Make You Feel My Love

Beautiful

I'm crazy for paper crap!

I have lost my damn mind. Invitations.. reply cards.. info cards.. envelopes.. it is all so beautiful and so effing expensive!!!

To check out my complete obsession - visit my pinterest board on the subject

Every time I think I've narrowed things down, I see something new and the search starts all over again. And the worst part is - NO ONE CARES!!! Invitations are kept by the bride and moms.. that's about it. Why am I obsessing over a piece of paper that will get thrown away?

Because I am a designer.. and crazy.. that's why.

Atomique47 Winter Collection

I have a confession.

The purse making burned me out. I was selling at least one purse a day for a while and taking orders for which I had no stock so literally making purses each night. These babies are hand cut, sewn on the machine and then embellished with hand sewn flowers so it is quite time consuming. The business also quite literally took over my living room. I had to take a break so for the past 6 months or so, I've been purse free.

However, it is time fire up the sewing machine again and get back to work.

My fabulous hair stylist, Jen Bender opened her own salon recently. She has asked for me to sell some purses at a Christmas salon event which is great motivation for me to get back into it. If you are in Los Angeles, check out her salon, M Bird Studio in Culver City.

Last year, I was obsessed with men's suiting fabrics (wool, tweed, herringbone, hounds tooth etc..) and will incorporate that into my designs for this year but I also want to explore other textures like linen, burlap and lace. Let's see where this takes me.

I am also very into the wedding industry at the moment and plan to explore a more bridal targeted collection. Now to find the time...

The search for the perfect earrings

I don't really wear earrings. My ears are tiny and I find it difficult to find earrings that don't look ridiculous or uncomfortable on me. I wear a pair of diamond studs 99% of the time, so when it came time to hunt for bridal jewelry, I was stumped.

I wanted a vintage inspired (or actually vintage) look to go with my dress. Here is what I came up with.

Clockwise from left: Ann Taylor, Anna Bellagio, Regina B, Christina Garcia, Nadri via QVC, Christina Garcia, Nadri Via QVC

But these were either too expensive, too large or not quite right.

Then I came across these lace inspired beauties! Not too big - and a great complement to my dress!

Nadri from Nordstrom.

I can't wait for my dress to come in so I can try them out!

Pinterest is my new BFF

Have you heard of Pinterest? If not, be prepared for the sudden realization that hours have passed and you have spent all of your time in the black hole known as Pinterest. It is uh-mazing! Not only is it already full of inspirational, cute, beautiful, funny etc.. images but it is a place to store and catalog your own collection of images!

It basically allows you to browse the web and save images (AND LINK BACK TO WHERE YOU FOUND THEM!!!) all in one place. You can catagorize them and create "boards" of your images and then if need be, you can later go back to the source.

I've been using it to create wedding inspiration boards and having so much fun!

Save the Date!

We are essentially having a destination wedding which means we need to send out "Save the Dates" 6-12 months in advance to give guests amble time to plan and book travel arrangements.

I had a really difficult time finding just the right design that would convey the type wedding that we plan on having. We wanted something that felt equally traditional and modern.

And this is what we came up with! We decided to combine elements from designs we liked and create something ourselves.We used Photoshop to create the design and had it printed onto postcards through Vistaprint.

Where to say I do? (and party)

Now that we've narrowed down the city, my fiance and I needed to book the venue and book it fast! Savannah is a big time wedding destination and Spring is prime season. We hopped on a flight to SAV and had a whirlwind weekend of venue, photographer and wedding coordinator shopping.

I design hotels for a living which has resulted in the side effect of being incredibly picky about hotels and I've come to detest hotel ballrooms. Our venue had to have some character!

So with ballrooms eliminated, that left us with only a few but excellent options.
- restaurants with event space
- outdoor venues
- museums and museum houses
- raw event space (think old brick warehouses or old train station turned museum)

I'm going to walk through each one because I would have loved to run across something like this when I was venue shopping. So Savannah brides - this one's for you.


1. Charles Morris Center
This is a raw event space with a catering kitchen. It is stunning, big and in a great downtown location. It wasn't right for us because it was more expensive than our other options, it wasn't available on our date, and it was actually too big for us. This would have been fantastic if we were to have 150+ people and a big band though so if that is more your style, check it out!



2. Ships of the Sea Museum
This is an outdoor venue with a huge garden (mostly a rectangular bricked area perfect for a tent) and the attached museum house. We really loved this place. The garden is beautiful, the museum is very cool (filled with huge shop models and the house itself is an architectural gem) and the staff were very helpful. We were hesitant to do a 100% outdoor wedding because we were concerned about rain and I wasn't thrilled with the tented look or expense. Again, this would be perfect for another couple - just not us.



3. Garibaldi's Restaurant
This space is stunning! It was just a little too fancy for our taste.




Ok.. I'm starting to feel like Goldilocks at this point

4. 10 Downing (the top floor of Churchill's Pub)
This place is fabulous and the banquet manager, Mark is awesome! We love it so hard! Unfortunately it is too small for our wedding reception but we love it so much that we've booked it for the rehearsal dinner.



5. Vic's on the River
WINNER! This place has it all: A fantastic menu, river view, old world charm, wood floors, ceiling beams, exposed brick, huge windows, chivari chairs! We are so excited!



And after falling in love with our reception location, we had one more stop. (where to say "I do"?

6. The Davenport Museum Garden
First of all, it would be silly to talk about getting married outdoors in Savannah and not mention the ridiculous amount of lovely options (21 garden like squares throughout the city) and Forsyth Park. They are all perfect and affordable outdoor wedding locations. We wanted something a little more private and the Davenport Garden fit the bill.



Another fantastic and often blogged about venue is the Harper Fowlkes House. It is an amazing wedding venue but was a little too much for our budget and we'd have the outdoor weather/ tent factor again so we decided that it wasn't for us.



Other Non-Hotel locations to consider
- Roundhouse/ Railroad Museum
- Telfair Museum
- Paula Deen's "Lady & Son's Restaurant"
- Some B&B's have great event space for elopements and intimate weddings