Inspiration from the Bride of Frankenstein

Based on the title of this post you're probably thinking: where is this going? Good question. As I've mentioned a few times, I've been doing a lot of Halloween costume brainstorming. I also love inspiration boards and wanted to start making more of my own. In the spirit of Halloween and bringing back Wedding Wednesdays...here is my first inspiration board. 

{photos via Martha Stewart, Better Homes and Gardens, My Expressions, Hostess with the Mostess and Spirit Halloween}

My first thought was, how fun would it be, as newly weds, to dress up as the Bride of Frankenstein (BOF) and Frankenstein. If you don't plan to save your dress for years to come, this would be a fun time to re-wear it. A dress could also be found at a thrift shop or easily constructed with white material and a sewing machine. Unless you have jet black hair and are handy with the blow-dryer and aqua net, I'd recommend splurging for a $13 BOF wig! 

Frankenstein's costume could be constructed very easily as well. Black pants, long sleeve black shirt and an over-sized dark gray suit jacket (hello, thrift store!). For added bulky monster affect, add shoulder pads to the inside of the jacket. A little green face paint and monster accessories and ta-da: Frankenstein! 

As I started looking around at pictures, my creativity grew. Why stop at costumes when you could have a whole Frankenstein inspired monster bash? The party could be a Halloween party, or as seen in the lower left corner, an engagement party! Whether your party is along the lines of mad scientists laboratory or haunted mansion, you could incorporate wedding elements to the theme. After all, you are dressed as a monster bride and groom! 

No matter what kind of party you throw, there are tons of ideas and resources for hosting your own monster bash. I recommend starting your search here, here and/or here. 

Stephanie & Mark's Wedding

Stephanie and I met about five years ago at work. We quickly became friends outside of work and had many adventures planning parties, helping with friends’ weddings, running races, ski trips, concerts, volunteering and camping trips. We also share a passion of organizing things - just for fun, watching the Today show, bad reality tv shows and laughing at each others good and bad jokes!

Fast forward to the 2010, Stephanie met the man of her dreams (via match.com): athletic, an early riser, traveled the world, is good at planning, likes to ski, has a great job that he loves. Before too long they were engaged and planning a summer wedding. 

While I was home for the holidays, Stephanie asked me to be her maid of honor. As her only attendant it was a huge honor. Regardless of my official role in the wedding, as soon as they were engaged I started helping them plan the big day. Throughout the whole process, it was fun to see Stephanie and Mark collaborate in the planning. The day truly reflected the two of them and was such a fun party.

The Sikora's ~ July 9
Venue: Boettcher Mansion
Golden, CO
The couple: Stephanie & Mark
Colors: Fuchsia, lime green and black
Themes: Damask, Classy, Outdoor Wedding
Highlights:

This is my favorite photo of the couple - gorgeous! 

Who doesn't go for a mountain bike ride after they get hitched?

We bought our dresses separately but ended up having the same neckline and ruching so we were well coordinated!

This is one of my favorite moments from their special day. Right before they walked down the aisle, the Father of the Bride pulled out his camera and took a self portrait! I love that the photographer captured it too.

Stephanie and I wore the same shoes. It was so fun to be coordinated with her! I'm a huge fan of brides wearing bright colored shoes. I think it's such a nice pop of color, as you can see here.

The guys had coordinating socks too!

Stephanie and I made all of the candle holders and centerpiece vases the month before the wedding. The day before the wedding I arranged the centerpieces (dahlias), which were ordered from an online wholesale florist.

One of their 'splurge' items for the reception was a photo booth. It was so.much.fun. Pictured here are my brother and mom modeling some of the photo booth props.

A tribute to their love of skiing and a fun addition to the party were the ski shots. These were made by the Father of the Bride. Seen here with the sister of the groom - great photo!

Wedding party does the ski shot

Stephanie surprised Mark with a cake highlighting all the places he's traveled across the globe. Cake was made by the fabulous Miss Kaci!

