A girl can’t help but dream, right?

Within days of getting engaged last month, I spent the weekend online and was overjoyed to find the world of wedding blogs, especially because I was living in Africa.  Here I was, someone who used to buy bridal magazines for fun, and  the nearest one I could get my hands on was 1000 miles away.  No fears though – EAD saved me and gave me more ideas and inspirations that I could work with!  Day in and day out, I found inspiration at EAD and began saving and filing away the ideas that worked for us.  I don’t know how else I could have contained my excitement.

I however that that most of the ideas and weddings featured, catered to outdoor weddings with a romantic, vintage theme.  We, on the other hand, are planning a chic, urban wedding in a modern loft or warehouse space in Chicago, our hometown, and wanted a modern appeal.  At the same time we plan to personalize it by all those special details that make a wedding magical, on a budget.

So beginning this Tuesday, I share my research and ideas for our cityscape wedding weekly at Elizabeth Anne Designs. Please come visit me there then.  Check it out anyday though, because it’s always fabulous!

I read somewhere that one couple passed out antique handkerchiefs at their ceremony, and it got my attention.  Poland is known for it’s lace and linen – and my family actually imports some of it to the States.  I’ve long admired the beautiful embroidery and quality of the linens I grew up with.  So long ago, I thought of perhaps doing the same – passing out Polish handkerchiefs as an additional favor to those attending the ceremony.

Then today, I read on Elizabeth Ann Designs about Save-the-Date hankies.

http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/blog/2009/02/10/handkerchief-save-the-dates/

What a great idea!  I still prefer the handkerchiefs to be passed out at the ceremony, for all those criers our there including me, but now am toying with the idea of printing our names and date on the hankies.

Now, in order to tie the hankies in with the rest of our ceremony, I will have to seek out some modern shapes and embroidery, which make take some time, but can be found.  In addition, I can change the font to something more modern .  Thank goodness hankies are white – not only will that be our primary color used in the reception but it is the color of marriage, n’est-ce pas?  Here are a few designs I found on the internet.

http://www.elegantlinenspc.com/Lace-Handkerchiefs.htm

Below is my premier list, based on internet research only.   They have some or most of the things we are looking for including loft, unique, blank space that we can personalize, affordable, buy your own liquor, cool and chic Chicago.   My fiance and I decided also to look at some more traditional venues to get a better cost comparison and what not.  So in addition to this list below, I will also be checking our ballrooms, hotels, etc to get a better idea of what’s out there.

1.  Ravenswood Billboard Factory - I am seriously head-over-heels in love with this place.  Dinner is in the loft, cocktails and dancing in the atrium, and then you’ve got two rooftop decks anytime.  If we can afford it, I want it, I want it, I want it.  Pros: Can we say it’s HOT in here!?  Also, near Wrigleyville, safe neighborhood.  Cons:  Price, must use on-site caterer, you can buy your own alcohol but there is a corkage fee.

Hot damn.

2.  Prairie Production – Another space I adore. Blank, big, do-anything-you want with.  Pros: Just west of the loop=great view of the city, easy to personalize, cool, outdoor terrace, can hire any caterer and buy liquor,  Cons:  must do everything yourself, all the rentals could add up, more complicated.

Gorgeous wall of windows with terrace.

3.  Gallery 1028 - Not as striking but still cool, and literally on Goose Island giving it a historical Chicago location.  Pros: Cheaper than the above two, cool location Cons:  must hire their caterer and buy their bar packages.  Easier to manage this way though.

4.  Salvage One –   Still the warehouse loftish space.  Pros:  Has a lot of decorations and tables available on-site, Cons:  perhaps a little too ecclectic for our style

5.  Westgrand Studio -  Loft that is affordable.  Pros: Price, views, capacity of 225, 2am curfew.  Cons: no outdoor space.

Great light.

6.  Architectural Artifacts – Seems like a cool place with high ceilings and terrace.  Pro: can decorate with anything from the gallery  Cons: seems like a lot of rooms where people can hide out in.

So that’s the prelimemary list.  I can’t wait to “try them on” and find other venues.   More details then!

I thought the best place to showcase our love and life in Africa is at cocktail hour.  We are planning on having our reception at a loft/warehouse in the city.  We want the lounge to be hip, chic, sleek, white (& AFFORDABLE), similar to the picture below.

Cocktail lounge at Prairie Productions loft in Chicago

One of the best things we brought back from Africa, other than a lifetime of memories, was a truck-load of FABULOUS MUSIC. I’m talking about amazing, vibrant, drum-tapping, get-you-off-of-your-seat beats.  Many of the songs from West Africa are OUR songsm songs I would consider dancing too at our wedding.  Unfortunately though, they are not conducive to Western style dancing, so they may not be incorporated into our play-list.

No worries, as a result, I have an idea of using this music to set the theme of our cocktail hour our cocktail hour – hip African lounge.  If our budget allows, I’d like to serve South African wine and a signature drink, possibly Bissap (Hibiscus).  And although its tough planning my wedding from Africa, one of the luxuries of still being here is finding the details that will help personalize our wedding.

Mali is known for an amazing fabric they call mudcloth – so amazing and unique that Hallmark has teamed up with female Malian artisans to sell it in their stores as part of the Red Campaign to eliminate AIDS in Africa.  In Mali, it is sold in long panels, or made into products like pillows, purses and blankets where 7 or 8 panels are sewn together.

I picked up three rolls at the market today and hope to incorporate them as the just-enough African accent in our all white cocktail loung, alongside our Bissap Sours and hip African music playing. One panel per table. (Dark on white tables and if we have dark tables then white mudcloth on dark.

Rolls of "bogolan" or mud cloth

In the meantime, let’s talk wedding transport.

I love the Rolls Royce, the Hummer and or the thought of a vintage Bentley convertible as a wedding car, and have not ruled them out.  But, because I am on a budget, I would prefer to spend that type of money on a kick-a$$ makeup artist than a car to take a few pictures in.

Plus, there is plenty of other cool transport idea that might look just as good if not better in our photos, and align more with our theme.  We could go with the African theme and bring in camels or donkey carts, but frankly I’m thinking of aligning this design decision to the urban theme.   I’ve tried to think of transport fr0m $0-$20 to take us from the ceremony to the venue that could go along with our hip and CHICago theme.

Here are my thoughts.

1)  An authentic, original, Yellow Cab. Yep, literally, why not just flag a cabbie.  It is SO urban, so Chicago, and so us!  Not to mention affordable.  Plus, the bright yellow could look very cool in pictures.  Estimated cost: $10 including tip.

How hawt is this? Photo by awesome pair of photags in NYC http://www.sibblog.com/

I've perfected my cab-flagging skills by living in Manhattan for several years. I have a feeling the white dress might work even better than the exposed legs!

2) The L – (Chicago’s version of a metro).  Again, we are city people.  When we lived Chicago, and in Manhattan, PT (public transport)  was our middle name.  I say, let’s take our pictures on the subway platform and in the car, again highlighting the real images of Chicago that we lived with everyday. I really love the contrast of the fancy wedding attire with the raw details of the city.  I guess that’s kind of like me.  As my fiance has said about me, “I am equally as comfortable dining in the finest restaurants of Manhattan as I am camping in the Sahara.” A bunch of oxymorons, that’s us.  Estimated cost for 2: $5

Photo credit: http://kateheadley.typepad.com/photography/wedding_photography_1/

3)  A London style taxi – Now this might be a good compromise in terms of urban and classy.  There is an company out of Chicago that imports London style taxis and sells them to real taxi drivers all over the States.  My fiance was born in London and lived there in high school.  This way, we can incorporate a little bit of his culture along with our other multi-cultural themes going on (Polish and African).  And I still get my taxi fix. Estimated cost: $20

Photo taken from www.london-fleet.com

4)  And finally, if all of the above fail, our last resort (boo hoo hoo) is to suck it up and borrow the father-in-law to be’s sleek, pearly white, Mercedes convertible (Yes, that was meant to drip with sarcasm).  Estimated cost:  $0.

