Violet Dude and I are currently on a search for vendors. Since we are still a while away from our wedding and we’re both currently going crazy with school, it’s been a weekend thing for the last couple of weekends. We’ve gone to one venue and interviewed three different photographers.

The venue was pretty awesome, but he definitely wants to go see a few more just to compare before we settle down…which is understandable. The three photographers were all very good, we liked some more than others, but I enjoyed meeting with all of them.

Here is where my problem is, I’m just too nice. We have one more meeting with one more photographer, even though I’m completely ready to sign with one of the ones we already interviewed. I don’t know if I should go through with the meeting and give the other photographer a chance, or if I should just cancel the meeting and go with the photographer we like. I also am getting sick to my stomach just thinking about when I’ll have to e-mail the other two photographers and tell them we aren’t going with them. I absolutely hate the feeling of disappointing people, and although that’s just part of their business, I honestly hate the idea that I have to tell them we aren’t choosing them. With an unlimited budget, I would choose all of them, but that obviously isn’t an option.

So, for those of you who, like me, hate making people sad or disappointed…how did you write your rejection email? Did you give a reason as to why you weren’t going with them or did you just say you had chosen someone else? Put me out of my misery, please!

MG Bear and I keep getting asked wherever we go “Have you thought about where you want to go on your honeymoon yet?” and it makes me want to scream! Our parents ask us everytime we see them and casual conversations with friends end up with questions about the honeymoon. I decided to finally buckle down and start my research and it has had it’s ups and downs.

Our original plan was to travel somewhere lavish (think Bora Bora or the Maldives) but…. the prices to fly out there were enough to scare us off! Next we thought of going somewhere no one would ever think of going, Brazil. The way we saw it was “who knows when we will have the money to go somewhere unique again, so why not for our honeymoon” well…. flights were STILL expensive and most resorts were about the same price as Bora Bora. We know we are on our own since our parents are paying for the wedding, so we had to start over, again. The Caribbean is closer and more affordable, so that was a starting point. I don’t like doing things that everyone else does and that meant that anywhere in Mexico, Bahamas, Jamaica and St. Lucia are out of the question. I don’t want to go to a mass resort (think Sandals) so I looked into cruises. Then it hit me… Hurricane Season.

We are getting married September 15th which is right smack in the middle of hurricane season for the Caribbean and even if we waited, it doesn’t end until December. While I know alot of people that went on their honeymoon during these months, most of them said it just rained at night. I don’t want one drop of rain, or a scary storm so we talked about waiting it out. The Pros and Cons were weighed and the one that pushed us into the direction of booking our honeymoon for January 2013, was the fact that we would have much more time to save up and pay off the trip before we got there, instead of after. Especially since the holidays would soon be approaching after our wedding, leaving us even more broke.

We haven’t officially booked the honeymoon yet, but we are working with a travel agent now to get the best deal. Are any of you taking a late honeymoon because of the weather, or money? It seems more common nowadays for couples to wait. If you are already married, did a late honeymoon take away from the “just married” or “newlywed” feeling? I think it would be a nice getaway to look forward to and you have time to wind down, open presents and enjoy being husband and wife right away while at home, but that’s just me!

About 2 weeks after we got engaged, my mother and I sat down to write the guest list for our engagement party. We soon discovered that this task was a little more difficult than what we originally anticipated. Of course there were the definites, family and close friends, who we put on the list right away. Then, it got more difficult.

My parents both work at the same place, a car dealership, and they have worked there for the last 30 years. This means that I essentially grew up roaming the halls and thus I know most of the people that work there, some of them have literally known me all my life. We ran into a problem with this as we were making the list for the engagement party (and we subsequently decided to make the wedding list as well.) If you invite one of my parents coworkers, you have to invite them all. This leads to a bit of a problem, because the dealership is by no means small, and it would mean adding about 30-40 people to our guest list to invite them. When our guest list is already at 166 on just HIS side, that means inviting at least 250 total…way more than our original estimation of 150.

