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No, that’s not a misspelling in the title. You see, today we are going to talk about Mr. Elk and his real name, which sounds just like that river in Egypt.
Ever seen I’ve known Mr Elk, his name has been frustrating to him. He likes it. It’s Irish, and his parents moved here from Ireland when they were in their 20s, so it makes sense. But for some reason, people just cannot pronounce it correctly.
Most people, for whatever reason (I think it MAY have something to do with Frasier), like to magically add an S, which appears out of thin air! Even some of my family members, who he’s known for 7 years, have been known to occasionally slip up and add the dreaded S. Other people, upon reading his name for the first time, try to make it sound like Neil… kind of. “Neeh-ahl,” they always say, in a questioning sort of way, obviously confused as they realize that probably isn’t the way to pronounce it. He has even been called Nail once or twice!
Anyway, why are we talking about this? Well…our names will be a pretty major parts of the wedding. I’m not worried about our officiant (who we’ll talk about soon enough), but the other vendors, especially our DJ, are concerning to me.
Read more…
Our engagement session came just shortly after our venue change, so we felt like we had a fresh start! The plan was to do photos around the historic Old City section of Philadelphia since we would be on the other side for the wedding. (Mr. Turkey is also a big history buff.) We had a GORGEOUS day for our engagement pictures with our fantastic photographer, and our slight nerves were calmed almost instantly.
All photos in this post are by Philip Gabriel Photography.
There were definitely some awkward photos at the start!
As I mentioned, we wanted to use a photo from this session for our save the dates. Gabe had seen the design, so we felt hopeful that we would have a lot of good choices to select from.
In the end, we had too MANY. I’ll share with you the top five options.
With tummies still full from a massive array of appetizers, entrees, and desserts at my parents’ Christmas party, my sisters and I snuggled on the couch with a copy of Martha Stewart Wedding Cakes and got down to business.
We had flipped through the pages of this book many times before, yet the intricate detail and gorgeous artwork of the cakes still causes my jaw to drop each time. So let’s take a quick tour of some of the masterpieces that are featured among the pages of this amazing book.
I have always had a major weakness for eyelet, so this seems like a great place to start! Whenever Mama Dalmatian and I are shopping and we spot an eyelet piece on the racks, my response is always “I do love me some eyelet!” As it turns out, this prolific statement also applies to wedding cakes.
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| Image via MarthaStewartWeddings.com / Photo by Anna Williams |
Along with eyelet, I have also always been a fan of basket-weave patterns. And while I am generally not a huge fan of fruits in desserts (this is a nice little glimpse into my not-so-ideal eating habits), the berries in this add such nice, rich color.
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{And, I’m back, with wedding recaps on the way after the new year!}
The last stop on our honeymoon was the one I was most looking forward to. Santorini. This island has been on my bucket list since 7th grade. I could not wait to get here.
After packing up in Mykonos, we hopped on the FlyingCat 4 for a quick boat ride to this volcanic island.
We were fortunate to arrive to our resort, Astra, just before sunset. And, since we had this outrageous view from outside our room we enjoyed a little champagne and the prettiest sunset I have ever seen in my life.
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
The prolific “black tie” weddings that we all see in movies like Wedding Crashers and Sex and the City 2, and on websites like WedLuxe have made me believe that black-tie weddings are pretty standard.
Sex and the City 2 / Image via IMDB
Then, I grew up and started going to actual real-life weddings. I’ve never been to a black-tie wedding. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding where the groom even wore a tuxedo. Now that I think of it, I’ve never been to a wedding where someone wasn’t wearing jeans. Yes: jeans at a wedding. In some places like NYC, black-tie weddings are the standard, and no one would bat an eye at someone placing those words on their reception card. Here: cowboys would read “black tie” and think, “Oh, I can wear my black jeans, black hat, and my black bolo tie.” Not exactly what I was thinking.
…get me every time. They are romantic. They are whimsical. They are touching and personal. They are so much less stressful than planning a wedding. And they do NOT have to be devoid of style…
Check these out!
Emerald Lodge Lake Elopement
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Originally published on April 3, 2008
Mrs. Pain au Chocolat nominated Mrs. Tiramisu’s post on how to light lanterns using LED lights, so there’s no need for electric cords!
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In the past few months I think I’ve earned myself quite a few credits in the subject of lighting, with this weekend’s research being about equivalent to a thesis paper. Here’s just another example of something totally unexpected that I’ve had to learn about. Granted, I could have just ponied up the bucks for my rental company to light our tent, but no that would be too easy for the totally cheap frugal Miss Tiramisu. Read on, and take advantage of my research so you don’t have to waste hours of your life on this craziness like I did!
Like Miss Penguin, I knew I wanted lots of paper lanterns to spice up the blank ceiling of our tent. Mr. Tiramisu and I looked over some inspiration pictures and decided that for the look we were going for, we’d need around 150 lanterns for our 120×40 foot tent. Our rental company said they’d gladly rent us the lanterns and light strands, and even string them up for us, for the low low price of $35…. PER LANTERN.
