happy weekend!

Yay for Fridays! I'll be leaving work early today, which deserves an even bigger YAY! My parents got into town last night and my mom and I have a meeting with Epting Events this afternoon. We'll be meeting with someone from their floral team to discuss bouquets and centerpieces. Hopefully we'll go over timing, set up and some of the other little details, too. I'm especially happy that I was able to schedule this so that my mom can be included. Sometimes she just has an eye for things, or creative suggests that I just don't think of. And because I don't want this to be a completely picture-less (read: boring) post, here's the floral inspiration board I made for Epting this morning:

(all images from Once Wed)

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

invitation inspiration

Now that the save the dates are over and done with (believe it or not, I still haven't fully cleaned up the craft explosion they left behind), it's time to start looking at invitation inspiration! With my track record, I'll probably pick something overly ambitious, so I better get started soon. Like our save the dates, we would like our invites to have a vintage feel to them. I also want to include a wax seal - per the future mister's request and maybe some fabric details. Right now, I'm practically overflowing with ideas, so it might be hard to narrow them down.

Ice Cream Social via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Linda & Harriet via Style Me Pretty

Mrs. Gloss on Weddingbee

Two Brunettes via mint

100 Layer Cake

String Calligraphy - Bella Figura

Florentine - Minted

Love Letter Inspired Invitations - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vintage Airmail Inspired Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vellum Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Which do you like best? Where did you go to look for invitation inspiration?

saving seats

I think I've mentioned it before that we are having a "cocktail buffet" at our reception. This means that we won't have seating for all of our guests and instead there will be a mixture of 30 inch hi-boys and 36 and 40 inch rounds. If guests get tired throughout the evening, there are additional chairs on the front porch of the house, plenty of seating inside the house (in the air conditioning) and we could also potentially carry some chairs from the ceremony site to the green space surrounding our reception tent. For our younger guests, we don't foresee this being a problem. For our elderly guests, however, we are planning on reserving a few of the larger rounds. This will give me the opportunity to craft some more paper products since I'll be missing out on creating table numbers and escort cards.

The other thing I plan on doing is reserving seats for me and the future mister! Granted, we probably won't be sitting much throughout the evening, but it'll make for an awesome photo! Here are some of my favorites:

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(source) - my absolute favorite!

Are you planning on saving seats at your wedding? Which one is your favorite?

dressing my ladies - bella bridesmaid

This is going to be a long one...

Our first stop Saturday morning was at Bella Bridesmaid, a quaint little shop in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.


After trying on a few different styles, the maids were gravitating towards these two from Coren Moore - one boatneck and one sweetheart, both with lovely detailing.






We were excited that the dress picking was so easy, but little did we know that the fabric color palette that the consultant had laid out on the table (with at least 10 different shades of blue, that I loved) was not the one for Coren Moore. Instead we had only 4 shades of blue to choose from and they didn't flow together as nicely.

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So we discussed a combination of their tiffany blue and lime.


Sometime during this discussion, the consultant came over and showed us some photographs of a wedding where half the bridesmaid dresses were tiffany with light green sashes and the other half were light green with tiffany sashes. To give you some reference, this is the photo I showed her as inspiration at the beginning of the appointment:

(from the newest edition of Southern Weddings Magazine)

Needless to say, the photo she showed me was pretty much the exact opposite of the above mismatched look I was going for. At that point, another consultant came in and took over our appointment. It was just at the right time, too, because I think my bridesmaids were picking up on the fact that I was disappointed and a bit overwhelmed/frustrated with the other consultant's lack of understanding. So they spoke up and we started over. This time, we focused on the dresses that coincided with the color palette I was initially drooling over. The following dresses are LulaKate or - as our (new) consultant put it - the build-a-bear of bridesmaid dresses. There are 14 different bodice choices and about 7 different skirt choices. My bridesmaids picked out the following styles:

MOH Sam chose Angela, a straight across strapless shown with box-pleat skirt. She liked this style as is.

BM Emily chose Pam, a cross-over/sweetheart with straps. It is shown with the box-pleat, but Emily likes it better with the straight skirt.

BM Katie chose Gina, a scoop neck front and back. She prefers the straight skirt as well, rather than the party skirt shown here.

BM Becca picked the sweetheart neckline, Pearl, with the box-pleat instead of the straight skirt shown.

All of the dresses would include the band as seen in the Angela and Pam photos or potentially a sash instead, similar to the Coren Moore dresses we liked in the beginning. And below are all of the shades of blueish green. I'm waiting on Bella Bridesmaid to send me some swatch samples since the colors look drastically different in person. Right now I'm leaning towards a combination of Pond, Tiffany Blue, Surf, Mist and either Waterfall or Paradise. As BM Becca explained to the consultant - I want my bridesmaids to look like 5 girls showed up to the wedding wearing dresses that just happened to go together.

Here we are, at the end of the appointment, happy with the decisions made and with plenty of options to discuss over lunch. All of the girls' measurements were taken and their preferred style combinations were written down. Now I'm just waiting for an email from our consultant and some fabric swatches. The designer for LulaKate will be at Bella on the 27th, so I might be able to go back and get sketches made and price quotes for all of the dresses we are considering.

Next up: our appointment at Bridals by Lori throws a wrench into the mix.

cake toppers

Since I seem to be on a roll with wedding accessories/decor inspiration, let's move on to cake toppers.

Le Petit Oiseau
Charming and cute, but pricey

Lollipop Workshop

Super sweet, but also pricey

Bent Branch
Adorable!

Lilly BonBon

Another cute option

Kiki La Ru
I just think these look fun and very rustic/vintage

The toppers above are all very lovely, but my favorite is most definitely this one:

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When I was an itty, bitty girl (about 4) I saw a picture of the most beautiful Barbie in a magazine (probably the Sears Christmas catalog).

Happy Holidays Barbie 1989

I was in love and it went straight to the top of my Christmas list. I was already a huge Barbie fan, but that Christmas started almost 20 years of collecting. I have every single holiday Barbie from 1989 until 2008, in addition to a few others. So, of course, the 1960s (reproduced in 1997) Barbie and Ken wedding ornament is my top pick. I'm not exactly sure how the future mister feels about my preferred pick, which is probably why I haven't made any decisions yet.

What do you think? Should I go with Barbie and Ken or keep looking to find something we both like?

garters

Here are the garter inspiration photos I sent to my sew talented mom recently:

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As you can see, I'm keeping with a more vintage look. I love that the last one is tied on with a velvet ribbon, which matches my favorite ring bearer pillow. For the garter toss, I think I'll have my mom whip up something a bit more plain and simple, or perhaps something to commemorate the future mister's love of sports.

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What did you do for your garter(s)?

peachy keen

As you all probably know, the future mister and I had some of our engagement photos taken in a peach orchard.

photos by Heidi from Our Labor of Love

Well, FSIL/Bridesmaid Katie sent these peach favor inspiration photos earlier this week. What cute ideas! And a great way to incorporate the future mister's *insane love for peaches.

mini peach pies (source)

peach preserves (source)

My only concern with something like these is that they could be pretty pricey. And to be honest, I was considering cutting favors all together since a majority of our guests will be from out of town and I plan on delivering OOT bags to the hotels. Having one favor per couple or family is always an option.

What did you do/are you doing for favors? Do you think guests expect them?


*I'm not kidding. He could probably eat an entire bushel in one sitting.