I'd take this for a better make-up job any day.

What do you all think?  What are you doing for your weddings?

I, being a girl that loves checklists and outlines, love this mode du jour. It is a great way to pick a few elements to set the tone of your wedding and base all your design decisions on.

The more I research, the more I love the idea of having our wedding in a warehouse/loft in Chicago.  In the spirit of playing off this very industrial venue and looking for ideas that work with a small budget, I’ve come with my first inspiration collage below.  Let me know what you think.

Top left: Brown paper packages tied up with string (based on the warehouse venue), top right: wine bottle table numbers (that I want to replace with vodka bottles), bottom left: LOTS of white and bright, and some silver (playing off the pipes and iron in loft) and natural green to pop and bring the warehouse to life, bottom right: LONG rectangular tables like in a grand ole dinner party

To: Kash

From: NYC production company

Subject: Wedding TV show

Thank you so much for your prompt response to our posting about appearing on our wedding show.  Your story sounds great .  Please see the attached couples questionnaire for our grand 100th episode.  Please get it back to us as soon as possible.  The next step would be getting you guys on tape for a brief on-camera interview (at your convenience). If you are selected as the finalists, you will receive an all expenses paid dream wedding for our 1o0th episode.

I know, hysterical.  My two college girlfriends and I were dying yesterday via an email thread talking about this.  They already went to work out last night in preparation of being on camera next year.  The funny thing is I totally forgot I applied for us to be on a wedding tv show.  I mean, it must have happened at some point of my wedding research marathon  last weekend when I spent 50 hours in cyber space checking out wedding sites (and now am very spacey because of it).

Anyway, I frantically called my my fiance and asked him to complete the questionnaire.  He laughed.   I don’t think he is taking this very seriously.  But I am.  He should be very pleased I am trying to save us money.

I started researching this weekend all things wedding: venue, photag, catering, decor, etc.  As soon as I saw something that caught my eye, I saved it.  I thought this would help me figure out my theme.  I thought I would have a general idea of what the wedding will look like.  However, as you can clearly see from my desktop pictures below I have enough inspiration for several weddings!

So unless I plan on getting married several times I’m going to start narrowing it down.

First, regarding Chicago venues – My fiance and I have both agreed we don’t want the wedding in a ballroom or a hotel.  I am acutely aware that this would have been much easier than our other options, but we’ve come to this decision based on a) budget b) individuality.

My fiance and I really want this wedding to be the greatest party of the year for our wonderful friends and family.  We also want it to reflect ourselves and our life together.  We want most decisions to be meaningful and based on a shared experience.  Therefore, we are looking for blank spaces where we can create our vision.  This includes friend’s houses and estates, warehouses, and lofts.

At the same time, we would love a VERY Chicago venue that highlights the city we adore.  Cafe Brauer in Lincoln Park, the Rookery and the museums and libraries immediately jumped to mind but with the amount of people we are inviting, it’s going to be way to expensive.  Plus, we want to make it our own.

My mother, sister and I are very creative, enjoy DIY projects and we LOVE a good bargain.  I want to make my affordable wedding look like a 100k wedding – and we can only do that by making it personal.

I’ve decided that I’m looking for the following factors in a venue:

• blank space,
• ability to hire own caterer (possibly to incorporate Polish food and decrease costs)
• buy own liquor (minimizing cost and giving us the ability to buy alcohol that reflects us – i.e. Chicago brews, African wine, etc.),
• affordability (big one)
• Chicagoan
• unique, and
• us. (and we’ll know that when we see it)