Weddingbee Blog

We whipped through our portraits in about half an hour, anxious to get to the cocktail hour, where delectable appetizers, champagne and our loved ones awaited us.

Finally, Kelly declared us finished and we headed to the tent, traversing through rough terrain that included puddles, mud and rain galore…

Closed Circle Photography

I basically held my dress up like in the photo above for the entire reception. Siiiiigh…I should’ve gotten one of those loop-things sewn in like Mrs Seashell did!
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Mr. TM and I threw a little holiday shindig this weekend. In an effort to mimic Martha Stewart’s homemade hospitality, I spent the entire Friday night beforehand baking, crafting, wrapping, cooking, bedazzling, hanging, cleaning and making things by hand.

HA! That’s a joke, my friends. Instead, I went to Duane Reade to pick up a few bags of holiday candy to serve as snacks. (Oh stop, I had other food too. In fact, I actually did bake peanut butter cookies, so boo-yah!)

I made my way to the special “holiday candy” aisle (which is separate from the regular candy aisle…and yes, I know this because I make frequent candy runs to Duane Reade, don’t judge me), found the holiday candy aisle, and picked out holiday-themed Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, holiday-themed Hershey’s Kisses and what I thought were holiday-themed M&M’s…

Side note: How come all the candy is Christmas colors? Where’s the blue and white M&M’s for Hannukah? Or um, whatever colors represent Kwanzaa?
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Let me just put this out there: I’m a total weirdo. There’s so many things I do that I absolutely would never tell anyone else on the planet (except Mr Trail Mix, since he lives with me and knows about most of them) but, in keeping with the sharing spirit of the holidays, I came up with a few little secrets I’m willing to divulge…

Source

Um, YUM!!!!

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Hey there, hive. I’d like your input on this one.  Allow me to elaborate…We have friends who are celebrating their engagement with a fairly fancy-schmancy party (woohoo, I love fancy parties!) in a few weeks.  Great, grand, wonderful, right? Right, but I want everyone’s opinions on something—the gift for the party.

I was browsing their registries yesterday (one was at Crate & Barrel and the other was at Bloomingdale’s) and couldn’t quite come up with a suitable present. (I’m mega-weird about presents. Don’t ask.) While the stuff at Crate & Barrel was nice, it lacked a certain j’ne sais quoi. I guess I think presents should be special, something splurge worthy, and nothing from C & B really jumped out screaming at me as the perfect gift.

Which leaves the Bloomingdale’s registry. Suh-weeeet! Well, here’s the thing:They registered (as many couples do) for a set of fine china for twelve. Beautiful stuff (from Bernardaud—yum), but fairly expensive for a plate.

Source

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When I was in high school, I expressed my teenage angst through my hair. True story. Want proof? OK, I’ll show you exactly one photo and then the memories are going back into the deeply-buried vault, where I never have to relive the awkwardness that was high school again…

Can you believe that was me? Now stop laughing and focus, please.

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I last left off with our joyful recessional, set to The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.”

As we finished our walk down the aisle and came to the entryway of the Tannery, we stopped short. Much to our dismay, it was raining. (I know, I can’t shut up about the rain. Sorry.) And not just a light sprinkle, either, but full-on raining.

Before the ceremony, our photographer had instructed us to book it out of the Tannery as soon as we walked down the aisle; otherwise we’d be mobbed by well-wishing guests, and an impromptu receiving line would form (something we were looking to avoid).

So with Kelly’s advice still in our heads, the sound of raindrops ringing in our ears, and the realization that our bridal party was quickly moving down the aisle, we made a panicked, split-second decision to grab an umbrella and get outta there!

Now, here’s the funny coda to this story: During the cocktail hour, Mr. Trail Mix was talking with a few buddies from college and one of them exclaimed,

