The Randomizer: Spaniel

Long time, no see, friends! I know I said good-bye already, but when Mrs. Avocado suggested this series, I was excited to play along. Since I haven't really looked at our wedding pictures in almost a year, it was a lot of fun to revisit some pictures I'd forgotten about!


I suppose there is no harm in starting at the end, is there? My first random photo is from late in the reception. I was dancing with my brother and some law school friends, while one of the groomsmen was trying to pick up one of my girlfriends. ;)


We were on our way to get pictures taken with the bridal party when this one was taken. I have to laugh when I see it because of how high I was holding my dress to keep the dirt off of it. (But it worked!)


Self-explanatory, right? This was right outside of the bridal dressing room, taken before the first look.


Sneaking a kiss with my new husband during toasts. Or maybe it wasn't so sneaky.


I love this picture and how it focuses on Mr. Spaniel. Weddings (and photos, and recaps!) can be so bride-centric, and it's nice to have a shot of the two of us where Mr. Spaniel is front and center (or back and focused, as the case may be). (And don't worry; he was smiling in the next photo!)


I love how the dining room looked all lit up. We picked our venue because it was already so beautiful without our help or any extras; all we added were three pillar candles in hurricane vases and some scattered rose petals.


My older-younger brother (got that? I'm the oldest; he's younger than me but the older of my brothers) gave the last toast of the night. I asked him if he would months before the wedding, but I'm pretty sure he still pretty much winged it. No wonder he had that beer in his hand. :)


We announced all of the people who preceded me down the aisle at the beginning of the reception. Papa Spaniel escorted Grandma Spaniel into the room first.


This photo, taken during our first dance, is one of my favorites from the wedding. I loved dancing with my husband for the first time, I love seeing how beautifully my dress moved, and I love that MIL-Spaniel is taking a snapshot in the background.


Our programs totally didn't get enough screen time for how much work BM-Noe and I put into them. I will owe her many, many crafts when she gets married!

All photos by Meg Perotti.

Well that was fun times. Okay, your turn!

A Bee's Life: Spaniel Edition

I've been wanting to write A Bee's Life post pretty much since I became a Bee, so it seems appropriate that I should finish my tenure here with my contribution to this series.

How did I find Weddingbee?
A few months after getting engaged, I started to think more about the cultural traditions that I hoped to incorporate into our wedding. You already know I had a non-traditional mehndi, but you have to know the rules to break them! So I did some Googling on mehndis and came across this archived post by Mrs. Jasmine. Jasmine and I go way back—to high school and college, so when I saw her picture on the blog, I got curious! (Fun fact: when I saw her picture and occupation on the side of the blog, I thought an impostor blogger was pretending to be Jasmine. Who knew I was so suspicious?!) I read through a few of her posts and some of the newer bloggers' posts, and got hooked!

Before finding Weddingbee I garnered most of my wedding inspiration from sites like Style Me Pretty and Green Wedding Shoes, which I still love. My wedding had a different aesthetic, though, and seeing the great variety of bloggers here made Weddingbee my go-to site pretty quickly.

My application story
Unlike many of the Bees, who began blogging hoping to become Weddingbee bloggers, I've been blogging since before there was even blogging software. ;) I've had a blog for just about every subject I've ever been interested in, and with the engagement, I knew I just had to document the process, since it was the only thing that held my interest! I'd been writing for my own teeny-tiny audience for about six months before I found Weddingbee. I'd like to say that the rest is history, but it's not!

I applied to be a Bee as soon as I got to the 8-month mark. I was rejected pretty quickly, but I thought I had a pretty good idea as to why: very little was settled in my wedding, and I was still hopping spastically from idea to idea without giving anyone an idea of what I was trying to do or who I was. The next time I applied, I had nailed down more vendors and wrote more thoughtfully about my plans and inspirations.

But I still got another rejection letter. I'm not gonna lie; I felt pretty wounded that time! I was pretty sure I didn't have it in me to get turned down a third time, but rather than not face the possible rejection, I just decided to turn in a really kick-ass application. I started writing like I really was already a Blogger, complete with a sidebar blurb that became my profile cloud here. I posted more personal photos so that readers could feel like they knew me. And I kept trying to write quality posts and avoiding fluff. Third time's a charm, right?

On being a Weddingbee blogger
Because I had been blogging for so long before becoming a Bee, the first few months of blogging was easy-peasy: I edited a million posts to make them current and relevant, soaked comment love (I'm not sure y'all know just how much we bloggers love. your. comments. For reals), and slowly drafted the posts that would go live in the last few months of our engagement. I was also in school so I had a lot of free time, rather than working full-time, so blogging was not a huge burden (other third year law school students may disagree, but they probably enjoyed law school a lot more than I did, then! ;).

