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Mrs. Cupcake: Philadelphia-area born and bred... 2002 graduate of the University of Delaware... graphic designer of invitations and social stationery for sister companies Two Paperdolls and Louella Press in Wayne, PA... Weddingbee blogger since December 2007... and lifetime fan of weddings :-)

Mr. Cupcake: Central PA born and bred... 2002 graduate of York College of Pennsylvania... project manager for home construction company... and constant source of laughter for Mrs. Cupcake (in the good way!).

We have been together since we met on October 31, 2003, and got married on September 20, 2008. See my first Weddingbee post with an introduction to the Cupcakes here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/12/07/the-icing-on-the-cupcake/

Photo © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

The short of it: We met on Halloween night, 2003, at a Halloween costume party in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia. I was dressed as Violet Beauregard from Willy Wonka; he was dressed as white trash (klassy!). We struck up a conversation while waiting in line for the bathroom... and the rest is history!

The long of it: http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/12/10/how-the-cupcakes-met/

What we looked like back then (so young!):

The short of it: Mr. Cupcake popped the question on February 10, 2007, at "the place we fell in love" — Center City Philadelphia. He planned everything perfectly (and had arranged for six of our closest friends to celebrate with us afterwards).

The long of it: http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/12/13/the-cupcakes-engagement-story/

A nice lady passing by took our picture just minutes after we got engaged. City Hall is behind us, and if you look closely, you can probably see that my hand is purple... it was FREEZING COLD! But I couldn't cover up my beautiful new ring with a glove...

In the summer of 2007 we took engagement photos with The Wiebners, who also photographed our wedding.

I definitely knew that my dress was "the one" the moment I tried it on. It is Casablanca style 1860 (I think it looks entirely different on the model) and it has beautiful lace beading details throughout. I love that the dropped-waist detail helped to elongate my frame, and the V-neck was a nice variation from all of the strapless dresses I saw. I bought my gown at The Wedding Touch in Frazer, PA. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about my experiences there! And I truly felt spectacular in that dress on my wedding day.

To read about my dress shopping experience, see here:
http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/12/17/finding-the-dress-part-one/
http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/12/18/finding-the-dress-part-two/

All photos © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

I wanted something that didn't look too "bridesmaidsy" for my lovely ladies; I am not normally a fan of halter necklines but this dress stood out to me — the band style of the halter lends itself to a sort of vintage style, and I liked the beading detail at the bustline. It was flattering on all figures and also worked great for my Matron of Honor who was 2 weeks from giving birth on our wedding day! Also, it was very difficult finding a nice teal color, and Alfred Sung pulled through for me with this dress.

Unfortunately, it looks as if this dress is now discontinued.

All photos © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

Mr. Cupcake invested in a new, tailored black suit for our wedding day. He purchased it at DL Stevick Clothiers in New Cumberland, PA (where his late grandfather always got his suits). His tie was Donald Trump from Macy's; his suspenders were from JC Penney; his socks were from Macy's (each of the groomsmen wore matching socks), and his shoes were from Sears!

All photos © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

The groomsmen didn't all own black suits and we didn't want to ask them to buy them (plus we preferred that they all had the same style); they were able to rent nice black suits from B. Gross in Media, PA for a really reasonable price. We bought all of their Club Room ties (with a light teal paisley design) at Macy's in NYC. (See a better photo of their ties here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/05/12/accessorize-me-part-one/).

all photos © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

Both of our moms bought their dresses at The Wedding Touch in Frazer, PA (the same place I bought my dress and veil!). My mom's dress was a burgundy two piece ensemble with skirt and coordinating pleated strapless top.  She ordered extra material and sewed the bolero jacket herself (yes... I'm serious!). Mr. Cupcake's mom's dusty blue dress had a separate coordinating jacket; this was the sample from The Wedding Touch that was in perfect condition and fit her perfectly!

below photos © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

These were my original inspiration boards.... soon I'll be putting together a "real" inspiration board comprised of our wedding photos to show how everything translated (or changed) by the time our wedding rolled around!

BOARD ONE:

REVISED - BOARD TWO:
I decided to scratch the purple color from our color palette, and I dropped the button motif.

All of my jewelry (with the exception of my rings) were from independent artists or boutiques. I didn't plan it that way, but I'm glad that all of my purchases supported small businesses!