It truly was an honor to be part of your special day, Stephanie & Mark! 

Thank you for letting me share the details here.

Ryan & Kara's Wedding

In June we traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota (through Denver and Omaha...there are no direct flights) to attend Ryan and Kara's special day. Brian was a groomsman in the wedding. He and Ryan worked together in Des Moines when they were both fresh out of college. I can see why they're friends, both great mid-western, Iowa Hawkeye loving guys with a good sense of humor. 
Ryan and Kara came to visit us in California in the spring of 2009. They spent a few days in SF, Napa, Tahoe and Sacramento. We knew Ryan was going to propose and kept secretly wondering if he'd do it on their trip. No such luck, but we did pull the secret engagement plans out of him. A few short months later Ryan surprised Kara with an engagement in Las Vegas. On a private viewing deck of the Bellagio, during a fountain show he'd chosen the song for, he proposed. 
The Horn's ~ June 19
Venue: Sioux Falls Convention Center
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
The couple: Kara & Ryan
Colors: Black, Silver and sparkle!
Highlights:

- The ceremony was in the afternoon at the church Kara's family attends. It was beautifully short and sweet. After the ceremony all the guests went outside and were given noise makers and ribbon wands. After a few pictures in the church, the new Mr and Mrs Horn ran out to their party bus through the cheering and ribbons.

- The wedding party and their dates took a party bus from the ceremony to the reception. On the way we made a pit stop to get a few pictures and have a quick drink in downtown Sioux Falls. My favorite part of this detail was that Kara made sure all the 'dates' were part of the group on the party bus. She had a shuttle pick us up from the hotel and take us to the ceremony so no cars would be left. That little extra coordination meant a lot to this date :) 

Celebrating on the party bus - CHEERS!

We were all given relationship/marriage themed koozies. Mine says "I'm not stubborn, my way is just better"

The wedding party

Groomsmen leap!

As we walked into the large reception room, we were greeted by these two ice sculptures. One of the things Kara and Ryan agree-to-disagree on is their college football loyalties. Kara (and her entire family) are Iowa State fans. Ryan is an Iowa fan. There were a lot of jokes on this subject throughout the weekend.

Cy the Cyclone (Iowa State)

Herky the  Hawkeye (Iowa)

Their wedding cake (not pictured) was very unique! They had a beautiful 4 tiered cake, that was decorated styrofoam. The very top layer was real cake for the purpose of "cutting the cake". Guests were served cake slices from the catering staff. Great way to have an elegant looking cake for less money (and way faster for the catering staff to serve!). 

Kara and Ryan hired a DJ/piano player who they knew from a Des Moines piano bar. He was a great pianist, entertainer and emcee. He played a great mix of dance music, piano/sing-along-songs, some strictly piano, and even took requests

Ryan, groomsmen and friends serenading Kara

My very favorite detail were the gifts for the attendants. Each groomsman received a bottle of their favorite liquor, with an engraved thank you as well as an engraved glass. Brian got Maker's Mark with a high ball glass. 

The bridesmaids received their favorite liquor and 2 corresponding Tiffany's glasses. 

Classy and useful gift!

Thank you to Kara and Ryan for inviting us to your special day - we had a blast!!

Completely unrelated to the wedding, but worth posting is this picture. A horse and wagon we passed on the road near Kara and Ryan's house! 

A long overdue 2009 Wedding Season recap!

Weidner, Taber, Teuber and Krueger. Sounds like the guest list at an Oktoberfest party, but actually those are the fabulous weddings we attended last summer. All four of the brides are my friends from college and all sorority sisters. It was pretty crazy that three of the four weddings were all within a month of each other too. The same month I also helped plan a wedding. Although it was very busy, I loved being a part of all the pre-wedding celebrations as well as attending their special days.


