Christmas Tree DIY - great for newlyweds!

The first year my husband and I were married we also bought and remodeled a house ourselves. When Christmastime rolled around I was thrilled to get set up for the holidays in our new home but going and buying a bunch of holiday decor wasn't in the budget. Ornaments for the tree or new pulls for all the drawers in the kitchen? Dinner out or use that $50 for 2 gallons of paint? You get the picture. Ever the pragmatic one, I went for the drawer pulls.

One of my favorite parts of the holidays is going to the mailbox each day to find it full of Christmas cards. With e-mail, text messaging and e-vites it's so rare to get "real" mail these days. It makes it all the more fun to have stacks of pictures to look forward to each day. However, all those cute cards ended up in a bowl on a table somewhere. As they say, necessity breeds invention and inspiration struck...let's clothespin the cards to the tree and make them our ornaments instead! That way all the cards would be out for us to enjoy as well as our guests throughout the season - because lets be honest - it's fun to look at everyone's Christmas cards - even if you don't know them.

See that? Hi Tory, Hi James, Hi Baby Jake! And there is my godson Kellis, giving me the peace sign. Right back at you buddy. I even like looking at pictures of pictures. Pathetic, I'm sure.

As our holidays have grown and so have the boxes of Christmas decorations that come out of the attic every year, the Christmas Card Tree is a tradition we've kept. We're not going to win any awards for the "perfect tree" with matching collectible ornaments but that's ok at our house. We get the tree started with lights and bright colored balls and then watch it fill up as Christmas draws closer. As the Christmas cards we receive have changed from documenting fun trips and the weddings of our friends to documenting how their families are growing and growing up, it's fun not only for us but for our kids to enjoy the photographs of their friends on the tree!

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Yesterday we loaded up the girls and went to the Christmas tree farm and cut down a great tree. Instead of the perfect shape and top, we tend to go for the tree with it's own personality. This year it has multiple "tops" springing out like a fountain. We also got a live, potted one for the girl's playroom and a little bitty one for the coffee table. We had a blast listening to Christmas music, stringing lights and hanging pink, turquoise and lime green balls on it's branches and putting stars on each of the many tops last night. Now we can hardly wait for the mail to start arriving!

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays! I hope this season is filled with joy!

Fall Hill Country Weddings

We've had the most wonderful fall! As luck would have it...and I almost hate to even talk about it...but, what the heck...it didn't rain for one single event all fall!!! Wooo Hooo! It threatened a few times, but no big storms actually blew thru. After a really rainy spring, I think the break was well deserved. Although we always have a rain in place, it's nice when the rain doesn't show up.

Speaking of which...did I ever tell you about Caroline's wedding where Hurricane Ike hit Texas and Thursday it was forecasted to bring 40 mph winds and rain all the way to Fredericksburg? And did I mention that it was slated to be an outdoor, tented event? Caroline, her parents and I made the decision to move to an entirely different venue across town so we weren't risking it. Another venue just happened to be open and we whipped up these cute little cards about the "unexpected guest named Ike" with directions to the new location. We then bought 100 black umbrellas that were tied to the cards and delivered to each guest's hotel room. The wedding turned out so beautifully that I don't think there was a guest there that believed it was actually a "plan B". Of course, the calm and cool bride and her family set the stage and a great night was had by all.

Back on track though...here are a very few clips of fall...as seen thru the lens of an iphone. I'll look forward to seeing the "real" pictures since these come nowhere close to capturing the true beauty. We had 13 rather large events over an 11 week period this fall and my favorite part was that no two events were even remotely the same. Each one was completely different and personal.

This is Brynn's bouquet. I miss getting to work with flowers and Brynn was sweet to trust me to put together her bouquet after telling me the colors and to make it "different". Although I work with many talented florists, I enjoyed getting to do Brynn's flowers myself! Brynn and Tom were married at 8:30 pm in a candle light ceremony under the canopy of an oak grove. Think Mid Summer's Night Dream. To say it was magical does not even begin to describe the evening where the guests were lead by candle light from the ceremony by a bagpiper who took them down the road to the limestone Mansefelt barn for the reception.

Michelle at Sprout did an amazing job with the centerpieces at Eileen and Chris's reception (also at Mansefelt) . This shot does not do them justice! The colors were so rich. I was quite taken with them.

The lighting combined by the sheer size of Meredith and Andrew's tent was so dramatic. The tent was intended for dinner and dancing but guests couldn't help themselves and began pouring in during cocktail hour because it was just too tempting to be in that amazing space.

This was setting for Meredith and Andrew's cocktail hour moments before the guests began to arrive. We echoed the same pattern on the floor of this entrance and cocktail hour that was then seen on the ceiling of the tent (pictured above). Very effective and set the tone for a fantastic party.

Below is the a candlelight garden dinner at Hoffman Haus for Monica and Chris. I work there often but this was the first time we'd done dinner outdoors in the garden. Tables lined the garden pathway and candles hung from the trees overhead all the way back, deep into the garden. The effect was quite enchanting and the garden never looked so beautiful.

Well that was fun...

