Mike and Danielle--5-7-11 The French Connection

 I just love these two!  They put so much thought and attention into all the little touches that make a wedding personal and special.  They were engaged in Paris, so of course, they used that as a kick off point for a wedding that had touches of France all over. 
Mike and his mother danced to a rock and roll song and really cut the rug!  Mike said he knew he would be all weepy if they did a slow dance, so they used a song from Pulp Fiction and really busted a move!

 Mike and Danielle did the choreographed dance that is offered by Transaudio, their DJ, and the crowd loved it.

 Cupcakes with a small layer for them to cut at the top were served instead of traditional wedding cake.  Cream filled cupcakes by Chesterton Cake Shoppe were a huge hit.

Cute cute cute!!!!

Each table number had a French statement related to love with the translation. Their centerpieces were wine bottles that were cut to go over candles in a holder, tres chic!

We had great fun setting up the favor table for them!  We used some glass shelving to set out the Orangina on several levels, and give the table some dimension.  Mike spent hours wiring a little Eiffel Tower with twinkle lights.  They also had yummy little shortbread cookies with the Eiffel Tower pressed into them that were dipped in chocolate (oh hurt me!) These were in little glacine envelopes in a basket for guests to help themselves.  So cute. 

So you ask, "How did they get so many people out there for the garter and bouquet? 

It was a terrific idea!  They put a lottery ticket with the garter and also with the bouquet, and invited ALL the ladies, married or single, and then ALL the men, married or single, out to try to catch it.  Nothing like the hope of a winning ticket to get everyone out on the floor!!  It was very clever, and Mike and Danielle figured there wouldn't be many "singles" at their wedding reception, so this was a great way to get folks out there.

All in all it was a wonderful wedding for a terrific couple!  We had so much fun planning it with them!

Congrats Danielle and Mike!  Nos meilleurs voeux à vous!

Jen and Chris 5-14-11

Wow!  What a magical wedding!  The guests were absolutely blown away when they walked in!

It was fun to do a "cool" color this time, the soft baby blue looked amazing!

Gorgeous florals by Kristina Lynn--

Jen and Chris used the "crystal curtains ceiling" and also the "crystal curtains backdrop" behind the head table.  What's really cool about these is that when you get the room full of people, the air moves ever so slightly which makes the crystals move, and they "twinkle"!  It's really beautiful! 

Martini anyone?  Their martini luge was a huge hit.  The drink (which was baby blue of course, to match the color theme of the wedding!) was poured into the top, and it runs through the ice block which cools it down, then it pours out into the glass below.  Very cool--no pun intended!

An amazing cake by Linda Monroe--we love her cakes! 

DJ Steve Zana kept the crowd dancing all evening. 

Chris and Jen will have wonderful memories of their evening here at Aberdeen Manor, thanks to photographers Leroy and Jane Clemons and a video by VU Productions. Both are wonderful to work with and we really enjoy having them here with us.  It makes everything go so smoothly.

Great wedding you two!  Congratulations and all our best wishes!  

An Interesting Story!

I was going through my email this morning, and came to the following:

"My name is Jason and I found a camera yesterday on a Southwest flight from Phoenix to San Jose. The camera looks like it belongs to a white, gay male couple who attended the wedding. Can you please provide Bo & Erin my email so we can identify who the camera belongs to and how to get it to them?"


So of course, I forwarded the email to Erin so that she might be able to get the camera back to the rightful owner.  It was driving me crazy, though, to know how someone on a flight from Phoenix to San Jose would end up with this camera, and better yet, how did he figure out that it was Bo and Erin's wedding on April 2nd that was on the camera?

Well, being the nosey person that I am, I wrote him back and asked him!  Here is what he said:

"I went through the pictures to try and find out who it belonged to. The only identifying thing I could find was the projected hologram on the wall at the wedding reception with the data "Bo & Erin April 2, 2011". So I did a Google search with Bo & Erin and found your blog site with their Pretty in Pink wedding pics. It looked like a match."


So I guess the moral of the story is, make sure you use a gobo with your names and the date so that if anyone loses their camera, the finder can contact you!  How awesome is that?  SO nice of Jason to make the effort to hunt down the bride and groom to try to return the camera!  But equally awesome is the power of the Google search!  Wow! 

