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When I began playing in the wedding blogosphere looking for inspiration for our special day, I came pretty close to being overwhelmed. Between the blogs, the magazines, Pinterest, and more, it’s easy to hit your saturation point fast. But I took a deep breath and stepped back, and thought about what I wanted our wedding aesthetic to reflect. The answer was, quite simply, our general style. My personal style is classic, girly, and vintage. I wear sweet little dresses to work with such frequency that people comment when I come into the office in pants. I wore bows in my hair regularly in college…you get the idea. So as I browsed, there was lots of stuff that appealed to me, but something that jumped out to me right away.
Image via Grey Likes Weddings / Florals by Studio Fleurette / Photos by Emily Steffen
I think it’s so sweet when people have a prior connection with their wedding date. A friend of mine got married on this past New Year’s Eve. That also happened to be her birthday, and the date they had gotten engaged the previous year…so she had a lot of emotional investment in the date, to say the least. I’ve also heard of people getting married on their dating anniversary, or honoring happily married parents or grandparents by marrying on their anniversary, and I just think it is so precious. However, something like that’s not really in the cards for us—we have no close grandparents, and both sets of parents are divorced. Our relationship started very casually, so though we picked a date to celebrate as our anniversary, it’s not really accurate, so not at all worth planning a wedding around. SO, how did we choose a wedding date? Well. We have a joke in south Louisiana that we have four seasons: crawfish, hurricane, Mardi Gras, and football.
A New Orleanian response to each image: a) Yum! (Image via Johnny G’s) b) Katrina, you biatch (Image via WeatherRick.com) c) Throw me something, mister! (Image via infoplease) d) Who dat! (Image via New Orleans Saints)
Amusing? Yes. True? Also yes.
Mr. Archer and I had discussed our wedding priorities and checked in with the parental units, I had made lists, we had built the framework of a budget and a guest list…you get the idea. Making decisions without all the pertinent information really stresses me out—I can play the what-if game for days, so all of this legwork was a necessary evil. But it was done and we were ready to choose a wedding location.
Rather than bore you with the nitty-gritty of our extensive discussion, I’m going to break out a relic from my sorority days: the pro-con-pro. As recruitment chair, we used this anytime something was up for debate. I use it now and again in real life—I like the positivity of ending on a pro. A snippet of our evaluation process:
A. New York—Pro: A decent chunk of my family still lives the area, so it would be convenient for them. Con: It may be my childhood home, but I don’t really feel any connection to the area, and Mr. A doesn’t have one. Pro: My mom would be thrilled!
B. Southern California-–Pro: We live here! Planning locally is less of a headache. Con: Hello, budget buster! The gorgeous venues I was eyeing were out of our smallish budget. And high cost of living means that everything is pricier—and weddings are spendy enough, thanks. Pro: LA is the place we moved to, somewhere new alone together, and I like the idea of celebrating our wedding day with that forward-looking mentality.
C. Destination-–Pro: Lots of options for locations—like somewhere beachy or somewhere super romantic…insert Parisian daydream here. Con: I’m a bit of a control freak, so the idea of booking a resort and then just showing up for the wedding without being totally involved in the process made me want to melt down. Pro: I like the idea of a really intimate guest list.
As soon as Mr. Archer and I announced our engagement, the questions started coming, fast and furious. I was immediately a little overwhelmed, and tried to buy a little thinking time by telling people we were going to enjoy our busy summer season as an engaged couple and wait to plan in the fall. But booking our photographers had squelched that plan, and I quickly realized that we had a LOT of stuff to figure out before we could even really start planning this wedding. And number one on the list—where the hell were we going to get married?!?
Geographically, we’re more than a little all over the place. I was born in Trinidad and raised mostly in New York, Mr. A was born and raised in New Orleans, where we met and fell in love. We live together in Los Angeles now but look for any excuse to travel, to somewhere new or old. Did you catch all that? Long story short, it boiled down to four major contenders for the wedding locale, all with countless amazing venue options. (FYI, our guests are pretty evenly distributed across the country, so this was going to be a destination wedding for a lot of people regardless of our choice.)
We live in Los Angeles, so we were definitely considering venues in and around the greater LA area. Ohmigods, hive—gorgeousness abounds! There was the insane view and setting at Casa Romantica, the heaven that is Calamigos Ranch in Malibu (Miss Warbler, you lucky chick!), or the sheerly cool and effortless style of the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. And these are just three of like a zillion beautiful venues I came across in the area.
