Weddingbee Blog

On the cheap, of course. If you haven’t noticed by now, I like gifting things that look really awesome, but don’t cost a lot of money.

Gifting our parents was something that I totally overlooked until someone told me I was supposed to. And why not, really? They are the reason this whole shindig is happening. The best part about it is I don’t think they will be expecting anything, so they will be surprised. Hopefully my mom isn’t reading this right now…if you are, please stop reading.

I went to my one-stop shop to check out some popular gifts for the parents. Etsy. It’s not always the cheapest place, but there is some really nice stuff that’s meaningful too.

So, I’ll start with dad. I found these awesome cufflinks that brought a tear to my eye.

Photo via Etsy store White Ruffle

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I’ve been looking for the perfect initial necklace forever because my first name is, well, an initial.  While catching up on my blogs recently, I saw it on Oh Joy! and instantly knew that I had found the one.

(J&B are Mr. Bee and my initials.)

Each of these delicate initial, number, symbol and chains from Albeit are made of 14k gold.  It’s amazing how the unique positioning of the pendant gives such a different feel to the piece.  It’s definitely the most I’ve ever paid for a piece of jewelry, but I know that it will get tons of daily wear, and they’re offering 20% off through the end of July.

Perhaps a gift for your stylish maid of honor?  Or a gift to yourself with your new last name initial?

Two days before the wedding we hosted a Welcome BBQ for our guests. Really, it was a way to spend some time with everyone and to let everyone meet and get to know each other a little better before the wedding.

Let me start by saying that our welcome BBQ did NOT go as smoothly as planned. First off, the weather in Hawaii, while we were there, was extremely windy and more rainy than usual (even considering that Hawaii is usually quite rainy in the winter). We had our BBQ held at Bellows, which is an Air Force owned beach. I thought I had done my part and did all the legal paperwork to host our event there. I had to collect all of our guest’s driver’s license numbers and their vehicle information and fax it to Bellow’s security forces 48 hours before the event. The day of the event, my family and I got to Bellows and checked in. It was soooo incredibly windy that we were afraid everything was going to blow off the tables, and it definitely was too cold and windy to take a dip in the ocean. As the guests started to arrive, my dad and I started to get hounded by phone calls. The guard at the gate wouldn’t let our guests on the post. We had about 11 people that were stuck… off base. When I checked in for our pavilion by the beach, they forgot to inform me that I also had to check in with security forces to confirm the guest list I faxed them 2 days prior. Luckilly, one of the guests waiting outside the base was in the Army and he ended up signing everyone in as his guests. So 30 minutes later, everyone was on the post and started to enjoy themselves.

Unfortunately I was enjoying the day more than documenting it, so I don’t have many photos of the BBQ. Here are the few photos we do have:

Mr. Sushi adores the kiddies:

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Here are the gifts I made to go along with my “Will you be my flower girl?” cards.

My supplies

My two flower girls are five and six (or somewhere around that age), and as I mentioned before, they love princess stuff. I decided to make them tote bags and fill them up with princess-related goodies. By “make” I mean iron some sparkly decals onto pre-made mini tote bags that I picked up at Michaels.
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I was thinking about our wedding schedule for the summer, and our new house time line, and I got a little worried. Our house is going to be a little behind schedule. The City of Seattle is over 3 weeks behind on approving building permits. They laid-off part of their workforce late last year, and are now short-handed. Apparently we aren’t the only people trying to take advantage of lower building costs.

My worry isn’t about our living situation. We haven’t given our landlord notice, so we still have a place to live in the event the house isn’t done by mid-August. I’m not worried about the money. I think we have that part sorted out. What I’m worried about are our wedding presents, and the thank you notes.

About 80% of our guests live in Seattle. It’s very likely that the Seattle dwellers will be bringing their wedding gifts to the wedding. This isn’t a problem, except for the fact that I’m worried we won’t get around to opening gifts and sending out thank yous until after we get back from the Honeymoon. No, that’s not a problem either, until I realized we’d be living in boxes, literally. Either we’ll be in our new house, living in boxes, or in our current apartment, living in boxes.
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What’s the best wedding present ever? No, it isn’t a KitchenAid mixer. And no, it isn’t a lifetime supply of chocolate (but that would be great). The best wedding present ever is someone moving for us. What? I know. So if you remember, the Joeys are building a house right now. Actually the Joeys are waiting for their building permit (any day now!!). If the weather holds up and everything goes according to schedule, The house will be inhabitable by the time we get back from our honeymoon (if not before).

I was really stressed about moving. Mr. Joey goes back to teaching a day or two after we get back from Australia. We won’t have time to move. We thought of using the 4 days between the wedding and the honeymoon to move, but we’ll just be too tired. Plus, we scheduled our trip that way because we wanted extra time with friends and family before they left Seattle. I know the days leading up to the wedding will be stressful and crazy, and won’t leave us much time for socializing.

