by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 30, 2008
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I wanted to let everyone who subscribes to this blog and who has us linked from your blog know that we are changing the title of this blog to “Blue Eyed Bride.” We will be keeping the same URL. I’m making the change because I never imagined the broad range of exposure that this blog would get and that it would evolve from being just ramblings about our wedding planning process and daily happenings to a full blown wedding blog. I’m really enjoying it and actually about to gear up to be a guest blogger for Elizabeth Anne Designs. Because of all of this, I feel the need to maintain our privacy and give a more appropriate content-related name to this project!
Update your links! Blue Eyed Bride is coming on Monday.
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 30, 2008
We’re in Pittsburgh for the weekend attending a friend’s wedding. We’re staying at the William Penn Omni Hotel where, according to Lawrence Welk, is the place where Champagne Music was born. It’s just something I read after we made the reservations, but I’m not sure what exactly Champagne Music is. The hotel is beautiful and we’re looking forward to a great weekend with friends.
I’ll be back on track on Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 29, 2008
I am positively obsessed with this new wedding gown by Amsale. If I could find this dress in another color I’d be all over it! I obviously don’t need a big white dress anymore. The silhouette is beautiful, flattering, and timeless and I imagine that everyone would look great in it!
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 29, 2008
While I’m sad that our big day is over and I’m no longer planning that special day, I’m so excited to be able to shop for dresses to wear to our friends’ weddings and shop for wedding gifts for them. I’m a firm believer in sticking to the registry. It always surprises me what people come up with when they get “creative” and go off-registry. We did, however, receive a wonderful gift at one of our showers that wasn’t on any of our registries. It happens to be one of my favorite new items in our house and I’m considering it as a gift for some of our newlywed friends. It was so much fun for me to put my new initial on the entry table!
letter stand from anthropologie
Do you stick to the registry when buying gifts for a wedding? If not, what do you typically give a bride and groom?
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 28, 2008
I think one of Todd’s favorite wedding projects was writing the ceremony program. We decided to use the lace design that we used on all of our wedding paper on the front and back cover of the program. We wanted to eliminate the pink for this piece– to save costs and to keep it simple and elegant.
I’ve been to so many weddings where I watch the bridesmaids come down the aisle and look at the groomsmen and wonder, “How do the bride and groom know these people? Who is that?”
Todd and I chose to have a bigger program and write little bios on each of our attendants. And because all of our vocalists were equally special to us, they were included in this as well.
Our program was 8 pages long and was an 8×8 square. We included lyrics to one of the songs that we used in the ceremony, wrote a message to all of our guests, and included directions to the reception. Our favorite part was definitely telling the stories of how we know all of our attendants. I think they all enjoyed reading what we wrote about them, too. At the reception, my Matron of Honor was approached by one of our old family friends and found out that he was best friends growing up with her husband’s father. He discovered this by reading her bio!
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 27, 2008
Now that our wedding is over, I’ve got lots of time on my hands. I have wondered how I’m going to redirect all of my creative energy. I love projects and love events. Events are my job, so I get a little of that fill at work, but I need to express my creative freedom. Our little house has become a great outlet for me to channel all of this creative energy toward. I love decorating and rearranging. We’re putting the finishing touches on our bedroom and I’m about to get started on the downstairs bathroom. I promise that pictures are coming soon.
All of that said, I’m not abandoning my lifetime obsession with weddings. I’ve collected MS Weddings and InStyle Weddings for 15 years and don’t plan to stop now. I love new ideas and hope to continue planning weddings in the future, so don’t expect all of my wedding-related posts to stop now. I will forever be inspired by a blue cupcake, a pink shoe, and a sweet little piece of jewelry.
I found my favorite picture of my favorite celebrity wedding today. This is Mariska Hargitay’s wedding from a few years ago. She managed to bring in style, elegance, and comfort and have a beautiful event.
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 21, 2008
Our honeymoon was fantastic. We went to Maui and stayed at the Grand Wailea, which I highly recommend, and we would do it all over again. The resort was beautiful and the service was great, though everything came with its price. We even survived the really long flight from Columbia to Atlanta to LA to Maui. That’s a lot of flying, but so worth it!
Todd and I enjoyed the days that we would spend lying by the pool getting our tan (or burn) on, but also enjoyed the few days when we went snorkeling, sailing, and driving the Road to Hana in our convertible Mustang. After the Road to Hana, we came back to those pools and never left!
