Weddingbee

STD printing: Vistaprint.com, A
We used our favorite engagement shots to make our save the date/engagement announcement postcards. We printed 120 of these at vistaprint.com. We didn’t send them to everyone who got an invite, just the A-list peeps. With postage, we paid $121 total. A few people threw these away because they thought it was an advertisement from a department store!

Vistaprint gave us exactly what we asked for. Not the perfect quality I would have liked (a few of the full bleeds didn’t go all the way to the edge), but for the price, they looked super fabulous.

Front:

Back:

Engagement Portrait Album: Mypublisher.com, A++++
We bought several copies of the Deluxe Album (HUGE 30 inches wide when open) and gave them to our parents at the rehearsal dinner as thank you gifts. They LOVE them - and they match the wedding albums we made them.

Invitations
Since our theme was “Old Hollywood Glamour” and black and white, I thought these simple invitations would be perfect. A cool thing is we had a wax seal stamper custom made with my husband’s family crest (they’re English, so they actually have a crest!). We just put the fake wax into the glue gun and then squished the stamp thing into it.

Our reception card asks the guests to “Please respond via our website.” We had our guests go to our website, and click through to the free online RSVP tool from the knot. It was great because it kept track of everything for us. Another bonus, it could easily generate a batch email to all those who hadn’t yet responded, etc.  We posted a reminder about the dress code (black tie tuxedos for guys and black and white and no other colors for the ladies) on the RSVP page itself so everyone had to see it before RSVPing.

Wedding Day and Day After Photographer: James Walters — A+
After falling in love with one of his images, I spoke with James Walters on the phone. He was just so friendly and soothing that we decided we wanted him to shoot our wedding though he was based in North Carolina and we were getting married in California. He typically shoots with his wife, but they are very expensive (around $7K, I think). He gave us a GREAT deal since he was coming alone and our wedding was in the off season, and gave us a day after shoot for free!

Videographer: James Hobert A++++
He gave us the deal of the century because he’s just getting started in weddings, but he is experienced in Hollywood for non-wedding stuff. Bottom line - SO TALENTED and he’s also an amazing editor, which I think is the secret to a fantastic wedding video. He really made us look great. Please please please snap him up, he’s absolutely AMAZING!!!

Day-Of-Coordinator and Florist: Mary Bowerman – A+
Super affordable and absolutely awesome.

Big Band: Mirage Band — A++
They really made our theme wedding authentic - pricey but worth every penny.

Wedding Cake and table cakes: Villa Nueva in Coronado – A
They aren’t really in the wedding cake business, but they were willing to give us what we wanted. I wanted a frosted styrofoam cake with one real cake layer. I called several wedding cake people and they were going to charge several hundred just to frost a styrofoam cake!!! Villa Nueva gave us 18 table cakes in six different flavors AND frosted our big six layer cake for less than the lowest bid from other cake companies. Our styrofoam cake was a bit crooked, and not as smooth as I would have liked, but you can’t have everything perfect and stay within a budget. The look of the cake was not as important to me as the taste and price. Bottom line: extremely affordable, fabulously tasty, and made from scratch.

Chair Covers: Dreams Do Come True — A
Extremely affordable ($2/chair cover)

Wedding Gown and Bridesmaid gowns: Julius Bridal — A+
This is a shop in NY that has dresses custom-made in China I think - they need a bit of lead time, but you can’t beat the price - each bridesmaid dress in black polyester satin was $85 and my gown in silk satin was $550 and fit perfectly with no alterations needed.

Tuxedos for groomsmen and fathers (white tie with tails): After Hours — A
Tuxedos for guests (black tie, no tails): Men’s Wearhouse — A

Bride’s Rings: Tacori — A++
I love, love, LOVE my rings! We just felt safer going with them because they have a lifetime guarantee in case a stone falls out or there is some other problem, especially since my wedding band is all pave setting diamonds which do have tendency to come loose.

Groom’s ring: Kay Jewelers — A +

Wedding ceremony site and ceremony coordinator: Saint Paul United Methodist Church - Marcie Warmer – A+++
Great price and just beautiful - a joy to work with.

Reception site: Island Club - — C
This is hard to grade because the location was beautiful - right on the beach on Coronado Island and the price was so great, but the service was the absolute worst!! We worked with Gina and I had to fight her for everything we wanted. If you want a wedding that looks like everyone else’s then the service is probably fine, but if you want to be creative, then be prepared to work harder. This location is definitely not “customer service oriented”.

Catering: Island Club — C-
We had to use them, but we had a very hard time working with them. For example, the day before the wedding, they set up the tables wrong and the Catering Manager told me that the table design we had previously agreed on (and, by the way, paid extra to have set up) was ugly. Finally, they reset the tables according to my requests and it looked great, but it was stress that I did not need

Regrets, glad we did or didn’t do, etc. . . .

I won’t go into every detail I am glad we didn’t skimp on, or wish we would have done because as other ladies have correctly stated, the wedding day can’t be perfect and it doesn’t need to be. All the mistakes make for good stories. It’s really about two becoming one and the vows you make before God. The rest is just a celebratory PARTY!!!

That said, I am very glad we hired professional, experienced, wedding vendors for the things that were the most important to us: pictures and the big band. These were the biggest expenses (except the reception food/site, obviously) but so worth it.

The most important thing I am glad about is that we stuck to our guns on how we wanted our wedding. We had this crazy idea that our wedding would be themed (Old Hollywood Glamour / Art Deco / Black and White) and like no other wedding we had ever been to or heard of. We are a bit older (28 and 33) and have been to LOTS of weddings, so we really wanted to be unique!

We wanted our wedding to be ultra-formal, so we required our guests to wear tuxedos (or dark suit with a bow tie that we supplied - btw, we paid for about half of the tux rentals - it was a pain to work with the tux rental store, but SO WORTH IT to see everyone dressed up) and black and white only. This made all the pictures look SO GOOD - I am so glad we didn’t back down. I did have some people who were resentful of being told what to wear, but it was important to us. My Dad didn’t want to wear a tailcoat since he’s a surfer dude who didn’t even wear a suit to his own wedding, but I told him he had to and he looked really great! My grandparents from Washington didn’t come to the wedding and I think it’s partially because they didn’t like the dress code. I also think a few of the invitees said no because they didn’t want to get dressed up (OK, maybe SD is the strangest place to have an ultra-formal wedding since I have friends who have worn khaki shorts and flip flops to weddings before). Personally, I am sad they didn’t come, but we had a great time with our guests. I had a friend who told me at first she resented having to rent FIVE tuxes for her family (she didn’t know we were paying for more than half of it), but she actually cried when she saw her husband and her sons all together so dressed up.

Also, my husband and I both lament the casualization of our society in general, so we wanted our wedding to be, at least for one night, a return to a time when weddings were a big deal, worthy of getting more dressed up than for any other event.

Another part of our theme that was extreme and also controversial was our music. We asked the big band to play ONLY period music (30’s and 40’s) - no modern covers, no nothing, even if the guests requested it. My husband and I went salsa dancing on our first date and I used to take salsa and swing lessons with a bunch of my friends. We wanted only lead-follow dancing (foxtrot, swing, salsa, etc.) at our wedding and we were kind of worried that people wouldn’t dance. Especially since there was no bar, we thought they’d be too embarrassed to dance. Well, there was no reason to worry, because the large dance floor was absolutely PACKED ALL NIGHT! We couldn’t believe it! So many of our guests had secret dancing skills and they looked so good! Everyone had such a good time they all stayed to the end and wished that our reception lasted longer. We never dreamed it would be as successful as it was.

