Wedding Styling ~ Staying Organized

Happy Monday! Let me just say, there are few things I love more than sitting down on days like today with a cup of coffee. The full inbox, work-heavy week, and plethora of brides to deal talk to is a challenge I’m ready for!

Today I want to talk a little bit about the importance of organization. If you’ve started planning your wedding, you have an idea of how chaotic it can get… Very quickly. I’ve been working on styling details with a bride located more than 2000 miles away. It’s hard to coordinate details when you can’t sit down with everything in front of you. And of course, setting up the wedding the day of could be a nightmare if we’re not on the same page.

Below is the solution to the problem! Broken up into categories and color-coded boxes, this diagram is the ultimate inspiration board. If you’re like this bride, you need to SEE it together with your own eyes before making a decision. This arrangement will help the bride to decide what she wants, make the deposits, and rest easy for a while!









So what do you think? Would this sort of thing help you in your wedding planning process?

Tough to Say ~ Rehearsal Dinner Invitation Wording

I am constantly struggling with clients to find the right words for their rehearsal dinner invitations. How do you make a completely practical ceremony rehearsal sound elegant, without cluttering the invitation with addresses and times?





This invitation found a perfect solution. With the banner on top lightening the mood and declaring it a “celebration,” the rest of the wording goes as follows:

Please join us for the ceremony rehearsal
Thursday, the eighteenth of November
at half past five in the evening
St. Anthony of Padua Church
followed by a dinner honoring

Alex & Adam

at half past seven in the evening
at Kemoll’s Restaurant
Top of the Met
#1 Metropolitan Square
Saint Louis, MO 63102
Please RSVP to
Karen Hilkenkamp

By changing the type treatments, it’s a perfect solution to a clutter-free invitation!

Man to Man ~ Planning the Wedding

Every once in a while I stumble upon one of those remarkable grooms that is planning their wedding… you heard me right, PLANNING the wedding. I consider them gold mines for a view into the mind of men who actually care about the details. I basically snatch them up and beg them to share their thoughts with you, the readers.
So today we have an extra special treat! A groom who dove right into wedding planning because his bride was busy pursuing dreams that couldn’t be set aside. Although the planning is still under way, see what you think of his insightful and interesting view on what “Planning a Wedding” really entails.

Tips from a Brave Groom

After graduating from college, a considerable amount of my friends/classmates began to get married. I was actually lucky enough to be able to attend some of them and after interacting with some of the brides and their friends I was amazed at learning that many women have planned out their wedding in their minds many years advance, in a great deal of instances, even before they knew who they wanted to share their lives with. I met this discovery with a strong sense of bewilderment, “How could this be? How could these ladies know what they want when they don’t even know who they even want to celebrate it with?” It wasn’t until at least year later that I began to gain some clarity on their perspective.

From the moment Rachael and I met we both knew it was meant to be. I remember as vividly as if it was yesterday the moment I asked her if she’d marry me. The interesting part is, as soon as we began planning our wedding in earnest, I realized that somehow I had my own vision of what my wedding would be like, even though I had never sat down with myself previously and actively pondered it. When I closed my eyes, I saw how many people were there, the garden setting for the ceremony, etc. From that point on I began to understand and appreciate those ladies’ viewpoint increasingly more with each passing day, but not because of the aforementioned story, but the interesting twist in our situation…

Just a few short months after we first became engaged, Rachael left to fulfill a Fullbright Scholarship to the Middle East. The grant lasted fifteen months, meaning our wedding date was only two months after her return. I was to be the primary planner for our wedding since I was the one who was stateside. Even though Rachael and I enjoyed the luxury of skype calls and gchats, and we communicated thoroughly about what wanted for our wedding, the process was no less daunting. I’ll tell you something, I have a newly founded respect for people who plan their own weddings and those that plan others’ as well. The amount of activities to be booked, and reservations to be made, while coordinating it ALL to sync with the vision of the wedding is considerable, even for smaller weddings.

While we are still seven months away from that special day I have learned so much already. Here are just a few of the things I have learned:

1. Have a detailed, step-by-step checklist to prioritize every reservation and coordination that must be made. Especially as the date draws nearer. Things are going to become more hectic, not less, and there are many helpful website to help you find some sort of order out of the chaos.

2. Have a set budget in stone (don’t forget the honeymoon!) that includes every foreseeable expense from cakes to corsages. Again there are plenty of websites that help you construct and revise your budget allocations to each purchase so you can stay within your limits. Otherwise you’ll feel like you’re flying blind when you’re trying to book a photographer, if you don’t know how much you can actually spend on one.

3. For weddings with a high number of out-of-town guests, consider the location of the wedding in greater detail. In the very least it will help you prepare your guests for what to plan for (i.e. do they need to rent car? How will they get back from the reception?) Also take into consideration any other unrelated events in the town/city you’re in that might affect your travelers. For example, Rachael and I booked our wedding for the third week of March until after about a month, we realized that falls smack in the middle of the biggest festival in Austin and consequently the hardest time to get flights into Austin and find hotel rooms. When we attempted to block off rooms, they literally told us “good luck finding any, because most of us are booked at least 12 months in advance for that festival.” Needless to say, we rescheduled our date shortly after this discovery.

4. While I was admittedly a bit intimidated at first, going to wedding/bridal expos was probably the single best thing I’ve done. I was able to set up appointments to visit venues, discover caterers, photographers, you name it – all in one spot. Even this far through the process, I still make it a point to make every expo I can.

5. Did I mention how important it is to have a checklist? I can’t stress enough how much of my sanity has been preserved due to being able to focus on one or two things and complete them instead of juggling 500 balls in the air at once and hoping not to drop one. I really give heed to the cliche, “If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.” Trust me, the checklist will be your best friend.

Writing Your Program

Your wedding program: it is complex, last-minute, and nightmarish. Composing the list of family, friends, songs, readings, traditions…the potential for spelling errors is endless! BUT there is an upside to the dreaded wedding program- it provides a huge opportunity to get creative and express yourself to your guests. Below are several ideas for making your programs unique and specific to you as a couple.



Do you have more ideas for our brides? Share them in our comments section!

For the Groom ~ I wish I had known…

I am SO excited for this post! We’ve talked to some of the coolest newly-wedding grooms that helped compile a list of things they had to learn the hard way. For you married women, these are a HOOT. For those of you dealing with husbands-to-be, you might want to send them to this list. It will SERIOUSLY save you at least 15 arguments and repeating yourself:

All 450 people want to come through the receiving line after the ceremony

You have more friends when a keg is provided

STAY OUT OF IT.

It’s wasn’t about the wedding photographer, it’s almost more about the family getting their photos in before we leave for the night. I have never had so many people ask if we could get a picture with them.

The dance party can last until 3am+, so watch the clock if you want to be awake for anything else…

Even if I want to “start” the honeymoon as soon as the papers are signed, the bride actually wants to be a part of the reception

Photos: either hire a professional, or have talented family do it free, do not have an old friend/semi pro photographer do a bad job and still have to dish out a grand.

The bride wants you to be a part of the entire planning process, but not really.

I didn’t expect I was going to get misty-eyed when i said my vows.

If you have a truck and a check book, you are a great asset to the planning of your wedding

Engagement photos take longer than actual wedding photos

Even if your wedding is along a pristine river, your bride probably does not want fishing, or fishing poles, or boats to be a part of the wedding

I thought I could remember 5 words at a time to repeat after the pastor, false.

Trying to leave for the night isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies.

I thought dipping the bride to kiss at the end of the ceremony was about the kiss, it’s actually about the pictures, so you get to make out as long as she’ll let you in front of the crowd, and your parents.