Weddingbee Blog

Checker Cab: Film Cars. The 1945 checker cab was perfect (and much roomier than today’s Ford Crown Vics ;)). Peter, the owner of Film Cars, is probably the nicest person in the world. A++

Something borrowed: There is no review for the veil because it’s not my veil. It was my sister’s veil which she bought for her wedding 6 years ago (to the day!). It was exactly the style I wanted (drop veil). The only issue was that it was diamond white instead of ivory, but the wonderful ladies at Mark Ingram assured me that you wouldn’t be able to tell in real life or photos because the tulle was so thin and really just picked up the color of whatever was beneath it.

My sister purchased the veil at Michelle Roth on 57th Street, where she got her dress as well. At that time, the store sold various brands of dresses, although I think they now only sell the Michelle and Henry Roth brands. The veil was very expensive (around $900-$1000 I think) which I think is absolutely insane. It has hand-rolled edging with hand sewn beading… yada yada yada. It was beautiful and I’m so thankful to have worn it, but I would never have spent that much money on a few yards of tulle!

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Midtown, New York City.

All photos are by Leah McCormick and as I’ve mentioned before, Leah shot in film. The digital images I’m posting here really don’t do the real photos justice. If you haven’t guessed already, I think Leah is absolutely fantastic, but I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. A++.

Make-up by Laura Nadeau What can I say, I don’t think I’ve ever looked better in my life. Laura is amazing. She’s hilarious, sweet, and obviously immensely talented. A++

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My photographer Leah McCormick knows that wedding photos are my form of crack, so while I was (patiently) waiting for my proofs, she sent me these photos from a recent wedding she did for a quick fix. Sooooo different from my wedding! So cool!

Leah really has no “formula” — her photos and style really depend on the spirit of the wedding itself. I posted some of Leah’s photos before here.

Hi Ladies, Sorry to go MIA (I heard I’ve been missed by my… um… avid weddingbee readers).

No I’m not on my honeymoon (came back many moons ago), just being a busy firefly with life, work, and trying (unsuccessfully) to set up wireless internet in our new apartment. I do have lots write about - I received my professional photos on Friday, I have to write-up my vendor reviews and I have tons of honeymoon photos to post! Bad me!

But it’s not like I’m shirking my duties - I’ve actually hit a bit of a technical snag. For some reason, the blogging program I’m using won’t let me upload my photographer’s photos unless I rename them; it claims they are not a proper form (they are all jpeg’s and have a .jpg extension). So I’m going to need a little bit of time to sort through the 1000 (!) photos and resave the extra good ones to share here!

Okay, okay I’ll give you a sneak peak. I’m the one in the white dress ;).

Please note: these are not digital photos, but film that has been put onto CDs. The real photos are much richer in detail then these images.

I had the hardest time figuring out what to buy Mr. Firefly as a wedding gift. My parents already bought him a Cartier Tank Francaise watch as an engagement present (he called it his “installment plan,” ;)) and although I bought him gorgeous cufflinks from Links of London, I knew that he wouldn’t get any real pleasure out of them, so I couldn’t make it his gift.

I wound up buying him a completely useless — but sentimental — gift. Our first date was drinks at the now-closed Chango on Central Park South. There were these little plastic monkeys on the bar that I couldn’t stop playing with. When we returned to Chango on our first anniversary, we took home a handful of these little monkeys.

Tiffany’s has a silver straw with a very similar little monkey… I just had to buy it! I put one of the plastic monkeys in the Tiffany’s bow and wrote “I’ve known since then” in the card. Not the most useful of gifts, but I couldn’t resist.

What did Mr. Firefly get me? Well, he’s still working on it. It’s supposed to be something extra special. I ask him for clues all the time… but he’s been tight lipped.

I’m thinking of ordering Mr. Firefly one of these custom comics by Mark Weber, whose work has run in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. The comics are frameable six-panel hand-drawn 8×11 art on 11×14 acid-free paper. Black and white is $150 and full color is $225. I think it would make a wonderful wedding gift for your fiance or even another couple you know.

… I wish I had found this before we got married!

Source: http://www.theknot.com/ NYC message boards.

I think I gave myself a bit too much credit in my post below and didn’t give enough credit to bathing suite designer Malia Mills.

Malia Mills started in 1993 and sells tops engineered to fit specific bra sizes, and cut bottoms to fit specific shapes in sizes 30A to 38DD and 2 to 16. (they also sell one-pieces and tankinis). I don’t know what it is, but the bathing suits just hit in the right places (both the red and purple suits I wore are from Malia Mills). The bathing suits are a bit pricey — around $100 per top or bottom — but I think they’re worth it. I also LOVE the fact that they use real women for models …

They also have a bridal line and can spell out custom phrases on your booty in crystals… cute, but not quite worth $260 for custom ones, especially if you’re not going to wear it after your honeymoon (not quite sure if the stock phrases like “just married” cost less).

Like most brides, I wanted to lose some weight before the wedding. In my case “some” meant 25 pounds or two full sizes from my engagement weight.

While I don’t want to disclose numbers (the horror! the horror!), I can say that I’ve yo-yo-ed my entire adult life and have gone on every diet out there at some point in the past 15 years. I remember the skinny years (ok, months!): freshman year in HS, second semester junior year in college, summer of ‘99, the summer of atkins (aka summer of 2002).

I also remember the fat period where my weight ballooned to never before seen heights while spending nearly a year living in a hotel, eating out 3 times a day, working non-stop and working out rarely (despite the SportsClub LA gym right in my hotel). When Mr. Firefly proposed, I was in a mid-high weight range. A good 15 pounds or one size smaller than my highest, but sadly, 2 sizes bigger than the summer of ‘99 (my body has changed too much from HS and college for me to even aspire to fit into the same clothes).

