My first DIY!

I love pomanders. And I have two cute girls in my wedding, so I knew I had to make pomanders for them to carry. I looked forever online to find daisies that weren't super expensive. I ended up getting these from Save On Crafts for $5.99 for 72 flowers. I really liked the ones from Save On Crafts because they had detachable heads and I had no desire to cut all the flowers off the stems. I ordered two bunches to use on the two pomanders and a flower R that I want to do for our reception.

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Once they came, I made a trip to Michaels and managed to find the cutest yellow polka dot ribbon in the $1 bin! My roommate Amanda and I actually took every spool of ribbon out of that bin trying to find another polka dot one, but had no luck. I also picked up one four inch styrofoam ball and one three inch styrofoam ball. My flower girl will be 4 and my junior bridesmaid will be 9, so I wanted them to have different size pomanders.

As soon as I got home from Michaels, I busted out the glue gun. I followed this tutorial, so I won't repeat all the instructions but I did modify a few things. I put the ribbon in the styrofoam ball before attaching the flowers. To do this, I cut the ribbon to the size loop I wanted, then I knotted the end. I used a screw driver to make a hole in the top of the ball, filled it with hot glue and then stuck the knot in. After I put the ribbon on, I just took each daisy, stuck it in the styrofoam ball to make a hole, then removed the daisy, filled the hole with glue, and the stuck the daisy back in. I kept doing that until the entire ball was covered. My roommate Amanda then tied the bows and we hot glued them at the base of the ribbon handle. I think I used a little over one bunch of daisies to do both pomanders and it took me maybe 20 minutes. Here is the finished product!!

(Personal picture)

Entering A New Year With Hope

We found out a couple weeks ago that our ceremony location will be closed for construction :'( At first, I could not even imagine getting married somewhere else. I have always wanted to get married at Wayah Bald and it just seemed like it wouldn't be as special to get married anywhere else. My mom seemed pretty optimistic that we could find somewhere else. I think I spend most of the next week researching any location that had a good view in Franklin, NC. The problem was that I really wanted to see them all in person and Will and I would only be in Franklin for 3 days over Christmas. We were able to have an extra 4 days in Franklin the week before Christmas due to a funeral, so we spent a lot of that time looking at locations. I came away from that trip feeling hopeless. Nothing we had seen had given me a good feeling and no one really had the same amazing views of Wayah.

My mom and grandmother have been asking all of their friends for recommendations on places to get married. One of the ladies from church suggested St. John's Episcopal Church. At first, I was really sceptical because I had no desire to get married indoors. Will and I stopped by on Christmas day and I almost started crying, it was so perfect. St. John's has an outdoor santuary with benches (I'm dying to have benches!) and chapel was so cute. There was even a bell we could ring!!

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We left there feeling great about the wedding. I called the church first thing on Monday morning but it wasn't until Wednesday that I heard back from the minister. Unfortunetly, they don't let you get married there unless you are Episcopal or have a family member that attends, so that is now out. Back to the search!

Even with all the setbacks, I've feeling really hopeful for 2010. Will and I will at least get married and it will hopefully be in an amazing place surronded with all our family and friends.

My Inspiration Board!

All this talk about the reception inspiration got me thinking that I should post the inspiration board I created for the whole wedding vibe.

This Is Where I Try To Obtain French Vintage Flair!

If you know me, you know I love anything French! So for my wedding, I will grab on to anything that seems French and try to incorporate it. I already had a loose vision of what I wanted the reception to look like, then I saw these pictures in the Utterly Engaged e-zine and loved them! They totally say French to me and they also fit into the look I was already going for for the reception.

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 I love the table linens, I love the milk glass vases, I love the flowers, I love the cake stands, I love the wooden chairs, I love everything! I've already found a bunch of milk glass vases to use and will be filling them with an assortment of flowers, including lots and lots of dahlias!

Here are some of the mockups:

I know I will definitely have long tables instead of round, which actually saves money since we can borrow them from my mom's church. It looks like we might be getting chairs from there as well, so instead of wooden they will be metal. Now I just need to find some table linens that have a similar feel to the ones in the pictures from Utterly Engaged, I just think they look so much better than normal wedding linens!

Big Lots Wedding

Sometimes I feel like my wedding is becoming a Big Lots wedding. My mom has found so many decorations and paper goods there! Everything we bought there has been Martha Stewart and has been $2 per item. We were able to get all the invitations, response cards and envelopes for...$8! Yes, 140 invitations, envelopes and response cards for under $10. I had already planned on printing them myself and the paper we got is cute.

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We also got Thank You notes in the eyelet pattern and in a daisy pattern. Big Lots also provided 25 strings of battery powered eyelet lanterns, that will be used at our reception, daisy hearts, daisy chains, daisy place cards, daisy favor boxes and sticker daisies. We don't yet know how we will use all of the items, but I feel like we got a major deal and were able to get almost all the reception decorations.

