Southern Things...

I mentioned earlier that I will be having my bridal portraits done next week. Several readers weren't entirely sure of what bridal portraits are, so here is my best explanation:


Bridal portraits are taken before the wedding (I would say normally about 1-2 months in advance) and shows the bride in her full on bridal attire, hair, makeup, the whole shibang. There are various types of photography for all of these pictures, just like your normal wedding pictures and engagement pictures, you can be traditional, funky, modern, etc.


I am not sure if bridal portraits are a Southern tradition, but I have always grown up knowing about it. Usually a large sized photo of the bride from her bridal portraits is places somewhere at the wedding, whether it be by the cake or the guestbook, etc. When speaking to my Aunt from California on the phone the other day, she asked me a gazillion questions about the pictures, like she hadn't ever heard of them before.


I am taking my portraits particularly early (5 months from the wedding) only because about 1-2 months out from our wedding will be the HOTTEST time of the year in Texas, and I don't really care to sweat that much in my dress and have my face melt off.

My whole immediate family is from Cali, but they have lived in Texas for so long that some Southern traditions have just become normal to them. My Aunt was surprised, as well, that people really put their announcements in the paper. The groom's cake is always something that people who aren't from the South always get a kick out of as well.

What regional traditions are you incorporating into your wedding that other parts of your country, and the world, are unused to?

*All photos credit to our amazing photographer Perez Photography

All of this for a stand?!?

Working on all of the little details for our wedding is turning out to be WAY more difficult then searching for vendors. Right now, I'm concentrating on finding the stands for our table numbers. The venue has stainless frames that we can use, and our coordinator has low table number holders we could use, but, of course, neither is what I am looking for.

Now I'm on the hunt for 8-9" black table stands. I don't want anything fancy or theme related. Just some decent, plain looking stands. So far, these options are the only two that I've come up with (found at Food Service Direct):
Both options involve some sort of swirls, which seem a little busy to me, but could easily work for the tables. I know this is me being super nitpicky, so which do you all prefer, option 1 (swirl on the bottom) or option 2 (swirl on the top).

What are some good resources for table stands out there?

Up or down?

Sunday equaled T-minus five months until our big day. In two weeks, I'll be taking my bridal portraits and my biggest dilemma, for now, is my hair. You'll remember that I had two trials, one not so hot, and the other was a big win. While I know that I want to wear my hear up for our wedding, I'm thinking of doing something different for my bridal portraits.


My whole life I've really had short to medium length hair. Since Mr. H and I got serious, I've been growing it out. Maybe it was because in the back of my mind I thought that we were going to get married and I wanted to have long hair to do whatever with it that I would want on my big day. Right now, while summer is quickly approaching and the humidity in Texas is getting stronger and stronger, all I really want to do is chop it off.

Yesterday, while getting my hair trimmed and colored, I was so tempted to just cut it off. When you are getting ready for work in the morning and end up sweating off your makeup while you blow-dry your hair, you start to wonder if the length is worth it. I was smart enough to tell my awesome stylist (Patty at Richard Hayler, for those of you locals) that she had to wait five months before she could do anything fun with my hair, I started to wonder if maybe I should do something different in my portraits then what I'll do on the Big Day.

I have always loved this local wedding in the Dallas area, for many reasons, but particularly for the way the bride wore her hair.


Would it be bad to wear my hair down for the portraits and up for the big day? This is the longest my hair has ever been, which is quite an accomplishment for me. I think it would be a great way to satisfy myself with two hairstyles, but I know some people like to keep it all the same. What did you do for your portraits?

Undoing A Jinx...

Yesterday, I got a call from one of my co-workers who also happens to be getting married this year. As I answered the phone, all I heard on the other line was, “You jinxed me with the post that you put on Wedding Bee the other day.”

Uh oh.

A day after my post about the Wedding Cottage that closed down in my hometown, we had some severe storms in areas of North Texas, some of which were in Waxahachie, the hometown of my co-worker.

Yesterday she found out that not only had the storms flooded her ceremony venue, but the historic hotel, which she has already printed and sent out on her invitations, is now condemned. With eight weeks to go, she’s feeling all emotions of the rainbow and is now frantically trying to find a location that will book them last minute.

