wedding colors...

choosing the wedding colors was definitely something that i always thought i had picked out, ready to go...  i was always going to have a pink and orange wedding. bright and cheerful, no worries.

wrong. 

i found that when looking at my clothing, my apartment, my fiance's apartment... that we both liked the darker, dare i say, moodier colors. earthtones. but we both preferred saturated colors... colors that had some depth to them, personality. i didn't have to SCREAM color to make my wedding pop. 

so where did i go for help? 

martha. 

well, in all honesty, i went to the nearest home depot... knowing that they carry the martha stewart paints.

i went paint swatch crazy.

this is the PERFECT idea for helping to narrow down the colors... once you decide, you can carry these around in your purse or planning binder. 

one, to show off to your friends who never fail ask: "what are your wedding colors?" instead of pulling out crazy adjectives to describe your palette, ("it's kind of an eggplanty purple."), you can simply SHOW them. 

two, you can use these swatches to ground yourself when shopping. pull these out when looking for pillows for the soft seating area, or when trying to decide on table linen at a vendor's studio. 

a really incredible thing with the MS colors, they include symbols to help you coordinate colors in the same family. not that i stuck to the same family at all, but it's a nice feature if you need help matching colors up. 

so if you're debating your own wedding palette... grab your fiance and truck up to home depot. each of you grab a few swatches that you are drawn to and see where it leads you!

here is a sneak peak to my own color palette. no "eggplanty purple" here!



Mossy Rock




Rice Paper



Clove





will you be my bridesmaid?

so i'm not the kind of bride-to-be who just calls up her girlfriends and asks them to be their bridesmaid. not that there's anything particularly wrong with that approach, but it's just not me. having been a bridesmaid myself upteen times, i know how special of a moment it is to be asked to be one. i wanted my future bridesmaid's "asking moments" to be just as special...

i had two approaches to asking... in town and out of town. 5 of my girls were luckily in town over the holidays... 3 of them are cousins who live out of town. the brainstorming began and here's what i came up with...

cupcakes for the intown girls...

And "shipping friendly" cookies for the out of town girls...

want to know how i did it? see below!

Step 1: buy some incredible paper. 

i settled on my wedding colors (a whole separate post entirely) and from there bought two solids papers and a lovely print... the solids are both cardstock, so they will hold their shape, but the print is a little more flimsy, as i wouldn't be using as much of it. 

Step 2: cut into flag shapes

the shape and size are all on you... i wanted mine to be simple so as not to take away from the cupcake! 

Step 3: create flags.

i layered my colors together and using rubber cement (i have a secret affinity for the smell of it!), glued the layers together. once down, they were nice and stiff so as not to warp or give at all. 

Step 4: Affix flags to toothpicks

when making the flags, you want to give them a centimeter or two of room on the left edge. this will give you the room necessary to affix the toothpick to the flag. i used a glue gun to do this - any chance to whip out my mini pink glue gun is a must. 

Step 5: decorate!! 

i saw these pearls and just had to have them. my wedding is built around the idea of southern elegance... what better to convey that then a bit of raffia and a shimmering pearl?

the wonderful ladies of gigi's cupcakes helped me put the flags in the cupcakes once i got to their store. and i must say, they looked adorable. gigi's makes a wedding cake cupcake, so it really was meant to be! i presented these cupcakes to my girls at a "breakfast date" that i asked all of them to come to. i think they all knew what question was coming, but i don't think they quite expected the sweet surprise! after much oohing, awing, (and a bit of finger-licking) i had my in-town bridesmaids!  

now, the out-of-town bridesmaids were a bit trickier. i still wanted them to each have a sweet surprise, but didn't know quite how to pull it off. i certainly called gigi's in the hopes that they could somehow figure out a way to mail cupcakes... can't be done i'm sorry to say. 

but a cookie... 

i traipsed over to the puffy muffin and was delighted to discover that they would LOVE to help me. the picture doesn't do it justice, but this cookie was PRECIOUS! they did it in royal jelly (aka HARD) in my wedding colors, and even sprinkled edible glitter on them. but how to decorate them?

i went with the same theme as the cupcakes, pretty paper, raffia and pearls. each cookie was wrapped in a clear, crinkly cellophane and then tied tight in raffia for freshness. the label asking each girl to be my bridesmaid was simply tied at the top. 