It seemed like it was a snowball effect. Even if we just chose to invite a few of them, we knew that other people would be hurt by not getting an invite. So, if you invite one, you have to invite someone else, and then someone else, and then someone else…until you’ve got way too many people you’re inviting.

I feel like the person at the end...run over by a GIANT snowball.

In the end, we decided that these were all people who had known me most of my life and that they deserved to be a part of our day. The unfortunate thing is that we will have to cut people out of our list who I may not have known as long, but who I would rather invite. It’s a fine line that you have to walk when it comes to your parents and family and the guest list. At some point we had to realize that although it is our wedding, it is our parents who are (mostly) paying for it, and therefore they deserve a say in who we invite.

Did you encounter a giant snowball when you were making your guest list? How did you deal with it?

When I was in high school (5 years ago) I had a group of girlfriends that I swore up and down I would be best friends with forever. We were inseperable. Now, 5 years later it’s definitely changed. Between going off to college, jobs, and changes in lifestyles, I’m only still close friends with one of those girls. Now, I’m not the social butterfly of the world, by any means, but I’m also not unfriendly. The college that I went to was a commuter college, and I was a commuter myself, which made it difficult to make and keep friends.

Fast forward to today…when I’m trying to plan my wedding and I only have two female friends that I consider close enough to be bridesmaids. All of my other friends are either boys or I’m just not close enough to them to feel comfortable asking them to be in my wedding. Now, I would be completely fine having only two bridesmaids, except for the fact that Violet dude has about 5 guys in mind for groomsmen. This creates a bit of a number problem.

I am beginning grad school on Tuesday, and the way that my program is scheduled, I will be with the same 40 people every day for the next 3 years. I’m sure that I’ll make some close female friends in that time, and because our wedding is still 19 months away, I still have time to become close enough to some of them to make them bridesmaids.

But, here is where my problem lies. I will only have known these girls for about a year before I have to decide if I want them to be in my wedding. I’m terrified that I will look back in 30 years and regret my decision to ask someone who I had only known a short amount of time to be in my wedding. On the other hand, I have some other friends who I have known for a little while longer but who I’m not as close with who I could also ask. It’s a tough decision, and I’m coming to the garden for help.

Were you in a similar situation when you chose your bridesmaids? How did you deal with this? For those of you who are already married, have you looked back and regretted your decisions? Is it better to have a friend you haven’t known that long in your wedding, or is it better to have friends who you have known longer but aren’t as close with? Or, should I just swallow my pride and have 2 bridesmaids while Violet dude has 5 groomsmen?

Help!

We officially booked our photographer for the wedding! He was actually referred to me from a friend and when I looked at his website I was WOW’ed by his work.

In one of my previous posts, I had mentioned doing offsite pictures at a park/beach up the street because of the lack of landscape for creativity at our actual venue. Well, in talking to Mr. Photographer he actually recently did a wedding at our venue and did the same thing. He said it took away from time at the reception and that there was actually not that much more to work with at the park. He really gave us faith in his work and told us there was so much more to work with then what we think! I’m really glad we decided not to go offsite for the pictures mostly because I don’t want to drag my wedding party away for too long, especially since it will be hard to keep the attention of 6 groomsmen to take pictures!

Now, the next issue is engagement pictures. Booking Mr. Photographer came with a free 2 hour engagement session. Well, the problem with that is we already did one engagement session with a friend that does some photography and we are planning to do another with another friend in the spring. So, my question is, how can we utilize another set of pictures? I know it seems like a little much but our two friends offered to do these pictures for free and we figured we would help them build up their business.

Mr. Photographer suggested a “day after” shoot, since MG Bear would still have his tuxedo, but that entails sunrise shots and…. the reason why my fiance is called Morning Glory Bear and not Dude is because… he is just that! Waking him up period is like trying to get a bear out of hibernation, especially after our wedding and lots of adult beverages! So, a “day after” shoot is out of the question. I am also not feeling it because I would have to do my hair and make-up again and I know I will probably not be looking my prettiest as I would on the big day.

Mr. Photographer also suggested a “trash the dress” session and just thinking about that makes me CRINGE, so that’s out of the question as well.