My favorite part of a wedding are the details. Everyone has a wedding, but the details are what make it a wedding a couples very own special day! Seeing four of my good friends well planned and highly detailed weddings was spectacular. Each one of them had unique and similar aspects, all of which were completely true to their style. Not only did they make a beautiful bride, they planned an awesome party! Here are some of my favorite highlights and a few photos from each wedding.


The Weidner's ~ May 3
Venue: Maravilla Gardens
Camarillo, California
The couple: Marisa & Eric
Theme: Garden, Shabby chic
Colors: Black, pale pink, pale green accents 
Highlights:
- Their love story was a major part of their ceremony - details of their meeting, dating and engagement were woven into the traditional ceremony. 
- The Maid of Honor, Bri, sang their first dance song as well as two others during the reception.
- 60 seconds into their first dance, all the attendants joined Marisa and Eric on the dance floor to finish off the song.
- The venue was GORGEOUS! Ceremony, cocktail reception and dinner/dancing were all in different areas. I love when an event transitions into different spaces. 
- In lieu of a gift, Marisa and Eric made a donation to two charities close to their hearts. 

My favorite shot of the couple. I love their difference in height and the way they're looking at each other - so sweet! 

One of my favorite details were the programs. Marisa designed them herself and had them printed and cut to size. She then spruced them up with a jewel and satin ribbon. 

I am a sucker for wedding programs, especially cute ones! I love to know who is the in wedding party, what the songs are played and the sequence of events, especially during long ceremonies.

Being part of Marisa's bridal party was a BLAST! It was a really fun group of ladies including her sister, friends from high school and friends from college - 6 out of 8 are Thetas! . Marisa also pampered us with spa pedicures, jewelry and tote bags for all our stuff.

CU Thetas

The Taber's ~ May 24
Minneapolis, MN
The couple: Rachel & Bret
Theme: Garden + Elegant
Highlights:
- Rachel made their ceremony programs to look like a library book (they both read a lot). The cover of the book had their wedding date and a childhood photo of Bret and Rachel. The 'check out' card was a timeline of their dating, engagement, ect. The 'chapters' outlined the ceremony. The 'characters' were their family and attendants. The back of the book was used for thank you's. 
 - Bret is a huge Beatles fan so many of their songs were classic Beatles tunes. 

- When you walked into the reception, the place-cards were on sticks in 3 inch grass. I unfortunately don't have a picture, but it looks like a table of grass with place-cards delicately arranged on top. 

- Father of the Bride speech was really sweet. He talked about how much he loved his daughter and his new son-in-law. Even if you didn't know them very well, you could tell that every single word was true. 

- Old fashion photo booth as a guest book. Really fun to make pictures just for them, and also a few for ourselves to take home! I've looked through her guestbook recently and its hilarious to see the progression of photos over the night...

My favorite shot of the couple. I love how you can see their reflection in the floor. This was taken during their first dance! I also love how this picture shows Rachel's dress bustled, such a gorgeous dress! 

The wedding cake was out of this world. A 6 tiered garden/grass theme cake. Topped with bride and groom bees. Another highlight (not pictured) was a red cardinal in honor of Bret's deceased step father. He always said he wanted to come back as a red cardinal. It was an awesome way to honor him at their wedding!

Their band was an all 80's cover band called the Spazmatics. So. much. fun.


The Teuber's ~ June 6
Venue: Calamigos Equestrian Center 
Los Angeles, California 
The couple: Lisa & Doug 
Theme: Shabby chic 
Colors: Navy blue, Cream, Pale Pink 
Highlights:

- Lisa's sweet family was all part of the wedding: Sister-in-law was a Maid of Honor, nephew was ring bearer and twin nieces were flower girls...too young to walk or carry flowers, they were walked down the aisle by Lisa's brother. 

