Tamra Dunlap :: Groom Sold Separately :: Ultimate Wedding Planning Resource Connecting Brides and Wedding Pros

GSS Wedding Inspiration Board :: Nude & Blush :: A Neutral Wedding

November 14, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Over the past year, there has been a rise in the trend of having an almost completely neutral wedding color palette. We are totally on board with this trend as it makes for a very romantic and vintage feel. But if you think a totally neutral palette is a little bland, you can add in a little color. We chose to add in the color Blush. It’s so soft and subtle and compliments the neutral colors so perfectly. Mix these colors together and you’ve got yourself a gorgeous color palette that’s dripping with soft richness! This wedding color palette is absolutely perfect for any season of the year!

Neutral Bridesmaids Dresses: Image Courtesy of Katie Neal Photography

Blush Tulip Centerpiece with Candles: Martha Stewart Weddings

Vintage Lace Inspired Wedding Invitations: Days Gone Design

Neutral Flowergirl Dress: Image Courtesy of Grace Photography via Pinterest Side Note: We have searched and searched for the origination of this image (the correct Grace Photography- there seems to be a few Grace Photography’s out there.) but can’t seem to locate it. If you can point us to the right photographer, we’d be more than happy to link to them! Thanks!!!

Vintage Lace and Pearls Bridal Bouquet: Aileen Tran

Neutral and Blush Chair Ties: Victoria Canada Weddings and Events Image Courtesy of Phyllis Lane Photographer

Vintage Keys Escort Cards: Image Courtesy of United With Love

Bride with Nude Peep Toe Pumps: Image Courtesy of Erin Gilmore Photography

Blush Flower Embellished Pumps: Milanoo.com Style: 10110125160 (and only $28.99!!!)

Neutral and Blush Vintage Lace Wedding Cake: Photography 1827

GSS’s Things We LOVE :: Simply Silhouettes Weddings’ Cake Toppers!

November 10, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Awhile ago we told you about some awesome (not to mention super cute!) handmade wedding cake toppers we found on Etsy. (Click here to see that post!) Then, we stumbled upon Better Off Wed’s absolutely fabulous personalized shabby chic wedding cake toppers and fell head over heels in L-O-V-E! And NOW we have found some adorable silhouette wedding cake toppers, made by Simply Silhouette Weddings. They’ve put a modern twist on the classic silhouette artform and created a collection of custom-designed silhouette products for your special day. Destined to become heirlooms, all of their silhouettes are created with classic styling, handcrafted warmth and a touch of elegant whimsy. And what’s so cool about their silhouette cake toppers is that they are made especially for you, from your photographs!

Filed Under: weddings Leave a Comment Tagged With: cake toppers, handmade wedding cake toppers, monogram wedding cake toppers, personalized wedding cake toppers, silhouette wedding cake toppers, wedding cake toppers

GSS Wedding Inspiration Board :: Plum and Beige

November 7, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Happy Monday, Lovelies!!! We hope you enjoyed your weekend! Check out this beautiful Plum & Beige wedding inspiration board. It exudes richness, class and glamour. This wedding color palette would be amazing for all seasons of the year! So if you’re thinking about using the color palette of purple and brown(ish) for your wedding, use this palette! BEAUTIFUL!

Plum Wedding Invitations: Image Courtesy of Strut Photography

Plum and Chocolate Wedding Cake: Wolfgang Puck Catering Image Courtesy of Artisan Events

Plum and Beige Boutonniere: Parsonage Events Image Courtesy of Heather Saunders Photography

Beige Bridesmaid Dress with Plum Accessories: Alfred Sung via Dessy

Plum Bridal Bouquet: Spiral Hand Floral and Event Design Image Courtesy of Jennifer Skog Photographers

Satin Plum Peep Toe Pumps: Designer: Nina Style: Fulvia

Plum and Beige Centerpiece: Lily & Co Image Courtesy of Carrie Patterson Photography

Plum and Beige Escort Cards: The White Aisle Image Courtesy of Corbin Gurkin Photography

