Kiss My Tulle

Mad-Libs Style Wedding Vows

Some of my most popular posts on Kiss My Tulle have been the ones sharing great wedding vow (or reading) ideas for the ceremony. But what if you'd like to write your own vows... but are struggling with writer's block? Well, how about trying out these Mad-Libs style wedding vows (click on the image to print them out)!

Hee! Any of you planning to use these Mad-Libs style vows for your wedding ceremony?

Sweet Second Wedding in Tallahassee, Florida Featuring the Groom's Children

Sometimes it feels as if the blog world likes to pretend like second weddings never happen. But let's be honest y'all - they do (Our wedding was a second for The Boy). This adorable couple met at work, she is an ER nurse and he is a helicopter pilot for the life flight helicopter. Like with The Boy, this is was groom's second wedding with his son as best man and his daughter as flower girl.

Images Courtesy of: Long's Photography

Are any of you involved in a second wedding?

Vendors:

Photographer: Long's Photography
Floral Designer: Flowers By Vince
Bakery: Publix Supermarkets
Venue: The Retreat at Bradley’s Pond

A Classic Blue and White Hotel Wedding in Michigan

Troy and Cari married on a hot but beautiful August day in Houghton Lake, Michigan. The colors, the details, the funny personalities of the bridal party, and their dog Gooch as ring bearer were just some of the many things that made the day memorable.

Image Courtesy of: Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers

I especially love how Cari and Troy used such a bright, vivid blue against an all-white backdrop. It's such a great way to showcase your favorite color without overwhelming people's senses or looking like someone's junior prom. It's also a really budget-friendly way to enhance the cheapest option that a hotel wedding package offers (all white everything) and not bust your budget with colorful upgrades.

Images Courtesy of: Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers

Are any of you opting for a hotel's all-white package with your own colorful touches?

Vendors:

Photographer: Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers
DJ: Big Daddy Rick DJ
Dress Store: Miracle Wedding Village
Floral Designer: Posie Patch
Cake Designer: Sweet Slice of Life
Hair Stylist: The Hairloft Salon & Day Spa

Watercolor Inspired Styled Shoot Perfect For A DIY Wedding

A team of creative and talented wedding industry pros got together to create this fun and serene watercolor inspired shoot. They wanted to create an inspiration of a small, intimate wedding with fun vintage rentals and DIY decor. The chairs were upcycled and the padding was hand dipped to create a watercolor effect. My favorite parts of this styled wedding shoot are the simple centerpieces and the cute watercolor set favors.

Images Courtesy of: Melissa Biador Photography

What parts of this styled shoot would you use as inspiration for your wedding?

Vendors:

Photographer: Melissa Biador Photography
Cake Designer: Hey There Cupcake
Equipment Rentals: Lauren Sharon Vintage Shop Rentals
Tuxedo and Mens Attire: A Better Deal Tuxedos & Men's Suit
Dress Store: Dahlia Bridal
Invitation Designer: Nic.Roc. Designs
Floral Designer: Plenty of Petals
Accessories Designer: Sandra Nicole Design
Hair, Make-Up, and Wardrobe Stylist: Thorne Artistry
Event Design and Coordination: Weddings Event Design (W.E.D.)

Wedding Advice for Newly Engaged Couples: Allie Harper

Allie Harper Moore is the irreverent mind behind Allie's New Day - a blog about her life AND PUGS!!! Jen is a devoted member of Tulle Nation who shared her engagement ring shopping experience and pre-engagement photot shoot with y'all. Today, she's back and sharing her destination wedding planning experience.

Allie remembers her destination wedding day as, "Seriously amazing! It was a total dream wedding. We had perfect weather, a fantastic venue at the resort, and all of our very closest family and friends. And I was marrying the love of my life. We had a very touching and meaningful ceremony on the beach, followed by a kick ass party by the pool."

Image Courtesy of: Lotus Blossom Photography

Read on for an exclusive interview with Allie Harper Moore of Allie's New Day and her "Wedding Advice for Newly Engaged Couples"...

A Destination Wedding in Hawaii With Lots of Nature Inspired Details

Lauren and Marc met by chance when she and her friends took a vacation to Oahu, where Marc lived. They were together for eight years before Marc proposed, then had about a year engagement, making it nine years together before getting married. They needed that one year, too, to plan a fab semi-budget destination wedding in Hawaii. From the gorgeous venue to the nature-inspired details throughout the day, this wedding was lovely and allowed Lauren and Marc's guests to really enjoy the local culture. Read on for Lauren's thoughts and details of the day:

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

What attracted you to your particular wedding venue: Sunset Ranch, our venue, looked beautiful from the pictures I had seen. Plus all the reviews were great. We were looking for something different, not the standard church and hotel ballroom reception. I personally wanted an outdoor wedding, and Marc was open to listening to my ideas. After speaking to the owner of the ranch it was set, he was so friendly and gracious. We were able to use the entire area of the ranch, it was ours for the day. No random people watching our special day. We booked without even doing a site visit beforehand and had no regrets. The setting was just as we had hoped.

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

What made you decide to have a destination wedding instead of a home town affair, and why did you choose Hawaii? We chose Hawaii as our destination wedding because although Marc and I live in California, Marc grew up in Hawaii and most of his family and friends still live there. Although we could have chosen to get married in California, I thought it would be nice to have a wedding in Hawaii so that Marc could have most of his family and friends there. Also, when I was a little girl I always dreamed of getting married in Hawaii. Although those dreams were of getting married on the beach, our ranch wedding had ocean views with that calming feeling you have when the tradewinds blow, and it was just as I had imagined.

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

Did you have any events prior to or after the ceremony for your guests or bridal party? We rented two villas at Turtle Bay for our wedding party to stay at for a few days, and many of our friends and family stayed at the main Turtle Bay Resort. The night before the wedding my mom hosted a rehearsal dinner at Lei Lei’s. We enjoyed a private, four course meal out on the patio.

The day after our wedding we hosted a BBQ at the villas, for the remaining local and mainland guests. The BBQ was a great way to decompress after all the stress of the wedding. It also gave us a chance to chat with people who we didn’t really have a chance to see much at the wedding. The BBQ was a success thanks to Marc’s parents and other family members helping with the food. Marc’s sister’s fiancé had gone fishing and caught some ahi, and different styles of fresh poke were made. It was a great experience for the mainland guests to have a local-style BBQ.

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

What was your wedding theme: We tried for a casual, rustic, nature-y feel. Themes we tried incorporating into our wedding were trees and love birds. Our inspiration was the humongous eucalyptus tree that we said our vows under. During our ceremony, Kamuela Kahoano played a variety of current and local music with his guitar giving a casual, relaxed feel.

To combat the unknown weather, we had the reception in the ranch barn. The dirt floor was covered with hay, and with the large doors and open windows, the breeze nicely flowed through the venue. Our cake was a simple two layer swiss-dot designed cake, with love birds sitting on top. Also for dessert an old fashioned ice cream truck drove up to our venue and served guests an assortment of ice cream bars and local shave ice.

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

What did you envision for your event: Marc gave me the lead to do what I envisioned, I kind of took over, but always asked his opinion. Since we were going for casual, I wanted the décor to match. Marc’s favorite color is green. So I started with that. I, too, like green and since our venue was at a ranch up in Pupukea, I thought it was perfect to incorporate all the vibrant green colors of nature. I also wanted fun, bright colors. So besides the green, my accent color was yellow, with ivory to tone out the bright greens and yellows. The main green items were the bridesmaids’ dresses. The groomsmen wore ties with green stripes, and also wore maile-style, ti leaf leis that incorporated the green color.

To incorporate yellow, our favors were little glass jars filled with Lemonheads, to give a fun pop of color to the ivory covered tables. Centerpieces were filled with herbs and plants in differing green shades, with a cream colored lantern to give the tables some light, and also a sprig of yellow roses, symbolizing friendship. The bridal bouquet and bridesmaids’ bouquets were of ivory and cream-colored flowers. I envisioned soft, romantic looking flowers to match my dress and to complement the emerald green dresses of the girls.

