Weddingbee Blog

I’m on the hunt for a purse. The big debate is whether to buy a bag that is: (1) cheap and off-white that I’ll never wear again, (2) glittery that I’ll rarely wear again, or (3) pale gold and practical and will be worn all the time.

This is a cheap option from White Aisle for $35. I would probably give it to my baby niece to play dress-up with after the wedding.

I also found this cute fabric and mother-of-pearl purse at Ann Taylor. It’s less than $100; I think I would go with it if it went on sale.

I love the glittery Moyna bags that Mrs. Bee blogged about yesterday. If I go with a champagne color, I might actually get some use out of it. Priced around $200.

Stuart Weitzman has gorgeous evening bags, but not quite my style (and a bit pricey at $345).

Lauren Merkin is the practical route. Her bags are great and I’ve been meaning to get one anyway. Pale gold would certainly match with my dress, but it’s not very “bridey.” This Eve purse is $180, but Daily Candy is offering a 25% discount. Just type in DCMERKIN at checkout.

What to do… what to do?

For my sister’s wedding, my mother had a very crafty co-worker make a card box in the shape of a wedding cake. It was white, it had pearls… okay, so it was a bit cheesey, but it did the trick. My mother saved the card box with the hope that when I (finally) got married, I could use it too. For five years, that card box stood in our basement; it was a resilient card box — unlike everything else down there, it never turned green.

Alas, this past summer, my parents sold their house and moved into a (very) small temporary apartment in Manhattan. All their stuff (card box included) was placed in a temperature controlled storage facility off of some exit on the Garden State Parkway. The plan was to find a condo or co-op quickly; move in a couple of months. The plan didn’t work out and the card-box-that-could is still somewhere between the guest room furniture and my baby grand.

No worries I said, I will make a new card box. Bigger, better, a bit cheesier than the old. I even found stacking heart-shaped hat boxes at Nashville Wraps.

I was planning on ordering them this evening… when, out of nowhere… I discovered this lovely bird cage at Wedding Things. Only $45 bucks + delivery. Woo hoo - another item off my list; no glue gun required.

I ordered these backpacks from Lillian Vernon for my flower girl and ring bearers. The bags came yesterday. They’re not the best quality — just unlined nylon — but you can’t expect much for $15! The girls’ bag is really cute, but the boys’ bag has a bit too much black in it, I wish it was blue or green instead.

I’ll load the bags with toys and books to keep the kiddies busy and (hopefully) out of trouble during the wedding.

Shop Intuition also sells this great Mindy Weiss emergency bride kit. Everything is held in a black hand bag and comes with Mindy’s recommended must haves for both the planned preparation time and unexpected incidents. I’d get one, but Bee already hooked me up.

A few other items of interest …. cami and boy short set:

Pedicure Set (the flip-flops fold in half, so you can always have them with you):

And “Bride” tanktop for $50 (for real? you can probably make one for $15)

These personalized Boy Meets Girl totes and hoodies (in the blue?) from Shop Intuition would be cute to use on the day of your wedding. The tote is $37 and the hoodie is a bit pricey at $85…

I received these Williams & Sonoma monogrammed mugs as a belated shower gift. Mr. Firefly oohhed-and-ahhed and immediately chilled one in the freezer and opened a beer. Eureka! Great groomsman gift! A set of 4 is $49.

I bought my wedding dress at Mark Ingram Bridal Atelier — a full service snazzy dress salon on the east side. I’m very happy with the service that I’ve received to date, but if I had to do it again, I would have shopped around and then ordered my dress from either Pearl’s Place or NetBride.

Pearl’s Place is a brick and mortar bridal salon outside of New Orleans; NetBride, an online-only store based out of Minneapolis. Both retailers offer 25% - 30% off most brands. For example, the US Angels dress I bought for my flower girl retails for $142 at Saks, plus tax. NetBride quoted me a price of $96 and Pearl’s Place, $102… plus shipping, but no tax on both.

NetBride’s shipping rates were a little bit higher, so the prices almost evened out. I ordered from Pearl’s Place because they actually pick up the phone; everything on NetBride is done through email. It made me a bit nervous, but both sites have received raves on The Knot’s message boards. Twenty five percent off on a Monique Lhuillier dress equals big bucks! Live and learn …

If you’re not comfortable ordering online, get a quote from NetBride and bring it over to RK Bridal. They’ll beat the price by 5% with their “no frill” package (i.e. you’re responsible for taking proper measurements). Just make sure to bring the email with the quote with you!

Mr. Firefly uses cheap-o disposable razors for everyday shaving, but he loves the straight edge razor shave at The Art of Shaving. I reminded him yesterday that he might want to make an appointment for the day of the wedding. He looked at me funny and said, “What do you mean, I made an 11am appointment a couple of months ago!”

I was sooo happy!

I’m sure I’m not the only bride, but I sometimes think that Michael views this wedding as a chore. He must pass wedding to collect honeymoon and get me preggers. But little things like this make me realize that perhaps he does care about the big day after all…

I love finding things I need by accident.

My mom and I went for a quick shopping trip in the town Rye, NY (visiting my sister and the kiddies). We were on the hunt for shoes, but walked away with some great jewelry from Liz Palacios.

My mom bought a necklace and earrings which will match her dress perfectly. I got these earrings; which is the only jewelry I plan to wear, although I may want to buy a broach to put in the knot of the sash of my dress.