Plum and Beige Table Numbers: Image Courtesy of Geneve Hoffman Photography

Filed Under: boards, inspiration Leave a Comment Tagged With: purple and beige wedding, purple and brown wedding, purple and khaki wedding, purple and tan wedding

GSS Featured Wedding :: Melanie & Wes’s Texas Ranch Wedding :: Ashgene Photography

November 2, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Happy Hump Day, Lovelies!!! Today’s featured wedding comes from Ashley of Ashgene Photography. She is a Texas based wedding photographer. Ashley has been so accommodating to GSS on this feature. Thank you! Melanie and Wes were married at Melanie’s family’s ranch in Seguin, Texas on April 23, 2011. Melanie was kind enough to answer a few questions for us:

How did you and Wes meet? Wes & I went to Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas together. We met & became fast friends within the first days of starting school freshman year and by Senior Year of High School we were doing everything together. We both went to University of Texas for college, but we never interested in dating each other – we were each other’s support & best friend.

How long have you been together? Oh goodness, it feels like,…. when were we not? But, literally, we have been best friends for almost ten years… dating for 6 of those years & engaged for a little less than one year & married for 6 months!

How did Wes propose? After almost five years of dating and ten years of sharing a best friendship, Wes surprised me with pink champagne & long stemmed pink roses on the rooftop of our NYC apartment! While the Empire State Building watched from above, Wes got down on one knee & popped the question. We enjoyed our first moments of our engagement on top of the world as the sun slipped away behind the Hudson River. What a miraculous sight! Once the sun had said its last goodbye, we went to feast on our favorite meal- Paella and Sangria from our favorite NYC Spanish food restaurant, of course! “Cheers-ing” to many years of happiness and adventure ahead, we could not have been more blissful.

Your dress is gorgeous, where did you get it and how did you know it was “the one”? Well, now that’s a funny story. Being from the fashion industry & educated in fashion, I have been sketching wedding dresses my whole life. I knew what I wanted & knew I wasn’t going to find it. I didn’t want strapless, I wanted layers & layers of organza on the skirt. While in NYC, I bought a white double-faced satin strapless dress as a base so I wouldn’t have to spend time doing the boning & I was going to build my dress on top of that. As life goes, my dress wasn’t touched until about a month before the wedding. My parents were very concerned, so we went to all the Austin wedding boutiques. I remembered one boutique that carried Vera Wang. In the back of my head, I always knew the Diana dress by Vera Wang was the most similar to the dress I had envisioned as my perfect dress.

To make a long story short, we found the dream dress. I took it directly to my tailor, Elsie, to change it a little bit to my liking – raising the hip line, taking in the side seams a bit & redoing the heart shape to better suit me. I altered the Wang. Elsie had it completed in a week – I tried my altered dress on for the first time the Wednesday before my Saturday wedding! I knew it was the “one & only” the second I put it on. I think I can say everything happens for a reason after that – I love my dress more than anything. In the end, I decided not to put straps on it. It just seemed too perfect the way it was.

Oh, I did squeeze in time to making my poofy Priscilla Presley-inspired veil & the Bridesmaids’/Flower Girls Organza Flower belts & corsages with the helpful skills of a friend from fashion school coming to Austin early!

What sold you on your wedding venue? Well, I’m from Austin, but as I say, I grew up on my Ranch. The one place I dreamed of having my wedding in Austin was Laguna Gloria. Clara’s old villa & the beautiful grounds overlooking Lake Austin in itself is perfect. It also had a lot of sentimental value in my life as the place I cultivated my passion for design & in Wes’s family too. His parents were married there in the 80′s! However, my dream place to get married was my family’s ranch, The Runnin R Ranch in Gonzales County. More precisely, I wanted to get married in the barn! However, having a classy affair on a working horse ranch was every overwhelming & my dad would reply with a chuckle, “That old smelly thing!”

