Family

With so many options out there for creative guestbooks, it’s easy to fall into option overload and not be able to decide. This is where having a theme or overriding idea can really help narrow the options to the ones that really drive that home. In our case, I was looking for something easy to sign and collect that suited our vineyard theme. It’s not exactly a big leap to corks, now is it? Recycled corks / Image via Amazon Depending on the size of your wedding, your drinking habits (and those of your friends and family), and how much time you’ve got it’s not unreasonable to collect all the corks yourself. Of course, as the wine industry goes to synthetic corks and screw-top bottles for various reasons that might get a little tougher, so lucky for us that plenty of places sell both used and unused corks. Now, having crafted with corks before, I think it might be easier for folks to sign fresh corks as opposed to used ones that might be brittle or uneven in shape. We’ve got quite a collection already going, but there’s also a home-brew shop just down the road that sells fresh corks by the bag-full for not very much cash. That’s good no matter how you slice it. Corks on their own will roll around if not corralled, so the next decision was how to hold them—both before and after signing. Image via Replacements.com For before, a bowl or vase with a large opening works best, allowing for people to easily reach in and grab one without too much fuss. Several years ago I was gifted a lovely Block Tulip Garden crystal vase that I think will fit the bill nicely. Image via Winestuff.com Once signed, the corks will go into this wire cork cage shaped like a wine bottle. Mr. Road Trip actually gifted me (us) this for our first engaged Christmas, so it’s been sitting patiently in its box for over a year now, waiting for its day in the spotlight. Add a couple of fine-point permanent markers (possibly painted or beribboned to dress it up a bit) and a sign and you’ve got our guestbook. We could just leave the corks in their cage and set the whole kit and caboodle on the mantle or some place and let it collect dust. Or we could use the signed corks to build a frame around one of our wedding photos in a shadowbox. In other words, I’ll have my wine-themed, semi-unique guestbook and my displayable photo mat all at one go! How did you solve your guestbook dilemma?

Reading online is very unlike reading a real book or even a magazine, with readers barraged with graphics, menus, and advertisements at every turn. But there are numerous browser plug-ins to strip websites of extraneous elements and even push these filtered easy-to-read editions to mobile devices for reading later. Here are a few ways to make reading on the Kindle, Android tablet, or iPad a less distracting experience... More

Amber is selling a Cara Mia all lace wedding gown. She is asking $875 for the size-2 dress. Have a wedding item for sale? Post it with pictures in the Weddingbee Classifieds, and you might see it featured on the blog! Other great items for sale: 47 flameless tea candles, asking $20 Green hydrangea silk flowers, asking $150 Bill Levkoff navy bridesmaids’ dresses, sizes 2 through 6, asking $120 each 300 black and 140 white chair sashes, asking $0.55 each

Swapping vows amongst the beauty of Belgium sounds like the perfect plan in my book. And that, my dears, is precisely what these New Yorkers did. With Stoffer Photography by their side, they managed to pull off one of the dreamiest “I dos” EVER (did I mention the ceremony was held at a 10th century castle??) It’s woodland whimsy meets European charm, and it’s all waiting right here. ColorsSeasonsSpringSummerSettingsCastleStylesDestinationRomantic From Stoffer Photography….Jordan and Chloe are two beautiful New York souls that invited us to document their wedding in Bouillon, Belgium. Chloe’s sweet Belgian relatives invited us all to stay in family owned bed and breakfasts nestled at the foot of the hill where the tenth century castle topped and the ceremony was held. We then drove to a breathtaking lake property where we celebrated. Simple, handmade florals that were picked during the week covered the tables and local Belgian beers were served. While every detail was perfect, it was the intimate and selfless love that the family and friends displayed throughout the week that was most beautiful to see. Photography: Stoffer Photography | Floral Design + Decor: Samantha Sleeper | Ceremony + Reception Venue: Château de Bouillon | Hair: Mikaela Blumberg, friend of bride | Music: Colin Killalea + Robby Sinclair (of Yost) | Wedding Dress + Bridesmaid Dresses: J.Crew | Groomsmen Suits: Theory | Jewelry: Made by the Bride | Shoes: Badgley Mischka © Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2013. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Post categories: Destination, Real Weddings, Romantic

