I used to love treasure hunts as a kid. I always would imagine that I was a pirate on the hunt for burried treasure. Sadly, the most exciting thing I would ever find was an old tin can. Can you imagine how excited I would have been if I had found actual DIAMONDS?! Well, since Whiteflash.com likes a treasure hunt as much as we do, one lucky winner will get to go on a treasure hunt and come home with shiny sparkly real life DIAMONDS.
The rules are simple and pretty fun. Heck, I would play even if I didn’t want to win any diamonds, but who doesn’t want to win diamonds? I just like saying it DIIIIIAMOOOOOOONDS! ooooh that feels good! All you have to do is find the diamond set items from Whiteflash.com that are hidden in the 3 pictures below. Once you have found them, head over to Whiteflash.com to find and identify each item’s name. Then send an email to contest@BrokeAssBride.com with the names of the three items you have discovered on your hunt. From the correct answers we will randomly select a winner and tadah the winner will have DIIIIIIIAAAAAAMMMMMOOOOOOONNNNNDDDDS in their hand. Or more likely on their wrist, since they will have won the Flash-tastic bangle hidden below.
"What up Dog!? I can't be grouchy when I'm rocking this bling?"
I wonder if there is an article on the Bangles in this issue?
"Ya mess with me yer gonna see stars. No bull."
So get hunting, because this contest ends exactly one week from… now. LET THE TREASURE HUNT BEGIN!!!
Listen up, ladies! As all of us girls know, a wedding is one of the most important fashion moments of our lives. On such an important day, a girl deserves to look fierce! So, I’ve got a fierce money saving tip for all my style savvy Broke-Ass buddies…. cuz that’s how I roll.
The countdown begins to money saving drooliness
Gilt Groupe, one of my favorite online fashion sale stores, is celebrating love birds everywhere, and as soon as I heard about it, I knew it was for you! I always say good taste is a right, not a privilege – so here’s some hot designer duds at deep discounts, yo!
Teaming up with Martha Stewart Magazine, Gilt Groupe is offering brides a special sale for Wedding Weekend, March 12-14…. chock full of the stunning styles you want at the prices you’d never thought could be possible. Whenever I’ve made a purchase with them I always feel like that Ikea Lady who looks at her receipt and then runs out of the store yelling, “Start the car, Honey! Start the car!”
A sneak peak at some the sexiness available
Get your something blue and your something new from this fabulous sale with designers such as Carolina Herrera, Vera Wang Lavender Label, and Judith Leiber just to name a few. Is this too much fabulousness for you to handle? Fear not, ‘cuz Darcy Miller, editorial director at Martha Stewart Weddings (aka my hero), has sifted through the glitz and the glam to show you some of her favorite seasonal offerings. Always a bridesmaid? Gilt Groupe has your dress, your wedding gift and even your man covered too.
Everyone loves a little extra green in their wallets…especially when those wallets are made by a fantastic designer and you got them for a steal! You can even earn credit for recommending this awesome find to others. I’m telling you, this is a fashionistas best kept secret, so sign up for your free membership to the Gilt Groupe. The sale only lasts one weekend so get shopping!
Whenever we throw a party, guest-ertainment is always at the top of our list. Getting your guests involved can be the thing that takes your party from ho-hum hoedown to an all out throw-down… so when we started working on the Kick Ass Cake Bash, Hunter, Leslie, Earl, Beth and I immediately started hatching plans for fun.
The event space looked amazing, thanks to Beth Helmstetter’s hardworking team. One of my favorite details was these Origami Cranes hanging from the rafters.
Origami cranes by Michelle Chang.
The Dollhouse Hair & Makeup team was on hand to do glittery and bedazzled bad-ass cupcake tattoos, or chopstick accessorizing for the ladies’ hair.
I kinda love it. PS: my dress cost all of $12 thanks to a sale at Tulle!
They also dolled up our Alfred Angelo wedding gown models from NTA Talent – and those ladies were looking super lovely!
The models loved their Alfred Angelo gowns!
