Weddingbee Blog

Our friend Margaret from the new travel site Enrout is back this week to share with us her ideas for Miss Doily’s dream honeymoon! Revisit Margaret’s great honeymoon series on Weddingbee here.

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Gumbo. Crawfish. Jazz. New Orleans is a city bursting with culture and will make a fantastic honeymoon destination for Mr. D and Miss Doily. The weather will be perfect in March after her wedding, with temperatures in the 70s. I’m really excited to share a $2000, five day tour of New Orleans with you all!

Where to Go

New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz so one must sample the jazz scene. Preservation Hall is a venue where you can experience jazz in its original form. There are also two festivals happening around Miss Doily’s honeymoon timeframe: the French Quarter Festival (April 7 - 10) featuring local musicians and the New Orleans Jazz Festival (April 27 - May 6) featuring the best of New Orleans jazz.

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I can’t believe how fast the year flew by. I remember sending our invitations, shopping for dresses and the jewelry making adventures during planning.

For my gift to the hubs, I had to make it. I just couldn’t avoid crafts for this. For crying out loud, the first year gift’s tradition is paper. Doesn’t that scream, craft me!?

Anywho, I went to Hobby Lobby, and picked up scrapbook paper (in our wedding colors and some lovey dovey paper prints) with a candy jar. I was on a mission.

The idea? To show the hubs that it’s the small things that matter. Tiny, small favors that brighten the day. I wrote down 52 small favors to do for my husband (one each week this year). These favors range from washing his car to cooking up his favorite meal to giving him “me” days in the house.

This week, he picked the one where I say I’ll do all the dishes this week. Ack!

Here are the 52 small favors all folded up.
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After the money dance was over, Mom BF informed me that we should change into our “going away” outfits since our reception was almost over, time wise. So, I went in the back and Mom BF helped me change into my going away dress. I got my dress at JCPenney’s for about $30. Ironically, it sort of matched our favor boxes’ pattern.

After that was done, Mr. BF went in the room to change. In the meantime, I tried to help Mom BF load my luggage in Mr. BF’s car, while people were still dancing around. Then I heard it: the beginning of the second line!

Instinctively, I ran back in there to see what was going on! The second line dance is notoriously the last dance where the bride/groom lead the line of guests around the dance floor. Bride/groom wave fancy umbrellas, guests wave napkins. It’s fun. There are tons of videos on YouTube if you’re curious to see one in action.

So, I go inside, and Mr. BF is still changing. I start freaking out.

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After eating some delicious cake, drinking a little more and of course, more boogie-time, it was time to toss that bouquet!

I had a toss bouquet made by the florist, because I’m totally sentimental and couldn’t imagine my bouquet being ripped to shreds by single ladies. I wish I could tell you that I did something creative with my bouquet, but nope, it’s just dry, sitting on a shelf in my craft room. ::sigh:: (ideas are welcome at this point)

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After our formals FULL of smiles, I changed into my awesome platform flip flops (heh, I haven’t worn platforms since high school) and we were asked to get ready to dance.

I will openly admit that Mr. Ballet Flat and I have never (if memory serves me right) danced together. We were thinking about classes, but that was too much pressure. I thought in my head about 2002 senior prom, when I kinda just swayed around in a circle with one of my good friends. With 150 of our family and friends watching, my mentality went from OMG!, to whatever… let’s just dance prom style!

**cue Aerosmith’s “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing”** (My favorite song from my favorite movie… so unoriginal, I know.)

It started out innocently, with a lot of thoughts like, ‘OMG we’re married, people are gonna get crazy drunk here because it’s NOLA, I can’t wait to be at Disney World tomorrow…’ Oh yeah, my thoughts were pretty random.

Then, oops! I stepped all over Mr. Ballet Flat. He was miraculously OK and all I was doing was laughing. Maybe I was a little nervous… OK, must.concentrate.now.
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Mr. Ballet Flat and I will be honeymooning in Orlando. For the majority of the honeymoon, we decided to stay in a vacation home.

