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Hello sweet hive! Here is my favorite post I’ve ever written. It isn’t my favorite necessarily for the content, but for the response I’ve received from the post. When I bought white lace for my veil, I knew I would have to dye it ivory to match my wedding dress. I searched high and low for a step-by-step guide on tea dying (I was scared out of my mind and needed ridiculous specific steps to feel more confident). When the internet didn’t turn anything back, I decided to jump in, heels first, and write my own DIY.
Since writing this article I’ve received so many emails and comments from brides/mothers who used my guide and found success. I even had a cousin contact me after she found my article on Weddingbee and I got to see her perfectly ivory veil in action at her wedding last month.
You can see my finished ivory veil in action here. Enjoy!
~~~
Okay… so I searched all over Gainesville for someone to professionally dye my beautiful white lace to ivory (so it would match my dress). Can you believe that there is no place in Gainesville where you can get this done? Unbelievable!
But, there’s a ray of hope. One seamstress I asked mentioned tea-dying my lace. I had heard of this before but was slighting skeptical as to whether I could successfully do this myself. Searching the internet, I only found a handful of ’how-tos’ and no one really went into detail. They just skimmed over what they did to show you their beautifully dyed ivory lace. But, I’m a girl who needs directions. I ain’t gonna mess up my nice lace…
For all the other brides out there like me, who need some directions, here is, step-by-step, of how I got to the perfect shade of ivory for my beautiful Alencon lace for my veil:
This is my favorite post, because, when I re-read it, it brings me right back to how happy and grateful I was feeling when I wrote it. Mr. Octopus was a truly amazing source of support during the year I spent in grad school, and this post I wrote for him came straight from my heart. Sometimes I let the little details and stresses of life get in the way of the big picture, but this post always helps me to focus on the big stuff: how much I love my husband.
~~~
Hive, I got myself a master’s degree today, and I’m pretty pumped about it. But this post is not about me. It’s about Mr. Octopus.
This year, I had the chance to pause my career and throw myself into an education that was incredibly challenging and immensely rewarding–a fulfillment of a dream, really–and I never, ever, ever could have done it without my fiance’s unconditional and fully-enthusiastic support.
I learned or re-confirmed a lot of things about my future husband in the past nine months. Mr. Octopus is the kind of man who:
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I have two favorite posts that go hand-in-hand. My absolute favorite, number one post is from the morning of my wedding. It’s my “I’m getting married today!” post to the hive.
When I think back on that day, on being cuddled up in that big down blanket in the still of the morning, typing that post on the little silver keys of my BlackBerry, it brings me right back. I’ve never felt so much joy, so much happiness, so much fulfillment, and so much peace. It embodies what the day was about: our love, and not all of the lil’, stressful logistics or even the fun, but superficial, design details. I’ve never been so in-the-moment and that post is a great reminder of that tiny piece of time I had to myself so that I could reflect on the reason why we were there.
~~~
Dear Hive: Today’s the day! I am writing from my BlackBerry because my little, rustic (yet luxurious) cabin doesn’t have wireless. It’s a brisk 25 degrees out now, up here at 8300 feet in the mountains of Colorado, but the sun just crept over the peaks and is starting to defrost this little patch of earth and warm it to a comfortable 60 degrees.
I am sitting on the deck of my cabin, snuggled in a huge down comforter. Before me, the light stripes through the pines and makes the wheat-colored grass appear to be standing at attention. Beyond the stand of trees, there is a very still pond in a meadow, a forested hill beyond that, and a snow-capped 14,000 foot peak peering into the meadow. Birds are calling to each other in sweet chirps.
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My favorite post is one of the many millions (or 6) from our actual wedding ceremony: our vows. Mr. Pencils and I spent many hours crafting our words for each other and we wanted a balanced, similar-toned but also personalized vows. The few hours we spent one Friday night creating them is one of my favorite evenings to date with my now-husband, and reading this post reminds me of the most important part of a wedding day: that physical moment when you and your chosen person look into each other’s eyes and say, “yes, I want you, now and always.” This post also resonates with me when considering my second favorite post alongside it, where I expressed some superficial as well as deep-set fears about our wedding day and marriage. Three months prior to the moment below, I wrote that I feared “I won’t be the wife that Mr. Pencils thinks I’m capable of being. I fear that my messiness, my long work hours, my addition to chocolate/Coca Cola/bad TV will drive him to drink.
I fear that all these fears will surface and Mr. Pencils will wonder why he chose this crazy, loud, irreverent, over-thinking, uncouth woman to be his wife.
I fear that in all this hoopla, I’ll forget the real reason for it all—us. Mr. P is my other half, my self’s reflection, my counterpart.