The jewelry includes a mix semi-precious stones and Swarovski crystal and was reasonably priced from $42 (for my earrings) to just under $100.

This morning, I brought my invitations over to the Rockefeller Center Post Office. It feels great to have them out of my hands, but now I have to worry that the mail-stealing elf doesn’t wreck havoc on me (he often does a number on my pairs of socks).

A few lessons learned:

1) My parents are hosting (and paying for) the wedding, so I put their contact as the return address on the invite and as the RSVP address. In hindsight, I should have used my address for the RSVPs since I’ll be the one keeping the tally. My parents live a few blocks away from me, so it’s not a big deal to pick the RSVPS up every day, but something to think about if your parents live in another town.

2) At some point in my wedding planning process I saw these envelopes and fell in love with the interoffice ties (the “do-hickies”). I thought they were the coolest. I needed to have them. I got them. And they’ve been a total pain in the arse.

First, I was planning on having addresses on the envelopes computer “calligraphered” by Inkspun for a whopping 39 cents each. It only occurred to me after I had the envelopes in hand that the do-hickies would probably jam a printer.

With only 2 weeks to get the invites out, I did a frantic search on The Knot message boards. I emailed a bunch of calligraphers. I went with the first person to get back to me, Melanie at Sugar Dipped Designs (she was in California, so had a leg up on the competition and emailed me back that night). I have to say that I LOVE the results. The cost wasn’t too bad either — $1.50 per envelope, although after you factor in the FedEx charges, it probably wound up costing $2.00 per envelope.

Lastly, the do-hickies took forever to tie — probably added over an hour to the invitation assembly process. Now I’m worried that they will untie and get caught in a sorter.

3) Postage: I had a full invitation set weighed several times at the post office and the invite weighed exactly one ounce, meaning that 39 cent postage was enough. I wish I had gone with 63 cent stamps instead… just in case. My nightmare is that the invites will be returned to me for insufficient postage.

… And a few things I did right!

1) I mailed myself a fully stuffed invite. It came in one piece. The do-hicky stayed tied. The postage was apparently sufficient. But I’m still worried.

2) I numbered the addressee list I sent to the calligrapher. As I assembled the invites, I penciled in the corresponding number on the back of the RSVP card so that I can identify the responses even if people don’t fill out their names.

I know, you all are tired of seeing my before and after mug shots. But this is the last one. I promise. Cuz I booked her (yeah!).

The back story: I went to the New York Metro Bridal Showcase and got talked into a mini-makeover at the Bloomingdale’s Bobbi Brown counter. It was quick — 15 minutes… no heavy eyes, no concealer and oh my gawd it looked fabulous. I wish I looked that good every day for work.

So I tracked down the make-up artist (Laura Nadeau) and scheduled a trial and…. voila! (I look so awful in the befores, I didn’t want to post them, but well, you need to see the before to appreciate the afters).

At Bloomies: Before…

and After.

Just the Eyes:

At home with different lighting.

I hope to get my invites out this week. I’ve heard that the Rockefeller Center Post Office will hand cancel the envelopes if you come first thing in the morning. De Milo Designs has a great suggestion to have your envelopes hand cancelled in Loveville, Maryland (awwww!).

The post office of Loveville, Maryland offers a creative and generous service. They have a custom Loveville postmark that they use when canceling wedding invitations by hand. The first few dozen are free. After that there is a small charge of a few cents per piece. If you like, you may include a pre-addressed invitation to yourself. They will retain it and mail to you on your wedding day canceled with your wedding date. Call 301 475 5243 for specific instructions.

If cupids are just a little too wild but you still want to have your invitations hand canceled, the regular Loveville postmark (pictured at right) might work. This is a good option for couples in large cities where postal workers are too busy to hand cancel each piece. Call 301 475 5243 for specific instructions.

My Grandmother modeling the dress she’ll be wearing at the wedding. My mother bought it for her at Lord & Taylor. Doesn’t she look fantastic for a great-grandmother (to my niece and nephews … no kids for me yet )?

I asked my grandmother if I could post her picture on my blog. That didn’t seem to ring any bells with her… it’s like a website on the computer… still nothing, but she said okay. I guess that qualifies as informed consent !

From: The Knot NYC Message Board

For those of you who surf bios on The Knot, you may have noticed that some girls have this icon in their bios:

Sulla Tips were written by Knottie Sulla (freelance journalist Jennifer Mendelsohn) who was a regular on the Knot’s message boards while planning her 2002 wedding. Her tips are great and include insightful thoughts like:

My best piece of wedding advice? Its a party, its a party, its a party. Don’t let your obsession with making sure you do and buy all the stuff you’re “supposed” to suck the joy out of your very joyous day. Just let it roll and make sure that your wedding is, at heart, a celebration, not a staged production. [...]

[N]obody ever leaves a wedding saying, “Yeah, it was soooo great! The mother of the groom’s dress was the SAME EXACT SHADE as the bridesmaids’ shoes!” People leave a wedding thinking it was great because it felt great - because the bride and groom were in love and happy, and the party felt appropriately joyous, even if there’s not a single Martha Stewart-ish detail anywhere in sight.

I see you smirking … but, c’mon, you’ve thought about “important” details like that.

She also wrote a great article about post wedding let-down in the Washington Post.