We recently moved from our neighborhood in Seattle that we called home for 7+ years, to a town about 30 miles north. Though we're only 45 minutes up the highway, sometimes it feels like a world away. However, what we may lack in a bustling metropolis, we have more than gained in space, quieter streets, community and old house charm. That said, there were a few creature comforts I was weary of losing: namely the restaurants and shopping our old neighborhood offered. Luckily, s

In my job, I often miss my favorite part of a wedding: the ceremony. While my clients are tying the knot, I'm off making sure the final details of their cocktail hour and reception are taken care of. I think I can recall witnessing two ceremonies of the weddings I have planned, so far. Why is it my favorite? It's the reason for the day. As fun as it is to throw a big party, and as much as I love to dive into the beautiful details of a reception, none of it would have a purpos

I often say that I started my company by accident. I knew that I wanted to be in the wedding industry and I wanted to be involved with planning and design, but outside of that, not much was clear. The summer before I started, I was just beginning to navigate these waters. I was freelancing for wedding designers here in Seattle, reading as many wedding planning books as I could get my hands on, and taking a few different workshops to gain insight and direction into my dream. T

With the passing and celebration of our first anniversary recently, I wanted to wrap up the blog series of our wedding day with a final post detailing our reception. For lack of a better term, we envisioned a fancy house party for our reception. We wanted our guests to feel as though they had been welcomed in our home. An intimate gathering of friends and family - Formal but not stuffy. The house itself has a very traditional layout. Though it’s not small in its own right, th

Our first anniversary is this weekend which has me thinking back a lot to last year. Each day I find myself stopping to remember... "This time last year we were doing _____" (insert each day's pre-wedding activity) In continuation of blogging about our wedding, I wanted to share a bit about the ceremony. I should warn you, the ceremony is my absolute favorite part of a wedding. It's the whole reason for the day and was certainly something we put a lot of thought and preparati

I've been sharing stories from our wedding hoping to help walk those planning their own wedding through some of my processes and how we went about piecing our day together. Today's post addresses one of my favorite elements: Details. They are the small pieces of a couple's story, they share insights to the family heritage, and often, details can be the elements that took the most thought and time to choose. Our details told the story of our engagement in Paris, our formal set

I often tell my brides to keep their minds open when it comes to their wedding dress. You can be drawn to a certain style (pinning dozens of similar images on Pinterest) only to find that the silhouette isn't flattering on your body type. Alternately, the style you liked may look nice, but another, unforeseen style looks amazing on you. To all my clients present and future, Please do as I say, not as I do. I too had a certain dress in mind. I had pinned dozens upon dozens of

When Matt and I got engaged, I had just begun to work in the wedding industry. Although I love, LOVE weddings, I purposely hadn't dreamt up (i.e. pre-planned) our wedding before he popped the question. I’m not sure if it was to avoid jinxing myself or if I just wanted to save the actual process for the real deal. Either way, aside from a few “wouldn’t that be fun” ideas, we were starting from scratch once we were engaged. One such idea in particular was a wedding in Europe. W