Weddingbee Blog

My credit card is getting a work out! I decided to take care of a whole bunch of little things for the wedding today. By this, I mean, I went online and bought a few things.

Tie-On Bells

(image from The Knot)
3/4″ tall in silver - for the menus
$4.45 for box of 24 sets.

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As promised, here is what we put on the back of the menus! Sorry about blurring out the baby faces - that is something we are only sharing with the people at the wedding. It’s embarrasing enough as it is.

Also, on the bottom, where it says “Just Married,” I am going to punch tiny holes and tie a miniature wedding bell through it with a ribbon. What do you think?

A few blogs ago, I mentioned that I wanted to lose another 10 pounds or so. To be completely honest, because of my crazy work schedule, school and wedding planning, for the past two weeks I have not been able to get my ass up to the gym. The gym is IN my building, and I can’t make it there. How pathetic of me.

Anyway, with my schedule only getting busier, I know that I will not be as good about going to the gym as I would like. So what’s my solution? I’m going back to my trainer! Because of Julian (my trainer), I am now able to fit into pants that I haven’t worn in a year!

I actually emailed Julian my blog so that he could see my progress. I haven’t seen him in over 5 weeks! He was really impressed and he was so excited for me! Now it’s crunch time, so he opened up his schedule so that I could have 11 more sessions. This time, I will be working out solo with him, at my home gym, three times a week (plus one day of 45 minutes cardio alone). I know I will be extremely busy, but I also know that he will keep me on track.

I will be posting my total inches lost when this is all over so keep your eyes open!

As the wedding gets closer and closer, I find myself obsessing over little things that really do not matter. Example - I am now trying to find the “perfect” guest book for younger and older guests.

At first, I wanted one of these:

(image from Adesso Albums)

It retails for $59.95 for just the book. You have to buy your own Polaroid Camera and film. I absolutely love this idea, but there are a few downsides. First, it’s going to take some effort to make sure that most of your guests take their picture, sign on the appropriate page, etc. Second, it takes too long for everyone to do this. Finally, the album only comes with 30 pages. It is supposed to be enough to accomodate 75 guests, but they recommend that people take group pictures. Or, you can buy multiple books and put them into a slip case.

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As I hinted in my previous blog, Mr. Butterfly and I have been researching hotels for several weeks now. We first wanted to have our hotel close to our OOT guests’ hotels, just in case something happened. But it turned out that we only booked 3 rooms total because everyone is staying with relatives, friends, and cheaper hotels. So this freed us up to choose a hotel anywhere in Manhattan. Well, anywhere within reasonable distance from the venue.

Anyway, I know I haven’t ranked my vendors in awhile, so I thought I would rank some of the hotels that we checked out.

Affinia Dumont

Pros: The people who took our reservations were perfectly nice and polite. It is a very clean hotel with all of the amenities of a luxury hotel. Priced very reasonably compared to other hotels around the city.

Cons: This hotel is not creme-de-la-creme by any means (its not the Ritz).

Overall Rating: B+

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I think with all of the things going on with the wedding, Mr. Butterfly and I have gotten dumber. We apparently take days to come up with such simple solutions to all of our problems!

Example 1
For his parents’ friends who are not coming to the wedding but need an invitation anyway, we decided to give out just the invitation mounted on a backing layer. I had only 4 backing layers left, so we mounted them and put them aside for later. Then I realized we needed to send out 4 more invitations for our B-List guests. I went to Kate’s Paperie, but alas, they did not have any more backing layers left. I decided to just mount the invitation layer onto the actual pocketfold without a backing layer. I also bought extra backing layers in a different color, which did not match the pocketfolds for more extra “courtesy” invitations.

Mr. Butterfly and I were discussing how this new invitation would look and whether or not it was the best solution. It took us two days, but we finally realized that we could use the original courtesy invitations to send out to our B-List guests, and then use the different color backing layers for the courtesy invites. Duh~. I can’t believe it took us two days to figure out something so simple.

