Weddingbee Blog

Mr. Unicycle and I rang in the new year at a VFW hall in Minneapolis where my MOH and I did a rousing rendition of Queen’s “Somebody to Love.”

Personal pic

No photographic evidence was taken this time, but here’s us doing “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” circa 2010. I told you this happened!

Not exactly the swankiest of nights, but that’s neither here nor there. Mr. U and I smooched at midnight, surrounded my veterans and karaokeing hipsters alike, and the symbolism of the midnight kiss made me think of another symbolic kiss we’d be partaking in during 2012: the “you may kiss the bride” kiss. Or the more modern “you may kiss each other” kiss. But I prefer the former because it means he needs permission and I don’t.

I did some extensive research on the topic of wedding kisses, which is to say, I wikied that shiz and read the poorly cited paragraph they provided:
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If you can believe it, my “Wedding 2012!” Google Doc has even more tabs than I showed you in my mile long post on wedding organization. I saved the best one for last.

Screenshot via my own personal use of Print Screen

How could I possibly choose a favorite tab in my Google Doc when we’ve got a song list tab (featuring Mickey Avalon’s “My Dick”) and a statistical analysis of wedding venues’ pros and cons in the running?
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Sorry for the brief absence from the blogosphere! Mr. Unicycle is home on break right now, so I’m trying to spend as much time with him as I can, even though our time together is usually spent doing stupid stuff like shopping for boring computer components and falling asleep to the Game Show Network. Now that the holidays are winding down I’m attacking our wedding (and wedding blogging!) like a vicious animal on…a not quite as vicious animal. This wedding will be pwned in the next few months! We’re only six months out and I’m starting to feel really behind. So, my New Year’s resolution is to finish planning our wedding. I figured it was a good resolution, since it will happen no matter how lazy I get. Plus, my other resolution idea (to “not be such a bitch all the time”) is already proving too difficult, and it’s not even 2012 yet.

Image via Fungagz

The problem is, I’m both a bitch and an asshole. And yes, I Googled “Stop being a bitch.”

Going along with the New Year’s resolution theme, I thought I’d share with you my super amazing wedding organization system.
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One Weddingbee post I keep returning to is Mrs. Cheeseburger’s post on unnecessary wedding details, specifically because of her custom cocktail napkins. I think personalized napkins are cool to begin with, but using your favorite love quotes instead of just your names? Amazing idea! As a former English major and literature-inclined bookworm before that, I had occasionally come across sweet quotes throughout high school and college that I thought would be perfect for inclusion in a wedding somehow. Of course, when it came time to think of quotes for my wedding, I couldn’t remember what most of them were. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The real problem was that Mr. Unicycle and I are cheapskates (well, I’m a cheapskate. He’s frugal.), and personalized napkins are not cheap.

Image via Zazzle

I want this t-shirt. But it’s too expensive.

First I checked prices at The Knot Wedding Shop and saw that they were having a sale on cocktail napkins that came with free personalization. I got super excited and laid the smack down on Mr. Unicycle to come up with some lovey dovey quotes before the sale ended.
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…even worse than the one I used to know. It’s been said, extremely misogynistically, that once you put a wedding ring on a woman, she blows up like a balloon. This statement makes me extremely angry. First of all, maybe women tend to get fat post-wedding because they’re having kids or their metabolisms are slowing down. Maybe it’s because women tend to have a higher percentage of body fat than men. Regardless, it’s really not anyone’s business, and it’s horrifying that not only do women have to struggle to look perfect on their wedding day, but now we also have to worry about gaining the newlywed nine and becoming a statistic.

That being said…I am really looking forward to being able to eat whatever I want after the wedding. OK, I’ll be real: my diet since the proposal hasn’t changed that much, but I am definitely depriving myself of some of my old favorite artery-cloggers, and my patience is wearing thin (unlike my waistband—not fair). Before the ring (B.R. from now on), I ate Frosted Mini Wheats with skim milk for breakfast; now I eat a banana. B.R. I ate a salad, two servings of fruit, and a bag of Triscuits with a Diet Pepsi for lunch. Now I’ve replaced the Triscuits with another serving of fruit (who knew those little buggers had so many calories???), and I’ve done away with the pop. B.R. dinner was a free-for-all, and weekends? I’m too ashamed to mention them. Now I try to eat a Lean Cuisine for dins. Weekends are still too shameful for me to write about. I may or may not be eating chocolate chips from the bag as I type…

Image via Kells Craft / Edited by me

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I like to think that our wedding will be “retro inspired.” I don’t mean vintage, the most often overused/misused adjective in the wedding lexicon. I mean retro. When I think of “vintage,” I think of faded photographs, artfully aged furniture, and whimsical wild flowers in milk glass. When I think of “retro,” I think of beehive hairdos, polka dot shoes, red lipstick, and poufy skirts. I’m not sure what era I actually like. Believe me when I say history was my worst subject ever—I’d literally rather retake calculus, physics, philosophy, and even P.E. than ever take another history class. So I’m not sure if I like the ’50s or the ’60s, or some combination of the two. I’m not talking poodle skirts or flower power. Maybe mid-century is a good descriptor. Mad Men, Dior’s New Look, and rockabilly/pin-up styles all intrigue me. Again, I’m not sure if those all took place at the same general time or not. I’m more concerned with applying them to our very 2012 wedding. Instead of jabbering on, for once I’ll just show you a bunch of fun pictures.

Image via Divine Jewel on Etsy

Pearls that would make Betty Draper drool

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I left you guys hanging in absolutely agonizing suspense after my last dress post. My apologies. Feel free to move off the edge of your seats because the trick I had up my sleeve is about to be revealed! (How did you get so lucky?) But first…

No, I’m serious, Mr. Unicycle. Get. the. hell. out. I’m about the reveal The Dress.

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…and other songs not to play at your wedding reception.

I started a spreadsheet of song ideas a while back (thanks, yet again, Google Docs!), and every time I hear a song I want to use for the wedding, I add it to the spreadsheet, noting whether it’ll be for the ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, dancing, or other (cake cutting, wedding-party intros, etc.). The spreadsheet has been steadily growing for the past five months or so, and the other day I looked back at some of the songs I’d added at the beginning.

I did a double take when I saw “S&M: Dancing.” Suddenly I was overcome with visions of Mr. Unicycle’s grandma belting out “Sex in the air/I don’t care I love the smell of it” while my great aunt grinds lasciviously with a groomsman. Hmm. Maybe a song about sadomasochism isn’t the best choice for a classy wedding reception celebrating the sacred vows the Unicycles have just made. Here’s what else you might want to reconsider adding to your playlist:

Songs about exes:

Every time I go on the treadmill (my absolute favorite place in the world…) I play Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away.” That song is just so dang catchy! It’s the perfect tempo for running (OK fine, jogging [all right fine, walking quickly]) and also dancing. I also love belting out the lyrics in the car. But, um, why would “the one that got away” have any place at our wedding? And for the record, neither I nor the mister even has a “one that got away,” which somehow makes it even more inappropriate.

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Mr. Unicycle had a good laugh when he saw “Moo Cards” on our wedding to-do list, but Vistaprint got the last laugh because I ended up just ordering 250 business cards through them FO’ FREE. Let me back up. I’d seen several other bees use mini Moo cards featuring engagement pics that direct guests to a public Flickr account where they can share pictures they take at their wedding. I love this idea because I know I’ll be waiting on pins and needles for our pro pics to come back, so having guest photos all in one place = winning.

Image via T-Shirt Guru

My first step was to create a Flickr account. I ended up first creating a Yahoo account, since Flickr is through Yahoo. I didn’t want to go through my existing Yahoo account because then I’d have to give guests my real password. And it’s kind of an embarrassing password. It involves a certain man with Jheri curls. We debated whether to upgrade to a pro account or not and eventually decided…(drum roll please)…to wait until we get closer to the wedding to actually make a decision. Then I dabbled in Picnik for the first time ever and came up with an overly cutesy design:

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We weren’t originally going to have a wedding website. What did we need one for? Ohhhh, so people could find our registry? Did someone say…presents? In that case, we definitely needed a website. When we got closer to sending out our save the dates, I looked into free wedding-website templates through The Knot and the like, assuming I’d just find a template that was plain yellow and call it a day. I didn’t necessarily want or need something extraordinarily pretty or well designed. But I thought it would be nice to have the website match the wedding color scheme, at lease a tiny bit. After scrolling through template after template of swirly designs, beach backdrops, and flowery patterns, I stopped looking. What was the point of putting so much effort into making the save the dates match our color scheme if our website (our other first impression) was just going to have some random firefly motif on it? And that’s when I discovered Google Sites. (I swear I’m not being sponsored by Google. Why would they care about me anyway?)

Image via Google Sites blog

That being said, Google truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

Google Sites is actually up on the Google menu along with Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Reader, the other loves of my life. Go look, I swear it’s there! It’s basically a total n00b version of creating your own website from scratch. You don’t have to know anything about HTML (though you can edit it if you’re so inclined) and you can just use their page templates. The best part? I could customize the colors (yay, yellow!) and also upload photos to use as my background (yay, polka dots!). Wanna see the home page?

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In the The Bees are Thankful For… post, I admitted to being thankful that tights are in style (among other things). I thank da lawd daily that tights are in style, because I like to wear dresses every day, whether it’s cold or not. That got me thinking about other things I’m glad to hop on the bandwagon for. Jeans tucked into boots—sooo practical when it’s wet out. Scarves—they keep me warm in the office on the daily. Headbands—my bangs can’t be trusted to behave very often. Sure, I could wear these things even if they weren’t in style, but would I? Would I even think to wear a scarf indoors if hipsters hadn’t proclaimed it cool? Probably not—you don’t see me wearing snowpantz to work, no matter how cold my legs get under that desk.

Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Arrow and Apple

I want these tights! All of them! At the same time!

Then I realized there were a number of wedding-related trends that are making my life easier as well. Paper flowers, for example. OK, they might not be making my life easier per se, but making my own flowers will save me a bundle. And I don’t have to worry too much about how weird it is to have paper flowers because, well, it’s not that weird anymore. In fact, they’re downright prolific in the wedding blogosphere.

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If you haven’t seen me since I got engaged, you probably won’t recognize the monster I’ve become. Just kidding. Sort of. Wedding planning has changed me in a number of surprising ways, in addition to my sappiness. I didn’t think being engaged would make much of a difference since I was already pretty wedding crazy before, but it turns out that making it all a reality instead of a hypothetical fantasy makes a big difference.

1. In addition to crying like a friggin’ baby at heartfelt commercials and Kim Kardashian, I’ve also become oddly obsessed with being an adult, a grownup, a “real person.” Red wine at dinner? Fill ’er up! 401Ks? Tell me more! Cheesy Hallmark movies about idyllic families creating lasting memories? Can’t get enough. Falling asleep at 10 PM? It happens to the best of us.

Image via XKCD

2. I joke a lot about how much I fear babies, and I love nothing more than pointing and laughing at ugly ones. (Poor taste? Whatever, that’s what they get for pooping on everything.) But now that I’m getting closer to being someone’s wife, I don’t mind the idea of also being someone’s mom quite so much. Those cheesy Hallmark movies are getting to me. All I want is to create lasting memories with my well-behaved children! Is that too much to ask?

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Shoes are important. You literally can’t leave the house without them. If I’m going to listen to Coco Chanel and take one accessory off before leaving the house, shoes can’t be that one thing. Shoes make women feel sexy, even if they otherwise wouldn’t. Shoes fit whether you eat that last cookie or not. Shoes help make me taller so I can reach that top shelf. (All right, fine—that middle shelf. I’ll never quite reach the top.) I wrote an entire short story in college examining the social constructs surrounding high-heel-shod women—sexual repercussions, metaphors, isn’t it ironic, mumbo jumbo, BS, etc.—that seemed very deep and intellectually stimulating to my post-adolescent, idealistic brain. But no one rhapsodized about shoes better than Kelly.

When wedding planning was new and exciting, I pinned a bunch of shoe ideas that appealed to me, even though the pics I pinned were not actually shoes you could buy. Like these:

Image via Oh Happy Day

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I’m not sure I realized that weddings had color schemes before I discovered Weddingbee back in the day. My memories from BWB (before Weddingbee) are a little hazy, but I’m pretty sure I just thought all weddings had a lot of white. Silly Unicycle.

When I first discovered all the beautiful inspiration boards on Weddingbee and other wedding blogs, I realized I needed to come up with a color scheme for my wedding, stat! Never mind that I was 20 years old and nowhere near engaged. First I decided on yellow and pink, because pink was my old favorite color and yellow was my new favorite color. I even had an accordion binder I used for school that was pink and yellow already. Perf.

Made using Mosaic Maker. Image sources, clockwise from top left: (1) Kara’s Party Ideas / Photo by Lyndsey Fagerlund, (2) Martha Stewart Weddings, (3) The Knotty Bride / Photo by Jade + Matthew, (4) Paiges of Style / Photo by Sprout Photography, (5) Zappos, (6) Hostess with the Mostess, (7) Martha Stewart Weddings, (8) isakayboutique on Etsy, (9) Giverslog, (10) Green Wedding Shoes / Photos by Katherine Elizabeth Photography, (11) A Blissful Nest, (12) Martha Stewart Weddings, and (13) The Bride’s Cafe / Photo by Amanda Wilcher

So why’d I change my mind? Well, I was going to say that I realized this color scheme was too tacky, but after putting together this inspiration board, I realize it’s actually quite lovely. And I want it. However, I don’t want to force pink on Mr. Unicycle, so I moved on.

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In my last post I mentioned that I was going to try implementing a self-imposed wedding-free date night rule for me and Mr. Unicycle. I thought about it for like a day and then I was like, “Grrl…it’s too hard.” When you only see your fiance three times a month on average, it’s hard to not want to hammer out a bunch of wedding junk every time you see him! So I gave it the ol’ college try, but in the end I decided to make lemonade out of the sitch.

Image via MTV

Not this sitch. Well, maybe.

That’s right, I’ll turn wedding planning into a date! Genius, right? Multitasking at its finest. Here’s what I came up with:
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