Weddingbee Blog

We’re using four flutes at our wedding.

Image via Red Cedar

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As I mentioned before, Mr. Snow Cone and I have decided we’re doing the traditional bouquet and garter tosses. I have my bouquet all straightened around, which is 50% of the toss battle. I can’t really do a garter toss without a garter, now can I?

Fortunately, the garter-less garter toss will not be occurring at the Snow Cone wedding. That’s right, I’ve secured my garter, armed and ready for tossing. When brainstorming garter options, I knew I wanted something specific, so it was just a matter of tracking down someone to execute my vision. After doing a couple dozen Google searches, I came across Let’s Dance Garters, a small company that offers a huge array of garters with a boatload of customization options.

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After the shower, we did a quick wardrobe change and we were on our way to Pittsburgh for my bachelorette party. I’m not going to fib—I had some mixed emotions going into this evening. I don’t go out very often, and when I do, I’d much prefer a cocktail and good conversation than a crazy techno beat and a mosh pit of sweaty limbs. I was kind of anxious to see how all of my different worlds colliding would work out—my bachelorette party guest list had a good mix of family, high school friends, and college friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a hefty handful of months. How would everyone get along? Would I be pushed way out of my comfort zone in the name of bachelorette-ing? Would my embarrassingly low alcohol tolerance level get the best of me? See?!  All of these concerns made me eager to see the night come and go, hoping for the best, I suppose.

I am proud to report that the night was completely amazing. We started with a little celebratory bubbly in the hotel room and my guests bestowed the requisite bachelorette party apparel upon me—sash, genitalia necklace, and tiara with veil.

I’m usually not one to have my outfit and accessories thrust me into the center of attention in each and every room I enter, but I figured you only get to bachelorette once, so genitalia jewelry it is!
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No, not that one. Pervs. Get your minds out of the gutter and let me tell you a story.

A few weeks back, Mrs. Pain au Chocolat blogged about her bouquet charm fashioned after her Weddingbee icon. I decided that little chocolately delight was too darned precious for my liking, and I needed one of my own. I, like every other bride in the history of forever, turned to Etsy to see what options I had for my charm. I messaged a couple shops whose work seemed impressive, and shortly thereafter, I got a couple replies, but one in particular stood out. I received this message from Sweet & Savory Trinkets.

I haven’t tried to make a snow cone yet, but I am happy to try. I will try to make one this weekend, and post the pictures here. If you like it, and I decide to make them for the store, you will get the charm free as a thank you gift for inspiring me to create a new product.

In case you missed it, there was a four-letter word that makes angelic choirs from above sing: FREE.
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I feel like I have most parts of this wedding under control, with one glaring exception—the music. We booked our DJ eons ago and then I promptly put “deal with wedding music” in the furthest recesses of my brain. Now that I can count the number of weeks until the big day on one hand, I figure I should probably resurrect my focus on the wedding music.

Don’t get me wrong—I am a relatively big music fan, and I really enjoy a well-constructed playlist. However, my music fandom is pretty passive. If whatever’s playing on the radio is decent, I’ll keep it on. If it’s stinky, I’ll change stations. Rarely am I so impressed by an artist, album, or song to go out of my way to make an iTunes purchase. My personal music library is mostly comprised of musical and movie soundtracks and Top 40, so I don’t necessarily think that’s the ideal soundtrack to a wedding reception. As a result, my library of “songs to be played at the wedding” is pretty tiny, mostly because I’ve never taken the time to compile a list of any form. Unfortunately, my inactivity over the past months has segued into sheer anxiety; I feel like a reception’s music can make or break the evening, and I definitely feel like the pressure’s on to pick some sweet booty-shaking tunes. I want the dance floor to be active, but I don’t feel like I’m necessarily up to the task to get people out there in the first place.

