Weddingbee Blog

Mr. Bee and I made a New Year’s Resolution to go on a vacation every 3 months, even if it’s just a day trip.  While Mr. Bee doesn’t really need vacations (he’s a machine), they’re an essential part of my life.  Whenever I come back from a vacation, I always feel inspired and have tons of new blog ideas.  Sometimes you just need a change of scenery.

My last trip was to New Orleans with a good friend of mine (my pc with all the pictures died, which is why I haven’t blogged about it).  It was my first visit to the south and I completely fell in love with it, so Mr. Bee and I plan on visiting Savannah in late May.  I’ve heard so many wonderful things about Savannah!

In late summer/fall, we hope to go to San Francisco.  Mr. Bee lived in San Francisco for two years, I went to college in the Bay Area, and my family drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco every year when I was a child to visit my grandpa.  SF is one of my favorite cities and I haven’t been since 2001, so I’m way overdue for a visit.

Me and my MOH in front of Lombard Street a decade ago!
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Mrs. Penguin visited New York for the first time in her life this past weekend, so of course we had to have a Bee Party! 

Left to right standing: Mrs. Bee, Smokey the cat, Mrs. Snow Pea, Mrs. & Mr. Bell Pepper, Mrs. Spider, Mrs. Bluebell, Mrs. Onion, Mrs. Dahlia, Mrs. Violet, Mr. Onion; Sitting Mrs. & SIL Cupcake, and Mrs. Toucan & Mrs. Penguin.

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I’d been helping my parents out for 3 1/2 years when I first met Mr. Bee. It was one of the most stressful and depressed times of my life. My parents own a couple of private postsecondary schools, and I had been running one of them. But after September 11th, all their schools were in crisis. Public programs our vocational school relied on were heavily cut because of the war; the rest of their schools had to go through a grueling renewal process. I oversaw every application, every contract, every site visit, everything for 4 schools during that time. It would be one thing if I were doing this for myself. Because I was doing it for my family, I took so much personal responsibility - I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. Failure was not an option.

One day I just broke down and cried in front of my dad. I couldn’t take it anymore. My family felt immensely grateful for everything I’d done, but I was involved with everything from legal maintenance to finances to administration to day-to-day operations. They relied on me so much, there was never a good time for me to leave. I’d sacrificed a lot to help my family and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but it was time for me to be a little selfish and think of my own happiness. I felt so guilty wanting to leave but if I stayed, I would have died. I told them I’d oversee a summer program that was coming up, and then I wanted to move to New York. My family agreed.
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We’ve started thinking about our next generation of characters, and we think we’re going to go with dog breeds — pug, labrador, beagle, boston terrier, chihuahua, yorkie… there are so many, how do we decide?! Please comment below with your suggestions for the top 10 dog breeds!  

(image via dailypuppy)

PS — Your wedding date and location now show up when you comment on boards, so it’s a lot easier to find your date and location twins!  Go check it out!

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It was now April and we’d been together 5 months. Mr. Bee’s parents were coming to visit for a week from the Philippines. I had already booked a flight to New York before they decided to come and was scheduled to arrive the day after they left, but I changed my flight so that I could meet them. Dinner went off without a hitch. Mr. Bee’s parents were nice, friendly, and they didn’t have any objections to us getting married. Phew.

I came back to New York the following month, and I knew that Mr. Bee was going to propose on this trip. We’d been together 6 months by this time, and I couldn’t wait because 6 months may sound like a short period of time, but it felt like an eternity because we’d been talking about getting married for over 5 months at this point. My parents would never have let me move cross country to New York unless we were engaged, and we desperately wanted to be together.

On May 7th, we returned to that same wine bar where we first met. Our waiter was acting suspiciously nice and nervous when we arrived. To tell you the truth, he gave it away and I immediately knew, but I played along. After our dinner, the jazzy music playing overhead was suddenly eclipsed by Top of the World by the Carpenters.

