Friday Find: Scary Proposal

Is it Friday already?! Today's "Friday Find" is just mean. Lucky for this guy, his girl clearly has a sense of humor because I'm not sure I would be so forgiving. Although...perhaps having a new shiny ROCK on her finger was enough of a distraction from how angry she could have been!


Another one brought to you by wedinator.com

Mike and Kerry's Invitations

I can't believe it's that time already! But last week Chris and I received the invitations to Mike and Kerry's wedding!! Note the hand-cancelled invitation, stamped evenly and perfectly over the stamp, good job Kerry! ;)

Kerry tied the invitations together with Baker's Twine she got at Paper Presentation in the city! 

Our particular invitation had a hand written reply envelope with delivery to "the basement" since they are living in the apartment downstairs right now. It was a cute and personal touch for us :)

I love the colors, I love the theme throughout the whole suite, which also ties into their Fall Wedding perfectly. In a few words: I cannot WAIT for this wedding!

Engage-aversary Surprise!

We had a whirlwind, BUSY weekend. Friday we did happy hour with friends, then went to a dueling piano bar in Times Square with our newly engaged friends afterward, which was so cool and so much fun! I had never been to a dueling piano bar before, and I'm so glad we decided to go! On Saturday morning, Chris had an eye appointment early in the morning, so I was able to sleep in a bit while he went to his appointment. When he came home at 10:00, he woke me up, and I was greeted with these beauties!

Chris brought home a dozen red roses for our 2 month anniversary/2 year engage-aversary. I was certainly surprised to see this, (since..well...you know, it's not really a real anniversary, lol).

With my bouquet!

Definitely so pretty and such a sweet surprise!

The rest of the day we spent shopping (trying to use up some of our gift cards from our wedding). Mike and Kerry had a great party for their bridal party that night, and we went to New Jersey on Sunday to finally meet our friends Erin and Derek's little baby, Dash! He is the cutest little thing.

 

So that's all for today...back to some more wedding stuff on Wednesday!

Friday Find: Auto Wed

Happy Friday again! Yesterday was our 2 month anniversary and tomorrow is our 2 YEAR "Engage-aversary" I'm not sure if you can still have "engage-aversaries"after you're married, but 2 years ago...Chris proposed to me in the Bahamas and wedding madness has ensued ever since!

Today's Friday Find is pretty hilarious. Are you tired of wedding planning? Want a wedding without all the hassle of planning? Overly stressed about your wedding? Then look no further: AutoWed can perform your wedding ceremony immediately! The machine even prints out a receipt that you can reclaim should you need a divorce! Great for the "on-the-go" bride ;) Watch the demonstration below:


AutoWed Wedding Vending Machine by Concept Shed from Conceptshed on Vimeo.

Abby and Mike's Wedding

Congratulations to Laura at Dual Coast Bride for winning my uprinting.com giveaway! I'll be in touch with you soon with details. Thanks so much for participating everyone! I'm going to have some other giveaways coming up, so stay tuned!

Last Friday Chris and I went to our second out of three weddings this year (including ours). We left with plenty of time to check into the hotel, change, and make the ceremony. Well unfortunately, we didn't go above 20 mph pretty much the entire drive to Connecticut! What was supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour drive ended up taking 4 hours and we missed the entire ceremony!! AHH!! I felt just awful about it, but there was really nothing we could do about it. I heard it was an absolutely beautiful and gorgeous ceremony, and I wouldn't expect anything less from these two!

We arrived at The Simsbury Inn with just enough time to change and head out to the reception. We got on the shuttles and had some good catch up time with friends Ben, and Christina and Kenny (Read about their wedding HERE!) 

When we arrived, Abby and Mike had pictures of their childhood, and pictures from their relationship set up on a table in the entrance-way.

These beautiful olive oil bottles with hand-painted blue hydrangeas doubled as favors and our table seatings!

"May these olive oil bottles be a symbol of our hope that your life may always have flavor"

Their guest book was postcards they had made from pictures that Mike took while he studied abroad in Italy. You filled out a postcard, then "mailed" it to them in the mailbox!