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When I got engaged, one of the first things I panicked about was my weight. I’ve always been very skinny, but in the last few years (i.e. after college), I gained a looooot of weight. I’m talking 25+ pounds.

As you readers may know, I signed up with a trainer from the Buff Brides program. Julian (my trainer) worked my butt all the way until the last session. It was not easy. I was sore, I complained, I flat-out refused to do certain exercises, and I even walked out on him out of frustration. But through it all, he guided me and I can proudly say now that I feel really good about the way I look now. I lost body fat, I toned up a lot, I gained muscle and energy, and I lost many, many inches.

Of course, I don’t look like I did in college (oh, the good old glory days!!) but I look much better than I did before.

Here is a picture of me from this May (about 6 weeks after I started my training sessions):

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I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but I hurt my left foot a while back. Even though it’s a lot better now, my friend (who is an acupuncturist) said I should give it a try. Last night, I went to my very first acupuncture session. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was a bit nervous about all these needles sticking out of me, but honestly, after the initial prick, you can’t feel them at all!

So my friend and I were talking as she was poking me with needles, and I just happened to ask if you can lose weight via acupuncture. She said that she has had clients who are currently using this method and that it is successful! Of course, you still have to eat healthy and exercise (as with any other weight-loss program), but acupuncture will give you more energy, speed up your metabolism and tone up your abdominal muscles.

I have now signed up for 4 more treatments of acupuncture for my foot, knee and weight loss. Also, a few needles will be used for stress. She also gave me a ground up seed for my sleeping problem. I woke up this morning feeling completely refreshed for the first time in a long time!

I will definitely be posting in the future about the results, so stay tuned!

I just scheduled my facial for October 14. Yay!

For my birthday this year, my girls got me a $300 gift certificate to Bliss Spa. I’ve been saving it until now because I really wanted to get a high quality facial right before the wedding. They recommend that you get your facials done at least two weeks before the wedding date, but I’m getting mine done way before then - just in case I have a bad reaction.

Bliss has a great customer service sector. The employees not only take appointments for all NYC locations, but also recommend certain treatments based on your skin type and what you want to accomplish. My person recommended that I get the Steep Facial.

steep clean¢â‚¬Å¾¢- $280
The ultimate in deep-cleansing, Steep Clean combines microdermabrasion with an oxygen wrap, 30-45 minutes of deep pore purging, massage, an arnica based calming mask, and a targeted Task Mask to keep breakouts at bay. Recommended twice yearly, or more often for ‘problem’ skin types. The faint of pore need not apply. 105 min.

I’m uber excited now. I love facials!! But in case the steep clean is not recommended for my skin type, I will be getting the Fully-Loaded Facial.

fully loaded facial¢â‚¬Å¾¢ - $195
Goes from The neck up… and Then totally over The top! This luxury facial includes deep cleansing, a fruit acid wash, an oxygen wrap, extractions, activating massage with essential oil balm, and age-fighting collagen ampoule, skin-type specific seaweed mask, head, neck, shoulder, arm, and foot massage, a hydrating Hair Dew treatment, and to finish, an O2 blast. 100 min.

Oh, October 14th. Why are you so far away~~?

As much as I hate to use the phrase “B-List Guests,” I think it’s sometimes inevitable that we have them. It’s especially unavoidable if you have parents who want to send out invitations to certain guests just in case they want to come - mostly to be polite and to announce that I was getting married. I gave my mom 24 “seats” and only 10 are coming - maybe 9. So now my guest count is all off and I’m barely making my 85 minimum guarantee.

My problem is not so much that I have B-List guests, but that I only ordered 60 full invitations. I have extras of just the invitation layer, but I’m out of the backing layers and pocketfolds. Tonight after work, I will be at Kate’s Paperie looking for these items, or I will be stuck sending out the incomplete versions - just the invitations and the RSVP card with tissue paper.

