Setting the Scene: The Reception.

My ideal reception area is in a beautiful garden setting outdoors. However, it is wise to have a Plan B in mind, in my case, an indoor setting that would provide the same (if not better) wedding experience for not only my guests, but the groom and I. An outdoor garden setting would provide a certain scenery that is not easy to imitate indoors (not unless you happen to have a ton of money to blow to create a whole forest inside). Although I'm known for my ever so dramatic tastes in numerous things, I have to make sure that it's simple enough for my own guests to be comfortable with yet dramatic enough to leave an everlasting experience that won't be easy for them to forget.

 If I could take away the shelter of the building and replace it with trees with the cloth and lanterns hanging from the branches overhead. I love the table setting the most with the candles and the moss table runner (which can be found in BraggingBags Etsy shop).
 

I love the misty look of this scene. I have even thought about using a fog machine for when I walk down the aisle and appear out of the "mist" (that's another entry for another time). While I don't want too many small branches surrounding the table (as shown above), I do like the overall idea of the setting.

This would make for the perfect night scene. Though the only thing I worry about is guests wanting to leave early because of bugs at night. Which would only make an indoor setting a much better option. But this would still even make for an interesting idea for an indoor setting as well.

This is my favorite outdoor setting so far. I love love LOVE the chandeliers hanging from the trees.

I love this spacious area with the tall trees and the sunlight streaming in. It's the exact feeling I want to give to my guests. That feeling of being free in the summer and just having a lot of room to do whatever with. 

This is a lovely whimsical indoor setting. There's not a LOT going on but just enough to get the idea.

This is probably the more simple of setups but softness of the colors enhance everything just how I would want them to be.

Between this and the next reception setting shown, the lighting is AWESOME. This setup is more regal looking and it's partially the theme I'm going for with my whole wedding. 

As I said previously, the lighting in this is awesome and this particular setting gives you more of a mystical garden sense rather than the regal one shown above. 

This one is a little bit simpler than the last two but my main favorite of this setup are the trees as the centerpieces. I love the way the branches look. They're not full looking but they're not dead looking either. They still have a garden type beauty to them.

While my ideal setup is more outdoors, I can see where problems might come in with an outdoor scene as well. Especially with acoustics, you would have to spend a lot of money just on sound and lighting whereas in an indoor setting, that stuff is mostly already there. So you have to look at what your priorities are. I intend on have a small wedding just so that I can put more into the wedding experience itself. So if the money is there, sure, I'll shoot for an outdoor setting. I can always get a big tent or something of the like. Another thing to keep in mind is the temperature as well. With my date being at the end of the summer, the temperature is still bound to be hot and stuffy dress clothes will cause plenty of discomfort among guests. If an indoor setting is provided, so will air conditioning. It's something to keep in mind as I go about planning for the next three years. :]

Music: Disney's Fairy Tale Weddings.

I love everything Disney. There's just something so comforting and magical about Disney, overall. I don't exactly want a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, per se, but I do want some of the music played at mine somewhere in the event whether it be during the reception dinner or cocktails and hor'dourves (the time between the wedding ceremony and the reception). 

This CD just has classic instrumental versions of all of the popular Disney love songs from "Beauty and the Beast" to "Part of Your World" to "Belle Notte." This CD has all of the classics. At first when I was listening to it, I was disappointed because it didn't have the actual singing I was expecting (it's my fault...I didn't read the label). But as I listened on, it's really just peaceful and easy listening. I don't think I would personally have my first dance with any of these songs because I feel like when you have actual singing, there's more emotion. This CD is simply just more like, for lack of a better simple description, "elevator music." But like I said, it's more ideal to play when everyone is eating dinner or if you decide to have a cocktail hour before the actual reception. 

The CD can be purchased on iTunes.

Yums!: Wedding Cakes.

It's been rather difficult for me to find that PERFECT wedding cake when it comes down to not only the size of it, but the style as well. Everything needs to fit together like a puzzle piece, basically. But there are several problems of which I've encountered when I've worked at weddings:

• The cakes are always boring! I know that a cake is meant to be eaten so it doesn't need to look fancy anyway but I need to have some sort of pizazz somewhere on my cake. Plain, round/square, and white, just will NOT do it for me. 
• A lot (and when I say a lot, I mean a LOT) of people tend to not eat the cake because most of the people are out dancing and they either don't care enough to want the cake or they just forget about it and normally by 10pm, the servers are clearing the tables and throwing away all of that cake. So naturally my fiancee, Travis, is not too crazy about getting a cake. He honestly thinks we should do without! Nope Nope Nope. I'm having a cake.
• While cakes decked out in fondant are nice, they are not necessarily tasty and besides, you pay all this money for fondant that typically doesn't even get eaten, or even used (at least not in our kitchen it doesn't. The chef just trims off the fondant so all there is left to eat is the cake, itself). But I have heard of several alternatives one being that there are bakeries out there that make cakes with buttercream but they look like fondant and two, you could always just have a fake fondant cake that is for looks then have a regular buttercream sheet cake that gets cut and served. Your guests won't know the difference!

If I had a lot of money to throw away, this would be pretty ideal. But if I love the idea so much, it could easily be downsized to something more reasonable. 

