Weddingbee Blog

How did I find Weddingbee?

To be honest, I don’t remember. I think I was so confused about this whole wedding thing that I Googled “how to plan a wedding” or “wedding planning” or something along those lines and ran into it that way. I remember the forums being really helpful for figuring out big things (”What’s a save the date?”), while the blog became useful for inspiration and motivation.

My application story

I’ve always loved to write and already had a blog about my ex-pat adventures in Japan to keep my friends and family updated. Writing a wedding planning blog was a whole new ball game! At first it was just a collection of thoughts and random musings, but as plans became solidified I started writing cohesive posts focusing on one aspect at a time—here’s our venue, I’d like these flowers, etc. I tried my hardest to write for an audience and shy away from the diary-like tone I had used for my ex-pat blog. I thought I had a pretty good collection of wedding posts and I had met all the requirements so I applied. After a few weeks of anxiety I got an email from Pengy and held my breath… I was rejected.
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“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”

- Aldous Huxley

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When I heard that A Bee’s Life was making a comeback, I was stoked. I heart this little series and it gave me the best advice when I was a Wannabee that I could only return the favor and share with the hive my Ostrich experiences so far… Are you ready? Here we go!

How Did I Find Weddingbee?

I owe my introduction to the wonderful world of Weddingbee to my college friend (and sorority sister), Mrs. Eggplant.
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Before I start back in on my wedding recaps, I thought it might be fun to join in on this bee series…

How did I find Weddingbee?

Like many other brides before me (or like many of you ladies in the waiting boards), I found the ‘Bee pre-proposal. No, I wasn’t already planning my future wedding, or looking for ideas and inspiration, I was looking for answers. Answers to why my then boyfriend, Mr. Locket, had openly purchased an engagement ring for me, but was taking forever to pop the question. It was quite the frustrating time in my life because I couldn’t share my frustrations with anyone. Mr. L made a point to tell everyone and their mother that he had bought the ring and that a proposal was in the works. The downside to him telling everyone was that I had to keep mum. I couldn’t inform my sister, my mom, or even my best friend about what he had done (even though they already knew) because he wanted everyone to believe I would be surprised when it happened. Well, to make a long story short he found a way to propose on his own time with a completely different ring. From that point on I couldn’t get enough of the ‘Bee. I began searching all the lovely DIY projects and became inspired by the bees that shared their planning process and their weddings.

My Application Story:
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How did I find Weddingbee?

A couple years ago I was in some upcoming weddings and since I was already a huge lover of weddings, I sometimes found myself entering wedding related searches into Google. One day I stumbled upon Weddingbee. One of the first posts I came across was one of Mrs. Avocado’s and I was very confused. I didn’t read many blogs at the time (oh my, what a difference a couple years makes) and I was extremely confused why she called herself Miss Avocado and kept adding avocado to other terms, even referring to her hairstyle as the “Avocado Bun.” Despite my initial confusion I kept clicking on more posts and reading on. A few days later I revisited the site and I finally caught on… “Oh, it’s a collection of personal wedding blogs and they all use cute little names!” At first I thought everyone just made up their own names; I didn’t realize the bees picked from generations of bee characters for a few more weeks. Pretty soon I was visiting Weddingbee almost daily, hooked on everyone’s stories, perspectives, and unique wedding visions. I was not ready to start planning a wedding of my own but I already loved Weddingbee. Sometimes when life got busy I would miss a month or two of posts, but right after Mr. Cheetah and I got engaged I went back and read all the archives I’d missed.

My Application Story
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I love hearing about how people found Weddingbee. Here is my story!

How did I find Weddingbee?

I found the ’Bee in the fall of 2007, almost a year before I was engaged (*blushes*). I think I’ve mentioned like 100 times that I hated the first two years of med school and started planning my (future) wedding as a sort of fun distraction. It was a running joke among my med school friends, and we often took long breaks from studying to browse my latest wedding inspiration. I had always wanted a Penn State wedding, but at one point I realized that I needed a backup plan in case it didn’t work out. I googled “Pittsburgh Wedding Venues” and I found this post by Mrs. Lollipop. I was intrigued by this cute wedding planning site, and started milling around, which is how I found Mrs. Bell Pepper and became a dedicated follower of the blog (3 years ago, my goodness!). I don’t know if it was because she was a physician or because her color scheme was similar to what I had in mind, but I was instantly hooked!
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I know y’all have been seeing a lot of us old bees but I hope you have room for another bee’s humble story. I’m coming out of the drawer (get it? ’cause I’m a pencil!?!? ok, lame, I know) to share with you the story of how I came to be sharpened (someone, stop me!)

How I found Weddingbee and all of YOU amazing people:

When I first got engaged in July 2008, an amazing friend mentioned in passing this strange website where lots of different engaged girls blogged about their weddings and they took on different monikers, like bugs and flowers and food. I was interested but not enough to go home and try to find this strange blog about “weddings” and “bees.”

A year later, I was in the thick of actually planning my May 2010 wedding, and I was searching for inspiration. I remembered this blog I had heard of and googled, quite literally, “wedding” and “bee.” Of course, I found this illustrious wedding site and was enticed by these amazing women planning these beautiful weddings. Bloggers like Mrs. Lab and Mrs. Cowboy Boot immediately drew me in and I slowly realized all of the brides-to-be had a unique voice and wonderful wedding story to tell.

As October rolled around, I realized I wanted to join these women. I created a blog and promptly sat on it for nearly two months.
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I think I read every single Bee’s Life post before I applied to write for Weddingbee. I’m so excited to write my own! Here goes:

How did I find Weddingbee?

Shortly after getting engaged, a recently married co-worker suggesting I check out Weddingbee. She said of all the wedding websites, Weddingbee was her favorite as it followed real brides on real budgets. I had never heard of the website, but checked it out and was immediately hooked. I browsed the boards a bit, but mostly followed along as the bee bloggers chronicled their wedding planning. I was definitely more of the lurker, reading along regularly but rarely commenting.

My Application Story
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How did I find Weddingbee?

Mr. Lion and I had been engaged for about, um, two days when I got a phone call from some random company telling me that I had won a FULL SET OF COOKINGWARE AND THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION TO BUY OMG SO EXCITING! Naturally, I was skeptical. If you have to say “no obligation to buy,” there’s usually an obligation to buy! Just sayin’. However, I do have a soft spot for kitchen toys cooking, so I decided to Google this company before writing it off completely.

The Weddingbee Boards were the first hit. According to a post on this message board, this company was part of some kind of bridal scam. I read through and found all sorts of unbiased opinions about this and other scams. I appreciated the honesty, but what really drew me in was the sass. One post on this board topic said something along the lines of, “No! They’re definitely not a scam! I went to the meeting at that hotel by the airport and I got a free set of cookware AND THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION TO BUY OMG SO EXCITING!” As you can imagine, the posts following this one exposed the fraud. “Clearly, you work for them sooo take your nonsense somewhere else,” and responses like this caught my attention. These gals had moxie. They had spunk. They had…personality.

But, I moved to Boston for my three-month clinical affiliation, Mr. Lion and I did the long-distance thing for a little bit, and wedding planning was put on the back burner.
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When I first discovered Weddingbee, I thought: I was born to do this. It sounds silly, but I had been blogging for about a year and loving it, and I was desperate to share my wedding journey with a larger audience. I loved all of the REAL advice and wedding insight available on Weddingbee, too. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to help other brides and be helped. Naturally, I checked the website every day (morning and night) in absolute awe of the bees’ amazing wedding work, and hopeful to be like them one day.

I have to admit that when I first submitted my application, I was pretty confident. Cocky, really. I thought, “Why wouldn’t they pick me?” The only thing that worried me was that our wedding was planned for October at the time and that was subject to change, and as you know, applicants must be only 9 months from their wedding date.

I got rejected!
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How I found Weddingbee:

Well, I got engaged on March 5th, 2009, on vacation in Mexico. We got home from vacation on March 9th…and it wasn’t more than a week or two later that I discovered Weddingbee!

(Personal photo from our Mexico trip, little did I know, I’d be engaged 2 days after this photo was taken!)

I already knew about the other big wedding website out there, and had tentatively looked at the prices of a couple local venues (hey, I knew the ring had already been purchased, just wasn’t 100% sure when I would receive it!), but it was through a Google search while looking for wedding inspiration that I found Weddingbee. And I never looked back—it just felt like home!
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How did I find Weddingbee?