Casa Romantica (Image via Boutwell Studios), Calamigos Ranch (Image via Richelle Dante Photogaphy / Photo by Andrew Zelinko), The Ace (Image via Anika London)
As a little girl, I dreamed of getting married at Washington Irving’ s Sunnyside, a historic estate not far from where I was raised in the suburbs of New York City. Now that I was actually planning a wedding, not just dreaming of one, that venue remained tempting, along with several other lovely ones in Westchester—from ballrooms to orchards.
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
When Mr. Archer and I first got engaged, I was insistent that we were not going to jump headfirst into wedding planning, that I just wanted to enjoy being engaged and I didn’t have the time to plan a wedding. Yeahhhhh right. The only person I was kidding was myself, but Mr. A and the rest of our loved ones gamely humored me. Then one day, the wedding world kind of slapped me in the face, and I, a perpetual planner, jumped in headfirst! Let me back it up.
I was browsing fashion blogs at work, checking out one of our office’s and my favorites, Kendi Everyday. From stalking reading, I knew that she and her husband were wedding photographers, and I had admired their site and blog when it was crosslinked. But I was SO not looking for a photographer when I came across the blog post of a special they were running—a MAJOR discount (like 65%!!!). The catch—I had like 10 days to sign the contract and make full payment. I’m not exaggerating here; if anything, it was less. For someone who researches most decisions to the point of obscurity, even considering this was out of character.
I began to do as much research as I possibly could as quickly as I could. I made a list of potential photographers, got quotes from them all, and compared them. I stalked the Photographers Skeen website, emailed them with a list of questions, and then talked to my mom and Mr. A. As you can imagine—it was an unproductive day at work.
First things first—I was in love with the images they were capturing. While I love all things vintage, when it came to our wedding photography I wanted a cleaner look, really classic. So I wasn’t looking for anything super dreamy or stylized, though that style is beautiful…
Image via Ruffled / Photo by Laura Leslie Photography
It was most important to me that the emotion and joy of the day ring clear from the image. I wanted our pictures to tell the story of our day and our love, and Bryan and Kendi do just that:
Holy hell, y’all. I’m a blogger bee. HI!
I didn’t dare think of what writing this post would be like, because I was so afraid I’d never get that chance. Now I find I’m not sure what to say. Don’t worry…that’s pretty rare, and it won’t last long!
Yup, I went there. Sally Fields, Oscars 1985 / Via YouTube
When I saw the email from Pengy in my inbox, I stared at it for about 15 seconds before I was brave enough to open it. I was dreading the rejection. But as I read, I broke out in a silent celebration—since I was sitting at my desk at work. I ran out into the showroom to call Mr. Archer and tell him right away!
So who are the Archers?
Well, we’re college sweethearts who are still nauseatingly infatuated.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Our friend Margaret from the new travel site Enrout is back this week to share with us her ideas for Miss Doily’s dream honeymoon! Revisit Margaret’s great honeymoon series on Weddingbee here.
~~~
Gumbo. Crawfish. Jazz. New Orleans is a city bursting with culture and will make a fantastic honeymoon destination for Mr. D and Miss Doily. The weather will be perfect in March after her wedding, with temperatures in the 70s. I’m really excited to share a $2000, five day tour of New Orleans with you all!
Where to Go
New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz so one must sample the jazz scene. Preservation Hall is a venue where you can experience jazz in its original form. There are also two festivals happening around Miss Doily’s honeymoon timeframe: the French Quarter Festival (April 7 - 10) featuring local musicians and the New Orleans Jazz Festival (April 27 - May 6) featuring the best of New Orleans jazz.
I can’t believe how fast the year flew by. I remember sending our invitations, shopping for dresses and the jewelry making adventures during planning.
For my gift to the hubs, I had to make it. I just couldn’t avoid crafts for this. For crying out loud, the first year gift’s tradition is paper. Doesn’t that scream, craft me!?
Anywho, I went to Hobby Lobby, and picked up scrapbook paper (in our wedding colors and some lovey dovey paper prints) with a candy jar. I was on a mission.
The idea? To show the hubs that it’s the small things that matter. Tiny, small favors that brighten the day. I wrote down 52 small favors to do for my husband (one each week this year). These favors range from washing his car to cooking up his favorite meal to giving him “me” days in the house.
This week, he picked the one where I say I’ll do all the dishes this week. Ack!
Here are the 52 small favors all folded up.
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After the money dance was over, Mom BF informed me that we should change into our “going away” outfits since our reception was almost over, time wise. So, I went in the back and Mom BF helped me change into my going away dress. I got my dress at JCPenney’s for about $30. Ironically, it sort of matched our favor boxes’ pattern.
After that was done, Mr. BF went in the room to change. In the meantime, I tried to help Mom BF load my luggage in Mr. BF’s car, while people were still dancing around. Then I heard it: the beginning of the second line!
