150 days left!!- Extreme Makeover, Wedding Edition.

When I left you last you knew (or we thought you knew) all of our wedding vendors and we were working on introducing the wedding party. As of recently just about ALL of our vendors have changed! Due to unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances our entire wedding has been re-planned so almost everything you thought you knew was... 

Here's a list of what stayed the same:

1. Dusty and I are still getting married.
2. Our bridal party
3. Our Officiant
4. Our Photographer
5. Our cake

Short list, eh?

Here are somethings that have changed:

Wedding date (now April 11th rather than 12th), Wedding size (much smaller venue means more intimate wedding, went from about 200 people to 50), Hotel accommodations (no special rates, book at your own risk, we booked a room AT the wedding venue location), Venue, DJ, and Caterer. There will be no alcohol at the wedding, there WILL be seating for guests during the ceremony. Our honeymoon has changed as well but you won't be invited to that anyway. 

We have all new plans in store for you so here is a compilation of our NEW Cast and Crew!

Venue- We have moved our venue to the lovely Manor House in Tanglewood Park.

Crew title: The Manor House at Tanglewood Park
Address: 4201 Manor House Circle, Clemmons, NC 27102
Phone: 336-703-6400
Role in wedding: Venue
How we met: I first heard of Tanglewood due to the lovely Festival of Lights! I had driven past the Manor House many times but never entered until the day before we booked it as our venue. What to expect: The Manor House is the former country home of William and Kate Reynolds which now serves as a B&B that is very elegant inside. We are aiming to have our ceremony outside on the front veranda then open all of the French doors to have dancing in the front relaxing in the house and food set up in the back Veranda. There are rooms that can be rented if you are planning on spending the night and Dusty and I are doing just that! Our room is booked and the old fashioned feel will make for some beautiful pictures! The Manor house is located behind the Rose Garden and in front of the arboretum so beautiful flowers will not be lacking!

DJ- My beyond awesome brother in law has decided he would be our DJ for the big day. 

Crew title: John Dunne
Address: n/a
Phone: n/a
Role in wedding: DJ and MC
How we met: John is my Brother in Law.
What to expect: Nothing short of awesome. John is a very talented musician who was originally just going to play the ceremony music for us but once he heard we were canceling our DJ stepped in and offered to make our wedding ROCK. 

Caterer- Still deciding on that one, check back another time for more info.

All for now my dears! 

181 Days Left!! Meet the Cast and Crew: DOUBLE FEATURE Noah Haynes and Karlee Naglieri

Cast Member: Noah Haynes
Role in Wedding: Ring Bearer
Relationship: Son of the Groom
How we met: Dusty was in the room when he was born. I met Noah one day when Dusty brought Noah in to the office on his day off because he forgot his phone charger.
How he got the gig:  He is awesome, fun, brave, adventurous, inquisitive, smart, polite, handsome, beautiful and all around wonderful. Oh yeah, he is also Dusty's 3 year old son and my soon to be step-son. He is going to be an very handsome ring bearer!

Cast Member:  Karlee Naglieri
Role in Wedding: Flower Girl

Relationship: Niece of the Bride
How we met: Dianna met Karlee in a delivery room at Forsyth Medical Center the night she was born right before she was taken to Brenners to begin her long journey with CHD. Dusty met Karlee on July 4th 2012 when he met the rest of the Naglieri crew.
How she got the gig:  Karlee is an amazing miracle baby! She is the strongest little girl I know and given her adorableness plus the fact that she is the youngest little girl in the Naglieri/Dunne/Haynes clan, she was the perfect fit!

201 Days Left!!!- Meet the Cast: Perry Hardison

So you are planning a wedding, you have the dress, the venue, someone to marry, what else do you need? How about someone to make it official? Cue our next cast member, our officiant.

Crew title: Perry Hardison 
Address: PO Box 374, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515
Phone: 919.618.3359
Role in wedding: Officiant
How we met: The internet. Since neither Dusty or I attend a church regularly we did not have anyone in mind when it came to someone performing our ceremony. We used wedding venue websites to check out our options for an officiant who would suit our needs and once we found Perry we knew we were on the right track. We met up with Perry in Chapel Hill at a Starbucks, talked it over and booked him to marry us.

What to expect: Perry Hardison is an ordained Baptist minister who will custom write our ceremony to fit our personality and wishes. Perry is a good guy and we are blessed to have him as part of or ceremony.

210 days left!!- Meet the Cast: Leah Robbins

What are some things that you take to a wedding? Tissues? A gift? A camera? I personally LOVE pictures and while I may not be the best at taking them, I sometimes pretend I am and adore having these frozen moments in time to remember a friend's special moments. With this in mind, it is not too hard to believe that the very first vendor that was booked was our photographer.

