Weddingbee Blog

Hello hive! I’ve waded out of a mountain of diapers and alphabet blocks to share my favorite post with you. This also happens to be one of the most memorable of my wedding planning moments, which may be which I chose it. I left it out photos of the actual dress, but here it is in one of my follow-ups. I hope this brings you equally good luck in finding your dress!

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Part One
Part Two
Part Three

I need to preface this post by saying that this whole thing has been a total tease. I am not going to reveal my dress. Mr. Peacock has been adamant about not wanting to see it. He subscribes to the Weddingbee feed and he is slightly absentminded in his internet reading habits, I have a feeling that he might accidentally stumble upon it. He would be very sad.

I did go to one more new dress shop- the Vera Wang salon on Oak Street. I brought a whole gang- my mom, my sister and one of my bridesmaids. I had a feeling that I was going to need a team to get talked out of a particular $15,000 VW Luxe dress.

Drool.

Since the VW salon would not allow me to take pictures, I asked these very unhappy 14 year old girls to model the dresses for me.
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I loved my flowers. Loved, loved, loved my flowers. Viviana at Petal Play Design was definitely able to compensate for peonies being out of season. I am so glad that Dean captured so many gorgeous photos of them. Get ready for lots of photos of my bouquet. Some butthead took it home with them and broke my heart. I can only relieve this pain by staring at these photos.

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The photobooth was really Mr. Peacock’s idea. I thought it sounded like fun, but I wasn’t sure if we needed it or how it would work. He did the research, found a great company and booked it. He even made a logo for us to add to the bottom of the photobooth strips. What a man, I tell you. Our guests LOVED it, and I have such a crush on our guest book.

The booth had an attendant who monitored the activity and printed the strips. Each group received two strips—one for them, one for our guest book. The attendant made sure that they knew what to do. I bought a Kolo book from Paper Source, along with an extra set of pages and some colored pencils, a pencil sharpener, two rolls of double sided tape and an eraser.
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A few months before Mr. Peacock and I were engaged, a friend from work got married. Her very sweet husband bought her a cocktail ring with an orange stone as a wedding gift. They met at the University of Illinois (whose colors are orange and blue) and were married in October with bright, fall wedding colors, so this was a perfect gift. I came home going on and on about that beautiful ring. Mr. Peacock must have been listening. He surprised me with a little something blue the day before our wedding.

My blue ring, my Grammy’s wedding band, and my engagement ring.

Blue is my absolute favorite color. I chose not to use it in the wedding for a variety of reasons, but it was so nice to have a little something blue on my finger (and on my feet!)

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This post isn’t destined to be the most thrilling—either in photography or content—but I know that we had such a hard time deciding on our menu. I thought this might be helpful to others in the same boat.

All photos by Thorsen Photography

Mr. Peacock and I wanted to make the food as easy as possible. Although we truly trusted Calihan Catering, we had been to too many events with seared tuna on a wasabi cracker. We wanted simple, comfort food, and that was exactly what was delivered.

Pigs in blankets, with “fancy” mustard. Mr. Peacock makes these at home all the time, so it was a sweet, kind of silly homage to his cooking skills. The rosemary sprig really classes it up, no?
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When it came to our cake, this is what I had in mind.

In order to achieve this look, I purchased a mold from Decorate the Cake and brought it to our baker. She seemed pretty confident that she could pull it off. She even tested a bit while I waited to see how it would turn out. She planned to use the mold to create the design on each layer by removing sections. Hopefully, this would create a new design on each layer. It didn’t turn out exactly as I was hoping. The layers were quite thick, far from the delicate lace I was hoping for. I didn’t actually realize how poorly this was executed until just this moment, comparing the photos.
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(Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Dean Thorsen)

Sharing My Secrets, Vol 2.1, The Paper

Lastly in paper, escort cards and table numbers:

Inspiration from Saipua,

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Two comments to preface this post. All photos by Dean Thorsen, all paper from the Paper Source. My two BFFs. This is a glimpse into all of our DIY goodies!Say hello to the winner of the “this shouldn’t take very long… and then it does” award. Our menus.

