Originally published on February 23, 2010
Mrs. Socks nominated Mrs. Sewing’s photo editing tutorial as a post that really helped her. She says, “It came at just the right time for me and encouraged me to continue playing around with Photoshop.”
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In my possession are all the engagement photos we took! *claps hands excitedly* However, Sewing-Mom was a little stressed out at the idea of me posting her unedited pictures up on the internet. Now, I don’t really want to wait for her to go through and fix them all (as we all know, this can take a while!), so I asked if I could fix them up instead.
“Sure… just make sure you said that you did the editing, not me.”
Of course Mom, I wouldn’t want to taint your image. 
So since photo editing is a relatively unexplored, new territory for me, I thought we could go through it together. Today we’ll go through some of the basics. (There are many, many more complicated and professional methods, but the following will be good to start off with, I hope!)
First, open up your photo (in this case one of my e-pic teasers) in Photoshop.
Mortallll Kommmbaaattt!
Now let’s play! Open the Layers window by pressing F7
(or Windows -> Layers)
Read more…
Originally published on November 12, 2009
Mrs. Spaniel nominated Mrs. Rainbow’s name change post. Mrs. Spaniel says, “I know that everyone has a post about name changing, but the one that really impacted me was Mrs. Rainbow’s post, where she told us that both she and her fiance decided to take both of their names. I’m not joking; it sparked the conversation where Mr. Spaniel and I actually decided to each take my birth name as a second middle name.
~~~
Let me just start of by saying that I am so lucky to be marrying such an understanding, compassionate, and laid back man.
I say this because I initially had absolutely no desire to change my name, ever. Even as a little girl, I couldn’t imagine having anyone else’s last name but my own. I quite like my last name, it meshes well with my identity. It’s a strong—yet pretty and proper sounding—British name. It’s one of those names that goes well with everything, but isn’t super common, like Smith or Jones.
To be honest, I was a bit nervous about telling Mr. Rainbow that I was planning on keeping my last name. Most men (like my dad, for example) are so against the idea of their wife not having the same last name. When I broke the news to Mr. Rainbow, his response was something to the tune of: “Really? Okay, if that’s what you want sweetie, whatever makes you happy.” Gosh, I love that man. What potentially could have caused a huge fight between many other couples, was not even a ripple on our radar.
Fast-forward a few weeks later and the gears in my brain started spinning: “What if we decide to have kids? Whose name will they have? I don’t want to be the only one in the family with a different last name!”
Originally published on April 3, 2008
Mrs. Pain au Chocolat nominated Mrs. Tiramisu’s post on how to light lanterns using LED lights, so there’s no need for electric cords!
~~~
In the past few months I think I’ve earned myself quite a few credits in the subject of lighting, with this weekend’s research being about equivalent to a thesis paper. Here’s just another example of something totally unexpected that I’ve had to learn about. Granted, I could have just ponied up the bucks for my rental company to light our tent, but no that would be too easy for the totally cheap frugal Miss Tiramisu. Read on, and take advantage of my research so you don’t have to waste hours of your life on this craziness like I did!
Like Miss Penguin, I knew I wanted lots of paper lanterns to spice up the blank ceiling of our tent. Mr. Tiramisu and I looked over some inspiration pictures and decided that for the look we were going for, we’d need around 150 lanterns for our 120×40 foot tent. Our rental company said they’d gladly rent us the lanterns and light strands, and even string them up for us, for the low low price of $35…. PER LANTERN.
Read more…
Originally published on February 2, 2009
One of the questions that comes up quite often here in the hive is, “how long did it take for your photographer to get your proofs to you?” Ms. Gazelle nominated Mrs. Avocado’s post on why your photographer may tell you it will be 8 weeks (or more) before you get your wedding photos back.
~~~
As soon as I saw this post on the blog of Ksenija Savic (who might just have a harder name to say than I do!), I commented and asked her if I could re-post it here. I loved Anne Ruthmann’s post on Weddingbee PRO that talked about this very subject (and in fact, Ksenija’s post was inspired by Anne’s post). Ksenija took things a step further and broke down in hours how long each step of the process takes.
All the words and photos past this point are by Ksenija herself. I hope this helps you understand just a little bit better what it takes to process a wedding.
—–
Why does it take so long to receive my wedding/portrait images?
(Heather & I decided to collaborate on the verbiage for this post!)
While we haven’t had anyone ask us these questions, at times we wish they would! We wonder if people might be asking themselves these questions, or if they perhaps want to know more about the logistics of it all!
Let’s use a wedding as an example! Here are the basic steps of the process we fine art photographers go through the minute your session or wedding is over.
Step one:
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Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
Originally published January 20th, 2009
Mrs. Penguin nominates Mrs. Cupcake’s detailed check list on things to consider when creating your own invitations. The post came a little late for her, as her wedding was the year prior—she caught a few mistakes on her invitations after reading this post! This post is totally save- and share-worthy…make sure you pull it up when it’s time for you to create your invitations!
~~~
In designing our wedding invitations, I was definitely at a huge advantage over other DIY brides, and for that I know I am very, very lucky. I design wedding invitations and stationery for a living, and have been a graphic designer for six years, so there wasn’t a lot of guessing about how to begin or what to include. But thinking back to when I first designed wedding invitations for a friend over four years ago, I remember how overwhelming it was, which is what a lot of you may be going through. I thought I’d share some of my knowledge with you all, since it seems like a lot of brides go the DIY route for their invitations. I am certainly not claiming to be the end-all, be-all authority of wedding invitations… but I hope this can help a few of you out who may be struggling.
1. Make sure you give yourself enough time.
Designing, printing, assembling, addressing, and mailing your invitations will take a very long time… I’m not going to lie. It may be one of the most time-consuming tasks you will encounter while wedding planning. I’m not trying to scare you — just prepare you! If you think you can complete the task from start to finish in a month, give yourself two months. Everyone works at their own pace but it is better to err on the side of caution and give yourself plenty of time to account for your learning curve. A good rule of thumb is to mail your invitations 6-8 weeks before your wedding date, leaving your guests at least a month to reply before your response date, so try to plan things out so everything is completed several weeks ahead of this timeline in the event that you run into roadblocks along the way. I mailed our invitations on July 22 and our reply by date was September 1 (for our September 20 wedding), so our guests had ample time to let us know whether or not they would be attending.
2. Think carefully about your “reply by” date.
Read more…
Originally published on October 14, 2010
Mrs. Socks nominated Mrs. Octopus’ post about pre-wedding weight loss for the Weddingbee “Helpful Series.” Mrs. Socks writes, “Octo’s post about pre-wedding weight loss was also SUCH a good one with great perspective.”
~~~
So, disclaimer: I’m going to write about how I lost some weight before the wedding in this post. I totally do not want to reinforce that wedding industry pressure that all brides need to lose weight for their weddings. My diet and exercise efforts were kinda necessary for me (as you’ll see below), but it’s certainly not necessary for everybody! Okay, that’s it. I just wanted to add a little prologue so this post doesn’t come off like one of those incredibly annoying Facebook ads that stop just short of “Stop Eating, You Giant Fat Bride.”
***
I’ve never been the type to worry excessively about my weight. This tendency is certainly helped by the fact that I’m naturally a fairly thin person, and I don’t usually struggle to keep my weight stable. My mental attitude about my weight held true throughout most of our engagement. I had some vague thoughts and plans about wanting to look my best, but I felt pretty casual about it all. My general health philosophy is to make an overall habit of eating nutritious, non-processed food, to make a reasonable effort to exercise, and not to worry about it much beyond that.
You may recall that, for most of this year, I was in graduate school. I bought my wedding dress the summer before my master’s degree program began, and then, over the course of that master’s degree program, gained maybe…six pounds? Seven? Not just a teeny blip on the scale, but nothing really significant, either. It was mostly due to the fact that I was so busy with school that I barely exercised, and that I probably was a bit too enthusiastic about patronizing local businesses. Anyway, I noticed the weight gain, but was not particularly worried about it.
Then, in July, I made a trip to Pittsburgh, and I tried on my wedding dress for the first time since I’d bought it. And—yikes—it barely fit.
Read more…
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Originally published on October 21, 2010
Ms. Sloth nominated Ms. Stripes’ Brooch Bouquet DIY as her post for the helpful series, because she used it to make her own brooch bouquet. Ms. Sloth says, “I’d seen a lot of other tutorials, but Stripes’ was the simplest.”
~~~
Again- for Sloth. And any other lovelies out there who wanna continue their extreme arm toning regime on their wedding day. You’re hardcore. Enjoy the tutorial kids!
PREP:
I already had a fairly sizable collection of brooches from my awesome adopted grandma, and the rest I found in thrift stores, on eBay, and even borrowed one from the awesome Mrs. Nachos!
Gather/Edit your brooches. I used around 50!
Read more…
Originally published on April 14, 2010
Mrs. Meerkat nominates Mrs. Pug’s post on what a wedding timeline looks like if you’re not including dancing in the day. It’s a great reference for brides who may not be getting married at night, or simply don’t want to include a dance floor at their wedding!
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As I’m waiting to start my recaps, I just wanted to share a few things…
Chances are at some point you will create a day-of timeline for the wedding, which may expand into a larger timeline for the overall weekend, and include important information like important cellphone numbers that will be distributed to key people.
So not mine but isn’t this pretty?
But I’m talking about something more hardcore than the above, with minute timing and tons of details, like that of Mrs. Daffodil.
Read more…
Originally published on May 26, 2009
Mrs. Rainbow nominated Mrs. Perfume’s post on how to make macarons! It gave her the confidence to make them herself! Mmm…
~~~
I finished the last batch of the macaron favors right before I left to go for our emergency dance lesson on Saturday.
Yes, that’s right. I’m making macarons for our wedding favors!!! Why would a girl who is notorious for not baking decide to bake one of the most difficult pastries in the world for her favors?
Because I love them and I’m obsessed with Laduree. By now everyone knows I love macarons. And no self-identified foodie could get away with NOT making her own something for her wedding, right? Right… if she’s crazy. And so it goes…
I attempted the ridiculous and actually succeeded after several tries.
Read more…
Originally published on August 23, 2010
Mrs. Cola nominated Mrs. Pin Cushion’s faux-to booth tutorial for the Helpful Series! Mrs. Cola says, “I’ve forwarded Pin Cushion’s PVC Faux-to Booth tutorial to several brides: I love how she breaks it down into an easy, manageable DIY, with something like PVC, which not everyone has worked with before. I really wish she’d posted this a few months earlier, because I like it so much more than the setup we used at our own wedding, with garment racks!”
~~~
Oh, I wanted one.
I wanted one like Aladdin wants Jasmine, like a marathoner wants a gallon of Gatorade and like Hugh Grant wants to make another romantic comedy.
Pre-wedding, I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I wanted a photo booth. But my heart of hearts was also telling me we couldn’t spend a grand on a photo-strip spitting, old fashioned booth. And my heart of hearts wasn’t crazy enough to spend $464 from an online store ($97 for the backdrop, $367 for the support system [yikes!]) to build my own.
So, my (cheap, rational) heart of hearts led me to Home Depot to create a stand for our DIY faux-to booth backdrop. I had searched online for tutorials, but could only find extremely complicated versions involving power tools (and I preferred to keep all of my phalanges attached). Thus, we developed our own method which 1) ended up working out quite well 2) was cheap and 3) was easy to build.
For those wishing to build there own cheap, easy, fun photo booth, here is what we used:
(A) 2 of these (PVC pipe “elbows”)
(from Home Depot)
Originally posted on June 8, 2010
Mrs. Thimble nominates Mrs. Scissors’ tutorial for her DIY programs. She says, “I referred to Scissor’s DIY programs post a lot… in fact, it’s the only one I can remember right this sec because I purchased the printer she used—I needed one anyway and I wanted one that would print colors this pretty!”
~~~
I designed our programs to be design-friends with our invitation suite. I’m a stickler for consistency, so they work well together, but I also went a little more whimsical with these guys. The pressure was off for the programs, and I had quite a lot of fun with these. This weekend, Mr. Scissors and I spent a good two days printing, cutting, folding, measuring, nailing, threading, sewing, and assembling our eighty programs. He was a marvelous helper, and we are both so thrilled with the results.
Originally posted on September 24, 2008
We’re kicking off our helpful series with a post nominated originally by Mrs. Pony and then nominated 5 times over by other bees in the hive! Mrs. Pony says: “I found Cherry Pie’s writing-their-own-ceremony-post to be extremely helpful when trying to write our own ceremony.”
If you’re planning on writing your own ceremony, Mrs. Cherry Pie gives us some helpful guidelines to craft it.
~~~
When we decided to have a non-officiant friend marry us (remember: anyone can marry you in Montana), I knew it meant that I would have to write our wedding ceremony, or at least contribute heavily to its creation. This was high on my list of “cons” relating to not hiring an officiant, but I very quickly came to enjoy that I had the power to word smith our ceremony in any way I wanted.
I want to share with you what writing our ceremony meant to me, the process I used to write it, and finally, our ceremony text, in case any of these things might inspire one of you to follow the same path.
Read more…
’Tis the season for new engagements!
Many of you may be stumbling upon Weddingbee for the first time as newly engaged couples! Throughout the years, bees and hive members have been uber inspired by some amazingly helpful posts, and we thought we’d take the time this season to highlight those posts for our newest hive members.
Through the season we’ll be publishing a few of the bees’ nominations for the most helpful posts they read while planning their own weddings. We hope you’ll be able to discover what the hive’s archives have to offer for your own planning.
If you have an old favorite Weddingbee post or boards thread that helped you a lot in your wedding planning process, link to it here, and we’ll republish it for the hive! These posts will live under the tag “helpful-series“. As we get going, feel free to scroll through them all via that link!
And to all you new brides and grooms out there: welcome! Leave us a little comment to let us know who you are, where you’re from, and when you got engaged. We can’t wait to inspire your journey to the aisle!
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