Choosing the Location

Hello Everyone,

Yes, our wedding has come and gone ALREADY! Pretty insane. But now is the time to reflect on the wedding planning process and our actual wedding. Travis and I had so much fun on our honeymoon because we were able to reflect on our wedding day. It is such a blur when you go through it and one of the most exhausting days of my life, but it was SO special to us and the most amazing day of my life. I married my best friend, and now I get to live life with him... God is good!

But let's get down to the venues... shall we?

We were fortunate enough to have a pretty easy time picking the location for our wedding. I made a few long distance phone calls and many emails to different people to ask about their venues.

I had always wanted an outdoor wedding. One of my bridesmaids, Melissa, her brother got married outside and Travis and I had the honour of going. Their wedding and reception were under a tent and it was absolutely stunning. During their wedding, we kept on saying, "our wedding should look like this!" Their wedding was our inspiration and were seeking out a venue that would allow us to have a tent.

We were originally looking at a heritage home by Boundary Bay to have a tented reception. The only problem was that they could hold a max number of 125 people. Well, we were going to have well over 125 guests... so that was unfortunately a no go.

This automatically got me down because I loved the venue so much! JUST LOOK AT IT!

Photo Courtesy of:  http://www.savourychef.com/wedding-venue-event-venue/cammidge-house-boundary-bay-regional-park/

I was thinking of other places to have a wedding that would allow for an outdoor ceremony and reception. I then stumbled upon an entry on ruffled that took place in my hometown of Ladner!

I then saw this image and fell in LOVE!

Click HERE to see more!

This wedding took place at the Kirkland House... an old heritage home that was vandalized back in the early 1990's and fixed up by volunteers. I never would have thought to get married here, but the above picture sold me!

I got a hold of the main man who takes bookings and the only problem was that we couldn't have a dance because it disturbed the neighbors... so we had to give up a tented reception because we wanted to DANCE! However, the fact that we even GOT Kirkland House was AMAZING! It books up a year in advance now, 2013 is FULLY BOOKED ALREADY! It did help that we were going to have a Sunday wedding, but Sundays are getting even more difficult to book.

So... Mom and Dad MOVED quickly and thankfully found a hotel in Tsawwassen that was relatively priced and had a dance floor!

Our reception would be held at the Coast Tsawwassen Inn. The food choice we would serve our friends and family was wonderful. We could do buffet style or plated, and if we had over 100 guests coming to our event, they would ignore the fee of renting the venue so we only had to pay for food. PERFECT! They would do our linens, dress up the tables, set them up with place settings, take away our plates, serve punch, dessert... bada bing, bada boom, I WAS SOLD. And finally, we could have a dance. It worked out perfectly.

When it comes to planning a wedding in peak season in B.C. in just over 6 months, it is difficult. I never thought that I would have had my reception in a ballroom, however, there are somethings that you have to give up for your special day. Sometimes it doesn't work out. The advice that I would probably give to any bride that my Maid of Honour, Clara, gave to me would be... you can only control so much in your wedding. It will be beautiful regardless because it is YOUR wedding. The only person that is going to take notice of the things that are missing is YOU... who would know if you wanted a Candy Bar and it didn't work out (in this case, me), or wanted a tented reception outdoors and, again, it didn't work out? (and again, this would be me). Sometimes, you just need to sacrifice things here and there... ESPECIALLY if you want to have a budget friendly wedding.

However, we do have some photos now of us at each venue. Here is a little sneak peak of what's to come from The Nickersons. They are our AMAZING photographers whom I will be doing a post about soon.

 Our Ceremony at the Kirkland House

Our first dance at the Coast Tsawwassen Inn

A Quick Update...

Hey Everyone,

Yes, I know it has been a while, however, important things have come up and thus, I put the blog on hold for a while.

In the midst of finishing my online class, Travis's Grandfather passed away on Thursday June 14, 2012 after a short 1 month battle of bone cancer. It has been a hard time for us, but we have been comforted in knowing that Grandpa Baldwin is with our Heavenly Father, glorifying Him in his new body. He is dancing and singing his praises forever and we cannot stop picturing him up in Heaven worshiping Jesus. So praise God that Grandpa Baldwin accepted Christ into his heart 2 years ago (he was 89 when he passed).

They are celebrating his life tomorrow at Grandma Baldwin's house and I am in Seattle with my family so I cannot be there. However, we would still love prayers for comfort because we love and miss him so much.

Even though all of this has happened, I have been exceptionally blessed. 

My Maid of Honour (Clara) came out from Edmonton to help me do DIY decorations for the wedding and encourage me more in the wedding preparation department.

Kelsey (my bridesmaid), Jordan (another bridesmaid), and Clara, threw me a beautiful wedding shower where my friends spoiled me rotten and blessed me with love and gifts.

After all of the celebrating (and even before), we worked on DIY projects like decorating Mason Jars with burlap and lace for center pieces, signs that point in different directions for the ceremony grounds and cutting out bunting from thrifted fabric. One of my favorite projects that we worked on were slabs of wood from a fallen tree. We are using them for center pieces and I will do a blog post on those later.

As for now... I'm tired and I think it is time for bed.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers at this time. Travis and I are getting married in 1 more month and it just seems to be flying by. It's a very exciting time, however, there is still lots to do and more healing to occur. So thank you for all of your encouragement, our families really appreciate it.

