Weddingbee Blog

I love these eyeshadows from Chantecaille. The base color and the butterfly color stay separate through the entire pan.

Any butterfly themed girls out there looking for bridesmaids’ gifts? Because these would do brilliantly.

$39.00 Available at Barneys, Bergdorf, and online at Vivre.

I think I should have gotten married in winter. Mostly because I love these things.

Paper by Wendy Addison available online at Vintage Weave and Sissy in Seattle but check eBay too.

If you just can’t wait for the shipping, stop by Tinsel Trading 38th St. between 5th and 6th. They have a bunch of Wendy Addison things, but the markup is about 30% higher.

I have secret love for opera length gloves. I especially like these from Carolina Amato because of the three pearl buttons at the wrist.

I have absolutely no use for them, and they would probably make me look like a crazy ninja or something (that model isn’t helping any), but I have great love for them nonetheless.

Available at Nordstrom and Perfect Details (for about $20 less).

In my mad scramble to make crafts, find a new makeup person, and see Mr. Caterpillar off to his first week of school, I seem to have forgotten to find a brooch for my dress.

I kind of love this one from Doyle & Doyle.

I should probably go with something less goth and less than a thousand dollars. Any suggestions?

I have sensitive skin. Like allergic to everything sensitive skin. Like my cat scratched me in third grade and I still have the scar sensitive skin.

Naturally, my bathroom is filled with bizarre cosmetics from foreign lands, all promising to brighten/tighten/renew/repave without causing an unsightly face rash. Sometimes these things lie, and I end up looking like a leper for a few days. So, it was with great trepidation I approached the fresh facial mask bar at Lush Cosmetics.

But, I really can’t pass up anything that looks like pudding, so I ended up buying a little plastic take-out container of Cosmetic Catastrophe. It’s supposed to be deep cleaning and moisturizing and balancing all at the same time. And, it is.

Sort of a shocker. It managed to clean all my pores and still not leave me all dry and flaky. And I’m face rash free. Ooh.

Lush Cosmetics
#108 - 1293 Broadway
(at 34th St.)
212-564-9120

Mr. Caterpillar’s mama purchased parasols for some of the more sun adverse guests to hide under during the ceremony. A brilliant idea. But the parasols came topped with an odd little square of yellow polyester over the finial for who knows what reason. My OCD required me to pull off all those little pieces of fabric and add decadent southern luxury.

I gilded the tip, then decoupaged a strip of vintage sheet music around the bottom of the finial, and added some silk hydrangea to the top. Finally, I tied a length of ribbon around the whole thing.

So, I fired my hair and makeup vendor.

I tried to be flexible, I asked her to stay an extra hour — still 2 hours before the ceremony is set to begin — I asked if she could bring someone else along that might be able to stay later. Her answer? NO. As manager of the makeup department of Neiman Marcus, she MUST MUST MUST be a beauty event in Palo Alto, and cannot stay any longer than 12pm. As well, she can’t stay to do hair. And she tried to enlist another hairdresser, but they’re all booked.

Um . . . didn’t we settle this IN MARCH? Did you not have 6 months to figure this out? So, I’m done. And she’s done. I just fired her, and I feel really really good.

I am just a sucker for random projects. Accordingly, I broke my No More DIY rule, and started some water bottle labels. I did them in pink and brown because that was the easiest way to make cheap paper look not so cheap. Ha.

Half the label is a monogram of sorts; the other half is a piece of a love poem from Nizar Qadah. I wanted to give guests something to read, i.e. distract them, while waiting in the blazing sun for the ceremony to start.

An email from my makeup woman today:

HI Miss Caterpillar,
how are you? I just got back from San Pedro, Belize.
I erased your message with your phone number by accident so I have to email you.

I spoke to a couple of different hair people and they are booked.
It’s a really popular day.

So here is what I suggest…I would like to meet with you and your bridesmaid the night before to set and curl the hair. When I arrive in Corralitos, I will do makeup and finish with hair.

