blog

sara + bill :: victory theatre wedding

The venue is breathtaking, but not as beautiful as this couple. Some brides … just stay in your heart forever.

plan on!

what irritates me about christmas…

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post:  ten reasons why santa sucks. It merrily went viral throughout the blogosphere.

So today, I’d like to ressurect that blog post for your amusement and add a few more things about what down-right drives me crazy about the Christmas holiday. I write this blog post as my gingerbread cookies are baking in the oven and my beautiful tree is in the corner of my living room (lest you think I’m bah-hum-bug).

• The craziness of buying presents. I’ll be the first to agree I have fallen for this. The pressure of giving a gift because someone else is giving you a gift. And take a look at all the retail crap that come out in the stores. Loads and loads of useless toys or gifts that make no absolutely no sense, but we grab them up. We’ve lost all sense of what is important.
• My tree is bigger than your tree. Along the lines of the point above, I find it interesting to watch people’s photos of their trees on Facebook. Just this week I saw one photo taken from a corporate executive’s personal home that was huge and STUFFED full of gifts underneath. Meanwhile, just a few weeks ago, many were fired from said corporate executive’s company, due to downsizing and bad economy. I’m happy this executive will have a full and exciting holiday.
• Bell ringers. Holy holly balls… seriously. The obnoxious Salvation Army bell ringers should be banned (they are discriminatory if you haven’t heard, towards community civil rights and the hiring of mentally challenged people). One bell ringer outside my favorite locally owned grocery store (take that WalMart), has a ringer that is unbelievable. He rings louder, faster and harder every time you walk by. As soon as I pass him he stops ringing. I may just start boycotting stores that allow the bell ringers. They don’t encourage me to give my extra change, instead I want to donkey kick them.
• Christmas shoppers are psycho. What physical item could be so important, that another human being would pepper spray another human being in order to buy the item? Apparently that item would be a video game. Not food, because your family is starving. Nope. Half off a $60 video game. Really? REALLY?
• Retail businesses are starting too early. Black Friday turned into a fiasco this year. It used to be you would get up before dawn and head out to your favorite Big Box stores for some great Christmas deals. It is the starting block for the Christmas buying season. If you knew anything about retail and the concept of “loss leaders” most of you would stay in bed. However this year proved to be, on the Richter scale of craziness, an 11.1. For starters, the stores started opening at midnight. It was a domino effect … one store decided to open super early and the others followed. The poor employees were not able to enjoy their own Thanksgiving with their families in order to open up the stores. It was a shame. So I boycotted them all that day.

Now I don’t want to ruin your holiday, just suggest a small reminder of what is important. Let’s remember what this holiday should be above. Gratefulness, love, compassion, generosity and the excitement of little children. (Take some asprin tomorrow morning, you’ll need it).

fa-la-la-la-laaa-la-la-la-la

image: geelong-visual-diary.blogspot.com

plan on!

lisa + jason :: discovery lodge wedding

This fabulous wedding was designed by us, but with unique twists from the fabulous DIY bride. Just check out her brooch bouquet that she made herself!

plan on!

… and the winner is …

We like to thank all of our contestants who participated in our Wedding Day Management Service contest. All of the couples are fabulous and deserve to win!

So, without further ado, the winner is:

Katelyn Clevidence + Andrew Crowe

A little background; we have never given away a service like this in a form of a contest. Our motivation was to give back and generate a little buzz about our company in the community, which we have proudly served for the past eight years in weddings, corporate events, and non-profit groups.

an unfortunate, but necessary disclaimer:

As some of you know (or will now know), we did hit a small snafu with the online voting application. The contest rules clearly states that there should be one vote, per computer. A few computer geniuses figured out a work around and cheated the system by doing multiple votes on the same computer. Luckily, the application tracked each vote down to the date, hour, minute second and respective IP address. So when you have a votes that are within ten seconds apart, assigned to the same IP address, it’s really, quite easy to see illegal votes. The volume of votes during some of these sessions were remarkable, the sheer patience it must have taken the hacker.

Rest assured, once we realized this was happening, we contacted all of the contestants off-line. Since every contestant had a loved one that thought it would be cool to do circumvent the system, we decided to the only fair way was to select a final winner by cross-referencing three different methods. 1. The voting application on the website, that is posted 2. Using the back-end log system by removing all multiple IP addresses and 3. Using the back-end log system to remove only voting sessions that were obviously cheating the system. After pouring over 106 pages of individual votes, the CLEAR winner was the same couple, using all three methods. We sincerely apologize that the third-party, voting system failed to stop hackers from voting illegally. We are disappointed to think we have had our own online “wedding-gate scandal”. This must have been how the politicians felt with their “dimpled chads”.

However this too shall pass. To the many of you that took the time to legally vote for your favorite couple, we truly appreciate you and am sure that they do as well. We look forward to serving all of our clients in 2012, including the winning couple.

image:  chefswidow.com

plan on!

most famous weddings of 2011 (oh, and the divorces)

We have enjoyed some pretty famous weddings in 2011 and since we talk about weddings and real life here, let’s go through some of the highlights. Oh and the real life, I’ll hit on the divorces as well. Enter: sad face.

Top 2011 Marriages:

1. Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge Oh yeah, this was definitely the biggest shin-dig all year long. It also launched me into mini-stardom by having the opportunity to co-host Local 7 morning show for 45 minutes. The most watched wedding in years and one that everyone had an opinion on.

2. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries Ugh, we had to add this. Of course it was watched, although I still have yet to catch it. I’m sure it’s being burned in the editing room somewhere. More about this farce of a marriage below in divorces.

3. Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert Personally, I had doubt about these two, but after they both took home the gold at the latest CMA show, I think they may be a powerhouse to be reckoned with. Much like Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. Hope they can keep themselves grounded.

4. Prince Albert and Charlene Whitstock Less popular to many, Prince Albert’s parents were Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III). This was the first royal wedding for this country in a jillion years. Was he named after the prank telephone joke, Prince Albert in a Can?

and now we are off Second Time’s a Charm (marriage number two or more….)

5. Shania Twain and Frederic Thiebaud Good for Shania. She has always been a favorite of mine, although I wish she had never recorded, “Any Man of Mine”, which happens to be the most popular song wailed by drunk women at karaoke bars. And it is sung extremely poorly, every single time.

6. Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth I just love Reese and have no idea who her husband is. Therefore, it will probably last.

7. Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo Love this couple. Pretty sure Vanessa knows that Chicken of the Sea is not chicken in a can. Smart and savvy, both of them! And I did see the wedding on TV. Absolutely beautiful, even when they both jumped in the pool with wedding attire on!

8. LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian Congrats LeAnn, you married a total DB. Good luck with this. Expect to see you both in the Divorce List shortly….

Top 2011 Divorces:

1. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries Congratulations you two. You win the most Ridiculous Wedding of the Year award, followed up by the most Ridiculous Divorce of the Year award 72 days later. I wish all the wedding vendors that gave you free stuff would send you a bill.

2. JLo and Marc Anthony Um, the only shocker is that it didn’t happen sooner. Never saw “it” with them.

3. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher They tricked me, thought they may start to have a chance. Oh. And. Dear Nikon: Dump Ashton cause he’s a loser and does nothing for the image of your cute little cameras which have been replaced by my iPhone. Mmm,k?

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver Wow. Power couple and after so many years. Arnold probably blames the ‘roids for his infidelities.

5. Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson Ok, I didn’t even know they were married. I prefer to always think of Ryan Reynolds as a single, hot man. Just makes me happy.

6. Melissa Gilbert and Bruce Boxleitner Called it quits after SIXTEEN years of marriage? I did catch Melissa recently on live TV, she has had so much work done to her face, she looks like a 18 year old. Now it makes sense…. Pa Ingall would be disappointed.

7. Tareq Salahi and Michaela Salahi You have to be a Real Housewives fan to know this couple, and this divorce sent me clapping and laughing with glee like a comedian with instant material. I know, I’m horrible. But seriously the weirdest two people that you’ll ever watch on TV. Poor Tareq ran out of money and lies to tell, so Michaela (super loyal) ran away with Neal Schon, a guitarist from Journey. Really?

8. Hulk Hogan and Linda Boella This gets mentioned only because they truly filed in 2009 and JUST NOW finally reached a settlement. Can you spell “bitter divorce”?

source: The Washington Post Lifestyle

ps Don’t forget to vote for your favorite couple to win a Wedding Day Management Service! It’s still going!

pss Featured photo from: lifefashionfy.com

plan on!