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

Did you give out special gifts or favors: To thank my bridesmaids for supporting me throughout the whole process I gave them each an Adina Reyter sterling silver necklace with a pave set diamond dove. To keep the Hawaii sun out of their eyes, the groomsmen were each given a pair of Oakley Frogskin sunglasses. We gave the flower girl a photo album which I plan to scrapbook pictures of her from the wedding, hoping when she’s older she will look back at her experience of being a flower girl.

For our parents and siblings who greatly helped us, we plan to take them on a relaxing trip to the Big Island. We thought it would be nice for those family members on the mainland to revisit Hawaii. To our mainland guests staying at Turtle Bay, we dropped off out-of-town-guest bags. The bags themselves were inexpensive local designed Foodland reusable bags. We thought these bags were cute and wanted to give the guests something fun to read and learn some local culture, also be able to tote around all their essentials while in Hawaii, and for use when they arrived back home. In the bags were some local snacks, some large bottles of Menehune water, sunblock, aloe vera, a book about Hawaii, and a laminated card of the fish of Hawaii.

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

Tell us about your gown, the groom's attire, and bridal party attire: My gown was a strapless, champagne-colored gown with an ivory lace overlay. Since we were on a budget we bought Marc a suit from Macy’s (getting a good discount). Being unsure of the weather, we didn’t want the groomsmen too hot, and since the wedding was outdoors we went for a casual feel, giving them matching white shirts, ties, and slacks

Trying to let the bridesmaids be creative with their own style and body shapes, I gave them transformer, jersey dresses that came from Etsy shop, CoralieBeatrix. The dresses were called palm tree Kelly green, although more of an emerald color. I thought the jewel-tone would look great with the girls’ dark hair and would bring out their features, not wash them out. The girls wore nude colored shoes in differing styles.

Images Courtesy of: Rachel Robertson Photography

What was the highlight of your celebration: The highlight was having our family and friends come out to the remote setting of Sunset Ranch on the North Shore to celebrate our wedding. Many of our guests had never been to or heard of the ranch, which made it special to others besides Marc and me. The weather and location were just perfect for us to relax, let loose, and enjoy the celebration all together.

Tulle Nation, would any of your have a destination wedding in Hawaii?

A Rustic Winter Wedding with Owls and A Husky In Michigan

This lovely winter wedding at The Homestead in Glen Arbor, Michigan was gorgeous and rustic. Rebecca and David's wedding day was incredible and the weather even behaved (tricky for that time of year in Northern Michigan). Rebecca is so crafty and DIYed many of the special details for the wedding day like the birch tree table numbers and the little owl touches all over. The couple even splurged and had live owls at the cocktail hour! The sweetest thing was that the couple had their husky walk down the aisle as a member of the wedding party in their ceremony.

Images Courtesy of: Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers

Would you have live animals at your wedding?

Vendors:

Photographer:  Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers
Officiant: Doug Williams
Ceremony Location: Glen Arbor Townhall
Floral Designer: Lilies of the Alley
DJ: Mr. Music
Hair Stylist: Salon & Spa
Dress Designer: Schone Design
Cake Designer: Traverse City Pie Company

Reader Question: Planning a Potted Plant Wedding Reception

Whee! Another reader question from Tulle Nation! I love these because 1. I get to help y'all solve your wedding dilemmas and 2. It means someone's out there reading me (Heh.). Today's question comes from Liz who's planning a wedding for June:

"I have always lived in apartments I love plants and growing things. At the store today I saw a bunch of cheap yellow flower pots and that got me wondering; does anyone use in the soil flowers for reception centerpieces? I can't think of any blog posts that showed this, but I also can't see why not.

My reception is going to be at a picnic shelter by a lake at a local state park. We're catering bbq from a local favorite and having a cupcake cake instead of a traditional wedding cake. I had planned on decorating the picnic tables by using a plastic lime green table runner and adding a plain vase full of yellow plastic bubble dispensers (favors), a ribboned vase full of yellow flowers, and large origami flowers I have folded out of pictures of flowers. I haven't actually purchased any flowers yet, which is why I am asking. Seeds are a lot cheaper than roses.

