shower of style - part one

I'm a little slow on blogging but I knew this entry would be a lot!

My sister's bridal shower was last week and while I am certainly biased (I'm the Maid of Honor), it was really a spectacular shower.  Momzilla and I, along with my sister's future sisters-in-law and future mother-in-law, put a lot of hard work and effort into it and it certainly paid off.

Sister Bride is quite the fashionista.  She's always loved clothes and jewelry and the high life.  She currently works as a manager at a very well-known and high-end retail store.  She has more designer bags than I have underwear.  So it was only natural that we plan a shower around her love of fashion.

First, we ordered the invitations from Tickled Pink Design and I penned an original saying that catered to the theme.

Next, we ordered favors.  We wanted to give guests something that was relevant to shopping but was still useful.  So I searched high and low until I found a great deal on these adorable purse valets from Sincerely Ann Marie.  Since the party, we've received a lot of compliments on them!

The restaurant was already giving us a wishing well but I had something else in mind.  I envisioned a large "shopping bag" in which guests could throw their little gifts.   

I bought a presentation display board from Staples and covered it in brown mailing paper (also purchased at Staples).  Then I glued a twine-looking wire around the top of the board that I bought from Michaels.  And last but not least, Lyndsey's future sister-in-law used her nifty Cricut to cut out large letters to glue on the front of the board.  It wasn't perfect Bloomingdale font, but came out really cute!  Then we surrounded the presentation board around a hamper in which people could put their wishing well presents.

This was the final product:

For the centerpieces, we collected small to medium-sized black shopping bags from high-end retail stores like Sephora or Guess.  We then stuffed them with hot pink tissue paper and wrapped a tag around them that indicated table number.

Here's some of them lined up:

And then one of the most creative things we did for the party was the placecards.  People are still talking about them!

I am in no way a graphic designer but I took an image of an American Express credit card and played around with it in GIMP, a free photo editing program.  I found a font that looked similar to the fonts on credit cards and added everyone's names and table numbers to the credit card.  Then I printed, laminated and cut them to look like real cards.  We stuck them in mini shopping bags with hot pink paper and set them out on the table.

They came out really adorable!!

So not to overwhelm you with an extremely long entry (which I'm sure it already is), I will dedicate my next entry to revealing what sorts of games we played and just how cute everything looked at the shower.

Stay tuned!

veil mail

So more exciting news!  My veil arrived in the mail yesterday!

I would think that most brides purchase their veil from the same salon where they ordered their wedding dress but honestly, I couldn't see spending $300 on a piece of tulle that will be worn for an hour.  So I decided to shop around online and find a more affordable option.

While I was certain that I wanted a veil with a blusher (I have been unusually traditional about the ceremony portion of the wedding), I didn't really know what length I wanted.  Here were the contenders:

First, there was Momzilla's favorite - the Cathedral Veil.  While it's formal and beautiful, I was afraid that it would be too long and cover the gorgeous train of my dress.

Then there was the fingertip length veil. I liked this better than the long Cathedral one but MZ complained that it was too short.  I suddenly felt like Goldilocks!

Until I found the veil I ordered from Love The Bride.  It wasn't too long, it wasn't too short.  It was just right!  And it only cost me $66 with free shipping!  You certainly can't beat that.

Any thoughts about the veil?  Do you wish you had gotten a more expensive one or a cheaper one?  Did you wear a blusher?  Or were you super trendy and wear a birdcage style veil?

something blue

I love the latest trend of wearing colored heels on your wedding day.  It adds that splash of fun and spontaneity on an otherwise extremely planned day.   

 

So while I was in Italy, I noticed that a lot of stores sold blue heels and I got really excited.  I was planning on ordering a pair of blue pumps for my wedding and I thought it would be even cooler if I got them in Italy.  So my future cousins-in-law and I scoured all over town until we finally found a pair in my size (trust me, it was a process!).

They are navy blue peep toe slingbacks.  They look a little like the picture below, only they are a darker blue, do not have such big bows on top and they didn't cost me hundreds of dollars!  Actually, they came out to only 30 euros, which translates to about $40 in American money.

Now I just need to practice wearing them so I don't fall flat on my face on my wedding day!

music to my wallet

I know!  I've been MIA for the last two months but not without good reason!

I've been pretty busy with work, and between traveling and not having time to bounce ideas off my work BFF Megan (I like the term workwife but others seem to disagree), I just haven't really had a chance to organize my thoughts.  And now that I'm back home with Momzilla, I don't have much room or time to do anything other than wedding planning!

Ok, enough with the excuses.  The point of this entry was to bring up a topic that I've kinda dodged until now but with less than 5 months until the wedding (gasp!!), I think it's time to face the music.  Pun intended.

I'm a music person.  Always have been.  I even work in a music related industry.  And so when it was time to plan a wedding, I knew I wanted to have some live music in addition to the recorded tunes spun by my DJ.

The big question for me is where are the live musicians most appreciated?  And where are my dollars best spent?

My church apparently has some sort of "contract" with a fanfare company where, for a few hundred dollars, we could have a trumpeter announce my arrival outside the church, play during the ceremony, and announce our departure as husband and wife afterwards.  When I heard the trumpet play the wedding march in church during our workshop, I was sold.

But now I'm contemplating whether or not I'll need to hire another set of live classical musicians to play during the cocktail hour.  I attended another winter wedding not too long ago where a string quartet played classical music during  cocktail hour and I remember it feeling really warm and cozy.   Momzilla is a huge fan of this idea and the romantic, sentimental side of me is as well.

I would love to do both but my wedding budget isn't so sure.  The amount of money I have allotted for live music does not cover both the ceremony and the cocktail hour.  And while I'm more inclined to have the trumpeter at the church (slightly cheaper, more powerful, more noticeable, and heard by me, the bride!), I still haven't completely thrown out the idea of just doing the cocktail hour (more romantic, more guests will hear it, cozier).

So my question to everyone is:

If you had to choose between live musicians at the ceremony or live musicians at the cocktail hour, which ones do you think is more remembered by the guests? 

Or do you think I should just suck it up and get live musicians for both the ceremony AND the cocktail hour?