So much love from ABCD!

What a fantastic feeling for a Friday, waking up to so much love over on the ABCD Designs blog!

ABCD: Bride stays true to her vision


I think she is much too kind, of course, but Amy's point about sticking to your inspiration "guns" is well-taken ... I agree with her that wedding blogs can become inspiration overload at a certain point in your planning process. In a way, because our "theme" was so different than what I was seeing on other blogs, it made our planning process easier - nothing out there was something I could quickly scoop up and incorporate into our event, so I could just ooh and aah objectively. Plus, not only was I already over my head with graphic design and printing up until the last minute, but Team DIY was up to their ears in glue with all the fabric pomander-making, can-wrapping, and votive-decorating. Factor in the travel requirements for all projects to arrive at our tough-to-get-to-wedding, and adding another project just wasn't an option!

Lacking detail angst doesn't make me immune from the problem of too much inspiration, though. The one place I can say this "was it enough?" angst has hit me is with photography. We spent a large portion of our budget on photography and love so many of our photos, but I confess that I do get pangs of "should we have hired a second photographer?" or "instead of going with a local photographer, should we have imported someone?" I'm sure every couple ends up with a few photos they wanted but that just never got taken - whether that was verbalized in advance or a shot you only realized how much you wanted after the fact. As we found with so many other aspects of our wedding, the benefits of getting married in a remote place also become drawbacks - doing anything that's not "home-grown" was exorbitantly expensive. I don't mean to discredit our photographer at all - we truly love our photographs - really. And her presence throughout our day was nothing but a good thing - she is one of those truly warm, free-spirited, FUN people. But because I'm drawn to so much photography on other wedding blogs, it has become that nagging little question in my head, just as others might have that voice worry about their dress, or their flowers, or their music, etc.

But in the spirit of just being thrilled that we pulled off our crazy election-themed party - and to not having regrets, because we did the very best we could with the budget we were comfortable with - let's look at more pretty photos in the next post!

And to Amy, who without question was my absolutely favorite part of our wedding planning process, a huge thank you!

PS... I've moved! Catch up on my daily adventures at The Freckled Citizen!

Lisa and Liam

As many of you remember, my sister Lisa was my Best Woman and was due to give birth to her first child just six days after the wedding. She made it through brilliantly ... rocked her heels, covered her non-maternity bridesmaid dress bunching with a festive sash, and put on a smile! Here's my "Best Of" of the Best Woman:


My nephew Liam was born right on time, exactly on his June 1 due date. He is a sweetheart, as you've already seen... but everyone loves to ooh and aah over baby pictures, so here's some more!



PS... I've moved! Catch up on my daily adventures at The Freckled Citizen!

Hey...that's us!

Was just exploring my site meter and found a discussion thread about our wedding! Funny.

Check it out here.

Thank You... strategically

A big chunk of our thank you cards went out in the mail yesterday. I love finally getting these out the door!

We had standard stationery created by ABCD Designs in lieu of formal thank you cards. Here's a closeup of the front of our card (yummy letterpress alert!):


When we decided to go with standard stationery instead of official thank you cards, we thought we were being practical: we could slip a photo inside featuring a "thank you" and continue to use the stationery for general purposes after the thank yous were done. In theory, this was smart. What I didn't anticipate was not getting my photos until nearly two months later, meaning that this stickler for thank you etiquette was stressed to the max about getting my cards in the mail so late. My advice for anyone having custom stationery made is to be 110% sure your photos will be ready quickly if you opt for a thank you photo instead of a thank you note.

Amy also made us a rubber stamp with our campaign logo, which we stamped inside the cards with red ink along with our note.

Included inside is our official thank you photo:


Adding our names and the date was purely strategic. Shortly after the wedding, we received two cards in the mail from folks who I thought knew I wasn't changing my name, but apparently hadn't gotten the message. I decided that the best way to approach this is going to be consistent, gentle reminders. Therefore, both of our full names appear on our thank you image, and both of our names are also on our coordinating return address label. It's not a press release, but I hope that small decisions like these will help convey the message over time.

We're thrilled with our cards and have had a blast including images of guests partying at the reception as an extra token of thanks. I'd love any tips any of you might have on ways you've tactfully approached the name issue - please share!

Now... back to finishing the rest!


PSA: I've moved! Catch up on my daily adventures at The Freckled Citizen!

Inquiring Mind: Diana

Diana (an Outer Banks bride-to-be!) has beauty on the brain. She asks:

Where did you get your hair and makeup done? The Sanderling?

My hair was indeed done at The Sanderling Spa. I wanted a loose, curly, beachy updo, and Monique gave it to me. Here's how it looked all pristine and pretty, with my hairpiece from Smitten:


And in action:


Unfortunately, it was a really windy day, especially beach-side. (My poor groom is very dissatisfied with his windblown locks in our photos... how about giving him some love?!) By the end of the night my hair really started coming apart, but since the look was so low-key and curly anyway, I don't think anyone really noticed. You can see it getting unkempt here:


My makeup was done by All Eyes on the Bride (and yes, my sister commented on the irony of someone who didn't want all eyes on her on her wedding day using a business with that name!). Lauren was fabulous. She brought her sister along as her assistant and did the wedding party, moms, and me - and I think we all looked great! Here's Lauren in action:


You remember my search for Nars Cruella, right?


