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Hi friends. Rhi here. A little sleepy and way behind with my laundry but nevertheless able to see the light at the end of the 2012 wedding tunnel. This year has been such a whirlwind but I’m ready to tackle one more week of prop building and detail crafting for one last sure to be fabulous 2012 wedding (make that one last glitter infused, Anthropologie inspired event that I could do cartwheels over in excitement). In the meantime while I’m painting, packing and cleaning, I figured you could enjoy some pretty photos of my handsome hub and I’s kitchen. It’s almost been a year since we moved in and we have lots more to do but for now it works. Thanks to the sweet Kelly Braman for the photos and to the team over at Style Me Pretty for featuring our space a few weekends ago. So much love in such little time. How did I get so lucky? Welcome to our kitchen, blogettes!

The best part of our kitchen? A tie between the natural light and those gray walls. Our home makes us happy!

I love the white with the gray in our kitchen and how clean and crisp it always looks. We had the glass cabinet doors added to the cabinets beside the window above our sink so I could display some special items. Like the mugs from our wedding, some shot glasses that I used over here, and some pretty bowls that house all of the corks from bottles of champagne and wine we’ve enjoyed together. Even if our cupboards are messy on the inside these two cabinets is always clean, you can count on it :)

Also, a lot of things in our home were purchased from budget friendly places like IKEA and Homegoods with a few splurge items from West Elm like our capiz chandelier over the dining room table and our distressed dark bamboo wood floors. I adore those floors but my goodness a puppy and a white siamese cat keep my broom busy. Really busy. Our nine foot ceilings were also a splurge but way worth it since we spend 90% of our time in our main living space and love the open, airy feel to it.

Love me some Anthropologie for cute little countertop details like these bowls I use a lot for sauces, dips and dressings.

A little story about our blue bar cart. I purchased it two years ago from a vintage store here in town. I used it in my old office for some storage boxes and then when we moved, I stashed it in the basement unsure of where to use it. I finally decided to bring it upstairs and stash it in the little nook it currently sits in, outfitting it with lots of bar cart essentials and drinks that Apb and I can enjoy (like those small little Coke cans; those don’t last long around here). The pop of blue in our kitchen is unexpected and even though we don’t drink much alcohol around here, I like to pretend we can throw one serious party.

And here’s a wide shot of the entire space from the side of the living room. Cozy and sweet.

So tell me, friends, what is your fave part of our kitchen? Full source list of items over here! Happy Wednesday xoxo

For all of you bloggers who continue to blog day after day even if you get just two comments on a post that took hours of work, for all of you designers who stay up until midnight, or 1:00 am or 5:00 am because you know you your clients are going to just love their table rendering/invite design/highlight reel, for all of you Moms and Dads that struggle to find the balance between parenthood and your professional career, for the professionals who go the extra mile, or the extra three miles even if it means spending your own money or putting in more time than others, for the 55 year olds going to college for the first time, for the high schoolers setting out to raise thousands for a good cause, for the wedding planners that pray every night to book just one more wedding so you can pay your bills and pump gas next without hesitation, to the bakers and pastry chefs who can’t lift their arms the next day thanks to the hundreds of fondant sugar roses they were lovingly creating the day before, to the business owners who hate twitter, dislike facebook and are confused with blogging but still try to figure it all out because they know it’s important, to the student balancing their graduate studies with two part time jobs, to the entrepreneurs who work on weekends, who work past 5:00 pm, who miss birthdays, trips and happy hour, because they have goals, dreams, aspirations, crazy crazy out there aspirations, who put rebrands, business cards and a new office desk chair before trips to Europe and fancy new cars, to everyone and anyone that has ever been told no, no thanks, try again, and not this time, to anyone who understands the value of hard work but may feel so totally frustrated and alone in the moment, this one’s for you.

Just keep on swimming. You can do it. And it’s WORTH it.

Photo via Kelly Braman.

I hope you’ll read this. I hope you’ll read every little last bit of this. And I hope it’ll make you think.

What’s funny is that I didn’t run around as a little girl dreaming of the day I’d be a wedding planner. I always adored crafts and was impressively organized from a young age. But it wasn’t until my wedding day, that I decided I should be a wedding planner. Actually, scratch that. I decided I needed to be a wedding planner. Running around that day trying to get things styled and arranged, meeting and greeting my own vendors to make sure they were taken care of, trying to delegate things to people when I should have been playing bride. And then discovering I hadn’t even remembered to shave my legs on the biggest day of my life; I needed to make sure this didn’t happen to anyone else. Wedding planners are like bras. Sometimes you think you don’t need one until it’s too late. For me it was sort of too late. Because I needed help that day.

I get a lot of emails from potential clients. Newly engaged women. Women who are mere months away from the biggest day of the lives. Women who love pink peonies like I do. Women who have seen my work on Pinterest and can hardly count their lucky stars they’ve found me. Women who need and want my help. Except they always let me know, before I even have a chance to reply to them, that “they don’t have a big budget.”And I always know what that means. It means what I charge (because it’s on my website), what I value my services, time and expertise to be worth, is too much money for them. Either that, or they don’t truly understand what it is they are paying for. Whatever the reason it can be frustrating.

Wedding planning, coordination, consulting, styling, designing; it can be as confusing as tenth grade algebra (which I failed might I add). Because unlike a photographer who sends you your prints and your disk a few months after your wedding with tangible memories of your big day, I can’t possibly send you a boxed up memento of my wedding planning and coordination services. Three weeks, three months, three years and three decades after your big day is over, you can gaze over to your fireplace mantle and lovingly adore a framed portrait of you and your spouse. Unfortunately, next to that frame there won’t be a boxed up Hey Gorgeous Events experience (if there was though, you can bet it would be perfectly wrapped).

But here’s what you can do. You can remember sipping mimosas with your sister the morning of your big day. You can think back to how it felt seeing your reception space for the first time, decorated just the way you always dreamed of. You can remember what it felt like to sit back and enjoy each and every minute of the one day in your entire life that will seem to fly by the fastest. You can do all of these things and so much more, without having to worry about lifting a finger. Because I can guarantee that the metaphorical boxed up Hey Gorgeous Events experience I mentioned above, whether it’s provided by me or someone else, will be the prettiest, most meaningful, non-tangible piece of wedding memorabilia you own.

Brides, please know that a $500 price tag, for a skilled wedding planner to orchestrate your big day is a price tag too low. Please know that a wedding planner or even a coordinator is so worth each and every last penny. Please know that as a wedding planner I absolutely want to make your big day as perfect as possible. And I am flattered when you contact me to do the honors. Please also know that trying to negotiate my prices in your very first email, is as awkward for me as it would be for you to go to a steakhouse and tell your server that you are on a budget and can only afford $20.00 of your $60.00 filet; and well, you get my point. Kind of how you’ll get what you pay for with me.

I hope you’ll read this. I hope you’ll read every little last bit of this. And I hope it’ll make you think. But not this hard :)

You can leave the serious thinking to me. I mean look how good I am at it, ha! xoxo

Happy New Year, blogettes! I am so happy to finally share some of the photos from my most recent inspiration shoot. The whole ordeal was a New Years Eve themed dinner party elopement; you know for the the kind of bride that doesn’t want the fuss of a big wedding but still wants a little sparkle and party to celebrate her and her new hubby. I had such an incredible and talented team on board with me for this endeavor, that I hope I can do enough justice in my descriptions here. Let’s do this!

First off, the whole ‘dinner party’ theme stemmed from my idea of using Apb and I’s new home as the venue for our shoot. I originally wanted a really neutral backdrop to serve as our venue and was having a hard time thinking of a space that would fit what I was after. Then I thought of our house and how new and gray and white it was and with that a dinner party theme was born. After all where do some of the best parties and most special memories take place? At dinner parties in your home! Asking Jenna to be the photographer was a no brainer because I just love her timeless style and clean and beautiful photos.