When I returned home after I first met Mr. Bee, my dad caught me walking around the house singing Top of the World. He said to me, “Why are you so happy? You must be in love!” I wasn’t even aware that I was singing! Hehe and he was right of course. When I told Mr. Bee about this, he immediately downloaded the song and listened to it over and over. So cheesy as the song is, it kinda became our song.

I digress. As soon as I heard the song, I knew that he was going to propose at that very moment. Mr. Bee said all these wonderful things to me, but I was soooooooooo excited, I’m not sure I remember it all because he opened the ring box while he was talking! He proposed and of course I said yes, yes, yes! I didn’t believe this before I met Mr. Bee, but when you meet the person you want to marry - you just know.  It doesn’t take you years and years to decide if he or she is the one. We both knew that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together after that first week.
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Up until this point, everything was going perfectly and seemed like a dream. But it was now time to MEET THE PARENTS (dun, dun, dun - cue dramatic music).

My parents are both traditional and liberal (well for Korean parents). My dad speaks accentless English (rare for an immigrant Asian parent), has a masters degree in English, and is an English teacher so he’s not your typical Korean dad. My mom’s English is not as good as my dad’s, but she can understand and speak English fluently. Still… in the end I guess they are your typical, traditional, Korean parents.

Mr. Bee is half Japanese, half White and sadly I knew from the beginning that race would be an issue with my family. I always thought that I would marry someone that was Korean, my family always assumed that I would marry someone Korean, no one in my family has ever married or even dated someone that wasn’t Korean. But I would never wish that Mr. Bee were Korean or anything else because that would make him a different person than the one I fell in love with.

I knew this dinner was not going to be easy and needless to say I was extremely nervous. My family was going to be hard on him. Mr. Bee on the other hand was as calm as a cucumber - he was prepared for my family to hate him for 10 years (yes he actually said that), and he would just show my family how much he loved me. What more could he do after all. My parents, my brother, Mr. Bee and I all met at a galbi restaurant in Koreatown. My mom had booked a private room so that we could all talk.

Here’s a gander at some of the questions he had to answer:

1) Can you tell me the difference between: emotion, feeling, sentiment and sensation?
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I had my hair and makeup done by Ai Sakai for a recent event (Ai also did Mrs. Snow Pea’s wedding hair and makeup).  This is a horrible self-portrait taken in my bathroom after a very long day, but you get the picture.  Ai is so sweet, and she was such a pleasure to work with!  She started out as a hair stylist, so I especially loved my curls, but she also did a fantastic job on my makeup!

I typically stick to very neutral colored lipsticks, so I love that she used a bolder color on me.
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So we met in November 2003. Mr. Bee flew to southern California to visit me the first week of December, and we drove down to La Jolla/San Diego for 4 days. In retrospect it seems a little crazy that we went away for the weekend the second time we ever saw each other. But we’d been talking on the phone every day, including a record breaking 10 hour conversation, and it felt like we’d known each other forever. The weekend was relaxing and wonderful. Spending 4 days, 24 hours a day together without fighting is a good sign - we really got along.

I flew to New York to spend Christmas and New Year’s with Mr. Bee. We did all the couple-y things like go to Rockefeller Center, ice skate at Wollman Rink, romantic dinners and drinks out on the town. On Christmas Day we had tons of presents for each other. The first Christmas together as a couple is always so exciting. This was my favorite present - I’m a scrapbooker so Mr. Bee bought me a scrapbook and filled it with scrapbooking supplies…

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I originally posted this story on my personal wedding blog over 3 years ago.  It was transferred into the Weddingbee archives so some of you may have read it, but since the vast majority of you haven’t, I thought I’d repost the series this week!

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I joined xanga, a blogging community, in April of 2003, and little did I know that it was soon to become a part of my daily life. The site is very addictive if I do say so myself! In June of 2003, I posted about a serious problem I was having with my family businesses. I was stressed, overwhelmed, and just venting. Mr. Bee contacted me through an email link on my site, after he read the post, because he thought he might be able to help me out. I’d never had any prior contact with him, but I gave him my work phone number, he called, and we talked briefly. He gave me some advice about different things I could do and if that didn’t pan out, he said he’d call in a favor from someone he knew in local government. Luckily, the problem worked itself out soon after, and I emailed Mr. Bee to thank him for offering his help to a complete stranger.

