At my wedding shower, my best friend gave me as a present a wedding topper where I was the bride wearing the pants. I thought it was really funny, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted on top of my cake. She then called me a spoilsport, and then showed me the second cake topper she had bought. This was much cuter, with two figures that had the same hair shade as me and my husband. We were holding hands and it looked very romantic. She told me that she bought them both at the weddingmountain.com site, and that they were really inexpensive. I checked out the site looked at all the cake toppers. Most of the them are funny, but she did pick out the best one for our cake.

I think this was the best idea ever! I wanted to do something fun and different with my friends, and someone suggested a biking wine tour. We loved the idea, except for the biking, and then we stumbled upon this idea with the Safari company. I loved it! I loved being in such a fancy car, driving from winery to winery tasting different wines. Driving around reminded me how pretty NC is! The lunch was simple but tasty, and I was pretty tipsy by the end, and fell asleep at some point. I think we all dozed during the ride home. The driver was great about making sure we had fun, and treated us all like princesses. It was super fun!

I love this Restaurant! My family had decided that it would be nice to have the rehearsal in Chapel Hill, at the Weathervane. My family likes planning, and so we were already making arrangements to rent the whole patio space at the Weathervane five months before the date. I know that this is a popular spot for rehearsal dinners, so I wanted to make sure that we would get the best spot. The food is amazing, and they are really well known for tasty and unique dishes that are a bit more on the gourmet side. Everyone loved the appetizers and meals, and the patio makes for the perfect setting for mingling and talking. Even though there were tables and chairs, there was also lots of extra space, and it felt like we had the whole place to ourself.

Amy was the photographer who took our engagement pictures. She came highly recommended by another close friend who had her family portraits done. I chose to work with Amy because she does beautiful family portraits, and I felt that she would really be able to capture the 'home' feeling my husband and I wanted to evoke in the pictures. She is a wonderful person to work with, she's really nice and talented, and I think we all really shared the same vision of what we wanted the pictures to look like. I loved the prints, and I think this was the best decision. The prices were right on spot, too, and it is a really good price to pay for having such an excellent photographer take pictures and produce quality prints.

My mother suggested that I pre-order a bouquet and that we could bring it up to the hotel we were staying at in a cooler. She had spoken with the florist and the florist confirmed that the flowers would be able to last overnight if they were put in a fridge. I agreed to the idea, and we put together a bouquet and a small lapel flower piece for my husband. The florist was great, she agreed that simple and bright would be best for a beach wedding. I just loved the bright colors when I saw the bouquet! It looked full and fresh, and my big worry was that it would wilt. Well, the florist was right and the bouquet kept looking fresh for two days, and I loved having something so put together on my wedding day.

Ceremony:

I always wanted to get married in Hawaii, but we had to settle for something closer to home so that all our family and friends could be there. We still did something really small and intimate, with less than 100 guests, at the Sandcastles Oceanfront Clubhouse. It's the perfect location for a reception and a ceremony, because we could walk down to the beach for the ceremony, and then back up for the reception. The wedding event planner, Amy, was also great at helping us put together us vision of what we wanted. They do many beach weddings, and I think we got there for the best time of year. The beach was perfect, we had a lovely minister, the flower girl was so cute, and everyone looked so happy to be at a place as peaceful and serene at the ocean. Totally worth the four hours it took to get there!

Reception:

I think this was a perfect location, because the reception room was lovely and the perfect size for our group.

Catering:

This was tricky, because we only had one meeting to plan an entire menu. We went with one of the theme menus that the chef said was very popular, and it was a hit! Also, there's the option of a sundae bar, and everyone loved it! Ice cream and wedding cake is the best combination in the world. The food was all fresh and hot and tasty, and everyone loved it.

Wedding Night Hotel:

And we got to stay for free, because we were the wedding couple! It's always nice when a hotel will let the bride and groom stay for free!

I wanted a special and unique engagement ring, and we both wanted special wedding bands, and I loved that we were within driving distance to one of the best jewlers in the area! Goldworks has some amazing rings and bands, and it is obvious that they were made by artists! Our bands were made by Ted Hendrickson, and they are beautiful. The rings look like wood grain, but it's the combination of two types of gold together. My engagement ring matches the organic look of the bands. This was the best choice for wedding rings, and I know that they have won several awards for their work.

This was a good place for my husband and his friends to pick up their rental suits, and they knew about it because another one of their friends had his groom party rent their suits here. They got excellent prices for the type of tuxes that they rented, and I think they even got one rental free because they had more than five in their party. Another thing that is good is that they have several locations across NC, which meant that it was convenient for everyone to be fitted. My husband said the staff was nice and that the fitting took two seconds, which was fine by him. He looked good on the wedding day, the suit fit his fine, and everyone else in the party looked like they were wearing well-fitted suits. And that's all I ever asked for when they said they were going to rent, to make sure that the suites fit!

We knew that invitations were very important, so we started looking online. I had heard that lots of brides were getting their cards through the internet and ordering them online, so I tried to do the same. There are hundreds of sites to choose from, and thousands of designs, but after a while I decided that I was wasting time by not selecting! We found really beautiful cards at Wedding Invitation Delights, and since then I have ordered thank you cards and baby cards from them. They have excellent customer service, and the cards actually look better in person than they do on the site. I really like the brand we got, Naturally Ever After. The cards do have a natural and organic feel to them. I was happy with the whole process.

This is a really sweet store to visit if you are going to have very young children, mostly under the age of four of five, in your wedding party. My niece and nephew were going to be the flower girl and ring bearer, and their mother (my sister-in-law) wanted them to have cute outfits. It's a bit expensive, especially when you think they'll only be wearing the outfit once, but the mother offered to pay for the small suit and cute satin dress. The clothing is really well made, and the store if also very kid friendly. The staff loves kids, and they obviously displayed huge amounts of patience as we looked around the store with a crying baby. I would recommend this place as a formal shop for kid's clothing, even if it is higher end. And there's another store in Raleigh, which makes shopping easier.