I have one more hair person I would like to contact but she may not want to travel.

It makes me a little nervous you are going last, but understand you have things to do. I need to start on you guys a little earlier bc they scheduled me to work that day and I need to leave Corralitos by 12:00 noon.

She wants me to travel 90 miles to San Francisco to get my hair done the night before the wedding? NOT BLOODY LIKELY! I told her she needs to figure out how to stay longer in Corralitos, or I’ll find a new hair person here. What’s wrong with these people?

The wonderful and magnificent Lauren came over to do cones! With the help of Mr. Caterpillar’s mama, we finished them in about 30 minutes.

I can’t believe they’re done.

But, the pinwheels remain . . . sigh . . . .

So, these days, I’m slightly obsessed with Black Phoenix Alechemy Lab. It’s a weird little spot that mixes up the most profoundly odd perfumes.

The site divides them by . . . theme? maybe? You can purchase Asphodel from Rappacini’s Garden, lovingly described as “The grey and ghostly flower that fills the fields of Hades.” Or you can get 5ml of any one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Or maybe a Love Potion, perhaps Bordello — “A decadent, deep perfume, lusty and luxuriant. The scent evokes images of velvet-lined Old West cathouses, tightly laced corsets, rustling petticoats and coquettish snarls of pleasure. Bawdy plum with amaretto, burgundy wine and black currant.”

What exactly do bawdy plums smell like? I really want to know.

These luggage tags from Paper Source are an adorable way to round out a bridemaid’s gift bag, or even use as favors.

At $4.50 each, they’re a steal.

Mr. Caterpillar wanted Raventos cava instead of champagne at the wedding, and Liquor Outlet Wine Cellars had the best price by far. They are, of course, not so competent in the calculation of shipping costs.

But, I will pay them the extra $25.01 to avoid any crazy madness on their part. The wedding is so close now, I don’t have time to find another vendor. And I don’t want them holding my wine hostage for $25.01.

However, I am telling you, my darling fellow weddingbees, that they have customer service issues. And once I get my wine, I’m going to point them to this post.

I just got this in my email inbox –

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pleae be advised that the Raventos Cava has arrived, upon weighing the cases we found that unfortunately the shipping charged will not cover the cost of shipping due to the heavy weight of the bottles, this is a glitch in the web system we are trying to have fixed, as it doesn’t allow for the heavy weight of champagne bottles. Our cost for shipping is $147.16, subtracted from the quoted cost of $96.75, that would leave $50.41, would it be reasonable to ask you to split the difference with us, and pay $25.21??? We apologize for this situation, and hope you understand our plight. Please advise…

So, I’m going to pay them the $25.21 because it’s only $25.21, but I am so irritated! How is it my difficulty that THEIR website doesn’t calculate shipping correctly?

Last weekend, Mr. Caterpillar and I attended the wedding of two of his BFFs. Possibly the most beautiful wedding ever — held in the mountains of Bonny Doon with a 180 degree view of the ocean and lanterns strung across the dancefloor. You could even see stars.

The downside? The worst caterer ever. Even worse than my own personal cupcake gouger.

The menu was a mix of hot and cold tapas. Somehow every dish came out cold. And they refused — actually refused — to serve different dishes together, so guests sat for FIVE HOURS as 14 courses came out individually. One of these courses? A dish of cold grilled scallions. No accompaniment. Just scallions.

At the end of the meal, when the mother of the groom asked them to serve the cake, they told her that it was “not their job.” They also refused to make coffee. Guests were in the kitchen making coffee for themselves.

And the kicker? One of the caterers was sick. And now I’m writing this from bed with an ear infection. Mr. Caterpillar is also sick. So is Mr. Caterpillar’s mama. And so are about half of the wedding guests. How gross is that?

Still, the bride was gorgeous, and the ceremony was beautiful. So it was a great wedding overall. But, the caterer? I’m totally tracking them down and making them pay for my antibiotics. Eew.