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Don’t forget to comment by tonight at Midnight (EST) for a chance to win the Gift Certificate for the complete name change package at MissNowMrs.com! Comment here to win!

Comment by Wednesday at Midnight (EST) to win this great book that offers chic and modern party tips for newlyweds! It’s got some simple and fun centerpiece ideas for all occasions, as well as ideas to pull your event together, tips on the basics like glasses and table settings, and more! The winner will be announced Thursday! Give to a friend or keep for youself:-)

Is it just me, or was Saturday the most beautiful day for an outdoor wedding ever?! Look at that amazing water! I may be a little biased because it was my last outdoor wedding of the year, and I was so absolutely thrilled that we shook off the rain from the week before and came out with a gorgeous day for a wedding on the shores of Lake Michigan! While we patiently wait for the pro pics from the talented Kelly Powers, here are a few I snapped of the ceremony and the little details we put together for this special day! I’m always so happy to see the end results of our full-service weddings and how it all pulls together…they are some of my favorites!

The Setup:

Beth and I arrived at the beach at 11:00 to setup chairs and put the final touches on the ceremony setup. Kelly was so fun to work with, and really gave me a lot of room to flex my creativity on this wedding which was a lot of fun, and it was so awesome to see her love everything we put together for her! We wanted to keep things simple and natural since we had such a gorgeous backdrop, so we did some simple gerber daisy and dune grass arrangements on the chairs, made a focal point at the front using driftwood and dune grass, and lined the back of the chairs with more dune grass, which is hard to see in pictures (sorry!) All of the gorgeous flowers were provided by Crystal Springs Florist.

Even though Kelly chose a fall palette of dark reds, oranges, yellows and greens, she fell in love with a bright pink bouquet, so we made the entire ceremony area bright and cheery using pink, and incorporated her fall color palette into the reception. The pink really popped on the beach, and I loved that there were sailboats all over in the background! At 3:00 Kelly+Russ said ‘I do’ in front of 54 of their closest friends and family, accompanied by beautiful harp tunes provided by Carl Payne (by the way, harp music is just perfect for the beach!) The ceremony was conducted by Kelly’s brother in law and was very personal and touching!

Some details:

Monogram: we based all of our printed materials off of a monogram created by April at Blu Sky Designs and we couldn’t have been happier with it! We incorporated it into the table numbers, favor tags, and even dropped the flowers into the menu cards!

Favors: Caramel apples from Kilwins were wrapped up with orange and green ribbon and raffia and set out on cake plates for guests to take home. These were a huge hit and I ate mine today—so delicious! Kelly also bought adorable light house ornaments for each family (you can see it in the box in the lower left pic) which was a really cute idea in honor of their beach wedding!

Kids’ favors: Small tin buckets filled with Legos (the couples favorite toy). Each bucket contained the pieces to make one car, and the couple put it together ahead of time and took a picture (rolled up in the scroll of paper) so the kids could see what they were making! The kids LOVED this, and had so much fun sitting at their table and making their Lego cars!

Cake: Cupcakes! There were cupcakes covered in large daisies in red, orange and yellow and they were delicious!

My pictures don’t do this beautiful wedding justice, and there are so many other fabulous things from this wedding I just can’t wait to share (but I will) so more to come! Thanks Kelly+Russ for being an absolutely AMAZING couple to work with! I was so happy to help create and share this special day with you both!

Don’t forget to comment here by midnight tonight for a chance to win the MissNowMrs.com gift certificate!

It’s the end of summer and since we’re rounding up the last of our 2008 weddings, this week we’re going to focus on post-wedding tasks. As promised, we have 3 awesome giveaways this week to help you with your newlywed to-do list!

First up, is a gift certificate from Miss Now Mrs for their $29.95 name change package! If you haven’t heard of them, Miss Now Mrs. will help walk you through the process of changing your name as you go from a Miss to a Mrs! You enter all of your information and it is automatically entered into all of the forms you’ll need! Just print them off and you’re set to go! Trust me, I wish I had this when I went through the name change process and it will make your life so much easier!

So how do you win? Leave a comment on this post (Tell us where you live and your wedding date—or just say hi!) between now and Tuesday at midnight (EST) for a chance to win! We’ll select a random winner from the comments on Wednesday! Stay tuned for another giveaway on Tuesday and Wednesday!

A month or two ago, I was contacted by Shore Magazine BRIDE to contribute to an article on post-wedding tasks.  Contibute? Me?! Yes, please! I love to write, and I love helping out brides, so I was very excited to lend some help! I’ve been anxiously awaiting the magazine to come out, and today I finally got a copy in my hot little hands! Sorry about the grainy image, but the pages are glossy and my scanner was not liking it at all!

