Lou’s Bachelorette Party xx, Lea

Lou’s Bachelorette Party xx, Lea

As the plans for my bachelorette party are just starting to fall into place, I wanted to recap Lou’s bachelorette party! We did an all-inclusive three day weekend in Cancun, Mexico at the Riu Caribe! The Riu Caribe is definitely not the most high-end resort in Cancun, but we were trying to be budget conscious, while maintaining our party-girl mode…and it had the alcohol and food we needed!

Everyone arrived at various times throughout the day Friday so we spent the first night at the resort.  By the time Lou arrived we had fully decorated the room with everything bachelorette appropriate.

The second night, we did a “little black dress” night.  All of the bridesmaids donned LBDs, while Lou wore a saucy white dress. We went to Senor Frogs for a classic Cancun meal before heading to the club. Senor Frogs was really fun, they gave Lou lots of attention, including her dancing on tables and stage. 

After dinner, we went to The City night club, which boasts as being the largest entertainment center in Latin America.  It has constant performances going on with dancing music in the background. You pay a flat fee and it is all you can drink (cheaper for girls than guys).

The last night we saved for CocoBongo, which is my favorite club in Cancun! They pulled Lou up on stage here too, and projected her image onto the two jumbotrons! CocoBongo has the best impersonators. Again, it is a flat fee there for all you can drink.

All together it was a fabulous send off for my twin! I hope mine is as great of a success as hers!

xx, Lea

My Wedding Entertainment xx, Lea

WEDDING ENTERTAINMENT 

Entertainment at a wedding is a key factor. One piece of the wedding I always look forward to is the dancing -- I like to get down! Usually, I like a mix of Top 40, with some 80s, 90s and oldies, but heck, I will dance to pretty much anything! Typically, you cannot find that combination of songs (performed acceptably) by anyone other than a DJ.  I have been to some fabulous weddings with DJ’s and most of the time I like the DJ because they also second as an awesome MC.  But I was dead set on having a band at my wedding because I feel it is more interactive for the guests.

Ever since I attended one of my friend’s weddings in North Carolina, I could not get her band out of my head!  Granted, I had a lot to drink, BUT this band was hands down the best wedding band I had ever seen – The Atlanta Showstoppers!  Every song and performance was better than the last. So when it was my turn to decide band or DJ, I could not stop talking to my fiancé about the Atlanta Showstoppers.  We pulled up their most recent promo video and fell in love all over again.  I decided they had to be one of my “splurge items”. 

Typically, for every bride, there is one area (or a couple of areas) that you end up spending a bit more than you originally anticipated. To make my vision come true, the entertainment HAS to be one of those areas! Anytime I get stressed about details of the approaching day, I watch the promo video for the Atlanta Showstoppers and my fire is back! Splurging on entertainment is something I do not think I will regret because it is such a focal point of the wedding.  It is that will keep my guests engaged and dancing all night long!

Check out the Atlanta Showstoppers promo video here and let me know what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aYLuswFGr4

***Don't forget to use every resource or connection you have to try and get a deal for your entertainment and when all else fails, use your negotiation skills ( or have someone with negotiation skills take care of that for you). If you have a wedding planner, you can ask if she has any connections with entertainers before you start your search! 

Wedding Dress Shopping in NYC! xx, Lou

Now that my wedding day has past and I am back to reality L I wanted to start breaking down each detail of my wedding for you! What better place to start than my dress shopping weekend?  I decided to go to NYC, which is easy for me because I live in Upstate, NY. 

To give you my one sentence synopsis: I loved every moment of wedding dress shopping -- however, I must admit that I expected a bit more glitz and glamour shopping in the wedding dress capital of the world!

Advice that I will pass on:

1. Do your research—figure out which style dress (mermaid, ball gown, a-line etc) and which designers you like before going shopping! This may require one “fit-trip” to a wedding dress shop to try on every style before your actual shopping trip – pick what you feel best in.
2. Keep it simple-- make 4 appointments max!  You will be exhausted and overwhelmed if you try to attend too many appointments!
3. Be Practical—When you have a budget set, don’t look at anything over that! 
4. Make sure if a store is having a trunk show you can still look at other dresses.  Trunk shows are great because there is usually a designer discount, but sometimes they only let you look at that specific designer.
5. If you want more “glitz and glamour” going to a high-end boutique outside of NYC is a better idea. We will get to Lea’s dress shopping stories later, but our shopping in Atlanta was a much more intimate experience, while NYC is more “strictly business”.

