A Great Quote

Tonight I'm watching Leap Year, one of my favorite romantic comedies, and I wanted to share with you a quote, in case you haven't been fortunate enough to watch the movie. It is one that really speaks to me, at least in the way that the bride says it to her husband at their reception. Maybe you could use it at your own reception or wedding ceremony one day, or it could inspire you to come up with something similar. I love the sentiment!

May you never steal, lie or cheat

But if you must steal, then steal away my sorrows

And if you must lie, lie with me all the nights of my life

And if you must cheat, then please cheat death, because I couldn't live a day without you

[Insert tear here] PS this movie is a great chick flick but also pretty funny, so it's not one you want to miss if you haven't seen it and I think most guys could put up with watching it too.

Bright Colors Inspiration Board

My life has definitely seemed brighter lately so I thought I would throw together a quick inspiration board for all of you which focused on that same happy, fun feeling.



I love the use of the bright and fun colors (blues, pinks, greens, oranges) and the way it brings an extra sort of the life to the event. I am a firm believer that your decor will set the tone of your wedding and reception, so the more lively you make the decor, the more lively your event will be. PS, notice the bridesmaids are wearing blue dresses with yellow shoes. I love that!

The pictures above come from the following sites: Beth Helmstetter Events (decorated table), Home Infatuation (the colored oil lamps), Sweet and Saucy Shop (the mini cheesecakes and Billy Button cake), Ruffled (the soda bar), JL Designs and Events (the yellow bouquets and the bridal party shot), and Wedding Chicks (the boutonneirs).

I hope this inspires you or at least brightens your day too! Happy Thursday!

~A

The Perfect Proposal

I have always held the belief that your boyfriend should never just take you to dinner, plop down on one knee after the main course, and ask you to marry him--we've all seen it in every romantic movie ever released, and the constant recreation of this proposal has left it meaningless in my eyes. You've spent years waiting for this moment, so he should take some time and come up with a proposal that is heartfelt and meaningful. I always joked I'd say no if the former event happened, but in all likelihood the method to his proposal likely doesn't change your answer to his question. However, it will add so much to the already amazing moment that is your engagement.

I have known one of my best friends, Blake, for over ten years now...and for almost that same amount of time I have known his sister Lauren (who we all grew up calling Doonie, Blake's childhood nickname for her). Lauren is the sweetest, friendliest girl ever, and I was so happy for her when I found out recently that she was engaged. I was even more excited when she posted on Facebook about the actual proposal. It is a prime example of what I mean when I talk about putting effort into getting engaged.

Here is the background on the engagement, as written by her now fiance, Patrick:

So I decided that I wanted to propose to my girlfriend in a special unique way. After racking my brain for weeks I came up with the great idea of surprising her in a movie theater.

I told her that I was going to be gone for 4 days on a white water rafting trip. I arranged it with her two girl friends to have them take her out for a girls night. They invited her to see a movie at a local theater. Little did she know that all of our family and friends were already there.

She walked in "late" with her friends to find the previews already going. This video is what she saw when she came in. At the end all the lights came up, our families stood up, and I came into propose.

I have a reaction video of her from that I am finishing as we speak and should be up in a couple of days.

Oh and she said yes!!!

And here's the AMAZING video she saw when she walked in the theater!



Congrats Lauren and Patrick! And Kudos Patrick for giving such a great girl a great memory to look back on. I can't wait to see how creative you get with your wedding!

Amazing Photographs for Inspiration

Every once in awhile I find a picture that I just love. Obviously it has a lot to do with the photographer who took it more than anything, but when you find a good photo shot just the right way, you want to recreate it for your own wedding/engagement photos. So I keep these photos for the one day I can pass them on to my photographer and say "This is what I want!". I hope all of you do too!

So today, before I run out the door to prep for a wedding, I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you. Please feel free to share any of your favorites with me in the comments section below or via email at triedandtrueweddings@gmail.com.

The photos above come from the following sources: Pic 1 (Southern Weddings Magazine), Pic 2 (Elizabeth Messina), Pic 3 (Ruffled Blog), Pic 4 (Unknown), Pic 5 (Grey Likes Weddings), Pic 6 (Inspired Bride), Pic 7 (Once Wed), Pic 8 (Ruffled Blog), Pic 9 (Elizabeth Messina), Pic 10 (Ruffled Blog), and Pic 11 (Green Wedding Shoes). Hope that you enjoyed them!

An Update

Pardon my lack of posting lately. It's a zoo at my 8-5 job, then I had my former step-dad's wedding little more than a week ago, and I have a wedding I'm planning Friday, with a rehearsal to run tomorrow. Needless to say once you shove a small social life in there I've been booked solid...and with my lack of access to vital resources at work (thanks to IT for blocked websites) my ability to post has been limited. So I thought for today I'd give you an update...on things from a planner's perspective.

My Dad's Wedding

This was an intimate affair (and by intimate I mean 10 people total), a second marriage for both bride and groom, and a celebration only between family members. Literally it was him, her, his kids, her kids, and both their parents. I think my dad will admit that he's pretty frugal and so hiring his daughter to do the planning just wasn't in the cards. So I let them plan it all on their own and literally showed up that day as a guest. This allowed me to get an interesting planner's perspective on the whole thing.

For pro's: Tina (the bride) had her local hairstylist come to the venue and do her hair as well as anyone else who wanted it. I jumped on this boat along with Tina's mother and my sister (who was actually the Maid of Honor). We were all taking photos together, and providing this service for free to anyone in the bridal party who wanted it was really nice. I remember her mother just being so excited to have her hair done so nicely. If you can afford it, and likely only if you're having a small wedding, I would really encourage you to do something like this. It was great! Another positive was their photographer. Once we'd finished many of the normal photos, the bride and groom went upstairs to freshen up before the ceremony. In the meantime he took probably 20-30 minutes to take photos of us kids together in a variety of poses and styles. He made a good point...would our parents rather have photos of them freshening up and meeting with the minister or photos of their kids and their new combined family to stick on their desks at work and in their new home?! Having a smart and friendly photographer is always a plus! He pretty much risked his life taking a photo from the edge of a gigantic cliff too...props to him!

