Weddingbee bios

Mr. W and I are metro-Detroit townies. We've neither really strayed from our home metropolis and we both love this city, no matter at what rate it's dying. We got engaged at the top of the RenCen, have driven the I-75 detour through Mexicantown countless times, and are the only suburbanites we know who drive downtown to go for a walk.

I grew up in a northern Detroit suburb, went to school at Western Michigan University (where I had a short stint as Buster the Bronco mascot), and then returned home to start my career in the "family business" of insurance claims. When I'm not reading wedding blogs (thank God for Google reader), I'm gardening, spending time with family, crafting, baking, playing soccer, and trying to be the most tom-boyish Martha Stewart ever. I love the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Pistons. As far as football goes, I LOVE football, but I hate the Lions.

Mr. W has spent the last several years getting his bachelor's in criminal justice and is now working on getting his masters in teaching high school English. He decided that cops lived a miserable life and thought his desires to impact people would be better spent on the budding youth that is an American teenager. He spends his free time studying, watching sports (with me!), playing hold 'em with the guys, reading political non-fiction, trying to get me to like Mike Patton (a phenominal musician), and watching comedy sketch shows.

Some facts:

• We were both raised Roman Catholic and have turned back to the church for our wedding as a Holy Sacrament.
• Mr. W is 5 years older than me. However, we don't really notice it until we talk about music, movies and television. For example: Mr. W has a hard time believing I was too young to watch In Living Color when it originally aired.
• We are the comedy couple of your group. Sarcastic, snarky, big unattractive and uninhibited laughter, lots of pictures with silly faces.
• I love children's stuff: cartoons, coloring books, music, even - yes - The Jonas Brothers. Mr. W does not necessarily share my love, but he supports my hobbies. He encourages me to color whenever I'm stressed. My attitude is that you can't be in a bad mood coloring, drawing or singing kids songs.
• Mr. W is a progressive liberal. And a lot of people know he is liberal. Therefore, when he thinks someone left leaning is just repeating liberal talking points, he will argue conservative ideas just to see if the other person knows what they are talking about or if they will blindly agree with another liberal.

So all I asked for Valentine's Day was a nice dinner at a restaurant I've never been too. I told Mr. W I didn't want to know where we were going, but just what the dress code was and when I should be ready.

On Friday, I got home from work, got ready and was taken to Coach Insignia for dinner - at the top of the RenCen in downtown Detroit. We had a lovely "Lovers' Feast" featuring all kinds of Top Chef-esqe dishes with Romance Enhancing Components like oysters, fennel and chocolate. After dinner, he handed me a card that normally would have had a lot hand-written in it, but instead only had a few lines saying he is looking forward to loving me forever. As I'm reading the card, he hands me a box wrapped in bright red paper with a bow on top. He tells me that since I was complaining about my own jewelry selection at home earlier that week, hopefully "this will work". The whole package is wrapped in tape and while I'm peeling it open, he comes around the table and gets down on one knee and asks if I'll marry him. Of course I say yes!

It was so sweet and old fashioned! We were at this little corner table, so there wasn't any big attention drawn to us or anything. Just perfect. And as I'm staring at my hand in amazement, letting the moment soak in, he says to me "And by the way, we're not going home tonight." He got a hotel room for us in the Marriott in the RenCen, had my dad watch our dogs, and even packed me an overnight bag for the next morning. He had packed, checked in and gotten back to the house on Friday all before I came home from work on Friday!

Mr. W took one of my regular rings to the jeweler to get the right size, so it fits wonderfully. He actually took the regular ring from my dresser about two weeks earlier and had forgot to put it back right away. I noticed the ring was missing about a week before the dinner, but I just shrugged it off, thinking I might have left it another purse or somewhere else in the house. However, when I was getting ready that evening, I found the ring in my jewelry box, but in the wrong spot. So I thought I had misplaced it there myself! Turns out when he put it back, he purposefully put it in the wrong place so that I would think I did it myself!

He had been sneaking around the house for two weeks trying to plan everything without my knowing. When asked by a friend if he was nervous, he told them that he wasn't nervous about me saying yes, but more so about me finding out because I'm so observant that I notice misplaced and missing things around the house all the time.

 

Taken by my wonderful friend and photographer, Susan Jergens of Susan Jergens Photography.

