Giving back...to your entourage

We all know brides get to be pampered throughout their engagement, but what about their friends? Yes, their guests are treated to a fabulous wedding (and often, welcome bags), but what about the other events? 


As a bridesmaid, while prepping for the bride-to-be's bachelorette weekend at the beach, I decided to put together some fun goodies for the entourage. 

Flip flops EVERYWHERE

The first project was to make personalized cups for each of the attendees. I used plastic martini glasses purchased from Party City and a simple Sharpie. Each glass had the girl's name + "C___'s Bachelorette 2010" around the base.

In production

In use for the champagne toast

If you look to the left of the photo, you can see one cup that doesn't match (the horror!!). Well, it seemed unfair not to give the bachelorette special treatment! We gave her this fancy glass from Lolita and, let me tell you, it got a LOT of action over the weekend!

Poof not included

Beside the cups, I decided to do gift bags since, well, who doesn't like gifts!?!? This started with paper gift bags from Party City, personalized again with their name and "C____'s Bachelorette" (this time I just used Crayola markers).

The bachelorette gets a special one!

In the gift bags, we looked to include some things that would fit for both the beach...and a bachelorette! Here's a look at some of our items (full list below).

No tan lines!

Cure hangovers

Put a ring on it

Catch up on your gossip

The full list: bachelorette mints, candy, chap stick, granola bars, magazines, pain reliever, ring mints, sunscreen and, of course, the water bottles! Added to the bachelorette bag: bachelorette sash, boa, flashing button and monogrammed tissues.

All in all, the details were both recognized and enjoyed - from the tableware to the glasses. The gift bags were a HUGE hit, especially the magazines and the pain relievers! It was well worth the effort and I definitely plan to do again, for my own bachelorette, with only minimal adjustment (like maybe Wal-Mart instead of CVS purchases, more specific to location, etc. - more on that to come). 

What have you seen or done at bachelorette parties that you think is worth repeating?

How Do You Do?

[waves hello]

Hi there! I can't believe that I'm writing this post...it feels so surreal and I am just so SO honored. In the course of a couple of hours, I went from emailing Mrs. Penguin about whether my auto response (you know, for rejection) had gone to my email doppleganger* to receiving an invitation to join the Hive. WOW.

How to save the date? - Part IV

If you missed anything, here are links to Part I, Part II and Part III.

As you saw, we had 5 top choices from our engagement session for the photo on our save the date...so which one did we choose?

They're HEREEEEEE
Seriously, when I picked up this bag I was giddy with excitement

Engagement Session

Our engagement session came just shortly after our venue change, so we felt like we had a fresh start! The plan was to do photos around the historic Old City section of Philadelphia since we would be on the other side for the wedding (Mr. Turkey is also a big history buff). We had a GORGEOUS day for our engagement pictures with our fantastic photographer and our slight nerves were calmed almost instantly.

There were definitely some awkward photos at the start!

All photos in this post are by Philip Gabriel Photography.

Embracing the New (Venue)!

So, we had a replacement for the Kimmel Center on the table.

With what we knew - both about the new option and the (lack of) other options for 05/XX/12 - it was nearly set that we would have our wedding at The Rittenhouse. However, we couldn't seal the deal sight unseen, so my mom came down from NY the next day to make the visit with me*. Be prepared for a very picture-heavy post!

Picture Love

This is a bit out of order, but since I'm about to tell you about our engagement session, it probably makes sense to tell you about our photographer (you know, the one taking the pictures).

Although I haven't talked at all about photography, it was something that was very important to us. I LOVE pictures and am known for always having a camera with me (seriously - every day). In fact, in college, many of my girlfriends didn't have cameras since they knew I would be prepared.

Designated photographer at a bridal shower

My love of photography led me to peruse many blogs and websites after our engagement. Too many to even remember. I didn't even keep track, to be honest. Yes, I'm a terrible blogger.

Really really ridiculously good...

handwriting.

As I mentioned, we received our Save the Date envelopes early so that I could get working on the calligraphy for the envelopes. My main artistic skill has always been my penmanship - since I was a kid (sorry - no long lost samples of my journals to insert here). And to answer one of the most asked questions - no, I did not attend a Catholic school.

I thought it would be fun to do the calligraphy for our paper products, but, somewhat more importantly, I thought our friends and family would expect it. Seriously - for those who know me well, if I had paid for calligraphy it would have been...I'd argue...disappointing. Even Mr. Turkey took it for granted.

Lucky

While reading this post, you may question my choice of title...but stick it out, OK?

It was an average fall day...one of my final summer Fridays* of the year. The sun was shining and there were just over 2 hours until I planned to spend my afternoon wandering the Philadelphia streets for a bit (I really wanted a late lunch from the Guapos Taco truck).

Where my brain was
Source

As I was imagining my delicious Mexican snack, my phone buzzed on the desk, listing "Jen from Kimmel Center" as the caller. I picked up and cheerily said "Hi Jen - Happy Friday!" Her response did not seem as peppy and when she mentioned that her colleague was with her on the call, I got a strange feeling. However, I did not expect what she said to me:

"Miss Turkey - we're sorry to tell you that we're no longer going to be able to hold your wedding at the Kimmel Center on May XX, 2012."

How to save the date? - Part III

So the paper store route did not work out and I was headed down the custom path. I started googling away for "custom invitations Philly" and found that, in the area, there seemed to be a lot of options...all with great reputations. I looked at all their samples, blogs, client commentary, etc. However, I kept going back to the website of one - Two Paperdolls.

Source

Photos like the one above were drawing me in - so pretty! so coordinated! I couldn't resist scheduling an appointment.

How to save the date? - Part II

When I last left you, I was armed with my doodles and heading off to visit some vendors who might be able to help me with our paper products. As fun as it might have been, I did not think that I had either the talent or tools (no Cricut or Gocco for this girl) or time to conquer them on my own!

I started with a trip to the new Paper Source store in Center City on my walk home (dangerous...dangerous, I tell you).

Source

How to save the date? - Part I

Time to get to what was / is probably my favorite part of the wedding planning process - paper products!!

I love paper. I have a ridiculous collection of stationary (including way too many thank you notes) and if you put me anywhere near a Paper Source or Papyrus, I'm guaranteed to walk away a little lighter in the wallet.

Last Christmas I think I sent over 100 holiday cards (imagine the bill at Papyrus)

So clearly the wedding would be no exception. Before choosing anyone to help with the execution, we had to get our design ideas clear.

Bribing the Groom..

to register.

I'm sure this is not a shock to many of you ladies that I had to beg and plead Mr. Turkey to help put together our registry. The conversation* went something like this:
Miss Turkey: "I'm thinking we should probably register."
Mr. Turkey: "OK"
Miss Turkey: "I'm thinking we should probably have between 2 and 3 registries."
Mr. Turkey: "OK"
Miss Turkey: "I'm thinking we could go next weekend."
Mr. Turkey: "WE????"

I'll save you the rest of the conversation, but basically I had to "reward him" for each of the three places we registered.

Befitting of a Bridesmaid

To say I was excited about our NYC shopping trip for dresses (of the wedding and bridesmaid variety) would be an understatement. The purpose of the day was to choose the bridesmaid dresses and narrow down my choices for a wedding dress.

Success would be walking away with a wedding dress choice (that could be purchased closer to home) and ordering the bridesmaid dresses.

We started on a super early trains - converging upon NYC from Albany, Baltimore, Boston, DC and Philadelphia. Our first stop was Kleinfeld for wedding dresses!

Me and Mom outside the store

Why am I sharing this photo when the post is about bridesmaid dresses?

Mismatched Inspiration

The bridemsaids had spoken. No preference on color, but they wanted to pick their own dress style. Fair enough. I was loving all the weddings with "mismatched" dresses.

Source

All the women look comfortable in their chosen dress - picking designs that best flatter their figures. Isn't that what everyone wants? My bridesmaids ranged in height from 5' to 5'7 and covered almost every shape and size in between. My maid of honor is on the taller end of this spectrum and, as a tall girl myself, I didn't want her to be worried about a wardrobe malfunction due to a super short dress!

Controlling the Vision

So...we have a venue and we have a style...but how to execute?

WARNING: PHOTO HEAVY POST AHEAD

As mentioned, with our venue, the issue was going to be controlling the vision. With the potential for there to be multiple vendors for the reception design and execution alone, we needed to think about how everything would remain cohesive and not turn into a garbled mess.

We spoke to the Kimmel Center and asked them if they could recommend any vendors who could "do it all". In other words, were there companies that could help us with everything from flowers to chairs to forks and china? There were (hooray!) and so we decided to narrow it down to two that had done business with the venue and visit them one spring weekend.

The Wedding Brand

That's not a typo up there. I meant to type wedding bRand.

We'll get back to these later
Source

As a marketer, when I thought about our wedding, I thought about it the same way that I think about my brands (well, aside from the fact that I'm a bit more emotionally attached to the wedding): what does our wedding stand for? how did we want our wedding to perceived? what would be the visual elements of our wedding?

While going through these questions (don't worry, I didn't make him white board it out), Mr. Turkey and I came up with a single phrase to use throughout the planning process: Modern Elegance.

SURPRISE - Part II

When we left off, I was off to bed with a full belly of yummy Mexican and fun drinks. The next morning we took our time getting up and then headed out for a Bloody Mary brunch. I promise you, the entire weekend did NOT revolve around drinks.

As brunch was winding down, the girls handed me a present...a picture frame. I opened it from behind, but when I turned it over...Surprise #3!!

AHHHHHHHH

SURPRISE - Part I

I'm not great with surprises. I usually manage to figure things out beforehand - the engagement being an exception. However, little did I realize that just a few months later, there would be another surprise.

One May day, I received an envelope with a typed address on the front (no return) and this inside:

Yes, these are letters that are cut out from magazines