I said it here where our shoot was featured and I’ll say it again now, I love blush pink. It’s a major part of my branding, a dominant hue in my closet, and I’m drawn to nearly anything and everything that’s pink. But as a wedding stylist and purveyor of new trends and style I feel it’s my duty to push the envelope a little; and step outside of my comfort zone and of what’s expected. So my one goal for this shoot was to make sure that there was no sign of pink anywhere. Keeping in sync with the sparkle that is associated with New Years Eve, I picked a colour palette of silver, gray and all sorts of different blue hues.

Kelly from A Piece o’ Cake is so incredibly talented when it comes to designing cakes. I’ve worked with her before and she never fails to impress me with her ability to take what I’m envisioning and turn it into something ten times better. The square two tiered cake with silver dragee detailing was perfect and that seafoam blue macaron tower? Don’t even get me started on that! It was absolutely fabulous; I mean my mouth waters every time I even look at the photos of it. Good work, Kel :)

My sweet friend Ashley, and the very talented designer behind Lemon and Lavender, created this gorgeous invitation suite for the occasion. The 3, 2, 1 theme and the use of navy blue with the baby blue was one of my most fave details. The silver sparkle behind the paper products is actually the linen we used for the tablescape, which is La Tavola’s New York linen. This beauty comes in so many fabulous colours and truly takes a tablescape to the next level. It worked perfectly with our shoot.

Here’s another angle of our tablescape. The napkins are from World Market and sort of sparked my idea for this shoot in the first place. The party poppers were DIYed by yours truly and all of the glasswear and china came straight out of our kitchen cupboards. The floral centerpieces were done by me and consisted of white peonies, garden roses, ranunculus, carnations, football mums, spray roses, tulips and seeded eucalyptus pods. Jeanette of J’s Fresh Flower Market created the stunning bouquet which had the same flowers I used in the centerpieces. J has such a flair for creating the most perfect bouquets!

That beautiful hairpiece that our model is wearing, was made by Jess from Fine and Fleurie. Jess is incredible and her work truly speaks for itself. She hand dyed the hair piece silk in two different shades of blue and it turned out even more perfect than I had expected. And if you’re really loving the exact piece you see in all of the photos, sit tight because Jess has graciously offered it up for a giveaway to one lucky reader. You can also purchase this stunning piece over here in ivory.

A whole bunch of you guys have been commenting on how beautiful both the wedding gowns and our model is and what’s funny is the two are sort of connected :) Our model is Maggie Torongo and she’s the owner of Renee Austin Wedding, a chic little bridal and prom boutique here in Grand Rapids. Maggie is so sweet and so beautiful (obviously!) and was the perfect model for the shoot. Both gowns that Maggie provided, as well as the veil, came straight from her shop (they are brand spankin new designs too!) so check out here for more info if you’re dying to get your hands on either style.

And I can’t forget to give credit to the amazing Julie Strating who made the already beautiful Maggie just a bit more fancy. Seriously this woman is a make up master; she had Maggie’s eyelids matching her hairpiece perfectly. Brides if you need a make up artist, Julie is your girl. Plus she’s super sweet. And she brings fun tools with her. Like that airbrusher. I could use a good airbrushin’ every now and then. Julie, thanks for being amazing and coming out to be a part of the shoot :)

What photo is your fave, guys? I think mine is the one I shared over in this post. Confetti, confetti, everywhere :) xoxo

