by Blue-Eyed Bride on February 29, 2008
Ever since the day that Todd and I were walking through the Horseshoe and saw about 12 little girls celebrating a birthday and running around in pink tulle dresses with fairy wings and wands, I realized that planning birthday parties could be so much fun!
I have a lot of friends that are about to plan their child’s first birthday– you know who you are! I’ve been having a lot of fun with Photoshop brainstorming event ideas and I created two inspiration boards for birthday parties; one for a girl and one for a boy.
The first is a pink paisley inspired garden party.
The second inspiration board is for a boy’s pirate inspired birthday party.
by Blue-Eyed Bride on February 27, 2008
These are just a couple of things that I think are wonderful, adorable, or essential.
definitely not essential, but certainly wonderful, adorable and nice to look at!
from the Williams Sonoma acorn line… too pretty to use!
if I could find this, I’d use it at the wedding and at home… gorgeous!
i think we can all agree that THIS is essential!
our every day china pattern by Juliska– pretty essential, I think.
These pewter chargers and glasses from Williams Sonoma are the perfect blend of masculine and feminine. Probably not essential, but they’d make any table look beautiful!
by Blue-Eyed Bride on February 27, 2008
The first official day of Spring is so close, but the weather seems to be getting colder with each passing day. We were in the 70s and wearing shorts a few weeks ago and now we’re all bundled up again. I’ll be the first one to tell you that I’m in no hurry for our usual South Carolina summer, but I’m ready for something to give a little toward the 60s and 70s.
That Maui honeymoon can’t come fast enough! The weather should be in the 80s and the resort is just stunning. We brainstormed a lot over where to go on our honeymoon and knew that if we went to Europe we’d spend all of our money on the flights and train rides and that if we went to the Caribbean we might get tired of the smaller resorts. We chose the Grande Wailea in Maui after many conversations and many trips to Barnes and Noble to read about our possible destinations. Our package gets us an ocean view room, a convertible for a week, and the standard lei greeting. We’re pretty excited! We’ve booked a few day trips to go hiking through the rainforest, go snorkeling, and sailing.
Here’s a picture of the Grand Wailea. We’re already starting to think about “base tans” and how we don’t want to fry on the first day or be the whitest people on the beach.
Todd and I both need a vacation in the worst way and I’m starting to look forward to the honeymoon more than the wedding. I can’t believe that on May 5 we’ll leave for Maui and the wedding will be a wonderful memory!
by Blue-Eyed Bride on February 26, 2008
Todd and I brainstormed a lot over what kind of guest book would we have. I didn’t want to use the usual sheets from my bride book as the guest book because I wanted a little more than just someone’s signature on a line. I wanted to create an opportunity for guests to leave us notes and give us a book that we’ll want to look back through later.
I love the idea of the Polaroid guest book where the bride and groom provide a big blank book and have an attendant at the entrance to take Polaroid pictures of all of the guests. Then the guests attach their picture to the book and sign around their picture. The only problem is that I don’t have a Polaroid camera and I don’t want to assign someone to take those pictures all night.
from theknot.com
I also loved the idea of a guest book quilt. The bride and groom provide little quilt squares and markers for the guests, the guests sign them, and then the bride and groom have the squares sewn into a quilt that they can use forever and pass down through the generations. It does sound like a lot of work, though.
quilt from Findgift.com
We decided on another idea. For Christmas, I used kodakgallery.com to create coffee table-style photo albums for my parents and brother. I scanned in hundreds of old pictures and then uploaded them all into kodakgallery.com. The website is so easy and you can go back and place pictures on each page just as you want it. I’ve decided to do the same thing for our guest book. I’ve created a book of pictures of Todd and me throughout our courtship and I’ve left every other page blank so our wedding guests can sign all around our pictures. I hope it goes over well. I know that we’ll go back and look through it all the time to remember the wedding day, the special guests that attended, and to look at pictures from all of our fun experiences together!
from kodakgallery.com
by Blue-Eyed Bride on February 26, 2008
A huge trend in wedding and event planning is candy buffets. We’ve jumped on the bandwagon and decided to have a candy buffet at our reception set up as guests exit and leave.
Candy buffets are all fun, but I’ve definitely seen some that are pretty and even more personal than others. Some candy buffets feature every color of the rainbow and some stick wtih the wedding colors. We’re doing the latter. Here is a picture of a gorgeous candy buffet that I recently saw. The photo was taken by candyfavorites.com. There are quite a few websites to help you locate different candies in bulk so you’re not trying to open up small package after small package to empty them all into a giant container big enough to serve all of your guests.
Restockit.com is a great resource for containers. They are just nice enough for the occassion– you don’t want to use your mother’s Waterford crystal candy jar for this!
