This beautiful Miami, Florida wedding held at The Deering Estate,  was submitted to us by Justin & Mary.

Irena shares with us the details of planning her destination wedding — Danny and I got engaged 3 months into our relationship (I know! super fast!).  We actually knew we were “the Ones” for each other on our first date.  We planned on wedding in “two years or so” in SoCal (home to us), but between meeting and engagement his father became paralyzed from the waist down.  Danny’s father insisted we plan near home, and he would “be there”, so we did a lot of initial planning in California, since 80% of our guests lived on the West Coast.  This last fall, we both moved to the Boston area, and while visiting his family, agreed that his Dad wouldn’t actually be able to travel, so we slammed on the brakes and redirected our efforts to planning in Miami — close to him, but a town neither of us knew very well.

We thankfully had a resource in the wonderful Tamara Cohen of TCEventDesign of Ft Lauderdale, who had been helping us in California.  She took on a lot of the coordination work of getting us in touch with some great local vendors: Fabius Events for decorations and flowers, Angel who did amazing work for hair/makeup, We Take the Cake — my design, their delicious cake — and Yuga Restaurant for our ridiculously good food…  I want to plug everyone because the results were so incredible!  And of course I can’t forget the location – the amazing Deering Estate with its epic oceanside location.

I picked a pretty common color scheme (blue and brown) but didn’t want to end up with a common-looking wedding.  I’m a designer by trade (I work in video games, but used to do a lot of graphic design) and I felt that my wedding was my chance to really bring my ability into the spotlight for my family to see firsthand.  It included a ton of handmade elements — all of the stationary items: invitations, menus, place cards, table names, water bottle labels, programs, the cake, and even handmade gifts for our wedding party.  All the crafting I did had to be transferable because it had to travel 1500 miles!

I wore Vera Wang, while he wore Burberry.  My bridesmaids wore J. Crew (from the clearance section!) in the palest blue color I had ever seen — it was divine.  The groomsmen wore a “pick your own” selection of suits, with one direction: “dark dark chocolate brown, almost black”.  Everyone wore a little gift of jewelry (earrings and necklaces for the girls, cuff links for the guys) from etsy seller by CJ.

I tried to go for a mix of modern and vintage, with a touch of “hippy earth mother” – so all of the decorations were simple dragonwood branches in a variety of configurations, with delicate hanging votives and bunches of blue hydrangea.  The tables were named for our pets and pets of our past that we love and miss.  My maid of honor was absolutely wonderful. She helped me craft the table names with leftover supplies the day before.

My wedding was the most intense and fulfilling experience of my life: a lot of effort for a lot of absolute joy.  The day itself had only one stress: the threat of rain.  All week the forecast was for 50% chance of “scattered thunderstorms”, and it had been raining for days.  I didn’t want to celebrate my wedding in a tent, and after watching the radar all morning I made the call to take the risk and set up outside.

The ceremony itself (my favorite part!) was an eclectic mix of cultures: we had a handfasting, an Apache wedding prayer, and the breaking of the glass – all with a storm threatening to break over our heads.  As Danny and I kissed for the first time as husband and wife, it began to sprinkle — like the weather was giving us a little blessing…  It was beautiful.  Over cocktail hour, the sprinkle became a rain.  The winds also opened up and began to thrash our guests, and the wedding party, as we took pictures.  However, the sun stayed with us as golden hour hit so the combination of elements at our coastal location became magical alchemy for some incredible moments.  I also got to play with some awesome equipment.

The reception was beautiful – elegant and refined, but full of the humor and silliness that is our life together.  It was the most informal formal event, we couldn’t have planned it better, and that is probably the reason so many of our guests said it was one of the best weddings they had ever been to.  We split the reception into two parts: dinner and an “after party”, where we moved our dancing indoors to where the cake, favors, and (the best) the photobooth was.  The party went from elegant to crazy night club where most of our 70 guests danced the night away to techno-remixed 80s songs.   I don’t think I got any cake because I was having so much fun dancing.  Though sad to leave, we left on a high note to a parade of sparklers into a classic Rolls.  A scant 5 minutes from the location, the night sky released a torrent of rain on the car, reminding us just how lucky we were.

The number one piece of advice we got from friends was that during our wedding, we needed to take a moment to “take it all in”, to enjoy this rare moment of everyone we love together in one place.  We did exactly that, and now are left with the gift of being able to remember every single second of the day and how wonderful it was.  The bit of advice I’d like to share with brides is: on your wedding night, before your fall asleep, chat with your new husband about everything that happened to you, to him, and even take notes – you’ll get some awesome stories, and you can relive it while it’s fresh so the memory is more solid.

We honeymooned in the Virgin Islands on St John, reveling in the post-wedding glow and learning what married life would be like. Justin & Mary and Carlos captured our memories with perfection and we can never be more grateful.

Ceremony/Reception Venue: The Deering Estate
Photography: Justin & Mary
Event Coordination: TC Event Design
Florist: Fabius Events
Cake: We Take the Cake
Caterer: Yuga Restaurant
Bride’s Dress: Vera Wang
Bridesmaids’ Dresses: J. Crew
Groom’s Attire: Burberry
Makeup/Hair: Angel
Jewelry – Necklace, Earrings, Tiara, Veil: CJ – Etsy.com
Other Goodies: Party Booths

We’d like to thank Irena for sharing the story of her beautiful day with us.

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3. Getting Maui’d!

When I spotted these DIY Pom Poms yesterday at Justin & Mary Marantz’s blog, I knew they were too adorable not to share! Transporting decorations to a destination wedding for the reception isn’t always easy – but tissue paper is easy to pack, and you can always bring along scissors in your checked baggage! I’d do a few practice ones at home first as you perfect the craft, and you might want make them before having drinks poolside at your destination!

