07:41:50 pm, by Marla, 64 words, 58 views  
Categories: Personal

So we did it! We are married! What a beautiful day it was, and what an unbelievable time we had. I am so sad that its over but so happy at the same time. This wedding was thee most unbelievable experience of my life. The planning was lots of stress but lots of fun at the same time. More details and photos to come.

10:03:20 pm, by Marla, 58 words, 73 views  
Categories: Personal

I have been wanting a frangrance to wear on the wedding day. Something that I usually dont wear and could start wearing just for Adam to remind both of us of the wedding day.

I found it. Marc Jacobs Daisy - perfect for the wedding day.

It smells so young, light, fresh, feminine, girly!!

I love it!

xoxo
Marla

10:35:47 pm, by Marla, 794 words, 49 views  
Categories: Personal

I have been extremely busy, happy, anxious and amp’d up the last month or so. There has been so much going on that I have to get you caught up on. Going to several 30th birthday parties, including mine own - Bridal showers, bachelorette paries, moving to Wisconsin, wedding planning, going to work . . . has made it very difficult to blog. Who has time right?

I decided that I would do some drive by blog posts . . . This is where I throw a bunch of pics together in a collage and give you a quickie description of whats going on. . .

So here goes . . .

– Click Here to Enlarge–

1&2) Sent the last of the pre-wedding bridesmaids gifts to the girls.
They each got a satin hanger for their dress in the wedding colors - with a card.

3,4,5) Changed the reception venue in downton Chicago from the orginal location to the Hilton across the street. Picture 3, is what the original resturant normally looks like. Picture 4 & 5 shows the restuarnt undergoing some massive construction - long story short, not acceptable.

6) The day that I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to change the reception venue, meet with the ceremony site planner, then drive 1 hour away to pick out linens wtih BBJ. ( Note: BBJ Chicago, is in the suburbs of Chicago. . . not the city). But I digress, this day - the major stone in my ring came loose! Woe is me! This is a picture of me with it at my bachelorette party. My ring is very delicate, dainty and amazing because it doesnt have the prongs that pertrude from the setting - however, it being delicate, the stone is prone for wiggling loose. I have been without the ring for weeks while waiting for repairs-can’t wait until it comes back to me.

7.) Move to Madison, Wi - where we live a few steps away from the largest capitol building in the country (outside of DC of course). We live it a great part of the city, where I can walk a few steps to a Farmers Market on Saturday mornings!

8,8) I doubled numbered the pics! Anywho - this is the last date night as an unmarried couple. Adam took me out to L’Etoile, a French fine dining resturant in Madison that is absolutely amazing. We ate alot and drank alot It was a great night out. Expensive, but worth every dollar. Most of the food is organic and locally grown. So fresh and so yummy!

9.) Creating and printing personalized dinner menus for the reception. They are all going to be in individual envelopes with the guest’s name on it. These envelopes are more or less going to act as the place cards.

10.) Buying all the Sofia Blanc de Blancs I can get my hands on. This is our signature ‘champagne’ for the reception. It will be apart of the centerpiece, more on that later . .

11&12) Out of Town Bags. My FMIL has worked her tail off on these with me. We are finally pulling them together. We are absolutely spoiling our guests! We have friends and family coming in from all over the country and a friend traveling from France! We have to show them how much we appreciate it!

13.) Today after working with the out of town bags . . . I headed out to a gathering at a coworkers house who lives about an hr away. Traveling with a few other of my cubicle comrades - we ran into some turbulent weather. Let’s just say tornado sirens were going off earlier in the day and it probably wasnt a good idea to be driving. On the way down, we had to park under a bridge with lots of other cars, because the winds were nuts about 80MPH and the most rain I ever seen in my life was coming down. This is the remnants of a tornadoe that touched down - at lest i think it was. . . I took this with my camera - like I was a storm chaser!

14.) Back from the party, and back at work on the wedding. This is the setup I am using for the sand ceremony. I bought the glass vessels from Cost Plus and the silver tray is from ikea. I think it will work.