We are really glad we paid for all of our attendants’ attire. Almost all of them were out of towners and it would have been a financial burden for them. We figured we wanted a certain look, but it wasn’t fair to make them pay for it. And, it really didn’t cost as much as you might think! For the BMs: silk gowns, brooches, and gloves. For the GMs: white gloves, black silk bow ties (these were just a gift since the tuxes were white tie and the rental included it) and nice top hats to keep and also the tux rental which included shoes, etc.. We also paid for the ring bearer’s and flower girl’s clothes, so that it wasn’t a burden for their parents. Also, because we bought all these things in bullk we got MAJOR savings! I think we got two tuxes for free and the rest were like $45 each with all the discounts. We bought the guys’ gloves and hats for super cheap on the internet and the ladies opera-length gloves from a vendor who charged me like $1 over cost!

Also, I am so glad we did a photobooth guestbook. I always thought regular ones were lame, but I saw the idea somewhere else and it looked so cool.

—-Things we DID NOT do and don’t regret—–

We skipped a lot of “traditions” that most people do in weddings but didn’t have any meaning for us. We definitely did incorporate a lot of traditional things, but we didn’t do them because you are “supposed” to. Sometimes it was a time constraint, or we just thought it wouldn’t be classy. For example, no unity candle or sand ceremony; instead we took communion together as our first act as a married couple, then we kissed (we did not kiss while we were dating or engaged, it was really our first kiss). No garter toss or bouquet toss. No money dance . . . can’t think of everything, but not much mc-ing throughout the night, in general.

Also, we didn’t have a bar at all. We served red and white two buck chuck (LOVE that stuff) for which we paid $10 corkage (if it wasn’t a military location I would have refused to pay corkage, but the military won’t negotiate! We also brought in our own champagne and non-alcoholic fizzy juices for the kids. The caterers supplied water, coffee, tea, a keg of local beer (which was GOOD), and that’s it. No soda, no mixed drinks, no hard alcohol, nothing. We saved SO much money! Also we aren’t big drinkers, we didn’t want drunk guests, and we were on a budget. Don’t regret skipping the bar at all.

Bottom line, we had the storybook wedding we dreamed of, we didn’t go in debt to pay for it, and we couldn’t be happier!

Marriage is such a blessing!!!!

Thanks so much for sharing your big day with all of us Nicole!
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There’s a story behind our outfits as well. I had my wedding dress custom made by Julius Bridal (which I was VERY happy with) and I wanted them to make my day after outfit as well, but I waited too long to set that up (they need I think six weeks to sew it and ship it). I had this very specific idea of what I wanted and couldn’t find it anywhere. I was visiting family in Kansas for Christmas and decided to check out the formalwear section of the local department store. I actually found my outfit at Dillard’s on the clearance rack. I think the whole thing was $30 bucks. marked down from several hundred! Except that the jacket was one size too big and the skirt was more than 10 sizes too big! Amazingly, the sales associate was also a seamstress on the side. She took in the seams on the jacket and skirt perfectly and I had my vintage outfit with a week to spare. My husband wore a real vintage three-piece-suit borrowed from his father. We found his green hat to match it at this amazing hat store in Wichita, Kansas (who knew it would be our shopping jackpot city?).

Our photographer, James Walters, was really THE vendor. He’s not just a really gifted artist; he can get the pictures done in crazy circumstances. In addition to having that “eye” and knowing everything there is to know about the camera/lighting/etc. (which were the critical attributes for me), his experience and professionalism saved the day when I was more than TWO hours late due to hair and makeup taking longer than estimated, which left no time for the bridal party pictures we had scheduled before the ceremony. The bridal party pictures he took were squeezed in to the block of time we had for family pictures (and I had a TON of people to get organized for those shots!!!) and they’re so amazing. He just took three or four shots of each family grouping and squeezed in the bridal party pics sort of casually and mostly unposed, all in about THIRTY minutes before the wedding!!!

The day after the wedding, we just went all over San Diego and Coronado Island with our photographer. It was SO cold, especially at the beach, but those pictures were so worth it. And we were pretty excited about kissing each other since it was still a pretty new thing for us (ed. note their first kiss was really their first kiss!). Even though James was not from the area, he already had all the good spots scoped out and we finished with the beach pictures exactly at sunset. We were really just in our own little newlywed world - he’d say put your hand there or stand against this wall, but we just remember staring at each other and kissing all day. I think I was so happy and smiling so much that I looked silly, so James kept telling me not to smile. We were so thrilled with the shots that we printed an entire My Publisher album for our day after pictures and it’s almost as beautiful as the wedding album. 

Coming up: The Conclusion - Vendor reviews and things Nicole and Kent were glad they did/didn’t do…
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This wedding story is a bit different, as I am not the bride, but the photographer. As a photographer, I believe relationships are an integral part of good photographs. The relationship between those being photographed and the relationship they have with their photographer are all key elements in creating great images. While I try to establish a relationship with every person I find myself putting a camera in front of, be it a couple on their wedding day or a person who is sharing their life story with me, sometimes the relationship develops long before a camera ever comes into play.

I’ve known Aleks for a number of years, and not only is she one of my closest friends, she’s also the other half of my wedding photography business. Anyone who’s seen us working together can attest to the strength of our relationship. I considered myself very lucky to help with the planning and execution of her amazing day.

Coming from a theatre background, Aleks was able to acutely visualize not only how she wanted the day to look but also how she wanted it captured. In addition to the more typical digital images that I shot, we incorporated Super 8 motion film, polaroids, and a variety of plastic toy cameras used by the guests to create unique and quirky keepsakes of the day. Aleks was also able to involve her theatre cohorts in a variety of roles such as pianist, make-up artist and reader during the ceremony.

Aleks wanted to emphasize the winter setting and work with the holiday decorations at the venue without making this an explicitly Christmas-themed wedding. She’d had her heart set on a black and white wedding, but with the venue’s colour scheme of brown and yellow that wasn’t going to work. Inspiration came from a living room photo in Country Living where black and white were blended with off-whites, yellows, and browns, and silvery-teal as an accent. Through knitted elements and shabby-chic bric-a-brac she created a warm, intimate atmosphere.

It was important to the bride and groom that the day felt familiar and small in scale. Finding vendors and a venue that would accommodate their fewer than 30 guests proved something of a challenge. The couple found that The Coach House at Sunnybrook Estates fit their style and budget and comfortably accommodated their small number of guests. Cozy as it was, the The Coach House handily served a dual purpose: the ceremony was held upstairs and the Sunday brunch buffet reception, complete with french toast, bacon and omelette station—all of the bride’s favourite breakfast foods—was on the main floor looking out onto the patio and estate grounds.

The cake was a simple lemon cake with messy icing.

As they were footing the bill themselves, the bride and groom explored cost-saving options every step of the way, which meant planning each element themselves. A tight budget proved helpful as it helped maintain focus on the intimate feel they desired while keeping costs down.

The bride found very affordable invitations that fit her style at Wedding Paper Divas. The outside of the envelopes were designed by the bride with a theme that recurred in other paper elements at the wedding.

The minimalist backdrop for the ceremony was comprised of three large vases filled with tall branches from Ikea. The branches were decorated with inexpensive glass Christmas ornaments and pom poms painstakingly knitted and snipped into shape by the bride (she’s still finding bits of fluff now and then).

Tealights placed in inexpensive antique mason jars provided warm accents for the ceremony. (The mason jars are now storing dry goods in the couple’s kitchen.) The ring pillow was knitted by the bride.

The programs for the ceremony were designed as fancy shipping tags with the recurring motif at the bottom. They were hung from the back of each chair by a loop of yarn.

The guestbook was designed to look like a fancy schoolbook. Guests took Polaroid photos of themselves and pasted them into the book along with their messages.

The centrepieces were fishbowl vases filled with glass and plastic ornaments in non-traditional colours—white, silver, black, gold and chartreuse.

With so few guests, it was possible to personalize the seating chart. Inspired by Martha Stewart, a map of all the tables was printed with the guests names listed at each table in graphic form and placed in a simple black frame. The favours for the guests doubled as seating cards. Eclectic vintage teacups held the Father of the Bride’s own blend of tea in teabags adorned with handmade commemorative tags. The tags were made by printing a pattern on the back of white cardstock and cutting them out with a tag-shaped paper punch. Printing for the tags, programs, and guestbook pages was all done on the couple’s household computer printer.

The favours for the female attendants were lemon poppyseed cookies made by the Mother of the Bride, and the Father of the Bride’s special tea blend in handcrafted tea bags.

The bride always wanted a December wedding, and picked a day just one day away from her parents’ wedding anniversary. When her father learned what day the wedding was to take place he gently tried to persuade her to do it in the summer, reminding her that while she was hoping for snow to make the day picturesque, she had to be realistic—Toronto winters are not white, they’re grey, and mid-December to Christmas hadn’t been white in years.

December 16th brought 40 centimetres (16 inches) of snow, road closures, weather advisories and treacherous driving conditions. There were some last-minute alterations to the master schedule and a slight delay in the arrival of the mother of the groom (and her car full of guests), but on the whole the day ran smoothly, and the snow made for some great pictures. An oft-heard comment was, “Good thing the bride’s not wearing white – she’d be invisible!

The wedding outfit was designed by the bride, and constructed by her fabulous seamstress, Natasha. It was inspired by Dior’s New Look circa 1947, the bride’s favourite fashion period. Since this was one of the more expensive items, it was important to the bride that she could wear the pieces again. She chose quality materials that would wear well. The dress was cocktail length, in a summer-weight grey cashmere-wool blend. A detachable tulle underskirt gave the skirt its classic shape. The top was a corset-type jacket (that incidentally looks great with jeans!). The bride wore two hats: one for the ceremony and one for the reception. The hats were purchased at the One of a Kind Craft Show from Ophelie Hats, Montreal. The shoes were a piece from the bride’s wardrobe (Nine West).

The bouquet was white and off-white with a hint of purple, to complement the grey dress.

The groom wore a medium-grey suit, with an off-white tie with a brocade motif. The yellow and teal accents were picked up in his pocket square. (Tom’s Place, Toronto, Canada)

Overall, the day was comfortable, intimate and low key. Despite the frightful weather outside, everything went smoothly and everyone had a good time. With all their planning having come to fruition, the bride and groom were relieved to leave the next morning for their sunny honeymoon in Mexico.

Recommendations for future brides:

× Take advantage of friends with talents! Music, readings, makeup, and photography were all done by friends. They were as happy to share their talents as the couple was to have them there.

× Be organized and get things done as they come up—it will make for a stress-free lead-up to the big day, and you’ll be surprised to find that most things only require you to take a few minutes to make a decision. There are many (free!) online tools for budgeting and organizing and they help to keep the groom involved!

× Start thinking early on about what you need to have just so, and be willing to compromise on everything else.

