Weddingbee Blog

Getting to and from another country and then all around said country is not always an easy feat. It requires a lot of planning, a whole heaping helping of patience, and is often one of the largest vacation budget items, behind lodging and food.

Over the course of two weeks, The Stars utilized just about every method of transportation possible. But don’t worry, we documented it so you would know what we were getting into.

This is on the train to Newark airport from NYC. We weren’t even an hour into our honeymoon and Mr. Star was busting out the crazy faces. Transportation count: 1.

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I have to say, our honeymoon was my fourth time to Europe, and Greece was the seventh European country that I’ve visited. But I have never tasted such amazing food before. When my MOH and I visited France several summers back, we lost over five pounds each at the end of three weeks, despite my love of baguettes and chocolate. When I went to Scotland two years ago, I was seriously desperate for some American food after ten days.

So while I was hopeful, I wasn’t exactly expecting to be wowed by the food in Greece. Boy, was I ever wrong! You know the “freshman 15″? Well, I gained the Honeymoon 6. Six pounds is a lot of eating in two weeks!

There is some truly wonderful food to be had in Greece, even on a budget. We mostly stuck to having pastries or a light breakfast late in the morning, and dinner at a restaurant that our Frommer’s Guide to Greece recommended.

This is part of what we ate the first night we were in Athens.

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For a bright and bold color-lovin’ gal such as myself (look for me, I’m the only person in New York City not wearing a black coat), there’s just no beating Greece! Everywhere we turned, there was one fabulous array of dazzling color after another. I was in heaven, and wondering why we don’t decorate like this here in the United States!

I hope you love the shots I took of all the colors as much as I do…

Buildings in Oia on Santorini were bold and beautiful

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Hey there, everyone! We’re baaaaaack!

First off, let me say that I missed you all. So much. I checked into Weddingbee every few days during our honeymoon (all the way from Greece!), but refused to let myself comment on anything or post. You know, just to avoid addict status… oh, who am I kidding? Checking into Weddingbee from my honeymoon officially made me an addict, but you catch my drift.

So, we spent two amazing weeks in Greece together. Greece was fabulous, but the best part of our honeymoon was the spending-time-together part. You see, in three years of dating, Mr. Star and I had never had the time and/or money to take a vacation together that didn’t involve visiting one family or the other, so it was incredible to have so much time just to ourselves to talk and explore together.

On a side note, I highly recommend the book How to Love Me for anytime when you A) have a lot of time to kill with your significant other, and B) want to jump start deep and meaningful conversations about things you never would have thought to talk about otherwise. Mr. Star and I spend a nauseating amount of time talking to each other, and this book still finds things that we’ve never discussed before.
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Hello, Hive! MRS. Star here, reporting live from the other side!

I wanted to share a few quick teasers with you before we jet off to Greece for two weeks on Friday (yay!). I really need the assistance of some gorgeous pictures to tell this story, since words alone simply won’t do.

Before Sunday, I was really worried that, because all of the normal hype of wedding planning added on top of the added pressure of being a wedding blogger whose immersed in wedding blogs and talking about weddings nearly all day long, our wedding day might not be able to live up to the anticipation and excitement surrounding it for two years now. When people used to say that your wedding day is supposed to be the best day of your life, I was concerned that that expectation would make any day pale in comparison.

Well, let me just say, that I was worried over nothing. Sunday truly was the best day of my life thus far. Words can’t even describe how amazing the whole experience was. I just kept thinking, ‘how can it get any better than this?’ all day. Mr. Star said, “I wish we could get married every day,” and while I know that I wouldn’t have the energy for that, I definitely think I could get married once a month, at least.

I could go on and on, but I have a honeymoon to pack for, so I think I’ll let this fabulous picture help me out:

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It all started two long years ago in a little dinner theater in Boston:

In that moment I felt many of the same feelings that I do now: chills of excitement, nervous butterflies, the warm flush of pure joy, and a thrilled hope for the future.
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Yep, we’re procrastinators. But Mr. Star and I got up really early a few days ago to get to the NYC Marriage Bureau when they opened so that we could be legally ready to marry!

It was a shockingly short visit, probably 20 minutes or less. We basically just had to give our contact info, parents’ birthplaces, show our IDs, charge some moolah on my credit card, and away we went! Off into the morning glare with our very official-looking paperwork!

We asked some random lady who was handing out fliers if she would take our picture on the steps. And yes, those are the same steps that we protested in front of just a few months ago.

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Card boxes were never one of those fun, crafty details that I daydreamed about. Let’s be frank here, people. It could have just been a big box. But that wouldn’t have been ambitious (read: crazy) enough for Miss Star. No, no, no…

My wonderful DOC, Danielle, asked me a couple of weeks ago what I had planned for a card box. Nothing, was my initial answer. She offered to carry them around for us all night, buuuut that just didn’t seem fair. So if I was going to put effort into another crafty detail, it was gonna be something awesome.