Seriously, I am going to take a photo of my name and cell phone number, and I'm going to just leave it on my camera when I download the pictures.  That way if I ever lose it, someone could look through the photos and maybe be as kind as Jason was and return it to me.  In retrospect, I wish I had done this on the camera that was stolen from me in London last summer.  I might have gotten my 746 EDITED pictures of our trip back!  It would have been a long shot, but at least I would have had a chance of getting it back.  As it was, there was nothing in those pictures that would have given anyone a clue of how to contact me.  Jason would not have been able to find the owners of this camera without the gobo on the wall.
I am just amazed. 

Phillip and Julia 4-30-2011

Wow!  Black and white weddings have really returned to the forefront this year!  Black and white in combination with a color-pink, fuchsia, red, bright green, yellow, you name it!  Surprisingly, it isn't always in combination with black bridesmaid's gowns as in the past.  The gowns have been in the bright color many times, or at least with a bright colored sash or trim.  Really pretty combinations!

Phil and Julia used a beautiful shade of raspberry pink, soft but vibrant.  Really pretty.  They had originally planned on the garden for their ceremony, however with all the wet weather in the last couple of weeks, along with the high winds that were whipping through the garden, they decided that the chapel might be a better option. 
Here are some photos from their ceremony and reception:

 Their 2 year old twin daughters were flower girls.  They also were very interested in dancing with mom and dad for their first dance!

Lovely wedding you two!  All our best for a wonderful future together!

Royal Wedding Blues

Last week I read an article by a woman who had been married 2 weeks after the historic Charles and Di wedding. Here is what she had to say about it:

"I had the misfortune of getting married two weeks after the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. My wedding was always being compared to the fairytale wedding and beautiful bride. No one spoke of my dress as they couldn't stop talking about Lady Diana and how beautiful she was. If people only knew what a bummer that was to an already stressed out bride!
During my ceremony the preacher stated,
"We know this can't be as beautiful a site as the wedding of the royals, but the love is still there!"

Oh, isn't THAT special!
Gosh, they just became engaged a few months ago (I guess they don't have to worry too much about booking venues and availability!)  I wonder how many weddings were already booked for the 29th, as well as the 30th and the couple of weeks after.  I wonder how many brides found out that "their day" was going to be shared with William and Kate, long after they could do anything about it?
This all reminds me of when my oldest daughter was born, in a goofy kinda way.  I had always planned if I had daughters, to name them after the sisters in Little Women (I know, you probably don't even know what I'm talking about, right?  They were Jo, Amy, Meg and Beth.)  Incidentally, I managed to work in three of the four by naming my oldest daughter Amy ElizaBETH and my youngest Megan (although Meg in the book was actually a Margaret), but that's another post.  Anyway, Amy was born in April of 1976, just days before Jimmy Carter rocketed to the forefront of the 1976 presidential campaign--and what was his daughter's name?  You got it--Amy!
All of a sudden Amy became HUGELY popular!  EVERYBODY was naming their baby Amy, and worse than that, whenever anyone asked me her name and I told them, they would say "Oh, I'll bet you named her after Jimmy Carter's daughter!"  Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgh!!!!  Amy was probably the most popular girl's name of 1976 because of it, and all through school Amy had bunches of other Amys in her class at school. Bummer!
I suppose that brides for the next several months are going to have to endure a similar comparison.  While in a way it's exciting to be marrying at the same time as the Royals, it's also a little deflating to couples who thought that "their day" was going to be theirs alone. 
Here at Aberdeen, we make a special effort to make every bride feel that she is our ONLY bride.  We work hard at it ALL the time, and this week as well as in the weeks and months to come, I am going to make an extra special effort NOT to bring up a discussion of this affair on the other side of the world to any of our brides.  Their day is still going to be theirs alone at Aberdeen and THEIR wedding is always going to be the Wedding of the Year.
We all need to be sensitive about our enthusiasm for this royal wedding, and remember that some folks, particularly brides, might not share our excitement about it!
I hope that everyone will join me in making our brides, and ALL brides, a Princess for the day and insuring that their day is still theirs alone! 
(P.S. Of course, I will still be getting up at 3 a.m. to watch the coverage! :)

April 16, 2011 Michelle and Paul--The Window Debut!

