Weddingbee Blog

Hive! Time is flying away from me, just two months to go! I’ve never been more excited for anything in my whole life (besides actually getting engaged)! I’m also nervous and trying really hard not to stress eat. Trying and failing.

We have officially rounded the corner to the aisle with our last big wedding purchase. Wedding rings! Glorious bands of monogamy. From the beginning of this whole wedding planning dealio, Mr. Warbs and I have been divided on the subject of rings. I always thought we would get matching bands with matching engravings, because that’s what my parents did. But, Mr. Warbs was set on having a tungsten ring. I know, how trendy right?

Even though they do make tungsten rings for women, I didn’t like the idea at all. They were a little to heavy for my taste so we abandoned the matching bands idea pretty quick. Instead, I opted for the matching band to my engagement ring and we got Mr. Warbs’ ring from Daniel’s Jewelers. On sale no less.

I was slightly heartbroken when the sales lady told us they couldn’t engrave a tungsten ring. Because tungsten is apparently the John McClane of metals, it’s indestructible. Phew, I finally squeezed a Die Hard reference in here!

Here are our non-matchy rings:

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At this point in the wedding planning process, most people are wrangling in their RSVPs. But an amazing thing has happened to us: nearly all of our guests have mailed their RSVPs in! And we’re still a week away from our “respond by” date. Not too shabby, Warbler guests.

By far, our favorite response came from Man of Honor J5. Along with his RSVP card, he sent in a hilarious letter written in Old English which declared his intent to attend the wedding. He stained the letter in coffee and burned the edges to give it an ancient look. Proof  that you can put to use what you learned in elementary school.

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Now that most people have received their invitations, it’s time for the reveal! Here are our handmade, Catprint printed invites. Let’s take a look at the President’s invite.

Envelope in Antique Gold

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Mr. Warbs and I never planned on making programs for our ceremony. Since our ceremony will be super short we thought it might be pointless. Then I thought we should probably write up a little blurb about our wine box. And I also wanted to honor our loves ones who had passed. I wasn’t interested in traditional programs: sheets of paper, fans and the like. Those are fine and dandy, but if we’re going to do programs, I want something our guests can have fun with. That’s when I found Pinterest.

After this life changing event and hours of wasted time at work, I didn’t want them anymore, I needed programs. Why? Because, I had to justify all those damn pins. And I found a couple of really creative ones!

Paper bag programs to hold poms. Genius.

Image via Underconsideration.com

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Personal photo

Guess what, Hive? Our lovely invites are done and mailed out! After months of designing, redesigning, agonizing over wording and dumb spelling errors we are done! Celebratory dance break! We sent these babies out last week and have already gotten a couple of RSVPs back.
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After our misadventures in wood burning, Mr. Warbs stepped up to stain the box. We originally ordered the unfinished box online knowing that we would eventually stain it. We went to Home Depot to pick out a nice rustic looking color, a drop cloth and some paint brushes. While the box’s lid was being worked on by BM Tata’s dad, Mr. Warbs went to work on the rest of the box. Staining is pretty easy to do, but if you’re going to stain wood here’s a tip to make it easier on yourself: sand the wood first! It helps the wood absorb the stain better. Totally a foreign concept to me, but apparently everyone’s part of a secret club that knows about things like this!

Anyway, we neglected to do that and it gave Mr. Warbs a bit of trouble to get the wood dark enough. The first couple coats of stain seemed to roll off the wood like water. I think he must have used four or more coats in order to get the box dark enough. When we got the lid back, (which BM Tata’s dad had sanded) it only needed one coat of stain. If we had added another it would have been a completely different color than the rest of the box.

After giving the box a couple of days to dry we were happy with the finished color!

