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Weddingbee Blog
I went to New Orleans for a couple of days in January of this year with a good friend of mine — it was definitely one of my all time favorite vacations! Unfortunately I lost a good portion of the pictures I took when my computer crashed, but I had to share the utter awesomeness that is New Orleans with you, so here goes! 
I love the idea of this post. I have lived all over the West Coast, and both Mr. PT and I love San Francisco with all our hearts. One could say it’s in our blood; both of our parents honeymooned in San Francisco in the 1960s! They even bought the same souvenirs.
Please bear with me: I love this Golden City! So, buckle your seat belts and come hungry. Here’s an insiders guide to SF:
First up, where to stay: I am totally biased, but my number one recommendation would be Hotel Vitale. The lavender scented hallways and free yoga in the morning are sure to make you feel miles away from everything. Check out their website- they have discounts for locals (starting under $200) and AAA members. If the Vitale is going to break your bank- check out any of the other Joie de Vivre Hotels. Chip Conley, the owner, really knows what he is doing- from chic to budget friendly. All of his hotels are a great bet - and they are Green, bonus!
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Mr. Bee and I made a New Year’s Resolution to go on a vacation every 3 months, even if it’s just a day trip. While Mr. Bee doesn’t really need vacations (he’s a machine), they’re an essential part of my life. Whenever I come back from a vacation, I always feel inspired and have tons of new blog ideas. Sometimes you just need a change of scenery.
My last trip was to New Orleans with a good friend of mine (my pc with all the pictures died, which is why I haven’t blogged about it). It was my first visit to the south and I completely fell in love with it, so Mr. Bee and I plan on visiting Savannah in late May. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about Savannah!
In late summer/fall, we hope to go to San Francisco. Mr. Bee lived in San Francisco for two years, I went to college in the Bay Area, and my family drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco every year when I was a child to visit my grandpa. SF is one of my favorite cities and I haven’t been since 2001, so I’m way overdue for a visit.
Me and my MOH in front of Lombard Street a decade ago!
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I just got back from a 5 day trip to Puerto Rico and I have to say that I’m soooo sad to be back. To be honest, although I was excited about the trip, I felt stressed because I didn’t think I should be going on a trip like this when there was so much to be done in terms of wedding planning. But there was no turning back because Mr. Martini and I booked this trip with 15 friends many months ago - way back before we were even engaged. At the time, he was working on finding the ring, while clueless me was just excited to be going away to PR with such a large group of friends. After we got engaged, I started having second thoughts about the spending money we would be forced to spend on the trip, when we could be spending it on much needed vendors and invitations.
Now that I’m back, I can’t help thinking that this trip was probably one of the best things I’ve done all year. I needed the break, and it was the longest vacation I ever took, the first vacation outside the States with friends, and the most fun I’ve ever had in probably my entire life.
When I went to Jamaica last year, it was the first time I’d ever been to a beach that didn’t belong to the coast of NJ. And if you know NJ, you know that our beaches are ghetto. The fried oreos and funnel cake try its best to make up for it, but it’s hard to get too excited about the Jersey Shore. I fell in love with Jamaica and at one point considered a romantic and casual destination wedding. If I could have my way, I would love to renew my vows one day to Mr. Martini on a gorgeous Caribbean beach at sunset.
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After that fabulous dinner at Ten 01, we headed back to the hotel and relaxed a bit before leaving for the concert. Of course, this was what our whole Minimoon was planned around, as we are huge Sigur Ros fans. Our awesome DJ, Brandon, had sent us the tour dates long ago during the wedding planning process, so Mr. Pomegranate had managed to snag us some pretty amazing seats.
A quick timed-shot before heading to the concert!
It was perfect Pacific Northwestern weather as we walked to the show, drizzling a bit of rain, but not pouring. We headed inside, stood in line for a local micro brew, and then went to take our seats. The opening band, Parachutes, had already begun to perform and I was blown away by our seats. We were super close!
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Our flight to Portland didn’t leave until 6:45 PM on Sunday, so we had plenty of time to relax at home for a few hours and pack (no, we hadn’t packed yet). We caught up on Project Runway, did a few loads of laundry and filled our suitcases to the brim. Of course, as soon as our booties hit the plane seats, I began to take pictures using my iPhone, digital camera - whatever I could get my hands on to document our trip.
Our wedding rings on the plane. There are many of these, so I’ll only bother you with one - we were just too excited!
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
6 months into our relationship, Mr. Meatball and I spent a month backpacking Europe together. It was one of the best times of our lives. It was also an amazing opportunity to get to know each other in a new way. Being together 24/7 for 31 days, navigating foreign countries in foreign languages, in the biggest heatwave of the decade was a true test of our strength. I really believe that traveling together should be a pre-requisite of marriage. There would probably be a lot less divorce that way.
(Collobriers, France 2003)
As evidenced by our taste, we’re big fans of the cultural and artistic influences of Asia, but neither of us have been there and we’re desperate to remedy that situation. The honeymoon seems like a perfect excuse. But affording a trip like that on top of a wedding is…. laughable in our circumstances.
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We’ve chosen our Minimoon adventure: Big City Fun in Portland!
The Deluxe Hotel in Portland, Oregon.
Image via sweetdisasters on Flickr.
We’ll be staying at the Deluxe Hotel, a 1940’s Hollywood style boutique hotel in downtown Portland. It so happens to be situated right in front of Portland’s awesomely convenient Max Light Rail that will take us directly from airport to hotel. This means I will be able to shop like crazy without having to worry about lugging bags around, hailing cabs or renting a car.