"In recognition of Mike's Italian heritage, we've used photos he took while
studying abroad in Italy to create these postcards. For our guestbook, please write a
message to us on a card and "send" it to us by placing it in the mailbox.
Thank you!

Cards went into an adorable white mailbox, which Ben demonstrates here:

This was one of my favorite ideas from their wedding: I read last week at on a blog (will link to it as soon as I remember which one) about how a friend twittered her whole wedding and she LOVED looking back on the updates and seeing real-time updates. Well, Abby and Mike invited everyone to join in and twitter about their wedding! I know a lot of people don't really "twitter," but Mike is big on the social media scene and I totally loved this idea. I twittered throughout the night, and you can read everyone's real-time updates here. I think this was such a great idea and great way to get everyone excited and involved! Plus, it's something nice for Abby and Mike to read and re-live the night through their guests.

Then it was time to eat! My favorite was the hummus and the brie with raspberry!

Green drink (of course). This was called a Pearl Harbor

After cocktail hour, we entered the gorgeous ballroom for the reception:

 Their table numbers had different wedding phrases, in different languages:

 Elegant centerpieces, I just LOVE hydrangeas!:

The sweetheart table:

The cake with their Cinderella and Prince-Charming Cake-Topper:

Our table:

 Then it was time for the Bride and Groom to enter and share their first dance!

First Dance "Then" By Brad Paisley:

Cake Cutting:

UMMM FUNFETTI CAKE?! So awesome!

Mother/Son Dance:

Father/Daughter Dance:

And then TIME to DANNNCE!

With the bride!

Now with the Groom!

Chris and Christina break-it down!

Dancing to "For Good" from Wicked....which Abby dedicated to her Father.

They had a sparkler send-off, I can't WAIT to see the professional pics from this.

They had an awesome limousine with jumper seats in the back where they can be seen!

And then we hung out for awhile for the after-party at the hotel bar! Another fantastic wedding. I am so happy for Abby and Mike and hope they are having an amazzzing time on their honeymoon right now in Antigua!!

Now, no wedding would be complete without an Animoto slideshow of the event!! (I really love this website, it's def. worth the $30 a year membership!) 

"My Flip Wedding" Video Preview!

**Don't forget! Today is the last day to enter the uprinting.com giveaway! Leave a comment here to enter!**

Last week Storymix Media, sent me a teaser for our My Flip Wedding video!! You may remember from this post, that I used My Flip Wedding from StoryMix Media for our wedding video coverage. As I said in my earlier post:

"[My Flip Wedidng] supplies flip cams for 3 day usage by your friends, family, guests, and even you to shoot footage the whole weekend. After the wedding, you simply send the cameras back, they upload the footage to an online account, and you get to personalize what's included by picking the scenes and adding captions and titles!! Then they professionally edit it into an amazing 15-20 minute highlight movie on DVD based on one of 10 themes you choose."

I finally finished going through all the footage our bridal party captured on our flip-cam last week, and was able to start the process of picking which scenes we want to include in our custom-made video! Mike, from StoryMix Media, sent me this teaser to tide me over for the time being, and I can't wait to see more!

Here, you'll get to see Chris' brother forcing me to be a diva by shouting "This is my day!" before actually getting annoyed that I can't get the flipcam from him (sigh, like a true brother already), Chris talking about castration (no...really), a rousing rendition of Katy Perry's "Alien" that I sing to nobody in particular at our after-party...until I realize that nobody is listening, and us dancing to my all-time favorite wedding song "SHOUT"! It's pretty funny, and I can't wait to see the full thing once I finish going through all our video. Enjoy!

Friday Find: Wedding Flash Mob!

Happy Friday! I am off of work and heading to Connecticut today for my friends Abby and Mike's wedding! I am so happy and excited for the two of them and can't wait to celebrate with them tonight, and also to tell you all about it next week!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway from uprinting.com, and be sure to check out my friend, Kerry's, amazing Bridal Shower!!

Today's "Friday Find" is another video I found at wedinator.com (seriously, this site is hilarious). I love a good flash mob, but usually they are planned for large groups of people to perform in random public spaces that surprise everyone in the general area.

