The Smith Wedding - Part II

...and THEN I continued Part II. I believe we were on dinner. Leena and Smithy got engaged on a trip to Las Vegas, so they used that as inspiration for their tables names - names of casinos in Vegas.

We were at New York, New York.

Dinner, yum.


THEN after dinner there was a surprise...

What's that? Oh, just a casino table delivery truck, no big deal. That's right, they rented casino tables for a little gambling fun (and also continuing with that Vegas inspiration!).

Me, gathering my winnings... really I'm just posting this to show you my hair. You can kiiind of see the yellow fabric flower on the right side of my head by my ear. If you look closely.

Ok here's a closer shot. I was also kind of proud of myself for doing my hair all by myself like a big girl that day! I'm usually terrible at updos, and actually had planned on leaving my hair down and curly, but had a flashback of my Shirley Temple curls from Junior year prom and decided it had to go up instead. It actually did look good. I probably should have had Tim take a picture intended on showing my hair, versus just cropping one.

Another fun cake shot. You don't want to know what some people did with the extra letters. Ok maybe you do, because it was funny, and the bride thought it was as well (most important), but I'm not going to show pictures here.

So while we were gambling away, all of the dinner tables downstairs had been removed and the space had been magically transformed into a dance floor. The venue was classically beautiful for the daytime activities, but when the bright sparkly lights were brought in, was really cool and modern looking.

Not sure what's going on here...

They had a candy bar (sweets table) and a photobooth - I'll take credit for being inspiration for both. :) Fiiiine I guess it also could have been one of the other millions of people who have done those things. Lol.

And another surprise? BURGERS. You bet your a$$ my husband was all over that.

Dance party time!


Oh, and did I mention this wedding went from noon to midnight? (Apparently this is very common in England as well!) Well, it started at noon and we left at midnight - it wasn't over when we left! We were exhausted. I can only imagine what Leena felt like, since she must've been up way earlier than me that day! Although she would have been running on adrenaline, and, um, happiness, or something. :)

Great wedding. Beautiful bride. Lovely venue. Checked my first (of many to come) English wedding off my list!

-C
xxx

The Smith Wedding - Part I

I'd say we clean up pretty nice!

My husband's friend Smithy got married in England a few weeks ago, and we had the great pleasure of attending. (Sorry for taking so long to post pics, Leena!) We had a ball! And it was my first real English wedding (since I was too busy to attend Will and Kate's...)! I actually didn't go in thinking it would be any different than ours, but there were definitely some differences.

While in the UK I met a girl by the name of Chloe who recently started her own wedding planning business (lucky!!). She told me a couple things I hadn't realized before. Apparently the UK tends to get most of their ideas from the US, which is interesting. I guess I hadn't thought about it, but I only follow one UK wedding blogger (now two, including Chloe), and, oh, 8 million from the US. I guess wedding blogs are few and far between over there. And for some reason the US is more creative ;) Ok, she didn't say that, but according to her, the US tends to come up with ideas and they gradually make it across the pond. She also informed me that in the UK you can't get married outside!?! Apparently to be legally wed, you have to be married inside some sort of structure. Crazy! I wonder why that is?? All the places I've seen Americans get married... I can't imagine such a limitation being put on here!

Now that that's settled... Leena and Smithy had both their ceremony and reception in a beautiful hall in the countryside. This hall, to my knowledge, has no other purpose but being a special event venue. It was pretty cool how they transformed it in so many ways throughout the day.

The ceremony was lovely, but I couldn't really get any pictures! I'm too short :( and I guess that's a major disadvantage when you're in a room full of Olympic swimmers.* When we stood up it was even worse! I could peek through heads and shoulders to see, but my camera couldn't do the same. Damn you (lack of) height! So the only pictures I really got during the ceremony were:

1) hats (and fascinators)!

2) pictures of the happy couple while they were "signing their marriage certificate". Basically, I've been told, in England the couple sits down to the sign the certificate after a registrar of sorts signs it, and they sit there for anyone to come up and take pictures. I mean, the preacher actually says, "If anyone wants to come up and take pictures, do it now." I practically jumped out of my chair (since not being able to get my zoom lens to focus between all the tall heads).

