Category — rachel

Happy Fourth of July! I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend.

Since this is a holiday, I thought I keep it quick and show you how I’m planning on styling my hair for the wedding. After selecting my dress, and knowing that I’ve always wanted to wear one of those large flowers in my hair (ever since seeing Molly Sims wear one in a Cover Girl ad!), I knew that I wanted my hair pulled back. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it up a little high, or low and loose… at first. I made my mind up quickly, though, after seeing this picture of Michelle Williams from the Oscars a couple years ago:

{Image Source: People}

{Read the rest of this entry…}

I know for me, deciding on my centerpieces was not easy.  Centerpieces and tablescapes can be simple or complex, elegant and formal or rustic.  They can set the mood and the look for your party or reception, and will be in your guests’ line of vision for much of the party. 

This month’s House Beautiful featured a GORGEOUS table setting from the famous and talented Monique Lhuillier which blew me away: 

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Happy Friday everyone!

I don’t really have a lot to share this week, and because we all love more inspiration, I thought I’d contribute to purple week by creating an inspiration board myself!

Purple can be such a fun and modern color! It’s a little unexpected, and can be so dramatic. I envision this to be a night time wedding and reception taking place in a loft overlooking downtown. While the ceremony area may be minimal in decoration (a huge wreath against a white wall makes a big statement!), in the reception area it could be fun to swath it in color and candlelight! And if you feel comfortable with it, I think it would be great to rock a mini-dress at this type of wedding! This wedding is all about fun!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Hi everyone!

(Our venue, the YWCA in Fort Worth!)

Today I wanted to talk about the reason we buy the special dress, the reason we throw a celebratory party - the wedding ceremony which will join you in marriage to your fiancee. It’s definitely the most important part of the wedding as a whole, but it’s so easy to get wrapped up in choosing colors, a dress, and registering for all those gifts that you kind of forget about it. It may be that you’re going to have a ceremony that is pretty much planned out, where you only have a few choices or options. But, since we are not getting married in a church, and the ceremony will be officiated by one of our friends, we have a lot of decisions to make. Do we want a formal service? Do we want it to be religious? Do we want speakers? Or do we want to keep it short and sweet?

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Darn it!!

I just saw this color palette board over on Style Me Pretty :

See, the problem is that these are very very close to my colors which are terracotta orange and a champagne/gold.  Of course I will have greenery, so green will be present, and I’ve thought about the idea of introducing a wine color to compliment the orange/terracotta.  So, I love this board, it’s very pretty.  But my problem is with the floral arrangement.  It is causing me to rethink *yet again* my choice of accent arrangements. 

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Okay, so I know I’m going a little out of order, but I wanted to get your advice on something I’m trying to choose right now - the cake design! 

I’ve met with a baker who I really like, is very reasonable, and who did a cake for a friend’s wedding (which was really very yummy!).  So now I just need to kind of narrow down my choices of design and choose one so I can get a more accurate quote and we can go ahead and book her.  Who knew that choosing a cake would be so difficult?!?  I certainly didn’t anticipate it being such a difficult decision.  But I’m telling you, it’s the small decisions that drive you nuts!  I know it’s not as big of a deal as choosing your dress, and I’m not planning on using it as high art, but I would still like it to be pretty nonetheless.  So will you, dear EAD readers, help me out?

While the colors shown will not necessarily be what we would use, we have narrowed it down to the following options:

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Finding a wedding dress is an interesting process, to say the least.  It is definitely the one iconic thing you will buy for your wedding that really brings it home that, yes, you are getting married.  It can be a fun and joyous process.  It can be a little frustrating at times.  It can make you laugh, smile, and bring tears to your eyes.  It can be all of that, really, because it is a big important decision, and usually one that takes a few times of looking to figure out.

I’m getting married in November, but I wanted to get started on my planning early so I wouldn’t be pressed for time.  After booking the venue, flipping through every bridal magaizine that was out at the time, and kind of thinking about how I wanted my wedding to “look”, I thought it would be a good idea to look for a dress.  Once I had my dress picked out, I could settle on a bridesmaid dress and my fiancee could think about tuxedoes and ties.  Also, and I don’t mind sharing this with you, it would help to provide some concrete (expensive concrete at that!) motivation for really getting back into my workout routine that I had stopped sometime during my courship with my fiancee. 

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Happy Friday everyone!

I love that EAD is doing a “Southern” week, being that I am from the South!  I think that one of the things that’s important to Southern weddings is a sense of tradition.  Weddings in general have a lot of traditional elements to them, and some couples follow these traditions more rigidly than others.  But in reading about all these “real weddings” it’s fun and interesting to see what traditions these couples have followed and why.

When we started talking about our ceremony, I brought up that I thought it would be really cool to walk down the aisle to something other than the traditional wedding march.  The fiancee, well, he didn’t agree.  This is one of the things he really wants to stick with.  Even after I brought up that we could choose a song that’s really meaningful to us.  The other thing he’s passionate about?  Not seeing each other before the wedding - bad luck.  I thought it would be a good way to get some great shots of us together before the ceremony, as well as a way to maybe calm our nerves.  But he’s very adamant that he doesn’t want to tempt fate.  So I will seeing him for the first time while I’m walking down the aisle to the wedding march!

{Read the rest of this entry…}

I have to admit that choosing a wedding photographer was one of the biggest decisions for us.  Photography is important to both Chris and I, and we both wanted beautiful pictures to look back on, but it was a little daunting to find that right person to capture our day.  There seems to be so many photographers out there and unless you have people who can give you recommendations, it can be hard to narrow it down.  A big point with us was price.  We wanted those beautiful pictures you see in magazines and on the blogs, but many of those photographers were just out of our budget.  Searching on the internet and following links from other sites helped me to kind of form a group that I thought were pretty good and were within our budget.  The thing is, though, many of them seemed to be kind of the same - there wasn’t one that really stood out from the group. 

Then I came upon Melanie Johnson’s blog.  She is a photographer trying to get her business started and was looking for couples and brides!  I LOVED her work.  The coloring of her photographs was absolutely beautiful, and the way she captured her subjects’ emotions (mostly children, even still)  really spoke to me.  I wasn’t sure at first if hiring somebody “new” was a good idea, but I kept coming back to her site, so I contacted her.  We really hit it off, and after meeting with her my fiancee and I were ecstatic to hire her! 

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Hi everyone!  Happy Friday!

I apologize in advance for the lack of pretty pictures in this post, but you know those weeks that are so hectic and just seem to fly by??  I swear yesterday was Tuesday…..

But this does give me an opportunity to blog about something that gives me inspiration and sometimes bolsters my confidence.  Don’t be afraid to be different!  It’s something that a friend told me a while back (way before I even met my fiancee!), and I think it’s a great attitude to have about many things in life.  What makes you different is what makes you special.  So rather than trying to conform to something that just isn’t you, go with your gut an be yourself.  Whether it’s fashion, music, your taste in men, or weddings, most people are happiest when they are genuine to themselves.  I also happen to think that when people aren’t afraid to be different that’s when some of the most interesting and memorable moments happen.

{Read the rest of this entry…}