Sweetwater Branch Inn

We love weddings that take place at Sweetwater Branch Inn! It is seriously once of the most beautiful and quaint locations for a wedding in Gainesville!

So, Save the Date! You won't want to miss this "Afternoon with Sweetwater Branch Inn" event this Sunday, September 18th from 1-3pm! 

Yummy food, entertainment, and give-aways- what could be better? 

Make sure to RSVP by this Friday, Sept. 16th by emailing events@sweetwaterinn.com to purchase your tickets and reserve your spot for this funtastic event!

Guestbook Week Part 4

For part 4 of guestbook week, I am gonna share with you an idea that a lot of my clients have been using and it is so cute and personal!

It's what I am going to dub the picturey guestbook. Many of my brides have been taking their engagement pictures and making a book out of them, leaving some space and lines for people to sign. You can do color or black and white. I even had one bride use multi colored pens!!

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Image by Luster Studios

I really do love this idea. It is something you can leave on your coffee table and look back on instead of just reading a bunch of names. It also is nice for the guests to have something to look at and even comment on when they sign it!

Guestbook Week Part 3

Keeping up with our guestbook week, today I wanted to feature signed wishes as a guestbook idea. Now this guestbook can be executed in many many different ways. The sky is the limit, really.

You can do wish bowls, wish boxes, wish trees, wish clotheslines, wish books, really anything you could imagine. Here are a few that I really liked.

Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart

Image from the knot

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Jonathan Ivy Photography

This one I absolutely LOVE! You have your guests sign their wishes on a postcard and have a mailbox set up to place them in. Then you have them mailed out the next day so you come back from your honeymoon to a mailbox full of well wishes!

Martha Stewart

There are too many good ones!

Did any of you use signed wishes? What did you do?

Guestbook Week Part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, today's guestbook idea is etched bowls! This idea is seriously cool. I found this bowl from Steuben, you buy the glass bowl and it comes with a special scribe that has a diamond tip for writing on glass!

How awesomesauce is that?!

Etched Bowl

Another option would be to just buy your own crystal bowl and then purchase a crystal etching pen from Lowes.

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I just think this looks so elegant and neat, and it's so unique, you know many of your guests wouldn't have seen it before. Come back tomorrow for part 3, signed wishes!

Guestbook Week Part 1

Lately we have been seeing a lot of fun and different guestbook ideas out there. I thought I would take a week to highlight a few of them and give you guys some ideas! I did a post on the guestbook tree with fingerprints that you can see here, this is still one of my favorites, and I have seen lots of spin offs of it that are awesome!

First off this week, I am really liking the idea of signing a dish or a plate. You can personalize it with all sorts of engravings from quotes, to designs, to monograms and logos and even your names and wedding date!

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The Younique Boutique

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It looks great when you take it home!

Martha Stewart

Personalize it for you, there are so many ways to make this your own! Stay tuned for tomorrow's guestbook idea, etched bowls!

Get in Shape: Mind

The most important thing to get in shape for your wedding day is your mind. You need to make the week of your wedding a relaxing one, otherwise you may set yourself up for a freak out.

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Here are some tips to keep your mind calm and at ease:

1. Finish all your projects and planning two weeks before the wedding. Try as hard as you can, there may be certain things that have to be left to do the week of the wedding, but get everything out of the way that you possibly can before then, this will save you so much stress.
2. The things that need to be done the week of and day of, delegate to someone else, a mom, a bridesmaid, a wedding planner, whoever. You need to have someone else in charge of things, especially on the day of, otherwise you are gonna get super stressed out trying to make sure that everything is on time and set up correctly. I recommend a wedding planner, that way you and your family can enjoy the day! MasterPiece Weddings would be happy to fill this role for you!
3. Do relaxing activities the week of your wedding. Have a spa day with the girls. Go to lunch with family that is in town. Have a nice dinner and movie date with your hubby to be. Again, the key here is to relax yourself and DE-stress!

Source

All of these tidbits will allow you to have a much more enjoyable wedding experience, trust me. If you are running around worrying about every little detail and about every little thing that could go wrong, you are not going to enjoy the day. I've seen it happen to brides, and it's not fun, it's really sad.

This day only comes around once, so you've got to make the most of it!

Get in Shape: Body

For today's get in shape post, we are talking about the body. Now I think brides can go a little overboard with this part for their wedding day.

Every girl wants to lose a few pounds here and a few pounds there, but let's not go crazy okay. We don't want you passing out on your wedding day from malnutrition!

Tips for getting your body in shape, you may have heard these before, but I would like to stress these key points.

1. Eat healthy. This sounds simple but everyone has a hard time with it. This does NOT mean stop eating good tasting foods. Eat less fast food and ready made dinners. Eat more fruits, veggies, and lower fat proteins such as fish and chicken. Try to roast and bake more than you fry foods.
2.  Drink lots of water and less soda.
3. Eat more whole grains and less processed foods. Just be more aware of what you are taking in. Also, treat yourself every once in a while!! Wedding planning can be stressful and dieting only adds to it, don't completely deny yourself. Reward yourself!
4. Exercise. Again, sounds simple but it's harder than it sounds. Make it a family affair, get your family fit for the wedding! Play sports together, go on bike rides, take classes at the gym. It's better when you have someone to do it with. Also, don't go overboard! Do what you can, 3-4 times a week for at least 30 minutes. Try to fit in some weights, muscle helps burn fat!
5. Remember that your fiance loves you how you are, they've been with you up until now, and they probably don't care if you lose those 5 or 10 or fill in the number pounds! You are beautiful to them now, and you are going to look beautiful on your wedding day, you just are, so don't go crazy stressing yourself out about losing weight! Just be healthy.

Caroline Johnson Photography

Get in Shape: Hair

An extremely important part of your bridal beauty is your hair. Brides know this and they stress over it a lot. We did a post on different hair styles about a month and a half ago that you guys can check out here.

This post is about prepping your hair to get done on the actual day.

Here's what to do and what not to do:

1. DO NOT wash your hair the night before! Your hair will stay better being one day dirty and your hairdresser will thank you, it's much easier to work with.
2. It is also helpful for you to straighten your hair the night before as well, unless you are wearing your hair wavy or in tight curls.
3. If you are getting your hair colored, do it at least a couple days before, maybe even a week. You don't want to have left over dye all around your face.
4. As far as length, I would say grow it out until you have your trial done, then you can play with it and see if you like long hair or short hair better. Just remember, you can always cut it, but you only have so much time to grow it back. Temporary extenstions are always an option.

Some inspiration for you

Photography by Bobbi and Mike; Hair by Graceful Strands

Powers Photography

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Get in Shape: Skin

For the second day of our get in shape week, we're gonna tackle skin. This is a very important part of your body that you need to prep for your wedding day so you can be glowing and smooth.

Photography by Pure by Lindsey; Make-up by Christy Connor

 Here are some tips:

1. For tanning, natural is best; if you want to do a tanning bed, that's your choice. But make sure to wear sunscreen, none of this 4 or 8 spf either. Let's go with 30 spf to be safe. You don't be want to be a lobster on your wedding day! I would try to stay out of the sun at least a day or two before the big day.
2. DO NOT GET A SPRAY TAN! Please, you just look orange and it's going to rub off on your dress. Just say no!
3. Make sure to moisturize daily at least a few weeks prior, so you have nice soft skin for the day and for your honeymoon!
4. Try not to stress as much as possible the week of your wedding. Stress can cause breakouts, and it doesn't do anything good for your skin! When it gets down to the week of your wedding, you've planned all you can plan so there is no use worrying about it! Just try to relax!!

Get in Shape: Nails

We are gonna start our get in shape week with something small, your nails.

Your nails are probably not too high on your priority list, but you still want them to look presentable on your wedding day, not like this..

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Ew right! You at the very least want them trim and polished! I have a couple tips for picture perfect nails on the big day.

1. If you are getting them done by a professional, no sooner than the day before your wedding, otherwise you run the risk of them getting chipped and ruined or growing out if you get acrylics.
1. Side Note: if you want to avoid a little bit of pain when getting your nails done, push your own cuticles back with your nails or a cuticle pusher, it's so much better, trust me.
2. If you're doing them yourself or having a friend do them, its best to go with the day of the wedding cause they probably won't last as long. And make sure they are COMPLETELY DRY before you put on your dress, please! Have them done a few hours before you put on your dress as precaution.
3. Toenails are important too ladies. Although they may not be showing all day, it is likely that the photographer will snag a couple photos of them in your shoes and you want to look polished.
4. Trim! You don't want them too long, medium length is probably best, then you won't need to worry about them breaking.
5. Neutral colors or a french manicure is best I think. You can try to match your colors if you want, but I think dark nails with the white dress is a little much. But if that's your personality, then go for it!