The only other option I can come up with is getting some pictures with our dogs and not necessarily calling them “engagement pictures”. MG Bear and I talked about using these pictures as our Christmas cards later this year.

We are totally open to any ideas! Do any of you buds or blossoms have any suggestions for utilizing our free session?

Everything from deciding on a wedding party to what they would wear to Lilac Dude finally asking his best man was a bit stressful. Please note that our friends do not stress us out, we just had some interesting choices to make.

My bridesmaids were originally to be: my sister, my sister-in-law, my good friend from high school and my good friend/roommate from college.

That didn’t happen…. more accurately most of it happened.

If you noticed, there are only three ladies dressed in green instead of the four I had planned on. To make an extremely long and somewhat painful story short: my sister removed herself from my bridal party.

I didn’t want anyone else as a bridesmaid, nor did I have time to ask someone new so I had three bridesmaids and Lilac Dude had four groomsmen. As much as we wanted even numbers with us at the alter, we weren’t going to ask one of the men to step down or scramble to find another bridesmaid who might fit into my sister’s dress. So we were” hip and trendy” with an odd number of attendants.

It didn’t look strange at all. But there was one minor issue… When the party recessed down the aisle we had an extra man. But my college roommate jumped right in with a solution:

And so that worked out well and got a lot of laughs.

Overall, I’m happy with how things worked out with our wedding party. My now brother-in-law gladly accepted the honor of being the best man and my bridesmaids were such a force leading up to and on our wedding day that not having my sister in the wedding didn’t become a disaster.

We had some fantastic people behind the scenes before, during and after our wedding.

And for some encore silly pictures:

What about your wedding party? How did you pick them?

(All photos by Chatman Photography)

I went to a bridal show on Sunday, my first since becoming engaged. There are usually a lot of bridal shows in January and February because of the number of people who get engaged over the holidays and because the vendors aren’t usually at weddings during those months. I took my mother and one of my best friends with me to the show to help me gather as much information as I possibly could. It was pretty overwhelming, but what was more overwhelming was having to sort through all the information after the show was over.

Once I got home and I had sorted the business cards and pamphlets into piles, I decided that I wanted to start looking at photographers. Some of them were in our price range, and some of them were very far out of our price range. But, I ran into something very disappointing as I was going through websites. The photographers’ websites had expired and they hadn’t renewed their domain. I suppose this advice is for the vendors who read this blog, but if you don’t renew your domain then potential customers can’t view your website. In my own opinion that is very poor business practice, especially considering most domains aren’t all that expensive to maintain. Communication with potential clients is so important, and what is sad is that those vendors will never even have a chance with many brides because their websites weren’t up and running.

I also have a bit of an issue with websites that do not proofread their text before publishing. I guess this is more of a pet peeve of mine, but general online etiquette dictates that you should at least use the proper form of “to, too, and two” or “there, their, and they’re” if you’re going to be perceived as a professional company. It made me shudder because of the number of grammar and spelling mistakes I saw on websites that were otherwise beautifully maintained. I actually received an automated e-mail correspondence from a vendor with multiple spelling mistakes on it. That means that is automatically going out to brides and grooms with all those errors!

I guess poor grammar has always been a pet peeve of mine, but when I’m going to be paying these vendors a lot of money to come to my wedding…I want to be sure they’re professional. Professionalism should start with the first click of my mouse on their webpage.

What are your vendor website pet-peeves?

I like to think that with a long engagement you better manage your time but I’m not sure so that is the case. Here I am with 5 months to do and I feel like I have so much to do still! Fortunately, most of things I have left are just the little details such as reception decor. I believe I have mentioned where we are having our reception before but here is an inside look of the Glendale Lyceum through some pictures of a past wedding that have taken place there. I intend to have mine look much similar. Funny story about the gold chargers…my Mom and I ventured to the Christmas Tree Shop on Sunday in search of them. I told myself I wouldn’t spend more then $1 a piece since I had to buy almost 225 of them. Well….they were $1.50. So I went to the register and told myself I would buy 10, take them to the Lyceum to see how they looked and decide from there. The awesome, wonderful, fantastic sales woman, Dakota, told me that she would not only give them to me for $1, but she would also give me a 20% off coupon. Needless to say, 2 hours later, my Mom and I walked out with 225 gold chargers at just $.80 a piece! Whoo hoo!!!!

The whole set up....so pretty!

Gold chargers have my heart

Gorgeous table!!!

I would highly encourage any brides who are reading this in Cincinnati to check out the Glendale Lyceum on facebook. It’s an amazing venue!!

Deciding on colors was a pretty difficult choice for me. I knew that it had to be one of the first things I did because so many other aspects of the wedding depend on your colors. After a lot of pinning on Pinterest, looking at inspiration boards, and going to a few different craft and home improvement stores, I decided on our colors. Our colors are going to be teal, baby blue, and white.

I know how difficult deciding colors can be, so I wanted to offer some advice to those of you who are still trying to decide what you want your colors to be.

1. Start out with some inspiration- I started my adventure into color by looking at real wedding pictures on websites like the Knot and Pinterest. I saved the color schemes that I really liked and kept them to ask my family, friends, and fiance about their opinions.
2. Go to a home improvement store- I know this sounds crazy, but it really helped me. I went and took about 50 paint samples from the paint department at my local home improvement store. They’re free and it’s nice to be able to lay them out on your carpet and match up the colors. Take different shades from all the colors you like and match them up to each other. Once you’ve found a combination you love, you can move on to the next step.
3 Go buy some ribbon- Once you have your colors chosen, go to a craft store and buy ribbon in those colors. Sometimes seeing the colors on a flat paint swatch doesn’t do you as much good as seeing it on a satin ribbon. Satin ribbon has a way of catching the light and making things look brighter. And don’t forget that your bridesmaids dresses will be in fabric, not paper, so seeing how the color moves in the light will help you feel more confident in your decision. Then, go home and make a pretty bow out of your ribbon and keep it around…if you see it every day and still like it then you know you’ve made the right decision. It’s also great to have a piece of the ribbon in your purse for impromptu shopping trips to the craft store or to look at bridesmaids dresses or tuxes!
4. Wear something in your colors- Even if you go and find a pair of earrings in the colors that you love, or find a shirt with your colors, wearing them helped me feel like I really did enjoy the colors that I chose. I actually went out and bought yarn in the colors and crocheted myself a scarf. It’s great because if anyone asks me what my wedding colors are going to be, I can pull it out and show them right away!

My wedding colors scarf!

5. Commit to your colors- There should really be a (when you’re ready) after that statement. Obviously you don’t have to decide overnight what your colors are going to be, but once you have decided that you truly love them, it’s time to commit. I have read so many blogs about how a bride has dress buyer’s remorse after she buys her dress and then sees more in magazines that she likes. This could happen with your colors too, but not if you stop looking! There’s always a chance that your colors will change, but if you know that you love them and you know that you’ll be happy looking at wedding photos 30 years from now with those colors in them…then it’s time to commit. Go start buying ribbon and flowers and pick your bridesmaids dresses. It’s hard to start looking at other color schemes when you’ve spent $100 on ribbon.

Most of all, just have fun. Picking colors isn’t supposed to be stressful, it’s supposed to be an enjoyable experience. In the end, the colors are only accents for one of the most important days of your life, they don’t define it.

What techniques did you use to decide on your colors?

It’s only been a little over two months since MG Bear and I got engaged, but wow the emotions are all over the place from every end!

I wrote this post to put out a sigh of relief! When MG Bear and I got engaged there was a little static from my parents and how we should be going about paying for things and making decisions. To break it down for you, our parents are being very traditional. My parents are paying for the big stuff (catering and all that comes with it) and his parents are paying for the major things outside of that (photographer, DJ, flowers, rehearsal, etc). It was hard at first because my parents had the attitude that whoever is paying for what, should get to make the decisions. That was a nightmare to deal with and MGB’s parents thought the exact opposite, that WE should be making the decisions as long as they aren’t unreasonable! The problem was that my dad never sat down and gave us a hard budget for the portion of the wedding they are paying for. He literally said to us, tell me what you want and I will make it work. So this lead to a lot of confusion and things being misinterpreted. We finally sat down and after a few tears we were finally able to agree on how things would work.

