Weddingbee Blog

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Bossyboots is Catholic. His siblings are Catholic. His parents are Catholic. His grandparents were Catholic. Repeat and continue. I am a Baptist from Texas and thought Catholicism was a dying religion until I moved to Chicago, Land of a Million Catholics. I’m serious.

Nowadays, I consider myself spiritual rather than associated with any organized religion. I love God, but not necessarily in a building. Please do not send me any conversion emails—I am well-versed (ha!).

For Bossyboots, it’s important that some semblance of Catholicism be present in our ceremony. What this means, we aren’t exactly sure yet. We know we’d like his father to say a prayer, and I want my father to say the blessing that he’s spoken over me and all my siblings since we were tiny. Those two elements are of utmost importance. Mucho importante!

My man and I have split up our wedding to-do list… he is taking the lead on figuring out our Catholic options. If we go the churchy route, most likely a full mass is out.
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Or, “How to Go on a Trip and Come Back Engaged.”

Bossyboots and I had been discussing marriage since about the second week of dating. If we would have had our acts together the first time, we’d be married with six kids right now.

Or two. Two kids sounds much better to my uterus. And my tolerable auditory threshold.

Anyway. We started talking about marriage for serious when we hit twelve months of dating. I was definitely ready to actually “put a ring on it” before he was. I’ve done the long-term dating-that-turns-into-disaster thing already. For me, dating for beaucoup years before commitment was not acceptable. I knew who I wanted to smooch until the end of time, and that smoochee was Bossyboots.

And so ensued six months of talking and talking and more talking. With a little ring shopping thrown in here and there.

Finally, we were at Christmas 2010.
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…he was really scared.

Just kidding. He was only mostly scared—not all the way scared. There’s a distinct difference between mostly and all-the-way, right college freshmen?

I met Bossyboots a very, verrrrrry long time ago, back when we were chumps at a local (yet national!) theater here in Chicago. I was the fresh out of college Stage Management intern; he was the seasoned lighting tech. He showed me around the theater, swooped me off my feet, and we lived happily ever after.

OK that’s a lie, too.
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…Because Snapdragon and Bossyboots have a wedding date!

We had just a few hoops to jump through, namely, choosing a state in which to declare our undying love. “Undying,” people, that’s how serious our love is.

I’m nothing if not both acerbic and dramatic. It gets annoying—ask Bossyboots.

We had two realistic choices when it came to wedding locations: option A) Chicago or option B) Dallas/Fort Worth. Deep dish pizza or 8-hour brisket? Bell’s or Shiner? Sauerkraut or habaneros? Bears or Cowboys?* 773 or 214? It’s a tough decision, believe you me, and we went through the wringer.

Bossyboots grew up in Chicago, and though I’m a Texan transplant, I’ve lived “up north” for the last fourteen years. (That’s fourteen. Motherloving. Winters. Thank you, Winter in Chicago.) Most of Bossyboots’ family and friends live here, and most of my closest friend are Chicagoans. However, my family all lives down in Texas. My really, really big family. And since most of them are disabled… getting my family on a plane is not happening. You hear that? Unequivocally not happening. One of my sisters is the bionic woman, with a steel backbone. Etc. etc. It’s not happening—not by train, not by plane, nor by automobile.
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The angry days. Anyone who’s ever been in a romantic relationship of over a year knows what I mean—the days when you and your partner kind of want to send each other on a special vacation. By themselves:

Fighting used to feel like a bad sign to me. Like an omen that my relationship was doomed. Bossyboots and I rarely fight, but it does happen (because we’re normal!).

Last year, I read the novel Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. There were about 8,000 things in that book that were amazing, but one scene really hit home to me.
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Hi, bees! The last time you heard from me, I wrote about starting over after calling it all off. I wrote about how the best days of your life are ahead of you when you walk away from a dysfunctional relationship that’s no longer working for you. In that post, I also wrote about how I was SO excited to go on my first date with a new guy that I found super smoochable. Well, guess what? After a summer of dates where we stayed out until the sun came up, I knew I’d found Mr. Right. Summer turned into fall, which turned into winter…and months more of falling deeply in love. He went from my date to my boyfriend to…
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Hi, Bees! When Pengalicious brought up the idea of a series talking about blogging a la Weddingbee, I was so excited. As several other bees have written… Weddingbee can be a life changer.

