Weddingbee Blog

It’s time for the invitation reveal! I am so glad these are finally out, and it’s sort of nuts that in a week we already have 50 yes’s and (so far) 0 no’s!

When it came to invitations I had many lofty goals. For a brief moment I wanted to design them myself, but soon decided that I just wasn’t cut out to do that. Although I like designing things, my design skills are still pretty basic. I also don’t have the proper printer to do test-runs and didn’t want to get stressed out by the little details like finding a printer, ordering paper, and well…lining up margins. I thought I would order specialty envelopes and possibly learn a little calligraphy. Reality set in and that never happened.

When push came to shove I ended up liking a design on Vistaprint. I procrastinated a little too long on whether or not to order it. I kept looking around on other invitation websites, comparing designs, comparing prices, and wondering if I was just settling on the Vistaprint design. I have to admit I was being kind of an asshole. I kept thinking, “my invitations can’t come from Vistaprint. I need something more elaborate. My save the dates were specially made. Why skimp on the invites?”

After realizing the design on Vistaprint was really our favorite I decided to get over my hang-ups. I waited a little too long for the perfect sale and things got down to the wire. Luckily, even though I hesitated on a free shipping deal, I ended up with a 50% off all items sale. The invitation sets came to under $130.00! I was shocked. We ended up ordering a few extras, twine, and matching return address labels. The return address labels and stamps matched so well that I decided to just go with the white envelopes instead of spending more money on blue ones.

*All pictures are personal (obviously I need to invest in a new camera after the wedding).

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I can officially say the sentence “I am getting married next month.” It’s weird! How did time go so slowly…and yet so quickly?

Until the big day, besides keeping my head on straight, I’ve really been trying to keep my skin from buggin’ out as it likes to do. I contemplated buying the Clinique 3-step system that a lot of the Bees have mentioned, going back to my dermatologist, or signing up for Proactiv again. I used Proactiv in college and for a while it worked really well. However, it would eventually just quit working and my skin would dry up like a flaky grandma-face.

I was digging around my bathroom cabinet a few weeks ago and found an old bottle of Proactiv face wash. I had restarted the system a year or so ago, and had promptly quit using it when my skin was getting way too dry (and the auto-payment from my checking account was pissing me off as well). I decided to put together my own little skin plan, and so far, *KNOCK ON WOOD* it’s really working!

I am only using Step 1 (the renewing cleanser) from Proactiv’s 3-step system. I’ve realized that the reason the multi-step skin clearing solutions don’t always work is because three steps of benzoyl peroxide products are way too drying for me. So, every morning I wash my face with the Proactiv cleanser.

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There’s some exciting news on the Porcupine front. For starters, Mr. P got a new job (wahoo!). It’s a better position for his long-term goals, IN the city (he was working in a different borough), and much better hours/he’ll actually get national holidays off.

One of the most interesting comments I think he got when he put in his resignation was, “are you sure you want to do this now? You’re about to get married.”

It got me thinking what some people think “married” means. Does it mean staying in a stable job and turning down other opportunities for the sake of a guaranteed paycheck? Is it really still the norm for a man to stay at a job for the sole purpose of “providing for his family?” When you take a step back from that whole “about to get married thing,” Mr. P and I are only 26 years old. We have no children. We have no mortgage. We have no real debt except for my college loans. Even though I sometimes have no idea how I got to my mid-20s, we’re for the most part still at the beginning of our careers. If you’ve already “made it” at 26 (Mark Zuckerberg, *grumble, grumble*), that’s pretty awesome, but like most we’re still climbing the ladder and figuring it out. So, if we don’t take chances now, when will we?
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Mail merge was the bane of my existence this weekend. I know it might seem ridiculous that a computer-savvy(ish) person from the computer generation who has worked in an office-setting for 5+ years (ew, really?) didn’t know how to use mail merge already- but- er… I didn’t?

I knew immediately this would be an annoying freaking task, mostly because many things involving Excel/Word give me a migraine. I somehow ALWAYS miss one teeny little thing in a formula or miss a measly step in a step-by-step guide, therefore screwing myself over, shouting into the computer’s ear-less face, and having to start over.

Let me start by saying we decided not to pay for a calligrapher, and decided to go with making clear labels for the envelopes for a few lame reasons. One, I could not justify the cost of paying someone to write pretty on my envelopes when that envelope is going to end up right in the trash. I wish I could justify it because I love all things pretty paper/stationery/swirly handwriting, but I come from a world where I could never see the value in it. Two, I was going to attempt some form of calligraphy, but when I sent Mr. P a cell-phone photo of my grandest attempt, he responded (and I quote), “it looks like my 6 year old cousin wrote that.” Um, thanks. Negative five points for him! And, lastly, I am the Queen of Procrastination and we are short on time here people!