Try as I might, I couldn’t quite lose the 25 pounds for the wedding, but I did lose 15 pounds and a little more than a size. And you know what, I’m glad I didn’t lose all the weight. Most people commented that I looked “fantastic” at the wedding, a few people added that I looked “thin.” Had I gone down another size, the weight loss would have been the focus! Also, since it’s (obviously) hard for me to maintain a very low weight, I knew I would gain weight post wedding and then people would think that I “let myself go” after getting married.

I’ve been looking in the mirror these past few weeks and I think I’m comfortable with what I see. I’m not skinny — I’ll NEVER be skinny — but I think that I look pretty good. I want to continue working out regularly (which I’ve been doing since sophomore year in college) and eating mostly healthy. And if I have a couple more pounds I decide to shed, more power to me. But I’m happy to stay where I am!

Now the unthinkable …. bathing suit before and afters! The before is from our Caribbean cruise trip this past December. The after is from the honeymoon (more honeymoon pictures coming soon!). Not a dramatic change, but I’m happy with it.

These days most wedding guests bring digital cameras and are kind enough to email you their pictures (some require more nudging than others). I didn’t think that disposable table cameras were necessary. From my experience, you usually wind up with half finished cameras with tons of poorly lit, non-zoomed photos of the bride and groom cutting the cake and some random pictures of guests with their eyes closed from across the table.

My mother, who isn’t very tech savvy and didn’t think she’d get to see any of the digital pictures, insisted on table cameras. Well…. I was right, mostly. We’ve developed 10 out of 12 cameras so far and 8 or 9 of them are full of junk. It didn’t help that Michael’s 5 year-old nephew decided to finish 2 of the rolls on his own (lots of waist high pictures).

One of the rolls, however, is a true gem. We put black and white cameras on two of the “young people” tables. These are some pictures from one of the them. I’m not sure who the photographer is, but when I find out, I’ll owe him or her a huge thanks! Best of all, I danced with my uncle after the photographer left (she left at 11:30; the wedding ended at midnight), so these are probably the best pictures of us from the whole night!

Family Pictures:

The Bride and Groom Dancing:

The pictures are a bit dark in real life, but not quite as dark as they appear here.

All-in-all, I think the approx $200 we spent on the cameras and developing is probably worth it just for these pictures!

… from my wedding, from my honeymoon, from moving! No reviews or pro pictures yet, but I thought I would post a few from family and friends:

I loved my makeup artist so much, I invited her to the wedding!

Hair touch-up and final look:

My dad got a little hungry ;).

Getting Dressed:

A little moment of peace and a last-minute touch-up:

Here Comes the Groom:

The ring bearers take a wrong turn…

and the flower girl with her daddy:

Here Comes the Bride:

The Bride and Groom;

my sister and brother in law;

my cute grandparents:

First Dance (the lessons paid off!):

The Bride and Groom:

Chair-raising hora (the best part of the Jewish wedding!)

Bouquet and Garter Toss:

Let them eat cake!

My parents:

My uncle and cousin (I wish these good looks ran in the family!);

my cousin and me having fun with camera:

With my maid-of-honor Julia:

Ladies, so sorry to go MIA. I am getting married this weekend! So lots and lots to do and not enough time to do it. I will leave you with some details…

Out-of-town guest bags:

Programs all in a row …

Ringbearer pillows (and one for the flower girl so she’s not jealous)

Extraordinary (57th Street between 2nd and 3rd) is one of my favorite stores in the city for unique gifts and housewares. It’s a small shop and they always have new items, so I love stopping in whenever I pass by. Best of all, they are open until 10pm on most nights, so it’s great for last minute gifts.

As promised here are pictures of the mother-of-pearl compact and business card case I bought for my sister. The pictures really don’t do the set justice!

Yes, I know, you found my hair raising post riveting and couldn’t wait to see MORE pictures. I aim to please, so here they are. These pictures were taken at night, after I was literally running around all day. The curls loosened up a lot and I took out the bobby pins which had lifted the bottom portion of the hair.

DIY picture of the front. Stacey will make the part closer to the middle on the day of …

Stacey asked me to buy a 2-pronged hair clip to put in the middle of my hair after the veil is removed. I was going to buy something pricey, but then found this clip for a whopping $13 on Seventh Avenue.

This is how it looked in my hair last night … I like it! If it didn’t weigh a ton, I would wear it all the time!

For some reason, I was totally stumped when it came to bridesmaids gifts. I only have two attendants — my sister and my best friend and I was trying to find one present that would work for both of them. My best friend is single, sometimes homebody, sometimes Page 6-worthy casting agent. My sister is a suburban working mother of 3 toddlers, with a penchant for expensive bags and shiny things. Since I also bought their dresses, I didn’t want to spend loads of money, figuring $100 was just about right.

I solved the problem by getting the ladies different presents.

I appealed to my best friend Julia’s homebody side and bought her this funky tea set from the Wedding Things store in Manhattan.

The brand of the tea set is Rosanna; after I bought it at Wedding Things, I found out that I could have bought it for much less from the Seattle-based manufacturer’s website. I considered returning the set and reordering online, but frankly, didn’t have the time. I think Rosanna’s china would also make great shower presents.

I bought my sister a gorgeous mother-of-pearl mirror compact and business card case from Extraordinary, my favorite store for unique gifts on 57th Street between Second and Third Avenues. I’ll post pictures as soon as I remember to snap a few!

With two weeks (yikes!) left before D-day, I finally settled on a hair stylist. I had a trial this weekend with Stacey of Styles on B. She works out of her apartment, but comes to you for the day of. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good pictures of the front, but here are some side and back views …