Weddingbee Blog

Choosing a first dance song has been surprisingly difficult for us. Both the Sealman and I—n terms of music—are very well-rounded. Though our favorite genres vary slightly, we both agree on what “good” music is and appreciate the other’s refined musical palette.

Apart from some fun hip-hop songs we bonded over in the beginning of our relationship, the two of us don’t share “a song” In other words, there’s not one particular tune that makes us feel mushy about our relationship—more so a few songs that I goofily do my trademark dance moves to that makes Mr. S fervently laugh.

For a visual, Mr. Seal says my sweet moves (and ridiculous facial expressions) can most closely be compared to the girl from the Sun Drop commercial.

Video via YouTube

Anyhow, seeing as how I had absolutely no intentions of droppin’ it like it’s hot for our first dance (that’s for the 5th dance…duh), we were left at square one.

Many options were unearthed (I’ll spare you those), but only one song stuck. The tune was one of Mr. Seal’s genius suggestions and is a song I have always loved and grew up singing.

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Our ceremony is nearly planned and I can’t wait to share the details with you all! For now though, while we put on the finishing touches and get everything approved, I am going to get things started by sharing our ceremony music.

Through the church in which we will be wed, we were put in contact with Mrs. L, the lovely music coordinator/organist. She’s is a kind older woman who, upon calling her with only a vague idea of music selections, kindly proceeded to sing the options for me. Seriously. It was with her perfectly pitched “la da daaaas” and “da di duuuums” that I chose most of our music.

Prelude: She assured me that she would play several appropriate selections during the seating of the guests. As I had no interest in hand-selecting 30-45 minutes worth of music, I was perfectly content in completely relinquishing the control.
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Ugh, I’m fighting one of the nastiest colds in the history of nasty colds, but if one good thing has come of this beast…it’s been my productivity. I know sickness and productivity don’t normally go hand-in-hand, but I am one busy bee and this has forced me to stay home and take it easy. (”Takin’ it easy” for me = working on my DIY projects in my PJs all day.)

As perhaps you recall, Mr. Seal is a huge Yankees fan; as such, he’s often seen sporting a Yankee hat from his (not so varied) collection:

Yes. Several of them are identical.

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A while ago, I shared with you the adorable bridal shower invites that were carefully hand-crafted by MOH Brandi. Well, the amazing shower has since come and gone (in the blink of an eye), and is ready for recappin’! The event was hosted by Mama Seal and Brandi and I couldn’t be more grateful for their generosity and effort.

Anyhow, I’ll let the photos do most of the talking!

I was fortunate that my out-of-town bridesmaid Carina, despite being sick, was able to make it to the shower. I started the day by picking her up from the airport. After some breakfast and some gettin’ ready, we were all set to go!

I arrived to find lots of my family and friends hanging in the main hall of my aunt’s community center (the location of the shower)-they were all laughing and enjoying some yummy food.
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…and I’m not talking about adult-only receptions.

Getting married digs up a lot of questions. You know what I am talking about—when’s the big day? How many guests? When are you having kids? What are your colors?

Yeah. They always sneak that kids one in there, don’t they? Sneaky sneaky.

Though I personally don’t mind the question at all, I do think it’s a bit presumptive and the ensuing answer is often complicated. Assuming we do want children, deciding when we want them is a toughie to answer. I’ve often heard that there is no “right” time to start poppin’ out (or adopting) babies, but I do think there are better times than others.

Mr. Seal and I are (very thankfully) in agreement on the wanting kids front. We both want children. Although he’d be happy waiting a decade to start trying, I’m in a pinch more of a hurry (which I’ll explain in a moment).
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I’ll admit I’ve drafted a couple of (slightly inferior) versions of my “A Bee’s Life” post over the last couple months but with almost 5 months of Weddingbee bloggin’ behind me…I finally feel like now is right. Plus, Magic’s fabulous post yesterday totally inspired me. I love that lady.

So, my dearest and most wonderful hive, let’s do this.

How Did I Find Weddingbee?

I came across Weddingbee pretty early into our engagement while researching save-the-dates. I can’t be sure of my exact Google search terms…but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something along the lines of “awesome save the dates” Yeah. I am that person who uses arbitrary adjectives in my interweb searches.