After the ceremony everyone went outside for pictures with the couple - that was also something different (and cool). It wasn't just the family, and it wasn't just the photographer taking the pictures. The couple took pictures with everyone. I was included in the all girls picture, which was nice, but it was funny when the photographer said, "Now talk to the person next to you" (for a different, non smiling shot). Um... yeah. I didn't know any of the other girls, except the bride, and even though a woman at the grocery store last week told me I was really friendly, that's not exactly the case. Lol.

Kind of a little bit in love with her dress!!

awws

THEN we went to the upstairs loft area for a little cocktail hour.

Cones filled with confetti we were supposed to throw on the bride and groom but I missed the cue because I was trying to get a good picture (double fail). Cute nonetheless!

Another hat! Yay England!

THEN we came downstairs for dinner.

THEN... you waited a few days for Part II.

-C
xxx

*The groom is a former Olympic swimmer, and therefore so are many of his friends.

So...

MY DRESS FITS!!

Like, really well, too.

That is all.

-C
xxx

Runnin Runnin and Runnin Runnin

So... I swear I have been doing pretty well on my working out and eating better thing since I discussed it earlier this year. But it's not doing much other than, I guess, keeping me at the same level I was at. Which is better than getting worse I suppose!

LuLu's - Hello Sunshine Dress

However, I recently realized that I have, oh, just under 3 weeks before a wedding in which I want have to fit into the dress I wore last June to Amanda's wedding. Which means when I wore it I was in the throws of my own wedding planning and therefore automatically skinny (seriously, wedding planning is like the best diet ever). Oh, did I mention I barely fit into said dress at the time? But I'm determined to wear this dress again because I love it, AND I recently purchased a flower for my hair from my awesome friends thecraftmasters (visit their Etsy site now!) that perfectly matches the dress. As in, it looks like they bought the dress, cut it up, and made me a flower, it matches that perfectly!

thecraftmasters
No really, it does match.
The pic of the dress above makes it look much yellower than it is in real life.
I have both in my possession and attest to the fact that they match.

So I've got my outfit decided... I just need to fit into it! I will admit that I haven't tried the dress on yet to see how much it doesn't fit. Probably because I'm in denial and think that I can make it fit, so my plan is to RUN as much as I can (and throw some hot yoga in there) for the next couple weeks, THEN try it on (with fingers crossed).

I don't want to hear anybody saying "you don't need to lose weight!" because it is an actual fact, that if I don't, I won't fit into this dress! And I want to. Lol.

So I'll keep runnin runnin and runnin runnin...

Best version ever, in case you were wondering.

-C
xxx

Bonnie's Wedding Runway

As I mentioned before, Miss Bonnie Quick (I believe she is keeping her name for clothing design purposes), made all of our bridesmaid dresses for her wedding. The dresses were so fun to wear! We each had a different one, but all in the same fabric.

Oh yeah, and she also made our hair pieces and jewelry for us!

The ball is actually a locket. Feathers and whatever those white plant things are, along with hair clips, all purchased at Michael's.

The balls on the necklace are also lockets!

Something you may not know about me is how much I loooove antique (looking or real) tarnished gold jewelry. Seriously LOVE. I was way too happy when she gave us this jewelry!

I also have been wearing it pretty much every day since she gave it to us.

To complete the outfit, she asked us all to wear yellow shoes. I MAY or may not have begged her to do so. :) We all know how I like colorful shoes!
(Mine are the back right below.)

She also made the flower girl dresses! Aren't they cute?

And since sewing awesome dresses apparently runs in her family, her mom made her wedding dress! Ain't it purdy?

Unfortunately I don't have any pics of all us girls (or Bonnie, for that matter!) walking down the aisle because Tim was on parking lot duty and didn't make it back in time for me to give him my camera, so I can't wait to see the professional pics of that!

The lovely ladies from Wedding Tresses (serving Massachusetts and Rhode Island) who did our hair (Jenn) and makeup (Kayla) kept saying that they could totally see this wedding ending up in a magazine because of the unique dresses, hair pieces, etc. Or on a blog? hehe. They were awesome, btw. The makeup looked amazing, and I loved my hair the first time it was done! Yeah, I had to get mine redone because it got messed up (freakin' wind) when I went back to do a couple more set up tasks. Then the hairdresser told me my hair couldn't be as big as it was before if I wanted it to stay. *tear*

Also, today is Bonnie's birthday!

Happy Birthday Bonnie (not) Quick (anymore)!

Unrelated to this post, but it's also one of my MOH's birthdays!

Happy Birthday Ryann!

-C
xxx

Bonnie's Beautiful Cape Cod Wedding

37 bobbi pins (for my hair alone) +

51 bug bites (33 mine, 18 Tim's) +
4 airport visits +
2 newlyweds =
1 beautiful wedding

That's the math from this weekend. Bonnie's wedding turned out b-e-a-utiful (like I had any doubt). All the little details came together to form her perfect wedding vision that had been pretty much a mystery to the rest of us all along. Sure - I knew the colors, I saw the invites, but even Bonnie hadn't seen everything until this weekend. Including her wedding dress! Gotta give it to her, she was the calmest bride of all time. I think the only thing she was a little nervous about was not seeing her dress, but her mom made it, so I think she had every confidence that if there was something off, she could fix it. And it turned out exactly how she wanted! The weather was amazing, too. Bonnie's HUSBAND kept saying that they couldn't have asked for a nicer day.

They were married on Matt's family's property - a huge field that leads down to a beach. It was about 78 degrees and sunny.

Like with my wedding, I'll post some things to learn from when planning an outdoor wedding, that we learned this weekend. For today, let's just bask in the beauty of Bonnie's Beautiful Cape Cod Wedding. :)

First of all, this was the view from the restaurant where the rehearsal dinner was held.
Right on the ocean. So pretty!

Bonnie's wedding colors were "Capey". Basically that means lots of blue, white, and yellow. She's kind of like me with green, but with blue and yellow. She even had a yellow and blue romper for getting ready. And was finishing each of our dresses off (that she made) while in her bridal hair and makeup!
I'll do a separate fashion post later. Too many pics for just one post!

♪ ♫ Isn't she looovely ♪ ♫

Here is the ceremony site (all in one field, but the ceremony was down by the lake)


Cute programs, right?? Yes, that's a crab. With the letter S in it for her new last name.

Just imagine what a real photographer can do with such a pretty backdrop!

awww

Reception set up


Bonnie's grandmother made each of these centerpieces (they later had a candle on top). She strategically placed each shell inside the jar so that the nicer side was facing out. That's more patience than I'd have! Sand dollars had the table numbers on them.

Here's a close up of the menu and favor (donation to St. Jude's),
so you can see the Capey stripe theme that ran through all of the paper products
(menu, programs, invitations, save the dates, etc.)

Love this idea. Bonnie wanted to hang little bottles along the side of the tent with dried flowers in them. We hung them with hemp at varying heights and with 3 different types of dried flowers. It turned out really cute, and we received a ton of compliments on them!


I made Bonnie a cardbox like mine (but obviously in her colors)!
I think it turned out pretty nice!


Bonnie used starfish as placecards - the placecards were attached to the starfish with a piece of raffia and placed in a picture frame (that we found at Salvation Army) full of sand from the beach on the property.


How cute are the bride and groom birdie cake toppers?? Purchased from Etsy.


Ok this is only pretty because it was delicious.
Dinner was a bonafide clam bake for EACH person. Yum.


Father/Daughter dance. So presh!

More dancing...


Ok from here on out most of my pictures are of drunk people (like my husband).
You don't need to see them all. They all pretty much look like this.

And this.

And this. Although this shows a super fun thing Bonnie decided to do for her wedding. She ordered pizza to be delivered before the end of the night! So good.

Success! Congratulations to my wonderful friends Bonnie & Matt!

-C
xxx