We love photo booths, but wanted something unexpected and quirky to match the kitschy Japanese inspired theme… and Oh, Snap! Studios was the perfect find! They brought in a freaking adorable Japanese tea house setup and some of the craziest props I’ve ever seen! The silly poses people came up with kept me laughing every time I walked past their station. I loved it! Check out more of our funny photos on the Oh, Snap! website gallery!
I love the hamburger helper hands!
As a couple of serious foodies, we know there’s nothing worse than being at a party and leaving hungry, so we had food and drink coming out the wazoo, yo. Not only were there sweets enough to send a nation into diabetic shock from Fantasy Frostings stunningly gorgeous dessert display, but delicious savory bites from The Food Matters, yummy and healthy cocktails from O.N.E. beverages, and a Pinkberry yogurt bar on the way out the door at the end of the night. If that wasn’t enough, we sent home Kick Ass Cake Bash cookies from Weddingish in the gift bags, along with issues of The Bride & Bloom magazine, lipgloss tins from e.l.f. cosmetics, and a few other goodies. Yeah, we like our guests fat and happy. And who could resist the adorable “maids” of Royal/T Cafe?
The waitresses at Royal/T Cafe dress in these adorable outfits!
Speaking of the dessert display, Leslie had a stroke of brilliance when she invited her girlfriends from The Bachelor to create inspiration boards from which she then designed the cakes and displays. DeAnna Pappas, Amanda Rantuccio, Holly Durst, and one of our intrepid photographers, Holly Steen from Cakes and Kisses Photography created diverse and dreamy inspirations that we hung next to the confections so our guests would understand that each cake in the Fantasy Frostings’ Broke-Ass Cake Collection is custom designed with the bride and groom with the same full-service attention that their celebrity clients love so much.
Holly's was pink, feminine and romantic.
....And her cake was just as girlie and delicate as she is.
DeAnna’s was my favorite, and they designed the whole dessert table after hers – all pink lemonade-y and refreshing.
A mouthwatering feast for the senses.
A flavor party in your mouth!
Holly Flora’s work was a huge influence on our wedding flowers, so when Beth suggested having her create a work of floral art for the event, I was so hyped! The floral mural she created was unbelievably luscious and exquisite. The guys from Aspect Lighting came in and made this mural absolutely glow in an ethereal warmth. It was stunning! They made the party spaces so much warmer and sexier, and projected some ultra trippy and cool effect onto the dance floor.
I just wanted to lay on it and roll around.
As broke-asses, we’re suckers for free swag, and we definitely wanted to give our partying buddies something to remember the night by, so having Family Industries on hand to do on-demand custom screen printing of Broke-Ass T-shirts was ridiculously awesome. The guys who run Family Industries are straight up rad dudes, the kind you want to grab a beer with, and so creative and nice. They brought 4 screens and let guests choose which artwork they wanted and where to place it. Most popular style? Strategically placed boobie cupcakes. They also printed a cuppie onto Hunter’s tie so he was the most stylin’ (and sweet) hubby in the room. I smell a new wedding trend… how dope would it be to go to a friend’s wedding and get a cool tie or t-shirt as a favor?
Guerilla fashion.
Gives new meaning to the nickname "sweet tits"
Then of course, we had the amazing, the radical badical, the ever-jamtastic Flashdance DJ spinning beats all night. I can’t count how many compliments we got on the DJ that night, and it just proved once again, that Michael is the only DJ for us. As Hunter so eloquently put it during our (spastic and ineloquent thank you’s) when recalling the time I sprained my ankle dancing my face off at our wedding – “Michael is the only man who ever hurt my wife, and I thanked him for it”. Not only a totally genius musical ninja, but a good friend that I love partying with whether its over beers at a neighborhood haunt, or in a room with 400 caked-up revelers.
Spinning beats like a freak!
And my favorite entertainment moment of the evening, when after our thank you’s, Hunter and our friend K.U. performed a rap they had composed especially for the occasion, surprising everyone in attendance and showing off their mad skillz. There are few things sexier than a husband who writes raps for his wife, I’ll tell ya…. I love to watch him perform!
"Rock your Broke-Ass"
I really have to give it up to Beth Helmstetter, without who’s planning prowess and flawless execution of the evening, we’d have been utterly lost. She brought some amazing ideas to the table, and made our vision for the evening come to life in unexpected and wonderful ways. I can’t imagine doing it without her, she was a lifesaver of awesomeness.
We also want to give major props to our sponsors The Bride & Bloom magazine and NTA Talent. Without their support and generosity, none of this would have been possible. We are so proud to have had them be such a major part of the evening – and loved getting to celebrate all together!
All in all, it was a totally memorable and unique event, and so nice to get to host all our friends with fun and interactive elements, lots of delicious food and drink, and all the broke-ass love in our hearts.
Broke-Ass Headquarters has been all a flurry prepping for the Kick Ass Cake Bash, the launch party for our exclusive Broke-Ass Cake Collection. When launching a cake line with partners like Fantasy Frostings you have to party at full throttle. I mean c’mon, they made J. Lo’s cake, and Jenny from the block knows how to PAARTAY!
We’ve teamed up with some of our favorite and most inspiring colleagues, The Bride and Bloom (one of the best wedding magazines in the world), NTA Talent Agency (representing the top models and talent in L.A. and…moi.) and Beth Helmstetter Events (So you know this party is gonna rock AND look good doing it)
This Tuesday, Beth Helmstetter Events, will be taking our party mojo to the next level, as we dance all night with the hottest DJ in town (the man responsible for Dana spraining her ankle at our wedding) The Flashdance, getting our drink, our groove, and our cake on. With many many maaaany more surprises (ooooh I can’t wait to tell you about the one I’ve been working on).
Here’s how excited one of the hardest working members of our team is:
While we wish we could invite all our readers to Kick some Ass at our kicking Cake Bash, we don’t want the fire warden to shut us down (and he is sure to show up ,’cause the roof is gonna be ON FIRE!!!). You guys are our favorites, and it is important to us to pull back that velvet rope and have you walk the red carpet. So we are giving away 10 tickets! 5 Pairs of 2.
How do I enter?
Dana and I love T-shirts. So if you were making a t-shirt for either The Kick Ass Cake Bash, The Broke-Ass Bride or Fantasy Frostings what would it say?
1) Tweet your funniest, witty or matter- of-fact T-shirt phrases with the hashtag #KickAssCakeBash
2) email us your funniest, witty or matter of fact T-shirt phrases to info@brokeassbride.com
You can submit one entry a day via email, but on Twitter as long as each entry is original, you can enter as many times as you want. So bring the funny and get ready to bring the party. ‘Cause we’re gonna have FUUUUN!!!
Contest ends at 5pm Monday! Winners will be notified shortly after.
P.S. If you are already coming, we still want to see your brilliant T-shirt sayings
This video makes me itch with wonder. In the years I was ready for Hunter to propose, my advances were rarely subtle. But oh, would that I was as creative in my expression of that desire, or as curiously compelling in my statement, as this lovely, charming and fresh “hey, over here… let’s do this already” video.
A friend alerted me to this and I knew it was made for sharing. I adore it – the girl, the style, the music, the honesty.
Shelby, (the miss in question) who happens to write a pretty rad blog, has this to say about her video: I don’t think it’s completely fair that men get to do the whole proposal thing…so I decided I would make a fairly grand and cheesy gesture to show Joe that I am ready.
Filmed by my friend Audre, who is a great photographer
flickr.com/photos/audreraephotography/
Music is ‘Wonder-Dummied’ by Brooke Waggoner”
And I have this to say:
“BAD-ASSSSSSSSSS, SHELBS!” Affordably adorable. Memorably emotional. Perfectly Perfect.
My partner and I are both college students so we are trying to stay as cheap as possible. Plus I don’t see the point in wasting all that paper…Do you think it’s inappropriate to send out postcard wedding invites?
