US meets UK

I know a few of you wonderful brides have started your own wedding related business post wedding, and that some of you have been vendors long before your (or my) marriage.

BridePOP offered a giveaway for my blog and I love to help out small businesses, so if you know a wedding vendor please send them this way – they’ve got nothing to lose! In case you haven’t seen them yet, they have a great blog (so much inspiration!) and they have a vendor directory too!

(cake bakers are welcome too! via Evan Bishop)

BridePOP is giving away a free vendor listing on their site – valid for 1 year. Curious about BridePOP? Here are a few stats:

They receive more than 100,000 unique visitors per month from 160 countries and Alexa has ranked BridePOP as the 34,937th most important website in the United States and 159,289th in the world.

BridePOP was the winner of two (2) community created Twitter Shorty Awards for both the “Wedding” and “Wedding Industry” categories.

On Twitter, each message BridePOP tweets reaches over 4,500 followers

Over 600 sources are currently linking or sending visitors to BridePOP. These include:
* Consumerist.com
* Jezebel.com
* Kirtsy.com
* and many more wedding and pop culture-related blogs

*based on data compiled from Google Analytics

The contest is open to all wedding vendors who would like a free vendor listing on BridePOP. I’ll announce the winner on Friday and the contest will end at 12pm Eastern time on Friday. Even if you don’t win, you can still receive 25% off a listing anyway! Just use the code usmeetsuk25 when you checkout.

How to Enter?

There are 3 ways to enter:

1. Simply comment below, and please, include your location and services

2. Tweet “I just entered a giveaway for an @BridePOP listing, from @MsDorsay! http://bit.ly/bYYICY ” (and re-comment and let me know your twitter name)

3. Subscribe to UsmeetsUk via a reader and let me know in a comment

Mr. D and I did not do a first look. Instead I wanted the suspense to build all day until I walked down the aisle. This caused a more hectic schedule than was necessary (not helped by my late arrival to the venue). We had to shoot the guys and the girls separately and we ran out of time to get the entire bridal party together. Mr.D and I missed cocktail hour to take portraits. I hid from what I thought was Mr.D – which turned out to be the groomsmen doing a run through at the ceremony site.

(source: Evan Bishop)

Lamesauce. I wish I had done a first look. In fact, it ranks relatively high on my “minor regrets about the wedding” list. Because really, I loved marrying Mr.D so much that very few things could have ruined the day, so I chalk them up to minor regrets and ignore them.

I think this video is the perfect highlight of why I would have loved to do a first look. It occurs around the 2:50-3:00 mark.

Meredith and Tommy from Monachetti on Vimeo. (More of this wedding can be seen @ KristenMarie)

Look how happy and sweet they are! Plus, despite the presence of the videographer and a photographer – it appears pretty intimate. They are so giddy and happy, they make me want to send them a box full of cotton candy and lollipops. They look relaxed and it seems like a great way to take a pause with the one you love before the day/night gets underway.

Are you doing a first look, or waiting till you say “I do ” to see each other? Why or why not?

Hiiiiiiii… remember me? I know it’s been awhile…

Maybe a wedding is a teensy (teensy weensy) bit like childbirth. By that, I mean that what comes after the wedding can be so wonderful that fast forward ten months and I’m already beginning to forget the not so great things.

That said, I figured I should hop on my recaps before I forgot the stark reality of wedding stress and hopefully, before our first anniversary.
Our caterer provided a wealth of stress during the planning process and on the actual wedding day. Suffice to say, there were questions on both our ends regarding the contract.  We should have separately contracted for the tent/chair/set up with the tent rental company, and not accepted the offer of “help” from the catering company. The final decision, was that my father would set up the ceremony chairs with help from my brother in law and neighbor. Leaving the caterer with the full 2 hour window she would have had anyway prior to the start of the reception (not that I’m bitter).

