Miss Sea Breeze, Vancouver/Dominican Republic
Age and Occupation: 30, Communications Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Experiential Marketing Director
Engagement Date: October 6, 2007
Wedding Date: November, 2008
Blogging Since: July 17, 2008
Venue: Majestic Colonial Resort, Punta Cana
About Me: Planning a destination wedding by the sea should be (oh no she di-in't…) a breeze (…*sigh* yep, she did) but when you've never been to the Caribbean, your powers of imagination are really put to the test. Luckily, I'm 90% resourceful, creative optimist (and kooky, neurotic practicalist-if-that's-a-word for the other ten). Other than planning our week-long celebration of family, friends, laughter and love, I adore books, shoes and… you guessed it… long walks on the beach.
While editing photos for my post on groomsmen’s attire, I accidentally adjusted the color from this:

…to this:
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Miss Meatball, Hollywood
Age and Occupation: 30, Actor/Writer/Office Maven
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Actor/Writer
Engagement Date: October 7, 2007
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: September 16, 2008
Venue: Private Garden/The Bungalow Club
About Me: I love melty cheese and diet coke almost as much as I love my man. I'm from Chicago, he's from NYC, and we both miss public transit and great pizza. We have an adorable muppet dog called Paco. I'm part hippie with a healthy dash of hip hop superstar, have excessive empathy for animals, and have not one, but two bionic eyes (long story). We're broke and it ain't no joke. It can't stop us from planning the bold and whimsical wedding of our dreams, but we've had to get pretty creative to make it work, yo!
Deciding on a theme was a difficult decision for my meaty man and me. We both wanted to love the Moroccan idea, but it felt kind of limiting to us, and we wanted something more unique and whimsical… more us. I searched and searched for inspiration, and then I struck gold.
This is what I’m talking about, people! This is the kind of whimsical, vibrant, unexpected, romantic and quasi-eastern feeling we want our wedding to exude!

(image source- click to enlarge)
I love it so much! I love the whimsy of the artwork and its echos of the east. I love the sensual swirliness, the juicy, fruity color deliciousness! I mean, c’mon! The colors here totally echo our bright color board and gorgeous bridesmaid dresses! How fortuitous is that?!
So, yes, I’m still inspired by Morocco. I’m still lurving its magical palettes and tiles and exotica. But, I am also loving India, Indonesia, and beyond! So, taking a hint from the wonderful left side of that amazing picture above, and seeing as our style love crosses country borders (and even continental ones), I hereby submit to you our new wedding theme:
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Miss Meatball, Hollywood
Age and Occupation: 30, Actor/Writer/Office Maven
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Actor/Writer
Engagement Date: October 7, 2007
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: September 16, 2008
Venue: Private Garden/The Bungalow Club
About Me: I love melty cheese and diet coke almost as much as I love my man. I'm from Chicago, he's from NYC, and we both miss public transit and great pizza. We have an adorable muppet dog called Paco. I'm part hippie with a healthy dash of hip hop superstar, have excessive empathy for animals, and have not one, but two bionic eyes (long story). We're broke and it ain't no joke. It can't stop us from planning the bold and whimsical wedding of our dreams, but we've had to get pretty creative to make it work, yo!
Our “dream wedding” went through many incarnations over the seven months it took us to find the right venue. We agonized over decor for several styles of potential weddings: an enchanted garden party, a Mexican fiesta wedding, a rustic wheat-y winery wedding, and a rustic Spanish adobe wedding… but none of them really felt right. I was starting to get really nervous.
Finally, we settled on the perfect location, and suddenly the decor became a no-brainer… lo and behold, it was perfect for us! Our reception venue has a bit of a Moroccan feel to it, so we’re riffing off of that theme to create a magical, moody and mysterious bad-ass party!
Check out the BEAUTIFUL inspiration board that the incredibly talented and loverly ladies at Elizabeth Anne Designs made for me:

(source)
I just love the colored glass votives and the sexy room at the bottom left.
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Miss Meatball, Hollywood
Age and Occupation: 30, Actor/Writer/Office Maven
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Actor/Writer
Engagement Date: October 7, 2007
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: September 16, 2008
Venue: Private Garden/The Bungalow Club
About Me: I love melty cheese and diet coke almost as much as I love my man. I'm from Chicago, he's from NYC, and we both miss public transit and great pizza. We have an adorable muppet dog called Paco. I'm part hippie with a healthy dash of hip hop superstar, have excessive empathy for animals, and have not one, but two bionic eyes (long story). We're broke and it ain't no joke. It can't stop us from planning the bold and whimsical wedding of our dreams, but we've had to get pretty creative to make it work, yo!
Just when we thought we had our colors all figured out—the gals at Elizabeth Anne Designs have really thrown me for a self-questioning loop with this gorgeous board!

(image source)
I mean, I could still use this as a base, and have some purple, fuchsia and peacock blue thrown in here and there, right? Hmm….
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Miss Dumpling, Las Vegas
Age and Occupation: 27, Finance
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 34, Real Estate
Engagement Date: March, 2008
Wedding Date: March, 2009
Blogging Since: August 26, 2008
Venue: Catholic church ceremony & golf course reception
About Me: I grew up in the Deep South, and while most people say I have a thick southern accent, I tend to think it only comes out when I need to use it. Living in Las Vegas has definitely been an adventure and Mr. Dumpling and I are loving every minute of it! We are planning a traditional Catholic wedding ceremony and a reception with lots of DIY! We might even get Elvis to show up! I'm a HUGE Beatles fan, love The Office and can't wait to become a Mrs.!
When I showed Mr. Dumpling the color palette I was thinking about, he said it looked like Neapolitan ice cream. Ha! We both like ice cream, so this was a good thing. This picture accurately shows the exact colors we are using. It’s making me hungry just looking at it!

Image source.
I was browsing through The Knot the other day, and I found more great inspiration from some very stylish brides. Check these out!
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Miss Meatball, Hollywood
Age and Occupation: 30, Actor/Writer/Office Maven
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Actor/Writer
Engagement Date: October 7, 2007
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: September 16, 2008
Venue: Private Garden/The Bungalow Club
About Me: I love melty cheese and diet coke almost as much as I love my man. I'm from Chicago, he's from NYC, and we both miss public transit and great pizza. We have an adorable muppet dog called Paco. I'm part hippie with a healthy dash of hip hop superstar, have excessive empathy for animals, and have not one, but two bionic eyes (long story). We're broke and it ain't no joke. It can't stop us from planning the bold and whimsical wedding of our dreams, but we've had to get pretty creative to make it work, yo!
Deciding on a color scheme is difficult. We know roughly what we want, but we keep jumping between specifics… this shade of blue versus that shade of blue. Y’know… typical wedding indecisiveness.
Our venue has a quasi-Moroccan feel to it, with a lot of burgundy, gold, beige, and tan in the venue already. I want to punch up the color a bit, and have long been in love with a “many colors” concept rather than just two or three theme colors (thanks to Miss Cream Puff). So, right away, I knew I’d like to have my four ’maids in four different but complementary colors, like so (except different colors):

(image source)
We haven’t sorted out whether we want them all in the same dress or not yet—but that’s for a later post.
So, after much debate, we came up with these colors for our scheme:
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Miss Spring Roll, Tampa
Age and Occupation: 23, Ceritifed Pharmacy Technician
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Concert Photographer
Engagement Date: May 1, 2008
Wedding Date: March 2009
Blogging Since: September 16, 2008
Venue: Beach Social Hall
About Me: I'm the stereotypical girl who enjoys sewing, baking, and decorating. I am blessed to share my life with Mr. Spring Roll and our two shih tzu's, Isabella and Gabriella. Hello Kitty, musicals, Target, and Chick-fil-a are a few of my favorite things. I have a fear of fish and Freddy Krueger. Planning our wedding has become a huge part of my life, and I love every minute of it!
After changing our color palette several (hundred) times, we have chosen a final palette of bright orange, pinks, and white. I, like many future brides, love pink and white. I was never a big fan of orange, but I just love how the colors look together.
Here we have my attempt at an inspiration board:

Photos from The Knot and David’s Bridal
How did you choose your color palette?
Miss Hot Cocoa, Boston/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 31, JD/PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Medical Student
Engagement Date: May 30, 2008
Wedding Date: March, 2009
Blogging Since: April, 2008
Venue: Ritz Carlton, Marina Del Rey
About Me:
I am a professional student by day and an amateur cupcake taster, bargain shopper, and wedding planner by night. I am obsessed with NPR, the Food Network, paper, dance shows, Anthropologie, post-structuralist theory, Weddingbee!, "The Office," and celebrity gossip. When not procrastinating from my dissertation, I spend time catering to Jellyby, our overly anxious shih tzu, and getting to know Mr. Hot Cocoa. We have only been dating for fifteen years, so it's like I'm in love with a stranger! From the East Coast, we are planning a Jewish-Chinese Extravaganza in L.A., where we both grew up.
For some people, it’s chocolate. For others, it’s bad boys, or tequila. My vice? Paper. I love it. I love it so much that I live above a Paper Source. Seriously. In the same building.

[Image source]
Anyway, this is all just a set up to telling you about the fun little freebie I picked up at the Paper Source the other day:
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Miss Lemonade, Austin/San Antonio
Age and Occupation: 28, Bureaucrat
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Music Management
Engagement Date: December 21, 2007
Wedding Date: April, 2009
Blogging Since: August 22, 2008
Venue: Country Club ceremony, ballroom reception
About Me: I’m a total wonkette who is lucky enough to be surrounded by her favorite things on a daily basis – awesome music, the great State of Texas and of course, Mr. Lemonade! I find any excuse I can to craft something and am completely infatuated with the 1950’s, all things Kennedy, and my furbaby Vida.
When we first got engaged, I figured we had the color scheme thing in the bag. I mean, I have a very unique engagement ring that happens to have a colored main stone. Thus, we defaulted to a color scheme of aquamarine and platinum. Done and done.
Um, not so fast there! After about two days of research, we started to realize that what most companies and vendors call aquamarine or aqua is really more of the ever so popular Tiffany blue. Now, don’t get me wrong—I love me some Tiffany’s (my little sister and I collect their silver), but we really did not want to theme our wedding after a store, especially since the ring isn’t from there. In case you’re wondering, it was made by a guy named Yanni who shares my faith and lives in Brooklyn.
At this point, we really had no idea where to go next. Pink was out of the question—while I am a girly girl (one of THE girliest) I have a feeling Mr. Lemonade isn’t, and my love affair for all things pink passed a few years ago. We tossed around the idea of NO color for a while with the idea of a totally pure, all white and ivory palette. This too wasn’t doing it for us. We were stumped. That is, until I went to Neiman’s.
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Miss Champagne, DC/Vail/Colorado
Age and Occupation: 26, Eye Doctor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Attorney
Engagement Date: March 13, 2006
Wedding Date: February 2009
Blogging Since: July 30, 2008
Venue: Small church ceremony with mountain-view log cabin reception
About Me: I'm a small town mountain girl with a city heart. Found my way to the east coast, and Mr. Champagne kept me here so we're planning a wedding from afar in my hometown Vail, Colorado. I'm secretly obsessed with reality TV, Wii games where I can shoot a gun, country music, and Caesar: Dog Whisperer. I also spend time pretending to golf, backseat driving, having one way conversations with our MinPin Maxwell, loving champagne, and wedding perfecting… I mean, planning. I use way too many repeated symbols and letters when I write, and I'll love Mr. Champagne endlessly…
When I started looking at linens for our tablecloths and napkins and such, there was one pattern I couldn’t get out of my mind. Now I didn’t really know what it was called- but I explained to our coordinator, Joann, that I knew the pattern had swirlies and flowerly patterns but not really flowers. Pretty lousy description, but she sent me back some fabric swatches from bbj linens and cloth connection, and I found my second (wait, doggie Champ is my second- so this is my third) love… damask.
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