What To Do With All Those Cards

We got some really beautiful cards for our wedding, but let's face it - how often do you go back and read those messages? It took me a while to let go and recycle them, but not before keeping a little piece of each and making this simple frame.

I punched a circular button shape from each card using a Martha Stewart punch. I then separated the buttons into color groups, just to keep things even. I started out clumping the buttons haphazardly, being careful not too have too much of one color group in any one place. But I ended up hating it, pulling up all the buttons, and arranging them neatly. It took a while to arrange them perfectly, but I got it eventually. I'm pleased :o)

Something Old, Something New...

I felt pretty obligated to adhere to this old bridal tradition. The earrings I wore were both old and borrowed (from one of my favorite aunts, who is putting on my necklace below).

And this was my blue:

And I had a whole slew of new!
Shoes from Kate Spade:

Necklace from Macy's:

Headpiece from Wedding Belles in New Orleans:

My Wedding Dress!

I love my wedding dress. It is so me. I got it at Kleinfeld in New York. Yes, the Say Yes to the Dress place. I even met Ronnie! But wait, let's go backward. B proposed to me in June, less than two months before we were slated to move from New York to New Orleans. I love Nola, but I'd be damned if I shopped for wedding dresses anywhere other than NYC. I went to a few places, including R&K Bridal. Long story short - I found my dress at both places and bartering ensued! I got my dress for $1800 instead of $2200, which was sweet.
This is a (illegal) picture my friend took of me in my dress at Kleinfeld. Check out that tan.

And this is my dress featured on another bride on Say Yes to the Dress, Season 5, Episode 8!

If I had to go back and do it all over again (with more time, geez - bear in mind I was also lifeguarding and trying to book my venue and caterer at the same time), I'd visit a couple more places, including Pronovias and other boutiques carrying just one designer. But alas - I think my dress was pretty awesome. I do have some tips from wedding dress shopping --

• Don't go with too many people. I took one trustworthy friend for every shopping trip. I love my mom, but she doesn't live in New York and let's just say she's very opinionated. I have a handful of New York friends scattered all over the city, but never had a core group of girls. So one good friend at a time worked out really well.
• With some exceptions, almost all dresses will look good on you. Even the most school-marmy dresses are cut in a way to flatter the body. That is why they are so expensive. You just have to decide on your style. I told my bridal consultants no lace, no sparkles, jewel-y things.
• Even though you know your style, be open! I ended up getting a layered chiffon dress, which could be interpreted as ruffles. If you had asked me if I wanted ruffles prior to shopping, of course I would say hell no. But be open to at least trying stuff on. Bridal consultants (especially at Kleinfeld) know what they are doing.
• On a related note, there are such thing as old lady dresses and cute young girl dresses - it's in your best interest to find the in-between.
• Take your time. Devote the whole day to dress shopping. And go several days, and with several months in advance if you can. A wedding dress isn't something you want to buy without a lot of thought first, especially with the pricetag
• Don't lose too much weight. I lost 10 lbs between my first and second fitting. There was some panic at the end regarding whether or not the thing would actually fit in the end. Ugh. Lose the weight evenly (if you plan to lose weight) throughout your engagement if you can. I did South Beach and I swear to you, 15 lbs melted off of me in a matter of a couple months.
• Don't try on anything you can't afford. Really - just don't.
• They say white looks good on dark skin...but they're wrong. Whitey-white was a little much for me. You will (hopefully) be the only one with a white dress on at your wedding, so if you're convinced you want white, slightly off-white will still look white. My dress was ivory.

That's all I got. If anyone has anything to add or object, please comment!

Bridesmaids Dresses and Shoes

Similar to jewelry, I think I stressed out more about my bridesmaids' dresses than my own! I know it's silly, but I just wanted them to look good and feel comfortable. I wanted them to have some choice points but I also wanted to have a lot of say without being a bridezilla. So, I went with Aria. Aria is great -- they have a ton of styles and fabrics. Plus they are reasonably priced around $200 a pop. The color I chose, Mist, was an iridescent teal (more on the blue side than green) and complimented my other color, cherry red, really well. The girls looked fantastic holding red daisies. Anyway, I sent the girls a link to the website and told them to tell me their top two or so picks. It turned out that all girls except my sister chose one of two dresses. My sister was happy to pick from the two and voila - semi-matching bridesmaids. Aria even has ties to coordinate the men, all the groomsmen (and my bridesman) got one. And check out my super cute flower girl. Dress also courtesy of Aria.

As for shoes, I went with Unforgettable Moments by Lela Rose dyeable shoes - all under $50. The girls chose between two pairs, one high and low heel option. Pretty, right?