To give you an idea of the timeline, it ran like this:
5pm – D’orsay Dad and Crew arrive to set up chairs/ceremony space
6:30pm- D’orsay Dad and Crew must be in places, showered, dressed and ready to walk down the aisle.
This must have been incredibly stressful for my father, and he never once let on how hard it was on him. He did not get to stay with me when I got ready, he did not get to hang out and joke around with his soon to be son in law while he prepared himself, and he was not able to relax until we headed down the aisle.
At about 4:40pm after getting ready at my parent’s house – everyone went into a flurry of action. Team Bridal D’orsay packed the cars (why didn’t we do this around noon?), and I nearly had a meltdown over getting the cake stands into the car (why? I have no idea). My father had already left to begin chair set up, so the ladies of the D’orsay party hopped in their cars and sped off to Oakland Manor.

Upon our arrival (15 minutes late) we stayed in our amped up state of “ready”. Confusion was reigning supreme as I switched the bridal “get ready” room to downstairs (good call with my 4 inch heels) and somehow a few ceremony chairs were already set up? Mrs. Avocado and my cousin sprung into action to set up the pomanders, lavender toss packets, program fans and anti mosquito packets. While my Dad tried to figure out just what exactly was going on with the ceremony set up.
The D’orsay men were about to be photographed, and the ladies and I retreated to the library to continue getting dressed.

Thank god someone remembered to bring champagne.

(all photos by the fabulous Evan Bishop)

Previously:

US meets UK: Getting Ready

Between moving to DC, and Mr.D being in England – I really dropped the ball on setting up a portrait session during cherry blossom season. I had also hoped that my dear friend of Jenna Cole Photography would be able to do the shoot, but alas she was busy… birthing a baby!

So I held off and considered 2011, but that puts us almost a year and half after our wedding! The vast majority of our portraits involve us kissing or about to kiss… what can I say, we were really happy to be married!

My thought process was that I’d swing by Whole Foods, make a decently looking bouquet that only needed to last a few hours at most. Then we’d take photos a bit like these (except, in a wedding dress) and Mr.D and I not kissing!

(via my darling new neighbor and Leo Patrone)

or

(egomedia)

or

(Jay Premack)

Huzzah!

But then… well. I saw these… from our photographer! Mr.D and I will be in San Diego in August – maybe we do a shoot like this instead!

(via BridePop)

I guess we could do both, but I know that I will be incapable of NOT trashing my dress. I’ll be all “you know what would be awesome? Me cliff diving in my dress… weeee!” Right. Like I won’t end up 10 kinds of dirty when we finish.

What would you do?

Oh gosh, vacation was glorious. Glorious! Holly did a great job of recapping the week, so I’ll direct you over to her blog for the full enjoyment. But to give you an idea of the kind of week it was… we consumed 22 pounds of M&M’s, I’m guessing almost that much bacon, untotaled amounts of alcohol, and hours of world cup watching. It might just be time for a detox.

I’ll miss you, Bacon Beach Week.

Yes, that is me… wearing all the inner tubes we had available.

For Summer! This season is certainly one of my favorite ones, and who can hate summer once they get past winter’s gloom? If you’re in the DC area, you may have lamented the lack of Spring this year…. and I’m inclined to agree with you. Except that, well, I just love Summer. The sunshine, vacations, fresh fruits and vegetables, sounds of the beach, and the feel of sand or grass in your toes. I love it.

Every year I celebrate summer by collecting grilling recipes (and try to find a way to grill anything and everything), purchasing coconut scented shampoo, and spending an exorbitant amount of time in Target attempting to decide between Bug Spray A and Bug Spray B and Sunblock A and Sunblock B. Each year, I also spend time trying to find my sunglasses… and usually end up purchasing a new pair.

How do you prepare for summer?

Jenna has linked to me twice in the past few days, and I’ve noticed several of you coming my way. Sorry to be such a lameo with an intense lack of posting. I’ve had a busy month at work, and a busy life outside of that. Which means that I’ve taken 8376578 pictures to upload and blog about my experiences.

In the meantime, why don’t you tell me if you have any summer vacation plans? I’m headed to Virginia Beach next week with friends… but would love to end up at the St.Regis in Bora Bora one day.  le swoon.

(source)

Any summer plans?

ps. Thanks for stopping by! I promise to finish wedding recaps before my anniversary (8/29) and blog about real life soon!