Sure, why not? Sure, your Aunt Edna may scoff at it, but guess what? IT AIN’T HER WEDDING – its yours! You can do what you like
I knew a couple who sent adorable postcard invites! They did their own version of the ipod ads with their silhouettes and white headphone cords on the front, and the back was set up like an iPhone screen with the relevant info and their wedding website address. I loved it!
How did you develop your writing style and blog sense?
I was born with it, yo! *wink*
I basically write like I talk, but smarter and funnier (I hope). And ballsier. I write my best self, the one I’m sometimes shy to share in person (but I’m working on it!). Does that make sense? Its all authentically me, though. All Dana, all the time
I developed my blog sense by drinking in as much bloggy goodness as possible. I saw what others did and I learned from it. From the successes and failures I see in other blogs. And I still am doing it, I never stop learning, plotting, revising, etc. Its a lot of trial and error. Lots of firing bullets with one hand over my eyes. Sometimes I fail, and try again. Sometimes I win! (I like winning).
If you’re trying to find your own voice, I have two pieces of advice:
1. Be yourself. Authentically, genuinely you. No one does it better
2. Write write and write some more. The more you do, the more you’ll find your voice and the courage to let it sing loud and proud!
What was your favorite wedding accessory?
My fly-ass husband, yo!
Ok, I know that’s not what you were looking for, but its the truth
I loved my dress more than words can tell. But I also loved my headpiece and earrings, my shrug, my bouquet and my shoes a whole lot. BUT the wifey pimp cup? That one was balls out awesome.
In conclusion, while everything I wore made my heart sing, my husband was the best accessory of all.
How do you slow down and find balance on days that feel just completely overwhelming? What do you do to cope and take control again?
GREAT question! And one that I still haven’t perfected the answer to… yet.
When I am completely overwhelmed and I feel like I’m drowning, the following things help:
1. Make a list of all there is to do
2. Prioritize it as much as I can
3. Do the 2 easiest things just to be able to cross them off. Even if #1 is “make a list”
Other great things that help me:
1. Take a 10 minute break and get away from my desk. Outside if possible. Even if I feel I don’t have the time to spare, just getting fresh air and a change of scenery can really help with my mindset.
2. Changing up my music. Something productive and happy can help me shift my perspective.
3. List 10 things I’m grateful for (especially good for when overwhelmed = blue)
4. Take a day off. I know a day off for a business owner is pretty different from that of a 9-5er, but just gifting myself with the time and freedom to see a movie or have girlfriend time over a manicure can really improve my mental health.
5. Exercise. Again, I never feel like I have time. But even just 20 minutes for the Shred can really clear my head and make me feel in control of myself again.
6. Ask for help. Hunter helps me so much, and I’d be lost without him. But asking for help is sometimes the last thing that occurs to me when I’m stressed! Go fig…
Hope this helps! Good luck!
What is the recipe of your most favorite healthy meal to cook at home?
Oh, man – there are so many, and yet, most of them are originals without recipes. We’re the kind of cooks who throw something together based on what’s around, usually.
But, I happen to LOVE this easy, peas-y soup. Its a snap to make, super healthy, and leaves guests wowed:
Chilled, Minted Pea Soup!
*3 cups frozen green peas
*2 cups vegetable stock
*handful of fresh mint leaves
*salt/pepper to taste
*juice of 1/2 lemon or lime (optional)
Put all the ingredients into your blender, hit GO, and let it all be pureed into a delicious delight. If you’re feeling extra fancy, strain it, but its good either way.
Garnish with a few mint leaves and a dollop of creme fraiche (if you’re extra fancy), throw a hunk of crusty bread with some olive oil on the side, and enjoy the flavor party in your mouth!
Your ability to put yourself out there is very inspiring. What is your biggest motivator?
Desperation. Seriously. Pretty simple.
I’m DESPERATE to give myself the gift of the life I’ve always dreamt of. Desperate to get out of my dayjob doldrums. Desperate to be creative for a living. To be heard. To get out of debt. To be fulfilled. To make a difference. To inspire others. TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
I can’t tolerate the alternative of always wondering “What if?”, so I use all of that desperation and turn it into motivation to take the bull by the horns and lay my balls on the table to make it happen. Life is for living!
