Friday Find: Glove and Boots

Chris and I are off to our last wedding of 2012 today! You may remember Greg's amazing proposal to Ashley on the stage of the Broadway Musical, Wicked, and their big day has finally arrived! They are also using Storymix Media for their wedding, so I will be taking a slew of video and photos today!

I'll give a full report next week, but for now...enjoy this amazingly creative proposal from Glove and Boots from gloveandboots.com. Happy Weekend!

James and Maria's Rehearsal Dinner

On Friday September 7, Chris and I rushed off after work to James and Maria's rehearsal at the beautiful St. Barnabas church in Bellmore, New York.

When we arrived, the first order of business was to sign the marriage license.

MOH, Joanna, and BM, Chris, sign the marriage license

And then the rehearsal began. Maria walked down the aisle with a cute little flower to hold as her bouquet.

 

The rehearsal dinner was right down the street at Paddy's Loft, where we all gathered for great drinks, food and fun!

Maria and her cousins

James and the Groomsmen

Maria and her bridesmaids, Jr. Bridesmaid and Flower girl

With James's Family

The happy couple, about to be newlyweds!

  Next up: The wedding!

Bloomer's Party at BlogHer '12

Remember when I went to BlogHer '12 in New York City? Well, while I was there I was asked to film video for the Baby B(L)oomer's Party hosted by BOOMbox Network using the Storymix Media app on both the iphone and ipad. The event was held at the amazing OffSite event space in NYC and it was a fabulous night.

One of my favorite things I discovered at this party was Stacked Wine. These cute little individual plastic wine glasses stack easily and are perfect for picnics, and parties! I definitely snagged a stack of both red and white before leaving!

Now, check out what Ariane at Storymix Media put together with the footage I caught at the party!! I think it came out great and I just know that everyone who was in attendance loves the video she put together!

Friday Find: "Falling" in Love!

Today's Friday Find teaches us why it's important not to have wedding pictures taken on the limb of a tree!  Thank goodness this couple wasn't sitting any higher up!

Edited note: Unfortunately that video didn't get posted and the link is lost! ARRRG these interwebs!

So...in it's place, I'm going to post a truly disturbing video. Sorry...it's that kind of day.
I talked to many people about this article the day I read it: Fake Death Marriage Proposal: Alexey Bykov Faked His Own Death To Propose. I was very upset reading the article...and even more upset watching the video.


This man needs some serious help....
Anyway...have a great weekend!

Mom's Birthday Celebration

I realized last year that in my lifetime, I had never really planned anything for my mom's birthday before. But looking back on all the amazing parties she's thrown for me during the years, including the planning and help surrounding my wedding last year, my sister and I felt it was due time to pay her back and do something for her. Not to mention, my mom needed a pick-me up after a difficult year of changing schools where she worked, and taking care of my grandma in her finals days. (This is not to diminish my dad's contributions and stress he's been under too! He deserves a huge thank you just as much as my mom.)

So with my mom's impending birthday, a few weeks ago my dad, sister, and I sent her this:

After a really tough year
a new one's begun
And we want to make sure
you have lots of fun

Your birthday is near
and we want to you know
you shouldn't plan a thing
we'll run the show

So kick back and relax
we've taken care of it all
Reserve September 15th
we hope you'll have a ball!

And so, that was all my mom knew.  She was told to be ready by 2:00 and we'd take care of it from there. We had a "light" (is it light if you overeat?) lunch of bread, grapes, cheese, and shrimp cocktail at my sister's place and then began our day by heading out to Pinnacle Ridge Winery for some wine tasting!

We bought three bottles of wine here! I made sure to bring plenty of (personalized) water bottles along so we wouldn't get too loopy or dehydrated at the wineries:

With her actual birthdate instead of the 15th

After that, we headed over to Clover Hill Winery for some more tasting! We liked this place much better. It was prettier, larger, and had a better selection of wine.

 

The Family :)

We knew that two wineries would be enough wine tasting for my mom...she's a lightweight. We had a little time to kill before our dinner reservation, so we headed over to Grim's Greenhouse Farm Market which was right across the street. I just love places like this in the Fall!

