Weddingbee Blog

Hi hive!

Weddingbee’s fast approaching our 200th married bee! And as we do, we’re taking a look back at our absolute favorite posts, ever! We’ve asked all the married bees to choose the favorite post they’ve ever written to share with the hive over the next few weeks, in hopes that you’ll discover some bees and posts that may have come long before you were ever engaged. We hope you enjoy our Best of the ’Bee series, and I’m kicking it off with my favorite post ever.

It’s been two years since our wedding, and I’ve been to countless weddings since then. At one of the last weddings I went to, a relative pointed out some seemingly normal detail about the wedding we were currently attending. I feigned a smile and said, “oh…that’s nice.” She gave me a snide look and said something along the lines of, “If working in weddings has made you that jaded that you don’t appreciate details anymore, maybe you need to get a different job.”

To be honest, this statement stung. Never mind that I had tears in my eyes just 20 minutes earlier when the father of the groom gave a heartwarming speech. Never mind that watching the bride and groom kiss and hug each other from afar made my heart swell so big it almost burst. I simply didn’t care about a small detail about the wedding day (think flowers, guestbook, something pretty material) and all of the sudden I was “jaded”.

Seeing weddings every day—I do still care. But I don’t care about flowers, or guestbooks, or baking twine. They’re small and wonderful, personalized details, but they’ve become part of my everyday life. What I do care about is family. I care about the love. I care about heritage. And it’s no wonder that at Mrs. Jellyfish’s wedding, when the Romanian dance music came on and Mrs. Jelly and her family shrieked with joy, this was my favorite moment of her day. Not her beautiful flowers. Not her fun favors. The love. The family. And of course, as Jelly and her family danced in circles, I cried tears of joy.

