Kathleen and Gary did not let a little (ok a lot) of wind stop them. They were beaming all day as they journeyed the 3 blocks betweek St. Ignatius Church and the Peabody Library, stopping for pictures all along the way. Their day was classy and understated and deeply spiritual.

Kathleen was absolutely gourgeous in her strapless ivory gown that gathered dramatically at the bustle, and just a simple orchid in her hair. Gary and his guys donned grey suits with lavendar shirts that were both springy and sophisticated.

The decor was just as sophisticated with the lavendar and green tones carried throughout and the elegant pin spot lighting that cast an amber glow on the Peabody. What I will remember most about this wedding is all of the kind words that their guests had to say about Kathleen and Gary. These are obviously two genuine, caring souls.

Congrats!

-LCJ

So since we did a post on winter weddings we have to do one on spring weddings!  It is such a great time for colorful design, fresh concepts, and beautiful brides with sun-kissed cheeks! Since it is risky to go for an outdoor wedding the spring is a great time to bring the outside in. Fresh and colorful flowers and fruit filled centerpieces are just the start. We have great ideas to carry your theme through from the save the date to the thank you cards! Here are just a few designs I loved when researching new spring 2010 ideas. It is a great place to start to come up with your concept – then we can tailor it to your specifications!!!

So we sat down with this awesome couple yesterday to map out their whole day and go over all the details. Boy am I glad we did! They have definitly given their day a lot of thought and know exactly what they want. They decided to forego some of the traditional wedding customs for some more meaningful choices to them (which frustrates the heck out of Kathleen’s mom). So I decided to blog about making your wedding day your own, how far is too far, and making sure that you let your coordinator know exactly what you want (and don’t want).

1. First Look – Becoming increasingly popular is the “first look.” Traditional in Jewish ceremonies this is when the bride and groom see eachother before the wedding. Some pros are that you can get a lot of pictures out of the way and do not have to miss any of your reception or cocktail hour. Also, some couples want an intimate moment to share before the craziness of the day begins. Now, if you have always dreamed of the day where the music starts and doors open up and you appear there in your beautiful gown for the first time for your groom – this is not for you!

2. Walking down the aisle together (or solo) – I didn’t ask Kathleen and Gary why they decided to walk down the aisle together but a lot of couples feel as though they are uniting together, not the bride is being “given” to the groom. Other popular reasons may be if the bride’s father is deceased or the thought of walking down that long aisle with everyone staring at her freaks the bride out!

3. No family dances – This was a little bit of a fight at my own wedding. My husbands parents are deceased and my parents are divorced. The idea of doing a mother/son, father/daughter dance was not a road I wanted to go down. If you do have step parents be sure to include them somehow, or do 2 dances. People will tell you they will not mind – trust me they will. People get very emotional about weddings and could carry that hurt for years to come. You might want to do the dances if you are extremely close to your parents, if you want to spotlight them and thank them for all the work they did for the wedding, or if you are one of those rare families with no drama.  On this note lets talk about tossing the bouquet. Again, know your audience. If a lot of your friends are single and cool with it, then go ahead – people always get a kick out of it. If a lot of your friends are single, cried to you about being on match.com for the 15th time, sad about being at the wedding solo, or been waiting forever for their guy to pop the question then maybe reconsider. Also factor in time, a lot of these traditions take time away from dancing. It is true, the night goes by so fast. If you and your guests love to dance and are having a great time, you might not want an interruption every 30 minutes

Take home message – make it your own! Yes, a tiny part of you has to think about pleasing your guests and family (by that I mean your mother). But ultimately it is your day!

Best – LCJ

Hi Friends!

What a busy winter it has been! In between digging ourselves out every other weekend Soiree has been hard at work! In the wedding down time we continued to work hard on our logo and branding and have some great products to share with you. Please don’t forget to ask us to design your custom stationary (invites, favor tags, escort cards, etc.).

