Musings

My Best Friend's Wedding - 

Photocred goes to D's bestie R. This was my favorite "guest snap" of the day! #Glowing

This past weekend I had the distinct honor of witnessing one of my nearest and dearest friends get married. D (who was my MOH) and her new hubby G were simply glowing throughout the whole day and I couldn't be happier for them. Now they are off on an amazing honeymoon some of which will be spent at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival! Jealous!

Particular About Pumpkins -

I mentioned in my blog yesterday that I was planning on getting white pumpkins for my entertainment center. When that didn't work out, I found the cheapest (4 for $16!), biggest, orange pumpkins I could find and spray painted them white. They turned out great but I ended up using a half of can of white primer and a whole can and a half of white spray paint! The process is pretty self explanatory, but here's some reference pictures.

Before

After taping the stems

Final look!

Handstand Hottie - 

If you are friends with me on my personal FB page, you know that I have been obsessed with doing handstands while taking my picture with a self timer app (#NotVainAtAll). I am slowly but surely working on my regular handstand but in the meantime, I am working (twerking) on my balance and trying to look cool in Instagram pictures. Take a lookie, cookie!

One day I'll be able to do a regular handstand and Instagram will be the first to know! #SocialMediaDragQueen

Wedding Recap {Ceremony}

When I wrote my blog post, 12 Steps to a Perfect Wedding, one of the steps is to "Make people glass cases of emotion." This, is still true. You don't want your wedding guests checking out after you walk down the aisle because they have already been to this wedding ceremony 5 times this summer. This is actually one of the reasons why The Mister and I decided to write our own vows. In my experience, Reverends/Priests/Officiants try to talk you out of writing your own vows. Mostly because they have seen many people flub what they are going to say. But, if you are adamant about writing them, stick with it. It's usually 30 seconds to a minute of your life and so worth it in the end. I will admit though - to this day I can not watch my wedding video. I hate (HATE) public speaking and although I can work a room like no other, talking in front of a bunch of people while I am the center of attention is not my cup of tea. Alas, I am sure in a few more years I will be able to watch it.

Which brings me to wedding tip #3 - Not to make anyone nervous and this should be a pretty obvious tip BUT, all eyes are on YOU during your wedding ceremony. Which also means all eyes (and pictures) are on your alter/the spot where the officiant is marrying you. With the being said, you need to make sure that this space is immaculate and picture perfect. Example - If there is wood paneling anywhere near where you are getting married/having your reception, RUN...run very far away and don't look back. After all, these are the prime pictures...this is what the day is about..YOU and your partner getting married.

^ You're doing it wrong...

Our chapel was perfect as it had a huge blank wall where we were getting married. When I was planning out the decor I made sure to Google other weddings that were in this location. As I was Googling (stalking) around I saw that couples had decorated the wall...BUT they also had the American flag/RI flag in the background of their pictures. If that's your cup of tea, forgive me when I say that you should never have flags (by accident) in the background of your wedding (and especially ceremony) pictures. That brings me to wedding tip #4 - Don't be afraid to ask any venue to move things that you don't want in your pictures. Not only that...but BE AWARE, visit your wedding location with judgmental eyes. Just to give you and idea - When we looked at the space for our reception they had Christmas lights on their outdoor deck left over from Christmas (it was February at this point) and I requested they remove them before our wedding in September (more on that later this week). Be ruthless...these are your pictures, this is YOUR wedding and you shouldn't take no for an answer. Anywhoo, sorry for the wall of words/rant, without further ado...here are some ceremony shots -

This was our program. On the back it had all the ceremony info/everyone in the bridal party's name. The handkerchiefs were make by my mom and embroidered. This one was of my favorite touches of the wedding. Remember, always make every little thing, a little thing.

#SoNervous

#Love - Canvases were ordered off of Etsy and gave the PERFECT touch to our ceremony. Not to mention they made our pictures timeless and chic. I can not even tell you how many complements we got from those canvases. 

#ReadyForADrank

All of our wedding guest were held up by our Reverend so we could get this picture. Moral of this story - Do whatever you.need.to.do. to capture that perfect shot. 