What are the upsides and downsides of using potted plants in decorating? Is this a thing people do? Are there pictures of this?"

Liz, people TOTALLY do potted plants for centerpieces. I almost went this route myself after seeing it done at a friend's wedding. Here's some amazing potted plant centerpieces to inspire you:

Images Courtesy of: Megan Clouse Photography, Apartment Therapy, Wedding Dish, Barillaus.com, Martha Stewart, Diana Ma Weddings

I also thought I'd include a few ideas for you on additional (and affordable) little details and decor for your potted plant wedding:

• One idea for wedding favors is to make seed bombs. They are inexpensive, easy to make, and look cute when wrapped in tissue paper (image courtesy of: Good Housekeeping).
• Another favor idea is to DIY some seed-filled matchbooks. Super cute and super easy.
• And one last favor idea, how about just offering regular old seed packets? Then cover them with a cute label, glue them to a stick, and "plant" them in a container (image courtesy of: Giuliana Photography).
• If the price is compatible, why not swap out the plastic green runners for cheap fabric ones? That way, after the wedding you can either sell them or donate them after the wedding and get a little of the money back.
• Leave out some cute birch straws for your guests to use in their drinks. It's an extra but SO cute and a sweet detail.
• Add a bit of detail to your table settings with some floral paper napkins. They'll dress up plainer (and cheaper) plates and silverware.

Well, Liz, I hope that helps you out and gives the confidence to follow through with your fab potted plant wedding reception! Anyone else out there have any budget-friendly garden wedding suggestions for Liz?

Outdoor Fall Wedding in Michigan

The wedding of Nicole and Matt proves that you don't have to be from the South to rock cowboy boots at your wedding! This fall wedding was lovely and totally budget-friendly. It focused on an amazing location (next to a lighthouse), a fabulous guest book display, and cardigans on the bridesmaids! All-in-all? A rustic and rich-looking wedding in Michigan.

Image Courtesy of: Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers

From photographer Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers, "A country love wedding. Nicole and Matt were made for each other. This outdoor wedding was gorgeously set near a lighthouse on a sunny, fall day. Every element of their day was perfectly thought out and really told everything out their love story. It was a pleasure being a part of their day!"

Images Courtesy of: Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers

Would you wear cowboy boots at your wedding?

Vendors:

Photographer: Dan and Melissa | Wedding Photographers
Tuxedo and Mens Attire: Banana Republic
Hair Stylist: Macy's
Dress Designer: Monique Lhuillier
Ceremony Location: Old Mission Point Lighthouse
DJ: Sunshine DJ

Massachusetts Winter Wedding with Neon Touches

For some of us, it's spring. For others, it's spring with a HUGE touch of winter. Cassie and Pete wanted a modern affair in Medford, Massachusetts with bright pops of color and lots of laughter! So they "branded" their wedding with neon colors, lots of simple graphics, and some kick ass hot pink bridesmaid shoes!

Images Courtesy of: Iliana Morton Photography

From photographer Iliana Morton of Iliana Morton Photography, "Cassie and Pete met while hanging out with friends the summer before they started high school They both had blue hair, and they thought they would never see each other again. Once school started in September, they were surprised to find that they were attending the same high school. Their friendship continued to grow stronger over the next few years, but Cassie became impatient waiting for Pete to make a move. Eventually she started to date someone else, but continued to refer to Pete as her 'backup boyfriend'.

Life took them their separate ways after high school graduation, but they got back in touch after graduating college, four years after they had last seen each other. Right away their friendship picked up right where it had left off, but this time, Pete decided he wasn't going to let Cassie get away. After dating for a few years, Pete proposed to Cassie in the same spot where they had met ten years prior. He forgot to kneel, she forgot to actually say yes, but it all made sense for them.

Cassie and Pete were married at Springstep in Medford, Massachusetts. The venue is so brightly colored, which is perfect for Cassie and Pete's personalities. Their wedding was full of really fun, brightly colored personalized and DIY details. The most important thing for Cassie and Pete was to have all of their best friends around for the day, and they definitely made sure to have a great party to celebrate with them!"

Images Courtesy of: Iliana Morton Photography

Would you include neon in your wedding?