The bubbles went in our eyes, and our mouth. They were not cooperating!
By the way, Mr. Knight makes some of the BEST faces. Love him.

Mr. Knight bracing for impact. We had a strong wind that day, which made for us feeling quite cool but not so good for blowing bubbles.

Finally, the bubbles decided to get with the program and work for us the way I dreamed!

I love how it looks like Mr. Knight is teaching me how to blow bubbles. What a cutie.

This little beauty is Mr. Knight and I’s favorite picture… EVER. You might even see it again soon in a little project I’ve been working on that has been taking me WEEEEEKS, cause I’m crazy OCD like that.

Overall, very pleased with my little bubble prop. The only props I really brought with us was the bubbles and our iPhones, and I think they were enough for us (although I wish I had packed some sweet heart shaped sunglasses… bummers).

Our favorite part of our ‘couples picture time’ was sitting in the grass blowing bubbles at each other. So relaxing! It was especially funny to see some of our guests drive by us on the road behind us (see – road approx. 12′ behind us… didn’t notice it? yeah, our photographers are amazing). They looked slightly confused! A few honked, which got us super excited.

I can’t say it enough how amazing it was to see Mr. Knight before our ceremony. It was the best part of my day (besides pulling away from our reception… more on that later). These moments with him are some I will always cherish. :-)

What was your favorite moment from your wedding? Was it a tender moment with your sweetie or the moment you pulled away from the reception? SPILL!

If you haven’t entered my GIVEAWAY for fabulous Juicy Couture Earrings then you better get your butt over there and enter that SHIZ!

And in case you missed it, this is what’s happened so far:

our first look on a bridge
a moment with Gator Dad
We got silly with our iPhones
The girls and I mastered laughing
I put on that little white dress
The boys got full of themselves
I was hungover while getting our hair did
We rehearsed with yummy BBQ
The ladies lunched

Once again, all photos by Ben and Amy of Starks Photography; taken on the property of the Plantation Bay Country Club

]]> http://gatorbride.com/just-mauied-when-bubbles-attack/feed/ 3 http://gatorbride.com/just-mauied-our-first-look/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/just-mauied-our-first-look/#comments Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:58:28 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=4994 In the beginning, Mr. Knight wasn’t completely on board with the ‘first look’ idea. The ‘first look’ seems to be a relatively new wedding trend. My parents had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned it and many of my friends, who were married only a few years ago, hadn’t heard of it when they were planning their wedding. I searched the internet for some great examples to show Mr. Knight and even made a little pros and cons list for him to look at. In the end, Mr. Knight was on board (anything to keep his stressed out bride happy). After it was all said and done, Mr. Knight says these set of pictures are some of his favorite from our wedding. Bride – 1, Groom – 0. :-)

I believe the ‘first look’ is such an important moment on your wedding day. Many brides and grooms are hell-bent on not seeing each other till the ceremony (which is tradition) but, having a ‘first look’ and seeing each other, just the two of you, is so much more intimate (in our eyes). We both were so excited to see each other and get a moment to take in everything that was happening that day… we were getting married! Enough of my jibber-jabbering, the pictures truly say it all.

I’m trying to contain my excitement, but failing at it. I had never been so excited to see him in my life!

At this moment I’m so excited that I’m stomping my feet up and down on the bridge super fast so that he can hear me coming.

I’m here Mr. Kniiiiiiiiggggghhhhhhhhht

Mr. Knight checking our my dress, the elusive little white dress he had been hearing about for MONTHS.

This is right after Mr. Knight kissed me and got my lipstick all over his lips. He was smacking his lips together all funny. It was perfect. He made me laugh and I certainly needed a good laugh on our wedding day. Nerves anyone?

That smile… agh I just love him so much!

Mr. Knight checking out the detail on my dress and all my accessories. Even months later, when he sees a picture of us from our wedding day he still tells me how beautiful I looked on our wedding day. So sweet.♥
Accessories: Watters Dress, J Crew Pave Crystal Heels, Handle & Spout hair flowers,  Tulip Couture clutch, Aquamarine drop earrings

Truth be told, I don’t think our family was completely on board with our ‘first look’ idea till after they saw our ‘first look’ pictures. I remember telling my parents we were going to see each other before the ceremony and I will never forget the shocked look on their faces (they are very traditional). They also had this same shocked look when I told them the dress I wanted wasn’t white (it was champagne). They eventually came around when they heard all the positives: more time for pictures, less time between the ceremony and reception taking photos, giving us more time with our guests. My parents were really good sports with all my slightly untraditional ideas for Mr. Knight and I’s wedding.