My bracelet was custom made by the fabulous Tracy Tayan. Tracy also made custom earrings and bracelets for my bridesmaids — her prices are ridiculously reasonable, and she was so easy to work with! 

See Tracy's website here: http://tracytayandesigns.com/
See more info about Tracy's work here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/01/14/custom-wedding-jewelry/

Tracy had made my bracelet to match the earrings I got from Lunessa. They coordinated perfectly together!

See more about my earrings here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/01/09/wedding-earrings/

The final touch was my hair flower from the one and only Myra of Twigs & Honey. Myra was an absolute pleasure to work with (but order early — she is in high-demand!)

See more about my hair flower here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/01/15/the-perfect-accent-part-3-hair-flower/

My ring is by designer A. Jaffe. It has a Pavé platinum band and round cut diamond in the center. The center stone is .75 carats (Mr. Cupcake did an amazing job of choosing a near-flawless stone), but the Pavé stones surrounding it give it the illusion of being larger. I definitely don’t mind that.

For more info about my rings, see here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/01/05/one-ringy-dingy-two-ringy-dingy/

My veil is from Bel Aire Bridal (http://www.belairebridal.com/) and it is style #8578. It was purchased at The Wedding Touch in Frazer, PA and it was the perfect match with my dress!

Here's a detail photo of the edging:

photos below © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

I adore how our centerpieces turned out... after having collected cut glass for a year, we acquired quite a nice selection. I was going to pour all the wax myself but my mom decided I was crazy to take on ANOTHER project (I was!) and she found someone that we paid to do it for us. The result, mixed with flowers from Blue Moon, was exactly what I had imagined. We had 3 different centerpiece styles across our 18 tables because we didn't want everything to look completely uniform and we wanted some varying height.

Read about the inspiration here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/12/18/jackpot/

And my acquisition of all the glass here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/03/31/wow-thats-a-lot-of-glass/

All photos © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/ except for the last photo

I am fortunate to work in the invitation industry... so I took advantage of many resources to create the invitation suite of my dreams! Mostly everything was done using the engraving process, except for the envelope liners and the grid pattern on the invitation which were flat-printed/offset, and the directions insert which was digitally printed.

See more information in my invitation posts:
http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/08/05/and-theyre-off-2/
http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/08/13/inside-the-cupcake-invitations/

All design and photos by Mrs. Cupcake; please credit me if you borrow these :-)

I used the die-cut leftovers from our invitations to create covers for mini accordion fold ceremony programs.

See my detailed post on these here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/03/17/the-cupcakes-accordion-fold-pocket-programs/

photo © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

below photos by Mrs. Cupcake

Our cake was a delectable 3-tier lemon poundcake with lemon curd and buttercream, covered in fondant, from Sweet Jazmine's in Berwyn, PA.

To learn more about my love affair with Sweet Jazmine's and see the sketch that they made into a reality, go here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/03/31/one-word-cake/
http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/07/18/cake-revisited/

photos © The Wiebners • http://www.thewiebners.com/

I also surprised Mr. Cupcake with a Boston Red Sox hat Groom's Cake. It was a spice cake with fondant icing made by Cakes by Suzy in Langhorne, PA. To see more about how the surprise went down, go here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/05/12/love-is-all-about-we-a-surprise-for-my-groom/

The short of it: We spent seven heavenly days at the beautiful Galley Bay Resort on the island of Antigua. We could have stayed for a month!  The service was amazing, the food was delicious, and the accommodations were lovely. 

The long of it: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/10/08/antigua-honeymoon/
http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/10/08/antigua-honeymoon-2/

All photos by Mrs. Cupcake

The beach was 3/4 mile long and there were rarely more than 40 or so people on the whole beach. That equalled lots of privacy and quiet!

All three restaurants were open-air... below is where we ate most of our meals. It was a spectacular view!

Next door was the bar that was open all day... we took a few trips there each day for some fruity cocktails :-)

We stayed in one of the private Gauguin Cottages, which was more rustic than the beachfront suites, but it boasted a private plunge pool (below) that was really nice and we rarely saw any other people around. We were very happy with our decision to stay in a cottage and we enjoyed the peace and quiet.

If you're going through Cupcake withdrawal (teehee) as my posting isn't as frequent post-wedding, you can visit me at my personal blog :-)  http://claremontroad.blogspot.com ... I love new visitors!