Everything with the ceremony and reception has come to an end.  The big day has come and gone.  Yet our lives have just begun together.  Just because we are no longer planning the big event doesn’t mean that we have stopped planning our lives together.

We still get the excited flashbacks of the big day.  When the photographer contacts us to tell us our proofs are ready and mails us our proof book, it takes us back to the magical moment.

Once all the thank yous were written and sent out.

When we see family & friends and they talk about how the honeymoon went it reminds us of the warm days on the beach.

But i am not sad it’s over, I’m not relieved it over,  I’m thrilled that my life is starting all over again.

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Check out this story about a Houston Bridal Extravaganza.

It is about a Texas bridal shop that is trying to donate its $1 million wedding dress design to the Royal couple.

Tell me your thoughts on whether you think it is fair that the Royal couple, who can afford many things, gets an opportunity like this.  I think it is GREAT publicity for American designers.  What are your thoughts?

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The Big Guy and I were lucky that our engagement photography was done by a close friend of mine. (I used to work at a photography studio in college.)

She gave us a very memorable sign-in book that has all of our engagement photos. You sign directly onto the image with a felt tip pen.

We were uncertain if we were going to do a sign-in book since we didn’t know what we would do with it afterwards, but now we will cherish it as a coffee table book.

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The Big Guy and I contemplated traditional gifts for our bridal party. Then we threw that idea out the window.

We decided we were going to go with an inside joke that we had with our bridal party friends and have “Jersey Night.”

Maybe I should explain this. In college, every time we all got together for card night, we would claim it to be “Jersey Night” and we’d put on a football, baseball, basketball jersey of any of our favorite players. We decided to make our own jerseys for our friends, then we had to decide how to design them.

In college, Joe’s nickname was Tree since he is so tall, and my nickname is L-Dub for my initials.  One of our friends in college became lazy and combined our two nicknames to be Tree-Dub, which then became our jersey team name.  On the back of the jersey we used the date of the ceremony for the number and put all of our friends’ nicknames on the back.  Everyone complimented us and said they felt like they would actually reuse the gift.

My recommendation is do what you think the people closest to you would really like not what others tell you is the expected gift.

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Joe and I decided early on that we weren’t going to do everything traditionally.

My aunt and I had talked about the idea of a fake cake.  My dad and aunt started working together and came up with the idea of a Styrofoam cake with fondue icing on top.  We went with the fall theme and carried it onto the cake design with a tree forming it’s way up the sides. An “R” was shaped out of sticks and extra decoration around the cake was done with fake leaves.

Some may wonder: How do you cut the cake?  In the back of the cake is a small section were a real piece of cake is inserted. The very top dome of the cake is real, so we can put that section in our freezer and save it for our first anniversary.

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When thinking about ways to save money …

We knew that having little gifts on the reception tables isn’t a deal breaker for our guests.  When thinking about little gifts to do for the tables, we weren’t simply going to go out and buy something just to put it on the table.

However, I have seen some very cute ideas done by other brides and grooms.

I have seen the koozies that read “To have and to hold and to keep a beer cold” which I personally find quite entertaining.  I have also seen a candy bar, which had “specialty ingredients” which involved cute things such as 3 cups love, 2 teaspoons of trust, etc.

These are fun ideas, but they just simply were not within our budget.

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My main words of advice; call around for prices.

If you have the ability, design your own!  You will save a lot of money.

Simply take your design to a local print/office supply store, and they can make you the required amount on card-stock.  If you would like them too, they can also cut them to the correct size.

My biggest advice: Before cutting the invitations, make sure you can find the correct size envelope.  This is a situation we ran into.

Our invites were too small for the envelopes, but “Oh well. What do you do?”

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Some people want real. Some people want fake.

Something I found out is that you have to ask the church and hall for their criteria first and foremost before you make any final decisions.  The next step is write yourself out a list of what you need flowers for; for example:

Bridal Bouquet

7 bridesmaid Bouquets

Bouquet to toss

Flower Girl

Grooms Boutonnière

6 Groomsmen boutonnieres

2 Dads Boutonnières

2 Grandpas

Boutonniere or wristlet for

2 Moms

3 or 4 Grandmas

2 Readers

1 Book Signer

Flowers w/ wine bottle for centerpieces on tables

Flowers for altar of church

Flowers on head table

Flowers by sign in book

We were lucky to have a wonderful aunt who is a retired florist and offered to make all of our flowers.  All we paid for were the supplies.  Collect your resources and make it a fun-filled family event.  We took a Saturday and went to various hobby stores.  We wanted to make sure we went on the Saturday that had the 50% off on all flowers sale.

Always look for the sale!

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Some say that the grooms aren’t as involved in the planning as the brides, but registering was the perfect blend.

It was fun to take a night and “dream shop.” We chose various stores and we signed up for the scanner.  My advice to all brides: Definitely let the groom use the zapper. Don’t get me wrong. I stole it a few times and had fun, too, but it is a ongoing toy for them to play with.

We took the unorthodox approach.  We didn’t have a list.  We just simply walked through each aisle and if we saw something we thought we’d like, we registered for it.  Our plan was that after we went through the entire store we would sit at home online and narrow items out if we needed to.

We took each moment and laughed.  We registered at 3 stores, and when we were at the last store, I had a moment where I could tell I was done.  I looked at Joe and said, “I’m not having fun anymore, let’s go home!”  And we did.

This was not something that we were going to stress about.  The whole point is that it should be fun.

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