Before the Oscars, I’ll be kicking it with Anna at the Bridal Event at BAM. This will mark Anna and my 2nd time at BAM together this week!  This is the first event that Just (About) Married, our Day-of Coordination service will be hosting and Mayra and I are excited to offer them some moral support.  So if you are in Brooklyn and feel like swinging by, I’m happy to offer up advice and ideas and answer any etiquette questions while I keep Anna company.

It’s going to be an FABULOUS event- Bride’s Magazine and The Knot will be there.  Fabulous Florals from Root Stock and Quade and Blossom and Branch will also be on hand and of course, the wonderful tastes and smells of Great Performances plus tons of other amazing Brooklyn based vendors.

I would make a day-of it and hit up the Brooklyn Flea Market at One Hanson before heading to the bridal event and then maybe grabbing lunch at Chez Oskar or iCi!

Enter the code “Brooklyn Bride” for a free tickets!

Hi Everyone!  Just wanted to take a moment to remind you about the Mardi Gras party happening tomorrow night for the Lower East Side Girls Club and Haiti Relief.   I LOVE a good Mardi Gras party and am excited to see some of you there.  The LES Girls Club is an amazing organization that we’ve been supporting in various ways throughout the year. This is a great chance to hear good music, dance and drink for a great cause…Tickets are $22 and the first hour is open bar.  You can buy them through tomorrow, but it’s a little more at the door!

Attention Brooklyn Brides (and brides that love Brooklyn!) – the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Great Performances are hosting Brooklyn’s first exclusively local bridal show! The Brooklyn Bridal Show will feature over 30 local vendors showcasing the latest in wedding fashions, favors, flowers and food, all housed in BAM’s amazing Lepercq Space.

I will be on site to answer your wedding related questions, and I’m very excited to announce that Anna from Just About Married (JAM) will be joining me! This will be a great chance for all you Brooklyn brides-to-be to meet Anna and get some more information about the hourly and DOC services that JAM offers. Some of the other fantastic Brooklyn vendors will include:
Opalia (Florist); Kelly Guenther – Pulitzer-Prize Winner and Robert DiScalfani (Photography); Love, Jenna and Raw (Calligrapher/Invitations); Two Dudes Playing Your Wedding (Music) and many others.

The event is open to the public from 2-6pm on Sunday, March 7th at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette St. Tickets are $30 and available at Great Performances. I hope to see you there!

If you simply can’t wait until March, here are a couple other fun events coming up:

On Saturday, February 13th, photographers Robert Wagner, Parris Whittingham and Christopher Duggan are inviting couples of all sorts to join in their Couples Portraits Valentines Contest. Couples (young or old, dating, engaged, or married) who show up to Madison Square Park at 3pm Saturday will have their portrait taken by all 3 photographers, with the best shot of each couple posted on the photographers’ website. Visitors to the websites can vote for their favorite, and the couple with the most votes will win a fantastic prize. All participants will receive high-resolution files of their photos, so even if you don’t win – you win!

More information and details are available here.

Not exactly wedding related, but for a cause near and dear to my heart, join me at the Lower East Side Girls Club Mardi Gras Benefit Masquerade Ball. Their events are always fun and eclectic, and they benefit VERY good causes. This event will benefit the Lower East Side Girls Club and the work they do creating programs, activities and lessons in entrepreneurship for young women from the Lower East Side, the Batey Haitian Relief fund, and the YaYa project in New Orleans, a youth mentoring group and partner of the Girls Club.

Mardi Gras Masquerade Ball
Tuesday, February 16th, 7pm – midnight

One last thing, ladies – we’re conducting a short survey here at Always A Bridesmaid. If you got married after June 2008, or are planning a wedding to take place within the next 18 months, please help us out and take the survey. It will only take about 10 minutes, and one participant will be chosen at random to receive a $200 gift certificate to Bloomingdales, Bliss or Sephora (winner’s choice!) The survey is only open until FRIDAY, so please take a moment to fill it out now!

Always A Bridesmaid Survey

And so it is FINALLY upon us!!! We begin to reveal the top 10 Finalists for the 57 Grand Bridesmaid Dress Giveaway… We’ve received TONS of responses from all across the country, but the gals at 57 Grand still want to see what other creative juices are out there and so we are EXTENDING the entry deadline until this coming Friday. Here, again are the rules. So pick a dress, hit up Polyvore and here is a last chance to knock our socks off!!!

You have some tough competition, starting with this adorable submission from Aileen of Seattle – who even planned for the Seattle weather with her cute umbrella! Check out what Aileen had to say and her inspiration board below. Congrats on making the Top 10!!!

Hi! Thank you so much for doing this contest. It would be so awesome if I could give my bridesmaids their dresses for free–they definitely deserve it!

My name is Aileen and I’m from Seattle. I am planning an outdoor wedding in late July, and my colors are pink and champagne. We are planning our wedding on the budget of two students, so we’ve been doing a lot of DIY projects (so far I’ve made: hair flower, cake topper, paper pinwheels to set around the tables, invitations/save-the-dates, and we’ll be doing the flowers ourselves too!). We’ve also been finding ways to do things cheaper. One example is, I’m planning on having my bridesmaids carry sandalwood fans with ribbons tied at the bottom instead of bouquets. I think it’s a super cute look and appropriate with an outdoor summer wedding. Since sandalwood fans are a tan color, my bridesmaids need a dress that the fans will pop against in pictures. The Riverside dress in fuchsia would be PERFECT. It’s adorable, the color is perfect, and best of all, it really is totally rewearable.

I purposely chose to do my inspiration board based around the actual dress I would put my bridesmaids in because it’s always easier to make a neutral colored dress rewearable, but some people might think fuchsia would be hard. I personally think the inspiration board I put together is adorable, and I could see my girls wearing it on a date, to church, or going shopping/out to lunch. I chose to accessorize the dress with pieces that I thought my girls would actually be able to afford (from stores where they actually shop), and I gave it a little Seattle flair with the umbrella and the yummy cupcake from Cupcake Royale.

Without further ado, here she is!

We were out to dinner last week with our good friend at the Hudson Hotel and we were reminiscing about our last wedding together. The wedding was a ball and our bride was a dream client, but the main thing that we all remember are the kids! The couple had a daughter from a previous marriage and a baby that was born a few months before the wedding. Not only were both children in the bridal party, but they also had other kids from their families join them in the bridal party. Paul Sky Photography took this lovely photo.

Now, the best part of the night was when we were switching over to the reception area. The nanny was off packing some things, so that left Xochitl and the person from the Hudson caring for the baby until the nanny returned. At one point I called Xochitl and just heard “We are warming up a bottle. I’ve got to call you back”. Truly one of those moments in this job where you think, “Wow! You really never know what every day will bring”, and exactly why I love this job!

Anyway, it made me get to thinking about kid’s attire for wedding days. I tried to find a few things and realized that it seems fairly hard to do, so I thought I would share some of my favorites!

All of these gorgeous flower girl can be found at US Angels. I recognized some of these dresses because my family loves this site. We seem to love flower girls AND this site:) 

Jcrew also has some things that I fell in love with! No one says they can’t be stylish until they are grown ups!

I am also in love with the many colorful options at Annie Girl.

Are you having children in your wedding party?