The Maids

Here are the dresses that my maids and I have chosen for them to wear on the big day. I love it!! I did give the three who were able to attend the choice of the dress. I wanted something for them to wear again. Yes, every bride says that. Originally the dresses were going to be black with an ivory sash then we saw this and fell in love. They will be able to wear this again, throw on a black cardigan and some black heels and you have a great date night dress! The dress will fall to mid knee, they'll wear red shoes (their choice) and have red nails. The best thing about the dress is that it will work for any of my preggo maids. The pleats help give some extra room or the sash can be removed for the bump. Perfect!

The bouquets will be a mix of 2 red roses. One being the traditional red and the other rose being a more vibrant red. The guys are wearing a traditional black tux with a red vest and black skinny tie with red roses as their boutineers.

Bringing the North in the South and vice versa

Since I have been a wedding planner in both the north and the south, I felt that introducing the traditions of each would be a wonderful blog topic. In the south people know nothing about a northern wedding and in the north people know nothing about a southern wedding. So....my fiancé and I thought we would do a little introduction at our wedding. :) Northern weddings are almost 95% of the time a plated meal with offering the options of a chicken or steak dish. All of the seating arrangements are predetermined by the bride and groom. The meals are typically a three, sometimes four, course meal, salad, meal and desert. A traditional northern wedding is nice, but not our style. At southern weddings (which when I discovered this my mouth dropped open being I grew up in the north) typically seating is not offered for all guests (insane I know), it’s 95% of the time a buffet (can be shrimp and grits), there are no seating arrangements at all. It’s more of an actual party where there’s a bride and a groom ….. this is completely different from the north. In the north, guests sometimes tend to miss the ceremony, where in the south the guests arrive for the ceremony and don’t stay for the reception. In the north gifts are always brought to the wedding and in the south the gifts are either sent early or not given (at showers they are). All of the wedding traditions like the dances and cake cutting are kept the same. So my fiancé and I are having a cocktail style reception where we are offering seating for all our guests, however not assigned by us (which may confuse and make our northern guest feel a little out of their element but, oh well). For the meal, we’re offering 2 stations (not buffet style) and passed hor d’ourves to each table. We also have taken out (our own preference) the bouquet/garter toss and the cake cutting, however we are bringing back a classic tradition of changing into our “going away” outfits. Saying bye to all of our guests and then leaving to our night alone before the honeymoon. We really want our wedding reception to be a party to celebrate the start to our life together and our love for each other with taking a little piece of the north (where we grew up) and the south (where we got engaged) and placing them together to make a fabulous time for all.

The look

Being a wedding planner the things that are most important to me are: the details, the creativity and the design. I know with most brides it's all about THE DRESS, but when I'm working a wedding and with my client what gives me the justification is that the wedding is a success, everything runs on time or close to and the decor of the wedding is flawless (everything from the chairs for ceremony and reception to the linens, overlays, centerpieces and flowers.) That's what I do; put all the pieces together to make an incredible and gorgeous wedding. There's nothing better then the look of a completed reception venue (before the celebrations starts) with all the pieces to the puzzle in their places. So with my own wedding, I completely feel the same way. I'm excited to have my photographer take a picture of the reception venue before everyone arrives to get that one shot where it's perfect and put together. That's how I'll know I had a flawless wedding, with all my planning and decor being put together. So yes, I'm different from most brides out there.

The details. I LOVE details, little things here and there that really can add the perfect little touch to the wedding. The colors to the wedding are black, ivory and red. Black and ivory are the prominent colors and red is going to be placed in little details throughout the wedding decor. For example, my maids are in black and white print dress. The way I am detailing them with red is: red toe nails, red bouquets and red shoes. The guys are in black tuxes with skinny red ties with red boutonnières. The centerpieces are going to be red, where the linens are going to be black and ivory. Also, we chose the perfect venue with the walls being a deep red! So the little details of the wedding are in red to show the accent color, but in a subtle way.

The creativity. Being a planner my mind is always going on what great idea I can come up with next. Since our ceremony location is within a few minutes walk to the reception location, we thought that offering a PediCab service for our guests to be able to get to the ceremony to reception was a perfect idea, along with being environmentally friendly. While our formals are being taken, our guests will have the opportunity to utilize this service. Once our formals are done, our bridal party and us are going to ride the PediCabs to the reception. Of course our PediCab will have a “Just Married” banner on the back as we ride through Newburyport. Since we're doing a sweetheart table, the backs of our chairs are going to have Mr. & Mrs. signs, thought it was fitting ;). The wine, my soon to be new last name is a brand of wine!! We are going to offer that as our signature drink and red wine only. ;) Since I am Irish and my Fiancé is Italian we are offering those two options for food and going to suggest a drink to pair with each meal.

The decor. Yes, as you know by now, is extremely important to me. The design for the wedding is Damask (see pic above). For the linens the underlay is going to be plain black, the overlay is the Damask fabric. With black chairs, red centerpieces and the deep red walls, it's going to look very classic and stylish. Personally, I'm not huge on flowers so the ceremony decor is being kept very simple and going to be all white. One decor item I LOVE is white paper lanterns, inside receptions they can be gorgeous, if it’s the right venue, but using in the ceremony decor is just breathtaking!!! I'm still in the process of finding out how to use the white paper lanterns; since I'm in public space my options are limited.

There's a run down of the important things to the planner (most of them). Oh, if you wonder why I'm not worried about everything being perfect and on time, there's no need; I'm a wedding planner!!