We are already talking about when we want to go back!
a view of the pacific from our chairs at the adult pool
at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago
at the Old Lahaina Luau
on the sunset sail
a stopping point on the Road to Hana
another stopping point on the Road to Hana
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 21, 2008
As time has passed since the big day, people have sent their pictures my way, so I wanted to share a few more.
bridesmaids waiting for pictures holding their Toss umbrellas
bridal portrait taken by Natalie the flower girl
Bridal party before the ceremony– not sure about all of these expressions, but this picture cracks me up. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing.
Jennifer, Catherine, and Jennifer with me at the reception
The cake– it was pink with gold ribbon. I can’t say that I’m loving the color, but it sure did taste good.
Guest book from kodakgallery.com
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 19, 2008
Here are a few pictures of the wedding day. When Kelly posts some on her blog I will add them to mine, but until then these few will have to do.
The bridesmaids and I went to the Spa at West End to have our hair and nails done. I decided to keep all of my hair down, but have it blown out and wavy. It was a great decision. I was really comfortable all day, I felt like myself, and I never got a bad headache from bobby pins.
Here we are after David put the veil on and we couldn’t find how to bustle the veil to get back in the van.
The pink and white candy buffet. Gorgeous! While the bridesmaids and I were having our hair and nails done, my mom and her friend put this together.
Cake cutting and tasting. Yum!
Me with Samantha and Natalie (bell ringers) just before the ceremony
by Blue-Eyed Bride on May 16, 2008
We were pretty excited about the rehearsal for the wedding. I couldn’t wait to hear all of the music come together and finally hear that gorgeous pipe organ do its thing. It was also the first time that the entire wedding party would come together in one location.
I think we all ended up crying more at the rehearsal than we did at the actual wedding. The music was just breathtaking. I chose songs that meant a lot to me, but may not be the most commonly heard songs at weddings. We asked a long time family friend to arrange all of the music for the piano, vocalists, strings, and organ and he agreed. He also sang a part in each of the songs. It was nice to be able to put all of that in his hands and trust that it would no doubt be beautiful. And it was.
Here’s a run down of our song choices. I wanted a mix of sacred songs, classic love songs, and beautiful classical music. I will do a separate post on the ceremony program later so you can see it, but this is just the music I chose:
Prelude:
Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Nessun Dorma, And So it Goes, Someone to Watch Over Me
Vocal Trio:
Doxology by Rick Vale
Greensleeves
Canon in D
Bride Processional
Highland Cathedral (really beautiful with piano and organ)
Vocal Trio
Shine on Us
Seekers of Your Heart
The Prayer
Recessional
Rondeau
Oh Happy Day
Anyway, it was a lot of fun to hear everyone rehearse and plan the timing of the ceremony. Here’s a shot of us at the rehearsal.
I really wanted to wear white to the rehearsal, but wanted to give it some flair. I purchased the white dress from J.Crew on a clearance sale about a year ago. J. Crew has the most amazing clearance sales– the only catch is that you cannot return it a lot of times, but luckily, this dress in the size that I ordered fit perfectly. It didn’t originally have a sash. I kept looking for satin hot pink peep toe high heels and couldn’t find any. Finally, in March, I looked at Stuart Weitzman and found the shoes I’d imagined in my head. My tailor made the pink sash for me to match like the wonderful man that he is!
My brother’s girlfriend, Lauren, was my stand in bride for the rehearsal and she carried the GORGEOUS bouquet of bows that my bridesmaids made from all of my shower gifts.
After the rehearsal, we went to the very nice rehearsal dinner at High Cotton. We were able to include about 65 people, so a lot of Todd’s out of town friends were able to come even though they weren’t in the wedding party. It was a great meal and some really kind words were shared.
Then we went over to the Lounge at Restaurant O for a dessert and champage party. My parents’ friends hosted this for us and we invited everyone that was invited to the wedding. A lot of people weren’t in town (Greenville) yet, but this was a great opportunity for us to get together and catch up with a lot of our guests. It also helped make the wedding reception more laid back for us because we didn’t have to have those, “oh, so good to see you” conversations the night of the wedding and we could do it at this party. We stayed up late and had so much fun catching up with everyone. This is one of the things about the wedding weekend that I’m so glad we had the opportunity to do. It gave our guests something to do and we were able to really have fun the night of our reception. Here are some pictures from the dessert and champagne party.
how cute is it that my dad and brother wore pink ties because pink was one of my wedding colors?