I was engaged for about 5 minutes before I started doing research for our wedding. Weddingbee came up several times during my initial research - Mrs. Bee’s posts about some of the venues we were also considering turned out to be extremely helpful. Weddingbee would come up over and over as I looked things up, and slowly slowly, I became totally, and hopelessly, addicted. I read the blog every day and eventually became active on the boards. Weddingbee provided some invaluable inspiration to me throughout our engagement, and the boards became a great community for me to talk wedding.

My application story:

I was not an avid user of the internet before I started wedding planning. I mean, I could do a mean “search” but words like “blog” and “twitter” were totally foreign to me.
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How I found Weddingbee

Finding the ’bee was really a “Goldilocks” kind of moment for me. Newly engaged, I had started with the first wedding planning website to present itself in Google (your guess). Nope, it was much too big, and too bland for this Sewing—not a good fit. Then I went the other extreme, which again, you can probably guess. Nope again, it was sometimes too flavorful—also not a perfect fit. Where was a bride like me to go? I like traditional things, but I also like unusual things. I like to be myself.

And that’s where Weddingbee came in. My first impression was, “oh, how nice everyone here is!” Fellow brides were supportive of each other, regardless of what type of wedding they chose. I didn’t feel like I had to have a perfect, timeless, classy wedding that you see in style blogs. I also didn’t feel like I had to go against every tried-and-true wedding tradition simply on the quest of being completely unique. In short, it was a perfect mix for me, and I decided to sign up after about a month of lurking.

Oh—and the MASSIVE amount of DIY tutorials definitely helped seal the deal. Just saying.

Applying to become a bee
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Keepin’ this series alive! It helped me out, so hopefully I can return the favor for another reader.

How I found Weddingbee:

I actually stumbled across the ‘bee back in 2009 thanks to a bride on the Dallas Knot boards who posted about her feature in Real Weddings. I started reading and could not stop! I read all that I could: archives, current bee blogs, the boards. I was so fascinated with all the bees (although it took me a little bit to figure out exactly what those icons meant) and the community I decided to join in on the fun times.

Applying to Weddingbee:

Truth be told, I was not a huge blogger. In fact, I had never really heard of or read blogs until the ‘Bee (with the exception of one friend who kept a live journal back in college). Once I caught onto this site, I thought that it would be so amazing to blog for it. I started my own blog to keep my out of town bridesmaids up to date on the wedding plans, but secretly with the intent to apply for Weddingbee in the back of my head. Our engagement was long, so I blogged for a good 13 months before I hit that magical eight month mark—the earliest you can apply.

I was scared to apply.
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How did you find Weddingbee?

When I became engaged, a fashion-forward and lifelong New Yorker friend of mine suggested I check out a site called Weddingbee, where she had spent a lot of time finding inspiration for her wedding. I’d always admired her style, so I figured she was on to something! I don’t remember when it was that I actually clicked on the site, but I do remember Mrs. Espresso starting her recaps and being obsessed with her mountain wedding details.

What is your application story?

I started blogging under the title, The Breezy Bride as a way to stay in touch with my family and friends in the States about my journey into the white dress. I was so far away and felt like I needed to get all my wedding ideas and feelings out, without bothering my co-workers, who were uninterested. I was a bridal-blog junkie. I was still following Weddingbee, and really liked the Crafts generation as they were introduced. I was over 1 year to our wedding, and I wasn’t doing any DIY projects or dress shopping, so I tried to find my bridal style. In the beginning there are just so many options! My inspiration stage was very long.

When the 8-month mark finally rolled around, I decided to apply to be a blogger.
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How I Found Weddingbee:

::Cough:: During work ::Cough:: I had been on a planning break for a few months after hiring the DJ and finding the venue. I decided to start looking for dresses in order to excite myself into the next phase of planning. I’m not sure what I typed in google but I came across this post from Mrs. Bee. I had really low expectations of the wedding industry at the time because quite frankly I was ignorant. Once I saw the post I thought; great, a website that tells it like it is! I can really say the rest is history. I have excitedly read every single post written since July of 2009—and some of the archives.

Applying to the Bee:

I had a blog in high school that I stupidly wrote in as if no one was reading. A girl took my words out of context and taped them up around school. I made a ton of enemies in a matter of minutes. Needless to say I quit blogging and became a bit of a recluse. Zeb, only my friend at that time, was a huge support and shoulder to cry on during the ordeal. A few weeks later, we began dating.

When I found the ’bee, I knew I wanted to apply.
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