:

What do you think of having a few straw mats marking the aisle? I thought it would be so simultaneously country and elegant, that I think it will be perfect for our wedding!

Here’s another option (but it’s only 15 inches wide, so you’d need two or three side by side, which might ruin the effect):

[Both of these are from plumparty for $4.50 and $26.00 per mat, respectively.]

Does anyone else have nontraditional outdoor aisle runner ideas? Do you think this would work well for a fairly informal wedding in the country?

While my title may sound flippant, I’m asking genuinely! It seems to me that there are certain types of weddings (cathedral ceremony, ballroom reception) where you may need a program (not technically of course, but it’s usually expected). Then there are less formal weddings, to downright untraditional ones. Do they all require a program? Or does the level of formality of your wedding dictate whether you “should” have one or not?

A program traditionally includes the names of the wedding party, readings, etc., but what about all those other things people are putting in these days? Pictures, stories of how the couple met, biographies of the wedding party, games, puzzles, favor CDs…

While I love all these ideas, it seems a bit more than I need for my pretty unconventional, informal wedding. At the same time, I do like the idea of listing the order of events and naming the wedding party. But if I’m going to bother having programs at all, I might as well go all out, right? I’ll add some pictures and stories and….then it’s the complicated type of program again.

Do you think all weddings should have a program? How much does a program register in your mind when you’re a guest?

As requested!

After we finished opening presents on Christmas last year (18 people were in the house so it took a while), everyone was just kind of hanging out in front of the fire, putting away their presents, browsing through new books etc. Mr. Bluebell suggested (in a whisper) that we go for a walk - just the two of us. Since my parents’ dog is always taken on any outing, I said, “With Duncan?” and he said he’d rather not.

When he first suggested the walk I was 95% sure this was it, but when he said no dog I was positive. He loves Duncan as much as anyone else, and would certainly not deprive him of a nice walk without having a very good reason. The walk he wanted to take was up to my family’s summer house (which is about 15 minutes away from my grandparents’ winter-ready house) where, incidentally, we had always planned to get married.

We hiked along the road a bit, then up the really long, steep driveway which can’t be driven on in winter because of the snow. The only footprints in front of us were a bunch of deer prints. He was being sweet and saying nice little things along the way. Then we reached the house at the top, walked around to the huge front porch and sat on the wide railings looking out at the gorgeous view of the lake. He said some more sweet things then asked me to marry him, and I said of course and we talked a bit more (me crying, of course). Note I have not mentioned a ring yet… It took him about 5 minutes to get around to producing it, and I was getting really worried he’d forgotten to bring it upstate!!

After another couple minutes, we decided to head back to tell everyone (and also because our feet were freezing). But as we were walking down the steepest part of the hill, we kept slipping in the snow, so 10 minutes after we got engaged we were just laughing hysterically as we slipped and slided along down the hill holding hands. This is probably my favorite memory from that day - the giddiness of sliding along with my brand new fiance.

Remember how I said there were 18 people at the (fairly small) house for Christmas? When we got back we had to try to lure my parents out into the front hall to tell them first, but everyone else was around and getting suspicious as to why we were hovering in the hall and not coming in. They kept peeking out the kitchen door to see what was up, so basically everyone saw as we announced it to my parents!

Sigh… I haven’t told that story in a while, so much fun to remember it all!

We got engaged on Christmas Day 2005 and won’t be getting married until June 23, 2007. For those of you keeping track, that is a mere 2 days shy of 18 months. The reasons for waiting that long involved when we could have the wedding at our family house (a million people co-own it so it’s complicated reserving it just for your branch), and the surprise engagement of my brother about a month before ours - with the announcement they were marrying at that same house in June 2006!

We could have our wedding the weekend after my brother’s (eh) which would also be a week before one of my best friend’s wedding (”You can’t steal my thunder!!”), in September (hate to make all our family fly out there twice in one summer just for us), or June 2007, which seemed by far the easiest. So we hunkered down with our wedding magazines and books (haha, “our” :)), and daydreamed endlessly, but didn’t start planning for a looong time.

Then, one day, I realized it was June, which meant it was no longer “well over a year” before the wedding. Soon it would be “less than a year!” How did that happen? I decided we should celebrate our one year preniversary just like a real anniversary, but then I realized that we would actually be at our friends’ rehearsal dinner. At first, I was a little sad we couldn’t celebrate it just the two of us, but then I thought, really…what better way to celebrate our impending nuptials than at a wedding event for two people we love, and all the people they love? So, quietly, during dinner we shared a quick toast, and then the next day, at their wedding, we enjoyed our first day of less-than-a-year-to-our-wedding!

