Organize the Bride

This is the current state of my (lack of) wedding organization...

Embarrassing, right?! I need to find a better way before I have a stack that is actually falling over, not just looking like it wants to. While those of us planning our weddings are lucky that we can keep a ton of information on our computers, we inevitably end up with some unsightly wedding-related things with no home. In my stack are magazines, contracts, vendor business cards, a wedding planning book, etc. And while I know I could file some of it on my computer and toss the paper versions, I find that I like to have some things that I can pick up and look at. A good old binder or accordion file would be a good start, but there are other shapes and sizes that wouldn't fit and would end up like the above picture (in a teetering stack).

So, this week, I started thinking about what I'm going to do to organize this mess.

I love these hanging organizers...

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BUT, I live in an apartment in San Francisco, so it goes without saying that I ran out of wall space and extra rooms a while ago. If I had my own office, I would love to use something like the above options. It would be great to have the magazine tear-out pages hanging, and business cards and bridesmaid dress swatches pinned up.

 Then there are the typical office-looking organizers. Which, again, could work if I had a dedicated 'office.'

 

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What I need is something in between. Functional, yet cute and versatile enough to repurpose after the wedding. I also want something that can fit things of different sizes; from magazines, to books, to invitation samples and stamps. I think any of the below options could work.

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I'm especially liking the last baskets, because they would be so easy to use after the wedding (from storing towels in a bathroom, to books in a bedroom, etc.). The only problem is my cat would think I bought them for him as scratching posts ;-)

How did you tame your wedding stack of stuff?

Oregon Showers Bring July Flowers

The countdown is on! My fiance and I are officially getting married in less than a year! So now when I read the wedding check lists I will actually need to pay closer attention to the "12 months before" section. The cool thing about being a year out from our big day is that this is the one time we are in our wedding month - July! Which has me thinking about all things seasonal - weather, food, and flowers, among other things. But right now it's mostly flowers. And even though booking the florist is on the "8 months before" list in my Brides magazine, when it comes to seasonal things, I think the perfect time to think about what you want is during the season your wedding will be in. Last month I posted about my wedding color palette, so this week I want to delve further into the flowers - such a big part of the color scheme. We are doing light neutrals for the bridesmaid dresses, grey for the guys and pops of bright with the flowers. See more on my wedding colors in my post, here.

So, for the flowers...I am liking the bouquets with bright colors, but that are balanced out with some lighter, neutrals.

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I LOVE the look of the single flowers for the bridesmaids (also budget friendly, I would think). Including the peonies in the brides bouquet ties it all together. I think for my color scheme I would do similar to one of the colors below for my bridesmaids.

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My next task on the flower front is contacting some florists in the Columbia Gorge area to see if these flowers are doable in July.

Speaking of beautiful flowers, I want to give a shout out to my dear friends, Lauren and Nick Allen, whose gorgeous wedding was featured on Wedding Chicks last week - click here to see. I'm in the first picture all the way on the right and a couple pictures down with the glowing bride. ;-) Aren't their flowers amazing?!

Follow up from my post last week when I was trying to figure out what to do for our negative one year anniversary. We decided to go get drinks at the neighborhood bar down the street. After some delicious beer we grabbed takeout Ethiopian food, went home, popped a bottle of pink champagne (that we had been given as an engagement gift) and just ate, drank and laughed together. It was my ideal laid-back, negative anniversary celebration!

Negative One Year Anniversary

This Friday will mark exactly one year until our wedding date in 2013! It's crazy because it seems so far away, but I'm sure it will fly by. I actually just realized Monday night that it would be our 'negative one year anniversary' on Friday. At the same time I also realized we completely forgot about our 'old' anniversary a couple weeks ago, and it is so not like us to forget. I guess it means, as they say, out with the old and in with the new (anniversary dates, that is)! So for our new day (the negative one year), I wanted to do something special. We'd like to keep it pretty low-key and casual. Here are some of our ideas. Picnic dinner in Alamo Square up the block from our apartment. The only drawback is that it's usually cold and windy up there, so we would need to bundle up (and bring the red wine), which I guess is not such a bad thing!

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Movie night at home with a bottle of bubbly, popcorn and our cat? Doesn't get much better than that in my book. Also, a great excuse to watch a chick flick, wedding movie. Any recommendations? I found this list of winners. I've been wanting to watch The Five Year Engagement, so that could be a good one.

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Cook dinner together at home. We do this most nights, so we'd have to make it an extra special menu and atmosphere (candles, dimmed lights and no TV).

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Head down to our favorite neighborhood dive bar for some beers and sausages from the place next door. Drinking wheat beer reminds me of our trip to Munich where I discovered my love for it. It's also a great place to people-watch!

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What's your vote for us?! Did you and your fiance do something special for your negative one year anniversary? If so, what did you do?

