I heart Isola Bella....

I discovered Isola Bella at a little shop in Red Hook, St. Thomas called Home Again probably a year or two ago. I loved the simplicity of their designs, the clean & modern feel of their products. My first purchase was this throw pillow that lived on my bed (when it was made) for awhile before moving to my office chair recently.



September 2010, my husband and I went to Vegas for a wedding conference and my in-laws came to stay at our house to watch our little girls. I hurried back to Home Again and purchased these canvas prints to hang above our what was once empty wall space above our bed. I thought it made our room look a little more "adult-like" to impress the in-laws. =)



I didn't show you the rest of the bed on purpose...it's currently piled high with two loads of laundry that need to be folded and put away.

Anyhoo...I've become fans of Isola Bella on Facebook (you should too!) and have been watching some fabulous products pop up. I couldn't help but think that some of these items would be perfect for our weddings - OH - and I forgot to mention - the artist is LOCAL! I love when brides give local gifts to their guests - you can't beat that! So I got in touch with Gina, the fabulous owner over there, and purchased some items that I thought would be great for destination weddings.

First up...these little wooden post cards. I am obviously very partial to seahorses so I just loved these:



I haven't tested it yet but I'm hoping to send one to my best friend up in DC and see how it holds up in the mail. Don't you think this would make a fabulous Save the Date?? I gave one to my bride last week and the photographer used it in her blog post about the wedding - clock on wedding to be taken there (thanks Elisha!).

But wait...there's more! Check out these wine totes. In the interests of keeping it local, why not swap out wine for a bottle of local Cruzan rum??



They come in all kinds of styles (just like the other products):



I think the bottle of rum is a great idea for guests that are staying on the island...but it may not work well for ship passengers (they won't be allowed to bring it back on the ship) but a large bottle of water, a bag of chips or pretzels, a shopping/tour guide, maybe some sun screen...that would fill up the bag nicely and make a great gift to give to guests. How perfect is the anchor for a ship wedding though?

Isola Bella also has smaller gift totes (and larger ones too!):



These little gift tags are cute to add to just about anything:



If you'd like to order any of these products or any other of Isola Bella's great products - just let me know!

Awesome Welcome Bag Ideas

I had to admit this, but I am a knick knack kind of person. I watch the show Hoarders on TV and I'm pretty sure I could slip into that given the right conditions. Unfortunately, the home that I live in has ZERO storage space. It was build in the 1960s as a vacation home. Vacationers do not need a lot of storage, they live out of the luggage, right? So I neither have space to display knick knacks nor do I have space to store them (and my husband is so very thankful).

I think because this knick knack loving, hoarding tendency that I posses is the main reason that my favorite part about my job is favors and gift bags. I just love "stuff" and am always fascinated with what brides decide to do for these two items. I also have a lot of brides asking for ideas, so whenever possible, I do try to get pictures and add them to our Fun Stuff album on our Shutterfly pages. I think this particular album gets overlooked, so before I update it, I wanted to share some of these photos on the blog.

First up: welcome bags! I do have a list of items that I'm happy to send to clients with suggestions of what to put in the bags - but ultimately, those items and the bags themselves are up to you to decide. A recent bride gave me my own gift bag (yeah! love more stuff!!) so I took a bunch of pictures to share with you:

I love this particular bag because it's so practical and earth friendly! Instead of having the couples name & dates on it, which may make guests not really use it again, its just a simple reusable grocery bag:



And here is a peak inside:



I love the St. Thomas Survival Kit with Pepto tablets, Advil, mints, etc.



The bride & grooms initials were going to be AC and GC - so they did a little AC/DC thing and the groom made up a playlist - there were songs from each of their hometowns, their favorites, some island songs, very cute!

You can also go the more personalized route with a bag like this:



You can bet I flipped my lid when I saw the seahorse! The bride found these on Esty by seller beachchik - here is a photo from the Esty listing:



I wanted to show this photo as well because look how pretty the bags are just rolled up with a piece of raffia ribbon? You don't even need to fill the bags, but they could simply be gifts all by themselves.

Next up: favors! Check back soon for an update!