From our recipe book to yours --

We have 6 cocktail tables... which were just screaming out for something to go in the middle of them. Nothing as elaborate as the large table centerpeices, but something unique and quirky.

So I got to brainstorming about what to do. And I remembered a conversation I had w/ my floral guru back in March where she asked me "what is YOUR story? What makes your story totally different from anyone else's story?" She suggested to take the answer and use it to help define the look and feel of ythe wedding.

Like any good designer would do, I built off of the advice of someone much more experienced than me and went to work brainstorming. After some thinking, I realized that distance was such a defining aspect of mine and Bama boy's story. We have never lived in the same state or closer than 10 hours in distance. So to make our relationship work, we had to put effort into making it as "normal" possible. And thus the Dinner and a Movie dates were born. One of us would pick out a recipe and the other would pick the movie. We'd let each other know at the beginning of the day so we could rent the movie/ pick up recipe ingredients and then at a set time, we'd call each other. Over speakerphone, we'd cook our fabulous recipe of the night and then sit down and, still over speakerphone, watch our movie together. Yes. We are dorks. BUT it made us have those shared experiences that help create a lasting relationship.

So, I decided recipe cards would be the centerpieces of the cocktail tables. I picked 4 of our recipes and printed about 25 index cards per recipe -- then printed a little sign to put on the front. In an effort to carry over a fun bridal shower activity as well as create some input from our guests, I also printed 60 blank recipe cards for our guests to share what they believe is the recipe for a successful marriage. Placed in a soapdispenser holder-turned recipe holder ($1 each from TJ MAXX!!) and VOILA! instant cocktail table centerpeices:

Each holder will have 4 various votives holders & candles around them, with the tables that ask the guest to write their opinions having a votive holder hold little golf pencils in them.

One more project down, a ton more to do. T-minus 10 days til the big day - I cannot believe it!

A Sweet Farm wedding

This past weekend I went to the wedding of one of my favorite people- Misa. She also just happens to be a fellow blogger, history/politics/architecture nerd, and is also one of my bridesmaids. We went to undergrad together - she sat in front of me in my Civil War History class junior year. We struck up a convo one day and tada! instant friendship.

Misa married her college sweetheart, JM, at the farm thats been in her family for years - Padua out in western Virgina. It was absolutely wonderful to see all the plans of my wedding planner partner in crime the past 9ish months come to fruition. From the beautiful weather, to the groom being late to the alter, and to the slightly choreographed first dance, everything was PERFECT and very Misa-JM.


Ok, enough of my chatter and onto the pretty pictures:

The guest participation clothesline was super creative and a HUGE hit!

the two september brides!

heres to the happy newlyweds!

Bottoms Up!

In an effort to make sure that we still have an "open" bar, with liquor, but still be budget friendly, my fiance & I decided on having signature drinks at the wedding, where wine & beer would be complementary and liquor would be available, but only in the form of drinks that my fiance & I chose. Therefore, we began figuring out our "bride" and "groom" cocktails

My fiance's choice was an incredibly easy one -- he just picked the drink he has almost every night: the always classic Jack & Coke. My choice was a much more difficult decision, as I really only drink wine. I was a vodka tonic drinker in college until i went to grad school and it just became a much more difficult drink to stomach. I've recently gotten back into mixed drinks when visiting New Orleans - we've made a few stops at the spectacular Sazerac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel, which is amazing. However when I embarked on this journey of finding a proper libation, I decided something - it needs to be something that reflects who I am, even If I don't drink the drink itself. Something southern, light, and a twist on a classic.

So I went to the bookstore and found this little gem:

(photo courtesy of Amazon.com)

This book has some spectacular recipes -- everything from classics like French 75s to Peach mojitos. There's even a full chapter on nibbles like - spicy vidalia onion cheese toasts and beer battered string beans.

Anyhow, so I realized that I kept coming back to the mint julep... spring race season is something i actually really missed about Virginia when I was away in Texas and I did love my occasional mint julep while hanging out with friends at various races. But you cannot serve a proper julep w/out the silver cup, thus nixing that idea. However, placed a little deeper in the book is the recipe for a Mint Julep Martini. It substitutes Bourbon with Vanilla vodka, absolutely PERFECT! I even added my own little twist to it to make it even more unique - sliced strawberries.