But that said, blogging 3-4 times per week about your wedding takes a lot of time. A good post takes research and photo editing, neither of which are quick efforts. A ton of time got sucked into the Bee, whether blogging or contributing to the Boards, and I didn't get a lot of downtime during that period. I didn't realize just how much time I was spending on the blog until after the wedding—taking my time with recaps was a tremendous relief!

Which brings me to my next point: GUILT. Weddingbee blogging comes with guilt in spades. ;) I knew my recaps would take longer than many just because I had to graduate and study for the Bar exam right after the wedding, which were obviously bigger priorities than blogging. But I still felt guilty knowing I was keeping the readers who made this whole blogging trip so much fun (have I mentioned comments?) waiting for me to finish!

Spaniel's tips for writing for the Bee
I think the most important thing is to be yourself. (Bee yourself? No?) I sort of hate that advice because we've all heard it a million times and it feels like it doesn't mean anything. But you can't fake your voice when you're writing about something so personal as planning your wedding: being genuine in your writing is the best way to blog!

In that vein, I second all the Bees before me who said that you should only try to be a Bee if blogging is going to make you happy. Blogging and I had our share of tiffs over the past year, and when it wasn't fun? I took a break. If I had felt that way while blogging about the planning, I think it would have added a layer of stress to my life that I did not need at all.

But if you do love blogging for its own sake, why not take the leap? I would have kept on blogging even if I'd never made it as a Bee (although I might have posted a lot less often in those last few wedding planning months!). Blogging because you love it is so rewarding, and blogging for Weddingbee has definitely been the most fun and communal blogging experience I've ever had. The ladies of Weddingbee are a great, supportive community—bloggers and readers—and I am so, so thankful that I've had the opportunity to share this part of our lives with each other. What a great experience this has been!

And with that, I sign off from my last official post for Weddingbee. I know I've been putting this off an awfully long time—I've been blogging here for just over a year!—but thank you all for your patience, your support, your advice, your suggestions, and your attention. :) Wishing you all beautiful weddings and wonderful married lives!

Good bye, from Mrs. Spaniel!

Photo by Meg Perotti

Checking Your Sources

People who have been there and done that will warn you that things will go wrong on your wedding day. It's probably true, and you're wise to accept it. But that doesn't mean you can't do something to prevent some disasters from ever taking place by doing just a little bit of research early on. I signed contracts with and gave deposits to at least three vendors that I would never do business with or recommend again, and I did it because I did not do my homework!

(source)
Let's say you are budget-hunting and found a potential wedding vendor through a Facebook ad or on Craigslist. You don't have any local bride-friends who have used the vendor, and a Google search doesn't yield much that is helpful. Neither does a check of Yelp or the usual wedding review sites. This isn't a red flag in and of itself, because the person you've found may be new to the industry and without much of a portfolio. Maybe this is why he or she is willing to offer you such a tempting deal! But before you commit, there is one site you should search if you are in Canada or the United States: the Better Business Bureau.

There are two reasons that I think the BBB is a great place to stop before booking a vendor. One is that you may find reviews that you were unable to find elsewhere. I've already written about one vendor, The Pros, that everyone in the world knew was disreputable except for me. As an even stronger example, if I'd checked the BBB before booking my videographer (not associated with The Pros; PM me if you are worried you're about to book the same guy and I'll tell you who he is), I'd have known that he had an F rating. This F rating has nothing to do with the quality of his artistry (in fact, that was never mentioned at all), but rather the timeliness of his delivery. Had I known, I would not have found myself a teary mess five weeks after the wedding, because I wouldn't have thought that his failure to respond to a single message for over a month meant that we were never going to get our wedding video—I would know instead that it might just take a long, long time. (He did eventually get back to us, though we are back in limbo. I had truly hoped to show you all our highlight video before I finished my recaps, but that is not to be... and he is back to not responding to me! Trust me, you do not want to be in this situation almost eight months after your wedding!)

