Hello all! I am excited to be here today guest posting at one of my very favorite blogs today! :) When Rebecca announced that she was looking for people to write about wedding related things I immediately left a comment!

In the past few weeks I've been convinced by my mamma and friends to start up a wedding blog. I really was quite stressed about this at first, but once I actually made myself sit down and work on it everything went SO well! I have really turned most of my wedding posts over to The Story Of Us: Love...Forever & Always, but I still blog about wedding planning details on my regular blog: Blue Eyed Beauty Blog...which I'll tell you more about next:

I am in the middle of preparing for my own wedding which is February 14th. Yes, Valentine's Day!!! Crazy as it may seem, I am planning to get married outside...at the river...I've shared several posts on Blue Eyed Beauty Blog before creating the official wedding blog...but have no fear! I'll still be sharing updates on BEB too! :) LOCATION & DATE According to my cousin, the two biggest battles in planning a wedding are picking a location and setting a date. As you can see, I have both of those covered!

Location was easy for me...although I'm sure it will be quite cold, I have my heart set on getting married at the river...and so at the river it will be! I also have my heart set on getting married on a 14...and it just so happens that February 14th is Valentine's day so that's absolutely perfect! THE {First} DRESS The next battles are picking a dress, putting together a list of what you're going to be doing, and choosing the bridesmaids/groomsmen. Let's start with my dress...

This dress was found in October & quite by chance too! I was not even really thinking about a wedding dress. I found this wedding dress at a yard sale! And get this: it was only 0.25 cents!! Nope. I'm not joking! {read more about 'the find' here}

The dress is actually a Gunne Sax by Jessica McClintock...I know nothing about it...but I have to say it's ugly. I grabbed the dress only for the hope to refashion it... I wanted a more Jane Austen look for my dress...and that was what I drew out in the original design. BUT as I started making cuts on the huge amount of fabric I began to realize that there wasn't quite as much there as I had hoped...and not only that, but the fabric was not as tall as I had hoped either which means I had to make some changes in how the mid part & top were pieced together.

Obviously the dress is still in the making here, but I did want to show what I have so far. I know that by the time I finish the entire dress it will look nothing like it does now. But since it's all free style and I have no real pattern that I'm following I will just go with where the sewing machine takes me! I do love to refashion though so sewing & playing with the item in the making is the best part of the refashion! THE {Second} DRESS A few days after starting work on the first wedding dress I had a huge meltdown. A friend was shopping at the local thrift store and saw this GORGEOUS dress for only $40! She immediately sent me photos and I had Autry take me up there to try it on...We bought the dress! I felt like a bride in it and that's really awesome because I just wasn't feeling it with the dress I was trying to refashion.

I still plan to keep the first dress, but it will not be the wedding dress. I have to make a few minor changes to this dress (aka a bit more fabric on the front/back of the dress to make it more modest) before the wedding, but that's a whole lot less stressful than trying to make the whole thing up myself! THE GIRLS OUTFITS Really this should be about picking the color(s) for your wedding since this is SO important when deciding what your best girls should wear. My colors are white, black, and grey/silver! And I've been able to incorporate that well in the girls outfits...

I saw the above photo on Pinterest awhile back, and even though it was in a Spring wedding setting I knew immediately that I wanted to have my bridesmaids wear long, floor length skirts! Not only are they just plain gorgeous, but they're also fairly comfy & easy to find without being terribly expensive. In planning your bridesmaids outfits you'll really want to keep in mind their budgets too!!!

So as you see in the above photo the outfit covers all three of the wedding colors & is much different than the typical wedding bridesmaid outfit {something that was important to me} plus won't cost a fortune to put together either!

The Bridesmaids Outfit

~floor length/maxi black skirt {formal}

~black lace tank top, neckline @ collarbone

~Grey cardigan {not exactly like this one, but similar}

~silver heels

~white fabric, vintage inspired bouquet

I will have four bridesmaids. Two of my very best friends and two of my sisters. I could have more, but Autry's relatives & friends live in Mississippi so many of them won't be able to make the trip up to the river since they have to work. All four of them already have a pair of silver heels, we will be making their bouquets at some point in the near future {and I'll be blogging about it too}, three of the girls have shirts & one we will be doing a little makeover on a tank top for hers, and one of the girls has a long black formal skirt...and I'll be refashioning some black skirts I had in my refashion box for the other three. As far as the cardigans go we have three of the four we need! THE MENS OUTFITS I had a difficult time putting together the men's outfits. Mostly because Autry wanted boots and the only thing that looks good with boots are jeans... We finally got together an outfit which will compliment what the girls are wearing:

The Men's Outfits

~Nice jeans aka NO holes

~Black button up shirts with silver/grey pinstripes

~brown cowboy boots

Autry will be wearing a suit jacket, but he'll be the only one so that he stands out from the other men. SOMETHING: OLD, NEW, BORROWED, BLUE You all probably know the saying: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...Well, I am on my way to achieving this small list of "requirements" as you might call them. It's taken me awhile to figure all of these things out...and I'm still looking for "something new", but here's what I've got so far!

