My Top Ten: Royal Wedding

Although I did not end up staying up all night to watch the wedding, I did DVR it and watch it this morning. I LOVED it and was in near tears several times. Mostly because I was so happy for William and wished dearly for him that his beautiful mother could have been there to see it all. But also I was so happy and excited for Kate. I remember all to well what it was like to be a bride. Even me being a simple commoner having experienced nothing like what she did today, I could still feel that excitement and happiness that comes with being a bride and marrying your "prince"!

So what were my top ten favorite things about the wedding:

10. The location of the ceremony.

There is something so sacred and special about being married in a church, but to be married in a cathedral that has been standing for hundreds of years, it must be awe-inspiring. I have walked in many old cathedrals and basilicas in my travels and I cannot even imagine what it might be like to be married in one. If I could have my pick, I would pick St. Peter's in Rome. Breathtaking! I thought they had decorated Westminster beautifully and I love the layout of it. It was a wonderful backdrop.

9. The hats of the guests.

I have always loved the British tradition of wearing hats to weddings. There is something so formal about them and I love how fun all the designs are. There were several that were border-line weird, but for the most part, I loved looking at them all!

8. The wedding cakes.

Especially the fact that William had a groom's cake! How southern is that! People in CA don't even have groom's cake normally. I even loved that his cake was a recipe from a cake he used to eat as a child. How sweet. I thought they were both beautiful!

7. Prince Harry.

I love how cute these two brothers are together. He seemed to play the part of the perfect younger brother/best man. I saw him making jokes and just being a brother to William on many occasions. It has been so neat to watch these boys grow up. They both really take after their mother.

6. The carriage ride.

How royal is that. It is like something out of a fairytale. Sure you can arrange to exit in a horse and carriage after your own wedding, but when does anyone ever get to parade around the city with millions of people cheering them on and with hundreds of uniformed escorts. AMAZING. ROYAL.

5. The exit from Buckingham Palace.

How cute was that when William and Kate left on their own in such an amazing car. It even read Just Wed on the license plate. I could have done without the cheesy balloons and ribbons on it, but how wonderfully cute and surprising the whole thing was.

4. The formality.

I love all the royal protocol and all the proper-ness of the whole thing. How much time must they all spend learning how to be royal. How to act graciously, who to shake hands with and who to not, how to compose yourself and be proper all the time. It was amazing and refreshing to see. One thing I love about being from the south is all the etiquette and learning how to be and act, and it is so nice to see that there is still a proper way to be and the royals are experts at it.

3. Pippa's dress.

I almost half expected for Kate to be wearing something along the lines of Pippa's dress. How perfect is her petite frame and how wonderfully beautiful was her dress. It was fit perfectly and I loved that it was white. It complemented the whole bridal party I thought.

2. The coordination of the wedding.

I am not sure who the wedding planner(s) was/were, but my hats off to them. I am pretty sure it wasn't a Martha Stewart or a Colin Cowie, but they need to be equally recognized as if they were. How in the heck do you coordinate such a fete and have it come off without a hitch. As a planner myself I am in awe of how you seat all 2000 guests appropriately in a church where most will not have a view at all. How you get people from 3 different locations, to one location at perfect intervals and in the order they need to be. I am imagining people on radios going cue the brothers, cure the mother, cue the queen, cue Kate, etc....They all made it on time and in the correct order. Amazing. Prefect.

1. Kate's Dress.

My first reaction when I saw it was, that's it...that's what she chose? I have seen that dress before? Someone else has worn something almost identical before. It is so the opposite of what I pictured her in. Where is the modern day princess everyone was talking about? How safe of a pick. How boring of a pick. How not representative of a young bride. It looks like an older bride dress. So at first I was disappointed. So how did it make my #1?? It was perfect for the occasion. Had it been me, I would have picked the same thing. I would have said, "I want to look like Grace Kelly, like royalty. I want to be that traditional princess bride. I want a tiara, I want a ball gown, I want lace, I want to be exactly what I had always pictured a princess bride to be. In that sense, I LOVED it. She is so beautiful and it fit her perfect and it was just perfect for a royal wedding.

Royal Wedding Fever

I have got it bad! I remember Diana's wedding 30 years ago very well! I remember watching it on TV and just being mesmerized! I think it was at that moment I became in love with weddings. Her wedding was the stuff dreams were made of. I must say, all the excitement and those feelings are coming back now for the wedding of her son. I am almost seriously contemplating staying up all night to watch this thing! The coverage begins at 1am PST. Am I crazy??

I cannot wait to see Catherine in her dress. I mean really, that is all I really care about. What crown will she wear is maybe something I am looking forward to. Maybe! All this hype made me bring out my old Diana doll my aunt gave me the year she was married. It is a little old and yellowed, but I love it. It is priceless to me.

I still have all my old Diana books too. I used to gaze at these pondering my life as a princess one day when I was a little girl. I wonder if my girls will do the same about Kate? Probably not as they don't seem to be as into it all, ....yet.


