- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee Blog
First off thanks so much for all the love and support that has been sent my way this past week! I really appreciate it more than you know! These past few days have been a whirlwind of events that have left me happy, excited, exhausted, overwhelmed, but most of all grateful! I am so grateful for the wonderful support I have from my friends, family, and blogging community… without all of you I could never have made my dream come true and I am forever grateful for all your thoughts and prayers.
This first weekend open was so much fun and so much work! I was lucky enough to have so many friends and family stop by along with wedding industry friends and blog readers! Mary from SoCal Weddings did such a nice feature on me on Jay’s Catering Blog, so a lot of the photo credit goes to her… thanks!
Well let’s start the photo madness….first off, custom cupcake picks made just for yours truly from Posh Paperie!
**Also the Grand Opening Party has been CHANGED to Sunday, August 16th…we hope to see you there!
Here are a couple detail shots of the shop!
My nephew-in-law just married the gal of his dreams in a shady meadow under a perfectly clear Oregon sky. This was definitely a homemade affair on a super tight “college kid” budget. Joe stepped in as the photographer (thank you to my friends Jasmine Star and Trista Lerit for their last minute pep talks!), I pulled together some simple florals, and a friend cooked enough chicken pesto pasta to fill all our tummies. I do love me a fancy fete, but sometimes two lovebirds surrounded by family and friends under a big tree is all you really need.
On the plane ride up, I was a little nervous about doing florals in a strange city with no real workspace, recipes, tools, assistants… but upon entering the laid back city of Eugene, I couldn’t help but chill out. Eugene is sometimes called a “little Berkeley”, where college students, coffee shops (I’m talking REAL coffee), trees, native gardens and bikes rule. I was whisked back to my Berkeley days and felt right at home there. In fact, if the weather was ALWAYS as sunny and fresh, I might be tempted to leave California behind. Alas, I don’t like sporting the drowned rat look 80% of the year. 
The big adventure of our trip: We decided to pick flowers from a U-Pick flower field at the base of Mount Pisgah instead of going to a wholesale mart. Imagine a magical place where you can come with your clippers and fill your bucket with whatever wildflowers catch your eye! It was pure bliss. Not to mention the whole scene was beautiful beyond words. Thank you to the folks at Sparhawk Farms for being so kind! We paid 4.00 per handful, and 6 buckets FULL of wildflowers was only 50.00. I personally think the farm was very generous with what they consider a “handful”.
Seriously what gets better than a beach cruiser, a soccer ball, some pin wheels, and the pier?? I think this shoot turned out great! We just cruised the pier and boardwalk and just shot away… no way to avoid the people so why not just include them, right?
It was really crowded. The red heart was carried through out the whole day to bring the story of the day together. Finished off the night with a cold one… mmmm. 
We are just so excited to shoot the wedding in October. This couple is so fun I am sure the wedding will be a blast!
After watching this film a good thirty times each, we thought it would be a good time to add in some more details about Raj + Carolyn’s rather epic wedding.
We knew in flying to TN what an opportunity we had with the two cultures coming together. On Friday night we shot the rehearsal for an hour or so, and in hearing Raj’s welcome toast, the idea for the whole piece was born. On Saturday, the day started with a Catholic ceremony and then the night transitioned into the garba (which is the dancing you see before the baraat). Sunday was filled with the Hindu ceremony with Carolyn getting ready again, but this time in an entirely different way. The diversity between the two days, yet their similarities was what was so striking to us and was something we wanted to try and convey with this piece.
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
Tracy from The Buttercream Studio just sent us this photo of a cute wedding cake she created based on our Chandelier wedding invitation by EIEIO. It reminded us that wedding invitations and stationery can be great source of inspiration for cakes - sometimes the design motifs on the invitation translate really well into 3-D and can help carry a consistent style through the details of wedding day.
Liesl Clark from Claris Photography gives some great advice on scheduling your wedding day formals.
