Mrs. Bluebell, New York
Age and Occupation in 07: 26, Finance Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Playing with the cat and/or Consulting
Engagement Date: December 25, 2005
Wedding Date: June 2007
Venue: Bride's family summer home in the Adirondacks
About Me: Trying to find the perfect balance between family tradition (marrying at the house everyone else in my family gets married at), making our's modern, interesting and different from everyone else in my family's, and incorporating some Chinese tradition for my Chinese fiance. I really have no idea what it's going to end up looking like!
Also, I picked Miss Bluebell for my name because I have blue eyes and I'm a loser like that.
“Serious Metals”
January 9th, 2007 @ 8:29 am by Mrs. Bluebell
When Mr. Bluebell and I went to pick up my engraved wedding band, we decided to take a look at wedding bands for him too!
Previously, we had been thinking of getting him a titanium band because a) my band has diamonds so they won’t look matchy anyway, b) he doesn’t wear any jewelry now and gets really agitated with “things” on his fingers, so we thought the lighter metal might irritate him less, and c) most of the bands we liked for him just happened to be titanium. (Oh, and d) they’re way way cheaper than platinum!)
Our first choice pre-trying-on was this one from e-weddingbands.com
Titanium & a mere $95 on sale now!
Chocolate Cake Time!
January 8th, 2007 @ 11:30 am by Mrs. Bluebell
At my brother’s wedding last summer, there was no wedding cake. That is - until friends of theirs surpised them with a sheet cake featuring Champy (The Loch Ness monster of Lake Champlain) as a bride, drawn by the local grocery store bakery counter clerk!
But seriously, I figure we’ll have an early dinner since the ceremony is at 3:30, and then just have mingling and/or dancing for a bit after dinner before the cake cutting. And the slices can be small if it’s really rich. 
But, this friend did just get married and part of me wonders if she read this somewhere or was advised not to do all chocolate by her baker or something?
Guestbook Surprise
January 5th, 2007 @ 5:16 pm by Mrs. Bluebell
For our actual wedding, in June, we aren’t going to have a traditional guestbook because that wedding tradition is going to be overridden by a family tradition - everyone who gets married at the family house where we’re getting married has guests sign the house guestbook (we write the names of the couple & the date at the top of a new page). I am thrilled about this, because we have 2 house guestbooks going back to the 1800’s, and they list all the guests at a bunch of my different family members’ weddings - including my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and grandparents!
But…part of me still wants to have “our” guestbook that we can personalize, and then take home with us.
Enter - our Chinese banquet! 
It’s going to be held exactly four weeks after the wedding, and I was thinking we would just buy a pretty (but standard) guestbook along these lines:
[from China Bridal]
Who’s The Chef?
January 5th, 2007 @ 12:26 pm by Mrs. Bluebell
Last night, as my loving fiance was slaving away over dinner in the kitchen…
…he yelled out to me, “What are you doing?”
“Catching up on today’s weddingbee to make sure my post doesn’t overlap with anyone else’s.”
“Well why don’t you bring the computer in here to read while I’m cooking?”
So into the kitchen my trusty laptop and I went, where I caught up and then sat down to decide what to write. Mr. Bluebell, stater of the obvious that he is, suggested I write about who cooks more in the relationship. This was a slightly pointed comment since I had remarked, “I’ll start cooking again…sometime…” a few minutes before, as I haven’t made a full meal in…..oh a very long time. I am going to consciously try NOT to think of when it was because then I’ll just be embarrassed by having to face it head on.
That’s not to say that I “don’t cook” - I love cooking and used to cook a lot! And I do still bake on occasion. But somehow the whole “going to work” thing has recently meant that, for the past several months, I’ve just been too tired and stressed when I get home, so I’d rather eat cereal or order in if Mr. Bluebell isn’t in the mood to cook. We used to make relatively quick simple meals a lot though, instead of our regular ordering in these days. So in the interest of money and health, we reeeally need to get back on that. Recently, neither one of us has made any quick easy meals, so all the homecooked meals we’ve had have been exhorbitantly elaborate whenever Mr. Bluebell wants to experiment!
Back to the theoretical point of the post - even when I cooked a lot, Mr. Bluebell was really the chef in our relationship. I would generally make variations on a few relatively easy dishes, while he would experiment all over the place, and he would also be a lot more likely to be the one in the mood to cook on a given night. This never seemed odd to me since that’s pretty much the same balance my parents had when I was growing up. But after thinking about it and hearing friends’ stories, the more “common” situation seems to be that the woman in the relationship, regardless of whether she stays at home all day or works twice as much as the man, is the default chef.
Which of course means…poll time! So weddingbee readers…
I would also like to note that a lot of Mr. Bluebell’s desire to cook comes from his love of Food Network. If it wasn’t staring him in the face with all those different techniques and spices, I seriously doubt he’d be as ambitious in the kitchen. Where do you think your and/or your fiance’s love of cooking came from?
And a few more quick polls about cooking at home:
Feel free to share any other cooking-related stories you might have too!
Wedding Ring Engraving
December 22nd, 2006 @ 11:59 am by Mrs. Bluebell
Yikes, I haven’t posted in over a month!!! Sorry everyone!!! Work (& everything else) has been craaaazyyyy but that just means I’ll enjoy my vacation next week even more!
But, my official reason for posting is - I just got my wedding ring engraving done! I am so happy with how it came out that I wanted to share a few pictures!
Because the ring is so skinny, we couldn’t get it engraved on the inside as is traditional, but we were able to have them hand engrave our initials and wedding date on the SIDE of the ring instead!
What If? Orrrr Maybe Not.
November 13th, 2006 @ 10:26 am by Mrs. Bluebell
A friend of mine called me up a few days ago to ask for some advice, and after I gave mine to her, I thought I’d get the collective weddingbee thoughts too!
She has been with her boyfriend happily for over two years, and while they have had some minor issues (who hasn’t?), they are overall one of the best-matched couples I know. The problem now is that my friend has been taking lessons (for a hobby) from a nice, attractive, attentive, married man. It never crossed her mind that they could date or anything, and they have been enjoying a nice platonic friends/student/teacher relationship for a few months now.
Then, out of the blue, my friend found herself harboring a slight crush on the teacher. She even realizes it isn’t really HIM so much as it is his ability to help her become better at her chosen hobby, which is a passion of hers, and his general niceness and supportive attitude. But…this is making her feel horribly guilty. She keeps thinking: If she really loved her boyfriend, wouldn’t she want to be with him and no one else? Does this mean that she is subconsciously trying to sabotage her first great relationship because on some level she doesn’t believe she “deserves” such happiness?
So, Um, Me Too!
November 9th, 2006 @ 10:29 am by Mrs. Bluebell
In the interest of appearing to have original ideas, I was planning to hold off on posting my engagement ring for a little while so it would look like I just thought to post it all on my own! But now that even more people keep posting theirs, I want to too!!!!
The center stone is a cushion cut, and the setting is by Vera Wang, with micropave up the prongs and even on the prong tips!
