Weddingbee Boards

Jeremy and I are a perfect match because we're both pretty nerdy. We've bonded over a love of indie music, sci-fi and movies. He doesn't judge me for having a fangirly past (Lord of the Rings conventions, anyone?) and I don't judge him for his snooty taste in music.

We make each other laugh and try to indulge each other's interests as much as possible. I'm two years older than him, and I'm honestly not surprised I ended up with a younger man, as pretty much every guy I've ever dated has been younger than me!

I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore. I was born in Tehran, Iran while my father was stationed there in the military. Jeremy was born in Roanoke, VA, but grew up in Stafford, VA. Both of our fathers spent time in the US Army, and Jeremy went on to enlist and did his four year stint.

As for our backgrounds, I'm part Sicilian, Italian (YES, there is a difference) German and English. I think maybe a little Scottish too. Jeremy comes from a mostly Irish and English background.

 

At the end of 2007, I had had enough. I had yet another guy who seemed like he could be good boyfriend material bail on me. I was sick of dating guys that were unsure of themselves. They were making me go cuckoo bananas. Right around New Years Eve I declared to my co-workers that I had had enough. I was going to meet my husband in 2008. It was not a wishful declaration, it was the truth. I knew it would happen, and I never really doubted it would happen. I figured it my heart was open, the right person would come along, who was at the same point in his life. Luckily for me, that is exactly what happened.

 

 

 

 

Our engagement shoot took place at my old apartment building in Arlington, VA. We took our photos at the rooftop garden, and in a couple of the stairwells. This worked out great for us, as our original plan was to take the photos in DC's Chinatown, which might have been hard for us with all the people around watching. We were able to be ourselves in this enviornment.

Our photographer was Joceyln Mathews of Studio Mathews Photography. She did a wonderful job and I highly reccomend her!

  

 

 

 

Jeremy and I are, to put it blunty, pretty shy and generally anti-social people. Thank GOD we found each other and have a few loyal friends and family who will stand up for us on the wedding day!

We have three attendants on each side.

My maid of honor is Nicole. Nicole and I met on a newsgroup for the Canadian sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall almost ten years ago. Before we even met we planned a trip to Buffalo, New York together to see the guys and have been on many adventures since. Nicole let me temporarily move in with her when I moved to DC two years ago. I ended up getting an apartment right down the hall from her and lived there until two months ago when Jeremy and I moved in together.

Nicole is throwing a shower for me in two weeks (eep!) and on the day will be helping me with my make-up.

My bridesmaids are:

Erin, who is my older sister by three years. We are not the closest of sisters, mainly because she's an incredibly private person, so it gets frustrating having a relationship with someone like that. Oh, and don't get me wrong. I'm a bit of a pain in the butt myself, so I know the issues aren't all on her end.

Luckily, the wedding has strengthened our relationship. She was with me when I tried on dresses, and has had a hand in wedding planning. We're not hiring professional hair and make-up people, so since she's done my hair several times in my life for big events, she'll be doing my hair on the day.

Michele, who I also met on a Kids in the Hall newsgroup, believe it or not! Michele flew to DC last year so we could all see the Kids in the Hall together! It was a wonderful night!

We "met" online in 2002 were friends on Livejournal for a couple years before our friendship hit warp speed once we became Lord of the Rings fangirls in 2004. We planned a trip to Comic-Con in 2004 and have gone on many trips together since!

She lives in Phoenix and is flying out for the big day! I can't wait to see her!

 

Here are some of the gifts I got the girls. I got colorful (cheap!) frames at Ikea and inserted a "thank you" message in each one. This saved me from buying them a card, and the frame doubles as a gift. I also got them make-up bags from the Dainty Squid on etsy.com. Not pictured is a monogramed tote bag from etsy seller nnichols.

 

The best man is Jeremy's best friend Matt. They've been best friends since childhood, when they were neighbors. He's not my favorite person (there is always a lot of drama surrounding him) but I know he'd do anything for Jeremy.

Our groomsmen are:

Drew, Jeremy's middle brother. The less I say about him, the better.

Jake, Jeremy's younger brother, who is flying in from Hawaii for our big day, as he's currently stationed with the Navy there. Tough life!

