My first major change of heart

So I've had my first major decision change of this wedding planning process. I mentioned a few posts back that I was changing my reception flowers to pink gerbera daisies rather than pink peonies. Well, I've fallen majorly in love with gerbera daisies (I'm looking at a vase right now with three of them that Jordan bought me today). So, I've decided to change ALL of my wedding flowers to be gerbera daisies. :)

My bouquet will be made up of pink and fuchsia gerberas and possibly white stephanotis, in a hand-tied style with pink ribbon and pearl pins wrapped around the stems. My bridesmaids will have either one of these shades or maybe a mixture of both in their white purses, and my matron of honor will have one white gerbera in the middle of hers. My bouquet will look similar to this one, except slightly larger and with the stephanotis:


For the ceremony, I'm thinking of using garlands of pink gerberas draped over the chairs nearest to the aisle. I think it would be a nice way of marking the aisle off, as well as adding some more color. I had planned on placing small urns of peonies at the beginning and end of the aisle, but now I'm not quite sure what I will do. This is an example of a gerbera daisy garland:

Also, my handsome groom will probably have a pink gerbera boutonnière, while the groomsmen and Leslie will have white ones. Examples:




Finally, since I've already talked about reception decor in the previous post, I'll skip right to Jordan's favorite part! Cake! :D I've found some pretty awesome-looking ideas for wedding cakes that feature gerbera daisies. Since we're not going to have a huge cake, we might be able to have something like this cake (without the yellow, obviously):



Or these cute cupcakes:

Another cool idea is to use sugar flowers on a regular cake; I found some in our two colors:

Yay for flowers! :)

One of my favorite parts of this process!

(Psst, a quick note...I've started another blog. This one is for my travel writing! Check it out!)

Okay, so I'm a HUGE picture freak! I take hundreds of pictures whenever I go anywhere I think is cool (which even includes stuff right down the street from where I live). I'm not that good at photography, but I love to try. As such, I really appreciate and respect the work and talent required for professional photography.

For our wedding, we are spending the most money on our ceremony site and the photography. The wedding day will last less than 24 hours, but the pictures will be something we can look at for years and years afterwards, so Jordan and I agreed not to skimp on it. :) Also, Savannah has some gorgeous spots for some wonderful pictures! Since we're working with such a tight budget, Jordan actually did not want me to book the photography as early as I wanted to, but I'm SUPER glad we did it because they have had three inquiries about our exact same date since we booked!

So anyway, Kenneth and Heather Mason of KHMason Photography in Macon, Georgia, are two super awesome people! We met with them in person before we booked and I absolutely cannot wait to work with them on our wedding day. Heather is bubbly and social like Jordan, while Kenneth is slightly more reserved like me (although he has some funny stuff to say if the moment is right). Also, Heather's favorite color is turquoise! ;) They have a website, a blog, and a facebook profile!

Here are some of my favorite photographs from them (excuse the quality, as blogspot is not the best place for high-quality images):

This is a cute little flower girl who apparently kept sticking her tongue out whenever she saw Kenneth!

This fountain looks a lot like the one across from where our ceremony will take place, so I think it would be awesome to have one like this:

I love the sunlight in this one:

I'm a huge fan of "artistic" shots like this one...

And this one!

This is one of my favorite bride close-ups ever!

This one is just awesome!

And finally...this is one of my favorites of all time!!

Thanks to Kenneth and Heather for letting me share their images!

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

I'm not super crazy about shoes, but I do have a fairly large collection. That's probably mainly because I have a really hard time finding comfortable (and cute) shoes in my big-foot size. When I found my wedding dress at David's Bridal, I thought about buying these shoes in white:
I can't wear high heels, so the kitten heel option is definitely my favorite. However, I saw a picture in our photographers' portfolio that inspired me to do something a little different. Here is the picture (by KHMason Photography):


I thought to myself, "I don't want to wear plain white shoes, even if they are sparkly. I want to have a picture where my shoes are the focus and it's not boring."

So then I decided that since aqua/"pool" is going to be one of my main colors, why shouldn't I use my shoes to fulfill the "something blue" requirement? And voila, the search has begun! Because of shoe difficulties, I will be purchasing my shoes at an actual store, in-person, but these three are my favorites that I've found online, thus far. My very favorite is the first pair, I think:

A borrowed idea

I saw this idea on the blog of another bride who uses weddingbook on facebook. It's basically an "inspiration board" for wedding ideas. I created one for my own ideas. :)



So, for more good news! I recently got a new job! I am now a Marketing Assistant at the University of Georgia Press (a local publishing company). Not only am I now making $1.75 more an hour, but I LOVE this new job. The hours are flexible, the people are wonderful, and it's close to the new apartment we'll be moving into (VERY soon, we hope).

One of my bridesmaids got engaged recently, too! I can't wait to help her start planning her wedding (possibly a harvest theme, set for next October). :D

The wonders of technology

I don't know how I could possibly keep up with everything without my wedding website. I know brides got along just fine without this tool for hundreds of years, but it has been such an immense help for me! I do have a physical notebook of ideas and paperwork, but I LOVE being able to organize my ideas, purchases, and tasks online. Not only is it a lot cleaner, but it is also much more editable, and I can access my site from anywhere with an internet connection!

Another benefit to having a wedding website is that our family and friends can keep up with the details of our planning. This is especially invaluable since we both have family that live several states away from us (think North Carolina and Michigan, when we live in Georgia).

On our site and visible to guests, we have the story of our proposal, the ceremony and reception information, hotel information since the wedding will not take place in our "hometown", pictures of things we have either purchased or want to purchase, our engagement photos, a guestbook for guests to sign, and much more (psst, including our gift registry! :P ).

Aspects of the site not visible to guests are also invaluable. There is a budget breakdown with a nifty pie chart, a task list manager, and a "news aisle" with some great ideas and common questions answered.

Plus, everything is able to be personalized! There is a huge variety of wedding website choices, but we chose "Our Wedding Day" because it is easy to use (and free!). Check it out!

http://jordanandsammi.ourweddingday.com/