7 Things To Keep In Mind During Your Wedding Weekend

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Wedding planning can be very stressful for some brides but the level of stress can reach a climax during the actual weekend that the wedding is to take place. As I approach my two month anniversary, I would like to give brides seven tips that I feel are essential and will help you get through one of the most important days of your life.

People will call you to say they aren’t coming and/or may tell you that they are bringing an extra person that you weren’t expecting.

Try not to let the news affect your mood one way or another. If someone says they won’t be able to make it, let them know that they’ll be missed and move along. If someone surprises you with an extra guest that they are bringing, try not to freak out. Just smile and say something along the lines of “that’s great.” At this point it’s probably too late to adjust seating anyway, so just don’t worry about it. Let your wedding coordinator and/or venue handle this one.Both of these things happened to me the day before my wedding and while everyone was freaking out around me (parents, husband, etc.), I just had to tell myself that it’s not my problem. I knew I had an amazing wedding coordinator and that she and her staff would be able to handle such issues.

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There will be no shows.

The open seats we had at our wedding were mostly people that had gotten in touch with us the day prior to our wedding to let us know that they wouldn’t be attending. But we did have a few who just no showed. Continue reading

60 Days!

img_0023We are officially two months away from holy matrimony! Here’s what we have done so far:

Joint Bank Account

This has been the single task that we’ve done that made me go “oh shit, we’re getting married”. A lot of the other tasks thus far have felt like I’m just planning a party, but getting a joint bank account reminded me of the reason why we’ll be partying. We opted to keep our separate accounts open and we’ll have a portion of our paychecks deposited into our joint account on payday. A lot of people dread talking about money with their future spouse, but this was a very easy conversation to have for us.

Dresses/Fittings

My bridesmaids dresses actually came in today. I’m very excited to start shopping for their shoes and accessories. My attire for that day is complete now that I have my clutch bag. I’m still in the process of doing fittings, but I expect to be done with that this weekend. Now I’ll be able to focus on making sure my girls look amazing. Continue reading

100 DAYS!

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I’m getting married in T minus 99 days! I feel like we’ve done so much in the planning process but we still have a lot more tasks remaining.

Invitations & RSVPs

I just sent my invitations out on Tuesday and people are already starting to receive them! I was so nervous that I did something wrong and they would be returned to sender or that they would get lost in the mail (sometimes I worry about silly things even when I KNOW I did something right). But luckily, we got a call yesterday about someone getting theirs already. Now the hard part is going to be compiling all the RSVPs and meal choices. I’m anxious to see how many people will RSVP “yes”.

Attire

I picked up my dress back in November and had my first fitting earlier this month. I have another fitting in mid-January and if everything looks good, I should be able to take the dress home. I have my veil, jewelry, and shoes for that day but I’m still looking for a clutch bag to have at the reception. I’m ready for the bridesmaids’ dresses to come in so the girls can start getting their accessories. My fiancé has already decided on the guys’ attire, now they just have to order the tuxes. And I still need to buy his wedding band. Continue reading

5 Things That Are Helping Me Plan My Wedding

I’ve had to take a brief break from posting due to my schedule being overloaded with extra work (I got a promotion) and wedding planning (things are moving really fast now). I’ve had to start juggling all of the things going on in my life during these past few weeks so the blog had to take a backseat for a little bit. But I know I have a few brides and/or potential brides who read my blog, so I figured I would share the five things that I have been using to help me plan my wedding without having my head explode.

Pinterest

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Pinterest is my digital vision board for my wedding. If I need to visualize something regarding décor or attire, Pinterest is my go-to app/website. The main reason why I love it so much is because even if I’m not on Pinterest at the moment, I can still pin things to my wedding board from YouTube, The Knot, Buzzfeed, random sites, etc. I find things everywhere, so it’s great to be able to store it all in one place.

The Knot

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The Knot (app/website/magazine) is something you literally have no use for if you aren’t planning a wedding. I only got familiar with this site after my engagement but it is a godsend. I can find articles about wedding tips, Q&As, vendors, dresses, etc. I could keep listing things but basically any tool you’d ever need to plan a wedding is featured on The Knot. Continue reading

I Said “YES” to the Dress!

Two weeks ago… I said “YES” to the dress.

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I had such an awesome experience that I felt like I needed to write a few helpful tips so that other brides could have the same amazing experience that I had.

Go to a boutique with experienced consultants

I can’t stress this enough. You’ll be able to tell who’s experienced and who isn’t as soon as you walk into a store. Your consultant should be able to help bring your vision to life. In some stores they have girls working there who aren’t really consultants, they are just regular retail associates. You want to avoid stores like that. Read the reviews on bridal boutiques before you visit any. Continue reading

Save The Date: Choosing Your Wedding Venue

I’ve finally done it! I’ve finally booked my wedding venue and we finally have a guaranteed wedding date. The wedding planning process consists of making decision after decision. Choosing your venue is one of the first big decisions that you have to make. Your choice of venue kind of dictates everything else. Your wedding date, your vendors, your honeymoon, your dress, etc. Everything begins to fall into place once you book your venue. Since I’ve finally done the deed, I feel like I should share my most helpful tips for choosing your venue.

Narrow your search down BEFORE you start visiting venues

There are a lot of ways to filter through the long list of wedding venues. You can save yourself a lot of headache and confusion by getting your list down to no more than FIVE venues before you start making tour appointments. Continue reading

Dating A Gamer

If you’re dating a guy who’s under thirty-five, there’s a good chance that he likes to play videogames. There’s also a good chance that if he does enjoy playing videogames, then he might play them more than you would like for him to. My fiancé is somewhat of a gamer. I don’t think he goes overboard with it (ex. he doesn’t dress up like the characters, he usually comes to bed at a decent hour, and he’s not going broke because he won’t stop buying games/consoles), but I do realize that some people may not know how to deal with a guy who has this hobby. Personally, I don’t mind videogames but that is probably due to the fact that my dad and I would play videogames when I was a child. I grew up seeing grown men enjoy videogames but also be functioning adults (ex. They went to work, they took care of their children, etc.). Now I’m about to marry someone who’s just like that.


However, I know that a lot of ladies my age find themselves feeling like they have to compete with videogames for attention from their man. I know because I’ve been there. I’ve fought this battle plenty of times throughout my four-year relationship and I can honestly say this: videogames are not the worst distraction for your man to have. Here’s why: Continue reading

Living With Your “Bae”

I know that “shacking up” has a somewhat negative connotation in certain cultures, particularly amongst African American women, but more young people are ignoring the stigma and moving in with their significant others nowadays. After four years of dating my then-boyfriend/now-fiancé, I “officially” became one of those people last summer.

MY “SHACKING UP” STORY

My fiancé and I started dating when we were twenty and twenty-one year olds in college. At that time, we both had our own apartments (with roommates) and we lived an hour apart from one another because we were attending universities in different cities. For most of the time that we were in college, I drove to his apartment every weekend and spent the weekends with him. So I lived at my apartment for five days out of the week and at his for two days. Different circumstances and deciding that we didn’t want roommates anymore led to him staying at my apartment for a few months and then me staying at his apartment for a few months, but we were never on a lease together and we never paid bills together until now. Continue reading

OMG, I Left My E-ring at Home!

This past Thursday, I did the unthinkable.

I accidentally left my engagement ring at home.

Here’s how it happened…

 I always wear my e-ring when I’m sleeping. Even when it was too big, I was still wearing it everywhere. I mean, this is something I had been wanting for most of this year so of course I’m wearing it no matter what. But I’m also very vigilant about keeping it clean and keeping it safe. So when I’m putting any type of product on my hands (i.e. Makeup, lotion) or when I’m near any open drains (i.e. Any sink or bathtub), I take it off and put it on my dresser or on top of my makeup organizers. On this particular day, I set the ring on top of my makeup organizers, put my makeup and lotion on and then I went to work. Since it’s colder now, I always put a second coat of lotion on my hands when I get to my desk. This usually means I have to take my ring off briefly and that’s when I noticed that my ring was already off. I had never put it back on before I left the house! Luckily, my fiancé was still at home and said that he would bring the ring to me so that I didn’t have to leave work or be without it all day. I was only without my ring for nearly four hours but I felt so awkward without it. My hand felt naked. I could see a small indentation in my finger where my ring was supposed to be. I was trying to keep my left hand hidden until I got it back. It really gave me a little bit of anxiety. I kept thinking that people were going to notice the missing ring and ask me about it (no one did). I told a couple of my female coworkers about it and they assured me that it won’t be the last time I forget to put it on, and as time goes on it won’t even be something that I feel the need to turn around for. But right now, since it’s so new to me, I’ve decided that I’m just not taking it off anymore.

4 Things You Should Know About Getting Engaged

I’ve been engaged for almost a month now and here are the four things that I’ve experienced since the day my fiancé proposed.

You’ll take pictures of your ring (A LOT).

At this point, I probably have more pictures of my engagement ring than I do selfies in my phone. And I take a decent amount of selfies. When you get your e-ring, you just want to look at it all the time and it’s less obvious if you’re looking at a picture on your phone rather than your actual hand. So I take pictures of my e-ring on my hand a lot; probably more than I should actually. Continue reading