Style Me Pretty New Look!

Style Me Pretty did a total re-design of their already beautiful site.  Be sure to check out the great resources available on their site along with gleaning tons of inspiration!  It’s such an honor to be a part of their Little Black Book and sit among the best of the best in the country!

Beautiful May Wedding Pictures!

Dan from Graybill Photography just sent me over the gorgeous pictures from Amy & Dash’s wedding last May.  Amy & Dash were such a fun loving couple and Dan did a great job of capturing their personalities!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the list of fabulous vendors that created Amy & Dash’s special day.

Location – Milestone Inn

Flowers – Floral Designs by Heather Ann

Photos – Graybill Photography

Cake – About Weddings

Music – Acoustic Crossover & Cruise Control

Stationary – Pigweed Press

Tidbit Tuesday: Fonts

Did everyone have a fun and relaxing holiday weekend?  I personally didn’t do anything too exciting but it was at least relaxing.  I had the opportunity to clean my office, re-organize, and purge my old magazines and files….let me tell you, I feel much more creative and “ready-to-go!” now that everything is cleaned up and in order.   While going through my mammoth stack of magazines…yes I am a magazine junkie…I came across Country Living and found that one of the pages I turned down referenced an awesome website called, DaFont.com.  I remember that I paged this down months ago so I could blog about it, but inevitably it got lost in the shuffle.  DaFont.com is a great website with tons of free…yes you guessed it, Fonts.  This is gold for all of you crafty, DIY brides.  They have literally thousands of fonts available for download.  So, if you can’t afford a graphic designer, go to this website to find your “signature” font and use it throughout your save the dates, invitations, programs, & place cards.  It’s just another personal touch to tie everything together.

Fireworks Day!

Happy 4th of July everyone!  I hope you all have a great holiday weekend and enjoy some fireworks!

Garden Obsession

Now that my home construction is done (well at least till the next project starts) I’m all about making my yard look pretty.  However, I’m not your kind of girl that likes to throw up a white picket fence with a bunch of flowers out of Better Homes and Garden.  Lately, I’ve been a bit of a geek on researching gardening.  My goal is to harvest a year round garden that can not only feed my family, but my neighbors and friends…hey it feels good to give back.  I’ve started off slowly with my tomato plant and fresh herbs and I’m so excited.  I just love the feeling of going out back to pick fresh basil to use in my pasta and home made pizza dishes.  I know, I know I’m going a little Martha Stewart on you all!

Anyways, so I was googling gardening stuff and I cam across the Wishing Fish’s cute little gardens in a bag.   I use Basil pretty much every other day so I love this!  These would be great eco friendly favors too!

Tidbit Tuesday: At the End of the Night

After planning for months and months, the last thing on your mind is the end of your wedding night….well okay, the cleaning part is at least not on your mind.  But, the clean up is an important part.  Of course the caterer cleans up the food, waste, china and linens.  Your wedding planner may clean up all your decor and pack it away for safe keeping.  But what if you don’t have a wedding planner?  And what if your caterer doesn’t fold up the tables and chairs and stack them for the rental company on Monday?  These are all questions you need to consider and figure out in advance so you don’t get charged extra fees, or be stuck cleaning in your wedding dress! 

Here is just a small list of things to consider and figure out in advance.

Are there things that need to be returned to the florist?  Who will be doing this?

Who will be packing up your gifts, left over favors, programs, guest book, decor?

Does your rental company require all tables and chairs to be stacked before they return for pickup?  Will your caterer take care of this task? 

Will the caterer follow the venues request for clean up or do you need someone to stay and double check the status?

Your wedding planner should make sure that all these things are confirmed and taken care of ahead of time.  But if you’ve opted not to have a professional along side you, or you have friends or family helping out, these are important elements to take care of.  Recently I’ve also worked with couples that have opted to use friends and family as their caterers.  Make sure they understand how much help they will need for prep, service, and clean up.  Confirming these things ahead of time will make the day run smoothly!

Eagle Rock Resort

Last Friday I had the opportunity to visit with Eagle Rock Resort in Hazleton, PA with Heather & Tom, our September 27thcouple.  I’ll be personally working with Heather to design her reception so I was excited to see first hand what we had to work with.  I must say, it’s quite clear why Heather and Tom picked this resort for their wedding.  The views are absolutely gorgeous!

 

 

 

Jeff showed me around the property and was fantastic with answering all of my questions.  It’s always nice meeting new venues and having wonderful and inviting people right off the bat!  Heather and Tom chose the Panorama Lodge to host their 80 guests and although the Lodge has a bit of a Tuscan feel with its warm yellow walls, the long glass windows that show the mountains really allows design freedom.  I can’t wait to sit down with Heather tomorrow to start design work!

2 Weddings + 40 Brewers + Construction = Exhaustion Part 3

Part 3 is the final post about last weekend and if I must say myself, although it all together did equal sheer exhaustion, it all together ended on a wonderful note.  Saturday was Missy & Shawn’s wedding.  One of the reason’s I love what I do is each and every wedding is different and each couple has their own style.  Missy & Shawn both come from huge families.  With 300 plus guests to host, they didn’t have a lot of options on where to hold all of these people and still keep it affordable.  Luckily they live in  a beautiful location and right across from Missy’s parents house is pretty pond surrounded by fields.  A perfect spot to hold an outdoor wedding!  The weather was gourgous and everything went quietly smoothly.  I wish I had had time to snap some pictures but unfortunately with 300 plus guests, I didn’t have much down time.  Hopefully we can get a few up on the blog soon from Beyond the Moment.  They were great to work with and from what I’ve seen so far, captured some beautiful pictures! 

Congratulations Jody & Matt and Missy & Shawn!

2 Weddings + 40 Brewers + Construction = Exhaustion Part 2

So welcome back to part two of last week.  After a great rehearsal with Matt & Jody in Reading Thursday evening, I headed back home to finish a few last details for the next day.  The next morning, waking up bright and early at 6:00 am….ugh, it hurts just to remember that time.  I am sooo not a morning person…I started the day off in Lancaster to pick up linens from my hero’s at Special Occasions.  Promptly at 8:40a.m. I was back in the car with 17 ivory striped 120-inch round linens heading back to Harrisburg.  After picking up brewer signs from the printer I dropped everything off in the CF office, helped them tie up the last few details and by 12:30 I was on the road to Reading again.  I tell you, I typically do not liking planning my day down to the 10 minute increments, but this week I felt like I had to do that every day.

Because of some highway construction, what usually takes an hour, took and hour and thirty minutes so needless to say we didn’t pull in to the Abraham Lincoln Wyndham until 2pm.  Rushing in the ballroom (of course looking totally un-frazzled:)  I realized that the table layout and napkin folds were all wrong, and for 200 plus people none the less!  Well, the “other side” took over and with a few orders barked out (in the nicest way possible) and teaching their staff how to create a pocket fold for menu cards, an hour later I was off to the Holy Rosary to meet my bride and put the finishing touches on the ceremony.  All I can say is thank god for Kelly who was assisting me on Friday.  She did a tremendous job of double checking my steps and keeping me sane.  Needless to say, the ceremony went fabulous & Jody looked absolutely gorgeous!  After the ceremony we headed back to the hotel to make sure the cocktail hour was all set up and the ballroom was completed.  Thankfully, the rest of the evening went smoothly and Jody & Matt had smiles on their faces all night long.  Thanks to Rio for providing some awesome music, all the guests seemed to have a great time.  I have to say I’ll miss working with Jody & Matt as they were the most organized yet laid back couple I’ve ever worked with.  Here are a few pictures Kelly snagged before we opened the ballroom for guests. 

Thanks to all the vendors who created such a wonderful evening for Jody & Matt!

Abraham Lincoln Wyndham Hotel

Rio

Foster’s Flowers

The Cake Lady

Cliff Mautner Photography

 

 

2 Weddings + 40 Brewers + Construction = Exhaustion Part 1

Well after reading Jonnaysa’s blog post about her crazy wedding weekend, I thought to myself, I may as well fill you all in on why I was a tad bit crazy last week.  Plus, I can finally recap about the events without having the feeling of sheer exhaustion come over me again!

All last week the CF staff and I were tying up loose ends for Harrisburg’s annual Brewers Fest.  With a caterer dropping out 2 days before the event all I can say is, Thank God for contacts!  A special thanks to Lancaster Brewing Company & Special Occasions for saving the day.  I spent the majority of my mornings and afternoons all last week on the phone & running last minute errands for Brewers Fest, and yes I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t be at the actual even to see it all come together.  However, I heard it was a huge success!

So Thursday (after spending the majority of the day stressing about a caterer), I headed to Reading for Jody & Matt’s wedding rehearsal at Holy Rosary .  The church is over 100 years old and is absolutely gorgeous.  Sorry no pictures they really weren’t allowed in the sanctuary.  The rehearsal went great and I had a blast meeting all their friends and family.  Luckily, Reading is a little less than an hour away from my office, so it gave me some downtime to relax and gather my thoughts. 

Since I dont’ want this post to be 5 pages long, I figured I’d break it up into segments.  But one more thing before I’m done.  The “construction” really added to the drama of the week and I must say it was bittersweet.  Phil and I have had problem after problem with our new home we bought last summer and since September we have been without a proper working septic system.  After countless township, contractor, & lawyer consultations (oh and a lot of waiting!), we finally received the go ahead to start construction!  One year after buying our house, we finally have a fully functional house!  Funny part is, I joked since last December that they wouldn’t fix things until my busiest week of the year…..I think God had a good laugh at that one!  Needless to say, construction is done and stay tuned for how the weddings went!