We had dinner reservations at The Grille at the Bear Creek Mountain Resort and Conference Center. My mom was super surprised when her good friends started to arrive with gifts in hand! Below, Beth (in blue), is showing off her "Bear Creek Mountain" t-shirt, compliments of the restaurant. What I didn't catch on camera was the waitress spilling an entire tray of drinks at our table, and onto Beth (who was wearing a white blouse no less) when we arrived. It was a bit of a scene, but the waitress and restaurant handled it really well and will reimburse Beth for any cleaning or replacement of her white blouse.

 

After our amazing dinner...

My sister, Melissa, enjoying her burger

My mom made an impromptu speech thanking everyone for being there and surprising her

And then the gift opening began...

The restaurant manager and hostess even brought these flowers to my mom because she mentioned she liked them when we arrived! The restaurant was a fantastic place, I couldn't have been happier with the service and the food, even despite the little drink mishap!

To close out the night, we headed back to my sister's house for cake and ice cream!

Mom showing off her new apron

My husband is very helpful :)
Carrying all her gifts to the car!

We ordered a Chocolate with Peanut Butter Cream cake from Emmaus Bakery, and it was delicious. I had always heard that this bakery was amazing, and now I can say that I agree!

All in all it was a successful day, and everything went mostly how we hoped it would go! Most importantly, my mom had an awesome time, and that's all we could have hoped for.

Happy Birthday to a loving and deserving Mom, we love you very much!

Flowers from her friends, Christine and Jim's, garden

Danielle and Rob's Wedding

Though the Hibachi/Sake Bomb crew stayed out quite a bit later than we did that night. We had a wedding to go to the next day, so Chris and I called it an early night (as in...midnight) and got up the next day to head to New Jersey for Danielle and Rob's wedding at the beautiful Perona Farms in New Jersey. The venue was gorgeous, and we were super wowed as we drove up and walked into the space.


The ceremony was in an outside garden off the building. Danielle looked beautiful and so happy as she walked down the aisle.

Danielle and Rob wrote their own vows, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't cry through most of it...there were very few dry eyes in the house...er, garden.

The Wagner College crew at the ceremony

After the ceremony we walked back over to the building for Cocktail Hour. On the walk over, the strap on my dress broke as I went to hug a college friend! Thank goodness for Danielle's bathroom basket filled with everything anyone could possibly need at a wedding, sometimes those really come in handy! Thanks to a safety pin, I was back in action in no time and outside for some "Champs", paninis, and a whole table of fresh prepared food from local farms!

After Cocktail Hour we were ushered into the main ballroom, which was beautifully set-up for dinner and also had a band warming up for the start of the reception.

Danielle got her bridesmaids wine glasses hand-painted with an image of their bridesmaid dress: a very cute, personalized touch! The favors were playing cards with pictures of places they've traveled together since they started dating. I had no idea what world travelers these two were! It seems they've been everywhere, and seeing their own pictures they've taken around the world was really neat! The top card in the pack said the following: "You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams"

They also had beautiful, full centerpieces

Top left: Dinner menu, Top right: Sweetheart table
Bottom left: Card box, Bottom right: Memorial candle

 The Bride and Groom were announced and they shared their first dance!

Next up, the parent dances. Danielle's dad was very dapper and these two had quite the moves on the dance floor!

Rob danced to "I Hope you Dance" with his mother:

After a bit of dancing, it was time for the cake cutting:

This little man stole the show with a rousing rendition of "We Will Rock You"

 Then the bouquet toss:

Danielle and Rob also had a photo booth, which was a ton of fun (and explains Chris's garb below). We got two film strips: one to keep, and one to put into their guest book!

This was, of course, my favorite part of the day. A full dessert table with different chocolate dipping sauces at the end.

Then we finished out the afternoon dancing and having a blast catching up with friends!

Congratulations to Danielle and Rob, and thanks so much for inviting us to share this special day with you both! We weren't able to sneak Rob away for a picture, but at least we got one with the bride!