Engagement Pictures!

Here are some shots from our engagement shoot yesterday. We shot around Philadelphia and also recreated our first date. Our photographer was the awesome and super talented Dave Austria. I would love to post all of the photos here, but there are way too many! I've posted some of my favorites below.

How He Asked!

A few days ago, Stacy from How He Asked contacted me on Twitter and asked if she could write a post about how Danny proposed to me. I said "Of course!" and sent her some pictures with the story of our proposal in Turks. Here's the finished article:

Annie + Danny | NBA Dancer Engaged in Turks and Caicos

Reception Fun

I always thought that when you went to a wedding reception you had dinner, danced a lot, took advantage of the open bar, signed the guest book, and listened to a bunch of drunken toasts. Apparently there are a ton of other things that you can have at your reception to make sure your guests have fun. Pinterest, Style Me Pretty, and DIY Bride have posted some awesome ideas for receptions.

Put these coloring kits at tables where kids are sitting.
Ask them to make a card for the bride and groom.
This is a good idea to keep them from getting
bored during the toasts and speeches.

A s'mores bar for a winter wedding, of course.

Photobooths are the most popular trend at weddings today.

Who Wears the Cake?
Whoever has more money in their glass gets a face full of cake.
You can use the money as extra cash for your honeymoon,
or if you're feeling philanthropic,
you can donate the money to a charity of your choice.

Cute photo idea that guests can do throughout the night.

Each bottle represents a year.
Guests write notes and slip them in whichever bottle they want.
The couple opens the bottle for that anniversary.

If you're an Instagram addict like me, this is an awesome idea.

A Wish Jar.
Guests write and sign wishes and give advice to the couple.

DIY Sunday

I got tied up with some other important matters yesterday, so I wasn't able to post my wedding DIY for this Sunday. I love this idea, so instead of waiting till next Sunday to write it, I'm just going to post a belated entry.

This week's DIY comes from Ruffled. This is an awesome favor for a winter wedding (which my regular readers should know I'm begging for). If I did this project, I would change a couple of the elements, but the general idea would be the same.

What's the one thing you crave when you're sitting in front of a fireplace on a cold winter night watching a movie? I guess you could say a few things here, but the answer I'm looking for is hot chocolate. I have a ridiculous sweet tooth, so hot chocolate is a staple for me around the holidays. The writers at Ruffled have designed a really simple, sophisticated version of a hot chocolate wedding favor.

What you’ll need:

-12″ Disposable Decorating Bags (200)

- Chocolate powder (from Costco or Sam’s club)

- 75 teeny, tiny hair ties (x2)

- Marshmallows bags (x4)

- Twine (x1)

- Favor tags

Instructions:

Step 1: Cut decorating bags around 6.5″

Step 2: Fill bag with 2 tablespoons (or whatever your chocolate powder suggests) with chocolate.

Step 3: Use the teeny, tiny hair tie to close off the chocolate. 

(You may need to cut the access bag after tying it off. The picture below, for example, should be cut so there’s just about a 1/2 inch of bag showing after the hair tie.)

Step 4: Insert chocolate filled cone into another decorating bag; make sure seams line up.

Step 5: Pour 1/4 cup of marshmellows into decorating bag on top of the chocolate cone.

Step 6: Tie a piece of ribbon, yarn, or string above the marshmallows. You need to make this tight so the marshmallows don’t dry out. I tied it into two knots.

Step 7: After string is secure around bag, add your favor tag and tie it into a pretty bow.

Step 8: Repeat as many times as necessary.

The finished product

Since this could seem like a really tedious and boring task to do by yourself, you can enlist your bridesmaids to help. Make a night out of it and invite them over for wine and girl talk, and form an assembly line to get it done as quickly as possible. You probably won't even realize how many you can get done in one night.

Winter Wonderland

I would love to have a winter wedding. The idea of getting married while there's snow falling outside around the holidays is so romantic to me (but with our luck, the year we get married we'll have 2 inches of snowfall all winter). The holidays also happen to be my favorite time of year. I love giving gifts, snuggling in front of a fireplace, and holiday parties. I also love winter colors. Deep, rich reds and blues, accented by gold or silver are my ideal holiday shades. 