But what if a Flash Mob was put together just.for.you...on your wedding day?!

This groom put together and entire dance for his flash-mob-loving wife after their ceremony. Look how happy, excited, and overjoyed this bride is when her grooms surprises her!

Kudos to this Groom...how cute!

Wedinator.com

Kerry's Bridal Shower + a GIVEAWAY!

This past weekend I attended my friend Kerry's SURPRISE Bridal Shower! (If you remember, Chris and I are both in Kerry and Mike's wedding this coming September!) All of her bridesmaids had a hand in planning this party, but I have to hand it to her Maid of Honor, Alyssa, and her bridesmaids Lindsay and Amanda for pulling out all the stops when it came to planning this event. They put a lot of work into making Kerry's "Tea-Party" shower personalized and very special  for her.

I arrived with a caravan of bridesmaids at 2:00 to help set up, and we were put right to work cutting up cheese, putting out tea sandwiches and mixing drinks!

There were so many beautiful, handmade details placed throughout the party.
The centerpieces were DIY tissue paper flowers, a framed different engagement picture on every table, a plant and bird figurines on top of a serving platter and floral table runner:

 There was a wishing tag area, where we wrote our wishes and advice for Kerry before she becomes a Mrs.

 Then we hung the tags on a clothesline with little clothespins:

 A Kerry and Mike banner:

There was lovingly spiked lemonade, and iced tea sweetened with honey from the farm that they're having their wedding!:

 Her signature drink was the "Mikerry" sangria:

 The backyard tent was warm and inviting with these DIY tissue-paper poms!

Kerry arrived thinking she was attending a teacher party she attends every year! She had NO.IDEA!! But I think she quickly caught on as soon as she walked into the backyard!

She had given her Maid of Honor her "bridal shower" dress a few weeks ago so when the time came, she could change into it. I loved her gorgeous anthropology dress:

For dinner there was shrimp cocktail, baked ziti, zucchini casserole, roasted potatoes, chicken cordon bleu, chicken and rice, ham and tossed salad. Everything was sooo good!

After dinner, Kerry started opening her crazzzzy, huge pile of gifts!

 Her bridesmaid Amanda made a fabulous ribbon bouquet for Kerry!

 Kerry and her bridesmaids:

Then it was time for dessert and these AMAZING coconut cupcakes!

The favors were adorable: tea-bag with tea-bag rest tied in green tull, with green ribbon and a personalized "Kerry's Bridal Shower 7.9.11" tag!

We also had white-chocolate mini wedding cake favors homemade by Mike's mom and Aunt!! These were white-chocolate covered oreos, in the shape of a three tiered wedding cake with yellow sugar-floral decoration. Simply AMAZING! This picture (with Anna as my model) does NOT do it justice how cute these are. I will try and get a better close-up picture of it to post later.

The last gift that kerry opened was a poster size painting of one of their engagement photos. Her mom and dad sent away for this and her dad handmade the frame. This is certainly an awesome keepsake for them to have.

 

I'm so excited for Mike and Kerry as they are now in full wedding mode at the 2-month mark! Lots more festivities to come!

Now for the GIVEAWAY! Uprinting.com is giving away one 18" x 24" Poster for one "Saying 'I do'" reader!! This can be a Semi Gloss / High Gloss poster and has a 1 business day turnaround! The poster can be of anything: Get an engagement or wedding picture blown up, or order something for your upcoming wedding! Uprinting.com does customized Poster Printing, has downloadable poster templates, and many different poster sizes to choose from.

uprinting.com

To Enter:
*For 1 Entry: Leave a comment below telling me your favorite detail of Kerry's Bridal Shower!
**For 2 Entries: Like UPrinting on Facebook and/or follow them on Twitter and leave me a comment telling me that you did so.
***For 3 Entries: Follow LwoodsNY on Twitter and leave me a comment. (If you already follow, leave me a comment saying so)

Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on Monday, 7/18 and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 7/20! Good luck to all!

Restrictions: Limited to US residents 18 years old and above only.
I have TWO more fantastic giveaways lined up for the next month so stay tuned for more giveaway fun coming soon!