Our wedding day and our marriage itself is the beginning of something bigger, better—but it’s still just us. He is the man that will be my children’s father, his hands will hold mine as we create the life we’ve imagined. We’ll dream together, laugh together, cry together, FEAR together.”
When I read these fears, six months after our wedding and nine months after I wrote them down for all of you to read, I realize that the fears I had, the fears you may have, are silly, over-thought, justified AND ridiculous worries all at once.
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
I liked this post because I learned so much about Chinese traditions through the Chinese cookie party tradition. Weddings are as much about joining families as they are about the couple. Respecting and honoring traditions of the past, no matter how strange they may seem to us today, is a way to honor our families, too.
~~~
I wouldn’t consider myself traditionally Chinese in the cultural sense. My Cantonese is at the same level of a three-year-old and my family doesn’t really celebrate any of the Chinese holidays, the Lunar New Year included. But when it came to my wedding, my mom insisted on going through the whole shebang of Cantonese wedding traditions.
This weekend, my family threw me what Cantonese people call a “cookie party.” The tradition goes something like this:
Read more…
I chose this post because it really was a spectacular day for us, from start to finish. It is one of my favorite stories from our history together, and I just love transporting to that feeling right after you get engaged and everything is new and exciting, and everyone is just happy and excited for you! It’s a time that you really only get to have once, and nothing really compares. Not to mention it was just the most ridiculous day ever—culminating with being onstage during an Alice Cooper show!
~~~
When I tell you about the 24 hours surrounding our engagement, you may not believe it. But I promise, every word is true.
Unless otherwise noted, all pictures from here on are personal photos.
It is October 2008, and Mr. Hermit Crab and I are heading out of town for a weekend in Alexandria Bay, NY and Ottawa, ON. I had planned this weekend months ago so that we could get away and spend some time together.
We arrive in Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands Region of Northern NY (4 miles from the Canadian border) at dusk. I had thought that I had found a great deal on a motel because it was nearing the off season; little did I know I was getting a great deal because we were staying in what I can only describe as the Bates Motel (or at least it seemed that way!).
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
More than two years after the wedding, the thing that stands out to me most among all of the small details (and posts about those things) was my bouquet. Learning that making bouquets was really easy was a big stress-reliever, and I was really proud of how everything turned out.
Not only was I pleased with how it all turned out on that day, but I’ve since gone on to make bouquets for the weddings of both of my brothers. The time spent with each of my sisters-in-law the day before their weddings was truly special. And my bouquet making skills, as you can see, improved with each.
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The lovely Mrs. Perfume shares her favorite posts! Here they are, rolled into one!
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Tonight we finally finished putting together our invitations. We (okay mostly I) really love them! But they were a pain. A real pain. And they weren’t even DIY. Well, they were partly DIY in that I wanted to use boxes instead of outer envelopes. Little did I know I was in for such a maddening experience…
Our finished invitation boxes. (If the Sheraton ever needs gift boxes…)
Midway through our planning, I became obsessed with confectionary colored elements (as is well documented here, here, and here), especially Laduree packaging.
I was looking through my old posts trying to pick out my favorite Weddingbee post. I picked this one because I can still remember how ridiculously excited I was when I finally got the email that said that I was going to be a blogger on Weddingbee! You would have thought I won the lotto or something. I was elated and slightly dazed. I am very blessed and lucky to be in the company of such wonderful, creative and supportive individuals. Thank you for allowing me to share and celebrate “everything wedding” with all of you… 
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Hi *points to name tag* I am Miss Jelly Beans and I am a weddingplannaholic!
Once upon a time (July 2005), in a land far, far away (it’s really not that far), Mr. Jelly Beans got down on one knee (he hates getting his clothes dirty, so I knew this was big), on a very windy day (good thing I had a cute white blazer on), at the very top of the Eiffel tower and asked Miss Jelly Beans to be his wife. To this day he claims Tom Cruise stole his idea.
We have been together for almost 9 years now and have been in a long distance relationship for 6. I moved from sunny-all-year, Los Angeles to four-seasons, Ottawa 6 years ago with my family. This was not a deterrent but merely a minor navigational glitch in our relationship.
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I’ve absolutely loved reading all the favorite posts! While I think this post certainly explains how much our wedding ceremony meant to Burger and me, I couldn’t resist re-running this post about this fabulous shower gift I received from my bridesmaids.
This easy DIY project was gifted to me by my amazing bridesmaids, and was well received the first time around on the ’Bee. Many have gone on to tackle this themselves, with lots of positive results to speak of! My friend who championed this idea has said over and over that she should go into business making these for people. Give it a read and see what you think? What bride wouldn’t love this? I know I did!