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I chose this post as my favorite because of the sense of community I experienced in the responses. Truthfully, I thought the reactions would be lukewarm, at best, and expected a fairly low number of comments. Instead, all you incredible hive members made me feel like a rock star. I read the comments with tears streaming down my face and have never felt so supported like I did at that moment. When I joined Weddingbee in June of 2009, I never expected to feel so welcomed and a part of something, not only in my wedding plans but in my life as well. The spirit of support within readers is something that has touched all of the blogger bees in various moments, and for me, this was my moment when all I could think was, “Wow. These people are amazing.” Because you guys really, truly are. Thank you for helping me push myself to run my fastest marathon yet!

~~~

26.2 miles were run on Monday in Beantown. It wasn’t pretty but it’s done, and damn, if it wasn’t crazy-fun yet totally torturous all at the same time.

Words are failing me at the moment so some picture narratives will have to do instead:

Finally, I am the proud owner of the highly-prestigious/much-coveted (fine, only in the running world but still…) BAA marathon jacket. Seriously, every time I’ve seen someone wearing one of these while running in the park, I had a major case of the envies. Until now.

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I figured I’d throw my hat into the ring for this series since I remember when I was a reader, I always enjoyed hearing about the process of becoming a bee…plus, I don’t have too much longer around these parts (SOB!) so I’m overstaying my welcome as long as I can…

Alrighty then, first things first: How did I find Weddingbee?

Let’s see, I got engaged in March 2009 and jumped right into planning mode, despite the fact that our wedding wasn’t going to be until summer of 2010. I hit up The Knot and Martha Stewart for inspiration but my greedy bride-to-be self wasn’t satisfied with just those two. I wanted more, more, more!

So, I Googled. I literally Googled “Wedding Blog” and whaddya know? Weddingbee was the first one that came up. I didn’t really understand how it worked at first (the monikers really threw me for a loop) but it was Mrs Peep Toe’s beautiful San Francisco wedding that really drew me in and from then on, I was hooked. And by hooked, I mean rabidly obsessed.
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And now, dear friends, it’s time to share the moments from my wedding that still make my heart swell with love and happiness whenever I relive them: Our vows, which we wrote ourselves but kept from one another.

I’m going to let the photos do most of the talking for this one. Mr Trail Mix said his vows first…

Miss Trail Mix-

I love you and am ecstatic to have such an amazing bride.

Closed Circle Photography

I can’t believe we are only a few moments away from finally being husband and wife. You are beautiful, compassionate, athletic and honest.
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It’s time for what I think is going to be my favorite recaps of the bunch: the ceremony. We had numerous “Not a dry eye in the house”-type comments from our guests and I like to think it’s because the whole thing was genuinely a reflection of the two of us.

While the ceremony was Jewish, we incorporated other elements that spoke to us and together with our rabbi, crafted the most memorable 30 minutes of my life. I know I’m not alone when I speak of prior worries about being “present” for the ceremony and now, from the other side, I can safely say that for me, those fears were completely unfounded.

I was there. Of all the moments from our wedding, the ones that I feel the most deeply are those from the ceremony. I can see so clearly every single second of it in my mind’s eye and can vividly remember the intense emotions throughout. And now, I’m going to attempt to tell you guys about it.

So, here we go…

With everyone seated and waiting, it was time to get this show on the road.

Closed Circle Photography

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*Siiiiiiigh. Sorry to wax on a bit in this post but it has a lot of my favorite photos from our wedding day. Some may say that the little details don’t matter come W-day but I will say that I noticed them all and I loved them, which is why I’m goin’ a little bit photo-crazy on this one…

Well, that and the technological genius that is Mrs Penguin taught me a fabulous trick over several pitchers of sangria, called “resizing photos” in order to upload the files faster, since it was taking about 20 minutes per photo at the size I was doing them on Blogger…The site is FastStone.Org and it’s awesome. (Ed. note: credit for introducing FastStone to the bees goes to Mrs. Avocado!) In yo’ face, evil piece of conspiring technology that is my computer!

Anyways, enough talky-talky, Trail Mix, on to the good stuff!

When our guests arrived, the were greeted by our lovely little rustic sign as they walked around the pond, created by Ma and Paw Trail Mix. Loves!

Closed Circle Photography

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In the hour leading up to the ceremony, we managed to complete the bulk of the formal portraits, as scheduled. In spite of their traditional nature and the ever-present rain, the formal portraits came out beautifully, thanks to the Tannery’s natural setting. I’ll try to be as brief as possible with these since unless the loved ones surrounding the bride and groom are your own, formal portraits hold a limited interest for the viewer (but man, oh man, do I love them!).

First, my bridesmaids and I kicked things off…

Closed Circle Photography

Looking at these photos, it’s hard to believe how crappy the weather was. I don’t know how she did it but Kelly of Closed Circle Photo managed to make our mess of a wedding look absolutely gorgeous.
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You know the saying, “The harder you fall, the higher you bounce?”

Well, it’s particularly true at your wedding. Or, it was at ours, anyways.

After arriving at our venue and witnessing all the chaos caused by the rain, folks, I was majorly stressin’. But then the rain let up for a few minutes and our photographer wanted to do our first look.

And suddenly (Like magic?) I didn’t care about anything but seeing Mr Trail Mix. In fact, I realized that I was damn excited to see him! Seriously, the transformation was practically instantaneous. I let go of the worries and stress and once again, wedding day excitement reigned as I hurried out to meet my love.

*Thanks Kelly, for capturing this moment so beautifully. Be still, my heart…

Mr Trail Mix strikes a GQ pose while awaiting the onset of his beautiful (*wink) bride…

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Hi folks (*blows kiss, takes deep breath). This post has been kinda hard for me to write (hence my blogging absence lately) because it involves some moments of the wedding where I acted, um, how shall we say? Less than favorably? I’m not saying my breakdown wasn’t justified but I’m still not proud of it. Don’t judge.

Anyways, where were we in my crazy wedding saga? Oh right, I’d hopped in my mom’s rockin’ Subaru station wagon to be chauffeured the short ride up to the venue, blithely, innocently unaware of the chaos waiting for me ahead. I arrived on schedule, ready to take all the bridal party and family portraits before the ceremony, which was set to begin at 4:30 PM. What I found was not the organized bustle of our vendors putting together the wedding as scheduled, but rather pure and utter madness.

Thanks to the rain, both our rental and catering companies were very, behind setting up. I witnessed my dad, still in his work clothes, frantically hanging cafe lights and lanterns. I saw our caterer still arranging the bar and our DOC desperately trying to arrange two large tables in a room only big enough for one of them that were to hold the guest book/card and cookies/lemonade tables, both of which were supposed to be set up outside. Our florist (who had all our bouquets) was nowhere to be found. And then…

My heart sank when I looked at the tent and my mom approached me with a look that was half sympathetic and half mildly crazed despair and told me that somehow the dance floor was about half the size we had requested.

Oh, F*CK.
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…But it’s definitely a post-wedding change! I’ve been a fake blonde for several years now but honestly, I’m sick of how expensive highlights are to maintain. For real, it’s ridiculous; especially in New York City (like, two hundred bones and up! Ouch!).

So with the onset of autumn and my desire to save some cash, I decided it was time to ditch the highlights and go back to my natural color, which is a sort of medium brown. No more trips to the hair salon for this bee!

Anyways, for fun, here’s my before picture, taken about a month before our wedding:

Yikes, I’m clearly not wearing makeup in the above photo, but that’s par for the course, we know this!

And here’s how I look now:

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