One of the most important but sometimes least favorite parts of the wedding day are the “planned” photos - the “formals” as some may call it. This portion of the day, while essential, is often looked upon as a “grip and grin” section of the wedding that a bride and groom want to just “get through”. At the same time, most everyone will agree that without this part of the day, some very valuable photographs of family and friends would be overlooked and later one may have regrets that they weren’t captured.
This part of the day doesn’t have to be dreaded. With proper planning (ie. scouting of the locations, a thorough shot list provided by the bride and groom, and a detailed photography schedule) the photography needs of the couple and their families can be met without any headache, frustration or confusion.
Communicate early (up to a month or two) with your planner and/or photographer by filling out a “shot list” which is a detailed account of the groups you are hoping to capture.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Remember this save the date? Well, the invitation just went out, wine stains and all. 
This is a mixed media piece, the wine stain is digitally printed by me and then letterpress printed by Spark. I love the simplicity of the border but it is spiced up with the wine stain and some more silly wording on the reception card and the RSVP….
For all of the brides and grooms who are having a friend officiate their wedding, here are some tips and ideas from a professional wedding celebrant to make sure that your day runs smoothly. Feel free to print this out and hand it to your officiant, and it may help to look it over yourself as well!
*Be prepared! Read through the ceremony a few times, and feel free to make notes on your version of the script. Make sure all of the props are set up, and that you have copies of the vows and the readings.
*Format it! Format the script in a way that is easy for you to read - perhaps color coding or highlighting important elements or directions. Make sure to take page turns into consideration, and format it so it is easiest for you to read, in an easy to read, large font.
*Plan where you are going to stand! For my ceremonies, I prefer the couples to face each other, or slightly face out - not facing the officiant (I am sure the bride’s dress is beautiful in the back, but everyone wants to see their faces!). Find the best place for you to stand - perhaps in between them, or maybe slightly to the side, with the couple in the middle.
*Get amped! Using a microphone and amplification is a must - you want everyone to be able to hear you, the readers, and the bride and groom during their vows. The DJ, venue, or ceremony musicians can often provide a wireless mic to use. Pass it to the readers and the couple for the readings and the vows.
*Keep the love! When readers or other participants come up - feel free to have a moment, and give the bride and groom some love (a big hug!) afterwards.
I am so excited to share photos with you from one of my past events. The week I made these desserts was one of the busiest yet for my business, and by the end I was physically aching but it was all worth it. Let’s get onto the desserts! Hopefully, this will give you some inspiration for your own events.
So, I received an order for 1,000 mini desserts for my church’s leadership and launch party. The fun part about this menu is they left the choices up to me, so I got to try a couple new dessert ideas and play around with fun presentation ideas. Overall the party went really great, but as I said earlier…I was so happy when it was all over. Here are some photos of the goodies!
Read the rest of the post here…
The intrepid Ms. Lia Lafreniere took these behind-the-scenes snaps of our studio a while back, and we thought we’d share them! Our space is an old button factory in downtown San Francisco - it’s got a real club-house-y kind of feel…
Hello Hive!
Back in the summer of 2006, I stumbled upon Weddingbee, after recently becoming engaged - to support my daily wedding fix. Over the past three years, I’ve had the pleasure of watching the hive grow and luckily, have gotten the chance to work with Mrs. Bee and meet some of the fabulous contributors of WB and WB PRO. And, my sister-in-law, Brooke, also happens to be the amazingly talented Mrs. Cupcake, so in a way being a contributor to WB PRO is bringing this full-circle for me! 
I couldn’t have been more excited when Bee asked me to join one of the most supportive and comprehensive wedding communities. I’m beyond excited to be here to share my story, ideas and inspirations with all of you!
So without any further ado…
My company, Inspired Goodness was born in early 2008, a few months after settling back into daily life after returning from our honeymoon. Faced without a wedding of my own to plan, my days were filled with a longing for finding chic birdcage veils and the latest letterpress invitations. Not looking to return to a 9-5 career, I channeled my graphic design background and love of entertaining into what I call Creative Event Fulfillment.
Inspired Goodness is an event design (E.D.) company, and since I’ve met countless bride’s who are curious as to the in’s and out’s of an event designer’s role versus that of a wedding planner. For my first post on WB PRO, I thought it might be helpful to explain the difference.
