- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee Blog
Some of you may have noticed that I have been a bit absent on the blog lately. Well, I started a new job last week (yippie!) but the stress of a new job coupled with all the wedding planning has really been getting to me. Mr. PN and I have been bickering about the smallest of issues—like who left a light on—and it has been exhausting and draining. To be honest, there have been days that I have just wished for the wedding to be over and for life to return to normal again.
So instead of using the long weekend to accomplish many wedding projects, we took a wedding planning hiatus! We left town and more or less ignored the wedding for the weekend.
{source}
Mr. PN and I are in search of the perfect bar in San Francisco for our after party. All of our guests are staying in San Francisco and busing out to Napa for the wedding, and we will all be returning to San Francisco for the evening. Mr. PN and I plan to steal a little time after the wedding for fun photos and then we will meet up with our family and friends on Saturday night at a local bar. This will be a very unofficial meet up as a way for us to spend some extra time with our family and friends that will be traveling so far to be with us on our wedding day.
Read more…
Mr. PN and I recently traveled to Birmingham, Alabama for a wedding! Birmingham was just lovely and we had a great time. We arrived on Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel, Embassy Suites Birmingham, and went off to find some lunch. Mr. PN then went to the church for rehearsal and when he returned, we got ready and took the hotel’s free shuttle (best hotel amenity ever!) to the rehearsal dinner at The Club. We enjoyed spectacular views of the city and heard many wonderful speeches about the bride and groom.
On Saturday morning, Mr. PN and I took advantage of the hotel gym (we are total gym rats) and then we enjoyed the fabulous free breakfast buffet at the hotel. We parted ways and I took this opportunity to do a little exploring, so I took a suggestion from the hive and ventured over to the wonderful Pepper Place Saturday Market. I love farmers’ markets and it was so much fun to explore a new city’s market.
Read more…
{Source}
My bachelorette party is this weekend and I can’t wait! My bridesmaid and FSIL have been planning the entire thing and I don’t have a clue what the plans are. My only hint:
I will be “wearing a white shirt (and it isn’t too embarrassing)” and there will be champagne!
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
When Mr. Pinot Noir and I decided on a destination wedding, we knew that we would need to send out Save The Dates so our family and friends could begin making their arrangements. While sending an evite might have been the most eco-friendly option - most of our extended family is not comfortable with technology (as in they don’t have email) so that would have made things rather difficult.
Long ago (pre-engagement) I had fallen in love with the idea of doing a photo booth style save-the-date. After our engagement, I researched all of the photo booths in New York City and compiled a list based on location, price and quality. I planned to take the pictures with super cute cards and then reproduce copies of the photostrip. But then I started to worry (this is not unusual). How many tries would we need to get the right combination of photos. How many booths would we need to visit to get a decent quality? I decided to make a postcard using the photostrip images, and then we wouldn’t need to use envelopes and we would save money and paper (no envelopes!). Visions of creative, unique, DIY save-the-dates danced in my head.
{Source}
[Source]
While prenuptial agreements used to be limited to celebrities and the wealthy, they are becoming quite a common practice today. In fact, the number of couples seeking prenups has risen 57% in the last five years. According to this article from Smart Money, more and more adults today are getting prenups. As people marry older, they have established their careers and have a good financial history. They might own real estate, have financial investments, or contributed significantly to a retirement fund. Interestingly, more and more of the people requesting the prenups are women rather than men. Also, some couples choose to get prenup not because of wealth but because of debt. Today’s debt ridden society is making it more and more likely for one person in the relationship brings in a significant amount of debt.
Prenuptial agreements are about the most unromantic part of wedding planning.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I wish I could personally thank the person who thought up honeymoons. Seriously, what a fabulous idea!?!? Spend all of your time and energy planning the wedding day and then all of a sudden you are on vacation! I personally think it is especially great because I tend to get overly excited about vacations. I fantasize about them for weeks and I envision how wonderful they are going to be. As a result, sometimes I am actually let down because I build up such high expectations. But, with a honeymoon, I won’t even have time to think about it until we actually arrive! This means no expectations, no stress - just pure romantic relaxing bliss!
Mr. PN and I will be spending one fabulous week in Hawaii! Picking the honeymoon location was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Neither of us have ever been to Hawaii and since the wedding is in California, we will be half way there anyway! The next step was to pick an island to visit. I thought we could hop around the islands and spend a day or two at each - after some research I quickly realized that “hopping around” wasn’t as practical (or affordable) as I first imagined.
[Source]
I recently came upon the 2000 Dollar Wedding blog (thanks to a profile from Meg from A Practical Wedding). Sara and Matt are an amazing couple who were married last month in Colorado. They stuck to a strict budget of $2000 in order to keep the wedding planning focused on their goals and to save the money for a down payment on a house (which they moved to, from Colorado to Texas, two days after the wedding!). I have spent the last two days reading the entire archive, over 140 posts, and I feel so inspired. In their words:
Our quest to wrest our wedding from the hands of the Wedding Industrial Complex and make it our own (in a budget-minded, hand-crafted, eco-friendly way)
{Source}
Mr. Pinot Noir and I are headed to Birmingham, Alabama this weekend for a wedding. Mr. PN and the groom were college roommates! This is my first southern wedding and I am really looking forward to it! I am especially excited about practicing our new dance moves.
We are flying into Atlanta on Thursday night and then on Friday morning we will be picking up Mr. PN’s kilt from the kilt maker! I’m really looking forward to seeing Mr. PN in his wedding outfit for the first time!
Read more…
When Mr. Pinot Noir and I went to the Fairfield County Irish Festival to find his wedding ring, we also bought our ring “box” from Celtic Revival. Instead of a pillow, our ringbearer will carry this beautiful hand-carved wood box. This way we can keep the box after the wedding as a special and useful memento, which makes it an ecofriendly choice too!The square box is 3.5″ x 3.5″ x 2″.
Since we will be having our wedding in the heart of wine country, I couldn’t resist including a couple of wine themed elements. I was inspired to use corks to create the escort cards. A friend who works as a bartender has been saving the wine corks just for me, and she recently gave us the first delivery!
Creating the cork holders was actually much easier than I anticipated.
After all this time I haven’t formally introduced the PN Wedding Party. Without further ado…
The dessert Mr. and I enjoyed at Auberge du Soleil in 2007
Our reception location, Auberge du Soleil, offers two choices when it comes to the dessert course.
1. Serve a plated dessert from the Auberge du Soleil menu, included in the per person menu price.
2. Serve your wedding cake as the dessert course. The Chef will plate the wedding cake with Crème Anglaise, Coulis and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. The price is included in the menu price in lieu of a plated dessert.
Mr. PN and I have eaten dessert at Auberge du Soleil on several occasions and we quickly agreed that we would pass on the traditional wedding cake and serve the Auberge dessert.
After the failed attempt to rent my wedding dress, I decided to look for a previously loved (a.k.a. used) wedding dress.
In my search for used wedding dresses I came upon Brides Against Breast Cancer. Brides Against Breast Cancer does a national tour selling donated wedding dresses (both new and used). The tour sells the dresses to raise money for the Making Memories Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing a spark of joy into the lives of women and men who are losing their battle against breast cancer.
This is the perfect combination of my ecofriendly dress hunt - buying used dresses, saving money and donating to a great cause! Unfortunately, while I very much wanted to shop for my dress at a BABC event, the show wasn’t going to be making it to my neck of the woods for quite some time!
Read more…
Kate Parker Weddings has over 20 great city/theme specific Out of Town Welcome Baskets. While these baskets are certainly out of my price range, ranging from $25-45 each + shipping, they are a great place to draw inspiration! Each basket is filled with locally made products and information specific to your wedding weekend.I love the “Green” Welcome Basket:
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Mrs. Pinot Noir, New York/Napa Valley Age and Occupation: 24, Health Educator Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Market Researcher Engagement Date: November 10, 2007 Wedding Date: October, 2008 Blogging Since: June 25, 2008 Venue: Auberge du Soleil About Me: I am a Minnesota raised, NYC transplant planning a destination wedding in Napa. I'm balancing my love for the environment and my hubby-to-be's love for tradition to create our "green wedding in disguise." Our wedding will include local food and wine, antique touches and lots of love and laughter. When wedding planning isn't taking up my free time (and money) I love to read, cook, workout, watch baseball and travel! Follow along in my adventure as I attempt to plan an eco-friendly and socially responsible wedding (with eco-oblivious Mr. Pinot Noir).
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Escort Cards