My friends know that my mom and I definitely butt heads on a lot of things, so dealing with her has been the biggest challenge. She walked into this wedding planning trying to be Mom-zilla, but after the talk with her and my dad I think she sees things a little differently. I definitely have to walk on egg shells sometimes just to keep us from disagreeing on trivial things, but we’ve been doing great so far. I love my mom and she is my best friend at the end of the day, so I just want this experience to be a happy one.

MGB’s parents have been awesome! I just love my future in-laws. For example we have been telling MGB’s dad about the photographer we want, told him the price and gave him the website to look at his work and he says “I don’t even need to see the contract, here is the money. As long as your bride is happy!”

I’m happy to say that we are smooth sailing so far! Having two great set of parents makes wedding planning SO much easier.

Alright, I have finally decided on a bridesmaid dress color…yay me! After all is said and done, I have decided that not picking the color first was probably the dumbest move. Well, that’s sort of a lie. I picked the color but then when I saw it in person, I didn’t like it. Words to those who are at this stage of planning: decide on color first. Here is the final verdict: grapefruit!! It is a gorgeous reddish-orangey-pinkish color, what I would classify as coral. Not one bridal store in Cincinnati had a sample in of any B2 dress in grapefruit so I picked based on a swatch but I’m confident it will be great! Here is a look at a sample from their website…

Ok this still looks orangey but it's not....I'll just take a picture when they come in

Let me start by saying MG Bear and I have knocked a few big things off of our list so far, which seems pretty quick but we still have a loooong way to go. The purpose of this post is to get advice on how to organize everything for the big day.

I use Wedding Wire’s check list, but for some reason I am feeling very old school when it comes to this. I am all about everything being digital or available online these days, but something makes me nervous about it. A friend of mine always pounds in my head how great google’s calendar is and how it syncs to your phone, but little old me still likes to carry around an old school calendar in my purse. I would like to start a wedding binder, but where to start? How to organize? All these things keep popping into my head and give me waves of anxiety. Do I treat the binder like a calendar and mark off things that need to be done by certain months? Or do I organize it by category (ie: flowers, linens, food, RSVPs, etc)? Should I use it as an “idea book”?

But then I think to myself, should I just (wo)man up and use the online checklists? I am definitely open to suggestions, but part of me still wants to go old school and stick with a binder. I have a huge wedding board on Pinterest, but it is all over the place! Part of me wants to print some of the serious ideas out and put them into a binder, but another part of me feels like I am getting way ahead of myself!

Are you all using/did you use a wedding binder? Was it helpful or did it just make things messier? 

So all of my girls have chosen their dresses- which is super exciting! Now I’m facing a major dilemma—which color I want! I had my mind set on coral until I saw a swatch in the store and it was pink. Which is not what I want at all. They showed me a swatch of tangerine which looked like it would fit more with my color scheme but it’s just a bit orange. I would much rather have orange than pink but now I’m stuck. Why don’t online colors look like they do in person? (I know the answer just venting a bit….) Here are the two colors on the Jasmine website:

Color: Tangerine

Color: Coral

So I’m leaning more towards tangerine. Still need to decide….

My MOH's parents' house all set up for my shower for a tea!

My bridal shower and bachelorette party were last weekend and while I had virtually nothing to do with the planning (awesome!) I wanted to share how amazing my family and friends are for putting this all together! My bridal shower was a tea theme, because I love love love tea! It was a great time with lots of family and friends around to wish me well on our upcoming wedding.

We played the ever popular toilet paper gown game. I loved seeing everyone dressed up!

For my bachelorette party we went to the DC Improv, dinner and then hopped around some bars. The whole night was amazing and so much fun. I feel so so lucky to have such great friends!

All my girls and I at DC Improv

I am extremely blessed to have a wonderful set of bridesmaids. We’ve all been friends for at least 4 years and I consider them all to be like sisters to me. That being said, I knew that even the greatest group of friends have differing tastes and therefore picking a bridesmaids dress could end up being a bit of a challenge.

We started the search at my all-time favorite store: J. Crew. Seriously, that store is the death of my wallet. I’ve always loved their bridal line and thought from the very beginning that they would be the makers of my bridesmaid’s dresses. I started the search by, of course, picking my color (grey). I had J. Crew send me a swatch of their Aged Driftwood color in Silk Taffeta, and I fell in love. It was the perfect shade of grey, not too light, not too dark. So, in my head, this is what my 7 girls were going to wear:

We made an appointment at the J. Crew bridal store near where we live, and 4 of us went to go try on dresses. FAIL. This dress was super light in person, like almost a silvery white type color. That, and the silk taffeta was seeming like it could get very wrinkled. My girls weren’t happy and, despite my deep love for all things J. Crew, neither was I. So, the search continued.

My future MIL asked me if I had ever heard of LulaKate. I checked out their website and definitely liked some of the dresses, but thought the prices on the site were way out of my price range. Then, a few weeks later, I made an appointment at a dress shop in my town and we found that LulaKate also makes a less expensive fabric – therefore making the dress a little bit more affordable.

The great thing about LulaKate is you essentially build your own dress. She has like 26 different top options and 4 different skirt options. The possibilities are literally endless. This also made it easy for my 7 girls to each pick their own dress (which I love!).

So all of the dresses will be grey, and they will also all have the same skirt (the one currently shown in the pink dress). They will also all have the 3” inset waistband like the green dress. I love them all!

I’m happy that my girls all got to go in and try on dresses and ultimately feel comfortable in what they chose. They all have different styles and body types, so getting them all to love one dress would have been next to impossible.

So – another thing checked off the list! Olive Dude and I are less than six months out and most of our planning is done. Now I’m just getting super EXCITED and can’t wait for the day to get here!

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted, but we have finally gotten our wedding images and video! I wanted to share our video highlights because it just so perfectly captures our day.  Lovebug and I have both said many times that our wedding was a glorious day filled with the people we love most.  It really exemplified us as a couple and our love.

The venue that Morning Glory Bear (MGB as I will put him for short) and I picked to have our ceremony and reception is a nice waterfront venue tucked back in a neighborhood. It actually used to be a crappy little restaurant/bar and the catering company bought it and completely gutted and remodeled the place. I love the view and it will make for some great photo ops, but I’m worried about the lack of variety and creativity available for pictures after the ceremony. Since 75% of the venue is physically on the water (see below for picture) it’s literally just the docks for pictures. There’s no beach or really anywhere to go on-site to make for different pictures.

Copyright Cesar Chavez Photography

So, basically MGB and I talked about going offsite after the ceremony to take our bridal party/family pictures. Luckily, there is a nice park about 5 minutes away with a beach, pavilion and another dock to take pictures at. I was worried about finding somewhere that was close enough to not take time away from the reception time and was pretty enough to allow the photographer some creative leeway. In my nervousness to make sure everything goes according to plan, I don’t want this to end up being chaotic! I still want to do pictures at the venue on the docks, especially something like this at the end of the night.

Copyright Theresa Choi Photography

Are you doing offsite pictures after your ceremony? If you already did, how did it go?

I was going to write about this topic at some point in the future but since Martha Weddings tweeted brides asking what the biggest challenge is I thought I’d talk about the theme issue now.

So here is my take on the topic: I guarantee that the first 3 months or so after you get engaged you will do nothing but scour every wedding website known to man and write down dozens of things you think are neat, cute, pretty and memorable.  Therefore, you will inevitably become totally confused and disheartened about the fact that you have no clue what you want.  Well, my tip is this, do all of that until you are blue in the face and then give yourself a break from the planning as it will all come together in time.  It all comes down to budget and the initial feeling of how you wanted the wedding to go.