So, everything's been selected and here are the signs I made for the Bar:

the bride's drink sign-the grooms drink sign-

and for a little bit of humor (and some southern charm) i found a adorable toast that hearkens back to the Antebellum south. This ought to be a hit w/ the tons of Yankees (mom & dad are both from New york) at the wedding.

and the whole shebang!


So if you're ever up for a quirky taste of the old south like a Gin Fizz or a Hurricane, try the fabulous book Southern Cocktails: Dixie Drinks, Party Potions and Classic Libations by Denise Gee.

Next up - the cocktail table decorations!

1 month

at 4pm one month from today, I will be Mrs. B (short for Bama Boy) . CRAZY and super exciting!!

Anyhow, Boy did I have a wonderful time this past weekend!

On Saturday I had a lovely Bridal Shower hosted by two of my mom's good friends: my godmother/ mom's best friend from college and one of our neighbors that I've known since I was 5.

(me seated with my little sis/maid of honor, my mom and my rehearsal dinner bouquet)

Everything was so perfect - from the cute little "B" Petit Fours to the each and every guest. Everyone from my Aunt from North Carolina to my babysitter from when I was a year old to my 5 bridesmaids made it to the party and truly made the day that much more special.
Later than night was an awesome bachelorette party with amazing friends -- note: theres a reason theres no pictures posted here of that night's events (i didnt have a camera and i havent gotten anyone's pics back). The short version - It was an absolute blast, a surprise and I was proudly not hungover the next day. Amazing!

Now back to reality and crunch time. T-minus 30 days til spectacular spectacular (or maybe just a fun wedding celebration at the beach)

details details details

this is the current scene in our living room:

favors/ seating layout in front -- welcome bags to the back. We're trying to get everything in order so that when we head down to the outer banks the week before the wedding, we're just compiling the welcome bags all at once. I love how our favors are doing double duty - serving as both favors and placecards. They're been really helpful in helping to organize our seating layout.

More to come on this fun little aspect of our beach-y celebration as we get closer to the wedding/ we get all of our little goodies in from various vendors and the dollar store!!

My Table Pain (plus a general update)

The RSVPs are coming in at an average of about 3 a day. Not too bad when you've sent out about 63 invites in the first round. I especially love getting something in the mail other than bills!! We thought we had a pretty good hold on who was and who wasn't coming for sure, so to lessen the strain in September, we started a preliminary seating chart to help us figure out numbers for tables, etc. Well, as the rsvps have been rolling in, a weird thing has happened -- we're getting some odd replies. People who have verbally said "yup, Im coming, you can bet on it" have then sent "decline" responses. The reverse is occuring also -- even amoung the bridal party -- where people have said "we can't make it" and then they've "rsvd'd" that they can make it! We love the wonderful surprise that some people who originally couldnt make the trip to north carolina are able to come... but its making things very interesting for sure.

It's also making the seating chart a fluxuating entity - changing with every passing day. Some tables that have started as 10 tops have been reduced to 6 tops (not really what we're going for) and some tables that had a nice mix of singles and couples have been reduced to 3 couples and a single. As a former shunned single, I refuse to do that to my single guests.

That being said -- I dislike seating charts.

On another note-- Here are the wedding updates:

1) the bridesmaids gifts are in. I love them and I really want one for myself. Also, all the bridesmaid dresses have come in from J Crew. Hallelujah, praise the Lord!

2) The names of the tables (which we're doing rather than tables numbers) are coming along. Heres an example of the first one:


1 down, 10 more to go (not including the recipe cards for the cocktail tables & signature drink signs for the bar)

3) The placecard/favors have been ordered and will be in w/in the week. Then its up to printing all of the name tags

4) rehearsal dinner invites, menus & drink tickets have been ordered from Vista print (many many thanks to one of my bridesmaids, misa, at notreallybloggingmaterial for the referral)

5) The welcome bags should be arriving today!!

6) My dress is at the tailor being hemmed right now, w/ a cute little bustle being added!! Shoes are in the process of being broken in as we speak (hehehe)

7) final contract w/ the floral designer to be finalized this week. Table linens also ordered

8) timeline to be finalized w/ vendors

9) maybe have the song list done for the dj completed???? maybe find someone to play guitar / violin at the ceremony. Maybe finalize verse readers? Can't print the programs til thats all decided.