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Aloha, everyone! After a week in Maui, a few days in So Cal, and a crazy week back at work, I finally have a moment to recap our wonderful day. There were quite a few things that I kept on the DL during planning and now I can spill the beans. I also have a few fabulous vendors to brag about, including our photographer, Dean Thorsen of Thorsen Photography. Please credit him if you borrow any images.

First up, my shoes!

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It was Mrs. Peacock, in the church, with all the love in the world.

Mr. Peacock and I are married!!! Everything was absolutely and totally perfect. The forecast was 76 degrees and sunny, everyone we loved was surrounding us, and we were celebrating until 2:30 in the morning. I am married to a wonderful man who couldn’t stop sneaking kisses all night. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.
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I have been using Perfect Table Plan to keep track of our RSVP’s and I have been loving it. I was able to import our guest list and keep track of their responses with ease. Meal choices, guests, and “who invited them?!” were all included in the handy chart. When it finally came time to start seating people, things got a little trickier. Being able to drag and drop was nice enough and the auto-assign function was a great start. Maybe it was the size of our room or our long rather than round tables, but I was starting to get frustrated.

I fell back on some skills that I picked up when I planned non-profit fundraisers. Who was sitting with whom was very important and the guest list was changing all the time. The easiest way to plan it out was a big piece of poster board and a post-it note for every guest. I would then hang it up in my cubicle and stare at it until I found the perfect arrangement. Fortunately, I spent the weekend up at the lake rather than in my cubicle, but the trick worked just the same.

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There was a brief period of time when Mr. Peacock and I considered scrapping our plans for a big Chicago wedding. We thought it might be sweet and romantic to get married close to his family’s lake home in Southwest Michigan at the delightful Karma Vista winery. Then we found out that Karma Vista does not do special events, that the closest hotel was 20 miles away and the thought of calling a cab was laughable, so we dropped the whole idea. Little did we know the kind of shenanigans possible when Chicagoans attend a Michigan wedding… Read more…

Mr. Peacock and I stopped by Chicago’s City Hall yesterday to pick up our marriage license. Like quite a few bees have mentioned, it was quick and painless. All we needed to bring with us was our driver’s licenses. It was nice to scratch one of the “absolutely must happen” things off our to-do list. I have a strange crush on City Hall, so it was kind of an exciting trip anyway.
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In order to add a bit of a homemade feel to our invites, I came up with the idea of creating cloth envelopes to serve as an inner envelope. It was something I had never seen before, but it sounded simple enough. My original idea was to make them from inexpensive muslin. I would use my Gocco to stamp a monogram on the top, so that the guest would see it first when he or she opened the outer envelope. I would then use a label to address the inner envelope. This would clear up any confusion over who was actually invited to the wedding, while simultaneously closing the “pocket.”

When shopping for muslin, however, my mom and I came up with a better plan. We found some gold and ivory fabric that perfectly matched the ink and paper of our invites. Due to a lovely sale, it was actually cheaper than the muslin. I discarded the stamp idea for the sake of simplicity. I did keep the label for practical purposes. My mom and sister were roped in as part of my DISE (Do It, Someone Else) plan and, lucky for me, they pulled it off beautifully.

Thank you, mom and Elise!

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I believe that I have reached a stage in our planning where I am throwing in the towel on chunks of my to-do list. It’s time to cash in my chips and admit my losses. Fortunately, I have a wonderful family and a few patient friends to help.

1. I could not find a cake topper. After months of searching, I gave up this weekend. I asked my extremely talented aunt to make one for me and she gladly obliged. With only weeks to go, she will be making us two little lovebirds out of felt. That she makes herself. Out of wool. From her own sheep. Her craftiness is literally blowing my mind. I can’t believe that I didn’t ask her sooner!!! I sent her several little birds to serve as models and she is going to town. I didn’t want to give too much direction because I trust her crafty skills.

2. I never learned how to sew. This inhibited my ability to make little fabric pockets for our invites and covers for our programs. My mom and sister stepped up on the pockets and I dropped the programs. I haven’t looked back. My mom and Mr. Peacock’s mom are also making the flowergirl/junior bridesmaid dresses, although I never once thought that I could pull that off. Those poor girls would be walking down the aisle in silk potato sacks.
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