Weddingbee Blog

With the wedding days away, I’ve had two nights in a row of insomnia. The problem is that it’s not just the wedding on my mind: I’ve got this tricky career move decision I’m mulling over; Mr. Swan has all of a sudden gotten a flurry of interviews (YAY!!!); and work travel keeps flaring up again, even though it was supposed to stop over a month ago (I am technically scheduled to be away for a day—two days before the wedding, but it’s not clear. I am NOT happy).

This isn’t a new pattern for me, though. Whenever there are big life changes around the corner, or if I am in the midst of major change, my mind races and sleep goes out the window. What’s annoying is that this actually makes me extra emotional and more prone to freak out. At the very least I’m eating well and actually exercising, but sleep would be nice.

When wedding stress reaches its highest levels for you, does your body react? How do you deal with it? Are there any other bride insomniacs out there?

We’d relaxed at the spa, ate good food, and then we proceeded to partake in the ever popular dance portion of the bachelorette party. You all know I love to dance, so I didn’t mind this part of the evening at all except for the fact that we were all yawning by the end of dinner. I guess this is what happens when you reach the 30+ age range? We definitely joked about the fact that we were all little shells of our former partying selves to some extent. Therefore, the car ride over to Williamsburg, Brooklyn consisted of opening windows for some fresh air to keep us awake and calling each other out for yawning.

Of course, by the time we got to Bembe in Williamsburg and the music hit us, were were okay. Bembe primarily plays a mix of Latin music (I guess we had to keep the Latin theme running) so there was steady mix of salsa, samba and merengue with some dance classics thrown in for good measure. I have not been out dancing in a LOOONNNGG time, but somehow remembered how to dance.

A mojito on the dance floor

Read more…

After getting super relaxed at the spa, the ladies and I were ready to get our grub on. We walked a few blocks away to Luz, a Pan Latin restaurant. I’ve been to Luz before and really enjoyed the meal, so I was definitely excited to go back. We started off with some great appetizers consisting of amazing arepas (sweet corn and cheese cakes—more like fritters), a trio of ceviches (my favorite being the langosta passion: lobster, passion fruit, mango citrus sauce and aji amarillo). Between those and a great caipirinha (Brazilian rum, muddled limes and sugar), I was feeling pretty darn good.

We had a great time over dinner. The wonderful thing about my group of friends is that they got along and had lively, engaging conversation even though they didn’t all know each other well. It was so nice to catch up with them since a couple in the group actually don’t live in NYC. I was so grateful that they’d made the trip. One thing my bachelorette made me realize is that while I have a small group of friends, they are an amazing group of women. Our time together that night made me appreciate them even more for the interesting, sweet women they are. I guess the quality versus quantity saying is pretty true.

Here’s Ike and Mitts (not their real names and I wish they both lived in NYC)

Read more…

When I wrote about having a bachelorette party way back when, I didn’t think I would actually have one. I am not into particularly “bride-y” things, and the idea of penis pops, a tiara, and boa didn’t sound fun to me. I will admit though I love watching ladies out on bachelorette parties at night doing those things. I really just wanted to have a nice, low-key evening with my friends, especially since my girl time has been in pretty short supply lately.

After writing my post, I got a great suggestion from Weddingbee reader, Jenny. I’m gonna have to give a special shout out to her because she recommended that I check out Body by Brooklyn. It’s a new spa in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, not too far away from my apartment.

I loved the idea of their private room for my ladies to chill out. In addition to the private room you also have access to their wet lounge/sauna area with two types of saunas, a jacuzzi and a plunge pool. My primary motivation for going there was that I wanted us to have a private space (plus if I can make people come out to Brooklyn I will… hee hee)!! I think what sets it apart is the fact that they have a bar. You can even have brunch there! (Although it’s my understanding that Great Jones Spa in Greenwich Village has one too.) We didn’t really have the food except for the snacks they gave us, which were alright by me. It consisted of great cheese, grilled veggies, crackers, strawberries, petit fours and some sparkly wine… YUM!
Read more…

For a variety of reasons I’m just getting around to having my initial hair trials. My hairstylist and I call this the “rough draft”, in part because my hair is in a bit of a state. It’s about time for me to get my hair did, and so there is a lot of growth at the roots. I’ll explain this at some point, but just know that you really can’t get the full effect of my hair when it’s in its “frizzy/needs to be attended to” stage.

After lots of thought regarding logistics, I decided I wanted to not curl my hair, but to instead keep it straight and wear it up. As I mentioned before, my hair takes about two to three hours to just to do the basics. If I were to have it curled, it would definitely add an hour. Since we’re having a late morning wedding and hoping to do some pictures beforehand, I’m not waking up at 3 AM. Heck to nah, y’all! Plus we’ve for our welcome drinks that I mentioned before, so Friday night is out in terms of getting a hair appointment then. Right now the plan is to split things up by getting my hair washed and re-twisted the day before and then getting my hair pinned up in the morning bright and early.

So, shall we begin? After looking at some of my inspiration photos again I narrowed it down to couple that I thought would work best.

Here’s contestant #1

(source)

I love Sanaa Lathan (and so does Mr. Swan… ahem!). My stylist said that she could recreate styles with straightened hair, which she did. So here’s the rough draft:

Not a bad replica, I think. You can see the frizzies, huh? I liked it but was not sure. I then added the veil…

Before I show you, I should let you know that I have not become one with my veil. Yes, it’s a Kasia Fink original (thanks, Mrs. Sea Breeze) and while lovely, I’m definitely trying to make sure that I’m putting it on correctly in part because my hair doesn’t necessarily take to most hairpieces. There’s a reason why I don’t wear many things in my hair. I love my veil (thanks again), but in general I find things that can actually be inserted in my hair can be hard to find, and I had to be careful about choosing things with certain types of clips. I always emailed any hairpiece seller beforehand to ask what kind of clip was attached to the piece.

Anyway, here’s the first style with the veil.

That little fascinator looking thing on the top is actually a headpiece from Portobello. My stylist kinda just stuck it in there. I had not intended to wear the veil and the fascinator/headpiece together, but maybe I will. What do you think?

Here’s contestant #2:

Let me say that this is the style that has captured my attention since I first saw it.

(source)

I’m pleased with the result, and I am leaning towards this. Here’s the real life trial version:

Hopefully the right side will look a little better the second time around.

I didn’t do a very good job with the veil this time around. Here’s this style with the veil:

The fascinator/headpiece is in a funky place too. Hmm… I’ll need to work on that. I plan on becoming one with the veil if it kills me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the placement, and I think it’s going to require me to play around with it.

I went home and put on the headpiece on without the veil to see how that looked. I liked it. I was thinking about just wearing the headpiece during the reception. I think I’ll be veil-less for that part of the wedding.

I think that the clip on the headpiece works pretty well with my hair. It’s an alligator clip.

Anyway, that’s it. Like I said, it’s a good beginning. I will be going back for a full run through that will include actually washing and re-twisting my hair. I think some of you are probably wondering how that all works, so maybe I will show you how.

Did you have multiple hair trials? What was the hair trial process like for you?

I am sure that I mentioned before, but we’re not really sure if and when we’ll be taking a full-fledged honeymoon. Between lack of ample vacation time for me and no job yet for the Mr., we’re still hoping that we can find our way overseas for an adventure and some relaxation sometime soon in the future. Instead, we’ll be taking some time away after the wedding to Newport, Rhode Island.

Why Newport? Well, it’s got the makings for an easy and low-cost minimoon, since it’s Mr. Swan’s home state.

Here’s why:

1. A free place to stay in Mr. Swan’s family apartment house there (don’t worry, they don’t live there. They live in a separate town)
2. We can borrow one of the family cars
3. Newport is not that far of a drive from NYC, and we’ll be driving there with the FFIL and FMIL Swan the day after the wedding
4. It looks like this in the summertime:

(source)

Read more…

(source)

Steve Martin is not my dad, but he’s seems like such a sweetie in this movie.

I’ve never seen “Father of the Bride”, and I should not be admitting that as a wedding blogger, should I?

I don’t really know how to begin this post, as it is intensely personal for me. My relationship with my dad is not really a strong one. While my dad is a nice guy, we are not close. He has not played a major role in my life. He and Mommy Swan never got married, and Mommy Swan has been my parent, both mother and father.

I have always been pretty nonchalant about my dad and our relationship.
Read more…

The idea of incorporating cupcakes into our reception meal has evolved throughout our wedding planning process. At first, I decided that we’d have cupcakes from one of the local bakeries that specializes in red velvet cake here in Brooklyn. I LOOOOOVEE red celvet cake. I’m not even a huge sweets person, but I crave this particular bakery’s huge slices of red velvet on the regular.

Then I thought about the fact that not everybody likes red velvet. What to do? Luckily, one day I was taking a break from reading wedding blogs (I advise that once in awhile), and I read about Kumquat Cupcakery again. I say again because in my Brooklyn/foodie blog reading of the past, I had heard of the founder Keavy Landreth’s wonderful mini-cupcake creations.

She and/or her cupcakes can usually be found at the Brooklyn Flea, a really great weekend market not too far from my apartment. I decided to stalk the cupcakes one Saturday at my first time at the market, and I was NOT disappointed. I was blown away by her Red Velvet mini-cupcake. What’s great about Keavy’s cupcakes are that they are bite-size (or I guess two-bite size) and come in a wide array of flavors. Not only that, she also takes great care with presentation, so the cupcakes not only taste great but look great.