So, to sum up, this is what I don’t want:
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At the end of my bridal shower posts, I alluded to how the bridal shower really changed my thinking on my upcoming nuptials. I, like many other brides-to-be, am guilty of losing the forest for the trees in the world of wedding planning. I spaz out over transportation miscommunications instead of recognizing that if I didn’t have loved ones traveling from near and far to join me in my celebration, there simply wouldn’t be any car logistics to be figured out. I have fits of hand-wringing over the difficulties of having a sizable bunch of bridesmaids who live all over the country instead of taking the time to be grateful that I have such a large group of young women who I can lean on in times of happiness and difficulty. I groan and moan over guest lists and room capacity instead of taking the time to appreciate the dozens of people who are just as excited as we are to mark this new chapter in our adult lives. I grunt in frustration when people pepper me with questions about details and plans, labeling them as nosy or overbearing, rather than titling them as helpful and cooperative, eager to participate in this memorable journey.

It’s just too easy to let all of the little stuff in wedding planning get you down. The costs associated with DIY projects, the headaches regarding who needs to be where when and how they are getting there, the tug-of-war over guest lists and responsibilities.
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To kick the shower off, we had some delicious (non-chocolate) food and then launched into the lone shower game we played. (I’m not really into shower games, so I was happy to hear that we were only doing one.) One of my BMs had sent a list of questions to Mr. Snow Cone, and I was instructed to guess his answers. For every incorrect guess, I had to pop a piece of gum in my mouth. Unfortunately, I didn’t do nearly as well with this game as I expected, so I had a big ol’ blob of bubble gum when all was said and done.

(It looks kind of small in the photo, but the gum blob was HUGE. And gross. And neon blue.)

After the game, we tore into the sweets!

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This past weekend was a complete and total blur, but for all the right reasons. You see, I decided to take advantage of the long holiday weekend by having both my bridal shower and my bachelorette party in one extravaganza of a weekend. I’ll share a bit about both, so here’s the info on the shower!

A few weeks back, I was greeted by this lovely piece of mail:

Personal photo

I completely loved the entire look of the shower invitation, but there was one part that particularly warmed my heart…
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We’re starting to get into crunch time, which means that miniscule details are starting to make their way to the top of the to-do list. One such example is the card box. I considered a few different options that are pretty standard at weddings nowadays, like the fabric- or paper-covered box and the birdcage. I wasn’t interested in buying something that screamed “wedding” and would be an antiquated relic mere hours after our vows; I also wasn’t interested in crafting something that would require a lot of time, energy, or skill. In addition to knowing what I didn’t want, I knew that I’d like to use the card box as an opportunity to infuse some fun, color, and personality.

After stalling on this decision for quite some time, I finally realized that there was one option I really wanted; I had seen a creative idea from Mrs. Lioness and couldn’t get it out of my head—the mailbox from Disney’s Up!

Image via Pixar Wiki / Credit: Disney

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I waste a disgusting amount of time online.  Reading celebrity gossip, stalking wedding blogs, blogging myself, and so on.  It’s rare for me to be in a room by myself and not have my eyes glued to the glow emitted from my beloved Dell.  Anyhow, I’ve recently discovered a fun new way to pass the time when putzing around online.

Step 1: Type the designer and style number or name of your wedding gown into Google.

Step 2: Go to the top left portion of the screen and click on the link that says “more.”

Step 3: Scroll down to “Blogs.”

By following those three very easy steps, you can probably find a number of blogs that have featured your wedding dress! It’s a fun little activity because if you wade past the pre-owned dress sales, you can usually find some photography blogs that feature other brides in your gown. A good number of photographers include a list of the couple’s wedding vendors at the bottom of the photography entry, which makes it quite easy to find blog entries that feature your dress! I like this approach better than just doing an image search, since most of those results are photos of models directly from the designer’s site, which is a little boring.

