With two months to go until the wedding, I sat down with Gillian and Jen this week to discuss final details.  They had been thinking about setting off Chinese lanterns at the reception, and had purchased a few to see what they were all about.

“We set off two of the Chinese lanterns this weekend,” Gillian told me.

“Yeah, last night, we decided we wanted to do a trial run with these lanterns,” Jen adds.  “We wanted to see what they looked like, and if it was going to be a hassle to set up and set off.  And it actually kind of was difficult, which is why we’re probably going to ask just our wedding party and a few others to participate in it. It does take like three or four minutes to light them, and I don’t want my aunts and uncles out there like, ‘Come on!  This thing won’t light!’” Read the Full Story…

I had the great pleasure this past week of getting to sit down with Gillian & Jen and their best friends, Cassie and Cat.  Cassie will be acting as Gillian’s Maid of Honor, and Cat will be standing up for Jen at the wedding.  After some comedic discussion, it was determined that Cat’s formal title will be Best Man.

With Cat running a little behind schedule, I started the conversation by asking Cassie how she and Gillian had met. Read the Full Story…

After the last meeting with Gillian and Jen, I was looking forward to sitting down with them this month to see how the hunt in New York City for Jen’s suit went.  We met up at one of our favorite meeting spots for a cocktail and some catching up, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they had some success in their search.  But not in NYC as originally planned.

Read the Full Story…

When I received a text message from Gillian last week stating, “We’ve gotten a ton done!” I was really excited to get together with them and hear all about what they had accomplished over the past month.  Over a few cocktails we discussed their planning achievements and all got extremely excited about the reality of only being five months away from their wedding day.

“So, you’ve gotten a lot done?” I asked.

“ Yeah, lots done,” Jen responded.

Read the Full Story…

Anne & Curt’s elegant autumn wedding was featured recently in Bride’s Magazine.  Photo credit goes to the talented Corey Hendrickson.  Congratulations to this beautiful couple.

View the feature!

I spent Monday catching up with 2013 featured couple Gillian & Jen.   We spent a lot of time discussing some of their recent planning decisions, and catching up on the last month’s activities.  One very exciting milestone was getting their engagement shots complete.  They are working with photographer Ben Resnik and headed to his studio for their engagement shoot.  

“It’s getting to be crunch time.  We only have six months”Gillian started.

“Yeah, it’s crazy.  We are looking to get our save-the-dates out at the end of this month.  As soon as Ben gets us back the engagement pictures,“ adds Jen.

I didn’t realize they had already completed their photo shoot with Ben, so I asked them how it went.  This question is met with immediate silence, and then they both started laughing.  There was obviously a story here.

“It went great.  It was wonderful!” Gillian says enthusiastically.

“I’ll take this story,” Jen interrupts, “before you even begin. First of all, it was a great time.  He had his lights and everything set up for us when we arrived.   It went smoothly.  We changed outfits.  We kept the images tight because we didn’t have a setting.  But we’re thinking of possibly doing another shoot at the Shelburne Vineyards.”

“He wants to do another one as well,” adds Gillian.  “And we like the idea of working with him multiple times before the wedding. And he is so good and so engaging.”  

“Yes, getting to work with him and feel comfortable is definitely important” says Jen.  Read the Full Story…

I sat down with Gillian and Jen this week to catch up and officially welcome them to the year of their wedding!  They both seemed extremely excited that 2013 has finally arrived.  We spoke a little about their wedding planning and, as expected, it had slowed down a bit over the holiday.  As we chatted about the upcoming year, the conversation turned to Gillian’s birthday (which was January 10th).

“Well, we went out on Saturday night to see Fattie B (their DJ). It was Gillian’s birthday week and we felt like, we never really go out anymore so we should support him,” Jen started the conversation.

“This is the last birthday I am going out,” Gillian proclaimed.  “Because now I just know too many people who are like ‘let me buy you a drink’ and ‘oh, I know you like Jager, let me buy you a double shot of it instead of buying you just one’.  It was a long night.”