Since we are road tripping it to Orlando, which is a good 8-9 hours away from New Orleans, we definitely want to rest up the night of our wedding so we can hit the road well-rested the next morning. We were originally looking at hotels in Biloxi, Mississippi, because it’s not too far from New Orleans at all and would shave an hour or so off the travel time for us the next day. Plus, their casino hotels, for the most part, are pretty nice. The problem? These hotels wanted upwards of $400/night, and that’s a little over budget for us.

So, we decided to try Priceline to bid on a nice 4 star hotel. We have used Priceline for mini vacations that we have taken before and have been really satisfied with the hotels.

Priceline is really easy to use. You just name your city and date, then click on the type of hotel you want (1,2,3,4 star), choose the area of the city you want to stay in, name your price, and let Priceline do the work. The only risk is you are obligating yourself to whatever hotel takes your bid, so it can be a shot in the dark. However, if you choose a higher star hotel, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, since those are known as nicer hotels.
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Well, so far, I’ve had three gift ideas for my bridesmaids.

1. Jewelry set - earrings and necklace

2. Prettied up Old Navy flip flops using tons of bling!

3. A surprise gift (my bridesmaids have been known to read this blog and I do NOT want them to see this gift until the big day!)

Here’s a fourth fun idea that I found while registering for towels at Macy’s.

These are hand painted martini glasses, and while there are glasses that are wedding related, I wanted to give the girls something for them to relate to and for them to place on their desks at work or at home with pride!

I’d rather not show off the exact ones I will be giving them (yet), but I noticed Lolita has made a few fellow bee martini glasses. It’s kind of neat to see these!
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Of course, we hear from our grandmothers and mothers that we need something OLD, something NEW, something BORROWED, and something BLUE. I was thinking this would be pretty simple, because I have my great-grandmother’s rosary as my OLD, my dress as my NEW, and my jewelry (hopefully) will be BORROWED, but I just couldn’t think of a visible blue. I wanted it to be something visible, so that my family members could say, “Ah, there’s her blue.” I had thought about dyeing my crinoline, a la Avocado’s post, but I was afraid of messing up an expensive crinoline! So, I thought about my garter instead. I originally wanted an LSU garter, since that’s my and Mr. BF’s alma mater. I went online, and nothing was grabbing my attention. I’m really not much of a lace fan, so I knew I’d have trouble with lacy garters.

Out of boredom, I logged onto Etsy and found Garter Lady. She has CUTE garters at really reasonable prices! Check out some of what she has!

I immediately thought of Mrs. Sea Breeze with her purple wedding day accessories when I saw this one!

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New Orleans is a city full of food, culture, and fun! Being from the area, I’ve seen a good bit of the city. For those of you who would like to vacation in New Orleans one day, I’d like to share my favorites with you in the form of a sample 4-day honeymoon itinerary (to make this wedding related, of course!). Let’s just say that your tummy will be super happy after this trip, but there will be some walking to do!

Day 1 (arrival)

Let’s just assume you get to your hotel for 2PM at check-in time.

2:00PM Check in, nap, and beautify yourself (I have to nap after traveling… just have to!).

5:30PM Kick off your New Orleans trip with flair and have dinner at the infamous Brennan’s Restaurant in the French Quarter. This would be a splurge of a dinner, but I promise you, it’s well worth it!! Be sure to try the Banana’s Foster… they come out and make it right in front of you! Super cool! If you love the food that much, totally purchase their cookbook as your first souvenir. It’s called “Breakfast at Brennan’s (and Dinner too!)”. Or, check out some of their featured recipes here, as well!

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There have been some things that I’m noticing in my weight loss journey that I really take for granted on a day-to-day basis. I’ve lost almost 20 lbs. so far and 9.25 inches off my body (which is SUPER cool), but besides the obvious, here are two BIG things that I’m watching change pretty quickly!

The biggest thing is my engagement ring. That sucker no longer fits. It will fly off of my finger very easily, and well, we can’t let that happen. I was thinking of just wrapping tape around the band on the palm side to make it smaller, but I discovered Ring Snuggies at Wal-Mart and I’m in LOVE!

