Tea Room Bridal Shower

My amazing maid of honor threw me a gorgeous bridal shower over Thanksgiving weekend! She held it at Holly Berry Tea Room, an adorable tea room in an old house in the historic part of my hometown. Since it was the day after Thanksgiving, it was already decorated for Christmas!


We started with delicious tea sandwiches, chips, gelato, and lemon cream cake. Yummmm

(image source)

We moved on to some party games! First up was Clare and Anthony trivia:

• When did Clare and Anthony meet? (August 26, 2003)
  
• How did you meet? (student orientation for Turing Scholars)
  
• Where was your first date? (Mozart's Coffee Shop)
  
• How long did you date? (5 years)
  
• Where did Anthony propose? (Mozart's Coffee Shop)
  
• How many animals do you and Anthony own? (24)
  
• How many animals do you roughly hope to own? (in the hundreds - mainly geckos)
  
• Where is Anthony from? (New Jersey)
  
• What animal distracted you before Anthony's proposal? (turtles in the water!)
  
• What other important event was taking place the night of your proposal? (Obama's DNC speech)
  

Everyone was also asked to anonymously write down some marriage advice for me, which I read out loud. They ran the gamut from "Don't go to bed angry", "Win every fight", and "Try not to fight".

Remember my bridal shower outfit? I think it turned out well!



Going with the tea room theme, the favors were tea mugs with an infuser, similar to these from World Market.


Thanks to my lovely ladies for throwing me a beautiful shower!

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Our Wedding By the Numbers

I would consider my wedding to be a "hometown" wedding. We're getting married in the same town I grew up in, in the same Catholic church I went to for 18 years, and by the same priest who did my first communion, first confession, and confirmation. But, I keep wondering: could my wedding be considered a "destination wedding"?

Both of our families are big, big extended families, and on both sides, *everyone* is invited to a wedding. So we invited what seemed like everyone: 325 people with 140 invitations. But, the vast majority of our families are not in Texas: they're in Louisiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and England. Only a whopping 37 people invited actually live in the Houston area. So, we're expecting only around 120 people to attend. If only 11% of the people invited live in the area, does that make it a destination wedding?

Let's check out our acceptance rates. These are rough estimates because we haven't gotten all of our RSVPs back yet. I broke it out by how much our guests would have to spend to come to our wedding: whether they have to buy a plane ticket, and whether they have to get a hotel room.

Local guests (no flight, no hotel room):
29 out of 37: 78%

Guests within a four-hour drive (no flight, need hotel room). Because we're in Houston, this covers most of Texas and Louisiana!
57 out of 104: 55%

Guests in far-away states (need flight and hotel room)
36 out of 131: 27%

International guests (need expensive flight and hotel room)
0 out of 53: 0%

Overall:
38% acceptance

You can see that as the amount it costs to come to our wedding goes up, the acceptance rate goes down - which is to be expected. If you're planning your own wedding, I think your actual percentages might depend on how affluent your family is (or how many people have lost their jobs in this economy!). Our percentages also depended on who was in each "location group": close family, extended family we haven't seen in years, family friends, personal friends, and co-workers.

Most of the "average" acceptance rates online say 70 - 85% of your local guests will attend the wedding, and 40 - 60% of your out-of-town guests will attend. Our guests who don't need a plane ticket fall within those numbers. But, as soon as your guests need to get on a plane to come to our wedding, you might expect even less than that to attend.

(all images are destination save-the-dates from Martha Stewart Weddings)

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Happy Holidays!

Looking forward to the end of the month and holiday festivities!

The Save the Date Originals 2010 holiday cards are still rolling out. I couldn't decide upon a design this year, and ended up sending out a handful of different cards/magnets/designs.



Much work is to be done on the website over the coming months and year.

Did you know? Shaped cards are now available. Circles, of course, but also ovals, diamonds, sandals, hearts, stars and more. A section with examples will be available at some point in the future.

I hereby vow to have the holiday card section updated with some ideas/examples well before next December.

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Wild Purple Bouquet Inspirations

I had a really clear vision for what I wanted when it came to the centerpieces for our reception, but I wasn't so clear on my bouquet. I basically handed pictures of things I liked to my florist, and said "Ummm something like this."

Looking at the pictures together now, the themes I see are some wild greenery and lots of different purples and types of flowers mixed together. They're also not perfect round bouquets, but more natural shapes. I liked bouquet wraps that let the stems peak out from the bottom; again a more natural look.

Sources (clockwise from top-left):
Sumptuous Plum from Martha Stewart Weddings
The Color Purple With Flair from Brides.com
Vineyard Purple from Style Me Pretty
Shades of Purple from Modern Bride Magazine (found here, here, and here)

*Update* See how the real bouquets turned out on my wedding day here!

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NATALIE AND ANDREW'S WEDDING AT GISBOROUGH HALL, NORTH YORKSHIRE

NEW!!!!!!! See the sneak peek from Jennifer and Andrew's wedding at Gisborough Hall in September 2010 HERE

I said a few days ago that I was looking forward to Natalie and Andrew's wedding at Gisborough Hall, and so the day came and we had a great time - despite the AWFUL weather!

Gisborough Hall is a fabulous venue for a wedding, and being the longest day of the year, my mind had already worked out about photographs in front of the fantastic backdrop and the beautiful sunlight falling through the leaves of the magnificent copper beech tree in the grounds ..... Hmmm

It was foggy and windy and pouring down most of the day .. so that put paid to that! However, there are plenty of opportunities inside and as great as it would have been to get outside more than we did (about 5 minutes between downpours), I just cracked on and created some great images with the facilities we had.

Natalie was pretty chilled out when I met her in the bridal suite for some early photographs, while Andy appeared to be a little nervous as I met with him and his friends outside the main entrance of Gisborough Hall - just as the flowers were being delivered.

Once the brief ceremony was over, it was time to chill out and have a few drinks and relax! There was no real time for formal photography, but we managed to get outside for less than 5 minutes while it drizzled rain and the local hills were shrouded in mist and fog, before we headed into the wedding breakfast.

There were some great speeches and laughs aloud with everyone very relaxed and happy.

It was a great day for Natalie and Andy - just the sort of day they wanted, no hassle, no stress, just close family and friends having a great day of celebration.

I hope you enjoy my SNEAK PEAK photographs from their day!

NEW!!!!!!! See the sneak peek from Jennifer and Andrew's wedding at Gisborough Hall in September 2010 HERE

DIRK VAN DER WERFF

My latest wedding news and photographs HERE:

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