The second reason is that checking with BBB can help you to know whether your vendor is actually running a legitimate business. In Los Angeles County, businesses are required to obtain operating licenses. The licenses aren't very expensive, but if you have a fictitious business name (i.e., a company name), even for a sole proprietorship (i.e., a one-person business), you need a license and there is a fine for not having one. Companies operating without licenses, at least in L.A., are operating outside of the law. Maybe you are one of those small government types with an anarchist bent that is thinking EFF THE MAN, but this can cause a problem when your vendor flakes on you and you have very little recourse. The chain of logic runs thusly:

Vendor operates without a license required by law »
Your vendor probably doesn't have much respect for the law »
Your vendor is a shady person »
Shady vendors often don't have much respect for YOU.
Not enough? Well!

Your vendor runs away with your deposit and doesn't deliver the promised service »
You try to take your vendor to Small Claims Court »
Your vendor, who doesn't have much respect for the law, doesn't show up to court »
You win! Default judgment! BUT! »
Your vendor isn't claiming income because your vendor doesn't have much respect for the law »
There is no way for you to collect »
You lose after all.
Okay, this might be fanciful. Let's try again.

Your vendor does what you've contracted »
But your vendor is stiffing the county, and might still be under-reporting income to avoid taxes »
All honest people paying for your vendor's shadiness.
I am kind of a proponent of following the law and I don't take kindly to tax cheaters. If I checked up on my no-show MUA before she no-showed me, I would have realized that she was not listed with the BBB and wasn't operating with a business license. I wouldn't have trusted her, nor would I have paid her a (cash) deposit (another red flag of a tax cheat). I either would have found someone else earlier, or I would have been more prepared to take care of my own make-up, saving myself some unnecessary day-of stress either way.

In any event, I highly recommend using Craigslist to find budget vendors when traditional avenues fail. But before you write anyone a check, check the BBB first!

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL
Putting Our Faces On
Something New
Boutonnieres and Tuxedos
Sneaky Spaniel: The First Look
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Hey Laaadies! (The Wedding Party)
Signing Our Lives Away
Marriage Is a Process...ion
We've Only Just Begun (The Ceremony)
Organized Chaos
All Kinds of Pretty and One Big Fat Ugly
(This Will Be Our) Budget Recap Post
Wedding Rituals
This Is Not Good-Bye
Los Angeles/Malibu Vendor Review

This Will Be Our Year: Los Angeles/Malibu Vendor Review

Well hello, Hive, remember me? I already told you that I wasn't ready to say good-bye, but now that I'm nearing on one year of blogging for Weddingbee (holy crap; that's coming right up!), I thought it was time to start wrapping things up with my last few recap posts. *tear*

For the sake of brevity and fairness, I'll only be review the vendors that I would recommend—those that I'm neutral or negative on I'll either leave in the Vendor Reviews or in my head. :)

Venue: Calamigos Ranch
Highly recommend
The venue was the one truly budget-busting item of the entire wedding, but I believe that we got what we paid for in numerous ways. Included in the per-head costs were an absolutely beautiful (outdoor) ceremony and (indoor) reception space (which rendered big decor expenses unnecessary!), dinner service with very good food, three hours of beer and wine bar, cake-cutting, an excellent ceremony coordinator (ask for Claudia! She was great!), and complimentary valet service for our guests. We upgraded our chairs from white wooden ones, and had passed hors d'oeuvres, which were delicious. (They offer options for bar upgrades and draping fabrics from the ceiling—we didn't expect or pay for the white ones we had, so I'm not sure if they are standard or not—as well as heat lamps for the ceremony in case it gets cold, which we didn't end up needing.) We were able to save a lot of time looking for vendors because most of our needs were provided by the venue.

It's true that Calamigos hosts a lot of weddings—sometimes 4 or 5 at the same time—which I know is a deal-breaker for many brides. We never saw anyone from another party, though; the sites are pretty isolated from each other.

(guest photo)Photographer: Meg Perotti
Cannot recommend highly enough
Meg was an absolute blast to work with, and she took absolutely beautiful photographs, to boot. Sometimes I like to think of the wedding I would have had if I got a do-over (i.e., if MIL Spaniel had let us have the wedding in her backyard! ;). On the one hand, I'd change almost everything. On the other hand, there is no way I would have hired anyone other than Meg to photograph the day for us. We received over 900 images from the six hours she and Regis shot, and they are all beautiful! Meg was very professional, fun, and had amazingly fast turnaround. I had a lot of vendor hiccups, but I never for a moment was worried about my photographer, and she did not disappoint!

Sadly for us Southern California brides, Meg has moved back to the Bay Area, but she travels! ;)


(personal photo)Invitations: Invitations by Ajalon
Highly recommend
I loved my letterpress invitations. I found the design I wanted from their gallery, but they also do custom work (or will print your designs), and they often have really great specials, which was the only way I could afford letterpress! The quality was excellent, and Trish was great to work with.