So, since I jinxed her, I felt at least obligated to get her some help. I told her I would help her in any way, so I’m going to work with her on a new card to send to her guests that will explain the situation and the move of ceremony locations. Not entirely sure what to write on a card like this, my first thought was, “I’m going to the Hive.”

Now, I’m asking you all, because you are so creative, positive and helpful, to not only send some good Karma to the future Mrs. R’s way, but also to see if you all have any great ideas as to how to word the new card. Poems, traditional and non-traditional wording, anything…we’d love to get your input.

And, if any of you are from the Waxahachie area, suggestions for locations would be greatly appreciated as well!

Wish I Could Be There

You've seen me mention my all-time favorite store in the whole world, Neiman Marcus, a few times in posts. Well, next Tuesday, April 29th, none other then Mindy Weiss will be at the Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas to have a book signing for her new book, The Wedding Book: The Big Book For Your Big Day.

(image from amazon.com)

According to D Magazine, "there will be champagne, Mindy will speak, and you can even win a Chanel clutch, courtesy of Strictlyweddings.com."

I wish I could go so bad, but the event is during the afternoon at 2:00 p.m. and with all the sick time and wedding time I've had to take off for work, it's just not meant to be :(

Let me know if any of you Dallas brides are lucky enough to attend...or even win the clutch!

A Wuvely Time

Last week, Mom H and I were fortunate enough to attend the W Hotel Wuv Event. It was exciting because we could finally see our venue setup at night, with the windows to the skyline open and wedding decor in the room. What was more exciting, was the the theme of the event was black and white! While the floral colors at our wedding will be a lot different, the arrangements were also by the same florist that we will be using, Bella Flora.


When I originally started blogging, my wedding was going to be black and white with damask added into it. After having such a hard time finding damask linens that I liked (or fabric to create anything) I gave up. At the event, however, they had damask tablecloths and pillows provided by our florist. So, we have decided to utilize this pattern for the linens that were incorporated into our contract, i.e. the cake table and pillows on the banquettes in the prefunction area!


Upon entering the room, we were offered various hors d'ouerves and either a Purple Haze, Lemontini or Pometini to drink. We tried the purple haze and pometinis and they were delish!

(Mom H enjoying her cocktail)

After getting a prime spot nearest the stage, Mom H and I enjoyed a Carolina Herrera fashion show that seriously left me thinking about a new dress altogether. While not really plausible, the dresses were amazing and it was fun to see all the different styles.

At the end of the event, while exiting, we were gifted with a big purple box and a copy of the latest Brides Magazine. When I got home I was SO excited to open the box, which included: a flower from Bella Flora, a miniature cake that was so moist and yummy, a huge Carolina Herrera candle, a ticket to another Dallas bridal show coming up, a $50 certificate to an eyewear store, some floral seeds, a social survival guide and, if I'm leaving something out, I'm sorry I forgot :(

It was the first bridal event I've attended that I really enjoyed (i.e. no vendors harassing you). I hope that some of you Dallas brides were able to make it to the event as well!

Another Item Off The List

I previously wrote about the rehearsal dinner invitations that I made for our wedding. I was only able to post the proofs that I received from Vista Print and was a little hesitant about how the printing would turn out because the proof seemed a little pixelated.

Once I received them, I was pleasantly surprised with the end result. The black is a little more faded then I would have liked, but considering the price and turnaround time, it was worth it. All in all, it was a simple process and there's something very satisfying about creating your own invitations.





The great thing about Vista Print is that they are constantly sending you coupons for discounted rated on various items. I decided that I wanted to create menus for the tables that would match the invitations, so after a couple of hours on Adobe Illustrator, I finally came up with a two-sided menu and had them printed at Vista Print as well.

This time around I noticed that they offered a linen type paper and decided to pay the few extra dollars for this feature, as it would probably look a little nicer, and it did!


I opted for Vista Print in the end because it seemed like a simple process for a relatively cheap price. I used them this week to create some simple thank-you notes for gifts that we receive before the wedding as well.