Somewhere I have the post card my babysitter sent me that actually went to London to be a part of the Diana and Charles festivities. She also brought me back a viewfinder with images from the wedding on it. I made scrapbook upon scrapbook of magazine cutouts of Diana when I was growing up. I just loved her. It was such a sad day the day I heard the news about her passing. The world lost a wonderful lady that day. I have hopes that Kate will be just as much a beautiful princess and wonderful role model as Diana was. I feel like a proud mom and am so happy that William seems to have chosen well!

Cannot wait for the big day that starts tonight!!

Rob and Nina's Wedding: The Wedding

FINALLY! I am so happy to say that I am finally getting around to writing about the wedding. I am very proud that I got it done before October! I still don't have all the pictures I would like to post, but I think you will get the idea regardless. It was such a classy celebration. They really lucked out that they had such a gorgeous day. I mean it was perfect and we had been having a rainy fall up to that point. It was sunny, about 75 degrees. Everything went off just as planned (or at least from what I could tell) It was very nice to be in a wedding and just have to look pretty. I didn't have to stress about vendors, or decor, or anything this time around. She had a very high end Dallas wedding planner, a well known wedding venue, and a great photographer. What more could a bride ask for!

The ceremony took place just as it was getting dark. The candles were beautiful and the trumpet playing as she walked in were perfect! It was the most beautiful evening wedding.

Ceremony: Highland Park Methodist Church

Sarah loved being a flower girl!

The McDonald Family

The reception was so much fun. We started off with a cocktail reception in the conservatory. All the windows with the beautiful botanicals around was the perfect setting. The piano music was wonderful. The ballroom was lit just perfectly for the reception. All the fall colored flowers and the gorgeous cake as the centerpiece was breathtaking. For dinner we dined on beef tenderloin and jumbo lump crab cakes. Fabulous! The band was so much fun and had the crowd dancing well into the wee hours of the morning. They made a fabulous exit in their Rolls Royce and it was a perfect ending to a perfect day!

Reception: Crescent Court

Sarah and I with my Dad

The Parents!

I will not be doing a final installment on the honeymoon. I was not invited, imagine that! I do not have any of their pictures from the honeymoon. I can tell you they both enjoyed FIJI immensely and it sounded like it was a great trip. HERE is where they stayed!

Rob and Nina's Wedding: Rehearsal Dinner

What a night to kick-off the big event! Rob and Nina selected a very popular Dallas restaurant as the location for their rehearsal dinner. In fact, they selected the whole restaurant. It was private just for their event. I am still not sure how exactly they pulled that off on a Friday night, but I am sure a pretty penny was involved. The location was La Duni Latin Kitchen!

It was a fantastic party. The ambiance inside was very festive and the staff was great. Mojitos and other drinks of choice were easy to find and the food was amazing. It was served family style and we had a selection of Spanish favorites. For dessert, the tres leches cake they made in house, was fantastic! It was great to have food that was different from what the wedding reception menu was planned to be! The party lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. I headed back to the hotel around midnight, so I could get my beauty sleep...only to get a call from Nina, whom I promptly told to go to bed so she could get her beauty sleep (not that she needed it)! My husband wandered in at some point hours later. I was told the father of the bride was buying drinks for the staff, etc...so I am sure it was a lively party after I left!

Here are some photos!

Rob and Nina's Wedding: Bridesmaids Luncheon

This was not officially the first party of the wedding weekend, but I don't have many photos from the Meet the Families night hosted by Nina's mother at her house. Nina's mom had hosted a gathering the night before where Rob's family could all meet Nina's family. It was a great way for everyone to get to know each other before all the festivities began, so we could just party all the other nights there after!

So back to the Bridesmaids luncheon. This was a very elegant lunch. It was held at the Dallas Museum of Art at their restaurant Seventeen Seventeen. We had a private room which was just gorgeous. The food and service were really great and we enjoyed each others company. We enjoyed hearing all the stories about Rob and Nina first meeting, and some of their dating adventures. It was really special for Nina's grandmother to be there. We all enjoyed hearing about Nina growing up, as well! It was such a treat! You will see the menu below!

Check out this "sweet" dessert!

Rob and Nina's Wedding: The Beginning

So it has been exactly 4 months since Charlie's brother, Rob, married Nina and I gained a new sister-in-law. I have been wanting to blog about this from the day after the gorgeous wedding and fantastic wedding weekend....but many things got in the way.

1. It was so gorgeous and so perfect and there were so many parties involved in the wedding weekend, I sort of didn't know where to begin. I got intimidated by the project ahead.

2. We were heading into the holidays and I was pre-occcupied by the next couple of months. I survived it!

3. I was waiting to get the professional pictures from the photographer, which I still don't have. No fault of the photographer, I just can't decide on which ones to buy and have been dragging my heels! So we will just make do with the photos I took and the few I have otherwise. Once I get the professional ones, I will just post again and we can all re-live this wondrous occasion at that moment!

So that about sums it up. Since I am going ahead without all the photos, and the holidays are over, I figured the best thing would be to take this topic and turn it into several separate blog posts!