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Obviously, that’s not my ring, but you get the picture. These little temporary soft plastic inserts take in your ring down a whole size, and right now, even that’s a little loose on me. It’s crazy how I’ve gone down a whole ring size in a little under 20 lbs. lost so far!

Another thing I noticed was at DSW.
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I’m totally backwards, I know. When I went for my dress fitting, the lady told me that I wouldn’t need a bra. The corset type dress would hold me in well. I’ve never NOT worn a bra, so I was skeptical. I’m not top heavy by any means, but I do have ladies that cannot (in my opinion) go braless. I trusted them, though, went to my alterations and the lady basically told me my boobs would not be held in by this dress alone. I needed a bra. UGH, I knew it!!!

See, plus-sized ladies are expected to have plus-sized boobs in the bridal world. Well, let’s just say I’m nowhere NEAR expectations, so it looked like you could literally fit a purse and a six pack of beer in my bust. It was sad. So, needless to say, they are taking my dress in a LOT in that area.

The problem that you guys probably already know is, you need your bra so they can properly fit you in the dress. Well, the bridal shop is taking a chance, estimating what I would need taken out for me to fit in my dress. *sigh* I will find out next Friday if they did things right or even close to right.

In the meantime, I had to find a bra.
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I haven’t updated you guys much lately on my progress with my diet/fitness plan. I got down to 247 lbs. last Thursday, bringing my weight loss to 18 lbs. However, I decided since last weekend was Valentine’s weekend, I wouldn’t sweat the calories so much and just enjoy it! After the Mexican food Friday night and the Beef Wellington that I made for V-day night, I gained two lbs back and am sitting at 249. Did I mention my lazy booty didn’t see the gym from last Wednesday to this Wednesday? I’m not bummed about this. I told myself to enjoy the weekend and I did! I can still stare at my paper clip chain holding 16 paper clips. (The one at work is spanning across my bulletin board! It feels awesome!!)

Now, this weekend is Mardi Gras weekend, and as you know, that stands for Fat Tuesday. This will be me over the weekend!!

Note: I wasn’t engaged at this point…the ring on my right hand is a $7 piece of costume jewelry that I would switch on my left finger in the rare event some weirdo hit on me.

Ok, ok. Just kidding you guys!!
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As you can probably tell by my lack of DIY posts, I’m starting to feel a little lax in my planning lately. I remember starting my binder with all of these great DIY ideas last March. I was looking forward to my plethora of craft projects, strategically spread out throughout the upcoming 14 months of planning.

Well, I’ve kind of turned to my procrastinating side, and now to my second guessing side. Do we really need these pretty embossed envelopes, only for guests to rip them open? Do we really need to offer to make more invitations for the rehearsal dinner? Hmm…well, my cutting corners side emerged thanks to Gartner Studios.

I originally was going to buy these clear favor boxes with personalized labels and put homemade favors inside. Then I thought, how many people will look at my homemade treats and truly appreciate them? I remember attending a wedding last year, and noticing all the neglected favors. I appreciated how cute they were, and yep, I took 3 home! However, there were whole bunches leftover as we left. I felt bad for the bride and groom. I know they spent a good bit of time making them perfect for their big day.

So, here emerges my second guessing side.
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I absolutely love my bridal shoes. Remember how I mentioned I wanted comfortable? Well, on this large frame, it’s hard to consider anything with a heel comfortable now. I realized in my dress fitting that these shoes were going to cause trouble if I didn’t break them in.

See, I’m used to wearing flats (thus my bee name), but heels make me feel sexy, (Ha ha! Seriously, there’s something about a good pair of heels.) So, the logical thing to do is to break these babies in!

I’ve been wearing them around the house in 30 minute intervals, and I’m not sure if I have that sexy walk down quite yet. However, I’m trying.

I also bought these bad boys at David’s Bridal (in white) to keep my toes from sliding. However, I’m sure I’m going to need to buy more insoles and some strap help, because those dig into my feet.

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