MY NYC WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING TRIP

I brought my Mother and my MOH & Bestie, Lea!  Lea and I decided I only wanted 3 appointments, and she handled all of the arrangements.  I went to Kleinfeld's, Saks Bridal Salon & Mark Ingram.

Kleinfeld’s was first at 110 W 20^th Street.   It is pretty much what you would expect!  They have a huge showroom, considering it is NYC, and tiny changing rooms for you to hang out in.  I like to be efficient with everyone’s time so I knew what I was there to see.  I love their exclusive designer Pnina Tornai, and I love mermaid style gowns!  They let me walk the showroom and I handpicked about ten gowns I wanted to try on … and then the fun began!  The dress I fell in love with was one of the last I tried on: a brand new fall 2013 lace, backless gown.  And HOLY BANANAS, there was a Pnina Tornai trunk show going on, which meant an additional 15% off.  Anyway, I like to think sensibly (most of the time) and I knew I had two more appointments.

Next was Saks Bridal Salon at 611 Fifth Avenue.  I guess I was surprised that the bridal salon seemed to be stuck in a tiny corner of the store.  Pros: Very professional, knowledgeable, courteous staff with a great selection of dresses.  Cons: Very few dresses were on display (all inventory was in the back), which meant I had to put a lot of trust in the consultant and know what I was looking for. Saks was having a Marchesa trunk show, so those were the only dresses on display in the front of the store.  I really loved a couple of Vera Wang gowns, but ultimately ruled them out because they were not as unique as the Pnina Tornai gown.

Last, I visited Mark Ingram at 110 E 55th St.  My consultant, Indira was fabulous (I highly recommend her)!  But, here is where my Advice #4 comes from—we knew it was a Monique Lhullier Trunk Show, but because the salon is so small they were only letting people try on Monique gowns.  They had a Monique rep in the store that they did not want to “offend” by having other dresses out.  Well, I had already tried on the majority of Monique’s collection and knew they were not for me, so Indira did her best to sneak me some other alternatives.  I tried on Lela Rose, Jenny Packham, Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta.  Mark Ingram has an incredible selection -- I only wish I had the freedom of a non-trunk show day to try on whatever I wished!

After two days of shopping and fabulous meals with my mom and Lea—we headed back to Kleinfelds to make our purchase.  Above is a picture of me with the dress designer, Pnina Tornai!

*** Last bit of advice: A lot of bridal salons do not allow you to take pictures of dresses unless you are buying them (Kleinfeld’s is one of them), to get around this, tell the consultant that you need some time to speak to your family alone and when they leave the room, snap away!!!  This way you can always go back and look at your top contenders before making a very large purchase!

Some of my favorite Monique Lhullier & Vera Wang mermaid style gowns

xx, Lou

Will you be my bridesmaid? xx, Lea

I spent a good amount of time thinking about how I wanted to ask my bridesmaids to join me on my big day. Instead of just a phone call or email, I fused a couple of different ideas I found on Pinterest and blogs to come up with the package my bridesmaids received.  The package included: a cutout paper chain of my eight bridesmaids (with accurate hair colors and styles), a list of my bridesmaids, which stated  where they live and how I know them,  and a personalized note explaining why I wanted them by my side on my wedding day.  All of my friends loved this idea! Something nice about this invitation is that once my bridesmaids received their package, they were aware who else was asked to be a bridesmaid, which can sometimes be a guessing game. I knew I was going to incorporate green into my wedding, so I made the dresses a fun shade of green and wrote each girl’s name across the dress. I got to be creative while creating the package and also tell my best friends how much they mean to me…what could be better?

Obviously, Lou is my MOH (she is a little bitter that stands for MATRON of Honor haha)!

xx, Lea