I’ve got to say, that feeling was almost as good as getting engaged the first time around! I am so excited to finally be able to say “June 23rd” when people ask when we’re getting married instead of a bleak “2007.” But, along with the heightened anticipation came the realization that now it’s really time to get down to planning…eeek….

How long is your engagement? How did you decide when to set your date? Do you wish you had allowed more or less time before the wedding?

Since apparently all I talk about is my own family history, let me just get one more tidbit in. My great-great-uncle invented the Adirondack chair at the house where we’re getting married, meaning several of the original chairs are still there!

So when I saw these online,

I couldn’t exactly not buy them, could I?

We aren’t having place cards, so I can’t use them for placecard holders (their intended purpose), but they are just too cute not to use somehow! I bought 12 (totally arbitrary number) in the unpainted wood. What do you think I should do with them?

We’re going to have a buffet, so my initial thought was propping up little cards saying what each dish is on them. I am open to any other suggestions as well. I would also be fine just strewing them about randomly on the buffet table or putting one as a part of each centerpiece… who knows.

What are you doing to spice your decor up a bit with personalization? While I love, love, love beautiful flowers and candles and linens and vases, I really wanted something a little more relevant tossed in there too.

And speaking of vases… the house being nearly 160 years old, has about ten million different vases of all shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns. I’m thinking of just putting bunches of flowers (the same for each table) into the varying vases? What do you think?

Speaking of family tradition… when my grandfather passed away last year, my mom and her sisters found these in my grandparents’ safe deposit box:

They belonged to my great-great grandmother and are both from the 1870s or 1880s. The pin was actually a gift to her from my great-great grandfather on their wedding day (and is inscribed with their initials and wedding date in 1878). We’re not sure when she received the necklace.

I’m definitely wearing the necklace, and if I can come up with a use for the pin, I might wear it (in my hair?) or have my mom wear it. In any case, I can’t imagine a more perfect “something borrowed!”

Here’s a picture of it on my neck:

And while I can’t post a picture of my wedding dress (ordered fifteen months before the wedding) for fear of Mr. Bluebell seeing it… I might as well give you a shoe teaser!

I saw these gold flip flops with gold sequins on the straps at Ann Taylor Loft that I’m not totally committed to yet. I know they sound kind of crazy, but they look like elegant sandals, and I am sooo not interested in hurting my feet or sinking in the mud on my wedding day, so I’m pretty set on it. (Plus I wear flip flops every single day that I can.) They go well enough with my dress, and I think my gold necklace will balance the flip flops out a bit, but mainly - my dress is long so I don’t expect anyone to see too much of them.

Do any of you have heirloom jewelry (or veils or dresses or anything else) you’re going to wear in your wedding?

First, I’d like to take a minute to introduce myself and my wedding!

My fiance and I are going to be getting married next June at my family’s summer house in the Adirondacks, built in 1848 by my great-great-great grandfather. Many generations of my relatives have been married here (including my parents and my brother), so in addition to all the general history of the house, this is about as traditional a location as it gets - for my family at least!

We were hoping to hold the ceremony outside with a view of Lake Champlain and the mountains in Vermont behind us, but so were my brother and sister-in-law and it rained for a solid MONTH before and on their wedding day. So we are definitely open to the possibility of a last minute shift to the parlor. The house itself isn’t really set up for large groups of people, though, so we’re hoping to have the ceremony in open air and then the reception in tents around the house. As you may have gathered by now, a lot of the character of our wedding is going to be dictated by our setting, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But… you may noticed, my fiance and his family don’t seem to play into the plans much so far, whoops! To try to incorporate them into our otherwise traditional-for-my-family wedding, we’re going to have his dad play the erhu (which he plays semi-professionally, and composes for) during the ceremony, and have a lot of red accents (such as paper lanterns) since that’s the traditional Chinese wedding color. Mr. Bluebell is Chinese, by the way. We will also hold a Chinese wedding banquet 4 weeks after the upstate ceremony, in NYC, which will be pretty traditional in that respect (although way more vegetarian friendly for my sake!).

So far all of our biggest problems have been logistical… trying to coordinate with vendors 6 hours north of us, trying to find places for all our guests to stay (we’re hoping to rent out a number of houses from other parts of the family up there for the majority of our guests to stay in), trying to make it different from my brother’s wedding this summer without arbitrarily not doing things we liked about it just to be different….

But I’m sure you’ll hear a lot more about all of this later!

So I’ll leave you now with pictures of the house where the wedding will be:

And the view behind us during the ceremony!