The Blonde Diaries

Planning my dream vacation

The more and more into this challenge I get, the more and more I start thinking about getting to plan my dream vacation. I have briefly spent a few minutes here or there googling for travel agents and information on the cruise I want to take next year but haven’t come up with anything helpful until this morning. This morning I found the Honeymoon and Destination Weddings portal on TravelStore.com. The portal has travel agents that are dedicated to helping you plan your honeymoon or destination wedding from the large items to the tiny details. Just reading on their website conveyed to me that they really know their stuff inside and out. I found their site to be very friendly and welcoming to use and it gave me some great ideas to think about if I didn’t know that I wanted to go on this cruise such as Tahiti honeymoon vacation, cruises, African Safaris, and Caribbean beach vacations. I like that you can talk to your agents via phone, email, or in-home visits. It gives planning your honeymoon a personal touch similar to the personal touches you get with your wedding coordinator. Overall I would recommend checking them out if you are in need of a honeymoon or just a vacation travel agent as they have a very well put together site and are very knowledgeable about travel and how to make the most of your experience on whatever budget you may have!

Weekly Wedding Update

Well it is Saturday and I haven’t given my official wedding update yet. Last time I wrote about it was Monday after I booked the Zoo! So this week has been a pretty quiet week. Mike’s been out of town but I still did some googling related to the wedding. I’ve been trying to get an idea of possible flowers to use. Nothing has stood out so far and I’m not too impressed with the flowers in “season” in July so I’m going to have to get creative and figure some things out when I find a florist.

So besides the reception getting booked, my wedding shoes arrived from Target. They are silver and fit so that works! I also had my first bridal/wedding shower today and boy was I surprised. You see today I was suppose to be meeting with some girls from the Sunshine Rewards Forums for a let’s just meet type deal. Well little did I know they were talking about me and had planned a surprise wedding shower for me! I was so surprised and so thankful that they did this. I was truly touched. I will post some pictures once they send them my way.

So for this week I am going to order the cake topper and start working on my scrapbooks. I also think I’m going to start working on inviting my attendants to be in the wedding and figuring out what I want to get them. As of right now it’s between some freshwater pearls or a travel toiletry bag. Maybe if I can find a good price on both then I’ll put the pearls in the bag to give them the day of and they can wear them to the wedding.

Yippee! We booked the Houston Zoo!

I am so excited right now. My wedding planning dreams are becoming a reality. Today, I was able to knock the reception location off of my to-do list (ie booked and deposit paid!). I’ve been keeping it under wraps with most of my friends and extended family but today I can officially announce that Mike and I will be having our reception at the Houston Zoo!!! It is going to be fabulous. I still do not have really good pictures of the room but I think it will just mean another trip over there to visit the critters and see the site. lol Luckily, we are zoo members so we can go at any time for free and just wander through during a normal visit.

I was a tiny bit sad though because I learned that the otters will not be out that night because they “bunker down” for the night behind the scenes. Not sure why they have to go in for the night (it is an enclosed area and they have sleeping areas) but I’m sure there is a good reason.

I found a few pictures on the zoo’s website to share.

Entrance to building

Inside entrance

Inside set up with a few tables

So I’m excited. Of course more photos will come. I think the next thing on my list will be getting the cake and photographer situated. I am a teeny bit scared of the flower people so that is on the bottom of my list for right now.

Personal Creations

Woo Hoo! Some more good news on the wedding front. I am about to have another large and a small item checked off of my planning list on Friday. I am going to meet with the reception location and sign the contract for my wedding reception and put down my deposit (Yippee!) and then once I have that booked I can purchase the cake topper since our date will be firm! See I like the topper below and want to personalize it with our names and dates over at Personal Creations but until I put deposits down on the 2 large items I just feel too nervous to go ahead and order this quite yet. I guess maybe I’m being a tad silly but weird things do happen and sometimes they happen to me! It’s not quite Mike and I but it will have to do. Precious Moments just doesn’t do anything darker haired than below and neither do many other companies and the ones that you can mix and match just aren’t as cute. Luckily Mike is ok with this one.

Now I just need to get the contract in my hand so I can read over it with my mom before going on Friday so there are no surprises. Guess I better put in another call over there. I am hoping the girl is just following up with the caterer on one of my questions and will not be this hard to get a hold of every time I need something. Hopefully I am just over stressing on something that is nothing. Wish me luck!

Finishing Details Maybe the Best Place to Start

I have yet to decide on what my style will be for my wedding next July. Part of my problem is that I don’t know what wedding “style” is and part of it is I just don’t know where to begin and thus I have been avoiding any and all planning other than the church, reception location, and then a few small things here and there like wedding bubbles and favors since those last two items were really easy to knock out.

I am especially excited about the wedding bubbles. The blown bubble look was just so pretty and elegant looking at my cousin’s wedding two weeks ago and again at my friend’s wedding in February. It certainly beat the pelting of bird seeds my other friend received two years ago. I’m trying to turn bubbles into the must have item with all of my friends and relatives who are getting married in the upcoming year!

This morning I was googling trying to figure out my personal wedding style and I found myself looking at wedding invitations. I started thinking that the invitation is one of the smaller things you worry about closer to the wedding since it is a finishing detail but in reality maybe I should be looking at them more. I mean you can definitely find your feel and style based on the invitations you are drawn to and ultimately purchase for your wedding. I decided to have a closer look at 1st Class Wedding Invitations.com. I really liked the layout of the site in that you could either view by color if you had a color scheme you were going with or by style. This seemed to be the key to helping define my style. As I was browsing I noticed they have a zoom feature which allows you to click on the invitation and it zooms in so that you can catch all of the details on the card and see the colors up close. I absolutely fell in love with this purple invitation. The detailing and the bow just look gorgeous. I think I either need to ask them if it comes in blue or change from blue to purple.

I wonder if your invitation has to match your color scheme. Hmm I think more research is in order because I just love this invitation - simple yet elegant. Already marrieds - opinions wanted as usual drop me a comment.