wedding planning

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: BRIDESMAIDS: HOW I ASKED MY GIRLS DIY

Today on Wedding Wednesday, it’s all about a little DIY for my Bridesmaids. I was very excited once I knew how I wanted to present my idea, that’s why I decided to share with you all, how I asked my girls! For those of you who have been following my blog, you all might know that I’m all about DIY and creating goodies and cute decor details. Asking my girls to be my bridesmaids would be no exception to the opportunity. So after some research and finding some cute ideas, I decided I wanted it to be personal. My creative side got excited and started going to my local arts and crafts stores like Michael’s, hobby lobby and one of my favorite places for small inexpensive goodies.. Target! Once I started visiting these stores I just began by looking around and just seeing what cute things I could find. I wanted it to be personal but not spend tons of money on random goodies either. So I picked up a couple of cute little pieces from wherever I found things and started my DIY! I spent time looking for things that would suit and go with our look for the wedding as well. Like mentioned before in my previous wedding Wednesday update, I’m trying to incorporate our colors and the feel we are shooting for that day! Simple, classy and personal. So away I went! The final product was definitely pleasing, personal and lovely!

My materials included the following: -the cute little buckets I found at target and they were a dollar a piece! Score. -the little gold chevron goodie bags, labels, sewing kits and post cards were also all from target -the golden magnet frames I found at a cute little boutique called Francesca’s -the white Dolly’s, gold glittered clothespins, gold ribbon, golden glittered material paint, gold washi tape and notecards were from Michael’s arts and crafts -the small white totes from Hobby Lobby -the color paint paper samples from Home Depot – the sweet chocolates, your local food store lol – personalized notes by yours truly 😉

First thing I got to work on were these tiny little white totes.. I wanted to spark some interest to them and make them personal. I decided to get a dolly and place it on the tote and secure the edges down with some tape to prevent the dolly from moving. Once they were secured, I got my glitter fabric paint and traced the pattern of the dolly on to the tote and let it dry for only a few minutes to prevent the dolly from sticking to the tote. *Note..If you leave it to dry completely it will stick, if you remove dolly right away it may smudge the pattern.. so only let sit for a couple of minutes before removing dolly. Once that dried, I wrote each girls initial on the tote… They came out better than expected!

Next step was wrapping these up once they were dried. I decided to sneak in the travel size sewing kits in between since they were a little of an eyesore. They didn’t really go with the colors so I hid them in between and used the pretty gold ribbon to tie it all together.

After those were done, I started gathering up all the other little details. One was labeling those cute little chevron goodie bags with a little sweet note and putting some yummy chocolates inside. I used the extra dolly’s I had to label each gift with the girls names and taped the pictures to each individual magnet picture frame.

The Next step was the more personal aspect of this cute little Bridesmaid gift. I Included not only a cute little postcard that asked each girl to join me on my day as my bridesmaid but also sweet details about expectations and details of what my vision was for the wedding and information about the day of the wedding. My favorite though, was the individual sheet I gave all my girls that named each girl and I wrote a little sweet note of what each of them meant to me. It was sweet and simple, but it came from the heart. The rest as you’ll be able to tell was just arranging and making it look cute with gold and glitter and color samples of what the wedding colors would be! ❤

Now for this handsome guy, he also asked his guys to be his groomsmen, only in a more simple and masculine way lol. We arranged some of these Cigars with their names on simple cardboard paper with a simple phrase printed on them, “Your service as a groomsman is required.” This idea we had seen on pinterest and felt it suited well!

This Handsome guy was ready to pass out our bridal party gifts!

The Final Product was just what I envisioned, cute and simple but made with lots of love for my girls. Made to let them know how much it means to me for them to be there for me the day I say I do! ❤

*all images are property of La Vida, life as it comes

-Jen

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: SAVE THE DATES MEET CALLIGRAPHY

This Wedding Wednesday was a bit exciting for me to share! Our save the dates went out a couple of months ago, and although I’m a little late in sharing this, it was still exciting finding the pictures of these beauties to share with you all. As many of you know from prior post, I’ve been practicing some calligraphy on my free time. I’ll be honest, I haven’t picked up my nibs or my ink in a little while. But like I said, finding these pictures definitely sparked my interest once again to keep going and getting better at it! So what better way to share a new hobby with those whom are special to us and will be sharing our special day with us? Well.. By adding a little personal touch to our save the dates of course! I must say I was entirely excited for this project, it was two things that were special to me and I got to share them all at once!

To begin with, what bride doesn’t get excited to send save the dates?!? Umm… I’d like to think all brides do! It’s such a special moment, knowing that you are finally able to literally share that date in the near future that will be one of the best days in your life! It’s a love filled announcement to all those special people who will be sharing with you that day. To me at least, it sounds priceless. So for me sending these out was a big happy deal and being able to personalize them with my own personal touch made it more special.

Xavier and I wanted to make sure we sent out something that said “us.” Our save the dates would have to be simple, clean-looking, yet classy and warm. So when picking the style for our save the dates, we made sure to find what fitted those wishes. I think we did a pretty good job at finding save the dates that defines us. I also wanted to make sure that we brought in our wedding colors in some way and start to kind of give people the feeling of what our wedding day will be like. Grey, white and Gold were all incorporated and these simple yet classy save the dates from wedding paper divas suited us perfectly! We were very pleased with them and the quality and most importantly their price! They always have such good deals going on. Perfect for bride and grooms on a budget! The envelopes were plain white but this is where I got to be creative and add that little personal touch with my calligraphy. A little flourish and some pretty handwriting and pretty colors did the trick! I was in love with them! We’ve gotten so many compliments and couldn’t be more happy with them! Hope you all enjoy them as much as we did.

Some advice for your save the dates!

-shop around, many websites have coupons and special deals on amounts or specific dates along with free samples

-order extra envelopes, whether you’re the one addressing your envelopes or hiring a calligrapher, we all make mistakes. Ordering a couple more will give you some room for error with no stress

-return address stamps like our lovely stamp from littlemamapretties, will save your hand some tiredness and save you cash! Ordering return address labels can cost easily above $70 for maybe 100. Our pretty stamp cost us,$20. And we will be using it for our wedding invites later on! Score!

-pretty vintage stamps are hard to find, and can add up as well. Your local US post office has a variety of wedding/love stamps for your occasion. I loved our vintage like stamps we purchased at our local post office in sheets!

-envelope sealing stickers are a cute and easy way to spice up the look of your invites! We purchased our “love” stickers at our local Michael’s arts and crafts store for $5.

-make a wedding website online for extra information for your guest and add your wedding website to your save the dates, people will have a good idea of the arrangements they will have to make and some sites even have RSVP options, we already have a couple and haven’t even send out invites!

Did you personalize any of your wedding paper goods? If so, how so? We’d love to hear!

Jen ❤

*all images are property of La Vida, life as it comes

WEDDING WEDNESDAY UPDATE

A Little Wedding Wednesday update today! We are officially at the 8 month mark and things have been steady as far as planning goes. The feeling of being overwhelmed has settled in comparison to the beginning of our planning to a subtle list of to do’s. I would be lying if I said that we don’t feel overwhelmed still, but I think we have a better grasp and understanding of the whole “wedding planning.” Little by little we have scratched things off our list and to be honest there’s one in particular that’s my favorite! But I will go into that in detail a little later! Just know it’s exciting! We have managed to have things under control for the most part so far. One thing that has gotten the best of me recently has been “color coordinating” something I never thought I would say, but it did, lol. We still have things to do and things to figure out, but it’s okay because I know that we can do it. We have really gotten a lot of the big things taken care of and now its seems to be coming down to the small things and small details. I have a lot of ideas running through my head and I can’t wait to actually be able to make them happen. For now, we will continue our steady pace and share with you what else we have crossed off our check list!

