Introducing...Miss Georgetown

Hi everyone. I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Miss Georgetown and an August 2nd bride. (Only 118 days to go!) Why Miss Georgetown?...because both FI and I are Georgetown grads and we are actually getting married at the chapel on campus at school! We are really, really excited about it.

I started working with Mrs. Nearlywed to plan my Georgetown Wedding last year when I moved to NYC. Planning from a far can be very challenging, but Mrs. Nearlywed has been amazingly helpful. I was a bride-to-be who thought everything was in-place before I hired a planner. I had a date, a church and a reception site. To my surprise, two months ago I realized that I contracted a space that was too small for my reception! Mrs. Nearlywed to the rescue...and I was able to find a much better space for my reception. I'm super excited about the space (I just saw it for the first time yesterday), so I thought I'd share it with you. http://www.belmontconferencecenter.com/ The staff is super helpful and nice and if you don't mind a trip to Howard County, it's a great place for your wedding and/or reception.

J'Adore Details

Ahh the details...how we do love them. And we aren't the only ones! Southern California based photographers Jasmine Star, Drew Bittel, Trista Lerit, and Ameila Lyon love them too. So much so that they came up with a brilliant idea. They've created a website devoted to the great vendors they've worked with over the years and the little details that make for fabulous weddings.

I know you're probably thinking "how do a bunch of great California vendors help me plan my D.C. wedding?" The pictures of course! The J'Adore Details website is filled with beautiful pictures for inspiration. Click on the websites of the recommended vendors and you'll have even more details to drink in.

And as if that wasn't enough, be sure to check out the J'Adore Details Blog as well. It has just begun but with four talented photographers contributing I'm sure it will be filled with amazing photos. The blog will be updated with great little details from the brilliant weddings they shoot.



^Photo credited to DrewB Photography

^Photo credited to Jasmine Star

^Photo credited to Jasmine Star

Summer Breeze

This is the time of year when I really start to crave the warmth and color of spring. Winter still keeps trying to hang on, but I know it's on it's way out. I stumbled across these shots on the photography blog of photo artist Marie Labbancz and they totally got me in the mood for summer. It reminds me of a summer harvest but the shot of purply blue makes it new and fresh.

Marie shot this table scape for Bride and Bloom Magazine. The flowers were done by the extremely talented Donna O'Brien of Beautiful Blooms (check out her site for major floral eye candy) and the tablescapes were put together by Kendall Brown of Eclatante Event Design.

Speaking of New Blogs....An UnWedding for an UnBride in D.C.

Many of your probably remember Justine Ungaro's gorgeous work from the premier issue of Ines del Mar Weddings. Her photography highlighted the gorgeous floral art of Janie Medley and was featured in the first post of Janie's blog The Bride's Cafe. Below is one of Justine's images from that shoot as featured on Justine's own photo blog.



Justine shoots weddings in D.C. and L.A. (I don't know how she does it!) and has had her own professional photo blog for quite some time. What many of you may not know is that Justine is getting married herself this October! And it'll be in D.C.! So she has begun a personal blog detailing her own wedding planning. The Unbride blog has just begun but I'm really excited to follow along.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I love to see the weddings of wedding professionals. Think about it...they've seen it all. They've worked with great vendors, they've seen all the color combos, they've seen the best venues and there probably isn't a single idea they haven't already seen featured in a million weddings. So when you've seen it all, what does your wedding look like? What florist do you chose? Who bakes your cake (or do you even eat cake?!) Who takes your photos when you yourself are a photographer?! Justine promises in the first post of The Unbride blog, that as beautiful as traditional weddings are hers won't be that. She'll be planning an un-wedding for an un-bride. Exciting!

While you're checking out her new blog don't forget to check out her professional photo site and professional blog. You'll be rewarded with some gorgeous bridal images like the ones below. All photos credited to Justine Ungaro.



^I had to pick this photo b/c calla lilies are my flower!

^This picture is from one of my favorite weddings on her blog. I Luuuuved the bride's dress.

Real Simple Weddings - The Book Review

Subtitle: Spending my money so you don't have to.

As Mrs. Nearlywed mentioned below Real Simple Weddings went on sale today at Crate and Barrel. They call it a "magazine" but it's softbound, 160 pages, and around $13 so it really is more like a book.

I was really excited for this b/c I like the "Real Simple" style of life. My expectations were for a lot of inspiring images of simple yet elegant weddings that wouldn't break the bank and similar bits of advice and hints on how to achieve such a look.

Here are my 2 cents. The book in general is more of a "I just got engaged, now what?" type of book. So it has chapters on things like Venue, Invitations, Registry, etc. It includes things like a wedding timeline, what dresses are flattering to each figure, what flowers are in season etc.

What I Didn't Like:

1)Each chapter starts with advice on "how to chose X." I found a lot of the information a bit too simplistic for any bride who has thought about her wedding. For example, in the venue section they devote two pages to types of venues and they say you can have it traditional (church), at home, destination, or "quirky." Then it gives the pros and cons of each. Do you really need a book to tell you this?

2)Similarly, each chapter has a "questions" section. In general I find almost all "question" sections of bridal websites, magazines, books, etc. too simplistic. This wasn't an exception. There are questions like "do I have to do a bouquet toss?" or "is it possible to get an inexpensive dress that doesn't look cheap?"
Are there any brides out there that really can't answer these questions themselves? Is any bride really up at night thinking about this stuff? What is the answer going to be? "If you don't do a bouquet toss your wedding will end in divorce"? "Only expensive dresses look nice"? Of course not, so why put these softballs in a book? Don't get me wrong, there are hard questions out there but these never get answered in print.

3) My biggest disappointment- The pictures! As I had hoped they did showcase a handful of "Real Simple" weddings. But each wedding got a small paragraph of a description and then one page of thumbnail size photos. Wedding books are all about the eye candy and I could tell that some of these pictures would be great but they were so small you really couldn't soak them all in. There were some full page pictures at the beginning of the chapters but other then that the rest of the photos were more on the smallish side.


What I liked -

1) Each page has a "Save Money" or "Save Stress" hint. I actually, thought some of these were pretty useful. Like square envelopes can cost up to 17 cents more to mail then rectangular envelopes. Who knew?

2) Their registry information is for real people. I hate registry lists that say stuff like you need "12 white wine glasses, 12 red wine, 12 water glasses, 12 snifters, 12 cordial glasses, 12 whisky glasses," etc. It's like, seriously who needs all this? Their registry is short, sweet, and "real simple." It's the things you ACTUALLY need and will probably use the most.

3) They recommend some good money saving websites you don't normally see mentioned in typical wedding books. Like VeilShop.com. Us brides have known about this great secret for getting reasonably priced veils for a while but most magazines just want to sell us $500 veils so they don't mention these gems. I found most of the Real Simple store/website recommendations spot on for a "Real Simple" bride.

4) Even though the weddings they featured don't have the best pictures, they really are "Real Simple." There aren't any $5,000 dresses, no huge ballrooms with uplighting and gigantic flower displays, no over the top decorations, etc. Just classically elegant soirees. They even feature a "pot luck" wedding!


Final Opinion
Overall I'd say save your $13. Most of the information is either self evident or easily found online for free. In fact you can find MANY parts of the book on the wedding section of the "Real Simple" website! Seriously, some of the exact same pictures and articles. Just look for the articles with "Real Simple Weddings" in the title. The other articles are good also, though, so read them too!

The DC Wedding For $20K

Sounds Crazy no matter which way you look at it.

TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS for one day...

or $20,000.00 for a wedding in a city where the venue alone can eat up 75% of that budget (Literally.) Here are some objective tips for my Brideys as you begin the process and before you become uber obsessed with the whole thing and can't hear Logic any longer :)

1. What is important to you? Be honest and list all your items in order of importance. Is it the venue or the Food? Your dress or the flowers? Photography or Music. If you prioritize you will be able to allocate your dollars to the areas most important to you and find you can spend less on less important areas rather than just booking vendors willy nilly.

2. Be Open To Options. Friday versus Saturday really isn't going to make much of a difference in this market. Sunday will net a lower rate but the real savings are during the week. I know CRAZY. But you would be surprised when I tell you that I did more Tuesday weddings this season than ever before. It's a European thing where weddings take place on any day. Think about a Thursday or a Monday before or after a long weekend. Make YOUR wedding the destination and treat it as such. If everyone were on an island, they wouldn't care what day you had the ceremony.

3. Put your vendors to work. If you have a vision in mind, you are the client. Have them embrace your vision. If they can't or won't perhaps they aren't the best vendor for you. It should not be that you are so flattered to have ____________________ "do your wedding" that you let them run the show. You are hiring them to work with your vision. (ALWAYS be polite, sometimes a No is the right answer.)

4. DIY is wonderful. A few projects here or there are about all any one bride can handle (Between work, grad school, the dog, the fiance and life...) If there are DIY projects you would like to incorporate, then incorporate your bridal party to assist. Give over the task completely and don't micro-manage them.

5. Use your contacts. If you are using a planner that can purchase wholesale ask them about the items you fall in love with that may seem to be out of your budget. If you need 200 pieces of an item, they can probably nab them wholesale with only a modest mark up and the cost of shipping.

6. Read the Resources Section. All the great items you find perfectly staged in the magazines... Turn to the very back of the magazine and find out where you can get them. Most of the information you need is already there in print. Name of the item, shop name, location, website or phone number and often price.

7. Spend your money on the WOW and accent your WOW on the cheap. Use a terrific specialty linen in vibrant colors and accent your tables with an inexpensive flower like carnations or baby's breath en masse (in large quantity). the effect is stunning and the linens will cost less than an elaborate centerpiece would have.

8.Finish everything to the edges. Rather than have 15 DIY projects all over the place that don't really work together, but were done because it was a "cute idea" choose items that will work together and give a finished look. For instance have a custom monogram designed for your wedding and have it go through on everything, invites, programs, napkins, chair sashes, water bottles, favor boxes etc. Everything at the event works together and the entire event looks "finished to the edges".