Me and Mr.Pom initially wanted to go to an island and have a really small ceremony followed by a party closer to home.  Thinking all of it through I am now, after 4 months of deliberating with myself, going with a simple theme.  I never wanted to pick colors and I also never truly wanted a theme.  So here goes, I’m thinking of classic white – because it’s classic AND simple – with pops of yellow, because yellow brightens even the gloomiest days.  This would not only give the whole reception tent an airy feeling but it would also keep true to our original desire of having a simple and effortless wedding.  The fact that we are getting married on a lake only adds to the simplicity and fun.

So, since I can’t physically decorate the tent prior to the actual day I stumbled upon Pinterest and began pinning my ideas of white and yellow accents.  You can see my wedding pinboard here:

How has the theme process been for you?

Ok, I’ll just put it out there….I LOVE MY INVITATIONS!!!!!! And obviously, am so excited about them! A friend of mine did a stellar job designing them. She is insanely talented. Now, I have friends/family who read these so I don’t want to put everything out there but here is a little sample of the great work that she has done. My vision was that I wanted it to look like it was hand-painted on there. I want lots of flowers and color—and she did exactly that! Here is a sneak peak:

A sneak peak of our invitations! Aren't they pretty?!

We are working on our enclosure cards now. Once those are done, I will be ordering using cardsandpockets.com, one of the best wedding websites out there. Not only are they inexpensive, the quality is high, the samples ship free, and the customer service is excellent. I emailed their print shop a question over the Thanksgiving holiday and she responded that day! I decided to go the semi-DIY route to save some money. Plus, I’m crafty and have crafty bridesmaids so with some help we can put them all together! I’m so excited to be working with them and can’t wait to see how they turn out! I’ll keep you posted!

I picked a cute little project to ask my best girl’s “Will You Be My Bridesmaid?” and they all said yes! I found some ideas on Pinterest (of course) and found custom cards on Etsy and rolled with it!

I am definitely artistic and I love painting, but when it comes to crafts ehhhh, not so crafty! I was the sister in my sorority that did all the social banners, homecoming banners, greek week banners and literally would not let ANYONE help me because I knew they would mess it up. When it came to big/lil sister stuff, I got by with what I could using the help of puffy paint!

So, I went to Michael’s (OMG that store is so disorganized!) and got all the materials after running around the store 8 times. Morning Glory Bear was ready to kill me! I made little red bridesmaid dresses out of felt, decorated them and hot glued them together into refrigerator magnets! They are red and yellow hopefully like the actual dresses they will be wearing! My little project wasn’t the best but I knew they would appreciate the time I took to put it together.

I had the custom cards made by Practically Perfect Design on Etsy! She was super fast in getting them to me and I loved them so much I forgot to take pictures! D’oh! I was just so excited and it was so hard to contain the little “secret” because no one knew who officially was in my bridal party yet. Once the girls got them, I had them take pictures for me, so here is the final product!

I am so happy they all said yes. Apparently I made a few of them tear up! These are my best girlfriends. The ones that make time for our friendship, the ones that I can trust and talk to about anything and the ones that can say “Hey, you’re being a b*tch! Stop it.” when I am out of line. All I know is, our bridal party is going to ROCK!

I have officially found a part of wedding planning that I don’t like….blocking hotel rooms. Now, I must say…I think this is because I encountered one of the worse “customer service” representatives ever but still, this is not a fun process. Another disclaimer, it may be because I was completely unaware of how the process worked entirely so let me educate those who do not know. First, I found a few hotels in the area of our reception and started with some phone calls. Most of the hotel reps are nice to you because you are booking a good number of rooms but my dear friend from the Hilton (the hotel we wanted) was not so nice. I admittedly did not know that if you set aside a portion of rooms and do not use them, you are on the hook for paying for a portion of the unused rooms. Maybe I’ve been living under a rock but I had no idea that this was part of the contract. Who knew!? Apparently not me….and my Hilton friend made me very aware of it.

The Hilton Garden Inn where our out of town guests will be staying

So despite the terrible customer service, we went ahead and set aside a block of rooms at the Hilton because that is the nicest hotel in the area (and surprisingly not too terribly more expensive than the others). I will say this—the Hilton did send us information about creating a personalized website where guests can go and book their rooms so that is nifty! Word to the wise- do your research first before you jump into something like this. I didn’t…and was in for a curve ball! Has anyone else out there had a similar experience?

