my very own wedding day: inspiration & crafting

Just a small part of the reason why I get so excited to talk to new brides is so that I can hear all about the planning of their wedding - the small details, the DIY, the vendors that they love, the shoes they plan to wear, their bridesmaid dresses...I can go on and on. It is especially fun for me right now as I'm planing my own wedding which is set for May 20, 2011. And currently, I am in wedding planning mode.

I mean...Literally, if you start a conversation with me, some way or another it will end with me discussing my "vision" for the bridal party look or the frames that I picked up off the side of the road to re-finish for the wedding. I am a little over the top now'a'days with this whole wedding planning thing and thought I would share a bit about where I'm currently at with it, what inspires me, what projects I'm working on and what vendors I am loving to have with me on my wedding day.

Everyone asks me, "so what are your colors?" My response, all fancy and with a proper english accent, "I don't have colors, I have a color palette." Kidding! But f'real. I have a color palette. And I love it. It is called Bright & Breezy and I spent hours going over the million and one different color combos available on http://www.colourlovers.com/ and when I saw this, I knew it was it. The only color that I'm leaving out of the combo is the green. I looooove the combo of the soft blues, yellows, creams and tans. It's so perfect for a late Spring wedding near the beach. Here's my palette and the super cute little mason jar tags that I bought on Etsy and adorrre:

Oh yes, that brings me to the beach! I also looooove our wedding venue! It's in Perry, Ohio and is gorgeous. I shot a wedding there this past June and fell in love. It's one town over from where I grew up and I have a boat load of memories in Perry so on top of it being a brand new building, tons of natural light (something I'll touch on in a bit), right on the lake; it is truly a place that I hold close to my heart.

Now for that whole natural light, ooo I'm a photographer comment :). Rick and I are paying for the whole wedding on our own, so we have had to be pretty budget conscious. My mom is buying my wedding gown which is amazing and I love her for it...the dress, is gorg. But you'll have to wait until after the wedding to see that action! Okay, tangent. Back on track. So budget. The main thing that I have struggled with so far is choosing a wedding photographer. Because we have to stay in such a tight budget I wasn't sure on how I would be able to afford the photographer I truly wanted. After literally weeks of going back and forth, I said forget it. I don't care if I have to pinch pennies like crazy for the next 9 months until the wedding, I am going to afford the photographer that I want. And we did. And they are amazing. We chose to go with Jenny Haas Photography out of Dayton, Ohio. Her website is http://www.jennyhaas.com/blog/ and her style is exactly what I had in mind for my wedding images. Not only is her style what I fell in love with, but they are a husband and wife team and they are simply the nicest people. I had a chance to meet up with them in Columbus and honestly just enjoyed talking to them and could really envision spending my wedding day with them. As cheesy as it sounds, it is so important to keep those things in mind when choosing your wedding photographer. They are the one vendor that will be right by your side the entire day, so on top of liking their style, it is important to genuinely like who they are. I got lucky and Rick and I are SO excited to have them photograph our day for us.

I guess that was another rant. Okay f'real this time. Natural light. Natural light is hands down the most gorgeous light to work with and our venue has tons of it! There is a section off the back of the venue where we will get married that is 100% natural light and everything I do for this wedding (details, locations, etc), I am keeping the lighting in mind so the photos will be extra fab :)

See what I mean?! I originally meant for this to be a quick one paragraph post and it's turned into a story. I'll end for now, but here's some inspiration for our day!

I love this bouquet. Love it. The bouquet is one thing I'm struggling with, I just can't decide on what flowers I want but I have plenty of time to get that one figured out.

I definitely want to incorporate some theme of photos/frames into our wedding day for my love of photography and capturing moments. I adore these two ideas:

A few things I love in the photos below...I love the poms! I'd like to do something similar, in our colors to hang above the dance floor although I haven't decided if I'll do this exactly or put some type of twist on it. Rick is an avid reader and we will also be incorporating books into the details of our day. I love the idea of stamping hearts of book pages and putting them on the tables or use to throw as confetti. So cute. And this table number idea?! So creative.

Just darling. Sucker for lace.

Officially, this was my second wedding project. I found this frame on the side of the road, ready to be junked and picked it up on a walk with my dog. Love it!

And this was the first wedding project: the start to our centerpieces :)

If you just read that entire post, you may be my new best friend!