I was engaged on June 11, 2010. When this inevitable day came & we started planning for the big day – my first choice was the Runnin R, of course! And without missing a beat, my dad’s reply was the same. I went with my second choice of Laguna Gloria. Luckily, they had April 23^rd available! We booked it in July & vigorously started planning, but I didn’t let the ranch go. Through the summer, autumn & winter, my mom, sister & I planned, planned, planned! Save the Dates were sent right after the New Year. Little by little, my parents started to understand that my heart wasn’t fully in Laguna Gloria & as much as I loved it & wanted to make it work, it wasn’t where I was meant to get married & have our special day. Plus, our guest list was much bigger than LG was really available to accommodate. At the beginning of February, less than three months before our wedding date, & after much (much) convincing, my parents finally agreed & committed to changing the venue to the Ranch. However, our ranch is a lot different than a hundred-year-old Italian Villa in Austin. We threw everything out the window & started the planning from scratch three months before the wedding! On top of that, we needed to seriously update the place including roads, barns, etc in order to accommodate the 250 guests. Through a lot of overwhelmingly hard work & many people laboring day after day on little things like gardening to huge projects like renovating the tack room to be a fun photo booth, building a full functioning bar with pull up window in another room, having a neon Runnin R sign made for the new bar, hanging chandeliers & moving hay, we created an oasis in the middle of the country. With no professional wedding planner wanted (my family are creative party throwing people), my dad, mom & I took this project on full time with help from my sister, brother-in-law, fiancé & many friends of our Ranch community – We created the Ranch Wedding Sanctuary I had imagined. All out guests from Austin were brought out there by charter buses on April 23^rd & the rest was magic.

What was your “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue”?

- My something old was my cake topper. It is my maternal grandparents from 1950 whom celebrated their 61^st wedding anniversary in June.

- My something new was my teardrop diamond necklace my parents gave me as a wedding present. I had mentioned I would love to wear my mom’s necklace down the isle as my something borrowed, and they surprised me with my own.

- My something borrowed was my maternal great grandmother’s 100 year old Bible that was used in our ceremony.

- My something blue was a white ribbon sewn into in my dress with my maiden name embroidered in blue.

How did you choose your wedding color palette? Well being Easter weekend, I thought pastels. I am a pink lady, so I always knew soft pinks. I also love all white crisp weddings & monochromatic anything. So, we did white & ivory, light pink & slightly deeper but still soft peony pink against the rustic brown & gray barn, green trees & blue sky.

Do you have any advice for bride and grooms that are in the planning process? Ha! Yes, don’t change your mind weeks before the wedding and maybe get a wedding planner! This is a day to be happy & only that! So, once the day comes, let all the planning & details slip away, breath & soak it all in. Brides focus on what matters & thoroughly enjoy you & your husband’s day – it’s the only wedding day y’all will get!

What song did you dance to for your first dance? We wanted our wedding to feel like an NYC Chic Party had been dropped onto the Runnin R Ranch. Both adoring true oldies of music & film, we picked Swing so we could dance to Frank Sinatra, the best performer of all time & a New York legend. We love the fun upbeat vibe & words to ‘Cheek to Cheek’, as well as it has meaning that we will dance through life ‘cheek to cheek’ & the title is engraved in Wes’s wedding ring.

What was your favorite part of your big day? The most memorable part was when the ancient transformer exploded about mid-reception, (leaving us in the dark for a while), a huge cheer went up from the crowd & we impromptu cut the cake by candlelight. Also, hugging my parents at the end of the aisle during the ceremony was super special & joining the reception by dancing with my husband to Cheek to Cheek – all of which really set the tone for the whole experience of the wedding!

Vendors:

Venue: The Radford’s Runnin R Ranch (Yes, there is no g and no apostrophe)

Dress: Vera Wang

Hair: Jessika Cottle owner of Jco Salon and Spa of Austin

Cake: A wonderful local lady named Oralia Avalos who owns Austin Sweet Delights.

Floral: My sister, Glenna K Bruun designed & created all the floral from the centerpieces to boutique to boutonnières. My mom did my bouquet. My mom & I picked the flowers we wanted to use (mostly tulips, peonies, lilies & ranunculus for Easter & then carnations because they are symbolic for our sorority Chi Omega.) at Austin Flower Company & purchased them in bulk.

Linens: We bought bolts of burlap & muslin from Hobby Lobby – my aunt, mom & sister created them!

Catering: Whole Foods Market on Lamar Blvd, in Austin, Headquarters

Tents and rentals: Premiere Party Central of Austin

Take Away Restroom: A Royal Flush, Inc

Lighting: FILO Designs

Transportation: Star Shuttle and Golf Cars of Austin

Bartenders: Austin’s Elite

Hotel: Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental Hotel, Austin, TX

String Quartet: Pricilla Arasaki (pricilla.aransaki@gmail.com)

Day of Wedding Planner: Sarah Staats

DJ/Band: Hotcakes (hotcakesentertainment.com)

Photographer: Ashley Roberts of Ashgene Photography

Videographer: Ashley Wedding DVD and Video (RexAshley.com)

Invitations/Wedding Stationery: I did it! I designed them on Photoshop, bought an industrial printer & sat at home for three weeks printing every part of every one – when I say they were, “made with love” I mean it. I did the save-the-dates, programs & other paper goods the same way, except when we finally got around to printing the programs the week before the wedding I sent them to a small printing company to do the job for me!

Thank you so much, Ashley, for sharing this amazing wedding with us! Please stop by Ashgene Photography’s website and show her some love! And thank you, Melanie, for taking your time to answer our questions! We wish you and Wes a lifetime full of love, laughter, and happiness!!! May every day be better than the last!

If you have an engagement, wedding, day after, or anniversary session that you would like featured- Please send it to us at submissions@groomsoldseparately.com. We HEART submissions!

Filed Under: real weddings, vendor spotlight, weddings Leave a Comment Tagged With: ivory and champagne wedding, pink and champagne wedding, pink and ivory wedding, ranch wedding, texas ranch wedding, texas wedding

Things We LOVE :: FREE Customizable Black & White Wedding Stationery Printables!!!

November 1, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

e.m. papers has created a beautiful set of vintage inspired black and white wedding stationery that you can download for FREE! All items are fully customizeable and printable, which will save you a TON of money! Click here to go to their site and download these goodies!

Here’s a bit more about everything that comes in this free downloadable package via e.m. paper’s website:

This black and white, download and print Wedding Invitation Kit contains an editable PDF template for every piece of stationery you will need for your wedding. This free kit includes printable templates for the following items:

-5″ x 7″ Wedding invite (2 up)
-5″ x 4″ Save-the-date (2 up)
-4^7/8” x 3^1/2” RSVP (4up)
-5^1/2” x 4^1/4” Thank you
-51/2″ x 81/2″ program
-8^1/2” x 11″ seating list
-3^3/4” x 4^1/4” table #’s (2-3 up)
-3^1/2” x 1″ place cards (8 up)
-4^1/4” x 11″ menus (2 up)

(‘up’ refers to the amount of layouts on a page.)

Editable form fields are provided for entering your personal information (wording, names, venue etc.) The items correspond to A7, A2 and A4 (sometimes called ’4 Bar’) envelopes. These are standard sizes; envelopes and letter-sized paper stock are easily purchased online or at any stationery, office supply or craft store. Visit our FAQ section for a resource list.

Included with the DIY wedding templates is a how-to guide which provides clear, step-by-step instructions. You can also review this content under our DIY Wedding Printables How-To Guide section. After purchase, you will be provided with a link and an email to download a zip file containing the documents.

Too much? See our DIY wedding stationery sets and DIY wedding invitations.

Please keep in mind: Our wedding templates are designed to be used with Adobe Acrobat Reader and printed on a home printer only (see items 5 and 6 in our FAQ section.) We can set up the files to be printed by a digital or professional printer, you can find pricing information here. The artwork in the files is locked and only the wording can be altered or changed. Lastly, the templates are for personal use only, the design and templates are the copyright of e.m.papers.