Wedding Stuff, Redux: Bridesmaids' Jewelry

We are coming up on our first anniversary and I realize how much I didn't post about our wedding and the different things we incorporated into it. I'll start with jewelry. I was way more concerned with my bridesmaid's jewelry than my own, mainly because their jewelry was my gift to them. I custom ordered individual pieces from a woman on etsy from the store All Things Tinsel. Everyone got the same earrings - pretty droplet briolettes .

The necklaces were designed individually. I tried to reflect the girls' style. I think I was successful - they all seemed pretty pleased:
This versatile one went to my sister in law. She's really tall and her dress had a high neckline:

This was for my other sister in law, whose neckline was lower. I love how dainty this one is. It looked great with her dress.

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My friend wore this one. Love the layered look:

My sister wore this one, which can also be worn different ways asymmetrically:

Finally, my maid of honor wore this one. It's my fave.

I wanted the necklaces to compliment the dresses, but didn't want them to be too matchy-matchy. I think it all worked out well. Speaking of dresses, see the next post!

And for all things wedding-related, click here.

The Venue

I almost forgot to post about one of my favorite things about our wedding - Bay 7 at the American Tobacco Campus. I always knew I wanted to have the reception somewhere unique, but I'm not an outdoors reception kind of girl - I get too nervous about weather, logistics, etc. A hotel wouldn't cut it, mainly because I couldn't find one that wasn't...nondescript? Bay 7 was perfect. The room was so open and had huge sky lights, and some guests even commented they felt like they were outside. There was an indoor waterfall and lots of wood. By the evening, the room got nice and dark. We are so happy we went with Bay 7.

In front of the water tower outside.

Best Man's speech, fountain in the back:

A nice, open dance floor:

We had an awesome duo play during cocktails and dinner - The Eversole Brothers.

The view from below:

Nighttime lights:

Blooms

Surprisingly, flowers were something I simply did not care about for the wedding. I know flowers are supposed to be a huge part of the wedding aesthetic, but I just never got into combing through magazines obsessing over ridiculously expensive flower arrangements. Luckily, I have a great mom and we worked with some wonderful florists. We worked with a local Durham florist for the bouquets and boutonnieres and large arrangements for the church and reception. We used Whole Foods for the table arrangements. My single request was as follows: red. That's all I wanted. Monochromatic beautiful bright red. I ended up with classic red roses tightly packed.

The bridesmaids carried daisies that matched the guys' boutonnieres. Check out B's sweet tie. It's by Tom Ford.

We placed gladiolas in the church (which give you a big bang for your buck, I learned), and used a combination for the large table centerpiece.

After pictures, the bridesmaids placed their arrangements around the cake.

Considering I barely cared about flowers, I'm pretty happy with the way it all turned out.

Just Dance.

We supplied our guests with flip flops so they could get their dance on. My dad made good use out of them :o)

Table Numbers - revealed!

I began crafting these eight months in advance. And to be fair, my mom did most of the actual embroidering. But hey - we had 23 tables. And I am a busy grad student. I know, excuses, excuses. Anyway, I did the outlining and mom did a lot of the filling in. I used glue to affix plastic 7'' plates to the back of the embroidery hoops and stood them up on plate display stands. Love!

Placecards!

I cannot believe my photographer sent our photos to us well over a month ago and I have yet to post pictures of all the wedding details. I'm going to flood you with wedding details now, beginning with the place cards I slaved over for weeks. I used Gartner white pearl place cards purchased from Michael's. These fold down the middle. I downloaded the template online and changed the alignment from horizontal to vertical in Word. Then, I manually typed in everyone's name. It took f o r e v e r. After all 200+ place cards were printed, I used spray adhesive to affix 1" square fabric swatches to the inside of every folded card. I carefully sprayed more adhesive to permanently fold the place card.

I wanted my place cards to look like little tags, so I put tape on my paper cutter to ensure consistent corner cutting and used a single hole punch at the top of each tag.

I used sewing pins (with red ends, of course!) to hang the tags on two huge cork boards. Spacing the tags out was a royal pain, but the end product was fabulous. See below!

The Bride and Groom Didn't Get a Placecard

But they did get an awesome chair decorations! I painted these way ahead of the wedding and cut out the bridal gown from a really beautiful card I got at one of my bridal showers. The suit came from a scrapbooking kit. I think they turned out pretty nicely. Speaking of placecards, the display I made turned out awesome. However, I left my camera at home and don't have the pictures yet so I'm going to hold off on posting them for now.

Photobooth!

Ever since I found out it was regular wedding practice to rent a photobooth I knew I had to have one. I used Carolina Photobooths and Brad, the owner, couldn't have been easier to work with. He even made us a fabulous custom graphic. Check out just a few of my favorites, including one of my lovely photographer, Jessi Blakely of Tamera Lackey photography!