Weddingbee Blog

Way back at the beginning of June, I dropped off my dress for alterations. This weekend, I went back in to visit my dress, check things out, and identify any other changes that might need to be made over the next two weeks.

They had sent it out for cleaning, taken up the hem just a bit, did the bustle, but had held off on adjusting the bust (which was ginormous!) and replacing the defunct zipper (since it was a sample dress). Waiting until the last minute to replace the zipper means that if I gain or lose any weight, when she replaces the zipper she can make adjustments to the fit all in one fell swoop.

Thank goodness for that, because despite all the working out that I’ve been doing, a couple of pounds have decided to plant themselves right on my torso! The dress I could zip myself in to 3 months ago required me to seek assistance this time around. Eek!

It may look like it fits, but I definitely could not fill my lungs. Let’s just say, if I needed to yawn, I would have bust a seam! The seamstress encouraged me to work out between now and then. I shared that I DO work out plenty, but we’re past that point… just let it out a little and we’ll all sleep easier at night!

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No, not this kind of change, silly! Now that we’re finally nailing down the details and making decisions for the big day that is just two weeks away, we’ve up and changed so many details that we previously thought were set!

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Head Table

I never thought we wouldn’t have a head table. The head was just… there. Standard. But as I started playing around with our seating charts, I kept on getting stuck. There was no good way to divide people up and have it make sense. I was particularly struggling with who would sit at the table with my parents. Mr. S’s parents won’t be involved in the wedding (a detail I haven’t really focused on, as it’s Mr. S’s personal business) and he has no siblings; my only sibling, my sister, is my maid of honor; I only have one grandparent still with us. So, any other family combination that I could come up with was forever leaving someone else out.
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We went through a million ideas for our guestbook - from an adorable “wish tree” to a typewriter tell-all, to everything in between. We finally settled on the Polaroid guestbook. It incorporates Mr. S’s love of photography and it’s an interactive element with our guests.

Since we knew we wanted to do one of these:

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We went on Amazon and got one of these (and later picked up a second at a garage sale for $5, and it works!):
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In the early dark ages of my wedding planning, I found and fell in love with our great cake topper. Remember? I also developed the escort cards that will nestle into bed of wheatgrass at the reception, as you might recall.

However, one topic I haven’t touched on are our table numbers. How are our cake toppers involved in this topic, you ask? Well, I decided that we couldn’t just have our cute little cake toppers have such a short life. The mini Stilettos needed their time in the limelight. So, when I ordered our toppers, I asked Goose Grease to not attach our mini mes to the round base - we needed to be able to move them around for a little photo shoot (we’ll glue them onto the base ourselves before the wedding).

Oh yes, you heard me correctly. We let our wooden selves work it for the camera, and through this, are able to share bits and pieces of ourselves and our lives together with our wedding guests.

These are the final pictures we’re getting developed. Mr. S added numbers to them using Adobe Illustrator.

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We wanted to have our pup Charlie in one shot. We assumed this would be quite tricky as he can be rather, err, rambunctious, but as soon as we set the toppers onto the floor, Charlie started posing for the camera. I kid you not. You would have thought we had sat him down beforehand and explained what was going to happen, with him nodding his head in agreement. Charlie, apparently, is an old pro when it comes to photo shoots.

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It’s been a long while since my fabulous wedding day shoes have made their way into a post! I’ve had them for months and months, and while I’ve cheated on them a few times with some other eye candy, they’re here to stay. I feel sex-ay when I slide these on!

They don’t match my dress at all (they’re more of a yellow-y ivory and my dress is diamond white), but I would never abandon them just for that. Plus, they were a steal at $40! They’re the Nine West ’Gohana’ for those who want shoes like Stiletto!

Source: Overstock

While I can rock a pair of heels when the occasion calls for it, especially when I’m running high on adrenaline, me thinks my toes may want a bit of a rest toward the end of the night. Of course, I may do just fine in my heels, but I absolutely need to have a backup plan just in case.

Enter, my backup plan…
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I’ve been watching our guest count grow and grow over the past couple of weeks. The jury is still out for about 10 of the 72 invites we sent out, but the RSVP deadline isn’t until this Friday. I think that’s a pretty good response rate so far!

We’ve had very few declines… 6 to be exact, in addition to the 5 invites we sent to some family members that we were pretty sure wouldn’t be making the trip, but we needed to send an invitation to. Otherwise, people are apparently excited to celebrate with the Stilettos! Yay.

But what has really surprised me about the response cards is that so many of our guests are not taking advantage of their “plus one” status!

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On discovering the ‘bee…
I found Weddingbee before I got engaged, when I had a girlfriend who was looking for her wedding dress. We had already gone to various boutiques in Chicago, but she had hit a wall on finding “the one”. I was digging around online trying to find new places for us to visit, and I came across Weddingbee and a post by a Chicago Bee (who? I have no clue!) and her dress shopping experience. I thought the site was cool and helpful, but I didn’t dig any deeper… I mean, I wasn’t even thinking of getting married!