Filed Under: weddings Leave a Comment Tagged With: black and white wedding invitations, free black and white wedding invitations, free wedding invitations, free wedding stationery

GSS Wedding Inspiration Board :: Orange & Black :: Halloween Inspired Wedding

October 31, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Happy Monday, Lovelies!!! We hope you enjoyed your weekend! We imagine most of you put on your scariest, silliest or sexiest costumes and partied it up. We LOVE Halloween! (Who doesn’t?!) So we thought it would be fun to put together an Orange and Black Halloween inspired wedding inspiration board. We think it turned out beautifully, if we do say so ourselves! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Black Bridesmaids Dresses with Orange Bouquets: Dahlia Designs Image Courtesy of Marni Rothschild Pictures

Black and Orange Wedding Cake: Sweetest Perfections

Wedding Dress with Black Sash: Enzoani Diana

Orange, Black and White Damask Centerpiece: Image Courtesy of Lisa Rigby Photography

Black Lace Votive Candle: Blue Velvet Chair

Orange Boutonniere: The Aspen Branch Image Courtesy of Audrey Hannah Photo

Black and Orange Wedding Invitation: Zazzle

Halloween Wedding Favors: Image Courtesy of Lisa Rigby Photography

Halloween Wedding Tank Top: Image Courtesy of Lisa Rigby Photography

Side Note: If you really dig the idea of having a Halloween wedding, you HAVE to check out Erica and Mike’s wedding by Lisa Rigby Photography. Talk about Halloween chic! Click here to see it!

Filed Under: boards, inspiration Leave a Comment Tagged With: black and orange wedding, fall wedding, gothic wedding', halloween wedding

GSS’s Things We LOVE :: DIY Pomander Flowerball Centerpieces!

October 27, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Looking for a gorgeous DIY alternative to the normal floral centerpieces for your wedding or bridal shower? Paula of Frog Prince Paperie has come up with a beautiful solution! She created these amazing Pomader flower ball centerpieces for a friend’s baby shower but they would be absolutely perfect for a wedding or bridal too! Check out her simple DIY tutorial on how to make these beauties:

SUPPLIES:

– 4” white Styrofoam ball

- 90-100 pearl tipped corsage pins

- Two sheets scrapbook paper – I used a pearlized pink for one ball and a matte pale pink for the other in these pictures

- Martha Stewart hydrangea punch

Step 1. You’ll need to punch 180-200 of the hydrangea petal shapes, which will take around a sheet and a half of 12×12 scrapbook paper.

Step 2. After the shapes are all punched, curl the edges of the petals upward and to the center. This will give the flowers some dimension when they are complete.

Step 3. Stack two of the flower petals and turn them a bit so it looks like a full flower. Stick a corsage pin straight through the center of your petals.

Step 4. Push the end of the pin into the Styrofoam ball, the repeat until your ball is covered.

I started mine by making a row around the center and filling in each half a concentric row at a time. Make sure your flowers are close enough that the petals cover the Styrofoam. If you’re going to sit them flat by themselves on the table as I did for my centerpieces, you can leave about 2 inches on the bottom bare of flowers so the balls have a bit more stability. If you cover the entire ball, these would look pretty in a bowl or with ribbons pinned among the petals to hang them.

And VOILA! You have beautiful handmade centerpiecs for your wedding or shower! Thank you, Paula, for creating this amazing tutorial!!! Please make sure to stop Frog Prince Paperie for all kinds of fun event inspiration!

Filed Under: inspiration, weddings Leave a Comment Tagged With: diy wedding centerpieces, wedding centerpiece ideas

GSS Featured Wedding :: Cristina & Fabrizio’s Tuscan Wedding :: Valeria Beltrami Photography

October 26, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Today’s featured engagement comes from one of our sweet readers, Cristina. She’s the blushing Bride in this feature! We LOVE it when our readers submit their photos to us for a feature!!! Valeria Beltrami, of Valeria Beltrami Photography documented their big day beautifully. Cristina and Fabrizio were married on October 1, 2011 at San Galgano, a beautiful roofless abbey in Tuscany. Cristina was kind enough to answer a few questions for us:

How did you and Fabrizio meet? We have been colleagues for some years in two different advertising agencies, but did not get along very well for a long time: we didn’t even say hello when we met in the corridors!

Translation: For tears of joy”

How long have you been together? Considering also the “difficult periods”, we’ve been together for 4 years.

How did Fabrizio propose? Now, that’s a long story: he proposed the first time at dinner during a week-end in Sorrento, but at that time my divorce from the previous wedding was still not ratified, so I told him he would have needed to do that again, and asked him to be far more creative than the classic “restaurant-dinner-ring” thing.