Ten days ago my website went down. Not the best thing in the world but not the worst either I don't suppose. But, it took my e-mail with it. YOWZA! That was a little tricky. I was able to notify clients but there are so many e-mails I get every day that got bounced back and I'll never know who was trying to contact me. Hopefully they'll try again. Apologies to any of you out there that attempted to contact me and got your e-mail returned. Even more to those of you who though I had closed up shop after our initial contact! I'm still here, I promise!

In the meantime, everything is back up and running and I've now been inspired to get the website updated as well. So look for some much overdue additions to the galleries shortly.

Style Me Pretty

Yes, I can claim the fact that I'm the world's worst blogger. However, just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I've been languishing with my girlfriends by the pool, drinking margaritas and reading smut magazines. *someone please shake me out of this blissful dream of slothfulness* ACK. Back to reality. Because the reality is that I haven't been blogging because we've been far too busy planning wedding after wedding after wedding. We've been really blessed with great clients and lots of business! 2010 was booked before it started and we're well on our way for 2011. There has been no time for poolside languishing I'm afraid. And apparently there has been very little time for blogging. Although I supposed I haven't exactly been proactive in grabbing every moment that I could have been blogging. Kind of a "seize the blog!" mentality. Although that doesn't translate nearly as fluidly as "seize the day" does it?

Which brings me to why I'm here...other than grabbing a chance to "seize the blog!". I would be remiss if I didn't mention that two of the weddings we've worked on this spring were featured in on the utterly wonderful, completely inspiring wedding site Style Me Pretty. Think of the Style Me Pretty as the antithesis of this blog - updated constantly, hundreds of stunning images every week and a variable maze of information that is enough to make any bride to be or wedding junky dizzy. This website is fast taking over as THE premiere wedding website and I understand why. Good stuff within. Very good.

Soon, I really promise, soon I'll give you all the details of these weddings but until then, check them out on the Style Me Pretty site.

First, we had Laurie and Mark - you'll love their pictures. They spent loads and loads of time working thru the details for their wedding - from monogrammed napkins at each place to personalized stirrer sticks in cocktails representing where they grew up (New Orleans and Georgia). They were really fun, positive people to work with.

Next was Anne & JB. They had one of the biggest wedding parties I've ever worked with! The ever talented Stella Alesi did a beautiful job with the images. Another wedding that was loads of fun and I think the guests all thoroughly enjoyed their weekend.

Spring is gone and summer is drawing to and end. I have a number of new obsessions that I intend to share on the blog. Does it count as blogging if I only do it in my head? Hmmm. I was afraid the answer would be no on that. Darn the luck.

Oooohhh! A winter wonderland in the Texas Hill Country

Please, go HERE and look at Jenny Evelyn's beautiful and fun pictures from one of our December weddings!

Not only did Jenny come all the way from Georgia to do an amazing job, she had the most adorable and awesome couple as her subjects!

Thanks for sharing with us!

"I just want it to be fun and happy"

Last spring I met with Amy, a bride who, like so many women these days, had a lot on her plate and very little time to plan a destination wedding. She chose the location and then gave me a call. Her wonderful bridesmaid came to town with her for our initial meeting and gave me the heads up: "she makes really fast decisions". She was right! That day we went over a lot of looks and as we started narrowing down a direction Amy told me something that stuck with me. She said, "I just want it to be fun and happy because that's how I feel. Happy."

We walked down to Morgan Davis and she picked a really fun, colorful and totally unusual invitation before we even we sat down. After that we were off. Save the Dates and then Invitations went out and before we knew it the wedding was upon us and my entire studio was filled with bright colored tissue paper poms and candles. FILLED. Seriously. There was a VERY small path to walk into the front and turn in a tight circle, nothing else.

Amy's now husband, Aaron, was so nice and this was one of those weddings that Jasper and I both had "Awwwww" moments and got all teared up just during the rehearsal! I know. We're saps.

Photographer Corrie Fish was nice enough to send me these images. She and her husband work as a team and not only did they do a great job, they were really nice and so easy to work with. Thanks Corrie!

Kairos absolutely glowed with warm light from all the candles and Chinese lanterns

Goodbye you two! It really did turn out to be fun and happy...just like yourselves.

Winter Wonderland

The weekend before Christmas I had the chance to work with Simpson and Brian (and Simpson's awesome parents) on their wedding. Her mom and dad put countless hours of legwork into the making everything lovely for their daughter's wedding and it was all done with nothing but cheer and love. SO, so sweet - just like the Bride and Groom.

Photographer Jenny Evelyn came in from Georgia to photograph the event and I can't wait to see her pictures! She was really an artist. Just the few she showed me during the night were fantastic! Go look at her blog to check out sneak peaks of Brian and Simpson's engagement session here. These two lit up whenever one would walk into the room and I think I even saw Simpson leave the ground she had such a bounce in her step whenever Brian was nearby. Like I said - SO, so sweet!

Hope everyone had a very Happy Holiday!

I'm so excited about our 2010 weddings I can hardly stand it. Lots of fabulousness on the horizon!