Weddingbee Blog

It is so easy to get wrapped up in wedding craziness. All these books, blogs, and TLC shows convince you that you need things (that you don’t really need), and to be something (that might not actually be you at all).

I’ll admit it, I’ve been sucked up in this a few times. You can’t help it really; I read all these posts here on Weddingbee about two shoed brides and fancy shoed brides and all kinds of shoes! The bees who are writing the posts are always so excited, and those feelings come through the posts. And, well? I wanted that feeling. I wanted to be a bride who had shoe excitement. I really did.

So what did I do? I spent (or possibly wasted) hours of lunch breaks looking at shoes online, from sites like Zappos and Endless.

Such. Pretty. Shoes!! Calvin Klein via Zappos

The thing is, folks, I spent hours look at fancy heels—supposed wedding shoes—and I just got angry.

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There are very few people in my life that can rival Mr. Giraffe for the amount of love I have for him. One of these people is Best Man Washington.

See, although Washington is easily Mr. G’s BFF (although he refrains from using the term “BFF”), I would like to point out that I knew him first. I met Mr. G a week after I moved down to ISU, but that whole first week I bonded with Washington who lived on my floor.

A very young Washington, back in ’05

Washington attended ISU with us Giraffes (although he graduated a couple of years before us), and has since moved away from good ol’ Illinois. Washington will be flying in all the way from, unsurprisingly, the state of Washington for our big day.
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Hey Hive, I know I haven’t been around much, but I’m in crazy wedding crunch time mode, and I don’t know how this wedding sneaked up on me! Seriously, though, I might turn into a crazy person in the next 17 days. Let’s see what happens.

One of my favorite things in the entire world is cake. In a perfect world, I would replace every meal I ate with chocolate cake and VitaminWater. It’d be pure bliss, I tell you.

Because of my love affair with cake, I had no doubt in my mind that we’d need an amazing (and tasty!) cake for our wedding.

My previous cake experience had been pretty limited to birthday cakes, but man oh man, wedding cakes can blow your mind. The things bakers can do? Unbelievable!

Prettiest cake ever by Maisie Fantaisie via InspirationWed

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So, I’ve told you all about Martha’s Flag Conversation Starter and how I had to have it. Well, team, here is how this Giraffe makes her dream come true.

The whole point of this poster is that guests will write their name on a flag and stick it into the year when the met you.

What you need:

• Foam core, based on size of your poster. I bought my foam board from Hobby Lobby, because it was 50% off, and they sell it in sizes much bigger than Michaels (Michaels only did as big as 30″ and I needed 32″. Michaels’ board is also more expensive.)
• Years poster - more on this below.
• Straight pins - I bought mine from Jo-Ann
• Styrofoam rectangle  (Jo-Ann)
• Half yard of fabric  (Jo-Ann)
• Card stock (already owned)
• Spray adhesive (Already own about 18 cans of it. For this project I used the Tacky brand, just because it was closest to me at the time.)

First, you need your year poster. Martha has one to download from her website. It’s the same one the photo below.

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Okay, by “we”, I mean “me”…but anyways! Do you guys remember when I told you that I had to have cake flags? Despite the fact I knew they’re totally unnecessary, I made them anyway?

Yup, this is another one of those kinds of projects, except it’s so much more!

See, let’s go back in time about two years. That’s right folks, two whole years. Despite the fact that everyone and their mothers (okay, well, my mother) told me not to waste time on a project like this when I had other more important things to do with my time (like uhhh get a marriage license), I did it anyway.

See, two years ago, I saw this unique little idea on the Martha Stewart Weddings website, and then I book marked it, committed it to memory, and promised myself that this would indeed be the ice breaker to end all ice breakers and people would worship Miss Giraffe for being so cool and creative, but only if they don’t know Martha and check her website first. Soooo right, after all those promises of people worshipping me, I had to make it happen.
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Here’s the thing, hive: I have so much to tell you. I mean seriously. I’m such a bad blogger. I’ve been here since October and have yet to tell you about our wedding bands, our wedding venue, our officiant, the food (ohhh man, the food!!), our musicians, the cake, the 40 dozen pastries we’re serving, our invitations, the millions of signage that matches our invites, the plus one conundrum (which isn’t what you’d think), my dress (which I’ve purposely kept under wraps), Daddy Giraffe trying to buy flip flops, my shoes, the shower, my other shoes, the honeymoon, my list of bridal FAILs, and so so so much more. I’ve been too busy talking about my nails… oh, and speaking of which, I have more things to say about my nails. Look out for that.

Out. Of. Control.

Photo from Amazon/Direct Link to Book

But am I blogging about any of that stuff today? Nope. Now, I’m sure that you’re dying to hear about our wedding venue (which is quite important), but guess what? Welllll, it’s time for the…
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So many bees have blogged about loss in the past, and I think it’s so important. A wedding is a happy occasion, but sometimes it seems impossible to be happy about everything involved. That fact of the matter is, most people have experienced loss at some point, and coping with the feelings of that loss and your wedding day is not easy. I think it’s good to be honest about something like this because, no surprise here, so many of us are going through the same thing.

My grandma on my mom’s side was like no one else, you guys. I challenge you to find another 70 year old woman that gets blonde highlights in her gray hair, wears gold pumps, and shops at Charlotte Russe and Wet Seal. My grandma was awesome. Sure, I went to college for graphic design, but she learned Photoshop way before I ever did, and even taught me how to burn my first CD when I was ten. It’s a good memory, I promise. We were super close, and as Mr .G says, “I swear, you and your grandma were literally the same person.” She had a great sense of humor, for sure.

When she got sick, it was a surprise.
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Don’t worry folks, this is the last post about our photo display (until recaps, of course). I know that you’ve all been waiting patiently, so it’s about time I shared our wonderful results.

