Stanley House

Change of date, venue, vendors, and guest list....

We still love Nash Farm Battlefield and absolutely LOVE our photographer, but after much stress trying to plan the coordination of the food, cake, music, dance and dance floor, lighting, electricity, sound, transportation, and time to prepare for all of the above the week of the wedding, we decided to look for all inclusive wedding packages. At first, this was daunting. Mom helped us look at venues in Japan. One place is really close to my Japanese grandparents' home called Ange de la Vie. The other is in Namba called Green Bell Chapel. I really liked the latter, but after calculating the hotel cost, air fare, and tourist expenses, we decided against it.

Back to square one, Kenny and I got frustrated and started contemplating eloping. Though we joked about this, it was certainly very tempting.

The next option that came to mind was to go on a wedding moon to the Sandals. One of my coworkers, Carmen Hensley, is a travel agent and books affordable vacations to beautiful resorts and cruises! She just currently booked a couple for a beautiful wedding moon in the Bahamas where everything is catered to you. I thought that this would be a wonderful trip, but, again, I really want my family and friends to be with me on my wedding day...

So.... Finally(!), Mom googled "wedding packages in Atlanta" and found the Stanley House in Marietta. I. Love. It! Mom, Dad, Kenny, and I took a mini road trip, made a spur the moment reservation, and happened to fall in love with the bed and breakfast! What is included?

• Wedding Cake and Ice Cream
• Beverages
• Flowers
• Stereo system
• Photographer
• Wedding Coordinator
• Toast: the flutes
• Ceremony: chair set-up, rehearsal
• Bridal changing room w/ claw-foot tub!
  (How awesome is that?!)
• Stanley House Space: main floor, courtyard
• Catering

What's not to love!? Is this not the most adorable place?!

What's so funny is that about two mont

hs ago, Kenny and I took a mini road trip to downtown Marietta to visit a large stamp shop and, during this trip, we drove by the most adorable yellow house. Kenny and I agreed it was cute and went on our merry way to the stamp shop that

happened to be closed that day. Later, we walked by a little bakery with beautiful wedding cakes on display, stopped for a moment to dream, and then continued on to the next antique shop knowing that I would probably not be able to afford it.

And now, look where we are! We are now getting married at that adorable little yellow house and possibly having a tasting with that

bakery!

The only downfall is that we have to do some major trimming for the wedding. The guest list has now been reduced to 30 people. If your eyes got wide when you just read that, imagine how mine looked when I thought about it. However, I must say that I feel so relieved. I was going crazy trying to plan for such a large group of people, so this will work out perfect. And we may still have a little barbecue at my parents to celebrate with everyone we can't invite.

All of the pictures are from the website for Stanley House.

♥ Our Cases ♥

I was able to convince Kenny to design a cd case for myself as I designed one for him! We spent about 30 minutes or more on our designs and I love them! I wasn't sure if he was going to spend a lot of time on making one for me, but, to my surprise, he thought out his pretty awesome(ly).

Below is Kenny's design for me.

(I love the fresh fish!)

And this is mine to Kenny.

(btw. The fish tail is part of Kenny's in the background.)

~ Our first decorative pieces for our new home. ~

Recycled Wedding CD Cases

Today has been such a beautiful day, so I decided to work a little more on the cd cases.

I loved the idea of stamps, but after much failure at finding owl stamps I turned to my pile of wedding magazines and advertisements. And so I decided to recycle them.

These are the couple I have finished so far.

Our Photographer!

We have a photographer!! Sort of. (We have not officially reserved the date just yet.) Just before the holidays, I found a local photographer, Cindy Stansberry, who takes beautiful and natural pictures. As I looked through her on-line portfolio of children, families, engagements, weddings, etc., I knew I wanted Cindy to be our photographer. So, I contacted her and we finally got in touch after the busy holiday season. All three of us met for the first time two Sunday's ago and got along great! I could tell right away that her main concern is to make the day memorable for Kenny and I. It's no wonder she prefers to photograph small weddings. They're more intimate and allow more room for getting to know the guests and wedding party, which is exactly what we want. We want the traditional formal pictures, but we also want to catch everyone's personality on camera. Cindy has a great eye for weddings and asked all the right questions!

With her help, we found the perfect spot to get married! Originally, I had thought to get married on the horizon, but when Cindy suggested we see the view from a semi-weathered dirt road, we found THE spot. "The spot" includes an Edgar-Allen-Poe-Tree (aka. The Poe Tree) on top of a hill overlooking a beautiful backdrop of scattered shrubbery, patches of overgrown grass and a tree line behind it all. Kenny loves this tree and, given Edgar Allen Poe is his favorite poet, it's fitting. Seriously, the Poe Tree would be the perfect cover for a collection Poe's work. The only way I can describe it is crooked and bare with thick straggly stunted branches. I know, this sounds ugly and the image of a Poe Tree is not wedding-esque at all, but trust us. It'll be beautiful and fitting for the two of us. I wish I had pictures to show.

All-in-all, I'm super excited to have a great, personable photographer to be a part of our wedding!

Thanks Cindy!

Wedding Photo Booth

(We are not doing this.)

But I wish we could.

As I am currently doing my readings for class

tonight, I got side tracked on facebook where an ad for The Wedding Photo Booth caught my eye in the left "ad column". If we had the extra spending money for the wedding, I would have LOVED to have this at the wedding! How incredibly fun would this have been?! Basically, the owners set up the white back drop, camera, and leave the cordless clicker to take the pictures. What a great way to get a picture of everyone at the wedding and capture their personalities as well! As I was distractedly watching the picture slideshow on the homepage, there was a picture of a ninja stealing the bride away and all I could think was, "That's Kenny."

Yes, we could do this. Yes, it's cheaper than the alternative. But I really want the traditional wedding pictures taken on the beautiful land of the venue we have rented.

Picture source: Different wedding photo booth site