“It was a long weekend,” Gillian added.  “We went to L’Amante on my birthday (Thursday) and then we went bowling on Friday night, too.  I was very spoiled.  I got my hair done, I got my nail kit to do gel nails at home, and then Jen told me that she had another gift for me.  She said it was a gag gift.  And they were these!”

At this point in the conversation, Gillian pointed to the earrings she was wearing.  They were brilliant, gorgeous diamond studs.

“Well, it was not a gag gift!” exclaims Gillian.  “She told me she had one more thing for me and that she wanted me to have something to open on my actual birthday. Then she told me, ‘Don’t get your hopes up’ and ‘it might not even get here in time for your birthday’.   Of course I get just as excited for a gag gift as any gift.  So she gives me this huge box, and I open it up and there was this other little box inside, and it was the earrings.  And I had no idea!”

Gillian smiles at Jen excitedly and then continues;

“It’s always fun that my birthday’s right after Christmas, not that I ever get that feeling of letdown, but it’s more like ‘Oh, the gifts aren’t over.  I just have to wait another couple weeks.’”

“Lucky you.  Lucky for my wallet,” Jen responds through laughter.

Almost as if ignoring this last comment, Gillian continues on. “I also got myself, from Jen, a new bathing suit.  Part of having my birthday in the winter is that I always get boots or a coat, and then when summertime comes around, there are no gifts coming my way.  Even our Anniversary is in November.”

Gillian pauses for a moment, and then almost as if hit by a realization she exclaims “But that will change! Our Anniversary will be Summer!”

I mention that I can’t believe their wedding is right around the corner.

“Yeah,” responds Jen.  “It’s going to be quite the year.”

“13 is my lucky number,” Gillian adds.  “So we are so excited.  We also found out recently that 8/17 is when we are getting married, and Jen was born at 8:17 on her birthday!”

“ Yeah, it’s kind of weird,” Jen smiles.

Conversation turns to the holidays.  I ask them how the last few weeks have been and how they enjoyed the holiday season.

“The holidays were pretty low key,” Jen begins. “We had my family reunion – so there was that. It was Saturday before Christmas. And that’s what really started the warming of the pipes for the season.  We all do the sing-a-long thing, and then we decided as a family to do a pub crawl the next day which was a Sunday.  And we did it during the day because we had to work on Monday.”

I had learned about the family reunion and the pub crawl the last time we met so I was excited to hear how this year’s festivities went.  After a brief debate over how many people were at the pub crawl, (Jen said 10, Gillian said 7, and after an official count of fingers, it was concluded that 7 was the final number, which Gillian later told me was also wrong—it was 9) Gillian started in with the details of the event.

“So we started at around 2 on Christmas eve, eve.  It was intense.  We started at Three Needs and played some pool, and then we moved to Halvorsons.”

Jen jumps in: “While we are at Halvorsons, Kevin (Jen’s oldest brother) looks over me at one point and says ‘you won’t sing the 12 days of Christmas right now,’ and I said ‘Kevin, no.’  Next thing you know, my two sisters from behind me start singing ‘On the first day of Christmas…’”

“We had been planning it,” says Gillian. “We knew we were going to sing it.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think they were actually going to do it then,” responds Jen. “We were in the bar at Halvorsons, which isn’t very big, and it was around 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon and there were families having dinner.”

Gillian laughs and adds: “And you know the 12 Days of Christmas is not a short song if you do it all the way through.  And we did it all the way through at the top of our lungs.”

“Some people were not pleased,” Jen recalls.

“Yeah, some people thought it was great.  And some families were like ‘my children are scared of you people.’  So then we decided that the performance was really lame, so we had to do it again somewhere else” continues Gillian.

“Yeah, we realized that was the wrong bar to do it in, so we decided to go to a bar that would receive it better,” confirms Jen.

Obviously, if at first you don’t succeed… And so the gang headed down Church Street a little further to Church Street Tavern.

“So we go to the Tavern and sang it again,” Gillian tells me. “But this time, people sang along.  And people applauded when it was done.  I mean, I think I was losing my voice by the end of the song, because if you are going to do it, you have to go all out and do it at the top of your lungs. 

“A ton of people joined in, too,” added Jen.  “That was the right place to do it.  We did the whole reenactment and dancing along with it.”

