In the interest of this being a tourist-friendly post, I’m compiling the last couple days of our trip in one post, since technically you can do almost all of this in one day. Since the Bee Extravaganza was on Saturday, it took up a major portion of our Saturday afternoon/night, while my hangover took over a major portion of our Sunday morning. So, you can see how if you eliminated the Bee party factor, how our Saturday and Sunday could actually be one normal day for a tourist!
On Saturday, Mr. Penguin and I got up early and headed Downtown. We saw the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Ground Zero, and explored the area. It was very very cold and windy that morning so we opted out of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, but we hear that it is a great experience and we are sad to have missed it. I enjoyed seeing the Financial District far more than I expected. It’s set up nicely for tourists, with historical plaques and signs everywhere, so it’s an easy place to navigate. It was great to do this on a Saturday, a day when no one was working. I don’t really love it when tourists ask me for directions when I’m focused on my work day, so I didn’t want to be in the way of the New Yorkers downtown on a weekday. Going on the weekend gave us an opportunity to linger, take pictures, and stroll at a leisurely pace.
DAY 3
Checking out the Brooklyn Bridge
(source)It’s March! For most people, this is a good thing. It means that the long winter is almost over (although definitely not here in Boston!) and spring is just around the corner. The days are getting longer, so walking out of work at 5PM just isn’t as depressing as it used to be. And it also means that Opening Day is that much closer… and that’s a BIG deal over here.
For others, March is one of the busiest months of the year. Accountants like Papa Latte are in the middle of tax season, and are working hard for long hours. And college admissions officers like myself are buried in applications from high school students around the world.
Working in a career or an office where a “busy season” exists develops a special sense of community and camaraderie amongst the employees.
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I’ve been a fan of Weddingbee PROS Still Motion since Mrs. Emerald first posted about them 2 years ago. And after I saw the stunning trash the dress session they did with Mrs. Milkshake, I was convinced that I absolutely needed to do a TTD session with them.
Guess what?! We just set a tentative date in mid May! Woohoo! 
There is so much I need to plan, and I need your help hive!
1) What should I wear? I’d love to wear a short, vintage style dress, but I definitely don’t want to spend a lot of money on it. I’ll probably give my dress away to a Weddingbee reader after the session!
2) What kind of shoes should I wear?
3) Should I wear a traditional veil? A birdcage veil? A hair accessory from Oh My Deer?
4) Should I have a bouquet?
5) Where in Manhattan should we shoot?
Mr. Bee and I have virtually no pictures together other than our wedding pictures, so we’re going to take “married pictures” and do this TTD before I get old and decrepit. Ack I’m so excited and nervous at the same time because I hate taking pictures, and I hate being on video even more.
Please feel free to give me any suggestions you have, no matter how wacky they may be. I want this to be super fun and creative! 
I promised my classmates that I’d write a post about the flower arranging class we took last night, but I just got back from a bridal shower and am too pooped to edit the pictures. I already uploaded the pics for the following post though, so here goes! 
Mrs. Caramel used to do freelance hair and makeup in LA with her cousin, so her cousin did my makeup for a wedding I attended last summer. I’m sorry I don’t have a better picture — my pc with all my pictures died!
Mrs. Caramel has since moved to New York, and is starting up her freelance business here with a lovely makeup artist named Jina. So Mrs. Caramel and Jina came over early and did my and Mrs. Penguin’s hair and makeup for the recent Bee Party!
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Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
Sorry for the delay with Part Two of photos from our fabulous Valentines swap (and in case you missed Part One, it’s here). Without further ado…
AliCherri1’s fabulous and fun collage Valentines.
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Aside from meeting a bunch of the East Coast bees (which no tour/sight would even come close to comparing to!) the Original Greenwich Village Food Tasting and Cultural Walking Tour was by far my favorite experience of the week. I’m not ashamed to say it: eating was very very high on my list of important things to do in New York. Culture is nice, but um… have you SEEN the burgers at Shake Shack? Hook me up! So, having the opportunity to learn about the history of one particular neighborhood and getting a sampling of its finest tastes was just incredible. Even if you’re a local, I highly suggest taking one of the several food tours that this company has to offer. Especially as a tourist, you’re able to knock out a lot of the “must eat foods of New York” all in one afternoon.
The tour started at Joe’s Pizza, where we kicked it off with an authentic slice of New York pizza. John’s Pizzeria is also nearby, which I hear is absolutely amazing and I’m sad we didn’t have time to go there.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I’m sure you city folk by now are really thrilled that I keep calling it “The NYC”, but I promise this will only go on for a few more posts. New York City was a complete blast. The best part, by far, was getting to meet so many East Coast bees. Mr. Pengy was so amazed that I actually “knew” that many people on the East Coast, and what’s more, keeps raving about how much he loved hanging out with everyone! (Enter my smug face. The Bees ARE awesome. Now I don’t have to keep explaining it to him.) But before I get ahead of myself, I thought I’d post a rundown of our days in New York, as several people expressed an interest in our itinerary, as they’re planning to head to New York themselves for their honeymoons! New York is an awesome place to have a honeymoon/minimoon. We were there for only a short 4 days, but each day was filled with amazing food and sights.
First off, I have to applaud NYC for its easy to navigate and CHEAP subway system! All the New Yorkers we know in San Francisco complain about the public transportation here, and we will no longer roll their eyes at them when they complain how hard it is to get from one neighborhood to another in San Francisco. It’s true… while the subway in New York is absolutely FILTHY in appearance (Purell! Purell! Stock up on Purell!), I would trade it any day for the (albeit, much, much cleaner) BART and bus/Muni system in San Francisco.
