We can't have naked tables

Naked should be reserved for the wedding night…sorry Mom….and Grammie. Moving on.

Although we knew early on what our centerpiece inspiration was, we really had no clue what we were going to do about linens. Or even if we were going to spring for linen rentals. Our venue offered white linens, albeit they weren’t floor length…but they were our favorite wedding word: free.

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Enter Mama Frog.

As luck would have it, Mama Frog and Step-dad Frog were due to attend a work conference in Phoenix just a couple of weeks ago. It was perfect timing to check out linens! And lucky for Frogger, these wedding errands occurred over the weekend that he happened to be out of town for his bachelor party. It worked out great for us both – since he didn’t have a preference on linens, he was able to skip that errand and I had a welcomed distraction over the weekend while he was off gallivanting. He’s such a gallivanter. Yes, that’s a word.

I still wasn’t really sold on the idea of paying for linens when we had some that were perfectly fine being offered for free. They wouldn’t be my first choice but they were fine. Well, that’s what I thought until I began looking through photos of tablescapes, take a look at these lovelies:

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After discussing our color scheme and showing a photo of our centerpiece inspiration, our very helpful salesperson pulled a few fabrics and began dressing a table.

Centerpiece reminder

It was at this point I knew there was no going back. I had been sucked into the luxury linen world and well, it felt good. After visions of Shantung, Lamour, Bengaline, Twist, Pintuck…there was no way I could go along with short white linens on the tables, not after seeing the lovlies that were laid out before me. It was as if I’d been inducted into this new club with words that were entirely too difficult for me to pronounce and fabrics that I didn’t feel old enough to touch without my mom present.

We tried a variety of different fabrics, with overlays and without, with chair wraps and without, with colored napkins or plain white. It was so much more fun that I could have imagined. Yes, I’m a big nerd. A big, linen-obsessed nerd.

We are keeping our options with the “Silver Dahlia” overlay for some of the occasion tables like the guestbook table, etc.

Ultimately we decided that the “Purple Smoke Bengaline” was the best fit for our centerpieces. Topped with a crisp, white napkin and our gorgeous (rental-that-I-couldn’t-pass-up) chiavari chairs – the look is almost complete!

Did you see how I said almost? Yeah…I’ve now become obsessed with the idea of silver charger plates. The saga never ends. Both of the rental companies in town don’t carry them so I’m desperately hunting for a deal with under two months to go.

Anyone have any brilliant ideas for that one? I’m all ears!

PS - Happy Birthday MOM!!

OMG Shoes...

Has anyone seen that ridiculous YouTube video that I’m referring to in my post title? If you haven’t, you may want to avoid it…I promise you, it will be in your head for the rest of the day…and every day for the rest of your life. You’ve been warned.

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So initially I really loved the idea of the colored shoe trend. With my colors being purple, blue and gray, I thought a pop of purple or blue would be a great choice for shoes. Then fate stepped in…

Let me rewind. I will assume everyone is familiar with Nordstrom, yes? And most will be familiar with their discount store called The Rack. But…how many of you know of…Last Chance? Oh, I have your attention? Yes, I thought that might happen.

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Unless you live in Phoenix or have friends/relatives here, most likely you haven’t heard of it. Well friends, let me be the temporary shoe angel – Last Chance is the discounted-discount-Nordstrom. Once items are no longer a fit for Nordstrom (past season, return, irregular, etc.) they are sent to The Rack. Last Chance is the final destination for clothing, shoes and purses, getting items from both Nordstrom and The Rack. For example, you can find a pair of Jimmy Choos that were originally priced at $300+ for $30. I’ve gotten BCBG dresses that were originally $200 for $25, it’s an endless amount of great finds, if you’re willing to put in the time.

See…it’s a big mish mosh:

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So you really have to be willing to search…but if you are willing, treasures can be found. Which brings us to my shoe find. Months ago I found a pair of Stuart Weitzmans that I loved and immediately bought (for $20 no less), knowing that I would definitely get a ton of use out of them…perhaps it was also in the back of my mind that they would be a good fit for a wedding shoe being that one of my colors is gray (and my maids are wearing gray dresses with silver shoes).

My hesitation is that they are suede. The wedding is in July and well, suede isn’t the first thing you think of when you think of a summer wedding. I need your honest opinions my dear friends…thoughts?

They are super comfy, fit my color scheme and girly but not too girly. Personally I love them but I'm still wondering if a blue or purple shoe would make more of an impact. I'm also concerned people will think I've completely lost it if I show up with suede shoes in 80+ degree heat.

Truth time…are these a yes…or a no?

My latest obsession

I’m going to assume that during every bride’s planning process she comes to this point. You know what I’m talking about…the moment when she first lays eyes on her invitations in all their glory.

I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly a big paper person but…I’m telling you, I about passed out from the excitement of opening the box when they arrived on our doorstep. And I am most definitely a paper obsessed convert now…whoa nelly. Yes, I just said whoa nelly, I'm sorry.

We were lucky enough to find our fantastic wedding invitation designer through none other than Etsy. As soon as we found Melissa at Design Circus, I knew it would be a perfect fit. We wanted something chic but not formal, friendly but not overly casual and no matter what, we needed personality. We asked, she delivered:

It's painful to have to blur these out.

The element of the invite we created ourselves – our wedding map…we’re in love with it. I honestly can't even tell you how accomplished we felt when we finished it.

The bottom says: "Please use the back of this card to write your wishes and blessings for Miss Frog and Frogger or better yet, draw a picture of them."

We’re hoping for some fun drawings and notes on the backs of these for our wedding scrapbook.

Then came time to put it all together – self healing mat, ruler, razor blade, bone folder, hole punch, baker’s twine and super secret spy pen.

And the final package – we numbered the RSVPs with the spy pen, wrapped each invitation suite in vellum, tied with baker’s twine and included a tag on the front with our website information. They were a labor of love but completely worth it!

We placed these lovey little packages in gray envelopes with side wrap-around labels (sorry no picture of that, I’m such a good blogger). I then tucked them into a Trader Joe’s paper bag (reusing makes me feel good) and carefully carried them to our local post office. Not only did they equal out to exactly a 61 cent stamp…but get this…the 61 cent stamp is none other than a wedding cake!

It was totally meant to be. Our lovely postal woman even helped me stamp them and allowed me to hand cancel each one. I couldn’t have asked for a better invitation experience.

Are you obsessed with your invitations? Are you a paper person or a new convert like me?

Is a wrong to have a crush on a vendor when you are getting married?

So that’s the longest post title ever. But really, I have a crush and I’m not one to be dishonest so I have no choice…it’s time to spill.

You may have noticed that of all the vendors I’ve talked about, I have yet to share my photographer. Truth is…she’s just too good to be true. I think I was almost afraid I would jinx it. Does that sound crazy? Don’t answer that.

Let me give you a little tease here first:

*all photos courtesy of Stephanie Williams Photography

Are you drooling yet? It’s okay, you’re in good company. This is the incredible work of my dream photographer, Stephanie Williams. I have a total girl crush on her. It’s okay, she knows…maybe not to this extent but that’s another issue.

We were lucky enough to book her and her adorable husband Isaac (they shoot together) for not only our wedding itself but for our rehearsal party as well! I honestly cannot wait to see the shots they get – it’s going to be incredible. They are beyond talented.

If you enjoy the feeling of drool down your chin, feel free to click over to her site for more photo goodness. Don’t say I didn’t warn you – you may need someone to surgically remove the mouse from your hand…just saying.

Do you have a crush on a vendor? Please tell me I’m not alone.

Not so happy holidays

I always get so jealous of my friends who live in the same city as both of their sets of parents. Frogger and I are the complete opposite. We live here in Arizona, my parents live in Michigan and his live in Seattle.

Behold my fancy map skills….don’t laugh.

Now that we are very close to the wedding, we have started the dreaded conversations about how to split our time with our families during the holidays. How lucky for us that not only do our parents live in different states…they are about as far apart as you can get.

We came up with a variety of ways to try to decide:

• Do the every other year thing so it’s evenly split.
• Flip a coin and go with whatever the results may be.
• Try to have one family celebrate early or late so we can hit both celebrations each year.
• Do Christmas with one and NYE with the other.
• Not travel at all and have them come to us (highly unlikely).
• Some yet to be discovered, dream-come-true solution…I’m hearing crickets, this isn’t a good sign.

We have yet to really decide how to make this work. Both of our families have traditions that we want to be a part of and both of our families want us to be there to celebrate with them. We feel very loved but very torn.

Anyone else run into this challenge with family holidays/events? Please tell me one of you is smarter than we are and can provide some guidance…we’re desperate for a good solution.

Showered with love

I know everyone says this…but my shower was the BEST! I had few requests – they were: wine, bacon (classy, right?) and no toilet paper bride game. My girls listened, it was a wine themed shower – I couldn’t have asked for more! My words just won’t do it justice…this is a must for a photo tour. Shall we?

Enjoying my first glass of wine for the day…in one of two bridal wine glasses! Request number one, check!

Mama Frog pouring some much enjoyed mimosas for the girls. And there on the left is bridal glass number two with the light blue dots.

Speaking of, she also supplied those fantastic favors – blackberry scented bath bombs from Lush!

Check out that yummy spread of food!

Bridesmaid Belle hosted and set out those darling framed photos of Frogger and I while MOH Banannie and Bridesmaid Creeker made the delicious food – it was definitely a team effort!

Do you see request number two in the back there…BACON. Helloooooo lover.

Me and my lovely hosts for the day: Creeker, Banannie and Belle

One game of the day – how cheap of a date are you? Okay…that’s not the name but it’s fitting for this crowd. The basic idea was that there were four bottles of wine available for tasting. Upon tasting, you were to decide which price category each fell into. It was highly entertaining!

And we feasted! That’s Frogger’s Mom on the left in the front and my Mom on the right – I just loved that they both could be there to celebrate with me.

We can’t overlook dessert – how cute are these cupcakes? Creeker made them herself and Banannie supplied the adorable bride decorations.

Aaaaand…nom nom nom…monkeybread! Thanks Banannie. :) This, by the way, did nothing to help with my pre-wedding eating regimen.

And no shower recap would be complete without a rehearsal bouquet – Bridesmaid Belle is the expert of our friends in making these puppies and I must say, I absolutely loved it!

It was the perfect day – I really couldn’t have asked for more. A huge thank you to my girls and my Mom for all of the thoughtful touches, I felt oh so loved!

Was your bridal shower everything you hoped for and more?

I hope we have a lot of criers

Okay let me break it down for you. I’m a crier. In general, I’m a big emotional pile of mush and when I go to a wedding, forget it. And well…I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world to have a few criers in the audience. Okay I’m totally lying – I want to see tears. I want people watching our ceremony to get all balled up inside and squeeze out a few in our honor. I have issues, I know.

In the hope that we have a few tears, I made some very easy tissue packets for the ceremony. There are quite a few different versions out there that I’ve come across so I decided to make some of my own.

front and back…or back and front – depending on how you look at it…I’ve clearly lost my Type A edge

This was honestly really easy. All it took was a little time, so Frogger and I hunkered down after dinner and cranked these puppies out while watching The Office. Here’s my super simple DIY tears of joy packets:

First I gathered all of the supplies I could possibly need.

Then I grabbed some old return address labels and designed them in Word according to the template size.

Then I began to assemble, first mini vellum envelopes. And for the record, I find that a glass of wine makes DIY projects that much better…scientifically speaking.

Luckily I had help from Frogger, he was nice enough to measure out my baker’s twine. And of course he had to have his Seahawks towel in the background.

And here Frogger is modeling the correct way to stuff the tissue into the tiny envelope…oooh….aaahh. Is it crazy that I happen to love seeing him stuff tiny tissues into tiny envelopes?

After trying ribbon (which was in my supplies photo above) I quickly saw that it wasn’t creating the look I wanted so I tried baker’s twine and found it was a much better fit for what I envisioned. I laid the twine on the table, placed the envelope (flap side down) over the twine and then crossed the twine to create a cross.

I then flipped the envelope over and tied the twine into a bow.

I flipped it over and placed the label over the crossed twine on the other side and ta da! You now have a tissue packet to entice your friends and family to get all teary eyed on your big day.

Repeat and eventually you have a nice little stack!

I know they look a little simple right now since they are low on color but I’m planning to place them in a basket of some sort with some purple fabric to help them pop. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out…especially considering how little time, effort and money went into them.

Hopefully this will give our guests a little push toward some tears. Is that wrong? :)

Did you have any DIY projects that turned out to be much easier and cheaper than you expected?

Matchy matchy?

When I first thought about bridesmaid dresses I came up with an idea that I never shared…with anyone. I guess I just thought that everyone would think I was a sandwich short of a picnic. I just love that phrase. Ahem, anyway. It was one of those things that seemed too different from what friends and relatives had done in the past that I had a feeling it would be difficult to convince people that it could actually look good. Soooo I wrote it off as crazy bride brain and moved on (we’ll revisit so hang tight).

I’m pretty classic in my taste so I knew I wanted the girls to wear a dress in a color that they could get use out of in the future and a color that would look great on everyone. With our colors being gray, lavender and blue, I chose gray for the bridesmaid dresses and I was met with a happy response. In order to make things affordable, I decided to go the JCrew route. After searching, I narrowed it down to:

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I told the girls that they could choose the dress that appealed most to them…they were the same color, same fabric and same company so I knew they would work well together.

After ordering a few and having some of the girls try them on, I knew that this was going to be much more difficult than I thought. My girls are all different shapes, sizes and heights – they were just not the most flattering dresses on everyone. At that point I knew we had to make a change, my top priority was that all of them felt beautiful and comfortable – I wanted everyone to feel a great as I will so we are all free to have fun and make some incredible memories!

One weekend, I finally gave into my original idea and decided to do some real research to see if I could find photos of what I wanted to do where it was accomplished successfully. And voila…the internets delivered. Behold:

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You guessed it friends…I’m talking about coordinating, not matching dresses. For the longest time I thought about this idea and how much I loved the fact that they would compliment each other but not actually match. When I ran the idea past my maids, I was SO relieved when they all responded positively!

Since we are still finalizing ideas and getting dresses ordered, I don’t have the actual dress compilation just yet…but I will be sure to share with all of you as soon as we have the dresses so you can tell me – for real – what you think. I need outside opinions to ensure I’m not suffering, once again, from crazy bride brain. :)

How did you come to decide on bridesmaid dresses? Did you go with matching or coordinating or something completely different?