Coordinator: Tina Molina Events
Recommend
Out of an abundance of caution, we hired Christina to ensure that someone was running the show and looking out for our interests, rather than just relying on the coordinator provided by Calamigos. Christina was extremely helpful in developing our timeline, keeping track of vendors so that I didn't have to, and setting up all of the decorations that we brought. She also took care of all the logistics and much of the clean-up at the end of the night, a headache I was happy to pass to someone else!

Flowers: Les Fleurs de Vie
Recommend
Devi was another low-maintenace vendor: we met in person a few months before the wedding, I showed her some pictures of what I wanted, and she delivered, at a very reasonable price.

Stay tuned for next time, wherein I share the (hard-won, and I don't wish them on you) lessons I learned in selecting vendors!

All photos by Meg Perotti, unless otherwise noted.

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL
Putting Our Faces On
Something New
Boutonnieres and Tuxedos
Sneaky Spaniel: The First Look
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Hey Laaadies! (The Wedding Party)
Signing Our Lives Away
Marriage Is a Process...ion
We've Only Just Begun (The Ceremony)
Organized Chaos
All Kinds of Pretty and One Big Fat Ugly
(This Will Be Our) Budget Recap Post
Wedding Rituals
This Is Not Good-Bye

This Will Be Our Year: This Is Not Good-Bye

When people get frustrated with you and your crazy planning ways, they'll condescendingly tell you that "it's just a party" and you shouldn't get all caught up in it (not that this happened to me, oh no... actually, I'm really not being sarcastic; I just hear it happens to a lot of brides ;), you can tell them: Mrs. Spaniel says you're wrong. Actually, don't tell them that, because then they'll really think you're crazy. Who is Mrs. Spaniel? In any event, I know now that a wedding is not just a party, and I know that because it's the part of the wedding about which I have the least to write.

I can honestly say, in hindsight, the most important part was the ceremony—it was the whole point. The most rewarding parts were the speeches our friends and family made—we had a wedding because we wanted to share this momentous occasion with our community, and feeling their love coming back at us made it worth it. The party? It was fun.


In fact, it was a lot of fun.

(I think Mr. S was singing Jai Ho here, which is a few kinds of awesome.)

But then it wound down, and then it was over. Eighteen months of planning, three days of activities, and eight hours of event... done. So fast!

It was a wonderful day and I'm so grateful that we got to have it, to share it with our friends and family, and that I was able to share it with all of you. I'm ready to say good-bye to our wedding, but not to Weddingbee... I still have a few nuggets of wedding wisdom I want to share before I sign off as Mrs. Spaniel for good. So, for the moment, I'll let Grandma Spaniel say good-bye instead.

(Guest photo)
All photos by the terrific Meg Perotti unless otherwise noted.

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL
Putting Our Faces On
Something New
Boutonnieres and Tuxedos
Sneaky Spaniel: The First Look
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Hey Laaadies! (The Wedding Party)
Signing Our Lives Away
Marriage Is a Process...ion
We've Only Just Begun (The Ceremony)
Organized Chaos
All Kinds of Pretty and One Big Fat Ugly
(This Will Be Our) Budget Recap Post
Wedding Rituals

This Will Be Our Year: Wedding Rituals

After a few pictures and a chance for guests to grab a drink, the DJ called everyone into the reception area to continue the cocktail hour inside, while we made our way onto the dance floor for our "grand entrance" (we boogied into the room to Wilco's Hoodoo Voodoo, which was the only adequately celebratory song for such an occasion, I think!), from which we would go straight into our first dance.

So let me tell you a little about this first dance business. I mentioned before that we were going to attempt a Danish wedding waltz, but we were really nervous about how it would play out on the wedding day. So in addition to our two private lessons, we practiced twirling around our living room almost every night for a month, sent the video to our wedding party, our DOC, our photographer, and our DJ just to make sure everyone was prepared for the awesomeness that was going to happen on the dance floor. And in case that wasn't enough, we practiced with most of our wedding party in the hotel suite the night before the wedding.

And then we rocked the hell out of it. ;)


We waltzed around the dance floor long enough to prove we are much better dancers than Frederick and Mary, when our wedding party started moving in on us (followed by directions from the DJ to the rest of the crowd to take "one giant step forward").


This couldn't have been more fun, and it left us in a great position to be able to see and talk to many of our guests before dinner. Win!