Don’t get me wrong. Its scary as hell. I get butterflies in my stomach. I get nauseous with fear. I procrastinate. I fret. I cry. But at the end of the day, I push myself to do the scary things because that’s when change happens. I go to sleep proud, because I didn’t let the fear paralyze me. Instead, I made it work for me. I took control. Whether I win or lose the goal I’m working toward, I always win the self-respect that comes with trying as hard as I can… balls to the walls.
At first it felt like pretend. I was ACTING brave, but it felt like a mask. But over the years I’ve realized it was always in me… I just needed to exercise that muscle and welcome it in. Now I can’t see myself living any other way!
I see friends and colleagues stuck. Inert. Stagnate. And they’re miserable. But they don’t do anything. They don’t affect change because they’re too busy waiting for life to happen to them. It makes me so sad, because I’ve been there too. I just want to shake them awake and help them. But people can’t be helped unless they’re ready to help themselves. That lesson, I’m still learning.
I spent 25 years waiting for life to happen to me. I’ve always been ballsy and took risks, but only sometimes and always in soulquaking fear. In opposition, I spent many years paralyzed in self-doubt, fear, and misery… hoping for something to change. Little did I know what needed changing was my attitude! I try to look back on those times with gentle eyes, and see how going through that helped me build up what I needed to turn around…. but I also look back on that time as life lost. And that burns.
So I resolved to actively participate in the change of my life, and every day I step into and through my fear to reach that goal. Because I’m absolutely desperate to make it happen.
To celebrate their 6th anniversary, the folks over at Joanna Wilson Photography are giving away a portrait session to two different couples or families. Joanna and her gift of gab groom are bi-coastal, so any reader who is located or will be in the New York or Los Angeles Area can win. Even if you’re not in the area, I think it’s worth it just to check out the submissions. To win you have to submit the WORST family portrait you have. The bigger the cringe the better. Check out some of the submissions so far:
Hmm, If I were to enter the contest I might use this photo of the early incarnation of a certain Hubby with his family at his grade school graduation. I have no idea who this could be though:
If you're like Grandma you wanna pinch those chubby cheeks
Check out more submissions over at the Joanna Wilson Photography blog and for all the contest details give a click right here. Get to those scrapbooks ’cause the submission deadline is Friday!
Good Luck! … and even if you don’t win at least you no longer are sporting a comb-over/mullet/jheri curl… or maybe you do… and I’m sure you rock it.
Hang onto your socks, peeps. My girl Kat from Rock n Roll Bride is bringing the pretty (and smart) today! Give her a warm welcome!
___________________
When Dana asked me to write a little something for you Broke-Ass Bride readers I thought what could be a better opportunity than to go through the blogging archives and dig out my all time favourite budget-wise, DIY kick ass wedding awesomeness to share? I think us bloggers, who’ve been engrossed in all things wedding for quite a while now, might sometimes forget that not everyone will have seen everything we have – and that’s shocking – terrible almost. These weddings need to be seen and appreciated!
So I got my thinking hat on and decided that the best way to share these weddings in all their glory was to ask the people behind them to share their secrets, tip and tricks, ideas which made their weddings great. So behold, 5 of my favourite budget conscious, diy weddings from the last few years.
♥ Jose & Dani’s wedding sent me through the roof with excitement when I first laid eyes on it. The retro styling, the over the top excitement and the rockabilly pink hair! But just how did they make it all happen?
Jose & I wanted to make our wedding very “us,” while the super-thrifty gal in me wanted to do it as inexpensively as possible. Our beach ceremony was free, and the beautiful scenery needed no decoration. I created our save-the-dates and invitations myself using Photoshop. My crafty mom made my veil, boutonnieres, and a carnival banner. My dad’s eighteen piece swing band played and many of the members played for just a meal. Our amazing photographer, a photo student at my university, was found through craigslist.
♥ Abigail & Michael’s wedding was so gorgeous I couldn’t wait to blog it. The sparkles sent me crazy! Completely different to Jose & Dani’s but just as inspiring!
I have always been a thrifty girl so when my now husband proposed the second-hand inclined wheels of my brain immediately starting turning. I knew I wanted a unique wedding that wouldn’t break the bank. Sure, we splurged on several elements of our big day, but we would not have been able to do so had we gone the traditional wedding budget route. We mixed almost all of the traditional delegated expenses and hopped on the do-it-yourself train. Traditional florists can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars for arrangements and bouquets so we nixed them and opted for wholesale potted plants and pumpkins. We made bouquets and boutonnières from store bought flowers purchased the day before. Our centrepieces were mismatched collections of vases, flowers and spray painted pumpkins instead of large expensive arrangements. Decorations were mostly crafted, from thrift stores or stalked until they were retired tosale racks. Planning and time is key to a thrifty wedding. With a few strokes of the keyboard you can easily find a tutorial teaching you how to do something you might pay someone else loads of money to do.We also saved money by catering our own wedding with the help of many friends. One of my cousins is a DJ so we used his equipment along with a playlist I made for our music. I bought my $470 dress at a non-bridal dress store saving tons of money and I made my veil from a vintage headpiece my Mother once wore. By saving on all of these elements were able to splurge on some unforgettable elements like our fabulous photographer and the photo booth we used for favors and entertainment. It was a lot of work but in the end it was definitely worth it.
♥ Rhiannon & Ben’s British wedding was one of the first I saw when planning my own wedding that I got the green eyed monster over! I just wished I was as creative and full of brilliant ideas! Rhiannon and I have since become great friends and often meet up for a coffee and to discuss all things wedding (she continued her wedding obsession by starting her own stationary company – Under the Cherry Moon).
Looking back, planning our wedding was a total labour of love. We had a comparatively small budget (£12k), 90 guests, 30 kids, all needing accommodation. A certain amount of pressure to be traditional, to live up to expectations of previous weddings of family and friends. All wrapped up within our overwhelming desire to have a fun wedding reflective of our tastes and style. What’s a girl to do? D.I.Y.
I bought reams of cheap card and designed, printed and cut out all of our stationery and paper goods at home. We made gift bags for each hotel room, with a weekend itinerary, snacks, water, painkillers… The men wore their own suits and added ties we’d got them. I made fascinators for the maids, and their dresses came from TK Maxx at £20 each. Bags stuffed with games amused the kids for hours, and they all loved the wedding activity book I designed for them. We bought lasting rose bushes as gifts for the mums, gave silly prizes for a golf competition, opened the floor for speeches, had a tower of French Fancies. Husband even made a ring pillow with some previously hidden sewing machine skills. It was a blast, and it was us.
♥ What I loved the moss about Katie & Clinton’s wedding was not only all the quirky details and the pure passion and individuality that had gone into it, but it was the photography. Isn’t it fantastic?
Our wedding was completely & totally us. We are both artists & wanted to put our special touches on everything. We DIYed as much as we could from the invites to the centre-pieces. We had many homemade touches including gingham ribbons & table overlays & sweet little pillows & fabric touches everywhere. My mother & mother in law did all of the sewing for those. My husband Clinton is a glass blower, so we had blown glass flowers as favors, and from me, photo stickers and temporary tattoos with our name & date on them. Lots of photo touches everywhere including polaroid table number & photo paper dolls of us. I wore my mother’s wedding dress from 1976, although we did alter it some to make it a bit more modern. My mother was so flattered that I would want too wear her dress, so it was very special to us both. I am a photographer and an art teacher so of course we had to have an arts & craft table & a photo booth. Hula Hoops, Badminton and bubbles were fun for everyone as was the local jazz band that we hired because they were a fantastic real jazz band, not a wedding cover band. But the very very best part of our wedding was the love & support we felt surrounded by everyone and our beautiful Buddhist ceremony where I couldn’t take my eyes off my husband. This was our day.
♥ Meegan & Jean-Louis’ wedding was certainly one with a difference! The couple shocked their friends and family by turning their engagement party into their wedding! No one knew that they had planned this all along!
I am a hair stylist so I see quite a few brides a year- lucky for me I have been inspired by the incredible strong women in my life and in my chair daily! I think the most budget conscious thing I did while planning our wedding was keeping my husband to be in mind – He wanted to get married not spend a year of his life watching me freak out over all the “to do’s” of planning a wedding. By the way we planned our wedding in 3 months…it can be done!!! So we kept it simple and straight forward; questioning every tradition and idea making sure that what we did on our day was for us (not because a bride magazine told us to do so…)
So let’s be honest being on a budget sucks and it makes everything really difficult…on the flip side of that it forced me to remain inspired and creative through the whole process. We shopped around for the cheapest everything and when “it” was too much we went back to the drawing board to think of a different way to do it. Here are some $ saving examples: The wedding was in a back yard, we used a simple card stock invitation, our cake tasted better than it looked (it was smooth white frosting 3 tiers with a cake topper-no fancy creations!), buffet style Italian food made by my dad (he’s an amazing cook), the centre-pieces were home made by a friend, my grandma, mother-in-law, my husband and myself…we got the flowers at a wholesale flower shop and I must say not only was it fun to do but they looked amazing (huge savings!)-my bouquet was made by a professional but I made my brides maids bouquets, my dress was on the cheaper side of the dress prices and my jewellery was my moms. The areas we spent the doe in are the areas that really matter like the photographer, the open bar and the staff. My guests gave me amazing feed back because it was relaxed, inspired and just slightly out of the box. Our wedding was amazing and we could do it 1000 different ways but I am so grateful that we are not in debt over it! So to the budget bride: don’t worry if you can’t afford your initials on the cocktail napkins, nobody cares anyway…
♥ You might remember Hannah & Landon if you’ve been wedding obsessed (like me) for a while now. Their wedding made waves all over blog-land mainly because people were trying to work out if there wedding was a recent one or if their shots were dug out from the 1970s. Their simple boat wedding is definitely one of my all time favorites.
Our wedding was tossed together in three weeks. Initially we had planned on a private exchange of vows with just our parents present and having a big friend filled party on our first anniversary. I think it started heading in a different direction when we were shopping for shoes (which proved fruitless and we ended up barefoot) and I had a swooning moment when I realized that I would need a lady friend present at this ceremony and so Landon decided he would need his best friend and his best friend would come with his girlfriend and mine with her significant other. After that we just started inviting friends that we’d bump into that week and it slowly grew into the intimate and wonderful gathering that it was. My dress I drew out and brought to a friend of mine that sewed beautiful and delicate garments (sadly she is no longer working on her sewing projects but has moved on to something equally delightful and a great deal more delicious – cooking!) she did a magnificent job even adding “something old” – glass buttons that belonged to her grandmum. Landon had his white vintage suit altered to fit and borrowed a pink button-up from a local vintage store that we were chummy with. After a beautiful sunny ceremony on the beach we all hopped aboard a lovely yacht (courtesy of my Dad) and watched the sunset from the sea, enjoyed delicious beverages, salmon and cupcakes and jams from our laptop on the top deck. At the end of the night instead of tossing my bouquet I took it apart and gave flowers to all my beautiful lads and ladies. It was a truly magical (and with the exception of the yacht cheap) day and I wouldn’t change a single thing about it!
As Wendy puts it:
“After reading all the entries, I narrowed it down to an awesome 7 ladies. I had some lovely people help me vote for their favorite out of my seven and wa-lah! Yesenia was the popular choice! Congratulations! I look forward to meeting and working with you!
To all the other brides, we would still love to work with you! If you contact us within the month of January and book us we’ll offer you a “broke-ass” discount! Contact us @ wendy@justwenderful.com”
Congrats Yesenia! You’re in good hands, now! Please email Wendy to claim your prize.
