Weddingbee Blog

After a glorious day at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we spent the remaining three days soaking up all the Disney we could handle. There are whole books dedicated to visiting Disney, so this certainly will not be an all inclusive guide, just our experiences as honeymooners.

Lodging

There are plenty of options for lodging in and around Disney and Orlando, but Mr. P and I decided to stay on Disney property. Hotels at Disney range from crazy expensive to economical (aka slightly less than crazy expensive). We decided to stay at Port Orleans French Quarter, which is considered an intermediate hotel, because we wanted to splurge on our honeymoon, but still be able to pay our rent.

Read more…

The day after our wedding, we jetted off to our honeymoon. In case you need a refresher of where the Ponies honeymooned, here’s a clue:

Walt Disney World!

Sadly, we did not buy the bride and groom ears. We just couldn’t justify the cost.

The first day of our honeymoon is a complete blur to me. I did not sleep at all on our wedding night, and not for the good reasons. I simply could not shut off my brain. Due to time constraints, our honeymoon started the morning after our wedding and I was completely unprepared. I just couldn’t stop worrying about all the things I needed to get/pack/take care of before we left that I couldn’t sleep. I do not recommended this. Follow Mrs. Candy Apple’s advice and prepare ahead of time. Or, better yet, delegate the task of packing for your honeymoon to someone else you trust and has less to do, like your new spouse.
Read more…

It still feels surreal to say it, but the Ponies are married!

We are still waiting on our pro pictures, but our wonderful photographer posted this teaser on her Facebook page, making me all the more anxious to see the beautiful images she captured from our day!

Photo by Jamie Grant

Read more…

Well Hive, this is it. The day Mr. Pony and I have spent the last 18 months planning is finally here. I’ve felt many different emotions over the last week dealing with stress, excitement, and pure happiness. But now that the day is finally here, I’m simply content, knowing that where I’m supposed to be now and forever is with Mr. Pony:

Photo by Jamie Grant

Read more…

We decided to have our engagement pictures taken last September in order to take advantage of one of the few months of nicer weather in Illinois and to get a major wedding task out of the way early. We wanted our photos to be relaxed and fun, but I was a super nervous since I had never had professional photos taken of me before (not even senior portraits). Luckily, we felt at ease with Jamie from the beginning and she was able to get some awesome shots of us, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Some of our favorites from the day all taken by the magnificent Jamie Grant:

Our very first photo—looking both nervous and sassy

Read more…

When it comes to wedding photography, we Ponies are vain. We want don’t want to look good in our wedding photos, we want to look awesome. Knowing this, we set out very early in our planning process to find the perfect photographer that could make us Ponies look great.

Stylistically, Mr. Pony and I wanted someone that could capture all of the ’must have moments’ in the wedding (e.g. first kiss, walking down the aisle, etc.) as well as the candid moments that we can’t articulate on a shot list.

We also preferred a photographer that focuses on natural looking elements and colors as opposed to vintage-y or heavily Photoshopped coloring and styling. I love the that style, but I want to look back on our pictures and be able to feel the day as we experienced it through our photos, and heavily Photoshopped photos makes me feel like I’m dreaming or something.

Even though we contacted over ten photographers in our area, Mr. Pony and I narrowed down our choices and met with just our top two choices. And they did not disappoint. I was seriously afraid that we would not be able to decide on one photographer because both were incredibly talented with wonderful personalities. But we had to choose one.
Read more…

I should have known our response cards were cursed from the start. I loved the final product when they were sent out in our invitations, but these are little cards have been the bane of my existence from the beginning.

The response cards were originally supposed to look like this:
Read more…

After an amazing bridal shower, we continued the fun by jumping right into my bachelorette party. Besides hanging out with my besties, there was only one thing I wanted to do for my bachelorette:

LASER TAG! Image from Barney Stinson dot net

I love laser tag and I have very competitive friends, so I knew this was going to be a fun activity for our group.

Apparently the vest/gun combo that Barney and Robin are sporting create an environment for spreading HPV (according to the laser tag people), so we used modified paintball guns as modeled by BM What’s Her Face:
Read more…

Bees, it is time to show you our invites. Every single piece of our invitation suite was designed, printed (except the main invite, which I’ll explain), and assembled by yours truly. Most of the time I hated this process, but looking back, I can truly say they were a labor of love. So, excuse me while I share entirely too many pictures of our invites.

First up, the front of the envelope:

I was so excited when I found out that we could use the Love stamps! Not only because they are only 44 cents, but because I love the designs, especially this one:
Read more…

A few weeks ago, the lovely ladies of my bridal party hosted a shower in my honor. I gave my girls very little guidance on what I was expecting from my shower, and they far exceeded anything I could have imagined. My shower included brunch (uh, yum), generously given gifts, and some of my favorite people:

My shower Hostesses/Bridesmaids!

Read more…

Hive, I have to be honest; I finished our invitations and sent them out into the world weeks ago, but it wasn’t until recently that I stopped hating the process of making them so much that I could actually sit down and write about them. Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on our invitation process, I’m super excited to share the results with you.

But first, we’ll start with inspiration (who doesn’t love looking at gorgeous stationary?). I knew from the beginning I wanted to design and make our invitations myself. I blame this entirely on the other (and way more talented) bees before me. Since I have zero design experience, I focused on classic, simple designs that I could hopefully recreate with a little luck, tutorials, and rudimentary Illustrator skills.

Invites by Bella Figura

Read more…

I love the heels I bought for our wedding, but I am under no illusion that I will be able to wear those suckers all night. I plan to dance, dance, dance at our reception and in order to do so, I will need to have something comfortable to slip into. I assumed that I would steal a pair early from our flip flop basket for my personal use and be done with it:

Our flip flop basket! (that I haven’t talked about before, so here are some more pictures)

Read more…

At some point in our wedding planning, I completely fell for the look of mismatched vintage plates:

Photo by Wendy Lew Photography

Read more…

…Mr. Pony will buy me another diamond ring? Not how that goes? Darn.

A couple of weeks ago, I pulled out all the stuff we’ll need to complete a mock up of the tables for our reception. I’ve had this vision in my mind for well over a year, but never actually put everything together myself so I was nervous it would look terrible and I would need to come up with a new plan less than two months before the wedding.

I found a white tablecloth we had lying around, our mirrors, green vases, milk glass, candles, succulents, a cheap bunch of red flowers from the supermarket, napkins, and some glassware to complete the look. The only thing I forgot was our table letters, but I was done taking pictures by the time I remembered them and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of finding them and retaking pictures.

With all of that gathered, this is what I came up with:
Read more…

After collecting a bunch of green vases and milk glass pieces I was really content with myself, but I knew I didn’t have a clear plan. I needed a way to pull everything together and add some dimension to our tables. I wanted to include a mirror not only to hold our components, but to reflect the romantic glow of the candles on our tables. I figured I could go to a craft store, pick up some of craft mirrors and be done.

Buy.com

But, this 8″ x 10″ mirror was the largest I could find (I needed something larger for a vase, two pieces of milk glass and candles) and the beveled edges were doing nothing for me.

Out of this dilemma, I took a fugly dresser mirror that I have had for a long time but rarely use due to its looks and decided to spruce it up with some pretty silver spray paint that is more in line with our colors.
Read more…