Having a ‘first look’ gave us time so that we could get all the fun pictures we wanted (which is coming up next!) and allowed us to just hang out and chill. We weren’t rushed, we had nowhere to be for an hour and a half. It was perfection. Just Mr. Knight, Me and our 2 photographers and 2 videographers (okay, we were quite a crew). We frolicked all over the Plantation Bay Country Club property. I had time to really think about which pictures I wanted, what would be a good background, etc. I was one of THOSE brides who directed our photographers some. I was out of control. I could have taken pictures with Mr. Knight for hours if I hadn’t gotten so hungry/sweaty/thirsty/tired. I remember wanting to take a nap right before our ceremony. Staying up all night before your wedding is never a good idea. Bad gator bride.

Did you plan to have a first look? What was your deciding moment to have a first look? If you decided not to, why? I’d love to hear what y’all think of this (relatively) new wedding trend.

And in case you missed it, this is what’s happened so far:

a moment with Gator Dad
We got silly with our iPhones
The girls and I mastered laughing
I put on that little white dress
The boys got full of themselves
I was hungover while getting our hair did
We rehearsed with yummy BBQ
The ladies lunched

*All photos by Ben and Amy Starks of Starks Photography

]]> http://gatorbride.com/just-mauied-our-first-look/feed/ 3 http://gatorbride.com/the-infamous-iphone-wedding-photo/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/the-infamous-iphone-wedding-photo/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:34:32 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=4876 I’ve mentioned a few times before how much I love pictures of iPhone’s in Wedding pictures. I even wrote a few more posts about how cute they were in pictures, and since Mr. Knight and I are avid iPhone users, we couldn’t be apart from our little iPhones on our Wedding day either.

So now, I present to you our covetted iPhone Wedding photo:

I loves ♥

I think I must of asked our photographers a million times on our Wedding day – “When do we get to do our iPhone picture?” Can you tell I was excited? I think they finally just gave in and was like “Let’s do it now,” after I had asked them for the 1 bazillionth time. :-)

Do y’all plan on incorporating your iPhone (or other smartphone) into your wedding pictures?

Photo, and idea behind photo, by Starks Photography ♥them

InDesign and I became BFF this past year when I was putting together my Thesis book, so it was only natural that we rekindle our friendship and make a fantastical wedding album to give to our parents/grandparents/ourselves.

And so it begins…

Not sure where our wedding album is going right now. I’m just slowing working through it with these ideas in mind:

• crisp
• clean
• modern
• not all that ‘jazz’
• something that is very ‘us’

After falling in love with some crazy album designs, I’ve decided to make ours simple, lovely, and to the point. Because really, does anyone look though a wedding album and go “ohhh I really like your font/embellishments/background.” No. Sorry for all the ‘slashes’ today… I’m feeling very slash-y.

Did I tell y’all I was going to make 4 albums (last time I blogged about this, we were only at 3)? How out of control am I?

1. All our Pre-Wedding Extravaganzas (still need a fun title, any ideas?)
   Engagement Party, Bridal Shower, Guy’s Paintball, Bridal Brunch, Rehearsal Dinner
2. Through Our Guest’s Eyes
   A compilation of the photos our guest’s captured at our wedding. Some of them were able to capture the moments even better then our photographers, and moments we never witnessed!
3. Kyle {hearts} Kimberly
   Our Professional Wedding Pics Album
4. Just Mauied ♥ Our Honeymoon
   Somewhere to put the MASSIVE amount of photos Mr. Knight took in Maui

All of them are going to be made in the same 8″x10″ size Adorama album, and will have corresponding spines that make them appear as a ‘set’. Still not sure how to make them look like a ‘set’ on a shelf. I was thinking of having a heart on each spine in a different color (can you tell I love hearts?)… Not sure.

I’m off to more Wedding Album designing. Wish me luck! I will report back when I have something worth sharing. :-) Maybe several album covers, and a poll to help me decide which one to use? Stay tuned!