While part of me is possessive of my gown and doesn’t enjoy the thought of others donning it on their wedding days, a bigger part of me is more obsessed with the idea of seeing the gown in the context of others’ weddings. You get an awesome opportunity to see how others accessorized—what earrings they picked, what type of veil they selected. You also can get a glimpse into how the dress meshed into the overall context of the rest of the event. Personally, staring at these other weddings gets me so excited to have my dress fitted to my body to look perfect for our wedding. It definitely spikes the anticipation and excitement!

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Before you get any crazy thoughts, let me explain.

Last weekend, Mr. Snow Cone celebrated his bachelor party with a long weekend in Atlantic City. That left me with a couple days to kill, so I gleefully took advantage of the free time to tackle a few wedding tasks. In addition to my flower letters, I had one other item that was very high on my priority list—the hair trial. I don’t want Mr. Snow Cone to know how my hair will be styled on our big day, so his bachelor party weekend was the perfect opportunity for me to experiment with my ’do.

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I’m pleased to report that the entire wedding planning process has gone pretty smoothly.  Minus a few stressful moments, I feel like things have fallen into place nicely, and usually without too much labor on anyone’s part.  We are well on our way to creating the event we’ve always wanted, and that, in and of itself, is a victory.  Despite all of our successes, one recent failure has me licking my bridal wounds.  I feel stupid complaining that one tiny detail isn’t going our way whenever we’ve nailed down a great photographer, a perfect dress, an awesome bridal party, dashing men’s attire, and the list goes on an on.  Nevertheless, hard as I try, I cannot shake this one source of heartache.  The culprit?  Sparklers.

Simply stated, sparklers were persona non grata in my home growing up. Parents Snow Cone agreed that giving a flaming stick to a child of any age was probably not the best decision in the history of parenting.
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After giving the postal system over a week to do its thang, I think I’m officially in the clear to reveal our invitation suite to the blog community.  I (personally) think the photos speak for themselves, so without further ado, here is our invitation suite from the Kissin’ Krafts shop on Etsy!

Here’s what guests saw on the front of their envelopes:

Taken with flash to show off the metallic quality of the envelopes

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I’m not going to lie.  I had every intention of buying as many cans of spray paint as needed to get letters that were 100% ivory.  Until some good sense kicked in, courtesy of my mother.  She praised the cool pastel look and then suggested, brilliantly, that we run over to the church to see how the letters looked against the building.  Once over there, we determined the size was right, but the coloring was a bit incorrect.  The church is made of light tan stone with dark stained glass doors.  Against the walls, the light letters barely showed up.  Against the doors, the letters clashed and competed with the glass design.  Therefore, ivory vs. pastel took a back seat to pondering what to do to get these letters to show up PERIOD.  We brainstormed some solutions before my mom suggested getting some big poster frames and backing the letters in a dark color, so the light letter would pop against the light walls.  The woman’s a lifesaver.

I immediately ran to my computer to look for frames. Thankfully, Michaels decided to run a 40% off poster frame sale PLUS a 20% off entire purchase coupon a mere 12 hours after this issue presented itself. I grabbed two pewter frames and two sheets of purple textured cardboard for under $20. After about 15 minutes of labor, here’s what we emerged with:
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve oohed and aahed over big floral letters used to decorate  church doors.  These letters were always on my to-do list, and now that the wedding is a handful of weeks away, I figured I may as well get crackin’ on these mega monograms.  I poked around the internet, looking at various options and tutorials, because I didn’t want this project to tax my weenie DIY skills or cost too much.  After mixing a couple different tactical strategies, I got to work, eager to see how this whole thing would turn out.

Instead of buying pre-shaped letters made of wood, plastic, or styrofoam, I took a slightly different approach by cutting them out of cardboard. I snagged a spare shipment box from a neighborhood retailer and then kind of eyeballed how I wanted the letters to look, hoping for the best. I used a combination of scissors and a kitchen knife to slice through the cardboard, depending on the shape I was trying to cut. Here are the letters after lots and lots of cutting:

I was a bit panicked that the W looked so much skinnier than the J, but they were the same height and similar widths, so I decided to roll with it.
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