Instinctively, I ran back in there to see what was going on! The second line dance is notoriously the last dance where the bride/groom lead the line of guests around the dance floor. Bride/groom wave fancy umbrellas, guests wave napkins. It’s fun. There are tons of videos on YouTube if you’re curious to see one in action.
So, I go inside, and Mr. BF is still changing. I start freaking out.
After eating some delicious cake, drinking a little more and of course, more boogie-time, it was time to toss that bouquet!
I had a toss bouquet made by the florist, because I’m totally sentimental and couldn’t imagine my bouquet being ripped to shreds by single ladies. I wish I could tell you that I did something creative with my bouquet, but nope, it’s just dry, sitting on a shelf in my craft room. ::sigh:: (ideas are welcome at this point)
After our formals FULL of smiles, I changed into my awesome platform flip flops (heh, I haven’t worn platforms since high school) and we were asked to get ready to dance.
I will openly admit that Mr. Ballet Flat and I have never (if memory serves me right) danced together. We were thinking about classes, but that was too much pressure. I thought in my head about 2002 senior prom, when I kinda just swayed around in a circle with one of my good friends. With 150 of our family and friends watching, my mentality went from OMG!, to whatever… let’s just dance prom style!
**cue Aerosmith’s “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing”** (My favorite song from my favorite movie… so unoriginal, I know.)
It started out innocently, with a lot of thoughts like, ‘OMG we’re married, people are gonna get crazy drunk here because it’s NOLA, I can’t wait to be at Disney World tomorrow…’ Oh yeah, my thoughts were pretty random.
Then, oops! I stepped all over Mr. Ballet Flat. He was miraculously OK and all I was doing was laughing. Maybe I was a little nervous… OK, must.concentrate.now.
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Mr. Ballet Flat and I will be honeymooning in Orlando. For the majority of the honeymoon, we decided to stay in a vacation home.
Since we are road tripping it to Orlando, which is a good 8-9 hours away from New Orleans, we definitely want to rest up the night of our wedding so we can hit the road well-rested the next morning. We were originally looking at hotels in Biloxi, Mississippi, because it’s not too far from New Orleans at all and would shave an hour or so off the travel time for us the next day. Plus, their casino hotels, for the most part, are pretty nice. The problem? These hotels wanted upwards of $400/night, and that’s a little over budget for us.
So, we decided to try Priceline to bid on a nice 4 star hotel. We have used Priceline for mini vacations that we have taken before and have been really satisfied with the hotels.
Priceline is really easy to use. You just name your city and date, then click on the type of hotel you want (1,2,3,4 star), choose the area of the city you want to stay in, name your price, and let Priceline do the work. The only risk is you are obligating yourself to whatever hotel takes your bid, so it can be a shot in the dark. However, if you choose a higher star hotel, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, since those are known as nicer hotels.
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Well, so far, I’ve had three gift ideas for my bridesmaids.
1. Jewelry set - earrings and necklace
2. Prettied up Old Navy flip flops using tons of bling!
3. A surprise gift (my bridesmaids have been known to read this blog and I do NOT want them to see this gift until the big day!)
Here’s a fourth fun idea that I found while registering for towels at Macy’s.
These are hand painted martini glasses, and while there are glasses that are wedding related, I wanted to give the girls something for them to relate to and for them to place on their desks at work or at home with pride!
I’d rather not show off the exact ones I will be giving them (yet), but I noticed Lolita has made a few fellow bee martini glasses. It’s kind of neat to see these!
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Image source
Glamour Magazine is currently celebrating its 70th birthday this year. (Happy Birthday Glamour!) In turn, they are offering readers a year’s subscription for $1.50 (no… the decimal is in the right place!), since that was the price of the subscription in 1939. This is for a limited time, so if you are interested, click here!
Of course, we hear from our grandmothers and mothers that we need something OLD, something NEW, something BORROWED, and something BLUE. I was thinking this would be pretty simple, because I have my great-grandmother’s rosary as my OLD, my dress as my NEW, and my jewelry (hopefully) will be BORROWED, but I just couldn’t think of a visible blue. I wanted it to be something visible, so that my family members could say, “Ah, there’s her blue.” I had thought about dyeing my crinoline, a la Avocado’s post, but I was afraid of messing up an expensive crinoline! So, I thought about my garter instead. I originally wanted an LSU garter, since that’s my and Mr. BF’s alma mater. I went online, and nothing was grabbing my attention. I’m really not much of a lace fan, so I knew I’d have trouble with lacy garters.
Out of boredom, I logged onto Etsy and found Garter Lady. She has CUTE garters at really reasonable prices! Check out some of what she has!
I immediately thought of Mrs. Sea Breeze with her purple wedding day accessories when I saw this one!
Image source
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