 But now it is back to crazy wedding season! And we are ready!!!!! We kick it off in April with our bride Kathleen and her honey at the Peabody Library – one of our favorite venues. Classic, elegant charm within the historic Mount Vernon neighborhood which has great photo spots. It’s one of those places that guests say, “I would have never thought to have a wedding at a library.” The high stacks glowing with white lights is really beautiful!

tip: when considering a venue such as a library or museum be sure to ask about the restricted items. Often red wine and candlelight are prohibited. There are many other alternatives so don’t worry, just don’t go ordering that case of votives!

every post is better with a pic! here is one of our Spring designs!

 - enjoy, LCJ

Seriously Baltimore this is more snow than the last 3 years combined! Now I am a Miami girl and everyone knows that I love the beach but a little snow every now and then is ok I guess. Preferably on Christmas morning and cleared by the next day! It got me thinking though about all of the people who love the snow and actually prefer to get married in the winter. I love the pictures of white lights twinkling off of fresh snow and the beautiful bride in a fur wrap. I envy those brave couples for chancing the elements and the unpredictable weather!

This weekend is especially daring to have a wedding. You not only have to compete with the blizzard – but also the Superbowl! So to all you brave brides out there best of luck and Congratulations! I hope your day turns out as lovely as these wonderful winter weddings:

Recently I was contacted by theknot.com to inform us that we have been selected to be a featured vendor of the Baltimore Metro Area! We have submitted a new banner design that should be listed when searching all of the Baltimore vendors. You can still find more info and pics under the Wedding Coordinators section. Yay us!

Congrats to our great friend Meaghan Elliott of Meaghan Elliott Photography for being featured in the current issue of Brides Magazine. I have told you time and time again that her work is amazing! She keeps getting better and better – check her out! Also enjoy some pics she did for us for our new website

Kristi Johnson and Brad Sutliffe

It’s officially here!!!! It is the start of wedding season. All you bright eyed brides just starting out on your journey from Ms. to Mrs. We have already gotten some calls from those eager beavers, and we are so excited to be doing the parties and showers that are coming up as well. But, in case you need a little more convincing, here is a Top Ten List of why you Must Have a Wedding Planner!

10. The Planners know the best vendors in town – do you want to risk your day with the wedding band from The Hangover?

9. Organization! You are probably making lists, lists, and more lists and have sticky notes stuck to your sticky notes. Let us create easy spreadsheets for you that keep everything together.

8. Ideas Have you ever gone to a party or a wedding and thought, “Who would of ever thought of that???” Guess what, we did!

7. Stess – handled! – so now you are engaged right and on your way to wedded bliss? yeah right, not if you keep arguing about if you should sit Aunt Susie with weird college friend Larry

6. Bragging Rights – come on admit, deep down you know you want people to say that yours was the best wedding they have ever been to!

5. These People Are Driving Me Crazy – be prepared, rehearse that phrase over and over again. The men will wait till the last minute to get their tuxes, your mom will want to create the wedding she never had, and so on and so on. You know what – why don’t you let a wedding planner handle that?

4. More time to think about the Honeymoon! Really more time to do a lot of pre-wedding things: work out, eat right, get in good at work so your boss won’t flip when you ask for that 4 weeks off

3. The chance of being Famous! We put all our clients on our blog and if you go with a vendor that we recommend they almost always feature you on their site as well

2. One of the best wedding investments you will make. Honestly the time and money that a planner will save you by referring you to excellent vendors and managing all of the details is priceless.

1. Great Pictures The stress-free glow will radiate through your beautiful face on that day!

Good Luck and Enjoy this Exciting Time!

-LCJ

digging the black and whites Meaghan Elliott sent me!!!! www.meaghanelliott.com

I said it wouldn’t be me. I just knew I would keep on blogging right through the holidays… but, I was a bad bad blogger

But we are back! We are so sad that we had to cancel our Diva Dirty Martini Bash because of the great blizzard of ‘09, but we put so much time and thought into it that I wanted to blog about it anyway!

We lined up Laura Vaeth of Pretty Faces to do all of the ladies makeup before the Escalade Limo was to pick us up and take us to Sascha’s in Mount Vernon for cocktails. Then the plan was to head to Cazbar on Charles Street for the big party!

What did happen is we had two sad event planners stuck in the house with our good friend Tiffany that came all the way from San Diego for the party all weekend (with my hubby of course)! Lots of movies and hot toddies

Then finally the roads cleared a little and some great friends and family of Miss Robin Mims (the Dirty Diva herself) came over for a brunch at our house. I put out the centerpieces and our cupcake tower that we were so proud of. All in all it stunk that we didn’t get to paint the town red like we wanted, but we were with good friends… and thats all that mattered

Here is a little of the design work. Nia and I did the custom invites and table numbers.

Just a screen shot, couldn’t get the actual file to download correctly. Here are the table numbers accenting our Diva and Holiday theme.

can you see our cupcake toppers? – martini olives and princess crowns!

We are filling up quick with baby and wedding showers. We have lots of slots open for brides, so if you know someone who got engaged over this holiday season – send them our way!

LCJ

Happy Holidays!

Of course we LOVE Christmas. I mean lights, tinsel, presents – it’s a event planners dream! This year we are so overwhelmed at how blessed we have been this past year that we have decided to scale down a bit. Instead of buying a lot of presents for our dear family and friends who are already blessed we have decided to adopt a family from Kennedy Krieger Institute which is pediatric rehab hospital,  and The House of Ruth which is a battered women’s shelter

[caption id="attachment_190" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Just a regular day at the office! Our other office that is..."][/caption]We are so proud of the work these organizations do and honored to be helping these families out this holiday season!

There are so many blogs and DIY websites out there for everything wedding from the invites to the centerpieces. I recently just saw  a site that said “Your whole wedding for under $500!” Now I am a fan of a bargain and definitly shopping around, but I also believe you get what you pay for. Also, your wedding can look fabulous with any budget without you assembling a sweatshop in your house for eight months! I found out the hard way from planning my own wedding that it is not always that easy (or cost effective).

I pride myself on having a great design eye, now manufacturing these ideas is another story. I wanted to incorporate a little bit of a beach theme into our wedding since that is where we met and still love to be. But I did not want to go over board – you know, just have a little taste. Early on I saw a picture of these candle holder table numbers with sand and shells in Brides Magazine and thought for sure I could pull it off. These aren’t the actual pics but give you an idea what I was trying to go for:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I thought I would just by the vases, the sand, the shells, the paper; print them off at Kinko’s and crazy glue it all together. Easy, right?? Wrong! First trip to Michaels I spent $125. Which brings me to my first tip: Make it look right! Buy the necessary tools. I had to buy a paper cutter to make sure the edges were even and since my printer wouldn’t print on vellum I substituted with other paper (mistake). Oh, and that was just buying two of the hurricanes since they were $19.99 a piece (are you starting to do the math here?).  I think you get where I am going, long story short, I made another trip to Michaels – spent another $125 tried again – then made a 3rd trip and returned everything!

I found a vendor online that made our table numbers to represent our second love: Wine, for 13 bottles it cost me $92 plus shipping. And still was able to represent the places where we had been by naming the tables after beaches we love. Then I used the beach theme for the escort card table, one of my few DIY projects - So, I got everything I wanted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, while it may seem tempting to save a little money, make sure you are actually saving – and it is not costing you your sanity! Follow these few tips:

1. Again, make sure you have the right tools. Just because it was a DIY project you don’t want your guests to notice hot glue gun marks, jagged edges, and flimsy material

2. Shop around first – don’t just assume it will cost you less money to do it yourself (like I did). See what you can get for around the same price that will save you time, money, and possibly a headache.

3. Start early and set realistic time frames – “I should be able to knock out these invites on a Saturday afternoon” Hah ha, give yourself plenty of time, assemble a team, make a mock up of what a good one looks like and have plenty of extra supplies should you mess up a few.

Good Luck – LCJ        for more design ideas check out our Design Work page