Wedding Dinner :: To Family Style or Not

My fiance and I were up in Oregon a few weeks ago for our friends' wedding in the Portland area (such a fun wedding and entire extended weekend, by the way! Future post to come). Even with a full wedding schedule, we managed to fit in two meetings for our own wedding - we have really had to make the most of the time we are up in Oregon! And while our wedding is actually in the Hood River area (about an hour drive east of Portland), we quickly found that so many of the vendors are happy to make the drive for Hood River and Mount Hood weddings. So, while we were in the City of Roses, we met with a caterer and a photographer. For this post, I'll be talking FOOD! My fiance and I both love great food...I mean, who doesn't?! Spending as much time as we have in Oregon's Willamette Valley and the Bay Area, there's no shortage of amazing food; from all the fresh and local ingredients, to an array of restaurants to farmers markets. So, food was one of the first things we thought about when it came to our wedding. We both agreed we didn't necessarily want anything fancy or elaborate, we just wanted it to be good.

What we quickly realized is that there is more to wedding food than the actual food part. You have to also consider how you are serving it. I originally had my heart set on family style for a few reasons. It started with the images of the long tables, below, which are just so picturesque. I also love that family style, long table or not, lends to conversation among the guests and a feeling of community and family (hence the name). Here is some of my family style inspiration...

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What I didn't consider were some drawbacks that came to my attention during our first caterer meeting. The main drawback was the price. The caterers need additional servers than they would with a buffet dinner, in order to bring around the different dishes and clear salad plates. And more servers equals more money. Another possible negative - the timing can be tough. You want people eating at generally the same time, especially if there are large tables involved. You don't want someone with no food sitting next to someone who has already been served. And the other issue can be the amounts of food served. The caterers need to be vigilant to make sure everyone is getting the right amount of food. Some people could take too much and others would be left with not enough.

The interesting thing is that the first catering company we met with a few months ago completely discouraged us from doing family style, saying each of these problems were extremely troublesome. The next catering company we met with a couple weeks ago was much more flexible. They made it seem like each of the issues could be somewhat easily overcome. They also broke out the pricing, while the first guys wanted to bundle everything and wouldn't show us how much each component costed. I don't like to be strong-armed into any decision, especially when it comes to such an important day! Also, we liked caterer #2's cuisine and personality much better, so whether we decide on family style or buffet, we definitely have a great lead on a place to work with.

Have you considered family style for your wedding? If so, did you run into the same hurdles as I have? How did you overcome them, or did you decide on another option (buffet, plated)?

Something {Red, White, and} Blue

In honor of the country's birthday today (and one of my favorite holidays!), I wanted to share some 4th of July-inspired weddings. I'm not doing a 4th of July theme, but after looking at these pictures I am totally sold on the idea! Check out this inspirational shoot. I am loving the vintage, all-American vibe.

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Here's another 4th-themed shoot. This one isn't a wedding, but it has all the adorable details of one.

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More Independence Day inspiration...

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Wishing you all a happy 4th of July!

Wedding Websites :: Getting Social

This week I'm looking at wedding websites! They have come a long way in the last few years. The main point of the website for me (and probably most engaged couples) is to have a place our guests can go and see the travel information and wedding weekend events. I want the weekend to be a time when our friends and family get to spend a lot of fun times together and feel relaxed! I am the sort of person who likes to know what I'm doing, when and where...is that considered type A or control freak?? I'm not sure. But when I know these details, I feel like I can relax and just enjoy myself. So, I want the wedding website to be a place people can go and see everything; the travel information, events during the weekend, things to do in the area, etc. By the time the wedding comes around, they can just sit back and enjoy. There are a ton of wedding site options, but I'm loving the social element of the newest one on my radar - Weduary. I first learned about it through our very own Allison of E&I in her post here and also in the Style section of the SF Chronicle, I work at SFGate - article here. Weduary was created by a fellow Bay Area lady (and her then-fiance, now-husband). Leave it to Silicon Valleyers (not sure if that's a term) to bridge the gap between wedding website and Facebook.  And I think it's a great idea! I would love for my guests to connect before the wedding and maybe find out they have things in common or mutual friends.

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Another company bringing the wedding website scene into 2012 is Appy Couple. This option also integrates the social features by connecting with Facebook and Twitter, but the focus is on the mobile side.

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Not only have these sites come a long way as far as features, they also seem to have much cuter template options and also seem more customization (it's about time!).

This makes me wonder if at some point in the near future 'save the dates' will be no more. The point of save the dates (besides the obvious saving of the date) are to inform guests of your wedding plans so they can arrange travel and to direct them to your wedding website where more details can be found. If you can send them a virtual save the date, do you really need the paper version? On the other hand, I don't think paper wedding invitations will ever go out of style. There are some things that technology just can't replace.

Well I'm off to Oregon for the weekend for a wedding. The bride was my roommate in college and a great friend ever since and the groom has been a close friend since high school. Needless to say this is going to be a fun wedding and I can't wait! Updates next week.

Until then, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the newest wedding website options. Have you used one of them? Do you plan to send out physical save the dates in addition to using the social elements of their sites?

Dreaming of Faraway Places :: Honeymoon

I don't know what it is about this week, but I can't stop thinking about faraway places, aka going on vacation! It might have something to do with the warm weather tease we are getting from San Francisco (as per usual), and my trip to Austin a couple weeks ago that have me wanting more. While I have gone on some wonderful trips over the past few years (Hawaii, Mexico, Solvang, CA) I find myself yearning for a longer and farther away spot. I want to see things I've never seen, experience a new culture, and bask in the sun from another side of the globe. My fiance and I went on a two-week trip to Germany and Italy back in 2009 and it definitely sparked the travelers within us. Neither of us did the study abroad or post-college travel thing, so we both feel like we have so many places we want to see and experience. We have been thinking about our honeymoon since before we got engaged - not specifics, but mainly that we wanted to go somewhere we had never been and that we'd like it to be in the Europe vicinity. Basically our honeymoon is our excuse to go on a trip just for us.

The things we want in a destination include good food, warm weather (in late July/early August), beautiful sights and a place with lots of history. Here are some of the countries calling my name. This is before much research so I will, of course, do another post when we have more figured out.

Greece. My fiance is 50% Greek and has never been there. Our honeymoon seems like a fitting time for a first trip there for both of us. We'd love to go to some of the cities on the mainland and the islands. Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Crete. 

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Turkey. I've heard they give quite the exfoliating body treatments at the Turkish baths in Istanbul. Also pictured are the Lycian Temple Tombs near what is now Dalyan, Turkey. During our trip in Italy, we discovered we are more sight-seers than museum-goers.

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Croatia. I don't know much about this country but have heard and seen great things. The latest Bachelorette episode added fuel to my Croatia fire, but I swear I wanted to go before Emily went there! ;-) Also, parts of Game of Thrones are filmed there...major selling point.

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Bali. Okay, I know this is not at all in the Europe vicinity, but I warned you, I have travel on the brain and I'm all over the place. Too many places to go, not enough time! Everyone we know who has gone to Bali raves about it, so it's on my list for sure! Also, I hear it's cheap once you get there. I know I would instantly be more relaxed and carefree thinking 'that dinner only cost us $15 US dollars?!'

Sources: Hotel, Tanah Lot, Rice Fields 

With so many amazing places to choose from, how did you narrow down your honeymoon search? Do you have any advice for locations that can be done on a budget without missing out? Where can we find the best combination of cuisine, sights, natural beauty, and relaxation?

Designer at a Discount :: Dresses

Last week I wrote about one of the most fun parts of wedding planning for me thus far – dress shopping! I was in Austin last week and went to two stores…it definitely got me on the dress kick and I have already been again since getting back to San Francisco. Some girlfriends and I went to the Bridal Galleria in the Financial District. We had a great time (and I tried on some killer dresses!), but the first thing I noticed was how much more expensive the dresses were here. It definitely could have had something to do with the stores I went to, but it got me thinking – is it even worth trying on dresses over my budget? Will I fall in love with one only to be disappointed that I can’t have it? Naturally, my next thought was about alternative ways of buying wedding dresses. I know there are many. And being someone who doesn’t like to pay full price on my clothes, why should I pay full price for a wedding dress?! It is, after all, the most expensive single item of clothing I will have ever purchased. Eek! So, while I plan to try on more dresses at regular bridal boutiques, and may even buy from one of them, I’d like to at least attempt to find the dress I end up picking for a deal! Below I’ve compiled a list of alternative ways to buy wedding dresses. This is by no means a complete list, so if you have others you have heard good things about, please do tell in the comments!

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1. Trunk Shows: A trunk show is when a designer (or their representative) brings their collection to a bridal boutique and provides personal consultations. These trunk shows also typically come with a discount on the designers' dresses. This is a great option if you have already had a chance to go shopping and have found a designer and particular cuts and styles you are drawn to. You wouldn't want a trunk show to be the first time you try on dresses because you might feel pressured by the temporary discount.

Click here for a guide of upcoming trunk shows in some of the major metro areas. Also, if you are in a store and love a certain designer, you can ask your consultant if there is a trunk show coming up for that line.

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2. Discount Stores: I heard about Glamour Closet through my future sis-in-law, fellow E&I blogger and deal-lover, Taya. See her dress post here. She had great success at GC in LA and I feel super lucky that there is also a location here in San Francisco. I will definitely be making a stop by GC before my dress shopping is through.

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3. Pre-owned (aka 'used,' gasp!) wedding dresses: How GORGE is the gown above?! It is Monique Lhuillier, listed for $3,000 - more than $2k off the retail price. The site I found this one on has so many designers - see more at PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com. I think this would be for the bride who has found the exact dress she wants, knows her size and has time to wait and see if it becomes available on the site. You also have to be the type of person who doesn't mind if someone has worn the dress before you. As long as the dress came clean I really wouldn't care that it had already been worn. And, hey, you know the girl who wore it before you must have impeccable taste! ;-)

I recently heard of a company called Nearly Newlywed. Not only can you buy 'nearly new' dresses, but you can also sell your dress to them after your big day (post dry-cleaning, of course). 

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Here are some other resources where you can find used dresses: Once Wed, 100 Layer Cake, SmartBride

Then there is always the option of getting a dress that is not technically a wedding dress, like a white prom dress or something not branded as 'wedding.' I think I am going to stick with the 'wedding dresses', but I could definitely see this working for the right person with a knack for fashion.

Have you considered any alternatives to buying a new dress at a boutique? Did you have a good experience?