Weddingbee

I often wonder how much money I waste on failed DIY projects.

I had fallen for these flutes from Brocade Home, but Mr. Fondue wanted a more traditional glass shape because he says it makes the champagne taste better.

Mama Fondue suggested trying to etch the damask shape myself. I looked up some instructions on how to do this and it didn’t seem too hard, so one afternoon I stopped by Hobby Lobby for some supplies.

I couldn’t find any Contact paper at the store, so I went with the next best thing: laminating paper.
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…We now return for the thrilling conclusion of “How to find a wedding venue in seven months!”

If I were to give you all the details on every place we researched, contacted, obtained proposals from, and visited, my posts would go on forever and the only remaining readers would be zombies. And while I like zombies, I won’t impose the flesh eating mayhem onto you. So, we’ll just cut to the chase, shall we?

For a long while, I had ruled out restaurants because of our desire to marry outdoors. But desperate times called for desperate measures and we figured that we could always do an outdoor ceremony with an indoor reception if we found the right place. So, I hit up the ol’ internets with fresh eyes, and there it was… a beautiful gem had been right under my nose all along.

{Image source: The Bungalow Club}

The Bungalow Club is a Moroccan style, funky, sexy and delicious restaurant/lounge in Hollywood (yay, location!) that is extremely well suited to hosting events such as weddings and parties. They’re known for having great food (with a mid-eastern influence), delicious cocktails, and an exotic warm vibe. We love the unique space and energy of the club, and renting out the whole place gives us lots of flexibility in our planning concept. We’ll have cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the main bar, have dinner outside on the lovely, bungalow-y patio, and then go upstairs to dance the night away in the moody dance lounge with a tented ceiling!

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The Pineapple shower was, well, very Pineappley. There were handmade and illustrated pineapple mirror favors, pineapple punch, pineapple presents and I was dressed like a pineapple.

My hostesses, Sister Pineapple and Bridesmaid Katie, were amazing. My mom helped me shop for their thank you gifts since she lives in south Florida where pineapples are quite popular.

We gave them this wacky pineapple bag:

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We found this chandelier for $27 at the wholesale floral outlet. It was perfect, except we can’t burn candles at our venue. I think the plastic electric ones always look fakey, so I wanted to come up with something that would still look cool without a flame or light coming from the chandelier. The ring ceremony is at 4:30 in a glass enclosed atrium, so I don’t think the light would show that much anyway.

Step 1: Take one chandelier.

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Over the past two weeks, I’ve called most of the 100+ Bees to share the news (we do most things virtually here in the hive, so it was the first time I had spoken to a number of Bees!).  Everyone was really excited and I was touched by how many people had faith in me to do what’s right for Weddingbee.  That’s a lot of trust, and I will do everything I can not to let you down.

A bunch of questions came up, most of which I jotted down and answered in the last post.  But a few Bees also shared some concerns around our new parent company eHarmony, since their website doesn’t offer same-sex matching.

We’re sad to report that one of our married Bees – Mrs. Gingerbread – has decided she is no longer going to contribute to Weddingbee. Her posts will stay up on the website, but she won’t be posting any more.  We understand and respect her decision, and thank her from the bottom of our hearts for her many contributions to the hive.
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This post was originally published here, along with posts by Mrs. Bee, Mrs. Cream Puff, and Miss Sweet Tea.  The comments on all those posts can be found at the link above.

I’ll admit that I am feeling quite uncomfortable about the sale of Weddingbee to eHarmony. I totally understand why Weddingbee sold and I am very excited for what this means for Bee. I think she deserves kudos for creating a successful company that is in demand. However, I am not too keen on being a blogger for eHarmony.

I am concerned about this new partnership for two reasons. Read more…

This post was originally published here, along with posts by Mrs. Bee, Mrs. Cream Puff, and Mrs. Gingerbread.  The comments on all those posts can be found at the link above.

I wanted to start this post by congratulating Bee and the behind-the-scenes support staff for finally seeing the fruits of their labor with the sale of Weddingbee. I was a long-time Weddingbee stalker before I became a volunteer blogger for the site, and seeing Bee and co. develop the site has been incredible. I’m sure we can all agree that Weddingbee has been an invaluable resource for planning our weddings and a great source of community.

Though I was excited for the change, I must admit my heart sunk when I found out that eHarmony was the company Weddingbee was sold to. It’s no big reveal that principles of social justice underlie not only my wedding planning process, but also my choice of profession and personal goals. As a queer woman and advocate for LGBTQ issues, I have strong reservations about eHarmony’s history and their current stance towards the LGBTQ community, as it goes directly against what I have worked so hard for. Read more…

This post was originally published here, along with posts by Mrs. Bee, Mrs. Gingerbread, and Miss Sweet Tea.  The comments on all those posts can be found at the link above.

When Bee first shared with me that she had sold Weddingbee, I was thrilled for her.  She has worked long nights for years, making this site into what it is today, and I totally support her decision to sell.  After all, more resources mean more cool features for you guys and more personal time for Bee and Mr. Bee, which I think we can all agree is a good thing!  When I heard that Weddingbee had been sold to eHarmony, though, I was very concerned.

I don’t remember when I first heard about eHarmony’s Christian roots; it was many years ago, I know that.  Although I knew that the website matched non-Christian couples (heck, one of my bridesmaids met her husband through eHarmony!), I’ll admit that I figured they were still contributing financially to Focus on the Family.  Why did I think that?  After all these years, eHarmony still excludes gay people from their matching, and show no sign of supporting them in the future (see the last paragraph on the last page of this article, which gives a quote from eHarmony’s CEO: “…We have a lot of things to go after and the gay community is not a market we’re going to pursue and that’s it.”).  Although it seems clear that eHarmony is trying to move away from the Christian sector and appeal to heterosexual people of all religious backgrounds, their lack of support for the LGBTQ community is a deal-breaker for me.  No matter what their reasoning, excluding a group of people from their website is discrimination.  Until eHarmony provides equal matching for the LGBTQ community, I will feel that the company as a whole is discriminatory. Read more…

The big news that I hinted at yesterday?  We’ve sold Weddingbee!

I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you guys about it sooner; we needed to wait until the deal closed.  As soon as it did, I called as many Bees as I could to let them know the news in person. (Can you believe we’ve had over 100 Bees?!)  While talking to the Bees, a number of the same questions came up – so I thought I’d answer some of those questions publicly as well.

Am I going to leave Weddingbee?
Nope, I’m going to stay on and continue editing and managing the site.  Mrs. Penguin has been helping out with editing and applications for the last few months (thanks Pengy!), and she’ll keep helping out there.  I’ll continue to focus on adding new features and growing the site.

What does this mean for Weddingbee?
Weddingbee will have access to more resources, like programmers and designers.  That’ll help us launch more cool features faster!  I’ll also be getting help on the business end of things, where I haven’t been focusing as much energy (e.g. selling ads, hosting servers, etc.).

At the same time, I’ve been assured that editorial decisions regarding the Bees and the content on the site are still in my hands. I’ll continue to ensure that the site maintains its editorial integrity.
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We’ll be stocking our bar with a few different favors that guests can take, if they’d like. If not, we’ll be more than happy to take and use the extras after the wedding, so they don’t go to waste.

For the first of these items, I’m stamping and embossing two different styles of coasters, both featuring our monogram.

The design on the left is based on our invitations (and programs and menu cards), but I wanted to offer some variety, so some of the coasters have the second design (on the right). There’s a 2:1 ratio, with the invitation design being more common because I like it better.
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