× Pick those splurge points carefully. There’s a lot you can do yourself with enough planning, but some things just work better in the hands of a professional. For example, the bride had the opportunity to save some money and get a cake made at a local bakery that did not offer delivery. While the lower cost fit the budgeting scheme, upon further consideration the bride decided it was worth the extra money to have someone there on the day taking responsibility for delivering the cake and arranging it for presentation.

~~~

Ed. Note: Thanks to Mrs. Gummi Bear who sent me a link to the pictures from this wedding.  They were so awesome I contacted the photographer and asked her to share more details!

Please go here for more information on submitting your Real Wedding for consideration.
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One of the best things about these pictures is that my Mom got to be there with us. She lives in Kansas and hadn’t met Kent when we got engaged (they had talked on the phone, though, and she gave her blessing). We got engaged in Nashville, while I was visiting my cousins, aunts, and uncles and Kent flew in for the weekend. My Mom was sad that her whole family got to meet him before she did. :( 

We had been dating only a few months when we talked about getting married and we were discussing a pretty short engagement. Kent had already picked out my rings, but they took four weeks to make! So, while he waited for the ring to officially propose, he gave me the “green light” to plan the wedding. Basically we just needed to put deposits on our major vendors before it got too late. So, when we did get engaged with the ring, although it was super romantic, it wasn’t really a surprise.

Well, my sweetie plotted the BIGGEST SURPRISE to make up for it! The following weekend Kent was flying to San Diego so we could take our engagement portraits. He secretly flew my mom in for a few days so she could hang out with me and do wedding stuff with me. He said “a girl should be with her Mom when she’s planning her wedding.” Awwwww. 

to be continued….
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Michael and I have always been a different sort of couple - we met on the internet and got engaged at a Planetarium, so we decided that our wedding needed to be something that matched our personalities.

Now, weddings in South Africa are mostly pretty boring, typical affairs, definitely not as glam and well coordinated as their American counterparts. But I was heavily inspired by Weddingbee and various other wedding sites, so much so that my poor fiance was inundated with ideas on a daily basis!

Our theme became butterflies by default. I am a designer, so I created all the paper collateral myself, and butterflies are a personal symbol for me of growth and new life - which perfectly suited our marriage and celebration of our new life together.

Our ceremony was held on land, alongside of Vaal river, with our reception held aboard “The Spirit of Jen” - a luxury cruiser - along the Vaal river. I’m really pleased with the response from our guests - we wanted them to leave our wedding on a high - and from the comments we have gotten back from them, that is just what they felt! We’ve been told that our wedding was the most different, unusual and unique wedding they have ever been to!

Details wise, we had a candy buffet instead of traditional favors (which may be passé to folks in the US, but to people in SA, it was the newest, most innovative thing they had seen! ha ha)

We had a jukebox instead of a DJ - which worked fantastically, and I would recommend it to anyone. We had sparklers, funny straws and made all of our guests dress up for pictures. All in all, it was the most enjoyable, most memorable day of my life.

The BEST part of the whole day for me, was seeing my new husband’s face as I walked down the aisle, and hearing the guests exclaiming. It was wonderful. But don’t get me wrong, it was also the most tiring and most emotional day of my life. My Mother honored tradition and had a major fight with me that morning (all stress-related) which definitely was not helpful. Fortunately after many tears, we sorted it out, and the day continued without a hitch.

My advice for future brides - in all honesty, the day went by SO fast that it seems a blur. Definitely don’t skimp on photographers or videographers, their work is all you will have to remind yourself of your special day. Also, don’t splurge on a dress - seriously, you only wear it for a few hours. Sure it must look great, but you’ll only wear it once. My dress cost me a grand total of R900 - which is about $130! So  you can still get a reasonably priced dress that looks good. Rather use that money for other things, like great music!

~~~

If you’d like to submit your real wedding to weddingbee, please go here for more information!
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Venue: Island Club, Coronado Island (San Diego), California
Wedding Date: January 20, 2007
Bridal Gown/BM Dresses: Julius Bridal (NY)
Florist/Coordinator: Mary Bowerman
Photographer: James Walters (Walters & Walters, NC)
Videographer: Jaime Hobert
Cake: Villa Nueva Bakery
Honeymoon: Oahu and Kauai, Hawaii

The Story

Our theme was Old Hollywood Glamour (basically vintage black and white) and, at least for San Diego, it was extremely formal. The groom, groomsmen, and dads all wore white tie with tails, top hats and white gloves; the bridesmaids all wore black satin one-shouldered gowns with trains, white opera length gloves and white satin wraps. Probably the most unique thing about our wedding was our dress code for the guests - all guests wore black and white and no other colors, and all male guests wore tuxedos (neckties were banned).