Here is some winter wedding inspiration courtesy of The Knot and Style Me Pretty.

Gorgeous shot. Probably really hard to recreate.

Perfect favors

I love the touches of gold. Subtle and not overwhelming.
The feather against the contrasting burlap table runner give a nice "city meets country" feel.

I absolutely love the tented ceilings. The lights are great too.

The silver tablecloth, crystals, and white flowers are great colors for a winter wedding.

I love this center piece.

Tree branches painted white are a great, easy way to add a winter feel to the wedding.

Not a huge fan of the tablecloth, but I love the ornaments hanging from the tree branches over the table.

Pinecones are a winter staple.

This is a great coat to wear over your dress when you're taking pictures outside.

You Mean I Can't Just Throw Some Roses in a Vase?

Wedding flowers. This is definitely one of the wedding aspects that is meant for the bride to oversee. My fiancé couldn't care less about floral centerpieces, bouquets, or anything having to do with flowers. I could pick some tulips from someone's yard, throw them in a glass vase, and stick them on the center of a table, and he wouldn't know the difference. 

Depending on how important they are to you, you're either going to spend a little or a lot of your budget on flowers. Being a stickler for details, I place a lot of importance on the them in a wedding, so I don't mind spending a little more money to get the centerpieces or bouquets that I like. With that said, I know absolutely nothing about wedding flowers. I don't know what terms like biedermeier, pomander, or nosegay mean. (I'm a vocab freak, so you can bet your butt that I'm going to learn) All I know is that calla lilies and orchids are my favorite flowers. How they will be arranged and incorporated into the wedding will be decided by me with a lot of help from a florist. 

Thankfully, The Knot has provided a list of 15 wedding flower mistakes to avoid submitted by florists and event planners with a ton of experience. Below are a few of my favorite tips:

This one may be a little hard for me, since I'm such a control freak. But we'll make it work :)

Some people may find this idea tacky, but it actually makes a lot of sense. 

I like this idea, especially since my favorite flowers are on the pricier side.

This is very true. I'm all about minimalism, so the less cluttered and 

more coordinated a table looks, the better.

(tips and images from theknot.com)

VIPS #2

If you don't know what VIPS means, refer to this post. This week's VIPS is one of the most informative wedding planning sites I've looked at. The Knot should be one of the first websites a girl goes to when she gets engaged. Not only is it a great resource for planning your wedding, but it's a great place to look when you just want to find inspiration from other weddings.

One of my favorite features of The Knot is their "Just Engaged"section. It gives a list of the 10 things you need to do first after your groom-to-be pops the question. Items on the list include picking a date, setting a budget, and getting engagement pictures taken.  

Another great section is The Knot community. It's a series of message boards where brides from all over the country can post anything from pictures, to suggestions, to reviews. The boards can also be viewed according to geographic location, so it's easy to find suggestions on local vendors or venues. 

The Knot has an amazing library of images that you can view for inspiration. They have over 35,000 that are sorted by wedding color, style, season, or even flower so that you can narrow down your search and find what you're looking for without looking through thousands of pictures. 

There are a ton of other features that I could write about, but that would just be tedious and would spoil the fun. Once we decide to actually start planning and looking around at different options, The Knot will definitely be one of, if not the most, useful site for me.

(all images from theknot.com)

DIY Sunday

I'm going to dedicate Sunday posts to creative DIY ideas that I find. This Sunday's DIY comes from mydiyweddingday.com via wedding and event planner Angela from Oh So Joyous. I'm not sure how much money this idea would actually save you, since the materials used for this project can be pretty expensive, but for craftier people, this idea is really cute.

Thank you cards are (hopefully) one of the last expenses a couple needs to worry about for their big day. Angela came up with an awesome DIY thank you card that looks very professional and polished, but adds that personal touch from the newlyweds.

(Taken from mydiyweddingday.com)

"This thank you pack includes an embossed card and the couple’s favourite wedding photos all wrapped in a pretty little pocket folder and finished off with a ribbon."

What you will need:

• watermark ink or embossing ink

• ink of your colour choice (I used black)

• thermal embossing powder of your colour choice (I used gold)

• rubber thank you stamp

• rubber stamp of your choice for front of card (I used a custom monogram stamp)

• heat gun

• cards and envelopes

• ribbon

• luggage tags

• pocket folders

• a selection of your favorite wedding photos

Here's what to do:
1. Using a thank you stamp, stamp the luggage tags with the regular ink and put aside.
2. Press the rubber stamp on the watermark ink and stamp the image on the card by pressing down firmly and removing the stamp quickly.
3. Shake the thermal embossing powder over the image until it is completely covered. To remove the excess powder tap the card over some paper and then empty this back into the thermal embossing powder container. Make sure the card has no flecks of powder by brushing them off.
4. Turn on the heat tool and melt the powder this may take a few seconds.
5. Once you have filled in the cards with your note and enveloped them you can insert the card and photographs into the pocket folder and seal it.
6. Put the ribbon through the luggage tag and tie it around the pocket folder, finish it off with a tie of your choice and voila!

You can check out mydiyweddingday.com for a picture tutorial of how to put the cards together, but here's a picture of the finished product from the website.

Wedding Do or Don't: Colored Wedding Dress

I'm saving the big "dress" post for later because it is far too early for me to begin thinking about the most important dress I'll ever wear, and it will most likely be more than one entry anyway. Even though 99% of all brides won't consider wearing anything but white on their wedding day, I explored the idea of wearing something other than the traditional color. Brides initially wore white to signify their purity and virginity, but let's face it, my fiancé and I have been living together for 2 years. Draw whatever conclusions you want.

How important is it to me to wear white on my wedding day? Most likely I'll end up wearing white, but I decided to take a look and see what a colored wedding dress would look like. Forget the fact that most of the dresses I found looked like cupcakes, colored wedding dresses quite honestly, don't look like wedding dresses. To me, they look a lot like what you see a 17-year-old girl wearing to her prom. However, I managed to find a couple of exceptions that made me think twice. (See Gwen Stefani and the last picture in the set below) So I ask this: Are colored wedding dresses a do or a don't?

These colors aren't terrible. For wall paint.

I don't mind the color as much as I mind the swirled yogurt design of the dress.

Gwen Stefani took the traditional white gown, and put her own ombré spin on it.
I love this dress on her.

This dress reminds me of a dead crow I saw on the side of the road one day.
I would wear this dress to Elton John's funeral.

Marchesa 2012. I'm torn on this. I like the dress, but not for a wedding.

I love the touch of color this bride put under the sheer layer in her skirt.
I'm not a big fan of the cut of the dress, but she looks fabulous.

Is this a wedding or Prom?

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I like to think that I'm pretty low maintenance. I don't wear a ton of make up on a daily basis, the only hair products I own are shampoo, conditioner, and a small can of hairspray, and I go to the salon maybe three times a year. So naturally, I want my wedding look to reflect my style, while upping the glam factor just a little. The last thing I want on the biggest day of my life is to be walking down the aisle with 100 bobby pins in my hair and an up-do that will take 2 hours to take down. 

Don't get me wrong, up-do's look great on certain girls, just not me. If you know me, you know that my hair pretty much does nothing but lay straight and hold curls for about 15 minutes. I wish I could pull them off, but in my past experience, every up-do I've had made me look like a pageant queen or a 6-year-old going to Glamourshots. (If you don't know what Glamourshots is you obviously didn't grow up in the 90's, and for that, I feel sorry for you) I'm not entirely opposed to a casual up-do, but I definitely don't want to look like I'm going to Senior Prom either.

Here is some hair inspiration for your viewing pleasure. I still don't know what I want, but thankfully I have a lot of time to think about it.

(Pictures from Style Me Pretty)