Mal and Eric's (Surprise) Engagement Party

Remember my friends Mal and Eric, who just got engaged? Well on Saturday, September 29, they had a surprise engagement party of epic proportions! My friend, Lauren, did an amazing job putting together this beautiful party. Complete with gold balloons with pictures of the couple tied to the strings, personalized Mal and Eric coasters, candle-lighting everywhere, pumpkins spray painted with their initials in gold, PLUS amazing food, it was a stellar party from start to finish.

Lauren and her mom were anxiously awaiting Mal and Eric's arrival!!

They finally arrived, and were VERY Surprised as they walked into the house!

And of course, we oogle the ring!

The cake was awesome and made by a friend of a friend who owns a bakery. It was out of this world and pretty too!

Mandy and I enjoy our glasses of vino

Lauren set out this "Honeymoon Fund" jar to collect funds for the honeymoon. It was very cute...though I don't think that cash pile grew very much during the party :)

Mal and Eric opened their presents

Lauren had ordered pretzel rods decorated as brides and grooms. How cute is this??

Top: Lauren and Mal, and below: together with their moms:

Mal and Eric with Mal's family:

Love these girls!

Here is a full slideshow with all my pictures and video of the toasts from the evening:

James and Maria's Engagement Party

Don't forget to enter my Bridal Hair Clip Giveaway!

A few weeks ago, Chris and I had the pleasure of attending our good friends, James and Maria's, engagement party. It was held at Cara Mia in Seaford, New York and was top-notch!

Maria's 12 year old cousin, Gina, took all these pictures, and I think it's safe to say we have a future wedding photographer on our hands here! Check these out!

Maria pulled together these gorgeous DIY centerpieces. A floating candle above stones with a cymbidium flower, added a soft touch to the room.

Maria's cousin made this awesome collage for the couple

As a little back-story, James proposed to Maria at The Cupcake Corner in Garden City, NY back in June. When they arrived, this tray of beauties was presented to Maria, while James got down on one knee and proposed. Actually...she had to tell him to get down because he was so nervous, he forgot!! ;)

The cupcake theme was seamlessly carried through to their engagement party.  For favors, we each got a small box with a mini-cupcake inside...quite fitting I'd say!

We also received little cupcake shape containers filled with M&M's! But not just any M&M's, these either said "engaged" or "James and Maria" and others also had a picture of them or a picture of an engagement ring!

Some of the containers were also filled with after-dinner mints!

James with his groomsmen:

Maria with her bridesmaids, Jr. Bridesmaid, and Flower Girl:

Maria with her beautiful Cousin, and Maid-of-Honor, Joanna:

My turn to pose with the soon-to-be bride!

Our table:

Their vanilla cake with cannoli cream filling (can we say YUM?!) was from Capri's Bakery and Pastry Shop again in Seaford. It was out of this world good.

Congratulations James and Maria! Can't wait for your wedding next September!

Brett Matthews

I had a great time in my web design class today! This post will also be my forum to show off some of the things I made in fireworks.

So, yesterday we had our first meeting with a wedding photographer,Brett Matthews. There actually is no "Brett Matthews." Brett and Matthew are the owner's sons' names. Chris and I were really impressed with the place. We met with Rich, and were with him for an hour and a half! I didn't think it would take that long, but it also went really fast. We looked through all the album options they offer, with tons of pictures, and techniques they can do with the pictures: sepia, high-def glossy, oil painitng, etc. etc.

Honestly, I could have sat there all day looking through the photo albums and videos they had. I actually got choked up when he showed us the video montages they can make. It all got me very excited for my big day...well only 1 year and 7 months! This was the first photographer appointment we had so far, so we don't really have any point of reference for comparison, but I will say that we were really impressed with this place. We'll probably look at 3 more to do some comparison shopping with both what is offered and price. But "Operation find a Photographer" is going so far, so good!


In other news, my mom is getting me really excited for the prospect of an engagement party in Schnecksville! I should give props to her co-worker Rae, who I've met once at my mom and dad's birthday party last year and immediately liked her. She apparently just threw an engagement party and wedding for her daughter, so she's gone through all of this and is eager to offer up her services with getting things off the ground! I realize that Schnecksville might be a little bit hard to get to for people in New York, but it will be nice to have something wedding related in PA, since the actual wedding won't be there. This will be a great way for my older family members to be involved and meet my friends and Chris's family, since it might be difficult for them to get to New York.

I also got to work on some monograms today. I like the second one better, but I think the C looks a bit more like a G. Oh well, this was just playing around: