Lucinda’s Quest – Revisited
I have been remiss in posting about my efforts to find the perfect dress for Laura’s wedding. The wedding has come and gone, I was present and attired in a lovely gown. Back to the efforts. After spending hours in fruitless search at the mall (both Cool Springs and Green Hills) as well as online I was was feeling despondent. Are there no more pretty dresses for women with less than perfect figures? Frankly, there’s a lot of ugly out there. Finally inspiration hit. I have a friend who is a fashion designer here in Tennessee, Olia Zavozina. We’ve done trunk shows for her in our shop and supplied our jewelry for her fashion photo sessions. I asked her to create a dress for me for the wedding. She came to the shop with her fabrics and Alexis, Laura and I chose some fabric and voila! a dress is created. Have to tell you, I felt like Cinderella. Imagine the scene where all of the critters are making her dress for the ball. In my case it was Olia, Tamara (her seamstress), Alexis and Laura. I just stood while beauty was made. Ok, I got to hold the mirror due to a lack of birds.
Olia gathering her pins after pinning me into the bodice of my mother of the bride dress.
This was a fairly painless way to get a dress. Certainly less painful than running from store to store and not finding anything great or even good. Laura created this necklace for me to wear with this gown. Then Olia adjusted the neckline to compliment the necklace. How cool is that? This was definitely and Adornments wedding! I was soooo adorned. Wait until you see the finished ensemble! Thank you Olia and Laura for making me feel beautiful.
Laura's necklace and Olia's dress
Laura & Jim : Sneak Peek!
Well all we can say is: Yaaaaaay!! Laura and Jim are officially married!
We’re waiting for the pics to get back but stay tuned because when we get them we’ll put up a full wedding review for your reading pleasure! In the meantime…
Laura & Jim
Also keep track of the Gray’s Blog for picture updates!
Adornments’ Wedding!
Hello All!
As you know, we’ve been planning a wedding for months now and it’s finally here! This Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 5:30 Laura and Jim will be tying that knot! In honor of this momentous occasion, Adornments will be closed on Saturday, October 3, 2009 (sorry guys! There’s still so much to do! You understand!) Don’t worry, there will be lots of fabulous pictures courtesy of the Grays of Gray Photography and we’ll post them as soon as we can to share all the pretties!
The Wedding is Here!
Wish us luck!
Save the Date card by Weddings by Adornments!
Calling all Nashvillians- and super awesome people around the world! Check out the latest Save the Date by Weddings by Adornments!
This custom made save the date card features a hand-drawn portrait of the bride and groom to be in their wedding colors: Red, Black and White! These are very hot colors for Nashville, TN weddings this year. This save the date is very personal, appealing to the bride & groom who want the custom touch! A new twist on the popular trend of using photos of the couple on the card!
Save the Date Card by Weddings By Adornments
Tasty Cakes! We went to Maples!
Maples Cakes and specifically Jay, the owner, did a marvelous job on my sister’s cake last year, so it really wasn’t too surprising that that’s where we ended up when it was time to start work on our cake. We went to a tasting just to make sure (no, really, it was to make sure- not just ’cause it was free cake… I swear!) There we sampled 18 different cakes flavors (lemon, pumpkin, melon (surprisingly awesome), strawberry, orange, vanilla, chocolate, chocolate mocha and banana to name a few! Lots of butter creams, and several scrumptious fillings in various combination such as their ever popular sour cream almond pound cake with vanilla butter cream and raspberry filling with white chocolate fondant (wow, what a tasty mouthful!). They even have a Barbecue cake with honey glaze icing (it seriously tastes like barbecue…I’m sure it’ll come in handy! 
)
Alexis & Abdul's Wedding Cake - By Maples
We decided that day what flavors we were interested in: Banana and Chocolate Mocha (we love banana chocolate-chip pancakes so it was kind of inevitable). That did not, however, stop us from scheduling a private tasting so that we could share all of the flavors with The Committee (Mother, Sister and Coordinator- never say we don’t take care of our people!) and have Jay’s undivided attention to figure out what it was going to look like! Here are some of the pictures we found to show him as a starting point (Very important to give your cake designer an idea of what you like so you can get to the finer details that much faster):
Black & White Classic
Good colors, clean lines- Jay actually knows the designer of this cake, so that was neat.
Art Deco Box Cake
How fun is this cake?! Great shape and interest! Very difficult to make though.
White Chocolate Spiral
Elegant and lovely (impossible to cut neatly!)
So- there are a variety of styles, colors and shapes (may not have been as helpful as we’d hoped!) and then we were able to identify traits that we liked about cakes in the Maples show room. We wanted some spiraling, some shape contrast and simple texture (not a lot of fussy flowers or decorations). In the end, I drew a picture (I’m like that).