Anywho, Mr. P and I headed over to my parents after work on Friday night (since our printer has a horrendous tick—literally.
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One of the things I put on the backburner is our Ketubah. For those unfamiliar, a Ketubah, in essence, is a Jewish marriage contract. It’s the religious equivalent of that marriage license you wait on line for at city hall. Bonus points for there being no line to get this one!

With the invention of that thing called the interwebs there are now something along the lines of 209,323,095 resources available to find and purchase Ketubahs. There are tons of variations done by many different types of artists.

There’s the traditional:

Image via Ketubah.com

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People change and it sucks.

My philosophy on this has been to say, oh well, que Sera. But, things get fishy when the person who is changing is someone you asked to be a bridesmaid.

She doesn’t know about this blog, but even if she did there’s absolutely nothing I could say here that she doesn’t already know or I haven’t already said to her. Hence my reasoning for writing about this out in the open instead of anonymously. I’m a pretty open person, and I’m sure there are a few of you battling a similar issue. So, no, I’m not trying to hang out my dirty laundry to dry, but I have no problem getting REAL.

When I asked this friend to be a bridesmaid, what feels like a century ago, I had no reason to think that things would change so drastically. I’ve known this particular bridesmaid—let’s call her “Mia” (for M.I.A. that is)—since high school. We stayed close through college and post-college, but somewhere between my engagement and hers things shifted.
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Yes, I am still planning a wedding.

The holiday season zipped on by, and now I am sitting here with UNDER 90 days to go until our wedding. I’m not sure how this happened, and sadly I am still in a stagnant with the detail planning. Everything is in limbo right now. Invitations are sitting in a pile on our desk, the guest list is touched up and ready to get printed onto labels, I have a list a mile long of little incidentals that need to be ordered/created, there is a plan of action for the chalkboard frames, and my first dress fitting is approaching in a few weeks. I am anxiously awaiting some of the fun parts of wedding planning to roll out. But, yet, here I sit in limbo. Limbo is my hell (haha, limbo…hell, get it?). I digress…

Other than that, there are only about 200 things going on at once in our lives. More on all that later. For now I give you the one single task I was able to accomplish in the past few weeks. (Slow, lame bride.)

In between my three actual work days between Christmas and New Year’s, I made a vow to actually get wedding stuff done. I really thought I could kick start my DVR-induced brain into crafting. I quickly remembered why I prefer throwing my money at Etsy instead of doing any actual crafts. On the to-do list was purchasing chalkboard frame-making supplies and a cork board for our guest “book,” which I’ve decided will be a cloth-covered cork board that I’ll have our guests thumb tack messages onto.
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With the holidays upon us there has definitely been a recent upsurge of engagements. My Facebook newsfeed has definitely been plastered with many newly engaged couples changing their relationship status, and posting shots of their brand new bling to their Timeline.

I recently read an article that got me thinking about the whole conundrum of whether or not to post a picture of your engagement ring to Facebook. The article itself was written in a really snarky and rude manner, damning the women who choose to snap a picture of their engagement ring up-close and then send off to their mobile uploads. The writer, who is not-engaged but in a happy relationship which she felt the need to stress (over compensation, much?), got a lot of backlash in her comments section, and for the sake of preventing an internet war of words between said site and Weddingbee I think that it’s best that I leave the source of the article anonymous.

In essence, the article voices the view that it is cheesy, materialistic and alarming to post pictures of your new shiny bling to your Facebook.
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The one annoying thing about planning a wedding that will take place 3 hours away is figuring out when to meet up with vendors. Since we’ve had a long engagement we were able to space out a few trips to get this done. We also made really good choices from our research, so we didn’t have to go back and forth a bunch of times to find people we wanted to work with. One trip per vendor worked for us to find the right people to work with.

The one thing that has proved more difficult is scheduling a meeting with our Rabbi. Since we don’t belong to a temple in New York, we easily decided on using the Rabbi at Mr. Porcupine’s parents’ temple in Pennsylvania. He marked our date off, we met with him briefly early on into our planning, and he told us we wouldn’t need to meet again until much closer to the big day. But, after two more short trips down to Pennsylvania without being able to coordinate schedules, our Rabbi suggested we have a meeting via Skype.

So, we downloaded Skype and used it for the first time to talk with our Rabbi. For some reason I find this hilarious.
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When I left off, I mentioned it took me a year to get into the whole weight loss idea.

At my current job I joined the gym in the basement, using the treadmill and elliptical for 45 minutes to an hour for four or five times a week. I started eating smaller portions and better food. I started cooking with a lot less fat and a lot more low-fat ingredients. I also stopped a lot of the mindless snacking I did. It took me a year to shed 20 pounds. Since I’m short, it was significant enough.

