How Cute Are You!

I know you have seen me write about the too terribly cute graphics that friend of the Dish Holly Hatam over at Tear Drop Weddings creates for her stationery line. Well now is your chance to be just as cute.

Like any good designer, Holly is looking for inspiration and who better to inspire her than all the lovely brides and groom out there in Wedding Dish land.

Holly is looking for 20 brides to inspire her. All you need do is tell her your story about how you met your fiance, how you fell in love, your creative ideas and details for your wedding. Then she will choose the 20 brides that inspire her the most and design an invitation around that story. And in return, you will receive a custom designed invitation, but for the price of a design that you would choose out of her ready made collection! That is a savings of $1500!

I love that: Couture at Ready to Wear prices.

Hop over to the blog at Tear Drop Weddings and tell my girl Holly your story: then you can be too terribly cute too!

On another note; congrats to Holly. The boy just popped the question. I can’t wait to see those invitations.

Best Place to Get Married!

Last night, here is sunny NashVegas the best of the best gathered at the Country Music Hall of Fame for the readers choice awards hosted by The Tennessean. The Toast of Music City as they are called polled reader in about a bazillion different categories to see who would come out on top. I am pleased to say that I had three dear friends of the Dish take home honors.

The top winner of the night was Cheekwood; chosen as “Best Place to Get Married.” Well gee, I already knew that! Glad to see that every one agrees.

Also bringing home metal last night were Branching Out in the floral category and Michael B’s Music for DJs.

Congrats to all of last night winners, you are The Toast of Music City!

Wedding Bloopers

While working on the new site for the Wedding Connection in Fort Wayne, IN I ran across this compilation of wedding bloopers. Oh my, have a laugh on me.
special thanks to Temo7 and the Wedding Connection.

Franklin Bridal Ball

Last night was The Franklin Bridal Ball. I was there to see what was up and catch any trends I could. As you can see I was in great company. Those are two really good friends of the Dish, Vicki Sanders of Branching Out Event Florists and Ashley King-Carter creator of Ashley’s Bride Guide. Yes, we apparently all got the memo: Green is tonight’s color!

There were many beautiful things there but I was inspired by some of the tabletops and centerpieces. It seems that ‘Shiny” is in!

I'll have more dish on the people and things for last night in the days to come. Stay tuned.

Wedding Jewelry Inspired by YOU!

Good friend of the Dish, Mandy Greenan is at it again. This time she is designing a line for her company Tigerlilly with YOU in mind.

Mandy is looking for 20 brides to inspire her; send her your story and your ideas and you may just be one of them. Ladies if you are at your wits end finding the right pieces to garnish your wedding day look, here is your chance to have one of the best custom design your dreams.

I find inspiration everywhere - in nature, music, fashion...
But one of the things I enjoy most and find most inspiring is working with you.
Brides have so much passion and excitement,
I just love to collaborate and come up with custom pieces that are the perfect
accent for you, your style, your day.

With that in mind, let me introduce the first season of the Inspired Collection,
a group of 20 designs that are created for 20 brides. Tell me about you, your
wedding, your gown, your style, your dream accessories, send me pictures,
and we'll come up with your signature piece.

You'll be part of our first ever Inspired collection - you help me design it,
name it, and even model it if you'd like!

We're starting this collection with 20 designs, 20 brides. If you'd like
to be a part of it, please email me at mandy@tigerlillyjewelry.com!
We're working with all budgets, and we're looking for a wide
variety of designs, from simple to over the top statement pieces!

I can't wait to hear from you!

So give Mandy a shout and tell her I said Hi.

Wedding Cake Topper to Make You Go awwwwwwwwwwwwww

As a former cake decorator I have never been too keen on cake toppers. Most of the one I have seen are tacky. Then of course there are the new breed that are just offensive. I always tended to lean toward using sugar sculptures to match the rest of the artwork on the cake. But this one just makes me go awwww. I would actually use this. In fact now I want to design a cake to go with it.

Let’s see. 3 tiers in fondant with classic curved top edges. Make the fondant on the base tier the faintest robin’s egg blue, fade the middle tier down to almost white and make the top tier a pure white to match the birds. For a base border, in a dark straw/light tan combination pipe random woven bits with maybe a number 4 round tip to resemble a band of birds nest. Do a board to match in just the next shade darker robin’s egg blue and add maybe a tuft of grass or a two as an accent on the base.

Inside, hmmmm…oh I know! The vanilla pudding pound cake I used to make with a passion fruit ganache filling; add a touch of Le Grande Passion liquor to the soak and the butter cream base coat. Oh drool. Love it. Almost makes me want to bake again

DIY Madness

Every now and then I run across a DIY project that makes me nuts. This is one of them. It is a ring bearer’s pillow made of stephanotis. Yes it is beautiful. Yes it will smell fabulous. Yes you CAN do it yourself. Should you? Well let’s take a little look at what they don’t tell you.

First off the let’s look at the flowers themselves. Stephanotis is beautiful alright but they are one of the most fragile flowers out there. They must be handled much differently from other flowers. As cited in the article there are special cotton tipped stems that must be used to keep them fresh. First you remove the natural stems and insert the moistened cotton tipped wires which you then wrap in floral tape. That is not as easy for a novice as it sounds since steph’s will discolor from the slightest touch. A florist knows to only touch them on the back side of the bloom. It’s also very time consuming.

The article calls for 150 to 175 blooms. I checked yesterday and the current wholesale price is $1 per bloom. Unless you have an inside connection to the floral wholesalers they aren’t going to sell to you. That means you will be paying retail, more like $2 per bloom. I’m betting that you aren’t going to find these bad boys at Costco either; so be prepared for a bit of sticker shock.

The second glaring inconsistence in the article is the use of floral foam. Makes sense on the surface but falls apart in reality. Literally. A 6” x 6” x 1” block of floral foam, once soaked will snap in half from its own weight. So now your little 5 year old nephew is carrying a very fragile, heavy, drippy thing that turns brown where ever he touches it. Good times.

Not only have you got a mess on your hands but it’s a mess you didn’t need in the first place. Remember all the work you did to remove the stems and replace them with the cotton tipped wires? Think about this for a minute; if the blooms have no stems how are they possibly going to soak up water from the foam? Besides, wasn’t the whole point of replacing the stems to give each bloom its own water source?

There are a lot of wonderful DIY projects out there; this my friends, isn’t one of them. Save your money and your sanity and find one that you can do in advance. In fact, this one might just be do-able out of silks. Now I’ll bet that is something you never thought you’d hear your Wedding Diva say. I did kind of shudder as I typed it.

The article is in the Aug Sept 2008 issue of Modern Bride, page 178. Sorry guys, but you know I call them as I see them.

Pretty Hair Jewlery

I received an email update from Lonni Tanksley to highlight these adorable new hair coils. Wouldn’t they look like tiny stars tucked into an updo? The coil design will see that they stay there no matter how much you dance the night away.

Lonni is an indie artist that with a shop on etsy.com. If you haven’t checked out her work you really need to give it a look. Her pieces are so light and airy that they make a perfect addition to not only your summer wedding look but for any time you want to add a little sparkle to your day.