Something Old

This ring belonged to my Grandma Helen {yes, I was named after her!!} It was given to me by my momma. She has kept it in safe keeping ever since it was given to her. I am sad that I never got to meet Grandma Helen, but I know that she would be honored that I'm wearing her ring!

Something Borrowed

My dear friend Kora {at Eclectic Darling} is one of my 'bestest' friends and has helped me so much in the planning & putting together of my wedding! The other day we were talking about the lack of shoes for myself and she had a most brilliant idea: borrow her burlap TOMS!!!

I absolutely LOVE the idea especially since my wedding is a mix between casual and fancy things so this helps my outfit have a bit of casual hopefully without looking tacky!

Something Blue

When my parents got married in November they gave each of their daughters a Claddagh ring. At that time I was thinking ahead and planned to get mine with a blue stone in it...for my something blue! I still plan to wear this ring in my wedding as a symbol that they are important to me & as the 'something blue'. {read more about the meaning of the ring & my ring here}

My Flowers? Although the bridesmaids bouquets will be made of fabric...mine will be from real flowers. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to go with red roses or with white orchids. Both are gorgeous and both have such meaning to them for me!

Red roses. They are a symbol of love. Not only that but I feel that red roses would really stand out well against the white dress and really stand out in photos since no one else will have the red color in their bouquet, etc. However, this could be a huge down side to using all red roses or roses period since I don't want the focus to be on the roses themselves.

White orchids are special to me because those are the flowers Autry first told me about when we were in the long distance part of our relationship. I looked them up online, since I had no clue what they looked like, and I saw this photo! Can you not see how gorgeous this would be???

And of course I have a third option...a mix of different white flowers. This exact bouquet was on my list from the very beginning of bouquets I adored...and it has made it to the final round! Now all I have to do is decide what exactly I want to do...and that may require some outside opinions so share away! OTHER DETAILS I'm a huge DIYer girl and, if you haven't noticed, that is spilling over into my wedding as well! Which is both a good and bad thing. The good thing is my wedding is going to be totally personalized! The bad thing is I have more projects than can fit into a single wedding so I've had to narrow things down...a LOT! Here are the ideas that I'm really planning on using/doing for my wedding:

This is the inspiration for my wedding cake! I am SO fortunate to have a cake decorator for a best friend...she has offered her skills in the area of cake decorating to help out with my wedding! She loves this cake and thinks she can create something similar...which I'm SUPER excited about! *That's Kora, by the way!*

I'm still working on the invitation details...and that really needs to hurry up, but I'm pretty sure that I'll be using these gorgeous paper doily envelopes! I actually already have the huge paper doily's so this wouldn't cost me a thing!!! AND it's pretty!

Minus the snow, and using different candle holders I LOVE this idea! I do plan to recreate this for my wedding reception table! I actually found a silver tray at the thriftstore for $2.00. The best thing is I'll be able to use it for other things after the wedding!

I really don't have a table cloth...but because I sew I have TONS of scraps which would be perfect for a table cloth like this! We just may end up doing this if I don't come up with any other table cloth ideas before the wedding!

Heart Shaped Confetti...from the book Pride & Prejudice. This project is COMPLETE! YAY! I have my own photos, but they're still on my camera right now. I totally plan to write a tutorial for this though because it was SO easy!!!

I absolutely plan to have a chalkboard or something with the dates and what happened for us to have on display at the wedding. This is mostly because we do have a Love Story over a year old, and by the time we get married it will be a year and a half since the beginning of it! I saw this awhile back on Pinterest and thought it was the perfect way to display a bit about us without being an overload of information!

Someone will FOR SURE have the duty of picking up a newspaper on the day we're married! I have the newspaper from the day I was born and think it is a really neat idea! RECEPTION FOODS Other than the cake which you saw just above, we will have a hot chocolate bar, heart shaped cookies, pastel "wedding" mints, and...wait for it...Popcorn! This lovely idea was presented by Miss Veronica @ Passion, Pink & Pearls and I absolutely LOVED it! As you can tell...it's in the final food plan!

I absolutely LOVE the idea of using these snowflakes made out of icing to top hot chocolate or hot tea! I'm not for sure that we'll use this, but I had to throw it out there for anyone else who might like the idea! CLOSING Of course there are so many more plans that go into a wedding that what I've shared with you all today, but hopefully you have found some inspiring things here & will be able to use that inspiration in your own wedding or a friend's or sister's wedding down the road! Obviously there's still time before my wedding arrives & even long after I'm sure I'll keep coming up with grand ideas for weddings that are not my own...so If you'd like to keep up with Pins for MY wedding go here! or for wedding Pins in general go here! I still have things to decide, figure out and plan so if you're interested in this guest post you might want to keep up with my wedding by following the label: Wedding Planning With Helen @ Blue Eyed Beauty Blog. That is a post series I created specifically to share details of my wedding! Thank you all so much for reading! Of course if you have any ideas or thoughts on what you've seen please feel free to share away! I'm all ears! :)

Blue Eyed Beauty Blog {Bloglovin | Facebook | Tumblr | Pinterest}

Exercise Encouragement Group Blog {Bloglovin | Facebook | Pinterest}

The Story of Us: Love...Forever & Always {Bloglovin}

Angel Light Photography by Helen Blog {Bloglovin}

Refashion Co-op

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