Mother of the Bride

Tuesday mom came to town to work on some wedding things. She brought my dress to the apartment to try on with the veil I ordered and of course try on with my loubs and earrings and I think everything looks AMAZING together. I have chosen a less traditional bridal route but I think it suites me because I definitely appreciate fashion and design and the feeling of wanting to look unique! So I'm very excited!!!

We also went shopping for her because we're still on the lookout for the perfect MOB dress! I want my mom to feel just as special as me and really let her shine too because she's been such a driving force planning the wedding and she really has given into allowing me to have the perfect wedding that fiance and I dream of and I'm SO appreciative!!

So she's been poking around the web and ordered a few things but we also popped over to Saks and found two awesome options, but we also had two others that were in the running.. After yesterday though, I'm not sure which route we may go?!

 First, your typical MOB dress.. A little conservative and simple. via Nordstrom

 Then there's this Tadashi number that's simple yet elegant.. via Neiman Marcus

 

My personal fave, a Tadashi dress with just a bit of glitz a glam, a total "Amanda" dress via Neiman Marcus

I'm leaning towards the last dress because mom looked FAB in it! Obviously there are a lot of choices out there but mom has a fuller figure so we need something that compliments her. She was afraid of the darker colors but I think the navy would be a perfect choice for a fall, evening wedding.

What do y'all think? Any other suggestions?! How do you feel about dark colors on the MOB?

xoxo,

a.

Invitation Reveal

Yesterday I told you all about the process of getting to print our wedding invitations.. and today, I'm here to show them to you!!! WOO!

I knew I wanted our invitations done in calligraphy but by the time I ordered it was just getting too late, but luckily, Palm Papers offered a faux calligraphy printed while the invitations were being printed. YAY! And it looks AWESOME! Since they were being printed instead of hand done I knew I wanted to add something special to the envelopes: Vintage Stamps!!!

I got carried away on the vintage stamp train, and thus searched while the invitations were being printed and found a local gal, Samantha, who actually sold vintage stamps and allowed me to go pick them out myself. I found her via Etsy and I was SO elated to use the stamps! 

Here is our envelope reveal...

And what my table looked like because I had to hand paste the stamps on the envelopes.. all 5 stamps on 100 envelopes..

I think the faux calligraphy came out great!! I really loved it!! It came out so nice and clean (minus me protecting some family members below). It was clean and cohesive for the inner envelopes and I couldn't have been more happy with how it turned out! I also loved the gray envelopes too!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the envelopes and the stamps! I had 4 different variations!

So NOW ladies and gents we can get to the invitation itself!! Like I said I had the invitations done in letter press, along with the RSVP card and a reception insert card. Lauren took my Uncle's design and applied it to the RSVP and insert to make everything flow and I loved how it turned out. I used white paper with the gray letter press because I prefer white over an ercu color to make it more modern and sleek. (I apologize in advance all these photos were taken with my iPhone so they don't really do any of these pictures justice but I'm sure Meredith will take beautiful pictures for us to keep forever!) Without further ado...



HOORAY! What do you guys think?! I was so excited about them and I'm so excited to share them with you!! It's weird because this makes it totally "official" and with get our marriage license this week it's definitely approaching fast. It just still doesn't seem real! But I DO love calling mom every night to ask who RSVP'd because she's receiving them all so that we could be more traditional with the invitations. :) THANKS MOM!

Let me know what you guys think and HAPPY WEEKEND!

xoxo,

a.

Invitation Process

You guys, I don't know WHAT my problem was when it came to selecting an invitation.. Ok maybe somewhat. I don't like silly pictures, graphics, flowers, stars, etc. I don't know why because I'd totally do it for anything else, I just did NOT want that on my invites. But I also couldn't find a great "plain" invite that wasn't what my mom used either. When I DID find something, it was from Bella Figura at like $3000 for a suite of 125. Yeah... RIGHT.