And thats it. My stress hasn't been too crazy so far, but its only 45 more days, so who knows!

another reason why I love TJ Maxx/ Home Goods

I admit, I get such a tremendous high from finding amazing fashion steals at TJ Maxx (my $300 Ralph Lauren silk seersucker skirt I got for $30), and during the planning process I've learned to apply this to my wedding shopping.

Especially for my centerpieces

When I originally sat down with my floral designer extraordinaire in March, we had discussed using square, low glass vases I would rent from her for $5 a pop to house the table centerpieces. Five of the bridesmaids bouquets would be used as the centerpieces on the head table and we'd have 9 other round 10 top tables to decorate from there.

Oh how things change in 5 months. I've become super budget conscious, but also have really defined the look for the wedding - vintage inspired travel. I thought "why would we rent identical square vases for a fee that we'd never see again when we could jazz things up and BUY 10 unique vases for a similar amount and then turn around and sell them to get our money back (and maybe keep one for ourselves)." Using the idea of vintage as our guide, my mom and I were in TJ Maxx/Home Goods wandering around as usual and happened upon 10 Different apothecary style jars of different heights and shapes for b/t $3 and $10. They all have a similar neck opening diameter and similar bowl depth to make my florist's life a little easier. I'm thinking they will make really pretty and unique vases for our tables.

Here are my beauties:

Which in a little over 45 days they will look something like this:

(picture courtesy of theknot.com)

We've also nixed the idea of a head table and made it so we'd have 2 round tables for the wedding party just like the rest of the tables. I really didn't like the idea of making the significant others of the wedding party sit at another table away from their partner, so we decided against it! That means we've got 11 total tables to outfit. Six centerpieces will be made specifically for the larger apothecary jar vases and 5 of the jars will hold the bridesmaids bouquets-turned-centerpieces. It all sounds so good in theory, my florist is on board (and she has always created such beautiful arrangements at past weddings) so lets cross our fingers and hope everything works out!

The Invitations -- Check!

After 3 months of designing, anguishing, nitpicking and perfecting my invite design -- The Invites have been sent, delivered and people have started to respond--- so drum roll please:

Our Invites:

(names have been smudged for privacy.)

The Inserts: (clockwise from top left: The RSVP Postcard, Directions Card, Accomodations Card and Reception Card inserts)

The RSVP Postcard: Directions Card: Reception Card:

(and yes, that is what the actual veranda of the Currituck Club looks like)

Accomodations Card:

All 4 inserts stuffed into their comfy little kangaroo pocket (the actual invitation was mounted on the other side of the pocket):

My mom did the calligraphy on the pocket front. she went through like 20 of them "practicing" formal calligraphy. In the end I just told her to go for it & wing it w/ her normal handwriting. The result was even prettier than if she had done calligraphy!!
I dont know what I would have done w/out Photoshop and AutoCad. Who says that you don't learn skills that will help you in every day life in college & in Grad school? Without those hours and hours of learning how to create accurate measured computer drawings of buildings, I wouldn't have had my graphics for my wedding invites!
So now that that has been done, we're onto the programs and the name cards for the wedding. Bring it on.

Finding not just any ol guestbook....

So I've been thinking guestbooks lately. It's such an overlooked, but really important part of a wedding - a book that contains a record of the thoughts and well wishes from those with whom you've invited to share one of the most important days of your life. While a traditional "guest book" with 10 or so lines to put your name and a kind sentiment is nice for some some couples, I've often thought "what the heck do you do with it afterwards?" Does it get shoved onto a shelf somewhere only to be resurrected every anniversary and then somehow forgotten again? We're having a small wedding, so the thoughts and sentiments of our guests are extremely important. Also I have always thought that it would be a wonderful idea to not just have a guest book, but have something that played double-duty and that would honor something that both my fiance & I will cherish beyond an engagement & a wedding.

Enter coffee table photo book -

Brilliant, I said! Now just to figure out what this Coffee table book would be about. Option 1 ) a photo album of our engagement photos. Spectacular, except the wedding is taking up 99.9% of my time and even though it's super personal, its way too labor intensive. Plus, we will have a coffee table album of the wedding photos from our photographer after the wedding.

Option 2) photo book of the Outer Banks. Both the fiance and myself LOVE quality photographs('Bama boy took some photography classes in college and I had to take a lot of "artistic" pictures of my building models in grad school) so it seemed like a great solution. So I started scouring local book stores while on vacation in Corolla this past weekend. Not too many photo books available on just the outer banks, I tell yah. Lots of books about boating and fishing and duck hunting, but nothing about Corolla and it's absolutely amazing natural beauty and historic architecture. I found one book that did highlight the beauty of the Outer Banks, but most of the pictures were from the southern outer banks (Hatteras, Oracoke, Rodanthe..), where in my 25 years of visiting the barrier islands, I've never visited. Hardly very personal .

I was ready to leave defeated, surrendering my perfect idea, until the solution practically blindsided me. The Whalehead Club.

This spectacular Art Nouveau hunt club - the inspiration for me pursuing architecture and historic Pres, and which I've blogged about in a prior post, recently had a gorgeous coffee table book published highlighting its preservation and the beauty of the environment surrounding it.

The pages are full of a lot of open space, where guests can write their sentiments and well-wishes. The pictures are also exquisite -- Mollie Issacs, who took the pictures and also authored the book, has captured some of the most breathtaking images and details from this very special building. Even though we're not actually getting married or having our reception at this building (its a block away from the our chapel), it still is very near and dear to both myself & my fiance. Its a book that even without the messages from our guests we would be proud to display on a coffee table someday.

What unique way have you put your own unique twist on something as seemingly mundane & traditional as a guestbook for your wedding?

signed, sealed and *almost* delivered

Although today has been extremely stressful due to a bridesmaid dress shipping/order snafu (i continue to shake my fist at you J Crew), a HUGE step had been achieved in this massively DIY wedding. I don't want to show too much until I know most people have received them, but here's a little preview:

The front of the envelope. The label wrap came out spectacularly and I love how the 62 cent stamps (yes, these things, with all of their inserts do get very heavy) actually ended up matching the envelope!!
The labels wraps to the back -- our return address is there, but I had to smudge it out b/c of the privacy thing. The label actually seals the entire envelope.
When opening the envelope, this is what you see -- only a sneak peek for now.

So all in all, here was the scene before heading to the post office -- everything ready to go!
What is wonderful is that we're actually on vacation right now in Corolla and so we're shipping them from the little post office we've gone to for ages while visiting down here -- the invites will actually be postmarked from the wedding location (we didn't plan this, it just happened that we would finish stuffing and sealing the invites while we were down here.)
What a huge hurdle jumped! Now on to the RSVPs *hopefully* rolling in en masse!

as of today, I officially despise J Crew.

Their bridesmaid dresses and lack of stock/ shipping problems have become an absolute wedding nightmare. More to come later.

The Hunt for the Perfect Shoes

Ok, so I know I'm supposed to update you all on the most recent trip of mine with pictures and stories and such, BUT I just had to share one of the best/ most interesting parts of my trip....

After 5 months of intense searching - I finally found the perfect shoes for my wedding.

First let's rewind to March. I get this awesome idea to spice up things a bit and wear colorful shoes to the wedding Creating a cute, flirty effect like below:

(courtesy of WeddingPaperDivas)

Perfect because I'm not into white shoes at all and i want to be able to wear my shoes again after the big day. I love heels, so that's a must and it should be a fabric that complements the cotton of my dress. So I decided I want Navy Blue satin peep toe heels. Simple enough, right?

wrong. Big ol' freaking wrong.

I begin to scour the internet while I'm taking breaks working on my final study project. I look at Zappos, Piperlime, Ebay, JCrew, Nina, Nine West, Kate Spade, Nordstroms, Neiman's, Bergdorff (I was getting desperate), Glassslipper, visited DSW, Off Broadway and even Googling "Navy blue sating peep toes" and going from there. At one point I think both myself and another classmate were taking breaks from work in the studio just searching for navy satin shoes online. This routine of regularly scouring the internet for shoes went on for months into July. The result: no navy blue satin peep toe heels that were (a) in my price range, (b) fit the casual, classic simplicity of the wedding. Lots of leather (wrong fabric) and lots of closed toed (not appropriate for a beachy wedding), but nothing I was "excited" about - and truth be told, if you're someone like me who LOVES shoes, the shoes you should be excited the most about should be the shoes you wear for your wedding.

