A Bee's Life: Hyena Style!

The Bee's Life series is so fun, and I had to get in on the action!

1) How did I find Weddingbee?

You should know right off the bat that I LOVE lists. When I got engaged, I didn't even think to look online for inspiration or planning advice. Instead, I went for ye olde Brides magazine. In that first magazine I ever bought, they had a list of the top 10 wedding planning Web sites. So of course, being the list-freak I am, I added all 10 to my Google Reader. One of them was the 'Bee. Over time, some of them got removed from my blogroll, some just didn't float my boat, some I didn't find very useful ... but Weddingbee fascinated me. Here was a great community of brides! And they liked each other! And they were freaking brilliant! And OMG I wanted to be a part of that so badly.

2) My Application Story

I started blogging WAY before I was even eligible to apply. I blogged about everything. Some of it was not particularly relevant or useful or even interesting to anyone else. I didn't use many pictures. I was over-excited and over-confident, and I sent off my application about two weeks before the eight-months-out limit. I got rejected.

Never fear! I worked on my blog a lot. I edited, I added some pictures, I tried to adjust my "voice" to be more "me." In retrospect, I may have exaggerated myself for the sake of getting a laugh. I tend to do that in real life too, but it wasn't a good representation of myself. My second application got rejected as well.

I waited a while before I applied the third and final time. My wedding was quickly approaching. I knew if I didn't get accepted this time, it just wasn't meant to be. I didn't tell Mr. Hyena I was applying a third time, because I didn't want to get my hopes up, and I didn't want him to get too excited for me in case it didn't pan out.

Over the previous months, I had built up a small audience so I could get used to writing for other people, which I found extremely helpful — it made me really consider what I was writing and how it would be perceived. I revamped my third application and injected more of "myself" into it. This time, I got accepted! I was shocked, and thrilled.

3) What's it like blogging for Weddingbee/being a Bee?

It is FAB. Writing for Weddingbee has been the most fun I've ever had blogging, hands down. I love having people interested in what I'm writing, and I love my fellow Bees. I love love love this community. I love getting new comments and feeling like I'm helping other brides with all my crazy ideas. Mr. Hyena thinks I'm funny because I talk about all of ya'll as if we were BFF in real life!

With that said, I'm going to be totally honest here. In previous "Bee's Life" posts, when Bees commented about how time-consuming blogging is, I kind of scoffed at the idea. "It's writing a couple of posts a week," I thought. "How hard can it be?" Oh, Hive, I had no idea. When I got accepted to blog, I had about 10 months worth of archives that had to be sifted through and edited. In addition, being an active participant in the Hive and writing new posts takes more time than you'd expect. Every time I write a new post, I usually let it sit for a couple days before I publish it, just to make sure I'm saying exactly what I mean.

If you want to be a bloggin' Bee, here's my advice: Write as if you are talking to your friends. Use pictures often, and start carrying your camera with you everywhere. Edit edit edit before you publish. Post your blog link in the monthly blog-share thread to get a couple of extra eyes on your writing — their feedback will be invaluable.