Thanks to all your awesome suggestions, we really crammed in as much tourism as possible! It was actually pretty relaxing… we concentrated on neighborhoods and most of the sights were so close to each other!
We stayed in Greenwich Village, a few blocks from where Mr. and Mrs. Bee live, at the Village Guest House. Rates are very reasonable, and we thought our room was HUGE, especially after hearing about how tiny apartments are in NYC. I highly recommend it!
It’s 6PM, 30 minutes into my weekly Bosu class. At this point, my legs feel like Jell-O and I’m checking the clock every 5 seconds willing it to go faster. I put my head down and press on… and suddenly feel an extra jolt of energy. My arms pump harder, I add a little hop to my step and…what’s this? I’m even singing along to the song coming through the sound system. The source of my new found energy? “Umbrella” by Rihanna.
Yup, I love Rihanna and her umbrella. I know it was totally overplayed back in 2007, and I, too, have fallen victim to the so-annoying-but-ever-so-catchy “ella ella” that you just can’t get out of your head.
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Reader LPC asked today if I had ever posted pictures of our Chinese banquet, held one month after our wedding in the summer of 2007, and, well, I didn’t! Sorry everyone! Since it was a party thrown FOR us, not BY us, Mr. Bluebell and I didn’t have any say in the details of the banquet, or vendors/decor, etc., so we basically just showed up. It was awesome! But for some reason, I just never got around to posting any pictures. So here they are, over a year and a half later!
The banquet was held at Gala Manor, in Flushing (part of Queens, NYC). Everything went quite smoothly, the food was tasty, and we had a lot of fun! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
A pretty traditional dragon & phoenix and double happiness set-up:
A cake just a wee bit different from what we would have chosen for ourselves…
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This past weekend, a couple of girlfriends came over and we baked up a storm. I love to bake. I love measuring the ingredients, mixing them up, and (the best part) EATING them. We baked for about 3 hours straight and had brownies, Rice Krispies treats, cupcakes, and (yum) lemon bars to gorge on, er… I mean, taste. In addition to the mixing, scraping and baking, we also did a lot of washing… and re-washing our 2 mixing bowls, 1 rubber spatula and 2 bake pans. There were MANY times when I thought to myself, “I can’t wait to get ____ off our registry.”
Mr. Latte and I registered at 4 different stores and learned a lot through the process. We learned how to tell the difference between bone china and porcelain (hold it up to the light) and what 18/8 and 18/10 stainless steel means (percentage of chromium vs. nickel). We learned why so many couples register for big-ticket items (that discount on all items that haven’t been purchased is awesome!). We also learned there are a lot of free gift offers when you register for certain items.
A couple of our favorites:
There are even more completion incentives! For example, when your guests purchase Wusthof products from your registry that totals $450 or more, you receive a Wusthof Classic Straight Paring Knife (Mr. Latte is keeping his fingers crossed for this one).
The items that I’m keeping my fingers crossed for?
Mrs. Penguin visited New York for the first time in her life this past weekend, so of course we had to have a Bee Party!
Left to right standing: Mrs. Bee, Smokey the cat, Mrs. Snow Pea, Mrs. & Mr. Bell Pepper, Mrs. Spider, Mrs. Bluebell, Mrs. Onion, Mrs. Dahlia, Mrs. Violet, Mr. Onion; Sitting Mrs. & SIL Cupcake, and Mrs. Toucan & Mrs. Penguin.
I blogged from the plane. FOR REALS.
Virgin America has in-flight Wi-Fi.
WHAAAAATTTTT????
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I noticed that a few commenters on yesterday’s Valentines post mentioned that they forgot to send photos. If there are any more of you out there, this is your last chance! We are going to post one more round of photos so that everyone can see all of our Weddingbee crafting goodness. Email photos to canary [at] weddingbee [dot] com.
I love wedding websites. I love to read about the couple’s story, learn about their wedding plans and look through their pictures. I will often check back for updates and send emails to the couple. I even let the wedding song on the site run over and over again in a loop… and will not press pause or stop. I realize that I am probably (definitely) in the minority. I think I especially love wedding websites because they give you an idea of the couple’s style and provides you with a glimpse into their relationship. I couldn’t wait to get the Latte wedding website up and running.
I naturally thought that Mr. Latte would jump all over the idea of becoming the “webmaster” for our site. He was an IT Consultant in his past life, and could probably survive for weeks just off of water and the internet. So I asked him to create the website… without a plan. What kind of a plan, you ask?
See, I’ve had to devise numerous plans in the past to “gently guide” him into agreeing to help out with some wedding related tasks. Remember that lame excuse I used to get him to research and book our hotel blocks? That was all part of the plan. And that time I used the free food and gift trick to get him to come with me to the Crate & Barrel event? Yup, all planned out ahead of time. But I thought I had this one in the bag.
He said that he wasn’t interested in making our website and I was caught off guard.
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Sorry for the delayed posting. I just wanted to make sure everyone received their Valentines before posting the photos. I am in awe of the talent and creativity of all the bees and readers. Wow! You are all crafting superstars. We had a total of about 50 swappers and hopefully everyone got theirs by now. If not, just write me at canary [at] weddingbee [dot] com and I will see what I can do. Otherwise, enjoy the beautiful Valentine creations (posted in no particular order) courtesy of the hive! Also, don’t forget to rate your fellow swappers on Swap-Bot.
Mrs. Candy Corn’s delightful hand-illustrated cards.
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