All posts by hilljo

The Benefit of Knowing a Vendor Personally

Photo by Josh Gray for HOJASU imaginations

Our wedding was beautiful. It was the coolest, mistiest, most romantic day of the week for weather right down to the rolling thunder immediately following our ceremony. Our outfits fit beautifully and our attendants’ ensembles were fit to perfection. Our family took our design and made  the venue look dreamy.
The ceremony starts and then: the venue coordinator butchered the music. Bad.
Luckily and wisely we chose a videographer who knows us personally. He knew to pan away from the groom whose normally colorful language made an appearance around that time.
This is just one example of how our videographer did a fabulous job because he is a professional and because we know him. We got someone to make our wedding video like we would hope it would be made. We can even fix the music by having him edit over it with what was supposed to play. And we’ll have the original footage for the blooper reel!

Photo by Josh Gray for HOJASU imaginations

He was our guest and our videographer that night, and he will always be our friend.

DIY Flowergirl Baskets

I bought lovely, yet very plain flower girl baskets before our wedding. They are OK, but nothing more! I decided to do a tiny bit of adjusting so they went with the wedding and the girls’ outfits a bit more.

 
For supplies:

2 flower girl baskets

Yellow Grosgrain Ribbon

Hot glue gun + sticks

Fake flora

Instructions:

If your flower girl baskets are shoddy quality (like mine unknowingly were!) secure any loose panels/handles with hot glue and apply light pressure.

Next, practice placing the ribbon on your basket so that it will lay flat all the way around. Place a dot of hotglue in the center of the front and attach your ribbon there. Add a glue spot to the middle of each side while you wrap your ribbon around it to make sure it’s secure.

 
Next, make your bow stylistically. Meaning: don’t make a real bow, just one that looks supernatural-perfect.
 

So first make a little loop and secure it with glue. Then cut a piece to cover the middle. Then position it so it is perfectly in the middle. Wrap the edges and secure them with hot glue. You should have something like this:

 
Then just glue this guy onto the basket ribbon.
 
So cute!!! Not quite done, though. Add some fake flora (not too much!!!) and you’re good to go. I’m storing mine in the bags they came in so that they stay nice and safe! Plus it recycles the bags!

Here I Am…

Courtesy of Nathaniel Hawthorne

I will be married tomorrow forever after. I am not nervous, but the butterflies in my tummy are Amazonian. I feel so many, many things.

I am happy to tears constantly. I am so excited, and I am so sure of Shawn and Me. I just know that Shawn is the right man for me; every day I am reminded when we discuss everything from having kids to what to eat for dinner. It helps that we agree on most things, but it is nice that even if we don’t agree, we always work through everything in a respectful and loving way.

We have worked so hard for so long at this wedding that we are strangely ready to be over it! Don’t get us wrong; we are looking forward to the wedding more than anything we have anticipated thus far in our lives, but we’re ready for the marriage. We want life to be quiet again so we can snuggle down like bunnies with our animals and watch Adult Swim at night until we fall asleep.

Honestly, we’re just ready to take our life back from wedding planning! Before wedding planning, being bunnies daily was our common law status. After we’re married, things will go back to that status, but we’ll be able to do things we want to do, like fix up our (soon-to-be found) new house together and get scars from it. We want to have babies and raise them into big people. We want to walk together, holding hands forever. We’ll be living just like it was, but now it’s in 3-D! WE are not changing, the status of the RELATIONSHIP is.

We are making a promise to be together forever no matter what. Just as people change, feelings change; you cannot simply marry for emotional reasons alone. It is not enough. Marriages go through periods of YEARS where things might be just “not the same as before,” but the couples who stay together during those rough spots usually fall in love with their spouses all over again.

My only advice to married people: love the other person as you want to be loved, and stay together. For better or worse.

You swore!

So on this day, my last day as a single lady, to all my single ladies: Just don’t rush your life to get to any point, whether it be married or any other status. Waiting forever for Mr. Right is better than having a beautiful short-lived wedding with Mr. RightNow.

And always remember that everything happens for a reason! Everything.

I love you all, and all your words of support and kindness have really changed my life. I wish I could hug you all in person and share what you each have personally given me. You’re beautiful!

How to Read Wedding Magazines

Hey from HiLLjO! There was nothing I enjoyed more than taking a crisp $20 bill down to the bookstore to purchase 3 or 4 wedding magazines when we got engaged. I bought them a couple different times and took any free ones laying out in places we registered — duplicate or not.

Courtesy of lovemaegan.com

Now, I’m not the average Midwestern bride who gets married in a church and has a reception in a hotel. If you are, I wouldn’t have to tell you how to read magazines! They are made for that kind of awesome experience. For those who are more like me, or want something that isn’t in the magazines, don’t write The Knot off quite yet. There are still things the mags are good for.

Personal Image

Inspiration

The books are filled with pictures and ads (also pictures). Don’t skip over them; this is not a magazine. It is a wedding magazine. The pic of the centerpiece you skip over could be the One. Don’t pore over every page, but be objective and look at each photo for a good amount of time.

“NO” Ideas

What DON’T you like about the magazine? In the magazine? Is there a photo of a reception you think is the ultimate tacky festival? Cut it out! Making an antonym inspiration board when you’re first planning is actually a lot more helpful. At that point, you’re bombarded with ideas you like. If you find one you don’t like, there’s a definite no. We must learn to celebrate this word later, so start now!

Read It Backwards

The only thing you should skip in wedding magazines is the table of contents. Don’t expect what’s coming next. Take no context with any photos. One thing that helps me with this is actually a funny habit of mine: I read magazines backwards. I don’t know why. I just start in the back cover and read to the front.

Read your magazine front to back, read a new one, and then pick up the first one and read it backwards. You’ll be like, “Did I see this?! I don’t remember that!” It’s like having fresh eyes when it’s in a new order!

Remember that the wedding industry pays a ton of money to put their interpretations of being married into these mags. Only you can tell what being married/getting married will look and feel like to you. Most of my wedding magazines were for gathering “NO ideas,” and it helped us a lot! After you read them, I suggest giving them to a friend who would be interested or is getting married. Just because it’s a new month doesn’t mean the ideas from last month won’t work anymore!

What are some of your favorite magazines? Do you cut them up, give them away or save them?

PS: 3 Days! Holy cow!!!

Multicultural & Unique Traditions: 8-Bit Weddings

Hello, everyone! It’s almost Friday!

It’s HiLLjO here with some more offbeat culture! On Tuesday, we skimmed over Steampunk weddings and their awesomeness, so today I will introduce you to 8-bit weddings! 8-bit is a kind of computer system that gives a lot of games a hallmark look. It is characterized with simple colors, pixelated and simplified images. Some popular game themes for 8-bit weddings are Mario Brothers, Zelda, Lego and Tetris.

Courtesy of technabob.com

Some couples choose to simply do the wedding objects in 8-bit-like invitations, save-the-dates and centerpieces.  Others choose to do everything, even down to the outfits, according to the theme. No matter how in-depth a wedding is with this theme, they are mostly DIY weddings. The bouquet above, and all its buddies from that same wedding, were made with shrinky dink film by the bride and groom! So cute!

gamesabyss.com

This is a hot trend for “geek chic” weddings, and I think it can be done well!

If you planned an 8-bit wedding, where would you draw the line for incorporating details?

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