Read more…
I love just how expressive these two are - both with and without speaking. To me, that was a huge part of who Link + Ngoc are and that is what we really wanted to convey within their same-day edit. This piece is centered around their first meeting, during which they decided to say their vows to each other in private (well, almost private if you count us). Even without listening to what they had to say to each other, it seemed that these few moments they shared together really represented who they are together on a much larger scale.
link + ngoc’s sde // san jose california from StillMotion on Vimeo.
Read more…
Now you can drink your dessert. Dessert cocktails are all the rage. At Al Copeland’s Sweet Fire and Ice in New Orleans, one can order a sippable Banana’s Foster dessert called the Sweet Fire and Bananas Foster Cheesecake Martini. At Florida’s 1 Bleu Restaurant, cosmopolitans and pina coladas are transformed into desserts made with alcoholic gels.
This would be perfect for a cocktail wedding, or a dessert reception.
Here’s a recipe that Bailey’s fans will love:
UPDATE #2: Someone submitted this post to The Consumerist!
UPDATE: The owner of Urban Expressions responded to my email shortly after this post went up earlier today. This is what he or she said:
if the customer responds to me with several foul mouthed emails, they get foul mouthed replys right back. i figured if “fucks” and “shits” and “bitches” was her preferred tongue, I’d speak her language.
by the way i sold this company and all rights to its 1.7 million in inventory as of last week. it now operates under a new name, and at a new address as soon as they are done moving..
so you are wasting your time bashing it, but feel free. I have my money in my hand now.. so bash away ok..have a nice day, and have fun being an E-warrior hiding in the depths of the anonymus internet blogs that no one reads..
But Mrs. Martini’s friend only wrote that one email below. Her fiance did write an angry email to Urban Expressions without her knowledge, but that was only in response to the owner’s comments below. I believe that it was not a customer service agent that left those comments, as it appears to be a very small company, but the owner him/herself?!
Please note that this post is in reference to Urban Expressions the craft supply store hosted at eCrater, and not Urban Expressions the handbag store.
Read more…
UPDATE #2: Someone submitted this post to The Consumerist!
~~~
UPDATE: The owner of Urban Expressions responded to my email shortly after this post went up earlier today. This is what he or she said:
if the customer responds to me with several foul mouthed emails, they get foul mouthed replys right back. i figured if “fucks” and “shits” and “bitches” was her preferred tongue, I’d speak her language.
by the way i sold this company and all rights to its 1.7 million in inventory as of last week. it now operates under a new name, and at a new address as soon as they are done moving..
so you are wasting your time bashing it, but feel free. I have my money in my hand now.. so bash away ok..have a nice day, and have fun being an E-warrior hiding in the depths of the anonymus internet blogs that no one reads..
But Mrs. Martini’s friend only wrote that one email below. Her fiance did write an angry email to Urban Expressions without her knowledge, but that was only in response to the owner’s comments below. I believe that it was not a customer service agent that left those comments, as it appears to be a very small company, but the owner him/herself?!
~~~
Mrs. Martini was supposed to help a friend create her escort cards over a recent weekend, and they had been waiting on a craft punch to arrive in the mail. When the website where the punch was purchased showed that it hadn’t been shipped some time after the order had been placed, Mrs. Martini’s friend wrote them the following email:
I ordered this over a week ago and it still has not been shipped!! Your shipping policy states that most items will be shipped within 48 hours unless otherwise specified - you guys did not specify otherwise! When will this item be shipped out?? I would like some kind of compensation for the delay. Sincerely, *****
Since I answer most of the customer service emails at Weddingbee and get all kinds of emails from users, I can understand that the tone of the email might have irked the person who responded. However, this was the response she received:
All I have to say is WOW.
I don’t know whether the person who sent this email intended for those comments to be included, but I contacted the company to see if they wanted to make a statement, and never heard back.
If this happened to you, would you take any type of action?
Please note that comments are hosted here. This post is in reference to Urban Expressions the craft supply store hosted at eCrater, and not Urban Expressions the handbag store.
Read more…
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
