Over the past couple of weeks, I have been gearing up for a trip down to South Florida (where I will be getting married in April), to visit with vendors to button down details for my wedding. Most of the decisions that Hydrangea Dude and I have had to decide have been fairly easy, with little road bumps. One debate that we are in the midst of now is paying for my bridesmaids hair and makeup the day of the wedding. Since I am having a wedding out of town and most of my bridesmaids live away from me, most of my events including the wedding, bridal shower, and bachelorette, will require them to travel to attend. With the bridesmaid dress purchase as well, I am in the midst of debate on if I should pay for their hair and makeup.

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Save the Dates
It is about seven months away from our wedding, so this week we will be sending save-the-dates out to our friends and family. Since our wedding is a destination wedding for most (we live in Atlanta and the wedding takes place in Fort Lauderdale, FL), we thought it was important to send save-the-dates out so that our guests have enough time to plan for the event. There was a lot of planning that went into choosing the right save the date for us. We were engaged nine months ago, so we have taken a look at every book of invitations ever made and perused every website there is imaginable to find one that we thought would best fit the two of us.
Choosing between traditional, modern or DIY save-the-dates is no easy task. With so many choices, it is hard to pick one that meets all your needs. Here are a few we found:

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Hydrangea Dude and I got engaged nine months ago and are excited about our upcoming wedding in April. Once we got engaged, we knew that there were a few vendors we wanted to secure right away including the photographer. In my opinion, a great photographer is very important in capturing what will be the best day of my life, so I wanted to make sure I did my research. After a friend recommendation, we chose Emily Harris Photography, a photographer who works near where we will be married in South Florida. After meeting Emily in person, we knew that she would be a perfect match for our personalities as well as capture beautiful moments.
One thing we debated right away was getting engagement pictures. I don’t know about any of you future brides, but for some reason, I just couldn’t understand why we needed pictures of ourselves all lovey dovey and posed before our actual wedding. In my head, I wanted to be different and not send out a photo as a save the date, so I just couldn’t see the reason why to do it. So, we debated. Should we get engagement pictures or have Emily come and take pictures at our rehearsal dinner as well?
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Pretty much as soon as Hydrangea dude and I got engaged, the first order of business in regards to wedding planning was…choosing the venue. As I am sure most brides-to-be can agree, choosing the venue is one of the first (and most likely) the hardest decision to make. With wedding venues booking up more than a year in advance, I knew my fiancé and I had to get on the bandwagon and fast and choose where we wanted to hold our dream wedding.
The first step was choosing the actual city we wanted to get married in. Since most of my extended family is in Illinois, I grew up in North Carolina, my parents live in Orlando and I currently live in Atlanta, it was no easy task choosing a location that was convenient for everyone. We ended up deciding on a semi-destination wedding in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where Hydrangea dude is from. Since most of my family and friends would be traveling in for the wedding, not matter what, we decided on Ft. Lauderdale, since it was one of our favorite places to go. Not only is Fort Lauderdale beautiful in April (when we are getting hitched), but it also is close to beaches, the airport and a location that most of our guests would likely want to visit.
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Hello Everyone! I am so excited to be joining the BridalBuds Team. I look forward to going through the wedding planning process with all of you and hope that you will help provide feedback along the way.
Hydrangea Dude and I met almost three years ago through a mutual friend and started dating him 9 months later. It is so refreshing to find someone who truly loves me for me (even with all my crazy dance moves and goofy nature). I am excited to be marrying the love of my life and best friend in about eight months and am looking forward to all that wedding planning has to offer, from the flowers, to the menu to THE DRESS.
I am one of the first of my friends to get married, so I am relying a lot on advice from others, wedding magazines and of course a lot of google searches.
A little about my wedding – I live in Atlanta but am planning our wedding in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where Hydrangea Dude’s family lives. My family is from all over so it was easier to plan our wedding in South Florida – and hey, who doesn’t love traveling to Florida for a wedding? My wedding date is April 16, 2011, and I look forward to sharing all the fun, the journey to choosing vendors and hope you can provide me with some great tips along the way.

Have I mentioned that my amazingly talented, wonderful, a-sister-to-me, MOH is also a Crip?
 Rapdict
She’s a Crip which is Muscular Dystrophy Camp slang for a Cripple… someone in a wheelchair. She’s the best person I have ever met (okay she ties with the Cherry Dude) and I forget that everyone notices the big huge wheelchair.
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That’s literally the way my MOH now addresses herself in email communications with me.
Now that you saw the beautiful outcome of our save the dates, let me tell you the story of our plans for wedding invitations and save the dates…
 Personal Photo of MOH and her Hubby
You see my MOH, pictured above, has been my best friend since we were both extracted from the South and moved to the Frozen Tundra [read: Chicago, IL]. We know exactly how the other one thinks and sometimes that’s a bad thing.
Case in point, she was going to work on my invites and Save the Dates as part of her wedding gift to us… BUT then all of a sudden she dropped off the face of the earth [read: interwebs and mobile phone]
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Remember our inspiration for our Save the Dates…. here’s how they came out. I present to you the long hard journey ending in the beautiful creation of our Save the Dates…
This is what we are aiming for in postcard form:
 IMDB
First of all, we took a BILLION photos with FSIL (our wedding photographer). Because she’s an arteest and it has to be just so. BTW I’m glad she is, because these came out perfect! For most of the photo trials I was desperately trying not to laugh….
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Throughout my intense wedding/bridal blog reading I have been unable to find a Save the Date that really “gets me.” UNTIL my fabulous, wondrous MOH sent out her Save the Dates. They were classy but funny, adorable with personality- everything I ever wanted. I was both happy and extremely upset with her. It was everything I wanted in a Save the Date…
 Source: MOH
 Source: MOH
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Due to my Bridal Zombie Flu, I have spent a lot of my time around and reading old wedding blogs. While pooling over older posts by 10,000 Only I found a link to a wonderful website that allows you to make Free puzzles! What a perfect addition to our informational packets or Kid’s Table Activities. Who doesn’t love a fun and free activity?
For the young kids (ages 10 and below) we made a Wedding-related word search.
 Puzzle Maker
And for our families (who happen to love the Sunday Crossword) we made a personalized crossword to include within our OOT bag informational folders.
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