We're Engaged!

Next week B and I go down to Florida to finalize all of our wedding plans.  We worked it out so most of what we have to do takes place during the first two days we are down there and we can relax the last three, if all goes well.  

We fly in on Thursday, drive across the state, and go pretty much right to our engagement photo shoot.  Initially I didn’t want one, but now I am really excited about it!  Not only does it give us a chance to have more casual professional photos taken, but we get the opportunity to get to know our photographer better.  It’s really a great thing because I am not very comfortable in front of the camera.  I really hope that it relaxes the both of us so when the wedding comes we won’t feel uncomfortable.

But good pictures don’t happen without planning, as I’ve found out recently.  

The photographer will do his/her magic, but you need to prepare.  Close-ups will be taken of faces, so eyebrows need to be groomed, as well as any facial hair (that goes for either party!).  

Chances are that the engagement ring and therefore your hands will be featured, so make sure to get manicures.  No, he isn’t metro if he gets that done.  

Hire a makeup and hair person because they’ll know how to get the coloring and styling right for the camera.  Worth the cost!

Wear complementary colors and make sure the style is the same.  If he’s in a tee and you’re in a formal dress that’s just going to look weird.

Pay attention to accessories but don’t over accessorize.  The focus will be on both of you, not what you’re wearing.  

Sleep the night before!  We all know why.

Lastly, drink.  A good drink or two before the shoot will loosen you up and make the pictures look more natural.  If you don’t drink or don’t want to, do something else to relax you.  A calm attitude shows.

Hopefully I can keep all of my own advice and the pictures come out great!  I’ve seen the photographer’s work and he’s awesome so the rest is up to us to make sure we are ready. 

Do you have any advice you’d like to add?  Leave a comment below!

Let Them Eat Cake!

One of the really fun parts about a wedding are the options for the cake!  There are so many pretty options and wonderful bakers, not to mention delicious recipes.  Just a selection to get the creative juices flowing today.  Yum!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I’m not talking about invitations.  I’m not even talking about programs or save the dates.  What I’m talking about is much more interactive, though no more or less creative.  I’m talking the Guestbook!

Anyone who knows me knows that I like the eclectic – but I like it my way.  I also have a hard time deciding until that pang hits me when I know.  So right now I’ve been Googling the heck out of guestbooks, trying to get ideas of my own.  Of course whatever I choose will have my little twist to it, but right now I’m down to my favorite four.

Polaroid Guest Book

I love this idea!  My friends love taking pictures of themselves and I can see this as a great way to let their personalities come through.  I can just imagine showing my grandchildren when I’m old and laughing until my dentures fall out!

Plus the pictures are very personal and spontaneous, two things which I love!

Message in a Bottle

Since we are getting married at the beach I thought this would go along with the theme and be something a little different.  I like that this can be private; guests can roll up the paper and slide it in the bottle.  I also like that B and I wouldn’t be able to read all of them right away.  If we did this then I’d want to pull out a couple each year on our anniversary.

Fill in the Blanks

This one is the least formal, but one of the most fun!  There is an area for the guest to draw a picture of B and I, write their wishes, and say how they know us.  I know this would be a lot of fun and that it would be so much fun to read.  It’s something that feels very childlike and I like keeping some form of amusement to a party.

Postcards

One of my best friends is obsessed with postcards, and she loves to see which cards the sender picks.  She could not only help me find some great ones, but I like the idea of seeing which cards each person chose.  I have seen some ideas online of having the mom save them and send them every month during the first year of marriage.  How fun would that be?!

 

 

I love opinions and ideas, so leave a comment and tell me yours if you feel like it!

Mother of the Bride

This Friday was my mom’s birthday.  At 51 she is still so beautiful.  I hope (and B too for that matter!) that it’s good genes, but I also wonder if it has to do with her sunny personality, early bedtime, and lack of soda drinking.  Either way nobody who has met her will dispute how ravishing she is and that she looks a lot younger than her age.  