We met online (ChristianCafe.com) - but we got to know each other in person. On our very first date, we knew it was going to be serious. Exactly four days after that first date, we had the DTR (defining the relationship) talk and Kent told me he wanted to pursue me toward marriage. Two and a half months after that we were engaged, and about three and a half months after that we were married. And I took the California bar exam during that six months! Talk about whirlwind!

Our photographer loved shooting infrared.

DIY programs with embossed custom monogram tied with double-faced satin ribbon. We bought a custom embosser with interchangeable plates from Wilshire Graphic Press. Great product, great customer service, speedy delivery! We got one with our monogram which we used for the front of the programs and also to make thank you cards from plain cardstock. We got another plate with our name and address which we used to emboss our envelopes for thank you notes.

I also bought three 50-yard spools of this awesome double-faced satin ribbon (I wanted the real fabric kind, not plastic or paper) for a great price from a discount place in LA and then used it for everything - programs, table cakes, our fancy cake, dress straps for Brianna, our beautiful program passer-outer (see below).

Custom Cathedral-length veil with beaded French Alencon lace headdress and scallop applique at the end. My aunt sewed this veil for me. I had the hardest time finding Alencon lace at regular fabric stores and had to go to a specialty bridal fabric store in La Jolla - I guess there isn’t much of a market for lace that’s $100 a yard!! It’s a good thing I didn’t need too much. 

Our first kiss was really our first kiss. Our closest friends and family couldn’t believe that we didn’t kiss while we were dating or during our engagement. We just didn’t want that temptation. Also, it helped that for most of our engagement, we lived on opposite coasts and only saw each other for weekends twice a month. 

At the reception, we used rectangular tables instead of rounds (three rows of ten banquet tables end-on-end with overlapping tablecloths). This was a real hassle to orchestrate with our reception site, but in the end we achieved the intimate, vintage setting we were going for. 

For centerpieces, we started with plain black table napkins laid on the diagonal (in a diamond pattern down the middle of the table) to start the Art Deco look. Then, we used vintage-style, crystal candle lamps and six different flavors of table cakes. We saved lots of money by not having floral centerpieces. We used the plain white cakes, tied with black double-faced satin ribbon on crystal cake stands, for table numbers with the numbers printed on vellum over black and white Old Hollywood famous couple movie stills. I made the cake stands for about $1 each. I just bought desert dishes and plates at Marshall’s and glued them together. Viola! 

Our cake was HUGE, five layers with a custom-painted bride & groom topper that looked just like us - right down to the medals and gold brocade on my husband’s Navy uniform. We love our topper! We wanted to avoid our caterer’s cake cutting fee, so we did the table cakes with their own cake cutters/servers on the tables; for our cake, we bought styrofoam cake dummies, had our cake baker frost the layers, and then he put in just one real layer for our cake cutting ceremony. This also allowed us to keep the cake stable since we wanted it so tall, and it was CHEAP. I let the cake baker talk me out of fondant but I wish I’d stuck to my guns because fondant is so much smoother - and who cares about the taste since nobody’s eating the Styrofoam! 

 
We love chocolate - we had three chocolate fountains (dark choc, milk choc and white choc) and a candy buffet!

 
For the candy buffet, we had about 8 or 9 crystal dishes of candy on a table with boxes under the tablecloth to give dimension. I just love the DIY signage on the candy buffet. We just printed them on the computer and used the same satin ribbon and the leftover black cardstock that we used for the programs, escort cards and place cards. 

 
DIY escort cards that matched the place cards.

No modern music - our big band played only 30’s and 40’s period music. We thought people wouldn’t dance, but the dance floor was packed all night long!

My little brother and our most excellent ring bearer!

 
Our guests loved the photobooth guestbook! Guests make a scrapbook page with greetings, designs, etc and a space for a picture from the photobooth. Then guests step into the booth, accessorize with vintage goodies like feather boas and top hats, and take the pic which is later printed out and added to the page.