15.) And this is my make shift workshop - my kitchen. We dont have a tv yet.
So I am watching all my TV Show DVDs on my computer - I finished the Golden Girls season 2 today. I need to get my hands on the rest of the Golden Girls, Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore and Frasier . .. all good shows to wedding plan to

OK - so that wasnt much of a quickie - but I am sure there are tons of typos . . so that should give you an indication of how fast I am typing.

xoxo,
Marla

11:12:15 pm, by Marla, 186 words, 36 views  
Categories: Personal

So, I am doing what I normally do at 11:30 on a weeknight while wedding planning - watch Frasier.

At the same time, I am reviewing the flower order I placed earlier today with Blumgarten of Chicago.

I am a little late on things, when it comes to flowers. I am only spending money on bridal party and participant flowers, so I placed a small order with Blumgarten to arrive two weeks from now and they are able to accomodate. Yippee!

The bridal bouquet will be gorgeous, I have a picture scanned from an older issue of Bride and Bloom magazine. It is not by any means a greata scan - but I was dying to share how beautiful this bouquet is. I will try to find a better pic to post.

The Bridesmaids flowers will be 3 long stemmed Calla Lillies, with greenery and brown ribbon.
Similar to the one below:

Groomsmen will have deep purple calla lilly boutonnieres while the groom will be wearing a white one.
Here are some funky and modern takes on boutonniers, from a page of Bride&Bloom magazine a few issues back.

10:59:32 pm, by Marla, 212 words, 141 views  
Categories: Personal

Its been a while since I have blogged - my apologies. There is no better way to get back into the groove of things than by talking about cake!

A few weeks agao, I visited BitterSweet, in Chicago. They have a pastry shop and cafe with lots of yummy treats.
They were my first and only stop on the road to looking for wedding cake. Simply because I didn’t have much time to spend on this particular wedding detail and once I visited with them - I knew they were the one!

As soon as I got there, we got down to business. I looked through lots of books filled with pictures of their different wedding cakes and marked the ones that I liked best. Then came the cake,filling, and icing samples . . .

They brought out a good amount of cake samples to choose from then left me to try them out and comtemplate on my own. Which I liked alot - there wasn’t alot of pressure or coaching to choose something. They understood my budget and helped me make decisions that reflected that.

I decided on a 4 layer chocolate fudge cake with white chocolate mousee filling and butter cream frosting. It will have brown buttercream scrollwork on the icing. Should look something like this . . .

11:42:52 pm, by Marla, 41 words, 156 views  
Categories: Personal

I haven’t found a shoe yet for my dress . . . still looking around.
All the Louboutins are incredible, but cost about $800+. I saw these Jimmy Choo’s on the Bride’s Cafe blog and fell in love. Can’t seem to find them anywhere though?

11:38:37 pm, by Marla, 275 words, 112 views  
Categories: Personal

I thought I was doing a very smart thing by renting a few of the ceremony chairs, taking them to the venue (which is a public beach house) and testing them out. The idea was to get a feel for how they look and jot down some layout ideas.

Well, that was a bust. I had my mom, sisters and girlfriends go down to the venue with me together, which is outdoors and on Lake Michigan in Chicago where there is tons of wind - nevermind the 40 degree temps. So it was cold - not fun and to top it off, the upstairs promenade of the beachhouse, where the wedding will take place was locked and not accessible to the public. So we couldnt set the chairs up. No biggie, we took our chances.

I hung on to the chairs for another week then dragged the fiance down there today to take measurements with me, thinking that there was a slight chance the upstairs would be accessible (considering its past April 1 and the weather has warmed up). Nope - same deal. I did call the Park Distric a few days before and they were not for certain when the beach house would be full accessible - apparently its not.

We did however, tinker with the chairs in the parking lot of the venue and took some measurements before we returned them.

The Chiavari chairs look glorious, even in a parking lot. These really do whip the butts of the white folding garden chairs you see at many outdoor weddings.

They look so regal and formal - I love them! Now if we could get the dogwood to hover over these . . .