Life. Love. Lipstick.

So, I can’t help it… I have to do this.  I have to give my company some props!  I work for WH|BM, and right now is a great time to go in for wedding items!  Whether you are looking for a wedding dress, rehearsal dress, jewelry, or just need some inspiration, you should really stop in.

Here are just a few things that I’ve seen that would be perfect for weddings.

Outfits for a rehearsal dinner or other pre-wedding parties:

The LeJardin dress, paired with the reversible croc belt.

The Houndstooth Silk dress (that has pockets.  love a dress with pockets!)

Strapless Silk Blossom dress (one of my personal faves)

Two-Tone dress – absolutely perfect in person!  so so cute.

Accessories for the bride or bridesmaids (would also make good BM gifts):

The Midnight Melange bracelet.. words can not describe how gorgeous and sparkly this is in person.  Such a dramatic piece… I’m considering it for my own wedding, even though i don’t have a date or a dress.

The Sultry Breeze evening bag

Hand-tied glass pearl necklace

Absolutely gorgeous Atelier brooches.  I would love to have this on my bouquet, in my hair, or on a sash.

And on a related note, you can host a Girls’ Night Out party at a White House | Black Market store.  You can invite 10 guests to join you in discounted merchandise and refreshments.  This is a great idea for bachelorette parties or an alternative to a bridal luncheon.  Ask a WH|BM near you for all the details.

If you live in the Orlando area, please stop by the store at Mall at Millenia and see me!  I’ll give you a discount if you mention you read it on my blog!

Wow.  What can I say about this wedding?  Seersucker suits, eyelet dresses…. It is so full of personality and even though I don’t know the couple, I can tell their wedding design totally reflects them.  

yet another stunning job by the geniuses at Our Labor of Love.

go check out the rest of the post.  You’ll be sooo glad you did!

I’m going to start just giving a list a couple days a week of things that are of interest, but that I don’t have time or the desire to fully blog about.  I get so many things in my Google reader that I don’t have time to do something with every post that piques my interest.

• Invitation Etiquette – What to wear [How to inform your guests]
• ABC Of Weddings: V Is For Veil – a sort of dictionary of veil styles, complete with photos
• Oh My Deer Wedding – beautiful and heart-warming Super 8 wedding film.  i watched it 3 times.

I’m not really sure why I’m on Twitter, or what exactly it does for me, but if someone wants to follow me, please do so, and maybe I’ll start to understand.

I am starting to toy with color schemes and other wedding design ideas.  For over a year now, I’ve loved black, white, and green as a color scheme.  Then I made a post about those colors.  That post is by far the most-viewed on this blog, and that color palette is popping up all over the web.  I’m not sure that I want to have the same wedding design as so many other brides.  Then again, if I love it so much, does it really matter?

Anyway, one of the other color schemes I’m considering is white.  Yep, just shades of white.  Maybe with a few hints of beige and gold.  I haven’t created an inspiration board for this scheme yet.  I’m planning a future mega-post, with a few different inspiration boards, to see my choices side-by-side.

Instead, I’m bringing to the blog the bridesmaids’ look.  I love the look of whites, especially when each bridesmaid chooses her own dress, of any style.  Evidence that this looks beautiful, courtesy of Jasmine Star:

Upon seeing this photo, I headed to my go-to source for dresses, Nordstrom, then to a great shoe shop, Zappos, to create this possible bridal party look.

It would be so nice and easy to tell my bridesmaids to find a white dress and a neutral shoe, and leave it at that.  I definitely plan on making things easy for my bridesmaids.  This can be done with any color really.  It is done a lot with black, and I’ve seen images all over the web with all sorts of different bridal party looks.  There really are no rules anymore, and I’m loving it!

So, we (I) changed our (my) minds again about a small wedding vs. an elopement.  

We have decided that we (I) may regret not having the whole celebration if we don’t have it.

I’m very excited about this, and eager to put down a couple of deposits so that I don’t change my mind again!  Um, I mean, so we don’t change our minds!

As for the details, we don’t really have any yet… spring or summer ’09, 60 guests, lots of budget and DIY things going on!  Stay tuned!

I love when I run across dresses and can totally see them as part of a wedding.  The top three (j.crew, Vivienne Tam via bluefly, and j.crew) are the most untraditional, followed by two, pretty, but understated dresses (JS boutique and Kay Unger, both via Nordstrom).

These are definitely dresses that I would wear for our own wedding (for which the plans have totally changed, but more on that later).  They would also make great rehearsal dinner dresses for the more traditional or formal bride.

A special thanks goes to the fiance for lovingly created this collage for my photoshop-dumb self.

I normally don’t pay much attention to brides’ wedding day ‘dos, mostly because it’s usually pretty generic.  It’s either a deplorable prom-like veil-under-updo, a curly half-up style, or a curly hair-down ‘do.  

I just don’t like generic.  I like classic (which is completely different from generic) styles or something completely different and unexpected.

This is certainly the best classic wedding hair I’ve ever seen… the most perfect execution of the French twist.

These photos are from the ever-fab Kelly Moore.

I ran across this lovely wedding on one of my favorite blogs, snippet & ink. This is definitely my kind of wedding!  Simple, modern, and lots of GREEN!  I love the non-bridesmaid dresses, the spider mums, and the bride’s look.  

This wedding was shot by Lisa Lefkowitz, and I’m telling you now, if you haven’t seen her work, you’re missing out.  Check her out.

This is a new photographer for me, and I have to say  - I love her already!

I’m sure you all know by now that I love a small, intimate wedding.  This one, held on a beach in North Carolina, is simply beautiful.  LOVE IT!

There are plenty more images on Mary’s blog… definitely check that out!