We had a chance to have a tasting with Keavy this past weekend to taste some of the other flavors that I’ve intially chosen for the wedding. Here they are:

Let’s start with the simple yet tasty vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. Sometimes things are best when they’re simple. And yes, the cupcakes are that small.

Read more…

Our RSVP deadline has come and gone. We are still waiting for people to get back to us about whether or not they’re coming to the wedding to the point where I have dubbed the past few days “Project RSVP”.

(source)

No paper RSVPs for us, but you get the point.

I’ve tried Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, and even sicced Mommy Swan on a few in an effort to a get straight answer. Some people have been apologetic and disappointed (at least their e-mails conveyed that). Others, not so much. Hmm….

It’s been interesting to see who RSVPs, who doesn’t, when and how. Most of the late RSVPs have come in the following categories. Some of which are surprising:
Read more…

I am not channeling the artist sorta known as Prince, but this one little punctuation mark—the hyphen—is playing a little bit of a role in my name change situation. There have been a variety of posts on name changing from bees both current and past, so I know that this is not a new topic here on Weddingbee land. There have been many creative takes on the name change debate—from keeping your name; to taking your fiance’s name; to making your maiden name your middle name. I like to do things my own way and often that results in some difficulty. You see, I’ve decided to hyphenate my last name.

Yeah, I know that this shouldn’t be such a big deal, but I have a bit of wrinkle in all of this name change business: My first name is already HYPHENATED!!! That’s right. Here’s what my name is now:

First Name-First Name Middle Name Last Name.

I can’t believe I want to hyphenate my LAST name! I just can’t get enough of super long names!

After researching this a bit, I’ve learned that while I can change my last name quite easily, my first name is another whole topic. I was able to choose a new surname on our marriage license application. I find it interesting that Mr. Swan was not given the option to change his on the form, but I digress…

To change my first name, I would be required to go through a judicial proceeding.
Read more…

Yes. that’s right… don’t do it! Just go to our welcome reception venue!

We’re having people meet up at City Hall restaurant in Tribeca the night before our wedding.

(source)

Read more…

A few days ago Mr. Swan and I made a major step towards the wedding and got our marriage license.

The process was pretty simple, actually. We made our way down to the NYC Marriage Bureau. While there are branches in each borough of New York City, we decided to go to the newly renovated and relatively high-tech one in lower Manhattan. The city has done a lot of work to make this an attractive place to not only get your license, but also to marry. In all, I think it was a pleasant experience in some pretty nice surroundings.

Here it is in all its glory.

After checking in at the information booth, we filled out an online form, which we could have done at home (but it wouldn’t have had the benefit of all of the atmosphere that only a government office can provide). On the form, I was able to also select a new last name.
Read more…

I have not talked about my engagement ring, so here it is.

It’s not that I don’t like my engagement ring. I LOVE IT. Yet I often feel particularly uncomfortable about discussing it with people or for lack of a better phrase, “showing it off”. I guess I’ll reveal to you all my insecurity about the fact that my ring is a bit bigger than I expected (Ugh! It pained me to write that!!!). While I love it as the most lovely and generous gift that Mr. Swan has ever given me, I find that often some other people view my ring (or really engagement rings in general) in a different way.

The moment I got engaged to Mr. Swan I was this big ball of emotion and tears.
Read more…

A Real Conversation in the Swan Household:

Miss Swan: [Choose your own random wedding detail and insert here]. Can you help with that? Thanks, boo.

Mr. Swan: I’m excited about getting married, but the planning is a lot. There’s so much to think about. [Isn’t he cute? He doesn’t know the half of it.]

Miss Swan: I know, and we’ve been doing this for about 10 months now. We’re almost there. ACK!! I haven’t done anything all weekend. Maybe I should do something today. Ughh….

I spent a whole lot of procrastinating this past weekend and definitely not enough on the wedding. I don’t want to be left out there scrambling the week before, BUT I think I am getting tired… of planning. In some ways I feel like I can’t think anymore about the details. I’m not necessarily the world’s most original person when it comes to wedding decor and details, so I feel pretty tapped out (escort cards, anyone? I will figure that out somehow). The funny thing is that I am not doing a ton of projects or things myself, and I’m still staring at a pretty long to-do list.

Given that we are now in the home stretch of planning, we should be amped right now.
Read more…

Yes, everyone! It’s time to talk food. While I have not talked about food very much in my blogging, I am somewhat of a foodie. I keep a running list of restaurants for me and Mr. Swan to try and read about food and chefs for fun. I’ve also been known to spend too much time looking for the right spice for a new recipe. Needless to say, I was pretty excited for our tasting at Battery Gardens.

We had a perfect early evening in June right on the water in Battery Park.

Read more…