Wedding close to home, yet so far away....

This past August my baby brother, Adam got married in the historic Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida. It was a family effort to pull the event together from all across the country! 

I designed the invitations for them, including a gatefold invitation with belly-band and custom designed monogram.

In Florida in August keeping cool is a top priority. My sister, Melissa, found these great fans in the same blue as the wedding invites. We attached tags with their monogram and wedding date and laid them out so guests could take as one they entered the ballroom before the ceremony.

The cocktails were served outside on the roof-top balcony with a gorgeous view to the Clearwater Bay and on out to the Gulf of Mexico. The Best Man gave his heartfelt speech here, before we all ran back in to the air conditioning!

The historic hotel was recently re-hauled top to bottom. The ballroom was absolutely beautiful, complete with hand-painted gold leafing and crystal chandelier. 

The traditional wedding cake was made by a local bakery. It contained one special layer for Adam & Noa - chocolate peanut butter! Very yummy!

The biggest family project was the Homemade Cookie Bar. My sister and mom spent weeks baking and freezing cookie dough. My sister traveled from Michigan to Florida with a suitcase full of cookie dough and a two year old. God bless her! We spent a day baking at our wonderful friends' home in nearby Oldsmar, FL. It was a great time to catch up with everyone and taste test!

It was a huge hit and the perfect ending to an amazing wedding. Best Wishes to Adam & Noa for a lifetime of happiness together! Love you both! 

Custom Designed Dresses

Being a custom stationery designer I obviously think things that are custom rock. When I heard about custom dress designer Krystal Savanella I thought - what a wonderful thing to translate over to weddings! 

First off, as anyone who has shopped for their wedding dress can tell you, you usually go in to it with the perfect dress in your mind only to find that you either can't find that dress or it looks horrible on your body. A custom dress designer will know exactly what will look amazing on your body and also listen to your personal style and can create any thing you want! 

Secondly, what a great idea for bridesmaids' dresses! Bring your whole bridal party in to Krystal's studio so she can design custom dresses for each girl that coordinate as a whole party. Everyone is happy; your party will look stunning and unique AND it's only a small amount more than you'd pay for bridesmaid's dresses off the rack! How wonderful! 

Krystal's studio is located inVentura, California, just north of LA. Contact her at info@Savanella.com to set up your appointment! 

Fabric Corsages

Another one of my favorite trends in wedding gowns is fabric corsages! I've found them integrated in to so many gown designs out there today - from subtle to over-the-top. Here are a few of my favorites!

Here are some other uses. I love the shoes! Crazy! 

Wouldn't this translate beautifully in to wedding stationery! With custom stationery you can bring details from anywhere directly in to your invitations. Check out Goodies Designs for more ideas! 

Color, Color, Everywhere!

I LOVE color! One place I always thought I would have to for-go my love of color is in a wedding dress. Well, ladies, not any more! A growing trend in wedding gowns, and not just for those second timers, is COLOR!
First you have the blush colors. Chartuese, Champagne, Oatmeal, Baby Blue. And there's a ton more out there I'm sure you can find.

Or for those bold women out there there's BOLD color. I particularly love the use of red here, giving a Spanish flair. In some cultures (Chinese, Indian) red is a traditional wedding gown color. Why not start our own traditions in the West?

Extraordinary Make-Up

I’ve been thinking about Wedding Day Beauty recently and remembered this ‘wonder-woman’ I met in LA named Jill Kirsh. Celebrity color stylist Jill Kirsh is also known as “The Hollywood Guru of Hue.” She started a make-up company, Jill Kirsh Color, that gives you the exact hues that will look phenomenal on you. I’ve seen her simple transformations of people first hand. Her make-up and color direction makes a HUGE different in how you look. I bought her make-up kit years ago and have since tried to find the same hues in other make-up brands, but have never been able to. Nothing ever looks as good as hers! Check out these before and after shots!

Look at how just wearing the right color brightens up this guys face! No make up!

I had a one-on-one consultation with her where she found the exact colors for me, including silver or gold jewelry! This is a great idea and would be a fun thing to do with your bridal party! You can also go right on her website and find your perfect colors yourself just based on your hair color.

She says that everyone can wear every color. It’s all about the shade you choose! One of my favorite things Jill sells is a swatch book that has all the hues that will look perfect on you. I carry that thing in my purse whenever I go shopping and it makes hunting so much easier.