Firstly, big big props to friend Brooke, who was nice enough to let me share the crush I had on her wedding and the inspiration it gave me.

I told you guys about the first step of our photo display where we bought new frames and spray painted them. I told you it was easy, but let me tell you that step two is ever harder. Step two would be choosing the photos!

Mr. G and I ended up with more photo frames than we had planned for. I wanted 5-7 frames, but thanks to Mama Giraffe heading to her TJ Maxx, we ended up with 10 (which is awesome). Since we had so many frames, we decided we could use all kinds of photos from the whole time we were dating. I mean, how fun would it be to share photos of baby Giraffes?

Oh man, I’m definitely just 18 here. I can’t believe how time flies!

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As we get closer to the big day, I’ve been thinking more and more about my wedding day look. You guys know I’m already thinking about hair (Still working on it!), and now I started thinking about my nails.

Our wedding is on a Saturday, but seeing as I have the Friday before off of work, I think I’ll get my nails done then. Bridesmaid Marie has the day off too, so she’ll be joining me. Yay!

It seems like such a silly thing to think about, but I just keep thinking of those gorgeous pro-pics with close ups on the bride’s hands/rings/nails/bouquet. See, look—a lovely photo of a first dance, with nails in full view! See, that’s reason enough to fancy up your fingers.

Photo by our rock star photogs Miller + Miller via their blog

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By now, you’ve heard about my wedding crush, and my crush inspiration. My inspiration (from friend Brooke who is so awesome for sharing - thanks, girl!) is something like this:

Photo shared by friend Brooke / Photos by Colin Lyons/E-EpicsEpics in Frames by Colin Lyons *

Now that I had the inspiration, and the OK from our venue that there would be space, Mr. Giraffe and I set our to find the perfect frames.

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Remember when I introduced you to my wedding crush sometime last week? Well, I’ll get you up to speed quickly. Friend Brooke got married and had one of the prettiest, hippest weddings of all time and I’m totally crushing over it.

Her wedding looked something like this:

Photo shared by friend Brooke / Photos by Colin Lyons

Riggghhhhhttttt? Lovely! Although, there’s one thins I haven’t shown you from Brooke’s wedding (on purpose, of course). See, Brooke and Jim had amazing engagement pictures, and they found the best way to display them at their reception.
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Big news going on here, Hive. See, remember when I told you about my secret, which was actually Mr. Giraffe’s secret?

Well, if you don’t, I’ll remind you. Three years ago, Mr. G got a giant Miss G tattoo on his back.

Giraffe Personal Photo

I know, hardcore, yo! So, after working up my courage for the last three years, I finally did the same for Mr. Giraffe. I was terrified, and sweaty, and made the artist stop twice because of said freaking out (otherwise, it should have only taken 7 minutes), but I did it!
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You know how every once in a while you see photos of a wedding and it just takes your breath away? You know, your heart skips a beat, and then you feel instantly smitten? While you’re drooling over to-die-for photos, you finally realize that you’re knee-deep in your first (…or second or third) wedding crush.

Typically, I find myself wedding crushing over super prettified weddings on super swank wedding sites, that never feel like they’re created by real people.

Well, not this time! I have been drooling over this wedding for a long time, and it’s 100% legit. It’s hard to believe a regular person could pull off something like this, but I promise you it’s true! I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but time and time again, I go back to look at the photos from this wedding because they’re just so amazing.

I went to college with Brooke and Jim. We had our graphic design classes together, and Brooke is such a creative person that I had secretly been stalking her Facebook dying to see her wedding photos. It all started after she posted the most amazing e-pics I’d ever seen.

Brooke’s wedding inspired some projects for us, but you’ll have to wait for those posts in the future.

With her permission, I’m sharing some of her photos here. All of her photos are by photographer Colin Lyons, of which Brooke only had amazing things to say about. For more of Brooke, visit her Etsy site - I swear, she’s a rock star!

Everything was done with such bright colors! The pinks and oranges make me smile!

Photo shared by friend Brooke / Photos by Colin Lyons

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This past weekend, Mr. Giraffe and I sat down with Jen, the catering manager (whom I’ve been emailing with forever!) of our reception venue.

Today, I want to introduce you to our lovely reception venue. I haven’t really blogged about our awesome venue at all, simply because you have to book it a year and a half out, and when I started blogging in October, the decision had already been made months before. We had booked it and hadn’t had to get back to it for a while, so I really didn’t have anything to say about it.

To get you guys caught up, we’re receptioning at a magical place called Idlewild Country Club. Idlewild is about 20 minutes from our ceremony venue, but in the suburbs everything is 20 minutes apart so it works out perfectly.

The first time I visited Idlewild was at about 4:00 on New Year’s Eve back in 2008 (holy cow). Mama Giraffe warned me not to fall in love with it simply because it was all decorated for the holiday, but I did just that. It is such a pretty venue. I have a bunch of pictures I took of the venue all empty, but who wants those?!
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Also known as the guest book.

You see, we’re having a guest book, as most weddings often do, but I’ll tell you right now that its not as easy as you would think. To save time (and possibly my sanity), we’ve decided to buy a guest book rather than DIY one.

I was obsessed with the idea of a photo guest book for a while, but my narcissistic self has already put our photo on all kinds of wedding things, so we’re going a little more traditional with this one.

Funny thing, being traditional about this is the one reason I didn’t want do. You know why? Wellllll, a “traditional” guestbook really isn’t my style. In fact, what comes to mind is something like this:

Online shopping at HotRef.com / Direct link

It’s pretty, but it’s not me and Mr. G at all.

Obviously, something not my style would turn me off a little to the guestbook, but the amazing world of Etsy  is once again turning everything around for me.
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