BrideBlog - Advice from a Recent Bride

Sammy on Christmas

Add comment December 27th, 2007

Cute groomsmen’s gift

If your fiance is having trouble thinking of just the right gift for his groomsmen, point him in the direction of these funky and fun money clips from Rare Device:

There are enough choices that your groom can pick a different one for each guy to make it a bit more personal- and at $45 they come in at the perfect price point.  Even better they are made from reclaimed wood veneer so they are green to boot!

3 comments May 1st, 2007

30% Off Wedding Favor Cookies - Yummalicous!

By way of Daily Candy Deals…

This week’s deal (for DC subscribers only) is a special offer on Eleni’s wedding favor cookies and I Do tins (a perfect shower gift)..if they taste half as good as they look your guests will love you forever! Click here to read all about it.. and if you’re not a subscriber, why not? You’re missing all sorts of tasty morsels both of the wedding and non wedding variety!

Add comment April 25th, 2007

Martha Stewart Photo Thank You Cards

Courtesy of Kodak’s Easy Share Gallery and Design magnate Martha Stewart, its now easier and cuter than ever to create photo thank-you cards for your wedding!
The two have teamed together to offer several designs that can be used with your choice of horizontal or vertical photos. You can even include your own custom message under “Thank You” (although I chose not to in my examples below.”)

Most of the designs available are brown and blue, which is oh so of-the-moment but may not be your cup of tea. If so, there is one cream version available.. hopefully they will expand their color combos soon.

At $10.90 per set of ten they work out to be just over $1 a piece and even come with envelopes in either white, green or red.

Give it a try here!

2 comments April 24th, 2007

Melissa Sweet Trunk Show, April 16th-30th

One of my very favorite wedding dress designers Melissa Sweet is having her trunk show event this week:

You can view the latest collection online at http://www.melissasweet.com/dress_return.jsp?gid=20. All of the gowns are quite beautiful (not that I would expect anything less from her) but I particularly love “Aurora” which its just the right mix of vintage and modern for my tastes:

And for all you NYC brides, Priscilla of Boston (parent company of Melissa Sweet) is finally opening up a New York City location that will feature Melissa Sweet and Priscilla of Boston bridal and bridesmaids dresses and designer accessories. 

Dont forget there is also a Priscilla of Boston sample sale going on right now where you can score last season’s dresses at 50% off!

Add comment April 18th, 2007

Lessons learned from my wedding

While just over a year has passed since our wedding (Happy Anniversary to us!), it occurred to me that I never posted the advice/lessons learned that are in my knot bio in this blog.

Here they are, maybe some of these pointers will keep some future bride from making any of the same mistakes I did!

1) Stand your ground

My hippie parents couldn’t for the life of them understand why I wanted to hire a videographer or even why I wanted such a “traditional” wedding to begin with. They enjoyed themselves at my wedding more than anyone and were the first in line to ask when the video was coming in! Throughout the whole planning process they pooh poohed many of my decisions, it was painful at first especially when you really want their support and instead they question every decision. Then I decided to look at from the perspective that part of getting married is separating from the nest (even if you haven’t lived in the nest for a while!). Not to get all psychological, but I think its kind of a natural and healthy process to learn to stand on your own that way - or at least that is a good way too look at it because it keeps you from getting down about it. And in the end they will probably have the best time of their lives!

2) If you’re having your wedding outdoors, make sure your reception decor that you chose for outside will also look good in your back up location if it rains.

Our back up ballroom was ALL white which thankfully looked great with our deco green and pink reception theme. Had I gone with hot pinks and oranges like we originally were going I think it would have looked out of place in the ballroom and I would have been even more upset about having to move the reception indoors due to weather.

3) Don’t take on any last minute coordinating tasks in the days leading up to your wedding.

The day of my rehearsal dinner my bridesmaids decided they wanted to get mani/pedis with me where I was going. I ended up coordinating 6 mani/pedi appointments for which I was the main contact. That day when people decided to cancel or were late I was getting calls from the salon every 10 minutes and it was a HUGE amount of stress I didn’t need. If you all want to do this together ask your BMs to make their own appointments and make sure you ask about the cancellation policy.

