Weddingbee Blog

Mrs. Bee here.

Real Simple Magazine’s monthly question in the most recent issue is “What’s the most surprising financial advice you’ve ever received?” One of the featured answers was wedding related:

Pennies, nickels, dimes, or quarters - hold on to your change. In just two years, I accumulated enough to pay for a nice chunk of my wedding.

In what ways have you and your SO cut back or found ways to save money towards your wedding?

Mrs. Bee here.

Last night I watched the In Style Weddings Special, and Joely Fisher’s 10 year anniversary vow renewal was one of the featured weddings. Ever since getting married, I’ve wanted to renew our vows on our 5 year anniversary. Now that I’m actually in the wedding industry, I think that I could do it better the second time around. We’d do a lot of things differently, it’d be a lot less stressful, and it would really be about us. Mr. Bee and I have even discussed using the loft where we first got married.

I was chatting with Mrs. Butterfly when she was still a Miss, and back then said she didn’t know if she’d want to go through it all again. But now that all has been said and done, she said she’d most definitely like to do it again.

I know many of you are in the midst of crazy wedding planning right now, but do you think you’d want to renew your vows on your 5th, 10th, 25th anniversary?

Mr. Bee and I don’t give each other Valentine’s Day gifts, but we usually celebrate by going out or making a special dinner. I’ve actually found a gift that I want this year though - this adorable t-shirt! (It’s a reference to a classic Simpsons episode.)

Valentine’s Day is just a fun, silly holiday for us. But I know a lot of people hate Valentine’s Day for the commercial holiday that it’s become. Love it, hate it, don’t care about it - how do you and your SO feel about Valentine’s Day?

Mrs. Bee here.

When Miss Poppy first blogged about Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages, I was intrigued and purchased a copy. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but just going through the general overview online was fascinating. The author talks about the importance of expressing love in a “language” that your spouse understands. There are five primary love languages, and while all of them are important, you need to speak and understand your spouse’s specific love language in order for them to feel loved.

The languages are as follows:

Word of Affirmation - Verbal appreciation, compliments, encouragement, support.

Quality Time - Spending focused, quality time having conversations, doing activities together.

Receiving Gifts - Visual symbols of love where gifts are seen as an expression of love and devotion.

Acts of Service - Chores done out of love, not obligation.

Physical Touch - Physical contact (sexual, hugs, kisses, etc.).

Read more…

Mrs. Bee here.

Whenever I talk to Mr. Bee about “girly” things, he says that he doesn’t know about those things and that I should talk to my girlfriends. I always reply, “But you’re my best friend!” He says he unfortunately knows what a tankini is now thanks to me.

I talk to Mr. Bee about everything - from what I should wear, to makeup, to work advice, to bowel movements. But maybe there are certain things that are best left for conversations with my gal pals.

Do you talk to your SO about everything? What would you refrain from talking about with him?

Mrs. Bee here.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Mr. Bee and I were talking about special places that couples share, whether it’s where you met, had your first date, got engaged, or is just your favorite place to go on a date together.

For Mr. Bee and I, it’s ‘ino - a little wine bar in the West Village. It’s where we first met, and where Mr. Bee proposed.

Do you and your SO share a special place? What is the significance of that place?

Mrs. Bee here.

I recently watched Season 1 of Prison Break on dvd. Not only is it a fantastic show, but I developed a huge crush on the show’s star, Wentworth Miller. Now, I’ve never really been prone to crushes of any sort, let alone celebrity crushes. But now that I’m married, I feel kinda guilty.

Do you think celebrity crushes are harmless? Do you and your SO have celebrity crushes?

Mr. Bee was watching a rerun of Scrubs last night (it’s one of the few shows that we both really like). In the episode, Elliot had been on four dates with Paul, and asks Carla for some advice.

Elliot: Carla, you know how I’m…really crazy?
Carla: Sure, what’s up?
Elliot: It’s just getting so hard to hide the crazy from Paul.
Carla: Oh, I hear you, girl. I mean, Turk and I are engaged and it wasn’t until last week that I admitted the reason I don’t touch the seat when I go to the bathroom isn’t because of germs but because I’m afraid of toilet snakes.
Elliot: Aaaaand now so am I.

We all put our best foot forward when we first meet someone, and become more comfortable as time goes on. I told Mr. Bee that I was crazy on our second date, but he says I didn’t start to show it until about a month into the relationship. Even now I think he’s taken aback sometimes by how crazy I really am.

How long did it take for you to reveal your “crazies” to your SO? Are there some idiosyncracies you’ll always keep from him?

Mrs. Bee here.

