From mariaelenaheadpieces.com

I always dreamed that I would look like a princess on my wedding day. When I was little, of course that meant a tiara. Now, being that I am slightly more mature and can’t stand the image of Paris Hilton that automatically pops into my head, I have decided to go another route for a head piece.

I have a gorgeous cathedral length veil with ivory satin around the edge – to match my dress perfectly. I wanted to have something I could incorporate in my hair, though, so I could wear it all evening. I found the perfect solution – a Maria Elena headpiece.

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At least half of my wedding guests have to fly across the Atlantic to come to my wedding…I didn’t make it easy on them. That’s a high ratio of traveling guests and a big headache if you like to control everything the way I do.

When I knew I would be requiring so many people to fly, I asked around and researched what other destination brides do. I found out that having a travel agent who can handle all of your guests’ travel plans is helpful. So, I organized with a travel agent I know to help all of our guests get their flights and their pre or post wedding plans organized in Europe. She was very sweet to simply agree to charging everyone the agency booking fee and not request anything else from me.

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Being that we’re getting married in Artimino, Italy where they have their own olive groves and vineyards, I wanted to do something special and relevant for our wedding favors. They make their own olive oil every season and bottle it for sale, so I thought there might be a way for me to make small bottles of olive oil to put at each place setting.

I began scrambling around looking for the perfect bottles and ways to label them so that our guests would know they were their favors. In case you would be interested in doing a similar project, I found a great website: Specialty Bottle. This site has every bottle you could ever need. I also found a great label website: Online Labels.

From specialtybottle.com

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Before you buds think I am crazy for not being a flower person…I like flowers! Though my name is Cotton Bud, I love sunflowers – closely followed by calla lilies. My issue is, I prefer them alone or even single stem. I don’t like flower bouquets because they take away from each flower’s independent beauty and somehow make me feel anxious.

By Glenn Paulley Photography

So, what does a bride like me do? I chose calla lilies because sunflowers are my favorite but not for my wedding. The color and look of them is too daytime and sunny for what I’m going for in my wedding. I know callas lilies look great by themselves and the gorgeous white and form of the flower is exactly what I’m going for – simple, classic, and elegant. Plus, they’re in season in May, so it’s perfect.
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I am marrying an Italian in Italy, and we are counting on at least half of our guests to be Italian. I am more surprised (in a great way) about the number of Americans who are making the trip to celebrate with us! With a bicultural wedding, there are many things to consider: one being the registry. I needed to learn how they do registries in Italy for our Italian guests and make another one for our American guests.

From italianamericanactor.com

Being that I am asking my guests to not only come to my wedding, but hop on a trans-Atlantic flight to Italy to attend it, I felt the need to make our invitations pretty impressive and appealing to the potential travelers. The question was – how to do this in my usual simple, classic, minimal, and elegant style?

vellum overlay

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Being that half of our wedding guests are in Italy and the other half are all of the U.S., I knew I needed to create some sort of a communal forum to post information in both Italian and English for travel plans, registry, accommodations, wedding weekend schedule, etc. Creating a wedding website was the perfect solution!

weddingwire.com

Luckily, I found WeddingWire – a bride’s dream come true. It gave me the ability to create our wedding website, create a guest list (complete with addresses and a seating chart), search for ideas, and search for wedding vendors (only downfall – they don’t have any vendors in Italy).
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After Cotton Dude and I got engaged and decided we were going to get married in Italy, I knew I would need to send something out to let our friends and family know that they may want to begin to save their money and their vacation days for our wedding…of course this meant Save the Dates!

Image from magnetstreet.com

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The impossible happened last night…I broke down. I think it is important to share this with all you buds because I have always heard about brides breaking down in the planning process, but I was sure this would never happen to me. Luckily, I think it was on a reasonable scale and Cotton Dude was amazing.

flicker.com

What led up to my breakdown was the planning of everyone’s travel plans, final head count questions, vendors who won’t get back to me, and budgeting. I have my wedding pretty well planned, but my invitations were just sent out a couple of weeks ago. Side note: for a destination wedding, it is important to send out the invitations in plenty of time for your guests to book their travel plans. This has opened a flood gate of questions and nervous travelers from the States.

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Yep, that’s right…I am doing the unthinkable…I am planning a destination wedding! In a small village on a hilltop in Tuscany nonetheless. Going through the planning process is going to be many-a-posts, so I will just use this first post to introduce all of you to my wedding location: Artimino, Italy.

Photo from artimino.com

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