(click to enlarge)

If you haven’t checked it out before, this magazine is great, and you can get it at most of the local retailers in downtown St. Joseph as well as Northwest Indiana and the Chicago area. It features everything wedding-related and fabulous along the lake shore and they always offer some beautiful pictures and inspiration for the local area!

So, to keep with the topic of post-wedding tasks, next week we’ll have a series of giveaways (yes, free stuff!) to help you with your post-wedding to-do list! We’ve got some great prizes lined up, so make sure to check in next week!

Outdoor weddings are some of my favorites–but with the beautiful outdoors also comes a certain expected level of uncertainty—you just can’t control mother nature! (but you can prepare for her!)

The picture above is Rocky Gap Beach. It’s a quaint little beach perfect for weddings because it’s a little off the beaten path and much quieter than the local city beaches (so you won’t have someone in a bikini in the background of your ceremony pics). It’s also more natural with no manmade facilities, making for gorgeous photos. This is also the cute little beach where my next full-service couple, Kelly+Russ, will be saying ‘I do’ next weekend! Imagine my surprise when I saw this picture yesterday in our local paper!

The accompanying article explained that local beaches were overrun with debris after last weekends monsoon of rain! (for those of you not local, we received about 11 inches of rain in a non-stop rush from friday-sunday).  As you can imagine, I had to get to that beach immediately to assess the damage! On my way, I was running through my schedule in my head, figuring I’d be raking up junk a couple hours a night next week in preparation, and thinking about how we could angle the setup to avoid debris showing up in pictures!

Imagine my surprise when I arrive at my lovely little beach, and find it to be spotless! It’s just a few miles down from the beach shown in the article, but seems to have weathered the storm without a scratch! So, I have to give a little ‘thanks’ to the wedding angels today—because my week was very close to becoming a lot more exciting!

Stay tuned next week for more on Kelly+Russ’ upcoming nuptials—I’m so excited about this wedding, and it is going to be amazing, with SO MANY personal touches!

In July, I coordinated decor design+setup for Tracy+David at their fabulous venue, Foundry Hall in South Haven. If you’re looking for a unique venue, Foundry Hall has a lot to offer! I don’t normally say this, but I think their lobby was actually one of my favorite places! The retro black+white tiles, dramatic red walls and glitzy chandelier (not to mention the gorgeous piano!) make for a beautiful backdrop and a fantastic area for guest to mingle!

It also has a separate bar with a small lounge area and room for guests to sit and talk over drinks. The main room is expansive and the open ceiling allows for endless options (we hung beautiful paper lanterns!). There is also a stage area perfect for your bridal party, and a backstage bridal room to freshen up “behind the scenes.”

(nearby Van Buren beach)

It’s also in a fantastic location, in the lake town of South Haven, just blocks from quaint shops, beaches and parks, perfect for pictures. South Haven is another perfect location for Chicago brides planning a destination wedding along the lake shore! Check out the Foundry Hall website for information on rental rates, more pictures, and specifics on the rooms and amenities!

All photos are by JK Photography

(photo by LVL Photography)

I was reading through a blog over the weekend (yes, StillMotion–again!) and a shot of the brides’ dresses caught my eye. YES, I said dresses—not two, but THREE amazing gowns! I did a double take—and then thought, “the more, the merrier!”

Wedding after wedding I never fail to be amazed by the gorgeous, gorgeous dresses my brides have chosen! I’ve seen hand-beaded marvels, simple styles, stunning strapless gowns, and splashes of color—but I have yet to have a double-dress bride! Perhaps 2009 will be the year!

Are you a double-dress bride? A triple dress bride? Will you be sporting a formal gown for your ceremony and pictures, and then slipping into a sassy cocktail dress to dance the night away in?!

I love StillMotion. Their blog has tons of amazing Same Day Edits and clips, and is full of fabulous eye candy. This Trash the Dress session absolutely blew me away! The locations themselves are amazing, and now I wish Southwest Michigan had a castle! The whole thing is absolutely stunning—I promise you won’t be able to pull yourself away! 

Griffen + Curtis’ Trash the Dress Shoot in CA from StillMotion on Vimeo.

One of the things I love most about planning weddings in Southwest Michigan, is all of the beautiful locations to choose from as a backdrop for your big day!

Check out this gorgeous wedding, shot by Ben Pancoast at the Blue Dress Barn—one of the most scenic venues in the area!