Fast forward 6 months when a ring was slipped onto my finger, pushing me deep into planning. I came across ideas online of using a vintage typewriter as a guest book, and we both loved it (and have since changed plans, ha!). Searching for typewriter-themed weddings, I came across Mrs. Lovebug. Swoon. I sat for hours pouring over her planning and recaps and thinking how cool it must be to have your wedding story chronicled in such a way. I started reading the ’bee off and on in the early parts of my engagement.

On blogging…
I had a baking blog for a couple of years before I started my wedding blog. I enjoy it, but I’ve never really found my voice there. Since getting engaged in March of ’08, I was getting completely overwhelmed with everything. So in January of this year, I decided I was going to start a wedding blog and use that as an outlet for saving my sanity. As I started my wedding blog, I kept Weddingbee in mind. What would it take to be one of their bloggers?
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Remember my lovely Part 1 where Sister Stiletto threw me a fabulous bridal shower? Well, once it was over, we skedaddled out of there, drove into the city to our suite at the Hard Rock Hotel, changed, and then hopped into a cab on our way to a mysterious destination.

Here we are, on our way…

When we walked into Circuit Night Club, where they have, err, review shows, I was quite hesitant and definitely had not had enough to drink at the point in the day.

See Exhibit A:
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A little while back I had posted about my hair inspirations in preparation for my hair trial. There’s so much great inspiration out there, but I was nervous that I’d pick out styles that my hair wouldn’t cooperate with, or that I wouldn’t end up liking.

I’d finally narrowed it down to this great style:

Source: Flickr

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A few weeks ago, Sister Stiletto threw me a fabulous weekend of celebration. We started off with my bridal shower, and since all of the wedding events were taking place in Oak Park, the shower was here as well. Sister S found the Oak Park Art League - doesn’t it look like a little cottage tucked in the woods? So darling!

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This was a perfect location for the shower - personal, cute and the (very reasonable!) rental fee goes to support the Art League, which is a non-profit offering art classes and providing gallery space to artists.

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For months I’ve been hiding the gift that I’ll give Mr. S on the wedding day. I’ll tell you what it is after the wedding, but to give you a couple of hints, it is photography-related and very popular right now! Since he’s a photographer, I don’t want to mention it and chance him finding it when searching about this “thing” online.

Since the gift has been squared away for so long, I’ve been stewing over the card that I’ll write in to pour my heart out to Mr. S on the morning of our wedding. I love giving him cards and finding just the right one, and he saves them all. In fact, at my bridal shower we played a game where Sister Stiletto had asked him in secret various questions about our relationship, and I was tested to see whether our answers matched. When asked about one of my best qualities in our relationship, Mr. S said how I’m always doing thoughtful things for him, including last summer when I took a 10-day trip to Italy with my family and strategically hid cards all around our apartment for him to find while I was gone.

So… the wedding day card is very important! Am I witty, sappy or sentimental? I’ve scoped out some favorites from Etsy…

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I consider myself Mr. S’s biggest fan, especially as he’s growing his business (I’m so proud of him!!).

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In keeping with my little fitness/wellness theme this week (remember my 2-a-day crazy workout post?), I thought I’d give you peek into what I’ve been eatin’ over the last year or two.

I’ve managed to lose 30 pounds, something I’m quite proud of. But in addition to having started a challenging workout routine, part of my success has been due to running far, far away from the foods I love - mac ’n’ cheese, SpaghettiOs (yes, I still love these and yes, I realize I’m not an 8-year-old), frozen dinners, lots of pasta…. the list could go on. I’ve also learned to stop skipping breakfast and to always bring my lunch with me to work. I’m often the girl sitting and eating carrots and yogurt at a restaurant while my co-workers grab yummier stuff, and I’m okay with that.

I always start my day with a high protein, high fiber cereal, usually by Kashi (I love the Kashi Go Lean and the Kashi Heart to Heart). I recently switched to skim milk and have never noticed a difference between that and the 2% I used to buy.

(Please excuse the old picture, but it’s me eating cereal, nonetheless).

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Have you created your “Mad Men” avatar yet? When Mr. S suggested that we create avatars and use them on the rehearsal dinner, I thought he had lost it… just a bit. But once I placed that cartoon martini in my hand, I was sold!

Once we had digitized ourselves, Mr. S laid out a postcard with the little rehearsal dinner poem that I’ve seen everywhere on the ‘net. It might be a wee bit cheesy, but I didn’t have the patience to try and be clever on my own.

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The countdown to the wedding is hanging precariously over my head, ticking away as the 30-day mark looms closer and closer… which will, of course, only speed toward the 15, 10, and 5 day markers! And before you know it, we’ll be at the night-before-the-wedding-point. Eeh.

I think Mr. S is starting to feel it too, however he’s not feeling the need to get a jump start on DIY projects or plan out the timeline. He’s instituted “two a days” in the Stiletto household.

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There’s no turning back now… it looks like Mr. S and I are really going to do this thing, and it’s time to get down to brass tacks… the “I do” kiss. The big one. The one all of our loved ones are going to see.

The scene from the “Wedding Singer” between Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler has been in the back of my mind for months. Remember? Drew’s character Julia was engaged to that awful way-too-’80s guy, and Julia’s sister was getting her to practice the church kiss with Sandler’s character Robbie.

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Not ringing a bell? Don’t worry, you can watch the scene and get up to speed - I’ll wait for you.
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