Crew title: Leah Robbins
Address: N/A
Phone: N/A
Role in wedding: Photographer
How we met: Leah had been the photographer to capture the pictures of Mrs and Mr Callaway's wedding and engagement and Hannah's Bridal shots! The pictures were wonderful so when Hannah told me of an amazing deal that her photographer was having that included 7 hours at the wedding a Bridal Shoot and an Engagement shoot I had to jump! Dusty and I looked through her work and determined that she was perfect for us! We had talked though what we wanted and had Leah booked even before Dusty asked me to marry him! While Leah is no longer accepting new business she is still going to be shooting our wedding making it even more special!

What to expect: You can expect to see a lovely lady setting up and taking amazing pictures at the wedding. We still want you to take pictures but please be mindful that if Leah is trying to set up a shot these are the pictures that WE get to keep, her job is to take the pictures that we will have forever as we wont be toting around a camera to capture the moment. Now she isn't going to stand directly in your way as we are having our first kiss but she may move around if she needs to get a different angle for a shot.

244 Days Left!! - Meet the Cast and Crew: Dewey's Bakery

If you have ever planned a wedding you may know that some of the most enjoyable things to pick out are your dress (which I can't post about), your food (which will be in another post) , and your cake. The first because (in my opinion) the dresses that you get to wear are just so beautiful and the moment when you see yourself for the first time in "the one" you get this amazing feeling and no matter what you thought about your self image before hand you feel beautiful. The second and third are because you get to eat lots of free delicious food. For my first "Meet the Cast and Crew" post I am writing about Dewey's Bakery, as they allowed us to do TWO cake tastings (both of which were sooooo delicious, and because a wedding cake is super important (I feel) to a wedding.

Note: this is NOT our cake, but it is a lovely wedding cake with an "H" on it :)

Crew title: Dewey's Bakery
Address: 262 South Stratford Road 
Winston-Salem, NC 27103 Phone: 336.725.8321
Role in wedding: baking and decorating (and transporting) wedding cake!
How we met: When I worked at Borders Books Music and Cafe, some of the Dewey's staff would come in to get some ice from us because they would run out and we would have a HUGE ice maker in our cafe. To pay us back they would bring us Moravian Sugar Cake, Pink Lemonade Cake or some other pastry. Dusty first "met" Dewey's when we went for our first cake testing.

What to Expect:  Dewey's is known for quite a few things, Moravian pastries, Pink Lemonade cake and custom cakes. I can tell you that we will not have the first two but you can expect a wonderful custom cake that was partially designed by your favorite bride and groom as well as the amazingly talented cake decorators at Dewey's. While we have clearly not seen the finished product, we know it will be amazing and definitely a cake to remember (and to take a picture of)!

247 Days Left! - New Series: Meet the Cast and Crew

Picture this: You are going to this wedding of a friend or family member and you spend a good chunk of time looking at the bride, groom and the select people they decided to have participate in the ceremony and you think to yourself...WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!  You have never seen most of them before in your life and you can guess who is who but you may really want to know which bridesmaid was once kidnapped by real pirates and which groomsman used to date Kiera Knightly (briefly of course).

To make it a bit easier, for the next 21 weeks I am going to have a series starting next week entitled: "Meet the Cast and Crew" where I will tell you who is who, how I (or we) met this person, a little info about them and what role they will be performing in the wedding. Please note that just because someone is not featured in this series does not mean they are any less important, in the same way as just because you may not be a bridesmaid does not mean you are not an important person in my life.  I may also introduce you to some vendors we are using, you never know when that information may come in handy!

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the road ahead!

250 Days Left!! - What to Expect- Seating

Ah, the dreaded topic of our seating plan. I think if this wedding has one more area in which to stress me out it is going to be in making the seating plan. Since we are having plated meals that will be submitted beforehand, everyone must be in the seats to which we assign them, which makes our job much harder. Just in case sitting 10 random relatives at a table wasn't already stressful there comes the issue of seating during the ceremony and THAT is where I expect complaints.

Background: Our ceremony and reception are being held in the same room which means we will have it set up almost exactly the same all night. The Crystal Ballroom at our venue is perfect and it was kind of special to be able to have our table in the exact spot that we exchanged our vows. It was also going to be much more money and hassle to either pay for another room in the building for 30 minutes or make guests travel from one location to another for these events. We landed on the single room option and our event coordinator at the venue has instilled confidence in how it will turn out.

What to Expect: You may be standing for our entire ceremony, but it will be probably max about 30 minutes, if that. We will have some chairs moved from tables into rows to create an aisle for immediate family and for anyone with VERY young children or anyone who is injured but these seats will be filled at primarily our discretion. I know it may seem silly that you may have to STAND but this will give you more freedom as to where to be, you can be on the second floor or the first and maybe see the wedding from a POV that you have never experienced! This is one thing about my wedding that I KNOW is going to upset people but honestly, as mean as it sounds, I don't want to hear it, I have stood in line longer to get into a crummy movie or to pay for some groceries so I feel that standing (while I am doing the exact same thing), isn't too much to ask someone. After the ceremony, Dusty and I will make our escape to get some photo's done with our bridal party and family while our guests are offered some snacks, will have access to the pub and can take their seats inside when they are ready waiting for cocktail hour to be over so they can see us again and eat some yummy food then dance it all off!