So without further delay....I bring you the engagement. I do know the story of how he ended up pulling it off and surprising her, but I will spare you all the details at this time. I will tell you he asked her the day after Thanksgiving at the Dallas Arboretum in 2008, and she said yes. Let's flash forward to 2009 and check out their super cute engagement photos. Very Dallas chic...in my opinion. They had a wonderful photographer....Thisbe Grace. These are all her photos.

Meet Rob and Nina.....




My next post about their wedding will be about the Bridesmaid's Luncheon....stay tuned! Yes, I was asked to be a bridesmaid and I was thrilled to accept. You might remember the shower I hosted for her......CLICK HERE.

Once Upon a Time....

Once upon a time I lived in LA and was a wedding coordinator. Actually I was more of a hotel catering manager, but for one gorgeous August day....I was a wedding coordinator. Having just planned 3 parties in the last month, I have been reflecting on the life I used to have in the wedding business. I thought that I would share with you a little insight into the wedding that was my first one that I took upon, outside of my day job. The bride was a good friend of mine. In fact, she worked at the same hotel as I did in Redondo Beach: The Portofino Hotel & Yacht Club. I was the catering manager and she was the wedding coordinator.

Here is the gorgeous couple: Shawn & Katie

Now let me back up a tad....I moved to LA to be in the TV industry, but the first year I moved out there I found myself planning my own wedding and falling in love with doing that. I quickly realized that the wedding business was my passion. The Portofino was known for weddings due to our location on the ocean and we averaged about 4-5 weddings a weekend. Most were just receptions, but I would say a good 40% were ceremonies too!
So here I am...someone who had planned her own wedding (big TX wedding with 300 guests), someone who currently managed about 200 weddings a year, and someone who was ready to take on the "big day" for someone else...all on my own!

So Once Upon a Time...Here is where she decided to have her wedding!

The gorgeous St. Regis Hotel Monarch Beach in Dana Point, CA! It doesn't get much better than this folks.... She had a gorgeous August day, she had a perfect sunset, she had all her close family and friends there, and she had planned the perfect wedding! I felt like I was more than prepared, but wow...I clearly was not 100% flawless on my wedding planning duties. I attribute most of my short comings to the fact that I didn't not hire an assistant. I thought with all my experience that I didn't need one, but quite the contrary. Having had all my experience, I should have known that I needed a helper. The location, although spectacular, was S P R E A D O U T! The bride was getting ready on the opposite side of the property from where the reception was which was in a different location to where the ceremony was. I also had the photographer taking photos all over the place. Being the one woman operation I was, I didn't have any fancy "Walkie Talkies" or anything, nor anyone else to be sending commands too. Had I had an extra person, I could have cut down on my cardio time running around everywhere and could have double checked the details more. We had a small snafu with the seating (which could have been avoided had I had an extra 20 minutes to go over it one last time) and we had a near miss with the surprise bag-piper almost not becoming a surprise anymore. All in all it went as smooth as it could, and luckily the wedding was at a 5-star hotel and I had an easy going bride that was my friend. At least I wasn't too worried she would hate me forever if I made a few small mistakes. I just of course didn't want to make any!

Katie, had very good taste and knew what she wanted. If I had to pick a theme for her wedding, I would say Shabby Chic. It was so much fun thinking of ideas together and thankfully we both liked this look. Here are some of the details we had fun planning.



We also had a great photographer. He was also a friend to both of us. I knew that photography was one area that was particularly important to Katie. I went with her and we interviewed easily 5-6 photographers before she decided to go with Troy at Epic Imagery. In the end, we both new he was professional, did beautiful work, and was was all around great to work with. We knew what "we" were getting. There is just a good feeling you get when you know you can count on the photographer to be on time, do good work, be fun to be around, and capture the moments! Here are some of my favorite shots that he took. I am sure Katie has her own set of favorites, but these I really love.

I love how he captured the detail on her dress, the flowers, and her ring. So Pretty!

I love this one of Katie and her mom. They both looked gorgeous that day!

Here are a few of the beach shots taken at sunset

Now the reception was tons of fun. I mean planning wise....I didn't really partake in the party! All the guests seem to have had a blast, though. We had fun playing with the romantic roses, the crystals and all the shabby chic muted colors. We mixed dark brown into the scheme and it balanced it out nicely. Especially since there was a lot of dark brown in the room to begin with. Most times when you have a hotel wedding you have to consider the colors on the walls and the chairs.....unless you plan to pipe and drape the entire room and create a whole new space. In this case we decided our colors worked well the color scheme and we brought in chivari chairs. Here are some of the other reception specialties:

The signature drinks! Yummy!

Her cake was gorgeous and was so pretty sitting on the crystal cake stand.

"How sweet it was of you to have come" was what the sign read at the candy bar!

I had the most fun doing this wedding and helping Katie plan her special day. It confirmed 2 things for me...1.) that weddings are a lot of work and don't tackle a big one all by yourself, and 2.) that I love weddings and always will. Maybe one of these days I will get back into it. In the meantime I will just enjoy planning parties of any kind for my family and friends!

All photos courtesy of Epic Imagery, Los Angeles.