with shipping a cookie comes the dilemma of packaging. being a girl who absolutely judges a book by its cover (and won't buy an ugly one if she can't help it), i knew that my cookie boxes had to be adorable. what better place to get ideas than target? 

found these perfectly sized thick brown paper package-colored boxes. stuffed them full of cream tissue and laid the cookie in. 

on top of the boxes, i used my amazing cricut to make a cake (green to reflect my wedding colors) and tied the box shut with some raffia. i couldn't help the fact that these cute little boxes were going to be shoved into an ugly USPS box (believe me, i tried), but i could sure as heck help the fact that when my girls opened said ugly boxes, that my cute one would be there to greet them. 

big hit. 

with each cupcake and cookie i included a hand made card... (made in cooperation with my cricut and the wedding cartridge). upon this i wrote a little note to each girl... nice and sappy, of course! on the back i wrote down pertinent information, including the dress model numbers, church address, hotel names, dates and times, etc. 

i hope this helps someone get inspired with how to ask THEIR bridesmaids... these were as much fun to make as they were to give! now resisting eating them, that's a completely different story... 

venue extraordinaire

all of our venues for the big day have been booked and are ready to go!

maybe this is the view of a naive, bridezilla-to-be, but i think the stressful part is over!

booking venues was actually incredibly difficult.

i had always assumed my church would be available (it wasn't but i lucked out with something prettier). i had always assumed that a reception venue would magically fit all of my guests and fall right in my price range. and i of COURSE assumed that all of these places would be within a simple stone's throw of my guests' hotels so that transportation wouldn't be a factor.

naive doesn't even begin to describe this girl...

maybe its the fact that i'm getting married in the busiest wedding season in the south and i stubbornly refused to move it.

so after a few reality checks and discussion with my mom and groom-to-be, we branched out and saw all that Franklin had to offer.

it's amazing what needs to be taken into consideration. one ceremony venue had less-than-desireable parking, one reception venue was incredible, but had incredibly scuzzy bathrooms to match. one had a sound board right smack in the middle of the room that could not be moved...

so all in all, we went with places that were not only beautiful and fit in our budget, but places that would WORK with us. places that were adaptable and cooperative. i can't stress how important this is, and i'm sure i'll realize this even more so as we move along in our planning process.

i recently made a suggestion to a soon-to-be-engaged girlfriend of mine: "don't wait for the ring, book your venues." she thought i was nuts, but i stand behind it! at least pencil yourself in ladies... practicality has to win out over tradition SOMEwhere.

so without further ado, here are our venues: (these pics are not my own)



ceremony: church of the assumption of the blessed virgin mary



rehearsal dinner: puckett's grocery downtown franklin

  

reception: vanderbilt legends club of tn


that's all i'm going to reveal for now. and not because that's all i have planned thus far... grin.

mrs. d-to-be's tip of the day:

book those venues soon, ladies!!! do this first, THEN pick your bridesmaid, color palette etc.

more on that soon!





one of many...

the journey has begun!!

kevin and i have both the church and the reception venues booked and ready to go. november 5th, 2011 it is!

being the ever creative girls that we are, mom and i have been busy running errands, soaking up inspiration and making appointments with vendors. i have a feeling that the DIY projects will just keep stacking up all year - and i can't be more thrilled! so many weddings, while knock-out events, seem to lose their emotion when personal touches aren't added. this certainly won't be the case with the daniele-akers wedding!

first place we went? wedding 101... aka headquarters. the closest i can come to defining it is by the phrase: "inspiration studio". after my first visit, i've been forcing an at least 10 minute discussion about it to every newly engaged girl i meet. it's worth it.

so why the bl0g? ever since i was 14 years old, i've kept a little black leather bound book. this wasn't a diary... i had plenty of those too... this was an "inspiration studio" of my very own. it contains sketches and tips, ideas i saw, ideas i created. i always lent it to my girlfriends who were getting married, sometimes nervous i wouldn't get it back. but now that I'M the engaged one, i get to turn this little book on myself. some of the ideas are comical, some have turned cliche over the years... but all of them are delightful. they are also ever-expanding.

what better way to expand this little book than on the limitless world of the blog?

so, my first wedding tip of the day and one that i try to think of daily:

remember, you are getting MARRIED not WEDDINGed!