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Monthly Archives: June 2010

What’s not to love about summer?  That might be the only question left after reading all of y’all’s fabulous reasons as to why you do love summer on our blog giveaway and on Lara’s twitter-only giveaway.  Don’t you just adore the image below by Simply Bloom?  So summery.  Someone pour me a glass of fresh lemonade stat!  We’ve got some very fun summer-themed giveaways coming up in the next few months, but until then (and without further ado), I present the two winners of a $25 iTunes gift certificate along with a few of our other favorite responses:

From the blog:

A few other favorites:

From Lara’s Twitter-only giveaway:

A few other favorites:

Congratulations!  Winners, email us your mailing address and we’ll get your cards to you!  Hope you’re all having a fabulous summer!

Written with love by Southern Weddings
2 Comments
  1. avatar brianna phelan reply

    Loved reading the responses :)

  2. avatar invity reply

    Very Nice…. Amazing Post I love this

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Like so many weddings these days, Katharine’s will be a destination affair, with only about 5% of her guests local to the Boston area.  To keep her guests informed, she and her groom put together a wedding website chock-full of helpful and hilarious information.  Read on for more details and a few sneak peeks!

From Katharine: Last week, I revealed Kyle’s and my pick for a wedding photographer.  For those of you who missed the post, any guesses as to who we chose?   Take a peek here!

This week, we want to show off one of the very first things we checked off our to-do list.  While most couples dive right into photography portfolios, catering menus and dress shopping, my tech-savvy fiancé and I headed straight to the web to create our very own wedding website.

I’d seen and heard of virtually all the wedding websites out there, but my very favorite sites were those hosted by Wedding Window.  After stumbling upon our first Wedding Window site, and Kyle + I fell hard and fast for their highly-customizable, fully-loaded sites.

But let’s back up a minute.  Why bother with a wedding website in the first place?  Besides the fact that it’s fun as all get out to watch a couple’s love story unfold on the world wide web and to see their upcoming wedding take shape, there’s an infinitely more useful and practical side that makes wedding websites a must-have for today’s modern bride.

1. The 4 W’s: With a wedding website, a couple can easily – and interactively – share all the who, whats, whens and wheres of their big day with family and friends.  Think of it as a one-stop shop for your guests to plan for your wedding and share in your celebration – from both near and afar.   Want to make sure dear Aunt Sally knows when and where the reception is and how she’ll be getting home after a long night of dancing?  Have a list of hotels where your out-of-town guests can book rooms near the festivities?  Need to let everyone know your wedding is a western-themed event?  A wedding website is the way to go, folks.

2. Introductions: It’s a guarantee your family and friends will feel more involved in and get more excited for your big day if they’ve been introduced to all the major players beforehand.  A wedding website is a fun and easy way to introduce your fiancé, bridal party and family to your guests.  Sure, they likely won’t remember every member of your twenty-person bridal party or memorize the names of each of your fiance’s six siblings, but it’s a good start.

3. Celebrate!  For most of you brides-to-be out there, you’ll likely enjoy a 9 – 18 month engagement.  A fun and interactive wedding website can help fill the down time between the excitement of your engagement and the anticipation of your big day.  One catch?  To keep the buzz up and questions down, make sure to update your site regularly.  Add new details about your weekend as you plan them, post those tear-worthy engagement pictures of you and your betrothed, start an online countdown.

From Emily: Though it was pretty much over once Wedding Window caught Katharine’s eye, there are several other great options out there for those who haven’t yet made a decision.  My sister chose Project Wedding for hers (we love that PW collaborated with stationery greats like Elum, KenzieKate, and Hello!Lucky to ensure beautiful interfaces!).  Wedding Wire has also collaborated with design-savvy businesses including Martha Stewart Weddings, Wedding Paper Divas, and the Green Kangaroo.  Lastly, we think Wedding JoJo has fabulous, clean, modern options.



Help a girl out: Did you create a wedding website for your big day?  Which site did you use, and what did you think?

Previously:

Intros + Inspiration Boards

The Bridesmaid Dress

The Photographer

Project Wedding and Wedding Window are SW sponsors.  For more info about advertising with us, email Katharine!

Written with love by Katharine
8 Comments
  1. avatar Marie Charity reply

    What a great looking website! How fun! You guys look so cute together!

  2. avatar ShannonP reply

    I used wedding window as well and I loved them! It was really easy to use and allowed us to convey a lot more information to our guests than there was room for in the invitations. We were able to introduce all of the wedding party and write up how we know them and why we love them as well as tell the story of how we met, how he proposed, what we’re doing now and what we’re doing next. Also, we kept the website live for a while after the wedding and were able to link all the professional photos through there as well so that guests could get a glimpse of them as well.

  3. avatar Leigh reply

    We used wedsite.com and have been very happy with our "wedsite" (leighandryan.com). :) It allows us to upload a ton of photos and has a unique "photo album-esque" layout. We’ve been able to convey all of the important info and introduce all of the key players who will be so important on our big day! I also love the above suggestion of uploading professional photos after the wedding (we went with SW featured Altmix Photography and couldn’t be more excited). Loving all of the Big Day updates by the way :)

  4. avatar Amy Ruocco reply

    Thanks Katharine! We’re so honored that you chose WeddingWindow.com to host your wedding website. You did a lovely job with it. Best wishes to you both.Amy

  5. avatar Dennis @ Wholesale Fresh Flowers reply

    I have not thought of the idea to create a wedding website but it totally makes sense. After reading Katharine’s reasoning for creating a wedding website I don’t know how any modern day couple inviting guests who live outside the ceremony destination can organize a wedding without one.

  6. avatar Catherine reply

    I honed my ActionScript 3 skills and slaved over a custom Flash website. It was a long process but I’m so happy I did it! We’ve gotten great responses and so many questions via the "Send a Message" page and it’s been a good resource for our guests. Fun stuff: http://www.catherineplusandrew.com

  7. avatar Nicole-Lynn reply

    We used http://www.mywedding.com! Free and will always be available to look at, doesn’t expire. After the wedding I plan to load the pages onto a cd so we can keep it forever :)

  8. avatar Alex reply

    We used Weddingjojo.com and loved it! The customer service was great and they made one of the themes into a custom colorway for our wedding.

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Chelle + Tim’s outdoor reception at the Pine Rose Cabins looks so effortlessly summery and relaxed, I can’t help but wish the SW teams were on the West Coast.  Sarah Rosenberger, one of Chelle’s bridesmaids, styled the fresh white and yellow blooms, and Jensen’s of Lake Arrowhead designed the too-cute bird cake.  Just one question, C + T: was that cake as delicious as looked?  Since we know y’all love pretty things, there are more shots from the rustic wedding from The Brothers Wright

Tell us about finding your wedding dress: My Mom and sister both live in Oklahoma, and I live in Long Beach, CA.  In October of 2009, they both flew out for a girls’ weekend of celebrating and dress shopping.  A few bridesmaids came along, and we spent the day at bridal boutiques in Southern California.  It was so special to be able to share this moment with them.
Describe your wedding flowers:
I love the look of renunculas, and yellow is my favorite color, so that set the foundation of our flowers and color scheme.  I knew I wanted to find an alternative to traditional bouquets and boutonnières, though, so we eventually discovered handmade flowers in a shop in OKC made from neckties.  My father and grandfather had a ton of neckties they no longer wore, and we were able to find a few more at thrift stores.  The bridesmaid bouquets were also made from these and finished with vintage buttons from my grandmother’s sewing box.
Describe your wedding cake: Our cake was three tiers, each a different flavor. We used a pine tree round from the Pine Rose Cabin properties for the cake stand.

What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Tim makes films for a living, and wanted to create a film to show at the reception of each of us answering the same questions about each other, (e.g. where we met, how he proposed, what we love about each other, etc.).  Towards the end of the film, Tim went to great lengths to describe the proposal. Unbeknownst to me, Tim’s best man, Ben, had secretly hidden a camera in the bushes on the mountaintop where Tim proposed.  I was able to watch him propose to me at our wedding, and it was absolutely priceless.
Did you write your own vows?  If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line? 
We did write our own vows, in addition to repeating traditional vows.  It was shocking how similar they were to each other’s!
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future?
We still live in Long Beach, are continuing in our current professions and hope to have children sometime in the next 5 years.  For now, we’re enjoying being newlyweds.

Written with love by Southern Weddings
3 Comments
  1. avatar janis reply

    thanks for this post! sweet, original and inspiring…

  2. avatar WeddingXpert reply

    How inspirational! I adore the window pane with photographs and the personalized wine labels. Oh yea, and I’m totally obsessed with that cake! What a cute couple with a beautiful, creative vision. I love love love it!

  3. avatar Dennis @ Wholesale Roses reply

    I am a fanatic for all things rustic. In my personal opinion Chelle + Tim have great taste in wedding decor.

Southern Weddings reserves the right to delete comments which contain profanity or personal attacks or seek to promote a business unrelated to the post.  And remember: a good attitude is like kudzu – it spreads.  We love hearing your kind thoughts!

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