After the window was installed last week, we were all anxious to see how it would look for a wedding!
I have to say, it looks like it's been there from the beginning!  We are all so pleased with the results.  It was worth every cent.
So Michelle and Paul were the lucky couple whose wedding was the inaugural run for the window.  What a great couple!  So nice.  I love having weddings with couples like them.

 Theirs was a small event, about 100 guests.  Their flower girl and ring bearer stole the show!  What darling kids!  Alexis, the little flower girl, was so sweet.  I asked her if she was ready to do her big job, and she told me "Well, actually, I'm a little bit nervous!"  So grown up for such a little girl!  Like most her size though, she was really into the whole thing, and took her petal dropping VERY seriously!

 I don't think the ring bearer was quite as into it, but he did a great job too.

Their colors were pewter grey and orange.  Gerbera Daisies made up the bouquets, the boutonnieres and the centerpieces, as well as decoration on their cake.

Because of the smaller number of guests, we were able to use the North Room for the cocktail hour, and then bring the guests around to the South Room for dinner.  Tres chic! We left our "window" in the wall to make it more cozy and inviting.  It also makes a nice backdrop for photos when the head table is in front of the garden doors.  The gift table in the wall, with twinkle lights, looked beautiful from both sides of the room.

All in all, a lovely evening for a lovely couple!  Congratulations Michelle and Paul!!!

15 Days and Counting! William and Kate Updates!

So, are we all going to get up at 4 a.m. to watch the coverage of the Royal Wedding?  Hmmmm, I may have to think about that one!   I'm thinking that I can watch most of it live, and still make it to work at noon, depending on whether the time difference is 5 hours or 6.  I think it's 5 during daylight savings time.  So if the ceremony is at 11 a.m., and the guests will begin arriving between 8 and 10--wow, that makes it really early!
This morning I've been looking at all the information online about the wedding.  I found a VERY interesting itinerary of the day on the official website.  It has information on their wedding party, which will be Kate's sister Phillipa as Maid of Honor and William's brother Harry as Best Man.  The rest of the "wedding party" are children!  Interesting!  Four girls ages 7, 8, 3, and 3, and two boys 8, and 10.  They are officially called bridesmaids and page boys.  One adult attendant on each side and the rest children?  Hmmmmm, I think this makes me glad I'm not coordinating weddings in the UK!  I have enough trouble getting grown ups down the aisle sometimes!! :)
Here's a very informative link for information on wedding traditions in the UK.  I was surprised at how many differences there were! 
Kate and William came up with their guest list just like all of us commoners.  The couple made their list, each family made their lists, and then they put them all together.  Another little fact I found very interesting--they have invited 1900 guests to the ceremony, 650 guests to the lunch reception at Buckingham Palace (hosted by Her Royal Majesty!) and then dinner and dancing for 300 guests in the evening (hosted by Prince Charles).  Wow!  We could have had their reception at Aberdeen!  Ha! 
Most interesting though, was the information on their wedding cake!  They have hired Fiona Cairns, a well known cake designer in Lancastershire, England.   Fiona is apparently the UK's answer to Sylvia Weinstock, Colette Peters and Ron Ben Israel!  She has some beautiful pictures on her website of things that she has done.  The Royal wedding cake is going to be done in the Joseph Lambeth technique which is very popular in England as well as in Australia and New Zealand.  It is SO beautiful, and SO delicate!

The Lambeth technique involves delicate piping and intricate details.  Either in all white or colors.

I have a sneaking suspicion that after the 29th of April, our local cake people will need to brush up on the Lambeth technique!
The other interesting fact about the cake is that it will be made of fruitcake, which is the traditional wedding cake in England.  The tradition of putting a piece of wedding cake under your pillow to dream about who you would marry involved the fruitcake, rather than our traditional American wedding cake.  Much less messy I would think!  It's usually covered with marzipan which is made from almond paste, and applied similar to rolled fondant--but it is much more tasty!  (Incidentally, the one plus that fondant has over marzipan is that it can be white, whereas marzipan is a light beige color, with white royal icing on it though, it can be really beautiful!)
In the coming two weeks we'll talk more about the big wedding, and how it will affect our wedding traditions here. 
What aspect of the wedding are YOU most excited about?