Feeling defeated, I decided that I would just have to buy shoes and have them dyed to match. I figured I'd buy a pair of dyable satin shoes after my trip from Glasslipperand just MAKE them blue, even if I had to go over a little on my budget.

So I then go abroad to visit my sister (more about that later). We're just casually walking around city 1 and my sister says "oh look, a Zara! They had a coat there I wanted, lets see if they have it in this store in my size." We walk in and she goes off to look for her coat. After browsing the first floor, I walk up to the second and then I see them.

Sitting on a shelf are the exact shoes I've been looking for: navy blue satin high heeled shoe with a peep toe and a little casually tied bow. They are PERFECT. Since I dont know my size in European numbers, I try them all on. Turns out, they have all sizes EXCEPT mine. Since it's a very popular chain in Europe (there's only one in the US - NYC), I figure they will have to have my size in another store. So I leave feeling hopeful that at the next store they will have my shoe. In our travels over the next 3 days we come across 3 more stores: 1 doesn't have ANY of the shoes at all, another doesn't have my size, and the third one.... well, lets just say I found 1 shoe in my size. No, that's not one pair of the shoes, that's one singular shoe. I scoured the entire store for my shoe's partner to no avail. I even asked a store attendant (rather, i cornered her b/c she was the only person I could find who looked like she worked there and asked her politely if she could help me find the shoe. She replied then, in perfect English "I don't speak English" and walked away. Wonderful). Note: Its sale season in Europe right now, so these stores are a mess -- piles of clothes on sale, the stores are swarming, and things are left everywhere. Incredibly intimidating to most people, but I had a mission.


So we left country 1 and visited country 2 - which I knew had establishments of the store in the city. So, while site seeing, I took a small detour to the first store I saw. I checked out their shoe area, found the shoes and once again, saw that they had the shoe in every size except for mine. I went to another associate, asked her if she may have had my size in the back. She said she'd look, ran off for 5 mins, and came back with a no answer. After a few moments of feeling defeated, I snapped out of it and then entered my determined, semi-bridezilla moods (which I am really trying to make a rarity) and marched up to another sales associate and politely asked her if she could see if they had a stock of my shoe in any other stores... I was tired of chasing after a shoe that I wasn't going to let dominate my vacation. The sweet store employee said "no problem," checked the stock, called the stores in the vicinity and within 5 minutes had a pair on reserve for me at a neighboring store. I had to restrain myself from hugging the woman in the middle of the store I was so elated.

So after 5 months of searching, and an shoe chase that covered 6 stores in two countries, here are MY wedding shoes:

Now onto breaking these bad-boys in!

Where the heck did you go?

Heres some hints of where I've been the past 10 days:

and

more to come soon, after I catch up on some sleep

and rockets red glare

So after flying back to good ol' New Orleans for a day or two, my fiance and I drove up to his hometown in North Alabama for some 4th of July bonding with the future in-laws. It was 3 days of LOTS of food, good beer and wonderful people. I also remembered how fun it is to set off fireworks -- the two places I usually am for the 4th (home and the outer banks) have made fireworks illegal in the past 10 years, so I haven't set any off in a VERY long time. So, I took advantage of them bring very much legal in Alabama and we set some off on the railroad tracks behind my fiance's childhood home:

(this is me lighting a little 'bottle rocket' on the tracks... i've got mad skill - i ended up actually hitting the next door neighbor's house during one try)

It was also on this trip that I realized that I am marrying a closet pyromaniac. It was like Christmas for 'Bama boy and his 4 year old nephew with all of the explosives and things to light on fire. Pretty funny, I must say.(my fiance in red getting ready trying to set off some little fireworks, telling his little nephew to stand back and watch, much to his nephews disappointment)

After our little family house party, we all drive to the bluffs above the Tennessee River to watch the annual fireworks over Florence, AL. The bluff was packed with tons of kids, families and we even managed to bump into some of 'Bama Boy's high school & college buddies that he hadn't seen in years. The fireworks ended up being spectacular (since we were on the bluffs they went off literally RIGHT in front of us) and both of us had a great time enjoying the simpler things in life: family, friends, fun and our wonderful, beautiful country!

(The crowd looking out over the bluffs waiting for the fireworks to begin)

( The town of Florence after the fireworks - view from the bluff)

('Bama boy & I right after watching the fireworks -- what a great holiday!)