4) If you’re cycle is pretty regular and you can calculate it out a ways try NOT to book your wedding for when you will be PMSing or having your period.

Enough said.

5) SCHEDULE a nice quiet time with your Bridesmaids to give them your gifts - and don’t wait until your wedding day.

I thought I would give it to them the day of when we were getting dressed and “waiting” to have our pre-ceremony pictures taken. Well we were running late and I pretty much had to throw the gifts at them as I was leaving to go have our first glance pictures taken. It definitely took away from the moment.

6) Hire a coordinator if you can possibly afford it. This also gets filed under “don’t believe your catering manager when they tell you you don’t need to hire a coordinator because they will handle it.”

This one amazes me. I know our venue tells perspective brides that they will handle all the details. My catering manager didn’t even show up the day of my wedding! Not only that, but we had a whole contract with all the necessary details that the banquet manager had in his possession, but still managed to screwed up just about everything that was on it. If it hadn’t been for my coordinator, there would have been NO one there who could advocate for me and get things set up the way she knew they were supposed to be. She spent almost the whole day running around putting out fires the hotel started and I can’t even imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t been there!

7) If you have a lot of OOT guests, consider inviting them to the rehearsal dinner if you can afford it.

We invited all of our OOT guests to our rehearsal dinner (which we called “welcome” dinner) and it was one of the best decisions we made. It allowed our guests to get to know each other before the wedding and have more fun that night and also allowed us to spend time greeting guests the night before so we could also relax and have more fun the night of the wedding.

The devil is in the details..

In this case I was the devil! I really obsessed about every little detail from programs, to favors, to guest book, invitations etc. Though my friends and family thought I was nuts during the planning stages, the day of everyone commented on how all the little details were beautiful and special. It made everything worth it! Even if no one else understands why you are obsessing, just don’t talk about it with them and do it for yourself. Even if no one had noticed I would have known and it made it more enjoyable for me and I felt like I brought our personalities and style into the wedding which is priceless. When the videographer and photographer both told me I should do this professionally, it made all the long nights of designing, printing, cropping and tying bows totally worth it!

9) Have back up plans for unknown factors:

We hired someone to DJ our cocktail hour. I had a suspicion that they didn’t quite get what type of music I was looking for so I brought a mix CD I had of things I liked. We ended up using my CD, I don’t think I need to say more.

10) Hire the best photographer you can afford even if it means skimping on albums or prints.

When all is said and done, photo and video are all you will have to remember your day. The images themselves are what’s important. You can always have an album made later, but you can’t get a fabulous photographer to reshoot your wedding!

11) If you care about your guest book, make sure you have someone who takes this responsibility seriously and is not shy to be in charge.

We did a Polaroid guest book and I asked a close friend of mine to be in charge of it. The guest book was one of my favorite things from the wedding, the polaroids made everyone look glamorous and it was so much fun to look through the next morning. I heard from guests later that my friend Ben was really persistent about gently reminding the guests to sign the book. I’m so glad he did!

12) Look over your contracts very carefully.

For some reason in my contract It said 3 boutonnieres for Groomsmen and we needed 4. I totally missed it, fortunately my florist was still there setting up and was able to improvise, but again, I got lucky.

13) Make sure you can walk backwards AND forward in your dress

Sounds silly, but we did a choreographed foxtrot for our first dance and while I had no problem with the forward steps I couldn’t step backwards without stepping on my train!

14) Have extra cash on hand for tipping

Even beyond what you think you’ll need. We hired a 4 piece band but they sent 5 members. Also the catering manager procured us chair covers on a Sunday for free with no advanced notice so we wanted to give him extra. You never know what will happen the night of your wedding so having a little extra cash on hand for service that is superior is a good idea.

15) Find an officiant that you LOVE and who shares your values.

This is something so often overlooked but really, the ceremony is what its all about. I was guilty of this as our officiant was one of the last vendors we hired. Once we found him and “clicked” with him so perfectly, we both realized how priceless that is and couldn’t believe we didn’t place more empahsis on it to begin with. When everyone’s hearts have been opened by a moving, touching ceremony you FEEL it for the rest of the night and it sets the stage for a warm, celebratory experience.