What have you all done for your printing methods? I still have some projects ahead of me and would love the tips and advice!

On a side note: I also ordered some matching stamps from Picture It Postage when I ordered the ones for our save the dates, only I apparently was not thinking straight as the postage changes come May. So, our bills have had some fancy stamps on them this month! I guess that's what happens when you get a little too excited and overzealous!

One of my worst wedding scenarios...

A couple of weeks ago, while making my long commute to work, I was listening to the news on the radio when they delivered the story that might be one of the worst wedding nightmares for a bride: a local wedding cottage, with dozens of weddings booked for the upcoming year, abruptly shuts down, leaving no trace of the owners and no explanation to the customers.



What was more surprising, for me, was that the Wedding Cottage was located in my hometown, outside of Dallas, and I had even attended a few weddings there while growing up. The Wedding Cottage was one amongst a cute little cluster of yellow cottages that, for years, had art galleries, stores, antiques, etc. I have fond memories of having tea with my mom at the tea room that once existed in the cottages. In the past ten years or so, the growing city, and need to expand the roads, has led half of the cottages to be torn down and the remaining ones not in the best of shape.

(photo from: www.chapels.com)

While it is not uncommon to have vendor changes throughout the course of planning, I couldn't even imagine having to pick up the pieces of your major location up and shutting down on you last minute. I had a hard enough time trying to pick our reception venue with over a year to plan, I can't even imagine having to find a last minute replacement for your entire wedding.

The thought of having all your hard work just *poof* disappear stresses me out just thinking about it. So much so, that, for some reason, I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking about this very story and told myself to blog about it today.


Have any of you had to face a major vendor change during your planning? What is the best way to handle a last minute "hiccup" in your wedding planning?

A Nice Surprise!

Seeing that every weekend these days is full of things to do, I sometimes forget to check my e-mail. When I opened up my inbox this morning, I received this nice surprise:

While it's not our first gift (we received a few gifts at our engagement party back in October), it is the first from a distant relative and completely unexpected at such an early date from the wedding!

As much as I would like to say I am going to wait until the box arrives, I went to check our registry and found out that this is the item that we are receiving:

We have not purchased our cake cutting knife yet so I am SO excited to receive this! It is such a generous gift and so thoughtful, especially since we will be able to use it on our wedding day. I have a feeling that every gift we receive is going to give me a warm fuzzy inside!

I don't intend on using any of my gifts until after we are married, but I decided to make a couple of exceptions for items that we can use during the wedding and/or ceremony. Did you use your gifts before you were married, or did you wait until after the big day?

It's Party Time!

Last night, Mom H met up with her lovely friends to plan a date for my first wedding shower! My mom and her friends, who like to call themselves the Ya-Yas, have traditionally given wedding and baby showers to each of their daughters/daughters-in-law in the past.



Mom H had begun to worry because no one had said anything about it yet and she was afraid they might not do one, but I knew they would so I told her to be patient. A couple of weeks ago, Mom H called to say that her friends had told her that they would like to throw me a shower! So, last night they gathered, wine glasses in hand, to plan the date for sometime in July!


I was going to possibly give the ladies homemade aprons, but have now decided to give each of them one nice item, still undecided, and this:

I couldn’t find anything more fitting then to give each of them a copy of the movie that they have so cutely named themselves after. While they haven’t known each other since they were children, they’ve known me since I was just out of diapers, so I couldn’t be more excited to have these wonderful women help me celebrate my big day!

What gifts have you all given your hosts/hostesses for your shower?

Color Blind

A while back, Miss Canary wrote about what she has faced from both her family and others about dating outside of her race. It’s always interesting for me to learn how others are dealing with stereotypes when you aren’t dating (or engaged, or married) to someone who has the same skin color as yourself.

Until Mr. Hydrangea, I had always dated white men. There was no major reason for this, it is just what I always gravitated towards. My family and I never discussed anything about me dating outside of my race because it was a non-issue. When Mr. Hydrangea (who is Hispanic) and I started dating, my parents weren’t concerned at all…at first. Boys never tended to stick around long so they didn’t think much of it. Once they knew that we were really getting serious, a few concerns came to fruition. None of these, however, had to do with the color of Mr. Hydrangea’s skin, but more about the differences in both our cultures and our upbringings.