Kendra & Justin celebrated their marriage with a four-day destination affair in Mount Washington, New Hampshire. ~~~ The Details Bride’s Name: Kendra Groom’s Name: Justin Venue(s): Omni Mount Washington, NH Wedding Date: Sept 2, 2012 Bridal Gown Designer: Maggie Sottero from I Do Bridal in Seattle Florist: Sara, Omni Mt. Washington Photographer: Kim Chapman Videographer: Elena of Lobster Wedding Cake: Candy buffet and mini desserts Wedding Coordinator: Kerra Lynch Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Mori Lee Honeymoon: Southern Caribbean with Carnival Cruise Lines The Story Our theme was “Elegance” and our colors were black, ivory, and charcoal gray. We had 21 people in our wedding party—so much fun. All nine bridesmaids wore dresses by Mori Lee, each in the style she wanted. I coordinated their jewelry. We had three days of events planned including bach parties Friday night, golf/rehearsal & karaoke on Saturday, and then the wedding Sunday. Everything about the week was perfect including the weather. We called it a total love fest. I actually have started planning weddings since I had so much fun and success with mine. Most Memorable Moment Marrying the love of my life of course was number one. Our wedding was a four-day affair and no one wanted it to end! It was a destination wedding and people came from all over the US and Canada—it was a love fest. We had the best group on the planet with us that week! I would do it all again in a second, if my husband would let me! Would You Have Done Anything Differently? I would have started earlier so that we would have had more time to party with everyone and celebrate. Advice for Future Brides Be sure and give yourself enough to time do EVERYTHING and take small moments to “take it all in” because it will be over before you know it. ~~~ Want to see your wedding featured on Weddingbee? If you had a fun, unique wedding, we’d love to feature you! Check out our Real Weddings submissions page.

I am very excited to be invited back to share another round of my summer camp. There are big changes since last summer’s camp! My camp has since grown to include the younger siblings of our original campers, since they all have younger siblings now! How fun to have another group of littles come and enjoy some stories, songs and snacks! While I was planning for the younger kids version of camp I was astonished to realize just how young Dominic and his friends were when we hosted the first camp session. Dominic was a mere 20 months old and he was the oldest!! In my eyes my little lady is still a baby and yet she was the same age as her big brother when we started. Crazy!! This time around since the older siblings are out of school for the summer and as I am needing a routine desperately to get me through the long summer days, I came up with a special “Siblings” version of camp, wherein the campers are siblings who must work together to complete a project and/or craft. I revamped the structure of the camp so that we have a two hour camp every Thursday of summer. Each week the theme will change and campers will be able to pick and choose which week to attend. I have some really fun themes planned so far. The first theme of our siblings camp was “Summertime!” Siblings joined together to hear stories about summertime, we sang special summertime songs and danced and then we headed to the kitchen table to work on our artwork! I found this idea on Pinterest (surprise!!) and instantly knew that I HAD TO DO IT!! It will be such a special keepsake one day and I have already hung it proudly in our playroom for all to see. Here is how we did it: 1. Get your cute older sibling assistant to paint your canvas the background color. The beauty of this is that you can use any color scheme you’d like! We chose white, baby blue and two shades of yellow, one a little lighter than the other. 2. Next use your handy dandy Disney princess hair dryer to expedite the drying process. Little sister was more than happy to help with this step. 3. Now it is on to your sun: we chose the darker yellow for the large sun circle. I painted the outline and had big brother paint in the inside. 4. For this next step you need one sibling at a time. I utilized big brother first and had him sit on the floor while sister and I painted the bottom of his left foot. Both kids LOVED this step! Big brother loved the tickles and little sister loved making big brother laugh! Win-win!! Once his foot was coated well, we had him place his foot on the canvas and I pressed on the backside to ensure it transferred completely. 5. Repeat this step several times, staggering the footprints about 6″ around the large yellow circle. 6. Now it is time for little sibling to get tickled. 7. Press their foot in the spaces between big siblings footprints. Allow time to dry!! 8. Using the blue paint I then swirled the paint in circles until I had a pretty good cloud shape. Big brother helped me with this step. Again it was time to dry. 9. Lastly I used white letter stickers to spell out “You Are My Sunshine”. I traced around them with a black permanent scrapbooking pen and removed the stickers. I liked the way it looked better, but you could always go in and paint the letters, too. 10. My last step, as with any artwork we make, was to put their names around the cloud to make an outline. At the very edge of the canvas I put the date. This is such an easy and CUTE, UNIQUE piece of art that your siblings can cooperate on together. Since we have a 2 and 4 year old this was an important concept for me to focus on right now. I hope that you will try this with your own little ones this summer!!” Jolea Broome The Friendship Odyssey We are hosting Summer Camp Mon- Fri June 3rd to July 3rd (weekends will be for our regular posts). We are featuring awesome “Camp Counselors” (blogging friends) who ha

