How We Planned Our Wedding: Part III

The past couple of weeks I have posted on various parts of the planning process of our wedding. Read part one and part two. 

This week we are talking dresses!! My favorite part of the planning process! Can I just tell you that I had my dress two months before Nate technically proposed? It's terrible I know! But at that point I knew our plans, Nate was just taking his sweet time popping the question. And I was able to go dress shopping with my mom, something that was really important to me.

Let's start with inspiration for my dress.

This one I loved and still do. That form! Those pleats! That neckline! Whew!

Gateway Bridal, Bellissimo. Two seasons old now and still $1200. Sheesh!

I had been drooling over this dress via Utah Bride Blog. We actually shopped at Gateway Bridal for the sole purpose to get this dress. But as you probably guessed, I tried it on and I thought, "meh." Despite all that lace, it was nothing special. I guess I don't have the bust for it! I always wanted to be Lacey in lace, ya know? But it was not to be!

I tried the next one on and whoa! Simply, it was perfect. 

 Bouquets from Petal & Print.

I remember trying it on after mine came in and just tearing up. Am I the only one that did that? I guess it just dawned on me at that moment that I was getting married. Crazy. Happy. Emotional. Perfect.

The last three photos are from the lovely Kristen Stone.

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And now the bridesmaids.
I had the most fun looking at bridesmaids photos I think!

Here are some of my favorites:

 Sorry this is grainy! But I loved how the skirts were the same color, but different styles.

Same idea, but with more formal fabrics.

Can you tell I was loving gray? And aren't those gloves so sweet?

This was the ideal!

I liked the color palette of this photo in general.

Ultimately, it just came down to cost. I picked out some skirts at Down East, along with tanks and cardigans. I had the sisters pick out their own accessories. I think it turned out really cute! (And maybe they actually wore it again?)

Nooo...Kacey wasn't a bridesmaid :)

I'm glad I have family I can be immature with :)

Looong post. Whew! Hope you enjoyed it and that it helps anyone planning a wedding! :)


Last two photos also by Kristen Stone.

How We Planned Our Wedding: Part II

Making our invitations was really fun! Well, mostly. Thanks for allowing me to reminisce a little bit about our wedding! (Click here for Part I of this series). Here are some images that inspired me:

We actually ended up making our own! Nate is pretty savvy with Adobe Illustrator, so we thought we could save some money by having him create them. We worked on the design concept together. This was actually really stressful. I don't know why, but we both got incredibly frustrated with the process. It was a stressful time in general! 

We took the final image to Office Depot and they printed and cut the actual invitations for a pretty good price. I did the inserts using some of Ruffled's printables on Word and then had them printed and cut at our campus printing location. That was a mistake. I should have taken them to Office Depot as well. 

But I remember as we packaged each one just squealing with delight because they looked so perfect. They turned out even better than I imagined. 

 All wrapped up!

P.S. Here is our Save the Date that I created on Picnik. I used an image from our engagements, taken by Kelli Brown.

Has anyone else tackled their own invitations? While it was frustrating at times, we loved being able to say that we did them ourselves!

Kennedy & Trever get hitched!

Nate, Sam and I drove up to the Salt Lake City Temple on Friday morning for Kennedy and Trever's sealing. As always, it was wonderful being at the temple!

Samantha...you are next!

The happy couple!

My favorite :)

Congratulations to the Nicolls!!

How We Planned Our Wedding: Part I

In celebration of our first year anniversary that is quickly approaching, I thought it would be fun to share how we planned our wedding. And maybe if you are planning a wedding, it will help you a little! So once a week until December 22, I am posting photos and writing about part of our planning process. Enjoy!

Note: Since I started planning way before I discovered Pinterest, I kept a file on my computer of things I loved that I would find on various blogs and websites. Because of this, I do not have most (or any!) of their original links. If you see one and you know where it originated, leave a comment with the link and I'll add it!

Basic process

Like I said, I kept a file on my computer of various images that inspired me. I regularly visited Ruffled (my favorite), Snippet & Ink,  Utah Bride Blog, 100 Layer Cake, Green Wedding Shoes, Once Wed, Southern Weddings and Grey Likes Weddings.  After a while, I followed my sister Mandi's advice and began printing the images that I really loved and put them in a binder. This helped me weed out the things that I wasn't so sure about and helped when I needed to show a color to a florist or dress shop.

Can you believe I still have this? I can--I'm such a pack rat!

I had a file for photography, my gown, bridesmaids and groomsmen attire, flowers, the invitations, the cake/food and general reception inspiration. This was also a great place to keep checklists and reminders of various deadlines. I also kept a file for the wedding budget and receipts. Now that I have Pinterest, I am so jealous of girls that get to use it to plan their weddings! It would have made things so much easier!