- The ceremony and reception were in different areas of the venue. It threatened to rain, but thankfully never did! The venue is where the polo scene in Pretty Woman was filmed. 
- Every detail was very well coordinated. All of the paper products (invites, programs, labels, placecards, ect) were made by Lisa and purchased at Paper Source (Doug said the PS employees even knew who he was). I love a good DIY wedding!  
- During dinner they played a slide show (which I always love) At the end of all their pictures, they had the wedding portraits from their grandparents, parents and all the wedding guests (well, the ones who were married). 

My favorite shot of the couple - their first glance before the ceremony. So sweet!

Their wedding favors were personalized bottles of Jones Soda. In addition to the photo on the bottle, Lisa made tags with a T and tied them on with a bow. Very cute!

After the ceremony, Lisa and friends had a fun photo shoot around the stables. She brought cowboy boots for us all to wear! Pictured here with her MOHs. 

My favorite picture - the ring bearer (and shortest guy at the wedding), Ethan, and Eric Wiedner (tallest guy at the wedding) doing the sprinkler on the dance floor. 


The Kreuger's ~ September 9 
Venue: The Peaks Resort 

Telluride, Colorado 
The couple: Chelsea & Trevor

Theme: Contemporary + Outdoorsy 

Colors: Chocolate, Raspberry and Tangerine

Highlights:

- Location, location, location! Everyone had to fly and/or drive to the wedding but it was 100% worth the trek. Telluride is such a charming town to visit. All guests stayed at the Peaks Resort in Mountain Village, a short gondola ride to downtown Telluride. 

- Chelsea was extremely organized! Her lists and spreadsheets saved her a lot of headaches, money off their total bill, and gave her the ability to relax after items were all crossed off. 

- All of the paper items (save the date, invitations, programs, welcome bag letters, signs, ect) matched perfectly. With the help of a graphic designer, Chelsea branded these paper items with the same colors, flower design, c & t, their wedding date, even used the same paper and font.

- The same design was used to make Telluride stainless steel water bottles for all of the bridesmaids. I love mine and use it all the time!
- Chelsea's younger brother Greyson, who'd passed away a year before the wedding, was mentioned in their ceremony and in several of the speeches. Chelsea also had one of his beloved swords tied into the base of her bouquet. There is no doubt he was there in spirit that day!
- Immediately after the ceremony, guests were handed a glass of champagne. Chelsea and Trevor gave a toast/thank you to all of their guests and a huge group photo was taken.
- The wedding favor was a bag of fresh Durango roasted coffee (with a cute matching label, of course!).
- The last song of the night was Exitlude by the Killers. This was especially fun because B and I had attended the concert a few months earlier with the Kruegers!

Chelsea and Trevor saw each other before the wedding, but had their first glance at the spot in town where Trevor proposed. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate so well and it was a total down-pour. Through it all they were both SO CALM as was their photographer! And it was worth the trip into town because they got this STUNNING photo (my favorite) and many others. 

Another favorite. They are two of the funniest people I know!

For their guestbook they had these two handsome characters take Polariods of guests (or people could do a self-portrait) that were then made into a scrapbook page. Fun and a much cheaper alternative to a photo booth.

This was my very favorite detail! A timeline of Chelsea and Trevor's relationship and the places they'd traveled together. It was also their seating chart! Each date had a picture, the location name, which distinguished the different tables and the guests to be seated there. It was a unique alternative to placecards!

CU Thetas!

I love you, friends! Thank you for letting me be part of your special days and reliving them here. 

*******

Join me next Wednesday (for real) as I share the details of our first wedding of 2010, the Horns!

Wedding Wednesdays

A few months ago Brian and I attended a wedding reception for one of his former co-workers. At the reception I talked with the bride about all the details of her wedding, which was a small family-only beach wedding a few weeks prior. During her planning I helped her with a few ideas, so she was more than happy to share all the final details with me. Later that night Brian was mentioning the trips we'll be taking this summer...Sioux Falls, Denver, Chicago. "For vacation?" she asked. No, for weddings. That's when she chuckled and said..."you guys are wedding people." We kind of laughed because that sounds funny...do wedding people hang out with wedding crashers and wedding singers? The more I thought about it, I understood why she would say that.