Someone I know talked about having nightmares leading up to her wedding. I thought that to be the silliest thing and was sure I wouldn’t go through it. Well, I was wrong. You see, mr.pom and I had my family stay with us for Thanksgiving and naturally we discussed the wedding and actually came up with some neat ideas. This must have sent my mind into overload.

Last night I had my first wedding related nightmare. We were at our venue the day of the wedding. Apparently I was so stressed out that I had no recollection of the two days leading up to the wedding, i.e. I blacked out. My mom told me not to worry about anything and that she also planned on wearing some formal pants and a red tshirt. I then found myself in a strange location taking a class. None of it makes much sense but I was flustered when I woke up.

Anyone else have wedding nightmares?
I’ve decided I don’t like them.

Good news! We finally decided on our bridesmaid dresses! We are going to go with a long, chiffon dress from the Jasmine B2 line. I love how formal they are for our church ceremony yet casual enough for a June wedding. The best part? There are 21 different options for my gals to choose from!! I have no doubt that each of them will find a dress that they are in love with. They will all be in the Coral color.

But wait, it gets even better! There is a place here locally, actually in Indiana, who sells the B2 line. It is a very nice woman who runs a bridal shop out of her home. (I’ve been in 2 weddings where we have purchased our dresses from her so she is reputable). She is INSANLY less expensive than other bridal stores! Oh, just wait….there is more! If we order in the month of December, they are an additional 10% off! As an added bonus in case this wasn’t awesome enough…they have multiple maternity dress choices for my Mom-to-be Bridesmaid!

This is the Coral color!

My personal favorite design!

Gotta love the local “Mom and Pop” shops! Plus, you just feel good about supporting them too!

Recently a family member contacted me saying something along the lines of “Heard you were worried our weddings would clash, but they won’t so don’t fret.”  This reminded me of the movie Bride Wars!

Immediately I thought, what is he talking about? He recently proposed to his girlfriend and apparently something I had said to another family member was misinterpreted as me being worried that our dates would be too close together. (Also making me sound like a Bridezilla) Now, that’s not the case, but it leads me to this post. This seems to be a common theme with some, almost a “territorial” issue. Some women (and men as well) can take you getting engaged or having your wedding date too close to theirs as an attack. You are moving in on their territory and they feel threatened that you got engaged first, or they feel as though your wedding date being anywhere close to theirs will take away from their special day. I’ve personally known a few of these people and let me be honest; they are completely obnoxious and insecure about something.

My attitude is that this is our day. We are not working around other people’s schedules, nor are we in any sort of competition. If it just so happens a friend or family member books their date the weekend after ours and we are on our honeymoon, then so be it. I am not going to hoot and holler until you change the date to accommodate my own needs. This is YOUR day because you are getting married, not them! It happens a lot more than you think.

Luckily, I have not had to deal with anything of this nature (yet), but even if something does occur Morning Glory Bear and I have a very lax attitude and don’t feel a need to stress about it (because I’m sure we will stress enough during our own wedding planning).

Have you ever dealt with wedding envy or competitive couples? How did you deal?

Let me first of all say, that I knew people that cried when they tried on the dress they ended up wearing on their wedding day and I was always like “Oh Gosh, that is so lame”. Don’t get me wrong, I love this wedding stuff and I have this breathtaking image of myself in my wedding gown, but I was always like “Oh I will never be that dramatic.” Well……….. it happened.

I’ve been to quite a few places to try on dresses (ie: David’s Bridal and other local shops) and while a few things popped out at me, it wasn’t until I had the very last dress I tried on and my friend took a picture that I ran back to the dressing room and cried! The girl helping me wasn’t sure how to react to me running off until she came back and saw me crying. I liked two other dresses a lot, but I couldn’t make a decision which one I liked more, but I tried the Casablanca dress after trying my two favorites on twice and knew it was meant to be. I still want to take my parents and my bridesmaids back to the shop to see it before I put the deposit down, but I am beyond excited!

Have you found your dress yet? How did you know you found “the dress”?