Speaking of changing my name, several readers sent us links to articles about a Los Angeles man who sued for the right to take his wife’s last name, as easily as she could take his. When Mike Buday and Diana Bijon decided to get married, they agreed that he would take her last name because she had no brothers, he was estranged from his own father, and had become very close to his father-in-law. But they soon found out that that process wouldn’t be so easy:

A woman can choose her husband’s name or her maiden name on a California marriage-license form after the couple pays a county application fee that ranges from $50 to $97. California and 43 other states provide no place on a marriage-license application for the groom to choose the bride’s surname.

To officially change his name to hers ¢¢â€š¬” and for future Social Security benefits, Buday says ¢¢â€š¬” a man must pay a $320 court fee, advertise his intention in a newspaper for four weeks and get a judge’s approval. (via usatoday)

Mr. Bee and I talked about this, and he said that he would change his last name to mine, if it really meant a lot to me. He doesn’t care if I change my name to his - it’s just something that I want to do. But Mr. Bee’s only problem with changing his name to mine, is that his first name is John (one of the most common first names) and my last name is Kim (20% of the entire Korean population have this last name). So he’d be John Kim… like millions of others.

Would your SO change his last name to yours?

Mrs. Bee here.

The New York Times had an interesting article today titled 51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse.

For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

¢¢â€š¬…”This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people’s lives,¢¢â€š¬? said Prof. Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. ¢¢â€š¬…”Most of these women will marry, or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult lives outside marriage.¢¢â€š¬?

How important is to you to be married? Can you or did you ever imagine yourself never marrying?

Mrs. Bee here.

Since it’s a holiday, I thought we’d do a reader buzz that was kinda fun and silly.

I asked Mr. Bee how much he loved me on a scale of 1-10, and he replied, “12.” I said, “12?! Why not higher?!” To which he replied, “12 is as high as I can go and still be credible, because if I go too high, then the 1-10 scale has no meaning.”

Ask your SO’s how much he loves you on a scale of 1-10, and tell us what he says.

Mrs. Bee here.

I find that one of the most popular topics on wedding forums, is favors. Miss Kiwi even asked how important favors were to you in her blog today.

As a guest (of 8 weddings last year!), I can say that favors do not matter to me in the least. Sure they’re nice, and definitely appreciated, but it wouldn’t matter - to me anyway - whether or not there were any favors at all. If you’re on a budget, this is definitely one area that I would cut back on because most guests probably wouldn’t even notice. But as a bride, I also understand wanting to give each of your guests a token of appreciation for joining in celebrating your big day.

So let’s find out your take on favors once and for all!

Mrs. Bee here.

SoonToBMrsB blogged about having a basket full of SASE’s with blank cds inside them, instead of disposable cameras at her wedding. This way guests could mail back their digital pictures, and she’d also get ceremony shots which she wouldn’t with the disposable cameras on reception tables.

(via knottie Ayamm1123)

Read more…

Mrs. Bee here.

I was chatting with one of the bees this morning, about how paying for wedding party expenses varies according to each culture.

• In American culture, bridesmaids typically pay for their own dresses, hair and makeup, and groomsmen typically pay for their own tux rentals.
• In Korean and Russian cultures, the bride and groom typically pay for all their wedding party’s attire, hair, and makeup.

There’s no doubt that it is an honor to be part of a wedding party, but it can also get very costly. Travel costs (if applicable), a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, gifts for all events, bridesmaid dresses, hair, makeup can really add up.

Cultural customs aside, what do you think makes more sense - the bride and groom picking up all expenses (not including bridal shower/bachelorette parites)? The wedding party paying for their own expenses? Or a combination of the two?

Mrs. Bee here.

PlanetGordon posted a video of himself bungee jumping on his recent New Zealand honeymoon. That got me to thinking whether or not any weddingbee readers would be participating in extreme sports on their honeymoons. I was chatting the reader buzz idea over with Mr. Bee this morning, and he brought up the amazing story of the man who jumped on the subway tracks. (A convulsing man fell in between subway tracks in New York last week, and an onlooker jumped on top of him, pressing him down until five subway cars rolled overhead. The most amazing part of the story was that the citizen’s two young daughters stood on the platform watching the whole time. The two men walked away unscathed, but it was truly a story of modern day heroism.)

Mr. Bee was extremely moved by the story and wondered what he would have done had he been in the same situation. He said that he would have jumped too had he been single, but now that he’s married, he probably wouldn’t. He finds himself taking less risks because he has to think of someone other than himself now. I thought this was really interesting because since getting engaged, I’ve definitely become less of a risk taker myself.

Read more…