Categories: Bride Bloggers, Bridesmaids
August 31, 2010 / Danielle Freedman
Over the past several months, you all have gotten to know Kimberly’s thoughtful personality and fabulous sense of style…So, it should be no surprise that Kimberly has found a way to let each of her ‘maids shine in their own way on October 16th…
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Now that I’ve found the dress of my dreams, it’s time to outfit my partners in crime – AKA, my bridesmaids. These three ladies have been with me in various stages of my life, and my wedding wouldn’t be the same without them. Gretchen, Inga, and Tammy are some of the most intelligent and unique women I know. Each one has a distinct personality and taste in clothing, so I really wanted to make sure that they were able to showcase their individual style.
Once upon a time it was believed that “evil spirits” would attend weddings to harm a bride and groom, so, their closest friends would stand next to them and dress the same to confuse spirits. To this day, bridesmaids usually wear the same dresses at a wedding. Having been a bridesmaid, I know about wearing the exact same dress…it’s normally not flattering for all involved. As the bride, I’ve decided to change “tradition” and encouraged them to select a dress in whatever style they feel most comfortable in.
Now that the collective gasp from DW readers has subsided, let me explain my rationale. My bridesmaids mean the world to me. One has known me since I was 13, another since I was 17 and the other since I was in my mid 30’s. All of these women are my friends, and friends don’t let friends wear unflattering dresses in skunky colors with no possibility of wearing them again.
Here’s how this works – I gave them a color palette that goes with my wedding colors (light to deep purple), and asked that the gown be floor length, that’s it. I asked them to coordinate among themselves, and decide on a designer of their choosing from which to select a dress from.
The ladies agreed on designers they most liked were housed at Hannelore’s in Old Town. On the first Saturday in May, my friends gathered together to show me the dresses they had selected:
Dress 1 by Mackenzie Michaels; Dress 2 by Jim Hjelm Occasions; Dress 3 by Jim Hjelm Occasions
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Tags: Hannelore's > Jim Hjelm Occasions > Mackenzie Michaels
Categories: Bride Bloggers
August 24, 2010 / Danielle Freedman
You might remember seeing Kerry’s fabulous save the dates. This time, her invites are wowing us – she continued her wedding “branding” within her means and produced an amazing DIY product!
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Creating our invitations was one of the things I was most looking forward to. And my fiancé Chris is a graphic designer, so he felt the same way!
With both of us working in a creative field, Chris and I knew from the beginning that we would create a “brand identity” for our wedding. We planned to use colors, fonts, and other treatments to give everything a polished, cohesive look. That began with our save-the-dates and wedding website, and continued with the rest of our wedding pieces.
Our wedding date is so unique, so we decided to use that as our theme. I wanted our invitation to make a bold statement and be a little out of the ordinary, but still with traditional wording. I’m really happy with the design he came up with. It’s bold but still elegant. The font he chose (Mona Lisa) was perfect.
Although I’m in love with the look of letterpress printing, it’s expensive—and we had a lot of invites to print! So I found a small printer online who handles any quantity, had excellent customer service, and whose printed pieces looked amazing. I can’t say enough good things about Cards and Pockets. We uploaded our design and they took care of the rest.
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Categories: Bride Bloggers
August 3, 2010 / Danielle Freedman
Today, we are resuming our weekly schedule with Bride Blogger Kimberly’s touching post about how to incorporate those who you have lost into your big day…far more important than any hotel block, calligraphy or rental china…we always love a bit of perspective here at District Weddings…
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I received a phone call last week that no one ever wants to receive– a call about a death of a family member. My grandmother who had been ill for some time, died last Sunday. Everything stopped. The tone had changed in my life – from planning my wedding and the rest of my life to supporting my Mom during one of the most difficult periods in her life.
Now back from the funeral and less than 3 months till wedding day, I have no choice but to continue where I left off with the planning before her death. However, things are very different – my focus has shifted. It’s now more critical than ever to make sure I honor my grandmother, a woman that played such an important part in my life.
While honor her legacy and others important to us that have died, I still have to remember that it is a wedding and to celebrate accordingly. If I don’t mention her passing, it seems as if it never happened – mentioning her too frequently, I bring the tone of the day down. What’s the correct balance? How do I best honor those who have passed on while still acknowledging our wedding day?
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Categories: Bride Bloggers
July 13, 2010 / Danielle Freedman
Today, Bride Blogger Kerry updates us on why photography and an engagement session was so special for her!
The photographer is definitely one of the most important vendors that a couple chooses for their wedding day. That’s why we made the decision to book Allison Britton very early in our planning. We liked her photojournalistic style and light-hearted personality, and her photos from past weddings looked amazing.
As we were picking our photography package, we decided to add on an engagement photo session. Chris and I only have very casual photos of the two of us, mostly ones we’ve taken ourselves by holding the camera above ourselves and pointing it down. Also, we had heard that shooting an engagement session with your wedding photographer is a great way to learn to pose together and to get used to being photographed for the big day.
Photography Credit: Allison Britton, A Britton Photography
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Categories: Bride Bloggers, Videography
June 22, 2010 / Danielle Freedman
With Father’s Day just a few days past, today, Kimberly share us why video is an important part of her history with her father and future wedding plans…
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[Memory is] a man’s real possession…In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor. Alexander Smith (1830 – 1867)
Truth be told, I wasn’t going to do video – I only wanted a photographer. I felt if you have a great photographer, then you don’t have to worry about missing any aspect of your day. Because I had expressed remote interest in video, I searched the internet and found companies whose work I liked. The work that resonated with me was from Martin Andrews of Blue Sky Films. Aimee set up an appointment to see if this was something I wanted to pursue.
Meeting Martin was great; he was really easy to talk to and I left with a package of information and a demo reel to review. I let my parents know that I had taken an appointment with Blue Sky and that while I was still thinking about video, I probably wouldn’t have one. I never realized that something as a (seemingly) insignificant choice of not wanting a videographer would affect my parents (pardon me, parent) as much as it did.
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Tags: Blue Sky Films