Check out her website: JillKirshColor.com! Her products really will make you look so much better than you already do!

Eco Friendly Goodies

Continuing along the line of the Do It Yourself projects for us Eco (ecological & economical!) conscious brides (and any other people with stationery needs)...

In my own business, Goodies Designs™ we came up with GoodiEvites™ to help both the environment AND our clients pocketbook. Here you can get a completely custom design for a low cost. You can do with the design what you want. If it’s something casual like a backyard bar-be-que or even a Save-The-Date you can send it out in an email as an E-Vite! If it’s for your wedding, or shower or other formal event you can print it out at home!


A great option for your next party!

Do It Yourself Brides

I’m sure that anyone who has gotten married in the past 20 years has gone through the same sticker shock that I am now going through. With the economy on the down side I know it’s even worse for us to-be-brides then those in the past few years even.

I’m a do-it-yourself type of person. I’m always looking for new projects I can do myself to save me money and give things that homemade, personal touch. So I was very excited to get the Summer Edition of Martha Stewart Weddings in the mail last month with a whole section about Do-It-Yourself Style weddings! A lot of the ideas would be great for other parties, not just weddings.

Some things I definitely would consider doing myself:

Cake Toppers

Left: Our bride, Rachael, ordered this handmade cake topper off Etsy.
Right: Birds in a nest with fake flowers and feathers around the layers.

Ring Bearer Pillows:
Clockwise from Top Left: Our bride, Liz, made this pillow - Gorgeous!
Top Right: I love these pillows from Brooklyn Pillow Unfortunately they are sold out right now!
Crocheted Pillows ! A great idea for those crocheters out there, or why not knit one?

Next Post...See what Goodies has done to help Eco (ecological & economy!) conscious brides!

My Bridal Party Invites

When I started thinking about my own wedding party one thing I knew was I had to do something special to ask them. I came up with this idea at least a year ago to make miniature bouquets. I made each girl a slightly different bouquet and attached them to the a petal fold envelopment with ribbon and a name tag.


Inside was a card saying "Will you be my Bridesmaid?"

Inside the card (not shown) I attached a picture of my friend with me and a hand-written letter telling them why I would love for them to be with me on my wedding day.


For my flower girl I gave her a special basket (similar to the one she will carry on our wedding day) and inside was a card that matched the girls and also a picture of us together.


The best part was they all said "YES!"...How could they say "no", right?

Bridal Party Invites

Last year a client came to me for custom invitations for her bridal party. She wanted a special way to invite them to be in her wedding.

I based this handmade card on the bridesmaid's dress she already had picked out. The dress on the card is made out of silk ribbon woven through the paper.

The dresses the cards were based on.

We also did a cute one for the men with a bow tie made with the same method.

Next post...what I did for MY bridal party!

French Inspired Napa Valley Wedding

When bride Liz came to us to design her French inspired Napa Valley wedding stationery we were more than excited.

We started with the save the date for this destination wedding which included 3 cards in a jacket envelope.


After the save-the-date was in the mail we started work on the invitation set. This custom invitation suite included a custom envelope liner for the inner envelopes.


From there we went on to work on the day-of stationery, programs, table numbers, seating chart, favors, signs, and more. Liz's impeccable taste, a beautiful bride, day and venue made for stunning results!

Most of the below photographs are by our new favorite photographer in northern California, Jessamyn Harris. Check out her site at www.jessamynharrisweddings.com!


The cocktail hour was made to feel like you were really in France with a live accordion player serenading guests.


Dinner was finished off with traditional French wedding cakes adorning the tables and the most amazing macaroons as favors from the famous Bouchon Bakery of Napa.


Thank you Liz & Darren for inviting us to be part of a truly magnificent day.
All the best for a lifetime of happiness!

Check out Kim's blog for info about one of our favorite haunts decked out for Bastille Day!

Silhouettes

This past winter my partner, Kim made a trip to visit one of our favorite stores and inspiration points in Central New Jersey, Parcel. The window housed a beautiful display of one of our favorite things - silhouettes.


We did a wedding last fall that was inspired by silhouettes. It started with the bride hiring master silhouette artist Karl Johnson (www.cutarts.com) to make favors for all guests on-site. This quickly turned into a theme and added an elegant, unexpected aspect to a beach side wedding.