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(BTW: Anyone planning on a Niagara Falls Honeymoon? Just curious...)

wedding graduate

A Practical Wedding did a great post on The East Side Bride!!!

She's "Been There, and Done That" already and she is way hipper than me too!!!

Check out both their sites and all the fantastic tips...

Here they are to get you started:

"1. Don't go overboard with the wedding blogs. I know…. right? They will give you a complex.

2. Delegate. Early. Our wedding was essentially made by our friends and family: the baker/shirtmaker, the stylist/photographer, the chef, the musicians, the sculptor, the potter, the painter, the gardener, the director, the expert shopper, the mad organizer…. Honestly, I'm a better delegator than a DIY'er. I have good ideas, and then I look around to see who can help me make them happen. And a very happy byproduct of wedding planning was that we found ourselves talking to far-away friends more often. By the time the wedding rolled around it felt like a big party we were all throwing together.

3. Know when to let go. Two days before the wedding, your to-do list will seem insurmountable. It is. Take a fat sharpie, cross out three big projects, and get some sleep. Seriously.

4. The vows are more important than any of the crafty sh*t. We wrote our vows together, and we labored to make them simple and personal. In fact, I drove my almost-husband bonkers obsessing over them. But the vows are what people talked about. And because we memorized them and practiced saying them to aloud each other, they are imbedded in my brain. I love that."

Bridezilla Marries Groucho

Sabrina from the Introverted Wife sent in a "Been There, Done That" article for us! I'm so glad to see that practical AND fun weddings are still out there! Check out what she has to say...

"Creativity: We had the more classic ceremony to appeal to what traditions our parents and family wanted, but for the reception we decided as we were getting married around our most favorite holiday ever we made it a Halloween theme. I decided I just had to go as Bridezilla complete with a tail I sewed by hand while my husband went as Grouch Marx.



I refused to do something for the wedding just because it was tradition and everyone did it. So I had a 21 year old flower girl because she had always wanted to be one and asked me. I completely trounced the whole only the bride wears white rule. Not only did my flower girl wear a gorgeous short white dress for the reception, but my best friend got to wear her wedding dress again as part of her costume. I don't understand why some thought it was gonna be a big deal. Everyone there knew me and my husband were the ones getting married and a wedding dress got to actually be used more than once. Not to mention they all looked gorgeous in it.

Thrifty: Neither of us had any dreams of grandeur. We knew that by the end of the day it was a success if we got married and we didn't get too many things on fire. Being classic midwesterners it's also really hard to imagine wanting to spend say over $300 on a dress that was going to be worn just once and I didn't even bother looking at true bridal gowns. For me a bridesmaids dress in white was just perfect (I wish I could claim to have made my own dress but really the tail was hard enough. My husband even helped me by sewing up the end).

I found that by doing everything imaginable to avoid things associated with weddings we saved a ton. My mother in law made the ring bearers pillows while I found some cute easter baskets for the flower girls. All of our flowers were silk and my mother worked on making the bouquets. Having the halloween theme helped save a ton of money too as for decorations we just raided our parents basements and stole whatever decorations we could use. And then if there was something I made it wasn't just for the wedding, like the funkin I carved with our monogram.

Sanity: We could have never planned and gotten through this wedding without our friends and family. It made everything so much more relaxed and carefree to know that it wasn't just an organist but my good friend John I was dealing with (who I let pick our wedding music so I walked down the aisle to the Imperial March from Star Wars, I was laughing the whole time). My flowergirl did my hair so I knew I could trust her to do whatever she wanted. But the flip side of letting your family and friends help means I had to step back and just let them do their thing. My mother created the ugliest unity candle in existence but rather than getting bent out of shape about it I laughed it off. In fact by the day of I was rather proud and showed it off to everyone.

Our wedding was not a specific focus of colors, flowers, or theme but of just one thing: fun. It was so hilarious seeing the three guys dressed up as the Marx brothers hamming it up and all of us girls dressed as evil brides attacking each other. When kids didn't want to go down the aisle or were running around writing little love notes to each other we all laughed so hard at how adorable they are.