GORG but WAYYYY too much money.. :(

So I searched for months and months and just was never satisfied. The invite was the FIRST thing you see in correlation with our wedding day and I wanted the whole process to be perfect, opening the mailbox, opening the invite, sending in the RSVP... I wanted our guests to be just as excited!! 

I also knew that Fiance's uncle was a graphic designer and I thought, "why not see if he could help us design something unique for us?!" He wasn't TOO keen on the idea but when I showed him some of my inspiration he got on board.

This was July folks, and I was freaking by this point because we needed to get it done. We thought maybe we'd just design the whole thing and go from there, but that wasn't working out because Uncle isn't a wedding invite designer, DUH AMANDA.

Then I started to retrace my steps to the web and found a letter pressed company called, Palm Papers, via Etsy. Lauren at Palm Papers does all the designing and owns the company. They do letterpress, flat printing and she even designs for Minted (a site I probably would have ordered from if I had not found her!) AND when mom gave me the budget for invites, it FIT even WITH letterpress!!!! EEK!!!!!!! PERFECT!

Here's a sample of Palm Papers Wedding invites:

We then re-approached Uncle with her layouts for invites and he thought he could make us a cool logo to correspond with the clean invites she had, and it totally worked! We got a LOGO for the wedding, which was SO exciting because I now had my brain working on all the things we could apply it to and make the wedding cohesive from the time you open the invite to the time you leave the reception you would know that it was A & N's wedding! YES!!

Here's the logo again we created:

 Here is the invite we took our inspiration from and made it completely our own!

It was actually a fun process because we worked with our Uncle to create something just for us and Lauren at Palm Papers worked with us and allowed our design to go with her designs. She worked up proofs and let me have a say in how I wanted everything to look but she also took the information I gave her and made it exactly what I had been looking for!! 

I can't wait to reveal the final product, but I'll do that tomorrow since this post was insane.. I apologize for my rant but I just HAD to let you know our process and why it took so long to get from A to B!!

xoxo,

a.

LICENSED TO WED!

 

 IT'S OFFICIAL Y'ALL!!!

We can officially get married in the state of North Carolina! WOO HOO!

We took the opportunity to get our marriage license today since it was a rainy day and because we're under the 60 day mark till W day! It's definitely real now but it just feels surreal. It's hard to believe we're at this point but I cannot wait! P.S. Excuse the awful insta photo I provided.. it was a crazy hair day..

xoxo,

a.

My Hiatus

Sorry it's been awhile since I last blogged. This weekend was a bit crazy and here's a little recap of what happened.

I was supposed to take my bridal portraits today, but as a long of east coasters know, it's raining today!! Not only is it raining but supposedly it's going to downpour tonight from 4-7 when we were scheduled for portraits. So number one, we could not find an indoor venue available (nor did we reallllly want to) and two, my hair! SO finally around 1:00pm yesterday I threw in the towel and gave up on trying for today. It's frustrating because I was so prepared and was ready to do them and had the whole day off to do so. BUT luckily, everyone is available to re-try for October 4th, as long as I can work it out with my work schedule...

downtown raleigh session that i LOVE by Cade Bowman

We also realized that my future MIL had an unexpected trip to Asia and we still had not placed any order for rehearsal invitations.. Uh freak out mode here. Since we mailed the wedding invites last week, I knew we needed to get a start on those so that we could have our guests plan accordingly so I was rehearsal dinner invite searching all weekend!! I did find one and I'm OH so excited about them!!

OH and we DID mail our invitations!! I'm going to prepare a post about them later this week since I think everyone should have gotten them. But for now, here's a sneak peek!!

Our custom created wedding logo by our uncle!!! EEK!!! it almost has a D as an ampersand! our initials!!

 

 all packed up and ready to go!!

 

Ok friends, I'll be back soon!!

xoxo,

a.

Bachelorette Party Recap

This past weekend my favorite girls and I took a trip down to Wrightsville Beach, NC for a weekend of sun and fun. (Ha, I love cheesy quotes.) We had pretty darn good weather and a seriously great time! It's crazy that it's already over and that we're just closer to the big day now, but I'll never forget what a wonderful time I had with some amazing ladies!!