Here is a picture of the lanterns:

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Here is a picture of the different daisy products:

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Thank you Big Lots!!

Florist- Take One

Will, Will's parents and I down to the mountains on labor day weekend so we could see what the site was like at the same time of year as the wedding. Will's parents had never been to Franklin before, so we also wanted to show it to them. Will and I stayed the whole week so we could do some planning and meet with some vendors. One of the meeting we had while we were there was with meet with a potential florist, April at East Side Florists.

I had already decided to do the centerpieces with the help of my family, so we were only looking to get bouquets and bouttonniers.

I decided I wanted all yellow for my bouquet and I have completely fallen in love with dahlias and billy buttons, so I'm hoping to incorporate both:

Something like this but in all yellow

For the bridesmaids, I wanted all white with pops of yellow since their dresses would be yellow:

This is exactly what I want, but as a bouquet.

Will had one request when it came to flowers, he wanted a sunflower and he only wanted one sunflower:

For the groomsmen, I thought these would be perfect to coordinate with the bridesmaids:

I found the cutest billy button bouttonniere and decided it would be perfect for the dad's and minister:

Finally, for the mothers, grandmother and female minister, daisies:

April seemed pretty optimistic about these choices and finding all the flowers. I had high hopes that she would come in under budget. But then, 3 months went by and we still haven't heard back from her with a price estimate. I even called the store trying to talk to her and she was out.

Take A Pictcah!

That is what Will's brother Graham used to say when he was little and was playing with his toy camera. Now, everytime I think about pictures, I can picture little Grahamy saying "Take a pictcah"

The first vendor we booked was our photographer. Photography was really important to both of us and I didn't want to wait in case our first choice got booked. I didn't really find anyone in the Asheville area that had the style I was looking for, so I decided any travel fees would be worth it. I wanted someone who took great pictures but had more of a candid feel instead of all posed pictures. I was also drawn to photographers that had really bright colors in their pictures. What was also really important to me was that whatever package we chose included a second shooter, all our images on a DVD with printing rights, and an engagement session.

We narrowed the list down to Frank Jin from Winston Salem, Sarah Seay from Raleigh and White Box Weddings from Greensboro. We met with Frank Jin first. We both really liked him and he seemed really knowledgeable about cameras and photography. His packages included everything we were looking for and for a good price. Later the same day, we meet with Sarah Seay. She was also so nice and had brought a lot of albums to show us some of the weddings she had shot. I wasn't at all interested in an album, but after seeing the ones she brought, we both decided we had to have one! Even with the album, we were able to get everything we wanted in our package within our budget. After meeting with Sarah, we both decided that it wasn't necessary to even meet with White Box Weddings (their lowest package was out of our budget and didn't include everything we wanted) even though I loved their style. We booked Sarah the next week and are so excited to have her shoot our wedding!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Sarah Seay (source for all):

A Ranger Station For My Ranger

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Originally, I liked the idea of having it at my parent's house in their backyard on the side of the mountain. The main problem was that they didn't have a house in Franklin, and we weren't sure if they were going to have one by the time I got married. Currently, they still haven't started building a house, so we decided to figure out other options. My mom suggested Wilson Lick Ranger Station, which is also located on Wayah Bald and about 3 miles from the tower. After I saw pictures, I loved the idea. Add in that my fiance works for the Park Service, and it seemed perfect. We were able to get our permit for the tower to also apply to Wilson Lick. And then we had the ceremony and reception reserved, not to mention both cost $0!!

The challenge was figuring out how to get everyone from the tower to Wilson Lick. While the tower has parking for about 30 cars, Wilson Lick's parking lot can only hold 3 cars. And the fact that we will have no electricity at either location.

Mountaintop View

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As soon as we were engaged, actually since I was about 12, I knew I wanted to get married in Franklin, NC. My grandmother lives there, along with a lot of grand aunts and uncles, my parents are in the process of moving there and its where we spent a lot of our vacation growing up. My family lives on Wayah Mountain, which has a great old fire lookout tower on top, so I knew that was the spot.

Prior to getting engaged, I had already looked into what it takes to reserve Wayah Bald. Its a national park, so although I won't have sole rights to the location on our date, I did need a permit. In case anyone else out there is trying to get married in a national park, you need a permit if you are going to have more than 75 people present. You need to fill out an application and take it to your local forest office. Here is a description of the process. This actually went surprisingly well. My mom took the form and we were approved immediately!

A Late Start

I've decided to start this blog a little late in the game. I've already been engaged for 6 months and have done some planning and DIYing.... BUT I feel there is definitely a lack of resources for brides getting married in Western Carolina, so I want to document for planning.