Looking for a new Bridal Consultant in Gainesville!

Interested in the wedding industry and bridal fashion? Do you have a sense of style? Most importantly, do you have an exuberant personality?! If the answers to these questions are yes then you would be a great candidate for a new Solutions Bridal consultant!


If you are interested in applying, please fax your resume to Marissa at 352-374-7293! Work hours are approximately 25-35 hours per week.

How I Almost Ruined My Wedding Day

In honor of my birthday {that was yesterday}, I want to tell everyone a story. :O) I've had a lot of people requesting I post this story, so I've been waiting for a special occasion. I'm guessing you can tell what it's about based on the title of this post and also the nature of the ending based on the 'almost.' But here goes...

Back in July, I had a lovely reader contact me about a Maggie Sottero wedding dress I had purchased for the sole purpose of wearing during a photo shoot. I told her that I no longer needed it and would willingly sell it to her. Here's a picture of the dress:


She requested that we get things sorted out before my wedding day so I wouldn't have to worry about it after the honeymoon, and she would get the dress much sooner. I totally agreed. What I failed to realize is that in the midst of last minute wedding errands, my mind would be completely chaotic with to-do lists and other wedding minutae. Three days before my wedding, I picked up my freshly steamed wedding gown and my mother's dress for the wedding from my seamstess and hung it on the door frame of my guest bedroom. In my next set of errands, I was going to drop off the Maggie Sottero dress to the UPS store to have it shipped to my lovely reader. I got the dress ready and hung it on the exact same door frame as my wedding gown. {smart idea?}

My bridesmaid, Carla, and I went to the UPS store with the dress to ship. As we were standing in the UPS store, I looked at Carla and said, "I grabbed the WRONG dress!!" Her response was "What do you mean you grabbed the wrong dress? No you didn't."

I unzipped the white garment bag to find MY wedding dress. My dress. My freshly steamed, silk white, lace Demetrios wedding dress that fit me like a glove. I freaked!


How did I almost ship my wedding dress to someone else 3 days before my wedding? That's simple. I laid them next to each other. The kicker, however, is how I figured out it was the wrong one.

Three hours prior to the incident, Carla and I were in Ocala picking up my dress and my mother's dress from Debbie (my seamstress). Just as I was walking out the door, she asked me really quick if I wanted to keep the extra pink fabric from the shawl she made for my mother. I hesitated for a few seconds before saying yes, and then she threw it at the bottom of my dress bag. The only reason I did not ship out my own wedding dress is because I saw the slightest hint of pink fabric shining through the very bottom of the white dress bag!! Now that's what I call Angels watching over me. :O) {And thank you Debbie for the extra pink fabric!!}

Bachelorette Barbie

I thought it might be a good time to share a few of these bachelorette party pictures I've been keeping up my sleeve, especially since it makes great motivation for that New Year's resolution I posted about a few days ago. :O)

WOW! Look at that TAN! {I kinda miss it.}

Weddings (+Such)

I am THRILLED to announce that one of my very best friends and coworkers, Marissa, has just started her very own wedding inspiration blog!!

She has been debating "taking the plunge" for a while {and yes, I know i'm corny}, so I am absolutely honored to feature her brand new project!!

I expect nothing short of spectacular from this lovely lady, so please check it out when you get a chance. :O)

Weddings (+Such)

New Year's Resolution

First off, Happy New Year everyone!! Now it's time to make a New Year's resolution, right?

This post is dedicated to one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Amy Jean the Relentless Bride. Her wedding is coming up in a couple months, and she's been looking for inspiration to get in better shape for her gorgeously form fitting wedding gown. With today being the very first day of 2010 and the day to make a New Year's Resolution, I figured this is the perfect time to talk about how I got in shape for my wedding.

I have always been a thin person, but I've never been a very fit person or had a regular workout routine. This being said, I knew I had to step it up to look right for my super fitted mermaid wedding dress.

Some pictures of me prior to the wedding workout...

Before:

To make it fair, I chose after pictures from the ones that were put up on Facebook by my friends and not digitally enhanced/edited professional images.

After: (Check out the differences in my arms!!)

I don't know about you, but I can tell a HUGE difference between the before and after. And best of all, I could FEEL a huge difference at the time too. I didn't need to lose any weight... it was really more about toning up and feeling better. So how did I do it? I ran. That sounds so much easier than it actually was. Because, as I mentioned before, I've never been one to work out routinely, and I am definitely NOT a runner!

I started running about 2 months before my wedding. I had a little extra motivation because I knew I should have started working out way before then. (You need to be pretty much done changing your body when you get your dress fitted around 6 weeks before the wedding or you will have to get it fitted all over again or push it back and risk it not getting done in time).

What really worked for me was forcing my non-morning person self to get up and jog in the mornings. I had never done this before, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that running in the morning jump started my metabolism and also encouraged me to not eat a ton of junk during the day.
Win!

The HARD parts:
I can usually work about for a week, but then I stop. That white dress hanging in my closet was really helpful to think about along the way. Also, getting up in the morning was hard on several occasions. I bargained with myself a lot. On mornings when I was not wanting to run, I told myself that if I at least got out and walked, that would be okay. In reality, when I hit the road, I usually picked it up and ran anyways. I almost had to trick myself out of bed, and then everything was fine. Another thing that helped was always having my iPod with me and an updated playlist. :O)

I'm not claiming to be a marathon runner here. Most of the time, I would run for about 30-40 minutes, which included jogging and walking intermittently. So now my New Year's Resolution is to do it all over again and keep with it!!

Recap: First Dance

For those of you who have been reading for a while, you know that I debated a few different songs for our first dance.

We ended up choosing "Death and All His Friends" by Coldplay, and we definitely made the right choice. We choreographed a few silly moves in the middle of the dance, and it was a ton of fun!! I wish I had video of it to show you. :O/

Here are some of the pictures:

A Fabulous California Honeymoon!!

Andrew and I debated our honeymoon location for a really long time. In fact, he actually had me thinking we were going to Greece for quite a while. But that didn't quite pan out due to rising airfare prices during August {bahumbug}, so we ended taking a trip through California. Buuut, it definitely did not disappoint!! We flew into San Francisco, drove down to Santa Cruz, Monterrey and Big Sur... then made our way back up to San Fran. Then we visited Napa and Sonoma for some fabulous red wine! {And some oh-so-tasty grapes I took right off the vine!}

Check out some of my very pictures (of the thousands we took)!


Picking organic strawberries was one of my favorite moments. They were the tastiest I've EVER had!

Santa Cruz







Bella Winery was so neat because the wine is made in caves in the side of the mountain.






The Rued Winery made me rethink my dislike for Chardonnay.

It wouldn't be complete without picture of this:

The Niebaum Coppola Winery in Napa.


Tastiest of tasty cheese & cabernet!





Giant Redwoods in the Muir Woods National Park.

And of course we donned this on our way to and from the airport!!