Blurb’s Blog to Book Example
I just HAD to use the baby blog example, right?

So it begins, the search for the perfect place to export my blog to, layout the book, and print the book from. I have used Lulu in the past on my graduate portfolio for architecture school and on my thesis book for graduate school, and have loved the quality and clarity of the images/text/etc. Top notch stuff, and for a great price (double score!). Downside – they don’t currently (to my knowledge and google searching) have an easy way of converting all your blog posts into a book format. I would have to export them all myself (the old cut and paste method) in InDesign and design the book myself. Can we say “I don’t have time for this?”

Another book printing site that I’m sure y’all recognize is Blurb. They have a no-stress, easy way of converting your blog to book. They even export all your entries from your blog into their ‘booksmart’ program. Although Blurb has been known to have poor color representation, I may have to check them out considering they are the ‘easier’ publisher to go with. I really like some of the layouts I have seen on their example Blog books, but I’m unsure if mine will look as nice. {pondering}

So far, I have checked out Blog2Print. You can just type in your blog address and it will automatically formulate a proof of the book for you, without even creating an account. Fun to do on a whim.

Preview Gator Bride Blog book by Blog2Print

It was super easy and doesn’t look too terrible, but still not my cup of tea. And you have to use ‘stock’ covers for the book. Not my thing. I’m all about the customization. :-)

Either way, I will keep y’all posted with what I discover! I’m excited to get started with this, and plan to print the book once I finish all my recaps and DIY project. Then it will be time to cross-over. What do I mean by “cross-over” you might ask? You will just have to wait to find out!

Do y’all have any plans for your blog after you finish blogging about your wedding/baby/etc? I’m still working on what to do over here on Gator Bride. I love blogging wedding stuff so much, I may just have to keep on doing it! :-)

{heart} Mrs Gator

PS- And for those who haven’t seen it yet, I just opened my Etsy shop, Gator Bride Designs {hooray}! I’m super excited about it and have been having too much fun helping other Bride’s with digital stationary. I love hearing about their colors/themes/ideas. I even just completed my first ‘truly’ custom invitation, a housewarming invite (in postcard form, how fun!) for a dear twitter friend. Look out for a blog post coming up soon about my little ol’ shop. :-)

Modern and Funky Wedding Album Cover found via Finao* *Finao only sells to professional photographers, nonetheless it is still a great source of inspiration

Another funky cover, this one is an album of the couple’s Engagement photos. Too cute! You can see the inside of the album here via Blurb

Cute Birdie Wedding Album via Blurb

Cute Birdie Album Insides

This album is beautiful, clean and everything that I love. You have to check out the insides of this beauty over on Blurb. Just amazing.

If you ever need ideas when making your wedding album (or any photo album, for that matter), websites like Blurb are great places to get ideas. They have an online store where you can browse other people’s albums they have made.

I plan to make a different album for the husband and I, then for our family. The husband and I, will naturally, probably want most of our pictures in our album, but I doubt our family members will want them all. We plan to give them a smaller album with key photos from the events of the day. Sort of a ‘mini-me’ of our album.

As of right now, I plan to use the company Adorama to make a high quality ‘coffee table’ style Wedding album (that lays FLAT!) for the husband and I. I will also be ordering the same type of book, but smaller, with less pages, for our parents. I’m a little nervous using a company I’ve never seen the products of before, but as my usual book companies I like to use, Blurb and Lulu, don’t have the type of book I want, I must venture out into the unknown. :-/

My reasons for choosing Adorama (so far):

• Reasonably priced compared to other professional album companies (compare $50-75 to $300-$700)
• Their albums lay completely flat when open, providing for full panorama photos to be displayed without a seam
• They deal directly with you, not through professional photographers (like so many album companies)
• They came with a good review from a friend
• When you sign up with them, they give you $15 towards your first order. SCORE!
• They have about a gazillion different album sizes to choose from
• This article on how awesome Adorama books are (complete with pictures)

As I’m patiently waiting for our professional pictures to arrive from the Starks, I have sketched up TONS of ideas of our albums.

I plan to make 3 albums for the husband and I.