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Last weekend during my shower in Pittsburgh I was given some amazing gifts. We really cleaned up and were reminded how insanely generous our families and friends are! And while I could swoon over the registry gifts we received all day, I wanted to share a little something different with you all.
Ladies, meet the Panty Parfait.
(please notice that there is even a “cherry” on top!)
Making our wedding a bit green was really important to both Mr. Peep and me (hence the green peep toe shoes). While we reduced the impact of our wedding by having the ceremony and reception all in one location, the majority of our guests came in from around the country (and Norway). Offsetting our wedding was something small that we may have done just for us, but it’s something I can look at and say that we made a difference. Plus, I LOVED our chocolate treats that we served with this quote:
Reduce what you can.
Offset what you can’t.*
In honor of our time together,
we have offset the weekend
through a donation to carbonfund.org.
~~~
Hi Hive, Happy Earth Day!!
You all know that Mr. PT and are trying our best to incorporate a few eco-chic elements into our wedding, so for us, Earth Day for us is a great reminder that we could be doing better.
One thing that is really important to the two of us is carbon offsetting our wedding! What does that mean? Let’s go straight to the experts on this subject. This is what Terrapass has to say about potential carbon emissions of your wedding:
What’s included in my wedding’s carbon footprint?
Read more…
Hey there, hive. My favorite post from a writing standpoint has always been the one I wrote about my physical struggle to squeeze myself into the sausage casing of a pair of Spanx in the smallest dressing room known to mankind while sweating. To this day, I still laugh over the commotion I caused in that dressing room.
But the most valuable post I have written has to do with something quite sentimental. Specifically, a post I wrote about how my father was able to participate in our wedding as he and I had always imagined, even though he was disabled.
My father, a man I loved deeply, passed away last December. We were incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity for him to meet our son, to reminisce about the joy in our lives and to say goodbye. As I look back on the wedding we held so very long ago…I mean seriously…back when photo booths were up-and-coming…I find myself eternally grateful to have been able to give my father an experience he always dreamed of instead of holding both of ourselves back with his disability.
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This installment of my ‘Looking Back’ series* focuses on one of the details about my big day that I am very, very grateful for: I was able to work out a way for my dad to participate.
My father is a wonderful, amazing man. I am so incredibly fortunate to be loved by someone with such a big heart. As ridiculously sentimental as this sounds, two of the things I was most looking forward to the day of our wedding were 1) walking down the aisle with my dad and 2) dancing with him at the reception.
As many of you know, my father is handicapped; he walks with a walker and can handle a cane, but only for short bouts and definitely only if the ground is flat.
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After being married for over two years, looking back at our wedding day, I have to say that apart from the “I dos,” my favorite moment was when my daddy said his speech, followed by the father/daughter dance. I still get emotional to this day when I re-read his speech. It was definitely one of the highlights of our wedding.
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After we finished our first dance, we made our way to our seats and heard a little “ching ching”. I looked around and saw my father standing up, sweating bullets and trying to keep his cool. I knew from that nervous smile of his, it was time… he was ready to give his speech.
“I want my speech to be perfect,” he had told me earlier that week. “Perfect, because you deserve no less.”
I started tearing up. Who wouldn’t after those heartfelt words?
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If you read through my posts (which I am *so* sure you will do immediately after reading this post), you’ll see that I am the bottom of the barrel when it comes to being a wedding blogger. I am neither crafty nor DIY inclined, but worse yet, my posts don’t even have a ton of inspiration or research for you. Practically useless! However, the biggest kick I got out of blogging was being random and sharing some humor during the often hand-wringing process of wedding planning. While my earlier posts started on the straightforward and narrow, at some point I veered sharply into attempting to be funny and entertaining. Whether I succeeded is questionable, although I sure got a giggle out of the whole thing. Wow…where am I going with this. Anyway, this is one of my favorite posts because it’s perfectly random—it doesn’t share anything useful with readers, doesn’t reveal anything interesting about my wedding, but I love it anyway because I think I’m so damn funny.
~~~
Get it? Get it? Today I’m talking about trains!
Betcha thought this was about me getting a yummy pair of Jimmy Choos, huh? Well no. Although perhaps that would have been a way cooler post.*
Back to choo-choo. I didn’t think much about the train in purchasing a wedding dress, but then I found so many lovely photos you can get with a train. And guess what I realized? Your train can be pretty demanding. It refuses to be left out, and bulldozes its way into every phase of the wedding. Needy, needy train, about to bore down with frightening might and speed on your wedding.
The train getting ready, *without you*. I mean, the TRAIN has its own getting ready pic?
[train speaking:] Bow to me. ’Nuff said. And someone get me a steamer. Bitches.
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!
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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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