My friends did such an awesome job of making me have such a relaxed and fun weekend. I know it's weird to say "relaxed" but I just felt at peace with whatever was going on and didn't have an expectations or requirements I guess you could say. (Unlike the rest of the wedding process.) I just made sure to be in the moment, be present, and to have a great time with everyone there!! I cannot thank my friends enough for such a wonderful weekend and for all their time and effort they put in to create my perfect weekend and for making me feel like a princess! I'm truly grateful for such wonderful people in my life! LOVE Y'ALL!!!!

Well whose ready to see all the fun?!

 

WOO!!! PARTY!! My bachelorette was such a blast and I have such great memories to take away with me! (Excuse some of the inappropriate photos but I feel we did pretty good to keep it PG-13 at least.) I hope y'all enjoyed the photos! Makes me wish it was last weekend again.. Oh well, as I told the ladies, let's get ready for the big party in November!

xoxo,
a. 

T-minus 2 months!

WHOA!!!! Really?! When did this happen?! I'm floored y'all really I am. I can't belive in two months time I'll be wakling down the aisle. *EEK!* So ready for it to be here! In the meantime, let's recap on what we've done because I feel like a lot of excitement has happend:

what's been done:

invitations ARRIVED and being stamped as we speak!
bridesmaid dresses arrived
picked up my dress and it's currently at mom's!

fiance's custom tuxedo arrived and FITS

bachelorette party in the books! (posting soon!)

ordered my veil and it's being delivered! finally

picked up info pack from chamber of commerce for OOT bags
asked men to be ushers

tuxedo's selected from men's warehouse(some have been measured..)

met with printer about napkins, koozies, favors, etc.
worked on bridal luncheon details

wedding bands are engraved, done and PAID for!
bridal portraits paid for
purchased 1 mob/mog gift
purchased part of the bridal party gifts
hair and makeup booked for portraits and wedding

gathered final inspiration for wedding cake

to do:

finish stamping, lick and send invitations

order rehearsal dinner invites

work on slideshow for rehearsal dinner

order invitations to men's golf outing/bridal luncheon

take bridal portraits - september 18th!!

decide on reception hair piece?!

finalize reception details - walk through september 25

go get MARRIAGE license!!! -september 25

actually work on chalk board sings.. oops

decide on ceremony music

decide on first dance and groom/mom dance

purchase final bridal party gifts

keep working on timeline of weekend

collect things for OOT bags
find rehearsal dinner/luncheon outfits..
work on reception details

Obviously there are a few details not listed that we'll have to work on, I just can't think of all the tiny things we need to delegate right now. I'm still exhausted from this past weekend of being a bachelorette!! SO fun y'all!! (Here's a sneak peek!)

Well I'm going to finish my invites and maybe try to put them in the mail today since I'm off and I'd love to be productive! So here's to 2 months... Here.We.Go!!!

xoxo,

a.

And I'm Leaving on a Bach Party...

Y'ALL! It's my bachelorette party weekend already!!! I'm about to hop in the car and head down to Wrightsville Beach, NC for the weekend with my best ladies and I couldn't be more excited!! I don't know very many details but I DO know that I found two fabulous dresses to wear, so fab that fiance is jealous he won't see me in them. Sad day for him. Happy day for men around Wrightsville! I joke.. Anywho, just wanted to send y'all off with some weekend love and a sneak peak out my fun little outfits I may be sporting.

I painted my nails with essie's "bachelorette bash" nail polish that I purchased for the occasion!

OH I just love these two prints and fabrics, crazy colors and sparkles in GOLD. And what can beat hot pink nails with a night out and your girls?! CAN. NOT. WAIT. Let's party! 


In the meantime, let me leave you with THIS awesome bachelorette party for Amanda, the blogger behind 100 Layer Cake, it's super fab. (Plus her name is Amanda!!) Cheers!

Au Revoir!

xoxo,

a.