Long aisles and old style- our church!

Hello friends! Well it's been a week and I've missed the blog! I was quite busy saying goodbye to my dear friends and coworkers in Atlanta and preparing for the journey that will eventually take me to Hawaii. While in DC for the holidays, I plan to make quite a bit of progress on the wedding and am getting excited about the details! As of today, I am most thrilled about our church. It's so lovely! It has a small sanctuary that holds 300 people and features a beautiful mosiac tile floor, gorgeous stained glass, wooden pews and tall candles that line both sides of the long and lovely aisle. I keep imagining BB at the front of the church as the organ sounds a deep and exhilirating note and the back doors fly open, revealing me standing there with dad in my fabulous dress! As I've said before, I long for drama! The picture here shows the sanctuary in the days of old; this church was established in 1792.

I Feel it in my Fingers

For today, a mood board. Currently the scheme calls for yellow, gray, wood grain, glass, exposed brick and light.

Wedding literature

Looking through my first wedding magazines almost felt like a forbidden pleasure. I had always eyed them at the check-out counter in the grocery store, or in the racks at Barnes & Noble, but knew that they were not for me and that it would be terribly bad luck to purchase one. Now, however, I could hypothetically buy and read bridal periodicals until I am blue in the face! After Brad proposed, several generous friends offered their wedding magazines, books, guides and planners and I have to say, there is some good stuff out there!

I know that my blogger in crime can back me up on this, but one of the best magazines in general is Martha Stewart Weddings. Good old Martha gives advice on DIY projects, flowers, cakes and pretty much everything else. (Does anyone remember that she went to prison, by the way? She seems to have slipped right back into society without people giving a second thought to her time spent knitting while in a white collar penitentiary. Ok, I digress.)

InStyle Weddings is your classic wedding magazine- one beautiful picture after another of couture dresses, real brides, exquisite details and generally swanky people at swanky affairs. This is a fun magazine to look through- I was glad that this was the first one I read, as it gave me a great idea of what I wanted in terms of style.

The Knot.com's regional magazines are great for getting specific vendor information for your area. This helps in second stage planning (the one I'm in), when you have already determined the type, style, date and location of your wedding.

The rest of the lot (and believe me, there are an unbelievable amount of periodicals) are just a bunch of dress ads. Am I right, Ms. Birdsbee?

Happy reading...

Our first dance

As is completely illogical, I have thought of all of the fun tiny details related to our upcoming wedding and have not dedicated much time to pratical matters such as where we are going to have our reception and what we are going to eat. Hmm- perhaps I should remedy this situation. I have given much thought to our first dance song, which is something I guess most people don't need to think about until a month before the event.

Since my loved one is not around to practice dancing to sappy songs with me, I danced by myself the other night, pretending that my dearest was whisking me around the room to various 40s and 50s classics. Etta James' 'At Last' was most enchanting! I love the lyrics: "At last / My love has come along / My lonely days are over / And life is like a song." So sweet! Lovely BB has said that he has been looking for me forever, but it does seem a little silly that we have found each other "at last" considering that we're both 24 years old. Oh well!

To read the rest of the lyrics: http://artists.letssingit.com/etta-james-at-last-5z6hgcr

To the Frozen North Feeling Warm and Fuzzy

I'm headed off to Chicago for my very first business trip! It's supposed to be an unusually cold weekend, even by the standards of the eskimos who live in the windy city.

Luckily, a very lovey CJ sent a link to this great Restoration Hardware gift, the Smittens [hello new registry item, thanks for stopping by!]. He travels pretty much every week for work so he is flying in today to meet up with me in Atlanta to go north before my conference begins next week. That's right, jet-setting romance! Hopefully he can swing his High and Mighty Airline Status to get me into first class with him. Otherwise, it's steerage for me, but have fun up there with the hot fudge sundaes and champagne!

A Practical Wedding: DIY versus the WIC

As some of you may know, I have a reputation for being a bit high-strung and type A. Yes, they call me the Cruise Director. Poor CJ has really learned to cope with my frequent "come-aparts" and is really quite forgiving. Like that one night I was taking my miserable mood out on him because eleventy hundred of my friends were engaged and not us, not knowing he was going to propose the very next day [still kicking myself for that one].

Coming to terms with my often demanding and judgemental self [hey, who doesn't appreciate telling it like it is??] means that it is vitally important to me that this wedding business does not create excuses for bridezilla behavior or 'but it's MY special daaaaaaaay' attitude. It's not MY special day, it's just me and CJ together gathering with loved ones who support our life-long endeavor. 

This post [linked to from the title] is a must read. I appreciate the discussion around the intensive pressures to reach perfection from both the wedding industry [or Wedding Industrial Complex as I like to call it] and the DIY movement [thanks a lot, Martha!]. The Practical Wedding sees the simple crafters and DIYers [think Etsy folks, $2000 Wedding] as the answer, but my favorite advice is from the comment about the more modest and less corporate affairs of previous generations. 

A great nugget of perspective is this photo, my grandmother, who could barely find enough fabric to make her white dress right after WWII to marry my grandfather out in Idaho. I don't imagine they worried about color schemes or save-the-dates, and I definitely don't think they went into debt or borrowed thousands from their parents to showcase their awesomeness. They were potato farmers for crying out loud. Anyway, this is another guiding philosophy of mine/ours, thought you might be interested.

A note on style.

"Pick the day. Enjoy it- to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come..." -Audrey Hepburn

Style icon Audrey Hepburn said this once (supposedly...I wasn't there) and although I have no idea what she was talking about in context, I have decided that charming Ms. Hepburn was giving sage advice on planning a wedding. Her idea will be my wedding mantra: plan it, have fun and let it happen.

So as long as we're planning, let's talk about style.

I'm the sort of girl who has dreamt about her wedding since the age of 7, so it has been quite easy for me to envision my own version of wedding perfection. I will be marrying a rather charming Navy pilot, so I decided that we should host an old-fashioned yet chic celebration with a dash of 1950s glamour. Our color scheme will be red, white and gold. He and his brothers will dress in various service uniforms and we will pass under a sword arch as we are exiting the church! Talk about drama! I'm hoping to pull off a sophisticated DC wedding with some military weaponry thrown in for good measure. Bring out the canons!

Hello world

I would like to take this opportunity to say hello and thanks for coming. Today is exactly our one month engagiversary (hmm, not in spellcheck. I smell a hit new word brewing! Right up there with staycation and hockey mom). And while we are a full year off from the most expensive day of our lives, we are apparently behind on pinning down details according to the many many booked venues in Atlanta. But I will let you in on a little something. We have given name to our wedding theme. I like to abbrev it to CEWADOV, or as some would say: Casual Elegance with a Dash of Vintage. That's easy enough, isn't it?

This translates to a less formal fete, steeped in elegance, and with clear reference to family & fashion of years past. Warm, clean, structured design, with embellishments and artistic references to the golden age of mid-century modern. It's like an interdisciplinary union of art and history. Luckily, I majored in that.

More on our style

Likes: Quick decision making, candlelight, exposed brick, quality photography, really really really good food, DIY projects

The opposite of what is us: unnecessary extras like boudoir photo shoots (since when did this become normal Knot.com??) or out of town bags, cheesy DJs, garter toss, divided bride's & groom's side seating

Perhaps I should introduce myself...

Hello fellow bloggers, blog-readers and wedding enthusiasts! It is I, Samantha Livalittle! I have to admit that SL is my pen name-- or for you literati out there, my nom de plume. I've decided to write anonymously so as to preemptively exonerate myself from any bridezilla crimes I may commit over the next few months. I can't promise that I won't succumb to the pressures. In fact, it's probably a guarantee that I will lose my patience while looking at swatches.

Although the wedding process started in Atlanta for me, I will be planning a wedding in DC while living in Hawaii. I am quite happy to tackle this logistical challenge until the scheduled date of September 19, 2009. Most importantly though, I am going to try to live a little throughout this crazy process-- here's to making it fun!

A Soft Launch

Tonight, our story begins. A tale of two brides. A tale of three states, of twelve months, of ten bridesmaids, of one classy writer and one folksy marketer/designer.

Please join us as the proverbial yarn unfolds!