Tip 1: Order much more invitations than you think you need.

Speaking of RSVP cards…

I feel bad about inviting the B-List people because my reply card says to respond by October 1, which is this Sunday. Any person would be able to figure out that they were on the B-List. I’m racking my brain to see if there is a tactful way to give these people their invitations while letting them know that they are “second-choice”. I can just imagine: “Hi, here are your invites. Sorry that they are late, but we didn’t think we would be inviting you.”

Had I known that I was going to end up with B-List guests, I would have had some reply cards printed with a later date.

Tip 2: If you expect to have a B-List, I would highly suggest getting two sets of reply cards, one set with a slightly later due date.

Are you having any B-List people at your wedding? If so, how did you end up inviting them?

I don’t know if I’m really going to call it “The Story of Us” but it seems like a good starting point. Now that my menus are done, the other side of the tented cards will be a short timeline.

We originally wanted to write a personal story about how we met, or how our relationship progressed, or something to that effect. However, as I was attempting to write our story, I discovered that I suck at writing stories. Mr. Butterfly, on the other hand, is great at them. Unfortunately, we honestly could not think of any story to tell. So we agreed on the timeline idea.

I don’t have any of the pictures yet, but this is the general idea.

{baby picture of Mr. Butterfly}
5/xx/197x
Mr. Butterfly is born

{baby picture of Ms. Butterfly}
6/xx/197x
Ms. Butterfly is born

{picture of Mr. and Ms. Butterfly together}
3/xx/2003
Mr. and Ms. Butterfly meet

{picture of my engagement ring}
2/3/2006
Mr. Butterfly proposes!! Ms. Butterfly says Yes!

{image of wedding bells or wedding rings}
11/xx/2006
Mr. and Ms. Butterfly tie the knot!

Mr. and Mrs. Butterfly’s honeymoon destination: 3 nights in Puerto Rico at the Ritz, and 4 nights in Cap Juluca in Anguilla.

I don’t know if I will have room for the honeymoon destination, but I thought it might be cute to put it in there because everyone will be asking anyway. What do you think?

I suck at putting on makeup. I can barely put on foundation, let alone do contours, shadowing and blending. But this weekend Miss Snail did my makeup trial for the wedding, and she also taught me the basics of applying makeup.

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Between programs, menus, personal story, and table escort cards, I found menus to be the easiest to do. Why? My venue already provided the descriptions of the food, and Adrienne from Custom Programs designed the rest!

Here is what I am serving and what my menu looks like. Imagine that it’s on one side of a tent card, where the menu itself is ecru cardstock and the backing is the same orange color that I used in my invitations.

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I should be working….but I can’t help myself! I must update with the weekend’s festivities!

Friday night, I met up with Mrs. Bee at her place to eat dinner. Then off to my MOH’s place to meet up with my bridesmaids. We got to Avalon, NJ (where we were staying) a little after midnight.

The rest of the girls showed up around 1am with mountains of food and liquor. We drank a little, but most importantly, I got to open my presents!!! There were more than what I posted below. The raunchy ones have been left out to protect the innocent (me!!!)

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I must have tried on a dozen different wedding bands in my search for the perfect one. In a previous blog, I wrote about the Tiffany’s wedding bands.

We are still going with the 6mm platinum band for Mr. Butterfly. I absolutely adore this band on him and I think it looks fantastic.

For me, we were struggling with a decision on whether to try and replicate the one that I loved from Fortunoff, or just buy it directly from them. With gift certificates and a 10% discount for registering, the ring that I want now is pretty affordable. Also, we are having the ring shipped to the Best Man in Virginia, so we don’t have to pay taxes on it. Woohoooo~!! No taxes!!

Here is a (not very good) picture of the ring. Seriously, this picture doesn’t do it justice, but it’s the only one I have. They only have 2 left in the entire company. I’m so excited because it’s really unique!