Wedding Wednesday: Photobooth, Furniture, and More!

Happy Wedding Wednesday!

I have SO much to share!

Last Friday we met with MCR Productions to help us design the downstairs to our venue.

We were looking for a couple of things and this company has them all:

• Uplighting (indoor and outdoor)
• Furniture for the downstairs
• Photobooth
• Bar
• Head chairs for the bride and groom

First I have to tell you about our experience because it's something I've never experienced before.

MCR Productions is based out of the North Eastern part of  Pennsylvania and our wedding is in Central PA. They made a special trip just to see the venue to help us decide on items for our wedding. 

At 2:30 I left work and headed over with my fiance to meet with the company. I didn't know what to expect, I honestly didn't. I walk in and there's our wedding planner with three of the designers. They had their notebooks/iPad's in hand. I didn't expect a team to come out! It honestly made me a little nervous, I didn't expect that! Haha. 

They asked me a bunch of questions, which all three of them diligently wrote down as I answered them and told them what my vision was. They were just amazing, we knew a little bit of what they offered from the website but they had SO much more. They helped me decide on seating downstairs and what they can offer. The venue we chose is two floors. 

Cocktail hour and dancing is downstairs and the dinner is upstairs. There isn't much seating down stairs and I just have a good feeling a lot of people want to sit downstairs when the party gets started especially during our first dance and mother & groom and father and daughter dances happen. Anyway, I was looking for ideas of seating down stairs. They showed us some pictures and this is the type of seats we can go with if we did decide to go with them (I'm still undecided on the chairs)

If we do go with them we would get six of these benches with the little table (which changes colors by the way, and they can even change it for what our colors are!). 

This is a look of what they look like decorated with pillows. I like it, it gives it a very elegant look!

 

Another one of the items I was looking for is unique chairs for my fiance & I for our head table. Ever since I saw Lauren Conrad's couch for her and her husband I fell in love! So I wanted something unique like that. To go along with the white "Manhattan" look, they suggested these King & Queen chairs which we're definitely getting. They have a high back and look super comfy!

The downstairs will also be where the bar is and we were thinking of making our own bar but found our MCR Productions rents out bars. Which are absolutely beautiful by the way. We are definitely going with the bar for our venue as well. 

It comes with the back stand that holds the alcohol so it will look like an actual bar, plus 5 of the bar stools! I'm super excited about this. It will look so pretty, and again the bar can change colors. So it'll probably flip flop between our colors; orange and pink.

We were also looking for a photobooth, they have a nice one we're just not sure if we're going to go with it. But it does have some awesome features. To name a few: you can upload directly to social media, it can video 30 second videos, guests can have a copy of their photos and we get a scrapbook of the photos along with a flash drive with all the pictures from the evening. 

And last but certainly not least is the up lighting for both indoor and outdoor. We actually needed permission from the manager of the venue because it's never been done before! MCR is really well known for all their amazing up lighting features. We are super excited about this. We will be uplighting the outside with our colors and the inside as well. Since our venue is two floors they will be uplighting both floors different colors and can be flip flopped throughout the night. Which is exciting!

I wish I can show you more pictures of their amazing uplighting but you'll just have to check out the website which is here.

Have a great night!

Lush Haul - Valentines Day Collection 2015

Happy Tuesday!

This past weekend when I went to the Lush in Philadelphia I picked up some of their Valentines Day collection. 

The first thing I picked up was this heart locket. You can find it here for $11.95. 

When I was talking to one of the girls that work at Lush she recommends breaking the locket in half because you can get 3 uses out of it. Once you break it in half there is something inside and then you can use the two sides of it separately. Out of all the items from the Valentines Day collection I like this scent the best. I can't wait to break it in half to see what's inside!

I picked up two of the Unicorn Horn Bubble Bar. You can find them here for $7.95. I don't know why I'm swooning over this. I just think it's all the fun colors and star glitter. 

This is the Lonely Heart Bubble Bar. I love the amount of glitter this has on it, plus it smells amazing! You can find it here for $7.95. 

I also picked up and used Dragon's Egg bath bomb. You can find it here for $6.95. I highly recommend this! It smells just like fresh citrus with sherbet. Once you use it, inside is all different colors! It leaves your tub colored orange with lots of glitter. My fiance even commented on our good I smelt after! :)

Have you picked up anything from Lush's Valentines Day Collection?

 

Weekend Recap: Anniversary Get-Away

Happy Monday!

As you may already know the Blizzard of 2015 is upon us. Living in Central PA we didn't get much compared to what others are getting. Although it has been snowing for over 24 hours straight. Crazy isn't it? 

Today is my fiance and I's 12 year anniversary. It's hard to believe that we started dating 12 years ago. It still just amazes me. And I couldn't be happier. Today I had to work and he had classes so we decided to celebrate this past weekend in Philadelphia. One of our favorite places. We scored an awesome deal on the Radisson Blu Warick in Rittenhouse Square. We wanted to keep this weekend low key since we've been on the go, go, go. We literally went out for lunch on Saturday and stayed in the hotel the rest of the afternoon. Which was perfect for us, exactly what we needed! Sunday was our trip back but we couldn't help our selves from stopping at the Reading Terminal Market. I ate a cheese steak and picked up some pretty flowers and off we were to beat this crazy storm. 

By the time I got out of work at 5 and headed to Philadelphia I had about a half hour to run into Lush and pick up some items from their Valentines Day collection! (Which I will be blogging about tomorrow)

Friday night I decided to use Dragon's Egg bath bomb which smell so refreshing - like citrus!

On the inside it was filled with glitter and orange. 

It left the bath tub rather... sparkly. 

Saturday I wore a sweater my fiance bought me for Christmas from Forever 21. It was perfect for walking around in the cold weather. It was so fuzzy and warm. I paired it with a bubble necklace I purchased on Ebay and black corduroys. 

I also wore my very comfy "biker" boots from Charlotte Russe. 

I know I'm on a diet but I couldn't help but pick up Philadelphia cupcakes. As you can tell not all of them made it back to the hotel. My fiance is officially never allowed to carry the cupcakes. Haha 

This was the lobby to our hotel - how pretty! I love all the decorations!

Here's the flowers we picked up from Reading Terminal Market. How pretty are these peach colored gerber daisies?! 

This was today - on my way to work. I'm really regretting going to work. It was not worth it! 

Although after my 1:00 meeting I was pleasantly surprised with a red roses from my fiance. How sweet is he?

Have a great night!

6 Things Happy People Do Every Morning

Happy Thursday!

I am always looking for inspiration to make life a little easier. 

I stumbled upon this pin the other day and I have been thinking a lot about it. 

I am all for getting that extra 10 minutes of sleep if I can. I am always pressing snooze as if 10 more minutes will satisfy my tiredness. (it never does) 

I have never been one to eat breakfast in the morning, never have! I go straight to lunch. I just feel if I have a breakfast it's too much and it'll make me more tired, so I skip it. I know it's something I should be doing, but can't get myself to do it. 

I remember a couple of years ago when I would work out every morning for 2 hours before my work day started, but that was before I had to work at 8AM or had to commute a half hour. It made me more energized throughout the day, made me feel more awake, and overall just made me feel better. I realize now that I will never get to do that with my schedule now. 8AM is just rough! So instead I have been trying to get a little work out in the morning. I tried to work out after work. But for whatever reason I can't push myself to do it. 

I really enjoy all of this tips from this little image. I am going to try all of them to see how it truly makes me feel. Maybe it'll even become a habit. 

What is your morning routine?

Wedding Wednesday: Meeting with Our Caterer and Questions to Ask Your Caterer

Happy Wedding Wednesday!

What makes a Wednesday better than Wedding Wednesday - working from home on a snow day! Hehe

We met with our caterer a couple of weekends ago and I went with a list of questions to ask her just to make sure I covered all my bases. Since our wedding venue does not have a caterer we had to find our own, and what made it worse (or better depending on how you look at it) was we had a preferred food vending list to use. Luckily for us, the first one we tried we liked!

We met with our caterer at a local bookstore/coffee shop. She was quite a distance away from us so she offered to meet us half way. Which I thought was going the extra mile - literally. Haha. It's those little gestures that reel me in. :)

Anyway here are a list of questions I asked our caterer:

1. How many weddings have you done? How long have you been in business? This tells you the longevity of the business and the possibility of your caterer either backing out on you or you can depend on them. For us, she has been in business quite a while and even runs her own restaurant. 
2. Could you do a wedding for up to 150 people? Yes. 
3. What is your culinary background, school? She graduated college. 
4. Do you have a specialty or style IE Rustic or Italian? Our caterer doesn't have a specific style or specialty. Which helps for a wide range of foods instead of being stuck with just one type of option. 
5. Do you provide bartenders, how many? Is soda, coffee and tea included in the price? Our wedding venue does not provide bartenders so this was a a big concern of mine. I had no clue where to find a bartender! Both sides of our families enjoy drinking so I knew one bartender wasn't going to cut it, and I didn't want huge lines at the bar. Luckily, our caterer can provide as many bartenders as we need without any additional charge. Coffee, tea, water, lemonade and iced tea is provided but fountain soda is not included. At the end of the night she is going to put out coffee and tea for our guests and have water at the tables for dinner. I am a little worried about no fountain drinks. I think we might just buy a bunch of 2 liter soda bottles and put them behind the bar and have them served in glass cups. It's the best solution we can come up with.
6. Can specialty cocktails be made for our wedding and passed during cocktail hour? My fiance & I are planning a signature drink and would like them to be passed around during cocktail hour, and she is able to do that for us. That makes me happy. 
7. Whom will be in charge of the overseeing of our event that day? I was worried she would have someone else come in the day of our wedding that we were not comfortable with, so I wanted to make sure it would be her and it will be. She will be overseeing the servers and will be there the entire night. 
8. Is there a difference in price for children's meals as opposed to adults? This is important, especially if you have a lot of children coming to your wedding. Why should you pay full price for children's meals?! The meals that would be served to children are chicken tenders, applesauce and mac & cheese. She only charges $4.95 for children's meals!
9. Do you offer to cut the cake and do you charge? Luckily for us, she does both and not at any additional costs. Some places will charge you up to $3.00 a serving, that's on top of what you pay per serving of your wedding cake!
10. How many servers would you provide? For our size she will have 6 servers. We are having a formal sit down meal so I don't want people waiting around for the food, the more servers the better!
11. How will the staff be dressed? I know this may sound dumb, but I want them to look professional, I don't want them wearing jeans to our wedding. She makes sure her staff is dressed in black and white attire. 
12. How much time do you require for setting up and breaking down my event, and are there extra fees associated? She actually likes to get to the venue Thursday or Friday if it's a Saturday wedding to get set up. I like that she is punctual!
13. What is the last date by which I can give you a final guaranteed guest count? She only needs 1 week prior to know the absolute guest count number. Which is GREAT, I know how people like to call last minute. We had that issue for our engagement party, so I'm real happy about that!
14. How much of a deposit is required to hold my date? When is final payment due? We said yes to our caterer after we had our taste testing! We paid her a deposit and she wants payment about a week before the wedding. Works for us!

I am sure there are a bunch of other questions you can ask, but these are the questions I asked our caterer. I am sure as our wedding gets closer I will have more questions. haha. I guess it's better to be prepared than to not be!

 

Paper Crafts: DIY Wrapping Paper & DIY Christmas Cards

Happy Tuesday!

Today I'm sharing a couple paper crafts I did over the holidays and recently:

• Wrapping Paper
• Christmas Cards
• Birthday Card

This past Christmas I was inspired by Pinterest to decorate gifts with brown craft paper. 

I picked up a huge roll (I forget how many feet were in it) for $4.98 in the packaging supply department in Wal-Mart. 

I also picked up a package of ribbon from Wal-Mart for $4.97, white paint from Jo-Ann's for $0.59, twine for $3.00 at Michaels, and gift tags from Marshalls for $2.99 to decorate the paper.

As you can see this one I just used ribbon from Wal-Mart to decorate the brown paper.

The one on the left I used the back of a pencil and dipped it into the white paint and dotted the paper to decorate.

I picked up these adorable tags from Marshalls. They had some adorable Christmas items!

Adding the decorative tag really helped brighten up the packaging. 

I got the snowflake idea from Pinterest. It actually came out a lot better than I thought, and was real simple to do! 

This Christmas I also thought it would be fun to make my own Christmas cards. I loved doing it so much I decided I am going to make cards from now on. There is something about doing it that is so relaxing! I just need to give myself enough time to make them in advance! 

If you do decide to make your own Christmas cards or any cards for that matter I would highly suggest doing this in advance. Especially if you have a lot of cards to make. My MOH & I decided were going to make my Bridal Shower invitations so we need to do that well in advance. 

I wish I would have taken better photos, these were just with my iPhone. 

I basically used a package of card stock and stickers that I already had.

This card I made for my brother's 30th birthday.

Have a great night!

Weekend Recap: Bridal Expo, Erin Condren Life Planner & New Computer

Happy Monday!

It's been over a week since I last blogged and I apologize. We have been very busy with planning the wedding. But that's always a plus for you because there is SO much I will be sharing these next couple of weeks. 

I didn't do a recap of two weekends ago, so I am doing a recap of that weekend along with this weekend. 

ALSO, I am blogging from my new computer. That's right it's no longer a lap top I was upgraded to a desktop. I needed something new especially after having my laptop for SO long, I got my laptop when I first started college so you know how long I've had it! Yikes!

Last weekend I finally updated my chalkboard. There is a lot of birthdays coming up, so instead of doing Valentines Day I decided to go with a Birthday one I found on Pinterest.

I finally took some time and re-did my toe nails. I was still rocking red nail polish from the Holidays so I updated it with blue and some pretty glitter. 

I'm also thoroughly enjoying decorating my new Life Planner by Erin Condren. It's a great way to plan out your week before starting it. The past three Sundays I have been taking a hour or two to figure out the upcoming week and then I decorate my planner. With the wedding coming up it definitely helps me stay on track!

I went to the Dollar Tree to pick up Washi Tape and walked out with these labels. I have NO clue what I'll do with them, but they'll be nice to have. 

I needed a new mascara so I am testing out a different version of the Elf mascara. I've been using it for about a week - once I have been using it more I'll report back. 

Off we go to the Bridal Expo!

I scored an adorable tote from there. I will definitely find a lot of use for this. 

A surprise from my fiance for Christmas - a new desktop!

It's a beauty! I love it but I'm still getting use to Windows 8.

My brother turned 30 this past weekend so I made him a card for his birthday. 

And last, but not least - a hedge hog holding a raspberry for your viewing pleasure. :)

Have a great night!