One album for our Pre-Wedding events (bridal shower, engagement part, E-pics, rehearsal dinner, etc). One for our professional Wedding pictures and another for our Honeymoon pictures. I want all three albums to appear as a ‘set’ when they are on a bookshelf. Sort of like below, only cuter and more modern (although these are pretty cute):

Bed Bath and Beyond; $12.99.

I’m thinking of making them 10″ x 10″, and I’m working on the details of making my own ‘box’ for the set of books to sit in. Stay tuned for album cover mock-ups! I have so many ideas… just need to get them all out, digitally.

What did y’all do for your Wedding Album? Did you do it yourself? For those who aren’t married yet, do you have any plans for your album?

Yes, it is ABOUT TIME I showed ya’ll Mr. Knight and I’s labor of love. We spent quite a long time designing and putting together our invitations. Mr. Knight has been on my case for WEEKS to write this post because sooo many of our guests had no idea that we had designed and made our invitations ourselves. And, hey… we deserve some credit! :-)

Over winter break, I designed the bulk of our invitation suite. We decided then that we would print and assemble our invitation ourselves, and send our RSVP postcard and Accommodations card off to Overnight Prints, to save us time and money.

Want to see our little labor of love? I hope you do! Here they are {hooray}!!!

The envelopes, all prettified with their Vancouver Olympics stamps and the cute wrap-around address label we made.
photo by Miss Gator

What our guests see as they open our their invitation to our Wedding.
photo by Mr. Knight

More postage. I do love fun stamps! This RSVP card was sent out to our Canadian family in Newfoundland!
photo by Mr. Knight

Our wedding invitation!!!! Hooray!!! These were really the only part of our set that we actually had to ‘put together,’ since the rest we had ordered from Overnight Prints (saving us valuable time and money). That being said, it certainly wasn’t a fast or easy task putting these babies together. So much cutting and gluing, I seriously don’t want to see an x-acto blade or cutting mat for at least a few weeks!
photo by Miss Gator

Here are our RSVP postcards and Accommodation cards printed through Overnight Prints. They did an amazing job with printing them, they are very sturdy, and the RSVP postcards held up well in the mail. Which makes for a happy bride! :-)
photo by Miss Gator

Here are all out invitation pieces (minus the super cute Gold shimmer envelope with wrap-around label), showing the reverse sides of the RSVP card and the Accommodation Cards. Map made by Knight Dad.
photo by Miss Gator

Overall, Mr. Knight and I are very happy with how they turned out. We love the little RSVP postcards (it has been a lot of fun getting them back), and the map Knight Dad made is just too cute! The only thing that Mr. Knight and I agree that we would have changed was how we glued them. We used a glue stick to glue the layers together of our main invitation. Bad idea. When we went back home and saw our invitations on family and friend’s fridges we discovered they had warped terribly from heat and moisture and the layers were starting to pull apart from each other. This was incredibly upsetting for Mr. Knight and I since we had invested so much time into trying to make these invitations perfect, in our eyes.

After seeing how the glue stick SUCKED, I tried a few invitations just using double sided tape and they have been holding up pretty well. We’ll see how that goes. :-)

Okay, so now for the all important price break down!

• Envelope Mall: 100 Gold Stardream A7 envelopes and 100 Quartz Stardream 81lb sheets $41.19
• Envelope Mall: 100 Aquamarine 81lb Stardream sheets $21.42
• Paper-Papers: 50 Gold 105lb Stardream sheets because they were sold out at Envelope Mall $24.30
• Overnight Prints: 100 double sided postcards for RSVPS, 100 double sided postcards for Accommodations/Map $60.91
• OnlineLabels: 98 (7.5″x1.5″) glossy labels for wrap-around address labels $18.87
• Postage: $72.20
• GRAND TOTAL $238.89 at $3.14 an invitations set (including postage) for 76 invitations

$3.14 an invitation, including postage? Not bad in our book, considering postage ended up being around around $1 per invite (and a little more for our Canadian guests).

Now lets compare our invitation set price to one that is similar on Wedding Paper Divas (one of my favorite stationary shops):

Wedding Paper Divas Stylish Sweet Invitation
I chose this one to price compare to ours, since they didn’t have any close to ours, and this one is super cute, and could have been a contender for our invites. :-)

Wedding Paper Divas price? For 75 invitations, 75 response cards, and 75 reception cards the final price would be $285. This doesn’t include postage, additional two layers of paper behind the invitation (for a swanky border like ours), or labels for the front of the envelopes. There is also no map for this price, and the postage would cost us more considering the response cards are not postcards.

