As it implies, the rehearsal dinner is the meal that takes place after the rehearsal, typically the night before your wedding… I know you are probably thinking, DUH! Hosting of the rehearsal dinner is often done by the Groom’s parents and includes the wedding party, family and other close friends. But of course, since it is me…. we have decided to do it a little differently. Since our wedding takes place on a Friday night, we had originally thought that the majority of our guests would arrive at the Key Largo Hilton that morning… well, you can never make assumptions when it comes to wedding guests. We now realize that the majority are coming down Thursday morning (with some coming as early as Monday…Dogwood Dude and I won’t even be there till Wednesday morning!). This of course has altered our plans for an intimate rehearsal dinner with just our parents, brothers (one is Andy’s Best Man), sister and my lone bridesmaid, my Maid of Honor. Looks like we are now throwing a fabulous beach bbq! Thanks to Dogwood Dude’s parents, and his mother the eternal party planner, its going to be a feast for EVERYONE!
 Don't get too excited....its not going to be as grand as this lovely image from Paradise-Island.org Continue Reading
Before the ceremony started, I headed back to the house with my brother to keep away from the soon-to-arrive guests. It was the calm before the storm.
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I know it has been far, far too long since I updated my recap! Mea culpa– I’ve been a very bad Blossom. I could tell you all about how I have this awesome new job with lots of travel & that Plumeria Dude and I are pretty wrapped up in house-hunting. But let’s get to the good stuff instead!
Plumeria Dude and I decided we wanted to do all of our photos before the ceremony. We’re not superstitious, and we also wanted to maximize our time with our guests. Plus we really wanted to dig on that yummy cocktail hour food! With that in mind, we staged a “first meeting” before we did our couple photos. Here’s how it went:
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Well….it’s official, forecasters have predicted an active hurricane season with above-normal threats on the U.S. coastline. Great, just what I wanted to hear. They are suggesting 16 to 18 tropical storms in total, 15 of which will likely be in the western Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. (In a typical season, there are about 11 named storms, with only two or three impacting the coast of the US) Well, lucky for us, we have a back up plan, or “Force Majeure” for those who speak lawyer. This allows us to postpone the wedding for another weekend, or receive a full refund. All though rescheduling the wedding is not ideal considering everyone would have made their travel arrangements, it’s still something.
 From CrawDaddyCove.com Of course we knew going into it that we had planned our wedding during hurricane season, but the discounts were a little blinding. We purposefully chose our weekend, the first weekend of hurricane season, hoping that given the history of the Keys, we would be fine. We also chose a location, the Key Largo Hilton, that had amazing indoor spaces in case of rain and storms that can typically pop up in the afternoon hours at the beach. With that being said, I do think it is a great idea for brides to look into wedding insurance.
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We are having a VERY CASUAL beach wedding. I know he is definitely going to wear flip flops. I am now trying to figure out what my groom should wear…what do you think?
Choice 1- White short sleeved button downs with khakis
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I just got back to NYC from a weekend of wedding planning in Delray Beach, FL with my mom. It was…. stressful…and COLD. I had been looking for a short break from the winter chill, but got 35 degree temps down south. Thankfully, the afternoon of my arrival was beautiful and I got to visit again with the 2 giant palm tress under which we will say our vows (still left to be written).
My mission down in Delray was to find a rehearsal dinner location, and to meet with all the vendors I have selected from afar. Mostly, I am happy to report, I feel like I got a lot done on my 3-day trip. But there are still lingering questions that are obstacles in our planning (such as still no clarity about the rehearsal).
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Ok….so after hours of deliberation (I mean seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard) I have chosen our colors! I took into account all the great advice I got from all of you. Unfortunately, Dogwood Dude’s only advice was “Whatever makes you happy, makes me happy”… I resisted the urge to tell him that he wasn’t making me happy at that moment! I decided to do some research into local flowers to see what we could get for a good price and what colors I had to choose from for those flowers.
So, here were the three choices I was looking at….and click through to see what we picked!
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Crisis #1…I can’t make up my mind on our colors! With all the beautiful colors to choose from when planning a beach wedding it really makes it hard to decide. I could go with sky, water or earth on this one!
My first inclination was to go with the colors of the sunset since our wedding will take place at that beautiful time. I was imagining amazing hues of canary, peach, coral and tangerine much like this image from Martha Stewart.
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I am happy to report that Dogwood Dude and I found every single one of our parameters when searching for our destination wedding! The Key Largo Grande Resort & Beach Club is an hour from Miami Airport, budget friendly for us and our guests (especially for those Hilton Rewards Members), has two amazing 3rd floor rooms overlooking the ocean in case of rain, has a beach covered in arching hammock trees….and PLENTY to do! The funny thing is that so many people ask me how we chose Key Largo, which seems so remote to most, and I always tell them…we just had five parameters!
Here are some pics!
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I am going to be honest with you from the beginning… we spent A LOT of time figuring out where we wanted to get married! The good news, Dogwood Dude and I did it all from the comfort of our own couch! All we needed was Google Maps and a bunch of browser windows. We started in North Carolina and went all the way down the east coast of Florida and back up to the panhandle to find the perfect location. I know that seems a little daunting, but you just have to set parameters and I suggest tackling one city a night.
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