hat0112

my time : goes too fast

I do like it, but I usually just eat the crackers. Hershey's chocolate bar with creamy peanut butter on top?

Ok so I loved these when I was planning our wedding and I can’t believe it’s my turn to write one…. What I would do again: Destination wedding in Aruba at the Westin. We had a wonderful time and the pictures are amazing. It was such a great experience for us and our guests. And the weather was perfect down there! There was a tropical storm going up the Caribbean that week so if we planned it anywhere else we would have gotten a lot of rain. But it was beautiful! Work with our WC Patrick and with Inge. Patrick and Inge made planning so much easier. I don’t think I could have done it without them. OOT Bags – Everyone loved them and I think they were so worth the effort. Have a private sit down dinner reception on the terrace with a Dj and open bar. It was amazing. We only had 12 of us but I am happy we did it. The space fit us perfectly and we had a DJ, dance area, bar area, and a lounge area. I love to dance so I really wanted a dj but was scared no one would dance, but EVERYONE danced! Even some of the guests not with us! Pay for all of the girls to get their hair and makeup done and have all the salon appointments in our room. The girls looked great and we had so much fun hanging out in our room. I also had wine, champagne and food for us. Do a black, white, and silver wedding in Aruba. Everyone does all these color combos, but I really wanted something classic. The colors made everything look so classic and elegant. Get married before we got to Aruba. Since you have to be married before the beach ceremony I am happy we did it here and not there. It was one thing I didn’t have to worry about doing while we were there. Stay for 10 days. We arrived on a Tuesday, the wedding was that Friday and everyone was gone by the following Monday morning. We were able to get settled in, hangout with everyone, then have some days to ourselves before we left the following Friday. Have a welcome dinner in the resort at the Pago Pago. Stay at the Westin and have the all inclusive package. I went back and forth with the all inclusive package since everyone talked about all the great restaurants in Aruba and said to not get the AI. But I am so happy I did. It was wonderful not having to worry about paying for food or drinks and we saved a ton just on the food by booking AI. Have a tiara and 2 veils with my dress. The tiara was small and one veil was a cathedral length and the other veil was finger tip length and went with my dress. I thought it would be too much but everything look great together. VIDEO! I love watching our wedding video. We only did it of the ceremony and I am so happy we did. Move the wedding from 5:30pm to 5:00pm. That way we got we pictures in the different sun light, and we could enjoy part of our cocktail hour. Got my dress steamed and his suit steamed by a woman recommended by our WC that came right to the room. Not drink a lot the entire day of the wedding. I was sober all day and I am happy I was. I wanted to make sure I remembered everything. I only had a few sips of champagne and a little bit of wine. Have a cocktail hour on the beach with a steel pan player. It was nice for everyone to enjoy the sunset and relax in between pictures. Controlled my packing. I always over pack so instead of packing how I normally do for 10 days, I packed for 5 days and I still had things I didn’t wear. What I would have done differently: Did my own makeup. I had a makeup trial the day before and my makeup with crazy gothic hooker dark and I told them neutral. SO I stressed not that dark and tan. Well do to the language barrier my wedding makeup with pink and sparkled. Everyone said and has been saying I looked great, but I wasn’t happy with it/ Booked a professional photographer or spend more money on more hours or something. Our photographer was almost an hour late and didn’t arrive until 15 minutes before the ceremony started. He did stay a lot later than planned and gave us more prints but he didn’t get any of the getting ready photos I wanted. BUT because of my wonderful brother and his great camera he got them for me. The boys sent him over when the photographer was 15 minutes late and no one knew where he was. My brother got everything I wanted and the pictures came out great. The pictures the photographer took were very good, but I thought he would have more ideas when my hubs and I were taking pictures after the ceremony. He only positioned a couple ways and say that’s it. I had to come up with different photos. And I gave the photographer a list of important photos I wanted and he said ok. Well I missed a few very important pictures of me with my family. Not order our custom cake topper from an unknown artist off of Etsy. I had pictures and a description of what I wanted and I didn’t get it. And the quality of the work was bad. I ended up using it since I didn’t have a back up, but I will never do that again. Gave the DJ our wedding song. We wanted Nat King Cole “When I fall in love†and he played it, but it was with Natalie Cole his daughter and a weird version of it. Not a great first dance song. Not stress over who did and didn’t come. The people we had in Aruba were perfect and wouldn’t have changed it for anything. Have someone put our invitations together for us instead of doing them myself. It turned out to be a big mess and ended up costing twice as much as it should have. Wore high wedges during the ceremony and the heals later. I had a hard aisle runner on the beach for the ceremony so I could wear heals and not shrink in the said. Well I never really thought about walking around for pictures and for the cocktail hour. It was so hard and I ended up taking the shoes off. My DH is over a foot taller than me so I needed something, but I should have done wedges. Not bring down so many shoes! Only 2 pairs of flip flops and one pair of wedges. I know I am forgetting something, but I think this is enough.

Love love love!! Au Bon Pain?

Kinda like Banana ice cream?

poker : Face

Like. Oatmeal?

dog : cat

I have 40 black satin chair sashes, 20 silver satin napkins, and 3 silver satin table runners to anyone interested.

OK, here is the welcome booklet that I printed out and put in clear mini 4x6 photo albums that I got from Michaels for $0.50 each. WB1.ppt

I will update more tomorrow. I have some files and pics on my work computer.

We also wanted edible roses on each tier. The third picture is what we got. For the wedding cake topper we wanted to do a figure, but wanted it to be different. So we picked out a generic funny cake topper and I found an Etsy artist to make it for us so the cake topper has the same dress on, same hair color as us, etc. Well it didn’t turn out well. The quality isn’t great, it cracked in 5 different places, and I had to paint areas that weren’t painted and correct the hair colors and the dress. I didn’t take a picture of it before I fixed it. Next is the OOT bags. Since we don’t have many people coming to the wedding (at one point it was 16 and now only 11 are coming) we decided to spend a little money on the bags. I ordered the actual bags on Vistaprint. The puzzle books are from Penny Dell, the Advil and Aleve we got from my Mom who works in a doctors office, the mini alcohol bottles are from online (there is Absolut, Bailey’s, Barcardi,Jack Daniels, and Tanqueray Gin), bug repellent wipes from Target, the deck of cards from online, pens from Rite Aid for $0.50 for 10, and the candy, chips and mints are from BJ’s Wholesale. For the OOT bags I did Welcome Booklets. I took ideas from other brides and a few of my own and put them in mini photo albums I got at Michael’s for $1. I also got all the stickers from Michael's. I will post the file of the welcome book later. We also sent out a pre-Aruba letter and a packing list to everyone and again I will post that later. The menu cards I also ordered off of Vistaprint. The chair sashes, table runner and dinner napkins were all from tableclothsfactory.com The sand ceremony kit I got from Etsy.

My shoes I found in an email from The Knot and I fell in love with them! They are too ivory for my dress but I don’t care. We didn’t do STDs so we sent out our invitations early on April 1st. We bought them from Wedding Bell Invitations. Unfortunately I ordered the pre-cut invitations and it was a disaster. So I ended up having Staples print and cut them and only used the envelopes and outer black folder. Wedding colors were easy; we wanted something classic, so we went with a black, white, and silver wedding. My dress is ivory so to make sure I didn’t feel out place at my own wedding our flowers are off-white roses. For my bouquet I wanted off-white roses with some greenery in it. The same went for our flowers on the wedding arch, down the ceremony isle, and the centerpieces. The wedding cake took a while to figure out. We decided on three tiers and to have the cakes stacked like the first picture and have the tile design from the second picture.

I want to start off my saying thank you to everyone out there for all your advice, information, and support! I have no idea how I would have done this without this site!! Ok, so this all started on October 22, 2009 when my FI proposed! It was our 3 year anniversary and we were going out to dinner at our favorite restaurant. That morning he gave me a beautiful necklace as an anniversary present to make sure that I didn’t think he was going to propose. And it worked. Once I saw the necklace I figured maybe it will happen on Christmas. So he proposed in our favorite little Italian restaurant and it was perfect. He had my engagement ring custom made by a local jeweler in Center City Philadelphia (William Schwartz on 18th & Chestnut). We also got our wedding bands from him. So the next step was to pick a day and a resort. The day was easy, we just picked our 4 year anniversary 10/22/10. We both already discussed having a DW so that was already decided and we wanted it to be on an island that neither of us never been to before. So the Westin Aruba ended up being our choice. Patrick is our WC and he is amazing! He did an amazing job! So here are some of the pictures from the wedding at the Westin. Next I went to David’s Bridal and got my wedding dress, both veils (one finger tip length and one cathedral length) and my tiara. To be continued.....

They are ok, but I have to take them everyday to work. Banana ice cream?