Weddingbee Blog

We’ve had a Related Posts module on the blog for a while now, and they’ve been pretty popular!

We’ve been wanting to add Related Posts to the message boards for a while now.  It was a little tricky, since our blog and boards use slightly differently types of software… but we finally pulled it off!

Now if you visit this boards posts on the Vera Wang 2008 NYC Sample Sale, you’ll see a number of related posts on other sample sales:

This is especially helpful on boards, where a lot of the same questions come up over time.  So now if someone asks, “What gifts should I get my bridesmaids?”… a bunch of older posts on the same topic will come up.  Hopefully some of them will have useful information that helps out :).

I have to head out to a birthday dinner for a friend now, but let us know what you think!

I’d always meant to get microdermabrasion, so after Mrs. Pomegranate told me what a dramatic difference it made in her skin pre-wedding, I was sold.  A couple months ago, I made an appointment with my dermatologist, but she suggested that I get a glycolic peel instead.  The appointment was fast — she applied the glycolic acid, left it on for a couple of minutes, and then I washed it off.  I have to say that I was rather disappointed with the procedure, because I didn’t really notice any difference in my skin.

Then a couple weeks ago, I booked a facial and microdermabrasion at Lia Schorr after reading all these glowing reviews.  The receptionist (who I think is actually Lia Schorr) is a little brusque. The decor is clean and simple – not luxurious like many of the spas in Manhattan.  But I loved my facialist, Eugenia, who has been there for over 20 years!  She was sweet, gave great skincare advice, and did extractions that didn’t leave my face red like other facialists usually do.  And my skin has looked great since the facial/microdermabrasion session –  I’m officially a fan!

Lia Schorr offers great discount packages for treatments, so I purchased one and am going back this Saturday.  Oh and get this — most of their clients are actually men!  I’d highly recommend microdermabrasion for glowing skin on your wedding day.

Have you ever had microdermabrasion or a chemical peel?  How did they work for you?

We’ve added a module in the right column with links to the latest Weddingbee PRO posts.  Now it’s easy for you to see when WB PRO has a new post up!

A lot of you reported trouble with commenting on Weddingbee PRO yesterday and today.  We think we just fixed the problem, so please let us know if you continue to have any problems at all!

Anne Ruthman has a fabulously helpful post on Wedding Timelines today over on Weddingbee PRO, so go check her and our other fabulous PROS out!

You saw my pics, and the pro highlight pics, and now here is the final installment from my cousin Jessica’s wedding!  Please credit all photography to the fabulously talented John and Joseph Photography.

(click any image to enlarge)

You guys loved her Cayla dress by Enzoani, so I’ve tried to include tons of pictures of it!

Read more…

I’m excited to announce the latest member of the Weddingbee blog family: a group blog by top wedding vendors!

• http://www.weddingbeePRO.com

Weddingbee PRO is a group blog about weddings, just like Weddingbee.  But this blog will have real wedding *vendors*, blogging about weddings from the vendor side of the aisle.  It’s the first group blog of its kind, and we couldn’t be more excited!

Can you believe it’s been almost three years since we first launched Weddingbee in February 2006?!  The vision for Weddingbee has been the same since its start: a group blog with real brides blogging about their weddings.

We often thought about expanding Weddingbee to include vendors.  A number of wedding vendors approached us about blogging for Weddingbee itself, but we always said no.  We just felt it was best to keep bride and vendor blogging separate, especially as Weddingbee was just getting established.
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Hey everyone! 

We’ve been busy little bees behind the scenes, working on our first Weddingbee spinoff blog!

We’re going to announce it at 8:30 am EST tomorrow morning, so please stay tuned!

After my trip to the tropical Philippines and coming back to the harsh New York winter, my skin got crazy dry and was flaking everywhere.  I needed a new product: a moisturizer, a mask, an exfoliant… something!

I started reading reviews of various products online and came across Fresh’ Sugar Face Polish.  It’s a moisturizing exfoliant mask made of brown sugar and strawberries.  It’s a little pricey, as all Fresh products tend to be, but the reviews were glowing so I decided to give it a shot.

Read more…

We’ve been working hard to make it easier to register and sign in into Weddingbee!

• Sign in link on Front page: For various technical reasons, you had to go to the Boards tab to sign in.  Now you can easily sign in from the Weddingbee frontpage! If you’re not signed in right now, just look up and you should see it.
• Pick your own Password: When you registered in the past, our software would email you a randomly generated password.  Now you can just pick it yourself!  Hopefully this will make it simpler and easier to create an account.
• Longer lasting Sign ins: We heard from the Hive that after last week’s software upgrade, the site was forcing people to sign in a lot more often.  So we added a “remember me” checkbox, so that you have the choice to sign in just once.