Mr. W and I are born Detroiters. We love the city and it only made sense for him to propose to me at the city's most recognized landmark, The Renaissance Center. As a result, we went back there to take our e-pics. Detroit is working on revitalizing the riverfront; there is currently a finished mile of boardwalk and open space for Detroiters to enjoy. The hope is to have it cover the 5.5 miles from the Blue Water Bridge to Belle Isle. Our wonderfully talented photographer Amy Boeve was there to catch it all!

Go here for all the preview photos: Amy Boeve Photography - E-Session

And, here are some for you to check out:

 

Much like Mrs. Peep, I laughed the whole time! I expect lots of laughing photos in my future.

My inspiration for my gown started with a Lea-Ann Belter dress - Kaitlyn - several years ago. I loved the ethereal look of the gown and how soft it looked. After I got engaged, I fell in love with another more structured Lea-Ann Belter dress - Tess. However, both of these gowns were just SOOOOO out of my price range.

So while I was on the hunt, I couldn't decide if I wanted something fully flowing and soft like Kaitlyn, or something with a bit of structure in the bodice like Tess. It took some back and forth conversations with my step-mom, my maids, and eventually, my fiance. I wanted his opinion on my style, so I asked him how he picked my ring. He told me he knew I wanted something SIMPLE, NOT GAUDY, but that I like to SPRUCE IT UP with a little extra. He also picked white gold because it was more MODERN. With those words in mind, it became clear what gown would suit me best.

I ended up ordering a dress with the soft ethereal look I was originally looking for. A wide strapped, v-neck, ruched silk georgette gown: the Jasmine T247. Not a lot of structure in the bodice, but the classic "Hollywood" look of the dress is what sold me. Now that I know what dress I'm wearing, I'm finding myself inspired by Rita Hayworth's classic style to match my accessories and hair. I can't wait to get MY gown!

 Lea-Ann Belter - Kaitlyn

Lea-Ann Belter Tess

 

Jasmine T247 - MY GOWN!

 

  

Rita Hayworth: need I say more?

 

 

 

[EDIT - POST WEDDING!]

See how my dress and inspiration all came together??

So when I first started thinking about colors, I knew green would be a main element. Green is hands down my favorite color. It's the color of spring and summer, the color my garden growing, and one of the best colors against my red curly hair! My colors are those of a sunny day, the bright green of the earth and the soft, rich blue of the sky. But, after looking at a lot of wedding blogs and inspiration sources, I felt that the very popular aqua and lime was a bit too loud for me. I am loud by nature. I did not need to start with loud colors. My need for colorful, loud things would find themselves into anything I did on its own. 

How excited was I to see the current Perfect Palettes in the Summer 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Weddings?! Sea Glass! The perfect muted start for my greens and blues. 

After Martha's assistance in clarifying my color palette, I made the following inspiration board. I used simple Microsoft Powerpoint to paste, crop and resize images collected from around the web. Photos are from esty.com, theknot.com, brides.com, offbeatbride.com, and probably stylemepretty.com too. Sorry, I've had these on my computer so long now, I couldn't possibly pinpoint each source. 

 

The bright aqua and greens found their way in there... like always. I am definately doing mismatched bridesmaids' dresses, a candy bar for favors, and stamping my own DIY invitations to mimic the ones above. I guess this isn't really so much an inspiration board as it is a collage of a lot of my decisions already made.

I wanted to wear and hair flower and a veil, plus I wanted to show off my natural curls and have my hair out of my face. The stylist and I decided to try pulling all my hair back in a low wide pony-tail type gather.

The wide pony look turned out to be a lot better looking than any other option from all sides! It's out of my face and there is definitely some natural curl action going on. This style is a good contender, but we'll see what I come up with.

I was looking for something simple and chic to go with my dress. I am planning on wearing pearl earrings my MOH gave to me to wear in her wedding and I wanted something to match. However, I didn't want to wear a single strand of pearls. So, enter the internets. I scoped out my favorite site for all things beautiful and bought this from Etsy: Otis B - briguysgirls.

I'm super excited to see how this goes with my dress when it comes in. The diamond shaped detail on the necklace mimics the beaded detail on my dress and the simple chain and pearl strand matches the earrings perfectly! Now, to find a bracelet to go on my non ring hand!

I knew I didn't want diamonds in my wedding band - I'm too nervous I'll end up losing stones! So, I took forever to find the right wedding band. I ended up getting a unisex ring with a design in the middle and then had the local jeweler and down the edges to make it thinner and a little more feminine!

 

Here is my wedding band, engagement ring and Mr. W's wedding band all together!

