Archive for the 'bride stuff' Category

Congratulations Prince William and Catherine

After months of speculation and hype, Prince William and Catherine Middletonare married! 2 Billion people were watching around the globe, due to the interconnectedness of the internet and Cable/TV networks. Prince William & Catherine Middleton did not disappoint! Their wedding has had all the royal pageantry that one would expect and at the same time seems [...]

Vera Wang for David’s Bridal

Whoa, I just read that Vera Wang has designed a line of Wedding Gowns/Dresses for the David’s Bridal Chain Stores. This is the shock of the month. Why would she do that?
On one hand Vera Wang has headed a design company that has produced many of the most elegant wedding gowns and formal gowns I’ve ever seen. She [...]

Wedding Flowers

I’ve been looking at the trends in wedding flowers since I got married last year and the interesting thing I’ve found is that there is no one trend everyone is doing right now. There are more options than ever for incorporating flowers into your wedding and the events surrounding it. Don’t forget that you can [...]

Nordstrom is getting into the Wedding Business

Maybe Nordstrom has seen how Macy’s has lost so much of the Marshall Field’s mystique in bridal gown sales in Chicago and have found that if you have quality merchandise at reasonable prices, you can really do well in the wedding business.
I’ve seen two ads for Wedding Coordinators and Wedding Stylists for the Michigan Avenue Nordstrom store. I noticed [...]

What to do if you lost a diamond from your enagagement ring?

I had the unthinkable happen a few weeks ago. I looked at my vintage heirloom engagement ring and noticed one of the small diamonds on the top was missing. I knew this was bad news and one of the things I feared when accepting the vintage ring from my mother in law and deciding to [...]

One Year Married - First Anniversary

 We made it through not only the wedding prep process and wedding itself, but we have been married now for over a year. Our anniversary was July 11th and we went to the Golf Club where the reception was to have brunch, because it was included with our package. We have done a lot in [...]

Should you change your name after marriage?

I read this post about how many women change their last name after getting married and thought about how this has affected me thus far. I got married to Steve in July of 2009 and I chose to change my last name to his family last name and use my last name as my new middle [...]

TheKnot.com’s Popular Wedding Centerpiece Trends and Colors

TheKnot.com just posted a link on Facebook about their new wedding centerpiece trends. I am not sure who decides these things, but the trend is really all about doing whatever you want. Here is a rundown of their 2010 trends and some options if they aren’t quite what you wanted.
And beware, as you click through [...]

Pillbox Hats for Weddings

I recently read on TheKnot.com that pillbox hats are back in bridal style. I’m not sure what to do with this trend. I think hats can be very elegant, but they are not necessarily the best fashion decision for brides. Remember the 80’s? Big bridal hats with large floppy brims and veils were very popular then, as [...]

Bridal Magazines from the bridal-military-industrial-complex

This morning I ran across an article on Advertising Age about Bridal Magazines. The writer is a soon-to-be groom and he gives an opinion on the outlook for bridal magazines in the current economy.
I do agree that Bridal & Wedding Magazines probably do have a better prospect than most magazines in this economy because they are [...]

Bridal Wedding Registry Advice

I was over on the Apartment Therapy Blog called the Kitchn (Kitchen) and they had a post linking to another post about advice if you are getting married and starting a wedding (bridal) registry. I have written about our process before but these foodies are more specific about what is required because they know what all [...]

10 reasons to have a small simple wedding in Chicago

Its been a few months since I got married and the more I hear about other weddings, the better I feel about our choice to have a small simple intimate wedding in Chicago rather than a huge over the top event. It worked out really well to have just around 100 people and a 4 hour [...]

Chicago Brides have a lot in common with New York Brides

I ran across this article by New York Wedding Guide  and was surprised how weddings in the Big Apple resemble the weddings in the Windy City. Of course we aren’t as uber fancy as the New York ladies, but we face the same issues with family, wedding planning and finding the right wedding gown.
In the article [...]

What to do when your family finds your wedding blog

I am at a bit of an impasse with whether or not to keep this blog open since I heard a few weeks ago that a bunch of my family have found the blog through some links on a site my husband owns. Stupid me, why did we link it?
I started this blog as a [...]

How to manage-merge your finances together after the wedding

Merging finances and money processes is one of the first things we ran into with planning the wedding and directly after. The main reasons that merging money comes up so quickly in a marriage were that we had to find a way to both pay for the wedding and then we also had to find a [...]

Tips for Planning your Chicago Wedding and How to Avoid Common Problems

After finding out that I could not work, plan a wedding and blog regularly about my wedding all at the same time I stopped updating the Chicago Wedding Blog a few months back. I did get married this past weekend and am ready to pass on the wisdom and things I learned from planning my [...]

Is it ok to move in and live together before the wedding?

So, this post isn’t really about wedding planning in Chicago, but it is an important question in regards to the relationship you are permanently entering with marriage. I am asking this question about when it’s ok to move in together even if it’s before the wedding because I am in the process of moving in with [...]

How to start your Bridal Gift Registry at Macy’s.com and in a recession

A simple yet elegant white china pattern with a robin’s egg blue border from Noritake.

We spent our Saturday starting our wedding/bridal registry at Macy’s last weekend. We knew it would take a while to work through all the possible combinations of silverware and glassware (crystal) with the china I have passed down from my family but we [...]

How to plan your Wedding & Bridal Registry in Chicago

The Wedding/Bridal Gift Registry event we went to at Crate & Barrel.

The time has come for my fiance and I to start our wedding (bridal) gift registry. (our wedding is only 4.5 months away now) We are in our mid 30’s and both own our own places to live so creating our wedding registry is a lot [...]

My Marriage and the Catholic Church

It is not surprise that I grew up a Polish Catholic in Chicago. A large percentage of people here have that exact same demographic. I dreamed of getting married in a beautiful church like St. Mary of Częstochowa in Cicero where my dad’s family is from.
Our family went to Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church in Darien [...]