Lately, I’ve been having these mini moments of scary realization that I am starting to love hot pink. I know, I know, you’re thinking “But Rhi! You love all things blush pink and soft.” And I do. I really do. But I’ve been doing some soul searching and have come to find that a little pop of hot pink here and there is totally me. And totally fancy. Lucky for me I had the chance to instill some hot pinkness into my most recent inspiration shoot that was shot by the wonderful Tonya Peterson. While my main goal was the keep this shoot as simple as possible in an effort to provide attainable inspiration for brides to be, I really wanted to include details that stood out all on their own. So I present to you my Kate Spade, meets Autumn meets Northern Michigan, shoot. Hopefully you’ll all “Fall in Love” with the sweet details as much as I have. Happy Monday blogettes xo

Homemade caramel lollipops from Nicole at the Caramel Jar served as escort cards sitting in a bed of hot pink, blush and gold confetti, and doubled as favors (these little treats are incredible; they taste like Wethers on a stick :) One of the underlying themes of “Fall In Love” carried over from the hanging letters behind the dessert dresser of cider and pumpkin spice donuts in lieu of a wedding cake, to the invitations wording and the framed welcome sign at the foot of the family style dinner table.

The flowers! Sigh. I was so proud of how the bouquet, bout and centerpieces turned out considering I had the opportunity to make them myself! I picked garden roses (which were supposed to be blush believe it or not! Thank goodness for mistakes right?) spray roses, lisianthus, wax flower and carnations all in variations of different shades of pink, to bring tons of colour to the tablescape. Then I used seeded eucalyptus, green amaranthus, salal, gold hypericum and gold pinecones to fill in the holes and add a bit of texture. The champagne gold mosaic urns are from Hobby Lobby and gave the perfect amount of sparkle.

I also used tons of ghost pumpkins with painted gold stems to tie in a festive fall feel without being too cheesy. Oh and let’s just stop for a minute and admire how incredibly rad the paper products are. Papertalk Press really did an amazing job with the gold shimmer paper (the photos don’t do them justice!) and the sweet envelope labels. Check out more of their gorg work here.

In love with Luichiny’s shoes. They have the sweetest red heart detail on the soles of all of their shoes :)

If you’ve ever been to northern Michigan in the fall, you know we sure love autumn up here! From cold-pressed apple cider, incredible wineries, and freshly baked pumpkin spice donuts, we live for our fall months and the coziness they bring. To me, being cozy is so closely tied to the same emotions you feel when you’re in love so it made perfect sense to combine everything about love and autumn into one pretty little shoot full of inspiration! The little bottles of apple cider were paired with fun red striped straws. And the barn! French Valley Vineyards barn is way pretty and accented with the most darling chandeliers :)

Instead of hiring models for the shoot, we asked Nick and Audrey, newlyweds themselves, to come brave the incredibly windy, cold and rather unpredictable weather for us. And when I say cold, I mean cold. Like nose running, and fingers freezing up like I have really bad arthritus cold. And the wind! Don’t even get me started on the wind. At one point I thought that perhaps the barn may have blown away into the sky a la Wizard of Oz but never fear friends, like true professionals we all made it work. Everyone was in such good spirits that day and put their best foot forward to make this shoot possible.

A huge huge huge hug to all that were involved in this shoot because I couldn’t be more blessed to have such talented vendors who are always willing to be a part of my shoots and efforts. For all of you brides to be out there, If you’re looking for top notch vendors to work with for your big day then look no further than here! Be sure to check out each vendors blog and website for more information. And be sure to head over to the Wedding Chicks today where they will be featuring the shoot :)

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Photography: Tonya Peterson Photography / Event design, florals, coordination: Hey Gorgeous Events / Venue & coordinator: Michele LeMieux, French Valley Vineyards / Shoes: Luichiny / Stationery: Papertalk Press / Donuts: Robinnetes Apple Haus / Pink and gold cake stands: Home Goods / Gold urns: Hobby Lobby / Pink striped napkins: The Wedding Chicks / Bracelet: Jazlyn Field, Ruby Sweetheart Jewelry / Caramel Favors: Nicole Ebbitt, The Caramel Jar / Fall in Love sign: A Vintage Poster