Anyhoo. Whatever the silly search terms were, my interest was piqued by Mrs. Pomegranate’s awesome save the dates. I didn’t quite understand why she called herself Pomegranate though…or why anyone else referred to themselves by goofy names but I bookmarked the page nonetheless.

I kind of forgot about Weddingbee for a couple of months but Google eventually led me back to one of Mrs. Scissors’ posts. This time, I was determined to figure the site out. After a couple hours of research, I discerned that the monikers were alter-egos and that you had to fight tough odds to earn a name and be accepted as a bee. Fight odds? Write? I was in!
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Alternatively titled, “Things I Stole From Other Bees”

Things have been busy over here at studio Seal, hive. We’ve reached double digits and kicked into DIY high gear! I mentioned a couple posts ago that I am navigating my way through wedding planning/blogging time management in favor of spending more time with my groom-to-be, and I feel like I’m doing a pretty dandy job so far.

Anyhow, onto the good stuffs.

First up is our lace-wrapped votive candles. I borrowed this project from the ever-so-lovely Miss Macarons and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Not only was it easy as pie and quick to boot, it was affordable too! I followed Miss Macs tutorial to the “T” and purchased my candles from QuickCandles and my lace trim off of eBay. Between the candles and the lace, I spent about $100 for 144 candles (about five per table).

I think the hint of gold in the lace will tie together nicely with our table numbers.

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Well, now that you’ve seen my headpiece and veil and my shoes, I suppose I should share with you all the rest of my wedding day accessories, eh?

I know, I know…I’ve yet to even show you my gown, but I think that may be coming soon. Just maybe.

Anyhow.

As far as jewelry is concerned, in addition to my engagement ring and the yet-to-be-found wedding band, I plan on wearing a necklace and earrings. Whether I will be donning a bracelet is undecided—perhaps if Mr. Seal buys me one as a wedding present the decision will be made more easily. Juuuust kidding, kids—I’m not that overt with my gift hints!

The earrings I will be wearing were given to me by Mama Seal for Christmas last year. She knew I had been looking for pearl and diamond drop earrings for the wedding and she completely took it upon herself to find, purchase and gift the perfect pair.

I love them. They are from Macy’s but appear to be discontinued.

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I’ve got some excellent news, hive! After leaving the Nordstrom shoe department (heartbroken) without my Jimmy Choos a couple of weeks ago, there has been a favorable change of fortune.

As you may recall, the store didn’t have my size and the online Jimmy Choo site was also sold out of my desired size/color combo—this left me anxious, shoeless and desperately pining! I knew there was a Choo store within our local Bloomingdale’s so I called ahead and inquired about their availability—I was informed that they too did not have my shimmery babies in stock but that they could be ordered with no issue. Woohoo!

Then the news kept getting better. In my last shoe post, I mentioned that Mama Seal works for Macy’s. And as luck would have it, Macy’s owns Bloomingdale’s—that 20% discount I talked about works within the Bloomingdale’s Choo store too! Pretty shoes at a discounted rate? YES PLEASE! The only catch was that I had to exercise some patience as we waited for her new discount card to arrive.

And as soon as it did we headed to the store, ordered my shoes and then…
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I apologize off the bat, as this is one of those wordy posts with no pictures.

Mr. Seal and I have been engaged for over a year and half, and before he proposed, we were together for only a year. So, if you’ve done the math, you’d notice that more than half of our relationship has been spent engaged (and thus, wedding planning). That’s a whole lot of engagement and wedding talk, folks.

As I’ve previously discussed, it was much to my surprise that I embraced wedding planning so whole-heartedly. The appeal in getting married to the Sealman when he proposed was truly in marrying the love of my life and beginning our life together, not so much in arranging the big party and wearing the pretty ring (though I considered both to be perks). It is with much sadness and disappointment that I admit that I’ve really managed to lose sight of what’s important over the last couple of months.

Obviously things pick up the nearer the wedding approaches (more vendor meetings, bridal showers, DIY projects), but I don’t think there is any excuse for ever making my future husband feel emotionally “neglected.”

