Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland
Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator
Engagement Date: December 31, 2006
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: September 19, 2007
Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland
About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
Just Shoot Us! Part 2
September 24th, 2007 @ 4:02 pm by Ms. Dahlia
Earlier, I blogged about the photographers who didn’t make the cut. Now you must be wondering, “Miss Dahlia, those photographers were awesome!!!! Rob is sooo affordable, and I can’t get over how amazing Steven’s photographs are?! Can your photographer actually be better than either of those?!!!” 
And the answer for us is YES!
Check out our photographer, Ken Blaze. Absolutely amazing. Not only did he agree the Saturday before Easter at my favorite locally owned coffeehouse, but when it was closed due to the inclement weather (yes, Cleveland does get blizzards at the end of April), he was gracious enough to direct us to the nearby and open massive Seattle-based coffeehouse chain.
I Have To Tell People What To Wear?
September 23rd, 2007 @ 5:51 pm by Ms. Dahlia
Since I have purchased my dress, then next thing that people immediately ask is, what are the bridesmaids wearing?
The idea of telling people what to wear makes me uncomfortable, especially if it involves telling grown women to spend $100+ on cheap polyester dresses they will never wear again. However, I do like the idea of a cohesive look to the wedding, and perhaps having the bridesmaids in dresses from the same place in the same color would work well.
That brings me to J. Crew. I have been a fan of their wedding collection since it came out a couple of years ago. Simple, classic, awesome dresses that are easily worn again. Their Sophia dress is great as a wedding gown, and would have been my dress had it been slightly larger in the bust. Plus, it is flattering to most figures.
Just Shoot Us! Part 1
September 21st, 2007 @ 4:26 pm by Ms. Dahlia
With film, that is. Aside from booking the church and reception venue, booking the photographer was the most important thing for us. Mr. Dahlia and I both spent a lot of time looking at various photographers in the Cleveland area. Having determined that we wanted photos done with more of a photojournalistic approach, and figured out our budget, we basically narrowed it down to three. (In Cleveland, as I’ve mentioned before, you don’t necessarily have the panoply of options that you have on the coasts). One other important thing for us was a disk of the high resolution images, so that we could reprint all the pics we wanted.I now present to you the runners up in this pageant. 
Rob Rife- you can view his blog here
His rates are on the lower end, with two packages: $1,400 or $2,100. The main difference is whether you get printed proofs and an engagement session, or just a disk. Even the cheaper package is for 10 hours at unlimited locations.
Oh The Places We’ll Go, Part 1
September 21st, 2007 @ 12:13 pm by Ms. Dahlia
Even before we knew any of the details about our wedding, our thoughts turned to the honeymoon.
This would the first real chance we have had to travel someplace for an extended period of time. Only one problem- the whole world is before us, and where should we go? We only had a couple of requirements:
-a country neither one of us have been before
-ability to stay in smaller, boutique type places
-good food/wine
-city and beach/pool/lazing around time
-if possible, private outdoor swim area
We figured that after the wedding, we would want to spend about a week relaxing and hanging out. We would then follow that up with a week of exploring some fascinating city. We also knew that we didn’t want to rent a villa, as we wanted the amenities of a hotel- like clean towels every day.
So we scanned the globe, looking for possible destinations.
What criteria did you have in choosing your honeymoon location?
A Love Letter To Cleveland
September 20th, 2007 @ 5:08 pm by Ms. Dahlia
Dearest Cleveland,
Ah, Cleveland, the city where my heart resides! From the Rock Hall to Jacobs Field, you have a lot going for yourself.
But city I love, you are a very strange bird when it comes to weddings. You operate on a different wedding planning clock than the coasts do (and what magazines tell me!). Places aren’t typically booked a year in advance. Prices are much lower for just about everything. But you lack the availability of floral designers, couture dresses, photojournalistic photographers and interesting venues that are found other places. So many of your residents, both vendors and family, still do weddings how they were done in the 1980s. While I can chicken dance with the best of them- not only am I from Cleveland, home of the Polka Hall of Fame, but I’m also German- Mr. Dahlia doesn’t want that. How you force us to be resourceful to seek out vendors and locations that seem to be readily available elsewhere in the nation!
But you have your hidden strengths and talents. Your restaurant scene is phenomonal, with too many choices for a fabulous rehearsal dinner. Michael Symon’s Lola or Lolita, the Baricelli Inn, Paladar or Sarava.
Wedding Websites
September 20th, 2007 @ 11:30 am by Ms. Dahlia
Being fairly technologically savvy- (Well, Mr. Dahlia is, seeing as he works in IT; me, well, I’ve taken Introduction to Java, and have taught myself basic html using this excellent tutorial- really, it is, if you ignore the blinking things and really bright colors)- one of the first things that we talked about was a wedding website. We knew that we wanted one, and absolutely didn’t want to use a premade template.
Now, if you are looking to take the path of least resistance, MyWedding.com and WeddingAnnouncer.com both offer free wedding websites. If you register with Bed Bath & Beyond, you can get a free website from them as well.
But like I said, the easy way is not the way for us.
To gather ideas, I dug around in places like google and indiebride for websites that I liked. And I did find some that really stood out to us:
Hi From Miss Dahlia!
September 19th, 2007 @ 4:37 pm by Ms. Dahlia
Hi everyone, I’m Meg, and am very excited to be part of the community at Weddingbee! I’ve been following the site since the beginning of the summer, and can’t wait to share my thoughts and ideas on wedding planning and learn from experiences of everyone!
Why did I choose Miss Dahlia? I must confess that from the time I saw the flowers introduced, I knew that Miss Dahlia had my name all over it. First, it is red, and as you will quickly see, red is my favorite color and will play quite an important part in our wedding. Second, and more importantly, it has strong family connections.
My grandfather lived with my family in the last years of his life. Up until he had a stroke and passed away three years ago, one of the greatest joys in his life was gardening. Grandpa Dahlia’s specialty was, in fact, growing dahlias. He was famous for them. Not just any dahlias, mind you, but dahlias the size of a dinner plate. Like this:
Image from here.