For any one who may not know, Brian and I met at a wedding in Minneapolis. It was almost three years ago, June 15. My mom and I attend the wedding as guests of the bride, Laura. I've known Laura all my life, although mostly through Christmas letters and mom gossip. Our moms are the connection - they worked together around the time we were born so Laura and I only hung out a lot as youngsters until her family moved to MN. My mom invited me to be her date for the wedding. I had never been to Minneapolis and I like weddings so I was delighted to join her! Since we are good family friends, we were included in all the parties leading up to the wedding. 

Brian was in the wedding. He and the groom, Jeff, went to high school together. Their strongest connection is Spanish class where they both barely passed. To this day Brian says it's his fault for Jeff's grade dropping because the teacher didn't like Brian. I'm SURE they were both making jokes and goofing off. Knowing what I do now, it is no surprise to me why Brian was a groomsman - they're great friends!

On a shuttle ride to the rehearsal dinner, my mom and I were seated in the back with all the groomsman. Being the chatty lady that she is, my mom was asking where they were all from. Brian mentioned Sacramento, CA and my mom immediately started chatting with him. She went to high school with someone who owns a tattoo shop in Sacramento, which Brian did not know of. She then went on to ask all the groomsmen if they had tattoos...claiming that they seem like more of a west coast thing than a mid western thing. True statement, but embarrassing if you are daughter of chatty mom asking cute groomsmen about tattoos. Although I hadn't officially met this Sacramento boy, he definitely caught my eye. 


Later that evening we were both at the bar ordering a drink and started talking. I tried to be smooth and talk about college football because I thought our schools we in the same conference. Wrong, but I got points for trying because it turns out Brian was impressed that I even knew about college football. We then chatted about California (where he'd recently moved), Denver (where I was living), the great outdoors, and maybe what drink to order next. At this point I definitely thought he was cute, funny and worth pursing further conversations with.

The next day was the wedding. My mom and I had a fun day of shopping at the Mall of America and getting ready together. Our special treatment continued as we got to sit right up from for the ceremony and reception (behind the family, of course). The bride was gorgeous, and all their details were so well coordinated, by Laura and her mom who could be assistants to Martha, for sure. As we were witnessing the ceremony I remember looking/trying not to look at Brian and thinking - He's cute! Am I making up that we had a really good conversation? Am I really eyeing groomsmen while at a wedding with my MOM? 

The theme of their reception was wine - wine table names, corks to hold place cards, mini wine favors and a lot of wine for consumption. Not to say that I started talking to Brian again because of the wine, but I'm sure it gave me some courage. We ended up having a lot of fun dancing and talking. The next morning he was scheduled to fly back to Sacramento but through Denver. We were flying on the same airline, so I secretly hoped he was on our flight, but that would have meant missing his flight. He made his flight but not before we had some good laughs and exchanged phone numbers. I suggested emailing to stay in touch but left the ball in his court. As my mom and I were packing up I got a text that said he made his flight and his email address. By the time I'd made it home I already had a friend request on Facebook. Yessssssssssssssssssss! 

While it may sound crazy, it's true - I never anticipated meeting my boyfriend at a wedding. I must say though that I love our story. I love that we stayed in touch, only over email, for two months before talking and seeing each other again. I love that when we saw each other again it (amongst other reasons) solidified my decision to move to California. And last but certainly not least, I love that we, as a couple, are friends with Jeff and Laura and have seen them every summer since their wedding.

Considering that I plan weddings, we attend a lot of weddings and we met at a wedding...I guess we kind of are wedding people.

In the spirit of wedding season, and my love of planning events/weddings, I'm going to be doing Wedding Wednesdays here on the whole enCHELLEada. Join me next week for a recap of the weddings we attended last summer.