We’re still working on a few little tweaks:

• Signing In and Out: When you sign in (or sign out) from the front page, you get redirected to the Boards page.  We’re asking some technical gurus for help resolving that one.
• Private Messages on Front page: On the Boards page, you can see if you have any private messages… but you can’t see that on the front page.  If we added that, the database would get a lot slower.  We’re asking for help on this one too.

Ok that’s all for now.  Hopefully these changes make it a little bit easier to sign into Weddingbee.  Let us know what you think!  Posting will be light over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Hope you have a great one!

Lately we’ve been getting some emails about some of the ads that appear on Weddingbee, so I thought I’d share a little bit about how they work.

Other than the small button ads in the left sidebar, all of our ads are automatically generated by Google Adsense.  Because those ads come from Google, we don’t get a chance to review them before they go up on the site (that’s just how Google works).  The ads are often based on the content of posts, so if you click on one of my posts, you’ll often see ads for bees like the one below.

Sometimes an ad will slip through that we don’t want on Weddingbee.  When that happens, we go ahead and ban the ad.  For instance, in the past we’ve banned ads for mail order brides, Ashley Madison, political advocacy, and Prop 8.

We just wanted you guys to know how the ads work. Because they’re automatically generated by Google, we don’t have much control until an ad is already up on the site.  But once they’re up, we definitely can ban a specific ad (or advertiser) if we just know who it is.

So if you ever see an objectionable ad on Weddingbee, please take a screenshot and let us know!

Wedding Registry Direct recently contacted me about their new registry service, which allows couples to register for personalized gifts from their vendors. 

Here’s how it works: You discuss gift ideas with your vendors like a photo album, ceremony flowers, or contributing to a videography package.  Then the vendor signs up with Wedding Registry Direct, and you receive a url where your guests can go to purchase various services or extras towards your wedding.

What do you think about this service?  Would you use it as a bride?  Would you use it as a guest?

Ok, the servers are officially upgraded!

One note: you’ll have to re-sign into Weddingbee now that the upgrades are complete.  There have been some upgrades to how passwords are handled, and the entire system is more secure.

To sign back in (if you have an account), just type in your username and password here:

• http://boards.weddingbee.com/bb-login.php

If you’ve forgotten your password, just type your username into the link above and hit submit… a link will come up to let you request that a link to reset your password be sent to your account.

If your password isn’t working and your password reset isn’t working either… just email me at help@weddingbee.com, and I’ll do what I can do.

Please leave a comment on this post and let us know if commenting and/or signin is working for you!

Bee

ps During the upgrade, we had to temporarily disable the “Email” feature due to a compatibility issue.  We’ll get a new version of that software installed as soon as we can!

Update: The feed should be working now! ~~~

We’ve received several emails that Google Reader hasn’t been picking up new Weddingbee updates today.  I think it’s probably something to do with Google Reader, because my Bloglines seems to be working fine.  Hopefully the situation resolves itself shortly — we’ll keep you updated!

We’re also going to be upgrading our Wordpress platform tonight at 11pm EST.  It should take about an hour, and you may experience some site downtime.  But that means we’ll be able to bring you a better Weddingbee, with more new features! 

Happy Wednesday!

I was but a young newbee when Mr. Bee and I got married, and I didn’t really know much about weddings at the time.  But now I’ve learned so much just by running Weddingbee!  The industry has also transformed since we got married almost four years ago, so I’m always talking about how I want to renew our vows.  That’s how I started thinking about this ”My Dream Vendors” post. 

Deciding which vendors I’d want to use is very difficult, because I have so many favorites!  And to be fair, I excluded any vendors we used for our first wedding.  This is what I’ve come up with so far!

1. Stationery - I love Mr. Boddington’s Studio, Wiley Valentine, Grapevine Weddings, and Kenzie Kate.  I think the venue we choose (somewhere outdoor, rustic, and casual) will probably dictate who we work with.

(Wiley Valentine)
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Our recent trip to the Philippines was 10 days long - half that time was spent traveling to and from El Nido.  And other than one scuba diving excursion, the only thing we did was hang out, eat, and read - just what the doctor ordered!

We didn’t buy any beach reads ahead of time, and just picked up a bunch of books at the airport before boarding the plane.  I thought I’d share some of them with you in case you’re looking for some good honeymoon beach reads!

Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

This collection of anecdotes by comedienne Chelsea Handler is hilarious!  I’ve even started watching her talk show on E! as a result of reading this book.  Chelsea is a brutally honest, smart writer - if you like dark humor, you’ll definitely enjoy this book!

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