I asked Mary right away if I could share these with you, and she said yes! Super easy, super cute – can’t you just picture these floating above a wedding reception in the breeze? So adorable! Tissue paper is available in so many colors, the options are endless!

Here are Julia’s instructions (Julia is their amazing & awesome assistant, and has been sharing crafty goodness all week!):

We started with 8 pieces of tissue paper, string (you can also use monofilament), floral wire, and scissors. It all looks pretty harmless sitting there doesn’t it? The bright and cheery green has me thinking I might be able to do this after all!

We folded the tissue paper accordion style (each fold was about 1-2 inches wide). Then wrapped the middle with floral wire (about 20 inches long-). This is where I started to get scared. How do I get that derivative of a grade school fan to turn into a full, round, pom pom?!?

We trimmed the edges with the rotary trimmer just to make sure they were even. Then cut the edges so they were rounded on each end.

This is what it looked like right before I went into full on panic mode.

Next we pulled each layer out toward the center. We flipped it over and did the same thing on the other side.

Keep going! Word of warning, spread the tissue paper carefully! I may have ripped an edge or two while poofing it out!

Voila! A pom pom!! Not too shabby huh?!?

Keep an eye on Justin & Mary’s blog – they have been making DIY crafts all week because they are hosting an Old Fashioned Lemonade themed wedding workshop tomorrow, where several lucky photographers will get to walk through how Justin & Mary photograph a wedding with them. There will be lots of eye-candy, and Julia shared her DIY tips on how to make flag garlands, flags for guests to wave, fresh squeezed Old Fashioned Lemonade, and Mint Juleps. Ok, those last two probably wouldn’t travel very well to your destination wedding, but you could always sip on them while making the other goodies! There is one more DIY craft to come tomorrow as well on their blog – I can’t wait!

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1. Notice Some Changes?
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3. Bride$hare™ – a Brilliant Idea!

I was so excited this week to learn about Bride$hare™, the fantastic creation of Dana LaRue, the bride behind The Broke Ass Bride. If you’re looking for tips on planning your wedding on a budget, well … as you can guess, the Broke Ass Bride has them!

The inspiration for Bride$hare™ started like this:

Way back when, Rebecca saw a blog post of mine lamenting the desire for paper lanterns to spruce up the space at my venue, and she contacted me to suggest we go in on them together and share them. That was just the beginning. Together, we were able to co-purchase and recycle many items from our weddings, which went perfectly with Hunter and my mission to both save green and be green in our wedding plans! In fact, the reception venue owner likes them so much, she might even buy them off of us after the fact and keep them up, which means future brides can benefit from them, too! My bridal karma meter must be off tha charts, son!

Hunter & Dana were married back in May, and in early July they went back to their same venue to enjoy their decor all over again – as guests at Rebecca & her husband’s wedding! Dana & Rebecca shared $4000 worth of expenses – saving them each $2000, AND doing something good for the environment by not buying duplicates of the same items!

Dana knew a great thing when she saw it, and has since set up the BrideShare™ site as a way for other couples to save money on their wedding plans and have a wedding with a smaller carbon footprint at the same time.

The Bride$hare™ site is described as part social networking and part wedding planning. Bride$hare™ offers brides the opportunity to team up and share the daunting task, and costs, of wedding planning while creating less waste – addressing three top priorities of brides’ current economy.

While Dana is getting most of the mad props in this post, I want to share some with her fabulous husband, Hunter, as well. Because he has to be supportive and wonderful to stand beside her as she took on creating Bride$hare™, but also because this video he made cracks me up *every* time I watch it. He is mad creative, I tell you!

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Image from Design Sponge

Remember back in the good old days when the decorations on the couple’s getaway car was so simple as a string of cans and maybe a sweet “Just Married!” note? I miss those days. Eventually, it seems that people took it to such an extreme that now people are told not to decorate the car at all. Wouldn’t it be cute though to have some adorable cans like these decorating the back of your car?

The above cans – along with a LOT of other fabulous finds – are for sale at Wedding So Sweet on Etsy (home of all things wonderful!), but thanks to Design Sponge’s DIY tips, you could make a set that is all your own! How fabulous would it be to coordinate them with your wedding colors? And the painted cans just seem to elevate it all to a whole new level. So fabulous!

Image from Green Wedding Shoes, found at Design Sponge

I love the bikes and other items decorated with these cute items – perfect for a romantic destination wedding where your retreat might not be in the usual car!

Here is to bringing back old traditions and seeing lots more cans announcing newlyweds in the future!

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I had the honor of meeting Preston Bailey last year at Engage:08, and the man is not only brilliant, but so funny! (He totally surprised me by kissing me while I took a self portrait with him!) His work is so stunning and beautiful! This rose bowl idea featured in the video is not only gorgeous, but definitely a budget friendly option for floral decorations at your wedding. Love them!

[via The Planner Pages and her fantastic flower series.]

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I’m a sucker for anything that sparkles and shines – and these ornaments would make fabulous decorations at a winter themed wedding. A little glitter brightens everyone’s day!

How cute are these? These fabulous balls are easily made with string and balloons, using tips on the Martha Stewart site. I’m going to try some out on Christmas Eve day – a little holiday project to decorate the tree, something to do while the Christmas cookies are baking. I’m thinking of trying to use liquid starch instead of glue – that might stick better to the balloon, and shouldn’t discolor over time.

I love birds – but birds plus glitter? Oh my! And so easy using a branch you find outside, decorated with glitter as well! Check out the instructions on the Martha Stewart website here and here.

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