Everyone knows there's no such thing as a perfect wedding but I'd like to think that when it came to having a fun time we nearly achieved wedding nirvana."



Definately check out their Flickr Pool for all the photo fun!!!

Been There, Done That - Maui Part 1

(image of ClassicPartyRentals.com taken from MyMauiWedding.blogspot.com)

Everyone remember this cool wedding I entitled Maui Wowie... Here's Megan with her first article for MIW readers.

Planning a Maui Wedding

Aloha! My name is Megan Finley- I just had an awesome wedding on the island of Maui which inspired me to start a blog about planning weddings on Maui with an emphasis on using local products. And, if I'm being honest, I got a LOT of my inspiration from Kelley's blog. So she was kind enough to ask me to do a guest blog about my experiences with MY island wedding. I thought I'd take this opportunity to spread some of my knowledge about planning an island wedding on Maui.


There are two ways of planning a wedding in Maui. One way is to buy a package deal and the other way is to plan it yourself. The former plan is good if you have A. never been to Maui before, B. don't know anyone on the island or C. HATE planning things. I recommend planning the wedding yourself though if you have the opportunity. And that is exactly what I did- with a little help from my island friends.


As far as buying a package deal, there's totally nothing wrong with that. There are many options most are very budget friendly if you go that route. And I even toyed with the idea of doing a submarine wedding package for our wedding this year. But my husband put the kibosh on that. The cool part about packaged wedding deals on Maui is that they pretty much take care of everything for you- the time, the place, the officiant, the leis, the license & the photographer. But the bad part about packaged wedding deals is that they take care of EVERYTHING, which means there's not much room to make your wedding unique and personalized. You're just another "bride" and "groom" going through the same "wedding routine." Boo for that.


That's why I recommend that if you can, plan your own Maui wedding! Because a wedding is a lot more than beautiful location and a pretty dress- it's an expression of who you are as a couple! I believe so strongly in this idea that I've started a blog which exists solely for that purpose- mymauiwedding.blogspot.com has tips and inside information to help you find the ceremony & reception locations, flowers, favors, dresses, officiants, photographers, etc. to enable you to make your wedding as personalized as possible. (AND I'm available by email to help any and all Maui brides with their questions if you'd like.)


Besides consulting my blog, the very BEST advice that I can give you is to take a trip to Maui. There is no substitute for being on the island, because, if you didn't already know, the Hawaiian islands are full of magic and spirit of Aloha, and if you work in harmony with the islands, they tend to give you exactly what you need. I went in March to plan our October wedding and in one day I got the photographer, locations & day-of wedding planner. And during the rest of my weeks stay almost all of the other details were sorted out based on coincidences and connections we made while on the island. Talk about stress free wedding planning, well, it was pretty close to it. And if you check travel sites and sign up for fare updates specific to Maui you can find some super affordable fares.


Plus with the aid of my blogs like mine & Kelley's you can find local products for your wedding which, if your hotel or venue agree to it, you can save on postage by having things like favors & OOT (out of town) gift bag items shipped locally, instead of paying to have things from the mainland shipped to the islands. (Trust me, those shipping costs may cause heart failure.) I was lucky to have a family member on the island to act as my local mailing address.


So all you wahines contemplating getting Maui'd- go ahead and express yourself by making your wedding on Maui stand out from all the others, and I think you'll find that it can be easier than you think with help from sites like My Island Wedding , My Maui Wedding & a quick planning trip to Maui.


(Stay tuned for another post about my Maui wedding, including a story about a shark attack and our non-traditional beach day of relaxation mere hours before our "I do's.")

Maui Wowie!

If Maui ain't an "Island Wedding", I don't know what is!!!

Check out this story of a woman that gets engaged to her "shark attack victim" boyfriend in Hawaii!!!!

My Maui Wedding. Check out her other blogs as well...

PLEASE NOTE: This is the one that gives all the "CRAZY" stories about the wedding and planning... sorry guys!