Honeymoon - FINAL DECISION!

It's final- we chose The Body Holiday!

One of the biggest selling points is that it is all-inclusive (includes all food, all alcoholic & non-alcoholic beverages) and even includes spa treatments on 3 of our 5 days!  Another selling point was that their food is prepared with your health in mind, using local and organic foods as much as possible.  We plan to leave on Sunday the 22nd and return late Friday night.  We originally wanted to fly out of Philly, but ended up booking our flight out of Baltimore because it cost half the price.  So happy we finally made our decision.  Another cool thing about this place is that you can "personalize" your stay prior to your arrival using their online service "Personalize My Holiday".  So, we plan to choose our spa treatments soon and book them online.  So cool.  Also worth mentioning, we are staying in a "Grand Luxury Ocean Front Room", so we will be right next to the beautiful ocean.  Oh- and did I mention they had flag service on the beach?  I was not familiar with this until now.  It's where you have a little flag that you put in the sand when you want a drink and someone comes and takes your drink order and delivers you an ice cold drink while you lie on the beach.  Ahhhh... I can't wait!

Here are some pictures of the place:

To see more, go to the Resort Map- it lets you hover over different areas to see what they are.  Then, if you click on an area, it will show you actual photos. 

Oh-- and guess what?  I won another giveaway!  I'm having a serious lucky streak this week.

Flowers

Here are the flower selections we made at the florist last weekend.  I am not positive that all of these are correct and I won't know for sure until I get the written estimate in the mail.  Will make any necessary revisions then!

My Bouquet: Hydrangeas (light pink), Carnations (hot pink), Roses (medium pink) - I can't remember if I had another rose in there, but I'll know for sure when I get the written estimate in the mail.  I like the idea of mixing several shades of pink.

Bridesmaid Bouquet: Gerbera daisies (hot pink) and Hydrangeas (light pink).  I think that was it... again, I can confirm once I get the written estimate from the florist.

Scott's Boutonniere: Rose (light pink)

Groomsman Boutonniere: Hydrangea (light pink)

Usher Boutonniere: Carnation (hot pink)

Mother-of-Bride & Mother-of-Groom: Rose bouquet (ivory - as of now, this might be changed once they get the dresses)

Father-of-Bride & Stepfather-of-Groom: Rose boutonniere (ivory)

Flower Girls: basket of rose petals

And guess what?  I won another giveaway!  It was the MissNowMrs gift card giveaway at Broken Teepee.

We are getting closer and closer to making our honeymoon decision.  Will post all about it once we are 100%.

Our Menu

I created our menus today. I think I'll put 2 on each table and set them on mini easel stands. Before I print them all, can you guys please help me proofread?

We picked out our cake (it's included in the package) when we were at Normandy last weekend.  The quality of this picture isn't very good because it's actually a picture of a picture, but you should get the basic idea.  Imagine it without the flowers because we'll probably do something a little simpler than that.  A sidenote: the cake is not crooked- it just looks like it because I took the picture at an angle.

Today I went shopping and got a few wedding-related items, I'll write more about that tomorrow. Right now, we're going to research more honeymoon stuff. We've narrowed the search down and are leaning toward Body Holiday or Jalousie Plantation.

Honeymoon Ideas

Choosing a honeymoon location that isn't too far away, is within our budget, and that meets our other basic criteria, is proving to be a difficult task.  It's so hard to make a choice when so many places look amazing!  Here are some of the possibilities:

• Cap Maison - St. Lucia -- on luxurylink -- on tripadvisor

• The Body Holiday - St. Lucia -- on luxury link -- on tripadvisor

• The Verandah - Antigua -- on luxurylink -- on tripadvisor

• Anse Chastanet - St. Lucia -- on luxurylink -- on tripadvisor
 
• Rendezvous Resort - St. Lucia -- on luxury link -- on tripadvisor

• Windjammer - St. Lucia -- on luxury link -- on tripadvisor

• The Jalousie Plantation - St. Lucia -- on luxurylink -- on tripadvisor

Something Borrowed

I meant to post about this a while back, but I officially have my "something borrowed".  I discovered an awesome website called Adorn, where you can rent jewelry for special occasions.  That means that I can wear beautiful diamonds that I could otherwise never afford.  Jenny pointed out that this takes care of my something borrowed.  The only catch here is that I can not see the earrings in person before I get them.  They've been ordered and will come in a couple of days before the wedding.  They look beautiful, so I really don't see how it could go wrong, but just in case, I will have a back up.  Here they are (the ones I plan to wear):

I have been wedding-crazy lately.  Only 15 more invitations to go!!!!  Yay!  I am getting excited for the bridal shower too- I can't believe it's only one month away.  Over the past few days I've been looking at ideas for bridesmaid shoes and flower girl dresses.  I'm definitely thinking charcoal gray for the shoes, but just haven't decided on a style or fabric.  I will be putting some of the pictures up on OneWed at some point in the near future.  I'm also working on our list of questions for the planner on Saturday (which is pretty much done, I'm just adding any last minute things that pop up) and still trying to check out some places for our honeymoon.

I just found out we are going to meet with another florist on Sunday too.  The original florist was way expensive, and while we might still go with her, we still want to compare the proposal with some place else.  I'm also waiting to hear back from her for an itemized breakdown of her budget proposal to see if there's anything we can cut and still go with her.  Who knows.... it'll be interesting to compare the two if nothing else.

Giveaway at Broken Teepee

Despite the fact I was recently made fun of for liking these "name change" kits, I can't help that I like something that keeps me organized and saves me time! That's why I've entered the Giveaway at Broken Teepee for the chance to get one of 5 gift cards to MissNowMrs.com.  Check it out- ends 4/24!

Imperfection & Weekend Update

I just learned that there was a typo on some of the Save the Dates.  I wish I never knew about this....  We can thank Scott's work friend for bringing that to our attention now.  Sorry to any of you that may have gotten the typo'd version.  I am really bummed that happened, but there isn't much I can do about it now.  I moved all of the templates onto an external hard drive, so I haven't even checked to see how many were misspelled.  I'm hoping it was only one per page, instead of half of each page.  That would mean only 1 for every 8 was wrong.  Ughhh.  Again... oh well.....

This weekend we spent lots of time trying to decide on our honeymoon location.  We finally thought we had it- Curtain Bluff in Antigua.  Turns out they're closed for a few months during the off-season (which is when we'd be traveling there). 

I also spent some time on table numbers.  Scott was really into helping me brainstorm for this idea.  Here's what we decided on:

It might be kind of hard to tell here, but it's decorative paper with the number carved out.  Vellum is attached on the inside so we can light a candle inside of it so the numbers have a "glowing" effect.  I'm in the process of doing a tutorial for these.  I figured it would be nice to do one since many tutorials from other brides have been so helpful to me.

I am looking forward to what Scott and I have labeled "parents weekend".  Next weekend our parents will meet for the first time and we will also be meeting with our wedding planner and officiant.  There should be lots to update!

Cute for the Kids

I saw this adorable "I Spy" idea on Martha Stewart Weddings.  I know we aren't planning to have too many kids at the wedding, but I think this is a fun idea for those that will be there.  Here is my revamped version with colors that will fit our wedding:

The idea here is that this scavenger hunt list is placed with a disposable camera and they take pictures of the things listed on the "I Spy" card.  Super-cute!

Cute DIY Inspiration

This is an Inspiration Board I made with some creative DIY ideas I've seen on other blogs and websites.  The numbers next to each picture coordinate with the first few links listed below. 

• Table Numer Love Notes at Once Wed (1)
• Recipe Book Favors at Intimate Weddings Blog (2)
• Wine Glass Candle Lamps at Save on Crafts (3)
• Fun Photo Display at DIY Wedding Day (4)
• Illuminated Table Numbers at Intimate Weddings Blog (5)
• Decorative Clothespins at DIY Wedding Day (6)
• Framed Table Numbers at My DIY Wedding Day
• Tile Coasters from Style Me Pretty
• Water Balloon Luminaries at Candle Tech
• DIY Hanging Votives at Project Wedding
• Glass Etched Votives at Wedding Bee

Out of Town Bags & Program Creativity

Scott & Christina helped out with cutting the Out of Town Bag labels this weekend.  Here are the bags with the labels:

I was also working on the programs this weekend too.  I know I won't be able to print them for a while, but I want to make sure that I have a nice template already formatted.  I came across a few ideas that were cute "extras" to put in the program, but none of them really appealed to me.  Scott & I decided to make up our own "extra".  We created a "How well do you know the happy couple?" quiz to put in for guests to look at as they are bored and awaiting our arrival.  We still need 1 more question (to make it 10 total) for the quiz- any suggestions?  Here are some clips of what it will look like:

Cute huh? If you disagree, I ask that you please not tell me because we spent a lot of time coming up with questions and formatting this thing! Usually I want honesty, but for this I do not! I might put up pictures of the program at some point and ask you guys to help me with proofreading. It always helps to have a few people look it over before printing out a final copy!