Wedding Recap {Getting Glam/Send Off}

I was adamant about all of the ladies in my wedding party getting glam together. I am one of those girls that looks forward to getting ready with my girlfriends more so than the actual event. I also insisted that everyone match so that our pictures would, of course, be even more perfect. Wedding tip number one - Plan your wedding based around your pictures...Your photographer is simply there to snap the pic...YOU are the one that needs to think of the clever concepts.

The robes were my gift to them. They even had their first initial monogrammed on them! And my requirement for shoes were silver (the ladies wore grey chiffon) and as sparkly as you can get.

After the glam squad finished, I insisted we take pictures in front of our wedding trolley. We got ready at my Grandmother's house. She has a huge black top drive way and I had this vision of the trolley parking parallel to said drive way and all of us taking pictures in front of it with parasols. I can say with confidence that those parasols were the best purchase of the whole wedding. Wedding tip number two - If you need to purchase a prop for everyone in the bridal party, try wholesale websites. I got these parasols for $2.99 a piece!

#LookBackAtIt

Stay tuned for more wedding recaps this whole week!

Tuesday Treasure

Today I thought I would take the opportunity to showcase my wedding bouquet and The Mister's boutonniere. They were both handmade out of feathers and bling and were pret-ty spectacular.

#FurBaby

#BlingyBout

This may not be every one's cup of tea as I know people associate weddings with flowers. We made sure we still had fresh flowers on our tables and we had a bloom bar for our wedding favors where everyone could take home a bundle of fresh blooms.

Can we just stop and stare for a second at how amazing a feather bouquet looks against a grey chiffon bridesmaids dress?!?! #maj

#SoftnessForDays

#GroomsmanBlingyBout

Speaking of weddings - I have finally found all of our wedding photos WITH the photographer's watermark on them. With that being said, y'all can FINALLY (after almost three years) expect a proper write up on my wedding day! #getexcited

All bouquets and boutonnieres were purchased off of Etsy. #duh

Tuesday Treasure

Since today is Tuesday and I love me some alliteration, I decided to showcase something I treasure...my wedding invitation shadow box! It's home is our bedroom wall -

As you can see, we went completely out of the box for our invitations. I know white invitations are traditional but nothing about our wedding was traditional and I wanted to showcase that from the very first impression that people got of our wedding. The top card is the reception card. On one side it had all the reception info and of the other side it had this quote-

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times,
always with the same person."

The middle card was the ceremony card -

And on the back of the ceremony card was this quote - 

"To get the full value of joy
you must have someone to divide it with."

Our response cards were double sided as well. On one side it had your meal options and then on the other side it had a space for you to give the married couple to be (us) some marriage advice. One of these days I will dig those out of  my wedding bins and do something crafty with them. My favorite piece of advice? "Never go to bed angry or with someone else." 

Our invitation suite was purchased off of Etsy.

Antique Store Finds

I have mentioned this before - For our wedding centerpieces, The Mister and I scoured antique stores. Each table was a different vignette. Antique kitchen ware, antique cameras, coffee table books, antique bottles with flowers in them. We had our reception at The Roger Williams Park Casino. It is a two floor venue and the bottom floor is very dark wood, fireplace-y and masculine (cocktail hour). While the top floor (dinner and dancing) is very vibrant, colorful and Renaissance-y. I could not see doing the typical floral centerpieces as they would have fought too much with the natural decor. So, the way I looked at it was very much the way I look at decorating my floor to ceiling shelves and I very much stayed true to my style of mixing the old with the new.

The great thing about doing centerpieces that were actual objects and not flowers is that people couldn't take them home! Trust me though, people tried. Instead, we had a "bloom bar" where people could get as many beautiful blooms as they wanted to. It played into the whole "being green" thing and it was a unique idea (from my own brain, not Pinterest) that I have yet to see at another wedding. 

LeFebvre Photo

LeFebvre Photo

The other great thing about the antique centerpieces is that I got to keep everything and decorate our (then) new apartment with all of my wares! Here are a few pieces that I love...

I have about 5 or 6 of these cameras (all different kinds) and they look amazing any where I put them in my house. 

This piece is actually cast iron and something I was so excited to find when I did. It was a "toy kitchen" back in the day. Just goes to show you how well toys were made and how crappy they are made now.

For me, the rustier, the better! I am like an American Picker!

This is an old school ice cream maker. I love that it's from MA..it just has so much charm!