I told my Mom about my anxiety (and excitement) around moving, and she gave me the best gift ever.
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I first discovered Felix Doolittle’s charming stationery line years ago, and finally got around to ordering some of my very own.  My new address labels arrived in this adorable packaging…

There are tons of motifs to choose from, all equally adorable.
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When it comes to card boxes, I only know what I don’t want. I don’t want to make a box that looks like a cake, and I certainly don’t want to buy a wooden card box that I won’t have use for after the wedding. I was thinking some kind of vase or basket for the cards would be fine. Today while browsing the sale items at CB2, I found this green side table.

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Mr. Joey is a T-shirt guy. He loves them and has all sorts of odd ones. As I was perusing Weddingbee the other day, I noticed a post about Sales from Around the Web and a comment made by Mrs. Toucan in particular about a sale at Threadless. Thanks Mrs. Toucan!

We LOVE Threadless. The T-shirts are so cool, and you know the odds of running into someone wearing the same Threadless shirt you’re wearing are pretty slim.

That being said, I had full intentions of filling my Threadless cart with $5 shirts for Mr. Joey, but couldn’t find many I liked in his size. Instead, I decided to by thank you T-shirts.

We have a lot of people helping us with this wedding. Some jobs big, some small, but all important to us. So along with some homemade Limoncello and Lumpia, I decided that I wanted all our friendors to get something that would represent us and them. So for $70 including shipping, I bought 12 shirts. Yes, 12! One of them is going to be one of my wedding gifts to Mr. Joey, one is a little present for our new nephew, one a birthday gift for a friend, and one is for me, just because. So for less than $6 apiece, I got some awesome shirts!!

For the Band:

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I bought a book at Kinokuniya in New York that has hundreds of 3-D packaging forms, covering lots of shapes and purposes. I think it’s one of the best book investments I’ve ever made. I put together one of the forms as packaging for the boxer shorts that I gave to my husband for Valentine’s Day.
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You’ve seen the vintage Valentine that I will give Mr. Taffy tomorrow. This post is about the very first (unusual) Valentine that I made for my groom to be.

During my Secret Lives of Bees post, I talked about my obsession with blood donation. I am an avid fan of the Red Cross! I also mentioned that Mr. Taffy won huge points on our first date when he brought the subject of blood types up during dinner. I decided to make Mr. Taffy a blood donation-themed Valentine… after all, it was happy hearts day!

Squeamish bees, proceed with caution. This may be a little on the graphic side!
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How cool are these? They are designed by Kristine Baerlin of Figment Studio. She is so talented!

Wouldn’t these be super fun for wedding portraits or even bridal portraits for the reception? What a unique idea this is!

The prices start at $200. Check out her website here: Figment Studio.

Alright, I realize I should have posted this last week, but for all of you Valentine’s Day procrastinators, here are some eco-friendly options.

First, I know that roses are the traditional Valentine’s Day flower. But they are totally out of season. Instead, ask your beau for some anemones, daffodils, and in some areas, tulips. They are a cheerful way to celebrate in-season flowers. I highly recommend checking out California Organic Flowers.

But if you have your heart set on roses, check out Organic Bouquet. They grow most of their flowers in South America, but they are a socially responsible business, and I believe they purchase carbon offsets to make up for the flight to North America. Plus, you can still order from them today to get flowers tomorrow!! These majestic roses are gorgeous!
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My previous post mentioned these cookbooks from my bridal shower.

People close to me know that I am a horrible cook. On top of that, I don’t enjoy cooking. I really don’t like the idea of following instructions in such detail that one tiny teaspoon will ruin the entire meal. I realize that I have to follow instructions first before I can create meals on my own, but I wish I could do that now. Let’s just say that cooking and I just don’t get along. For example, I made pasta one night for Mr. Blush. I wanted to be “innovative” so I added BBQ sauce to it… TERRIBLE IDEA! Mr. Blush usually eats whatever I make him (because he’s so sweet and will eat whatever horrible thing I create). However, he couldn’t finish his “BBQ pasta”. I felt so bad! Although we laughed so much about it afterwards, I really wish I could cook! He thinks it’s cute that I can’t cook, but I tell him all the time that it’s not going to be so cute when we’re 50, 50 pounds heavier, and a whole lot unhealthier from eating out everyday. (I’m a bit neurotic when it comes to unhealthy and restaurant food.)

However, things changed after my bridal shower! How you ask? Well…
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Today Mom Taffy and I spent the day together doing some wedding bonding (and work!). Our main goal was to find the perfect centerpiece vase. We are able to save quite a lot of money on flowers by providing vases to the florist, but he requires that you bring one into his shop for his approval before buying them in bulk. My first vase failed to be approved, so we were determined to find a winner today.

The second goal was to look through antique stores for my bridal jewelry. We struck out in the jewelry area, but hit the jackpot with this cute vintage Valentine, which will be perfect for Mr. Taffy!

The inside…
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