This week, it was announced that BRIDES has partnered once again with Checkerboard to produce BRIDES Fine Wedding Papers, a new line of wedding stationary for Spring 2015. You can view the full size versions by clicking on the images above – they’re very chic, and will be available at local stationary retailers.
This Saturday, The Toast Wedding Showcase in Portland will be bringing the best in local, stylish bridal vendors to PDX brides during a fun night with snacks, prizes, and more! Tickets are available for just $10 – and special for Blog My Wedding readers, you can snag one of five FREE tickets by leaving a comment below! This special offer will close when five tickets are claimed. I will email the lucky brides directly with information on how to claim their tickets.
Where:
Elli Studio
239 NW 13th St., Suite 301
Portland, OR 97209
When:
Saturday, March 7th, 2015
5 PM to 9 PM
And if you can’t make the event, I’ll be there to cover all the excitement, so watch this space for a full recap!
At some point during your wedding planning process, you’ll most likely create a few registries. Even if you don’t think about it initially, you’ll probably end up getting requests from friends and family for a list – I know that when I’m invited to a wedding, the first thing I do is look for their registries, so I can make sure that I don’t pick out a gift they already have. It’s also handy living in a small town with limited shopping options, since I can order online with a registry!
If you’re wondering where to register at for your own wedding, you’ll be interested to know that Best Buy launched its new Wedding Registry this month. It makes a lot of sense: These days, half of a household seems to be electronic, and items like computers are considered to be just as much of a necessity as a couch nowadays. And of course, Best Buy also sells more “Traditional” registry items, like vacuums, trash cans, and even pots and pans!
Here’s how it works: When a friend or relative picks out an item from your registry, they’ll get free shipping with no minimum purchase – which is great, because they can pick out any item, small or big from your list without having to worry about paying extra for it to be delivered. There’s also the intriguing “Group Gifting” feature for larger items over $200, where guests can choose the amount they want to pitch in for it, which you will receive as an e-gift card to use towards the item you need. I’ve coordinated with family when giving gifts for weddings before and it can be fun if everyone’s wondering what they should get!
With Best Buy’s Wedding Registry, you can get items that you need and will fit your life as a modern couple. How about a camera to use on your honeymoon to send photos to your family, or a grill to entertain with when you have guests over in your new home? The sky’s the limit as you embark on the adventure of marriage together!
For more information and to create your registry, be sure to visit BestBuy.com.
Will you be creating a registry at Best Buy?
If you read any of my other blogs, you probably know that Maroon 5 are my favorite band. Naturally, I plan on including them in my wedding reception playlist, because I include them in every playlist! They just released this wedding-themed video and it’s a lot of fun. How would you feel if Maroon 5 crashed your wedding?
Speaking of bachelorette parties, here’s an idea for the reality TV junkie bride: Hosting a viewing party for The Bachelorette. So meta! I think this would be a really cute idea for someone who wants to have more of a fun girl’s night in than a bar crawl. There’s a cute Bachelorette Viewing Party Kit on Pinterest that has some fun food ideas around this theme, including a drink called “The Rose” and a yummy citrus almond cake.
What do you think of a TV-themed bachelorette party?
I have always loved tiaras. I’m all about the sparkles and rhinestones, so it makes sense! I plan on wearing one with my wedding dress, and I’d like to find some tiaras to match my bridesmaids’ dresses, too! So when Bachelorette Superstore reached out to me and asked if I’d like to receive their sparkly “Bachelorette” Tiara with veil for a review, it was an obvious choice! If the crown fits…
This tiara set includes two pieces: A veil attached to a plastic comb, and the tiara itself. The veil comb is cute and can be placed on your hair at the back of your head – I’ll probably keep my hair in an updo when I wear this, since combs tend to slide out of my hair otherwise. The tiara is made of metal and covered in sparkly glitter, with combs on both ends to slide into your hair. It’s very fun! It reminds me of wedding play sets that I had as a child. Keep in mind that the quality of this set is pretty typical as party supplies go. It’s meant to be more of a toy than a royal piece of lasting jewelry, since it retails for only $14.50.
This tiara is so much fun and I can’t wait to put it on for my own bachelorette party! I love props like this that are fun and girly. My only complaint is that the tiara is a little on the small side – either that, or I have a freakishly large head – and it was a bit tight and uncomfortable when I put it on. I took it off a few minutes ago and my head still feels a little uncomfortable. I’ll experiment with positioning it on my head when party time rolls around, but I imagine this will be more of a “Photo op” piece than something that I’ll keep on all night.
For more bachelorette party supplies from sashes to party invites, check out BacheloretteSuperstore.com! They have quite a mix of supplies, from fun and girly to naughty and outrageous, so you’ve been warned if you’re at work. 😉
One of the craftiest people I know made these high heel shoe earrings, and I think they would make awesome bachelorette party favors! Aren’t they too cute? I think she ought to put them on Etsy! If you wanted to make these for your own party, I bet you could find shoe charms or use Barbie shoes and attach them to earring hooks. I’ve seen a lot of high heel themes in bachelorette parties lately so I think this is a fun idea.
Aaah, “Bridal fitness”. Like losing weight for New Year’s, weddings are one of those arbitrary events that seems to get everyone panicking about losing weight. This is what I have learned during my wedding planning process:
Don’t overdo it
Seriously. When I was in the early stages of wedding planning, I would go to the gym and do the stair machine on the highest resistance for an hour at a time, with a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue propped up to motivate me. “I’m going to look great in my wedding dress!!” I said to myself as I pushed through these hard workouts. And you know what happened? I dislocated both of my kneecaps on that stair machine from pushing myself too hard, and had my mobility limited to the point of not being able to walk properly for years. The irony? That actually caused me to have to postpone my wedding, since I was in a wheelchair at one point and spent all my savings on medical expenses.
Don’t overstretch yourself
Be kind to yourself with your hectic wedding schedule, because you may find yourself feeling tempted to burn both ends of the candle taking care of wedding errands and trying to squeeze in workouts around it. Now that my knees have recovered and I actually can work out again, I’ve found myself too pressed for time to hit the gym. I’ve dealt with this by doing workouts at home – currently, I’m an ambassador for Total Gym and before that I was following along with YouTube workout videos in my living room. When Good Earth Tea sent complimentary tea for Jaime’s bachelorette Tea Bar, they also forwarded the the link to these BUTI fitness workouts inspired by their Cocoa Tango tea. Yes, a workout inspired by tea! It’s a full 37 minute workout, so this could helpful if you’re looking for free fitness videos to follow.
Remember what matters
Exercise for your own sake and your own health. Like all other areas of wedding planning, it’s easy for weight loss expectations to get out of control, and there is sadly so much pressure put on women regarding their appearance. I feel that pressure too despite knowing better – as evidenced by my ridiculous story of how I injured myself – but I’m trying to focus in what really matters.
What tips do you have for brides (Or anyone!) wanting to approach working out in a balanced way?
Jai was provided with complimentary bottles of Sobieski Vodka and Camus Cognac to take along to his brother’s bachelor party, which took place on the same night as the bachelorette party. Here’s what happened next…
This was not your typical Bachelor Party. When I brought out the Sobieski Vodka and Camus Cognac everyone looked very impressed and it was well received. However, I was there at the party early to learn the “secret plan” and, as it turned out, alcohol didn’t really come in to play until later in the evening.
We left the vodka and Cognac at home and made our way to Kelley Point Park in North West Portland where we were given sashes and “Merit badges”. We learned that the Groom was blindfolded and being driven to the park to meet up with us soon. The theme of the party was the “Man Scouts”; Based on the boy scouts but with a manly twist. We basically pretended that the Man Scouts were a secret society and that we and all belonged to for many years, and finally felt that the groom (who happens to be my little brother) was ready to become a candidate. When the groom finally arrived we brought him down to the banks of the Willamette river where he had to swim out to a pylon to get his sash. This was the first test that had to be passed to become a member of the Man Scouts.
