My wedding details

[snc421]

I am already married. I was married in April, in my hometown in Wisconsin. I wanted a destination wedding, but for many reasons was married here instead and took a cruise as part of my honeymoon. So to compromise, I put as much of a tropical element as possible into everything. That's why I'm doing this thread, to give some inspiration and hopefully some ideas to gals planning their tropical or cruise wedding. I will post little by little as I can only put 6 pictures in each post...

 

My dress, from David's Bridal:

 

My hairpiece, my girls' hairpieces, and boutoneirres, all custom made from bluerosebridalboutique dot com:

 

 

 

My veil, shimmery like sand tulle, edged with shells, hand made my my friend. It ended up a lot longer than I wanted, but it was made literally hours before my wedding. I had the materials, she came up from Dallas. (I thought when we measuredI would wear it a lot higher on my head...) You can also see the back of my dress here.

 

Bridesmaids' dresses, also at David's Bridal. I chose the Pool color because it reminds me of Cancun and Cozumel. Caribbean Green I call it! Also note that I made our bouquets with supplies from Michael's.

 

 

 

Bridesmaids' earrings... believe it or not, KMart. 14 karat gold on clearance for $20. Just when I was desperate enough to go to KMart... who'd have thought... Perfect! Don't give up ladies!!!!

 

More to come....

[merocket59]

I like the hair pieces, were they expensive?

[M loves M in 09]

First off Congrats!!!! I love the hair pieces and the earings from KMart of all places... Did you have any problems with David's Bridal?? I have heard some negative things about them...:)

[Cruisintink]

Very lovely dress...did it have a slight train at all? Also, was it "supportive" on top with it having the open back and all? Thanks.

[snc421]

I like the hair pieces, were they expensive?

I think mine was like $80, then like $10 for each of the girls' and also $10 for each of the guys' boutoneirres.

First off Congrats!!!! I love the hair pieces and the earings from KMart of all places... Did you have any problems with David's Bridal?? I have heard some negative things about them...:)

Thank you! I had no problem at all with DB actually. One thing I really liked was I saved like 6 dresses to my favorites online, then when I went to try on dresses they were able to access my favorites and grab all the dresses for me to try on. No problem for the girls' dresses either... BUT for alterations I can say to line up someone else. They were backed up 10-12 weeks in my case! (Lucky me I did have someone!)

Very lovely dress...did it have a slight train at all? Also, was it "supportive" on top with it having the open back and all? Thanks.

Thank you! There was not much of a train at all, hopefully I can find a good pic to show that. In my mind, it is THE perfect beach wedding dress... the lack of train is just one reason why. The dress was pretty supportive once we got it tied good. I could not wear any undergarment with it though, and wish I'd have taken time later (much) later in the evening to re-tie it cuz it started slacking once I was bouncing around at the reception! But, all in all I highly recommend this dress!

[snc421]

My friend from Texas and I made the necklaces ourselves, illusion style with shells and pearls.

 

 

 

As for my mom's dress, one word is PERFECT! (Boston Store like $90) It's a tank dress with a sheer overcoat. The color is very close to the girls' dresses, and there is an all-over, tone-on-tone hibiscus embriodery! I love hibiscus, and they were used at the reception quite a bit.

 

 

This picture shows my hairpiece good on my head, and my starfish necklace which was bought at WalMart for $98. (I saw one similar at Boston Store for $400+ and another at Sam's Club for $160, but decided to just go with this one.) Also my sand dollar earrings from Boston Store, I don't know the price because they were a Christmas gift...

 

 

As for the little girls, instead of flowers they carried beach pails I bought at Kohl's. I had ordered silver clam shells online somewhere for each of them (my youngest niece and his only niece) and they presented the rings during the ceremony. I had filled the pails with raffia and put the clam shell on top.

 

 

We did have a unity candle, and a memorial candle to honor his parents. I ordered them online from Weddings are fun. This picture is not very clear, which sucks, but it's all I have at the moment. All the candles, tapers included, have shells and starfish on them. The unity candle has our names and date in the middle of the heart.

 

 

Here's a pic that shows my veil with the shells while it was on and over my face, again not the best pic as far as quality... but this is the moment we are now Mr. and Mrs.!!!

 

 

more to come....

[snc421]

Here I am walking down the aisle...