Here are a few that we’ve had to deal with:

1) I come from a family that is more economically privileged then Mr. Hydrangeas. That being said, he never had to want for much in his life, but it wasn’t just handed to him as things sometimes were for me.
2) I have a college education and Mr. Hydrangea does not. He did get further education beyond HS, but it did not come with a 2 or 4 year diploma.
3) Mr. Hydrangea is Catholic. My family is not religious at all. My father tends to look down on the Catholic faith (and most organized religion in general) and this became a major issue when I decided to become Catholic myself.
4) Hispanic men have the stereotype of being “macho” men, controlling and jealous. This worried my mother quite a bit because I tend to be independent and do not like to be told what to do.
5) Mr. Hydrangea’s family has very traditional thoughts about raising children, whereas my family tends to be more open-minded. I think this issue sparked the most concern on both sides of our families and it has sparked a few debates between us about how we will raise our children one day, but, surprisingly, we have generally agreed on how we would like this to be done.

Truth be told, the most cultural worries have come with the wedding planning. How the ceremony will be conducted, where we are having our events, if everyone will feel comfortable with what we are doing. To this, Mr. Hydrangea and I just decided that as long as it is what we want for our wedding, then it will work out. The day is about us and our celebration of our love and how we want to share that with the important people in our lives.

I could keep going, but you get the general idea. The apprehension of your child dating outside the norm quickly fades as families tend to bond with your significant other. All in all, our parents calmed down and Mr. Hydrangea and I are very open with each other to the point that we know and share both our worries and the worries of our families. The best thing is that I don’t think that either of our families were crazy about the people we had dated in the past and both Mr. Hydrangea and I feel very lucky to get along with our FILs so well.

There are so many different cultural rants and raves that I could speak about, but these tended to be the most prevalent that have come up in discussion. How have you all dealt with your families concerns over your cultural differences?

My Lucky Day

Due to the oh so awesome post of Miss Shortcake, I've really become a little obsessed over birdcage veils. While I won't be wearing one for my wedding (my veil was purchased long ago), I have been playing around with the idea of a second dress.

I want the second outfit to be white, a little bit funky, and short, since we are most likely going to be going to a little after party shindig and I don't want to be wearing my actual wedding dress to that. While perusing Castle Bride one day, I came upon this cute little piece (called Samantha) for your hair that I thought would be just awesome for my second outfit:

It turns out that they offer a weekly giveaway for $100 off any one of their veils and yesterday was my lucky day because I was the winner! I spoke to Kirstin on the phone, who, by the way is completely personable and pretty much awesome, and she told me that I didn't have to stick with the veil that I put as my favorite. I still liked the Samantha, but I'm not a butterfly type of gal, so I asked if it was possible to customize the piece. She said yes and asked for my ideas, of which I wasn't quite sure, so we got on the website together and decided to create a piece that was still the same size as Samantha with the netting behind it, but with the flower of the Emma instead of the butterfly:

It should hopefully be here in the next couple of weeks and I'm super excited for this little detail, I'll be sure to post some pics once I receive it!

Now, I just need to find that cute, short dress. Do any of you have any good resources for short dresses at great prices??

*Pics from the Castle Bride website

Our Final Vendor

Several weeks ago, after our first bakery trial wasn't a 100% go in our book, we went to visit another. I decided to stray from the norm and I went to a local bakery that I knew made some really awesome cakes.

We arrived at Lakeview Bakery on a Friday afternoon and were happy to see some amazing samples in the show room and a comfy couch to sit on while we sampled these:


The cakes were REALLY yummy and we couldn't believe how awesome some of their cakes are.


For the bride's cake, we decided on an almond cake with a cream cheese frosting and Italian cream cake with a cream cheese frosting. We were going to try different flavors for each tier, but the owner made a good point by saying the more flavors you have, the more times your guests will want to go and try the cake, so the bigger cake you would need.

For the groom's cake we weren't totally sold on the two chocolate options they gave us, so they offered to make us another little cake of chocolate with caramel frosting to pick up the next week. We did, and we demolished the thing in one night (so fast that we couldn't even take a pic)!

The bride's cake will be 4 round tiers of white fondant with black fondant ribbon and our monogram. The groom's cake will be a 2 tiered black fondant hexagonal cake with white fondant ribbon and white monogram. The monogram is slightly different then the one on our save the dates, as it will now have our last initial as well!


The tiers on the bride's cake will be of varying heights to similar to this April Reed cake on Miss Sundae's post, only wider around:


Now all we have to do is find two cake stands that fit with our black and white theme and can hold 40lbs of weight. Does anyone have any ideas???

You Better Save It!

The date that is!

I FINALLY got my Save the Dates out the day before yesterday, hence my lack of posting this week. I went back and forth for weeks over the design, and, finally, I settled with a simple monogram and a simple Save the Date. The monogram will be constant throughout the wedding. I decided that less is more and wanted to keep it simple, classic, but still have a personal touch to all of the paper for our wedding.


I bought a vector image that I liked at istockphoto and then deleted portions I didn't want and added our first initials. Since Mr. H's first initial and my first initial spell "US" I decided to put them in that order. Most people probably won't notice, but I thought it was cute. Then I put together the Save the Date in Illustrator and finally sent them off to be letterpressed at Mercurio Brothers (they are super helpful, their prices are great and they got me everything right in the timing that they promised)!


Mom H said that she wanted the return address to be hers, and I didn't really care, so I added the monogram and put it on the back of the envelope.


Since I wasn't really thrilled with any of the stamps out there right now, I took one of our engagement photos and had stamps made from Picture It Postage. They turned out a little larger then I would have liked, but this way it adds another personal element and everyone invited can get a glimpse of one of our engagement photos.

I think that I thought this was a marathon. I received everything on Monday and by Tuesday evening I had addressed all 150 of them (aside from about 20 that we are still needing addresses from).

Off in the mail they went on Wednesday and I sent one to our house too, just to make sure that they got there (and to get an idea of when everyone else will get theirs too)!

Just like Miss Peacock said, we're now official!

I apologize that the photos are more clear, photography isn't one of my strong suits :(

Dallas Brides - Vows that Wow

I recently went to check out the rooms at The W to get an idea of how big they would be for getting ready. While there, Ann, who is helping us with our wedding, mentioned a bridal event that they would be having soon. I received an invite in the mail, but was unsure if it was open for everyone. Today, when I was checking e-mail, I saw this in my Modern Luxury weekly event newsletter:

Catch wedding fever when Dallas Brides and the W Dallas - Victory Hotel team up for a bridal blowout. Catch a Carolina Herrera fashion show, cake tasting from Delicious Cakes and mini-treatments from Bliss Spa. One lucky "blushing bride" will win a dream wedding reception and honeymoon. April 17, 7PM. 2440 Victory Park Lane, second floor, Victory Park. Send email to Kristin.walker@whotels.com to RSVP.

My mom and I will be there with bells on! If you are interested in going, please make sure to e-mail the contact above in order to save your spot for the event!

*Picture from http://www.modernluxury.com/brides/dallas

The Final Bling...errr Ring

In my previous post, or confession you might say, about my assistance in finding my own engagement ring I left you hanging with what I ended up with so....




Drum roll, please...

(Images from www.devcow.com and www.tiffany.com, respectively)

In the end, Mr. H and I became so frustrated with trying to find the three stone ring that I thought I just had to have. It seemed as though the quality we wanted (and size) just weren't fitting in our price range. We began to feel like we were dealing with used car salesmen and the whole entire ring hunt was leaving a sour taste in our mouths.

Mr. H and I decided to hold off for a few weeks, calm down from the whole fiasco and start again, fresh. We walked back into Tiffany and, funny enough, Barry, the same salesman that we had talked to months before, offered to assist us again. This was about the time that the new Tiffany Novo ring was coming out, so I thought I might want to try that one as well. I ended up trying them all, but still went back to the very first ring that I had ever placed on my finger when we began to talk about forever.

Once I decided on the ring that I really liked, the rest was up to Mr. H. I didn't know the size of the stone or quality, I left that all up to Mr. H. So, one Sunday, Mr. H and his mom made a trip to Tiffany and purchased my engagement ring. He left it up to his mom to pick between two rings, one of them having a slightly larger stone then the other. She chose the bigger one (to my excitement) and that was it!

Mr. H came home that day and showed me the pretty little bag, but wouldn't let me see it. After about three days of hearing me beg and plead to see it, he let me take a peek (and try it on). It was love at first sight.

Back into the linen closet, hidden behind all of our towels, the ring went and there it stayed for a few weeks while Mr. H rummaged up the courage to ask my dad for my hand (Mr. H is very traditional like that).

The night before Mr. H's birthday, I went out to dinner with some girlfriends and one of the girls came back to our house to hang out and drink some more wine. Mr. H was there as well, and we all just talked and hung out for a while. Well past midnight (and now into Mr. H's birthday) my friend left and, as we were heading to bed, Mr. H told me that his mom had given us something that he wanted to show me, but I had to close my eyes.

I don't know if it was because I really didn't think he had spoken to my parents, or because I'd had one to many glasses of vino, but I believe him so I sat on our bed and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Mr. H was on one knee on the side of the bed. I don't really remember much of what he said, except that he called me by my entire full name (first, middle and last) which seemed kinda funny to me. I was so ecstatic!

Mr. H said he was planning on doing it on his birthday, just not at 2 o'clock in the morning! Because neither of us are full blown romantics, it was perfect for me. Me, Mr. H, in our new home and engaged.

So there it is...the story of our hunt, our purchase and Mr. H's big question!

A couple of funny side notes:

1) When Mr. H and his mom were ring shopping, they asked if they wanted anything to drink. FMIL Hydrangea asked for a coke, which they brought to her in a champagne glass. She said it was the fanciest coke she'd ever had. I thought that was just too cute!

2) I would show you the actual pic of my ring, but Mr. H has this weird thing about people taking pictures of their rings and posting them online. So, it'll have to wait til our pro pics later on :(

The Story of My E-Ring

I realized that I never really talked much about my engagement ring to the Hive, and I feel the need to share because I was not the girl who was completely shocked when I received my ring. In fact, I knew when it was bought, where it was hidden and (this might cause a heart attack for some) I tried it on at home even before Mr. H proposed ... with his permission, of course.


Some girls are embarrassed to say that they were very involved with the process of picking out their e-ring, some are completely against being a part of that process, but for myself and Mr. H, it was the most practical thing to do. We already shared finances, so I would have noticed the depletion in our account, and we have VERY different tastes so Mr. H was nervous to go at it alone.

Since Mr. H and I had been talking marriage for quite a while before he actually got down on one knee (and he did actually bend on one knee), we would occasionally pop into a jewelry store to gaze at the rings for fun. Our first trip, in the VERY preliminary talks of marriage was to Tiffany & Co. Mainly for fun, not for serious buying, and because hey, sometimes a girl just has to go into Tiffany to oogle, gawk, stare, and, if we're lucky, try on a few bobbles. I tried on a few rings while Barry, the salesman at Tiffany's Northpark store, showed us all that they had to offer. The first ring I fell in love with was this:

(photos from www.tiffany.com)

A few months later, when the talks got more serious, we began our search again. This time we had researched our diamonds and set a budget. We decided that, while the Tiffany ring was pretty amazing, we would check out some other places because we wanted to find a better deal. We headed to Bailey Banks & Biddle and I fell in love was similar to this three stone ring:

(picture from www.diamondvue.com)

At that moment, I decided that was the ring I want. Because we still thought we could find a better price elsewhere, we headed to a local jewelry store, Nasr Bros., to see if they could create what we were looking for at a better price. We went back and forth with them to try and recreate the ring that I loved oh so much at BB&B.

So what did I end up with? Stay tuned for the full and final story of my e-ring ... the search, the purchase and the big question!

Any other girls out there have as much help (and fun) in the e-ring search as I did?