Since our last update we also have:

√ 5 of 7 bridesmaid dresses
√ Food Tasting
√ DJ
√ Flowers
√ Engagement photos (this is that favorite of mine 😉 )
√ Finalized guest list

Not too Shabby huh!? We have also done much more and if you can’t remember what else we have crossed our list, you could read bout it here. We are actually in the works of getting our engagement photos very very soon and we couldn’t be more excited. Since we will be receiving our photos in a couple of days, we have been brainstorming about our save-the-dates! We previously blogged about ‘minted’ and their lovely sample wedding package we received. Well, we have been trying to weigh out our options and what will both be economical for us and give us what we want. So, we have also received a cute sample from Wedding Paper Divas. Pretty soon, we will be scratching that off our list and I have to say, we are pretty close to making our decision once our engagement pictures get to us. I can’t contain my excitement! Check out Wedding Paper Divas and their invite samples… cute right?

We’d love to know if any of you bride to be’s have used Wedding Paper Divas for your save the dates or invites?! How are your list of to-do’s looking?

∴Happy Wedding Wednesday∴

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: SAYING “YES” TO THE DRESS

Saying “YES” to the Dress! One of the most special moments that will forever be imprinted in my memory! On this Wedding Wednesday, I want to take it back a little, to about two months ago when I said “yes” to the dress. After the holiday’s had passed, I decided that it would be a good time to “start looking” for a dress. Yes, I said ‘start looking’.. mostly because in my mind, I thought things would go a lot different. And what I mean by that is.. time! The time it took me to find MY dress, was definitely less than I had originally planned for.

Originally I had thought, “Ok, Jen! Its time to start the search, because knowing me, I won’t be able to decide”.. Those were my thoughts exactly guys. My thoughts played a little trick on me that day.. I had made two appointments for the day for a start. Little did I know ONE would have been good enough. My appointments for that day included two places; First being Patricia’s South Bridal, a cute little boutique in Ft. Lauderdale that I had known through my brother and from high school. It was the place to go to for prom dresses, lol. Second, David’s Bridal, I had nothing to lose. Going into the appointments, I was nervous, yet very excited. Nervous because I knew I had a budget that I was very adamant about not surpassing, especially that my fiancé and I are paying for our wedding. And of course, I was excited, excited because well I had never tried on a wedding dress and I knew at the moment that we walked into the store, that we were there for MY dress!

That day I decided to take with me the most special and closest of friends with me. Not all could make it to both appointments, but spending the day with all them even if it wasn’t all together made my day sooo special! It meant the world to have them all there. I was seriously overwhelmed with joy, seeing all my girls there. The first appointment was amazing, most of my girls made it to this appointment with the exception of a couple and it was the start of a very special two hours.

The appointment started in the cutest little ‘tea room’ where my bridal consultant asked me the famous questions… “whats your style?” “what do you see yourself wearing?” “poofy not poofy?” “Veil?No veil?” the list goes on… up into everyone’s favorite question..”what your budget?”sigh… well as anyone that’s getting married can tell you budget is a big deal! Well after I had told my Bridal consultant the ultimate answer of the budget, and how adamant I was about sticking to it, my lovely girls brought the champagne out to start the festivity and the search! Little did I know, my mom and dad had a little surprise I had no clue about. Right before the toast, My mom stopped and told me that her and my dad had a surprise me… well that’s when she leaned over and whispered to me that her and my dad were paying for my dress!… How grateful I was for that gesture is beyond what words can describe! Of course the tears flowed, but flowed with joy! We are so incredibly blessed for all the support we have received from all our loved ones through this journey.

The Dress search quickly started and my amazing bridal consultant April started to put me in dresses! The best part of trying on dresses for the first time is seeing everyone’s faces when you come out and the second is seeing how what you may have hated or loved, doesn’t always go the way you thought. My advice to any bride looking for a dress… Be OPEN MINDED and be willing to try dresses on. Half of the time, the way they look on you is completely different from what you thought when you see the dress on the hanger. Well long behold, there were ‘nice’ dresses, ‘pretty’ dresses, ‘okay’ dresses and there was a ‘LOVELY’ dress.

Everyone always ask, “did the dress make you cry?””Did you get the feeling?” Well, I can now describe the ‘feeling’ most talk about. From all the dresses I tried, I always looked to mostly one person for confirmation, and that person was my momma. She liked a lot and thought many were pretty.. But how did I know that my dress was “the dress?” I knew, as soon as my mom got up from her chair, her eyes glowed, touched the dress from head to toe.. telling me how beautiful I looked and that she couldn’t believe it. I knew it was my dress when she stared into my eyes and cried with the biggest smile on her face. When her and my little sister reached over to me and gave the biggest hugs full of joy and love. And when I looked behind them to see my future mother in-laws face, lit up with a smile and tell me that Xavier is going to love it..and that I looked beautiful. That’s how I knew that my dress was “the dress.” Most girls, not all.. I realize this.. but most girls, look to their moms for that last confirmation.. and well, that’s me. I knew that if my momma loved it and made her get up from her seat, and my mother in-law also loved it and knew her son would too.. that, that was my confirmation to say “yes” to the dress. Did I cry? Yes. I didn’t cry because of the dress, no. I cried because of the moment the dress brought upon us. It’s a beautiful dress and I wouldn’t want to wear any other dress. But I cried because I could see myself walking down the aisle to my future husband in that dress and i could see my mom on the side with tears of joy and confirmation. All those thoughts plus my overjoyed mom hugging and fixing the dress and how lovely the dress is.. Knowing that’s the dress I would walk down the aisle with, is what made me cry.

Yes, we went to Davids Bridal after that appointment, mostly because I wanted to include those who couldn’t make it to the morning appointment and to confirm that Yes, I had picked the dress. Do I wish I would have kept looking for more dresses at different places? My answer is NO. I knew from the moment we had found my dress, that it was the dress. The dress I LOVED and would wear the day we get married. And while many tell me, you should have looked a little more, because ‘you never know’… I had already set my mind. If I absolutely LOVED my dress, saw myself walking down the aisle in it, my closest friends and family loved it and had such a sweet lovely and personal moment with my family.. why would I? Another tip for advice, don’t be too influenced by others, go with your heart. It makes the moment that much more special!

That’s how I said “YES” to my dress..

My girls with the exception of some, thank you ladies!

How cute are my Maid of Honor and Mini-Maid of Honor?

And to make my moment that much more special, my brother Joe also played a big part of my happy day… to my surprise he had also made a contribution to my saying “yes” to the dress.. Thank you Joe and to my parents for your endless efforts in making my memory the best one! You all are my happiness and Im so grateful for you all.

Happy WEDDING WEDNESDAY!.. How sweet is your memory of finding your wedding dress?

P.S. No my dress is not shown, for “groom” purposes.. 😉

-Jen<3

WEDDING WEDNESDAY

It’s wedding Wednesday guys! I have been postponing this post for quite a while! Mostly due to the lack of time I have had for “me.” But that’s ok, I know that sometimes, life get’s busy and we must attend to it! Today I wanted to start sharing with you all a little journey of mine and my fiancé’s. It’s been a mix of emotions. As many of you know, we got engaged this past October while on our trip to New York. You can read more about those adventures, HERE and HERE. Well, since our engagement, we have been bombarded with the endless questions of “when is the wedding?” “where is it going to be?” “Do you have your dress?” and “Where are you going on your honeymoon?”… SIGH! It was so overwhelming at first, because truth be told, we mostly just wanted to take in the fact that we were engaged and all the excitement we felt. But we understand that the same way we are excited, that many of our friends and family also are excited too!

So long behold, the wedding plans started that same month, mostly because we were scared. Scared because we quickly learned from many that venues and vendors book WAY to QUICKLY! AH! lol. So to be brief, I wanted a way to catch you all up on what we have done thus far… I figured I would start blogging about our wedding planning and the adventure it has been for us. So most Wednesday’s I will try to fill you all in on where we stand on our plans and our feelings thus far. Mostly because “Wedding Wednesday” sounds good and we actually will be getting married on a Wednesday! genius right? lol

To catch you all up from October, I will tell you this.. we have felt the stress of planning and of the financial toll it takes out of most planning a wedding. Don’t get me wrong, we still are VERY excited that sooner than later, we will be a married couple! But to be very honest, the amount of time, research, meetings, planning and money, it can also get very overwhelming. Let’s face it, we are not the rich and famous! lol. But thank God, that we have all that we need, along with the support and love of our family. Everyone has been so supportive, including our friends and for that we couldn’t be more grateful.

I’m most excited to be the future wife of my love.. and to be sharing our lives together. Because through all the plans, I feel we all have to remember that it’s not about the size of the wedding party or the cake or the colors, but about the marriage and love, that means more! Everything else is extra and makes it more pretty! That keeps the anxiety to a minimum for me, and brings everything back to perspective!

The journey thus far has been steady for the most part, even though having 2 other friends engaged at the same time will make you feel as you are behind on your planning! lol That’s what happens when most of our conversations turn into “wedding” convos. And we end up asking each other ‘what he have done’ and ‘what we still have to do’. Thanks Desi and Anita! lol Through it all, we have our laughs in those conversations.

Well guys this is what we have been able to accomplish since October:

√ a date
√ a venue
√ an amazing photographer (Beca Companioni)
√ a wedding dress!! ♥
√ 1 of 7 bridesmaids’ dress
√ And a successful engagement party

Not too shabby huh? We are at 9 months of the countdown, and I know that from here on, time will move quickly. So more research is being done and more things will eventually get crossed off the list. For now we will be thankful for what he have done thus far. We are trying our hardest to keep the cost down, since we are paying for the wedding.. so research has been crucial. In further post, I will fill you in on more of what we have crossed off our list and go more into details about the “finding the dress story” and the “venue story”… and any suggestions for you future brides and grooms out there!

Here’s a little fun thing we got in the mail a couple of days ago, that made it all that much real for us… Our free wedding sample kit from minted. Made me realize that soon enough our wedding date and names will be on a invitation and save the dates! yikes! I’m so excited. The Free sample kit is lovely. A great way for you to see their quality and the variety that you have to choose from! I included pictures of whats included in the kit. Isn’t the kit super cute?=)

Planning a wedding too? We would love to hear all about it and any advice you may have for us! Stay tuned for more of ‘Wedding Wednesday!’

-Jen<3

WILL YOU BE MY BRIDESMAID??

Will you be my Bridesmaid!?? That was one of my favorite questions i got asked today. Besides “are you hungry?” lol! In all seriousness, a question like that can make anyone’s day! Especially if its being asked by a special friend that’s so dear to your heart. If you have been reading my blog from the beginning, which i doubt since i think only 10 people did and most were probably my family lol.. Well if you did, you would know that Xavier and I have a mutual friend that means quite a lot to us. Her name is Anita. When i first started blogging, she was one of my very first post, here. In that post i made sure to mention that Anita, Xavier and I all met in nursing school and she soon became Xavier and I’s cupid. Well besides using her beautiful engagement celebration on my blog, it was also a chance to express how dear she is to my heart and how blessed i am to call her my friend.

Today i write about Anita once again, and i couldn’t be more happy to do so. Anita is a person whom i cherish not only as person but as a friend. Even though we don’t see each other daily nor on a weekly basis, she’s a friend that i know will always be there for me. I know this because she always has in the past. As friends that met in nursing school, her and i got to share a huge milestone in our lives together, becoming nurses. There were always challenges.. not only in nursing school but in our daily lives. She was definitely ‘my person’ during those times and i couldn’t have been more grateful for that. We were each other’s cheerleaders when sleep became too little, night’s became too long and when we rocked out exams in nursing school! I will always cherish those memories with her! Did i mention that i met her in orientation while she almost spilled orange juice on me?? lol Well thanks to that orange juice we were inseparable! We pushed each other, we helped each other, we stood up for each other and we made each other laugh when we needed a boost!! And man did we laugh! Till this day, even when we just get to see each other once a month, since sometimes life happens, there is never a dull moment! We can laugh till we wheeze!

So today I said, “I do!!” I said YES to being my beautiful friends bridesmaid! Because I wouldn’t have any other answer but that one. We now share our stories as working nurses, as future wives, and of course of our future as friends! This is yet another moment that we will cherish together and keep in our memories. I couldn’t be more happy for her and her future hubby! I know their future will be full of endless blessings and love! I can’t wait to see her walk next to her hubby as future MR and MRS and i can’t wait to be a part of it! It’s an honor.

So to my dear friend, Thank you! Lets keep on making more memories and laughing till we wheeze! Love you!

-Jen ❤

Heres how she asked! How cute are they!?

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