Months went by. We commented on each other’s sites from time to time, but we didn’t really have any other interaction - not a phone call, not a text message, not an email, not an instant message. One day I blogged about coming to New York for a vacation in November (I was living in LA at the time), and through a series of comments back and forth on each other’s sites, we somehow decided to meet up while I was there. I didn’t know anything about him other than his job and his age because he didn’t really blog often, but I wanted to thank him for trying to help me out. He had an unfair advantage because knew me thru my xanga where I had detailed pretty much every moment of my life for the past six months.
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Mr. Bee and I just got back from a delicious early dinner at Commerce, an up and coming West Village restaurant that we’ve always wanted to try.  We even ran into Malcolm Gladwell on our walk home (he lives in the neighborhood)!

Commerce is on the first floor of the white building.  This quaint area is called “the backlot” because so many movies and tv shows are filmed here.

Because it’s Valentine’s Day, check out this sweet little audio interview with a 90 year old wedding ring salesman. In the interview, the salesman mentions that married couples don’t kiss on the street… how often do you kiss your fiance or husband?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I attended a special weddings taping of the Martha Stewart Show yesterday.  Check it out on PRO!

We think it should be fixed!  Please let us know if you’re having any problems accessing the site!

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Due to a technical issue, some of you are having trouble accessing the Boards, Classifieds, and Wiki.  We’re working on fixing that right now, and hope to have it fixed asap.  We apologize for any inconvenience!

This awesome Coca Cola Superbowl ad features so many of our original bugs!  It was too cute not to share.  Be on the lookout for ladybug, grasshopper, bee, butterfly, dragonfly, caterpillar, and beetle!

I’ve heard that statistic many times.  Women either wear bras that are too big, too small, or too worn out.  I’ve never had my bra size measured and I’d been wanting to go to one of the specialty bra shops in New York, because I knew I was wearing the wrong size.

Many brides go to Bra Tenders (like Mrs. Canary) because they specialize in theater and bridal undergarments, but I made an appointment for Linda’s Bra Salon because I was looking for everyday bras.  Lately I’d been wearing a 34C and with various brands, they were either too big or too small. But after my attendant Chloe measured me, she brought me a 32E bra.  What?! E sounds completely insane, but miraculously it fit perfectly! I swear I’m not that big… maybe it’s just because I’m petite or a hard to fit size — I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a 32E at Victoria’s Secret!  It’s also hard to find strapless bras that don’t give your boobs a funky shape (I’d been on the quest for one my entire life), but Chloe found me one that fit perfectly.

Linda’s only carries the Le Mystere Bridal Bustier (almost universally flattering and what I wore at my own wedding) as far as bridal wear, so I’d recommend a place like Bra Tenders which has a larger selection of speciality bras if you’re looking for a bustier.  But I’d highly recommend Linda’s for everyday and strapless bras!

Some bra tips from my attendant Chloe:
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I don’t really buy makeup products often, but I’m a total hair product junkie. I love to color, perm, cut, and  straighten my hair, so I try to take decent care of it.

Here’s a glimpse of what’s in my shower right now: Kerastase Nutritive Nutridefense conditioner, Neutrogena Triple Moisture Hair Mask, VO5 hot oil treatment, Freeman’s Peppermint and Plum foot scrub, pumice stone, My Melody mini bucket, Dermalogica: special cleansing gel, daily microexfoliant (purchased after Miss Lemonade’s review), and skin prep scrub, Alterna Moisturesilk Caviar Shampoo, Terax Crema Ultra Moisturizing Daily Conditioner, and Tom’s of Maine toothpaste.   (Isn’t this kinda like peeking in my medicine cabinet? )

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