Well, here we are, with 2 months to go before our wedding. I'm calm, for the most part. So, since everything is planned, I thought I'd tell everyone on all the little details of our wedding. We, and when I see we I mean me, have everything planned. Also, I like to DIY a lot of things with our wedding being one of them. Wedding invitations are mailed out so I'm ready for RSVPs to start pouring in(hopefully) and finish the last details of our wedding. Here is what "I" have chosen for our wedding and WE are both excited and can't wait for it to get here!

Wedding Colors: I always knew I wanted pink, it's my favorite color. So, pink ended up being the main color with accents of cream, black and a bit of gray. Pink and cream will be our main colors. They are featured in wedding invitations, programs, centerpieces, bouquets and pocket squares.

Black comes in with the bridesmaids. I had zero luck finding any bridesmaid dresses that I loved and we're not ridiculously expensive, so I decided to have the girls pick their own dress. Since black is the easiest color to match, I went with that. There is a little gray in our wedding invitations and our bird seed packages, which I love it paired with everything, so I may try to incorporate it elsewhere.

Wedding Location: Of course, one of my earlier posts explains how we settled on Anthony Chapel at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, AR. I'm still so excited I picked it and can't wait to see it in the springtime with all the beautiful flowers. Now, I'm just hoping for a bright and sunny day with no rain.

Dancing & Drinks: While down in Hot Springs, we checked out a few locations for our wedding reception. In the end, we chose The Porterhouse for our reception. It features 3 rooms that will offer a place for eating, dancing and playing pool. I love how the room looks and think it will portray our wedding. Hopefully, our guests will love the room and the food that will be provided.

The Flowers: Once I started the wedding planning, and I saw pictures of peonies and hydrangeas, I knew I wanted those for my wedding flowers. I love them. A single peony will serve as the bridesmaid bouquets, peonies and hydrangeas will create my wedding bouquet. They will adorn every table as centerpieces at the reception.

I threw in a few branches and lace to create beautiful finishing touches for the wedding. Although, I did throw some carnations in there to represent my sorority flower and use them for the flower girl's kissing ball and corsages. I can't wait to see everything together!

Let Them Eat Cake: There will be a wedding cake, groom's cake and mini cupcakes! We figure our guests will be up moving around a lot so mini cupcakes are great to pop in your mouth and go. We actually have chosen 6 different flavors to fit every taste bud that are sooo yummy!

Of course, there had to be a wedding cake for cutting purposes and it's a simple 2-tiered cake with a feather cake topper. I forgot to mention that I love feathers and have incorporated them into a centerpiece, corsages, cake and my reception dress. Bart isn't a big fan like me.

The thing I'm really excited about, because I thought it'd be a nice surprise for Bart, is his groom's cake. A fun 3D sport's cake featuring a St. Louis Cardinals hat on a baseball field. Hopefully he'll love it! I love sweets and can't wait to eat all the delicious flavors that we'll have at the reception.

Thank You For Coming: For our wedding favors, we have chosen personalized koozies, setting up a candy buffet and having a photobooth. So excited about everything! That might have been my biggest problem during the planning process, I needed to have restraint. I love photobooths, our fun props and the fact that one of the pictures will go in our guest book and another picture will be something the guest can take home with them. The koozies have our names and the candy is more for looks, but I'm sure people will enjoy it too.

Of course, this isn't all of our details. There's the wedding dress, bridal party gifts, photography and all the little details that I've included in our wedding that I love. We can't wait for it to all come together and for the day to get here!

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One of the first things after I got engaged, I started researching photographers. To me, that's one of my top priorities for our wedding. Pictures are very important to me since they capture your whole day and you'll always have them to look to for a reminder. I LOVE pictures and don't mind being in them.

Bart on the other hand, is not a big fan. Whenever we go somewhere, I always have pictures of me with my friends, but none of me and him together. What a picture downer. Anyways, I wanted to share our story of how I researched photographers. Plus, all the details on our engagement session.

Again, pictures are very important to me. I researched, researched and researched to find the one. Thankfully, I've had a lot of friends recently get married or get engaged so I've gotten to  to look at their pictures to see what I like. I figured out what type of photography style I liked and found the perfect engagement photographer, Megan Burges Photography.

I emailed Megan, telling her how much I loved her work and asked if we could schedule a date. I didn't ask for references, samples or anything like that. I just knew, same with my wedding photographer. Falling in love with their work and imagining you in their photos is a must. So I scheduled a date and now it was time to start picking out outfits. Bart was thrilled!

Another thing I love, besides photography and Bart are clothes. I have a ton of clothes and probably buy something new once a week, if not more. Something I need to control, but only in Bart's opinion. Of course, he's total opposite and only gets new clothes whenever I buy him something. With that being said, I knew he would NEVER in a million years want to change clothes for these pictures. I'm lucky I even got some sort of smirk out of him.

Anyways, that's a whole story on it's own. I love dresses, fur vest and boots. So why not include them in our picture? I also am big on off the shoulder tops, I think I'll include that too! I went to my favorite store and had them help me find something. A good reason to go shopping. For Bart, I chose a button up shirt with jeans. He looks good in blue and always has a pretty casual look. I was satisfied and he didn't know what he was wearing until the day of. Typical boys. I think we looked cute.

We went for an urban sort of feel in the downtown area and then took it outside to the park. I let the photographer take over. She knew exactly what she wanted and what poses looked good. So I went with it, I was up for anything and knew she would get amazing shots. She did.

We narrowed down our favorite pictures, including the one with our favorite dog, and ordered our pictures. However, it did take us a few weeks to select the ones we wanted, we loved them all. All my expectations were beyond exceeded!

So when searching for an engagement photographer or wedding photographer, research. Find someone who represents your style. Someone that you're truly in love with. That's how you find the photographer for your engagement and wedding.

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Photos taken by Megan Burges Photography.

Wedding planning is in full force and I hope you're ready to hear what I've done next. Since my location and date are set, the next thing I wanted to check off my wedding to-do list was my wedding dress. This won't come out of a lot of bride's mouths, but wedding dress shopping was extremely easy for me. However, wedding dress shopping is a must for all weddings. It provides a memorable experience that you won't soon forget throughout your wedding planning process. Here's my wedding dress shopping experience that I got to share with my mom. I absolutely loved that I got to share this time with her and there were even a few tears. Hope you enjoy!

Style Number And All!

I'm probably unlike many girls and knew exactly which dress I wanted when I walked through the door, style number and all! Even though I knew which dress was for me, I still wanted to try on all the beautiful dresses that I saw. I loved browsing through all the different styles and did somewhat question my choice, since there are a tons of different gowns out there.

A Little Researching

So, I'm sure you've read that I have a lot of friends getting married. Which, benefited me because I saw the exact style dress I wanted on one of my friends. I searched beautiful wedding dresses online through various websites to find a similar style, which is unique and a new wedding trend. Exactly what I wanted! However, I always said since I was a little girl I wanted a princess, extremely poufy wedding dress.

I'm sorry, I don't want to explain my wedding dress at all since me and the groom are doing the not seeing each other the night before the wedding and especially my dress. I want it to be a surprise and I can't wait to see the look on his face when I finally walk through those doors.

Finding The One

Anyways, I was so set on this dress that I was just going to order it without even trying it on. Mom talked me out of that afraid that I wouldn't like the fit on me. I trusted her and found a bridal gown shop close by and scheduled a time to go look at it. We went one Saturday and when I walked through those doors, and my dress was the first dress I saw. It was fate!

I grabbed it up and immediately put it in a dressing room. We then started browsing through different styles, I seemed to be picking out the same style of dress and mom started picking out long-sleeved gowns. Not really what I had in mind, but I offered to try it on if she absolutely wanted me too. Thank goodness she didn't care.

The dress I picked out before I even got to the store was the first one I tried on, mom's tears began to fall. I tried on several more and it was narrowed down to two dresses that I loved. However, I had to stick with the one that I knew was "the one". So the dress is ordered and the waiting begins for the arrival!

Well, here is my "say yes to the dress" moment, and if there is anything you can possibly take away from this dress story, it would be to look at a lot of wedding gown photos to get some sort of an idea of what style you would like.

However, it could all change once you get in the dressing room. It's moments like these that makes wedding planning all worth while, and especially once you walk down that aisle. Can't wait for everyone to see my dress!

The wedding location was one of the most important things to me, right behind finding an amazing wedding photographer. The wedding location paints a picture-perfect setting for anyone's wedding day.  A wedding location can set the tone and provide a feeling that everyone will be able to feel.  Plus, it's in all your wedding photos as a background so it has to show off the style of the couple.

My Picture Perfect Setting!

I wanted to do something different and we both wanted a smaller wedding, so that was our starting point. Normally, everyone gets married in their church and has the reception at the community center.  Which is completely fine, but would have ended up being way too big of a wedding for us. We're definitely a little shy and not an attention stealer.  People have even asked our parents if we even talk when we're together, we're both so quiet.  I'd like to say that is definitely not the case, he says I talk too much!

Anyways, a year or so ago I ran across a wedding that was in Hot Springs, Arkansas at a gorgeous chapel.  I have been to Hot Springs when I was younger with one of my bridesmaids and her family, so I was already familiar with the location and really enjoyed it.

Anyways, I immediately googled it and found Anthony Chapel at Garvan Gardens.  It was absolutely beautiful so right then I knew that's where my wedding was going to be held.  Also, it suited our smaller wedding preference.  It's around a 4 hour drive from our hometown so we knew the people who meant the most to us and wanted to be there would be there.  The absolute perfect wedding location for us!

After Bart finallyyyy proposed, we set a weekend to look at the chapel and explore Hot Springs.  My parents and Bart had never been there so it was fun!  It was even more beautiful in person!  My parents loved it and so did Bart.  However, there were reservations in making everyone drive 4 hours.  My parents gave their opinion on finding a closer location if not at home.  Once I get my mind-set on something, there's no going back.  I did research other locations, but nothing compared.  I presented all my counter arguments and won the battle, like I knew I would.

Finding A Reception Venue

Wedding reception venue was important to me too.  I wanted a fun place that had a great feeling and had the perfect layout.  However, I would like everyone to be proud of me because the room I chose is not the one we went with.  Bart won!  While we were in Hot Springs, I scheduled a few appointments to visit several wedding reception sites.  We already ruled the gardens out, which would have been convenient and beautiful.

However, we are planning around 50 guests and didn't want it to be outside and all of their inside spots were way too big for our wedding size.  This is a good thing to think about when planning a wedding because if you get a wedding venue too big for your small wedding, it'll look like you have 10 guests in the place.

First stop was one of Hot Spring's bath row houses.   It was so pretty and would have been really convenient for my wedding day prep since it is a spa, but this place was just a little too small.  Me, my parents and his mom loved it.  It was bright, big windows and absolutely gorgeous.  Bart liked it but thought it was too small and we would have been cramped. However, it was so so pretty!

Next stop was one of Hot Spring's delicious restaurants, The Porterhouse.  They showed us 2 rooms and provided the catering, which was a big plus for us.  This place was the opposite.  It was dark and had an old, vintage feel.  The first room had a place for all the tables, dancing and the dj.  This was the room I chose because I liked everyone being together.

Next, it was on to the second banquet room.  There were 3 separate rooms, including a place for dining, dancing and a billiards room.  It was neat and provided tons of entertainment for everyone but I didn't want anyone to miss our first dance and just not be altogether.  Bart shared his arguments, which were his friends might get a little crazy so it might be a good idea to separate our parents and grandparents from them.  Good thinking!  I gave in!

My Mind Was Set On The Perfect Date!

I had it all planned out in my mind when I wanted our wedding to happen.  April 2011 or January 2012 were the months I picked out.  I had January pictured as the perfect winter wedding month.  I picked April because I wasn't into a Summer wedding, plus a ton of people I know are getting married in the Summer of 2011.  Very, very busy!

My mom suggested I wait until April 2012, which would give me plenty of time.  However, me being stubborn wanted it the next year because waiting over a year would just be too long for me.  April 30th was picked because that was one of the 2 weekends still open for the chapel.  In the end, it worked out so great because April 30 is Bart's grandparent's anniversary.  They were absolutely thrilled!

Finding the perfect wedding location was on the top of my wedding checklist.  It means a lot to get married in a beautiful chapel and to have our close family and friends there.  Plus, sharing a wedding date with his grandparents makes it that more special.  Now, what I'd like you to take away from this is don't settle on just any old location.  This is YOUR wedding day and you'll remember it a lifetime.  Now, to take care of the million and one things left on my wedding to-do-list!

Hi, I'm Kelly and recently started writing for Wedding and Party Network, which is perfect because I am in the process of planning a wedding.  Perfect timing.  I thought it would be a fun experience to write about it, provide a few wedding ideas and keep people entertained with my fun wedding stories.  I will be talking about the ups, downs, my wedding diy's and all the wedding planning in between.  So I hope you enjoy!

The Perfect Proposal

First off, I will provide some background on us.  Meet Bart, a laid back guy who enjoys watching baseball and movies.  I'm not so laid back at all, could honestly care less about baseball and can barely find time to sit down to actually watch a movie.  Not opposite at all!  How did we meet?  I was actually really good friends with his sister, I knew she had a brother, but never met him until after 4 years of knowing her.

We finally met and the next week we were on our first date.  We clicked and have been together a little over 5 years now, 5 years and no proposal. Another fun fact to go along with the proposal story, we have a lovable, wonderful and amazing Pomeranian named Bella who is the absolute best dog in the world.  If you can't tell, she's our number one kid!

Now, this is the perfect proposal for us! I have been talking wedding nonstop because 5 years of waiting is a bit ridiculous for me and I was ready.  I'm not big on surprises and enjoy knowing them so I was actually telling him how I would like my wedding proposal done, preferably at an airport.  I thought it would be the sweetest thing to be proposed to in an airport, however that didn't happen.  It was better.  We had already gone and looked at engagement rings so he knew exactly which one I wanted, like the one from Tiffany's.  Which again, didn't happen but he did an amazing job picking out my ring!  I'm very proud!

I come home one day talking on the phone, give Bart a quick hi and run upstairs to finish my conversation.  Of course, I was talking wedding with one of my friends, who is actually going to be one of my maid of honors.  After 30 minutes on the phone I get off and I see Bart walking in the room.  With wedding on my mind, I say, "When are you going to propose?!".  He laughs and says, "I don't know Kelly" and  then proceeded to tell me if I found the ring I could have it.

Frustrated I decided to give up and get on the treadmill and Bart being amused goes back downstairs.  With little motivation, I start to get ready for the treadmill and then I hear Bella come racing up the stairs.  I look down to see her wearing a t-shirt saying, "Will you marry me?"

Bart follows and gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him and opens up an empty ring box.  I think I responded with "Are you serious?"  Bart finally asks me if that means yes.  Well, of course it does!  The empty ring box was perfect because he still hadn't found the perfect ring for me yet, which meant he was truly looking.  I finally got it and it's perfect!

Later, he ended up telling me how he had found someone to actually monogram the shirt, but I was pestering him way too much that he decided to just make it by himself.  This was the perfect proposal for us because it incorporated Bella.

This is the first wedding post with more to come.  I've recently booked the perfect chapel, reception venue and photographer.  I'm a big planner and have everything exactly planned out in my head so I hope you enjoy my wedding process as much as I do!