And so, this is my favorite post I’ve ever written. Because this is the part of our wedding that brought generations of women on my side together to make it happen. My mother taught me about the history behind the water ceremony, my aunts schlepped pounds of costume jewelry thousands of miles, and this was truly the moment of our wedding that we did for my family. For the love.

~~~

Immediately following the ceremony, in lieu of a receiving line, Mr. Penguin and I opted to celebrate a little of my family heritage and participate in a Thai Water Ceremony, or Rod Nam Sang.
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Lucky for me, Mr. Knitting moved to Canada from Poland when he was four. While he now identifies more with being Canadian than Polish, it was important to us to include some details of his heritage even if we’re not having a full blown big fat Polish wedding (did I mention that I think my Big Fat Greek wedding is the best wedding movie ever?).

Here’s a few of the ways we’re doing this:

Music

We’re going to have lots of (okay, maybe more like some) Polish polka music. I think my mom and myself are way more excited about this than Mr. K. My mom grew up practicing polka in her backyard for Ukrainian weddings so she’s excited to put her skills to use. My mom and I often will bust out some polka at non-eastern European weddings. Here’s a picture of us polka-ing at a friend’s (not Eastern European) wedding. No, we’re not all that shy!

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Looking for an interesting and unique way for your guests to wish you well in your new life as husband and wife? Try a tanabata tree!

(source)

This is a bamboo tree that displays peoples’ wishes on strips of paper (called tanzuku) once a year during the Tanabata Star Festival, on July 7th.

The story of this tree is a love story!
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As you may or may not know from this post, I’d had been trying to decide whether or not to go ahead with the Ukrainian tradition of having the bride’s veil removed at the end of the night and being replaced with a kerchief, thus indicating that she is no longer a bride, but a wife. A lot of you gave me some really good advice about how to approach this tradition in a way I’m comfortable with and I have now decided to go ahead with this tradition. Now I want to show you the scarf I’ll be using.

Here it is:

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Image from Filipinas

When Filipino men get dressed up, they put on the traditional barong.

No…I didn’t say sarong! A barong is a shirt that falls just past the waist, worn untucked, with long sleeves, embroidery, and buttons along the front. It looks like a Western dress shirt at first but then you see it––it is transparent! (Guys do wear an undershirt…don’t worry!!)
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source

Apparently changing traditions pisses people off. The intelligent part of me reads this and thinks, “duh, stupid. That’s why they call it a tradition. It’s tried and true.” And my ego butts in and says, “Traditions are meant to be personalized.” So, who wins? I feel like it’s the difference between being the “good bride” and the “bad bride”. How the heck could life and wedding planning come down to such simplistic dichotomies: good vs. bad?
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This past Friday, Mr. Sew and I had the honor of attending the wedding of our college friends, S & J. Both electrical engineers and conventioneers themselves, I’ve always loved this couple, so getting to see them tie the knot was really quite exciting.

Plus, the wedding-atmosphere totally got us in the mood for our own nuptials, now only a month away! Eep!

I’m not going to try and explain everything that happened, because I’m not too knowledgeable on all the various customs and rituals, but I will share the details, since I know we fellow brides and grooms can appreciate the hard work and thought that goes into executing such an event. Plus, I really like the macro setting on my camera.
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Family is really important to me and as I’ve mentioned, Mr. Knitting and I are trying to incorporate our families into the wedding whenever possible. One of my favourite ways we’re doing this has to do with the tie Mr. Knitting will wear at the wedding.

Originally I had planned to find him a vintage tie here in Toronto, either at Cabaret on Queen St. W, Stella Luna, or one of the vintage stores on Ossington St. While the rest of his outfit will be pretty new, I liked the idea of a vintage tie to tie into our vintage theme (yes, I crack myself up!).

Then I realized that I had an even better option at my disposal. Before he passed away, my Scottish grandfather used to wear his mother’s family tartan tie to formal events. This tie is both vintage and directly related to family! I love the idea of Mr. Knitting getting married wearing something my grandfather was so proud of.

Here’s a picture of my grandparents. I searched everywhere for a picture of him wearing the tie, but I had no luck. You’ll have to settle for this awesome bright yellow one:
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I am trying to incorporate some island elements into the design of our wedding since my fiance is of Filipino descent and we will be getting hitched on an island. One of the celebratory Filipino items will be fans—much needed in the humid tropics, though they may or may not be functional on the semi-arid Californian island where we will get married (will it be in the 60s and foggy or in 80s and sweltering!?). If they are not entirely needed, I want them to be at least an added piece of decor!

I am constantly making note when I see fans making an appearance at a wedding. Especially when they have a bit more pizzazz than just the regular store bought kind (meaning: straw or white and bamboo).

Leo Patrone via Style Me Pretty

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In light of my last post about stress, feelings and bridal breakdown—especially in regards to making everyone happy planning an interfaith ceremony, I want to lighten it up a bit with an interfaith detail that makes me hecka-happy: Chuppahs. I wouldn’t get this beautiful detail in my ceremony if I didn’t get to incorporate Mr. Thimble’s culture and be married by a Rabbi, right? So while I decompress, I thought I’d share some Chuppah, and general ceremony, decor inspiration:

Homespun quilts and flowing ribbons (and glowing bride):

{image by our labor of love by way of once wed}

Ethereal, simple, beach! (this was our alterna-wedding):

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I’m incredibly lucky to be marrying Mr. Oyster, a man who has embraced my culture and traditions wholeheartedly. He has been very excited about our wedding broom, and it has just arrived!

I mentioned a while back that I might like to have the broom be something passed around the family or on to future generations, or at the very least, displayed on our wall somewhere. But first, I had to get one. I thought Michaels might have one, or a craft store, but I was completely wrong. I even considered getting one from a costume shop (hello, witches!) for a deep discount.

But Mr. Oyster, noting my concerns about the “heirloom broom”, got very interested in this, and decided to take charge of this Matter of the Broom. I did not anticipate that he would take it so seriously, but I love that he did.

Mr. Oyster looks so proud of his find:

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Hi, hive! I’m still waiting for my pro pics, but I just missed y’all so much that I decided to start my recaps a little early! You don’t mind, do you? But first, what do you think of my recaps title? Say it out loud, you won’t regret it. Clever, huh? Thank you Mrs. Cupcake for the suggestion!

First up, the tea ceremony.

Yeah, I try to clean up nice every once in a while.

But first first, I just want to clarify before I get the inevitable question.
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While I’m still trying to sort out the whole lack-of-cheongsam issue, I thought I’d take a moment to address another reception dress I’ve been dreaming about - the kimono.

Honestly, I had long given up hope of wearing a wedding kimono, due to the staggering expense. Mr. Sew’s parents were kind enough to send us some beautiful yukata instead, which we wore for our engagement photos.

(And again on our 6th dating anniversary at the Fanime Convention this year!)

However, it didn’t seem formal enough for a wedding, so I had resigned myself to being a 2-dress bride. Of course, that didn’t stop me from whining about my lack of dream kimono every chance I got. I’m such an embarrassment.
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I am half Polish. I grew up thinking my family embraced our Polish heritage because we ate sausage and did polkas at weddings. It took me quite a while and seeing how other people celebrate their own culture and customs to realize that my family was quite lazy at being Polish.

My parents at their quasi-Polish wedding almost 35 years ago

My great grandparents emigrated from Poland during a time where it wasn’t so hot to be Polish. My grandpa changed his family name, removing the -kowski, in order to Americanize himself and fit in. Diversity wasn’t valued then like it is now and I think that was a major reason my grandparents never taught me much about my heritage.
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Simply put, I need a cheongsam/qi pao/Chinese dress to wear at both of our receptions.

(source)

Unsimply put, I haven’t really started looking for one yet.

Obvious, right? Go to Chinatown and buy one. Well, I sort of tried. But I got lost in the chaos by myself. Plus I’m deathly afraid of the store owners since a) I don’t speak the language b) I kind of, uh, don’t know what the heck I am doing, and c) I read on Yelp that they criticize you if you’re fat. Well, okay, because of letter “a”, I probably wouldn’t know they were criticizing me, but still!

So bring my mom with me, then?
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