Read more…
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Another wonderful part of the wedding day for the newlyweds is the speeches. I’ve taken a new liking to listening to speeches at weddings since having heard what our loved ones had to say about us.
After asking my best friend of 15 years to be MOH, I asked her how we could find a way to record her speech or hide her in another room with the microphone. You see, Brittany is incredibly shy when it comes to public speaking. Instead of running scared, she told me there was no need, as she’d be able to do it. For two best friends who were originally put into the remedial reading class in second grade together (we read too fast, they said), she did beautifully.
She started out with some heartfelt sentiments and then told everyone in the crowd that I used to force her to come with me to the high school baseball games so that I could see Zeb’s “ass in those grey tight baseball pants.” It IS a fantastic ass and those pants were wicked small.
I’ve been going to weddings for ten years and I have never seen table numbers handled in a creative way. This might be why I love seeing pictures of interesting ways to present the numbers on wedding blogs. I knew that I’d be making our table numbers pretty soon into our planning. I just had to find a favorite idea among all the inspirations pictures on my Pinterest boards.
From Elizabeth Anne Designs / Photo by Punam Bean
Mr. Mink, who seems to notice more details than the average groom-to-be, couldn’t fathom what I meant when I talked about our table numbers. I think he was also used to just seeing a simple number on a metal stick. As with all of my DIY projects, he was encouraging and was on board once he saw some pictures.
Read more…
LRHolmes is selling 130 satin ivory dinner napkins. They’re asking $75.
Have a wedding item for sale? Post it with pictures in the Weddingbee Classifieds, and you might see it featured on the blog!
Other great items for sale:
This is a bit out of order, but since I’m about to tell you about our engagement session, it probably makes sense to tell you about our photographer (you know, the one taking the pictures).
Although I haven’t talked at all about photography, it was something that was very important to us. I LOVE pictures and am known for always having a camera with me (seriously—every day). In fact, in college, many of my girlfriends didn’t have cameras since they knew I would be prepared.
My love of photography led me to peruse many blogs and websites after our engagement. Too many to even remember. I didn’t even keep track, to be honest. Yes, I’m a terrible blogger.
However, at some point I stumbled upon Philip Gabriel Photography…and never looked back. Although I spoke to several other photographers before making the final decision, it wasn’t really a comparison.
I loved that the photos captured moments…
Let’s take care of some business first, shall we?
Now that I am done with school for the semester, I have four weeks in which to really cram in my projects before the next one begins and I’m juggling 19 credit hours, work, and final wedding touches. So the last couple of days I have sat in front of Netflix (tons and tons of Grey’s Anatomy anyone?), and have begun part of my bridesmaids’ gifts.
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I recently shared how lack of enthusiasm from one vendor made choosing our florist an easy decision. Then I realized I failed to share our actual floral selections! (I’m sure y’all were on pins and needles! 
)
When it came time to pick out flowers for my bouquets, I was lost. Besides my unhealthy obsession with yellow roses, I didn’t know the difference between ranunculus and lisianthus. (Flower names seemed like a foreign language!) I tried looking up a floral dictionary website, but without any background information, I was completely overwhelmed. I turned to sites like Pinterest and the Knot, searching for inspiration. I saved anything that peaked my interest (and made sure to list the flower names when saving the pictures). I quickly discovered that big bloom flowers were my favorite:
Garden Roses
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| Image via Flowers by Shirley |
I am absolutely in love with all things letterpress. Cards, gift tags, posters, save the dates, wedding invitations…I love it all. As I told you all previously, I wanted to purchase letterpress STDs, but my wallet just couldn’t take the hit. I had been doing a lot of research about letterpress, and even found a professor at the university I go to who taught me the basics of hand-setting type and showed me how to use a letterpress machine.
But alas, his press wasn’t set up to work with photopolymer plates and would cost me around $500 to outfit it with the necessary parts. So, I moved on to at-home DIY-style letterpress. Specifically, the L-Letterpress Tool by Lifestyle Crafts. I was really, really nervous that this wouldn’t work out. It seemed like all the reviews were either extremely positive or extremely negative. So…I took a chance and caved to the paper-lover’s voice inside of my head saying “Just do it…”
I purchased the kit from Amazon for a lot less than was advertised on the Lifestyle website. I also picked up some extra square cards and envelopes, and an extra six-inch Speedball brayer. I found this review of the L-letterpress by Boxcar Press awhile back, so I knew that I would need the extra supplies to make sure I used this tool to its full potential. The Amazon shipment took a little longer than I hoped, around 20 business days, but this is normal for shipments to Canada.
I really wanted to try this thing out before I spent another $200 on photopolymer plates and expensive cotton paper to make our invitations (and before I took a huge risk ruining the invitations). So I decided I would make a smaller photopolymer plate through the Boxcar Press platemaking service, and use this opportunity to make my “Will you be my bridesmaid?” crafts.
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