This was the most fun!! In this pic you can see the homemade backdrop (faux velvet on sale during the holidays), the digital camera on the tripod, and a few of the props we set out for the guests to accessorize their portraits. Behind the camera is Kristen; she and her sister Katie were responsible for supervising the whole guest book operation and taking all the pictures. They did SUCH a great job and they had a good time, too.

Action shots of guests working on the other part of the guest book . . . I set out scrapbook paper (blacks, whites, and reds) for them to assemble the page their portrait would go in after the wedding. We precut rectangles just a bit bigger than the pictures would be printed out to be used as frames and to show me where to glue the final pic. We elected to print the pics later (ritzpix.com) rather than using polaroid because of price. Polaroid film costs about $1 per picture. Since we had about 200 guests, I just didn’t want to spend that much on the guest book. We absolutely love our guest book all assembled and we are SO glad we did it, since so many of our guests didn’t make it into our album.

  
Last but not least, our sparkler getaway. Not exactly unique, but it cost us about $12 for the sparklers and it made the coolest pictures!

Coming up, Part II: Vendor Reviews and much more!

~~~

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Girls getting ready…

I gave the girls initialed towel wraps as part of their gift with ribbon that matched our wedding colors.

Our rings are both engraved 88 <3 63… the numbers were our old pager codes from high school!

This is what happens when you get a gift from your groom.

Oh, my lovely Lia… no that’s really her name.

Monogrammed dress label

My mom helping me with the jewelry

In honor of Jack’s late mother, I pinned a pendant that she gave me on my bouquet.

Boys Getting Ready…

My card to Jack.  Inside it says, “They’ll have to pry us apart.”

Since Jack loves watches and watchmaking, I got him watch movement cufflinks as a wedding gift

We wrote our own vows

Hahaha… those are cucumbers!  I was on the floor laughing when I saw this!

Momma looked hot that day!

Six of the most important ladies in my life

The Ceremony…

Trying to soak everything in…

BM Bouquets… brown pods, green hydrangea, monkey tail, and kermit mums wrapped with a banana leaf and brown velvet ribbon.  Thank you Martha Stewart!

“You may kiss the bride!”

My bouquet… a mix of gardenias, hydrangea, and peonies

Going To The Reception…

Hello, I’m married!

Yep, those are our feet!

The Reception…

Nice shot of one of the tables with a tall centerpiece

Theme and Decor…

We wanted something elegant and contemporary with very simple, clean lines.  The colors we worked with were sage green, chocolate brown, and shades of orange.  There was no obvious theme, but we tried to tie small elements together, like the use of squares: the invites, menus, menu folds, centerpieces, cake and favors were all square.

The mint leaf design used on the invitations, all paper products, and cake

My nickname is Gellibelly, so the favors were pear and peach Jelly Bellys

There were fun facts cards about us on each table for the guests to enjoy

The tables were named after places we visited together with pictures taken by Jack to celebrate his love for photography

Since we spent the last two years in Michigan, the Signature Cocktails menu included a drink called Detroit Red Wing as the “Something Borrowed” (along with Something Old, New, and Blue)

Menu

The design for our custom gobo was done by one of our high school friends and also used on the top of the menus

My cousin Noreen was a professional ballet dancer in the Philippines, and performed a ballet that was supposed to be a love story about us.

Doh trying not to go into the ugly cry… too late

No hands… at all!  I was impressed, hahaha.  For this I had to use “Bootylicious.”

The Honeymoon Suite…

I had to share because our bridal party (read: Best Man) had some surprises in there for us, hahaha.  My coordinator wanted it to be sweet and romantic but they wanted it to be a little raunchier, so they compromised and she was able to at least cover up one of the girl’s holes, lol.

Surprise!  It was so disgusting, hahaha.  You don’t even wanna know what was in those metal buckets between them…

They did an awesome job decorating our suite and setting everything up

The view from our deck was gorgeous