For con's: There was a very limited plan/structure/organizational timeline. We kind of knew around what time period to show up, we knew when the ceremony was, and we kind of knew when it would end, but that was about as far planned as the whole day got. With a ten-person wedding, this really wasn't horrible, but if you'd had 150 people sitting at your reception site chilling out for 45 minutes with nothing to do but mingle with each other, you might have some unhappy guests. Luckily our wait staff was pretty good about bringing in drinks while we waited and we knew each other well enough to spend time joking around...but your guests should always have an idea of what's going on and how the event will flow; don't make them wonder how long they're going to have to wait and why. At least keep them occupied. Also, always do a run through of your ceremony at some point! The site coordinator played the wrong songs at almost every part of the wedding, and while my family is pretty easy going, I could see a first time bride pretty upset that she had to walk down the aisle to Michael Jackson. Just keep this in mind...

But all-in-all this was a fabulous wedding and a really great time! Bryce of Bryce Jenkinson Photography took a lot of amazing photos and supplied them for our family in this great slideshow. I hope my dad won't mind that I'm sharing it with all of you. You can view a sample of the wedding photos by clicking HERE.

A Client's Wedding

Not a lot to post on quite yet, but right now I'm just in the frantic gather-everything-together stage. We're going over all of the last-minute details and hoping to get the wedding day itinerary just right. You'd be surprised how much of a necessity that 3-4 page document becomes for a planner! I'm doing some final connections with vendors in the next few days and then we should be good to go for a fabulous wedding on Friday (and a cool 67 degrees in August...not sure how that happened...but at least no rain). I still have to charge up the walkies for my assistant and I, but the emergency kit has been refilled, and tomorrow I'll be running the rehearsal for the wedding party. I can't wait for what is going to be an amazing wedding for a friend of mine from high school. Hard to believe we went from planning Homecoming together as freshmen to planning her wedding together now 11 years later.

I will fill all of you in on how it went this weekend after a very long Friday!

And I will try my hardest to get a more fun and image-filled post done in the next day or two. Hope your Tuesday has been pretty terrific!

~A

My Favorite Things: Simplicity with Cakes

I think for a very long time bride after bride worked really hard to try and up the amount of elegance/bling/extras on her cake from the last wedding. You'd see very ornate shapes and colors, extra jewels and accessories, unique sizes and shapes, but I've seen a recent trend in almost doing the opposite..going back to the simplicity of cake. It doesn't need to be covered in butterflies or damask patterns to be gorgeous. Sometimes a smaller statement ends up making a larger one. Often times this smaller statement is a small collection of flowers (or even just one) or in the case of a photo below a few cute pinwheels. I've included a number of such cakes that have caught my eye. Maybe they'll inspire you to do something more minimal with your own.

Many of the cakes above come from JL Designs & Sweet and Saucy Shop (located in California), however cake 2 comes from The Sassy Bride blog, cake 3 comes from Green Wedding Shoes blog, and cake 6 comes from Elizabeth Messina's blog Kiss the Groom. If you have links to other great cakes like this, feel free to share them below.

Fabulous Find on Etsy: Empapers

I've been in that dilemma, where you're looking at your budget and trying to decide how you're going to afford all of those great things you want for such a small amount of money. Usually this means giving up a few of those things that are maybe less important for those that mean more to you, but today I may help to solve that problem for at least one bride.

I was perusing Etsy for items to share with you for a "Fabulous Finds" article....sorry guys I've been drowning in work and apologize for lack of posting...but I came across a vendor that was so awesome she is worth sharing all on her own.

Empapers is a stationery vendor on Etsy. I am highlighting her wedding pieces, but this vendor also makes calendars, birthday cards, gift coupons, etc. First of all, let me say I think she is an amazing graphic artist and has a lot of really great designs for any type of bride (more formal, more casual, etc.). But the best thing about her is not her designs, but the fact that she has created every single stationery piece possible and put it into an editable .pdf file where you can insert all of your own personal information. The best part about this is that for the entire set of files (invitation, save-the-date, response card, place cards, table numbers, seating list, thank you cards, etc.) you only pay at the most $65! Granted if you want to change colors of the suite there is an additional fee, but this price is amazing. It means you could have every stationery need done for likely $100 even after purchasing paper and envelopes and printing on your home computer...and it will look like you put $1000 into the set.

I've attached a few photos of her work below, but please check out her site on etsy.com for more details and designs. I hope you like her work as much as I do!

My Favorite Things (and maybe a new trend?)

So I've been noticing more and more of this type of floral arrangement these days and I totally love it! What am I talking about? Long boxed arrangements!

Not only are they gorgeous to look at, but they're space fillers (take up great length, ideal for receptions featuring long tables), and totally affordable. Instead of paying your florist gobs of money to create individual vases with personally manicured arrangements, you can simply build the box/crate (or buy one pre-made) and stick in a variety of your favorite flowers from your local garden store/farmer's market/grocery store or elsewhere. No need to buy pots, as the ugly planter pots they come in will be hidden by the box they sit in. Also, after the wedding you could give friends and family the entire box to take with them and place in their own gardens or you could pull out the individual plants and hand them out so that you have more to give away. I mean honestly, I don't see why this idea hasn't been used more for all of those reasons, and I think you will see this idea in blog posts increasingly in the future. Want to be a trendsetter? Do this!