Our Wedding Our wedding was as beautiful as I imagined, rain and all. Even with all the vendor screw ups and "mistakes" (many that really only I noticed) the day was everything I had hoped for. I need to thank the ladies on The Knot and Weddingbells for inspiration during the planning process - now hopefully I can inspire some future brides!
Photos from the big day. The photos I did get are nice...it's the photos that were missed that make me sad. Friends and family have tried to fill in the gap of missing photos (brother walking my mom down the aisle, our first kiss, my bouquet, our head table... oh the list of missed photos could go on and on). Below are some of the better ones. Note to future brides: make a very detailed list of photos you want! If you don't say "take a photo of my flowers" they just may not do it. Don't assume anything! I can't get that day back but will hopefuly be doing a re-shoot soon... at least I hope we will!
Jump to Planning Photos
All professional photos done by Jardine's Photography in Thunder Bay or Alvis at Bliss Pictures (our videographer). Non-pro photos taken by friends and family.
Getting Ready
Photographer never came to the salon but thankfully my videographer got one shot of my hair!
My dress: Reem Acra's Adored
I loved my shoes more than anything, "Vanessa" by Grazia. I wish I had a photo of them by themselves!
My nephew's bear - bow tie made with scraps from the bridesmaids dresses
Waiting to put on our pretty dresses!
I had to make sure all the bows were perfect!
Girl's dresses ordered from http://www.eveandellie.com/ and they were wonderful to work with.
Love this picture Alvis caught, Tyler had no clue what was going on that day!
The Ceremony
Our ring bearer handing out programs
The only photo of our rings.
My friend Cindy took this picture and I love it!
Photographers missed our kiss at the alter but I suppose this one will do!
Photo Shoot
(in the rain...so we stood next to a building overhang!) Antonio's corsage is upside down in most of them grrrr...
My girls flowers with their monogram rhinestone jewels, loved them! I demanded this one be taken :)
Me and my beautiful sister.
Me and my nieces
This was the only decent portrait of us, upside down flowers and you can't see the real beauty of my dress.
Only wedding party shot
My poor girls were so cold!
The Reception
Tables had brown overlays, I made the table numbers, menu tents and centerpieces! White vases with birch branches and a single orchid stem, metal hooks with hanging tealights. The room glowed!
One of the few pictures of the head table (taken by a friend). All in white with spotlights. It was perfect!
Our favours
The cake. Photos of our parents cutting their cake on either side.
Showing off my pretty shoes before going in, Cindy knew what was important to me!
I even made sure our monogram was on the dessert! Photo taken by friend Jessica.
No good professional first dance photo but at least a friend caputred our gobo on the dance floor!
My photo book I designed. It turned out so beautiful!
My DIY Thank You Cards - these took me forever to design but I love how they turned out!
He he I had to crop my parents out of the photo of us in the top left corner! No one will ever know!
For Sale:
Reem Acra "Adored" Gown
Reem Acra Adored Wedding Dress. Size 6 with alterations. Cups put in and french bustle added. I am 5'6" and wore 3 inch heels. The gems on my shoes frayed the front edge of the dress so it has to be hemmed about an inch to remove them. White with silver detail. I have a package of extra Reem beads from my seamstress in case you find any missing. Paid over $4200 new, asking $2500 obo. Will inclue my Toni Federici veil (diamond white). Please contact me for details if interested.
Planning for this big day took many many hours! I wanted everythig to go together. I designed our invites and the branch I put on them was carried through the reception with the branches in the centerpieces and the large trees along the walls. I also used our monogram "F" on everything! From embossing the invite envelopes to the gobo on the floor, the cake topper and the favour tags, it was everywhere! Thanks to fellow knotties for all the inspiration.
My beautiful ring. He picked it out all by himself.
The loving note I had engraved on the inside of his wedding band - he never wears his ring so it's perfect! And our photographer said it was too hard to take a photo of it...I seemed to manage just fine!
Save the dates I made to send to friends and family out of town.
Cards I made to ask my girls to be in the wedding party.
The newspaper announcement. Let's people know of the engagement as well as the social (in this town we call it a shag...don't know why lol)
At our social in the shirts I made!
My girls
The boys
Centerpieces I made for my big italian shower - two hand towels and the flowers were made out of coffee filters! Too cute.
The favours I made for my shower - inside was a little AVEDA soap and a face cloth.
Note that was inside the shower favour!
Favours I made for the shower my mom threw
My apron "guest book" that I made for my shower. Everyone had fantastic cooking words of wisdom lol.
The Attire
My amazing shoes!!
And here they are after the big day all dirty but still the prettiest shoes I've ever owned!
Some sparkle:
My hair comb, from Haute Bride (ordered online). And below all my pretty bling! I was trying to play photographer and get a nice picture of it all!
My Dress!!
The Dress: Reem Acra's Adored
Trying on the too big store sample
First fitting with my mom
Picking up my dress and taking it home!!
Hair and make up trial...trial actually looked better than my wedding day results!
I needed to see my hair trial with my dress! Don't mind the mess in my parent's basement, I had turned it into wedding central and had boxes everywhere! And since I didn't want to get my dress dirty the bedsheet on the floor was a must!
Flower girls try on their dresses. It was crazy hard to find a dress in "diamond white" for them (my dress isn't white white) so I got one custom made by Eve & Ellie (highly highly reccommend!). I even got them to copy the deep V in the back that matches the bridesmaids. So cute!
I had wanted my girls to wear pink...then I went with slate blue. They would look beautiful no matter what they wore!
Bridesmaid dresses - Watters & Watters dupioni silk in slate blue.
Bridesmaid Gifts: Black pashminas (because I knew it would be bloody cold), black flip flops for when their feet hurt from their pretty shoes, a monogramed tote made in blue dupioni silk to match their dresses (so they would always remember that lovely blue colour!) mints and lip gloss from Victoria's Secret, cream from Bath and Body Works and earings and a necklace to wear on the big day. Their gift also included a manicure and pedicure as previous pics show. I loved my girls!
Best groomsman gift ever - AF and I wanted to be creative and give them something more memorable than a flask or a money clip - so we got a caricature done of the group. It turned out so great and everyone loved it.
Flower girl gifts from Pottery Barn
Above: Our goboBelow: Our invites!
Our invitations. I designed them myself and then had them letterpress printed by Mercurio Brothers in California. I then glued rhinestones to each flower to give them some bling (which took approx forever!) They were stunning, photos don't do them justice but I tried to take a few nice ones. I then carried the branch theme into the decor of my wedding and the bling was on the menu too!
And of course the monogram on each envelope - main envelope and return envelopes! Apparently I like creating work for myself. The embosser came in so handy, purchased at horchow.com.
Our custom stamps! Our guests were wow'd before they even opened the invite! Ordered online at http://www.canadapost.ca/
Photobox I put together after the wedding to showcase our invite and my accessories (not exactly sure where to put this in the house lol):
The menu I made, because even menus have to be pretty. Even added some bling to them too!
Table numbers I made, loved they way they turned out!
Jelly Bellies!! Coconut flavour. The stickers I made for the top took way too much time but I love the end result. I did these instead of those silly jordan almonds that no one eats anyway. They were placed at each setting. Tins from Michael's, jelly bellies from the Bulk Zone, stickers from ebay, graphic from me!
Card box Antonio and I made out of 4 white frames. It's on a lazy susan so it spins.
Our guest book ordered from http://www.jennibick.com/
Our unity candle from http://www.weddingstar.com/
Beautiful toasting flutes
Garter from http://www.thegartermaker.net/
The night before the wedding we stayed up all night to put together my centerpieces! There were just what I wanted - classy and elegant and not too overpowering on the tables. Love my girls!
The wedding singer!! Ok, in my dreams, but our first dance was Bon Jovi "All About Loving You". (PS: I took this picture when I saw him in Minneapolis!!)
Some photos of some funny and some pretty dresses that I tried on in my hunt for "the one". Not to worry girls, it's out there!
For help with your own bio try: www.STLWed.com/help/bioFor help with Signatures go to: www.STLWed.com/help/siggy