It’s not every morning that you begin your day on LIVE TV. Angela Ganote and the Fox59 Morning Crew reached out to feature KidVentures on air, and we were happy to bring the whole fam!  Live television usually comes with some anxieties for me. I work better with lots of tries, but I was pretty pleased with how it all turned out. {Biggest self critic}  The boys did amazing (minus Henry chewing on the stick)– they love the opportunity to ham it up with the camera guys. Overall, I love talking about one of my passions, getting kids outdoors, with any listener, so it was great to give some ideas and encouragement as well as give the book a shout-out! Have you got a copy of KidVentures yet via PDF, Kindle, or Nook?  What do you think?!!!! I’d love to hear your feedback!

Lara and Steve put together a gorgeous Minnesota Flower Farm wedding that we had featured earlier here. They were kind enough to share all of the details of their budget with us. It’s nice to see that they were able to have such a beautiful celebration with such a smart budget! Budget Breakdown: Venue & Rentals: $5000 Florals: $1375 Food: $1875 Photographer: $2500 Drinks: $875 Stationery: $1250 Dress: $625 From the bride, Lara: I would recommend every vendor we used. We definitely splurged on our wedding site because we felt like it was the most perfect place to have our wedding and we were willing to spend less for other details. We did our own invitations and programs. We also did a buffet, picnic-style dinner that included compostable dinnerware. We also tapped people we knew to help out with details like the music and my hair. I would say a photographer is a priority because it’s one of the only things that lasts beyond your wedding day itself and a bad photographer can really feel like it puts a damper on your special day. Our “splurge”: Our wedding would have truly been a budget wedding had it not have been for our location. Our location, Camrose Hill Farm, was to be used for both the ceremony and reception, but having our wedding there meant we had to also rent the semi-permanent tent erected there, provide our own rentals (chairs, tables, speaker), and use the owner of the farm as our florist. These costs added considerably to our budget, but we feel it was money well spent. Cost cutting tips: - Ordering food for ten less people with our final count for our caterer. - Ask around for people you know that might have things you can use or borrow. - We had 2 iPods we could switch between for the music which saved us money for the dance. - Choose only 2 or 3 details that you want to add for a personal touch. View all images from this wedding in the gallery Wedding Location: Stillwater, MN / Wedding Photographer: Jeff Loves Jessica Photography / Wedding Venue and Flowers: Camrose Hill / Wedding Dress: Sue Wong / Bride’s Hair: Samantha Palumbo / Bridesmaid’s Dress: BCBG / Groom’s Outfit: Reyn Spooner / Wedding Caterer: Divine Swine / Ice Cream Dessert: Sebastian Joe’s / Wedding Invitations: Mara Mi © Ruffled, 2013. | %%postname%% | One comment | Posted under: Budget Weddings | Topics: farm, jeff loves jessica, Minnesota

Name: Dean, 2Location: Nashville, TN Dean, my youngest, turned two in April. Like most two year olds, he loooooves to dance. We figured it only made sense to give him a dance party for his birthday celebration!  More

Bouquet Inspiration Photo:  Emily Steffen {Brandy’s Request} My wedding is October 12, 2013. My bridesmaid dresses are Claret. It’s a Fall wedding…I was thinking maybe white flowers with Claret baby breath for the girls and Claret flowers with white baby breath for me.. or maybe some orange or some Fall colors. {Brandy’s Bouquet Details} This lush bouquet via Le Magnifique is recreated with Red Dahlias & Red Berry Sprays, White Garden & Bud Roses & Ranunculus, Eggplant Calla Lilies, Lecosda Berry Sprays, and Seeded Eucalyptus Greenery.  Happy Planning, Mindy Red & White Dahlia and Rose Bridesmaid Bouquet with Berries via Weddingbee