Saturday, August 30, 2008

stamps

Yay! I got my bird stamps! I've been loving these stamps for a while and a finally have a reason to buy them and a 50% off coupon. I've been having fun playing with them and my new heat embossing tool tonight.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

photographer=found

I am so excited that we have a photographer. We have a good friend (who just got married her self) who is a fantastic photographer. Before we could even ask her if she would do some pictures for us she excitedly asked us if she could be our photographer. This is fantastic news for us!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

i love these photos

I came across the blog of Justin & Mary today and I am just in love with their photography. Here are some of my favorite engagement pics from their blog:





































Now I just have to remember these images for when we go to take our engagement photos (hopefully soon).

everything is cuter in miniature

I absolutely want to have cupcakes at our wedding. I love to eat cupcakes and they are just so darn cute. Plus they are cheaper, especially since we are going to make them ourselves. To help us with our cupcake decorating skills my mom and I are signing up for a Wilton Cake Decorating class at Hobby Lobby. (This class is 50% off in the month of September!!!) Hopefully by the end of the month we will feel absolutely ready to take on my wedding cupcakes.

Some lovely purple cupcakes from Martha Stewart.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

a farm wedding?

My newest find in the search for a venue is T & S Farm. It is owned by Shealy's Barbeque, which has awesome food. We were originally not going to have the wedding catered and were going to try and do it ourselves. But the rental fee is much less than the other places we looked at so we would have more money for food and this would be way easier than trying to do it ourselves. Here a couple of pictures:
Outside Inside


























Things I love about this location:
  • I love the chandeliers, although I still think I will hang paper lanterns
  • I really like the idea of having long tables instead of round ones
  • They provide tables, chairs, and linens
  • I feel like this location has a lot more personality than a banquet hall or ballroom.
  • I totally want to get married with me and my FI standing on this little bridge
  • We can keep a very casual feel to the whole event
Things that worry me about this location:
  • The closest "decent" hotels are 15 miles away
  • It is about 35 minutes from where we and all of our friends live. The only reason this bothers me is because of people having to drive home after our reception.
So far the pros outweigh the cons, but then I haven't even been to visit yet. Here's a look at some great barn weddings though:


Photo credits: (Top) Real Wedding on The Knot (Bottom) The Knot

begin here

There are a few things that we knew for sure when we started to plan our wedding:
  • We are going invite all of our family and friends and not leave anyone out
  • We will have an affordable wedding (Under $5,000)
  • Our friend and musician, Jim LeBlanc, will play
  • Our main color will be purple
Well that leaves a lot of things left to be determined. First is choosing a location. This is proving to be a difficult task. I have spent many hours scouring the internet for venues I did not know about in Columbia, SC. I have found lots of places that I have not known about, but most of them do not have websites (gasp) so I will be making appointments to visit most of these in the upcoming weeks. Since there is very little information about these venues online I will try to provide as much detailed information as possible.
Today, we went to go visit Gibson Commons in Lexington, SC. They actually do have a website that you can check out. It is an affordable venue at $1,500 rental rate for an entire Saturday and includes use of the outdoor patio and gazebo, the ballroom, tables and chairs, and catering kitchen. They also allow you to choose your own caterer. One thing that has impressed me is that the event coordinator responds to all of my emails very promptly. This is much more than I can say for the other venues that I have attempted to contact through email. The outdoor area is very nice, however I am not so sure if I like the setup for a ceremony there.

Now with all of that business stuff behind us, let's talk colors. I think we have decided on this color palette: