

The decision about the bridesmaid’s dresses still hasn’t been made. I thought that we had decided on this Watters & Watters dress in the Amber Rose, but it is $240 and so plain that I wanted to look around just a little more.

“We suggest having the ring bearer carry a pillow with two inexpensive symbolic rings instead of the actual bands. We have heard horror stories of rings falling off the pillow and bridesmaids on hands and knees in the church foyer searching desperately on the wildly patterned carpet for them. Fortunately, in all stories, the rings were recovered; however, we believe the wedding bands are always safer in the best man’s pocket.”
- How to Have An Elegant Wedding For $5000 or Less - Achieving Beautiful Simplicity Without Mortgaging Your Future by Jan Wilson and Beth Wilson Hickman
Are you putting the real rings on the ring bearer’s pillow?

Awhile back I heard about MBT (Masai Barefoot Technology) sneakers from a friend who swears by them, and I was intrigued. MBT sneakers have special multi-layered soles that are designed to change the way you walk, so you workout your entire body while you wear them. They’re supposed to tone your legs, back and stomach, and improve balance, posture, and varicose veins.
At around $250 per pair, they’re pricey but the reviews on Zappos are amazing. MBT’s are available in several different styles, colors, and heights.
Has anyone tried MBT sneakers? Are they really effective in helping you tone up?
Mr. Raspberry’s mom hung all of these Christmas ornaments as decorations for the holidays, and it sparked an idea to have bulbs like this hung all over the ceiling of the reception site in shades of champagne and gold. The sparkle they throw off is incredible!
Also, I used the photoshop tips Mrs. Bee posted about earlier to make them stand out in this photo.

In my quest to find some pretty hairstyles for the big day, I stumbled across the site of celebrity hairstylist and makeup artist Matt Yeandle. His work is amazing! He does everything from hair extensions (which I am soooo getting!) to Japanese hair straightening. Here are few pictures of his styling for inspiration. Okay…far more than a few!! Enjoy!






Since many brides create digital photo albums with programs like MyPublisher, I thought I’d share some Photoshop tips I’ve come across recently in the blog world.
Veerle features a tutorial on how to create a page curl in photoshop. (via swissmiss)
After much hemming and hawing, I finally picked my colors so that I could move on with my wedding planning life. Introducing red + soft aqua, with touches of white + chocolate brown where neutrals are required…

Being the neurotic that I am, I will probably do the above again with paints next time I am back in my office.
I was flipping through In Style Weddings a few months ago when I happened upon a nifty idea: recycling your mother’s wedding dress for your rehearsal dinner. I immediately called my mom and asked her to search her closet for her 1976 dress, and when I arrived home for the holidays the dress was hanging in my closet.

My mom’s height and size aren’t exactly the same — she’s 6″ shorter and my back is much wider, but I was still able to try it on. The sleeves (her favorite part) are the perfect length! I want to see if someone can keep the lace, but attach it to a new slinky fabric and refashion it into a tea length custom dress. Oh in my head it’s sooo pretty…if only my sewing skills were better!
Since getting engaged, I have become addicted to ebay. I find any excuse I can to buy something for the wedding. Things I don’t need like these buffet markers. Necessary? No. Not at all. I’m going to use them to denote cupcake flavors.

While lounging on my parents’ couch last week, taking advantage of the free room and board, tons of DVDs and amazing food, I was reading a copy of Time magazine and saw an ad for Making the Cover. It’s a free program that let’s you create your own magazine cover.
It’s really easy to use (although the site ran a bit slow for me–that might just be my new internet connection, though). I had to crop our photo so it was more-or-less square, as the program can’t crop on its own. But that’s easy to do in MS Paint:
1.Use the tool that looks like a rectangle made of dashes to outline the part of your photo you want to capture.
2.Choose Edit >>Cut, then choose File>>New. When it asks if you want to save changes to your original, click ‘no’ so it leaves your file intact.
3.On your new, blank ‘canvas’ Go to Tools>>Stretch/Skew, and on *both* the horizontal and vertical stretch, change the “100″ to “10″. Then close that tool.
4.Your blank canvas should now be tiny. Then choose Edit>>Paste, and your cropped image should appear.
5.Choose File>>Save As, and save the picture. Then upload it when you get to that step in the Making the Cover program.
I’m not pretending to be super computer savvy, so I don’t know that that’s the best method of image manipulation, but it works for me :).