Since Mr. CC and I don’t plan on taking our honeymoon to Italy until June ’09, we are highly considering taking a “minimoon” to Disney World for a couple of days during the holidays. My parents will be in Florida during the winter months and my brother will be visiting his in-laws in Florida for Christmas, so it seems like the perfect excuse to go to Disney World and be total tourists with my family (if they’re up for it, if not I can just ride Tower of Terror over and over with Mr. CC).
A friend recently sent me this YouTube video that made me laugh hysterically and develop a comedian crush on the very sassy Giulia Rozzi. Immediately after watching it, I started panicking and wondering if I’ll turn into one of those Mickey Mouse-earred newlyweds who forces her hubby to wear unfortunate mouse-related attire (not that there’s anything wrong with that, to quote Seinfeld).
I was planning on taking a few days before the wedding for prep and to welcome out of town family members as they arrived. Add that to the length of time needed to take our dream honeymoon in Europe and I’m outta’ vacation days! In order to make sure I have enough paid time off - in case I am paid a friendly visit from the flu bug this winter - we’ve decided to postpone our dream honeymoon until our first anniversary. Therefore, we’re currently planning a short trip after the wedding to unwind - a.k.a. our “Minimoon.”
Our first thought was to stay in California and enjoy our beautiful coastline. Then we were informed that my Pom-In-Laws would like to contribute to our Minimoon Fund, so we started dreaming of tropical variations on a beachy theme. Perhaps an all-inclusive in Mexico a la Mrs. Penguin? Lastly, my uber-awesome DJ emailed me to share the Sigur Ros tour dates (isn’t he an awesome DJ for thinking of me!?). It just so happens that Sigur Ros is playing a concert in Portland, Oregon on the Monday after our wedding - thus adding a third option to our list.
Option #1 - California Coastline
Image via Tickle Pink Inn.
Mr. Pineapple and I would love to go to Ireland for our honeymoon. We looked into several different trips to the emerald isle, but in the end decided to skip the honeymoon for the time being. Hopefully, next summer we will have enough saved for the trip or maybe next year we will buy a house. Either way, we’ll make it there eventually.We do want to do something after the wedding. Just to get away and be together for a couple of days. I know many couple do it, but I couldn’t imagine getting married on Saturday and going to work on Monday. So, Mr. Pineapple and I are going on a couple of mini-moons.
The first stop: Cleveland. That’s right, tropical and exotic Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland is just a hop, skip and a jump from Pittsburgh so it would be an easy get away. Mr. P and I love to watch Iron Chef America and their new chef Michael Symon. Symon owns two restaurants in Cleveland, Lola and Lolita. Dinner at one of the two locations was the starting point of our planning. For the rest of our plans we will scope out some of Mrs. Dahlia’s recommendations.
The Bubblegums have returned from Bar Harbor, equipped with all sorts of Bar Harbor minimooning advice*!!
Do: Stay Downtown – The main part of Bar Harbor is about, oh, I’d say… one… square foot? So there are really only a few hotels that are right there in the thick of it. Others are definitely walkable, but there’s something gratifying about walking out of your hotel room and onto the dock. The two big ones are The Bar Harbor Inn (where we stayed) and The Harborside Hotel. In addition, there are all sorts of cute little inns – a couple I remember seeing downtown were called the Ullikana Inns - like DOLLHOUSES.
Also, if you can find one, a room on the ocean is clutch. Here we are on our balcony, ocean at our backs:
There are only 11 days until the wedding and we haven’t booked our honeymoon yet. We’ve had endless amounts of discussions on where we should go. It started with Paris, Italy and there was mention of Disney, we talked about going down south… but we abandoned all those ideas.
As the wedding gets closer and closer I see the bills piling up and it’s stressing me out a little. Mr. Flamingo is in school full time and because we are paying for the majority of the wedding (with some help from my parents), a honeymoon done to our liking would be too expensive at the moment.
Because weddings are so garsh darn expensive, Mr. BG and I had made the decision a while back to forego the big honeymoon for the time being. The plan is to spend a couple weeks in Paris sometime next year. In the meantime, however, we had made no plans to honeymoon. Our wedding was Saturday, and I was at work on Tuesday. Let me tell you - not a good choice. I have been a zombie for a week and cannot believe I haven’t made myself unwind.
SO, last night, Mr. BG and I planned an impromptu mini-moon for this weekend. I am SUPER excited!! We’ll be travelling up to the beeeautiful Bar Harbor Inn:
The one thing that I find so so cool is that Bar Harbor is home to Cadillac Mountain. From the peak of Cadillac Mountain, you will be the first in the U.S. to see the sun rise. AND, supposedly, if you turn around, you will see the moon setting at the same time. Cameras will be brought!!
Has anyone else regretted not taking a honeymoon or minimoon right after the wedding?
I realized today that I started the honeymoon conversation a long time ago, but I never let you all know where we were going. It turns out that Marriott stopped allowing you to use points to make your trip all-inclusive this year (boo) so we gave up on that idea. We still aren’t able to go on a long trip in September. Now, our plans call for a quickie honeymoon right after the wedding and a full honeymoon in late December/early January.
After talking it over with our married friends, we realized that we wanted a little getaway right after the wedding. Everyone mentioned how exhausted they were for the first few days of their marriage. Mr. Peacock had heard great things about a small spa in Wisconsin, right outside of the Dells, and set to work convincing me that it was the place to go. The spa sounded wonderful, but a honeymoon in the Wisconsin Dells did not. I went to the Dells with my family when I was 8 for the Tommy Bartlett Air and Water Show. There was a squirrel on water skis. We road the Ducks. It was a wonderful family vacation, but romantic getaway? No.
Then I saw pictures of Sundara, and I changed my mind.
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