Thats my advice for what its worth. And if you’re planning a wedding and haven’t read Sulla’s tips yet (which are far superior to mine), do yourself a favor and read them!

Add comment April 16th, 2007

Sample Sale Time at Priscilla of Boston

Just got this in my inbox (yeah, I’m clearly to lazy to “unsubscribe to this stuff!”)

POB also makes Melissa Sweet, one of my fave gown designers.  I’m not sure if this sample sale applies to MS too because the website information is a bit vague.. it just has a list of dates and stores. If you’re still looking for “the one” it might be worth calling to ask for more info!

2 comments April 5th, 2007

Its Wedding Week(s!) on the Design*Sponge Guest Blog..

Design*Sponge (one of my favorite blogs!) has a separate guest blog where the Design*Sponge’s proprietress invites her favorite designers, writers and artists to share their thoughts, unique voices and great design finds.

The guest blogger rotates every two weeks. Starting last week the guest blogger has been Rebecca of Moontree Letterpress studio based in Brooklyn NY and her focus is on all sorts of wedding DIY projects from the silkscreen rock poster/wedding invitation below to custom books, invitations, decorations, favors and more…lots of ideas to get inspired by. Enjoy!

Add comment March 21st, 2007

Proofread, proofread and then proof your invitations again!

What’s the only thing worse than making a mistake on your wedding invitations? Making it on someone else’s!!

My poor friend Tracy was having such a hard time getting her invitations printed, she had chosen a design from Bella Figura, a seemingly reputable letterpress printer. When they stopped answer their phones or returning her calls, I offered to do the design work if she could find a local NYC printer. We were in a big rush to get the design files to the printer, and in the meantime Tracy and her Fiance Mike were at their engagement party in Charlotte and we were doing all of our communications by email.. not that that is any excuse.

I sort of had this feeling something was wrong.. like maybe I had misspelled something. Its that same feeling I get at my job right before I send an email blast out to 50k people.. I’m always convinced there is a mistake somewhere.

And of course - there was:

Can you spot the mistake? Go ahead, look again.. its good practice for the tedium of proofing your own invitations… Still don’t see it? Take a look at the year. Now take a look at the date of this post. DOH!!!

I hope that someday Mike and Tracy can forgive me…I was supposed to act as their wedding coordinator, now I think I may be to mortified to go to the wedding! I’m afraid the guests will all be pointing and whispering.. “there’s the girl who ruined the invitations!”. OK, maybe I’m a little bit paranoid, but you get the idea.

So let this be a lesson to brides everywhere. Or at least the brides that still haven’t sent out their invitations. Proof read them, have someone else proof read them (preferably NOT the person that designed them!) and then proof read them again. This is one typo you won’t forget. Ever.

1 comment March 7th, 2007

The top layer report, a year later (almost).

My husband and I chose Ana Paz, probably South Florida’s most famous cake maker (if there is such a thing) to do our wedding cake. We had 3 layers of chocolate with a layer of carrot cake inbetween…. mmmmmmm.

I have always assumed our cake would not survive until our one year anniversary because of hurricanes. Honestly, it was rather comforting to know that no matter how long we lost power for and how little food we had in the house, contained in our freezer was a package packed with enough calories to sustain my husband and I for weeks -  maybe even months in the event of a major hurricane.
Surprisingly, it was not a hurricane but our decision to move back up north that finally posed us with the dilemma of the top layer.

What to do?

A friend of mine in the same predicament had shipped hers to her mother on Dry Ice overnight delivery. Somehow for us that seemed overly sentimental… maybe it was the timing, had the move come up within a few months of the wedding we would have gone that route, but as it was, 7 months later, we decided to eat it on Christmas Day.

I had my doubts about eating Seven month old cake.. could it possibly be edible?

As we removed the tin foil wrapping, I couldn’t believe how perfect it looked… the tiny white dots still all in place, it brought me right back to our wedding day.

And then there was the taste.

Unbelievably, it tasted BETTER than it did on our wedding day.. like fine wine, somehow the top layer of our cake had aged to perfection.

Now if I could only lose the 5 lbs I gained the following week when the remainder of the top layer took residence in our fridge….

Add comment February 5th, 2007