I wanted to make a non-box-shaped box out of paper mache and I wanted it to go along with our already-established wedding theme (uh, polka dots, showbiz, and NYC?). I thought about trying to make drama masks — too hard. I thought about a taxi cab — also too hard. Fairy Bridesmaid suggested the Empire State Building — I was sold. We live two blocks from the ESB and have an incredible view of it from our rooftop, plus, it was a pretty easy shape to create.

First, I took some leftover moving boxes and chopped them up into the appropriate sizes so that they could be duct taped together.

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I realized a few weeks back (after reading Mrs. Swan’s awesome post about the challenges and perks of being a bride later in life) that I’ve done a lot of focusing on the negative aspects of being a young-ish bride and haven’t really talked about all the wonderful parts about finding your partner at a young age. I guess it’s often more emotionally pressing to write about my gripes and what is bothering me, but I certainly don’t want to downplay all the great perks of being a young-ish bride, because there definitely are a lot!

I now present to you, The Perks:

• Experiencing many firsts together: I wrote about this a little in my post Growing Up TOGETHER, but it’s such a big plus that I think it bears repeating. We get to be there for so many of life’s little firsts that we might have missed if we had found each other later in life! I love that our honeymoon will be Mr. Star’s first time overseas and he’s so proud of the fact that he took me to my first rock concert (Linkin Park, if you’re interested!). We will be able to show our kids pictures of us graduating from college together and they’ll think, ‘Aww, mom and dad had such dorky hair back then.’ You can’t beat that.
• You don’t have to teach an old dog new tricks: Well, that’s kind’ve a funny way to talk about it, but it’s true. If I hadn’t found Mr. Star until later on in life, he might have been stuck in his nighttime jean-wearing, on-top-of-the-comforter sleeping ritual for good. Whew.

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I posted a few weeks back about a dilemma I was facing in regards to our ceremony: how to honor the fact that our gay friends are not allowed to marry and make it clear that we have not forgotten them in their struggle for equality, while not riling up our more conservative guests to the point that they want to walk out.

I wanted to thank you all for your comments and the respectful dialogue that you all created, because it really helped clear my thoughts on the issue and played a big part in the decision that Mr. Star and I made.

Most of you felt that it would be perfectly reasonable to make mention of our beliefs during the ceremony. Those of you who didn’t mostly felt that it was due to the fact that a wedding ceremony is not about politics. And I totally agree, weddings should not be about politics. But to us, the issue of gay civil rights is not just a political issue played out on the national political stage while we stand on the sidelines as spectators. It is an issue that affects the day-to-day lives of many of our friends who are being gracious enough to come celebrate our wedding, even as they still fight for the right to have their own.

No one would feel that it was wrong or “too political” to mention the American Cancer Society or to donate towards the fight for a cure if one of our grandfathers had passed away from lung cancer, yet tobacco legislation is a political issue that is hotly contested up on Capitol Hill. So I don’t think it’s too unreasonable for us to express the ideals we feel are important to mention in our wedding ceremony, much like I respect many religious sentiments that I don’t agree with when they are incorporated into my friends’ wedding ceremonies.
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I remember way back when Mr. Star and I were trying to figure out how to cut our guest list to a reasonable size — about a year ago now! — what a tough time we had figuring out exactly how many people we could invite and what the chances were that we would end up with the number of people attending that we were aiming for. We wanted between 80 and 90 guests to celebrate with us on the big day, but didn’t know what that translated to in terms of how many people we could invite!

(Photo Credit)

I couldn’t find a whole lot of helpful online chatter on the subject at the time.
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One of the other little DIY projects that I really had my heart set on getting done was the idea of having wedding wands for our parade:

I love how festive they look, and guests always look like they’re having fun in pictures with wedding wands in them!

So, I got Sassy Bridesmaid and Fairy Bridesmaid together last week, and in just a couple of hours, and without spending more than ten extra dollars, we were on our way to having fabulous Star Wedding Wands (are you noticing a trend with the quick and dirty DIY going on over here at the Star household?!?).

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You may or may not remember one of my very first posts way back when about my little sister (the flower girl) and my littlest sister (the honorary flower girl).

I just thought I’d give you an update on how my little ladies’ looks are progressing! We took them to the tailor earlier this week to get their dresses altered to fit them perfectly.

My little sister looks gorgeous and loves her “Belle” dress, although you can’t tell from this picture:

She was very upset when she found out we had to leave the dress there to get worked on! I feel the same way about my dress, babe!

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Like many other brides before me, I just love the look of a sparkler send-off. I love the drama (of course!), and it makes for such a perfect end to a classy, city light-filled wedding.

(Photo Credit)

So I bought some sparklers off of eBay. But they looked pretty drab, in all their gray loveliness, so I made cutesy little tags to accompany them:

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We are officially less than two weeks until the wedding and I am furiously turning out polka-dotted craft projects (you may have noticed that I’m hardly ever on the boards anymore — things are heating up around here!)!

The other night I took some vases I found at the dollar store, some ribbon I already had from other projects, and some leftover invitation cardstock and made:

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