Vendor Spotlight

Life's Highlights

As I was planning my wedding and creating my budget, I wasn't too sure about video. Yes, it would be great to have but was it necessary? However, my husband was adamant that we have a videographer at the wedding and I must say, he was right!

Your wedding day goes by so fast. You spend all this time planning and preparing and then it's over in the blink of an eye. You end up forgetting so many bits and pieces of the night because so many different things are going on. I wish I got to say hello to everyone but my husband and I split up throughout the night so we could thank everyone for coming out and celebrating with us! :)

A friend recommended that we use Scott & April with Life's Highlights. They were the sweetest couple and  very professional. They work with you on what you want and have a great sense of creativity.

When we received the highlight video, I was so happy we chose to get videography. I strongly recommend it. You want to look back and remember the things that happened on that night, all the people who were there, the little moments you missed and can look back on for the rest of your life and to share with your children. Life's Highlight's did an amazing job and I can't say enough good things about them. I absolutely loved them and the work that they did for us!

http://vimeo.com/22926169

There are great videographers in the Tampa Bay area who do a fantastic job. Give them a call and consider it in your budget because it is definitely worth it!! :)

http://www.moderndayevents.com/

Venues I love....

There are so many AWESOME venues in the Tampa Bay area (this includes St. Pete, Clearwater and Sarasota). We have beautiful beaches, amazing weather, great hotels and many venues that can create a fabulous event.

I love venues that provide outdoor/indoor wedding options with our weather (in the RIGHT months of course). So we'll start with those first and I'll follow-up with another post on great hotel venues I love.

***Destination brides be warned when booking a wedding outdoors in July and August, always have a PLAN B for rain and humidity!***

My first choice is probably completely due to my bias opinion. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Davis Islands Garden Club but I did get married there so others may think differently. I just feel there is so much you can do with this venue for the DIY bride. The outside area is already decorated for you with its beautiful garden and you can transform the reception hall area to whatever theme you want to create. :



Gazebo at the Davis Islands Garden Club

 The Crosley Estate is also a very beautiful venue. It's on the water and provides beautiful landscaping:

Want to plan a very unique wedding, think about using the Lowry Park Zoo as the perfect location for your big day:



Ringling Museum in Sarasota has beautiful grounds and an amazing backdrop for an outdoor wedding:

Barbara Baker Photography

The University of Tampa provides for a great location for your wedding or special event:

If you're looking for a very modern feel for your wedding, I think museums are great locations to get this look:

Tampa Museum of Art


Tampa Museum of Art

 

Atrium at Tampa Museum




Glazier Children's Museum:

Tampa Bay History Center located in Channelside near the St. Pete Times Forum:

Please be assured there are still so many awesome venues and these are just a handful of what the Tampa Bay area has to offer. Please feel free to add venues you think deserve to be on a list of best venues in Tampa Bay. I love getting feedback and even learning about hidden gems I don't know about! :)

Images courtest of Mandy & Me Studio, The Crosley Estate, Ringling Museum, Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa Museum of Art, Glazier Children's Museum, Univerity of Tampa, Tampa Bay History Museum and Barbara Baker Photography.


http://www.moderndayevents.com/

What about a theme…..

As I have mentioned before, I wanted a very personalized wedding that represented me and my new hubby. Which actually ended up being very easy. We both LOVE to travel. So I wanted to incorporate some of the places we have visited together in that theme. Our “Save the Dates” were made on postcards and I made our “card table numbers” postcards as well. Instead of the standard numbers, I created a postcard of a city we had traveled to and made the escort cards into boarding passes.



My only regret were these darn card holders, they were flimsy and didn't stay up very well. We live and we learn! :)

I used our honeymoon destination as the name for the sweetheart table.



I found a boarding pass template on google and printed them at home on a heavier card stock paper.



I personalized each postcard with a memory from that city.



I even made sure that our guest book was geared towards the "travel" theme and asking our guests where they were traveling from and how far it was.




http://www.guestbookstore.com/


As mentioned in a previous post, I set a wire Eiffel Tower in the middle of the escort card table to add to the boarding passes that our guests would pick up before heading to their tables.

I used zazzle.com to make the postcards and the menu cards. It was such a good site for personalization and very nicely priced.

It was fun throwing around different ideas with friends and family until deciding on the perfect idea for the "big day."

www.ModernDayEvents.com

It's all about the details....

I wanted our wedding to be as personalized as possible. But of course without the hefty price tag. I wanted to focus the theme around us and our personalities. So when it came to deciding what our “wedding colors” would be we simply went with his favorite color and mine…. pink and blue!

Then I searched all the popular sites to get ideas on props, favors and décor. I fell in love with etsy.com. Not only was it a great site but it was mostly handmade products. I found an adorable sign to direct our guests for the ceremony for $89.00 (this included the shipping cost).

I also found my gift card box on ETSY for $70.00 ($50.00 plus $20.00 for shipping). This might seem like a lot for a box but it was so adorable and well worth it. I figured since I had to cut a lot of the big ticket items out of my budget, I could add a little extra drama to the little things.

I ordered fans to place in each of the chairs during the ceremony. An outside wedding in Florida….you always have to be prepared for heat and rain. I had a covered patio as back-up for rain and fans for the guests during the ceremony. I found wine labels for our wines which you could easily make yourselves but I got a little lazy at this point with the crafts (http://www.myownlabels.com). I had pink labels for the white wine and blue labels for the red wine.

The beauty of Davis Islands Garden Club is all the amazing things you can do without being tied to their catering, liquor and all the other services tied in when having a wedding at a hotel. Granted, you have a little extra more work on your hands but you can turn an empty canvas into your own little masterpiece. Davis Islands also had some extras you could rent thru them. I’m not going to say I was pleased with their pricing on the “extras” but they help transform the venue. The garden club rented out draping for the back patio for $300 and then they rented out white cushions for the patio seating that wrapped around the patio….that was $400 (for pillow cushions)!! That was absurd to me; however it was a must because it made the area look empty and bland without them. The white patio cushions dressed it up nicely. So, I bit my tongue and paid the fee. I also was able to negotiate with Davis Islands for the Anastasia Chandeliers. These made the back patio look so elegant.

I then found very reasonably priced items on The Knot’s wedding shop. I ordered personalized cocktail napkins and matches. This too was a nice little detail that added a lot to our décor.

I had a “travel” theme wedding which I will touch more on in another post but I had found a 3 ft wire Eiffel tower for the escort card table on eBay. I think the shipping cost more than the actual tower.



I didn't have a picture of our Eiffel Tower but our videographer did and he used the image for our highlight video!



We splurged a bit and got a cigar roller for the reception. This was a HUGE hit with the guys. The guys had a cigar in their hand all night long….

I used http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/ for our "Save the Dates" that turned out awesome and I used http://www.zazzle.com/ for our menu cards. These were both very reasonable and turned out great!

My purpose of this post is to relay to all you brides that you can really dress up your wedding at a much smaller cost, you just have to put the work in. There are thousands of websites with good deals, just spend some time looking for them and I guarantee you will not only save money….you may find some other great ideas for your wedding along the way.

http://www.moderndayevents.com/