A year later we were having a trekking holiday in Germany, and he proposed at dinner, in a restaurant in Freudenstadt, but I was quite disappointed that in a year he couldn’t think of anything better than restaurant and dinner (again), so I said no.

Finally, in April, I was having a quite tough period at work and taking care of my children and all the rest, and he sent a “Kit Kat” to my office, and when I opened it I found a small card saying “Have a break, and take this time to consider my wedding proposal”.

So I went to his office, and asked the door keeper to call him and give him a card: he took it and didn’t even notice I was few meters away: got into the elevator and read it. When he read I was downstairs ready for saying yes, he stopped the elevator and got stuck into it, but at the end he succeeded to reach me and we kissed, had a glass of wine, and set the date.

What sold you on your wedding venue? We chose San Galgano for the ceremony because we had our first vacation there, and though we were really far far away from feeling that we would have gotten married one day, we made fun of each other saying “Ok, let’s get married here!”. So, when we made the decision, that had to be the place! The abbey is dated 1200, so we wanted to keep a sort of continuity for the dinner venue, and we chose a 1200 mill in the vicinity that we stayed at during all our weekend there.

Translation: “No Rice. But a wish perfumed.”

Your dress is gorgeous, where did you get it and how did you know it was “the one”? This was my second wedding, so I did not feel like wearing the classic white dress, and as far as red was in our palette, my dressmaker and I took inspiration from an evening dress picture we saw and decided to mix white for bride and red, modeling the dress very much on my personality. It was a bit scary to start without having actually not seen the dress on me, but watching it becoming “my” dress step after step was very exciting.

What was your “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue”? My something old was my great-grandmother’s necklace; my something new was my outfit (dress, shoes, hat), I borrowed from my best friend the shawl she used on her wedding day, and I had blue ribbons on my underwear !

How did you choose your wedding color palette? Fabrizio and I have a passion for opera, so the first and more important color we chose was the “theatre curtain red”; we added ivory and grey thinking of the retro mood we wanted to give to the whole event.

Do you have any advice for bride and grooms that are in the planning process? I think the most important thing is giving your wedding a very personal touch, and making it reflect who bride and groom are: so my advice would be not to stoop to compromises and work for making your big day actually your’s. That is a bit more demanding than choosing “ready-to-use” solutions, but will make the difference at the end!

What song did you dance to for your first dance? For our first dance we chose an Italian song from the 40’s: “C’è una casetta piccina” by Alberto Rabagliati.

What was your favorite part of your big day? More than a moment, I’d say my favourite part was feeling that all the people there were sharing our same emotions: that was really moving, and unforgettable.

Vendors :

Venue: Ceremony: San Galgano abbey – Chiusdino (Siena) – Italy

Reception: Mulino delle Pile – Chiusdino (Siena) – Italy

Dress: Angela Guzzo atelier – Milano www.angelaguzzoatelier.com

Cake & Catering: Pere e Margherite – Pieve a Presciano (Arezzo) – Italy

DJ/Band: Luca Campana

Invitations/Wedding Stationery: H-57 Creative Station – Milano – Italy

Thank you so much, Valeria, for sharing this amazing wedding with us! And thank you, Cristina, for taking your time to answer our questions and sharing your love story with us! We wish you and Fabrizio a lifetime full of love, laughter, and happiness!!! May every day be better than the last!

If you have an engagement, wedding, day after, or anniversary session that you would like featured- Please send it to us at submissions@groomsoldseparately.com. We HEART submissions!

Filed Under: real weddings, vendor spotlight, weddings Leave a Comment Tagged With: italian wedding, italy wedding, san galgano wedding, tuscan wedding, tuscany wedding

GSS Wedding Inspiration Board :: Let’s Play Ball! :: A Baseball Themed Wedding

October 24, 2011 By Tamra Dunlap Leave a Comment

Happy Monday, Lovelies!!! With the World Series going on, we thought that it would be fun to create a Baseball themed wedding inspiration board. We were worried at first that it would be hard to “marry” a couple’s love for the game and their love of each other. But luckily, we found that it came together just perfectly! Take a look: