North Shore Resource for Fantastic Vendors

If you live in the North Shore and you're planning a wedding, it can be an overwhelming task to figure out whom to use for your wedding vendors.  As a Bride and being someone involved in planning events for friends and family, I love a great go-to resource for fantastic vendors.


I'm using a fantastic Justice of the Peace to help do my day-of coordination and help locate great vendors for me to use.  Her name is Elizabeth Gemelli and she's a fantastic resource for the wedding industry.  I'm so glad that I have such a wonderful person to work with for my big day!  Need more resources in the Boston / north shore area?  Visit Wedding Creators to find more great people with the services you need for your wedding or event!

DIY Door hang tags

Are you putting together Out of Town bags for your Wedding guests? If so, you may want to consider adding little finishing touches that are personalized. These sweet little touches are what will be remembered by your guests.

One fun addition to my OOT bags will be door hang tags. I've seen a few brides with these already. They're a fun way to get guests in the mood to party.

To the left you'll see my first test run with front and back of the door hang tags.  At the top of the "greeting side" It reads,

"Welcome to Gloucester"
"We're so glad you could make it! Enjoy your stay!"

What I learned is that you should place your "cut line template" only on one side.  It's extremely hard to match up the "cut line" on the opposite side with the one on the front.

My doorhang tags had to represent my pink and navy blue nautical theme, so I decided to create a Monogram Logo for us.

I combined an anchor with a ship wheel and a pretty font. You can download lots of free fonts from dafont.com and create your own monogramed logo.

Then I created my door hang tags in Adobe Illustrator.  I setup the page to be an 8.5" x 11" page and the template I grabbed from here, which is 3.5" x 8.5.  They also have larger sizes if you want a full sheet door hang tag.  I printed my door hangers on a heavier weight cardstock paper.

I setup the page to print two at a time.  I tried to center the artwork on the page to minimalize an offset print when I went and flipped the paper over to print on the backside.

A lovely Bridal Shower for a lovely Bride-to-Be

 The perfect Bridal Shower starts with the loving care and planning from a wonderful Family and a great set of Bridesmaids!

This pretty little blue and gold themed shower couldn't have gone any better.  We had a happy and surprised guest of honor and a great group of guests that really got into the games.

With fun games and lots of little treats and details, it made for a fabulous day with a lovely Bride-to-Be.






All In the Details...

Our Decorations were minimal. From tissue paper flowers, to the "Best Wishes" sign, the details were ruffled fun and girly.  For food we had brunch options like quiches, tomato mozzarella basil bites, turnovers, Caesar salad, fruit salad and mimosas.

The cake...

To keep with the ruffle theme the cake was decorated with a pretty ruffle frosting and topped with ranuculas that I had picked from my garden and placed in blue water two days before the shower.  They picked up the blue color nicely.

It was a two tiered chocolate cake with raspberry white chocolate cream cheese frosting. Yum!

Recipe coming soon.

The Favors...

Pretty little Clear and Gold Swans were filled with chocolate and candy and placed on a little table in the entryway with some flowers.

A lovely little setup to greet you as you came in and left the party.













The Games...
We had a game where the bride had to guess answers correctly about the groom as well as a toilet paper dress game, which was by far the most fun.

The ladies at the party got really into dressing up the bridesmaids and the bride-to-be got to pick the winning dress.










The Prizes...
Every game had a prize, lovely little labeled bottles of wine. The labels had the name of the Bride-to-be as well as the date of the Bridal Shower. A wonderful way to remember the day!

All the Bridesmaids having a good time!

Our lovely Bride-to-Be with some of the Girls!

Something blue...it's all about the shoes

My wedding has a fun nautical theme to it, complete with a beautiful ocean view.  Rather than go with a boring white or ivory shoe that I'll never wear again, I was debating between either pink or blue, since those are my colors.

After trying on several shoes in pink that I didn't like, I finally decided to go for a dark navy blue.  A stunning contrast.  I was actually afraid it might be too dark of a thing to wear with my dress!

That was short-lived, until I found several photos of other brides in blue shoes.  I love the contrast and I think it will make for some memorable photos.

Not only did I run across colored shoes, but I also saw some gorgeous print shoes out there.  Some brides are really wearing funky and fun things.  From beautiful hand-painted shoes to leopard print, you imagination is the limit to what you can put on your feet.

What did I end up going with for my shoes?
This lovely navy blue shoe is from Nina and it's called Elke.  I loved the bit of bling in the center of the bow.

The rich navy blue will look lovely peeking out from under my ivory gown. Love them!

Whether your shoes are Navy blue, pink, or even leopard print, a pair of shoes that are uniquely you will make a statement at your wedding.

peep-toe navy blue shoes with bling!

The perfect rehersal dress

conie fox dress 2

While I would love to wear something full length, everything I was in love with ended up being much to formal. I needed the perfect dress for my rehearsal dinner. Not too formal, but not too casual. Something white, ivory or off-white.

conie fox dress 1

My first love affair was with one of these two dresses. I felt like both were made with soft flowing fabrics and even though they were long, they felt more casual and beachy.

The hint of color at the bottom brought them out of "wedding dress territory" and into a more casual day-evening look.

My only problem was I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend $200+ for these dresses.

I would most definitely be wearing dress #1 throughout the summer since it feels like such a beach dress.

The other because of the beading would be a bit harder even though I love it so very much.  It's so beautiful with the blue and purple flowers on the bottom.

Every short dress I kept finding I didn't like.  They were all so fluffy, poofy or so short I'd be afraid if I moved the wrong way, guests would get a full view.  yikes.

So what did I end up getting after sifting through hundreds of dresses?  I found this perfect dress.  Not to formal and not too casual with just a hint of bling.

It actually reminds me of something Kate Middleton would wear.  Sexy, yet chic and timeless.  I love it!

The best part is, it only cost me $79 bucks!

London Times dress