Sure it would have been much faster and easier (and pricier) to just order our invitations from Wedding Paper Divas (or another company) but Mr. Knight and I had too much fun putting our invites together, we would have missed out on all that forced quality time together. :-) We had so much fun designing our invitation suite together, and ordering pizza while we spent hours (upon hours) assembling all the pieces. I wouldn’t give that up for the world. I swear, our invitations have brought us closer together. For reals.

So, I say, if you want to DIY your invites, and you have a helpful future hubby, GO FOR IT! You will not regret it, plus your wallet will be thanking you! Just be sure to figure out that pesky glue situation, speaking of which…

What kind of glue/adhesive/etc did you use to put your invitations together? How did it hold up? Please… I need to know!! :-)

Well… on to another DIY.. our programs! I believe our programs took longer for Mr. Knight and I to do then our invitations. It has been, by far, the most intensive DIY project we have had. It took us the better part of 2 weeks to finish them (in between class and work).

The ‘original’ accordion fold program, brought to us by the lovely Ms. Martha Stewart
Blushing Designs Blog

Inspired by Mrs. Cupcake and Mrs. Joey’s fabulous accordion fold programs, Mr. Knight and I embarked on a long and labor intensive journey to create these babies. Wait… I have to stop for a moment and just tell you all how much I love the hive on WeddingBee, so much help and inspiration. When it came to actually getting our programs to sit properly in our little basket, Miss Cola had already come up with the perfect solution and shared it with us. She is so clever!

Okay… back to the programs.

I had been coveting sweet accordion fold programs for MONTHS (should I say years?). But, time and time again Mr. Knight would say ‘no’, deeming them expensive and too much work. I somehow convinced him about 4 weeks ago, and he jumped right on board. We have this saying around our house (especially when it comes to wedding DIYs), if you’re going to do it, then you better do it right.

Following the instructions given by the sweet Mrs. Joey in her post, we made our accordion inserts legal size (so that we could print them on our laser printer). Now, I would reveal the inside of our programs, but I’d rather leave those a mystery for now, as Mr. Knight and I have included a few things in there for our guest’s eyes, and we’d like to keep some part of our wedding a secret (I know… sorta difficult when you blog)!

But, I shall show you the cover, cause I loves it, and it makes me happy. :-)

Mr. Knight and I saved time/aggravation by not gluing our program title/cover/thingy-mah-jiggers but rather ordering labels from OnlineLabels (I swear we must be their new best friends, we’ve ordered so much from them) and printing our cover design on them. It made for super easy and fast sticker-ing of these bad boys to the covers. Mr. Knight was so clever as to suggest we add a notch to each side of the program so that our ribbon would stay properly in place, keeping the program closed, till our guests opened them. But, y’all know my type A, crazy OCD-ness, and that I couldn’t just ‘freely’ notch the sides of these beautiful programs. So I had Mr. Knight pick me up a little scrap booking tool (see the green punch hole thing in the picture below), and he got to work ‘perfectly’ notching our programs. What a sweet thing, he was so careful as to do it right. Love him.

Bought at Michael’s Craft store for $4.99

After cutting, taping, cutting more, tying, and sticker-ing these babies, we put them in a little basket ala Miss Cola.

Yes… your eyes do not deceive you, our programs are on a Gator rug. Yes.. we have one.. and we LOVE IT. :-)

Our programs are rather small, approx. 4″ x 5″, so we had to prop them up by using floral foam wrapped in left over tulle we had laying around. We also followed the clever Miss Cola’s instructions, sticking faux daisies in floral foam and wrapping the foam with left over yellow ribbon from our pomanders. I affixed the little sign to the front of the basket with paper clips taped to the sign and clipped to the basket. Overall, we are seriously happy with how they turned out.

Mr. Knight keeps saying that if we go to anyone’s house who attended our wedding, and one of our programs aren’t prominently displayed, he is going to de-friend them. Silly Mr. Knight!

And what would a DIY project post be without the approval of Gator Kitty?

Gator Kitty making sure the flowers are up to her standards of excellence.

It sort of feels weird not having Gator Kitty at our wedding since she has been soooo involved in all our projects. She will be vacationing with Maxwell Kittnah over at Gator Momma and Gator Dad’s while we are honeymooning. They are going to have  a blast. I secretly think they have a ‘thing’ for each other… but that is a whole other story.

And I simply can not end this post without the image below… what Mr. Knight and I call my ‘bride-slave’ chair.

Mr. Knight set this up for me the week classes ended. He knew I wanted to catch up on all my TV shows I had missed, and he still wanted me to get some of our programs done at the same time. So he moved out our coffee table and set up a ‘work station’ for me to work on our programs at while he is at work. How sweet of him… ?

But the ‘bride-slave’ chair surly did it’s job, and I managed to bust out tons of programs before he got home.

What was your most labor intensive DIY project? Did your fiance help you or did your fiance set up a ‘bride-slave’ workstation?

]]> http://gatorbride.com/diy-modern-accordion-fold-programs/feed/ 3 http://gatorbride.com/diy-daisy-wedding-centerpieces/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/diy-daisy-wedding-centerpieces/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:03:36 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=3971 How about some budget friendly DIY wedding centerpieces, eh?

Before Mr. Knight and I ever went to our florist, we knew we wouldn’t be ordering centerpieces for our tables. We wanted to do them ourselves because we knew the added cost the florist would add for him to do them, would put our budget over the edge. Since our wedding is centered around daisies (my fav!) we are planning a simple and modern centerpiece for our tables.

Last summer, I spent several weeks accumulating 40% coupons for Michael’s and proceeded to purchase 15 rectangular vases for our wedding centerpieces. 8 months later, we finally did a test run of our centerpieces (silly me, I didn’t even use our vases! but… you’ll get the idea).

You like? I LOVE!
Please imagine a rectangular vase… yes I’m a bad bride not using our actual vases. Oh well!

We ended up going with white Vero Daises and fuchsia Gerbera Daisies, with cut lemons in the vase. One thing I should note is that the acid in the lemons actually kill the flowers, so if you are planning on putting lemons in your vases, be sure to make the centerpieces the day of your wedding. The flowers should live through 2-3 days with the lemons in the vase, after that they are pretty much dead {sad face}.

How about another glamour shot of these beautiful daisies?

We originally intended to have all white daisies in our vases, but realized that our tables needed a punch of color. We thought, why not fuchsia? After all, fuchsia has managed to sneak into our invitation suite, our menus, our water bottles, and our programs… why not our centerpieces? And let me tell you, aqua, yellow and fuchsia go fabulous together!

And no wedding DIY is complete without approval by Gator Kitty…

Gator Kitty giving her “sniff of approval.” Love her♥.

And a DIY centerpiece post with out a price run-down would be unheard of… so here’s the details:

• Rectangular Vases from Michael’s $45 for 15 (40% coupon)
• 23 bunches of White Vero Daisies from Fifty Flowers $171.19
• 100 stems of Fuchsia Gerbera Daisies from Sam’s Club $138.58
• Lemons TBA

Total  $354.77*
roughly $23.65 for each centerpiece
*this total includes plenty of extra flowers to fill vases I’ve purchased for the place card table, bar, etc. We will be overflowing with beautiful daisies. :-) Also, the rectangular vases hold more daisies then the vase pictured, so the above price is for the 16-20 daisies/gerberas that the rectangular vases holds, not for the amount of daisies you see in the picture above.

Since I didn’t price the lemons (bad little bride), we are going to say, for figuring the total price, that each lemon is 50 cents. With this figure, and using 1.5 lemons per vase, the total of each centerpiece is $24.40. Which is not bad, in our book!

Sure, there is probably some way we could have done them for less, but overall we are happy with the way they are going to look, and we KNOW for sure that we are getting a better deal DIYing them ourselves then having our florist do them.

Are you planning on DIY your centerpieces? What made you make that decision? Was it price, or something else (the fun of doing it yourself, etc)?

]]> http://gatorbride.com/diy-daisy-wedding-centerpieces/feed/ 2 http://gatorbride.com/bamboo-altar-status-finished/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/bamboo-altar-status-finished/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:03:51 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=3924 Wow… I love saying one of the things on our to-do list, followed by the word FINISHED. How does it feel? Oh, it feels fabulous!

Okay, so as you can see from past posts here and here, our bamboo altar  has been in the works for several months now. We have gone through several revision to get to the final look of the altar. It has been a tough and slightly stressful road for me, as I’m a control freak to the extreme. I don’t even let Mr. Knight fold towels because I like them folded a certain way. Yes, I know I need serious professional help, but we’ll save that story for another day.

The altar is being made by Gator Dad with his friend Ray, back home,  2 hours from where Mr. Knight and I live. So, naturally I can’t just drive on over on a whim to check out how the construction is going, so I’ve been mostly relying on iPhone pics from Gator Dad and email correspondance.

This past weekend Mr. Knight and I traveled back home to finish up the construction and look of the altar (with the addition of some pretty FAB fabric). But, before we get to the final reveal of our sweet altar, lets take a look back at the iterations we’ve gone through to get there.

Iteration #1: bulky bases

photo by Gator Dad

Okay, so after receiving this picture in my email a few weeks ago, I was happy to see the altar was coming along, but was overall not happy with those bases. In all my beautiful pictures I sent as inspiration there was not one where I saw big bulky bases like this. Gator Dad listened to my concerns and worked with Ray in minimizing the bulky bases. You think me, being an Architecture Student (and soon GRAD!), would think about wind loads and stability, etc of the altar… NOPE! I was too busy trying to make it pretty and delicate, the altar of mah Gator Bride dreams!

Iteration #2: wrong fabric

Before going home this past weekend, Mr. Knight and I hit up JoAnn’s for fabric to drape on the altar. I was dreaming something soft, white, flow-y, slightly transparent… just enough to let light come through. While Mr. Knight was dreaming about something under 30 bucks. Yes.. I’m the dreamer, and he’s the crusher of all dreams. We joke about this all the time. I say something float-y and romantic, and he brings in the common sense and our budget (the ultimate dream crusher). So, we bought the $30 fabric (which ended up being ivory tulle, the same that my veil was made of) and headed home to try it out. I knew it wouldn’t work but, I like to let Mr. Knight figure things out for himself, so I tried my best to keep my mouth shut. :-)

Mr. Knight taking a step back and coming to terms with the wrong fabric choice. Don’t ya just love that he’s wearing a Gator football shirt? He’s so cute. :-)

Me trying to cover the green bases (which are a must for stability) with the tulle, to no success.
*Please avert your eyes from my paleness, I haven’t seen the sun in 2 years (this is what happens when you’re in grad school).

So on we went to:
Iteration #3: addition of fabulous fabric

We headed down to Moretz Fabric store on U.S.1 in Holly Hill. If you are ever in Holly Hill/Ormond Beach area and are looking for FABULOUS fabric… go here. Mr. Knight and I practically planned the look of every room in our future dream house (including baby room) while walking through this fabric store. {sigh} Just gorgeous.

In the end, I’m not sure what type of fabric we picked up (I’ll have to have my fashion savvy friends assess the fabric and give a full report later), all I know is that it is perfect.

Please ignore my pouty face, I was having one of those days. And thank you Mr. Knight for taking the picture at an upward angle, since that is always the most flattering angle. Not.

Our florist is adding flower arrangements of white gerberas and white daisies to the tops of each joint to draw attention away from the bases. Kinda like this:

source

Hey, if you are looking at the bases and not Mr. Knight and I at our Wedding… then you will be shown the door. :-)

I just noticed I’m wearing an ivory shirt in the picture and my dress isn’t nearly as ivory as my shirt, so I’m confident Mr. Knight and I will look fabulous under this altar.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Yeah, it may not be exactly what I thought it was going to be but sometimes you have to make compromises when wind loads and stability are issues. I’m really happy with how it turned out and I can’t wait to marry my knight in shining armor under this baby.

I ♥ Gator Dad.
He always has to put up with my crazy requests and I love him, because he takes every one of them in stride and works so hard to make me a happy Bride and Daughter.

I want to thank Gator Dad and Ray for being so patient with all of my requests and crazy-ness. I try not to be a bride-zilla, but I think a little bride-zilla-ness peeked out this past weekend, and Gator Dad and Ray were real sports dealing with me. :-)

Did any project in your wedding planning process cause you to become a bit of a Bride-zilla?

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