I got my dress from Chinese Manufacturer Milly Bridal. I was very pleased with the quality of my dress. That said, after some thought, I've decided it's not the dress for me. It's not flattering, and frankly a bit too sparkly for me. That said,  If you're considering getting a dress from China, or want a custom dress made, I highly reccomend Milly Bridal. If you have any questions, you can PM me.

So, this is the first dress.

 

Close-up of the lace:

 

 
This was the second, and I'd thought that I'd wear it for the whole wedding. Well, it didn't fit. I figured I'd lose some weight. Well, I didn't, and I just didn't feel pretty in this dress, so I ordered a couple more dresses online.

 

Both of the orders on those dresses were cancelled, three weeks out from the wedding, one dress was stained, the other was out of stock. So, I figured I'd suck it up and go to my local David's Bridal to see if they could help me. At this point, I'd take just about anything. I guess all this drama happened for some reason, because I found THE dress. It was the first one I tried on, and I loved it. Sadly they didn't have it in my size, so they're altering down a larger dress. It'll be ready three days before the wedding. Yeah, I'm a bit nervous that it'll be wrong, but not really. I'm 95% sure everything will be fine. And if not? They have three days to get it right!

Enough talk, here's the dress!

 

 

I gave my maids a choice of a couple dresses, and they all chose this simple dress from designer Audrina Papell. It's actually a bit lighter in person than it is in the photo, but I'm okay with that, since I'm not anal about every shade of purple matching at the wedding. :) They got their dresses from nordstrom.com, and I highly reccomend them. Their return policy is incredible, my sister was able to hold on to her dress that was too big until the right size arrived!

 

I have to admit that I really hate tuxedos, and I never wanted my fiance or groomsmen to wear them, but especially so that our colors are dark purple and light pink. I knew that they would HATE being outfitted in those colors!

I think I'm a pretty easy bride. I'm not even making the guys get a suit. They are wearing black pants and a white long sleeved button down shirt. We're providing the ties for the guys, from the great site thetiebar.com. All the ties are $15, so you can't beat that pricing, especially if you have a large wedding party!

Jeremy picked out the ties that he and the groomsmen will wear, and I think he did a great job. I've always loved weddings where the guys wore striped ties! I think the guys will be able to tolerate this dark purple, without feeling it's too "girly".

Edit: We got these in and we're really impressed! The ties are 100% silk and feel and look really good. They arrived two business days after we ordered them!

 

 

 

 

 

How I decided on my wedding jewelry is a round-about story, but I'll sum it up as briefly as I can. One of my co-workers is incredibly crafty and makes wonderful jewelry. Because I helped her on a project, she offered up a necklace to me that I had admired. It's very funky and I felt like a rockstar in it, and I thought about wearing it for the wedding, but the necklace had too much green in it to match my colors. So, when I saw her a few days later, I asked her to make a piece for my wedding. I showed her my bio and she got really excited once she saw what I wanted. This is the necklace she made for me. Since it is such a bold piece, it will be the only jewelry I'll be wearing.

 

I'm not sure why some people turn their noses up at mall jewelers. They often offer good deals and quality diamonds! We only shopped at a couple stores before we went to Helzberg at Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge, VA. My ring was the first I put on and even though I tried on a couple different ones after that, I knew that was the one!

Lynn, our sales associate showed us the ring under the gemscope and explained in detail about the diamond rating scale. My ring has an inclusion, but it is not visible unless under a gemscope, so I wasn't worried about that at all. My ring is part of their "vintage" collection, and as an added bonus, part of a bridal set, so we got both my engagement ring and wedding ring together.  Since Jeremy was approved for financing, we decided to go ahead and get his ring as well!

Here's the e-ring and wedding ring together. This photo isn't the greatest, as it makes the center stone look like it's several pave stones like the rest of the band. It's not, the center stone is 3/8 of a carat.

Here's the wedding ring by itself.

 

Here's one of our engagement shoot photos that shows off the ring ( photo by Jocelyn Mathewes)

 

And lastly, here's a ring very similar to Jeremy's, Helzberg didn't have the exact ring on their site.

 

I'm all about the bargain, so when I searched for wedding shoes, my first criteria was that they be no more than $75-and that was if they were absolutely perfect. I was more looking to stay in the $50 range. I ended up grabbing the first pair that I saw on target.com, because they were perfect. Peep-toe, not too high of a heel, and the perfect color. When they arrived and I saw them in person, I couldn't believe how gorgeous they were! I'm so happy with the shoes.