“And Jen’s sister Kara is so funny.  She has no fear and she’s very outgoing, so she was mingling between the tables and trying to get people to sing along,” Gillian remembers.

“Yeah, she was giving tables their day.  ‘You guys are the 8^th day,’ and they were like, ‘what are you doing?  We’re just here to eat fries!’” Jen laughs.

“It was awesome!” Gillian exclaims.  “We had a lot of fun.”

Finally, I asked about New Years.  I was curious how they celebrated the transition into the year of their wedding.

Jen begins; “New Years is always very uneventful for us because Gillian has to work so I usually stay back at the house and get ready for her to come home to celebrate.”

“But I got my snowmen,” Gillian quickly adds.

For those of you who don’t know about the snowmen, you can read about this adorable tradition in last month’s post here.

“Yes, she got her snowmen,” confirmed Jen.  “But the worst part about the snowmen this year was that the snow was never the perfect snowball making material so I had to take a bucket of water out with me to make them all.  It was a long process but I was like, ‘I have to do it.’”

“I knew she was going to do it, too,” Gillian states.

“It was cool too because I did it right before those zero degree days we had, so they stayed forever. I think they just melted yesterday,” Jen continues.

“It was funny they were melting, and there would be this head, and this little tiny neck, and then this body.  It was cool how they melted.  But then their heads started falling off!” exclaimed Gillian.

“Yeah, kind of morbid,” Jen laughs.

I ask Jen how many snowmen she built this year.

“25 or 30 of varying size.  We had one big mother one with her hands out who was watching over them all.”

“There were some that were small, and the big one was the momma one.  It made me happy,” Gillian smiles approvingly while looking over at Jen.  You can tell how happy they are.

“The whole evening ended up being a good time,” Jen says. “I got strawberries and champagne like I do every year and then we watch the ball drop.”

“I come home and we flip through the channels until midnight,” adds Gillian.

“And then we usually get together with our cats and do a little dance, for about 15 minutes. We dance our way into the New year,” concluded Jen.

Gillian considers this for a minute, then says:

“That part doesn’t need to go in the blog, that’s really pathetic.  But yeah, we dance.”

Welcome to 2013 Gillian & Jen!

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Gillian and Jen will be married August 17, 2013 in South Burlington, Vermont.  Throughout the remainder of their engagement, I will be working with them and documenting their plans leading up to the wedding day.

Cheers,
Becca

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I met up with Gillian and Jen this week to catch up on their wedding planning.  Due to this month’s post coming during the holiday season, we thought it would be nice to talk about some of their Christmas traditions and favorite holiday stories.  It was a really fun evening filled with lots of great stories, and as usual, many laughs.   

Jen opened up the conversation discussing some of her own family traditions. 

 “We always have a family reunion that falls within a few weeks of Christmas every year.  The Bergeron Family reunion.  We do it at a Church hall, and we all get together and eat tons of food and sing Christmas Carols.”  Read the Full Story…

When Gillian contacted me this week at to discuss the topic of this month’s blog post, I told her I wanted to discuss what they’ve accomplished so far in their planning process. Although not a very “exciting” topic (as both Gillian and Jen pointed out with their typical good humor), I did want to let them talk about the process of selecting some of their vendors and making some of the major decisions that come along with wedding planning. We met on Monday night at Koto to discuss. You will find that they have made some great progress in the past few months and are in excellent shape, which is good considering 2013 is right around the corner.

Read the Full Story…

Charlotte, Vermont – Liz and Jon were married on one of those perfect, brisk Vermont fall days at the beautiful Old Lantern.  I learned quickly while working with them that they were both extremely hands on and incredibly talented.  Liz set the stage for her guests early on with her hand drawn invitations, but the creativity certainly didn’t stop there.  Their elegant, vintage, rustic wedding vision came to life through their thoughtful and personal DIY details.

Ceremony site was accented with hand crafted burlap cones filled with arrangements of hydrangeas.  All flowers (excluding centerpieces) were provided by Floral Artistry.  Liz’s hand drawn programs greeted guests as they arrived at their seats.

Read the Full Story…