For her birthday, I was so excited to go to the bookstore and get her a mother of the bride book.  She seems to be so excited about the wedding, and since I am her only daughter this is the only time she gets to go through this side of things.  (I’m sure she’s also very happy about it seeing as how much time and expense goes into it).  A mother of the bride book would be one of those gifts that really signifies the year, and I thought finding the perfect one may not be easy, but it definitely wouldn’t be hard.

Guess what?  There were absolutely no books in the entire bookstore that spoke to or for the mother of the bride.  None.  A quick Google search returns just three on the first page.  I didn’t let that get me down; I just found a mom book and journal that were absolutely perfect for her!  But I also found a gap in the market.  Hey mom, I see a project for us to work on together!  What do you say?

I can’t wait to help my mother of the bride pick out her dress, decide on jewelry and shoes, get manis and pedis together.  I’m lucky that I don’t have an overbearing mom, one who wants everything her way.  She has always allowed me to be as creative as I want, and I think she respects my ideals and aesthetic.  I respect hers too; she ultimately picked out our venue.  I found it but she scouted it and I took her word before ever seeing it in person, and it’s perfect!

 Our relationship is one of long term friends, as well as mother and daughter.  This wedding really lets this aspect of our relationship flourish.  I’m grateful for all that she is, my beautiful, sweet, funny, charming mother of the bride.

Flower Power

How important is a good florist?

Most of you would say it is absolutely 100% important to find a good florist.  I have to wonder then, what constitutes a good florist?  Is it their attitude, their reputation, how high the price tag is, or their creativity?  Maybe a little bit of everything.

We all know how hard it is to find the perfect anything!  It took us this long to find our perfect match after all.  But really, how do you pick?

B and I went down south to scope out our venue and meet with vendors over the summer.  It was a crazy whirlwind of wedding planners, cake vendors, photographers, DJs, and of course, florists. 

I met with two of the venue recommended florists and they were ok at best.  They both were very nice, very reputable, very pricey, but not very personal.  What I mean by that is that I didn’t feel that we were on the same page, or that they really cared.  I can’t say that if I was in a business that met with women all the time I would care about each one, but I would at least be able to fake it!  Plus, I would really want the business and would want my work to showcase beautifully.  I didn’t get that vibe from these women.
 

Then I met Ms. Eccentric, the local small mom and pop florist.  She was wonderful!  She knew exactly what I was looking for, gave me photos to take with me, and was excited!  She made me excited, too.  I left feeling great and couldn’t wait to work with her.  That was August.  My how things change.

It’s January and I haven’t heard from her but once.  I had questions and ideas and wanted to sign a contract.  Nothing.  My mind started to wonder about her and so I looked up the reviews.  The reviews were not good.  One girl told her story about how Ms. Eccentric didn’t talk to her until the day of her wedding?  Um, excuse me?  I decided to give up the fight.  You know how they say if someone wants to be in your life they’ll make sure they are?  Same with if they want your business.

Anyway my mom found this florist in the area with great reviews and a beautiful website.  We had a consultation on Monday and the lady was so sweet and very receptive.  Once again I felt good and got excited.  This is how it should feel.  I got the proposal today and it’s a little higher than Ms. Eccentric, but only but a couple hundred dollars, (which I know sometimes can be a deal breaker).  We had it in the budget though and so we are going with the more trustworthy florist.
Moral of the story?  It’s totally worth it to do your homework.  Yes, reading reviews is boring and tedious, and you might not want to believe the bad reviews.  Try to take it all with a grain of salt, but remember they are there for a reason. 

Something Borrowed

Ever since I heard Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow I knew it would be the song I would walk at my wedding to.  Granted this hasn’t been since I was a little girl, but it has been quite a few years.  I guess this isn’t the kind of thing you really talk about with your friends either, or at least in my case it isn’t.  If it was I might have known that a friend of mine wanted to use that song too.  And she did at her wedding in September 2010. 

I remember being surprised since the wedding was at a botanical garden and not a beach, and I remember whispering to my best friend that this was the same song I wanted to use.  At that time I wasn’t engaged though, so it didn’t seem like a problem.

