http://practicalryangosling.tumblr.com/

My office was home to a photo shoot for one of our wedding planners earlier this week and I had the pleasure of participating. Essentially, we turned our client consultation room into an office/wedding haven with tables and vases draping with linen samples, flowers and pictures galore. My job was to act as the bride-to-be and pretend to be in the middle of a consultation with the planner. It was pretty fun.  But I digress…my lack of acting skills and brief stint as a bride are not the point of this post.

To make sure I was camera ready (side note – it’s quite strange being on that side of the camera) our wedding planner brought in a make up artist to make me over. Amy does TV and special events – i.e. weddings – jobs all over the South Florida Area so I was in good hands. Let me tell you – it was quite fun!

I was a little nervous because this would be my first experience with air brushed makeup. (In case you don’t know what that is, it’s when the makeup is literally applied to your face with an airbrush machine – similar to a mini spray tan machine) Airbrushing is really popular with weddings because A. it doesn’t sweat off and B. it doesn’t wipe off (depending on the brands of course). Also, it looks extremely natural as it goes on quite thin. I am officially a fan! It was so light and barely felt like I was wearing anything. Amy also went all out applying false eyelashes and full eye makeup etc. Not only did I enjoy not having to lift a hand to get ready for this, but it was nice to see how good I could look (HA!) because I typically stick with just slight smokey eye, liner, blush and chapstick. So classy

Anyway, I am officially an airbrush convert. I can certainly see why it is so widely used for the big day and it will be a my must do list for all my clients from here on out! Now, I know it’s totally wrong to tease with all this information and not show the finished product but alas, I only have some pretty awful iPhone pictures.

Oh who care’s …. full disclosure right…. (ignore the crazy faces). For comparison factor, there’s a pretty rough before on my About page.

I’ll add a few sneaks from the shoot once I get those.

The couple made a large display invitation with a light-brite inspired look. I love the fact that it is printed on wood!

The bride added a bit of a modern twist to her bouquet by adding air plant accents. I also love the mixture of satin and burlap on her shoes!

I love, love, love the ribbon backdrop for the ceremony. I’ve seen this all over the web recently and just can’t help but smile every time I see it. Another detail that fit in so well with the wedding was the use of their name/logo/pseudo monogram (if you chose to look at it that way). The “handwritten” look adds such a personal feel to the event.

This is by far my absolute most favorite thing about this wedding! Instead of the traditional caterer the couple opted for a combination of food trucks (dessert included) to provide the eats. How amazing!!! I especially love what appears to be deviled eggs with some bacon on the side. YUM! I’ve officially made myself hungry.

Please be sure to take a look at the whole feature here – the question and answer is uber cute. Also, if you are easily addicted to wedding blogs like me, Snippet and Ink is not one to miss!

It’s common to hear brides say that “they have been planning their weddings since they were little girls.”  This may have consisted of ripping a few pictures from magazines or dreaming up a vision of the big white princess gown in their head, but I’d say, arguably, that for the most part little girls’ plans were mostly that, a vision. Typically, if you wanted to immerse yourself in wedding details you had to seek it out, buying magazines from the bookstore, visiting vendors, etc. The wedding industry was very much a tight niche that only the betrothed could access.

Fast forward to 2011 and the world of social media, and what do you have? In your face weddings.  Suddenly, we see weddings everywhere: on TV, in mainstream magazines, on every blog imaginable. We’re watching couples get a complete dream wedding makeover a week before they say I do, flipping channels to the screaming bridezilla having a meltdown like that’s standard and not even batting an eyelash while parents drop thousands of dollars in a swanky bridal salon for a dress their daughter will wear once. Some could even argue it’s become the trendy way to throw a party what with the Kardashian debacle, but that’s another story (check out this interesting graphic). My point is, it’s not just a life milestone anymore, its a social milestone and an outlet for entertainment from the media. Brides (and sometimes grooms) now have every detail of their wedding figured out before they even find their significant other. Thank you Pinterest.

More shockingly, I think this wedding boom is evident in the everyday bride planning her own personal wedding. Couples are willing to spend extravagant amounts on this single party because that’s how wedding’s work. I see clients all the time who have what we affectionately refer to as “champagne tastes on a beer budget.” They want it all, lighting, crystals, big floral arrangements, fancy lounge furniture, designer gowns, letterpress invites you name it. Often times they don’t even realize how much money these things actually cost.

It seems like with the wedding world in everybody’s face it’s not uncommon to see couples who are simply trying to “one-up” their friends and relatives all to prove that they can have the most over the top wedding of the year. It’s become a competition to see who can throw the best party of them all. Maybe this is the way it always has been, or maybe it’s just a testament to my upbringing, but I feel like weddings just used to be simpler. The wedding has always been referred to as the most important day of your life, so naturally brides wanted to make it special and go all out, but I think this remained on a very personal level between the bride, the groom, and the family. Maybe it was always over the top and I was just sheltered, or maybe it really has become trendy on a whole new level.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fabulous industry to be in. I love what I do. I love the clients I work with (even the crazies). I love doing whatever it takes to make that day as spectacular as it can be for my couples.  I too love staring at the pretty pictures of lace and tulle and flowers on my pin boards and gawking at the ridiculous shows. I might not have had visions when I was younger but I sure have inspiration tucked away now. At the end of the day though, I just have to chuckle. When did weddings become mainstream and how did that happen? Who decided that this would be the next industry boom? Man were they right!

And for their sake I hope they are making a lot of money!

Thoughts?

A. It will be nice to be on the other side of the party for a change (I’ll also get to dress up fancy in all those old semi-formal dresses hanging neglected in my closet)

2. It will provide me with an excuse for a little bit of travelling and vacation time and

C. I will be celebrating a very important moment in the lives of a lot of very important people in my life!

This is exciting.  One of the most exciting parts about some of these upcoming weddings is that I will also be in a few of them.  The downside to having so many events on the upcoming calendar….the financial burden.

I’m sure everyone has felt the strain of wedding finances at some point, whether it be questioning how to afford a simple gift for a recently married friend right out of school, finding the funds to travel to an out of town wedding for friends or family, or even having to buy that new dress to wear to said event. It can be tough. What’s shocking to me is how much the average person spends on weddings these days (as a bride/groom and as a guest), especially if acting as a member of the bridal party.

I recently stumbled upon this article and info graphic combo from the financial site Mint.com via Wedding Channel.com and they put the expenses of a bridesmaid into an interesting perspective:

(you can also check it out here or read the full article here) Now, obviously this is just the average and there are plenty of brides who keep costs down for their party members, but it’s true (and crazy!) that expenses can get exorbitant these days. I think that Mint provided a lot of great suggestions on how to save some pennies and I think some of these can apply to the guests as well such as sharing hotel rooms with others you know are travelling and getting creative with the gifts, even pooling with other guests for a larger item. Sometimes the sentimental gifts, i.e. homemade, gifts can be the most thoughtful.

Thankfully, I have some great, budget conscious friends in my circle so I’m heading into this year of weddings with a positive outlook, eager to celebrate!

I found this gem from LB Photography blog (here) via pinterest- bridal party morning after (or morning of) photos. This is such a clever idea – why have I never seen this before!

Needless to say I was very excited when J asked me for help with her invitation suite and all that encompasses. My background is in photography and I dabbled a bit in design in college so I eagerly said yes! First up were the Save The Dates. I knew J was going for a “modern but whimsical” style for the wedding and also knew that she was leaning towards using some sort of flowering branches in her wedding. I immediately started looking for inspiration and was drawn to paper suites of this variety:

(unfortunately it has been forever since I snagged these beauties so I cant remember where they are from, but chances are it was minted, wedding paper divas, green kangaroo or any number of wedding sites including The Knot, Martha Stewart, etc)

I really liked the loose feel of the graphics. I knew I wanted to keep it clean and simple, with just a hint of what was to come at the wedding. I also knew for mailing purposes, that I wanted to keep the save the date as close to standard envelope size as possible so they weren’t too expensive. From there, I drew up a few VERY rough drafts to present to her and Momma B. (excuse the super poor quality. As I said, very rough the first time around)

Option A:

Option B:

Option C:

Option D:

After some discussion it was narrowed down to Option B. With some tweaking, referencing back to the initial inspiration, I made a proof of the Save the Date.

I wasn’t personally feeling that particular illustration (again, rough sketch), it was really more of a place holder, and I knew I needed something more polished. For this, I enlisted the help of a design friend of mine Courtney O’Connell (I’ll include her full name because she’s awesome and if you ever need design work you should hire her!).  This is what the final piece turned into:

I was beyond stoked with the final look and thankfully it got the stamp of approval from J and all parties involved. She added some black and white photos of her and the fiance on the back and picked out a coordinating yellow envelope for good measure and out they went! Now that all parties have received their Save The Dates I can finally talk about it! I had a lot of fun playing with the designs for this project and am pretty proud of what the final product was. I’m also helping out with the actual invitation suite so I will show that progress as it comes along. Always something to look forward to… Working on her invites has made me even more excited for the big day!

Today as I was checking my email a sidebar flashed a news story from the Huffington Post about a flash mob proposal at Downtown Disney in Orlando, FL. I thought that sounded pretty cool so I figured I would click over to the page and check it out. Ironically enough, I am not typically a fan of large, in public displays but this proposal I found today had me eating my words.

Jamin arranged a flash mob dance to the tune of Bruno Mars’ “I Think I Wanna Marry You” to surprise his girlfriend of over 5 years. Now I love me some Bruno (best Glee episode ever?) and I can’t help but smile every time I hear that song – but this one put me over the edge. Watching this video… I had chills. And I cried. Like a little girl. Multiple times. Actually I played it three times in a row and clicked around you tube to find other versions of it from onlookers. It was just that good.  I even felt my heart start racing when the footage in the insert showed Jamin getting nervous before he jumped in. I know…I’m crazy…but this was amazing. See for your self:

Any fellas looking to take the next step – take note. This one is a winner. I’m going to go hit play again…one more time can’t hurt right?