 

 

 

I never really pictured myself wearing a veil. It's just not me. My mother had asked me to wear a veil, but when I asked her again recently, she told me I should wear what I want. Hopefully she won't change her mind again, as I'm going with a simple headband.

I chose this gorgeous headband from etsy seller untamedpetals for the big day!

We decided to go with silk flowers, and after looking at several florists online, we went with Tara of Viennasflowers.com. I'm really pleased with how they turned out! We went with dark purpleand burgundy for my bouquet, and pale pink for our bridesmaids. I LOVE the stem detail on the bouquets!

 

Check out the stem detail on my bouquet!

 

Here's the bridesmaid bouquets.

 

 

I have to admit that I never planned on floral centerpieces. They were not in our budget and frankly I find them boring. I wanted something different, and when we decided on the board game theme, it was an obvious choice to have the board games themselves as our centerpieces. Best of all? This is costing us $0!

The wedding is over now, so here's how our centerpieces ended up!

Our wedding coordinator spelled sayings out on the Scrabble Board:

The Monopoly Table:

I feel about invitations the way some girls feel about their dress or their flowers. I LOVE them. I love the look and feel of letterpress, but felt I wouldn't be able to afford it. This was until Kristin of Twin Ravens Press was suggested to me! Not only is she reasonable, she's very personable and prompt. I had my samples in the mail only days after we talked, and there was really question after seeing her work in person. She was the person to design and print our invitations!

We actually edited a design she'd done for another Baltimore bride & groom, we just changed the fonts, colors and some slight design elements. I don't have them in my hands yet, but Kristin sent me some photos!

We went with the Albemarle Swash font that Mrs. Cupcake used for her invitations and a lot of other wedding related papers. Our invitations will be mounted to matching cardstock.

An up close shot of the letterpress:

Here you can see the cardstock and envelope:

I love the sweet little bird holding the banner on our reply card! 

 

My maid of honor Nicole did the caligraphy on the envelopes.

 

Here are our rehearsal dinner invitations, designed by Ashley of 2birdstone on etsy, who also designed our STDs and monograms! Orange is Jeremy's favorite color, so I'm glad we were able to fit it somewhere into our wedding.

Our save the dates were designed by Ashley of 2BirdStone on etsy.com. I told her we had a board game theme for our wedding and she drew up a board game of our relationship. These were sent out in February '09, and printed on vistaprint. We were really pleased with the results!

 

 

We're having a board game themed wedding. We chose to do this for a couple reasons. Firstly, Jeremy and I bonded over a love of board games and some of our first dates involved heated Scrabble matches. This theme didn't come to me until a few months into our planning.

We'd planned a November wedding, and I found myself growing frustrated with planning, so we decided to move our wedding up to September. As soon we settled the details, voila, the board game popped into my head like magic. We sent out board gamed themed save the dates, I came up with creative ideas how to use Scrabble tiles (more on that later) and we'll be using board games donated by family and friends as centerpieces. Not only does this give our guests something to do at our afternoon wedding, but best of all, our centerpieces are costing us $0!

I got customized pencils with our name and date for guests to keep score, and I'm in the process of ordering custom dice from Chessex.com with our names and date on them. We'll replace the boring old white dice with these purple stunners!

 This is a rough draft of our escort cards. I stole Mrs. Candycorn's idea of using Moo Cards. I chose one of their readymade sets with various designs on the back. On the front I used a clear label to write the guest's name (Avery #5660 if you're interested) then I attached the Scrabble tile with adhesive. Obviously with the real tile the letter of the tile will match up to the last name of the guest, but this was just a dry run. The only real change I'll make is with the size of the font, I'll increase it about 2 pts.

We couldn't start getting ready in our venue when we got there, so we started doing make-up in the parking lot! Here's some of my favorite shots of me and my maids getting ready on wedding day! All photos credited to Forever-Yesterday Photography

 

I walked down the aisle so quickly that my new nickname is Firebutt. I almost fell right as we walked out, so I just wanted to get down the aisle as quickly as possible! We were thankful that the rain held off on the day so we were able to have our ceremony outside.