What I can recommend, which has worked for me (keep in mind I have NO dietary knowledge. This is just that works for my metabolism):
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Today I signed into my registry to replace something that went discontinued (no worries—I’ve only had to do this 80 times already) and my jaw almost hit the floor when I noticed we are ALMOST at 100 days out. Crazy little registry countdown clock!

What the hell? I don’t think I ever took into consideration that all this planning would lead to the big day, because my mind feels boggled by the concept of me walking down the aisle and getting married. And, with my first dress fitting looming a few weeks away I realized I better stop slacking at getting my arse to the gym, and I better stop eating all those damn tacos (well except for Taco Tuesdays…).

Okay, a disclaimer. I know I am not a plus-size bride and I am not here to whine that my size 2s are just TOO DARN TIGHT (because I will never be a size 2!). But, my desire to be in shape for my wedding stems from my past. I was a chubster! Baby fat, chubby, chunky, however you want to put it I was overweight and unhealthy. I like food and I like to eat. I grew up in a clean your plate(s) family. I was the polar opposite of an active child. My hobbies consisted of doing things like poking out all the chocolate chips in my Chips Ahoys, eating the cookie, and saving the chocolate chips for dessert (yes, I really did this). So, Hive for you only (and I guess whoever else stumbles upon this blog post) I am revealing a teenage awkward photo of myself to prove that I am not BSing you. Here goes:

Yes, I am aware I had oddly un-proportional legs

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To be blunt, I’ve gotten to a place in wedding planning where I just don’t give a hunk of doo anymore. Just me? At this point we’ve been engaged for almost a year and a half. I’ve been steadily planning since about day 3 of our engagement. I have all my vendors booked, the menu picked, my first dress fitting scheduled, and a pretty good grasp on what detail items need to be accomplished. (Damn you chalkboard frames!) The issue now is that I can’t get anything done. AT.ALL. I mean to do something, but then I can’t quite figure out what it is I should be doing, and I take to my couch and DVR.

I could sit here and wax poetic about the joys of wedding planning, the fun I’m having, the lollipops that fall from the sky every time I accomplish a wedding task, but um - no. I’m seriously over it. I want to create a bonfire of all my damn wedding magazines that have the same advertisements and the same articles in EVERY.SINGLE.ISSUE. I want to fling my wedding binder that I long ago neglected out the window at full force. I want to eat brownies and cheeseburgers (whoops, I’ve been doing quite a bit of that) instead of trying to focus on keeping the lbs off so that I can zip up my gown.

What have I done in the last month? I’ve ordered 10 invitations from Vistaprint. That’s all folks. I suck.
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When it came to deciding on our first dance song, I immediately knew what song I wanted. So, nope, this was not a joint effort and there was no way I was going to budge on this.

When we first started dating, whenever I heard Look After You by the Fray, it immediately made me think of Mr. Porcupine. I guess when you’re first dating every song makes you think of the person, but I REALLY loved this song. I still do, and it’s one of those songs I can play over and over again on my iPod without killing it.

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I’m not usually a sappy person, but my favorite part is:

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Choosing to live together before marriage or waiting until after you’re married is a personal decision. I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a friend’s acquaintance after a few months of living with Mr. P. My friend explained that I lived nearby (we were out at a nearby bar) with my boyfriend, and this acquaintance, who had just met me mind you, immediately responded, “Oh, I’m so glad I waited to move in with my husband. It takes all the fun away from marriage if you live with someone first.” I just stared at her blankly. My first reaction was to say, “Who the BLEEP asked you?” I relented.

It may not be the “traditional” route, but one of the benefits of living with someone before marriage is ironing out each person’s role. Mr. P and I have pretty traditional roles in our home. Since we’ve lived together for over three years we’ve had some time to master who does what. I’m glad we have this all ironed out pre-marriage. Things have shifted over time due to changes in work and life, but for the most part I do a lot more work around the house and Mr. P does a lot more work out of the home.
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When it came to deciding if I should change my name, I pretty much didn’t think about it. I always planned on changing my name. I’m not sure why—mostly I think it’s because I can be pretty old-fashioned sometimes. There is a side of me that would love to be a little Suzy Homemaker stay-at-home mom raising the kids and taking care of the home.

I know a lot of people get emotional about losing their last name, but I’ve never had some crazy attachment to it. Yes, it’s my “family’s name,” but I don’t see changing your name as changing who your family is. Plus, most of my immediate family has a different last name so it never struck me as something HUGELY important. My first name is pretty original, so I’ve always identified more with that. Like Madonna or something (without the fame, fortune, and talent).

Also, my last name is really weird.
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