Our Sweet Beginning: Reception Details

After the ceremony, our wedding guests headed to the gorgeous country club where Brian and I had done our first look. Our caterers were amazing and set up the entire reception for us...so neither of us had seen the room completely finished. During cocktail hour, we got to sneak in and see the finished product. Everything was even more beautiful than I had pictured!

Most of the time I spent planning our wedding was dedicated to brainstorming things I could do to personalize the reception and creating DIY projects that would keep us within our budget. This post is dedicated to all of the little details from our reception that I worked so hard on! It was so exciting to see all of our ideas come to fruition.

Our invitations

Seating Chart

Brian and I opted to have a sweetheart table for the two of us with tables of our bridal party and their dates surrounding us. It was nice to have the (very limited) time we sat eating to the two of us.

Our reception tables had three different centerpieces: a tall and short floral centerpiece and a centerpiece inspired by a trip to Tucson. We also named our tables after places we had traveled together and included a picture of the two of us in that place on the table signs.

Our signature drinks were also an ode to our journey together: The Del Coronado Pacific Cooler (the drink I had at The Del after we got engaged), The Sunset Margarita (Brian's favorite drink from our trip to Key West), and Peach Wine (an ode to our new beginning in Georgia).

At each place setting was a jar of peach preserves, our favor to our guests and another nod to our new beginning, and a dinner menu.

Our cake and cupcakes were made by Desserts by Rita. Not only were they pretty, they were so SO yummy.

I made both the cake stand and cupcake stands but never got around to blogging about them in the last-minute craziness before the wedding, so I've linked to others' tutorials. :)

I made our guest book on MyPublisher using our engagement pictures. I love looking through it!

Beside the guest book were memorial candles celebrating the lives of family members who have passed away.

Next to our photobooth was a sign explaining that guests should leave an extra copy of their photo strip for us to keep. I painted a canvas with one of our monograms and made it into a memo board where guests clipped their pictures.

This is not exactly a reception detail, but I know as a bride I was stumped about what to get my bridesmaids as a gift. I ended up gifting them a personalized bracelet from The Vintage Pearl (love!) and a Coach wristlet to use the day of the wedding.

A last minute project (the week of our wedding and my graduation!) was the flip flop basket. I was so glad I put this together because the flip flops were much-needed for dancing. My feet were killing me by the end of the night!



When I was planning our wedding, there were so many details and projects I wanted to tackle. Of course, I didn't get around to all of them but I was so happy with how much I was able to accomplish (especially in the midst of my last year of graduate school!)

Our Sweet Beginning: Getting Ready

Today, Monday November 28th, marks six months of wedded bliss for me and Brian. Happy half a year to us! And what a six months they have been...full of some big ups and downs, lots of laughter and learning, and some of the happiest moments of my life. Today I'm going to start showing you bits and pieces of our wedding day; with so many pictures, I had such a hard time narrowing down what to put here on the blog. I have done my best. :) Let me know if there's anything you're interested in seeing from our wedding. Unless otherwise noted, pictures are by our fabulous photographer, Meaghan Elliott, and property of yours truly.

The morning of our wedding, all of the girls met at my parent's house to get ready. The amazing girls of Baltimore Bridal Hair and Makeup did the honors of making us all look beautiful. I seriously cannot say enough good things about Jamie and Megan; they did such quality work and kept us right on schedule. If I look calm in these pictures, it's because I totally felt it.

While the girls were getting ready, my dad was hard at work preparing his toast. He wrote us a poem, "Untitled." :)

After my hair and makeup were done, I helped my flower girl, my cousin Zoë, into her dress (please ignore the disaster that was my bedroom; it was a hectic week)...

...and we took a couple of photo booth pictures to pass some time.

 Before I knew it, my bridesmaids were in their dresses and putting on accessories. It felt like we had just started getting ready!

After one last spray of hairspray to make sure everything would stay put, Jamie put my veil in.

Then, my sister (and maid of honor) Jennifer handed me a small box that Brian had asked her to give me on our wedding day. I tried so hard not to cry (and succeeded in only tearing up) when I read the card that accompanied my beautiful gift, a "something blue" ring.

Finally, it was time to get in my dress. This is when the day felt like it took off; time started moving a lot faster and I was feeling so many emotions at once.

My dress was called the "Brooklyn," by Blue by Enzoani.

My shoes were the Nina Culver with a blue flower shoe clip and my earrings were my "something borrowed" from my Aunt Kathy.

Stepping into my dress felt surreal. I was getting married!

Then, it was finally time to jump (er, carefully maneuver) into the limo and head off to see my handsome groom!

Our Sweet Beginning: Out of Town Boxes

This weekend, Brian and I traveled to New Jersey to attend the wedding of one of his groomsmen, Rocco. He and Katie had an absolutely beautiful wedding, and we had such a good time! Of course, since Brian was in the wedding, in uniform, and looking completely handsome, I completely neglected to take any pictures. :(

In the spirit of all-things-wedding, I thought I'd continue blogging about some of the details of our big day (which was over 3 months ago now!)

Out of Town (OOT) bags or boxes are small gifts that many brides put together to leave at the hotel for guests who are traveling to attend the wedding. I knew that I wanted to put together a token of appreciation for those people who went (literally) out of their way to attend our wedding on a holiday weekend.  I also wanted to include some information about the area and things to do just in case people had some extra time to kill. :)

I used gable boxes I bought in bulk to package up the gifts. I decorated them to reflect the colors and feel of our wedding.

To start my collection of items to fill the boxes, I made a trip to a rest stop along the highway and the visitor's center in the town where we were getting married. When I explained the boxes I was making, I was given many different brochures and maps to help our guests get to know the area. I was even able to get a brochure about the history of the Concord Point Lighthouse (which is where we got married!)

I also put together a small booklet with a note of thanks, a list of wedding weekend events with driving directions, things to do and restaurants we like in the area, and important phone numbers in case guests had any questions or needed help.

I knew I wanted to include a couple of miniature bottles of water in each box. So, while I was labeling over 200 water bottles with our monogram for our outdoor ceremony, I also did fifty smaller ones. It was incredibly time consuming, but one of my favorite details!

The last thing that needed to go in the boxes was, of course, food! I picked out several things that represented Baltimore and Havre de Grace: Utz Crab Chips, individual packages of Berger cookies, and Bomboy Havre de Mints. I also threw in some generic snack foods, like nuts, trail mix, and granola bars.

Because Brian was living in Savannah already, he was staying at one of the hotels with his groomsmen prior to the wedding. I knew I had to make an Out of Town box especially for the groom!

I added a couple of extra snacks that I know Brian likes, some travel books about St. Lucia, and a very important pair of socks.

Brian and his best man, Pat, came to pick up the boxes from me the week of the wedding and delivered them to the two hotels where guests were staying.

This was one of my favorite wedding projects and my first opportunity to let guests know how much we appreciated them sharing in the joy of our wedding day!