Yes, hive, those were his words.
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After Mr. Seal proposed, my aunt and I took a couple of floral design classes together and briefly entertained the idea of arranging all of the flowers for my wedding. Ha! As it turns out, though I am still deeply in love with flowers, my patience for floral arranging is nearly non-existent. So, to a local florist it was!

The Sealman attended a bridal fair with me sometime early last year (what a champ!) and as it so happened, we ended up meeting three of our vendors there. Amongst the three was our florist - I am a sucker for sparkle and was immediately drawn to the bouquets she had on display.

One was an amazingly full beauty with a supremely blingy bouquet holder, a bit similar to this one.

Image via A Love’s In Bloom

Anyhow, I wasn’t the only one zeroed in on the beautiful display of bouquets, so I quickly introduced myself to the florist, grabbed a business card, threw it in my swag bag with the millions of others and navigated my way out of the crowd. Finding a florist was really low on my list of priorities at the time, so I kind of forgot about it and moved on.

Thankfully I tend to believe in “signs” and was later nudged back in her direction.

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I know I’ve taken a firm stance of not showing you my wedding gown, but I think I’m beginning to crack. Maybe! Anyhow, I do want to share with you some lovely pieces I’ve picked out for my noggin in the time being.

First up: the veil!

Shortly after we made the decision to get married in our big, beautiful church, I knew I wanted a big, beautiful veil to match. My dress doesn’t have a train (spoiler!), and the thought of having a long, cathedral-length veil was very appealing. I love the extra bit of drama and regalia the feet upon feet of tulle adds.

I was still torn as to whether I wanted to cover my face with the veil and therefore unsure if I wanted a single-tiered veil or double. I didn’t want too much volume and sometimes a second tier adds lots of it.

Image via The Russian Standard

I’m not saying this look couldn’t work for some people—I just knew it wouldn’t work for me!

After some careful consideration I decided I did indeed want to cover my face (the mystique!) and had to find a two-tiered cathedral length veil sans volume overload. Then, kids, I got smart and started browsing through Etsy and found the perfect veil for me. (Etsy has yet to let me down, I swear.)

I swooped this bad boy up real quick:
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come to you today with both good news and bad. I typically like to lead with bad news to leave off on a happy note, but that just won’t jive well with my story.

So, here goes.

After my unenthusiastic start to shoe shopping and my online shopping fail a couple of weeks ago, I finally decided it was time to physically head to the stores to touch, smell and taste (ok, maybe not so much smell, and definitely not taste) some footwear.

So Mama Seal and I decided to hit the stores this past Sunday in search of my wedding shoes. We probably could have planned this trip better - stores tend to close early on Sundays and we didn’t exactly compensate for that, but off we went nonetheless.
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I have no idea what my deal is, but I am weirdly obsessed with out-of-town/welcome bags. Sometimes as I lay in bed, I fantasize about the day in which I walk into the local warehouse store and buy all of the yummy snacks to fill said bags. Strange? Most likely.

Anyhow, whatever it is, there’s something truly exciting in knowing that my guests will be welcomed by a bag of goodies at their hotel room. I know I hate getting into a hotel room, thirsty and hungry from traveling, only to be met by $10 bottles of water and candy bars. It’ll be a nice treat for them and another way for us to express our supreme gratitude!

Plenty of lovely bees have put their own twist on the welcome bags/boxes and I intend to follow suit! About a year ago (yes, a year ago), in keeping with the skyline theme from our Save-the-Dates, I purchased customized welcome bags from Favors You Keep. With my new found DIY confidence, I know that I could have perhaps attempted these myself for a fraction of the cost-but, honestly, I’m glad I let someone else take on the task, because I love what I ended up with!

Close-up of the bag detail

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Prior to planning my own nuptials, I had never attended a wedding expecting an open bar. I kind of always hope there will be beer, wine and perhaps spirits for purchase, but in the rare occasion that a full on open bar is provided-I am legitimately surprised and grateful.

The Seals at my cousin’s wedding reception (Not only was it open bar-it was at a bar!)

When it came time to decide upon the type of bar that we would be providing at our own wedding, I’ll admit I was a little naive. I figured, because I never expected free alcohol, that our guests would come to our reception with a pocket full of cash ready to purchase their own drinks-and was thus set on a cash bar.
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