10.29.2009

Day-After Traditions


In Mr. Beagle's family, they have a tradition of gathering as a family and eating Menudo, which is a spicy soup usually served for breakfast, on the morning after the wedding. Although I've tried this soup, I'm not a big fan of it (it's one of those things that you either love or hate), but Mr. Beagle loves it.

So, Sunday morning, we trekked over to my new in-laws' house for breakfast. When we arrived, we (unfortunately) found out that the Menudo had some how gone bad overnight, but my in-laws came through with a back up plan to serve breakfast tacos filled with potato & egg and chorizo & egg, fresh fruit, and Mexican sweet bread:

source

While we ate, extended relatives trickled in to join the breakfast and wish us congratulations. It was really nice conversing with Mr. Beagle's relatives in a more relaxed atmosphere and enjoying the delicious food. I wish we could have stayed longer to visit with more of our wedding guests, but we had to leave early to take part in another tradition: visiting the elders who weren't able to make it to our wedding.

The rest of Sunday was spent driving to and from Laredo to visit Mr. Beagle's Abuela and Abuelo (grandmother and grandfather), who was in the hospital. We intended to visit his other grandfather who lives about an hour east of Laredo, but due to time constrictions, we weren't able to squeeze it in.

Overall, I found it was a nice way to spend our first day as a married couple. How did you spend the day after your wedding? Did you take part in any traditions?






10.27.2009

Mascara Alternative: Dyed Lashes

Yay, I'm Married! (Okay, now that I've got that out of my system.... :) )

On Saturday, after my hair was set and my make-up was being prepped, I voiced my concern about mascara to my stylist. The problem is that I already have long, thick lashes and, therefor, I don't wear mascara often. Because of this, It feels weird when I have it on and I think it makes my eyes look odd. That's when my stylist told me she should have suggested making an appointment to have my lashes dyed. Although it wouldn't make them longer or thicker, she said it would make them darker.

I, being naive about make-up and most beauty products in general, had never heard of this and now I am intrigued. I did some brief research on the topic via a google search and found out you can also buy dye if you want to do it at home. I am not that brave and would definitely have someone do it for me at least the first time. The only problem I see with this is that it's dye, which means I can't just take it off (like I can with mascara) if I don't like it. Also, I am a little concerned about having chemicals that close to my eyeballs.

Since Mr. Beagle and I are planning to do another photo shoot in our nice clothes.... or at least with me in my dress, I think it's the perfect excuse to do a little lash experimentation. So my question is: Have you ever dyed your lashes or brows? What was your experience with it? Would you recommend it? Did you have any bad side effects? Do you have any other mascara alternatives?

10.23.2009

One Last Post

...until I'm a Mrs.!
To Mr. Beagle, tomorrow I will be marrying my best friend. Through all are ups and downs I know now, more than ever, that this is the best choice for me and I can't hardly wait. I had a wonderful time with you at our rehearsal tonight, but I know that the real deal will be even better. Thanks for putting up with all my faults and supporting me through thick and then. You have made me a better person and, to put it simply, I love you.
To my mom, I know how much you wanted to be there with me tomorrow, and I am so, so, so sorry that it just is not physically possible. Just know that you will be with me in my heart and in my thoughts. So much of who I am is because of you and I hope that you knew that before you said goodbye. I will miss you more tomorrow than I have these long months, but I know you'll be watching for above and I'll feel your presence.
This journey with Weddingbee has been one of the best ever. I am so lucky to have had this opportunity and I hope that it has been as good for all of you as it has for me. I am excited to get back as a Mrs. with yet more DIY and, of course, some great recaps! You are a truly wonderful community, made up of a great group of friends, and for that I thank you.


XOXO,
Miss Beagle

10.20.2009

The Burdens of Technology




I know we are all too familiar with the cheesy "silence your phone" commercials during movie previews. Practically everyone owns a cell phone today, and while most people are used to silencing it during meetings, church, etc., I think it is important to remind people that a wedding is also the occasion to "unplug". In fact at one wedding that Mr. Beagle and I attended, the church was going to charge the couple an extra fee for every cell phone that went off during the ceremony. Thankfully, no annoying ringtones were heard throughout the ceremony and fees were avoided.

The other technology item that may cause disturbances during the ceremony is the digital camera. Of course practically everyone owns one of these too. I wouldn't have even thought to mention anything about cameras if our church coordinator hadn't said something to me at our last meeting. She told me that flash photography is frowned upon during the ceremony... even from the professional photographer. I actually understand where they are coming from. As valuable as the photos from each moment are, sometimes the photographer/camera can detract from the present moment- the union and marriage. This may not be as strict in another setting, but since we will be getting married in a church, I really wouldn't expect anything less.

I was going to originally make mention of this somewhere in our programs, but then I forgot to include it *doh!*. The next best thing I've come up with is to make a small sign that will sit beside the guest book and program basket that will say something along the lines of:

"Please remember to silence your cell phones and refrain from taking flash photographs during the ceremony. Thank You, Mr. & Miss. Beagle."

Have you thought about the burdens of technology at your event? Are you reminding your guests about the proper etiquette concerning phones?

10.15.2009

Theft at a Wedding

source

This past weekend, my FILs attended a wedding at a hotel here in Austin. They had a wonderful time, but we were appalled, as were they, when they proceeded to retell us the story of the card box.
Apparently the card basket was located outside of the reception area, in the foyer. There was a security guard on duty and the couple had also hired a wedding coordinator. At some point during the reception (they think it was during the cake cutting) the ENTIRE card box and all it's contents was stolen. After realizing this had happened, guests immediately started calling retailers from which they had purchased gift cards, but unfortunately, the thief(ves) beat them to the punch. By the time the calls were placed, the retail stores had already been visited by the thieves and the gift cards were depleted.
On a happier note (if possible..), they believe it may have been hotel staff (although it hasn't been confirmed) that performed the theft, not any guests.
Now I've heard of people taking items from weddings like the bathroom basket, the centerpieces, an extra piece of cake.... but the couple's gifts? It's not only heartbreaking for the newlyweds to deal with that, but also the guests who brought them the gifts. It really makes you think twice about hiring people who are going to be around you and your loved ones at such an important event in your lives.
Although I feel like our vendors and invitees are beyond trustworthy, we are now thinking of moving our gift table into the reception area after it is opened/ during the dinner to prevent any "disappearances". I don't think our venue is as threatened by unwanted visitors compared to a hotel where people are coming and going, but I guess you can never be to sure.

Are you doing anything to protect your valuables on your important day?

**On a side note, I find it funny that there will be two loss prevention managers at our wedding (attending as guests) and one former loss prevention employee (Mr. Beagle!!), so I don't think we will have a problem ;)... although, at the wedding my in-laws attended, their were several lawyers at the reception, one of whom was the bride :O

A Cake Stand

This is one item I thought I didn't need. That was before wedding planning. After we picked out our cake, the baker offered to rent us a cake stand similar to this:


The catch? It was going to cost us $45 (for something I can't keep?!? uh, no thanks). At first I was going to forgo one all together, but then I kept seeing pictures like this:




all courtesy of Martha

Thus, my search for a cake stand began. I wasn't necessarily looking for a tall cake stand, just something to set the cake on so that the whole ensemble would look a little more formal. After about a month of casually browsing, I found this baby at TJ Maxx:


At only $12, I fell in love with it instantly and snatched it up before it could escape.


Unfortunately, after I contacted my baker to verify that our cake would indeed fit on the stand, I found out it would not. :( The good news is that I decided to keep the cake stand anyways because I loved it so much, but the bad news is that my search was not over.

Then, one day while I was running my weekly errands at Hobby Lobby, I found this:

Yes, it is a mirror. It was on sale and it is now our "cake stand (or platter if you will)". I'm happy that we'll be able to reuse it in our home after the wedding and it was only $20! Of course it will need some dusting....


I think it will go really well with our cake design that we have chosen (sorry, you'll have to wait until after the wedding to find out what it is :) ). Overall, I am really pleased with our finds and I'm excited to put them to use after it's all said and done!

Are you having a cake stand?

10.08.2009

Beagle Invites

Our invitations were semi-DIY. I ordered the actual invite and rsvp card from the White Aisle. Rebecca was really sweet and easy to work with- our invitations arrived in perfect order and on time! I decided to DIY the map and assemble them myself to save some money... although looking back I think what I saved in money was eaten up in the time I spent putting them together.

I originally planned on buying scrapbooking paper or wrapping paper to cut into liners, but I was unsuccessful. I finally gave up and decided to make my own. Our invitation envelopes were an odd size (5.5 x 7.5- the liner templates from paper-source DO NOT include this size :( ), so I created liners by tracing the envelope and trimming 2cm off all of the edges. I then stamped the design shown below onto each liner using some purplish ink. I bought all the paper products from Hobby Lobby. This is what our guests saw when they opened up their mail:



Instead of using an inner envelope, I used left over lace (from this project) which I cut into 2" wide strips to wrap around the envelope contents. I wrote the individual guests names on the square center piece of paper that also held the lace together.



There were two main parts of our invitation: the formal invite and the map and rsvp card, which I bundled separately. I also matted our invitation on purple scrapbooking paper. All the paper products were shades of purple.



I was actually intending to use this design from the White Aisle; however, at the last minute I decided to search the site for invitation wording and discovered that a new design had just been posted. I emailed Rebecca to change my design and I haven't looked back. :) Momma Beagle really wanted thermographic printing (raised/ embossed), so we went with that. It turned out really elegant and it's a nice compromise between digital and letterpress. Close-up of the matted invitation:




The bottom side of the map/rsvp bundle:



This map was a pain. I originally wanted to hand draw it, then scan it, and edit in photoshop. This was a big fat FAIL. I finally just used AutoCad to create our map. I print-screened the google map of our reception/ceremony locations and pasted it in a new dwg file. I then traced over the lines using a line tool and increased the line width of the route we wanted our guests to take. I converted it to a jpeg file and inserted the street labels and colored the lines using photoshop. The heart and butterfly were hand drawn.... I found out later that there are really cute free fonts online that could alternatively been used, but at that point it was too late.





The RSVP card:


The Ensemble:


Details:











I hand addressed all of the envelopes, using the same method I used for our save-the-dates. Surprisingly, it only took 1.5 ink vials to address the ~100 invitations we sent out. I also found some really cute stickers at Michaels that were on clearance that I used to seal the envelopes (I had hoped to encourage people to gently open the envelopes at the seal instead of cutting open the top and defeating the purpose of the liners).


I really hadn't intended on spending such a large amount of time on invitations, but I received many compliments from our guests about their uniqueness, so I'm hoping most of them will be keepsakes!

Was there a wedding project that took an unexpected turn for you?

10.05.2009

It's Really Happening

Hi, I'm Miss Beagle.  I used to blog here more frequently, but recently I find that I am swamped with starting last minute projects and wrapping up projects that I started a long time ago. All the cute posts full of DIY tutorials and pictures (um, like of my invitations that I've been meaning to post for the last two weeks!!!....) seem to keep getting pushed back.  I will try my hardest to get some of these posts out before our wedding day and sorry for the delay!

So, now that I've got the apology out of the way, I can move on to discuss the topic of this post.  This past weekend, I had my final bridal shower.  It was a little bittersweet because we had originally rescheduled it to October in hopes that my mom might be able to attend.  This weekend also marked another milestone- her birthday.  It was a point that was once looming in the future and has suddenly come and past.  I now have three weeks 'til the big day and it's finally starting to feel real.  I'm feeling a mixture of emotions:  nervous, anxious, excited, sad, and definitely ready to marry Mr. Beagle.     

Even though it still feels like I have so much to do in the next three weeks, I know that they are really going to fly by.  I'm trying to prepare myself for the timewarp that will happen on our wedding day by feeling out every single emotion that has suddenly surfaced and savoring every moment-good or bad- because this is only going to happen once.  While before I was wishing the engagement to quickly transform into marriage, I now find myself sad to see it coming to an end. I'm realizing that in three weeks, I will no longer be planning this wedding, stressed out by insignificant details, spend weekends holed up in my craft room to work on wedding projects.

The last two weeks have been a little rough around the Beagle house as we've been scrambling to finalized decisions.  I'll admit that there have been a few times when I have started some arguments and picked a few fights because the stress level is really up there and my emotions seem to be flying all over the place.  I've had to step back, consider my actions, remember the purpose- the central point- of all the planning, take a deep breath, apologize, and carry on.  Our marriage is the central point, and by coming back to that, our problems seem to work themselves out.  Maybe now because I'm aware of it, or maybe I'm looking for it, I seem to find signs, constant reminders, to come back to "our marriage" when I feel lost, stressed, anxious, nervous, sad, and even excited.  Because in three weeks, it will be real- and I can't wait.

Was there a specific point that the wedding & marriage started to feel real to you?  How have you dealt with the stress of planning in your relationship?

10.01.2009

When it comes to music, I'm lost...

I think my biggest fear about our wedding, is that no one will dance at the reception.  That it will be boring.  That our guests won't have fun.  That our families and friends won't mix and mingle.  I think it all boils down to our playlist, which we have yet to get started on because, really, we don't know where to start!

I've got the dinner music down and, though I haven't blogged about it yet, our cocktail hour is covered.  The only thing left is the "dance" music. Here's the problem:  My family listens to primarily to country/western.  His family listens to Tejano & Oldies.  We listen to NPR (and KUT, if you're in Austin... but for the most part thy play mellow music) :).  We don't go dancing, we're not taking lessons, more than likely our first dance (which is still undecided) will consist of the 6th grade sway a la the Candy Corns (although I doubt we will pull be able to pull off their awesomeness). 

So what do we play?  I would love to incorporate a good mix of country, oldies, tejano, '80s, and modern music.  Any suggestions are greatly appreciated- we need your help!!!!  What are/were must plays on your playlist?  What music/songs brought the most people onto the dance floor?  (Thanks in advance :) )