Brides to Be: A Contest for You!

Are you planning a wedding in Houston? (or is a friend or family member of yours planning theirs?) Then this post is for you!

Houston Brides Magazine (who featured our wedding in their Spring/Summer 2010 issue- on page 90-91) contacted me about giving away 4 tickets to their upcoming Luxury Bridal Event on March 25 at the Bell Tower on 34th from 7 – 9 p.m. . I was delighted to do this giveaway because I truly love the magazine, especially the editorial look of their shoots and all of the great planning advice (and, did I mention the gorgeous photography and fashions?) Just look at that cover dress. Stunning.

Houston Brides’ “Evening of Bridal Luxury” will feature Houston's best vendors, a fabulous bridal fashion show, silent auction and giveaways including the chance to win one of three honeymoons from Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita in Mexico and the Cayman Islands.

Partial proceeds from the event benefit Pink Door Nonprofit Organization, helping female cancer survivors begin a new life (I love events that support a great cause!)

If you'd like to enter this contest, here are the rules:

1. You must enter before Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at midnight CST (2 weeks before the event, so you have time to plan accordingly)
2. You can enter simply by writing "enter me" in the comments below
3. You must leave a valid email address where I can contact you if you win (entries without a valid email address will be disqualified)
4. You must live in or near Houston so you can attend the event (or hey, if you want to fly in for it, that's OK too!)
5. Tickets have no monetary value and cannot be exchanged for cash
6. I will select 4 winners using random.org and announce them on Thursday, March 12, 2010

If you have any questions, please leave them below.

PS- If you're married, are you still obsessed with weddings? I still find myself looking at bridal magazines and visiting sites like StyleMePretty and looking at popular wedding photography blogs, like Jasmine Star's. Sigh. I can't wait until my best friends get engaged so I can help plan their weddings. I am still hopelessly in love with weddings, especially coming up with the look and feel of the wedding ("the concept") and then thinking about how to implement the vision using just the right decor, florals etc. Love!

Thank you for reading, and to all the lovely Houston brides-to-be, good luck! <3

xoxo,

Veronika.

Our Wedding was Featured and the Most Amazing Necklace...Ever!

I have some exciting news. Some of my lovely readers may already know about this, but for those who don't: our wedding was featured in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Houston Brides Magazine.

I submitted some photos after our wedding and they ended up picking ours as one of the featured weddings. You can follow this link to see our feature, and the rest of the magazine online (we are on page 90-91)

Here is me, excited to finally get my hands on some copies!

And a shot of the inside (please ignore my goofy crazy-eyed smile!)

Needless to say, seeing your very own wedding in print is awesome. It felt like all of that hard work paid off. I have to give a special thank-you shout-out to my mother in law, who helped hand make more than half of the gorgeous Martha-Stewart style tissue peonies for my candy buffet boxes, and my beautiful bridesmaid and bestie Candice who also helped make a lot of the stuff by hand. They both helped create so much of my personalized items. I couldn't have done it without them! Advice to future brides: ask a friend or family member to help!

I'm glad I had a somewhat DIY wedding. It feels good to know that all of those little details and personalization made the day that much more memorable (at least for me, because I'm obsessed with details!)

In other news, my gorgeous necklace came in from Regina Pierallini. OMG. It is gorgeous. I saw the necklace on The Look 4 Less blog. It's a similar style to the Van Cleef and Arpels Alhambra necklace but without the 7-15K price tag (I did an online search and found out that's how much some of these necklaces go for.) I have always been drawn to that clover pattern and the length of the necklace (the longer, the better when it comes to my long torso.)

I was so thrilled to find the necklace on Regina's Etsy page called NYLightMetals. Unfortunately, it was sold out due to the popularity springing from the Look 4 Less blog. I emailed Regina, and she was so awesome and kind. It turns out she had found a few more of the necklaces in her studio and mailed one to me immediately. It was love at first sight.

Here is the photo from Regina's Etsy page. Love love love. So pretty.

Here it is on me:
If you love this necklace as much as I do, check out Regina's Etsy page and see if you can score one as well. It was 45$. Love. They come in different colors too. I would love some matching stud earrings. I am going to see if she makes or sells those.

Ok onto other cute things. These flats. From Target. $19.99. I needed flats for work. I wanted ones that were not too casual. I saw these and fell in love. I wore them with my Gap Always Skinny jeans to dinner tonight and no matter what I wear them with, they just seem to work. So versatile and awesome. Love. Lord knows I can't resist a cute bow!

I got a size 10, for reference. My feet are huge (I like to think they are in proportion to my height, to make myself feel better.)

And...because I am in a wedding kind of mood, here are a few of my fave shots from the big day:

Ok...maybe I went a little overboard there. Sigh. Memories. I still watch our wedding video sometimes (not the whole thing.) I just like looking at all of the pretty flowers. Speaking of flowers, my mom and grandma were awesome and took most of our wedding flowers back to our home after the wedding.

This is what we came home to:

It was fun to have all of those flowers in the house. I even dried my own bouquet out and still have it. There were more, but I won't bore you with even more photos.

Thank you so much for reading. For those still planning their wedding my advice is: make each detail count. You won't regret the time and effort!

xoxo,

Veronika.