The Beautiful Bridesmaids Dresses

Hello again everyone,

A lot has happened since we have been home in beautiful B.C. I started an online class which I am now half way through (my mid term is on Friday)... and I'm already excited to be done. I have also been working at Country Meadows restaurant and going thrifting for the wedding. And yes, thrifting has been quite successful, but I will talk about that another time when I start posting about the DIY projects that are in process and ones that I would like to undergo a little late when I have all of the materials.

However, tonight I wanted to share how the beautiful bridesmaids found their dresses for the wedding.

I saw the dusty rose colour before and I absolutely fell in love with it. I never thought that I would go for a pink colour because my Mom had pink bridesmaids dresses as well... but this is a little different. This is DUSTY ROSE!!!

So, my only guidelines really were that the girls could pick dresses with a matte material. I didn't like the shiny look. They also had to pick dresses about knee length because it is a summer wedding. And FINALLY, the dresses had to be along the lines of a dusty rose/pastel rose colour. The more the girls looked around, the more I realized the different shades we were going to have. I was VERY excited about it because the ombre effect is one that I love seeing in weddings. So I am stoked!

My Maid of Honour, Clara, picked out a beautiful lace dress (top left). The back is absolutely stunning and it is what sold us on the dress. I absolutely love it!

Kelsey, a gorgeous bridesmaid, picked out the lovely rosette shoulder dress (top right). It was light, classic and looked stunning and very much the Kelso I know.

Jordan, a friend I met at camp and a gal that I will be standing up for at her wedding 2 weeks later searched HIGH AND LOW for this stunning dress (bottom left). The search was worth the wait because her dress is absolutely adorable.

Finally, my friend, Melissa's dress (bottom right) was one that I thought I could see her in because she wanted strapless and the colour is just fantastic.

I wanted the girls to find dresses that were not only beautiful on them and a style that they liked, but dresses that were kind to their wallets. I'm so thankful that they were all able to find dresses that they loved under $65.00!

The 2 dresses on the left are from http://www.modcloth.com/ and the 2 on the right are from http://shopruche.com/. Check out BOTH of these websites for GREAT fashion and AFFORDABLE prices!

People keep asking me the one moment I'm most excited for during my wedding day. My answer is always the same... it is to see Travis for the first time as I walk down the aisle with our friends standing up for us and supporting us through our marriage. I can't stop thinking about that one moment because I know it will be one that I will never live out again and one that I have dreamed about since I was a little girl. Now that the gals have their outfits... It is becoming more and more real! 

I just wanted to thank my bridesmaids for supporting me so far and for being there for me already while we plan this amazing day. It is officially 2 months away today... and I can't wait!

DIY Save the Dates! (Did I mention that they were FREE!?!)

Hello ALL,

For our wedding, we didn't really have much time on our hands to put off wedding invitations. However, while we were in the process of making them and while I didn't have the addresses to a lot of people that we were inviting, we were able to make cute Save the Date Cards!

We sent these card via facebook messages and emails for people that we didn't have addresses to so that they knew WHEN we were getting married and that they were invited before the actual invites came out.

It was a pretty simple procedure. I'm in love with anything and everything FREE and CRAFTY... and the Wedding Chicks have a LOT of DIY Invitation Suites and Save the Date templates. SO I stumbled upon these templates and fell in love.

Click HERE if you want to look at these FREE Save the Date cards. I could not believe my luck when I found these.

And it is SO simple! Just DOWNLOAD, copy and paste a photo in... add a heart, circle or whatever you want to the day you are getting married... and VOILA! SAVE THE DATE COMPLETE!

There are even more Save the Date Templates Here that aren't even a calendar card. However... they have a bunch of different styles for the calendar card that are worth checking our right HERE!

Because we didn't have time to send them all out, we didn't get them printed... however, that is a possibility to do just as a keep sake.

I loved how ours turned out and I hope you guys like them too. It's all a part of the process. 

As for Travis and I, we will be leaving snowy Edmonton in 2 SLEEPS to come back home to BEAUTIFUL B.C to plan MORE for our wedding!

Till then, LOVE YOU ALL and God Bless!

The Ring

This is my BEAUTIFUL ring that Travis picked out for me. We had gone ring shopping before hand to just look at the type of style I like. I liked a simple solitaire with little diamond accents on the band. The one ring that I thought looked best on my hand (I have small hands so I didn't want anything that was overpowering) was from Ben Moss. I loved the movement of the band on my finger instead of the straight band.  I had no idea what ring he decided to get me... but Travis saw how much I loved this ring and went back within the next week to pick it up. So, HERE IT IS!

 

Before we got engaged, I would always wake up thinking about what it would be like to have a ring on my finger... now it is there and has not moved. I love it more and more everyday. It was a gift from my beloved and it is so precious to me.

All of these photos were taken by my amazingly talented Maid of Honour, Clara! She did a little engagement shoot for Travis and I as an engagement present. We had so much fun and I will be posting more photos sometime soon. In the mean time, you can check out Clara's new blog that she has created with our dear friend Kelsey and Jordyn. Kelsey is one of my bridesmaids and Jordyn has agreed to be our videographer for the wedding. They have created a blog to document and share their creativity like photography, videography, baking and style/beauty. If you want to look at their blog PS: heart... check them out HERE!

In the mean time... be blessed!