My inspiration was this photo of Drew Barrymore. I was working on a pretty good tan by the time of the wedding, and ended up getting much more sun than anticipated the day before the wedding thanks to our kayaking trip (wearing SPF 50, mind you). So I was a pretty summery-looking May bride. But it turns out, the tanner I am, the more comfortable I feel rocking red lips! The final look:


Coming down the aisle...


And rockin' the red lips during one of my dearest memories from our ceremony - listening to our friends share a reading:


Unrelated side note: I really miss that tan. Here I am celebrating my golden-ness with my Boston gals. (I know, I know, my skin is better off without...) And no judging at our sweaty faces! Late-night it got HOT in that tent!


But back to red lips... want more proof that Team Maggie was awesome? Remember how they organized and found the same killer shoes and all loved them, without me even asking them to wear the same shoes? On the day of the wedding, they all decided to go with red lips, too!


Yay red lips! Yay Team Maggie!

Thanks for your question, Diana, and best of luck!

More questions about our wedding? Comment here or shoot me an e-mail at maggie(dot)eatdrinkmarry (at) gmail (dot) com. Ask away!

Also... I've moved! Catch up on my daily adventures at The Freckled Citizen!

We have photos...!

Yay! Wave your wedding wands!

I have a huge stack of thank you cards waiting to have photos slipped inside, so as soon as I catch up I can post more here. Happy Friday!

New digs!

I warned you that I was packing my boxes... allow me to introduce my new blog, The Freckled Citizen!


Never fear, I'll continue doing the full wedding recap over here. I actually think my wedding photos might be arriving in the mail today, at last! Can I handle a new blog and my wedding photos all on the same day? We're about to find out.

Come on over and say hi!

(And yep... wedding colors never die!)

Inquiring Mind: Nicole

Nicole has fabric on the brain - she wanted more runner and tablecloth details. First up:

Your runner - How did you make it? Did you have anything between the fabric? What did you use as a backing?

My mom's friend Sandy made the runner for us. It was 4.5 feet wide and 40 feet long. The runner was simply cut to size, folded, and ironed. There was no backing underneath the fabric on top of the wooden deck - it was used as is. The afternoon of the wedding, it was simply stapled into place on the aisle along the edges.

By the way, If you'd like to purchase the runner, let me know - Melissa decided to go in a different direction, so we still have the runner, rolled up and ready to go, in pristine condition!


Next, Nicole asks:

Fabric in general: Where did you locate it? Did you end up making your own tablecloths? If so, were they round? And, if they were round, how did you do it?

Finding our wedding fabric was a long and fairly tedious process. My mom and I were regularly hitting fabric stores in NC and TX for months. (A taste of the search process can be found here, looking at my posts tagged "fabric.") For a while there, I had fabric samples in every bag I own, in piles around my apartment, and stacked in the closets. Eventually, I found our fabrics online, which I describe in some of the tagged posts. The online options were more reasonably priced than what we found in stores, and being able to search by yard cost prevented me from falling in love with really expensive fabric, which happened all the time in person. Premier Prints is a great company, by the way, I highly recommend them.

The runner was made from Premier Prints Amsterdam in Snorkel, which was originally purchased as a tablecloth fabric and ended up not being white enough - but was perfect as the runner.


We settled on two tablecloth fabrics: Premier Prints Amsterdam in Lipstick (which unlike the snorkel version, had a bright white background) and Premier Prints Kimono in Snorkel.


I loved the way the fabrics complemented each other without being too matchy-matchy. The punches of color were great fun at the reception and worked really well alongside all the other patterns we had going on in the decor - the DIY'd flower containers on each table, the votive holders, the table signs, and the escort cards.

So how were they made? Not by us! My mom hired one of her coworkers to make them. We knew that the tables were 60-inch rounds, so decided to make the tablecloths 84-inch squares to provide a 12-inch drop all the way around (and as you infer, Nicole, making round tablecloths is quite a bit more complicated than making squares). Each tablecloth was stitched in three pieces, with the pattern lined up precisely. The center piece was the entire width of the fabric, with two smaller strips on each side, which avoided a center seam that would've been noticeable. Our seamstress did a fantastic job - the pattern matched so precisely on each side that the seams were nearly invisible. The tablecloths went over the venue's standard white underlays, which was a way to cut down on costs, since they were free. Here are a few table photos - more and better photos getting here soon, I promise - I believe they are finally in the mail.


More questions about our wedding? Comment here or shoot me an e-mail at maggie(dot)eatdrinkmarry (at) gmail (dot) com. Ask away!

Thanks, Globetrotter!

Globetrotting Bride profiled our wedding over the holiday. How exciting... and thank you!

Here's what we were busy doing this weekend:

Happy first month in the world to my nephew Liam!

Our red, white, and blue wedding :-)

In the spirit of the 4th, I thought I'd share some of our favorite red, white, and blue details from the wedding. Since I'm still without our wedding photos, bear with me and pretend these screen-captured thumbnails with a logo will suffice. ;-) (If you need a full-resolution fix, go revisit our full-size sneak peaks here.)

We're flying to North Carolina early tomorrow morning to spend the weekend with friends and family - including my month-old nephew Liam! It'll be our first trip back since the wedding, and let me tell you, I am craving some barbecue (along with good times with my fab family and friends, of course!).

Have a fantastic holiday, everyone! Enjoy!