As the cocktail hour wound down, the DJ announced that dinner would be served soon and that everyone should find their seats. As salads were passed, Papa Spaniel took the opportunity to speak.

(I love my dad :)
After dinner (which was delicious), we heard from Mr. Spaniel's Best Man and both of our brothers.


I can't wait for our wedding video so that I can remember all of what was said! But I do remember that we laughed, I cried, and have teased Mr. Spaniel mercilessly and endlessly following his brother's mini-roast:

My brother Mr. Spaniel is, and has always been, a careful chooser... If you have ever been to a restaurant with Mr. Spaniel, you know what I'm talking about. That's because Mr. Spaniel isn't a person that can be characterized as a quick orderer, or an average-speed orderer, or even a slow orderer. Mr. Spaniel falls into the category of the slowest orderers that have ever lived.

(It is 100% true.)


Cheers!

All photos by the superb Meg Perotti and Regis Photography.

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL
Putting Our Faces On
Something New
Boutonnieres and Tuxedos
Sneaky Spaniel: The First Look
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Hey Laaadies! (The Wedding Party)
Signing Our Lives Away
Marriage Is a Process...ion
We've Only Just Begun (The Ceremony)
Organized Chaos
All Kinds of Pretty and One Big Fat Ugly
(This Will Be Our) Budget Recap Post

This Will Be Our... Budget Recap Post

Way back when I was a wee 'bee, I promised I'd share my final budget numbers at the end. I don't want to say good-bye on a budget post, though, so you're stuck with me through a few more recaps. :)

Yes, that's what you're stuck with (guest photo)
So without further ado...

Category	Budget	Actual
Ceremony (location fee, officiant)	$400	$150
Reception (venue rental, food and service, beverages and bartenders, cake and cutting fee)	$17,000	$24,000
Bride's attire and accessories (including alterations, hair and make-up)	$2,000	$1,750
Groom's tux and accessories	$250	$0
Flowers and décor (bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, ceremony decorations, reception decorations and centerpieces)	$2,000	$1,015
Music (ceremony and reception musicians)	$2,000	$1,100
Photography	$3,000	$3,200
Stationery	$750	$750
Wedding rings	$2,000	$1,440
Gifts (bridesmaids, groomsmen, parents)	$600	$660
Videographer	---	$1,100
Day-of Coordinator	---	$350
Transportation	---	$125
Ketubah	---	$620
Total	$30,000	$35,600

Ouch. So, it's pretty obvious where we got into trouble: when we put our budget together, way back in the long ago days of 2008, we had assurances from our family that the guest list would not exceed 150, that we could plan on 130 people celebrating with us. In the end, we had a guest list of a whopping 205 people, and put on a party for 162. Add in a few extras, like upgraded chairs and passed appetizers, and you can kiss your budget good-bye! The lesson of the day is: get the list from your parents EARLY, and don't trust them when they just give you a number! They almost certainly have an additional 50 guests up their sleeves. ;)

I didn't try the prosciutto, but everything else was delicious!
Would it have been such a party if the room weren't so full?
I'm just going to go ahead and say that, in the main, there is very little we could have done differently without the benefit of hindsight. Every new thing we thought of (video, DOC, ketubah, a ride home at the end of the night), we took out of somewhere else in the budget—I wore won and low-cost accessories, we got a free rental on Mr. Spaniel's tuxedo from the Men's Wearhouse, chose a hotel that would give us a free suite for reserving a large block, and hired a freelance florist instead of an established shop, for example. We also took every precaution we could think of on the reception costs by hammering out our guest list early. Unfortunately, just because Mr. Spaniel and I were all wedding all the time does't mean our parents were, and I guess a year beforehand they did not have their wedding caps firmly on their heads... leading to last minute invites that came too late to have chosen a less expensive venue after all!

Admittedly, if this were all coming out of my own pocket, I would have put my foot down more firmly on the last-minute guests. Nearly 20% over budget is no joke. But our parents thought inviting more of their friends was worth it, and no one at our wedding was a stranger. Mr. Spaniel and I spent only what we could afford, and no one went into any debt for our wedding.

And since I can't think of a better way to close this post...


Meh.

All photos by the wonderful Meg Perotti, unless otherwise noted.

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL
Putting Our Faces On
Something New
Boutonnieres and Tuxedos
Sneaky Spaniel: The First Look
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Hey Laaadies! (The Wedding Party)
Signing Our Lives Away
Marriage Is a Process...ion
We've Only Just Begun (The Ceremony)
Organized Chaos
All Kinds of Pretty and One Big Fat Ugly