Thursday, March 31, 2011

Perfect for your bridesmaids...


When I was getting married, I found these ridiculously cute "Wet Bikini" bags on some bridal website, no idea now where I saw them (it's almost 6 years ago that I said "I do!"). They were ridiculously cute, but also exceedingly overpriced. I think they were a crazy $48 each? Well, I just happened to be in Rainbow the other day (do you have these stores near you?) and found one almost exactly like it for the wallet friendly price of $5.99! I think they're perfect for either stuffing in the welcome bag for your bridesmaids or even using it as a mini-welcome bag and stuffing it full of fun stuff (cheesy romance beach novel, lip block, sunblock, mini-rum bottles, bottle of water, cheap pair of shade....).

Saturday, March 26, 2011

A special way to remember loved ones...

Quite often, I'll have a bride ask me for ways to incorporate loved ones that have passed on in their wedding day. We often have a moment of silence during the ceremony for those that could not be with us physically, or we'll have an empty chair with a flower in place of where they would have sat.

Amy, who I blogged about a few posts back, unfortunately lost her step-mother a few months before her wedding day. I love the idea she came up with as a way to still make her step-mother a part of her day. Very hopeful that she would be able to attend, her step-mother already had her dress picked out and purchased for the wedding day. Upon her passing, Amy had some strips of fabric cut from the dress and used this as the ribbon around her and her sister's maid of honor bouquet at the wedding. The result was a beautiful and meaningful wrap for their bouquets. How special is it that her step-mother was able to "walk them down the aisle" in a sense?


Saturday, March 19, 2011

Combining everything I love...an Etsy Beach Wedding!

I am a fan of MODWedding on Facebook which means I get daily updates in my news feed containing some pretty cool ideas for weddings. It's not "destination wedding" oriented though so while some of the ideas are very cool, they don't really translate well for our weddings here. That changed yesterday though when they updated their Facebook page with a link to their blog article:

http://blog.modwedding.com/love-and-surf-a-beach-wedding

Now...looking through the photos without reading the text, I was wondering, "is this a fake wedding? I don't see any guests?" and upon reading more, it was indeed a fake weddings, just set up to show some really cool ideas for beach weddings. The whole thing was absolutely gorgeous though. I LOVE the surfboards used as an altar area...the vintage feel of the table settings, so very lush and full. But my favorite thing of all? The bride (kind of what I imagine Jennifer Anniston to look like at her next wedding). Loved her hair, her dress and OMG...her necklace!!! I was hooked! I don't think I can pull off a chunky necklace like this, but I'd sure like to try, or at the very least, have it sit beautifully in my jewelry box. I thought, I bet I could find something similar on Etsy...and wouldn't you know, they credited the necklace's creator at the end of the article and lo & behold, she sells on Etsy!



Check out ideafarmdesigns for some crazy cool jewelry. And definitely flip through all the photos in the above blog post - sooooo pretty!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Unusual Wedding Dates

I have blogged before about 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 wedding dates and how we expect to be busy those days this year (I've already had to turn down a few 11/11/11 weddings). It's also fun to see how many weddigns get booked on days like 9/10/11. But my mother just sent me a forward (one of those annoying chain letters - don't worry, if you read a chain letter in a blog, you are not obligated to send it on!). But it got me thinking...my October dates are already starting to book up, maybe this is why???

> This year we're going to experience four unusual dates. 1/1/11, 1/11/11,
> 11/1/11, 11/11/11 and that's not all...Take the last two digits of the year
> in which you were born -now add the age you will be this year, and the
> result will be 111 for everyone...!! This is the year of Money..!!! This
> year October will have 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays and 5 Saturdays.
>
> This happens only every 823 years... These particular years are known as
> 'Moneybags'... The proverb goes that if you send this to eight good friends
> money will appear in the next four days as is explained in Chinese fengshui
> Those who don't continue the chain won't receive.. Its a mystery, but its
> worth a try.
>
> Good luck.

I'm a very supersticious person, so you can believe I'll be sending this little forward on. I'll let you know in four days if I win the lottery! But as for anyone considering an October wedding, this may just be the very year to do it!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Happy St. Patrick's Day!


Only one of my little leprechauns would smile for me today. The other isn't feeling well and stayed home sick from school. I felt so bad that she didn't get to wear her green shirt to school today, but as she is resting in my bed watching cartoons, she couldn't care less!

Hope everyone has a great, green beer filled day!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Amy & Greg's Wedding!

I am sooo far behind on my blogging! Do you know I have a list saved on my desktop that says "BLOG" full of things I want to share? Some of them are really simple posts, wouldn't take more than 5 minutes to blog about...but, I did a very important wedding last month for a dear friend of mine and I know she is dying for me to blog about it! I haven't wanted to put up just any blog post until I could put HER blog post up!