Cake Design
This cake will be four square layers (alternating chocolate mocha and banana- both with chocolate butter cream- oh so tasty!) of graduated sizes with round spacers in between (I know, it’s huge, but the guest list keeps growing! What’s a girl to do?!). Each square layer will be rotated to create an overall spiraling effect. The bottom of each square layer will be wrapped with a red and black ribbon to keep the edges sharp. The feather shapes (recognize that from the bouquet?!) will be impressed into the white chocolate fondant, so it will be tone on tone with just a bit of feather texture scattered across the surface of the cake. Neat, ehh? I cut the feather out of plastic so that Jay can roll the shape into the fondant without getting feather pieces stuck in the fondant (eating feathers-not so tasty). It should be spectacular!
Wish me luck!
Flowers, flowers everywhere!
So, I really didn’t have much in the way of a vision for the wedding flowers (Jim didn’t care at all. Surprise, I know! 
) So, we needed some guidance. We started out trying to find out what flowers we like (and more importantly what they’re called so that we could tell a florist. “Umm… the red ones that are kinda pointy with the petals” just really isn’t helpful).
I knew I wanted dark reds and blacks (there are actually a surprising number of black flowers! Who knew?), and whites, but I didn’t want a the whole pom-pom look or just a big bunch of roses. Roses are nice, but they really aren’t that exciting for the most part. Here are some images that I found that really started the ball rolling in the right direction!
Black Callas, Chocolate Cosmos, and Peacock feathers.
Simple, stunning, but a little too dark (I want the red!) and I was seriously starting to dig asymmetry, but the feathers were a new idea altogether. So, in looking for reds, these are the flowers that caught my eye:
Red Orchids
More Red Orchids
Hmmm...red orchids... I'm seeing a trend!
So, thus armed, we met with the fun and talented Chase Rivers of Eye Design Floral. His website shows a wide variety of flowers, colors and styles and he came highly recommended by Amy, my wedding coordinator (if you can’t trust your coordinator, who can you trust?), so we were excited (Ok, Jim still didn’t really care, but he went anyway and even participated a bit)! Chase showed us a lot of flowers to get a feel for what we like and I showed him the pics that I’d found (orchids…yup!) and he added a few that are now on my list of favorites making me so much more diverse in my flower tastes (oooo… so much more cosmopolitan!)
Check it out:
Flowers for Me!
Flowers for the Brides Maids (Anemones are so Cute!)
Flowers for the Guys and Family
Table Decorations
Aren’t they gorgeous?! The feathers even lead to the cake design (you’ll have to wait for the cake post for more on that!) so all around a useful and easy venture. I’m still not sure what it’s all going to look like, but the flowers are all lovely, so I’m sure it’ll turn out well. Thanks Chase!
Wish me luck!
Get it done right!
So, a few weeks ago, Jim and I had an unwelcome surprise: Aaron Mayo, the man who was helping us plan our wedding at one Eleven, has left the company. We wish Aaron the best of luck and know that he will do well wherever he goes, but where, exactly did that leave us? Luckily, we know just the person to step in and fill the breech: Amy Parman with Williamson County Weddings!
Williamson County Weddings Staff
Amy was amazing when she helped us with Alexis’ wedding last year, so we knew right from the start that she would be easy to work with and do everything she could to help us get the wedding we want. When you sign on with Williamson County Weddings and their experienced team of planners, you are guaranteeing yourself not only a beautiful wedding, but also a stress-free (as much as possible) wedding day. She was there from start to finish with Alexis, and we know she’ll be there for us as well, doing what she can to get the vendors we need at a great price!
Check out their website for more information: Williamson County Weddings!
Thanks Amy!
The band plays on…
Knowing from the very beginning in that the music would be one of the key components to our wedding reception, Jim and I looked into all sort of options. We looked at having a live band that we were already fans of such as The Dan Band or Super T, but not only were they too expensive, they didn’t really fit our overall conception of what we wanted our wedding to be like. We were picturing Sinatra, a mixture of classic swing tunes to let us show off our dancing and some Motown to get everybody on the dance floor. We looked into several Sinatra tribute bands, but found nothing that gave us everything we wanted at a price we could afford. That was when we decided to take a look at Blue Tone Music.
Blue Tone Music
This company offers a wide variety of ensembles and bands with customizable sizes and instrumentation to suit any event. Their swing band performed at my sister’s wedding and the whole family had a great time so we knew they would be fun. Also, we were in the lucky position of getting to be repeat customers, a fact that Blue Tone Music really appreciated. They were able to give us a discount, change the instrumentation, and add a second vocalist to give us a band that was everything we were looking for and different enough from what my sister had that it isn’t just going to be a repeat performance.
Wish me luck!
Church of Brian
When trying to find an officiant for the wedding, Jim and I ran into a bit of a snag. Our venue is not a church, neither of us attend church regularly right now nor have a priest with whom we are particularly close, so we were definitely looking for a more secular ceremony for our wedding. However, the idea of having a random Justice of the Peace marry us was not appealing either. We wanted our officiant to be someone who knows both of us, someone who is well-spoken, someone who would really add a special element to our wedding rather than just a means to an end. It just so happens that we know someone who fulfills each of those requirements: Brian.
Brian
From the time he was little, my brother Brian has had a way with words. Sometimes a frustrating gift for a child to possess (just ask mom), Brian has made good use of it as he’s grown up. Now with a Masters in Communication theory, working toward his MBA while he teaches communication, speech and English composition, Brian still speaks eloquently and with great flair when he wants to (and when does he not?!). There is no doubt that he knows me (my whole life in fact) and he has had the opportunity to get to know Jim over the last two years so we are confident that he will not only speak beautifully, but that he will have something meaningful to say as well. One thing Brian is not, however, is a minister nor a Justice of the Peace, so how is it that we can have him do the honors? The Universal Church of Life has provided the answer: free online ordination! 20 minutes online and you too can have the authority to conduct marriages! Lest you think that we intend any disrespect to The Universal Life Church or its ministers, here is what they have to say on the subject of online ordination:
Universal Church of Life
“The Universal Life Church | ULC is the only denomination in the world that opens its doors to all, and welcomes all who ask to Become an Ordained Minister. We are non-denominational. We support a full spectrum interfaith ministry. Over 20 million ministers have been ordained online throughout the world. We make no religious hurdles, no hoops to jump through, no tests of loyalty, no rings to kiss and no fees to pay. The Universal Life Church represents freedom, and to have freedom you can not make demands upon individuals. In the Universal Life Church Monastery everyone is equal – the same level of greatness is enjoyed by all. We will be your personal minister/consulate and advisor, with your consent at no charge to you. We ordain all who ask and welcome you to the Universal Life Church Monastery Ministries. The freedom of being a Universal Life Church Minister includes the legal status to officiate marriages. Ordained ministers can officiate marriages for friends, family, and others. Some ministers get ordained to do it once, and some find love in being an ordained minister. They open up wedding businesses, as there is a certain level of sanctity and fellowship in having family & friends included in a wedding of your procession.”- quote from the Universal Church of Life website.
Who knows, maybe this will be a new career for Brian. Either way, I get to have my big brother in front, my big sister to my left, my parents at my back and my Jim to the right- completely surrounded by my favorite people- how can that not be a good thing (at a wedding anyway-could get closterphobic if it were all the time )?
Wish me luck!
And the winner is…
It has begun in earnest! The date has been set, the venue chosen and even the officiant secured! (Cheers & choirs of angels!) It was a busy week. Jim and I took Lucinda and Alexis to see One Eleven and Chappy’s
Chappy's on Church
(heretofore I have not written about Chappy’s- let me catch you up briefly: Chappy’s on Church is a French Creole restaurant in downtown Nashville- Fantastic Food! (They even do that wrapping your leftovers in aluminum foil shaped like a swan thing- I know, easily amused am I!) We were looking through the Pink Book and saw, to our surprise, that Chappy’s has a ballroom! The Napoleon Ballroom has a capacity for 300 people, beautiful imported glass chandeliers, and fountains with lion heads lining the walls!
The Bride Room (sorry, no pics of the ballroom)
The best part- the room is free! That is, they require a minimum amount of $5,000 spent of the food & spirits, but the room is complimentary complete with tables, chairs and linens! They will even do the flowers and a custom menu for your event! They have several packages for the food and spirits, so it’s easy to figure out what you want and they will do anything from a multi-course sit-down meal to a buffet with appetizers served on trays. It’s really a great deal for a beautiful room that requires very little decoration (mostly just table decorations and maybe a few flowers here and there) and really great food! The people there are very friendly and helpful (Thanks Suzette, Lucian and, of course, Chappy!)- it’s really a fun place.)
Now, I realize that, after a review like that, you’re expecting my announcement to be that we chose Chappy’s….but we didn’t. We decided that we wanted to have little more control over the feel of the room- it didn’t quite fit with our vision already and there was very little we could do about it- in the end, we decided that it was not quite the right fit for for us despite its many attractions, but it was a close one (we may just try to get them to cater)! We have chosen…(drum roll)…One Eleven! Hurray!
One Eleven
So- we are getting married on October 4, 2009 at One Eleven! It’s such a relief to have actual progress- not we just have to figure everything else out!
Wish me luck!
