wedding 101:: bare bones venues

The other day I met with one of my brides to talk about her venue, and she referred to it as a "bare bones" kind of place. What a great way to describe it! I, too, am getting married at a bare bones venue.

What does this mean? It means they don't provide anything! You have to find your own caterers and other vendors, as well use a rental company to provide chairs, tables, linens, lighting, etc.

These bare bones venues can often be misleading to brides who are working without the help of a planner. Typically, the cost to rent the venue is incredibly low compared to more inclusive venues. "Yay! It's cheap!" you think to yourself when you find out the price. Well, give your local rental company a call. "Chiavari chairs are $8 a piece?!?! AND there is a $1 set-up and break-down fee??" Well, yeah. And that adds up very quickly.

This bride's venue isn't quite as bare as all that. She's lucky that they provide the tables and chairs (although that's not included in the cost), the dance floor is sort of "built in," and there is no need for tenting.

This is inside the beautiful English Conservatory (imported from London!) where dinner will be served at The Gardens of Bammel Lane.

(Just to give you a price comparison of using chairs from a rental company versus using what the venue has, those white garden chairs pictured are $2 each, and at Aztec, a popular rental company here in Houston, they are $2.60. Sixty cents may not seem like much, but for 200 guests that's $120. That could be the money in your budget needed to get that airbrushed make-up that you're pining after.)

My venue, The Historic Woodburn, is truly a bare bones facility. There's a front porch and a carriage house, but that's IT! (Thankfully the porch has lighting, but not nearly enough to light the whole yard where the tables will be.)

Anyone else dealing with this? Do y'all prefer the flexibility of a bare bones venue, or the ease of a venue that provides everything?

wedding 101::the look, the colors, the theme

From what I can tell, when you ask a bride about her wedding she will talk about it in one of three ways:

• her "colors"
• Truvy: What are your colors, Shelby?
  Shelby: My colors are "blush" and "bashful."
  M'Lynn: Her colors are "pink" and pink."
  Shelby: My colors are "blush" and "bashful" Mama!
  M'Lynn: How pretentious is this weddin' gonna get, I ask you?

• the "theme" 
• love birds, carnival, the perfect "pear"
• ranges from really subtle, to REALLY obvious
• (This can be really cute and classy, or REALLY tacky, depending on how it's executed. My advice to the "theme" brides: hire a planner or design team that know how to keep you from being "that" bride!) 

• the "look"
• vintage, rustic, glam

I'm definitely a "look" bride. When someone asks me my colors I say, "Ummmm.... fall colors? and black? and.... idk but this is the look I'm going for." And I wouldn't say that we have a theme. 


Which way do you talk about your wedding? Did you find it easier to plan around colors, a look, or a theme? Is there a totally different way that you classify your wedding?

the dress diaries... part 1

My wedding dress searching consisted of exactly 3 trips and (not-so-exactly) 4,156 hours of searching the internet.

Trip #1: I was a girl with a plan. I was not successful.

Trip #2: I was shopping with a friend in The Sandhills and found a bridal shop we didn't know existed. Found a dress that I LOVED, but it was not THE dress.

Trip # 3: I was a girl with NO plan. In fact, the trip itself was a back-up plan to a failed girl's weekend plan. It was extremely successful.

I really thought I knew what I wanted in a dress. Halters look really good on me. I didn't want to look like a princess. And I DEFINITELY didn't want to spend more than $600-700.

(In case any of you have missed this part, I live in Houston, TX and I'm from South Carolina. One BM is in Ecuador with the Peace Corps, one lives in Houston, and the other four are in South Carolina. My parents live in South Carolina. Obviously this has been very stressful.)

Trip #1:

I was home for a visit and I wanted to go look at dresses with my Mama. Being the planner that I am, I had lists. Lists of dress shops, lists of dress numbers, and lists of things that I absolutely.did.not.want.to.try.on. We headed out fairly early for a trip to Greenville (the shops are about an hour from where my parents live.) The day was immediately ruined by the fact that (sorry if this grosses you out) I started my period that morning. Seriously, who wants to try on WHITE dresses when you're feeling bloated and gross. Not to mention that I have the world's worst cramps. I was MISERABLE through the first few shops. I finally got somewhat comfortable by the time we made it to David's Bridal.

Oh, David's Bridal. I hated everything I tried on. But, let me back up. I went in having already looked at every single dress on their website, so I picked up a catalog and dog-eared the dresses I wanted. The poor saleswoman went off to gather the dresses. Here are a few....

These were part of the plan.

This one was BRAND new and I hadn't seen a pic of it yet. My Mama and I really liked the intricate details.

Well, I hated all of them. I felt frumpy and fat. The tea-length ones didn't look right AT.ALL. It was just bad, bad, bad. And I don't know why! I have no problem with David's Bridal at all! My bridesmaids are getting their dresses from there. But for some reason their gowns just did not suit me.

Trip #2:

I was in Columbia with my friend and BM Beth. Let's take a moment to look at how gorgeous Beth looks catching the bouquet at her sister's wedding...

heehee :)

We were shopping in Sandhills and found this little dress shop called Carolina Couture. Their customer service left something to be desired, but they had a great selection. I LOVED this dress that I tried on. (Except that I had waaay too much cleavage! This didn't flatter my figure, but I liked the style of it.)

It was a nice dress but it certainly wasn't THE dress. That came later, and perfectly.

Trip #3:

Oh my, this weekend was almost a waste of a trip. I had planned the weekend around going to a bridal show with my bridesmaids in Columbia. Unfortunately I hadn't double checked the dates and the show was on a Sunday when I needed it to be on a Saturday. Bummer. So Beth suggested that we go look at dresses instead. There is a great boutique in downtown Columbia called Bella Vista Bridal. I think they have a shop in Charleston now, too. I cannot sing their praises enough!

We made an appointment and I showed up with my girls in tow - Beth, Parker, Still, and Sarah. Our appointment was with Allison, and she was AWESOME. This time around I had an open mind about I wanted. She asked me some questions and got some input from my friends, and then she smiled and said she had something in mind for me. She walked us through the rows of dresses and whipped one out. IT.WAS.THE.DRESS. Seriously. She was spot on. We picked out some others and went back to the fitting room.

I tried on *my* dress first. It felt AMAZING. I walked out and looked at Parker first. She immediately started crying, and everyone else followed.

It was THE dress. There was no doubt. I stood there and just KNEW that was the dress I would marry Bryan in. It was perfect. I felt fabulous. I felt gorgeous. 

The store gives a discount (like $150 I think) if you buy the dress the same day, so I called my Mama and had her drive up to Columbia. (Two and a half hours... yuck.) Her and my brother got there and they loved it too, so we signed on the dotted line!

Then it was time for waiting.... waiting.... and more waiting.

That was the end of July. My dress finally came in the end of March. (Glad we pushed our wedding from May... I would have been panicking!)

More on the stress of waiting and finally picking my dress up in the next "dress diaries" post!! :)