Fast forward to February 2011, and I’m engaged!  The issue here is that B, my fiancé, is her cousin.  (Long story short – she has been a friend for years and B and I sort of met through her).  When starting to think about the songs I remembered she had used the song and texted her to ask if that was the song or did I (hopefully!) remember wrong?  I heard right.  Damn.

Even though she said she didn’t mind if I used the song too, I felt like it would be too weird.  Since we will have the same extended family and have the same group of friends, it would be like a repeat.  So I’ve been on my quest to find a replacement.

Now it’s 4 months before the wedding and I haven’t found anything.  I could use Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles because I love that song, but it doesn’t have the same effect.  When I hear Somewhere Over the Rainbow it’s magical.  It’s exactly what I want be playing when I’m walking down the sandy isle.  It’s what the little girl inside of me wistfully dreams of.  And I don’t usually let that little girl take control of me, so I know this is important.

What to do, what to do?  Use a song somewhat borrowed or end up feeling blue?

Oh the Weather Outside is... Frightful?

It’s all about location, location, location!  Whether you are getting married on the beach, in a garden, or in a backyard, you just know it’s going to be amazing!  The weather is going to be perfect and everyone is going to have a blast!

In a perfect world – yes.  And I really hope most of us have that perfect weather day.  But days like this remind me that you can never be too sure about the weather.  The forecasters called for rain this morning, just another dreary Monday.  Wait, what is this?  It’s snowing!  And not the snow that just comes and goes, it’s been snowing for hours!

So… what if it rains on your wedding day?  Or snows?  Or the humidity is so bad that even the straightest of straight hair is a frizz ball?  You gotta prepare.  That means having a backup.

When you choose your venue, make sure they include a backup.  I decided to go with a hotel on the beach, so we have the option of (cringe) getting married inside and not on the beach if the weather decides to be uncooperative.  (Knocking on wood!!!)  If things work out the way I hope though, that area will be filled with high top tables with an almost loungey feel.  Here’s to crossing my fingers!

But why let this snow go to waste?  To all my lovely winter wonderland brides, get your pretty bootys up here and take advantage of the scenery!

The Color(s) of Love

Color

One of the first things you do when you get engaged is start thinking about your colors. Most of the time it’s pretty easy – you have a favorite color or color combo and you use it. Done! But what happens when there are two vastly different looks you want for your wedding?

I’ve been planning my wedding to B for the past year. It’s been so funny to see the transformation of ideas just in this amount of time. I had my colors picked out, purple and blue, and images of a colorfully vibrant wedding filled my head. There were purple enhancements on the ceiling, purple tablecloths and napkins, blue and purple flowers, purple and blue dresses. It was true love!

Until I saw pictures of a rustic white beach wedding.

All of a sudden images of shabby chic white distressed frames for chalkboards and pictures flooded my head. Clear vases and lanterns on the tables, so elegant and just what I might want.

But then again – where would all my color go?

There was a war going on in my head. So I did what any girl would do – I called in the reinforcements. My mom and my best friend came over to figure out the best strategy.

We sat through hours worth of pictures, weeding out the no-go’s. At the end it was a stalemate, my mom liked the shabby chic and my best friend the explosion of color. What’s a girl to do? That thing that we do best – compromise. It would be white chairs and linens, white enhancements, and some of the lanterns on the extra tables. Then there would be the colored flowers on the reception tables, table runners, cake, and of course the bridesmaid dresses. Done!

Until I saw pictures of what that looked like.

After a good night’s sleep and lots of playing online, I decided color it would be. My original idea was the one that won, and I feel good about it. There really is something to be said for gut instincts and intuition. You know what you like. When you think you might like something else, try it out. You’ll know once you see it what the right choice is.

To all my other brides out there struggling with the same thing, I have help! Virtual table set ups make it so easy to see what your ideas look like without making a firm decision.

Check out http://www.bbjlinen.com/Design-Your-Event-Table or http://www.weddinglinens.com/designcenter/. Or as always, just Google what you’re looking for and see it in action. The all white didn’t work for me, but it might for someone else.
But whatever your colors are,

“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.” Marc Chagall