The Uniquely Yours team is closing the door on 2009, and looking forward to 2010 with excitement. We are starting 2010 off with a bang by producing and coordinating two events for January 2, a private party as well as a wedding, which we are looking forward to sharing with our readers. To all our clients and industry friends, we wish you all the absolute best for the New Year – much love, happiness, and abundant blessings! We also wish Erica Lake, Uniquely Yours Planner & Social Event Firm Owner, abundant blessings and good fortune as she departs Florida and our firm to live her California dream in 2010.
XOXO,
Karry, Sara, Jackie, & Sandy
Today is December 31, New Year’s Eve. My family and I are planning a quiet New Year’s Eve with our children and cherished friends. We look forward to closing out 2009, and welcome 2010 with eager anticipation. All of us at Uniquely Yours wish you a wonderful New Year’s Eve tonight, whether you are going out dancing dressed in your celebratory finest or opting for a cozy evening snuggled in front of a fire at home. And if you happen to get engaged tonight, we want to hear all about it. Now, let’s bring on 2010!
Brides.com recently released their picks for best weddings of 2009. They receive numerous wedding submissions on a daily basis (literally thousands per year) for feature on their site. How they are able to narrow down their choices from such a large selection of incredible image submissions is beyond me. Are you seeking new ideas and unique designs for your wedding? Then head on over to Brides.com for more inspiration, and check out their picks for Best Wedding Ideas of 2009 here.
What’s our favorite on their list? We adore the wedding of Max and Mara in Manhattan, New York. The backdrop of the Bowery Hotel could not be more appropriate for their wedding design. The beautiful and unique simplicity of the wedding is quite appealing. The renown Xochitl Gonzalez, of Always a Bridesmaid, did an incredible job planning this lovely affair. From the sweet pink dresses of the bridesmaids and flower girls to the delicious desserts, what is not to love about this wedding?
Which Brides.com Best Wedding of 2009 is your favorite?
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, in more ways than one! The holidays traditionally are prime time proposal season. It seems everyone knows somebody that has become engaged during the holiday season. We certainly have enjoyed hearing from friends and family who have become engaged over the past few festive days – what an exciting and special time of year for proposals and celebrating with loved ones.
If you are newly engaged to be married, we submit our most heartfelt congratulations! We could not be more excited for you, and hope you will be able to step back, breathe, and enjoy your engagement – one of the most special times of your lives. Seriously, way too many folks don’t stop to enjoy the emotional high from the proposal and step too quickly into planning mode, forgetting to enjoy the actual engagement. So shout it from the rooftops and tell everyone you know that you are engaged and in love!
Once you have shared your news with the world and have taken some time to celebrate, you will be ready to focus on the actual wedding plans. It is very important that as a couple you give some thought to the type of wedding you would like to have, and discuss it with your families especially if they are contributing to the expenses. Will it be formal, semi-formal, or casual? Will it be held during the day or the evening? It will also be important to set some guest list and budget parameters as well since these decisions will dictate your venue choices and more. From there, you will want to make some preliminary decisions regarding wedding party members so that you can make plans to ask your friends and family to support you in those roles. Next, start pulling together ideas and inspiration that will guide the design of your wedding from your attire and invitations through to your flowers and entertainment.
The advice and assistance of a professional wedding planner at this point will be invaluable. Whether you are seeking consultation services to guide and keep you on track or seeking full service design and planning, our team of professional, experienced planners is here to help. Give us a call at 321.454.2144, email us at info@uywedding.com, or fill out our handy inquiry form by clicking here. We welcome the opportunity to meet you for a personal consultation to discuss your ideas and wedding vision in detail.
And don’t forget, during this entire process, to focus on the engagement and each other so that your relationship will continue to flourish. It is your love for each other that brought you to this point in your lives. Celebrate and enjoy!
Photo Credit: www.tacori.com
The planning professionals and staff at Uniquely Yours Wedding & Event Specialist extend our warmest wishes and thoughts to our clients, readers, colleagues, and friends this holiday season. May you be richly blessed and surrounded by those you hold most dear. As we close 2009, we reflect on what has been an incredible year of new experiences and opportunities. We look forward to a bright and abundant 2010, and wish all of you the same. Happy Holidays!
Back in September, we shared some of our favorite registry items for fall dining and entertaining. As promised then, we bring you “Seasonal Entertaining In Style” – The Holiday Edition. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of a well-rounded wedding registry. By giving careful consideration and thought to the items you select and how you will use them, your registry will consist of quality, classic items that will bring you years of enjoyment. Most of us enjoy entertaining during the holiday season, so when selecting items for your registry choose items that can serve you well year round as well as a few holiday specific items that you’ll treasure. Here are some favorite items the Uniquely Yours planning team recommends to make your registry winter holiday friendly.
Macy’s
A classic china pattern will serve you well for fine dining throughout the year.
Ralph Lauren Silk Ribbon Pearl
But casual holiday get togethers call for festive and fun holiday dinnerware.
Martha Stewart Holiday Garden Collection
This bar set is not decked out in holiday prints, but the patterns are certainly appropriate for any festive occasion.
Mikasa Clear Cheers Collection
For those who covet traditional Christmas decor items but with a modern artistic twist, we recommend this beautiful nativity.
Williams Sonoma
Nothing says home for the holidays quite like holiday candlelight – everywhere. We love glass hurricanes which can also be used to hold holiday baubles, festive red berries, flowers or greenery.
And for the baker in all of us, you will need some essentials for putting out holiday cookies, pies, and cakes.
Everyone’s favorite mixer is a must have. We love the cheery red color.
And then there are all kinds of tools for creative pastry creations: flour sifter, mechanical pastry bag, and pastry blender.
We also like this personal embosser for putting your mark on all your holiday correspondence or for creating gift tags.
Bloomingdales
We adore these shiny and unique Menorahs for celebrating Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.
These beautiful crystal flutes are perfect for holiday dinner parties from Thanksgiving through Christmas.
Waterford Twelve Days of Christmas Flutes Collection
Crate and Barrel
Remember what we said about candles everywhere?
These colorful pieces are perfect for displaying and enjoying your holiday goodies.
Laurie Small Plate and Footed Bowl
These festive tools will bring back fond memories of baking in the kitchen with loved ones.
Tiffany
You will treasure the opportunity to bring out your finest silver service for special holiday occasions.
Neiman Marcus
Toast the New Year with these festive flutes.
Monogrammed cocktail napkins are always a stylish touch.
Pottery Barn
All that glitters is not gold, but these beautiful mercury glass candle holders and vases will certainly bring vintage glimmer to your mantle or tablescape.
Department 56
Start a tradition and build a collection with one of the many Department 56 holiday villages available. Our favorites include Christmas in the City and the North Pole Village.
Radio City Music Hall from Christmas in the City
North Pole Palace from North Pole Series
What holiday items are you thinking of adding to your registry?
Happy Holidays!
As wedding planners, we see trends come and go. What’s hot one month, could be completely outdated just a few months later. It is fun noting the trends and working with brides to put their own unique spin on them as we develop wedding designs. But through the design process, we always encourage our brides to focus on classic elements as well. Those classic elements will lend a timeless quality to the design, which of course will show through in your photographs.
Preston Bailey, renown design extraordinaire and author, stated this philosophy best in a recent post on his design blog, Inspiration and Transformations. If you love floral design and out of the box thinking, we recommend you subscribe to Preston’s wonderful blog where he shares his insights, advice, experiences, as well as beautiful images of his craft.
I’ve been in this business for 30 years and I spend so much time looking forward (planning for the next project, keeping track of the newest technology in event design) that I rarely get a chance to look back and evaluate the past projects I’ve accomplished. There’s a lot one can learn from the past (and I get such joy from reminiscing), so I thought it might be nice to do a weekly series where we discuss past events and lessons learned or tips that came from working on them.
You can read more of this great classic design post on Preston Bailey’s Inspiration and Transformations.
Recently we had the great pleasure of working with Cheryl and Mark to assist with the planning and design of their November wedding. Cheryl and Mark planned a rustic, but classically beautiful wedding at their ranch, the centerpiece of which is a large pole barn designed and built by the groom himself. The wedding was just gorgeous and we cannot wait to share the details with you. Cheryl and Mark selected the award winning Nu Visions in Photography to document their nuptials, including their engagement session which was shot on the grounds of the Wadsworth Ranch in Brevard County. Here is a peek at a few of their beautiful engagement session images which are nothing less than stunning!
Cheryl and Mark, it was truly a pleasure working with you and getting to know your families. You are a wonderful example of what it means to love and be loved. We look forward to seeing the images from the wedding and sharing the details with our readers.
Images Credit: Nu Visions in Photography
With the holidays upon us, we thought it might be fun to do a little feature on winter weddings. Even though we don’t get to enjoy the typical transition of seasons here in Florida, many brides still choose to feature the colors traditionally associated with the winter season in their wedding design. We most often see these colors in weddings held during the months of November, December, and January when churches and reception venues are using them as well. If used at any other time of year, these colors may look strangely out of place. Now we are not suggesting brides consider all out red, green, and plaid for their overall color scheme or pattern. Nor do we suggest you have the selected venue(s) for your nuptials and reception leave out all their wreaths and trees for your personal decor. That would be classified as tacky. What we do suggest is taking the colors most often associated with winter and use them to hint at the season. One of our favorite blogs for inspiration is The Perfect Palette, and this week The Perfect Palette features several winter wedding inspiration boards, which they have graciously allowed us to share with our readers.
A Blue Christmas
This inspiration board features the always chic pairing of crisp winter white and cool blue. The simplicity and elegance of this color scheme brings to mind the peace and reflective nature of the winter season.
Inspiration Board Courtesy of The Perfect Palette
Classic Red and White
This inspiration board is nothing less than absolute joyous. Take a cue from this palette and note the pattern in the bridesmaids dresses. We love seeing patterns in a wedding, and one of the easiest ways to introduce pattern is through wardrobe. The candy cane stripes in the dresses represent fun and celebration – a nod to the “most wonderful time of the year”. Of course, the entire Uniquely Yours planning team adores red shoes, and what better time of year to strut in some sassy red shoes. And red is such a versatile color. It can be glamorous and sexy on hand, but on the other it can be flirtatious, innocent, and fun – this board definitely shows red’s versatility.
Inspiration Board Courtesy of The Perfect Palette
Sugarplum and Silver
What better season to feature this year’s popular jewel tones than winter? The Uniquely Yours planners have designed winter weddings in 2008 and 2009 that prominently feature jewel tones (we’ll have to write an update post from last year’s “Pacific Northwest” wedding to share with our new readers, and a post on one of our November 2009 brides is coming soon that shows off her jewel tone palette as well). This inspiration board is sophisticated with its sugarplum and silver pairing. We love how winter white floral elements contrast with the darker hues of purple and eggplant. Add in a little sparkle with white, silver, and some appropriately placed crystal accents and you bring to life the magic of the season without going overboard.
Inspiration Board Courtesy of The Perfect Palette
Check in with The Perfect Palette blog all through December for “The 25 days of Christmas…” for more winter wedding inspiration. Are you planning a winter wedding? What are your design colors? We would love to hear more about the details of your winter wedding to share with our readers.
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