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Remember how I talked about using a wine box for our ceremony and then promptly never mentioned the subject again? Yeah, I’ve been a bad bride. We bought an unfinished wine box with the intention of staining it and wood burning our names on it. Well, the box has been sitting in our apartment for months now, just begging to get all fancied up. Long story short? We lacked the motivation to get going on the thing. Every now and then I would get short bursts of motivation. One day I went out and bought a wood burning kit. Then something came up and I didn’t think of the box again for two months. Another time I bought foam inserts and a X-Acto knife…and the box sat for months. You get the idea. A few weeks ago, I set aside a specific day to tackle this project. I was tired of looking at the unfinished box with all of the tools stacked on top of it. So I grabbed the wood burner and practice wood and went to work. Yeah, it turns out wood burning is a much harder skill than I thought.

FAIL!

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Image via Chicoparty.com

Today officially marks 100 days until our wedding. Where did the time go? Even though we’ve been engaged for 13 months now, there’s a panicky part of me that needs more time. But, thanks to our type A careful planning, everything is pretty much done! Mr. Warbs and I did a little dance when we got to the back page of our wedding planning checklist. We’re in the home stretch, Hive! Just a few more big things to conquer and then all that’s left is the little details that keep me up at night. Pssh, no big deal.

While my anxiety has slowly been building up approaching the 100 day mark, Mr. Warbs has remained as excited as he was the night he proposed.

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After my first makeup trial, I decided to be a little more selective in finding the next makeup artist. I pored through countless websites looking for examples, reviews and of course, prices. I was pretty lucky to find a few who were still around during the holidays and had good reviews online. The day after Christmas, I had a trial with a nice woman who was also the most affordable. I was pretty adamant about the amount of coverage I wanted and probably came across as bitchy. Oh well, she did a great job anyway!

From the beginning I felt comfortable because she told me what she was doing every step of the way. I think my bitchiness about coverage might have gotten to her because she used super light coverage. I was happy I didn’t look all crazy, but would have been fine with a tad bit more coverage. I know, I sound like Goldilocks. Hive, weddings make people crazy. She got major points for asking before applying shimmer to my face. I absolutely cannot stand shimmer because I always tend to leave traces of it on everything and everybody. But since she had a light hand, I let her try it out. It actually looked really pretty. You win this one, shimmer. We also tried out some false lashes which I was surprisingly OK with. I’m normally a freak about things going in, around, or near my eyes. But I could barely feel the lashes and I felt like they made me look hot. But, I was scared I wouldn’t be able to take them off by myself so I had her take them off before she left so you won’t see them in the photos. Yup, I’m that girl.
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Hey there, remember me? Miss Warbler? Yeah, it’s been a while. Sorry for not keeping in touch. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy our time together, I’ve just been…busy. You know, wedding planning and all. Don’t take it personal. It’s not you, it’s me.

It’s been a while hive, but I promise I haven’t been sitting on my ass this whole time. Wedding projects (and mishaps) will be shared in due time!

Over the holiday break, I had a couple of makeup trials. The first trial was…not good. There’s no other way to put it. But I guess it was my fault. In an effort to try and save some money, I went to the mall and tried out a makeup artist at a department store. I figured that it might be cheaper and if the bridal party had to drive to the mall the day of the wedding, than it would be worth it to save a little cash. It’s what I did for prom, so why couldn’t I do that for the wedding too? Yeah, you can go ahead and file that one under harebrained ideas.

Even though I didn’t have an appointment and it was the weekend before Christmas, I was helped right away. I took bridesmaid E with me to get her opinion on the makeup. The whole time I sat in the chair, the MUA wouldn’t let me see my face so all I could go off of were E’s facial expressions which were pretty amusing. Except that she was making them at my face. I don’t usually wear a lot of makeup, but expected to probably wear a medium coverage for the wedding. However, I was a little worried when the MUA artists put on generous amounts of liquid foundation, two different powder foundations, concealer and a shimmer setting powder. How in the hell is that medium coverage? Bridesmaid E snapped a photo of the end result.
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While planning our wedding, I came up with some pretty good ideas and some, um, not-so-good ideas. Harebrained ideas. Or, as Mama Warbler likes to call them, Lucy-you’ve-got-some-’splaining-to-do ideas. Yes, I STILL love Lucy!