This one I'm kind of "eh" about because like I've made it known, I HATE boring. But if my mother wanted to make her famous velvet red cake as a dessert option, it would fit well with a elaborate dessert table. 

This idea was more for Travis because he's not thrilled about shelling out $200 for a cake that most of will go to waste. I like this idea because one, it's still shaped like a wedding cake and two, think of all the different combinations that could be decorated with and the flavors! 

This cake fits the most in with the look and feel that I'm going for. The cake isn't a white white but a very pretty ivory decked out with some soft colored flowers. 

This is more of a simple fondant styled cake which I'm also kind of "eh" about because the cakes look so expensive but at the same time kind of boring. I love the shade of purple though.

When it comes to cakes in general for my wedding though, because I plan on having a small wedding, I won't have to worry about having too many tiers or anything. It's always nice to kind of have an idea of what is out there, though. I do plan on having two flavors (two tiers) for mine. I really like the idea of a mint cake but I also love the idea of a peach flavor too. Obviously it doesn't sound like the most normal of combinations and it might not work together, I don't know. That's why it's always good to experiment with what will work and what won't. 

Inspiration: Marie Antoinette.

I often find it a little difficult to describe exactly what type of theme I'm going for in my wedding. Alice in Wonderland is SO incredibly overrated but I want something similar to it. I want something that's in a way "proper" but "mischievous". Something that's its own "organized chaos" in a sense, where the surroundings can be both feminine and masculine so my soon-to-be-husband doesn't feel like he's attending a little girl's tea party. The best starter explanation I have for the idea that I'm aiming for [more or less] is Marie Antoinette.

Even though my tastes tend to be REAL dramatic, I'm definitely not looking for everyone to be in poofy, ancient looking dresses like such shown above. But as far as the upper body styling of the dresses go, it's more so what I'm after as far as a design in a dress, but with a semi-modern twist.

This hairstyle is one I've been seriously considering. I LOVE the idea of wearing a floral crown with a a lacy veil attached [maybe]. Plus, I'm in the process of growing my hair out now so hopefully by 2014, my hair will be at a length where I can wear it in a loose french braid or another similar style that gives me that whimsical and carefree look.

I'm concentrating more on the color palette shown above and the overall way the shooting was done. The photos come across very light and dreamy and that's how I would want the style of photography done.

An idea for a bridesmaid photo, maybe?

Carefree and childlike innocence is definitely the mood I'm shooting for. I want to make my wedding day feel like pretty much like an old romantic story [Well, it pretty much is!]. 

They say that the overall mood of your wedding is pretty much a representation of you as a couple. Well, after being with Travis for over two years and we both feeling the same magic today as if we met yesterday, I just REALLY want people to KNOW how our relationship is with each other. It's almost as if it really is a too good to be true movie story line. I want people to basically feel like they stepped into a romantic love scene that's just innocent and carefree as if we're going to live forever. Does any of this even make sense? 

Fashion: The Wedding Dress

They say that your wedding is built around your dress, but I can't seem to wrap my head around that concept because when I think of my wedding day, I at first see the environment that it will ideally take place in. If I'm looking for an outdoor whimsical and magical twist to my big day, I want to choose a dress that will match up with the idea as a whole - like a puzzle piece, you could say. So I found several princess styled ball gowns that have that connection I'm looking for...

I love this dress because of the elegance it gives off and I love layers and drama. For me, it's going to be "the more that is going on with the dress, the better suited it is for my tastes."

Because of my very VERY light skin tone, I will be straying away as far as I can from a white white dress to prevent myself from looking washed out. Because of this, I'm not only considering an Ivory color but I'm open to different colors, but nothing loud and obnoxious in color. This dress is perfect with its subtle lavender/gray hue it looks to have going on as well as the floral and lace layers.

This is probably my favorite dress out of these picks because of the chaotic mess of tulle and ribbons. I can imagine myself frolicking through a garden in this dress, which fits my vision perfectly. <3

Again with the lacy layers. I hate simple so this would be pretty much as simple as I would go before I would start to get bored with the overall design.

This dress is probably the most expensive dress out of the rest. I'm kind of on the fence about it though because it could be my expensive tastes taking over. This dress I could see in a more Buckingham Palace setting, not a whimsical garden. :[ It's a lovely dress though.

Another dress that's simple but not simple enough. 

These are my first picks as I get more into wedding dress browsing. It's also a completely different story because I haven't tried on any dresses to determine what silhouette suits me best and exactly how dramatic I can go before it starts looking like too much, even for me. Like I also said before, I'm open to other colored dresses as long as they aren't too loud or obnoxious in color. A peachy hue has become a favorite of mine so I'll concentrate on that color in a later post. :]

[I found these dresses from Kleinfeld Bridal Online.]

Introductions...

Welcome to My Dream Wedding Things blog! :]

I'm engaged to be married sometime in the fall of 2014ish. No confirmed date yet for me but it obviously gives me more than enough time to get my ideas down in order when it comes time to get down to planning. Everything I plan on to include in this blog will be:

• Look&feel concepts
• Setting the scenes
• Music/playlists
• Cake designs
• Fashions
• Floral 
• Other odds and ends

My overall theme is kind of a mess right now so hopefully as I start posting up my many inspirations, I'll also narrow down my overall idea of what I want my own day to look like. :]

Bear with me as I get started and hopefully you'll enjoy what I post. <3