Because we had such a small wedding, our reception was pretty laid back. We didn't have many traditions such as a first dance, toasts or bouquet tosses. Once we ate lunch, we chated with our guests and did a bit of dancing and drinking. I really preferred it this way, as a traditional wedding just didn't fit us.

 

We had personalized pencils and dice.

We're not having cake at our wedding. We're having a dessert table with various treats for our guests to choose from, including delicious cupcakes from SAS Cupcakes in Newark, Delaware. Luckily my sister works in Newark, so she's picking them up for us the day before the wedding. I'm debating using a cupcake wrapper like this one from the Knot shop, but they are kind of pricy, $13 for 12!

We had cupcake flags made by etsy seller laurenmakes. I have been too lazy to take a photo of ours, but they are dark purple and use the Albermarle Swash font.

Our Simpsons "cake topper" was made by etsy seller kharygoarts. She used an inspiration photo I sent her of another Homer & Marge topper and customized it with our wedding colors. I think it looks great!

We're getting married at the Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air, Maryland. Originally I'd wanted to get married in an art gallery or another contemporary space, but when I realized how much that would run me in the gerater DC/Baltimore area, I learned pretty quickly to compromise! I visited Liriodendron with my fiance and my parents, who instantly loved it. I loved the grounds and the fact that there's an art gallery upstairs.

Weather permitting we'll be married on the grounds and have our reception on one of the porticoes. Weather not permitting, we'll have it inside. It was important to me that we pick a ceremony location where I'd be happy regardless of the weather, as late September in Maryland can be rather iffy.

This is the back of the mansion, and will hopefully be our backdrop, we'll get married right where the girl is standing.

The dining room.

The mansion has two porticoes. Weather permitting, our cocktail "hour" will be on one, and our reception on the other.

The grand staircase! If the weather doesn't work in our favor, this is where I'll make my grand entrance. Regardless, we will be taking photos here.

Weather permitting, we'll be getting married on the mansion's grounds.

 

I'm very excited to find a host of vendors that do quality workand aren't looking to squeeze every dime out of me! I will add reviewsin the coming months.

Venue:

We had wanted Jocelyn to do be our wedding photographer, but as we were about to go to contract, she told us she was pregnant, and due right around our date, so obviously she can't shoot our big day. As a consolation, she gave us a free engagement shoot, which I thought was going above and beyond what she had to do, especially since she was more than willing to drive to northern Virginia from Baltimore to do the shoot.She had our photos uploaded the day after our shoot! I highly recommend Jocelyn. She offers a lot of value for her price and is very creative and fun!

We found Jenni through the Baltimore board of the Knot. Everyone raved about her, and I did the unthinkable: I booked her without having met her. I know, I know, but I had faith in that she'd do a good job, and she did! We met at our venue for the first time about five weeks before the wedding and I was instantly impressed by her friendly attitude and willingness to work with my crazy ideas!

On our wedding day, Jenni arrived 30 minutes before her scheduled arrival time and got straight to work. She has a great working style, friendly but efficient. She had no problem getting us to laugh for our photos and chatting with us between shots.

She also paid attention to my "must-shot" list and got all those and more. We had an intimate, laid back reception, so she spent most of it taking great candid photos of our guests. She was also able to grab a lot of professional shots of us and our guests. She never said no to any of my suggestions and really went above and beyond what she needed to do.

She had a link to us for our photos less than one week from our wedding day, and we were so pleased with how they turned out. We generally hate photos of ourselves and we really do love most of our wedding photos. Jenni is very talented!

So, long story short: if you're a budget bride in the Baltimore area, Jenni is your girl. She will give you a lot of value for your money and you'll love having her around on your wedding day.

Working with Dean & Brown was the best decision of my wedding planning. They accommodated us at every turn, from meeting with us for our tasting during a freak snow storm, to arranging a visit to our venue when it was closed for a holiday weekend.

We worked with Terry, who is a gem. You can tell she loves her job and she has a great personality. She was always there to answer any question and on the wedding day she was there to help us and was just a joy to have around.

The food was excellent as was the service. You just won't find the quality anywhere else for the price that they charge. They also give you the option of buying your own liquor and bringing in your own cake, which saves A LOT of money.

If you're getting married in Harford county or anywhere in the Baltimore area I highly recommend Dean & Brown!

My husband and I met with Heidi in January, 2009 and didn't bother meeting with anyone else. She instantly understood that our wedding was going to be more like a party than a wedding, and was right on board with our board game theme.

After we booked her, we didn't really contact her much until about two months before the wedding. She would send me occasional e-mails asking if I needed anything, but I just didn't! I met up with Heidi twice before our wedding, once to go over details and to discuss matters with her, and finally with our caterer about three weeks before the wedding. At both meetings she was helpful and not shy on offering her opinion or telling the vendor what I wanted. I was waffling on whether or not we should have a bar at our wedding since it was a lunch reception. She convinced me that we should, and you know what? She was right!

On the day Heidi was the first vendor I saw in the morning and the last before I left. She and her assistant were very friendly and the day ran very smoothly. We had a very small wedding so I know ours was easier for her than most she does, but she still did a wonderful job.

I highly recommend Heidi and her team! If you think you don't need a DOC, trust me, you do. Having Heidi around to do set-up and take care of any last minute problems was worth what I paid her and more!

I was very pleased with the end product of our save the dates. Ashley'sidea to make our relationship into a board game was genius and wasbetter than anything we could have come up with ourselves. Our guestshave been very impressed with them! We will likely have Ashley help uswith a few more wedding creations.

 

The quality of our save the date postcards was excellent. I was expecting acheaper cardstock, but the front is very glossy and the stock is goodquality. I got our save the dates in half the estimated shipping time,and since I had a free coupon we only paid for shipping!

Officiant: Rev. Steve Weeks of Weddings Anywhere, Anytime

I'm going to be honest, neither my husband or myself really cared who married us. As long as they were competent and could speak clearly, we were good. We booked with Rev. Weeks in January and made plans to meet him at our venue about six weeks before the wedding.

Unfortunately he also serves as a chaplain for another organization and had something come up, so we met with his wife, Janet. Janet has a very calming presence about her and she gave us the advice that really calmed my nervous husband: "It doesn't matter who can hear your vows. As long as you can hear each other, that's all that matters."

We mostly dealt with Janet from there out, in revising our service and in other matters. We met Rev. Weeks on wedding day. I only spent a few minutes with him before the service, as I was getting ready, but he spent time with my husband and the best man. Rev. Weeks incorporated humor into our wedding, getting the best man to play a bit of a trick on me, acting as though he lost the rings.

In the end, our ceremony was short and sweet and we're glad that Rev. Weeks and his wife Janet were there to marry us!

Florist: viennasflowers.com

I found Tara of Vienna's Flowers through an internet search. I'd contacted other floral companies without a response, but I received a quick response from Tara, the owner. We had a phone consultation and really clicked. We have the same name, so that was a great starting point. I'd sent her inspiration photos, and we talked about what I liked in those photos and what I didn't. We altered one of her existing designs for the bridesmaids, as well as the mother's corsages.

I placed my order in March and had the flowers in June. They were so, so gorgeous and everyone said they couldn't believe they were silk! I could have never afforded a bouquet with dahlias and calla lillies in real flowers, let alone the gorgeous ribbon wraps she offers on all her bouquets.

I highly recommend Tara and her company Vienna's Flowers if you're like me and don't want to spend an arm and a leg on flowers, but still want gorgeous flowers!

Jeweler: Helzberg Diamonds

We bought our rings at Helzberg Diamonds at Potomac Mills Mall inWoodbridge, VA. I fell in love with my engagement ring as soon as I sawit. It's part of a bridal set, so the wedding ring is included. SinceJeremy was approved for credit, we just went ahead and bought his ringthen so we'd have time to pay both of our rings off. We did things abit untraditionally, and I'm glad for it. I'm way too picky, I neededto pick out my own ring!

Invitations: Twin Ravens Press

I first found Kristin's work through Weddingbee.com. She designed a couple of the blogger's wedding invitations and I thought they were beautiful, but that I probably couldn't afford letterpress invitations. A few months go by and another blogger friend recommends Kristen, as she had worked with her. I decide to bite the bullet and contact her, and I'm so glad I did!

If you're a budget bride and feel you can't afford letterpress, contact Kristin. I'm not going to lie to you, letterpess is NEVER going to be cheap. I budgeted a chunk of my budget for my invitations because it was important to me. But Kristin was still far cheaper than the "cheapest" letterpress invitations I'd found. She also sent me a sample pack, free of charge, where most other vendors charge.

Kristin and I worked together over the span of about three weeks editing a design she'd worked on for another bride and groom. We finished edits in the end of April and I had my invitations in mid-June. Everything came out beautifully, and I loved having invitations that were 100% original, and letterpressed!

I highly recommend Kristin and her studio Twin Ravens Press!

Dress 1: Milly Bridal

I ordered my dress from Milly thanks to a point in the right directionfrom one of my blog readers. They have been very easy to work with, andresponded quickly to any question I had. The dress shipped in aboutthree days from China! I will complete this review once I see my dressin person, but from the photos I've seen so far, I'm in love!

Edit:The dress is in! The overall quality is great, and the fit is darn nearperfect, I just need a bra to put the "girls" in their right spot as mymother says! The only issue we had is that some of the sequins were notas sewn in as tightly as they should have been, so it shedded some whenI wore it. The lace is also a bit itchy. The dress will need a bustle,but since we got this dress for a song, I'm debating getting a shortdress for the reception and forgoing alterations. We'll see.

Dress 2:
I will spare the long story, but I decided not to wear the Milly Bridal dress on my wedding day. The short version of the story is that the dress, while gorgeous, weighed a ton and the lace was itchy. This is probably my fault for not requesting a sample of the lace, or not realizing just how itchy lace made me. I'm not faulting Milly Bridal here.

I tried to find a more casual dress online with disastrous results, so I found myself at David's three weeks before my wedding. Luckily my consultant was a star and even though she pulled a ton of dresses for me, I loved the first one I put on. She talked to the alterations manager and told us as long as we paid for it that day, we'd have it in time for the wedding! It was ready on time, and it fit...well, as well can be expected for only having one fitting. I had to be pinned into it to keep my bra from showing, and my halter was a bit loose. But I'd rather have it be a bit big than a bit small! The bustle worked wonderfully, and the hem was the right length.

My only real issue with the Woodbridge store was when we picked up my dress. There were only two consultants working and we stood in the front of the store for awhile as they were both working with other brides. I ended up walking back and found the seamstress myself.

in the back and found the seamstressRehearsal Dinner: Magerks Bel Air

We loved the space (The Fireside Bar) and the overall atmosphere of Magerks. The food is also very tasty. Jen, the coordinator there is awesome and responds very quickly to e-mails, which is important to me!
After the wedding:
We did have a wonderful rehearsal dinner. The food was wonderful, and it was great having our own bartender. My only issue was that when we got there people were still wandering in through our semi-private room. Once I told the bartender to have the management put up a sign, people weren't wandering in from outside anymore (there was a sign with a chain blocking off the stairs) but even though there was a chalkboard with a sign saying "PRIVATE PARTY, PLEASE USE FRONT ENTRANCE.", lazy douche bags were still walking through the our space and out the back door because they were too lazy to walk out the front door and around the building.

SO, I would recommend Magerks for your rehearsal dinner. I'd suggest using their large private room, or if you use the Fireside Bar, insist on having a staff member there to stop people from walking through the space. It didn't ruin the night for me, but it did make some of my guests uncomfortable.

We're leaving the Monday after our wedding for four nights in Las Vegas! Jeremy has never been, and he's very excited. I've been once before and I enjoyed it, so I think we're in for a lovely time! We're staying at the gorgeous Mandalay Bay hotel! Our room is almost bigger than our apartment!

This page is for the details that don't really fit in anywhere else.

Our ring bowls, from etsy seller sayyourpeice:

 Front:

 Back:

 Guest book, which we got from shutterfly.com:

 Through my work, I was able to get some free photo snowglobes that were left over from an attorney dinner. I didn't have enough to use these as wedding favors, so I'm giving them out at the rehearsal dinner.

This is the top of the box they're in, I put a round sticker with one of our monograms on top.

The front of the snowglobe with one of our engagement photos. I used a business card template for this project and only had to cut them to size a tiny bit to get them to fit.

The back of the snowglobe. I wrote out a note thanking everyone for being part of the wedding, and I also included a note that the bottom of the globe pops off so they can put in their own photo.

 
I even made my own tent cards for the buffet table with one of our monograms.