Once this sash was retrieved, there were many events and tests that he had to complete to earn the requisite merit badges. The first event was Water Polo in the Willamette river with a greased watermelon. Fortunately the water was warmer than I had expected! I have to say that this is not as easy as it sounds. The watermelon is slippery and not very buoyant! Trying to take the melon by force didn’t work well. Most points were earned by trickery. One person held the watermelon between his knees and casually floated to the goal line while pretending to not know where the watermelon was. Once this event was finished the next display of manliness was for the groom to break the watermelon with his bare hands. The rest of us then scooped out a handful of watermelon and ate it like real men!
Next, the groom had to earn his weapon mastery merit badge by breaking three water-filled “Balloons” using three weapons. The first was to be broken by a slingshot, the second by a blow gun, and the third with his fist. This sort of thing went for several hours with various events… fire making, raft building, sewing, tracking, cooking, just to name a few off the top of my head. We had a great deal of fun just acting like kids for an afternoon.
Each of these events earned our groom-to-be a new merit badge to add to his collection and around the time the sun was getting low in the sky, all the merit badges had been earned. Just as we were about to leave, the final, unexpected event was getting to see an enormous flock of pelicans fly over. It was quite a spectacular show.
We made our way back to the house where the bachelorette party was just winding down. Being able to just mingle and relax with the Sobieski Vodka and Camus Cognac after a long and fun day was the perfect ending.
Photo booths are a popular party trend right now – all you have to do is take a quick look at Pinterest to see how many fun and creative ideas are out there! I knew I wanted to do something like this for Jaime’s bachelorette party, so I started looking up programs that might work for this purpose, since I wanted to make the booth myself. Jai tested out a few open source photo booth programs, but we couldn’t get any of them to work reliably with my laptop, so he ended up using the software that came with a Logitech Webcam that I own.
All the setup required was my laptop and the webcam. The Logitech software that came with the webcam not only had a timer delay, so that guests would be able to click the button and have a few seconds to strike their pose before it captured the photo, but it also had a bunch of fun borders and effects to choose from – perfect for that purikura look!
After Jai’s rigorous testing, I could tell this webcam photo booth would be perfect for what I had in mind. 😉
When party time rolled around, I booted up my laptop to the Logitech program and printed out a page of directions which I set underneath the laptop, so guests would know how to use it. I also set the laptop up in front of a full-length mirror in order to make it easier to pose.
For the backdrop, I taped several pink plastic tablecloths on the wall, using a bachelorette banner, pink streamers and black balloons from House of Bachelorette as the accent. I set it up right behind a chaise lounge in order to maximize space in the party area and give guests a place to sit while posing for pics.
Here I am testing the webcam before putting the decorations up in order to figure out where to tape the backdrop. You can tell I’m in full hostess mode since I’m wearing my apron! 😉
Of course, you can’t have a photo booth without props! I set up two small tables by the chaise lounge to hold the props.
A simple printed sign let guests know what the items were for.
I loved the idea of having a frame with the occasion and party date written on it, so that keepsake photos could be created to remember the night by. I bought a sheet of Styrofoam from Dollar Tree, and cut a rather uneven square out of the middle with an X-Acto knife. 😉 I then used a Painter’s Paint marker to write “Jaime’s Bachelorette” and the party date on the bottom of the frame. I used these same markers for the bachelorette party last year, so they have come in handy for these bachelorette crafts!
I didn’t have to do anything for the rest of the props other than open my closet! Me being me, I have all kinds of flashy accessories, so I just pulled out a few pieces to take to the party. I brought several feather boas, a tiara, fancy gloves, and tattoo pattern armwarmers!
The backdrop that I set up looked really cute in all the selfies guests were taking as part of the scavenger hunt! In fact, the props got used in the scavenger hunt as well when it came time to make a veil. As for the photo booth itself? To be honest, there was so much going on and we were having so much fun that we never really got to “Officially” using it! However, the guys from the bachelor party had fun photobombing it:
