So its over a month that my wedding took place and now the pictures are starting to come back. YAY!

Here are some of the pics from my DIY wedding. These are my bridesmaids retying some strings on the back of my dress. All of them wore different dresses. That's my Dad on the side.

A pic of us after we're married. I did my own flowers as well as the guys and all the girls flowers. Its hard to see the decorations of the church here, but you can make out the branches that we sprayed and glittered ourselves and the flowers for the pews. The front of the church, when I ran out of time, I got a florist to put it together for me for $100.00 (All silk). Oh yeah, notice my Ebay veil!.....it was the bomb!

This is what all the girls looked like in their different dresses. I really loved it. My sister was able to alter many of the girls dresses for free, as well as alter the flower girl dresses. We bought them plain white dresses and my sister was able to add blue to the bottom of the skits and blue bows on the bodice (hard to see in this pic). I got up at 6am that morning to complete all the flowers you see here, including the ones for the parents and ushers.Ok, so my veil is shorter, but its the same veil from Ebay. It detached and I only paid about $20.00 something dollars for it...YAY EBAY. The hall came with all the tables and chairs, etc. The hall catered as well. We came in on the Friday before the wedding and set everything up! My dress, was my splurge item. You can only see the tall centerpieces  but there were short ones too. My husband's cousins are DJ's in Miami, and they did our wedding for free. WE also had live music (The band from the church brought their instruments to the hall...something I did not even know was going to take place).

All in all it was a perfect day. I did mny things on my own and with the help of my cousins. My hair was done at the flea market near my Aunt's house by this really nice guy, I paid $60.00I got the jewels for my hair on 20th street I believe. see my veil again...The girl standing next to me, my MOH did my makeup (cause she always does when we go out and I always like how it looks..more pics to come about the makeup, it was perfect)...

OK, So I have been so busy that I have not been able to write anything. Planning a wedding in Miami, from Richmond....well I'm not sure why I thought I was super woman...I'm quickly learning that my super powers could only go so far.

The updates are:

I tried my dress on a weekend trip to Miami, found out that I lost 5 punds, but I am certain I can put that back on since I was sick with the flu (hence the weight loss). Lucky for me, my dress laces up in the back, so the can pull it as tight as they want until it fits...lol. Unfortunately, because I was on my way back from Orlando (dealing with an aunt who is making our wedding cake) on the same day that I went t pick up my dress and wanted to get there before the store closed (I had a flight to catch back to Richmond at 6am the next morning, plus a midterm), I was not able to try it on with my veil. Right now, it only matches in my mind...I hope it does in person too.

The girls dresses came and I could not help but think that maybe it was the wrong color. I even called the shop just to confirm that it was the right color. Can you say a bridezilla moment? One bridesmaid out of my 12 still has nt got her dress as yet..they told her the first week in December!!!!! Yea....that made my nerves jump up a little especially since she is in  Hartford, CT and not in Miami and even plans to go to Trinidad for Christmas and fly into Ft. Lauderdale the day of the rehearsal...I'm more worried about getting her dress steamed...

If that's not enough, the groomsmen are waiting until last minute to get measured for their suits....not like the Groom has done this as yet either...I have given them until December 1st to get it done...

My matron of honor had to move to Orlando to take another job there, so .....well that says all for itself. She is no longer in Miami...to help me out with everything either. :(.  My maid of honor lives in Fairfield CT.

Don't forget that I move in two weeks and have convinced my professors to let me take all my finals early which means that I have to complete all the coursework before I leave here which is in two weeks. I'm probably going to spend my Thanksgiving packing..lol..

I have managed to kinda complete our wedding program BUT one of the soloists just came back from Africa and she may not be able to sing again since she became very ill from her trip..no not deadly sick, but it has to do something with her vocal chords.

I am yet to purchase everything else to complete my dress, as in shoe etc. Yet to find a hairstylist in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area, probably have to do my own makeup, which I don't have a problem with, but I need the time to practice, something I'm short of on tse days...

Oh the icing on the cake....our guest list is still not complete...why because there are certain family members that keep telling us they are not sure, they are not sure...I'm this close to just closing the list and saying that's it....they had over 5 months to decide, this is why I gave them all that time cause I know how they are...and yet they cannot make a decision. To me an indecision at this point in the game means you're not coming, but maybe they are afraid to just say so.

I'm not even going to get into the whole drama with the women in both families trying to add their two cents to how the wedding should be, and what they think is best....while totally trying to disregard what we think...but I had to solve that real quick...bringing a planner for the day before the wedding and the day off the wedding.

Our florist moved...or closed up business....lucky we never made a payment as yet....so right now I'm doing my own flowers...getting them from online and something simple...

I am looking for wording to the sand ceremony....started my seating charts (of course in pencil with many extra copies), working on a time line for the day and the day before, trying to find people to pick up family and guests who are flying into town to try to help them save money on really expensive car rentals...trying to make sure that all the out of town guests book their hotel rooms before the deadline so that they get the special price we got them....helping people and family find plane tickets and ways to get to the wedding (My fiance and I run our own travel website/business) and planning a rehearsal lunch/dinner (my parents/famil mostly live overseas and in other states in the US). Working on making the programs too..

Probably my biggest frustration is that now that its coming close to the time of our wedding that everyone is eager to help, but has their own idea of how to help if that makes any sense to you.

The good thing is that everything that has been done so far looks really beautiful.....so I know in the end it will look relaly pretty and the day will go really well.....just at the moment...its seems like there's a million things to do before we get to the end.

So if you have been following my blog you know that I have 12 bridesmaids, well 10 and a maid and a matron of honor and I allowed them to choose their own dresses, in a color that I approved from the same store...Alfred Angelo. Well if you follow my blog, you'd also know that I'm away from all the wedding stuff so I have not really been able to see the girls try on their dresses. However my sister, being the great sister she is (she's 17) took a picture of herself in her dress (she's in Trinidad) an sent it to me. It really made me know that the colors and the dresses really look great. Here is her pic for you to see.

Its really gorgeous...as is my little sis :)

OK, so for those following my blog, you aleady know that I was looking for a veil, on a budget, that was nice. I was not about to pay about $400.00 for something I was just going to end up taking after the ceremony (and pics). So you all gave me great suggestions, and the one that won was EBAY! I searched for a while and found the perfect veil. And only paid $37.00 dollars for it....in ivory (the color of the pictures are in white). I was not expecting much, but when I opened it, and and saw the detail and the quality and the shine from the beadwork in the light......omg...its just so beautiful.

I really wanted these as gifts for my guests, but who can afford that. Instead, I am giving them to my bridesmaids. Since they have different dresses, I tried to personalize all the gifts as well, of course while staying WAY under the budget for these items. Hopefully they will love them. All pics from Favor Warehouse

I got these for both my sister-in-law to be and one of my sisters. They love everything BUtterflies. Oh it comes already wrapped in the boxes as well (saves me time)

I got these for my Matron and Maid of honor. They are as precious as they are rare!

These I got for two of my girls. I got them hearts because when I think of them, I think of all the love they have for everyone.

This is a cute one. One of my bridesmaids, her name is Candice, but eveyone calls her Candy for short. I just had to have it.

My other sister loves teddy bears. I know she will treasure this.

I got this for one of my cousins (also my bridesmaid), who really needs some self assurance. (hey they are gifts with a message ...lol) Yes, maybe her life was once not so prety, but....I see her as a beautiful young lady that's striving to be great.

I got this for another cousin (the one I talked about above, her sister) She's a little older than the other one, and I think she needs to learn to love herself some more. (They had a rought childhood, their Mom left them and they are trying to find or replace that love. The family tries as much as it can to help with that)

This is for my little cousin-in-law....she's the youngest bridesmaid (but too old to be a junior bridesmaid), but she's a darling angel

This is a crystal replica of a Sarowski one tht my FH gave me when he asked me to be his girlfiend. This one I am giving to my cousin Lace. It was at her birthday party that we met :)

Total cost of gifts for my bridesmaids with shipping $37.84 ( and they are all gift wrapped)

Hopefully, the look on their faces when they open it, priceless because its not a watch, jewerly or something they got as a bridesmaid before.

This is how it looks when its open. I like the inside....thought you may want to see

So this is one place that I splurged. I had to have this dress after trying it on. While I'm on a budget, just any dress won't do. I love my Alfred Angelo dress from their Picionne line.

This is the front of my dress

The back of my dress, which I really, really love.

I am going to wear this gown with a cathedral veil, however I cannot get over the fact that the veil that goes with this dress costs like 499.99 I'm not sure I want to spend that much on something I'm only going to wear for an hour. I am looking for alternatives (going to Davids Bridal or something like that to see if I can find something similar for a better price....other idea, maybe asking if I can buy the one they have right off the rack. And, trying to hit one of their trunk shows to see if I can get a cheaper price there.)

The Reception Hall: The name I choose for myelf should tell the story. I'm a student. I'm not sure how many students you know that have 25 to 35 K just sitting around doing nothing (even though my FH ahs a good job we're not about to blow it all on our wedding) With that said, in Miami, it was hard finding a place that we would work into our budget. Which I won't reveal until the end of the wedding, but right now we're still under budget. There were many great places, but the prices were way, way above what we wanted to spend. And the places that were lower than what we wanted to spend, were places that we did not like (the location sucked).

Just when I was about to say well, we may have to have the reception at our church hall, which is newly renovated, but definately allowed for wedding crashers (since we did not invite everyone from church) I came across this really good book on Amazon that I bought before I made my final decision. Its one of those books that give you ideas on where to save money on your wedding, where to spend etc. Eventually after reading that section I had a better understanding of what I was looking for and started looking at museums and not profit organizations that have halls. I saw some, they were ok, but either did not look like it was wedding like, or would take too much money to transform it into a great space. I may be on a budget, but I'm still stylish! That's when I started looking into goverment agencies. In the city of Miramar, the city has a lovely reception hall, gorgeous grounds, but did not hold as many people as we would want. So that did not work, but gave me hope!. After searching and researching, I found what I was looking for, 30 minutes away. (not that far, but far enough, but worth it). Its the grand ballroom of the Sunrise civic Center. Now sounds like a dull place with grey walls right? Yeah that's what my FH thought too, but he was blown away with what he saw. And I think so was I. I was not expecting that much. Jim, my caterer has worked as a chef for top hotels and resturants in Miami/South Beach area and now runs the ballroom with his staff. Since it belongs to the city, we paid the CITY for the use of the space. It was like $400.00... and the rest we pay for the catering and the space which includes, seating for 335 people ( more than we needed, but we have the entire ballroom) they have two huge chandeliers, maybe its three. They provide the tables, chairs (which are soft and cushiony...the tables seat 10, but because the chairs, they only seat 8), they provide the dance floor, the cake table, sweetheart table, all the tablecloths, everything for dinner service and a toast. We decided not to get the cocktail hour which really added to the price of the dinner per person. We decided on a chicken dish, and a vegetarian dish since we have many vegetarian people attending (and because Jim understood that this was a religious reason, he did not charge us that split menu that other places were eager to charge for offering us that option). The only thing we have to bring to the hall are the people, the centerpieces, the cake and our own DJ. (I will post pictures of the reception hall for you guys to see....again, I'm on a budget, but it still has to be stylish!)

this is the picture of the ballroom taken from the outisde. As shown on the sunrise civic center website.

IT really does not look that red anymore..lol...

These are some pictures that we took ourselves outisde of the hall. That is the entrance that our guests will go through. This gave us a good idea about how it will look at night..

This is where the limo will dive up....or car, or whatever we're getting there in..lol

This is another foutain on the other side of the hall....

Maybe we can take pictures here.....

They have really nice areas. There are some tables on the side of this that I imagine people can sit at and look at the water (the pool has a waterfall in the back)

The pool area

We can take nice pictures there as well.

This is actually the color of the dresses that I choose for the girls. No one picked this style, but its the closet color of the dresses I could find on their website (Alfred Angelo)

This is actually the idea that inspired the look of the church that we are going for. I found this picture on Save On Crafts website.

Its official. We are breaking with tradition. We are going to take all our formal pictures before the wedding. As in we're going to arrive to the church about an hour and a half before everyone else and take all our formal family pictures, pictures with bridal party etc. Other than we wanted to see each other before we got married (at the church....may help with my nerves) here are some other reasons we came up with.

We have decided on this for a couple of reasons, and in turn it has brought up a couple of questions too.

Reasons.

1. We really value our guests and their time. Most of them are flying from all over the U.S. and London and the Caribbean just to be at our event. We don't want to have our guests waiting for us at the reception hall while we take our time to take pictures.

2. I've been to enough weddings where everything at the reception is rushed because the bridal party took forever taking pictures. So when they arrived at the reception hall, they had to rush everything, even leaving out things they wanted to do.

3. I have a huge bridal party. We have 12 girls and 12 guys, 2 flower girls, a Bible Boy, a ring bearer, my parents, his mother and her boyfriend, his father and his wife and new family. I have 5 siblings, he has 3. We have about a million aunts and ...well you get the picture. Having pictures before hand ensures that the important people are there ON TIME....meaning, me, the groom, our bridal party, and parents. (That's a lot of pictures)

4. We want to have pictures outdoors (lucky for us the reception hall has nice areas for this) but it is December (in Miami) and it is going to get dark relatively fast after the cermeony.

5. I never liked the idea of a receiving line...with my bridal party and our invitation to the entire church to see us get married (cause we could not afford to invite everyone that has seen my FH grow up in the church) we'd be there for hours after which again is unfair to our guests.

6. Our reception hall is 30 minutes away from the church. (Sounds mean, but we wanted somewhere really nice for our guests (mostly family) and we wanted it to be far away enough from the church (because weddings have been crashed in the past by people who think they could just show up and be served....I may actually have to have a bouncer at the front door....well not a bouncer, but we will definately have a guest list at the door.....people at church are saying this is the wedding of the century (at the church)...they've been waiting for my FH to get married for years now). So anyway, if we do our pictures first, we can leave right after and have enough time for travel.

Things that have come up as a result.

1. We're getting to church earlier than everyone else. There should be no one even there when we get there, other than maybe last minute touch ups and flower stuff. So I'm really wondering if I need to get a limo! (What do you guys think?) I mean its not like people are going to see us when we arrive. However I do have about 30-35 people to move to the church. After researching limo prices, it will be insane for them to wait from 1:30 until about 4:30 since the ceremony itself starts at 3:30 and then drive us 30 minutes away. I'm not sold on the idea as yet of not having a limo, but I'm also not sold on the ide of having one to take us to the church either. I am considering pictures with the limo too as one of the reasons that we get it.

2. As an alternative I was thinking of having limo's from when the ceremony is over. What do you think?

3. I have two cousins who have two new Jags. I'm thinking that this can possibly be our transport to the church and have the bridal party follow behind.

4. This also means that my girls have to be at my cousins house (that's where we're getting ready) at an earlier time, and I will provide them with something to eat

Ok, so we are going to have tall and short centerpieces. This is just a really rough draft of what we think the tall one would look like. Of course with a few more calla's shooting out from the top, and its actually going to sit up a little higher (the calla's), they just kept falling through all the holes in the foam. My cousin came up with the idea, and we like it. She's making all of them. She found the vase at Ross for $8.00 and so we're on a major hunt for vases from Ross. Its a scavanger hunt. The foam will also be actually glued to the vase so you won't see it in the end either.

The inside of the vase we have not decised what we're doing as yet, but seeing the stems of the flowers is not part of the idea. Maybe we'd put colored water or something. still thinking it through. What do you guys think? Oh and disregard the bow.....we took that out of the idea too.

I can use you ideas for the vase :)