Salem Bridal Showcase with my future M-I-L and S-I-L

My future mother-in-law Sheila told me about the Oregon Bridal Showcase in Salem on Friday. She and my future sister-in-law, Jordan, said they would go with me, so we planned for this morning. At first, I thought it would be the same vendors from the Portland Bridal Show last weekend, but I was pleasantly surprised. There were tons of different vendors (all very personable and not rushed) and high quality professionals. Although it had about half the vendors as the Portland Show, it was a much better experience. Here are a couple of the new places I loved.

#1 The Golden Pear - Floral Designs

Kathleen Farmer made an excellent impression on me. Not only did her company name incorporate part of my theme (hopefully pears and grapes). But she had out-of-the-box designs, such as square wreaths with green hydrangeas (such as those in the bouquet right). She had tall vases filled with fruit, which I would do pears. She also had small round moss wreaths tied with a green ribbon to the backs of chairs. That would be a great way to dress up the ceremony chairs.

#2 Red Pearl Designs - Wedding Invitations 

Megan Ward was also a vendor that made me feel that excellence and perfection can be obtained. I won't type much about the designs. I'll let her website speak for itself. Also check out her blog. Absolutely beautiful work!



#3 Haute Cakes & Confections - Wedding Cake

Haute Cakes had a full array of cakes on display that were absolutely gorgeous. They did have a pear cake, but more of a basket style weave. Absolutely gorgeous detail and might be a great contender.

#4 Willamette Valley Vineyards - Ceremony & Reception Site

On one hand, I'm very upset the site doesn't have great pictures of the site. But I pulled as many as I could. Rental space is cheaper but food is more expensive. But how can you beat Willamette Valley? They have the most beautiful and luxurious location. I will take more pictures when Tony and I go on a walk through, hopefully this week.

My Ring

Also saved and not uploaded. Post from Saturday.

If you haven't heard it directly from me already ... I LOVE MY RING!!! Tony and I did some light store and magazine browsing before he proposed, but I thought it would be at least 4 months away. When we first saw this ring at Kay Jewelers, I only liked it. Yet, it was exactly everything I had been describing: swirl design, round cut diamond, pave set stones, multiple-bands look.

The online picture doesn't show the three-dimension style of the ring. I tried to take my own, but my small camera doesn't take great quality pictures. 

I couldn't get closer than this without blur.

My ring is 14 karat white gold. The center stone is a half-karat round-cut diamond with tall prongs. They sit on one main band with four channel-set diamonds on each side. It has two swirl band which are free floating by the main diamond. There are 11 pave-set diamonds on each swirl band. There is a total of 30 smaller diamonds totaling 1/8 of a karat. I love the side view of the swirl bands because they make a V-shape around the main diamond.

And I get to wear it FOREVER! I know caps lock is lame, but I'm very excited.

Books, Banners and Birdies

My saved post from Friday. Time to catch up.


Books:
My wedding planning book came today! It was a two-day ship from Amazon and I could hardly wait. 308 pages of glorious organizing bliss. Tony took one look and said, "Yeah, this is definitely for you." I've made lists all my life and now I get to plan the biggest event of it. I've got to get purple pens, business card pages and purple paper for notes inside.

Tony's mom, sister and I had a fun time flipping through the pages. We starting tossing around ideas and began a list of his family to invite.


Banners:
I made a trial banner for my page. I love looking at the cute ones my friends have, so I spent about 2 hours creating my own. What do you think? I have no formal photo software so I made it in PowerPoint, saved it as a JPG and just cropped it in PhotoScape. I apologize to my fantastic graphic design friends.


Birdies:
As I was looking for banner pictures, Stacie was mentioning peacock feathers. I started doing some research online. I originally had a lighter green and dark purple with brown accents, but maybe I want to add a bright blue? Tony said blue first when I asked about colors. Maybe the more color the better?

A New Beginning

Here we go. My desired wedding date it is 232 days away. I have never truly stuck to a journal or blog. But here's the good news ... I am so excited to marry my best friend that I will pour my heart into this beautiful little site whenever possible.

This is where I bridge the gap. My best friend and MOH, (maid of honor for those of you who do not follow the wedding lingo) Erin Warwick, lives 435 miles away from me in Boise, Idaho. This is for all my friends in Idaho, but most importantly Erin, the person who I've known and has stood by me since I was 5 years old.

So let's being. I will fill you in on the engagement and buying the wedding dress (both occurred in a 29-hour period!) another day. There's no day like today!

Today, I browsed a website suggested to me by one of the admissions counselors I work with, Mandee Wilmot. She got married in July and said she loved the Green Wedding Shoes blog. I love so many of the ideas and might pull a couple photos from there.

More importantly, I went to the venue I have had in the back of my mind for two years. There was an open house at West End Theatre, including preferred vendors such as Premiere Catering, Powers Photography, Sweet Cakes and The Paramount Hotel.

The big standout of the night was Premiere Catering. They had these fantastic "shot" glasses filled with tomato soup and had a triangle grilled cheese resting on top! It was so delicious, fantastic comfort food. They also said they could do milk and cookies for the toast to the couple. Super adorable.  They also had a great spread of fruit (especially the skewers), olives, chips and spinach/artichoke dip. One of our friends mentioned at our engagement dinner how we both love barbecue wings. I prefer chipotle or the regular spicy and Tony loves the honey barbecue. I am trying to think of a clever way to put the wings inside these small glasses, but we might have to get creative. We also tried the chicken and rice pilaf and the beef stroganoff with mashed potatoes. If you can fall in love with food, I fell hard tonight.

Before moving into the grand finale of the venue, three blocks down the street is The Paramount Hotel. It is absolutely gorgeous and there is a beautiful park in front of it. Since there is one large space at the venue, I might like a section of the park for a cocktail hour while they convert ceremony into reception. This is a picture of the space at night.

So West End Theater was fantastic. I absolutely loved the antique and artistic feel, which ties into my dress.The dark brown contrast and the old architecture of the former performing arts theater create the perfect intimate setting. It was no charge to hold a date, so I put down 9/9/11, hoping that the couple holding 9/10/11 will call back and cancel as they said they might. Here are some photos from the website.

Love the sign!

Stage area.

The ballroom that would first be the ceremony, chairs in rows with large aisle. Tony and I would sand on the stage (stairs for front are optional) and wedding party in front of the stage on either side.

Upper platform for guests to sign guestbook, no chairs.

Downstairs lobby.

Well, my blog excursions are done for the night, after two hours I completed my interests of the day. Can't wait for tomorrow, my wedding planning book gets here!