Let me start at the beginning.

Way back in October 2008, I had just started to plan my wedding and felt a bit overwhelmed. My family lives in Texas; I live in Chicago… Out of necessity, I was planning this shindig largely on my own and I didn’t know where to start. Several of my friends had recently wed, and unanimously, they all said “You HAVE to read Weddingbee, it’s the best.” One of my friends said it was the only wedding blog she read because the others were so negative and intimidating for an average, normal bride with an average budget.

Well, I took their advice, and I. Was. Addicted. As we all know, once you discover the ’bee, that browser refresh button gets a lot of use. All of the bloggers were so entertaining and had their own personalities. Some were great at DIY, some were so insightful, some were downright hilarious. I loved it! I was SO hooked, that I decided to see if I could become a bee myself…

I started a blog for - let’s face it - the sole purpose of becoming a Bee.
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I am a HUGE proponent of travel journals. I have been on a few significant trips in my life: Europe with my Dad and Tweets, Hawaii with an old boytoy, and most recently: my Sistamoon. On each, I kept a travel journal. At the end of every day, I took ten minutes to write down everything that happened that day. Vacations go by SO fast - it’s easy to forget all of the details… I am so happy to have those travel journals to look back on to remember all of the fun moments.

SO, of course this meant I had to prepare a travel journal for the Sistamoon. I promptly referred to my fave craft book… (This is seriously the best book ever!)

Trusty Esther had a travel journal tutorial… SCORE! Creating this journal was a lot of work, but I knew this was a special trip, so I wanted a special kind of journal - all the work was well worth it. Let’s get started!

You’ll need:
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Earlier this summer, because I called off my wedding, my honeymoon became my “Sistamoon”. My sister Snappy-L and I vacationed for two weeks on a Mediterranean cruise, and I can honestly say it was the best trip of my life. We had a great time of relaxing, sightseeing, learning, bonding, and eating… a whole lot! It was just the medicine I needed. I know some of you are planning cruise honeymoons, as well as varying trips to Europe/Asia. SO…

If you’re in Barcelona, make sure to visit the Mercat de Sant Josep for fresh fruit…
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Recently, as of about six months ago, I met my new technological love. This beauty is attractive, fashion-forward, fits in my party clutch, and is always there when I need her. Friends, meet your new best bud: The Flipcam.

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I can’t tell you how handy this lil’ number has been… I’ve broken her out for parties, nights out, everyday life - and perhaps MOST handily, at weddings and while on vacation. I absolutely love my Flipcam! My favorite part about her is that she fits in my purse. We would all love to have a camcorder at the ready for those most special moments in our lives, but… I have no inclination to drag a camcorder around a wedding! Too bulky.

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*All pictures mine, unless noted otherwise.

Yes, this is report from the field… specifically, Operation Mrs. Powder Puff: a date that shall live in infamy.

Mrs. Powder Puff, Mrs. Quiche and I all became bees right around the same time, back in late 2008. Sharing our freshman fears, we quickly became fast friends. We may or may not have consumed multiple alcoholic beverages in concert, ahem.

In any case, at our last dinner, Miss Powder Puff asked Mrs. Quiche and me if we’d like to come to her wedding. This is how the convo went:
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Hi, Hive - I’ve missed you ladies! (And gents! - Gents? Do boys read this blog?)

Long time no blog - mainly because I was busy crying in my oatmeal. (Kidding - mostly!)

I just got back from my Honeymoon turned Sistamoon, and I promise to share all of the deets with you soon: including cruise and travel tips, as well as a DIY travel journal to end all travel journals (The journal is either incredibly amazing, or incredibly obsessive-compulsive, depending on how you look at it.) Before we get to that though, I was moved to write this blog because I am still active on the Weddingbee message boards, and on a fairly regular-ish basis, I see a post by a bride who had to call off her wedding, due to a variety of horrible circumstances.

Weddingbee is about the experience of moving towards the altar, and for some brides, that journey gets cut short, which is what happened to me.
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