 

 

The whole wedding party... remember I made all our flower arrangements. I pulled colors from my bouquet and featured a different color in each of the girls' arrangements. There's 2 Bird of Paradise in my bouquet and one in each of the girls'. Mine also has 3 Calla Lilies and 3 Orchids. The girls have one each in theirs, in different colors, with a big Shasta 'Crazy' Daisy for color pop. Again, LOVING the Pool color from DB! It made an excellent backdrop for the different bright colors of the bouquets!

 

 

I LOVE this picture! Two of the BEST bridesmaids anyone could ever ask for! I'm posting this pic because is a great representation of their bouquets and the one girl's hairpiece shows well, as does their necklaces.

 

 

Now for the reception......

[snc421]

Palm trees frame the stage where the DJ was set up, and hibiscus line the head table...

 

 

I found this wicker basket at Goodwill for $5 and tossed the net on it and added starfish. This is what I used for a card box.

 

 

Like I said, I bought the little girls' pails at Kohl's. I could not believe my luck, how things fell in place for me. (Must be meant to be!) Those pails were part of a collection of dishes. I bought these perfect dishes for centerpieces, and put sand, shells, lights and 3D palm trees in them.

 

 

These 3D palm trees were found online, like $18 for a pack of 24 I think. (I bought quite a few packs.) I put 4 Hershey Kisses in each one, and put 2 in each square plate, 1 in each starfish plate, and the extras were scattered all over the hall.

 

 

These oval platters are part of that same Kohl's collection. I bought seashell rubber molds online and someone made homemade butter mints for me. I used these platters for the mints. The mints came out awesome because the way the sugar is it looks like sand! Again, this is not the clearest picture.

 

 

More to come...

[snc421]

We found these name and date candy bars online as well. They are the Hershey mix, with the original and Dark bars, Krackels and Mr. Goodbars. There are four different wrappers: a seahorse, a starfish, a sailboat, and this one, a palm tree.

 

 

Our yummy cake! There is a deliberate sugar finish on the frosting, like sand. The shells are white chocolate.

 

 

Cake napkins, also found online...

 

 

The hibiscus-wrapped archway behind us. Again, not the clearest pic. (I don't have the professional pics from part of the wedding or any from the reception yet.)

 

 

The last picture I have to show is me dancing at the reception. I'm posting this because you can really see the back of my dress, at least the top part. The ends of the tie go almost the length of the dress, which is cool. Like I said, there's a minimal train, but still my seamstress added the loop to buckle it.

 

 

The dress was very comfortable, and very danceable. Like I said before, I could not wear any undergarments with it, but that only added to the comfort, I think. There is no tulle underneath to make me itch, again more comfortable and part of the beach-bride look I wanted, that it's not full. Just loose and flowing. I love how the top in the front reminds me of a bikini, and that the back crosses and ties like a summery dress.

 

What is funny is that when I chose my favorites, this dress was not one of them. I did see it on their site. The model was even standing on the beach, but in my mind it was too simple. Not a wedding dress, not mine, anyway. I had the vision of the dress my whole life, and chose 6 for my favorites.

 

I had already settled on my girls' dress, backwards I know, but my girls are all different sizes. The dress I chose for them I envisioned to look great on each of them, it's in the Pool color, has a real beachy-bridesmaid feel to it... and the style number is my birthday! (Again, meant-to-be?) Perfect!

 

So having chosen and settled on their dress and the beach theme, I went to DB to try on my 6 chosen dresses. As I tried on each one, they looked great, but not the one. Something about each one did not flow with the overall picture when I envisioned it next to the bridesmaids or on my theoretical beach. So I told the chic working with me let's try this other one I saw online... and my face lit up like Christmas! Even she said this is the one!

 

 

Good luck to any of you planning your wedding, and have fun planning your honeymoon! I remember the frustrations, the endless internet and foot searches... and am still at a loss for what to do now that it's done! So much of the detail and work involved I did myself, I even choreographed the set up for my reception before my rehearsal while my honey had to deal with some emergency. You should have seen me, that day was brutal! We only had a window of like an hour, maybe an hour and a half to set up the whole reception hall, tablecloths and all! So I just put on my director's hat, pulled everything out of the storage totes, and pointed the way I want things. I did have an amazing crew though! They rocked!

 

Congrats to anyone getting married! For me, it sure was a fun day! The frustrations were over the night before... just rode the wave on my wedding day! I hope your day goes as well as mine, whether it be on land or sea!