While we were engaged, we constantly felt overwhelmed with everything that we needed to accomplish before the big day. One thing that really helped us was each making a list of priorities for the actual wedding. While mine was a little longer, Nate's was one thing, "fun." And I think we definitely accomplished that! Also, we took a class together on marriage and relationships during our engagement. This helped us put aside the little details of our wedding day and focus on what was really important, our eternal relationship. I will always be grateful we had that guidance in such a stressful time! In fact, I am really passionate about this subject! If you are interested in learning more about pre-marital education, visit the website I helped create with some other classmates: Smart Start for Marriage-Utah.

Color Inspiration

Without a doubt, I knew I wanted yellow! Even though I'm pretty sure my mother had a heart attack over this color choice, it being a December wedding and all, I ended up with yellow and gray. 

This image really got my mind working!

Even though yellow and gray were the official colors, most of the reception decor ended up being a number of colors in the same color scheme, as pictured above.

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Check back next week for our how we created our own invitations!

Kennedy's Bridal Shower

On Friday, my friends Sam, Mel and I hosted a bridal shower for our good friend Kennedy at Pizza Pie Cafe. (Which may seem like an odd place to have a shower but it was fun and plus--no clean up!)

Thumb print sign in idea from here. My husband the closet artist drew the tree and the states on the chalkboard.

 I seriously had the funnest time throwing together little arrangements with my growing collection of glass jars. Flowers from here.

 Sam made these cute little cards for words of wisdom to the newlyweds.

 Opening presents...

 The queen herself :)

Ken and her old roomies :)

 Mel, Sam, Kennedy and I. (Missing Heather!)

Us being silly 

 Giving little Ezekiel a some love!

I couldn't resist...we all have diamonds now! ;)

Congrats to Kennedy and Trever! Wishing yall an eternity of bliss!

Weekend Wrap-up + Friday Links

Again, I really appreciate all of your thoughtful comments on Disney Princesses: Good or Evil?. I actually had the post written about two weeks ago and finally got the nerve to post it. I tried to be as objective as possible, and I hope that was apparent. But for full disclosure, I LOVE Disney and will be showing as many of the movies as I can to our (future) little girls and little boys. I think the stories and the characters are wonderful. But, what really matters is what we reinforce at home. So thank you for indulging me in that discussion.

So in light of our discussion this week, the links I want to share with you are all about fairytales. Enjoy!

Source: stumbleupon.com via Katherine on Pinterest

Want your children to be intelligent?

Adorable.

Fairytales in real life. So in love with these!

Just for laughs...hipster princesses.

Princess hobbies.

Princesses and their parents.

Fairytale wedding photograph. Can't wait to try this sometime!

Castle clubhouse!

A true fairytale.

And setting the record straight.

Have a magical weekend!

Scott & Erika Tie the Knot!

We had a lovely time at Scott and Erika's reception last week. Like us, they had the reception before they got married. No stress on your wedding day!

Aren't they gorgeous?? Unfortunately, I did not get many other photos as I was too busy stuffing my face with cake balls ;)

We also attended their sealing on Friday afternoon. I've never been to one in the Salt Lake Temple and as always, the temple was such a treat.

Being in the temple is a great blessing! I love attending sealings because you can replay your own wedding day as you listen. Of course, I cried the whole way through it. The temple is such a beautiful experience!

Erika's little brother McKay made me smile. He was so eager to give his big sister a big hug when her and Scott exited the temple. Precious.

We couldn't be more happy for Scott and Erika. There is not a better match for our Scott than Erika. Here's to an eternity of bliss to the new Mr. and Mrs. Nelson! :)

See more lovely photos at Chelsie Clarke's photography blog.

P.S. The first day of class went great, one of my classes was cancelled! Woo!

Our Photobooks

I thought I would share the photobooks we have made in the past few months using Shutterfly. Which actually turned out to be a little frustrating, but I think I got better with every book we purchased. There are probably nicer photo companies out there, but this one was in our budget.

First, our engagements done by Kelli Brown.

And then one book just for our reception. (Photography by Kristen Stone). I found it to be cheaper to split it into two books than to pay for extra pages in one book. Both of our weddings books were supposed to be "free" (other than shipping) but I went over the 20 page limit--even with splitting the events into two books. (We had about 30 pages for each wedding book).

And here is our wedding day book (also by Kristen Stone). Also supposed to be free, but again, I went over the page limit. If you like Shutterfly, sign up for their e-mails and you will periodically get loads of free stuff like photobooks and prints. I just made these books in advance and then waited for the free code to come along :) Also, this book is my favorite because I used their new Custom Path. I think the Custom Path is loads and loads better because you can make your photos as big as you want (plus a bunch of other customizations).

If you like, you can see the rest of the pages in each book at my Shutterfly share site.

Plus, more of our wedding photos.

Enjoy!

Photos taken while sitting in our hammock :)