 

My ring is still fairly thick for a women's ring, but I have really long slender fingers, so it doesn't look bulky at all. Plus, I'm not sure if I want to wear them together or the band by itself, so I wanted a band that held up well on its own. The jeweler said she thought that my band looked a lot like a stacking ring set, too!

My flowers were done by Vicki's Simply Unique. She worked with me to create a simple and recession-proof style that was elegant and chic!

Photos by Amy Boeve Photography.

With a graphic design minor, I knew I wanted to do my own invitations. However, I wanted to make sure that the invitations didn't look super handmade (i.e. crooked cuts) and were still me. So, I started with an invitation kit and added a few different elements to make the whole invitation.

I scored a great deal on invitation kits (flat invite, response card, envelopes for both). I'm using the kit response card as my reception card, and instead I picked up basic flat 4Bar cards and envelopes in the wedding colors at Michael's to use for the RSVPs. I also found a simple flower graphic stamp at Joann's that I'm using to stamp the invites and as a graphic throughout the wedding. I plan to use the stamp on my programs, place cards and even my thank you notes. When I designed the layout, I decided to be a little off the cuff and print the invites landscape instead of the standard portrait. I also bought my outer envelopes from http://www.jampaper.com for a good price. The final element I'm including is a belly band using scrapbook paper in the wedding colors (but a variety of paper that I have on hand) and our last name initial with a stamp on it. The initial letters are from a Martha Stewart DIY for a "Just Married" banner.

Here's what they look like for now, together and spread out. I have yet to actually start the printing part, but the design is finally finished.

 

 

Cross posted in the boards - http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/diy-invitation-design.

I knew that we might not get a lot of use out of our engagement pictures, but I still wanted to share them with our family. So, I thought, how practical if we used our engagement pictures on our save the dates? We picked the best shot of us to go on the back of photo postcards with our date, info, and website on them. I added some of our flower stamp motifs onto the back to tie them into the other paper products for the wedding. As an added bonus, the photo postcards are just the right size to fit into a 4x6 frame. So, not only will some of our guests get a heads up on the wedding festivities, but they will also get a nice photo of us as well.

Easy peasy, Walgreens.com!

This is my DIY cake topper a la Peg Dolls! Adorable!!

 

 

Wedding Date: June 26, 2010
Location: St. Mary's Catholic Church, Royal Oak, MI

Reception Venue: Royalty House, Warren, MI
Caterer: same as above

Photographer: Amy Boeve Photography, Grand Rapids MI
Videographer: none - we opted to cut this out of the budget
Cake: Family friend
DJ/Music: Big Foot DJs, Port Huron MI
Florist: Vicki's Simply Unique, Royal Oak MI
Limo: Big Shot Limos, Clinton Twp, MI

Any Other Vendors:
Bridal gown: Konja's Bridal, Berkley MI
Jewelery: Otis B, Etsy; Brothers' Jewelry, Southgate, MI; Miners' Den, Royal Oak, MI
Shoes: Urban Outfitters
Purse: Traffic Jam Boutique, Wyandotte MI
Invitations: self made from kit

 

I'll update this as our planning moves forward. Got to give credit where credit is due!

(Cross posted in Detroit, MI boards)

 

[EDIT - POST WEDDING]

All of our vendors were amazing! No problems from anyone. The limo driver carried my dress! The photographer stayed all day long and drove all over Metro Detroit with us! The flowers were amazing! Everyone loved the music and I swear the DJ knows ESP! There just aren't enough exclamation points for all the wonderful people that made our wedding day their business. :o)

I am not a girly girl by any means. But I am a born and bred Detroiter. So, when my MOH asked what I wanted to do for my bachelorette party, I asked to go see a Tigers' game. While that's typically a guys' night out, we had a blast!

It started with sushi at a local and well-known seafood establishment in downtown Detroit, followed by the Tigers' game with post-game fireworks, and then we wrapped up the night dancing on the rooftop deck of an Irish bar near the park. And of course, lots of drinks! It was wonderful to have all my ladies in one spot!

And one of my BMs got me a fabulous Tigers' themed boa to wear for the night!

 

My MOH made a sign to pin to my veil that got a lot of attention:

 

While I was gifted a lot of scandalous items (my future husband thanks you!), most of the embarassing attire type things had to be kept PG because anything I was wearing had to make it into the stadium.

We had a ton of low-key, no nekkid men, fun!