Amy is very good friends with my friend Ally. Ally and I went to college together and Ally has an AMAZING group of high school friends. I'll admit, it took me a couple of years to get their names straight - Amy (who would also go by Am-O), Eden (real name Jamie) and Kozar (real name Jaimen). With the nicknames (really just their last names) and the real names, I really never knew who was who and my friend Maddie would have to brief me on their names before they came to campus to visit. They would come visit us at IU and we would go visit them up in Cleveland. I'll never forget one of their visits during freshman year when I proudly announced, "hey, let's all jump in my truck and drive around listening to Mellencamp" (yes, I AM a proud Indiana girl at heart). I think it was Eden who stated with just a hint of disgust, "oh wow...we really are in Indiana now".

We've all stayed in touch through the years and all the girls came down to witness Maddie's wedding:



It was at this wedding that Amy fell in love with St. Thomas and the idea of an island wedding. Almost one year later, everyone returned for what is quickly becoming an annual trip. On their first night in St. Thomas, Greg dropped to one knee and proposed.



Her little trick to get Greg down St. Thomas and fall in love with the idea of a destination wedding worked. We began almost immediately in planning their wedding weekend. She even got to visit Villa Botanica for a site visit before flying back to Chicago.

First up on the wedding weekend agenda was a welcome party at Robert's American Grille:



It was reeeealllly fun being a guest and not a planner at this event!

The next day, we had the ceremony overlooking the pool & harbor at Villa Botanica.





Cocktail hour was held afterward in the garden.



Dinner & dancing in the pavilion!



The above photo was taken by her photographer Elisha Orin. All of us girls decided to wear the same color to be "faux-maids".

Then a couple days later....BoAT TrIP!



We went out on Limnos Charters and while I can't post any more pictures of the boat trip (too scandalous!), I have to say, Limnos did a great job. Fully stocked open bar all day (which may be the reason additional photos can not be posted) and a trip to the Willy T and Jost Van Dyke's White Bay. Such a fun day out with friends and a great way to show your guests the islands!

There are a few more elements of Amy's wedding that I will blog about over the next couple of weeks, special touches that I want to share with you. I'm just glad to finally get a post up about the event! I had to email Amy to see if she had that picture of the two of them right after their engagement - she's a smart cookie and realized it was for the blog. She wrote back:

I can't wait to see what you write about me "pain in the ass bride," "bridezilla," "worst experience of my life."

Ha! Hardly! I had a blast and am always thankful when my girlfriends take the long trek down to St. Thomas to see me (and maybe get married on the side while their here). I love the fact they they are already planning for their February 2012 trip. Love you all!

Monday, March 7, 2011

Is Purple the new Pink?

There always seems to be a trend with wedding colors. When I first started Island Bliss Weddings, the hot colors seemed to be pink and green. Green slowly faded out and orange replaced it - with pink & orange being BFFs. But lately, there has slowly been a rising number of brides requesting purples. All purple or purple & green (I wonder how purple & orange would look together and how pink would feel about that??). We had two weddings last week where the brides chose purples for their bouquet and I have to say, I was blown away by how beautiful they were. I discovered that I really love purple flowers...and that I could take pictures of bouquets all day. Unlike my children who never look at the camera when I tell them to, these bouquets were fun little models for me!




The middle bouquet was just breathtaking. The way the florist had arranged it, it looked different from each angle:





LOVED IT. Those dark purple flowers? Parrot tulips. I'm a Dutch girl, and anything tulip is part of my "favorite things" collection. I hesitated about highlighting those tulips on the blog though, as I'm worried I'll get a lot of requests for tulips. They really don't do so well here - I've actually seen them "bloom out" of a bouquet - weirdly, they poke their little heads up higher and higher than the rest of the bouquet. They are mainly grown in Holland and Michigan (Holland, Michigan probably!) so you can imagine that they like cooler temps. But I have to say, even though I put them in the high risk category for flowers, they totally rocked this bouquet.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Hair flowers out, rose petals in.

I'm always looking for ways to improve our packages. Over the last year, it seems I had a lot of brides tell me that they did not need the hair flower that was included in the Happy Hibiscus and Platinum Bliss Packages. And often times, even when brides did not tell me this, I would see that they went unused on the actual wedding day. I try to tailor the packages to include items that brides need or want and I realized that the hair flower was not falling into this category. So for 2011 (maybe I should have updated this sooner!), I've decided that the hair flower will no longer be included, but instead, we will have extra rose petals - to be used in popular "petal toss" photos like you saw in my previous post.

If you booked your package before this change, I still have you listed for the hair flower. If you prefer the rose petals instead of the hair flower, just let me know and I'll make the changes. As with anything in our packages, if there is anything you would like to change or customize, let me know - we're more than happy to tailor the package to you and your needs. We never want to restrict you on your choices!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

MIA

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in so long! The last two weeks of February and the first two weeks of March are busy, busy, busy...but I have a long list of things to blog about! One of which has to do with the following two photos:


Above photo by the amazing Eric Johnson of Paradise Photos



But you'll just have to wait to find out why. We have two more weddings to finish off the week!