Here are a couple of images of pretty nails for the day.

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Feel free to bling them up a little with some small jewels or stick on flowers, but don't go overboard. You want the attention on your bridal beauty, not your nails, they are just an accessory.

Better Attitude



Gabriel chillaxing at a Summer BBQ- this kid has got it made!

Such is the life, right? Sitting on a lawn chair, feet up with a frosty beverage Juice Box.

Now that summer is wrapping up, and we are about to fall into Fall (get it.. fall... Fall...- nevermind).  It's time to start thinking about keeping up our summer figures, cooler temperatures (thank goodness) and Football.

So, really, this post was for me to remind you to have a great time, enjoy every day, every moment and every small victory, because sometimes we take those moments for granted and we forget to remember that life happens, and if we don't enjoy the little moments they will pass us by.



Cupcake Cakes

Brides now are starting to use cupcakes to make their wedding cake unique. Not only do they make the cake cutting a lot easier, but they are extremely cute! Here are some of my favorite cupcake cakes!

Anwen Elizabeth Photography cake by Dream Day Cakes

Cupcakes 

Martha Stewart Weddings

Special Event Tags

Mayasmommas from Etsy sent us these special event tags to sample and we just love them!! They are so cute and unique!

The tags are handmade and aged in coffee! They are seriously a perfect detail for country, outdoor, rustic and vintage weddings and other events too! They come in different sizes and styles.

I had a little fun with them and thought up a couple different ways to use them. Please excuse my amateur photography!

A thank you tag for favors or whatever! It would be really cute to put your personalized logo or monogram on the back!

Table numbers!

Placecards!

Even as a gift tag!

These tags are so versatile, you can use them any way you can think of. Here are some ways that other brides have used them!

Sarah's Stands

Sarah's Stands has the awesomest cake stands out there! They will meet any requirement you seek. Sarah is someone just like you who was looking for the right cake stand for her wedding but could not find it, so she decided to design her own, and the rest is history.

Her cake stands come in a variety of sizes from 12" to 22" round. And they come in any color you can imagine! They do custom colors now! The best part about these stands is they are extremely durable and can hold the weight of multi-tiered wedding cakes!

Another great thing about Sarah's Stands is that you can stack them up and use them for cupcakes as well! I kind of love the idea of buying a custom cake stand for your wedding cake, and then resusing it for special events throughout your life. It will always be a conversation starter.

You can match them to your wedding color scheme!

It's all in the details. Sarah's Stands have been featured in Brides Magazine, The Knot, Southern Weddings and much more! Don't miss out on these awesometastic stands, check them out on Etsy!

Summer Blogosphere Series Final Post

For our last Blogosphere post, Green Wedding Shoes shared this DIY wedding that had so many cute details. One in particular that I just had to share are these wear your heart on your sleeve pins! They are the adorablest!!!

This display was put out at the ceremony for guests to wear. And all the groomsmen wore big hearts as their boutonnieres!

Sweet Little Photographs

Sweet Little Photographs

There are so many great blogs out there, I barely scratched the surface! I hope that I opened your eyes to some fantastic blogs that you will keep up with, keep blog hoppin!

DIY: Scratch off Save-the-dates

I saw this adorable idea for DIY save-the-dates at Martha Stewart Weddings. They are scratch off!! I think this is such a unique idea and so much fun!

These are a great way to entice your guests, they immediately know that your wedding is gonna be one they don't want to miss out on!

Click here to find out how to make these cute creations!

Summer Blogosphere Series Part 10

For part 10 of our blog series, I wanted to share this post I came across on Wedding Bee. I just thought it was the cutest thing ever. Their blog is a fantastic resource for brides! It's great to see the thoughts and perspectives of brides just like you! And it's fun to read.

I know the first look makes everything easier on the photographer and other vendors (including us planners), but there is something so romantic about not seeing your significant other until you walk down the aisle on that day. I've always been very traditional in that sense.

All this being said, I am now in love with this idea of a non-first look. You get to hold your love's hand and talk to them without actually seeing each other. Just take a peek at these photos by Danny Boyle Photography and you will fall in love too.