Weddingbee

Hello, hive! I’m sorry for the radio silence the past week, and I hope you don’t think that I’ve forgotten about you. The grad school schedule and general life stuff has caught up with me, and subsequently my wedding planning has been put on the backburner for now. In revisiting my priorities, I’ve had to make some tough decisions about where my personal time (which I have so little of these days!) would best be spent.

I guess that’s all a long-winded way of saying that this is my last post as a Weddingbee blogger, and that it has been an honor writing for you as Miss Sweet Tea.

As all breakups go, would it be any less painful if I said “it’s not you, it’s me”? Because it’s true! The hive has been such a great source of support, inspiration, and community for me, even before I was chosen as a bee.
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Shortly before Mr. Sweet Tea and I were officially engaged, we floated around the idea of having our wedding right here in sunny San Diego. While that clearly didn’t last, I remember being the most excited about the possibility of having some of the amazing Southern California-based photographers capture our special day. You may already know the work of Apertura and Leigh Miller from the other lovely bees that have used them, so I thought I’d share the work of some others I am in awe of, that you may not yet have heard about.

Theorie, formerly Weddings by Amy

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This post was originally published here, along with posts by Mrs. Bee, Mrs. Cream Puff, and Mrs. Gingerbread.  The comments on all those posts can be found at the link above.

I wanted to start this post by congratulating Bee and the behind-the-scenes support staff for finally seeing the fruits of their labor with the sale of Weddingbee. I was a long-time Weddingbee stalker before I became a volunteer blogger for the site, and seeing Bee and co. develop the site has been incredible. I’m sure we can all agree that Weddingbee has been an invaluable resource for planning our weddings and a great source of community.

Though I was excited for the change, I must admit my heart sunk when I found out that eHarmony was the company Weddingbee was sold to. It’s no big reveal that principles of social justice underlie not only my wedding planning process, but also my choice of profession and personal goals. As a queer woman and advocate for LGBTQ issues, I have strong reservations about eHarmony’s history and their current stance towards the LGBTQ community, as it goes directly against what I have worked so hard for. Read more…

I am so excited to share this wedding with you all- I happened upon it a short while ago while browsing Flickr, and fell in love with all the modern and vibrant touches, plus the sheer joy that shines through the photos. John and Kris’s September 2007 wedding was held in the couple’s current home base in Vancouver, with the gorgeous ceremony and reception held aboard the Carousal II Yacht in the English Bay Harbor. Let’s take a peek at some of the details that made their day!

Kristopher (on the left) and John’s story is a lot like me and Mr. St’s– they met online and spent some time in a long-distance relationship before coming back together in Vancouver. Their professions are quite different, too: John is a wedding and lifestyle photographer (check out his photos- stunning!) while Kris is a “number cruncher.” Although their 9 to 5 may be dissimilar, their wedding aesthetic was perfectly in sync.
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If you haven’t signed up for the Daily Candy Deals mailing list by now, you are really missing out! Today’s deals email features a code for taking 25% off your order of stunning customizable letterpress invites from Gryphon Stationers!

You’ll remember that I was able to afford my own letterpress invites after stumbling onto a 25% off coupon too. So I’m all about helping other folks make their letterpress dreams come true.

Reading the New York Times this weekend, I came across an article called “The Significant Other,” which is about the impact one’s spouse has on possibly getting offered a high-level job.

Image Source

(Think Pam’s an asset to Jim’s career at Dunder Mifflin? I do!)

The article’s main point is this:
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… Er, or maybe not. Sorry, my <3 of old-school Madonna compelled me to start off the post on my after-party dress this way. He he he…

So, I still haven’t gone over my wedding dress saga with you all, but at least one dress is set—a fabulous eco-friendly dress I scored at the Barney’s Co-Op Outlet last month. The shopping mission of the day was looking for Mr. ST’s attire (which we got!) but I came upon the last two of these Phillip Lim dresses, both in my size! The retail price is way over my budget, but thanks to the dress being on clearance sale at the already-reduced outlet store, I got it for a great price!

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Last night while watching TV, I saw the first commercial from the No on Prop. 8 campaign featuring an elderly couple speaking on behalf of their lesbian daughter:

I didn’t even realize at first this was a commercial for marriage equality, because I thought it seems more like something for health insurance or uh… medications. I appreciate the tactic taken by the campaign, as it is clearly aimed towards a broader audience than may normally consider LGBTQ issues as pressing ones.
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Other posts in this series:
[1. Paper Trails]
[2. A Lucky Find]
[3. Help Me Print These, s’il vous plait?]

Now that you’ve seen the main components for the invitations, here are the last bits of DIY and purchased goodies we used to round out the look.

(Mr. Sweet Tea puts in his fair share!)

After we finalized our invitation design, I contacted Sweet Papery about customizing one of her lovely address stamps for us.
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After Mr. ST and I decided to work the Hello!Lucky invitations into our budget, we had to immediately think about the RSVP card and out-of-town inserts. While we loved Hello!Lucky’s letterpress options, our budget did not.

So, with the help of my best girl R., I worked on creating some suitable inserts for our invitation suite. To make things simple, we just did the RSVP card and a one-page insert with the ’schedule of events’ for the weekend. No maps, no driving directions, nothing- first, because we don’t expect anyone to rent cars (I hope they don’t since the French Quarter is totally walkable, and the Garden District a simple and picturesque streetcar ride away), and second, because we’ll be giving folks maps and directions in their OOT bags anyway. Plus- the more inserts, the more we spend in supplies, printing, mailing… you get the drill.

I knew right away what paper we would get- the Fabriano Medioevalis stationery, sold most affordably at Dick Blick. In my earliest invitation dreams, I thought I might be able to make our own invitations using this paper. For the price, it’s such a nice quality and I love the deckled edges. For sizing, we chose the “Regular Single Card” for the insert, and the “Reply Single Card” and envelopes for… well, you know.