First of all, you should know that the Warblers don’t sing or dance.

OK, these Warblers do. Heeeey Blaine.

Image via Glee Wikia

I’m talking about Mr. Warbs and myself, of course. With the exception of bad karaoke and singing in the shower, we are not musically gifted.
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Exactly one year ago today, Mr. Warbs got down on one knee in our bathroom and scared the crap out of me. I know that’s not a very eloquent sentence, but that’s what happened! Since then the weeks and months have seriously flown by like nothing. Here we are a year later and it all still feels so new. Sure, I’m not the clueless bride who clung religiously to bridal magazines anymore, but I’m far from being a pro. I still have trouble getting used to saying “fiance” and occasionally will call Mr. Warbs my boyfriend. Whoops! Trust me, I get the super awkward look every time.

There have been a few changes, though. We’ve become closer to each others’ respective families. My sisters and my mom have always loved Mr. Warbs, but it’s even more amazing that my nieces and cousins love him as well. If I go to a family function or dinner without him, they genuinely miss him. And since I know my family, I know they’re not just being polite. On the flip side, I simply adore his parents. They are the sweetest couple I’ve ever met. I can tell that Mr. Warbs’ definitely gets his caring and respectfulness from his dad. I’ve never seen a man more devoted to his wife’s every need. My future looks good on that front! My MIL is also a true gem. From the beginning of our relationship, she treated me like her daughter and has been very protective of me. When a car mechanic tried to screw me over on a deal, she yelled, “No one is gonna [expletive] with my daughter!” Yeah, I hope to never get on her bad side.
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A zillion months ago, more like two months actually, I teased you with a photo from our engagement session. After a long wait, we finally got the rest of the photos from our photographers on Saturday. After cringing at awkward angles and laughing at weird faces, it’s time to share our favorites with the hive!

Sorry, this is a shameless personal photo post. Lots of photos coming at you…now!

*All images in this post by Nataly Lemus Photography

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One of the things I’m looking forward to most with this wedding, besides actually getting married, is all of the eating activities. There are all types of excuses to scarf down food. Besides the dinner at your reception, you can fill up on good food pretty much from throughout the entire wedding planning process. Engagement dinners, multiple bridal showers, bridal luncheons and of course, the rehearsal dinner. Ah, the rehearsal dinner. I don’t know why most people only have one; I think I’ll need a few rehearsals to perfect my yummy face.

Early on, we considered having it at a great Mexican restaurant a few blocks from Mr. Warbs’ parents house. Since they’re regulars, the owners gave them a really good deal that included pitchers of margaritas, beer and platters upon platters of food. My kind of party! But, it wouldn’t have worked out logistically. The Mexican restaurant is in Whittier which is nearly 60 miles away from Malibu. So our options were to have the rehearsal dinner Thursday, have the actual rehearsal on Friday and the wedding on Saturday. There was way too much back and forth involved in that plan. We could also have had the dinner a couple of weeks before the wedding, but that just seemed odd to me. It just made more sense to have the dinner in the Malibu area. No enchiladas for us.

We checked out a few over priced restaurants before we settled on Buca di Beppo.
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In celebration of Gobble Gobble Day, Mr. Warbs and I drove up to Las Vegas to eat turkey and break in my sister’s new house. Oh yeah, and to gamble. It’s Vegas. The day before we set out, I found Mr. Warbs packing some clothes in my suitcase. His clothes in my suitcase. Now, we share a lot of things, but for some reason, I was really bothered by this. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Um, that’s my suitcase.

Mr. Warbs: Yeah, I’m just packing some stuff.

Me: So, I don’t get to use my suitcase?

Mr. Warbs: Yes, there’s plenty of room in here for your stuff too.

Me: What?

Mr. Warbs: We can share.

Me: …

I consider myself to be a logical person. I can see the logic behind only taking one suitcase for the both of us.
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