1. (Clothing & Fashion) hats, trimmings, etc., sold by a milliner
From the moment we laid eyes on it, we couldn’t help but fall in love with Blair Nadeau’s gorgeous work. No doubt you will too!
Milliner Blair Nadeau releases her
2012 Bridal Millinery Collection
and
S/S12 Fascinator Collection
{ Photography Credit goes to the fabulously talented Tara West. }
{ the Details }
Blair Nadeau Millinery is handmade in a beautiful, bright, loft in Toronto Ontario. The designer handcrafts beautiful bridal and fashion millinery for the both the bold and the classic, utilizing traditional millinery techniques set with a modern edge. Classically trained in Fashion Design, she incorporates trends the latest runways, colours, fabrics and motifs to set her designs apart. Blair has designed for 5 day old new borns to 78 year old fashionistas and everyone in between all the while creating a loving following ranging from bridesmaids, to the audacious Red Hat Ladies.
Released on Feb 19 2012, Blair Nadeau’s new 2012 Collections embody all things whimsical and wonderful for both the audacious bride, the classic bride, the whimsical wedding guest and the Fashionista. Each bridal piece and fascinator is lovingly hand created by the designer herself, crafting every design out of luxurious silks, jacquards, organzas, voiles and shantungs. The fascinators are accented with geniune swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls, hand-picked feathers, whimsical buds and twigs in the most creative and playful of ways.
“Inspired first and foremost, by my Grandmother and of the carefree summer days of yester-year, our 2012 Bridal Millinery Collection and S/S12 Fascinator Collection blossomed and bloomed into a beautiful tangle of Twigs, Ribbons, Flowers and Butterflies.”
The Collections are created with beautiful muted palettes of Golden Ochre, Sage Green, Moss, Twig Brown, Rustic Orange, CountryBlue, Creamy Ivory and Dusty Champagnes. Victorian Vintage is a soft and whimsical tale fashioned by those easy innocent late summer days strolling through the meadow, in the late 1800s.
The official results are in and a huge Wedding Threesome congratulations goes out to the following couples who successfully PIMP-ed at least 100 of their nearest and dearest on Facebook and made it through to Phase II of our 2012 Wedding Threesome contest! Here’s an OFFICIAL introduction to this years’ competitors!
These couples are going head-to-head to win a prize pack of Wedding Day Photography (from Rick Denham), Cinema (from Captivate Bridal), and Planning + Coordination (from WeddingGirl.ca) – valued at over $10,000!
{ Erin + Aaron }
{ Jaime + Chris }
{ Jennifer + Max }
{ Loretta + Jackson }
All four of these couples showed all kinds of creativity, dedication, enthusiasm and commitment throughout the Phase I process, and we’re certain that now that they’ve been officially promoted to Phase II, their Facebook friends will finally take a breath of relief from all the wall-spamming! (…. or will they??)
{ Phase II :: PRESS }
In Phase II of this year’s W3 v2.0 Contest, our brides and grooms are taking their love to press. WordPress, that is!
As explained in our official Phase II launch post these guys will be creating a WordPress blog and helping all of us get to know all of them! (but keeping in mind that their fellow competitors will have access to their blogs too!)
With their initial instructions listed, and their secret passwords mailed out, we’re anxiously awaiting the blog bio introductions to our Fabulous Four. And in the spirit of the season, may the luck of the Irish be with you! Cheers!
- Love, Mary + Rick + Jay
Note: If you were one of the competing couples in Phase I who did not make it to Phase II, or you believe that we have mis-counted and you should be in Phase II, please make sure to get in touch with us! We have something for you!
If you haven’t already seen it, make sure to check out our Valentine’s Day Launch Post that explains all the details (and even comes with a fabulously thrilling mini-series written + produced by the Captivate team). The friends that you helped support on Facebook are competing head-to-head in a wedding contest valued at over $10,000 – a complete Photography + Cinema + Planning and Coordinating package courtesy of…. well…. us!
So who are we, you ask? Rick Denham is the photog-extroardinaire behind Rick Denham Photography. Jay Lupish is the mastermind behind Captivate Bridal. Mary Bratko is the lover-of-all-things-pretty behind WeddingGirl.ca We are a small bunch of wedding vendors who LOVE what we do and LOVE doing it together! We have a great time. We laugh (A LOT).. .and we want to have a great time and laugh (A LOT) with some amazing wedding couples!
Last year, we launched the first-ever Wedding Threesome contest, and it was a HUGE success! We ended up awarding our Grand Prize to Brenda and Kris and together we captured, captivated, and coordinated their wedding day (and had an amazing time doing it!) Brenda actually wrote an awesome blog, Confessions of a Threesome Winner, outlining her experiences in the contest. If you haven’t already seen it, be sure to take a look!
This year, we decided to do the Wedding Threesome contest all over again… version 2.0 …. and it’s crazy to think that it’s already been a MONTH since we announced the details of Phase I! We’ve had so many couples get creative in the PIMP Phase – getting at least 100 of their nearest-and-dearest on Facebook to Like + Join + Add us. We know it hasn’t been easy, but we definitely hope it’s been worth it!
So now, Phase II is upon us! It’s time for these brides and grooms to take their love to Press!
{ W3 v.2.0 Phase II – Press }
The three of us love working together, and we want to love who we’re having our next wedding threesome with! If you’re one of the couples who is successfully moving ahead in our contest, we want to get to know you!
Every couple moving on to Phase II needs to create a WordPress blog – and title it like this: www.wordpress.com/Bride&GroomsWeddingThreesome (make sure to replace the Bride + Groom titles with your actual names – and your password will be automatically assigned to you by the three of us. We will be checking your Blog Stats regularly to see who’s reading about you!)
We want to learn about the two of you: your names, your ages, your shoe sizes (… okay, well, maybe not your shoe sizes) – who you are, what you do – we want to know as much as you’re willing to share (within reason, ofcourse!)
To kickstart your Press phase of this contest, write an introductory blog post that tells all your readers who you are, and why you’re entering the contest. You MUST include links to all three of our websites in your introductory blog. Get creative and make sure to capture readers’ attention! Be visual, be different, and make sure to stand out!
{ getting started }
1. Create a Wedding Threesome email address – “Brideandgroom.w3v20@gmail.com” to register your Blog
2. Your blog Headline should capture the sentiment that you want your friends and family to help you win a $10,000 Wedding Contest from Rick Denham Photography, Captivate Bridal Cinema, and WeddingGirl.ca. Give people a reason to keep checking back! Your webstats will be a huge help to you!
So if you’ve collected a minimum of 100 Likes + Joins + Adds on Facebook, send an email to all three of us and let us know! We will cross-reference with our calculating monkeys, make sure you’re not pulling our leg, and we’ll send you your WordPress Blog password.
{ timelines }
You will have ONE WEEK to create your Love Blog. All Phase II blogs must be active by 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012.
Once you’re up and Press-ing, the two of you need to keep a blog for THREE WEEKS. We want to see what it’s like to live in your world : photos from dates, ticket stubs from shows, napkins from dinners.
Throughout Phase II, we will be posting mandatory Blog Topics that we want to read about. These might be about you as a couple, about your family or friends, or about your wedding plans. Couples who do not complete these posts within the allotted time frame will automatically be disqualified from the contest. Don’t worry – we know you have busy lives and we promise to take this into consideration! Every mandatory blog must include all three of our website links (you will be reminded of this so don’t worry if you forget in the meantime!)
Phase II will be completed on Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 and we will be choosing our final three remaining couples based on your blog’s readership and our own personal secret votes. These votes will be ranking the couples in order of First (100 pts), Second (50 pts) and Third (10 pts) to add to your total blog views at the end of the three week period. The top three couples will move on Phase III of our contest and will be announced right here on Monday, April 16th!
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either one (or all three) of us!
Keasha Rigsby (formally known from Kleinfelds) is coming to Canada and opening her own Bridal Salon! She is looking for unique and heartwarming wedding stories.
Are you a bride getting married this year in search of your perfect wedding dress but don’t have the first clue how to find it?
Are you stressing because your family is taking over your wedding?
Are you having a themed wedding and need a very specific wedding dress look?
Do you have a special circumstance or family tradition that is affecting what you will choose to wear on your wedding day?
Or does the thought of sifting through hundreds of gowns searching for “the one” make you dizzy with worry?
Keasha has dressed thousands of brides and prides herself on her time-tested methods of matching the girl to her dream dress.
If you want Keasha to help you find the perfect wedding dress contact Heidi at heidiallen@rogers.com.
Please email your name, wedding date, dream dress budget and wedding dress style and Heidi will contact you shortly.
With the recent opening of David’s Bridal – Mississauga, Ontario and the ongoing rave reviews of David’s Bridal in the U.S., we decided to look into the details ourselves and see what all the hype is about. Not only have our real-world WG Brides loved their David’s Bridal wedding dress experiences, we stumbled upon these gorgeous David’s Bridal bridesmaid dresses and were stopped dead in our tracks!
Talk about being “maid” with style and …. on a budget!
{ Bridesmaid Dresses }
Whether you’re looking for traditional or trendy, casual or couture… whether you want your girls to be sleek + sophisticated or sexy + sassy – David’s Bridal really does have bridesmaid dresses to suit every wedding style! You say you’ve always wanted to pick a dress your girls could wear again? This is the place to do it!
Oh… and they come in about a hundred different colours!! (well, at least dozens and dozens of them) Tangerine. Watermelon. Lapis. You name it – they’ve got it!
{ White by Vera Wang for David’s Bridal – bridesmaid collection }
So… what do you get when David falls in love with Vera? Some of the most gorgeous bridesmaid dress designs you’ll ever see standing next to a blushing bride!
{ + Size }
One of our favourite things about David’s Bridal? They have real sizes for real-sized girls. Gone are the days of taking your best guess as to how a dress will fit when it’s the right size.
At every store location, you’ll find dresses in sizes 0 to 26…. including the new fashion-forward White by Vera Wang bridesmaid dress collection. There’s nothing better than strapping on a pair of stilettos and strutting out of the change room in one of these runway numbers!
The White by Vera Wang for David’s Bridal dresses are so high-fashion, not even the Gossip Girl crew could help themselves and they fell in love with this gorgeous design ~ using it in their wedding episode!
So whether you’re going fashion-forward or flirty, casual or couture, make sure to check out what the David’s Bridal bridesmaid collection has to offer. Make a date, grab your girls, and have fun! You’re definitely guaranteed to look and feel fabulous!
Okay, so the Hollywood screenplay wasn’t quite as good as we expected – slightly predictable and a bit anticlimactic (with the exception of Snow Patrol’s Just Say Yes in the trailer) – but we love the concept of Leap Year nonetheless!
Brought into our modern-day calendar once every 4 years to even-out the 364 + 1/4 solar days in our calendar year, Leap Day has brought about with it a slightly socially-peculiar tradition – where women can propose to men! According to ProjectBritain.com, because the day technically had no legal status, it was assumed that traditions would have no status, so women eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to propose marriage to their main squeeze!
According to these guys, apparently Scotland once had a law forbidding men to refuse proposals made to them – punishable by a hefty fine!
{ St. Patrick + St. Bridget }
According to an old Irish legend, in the 5th Century, an Irish nun named St. Bridget petitioned St. Patrick on behalf of all women – asking that they be granted the opportunity to have a more active role in choosing their husbands. To grant St. Bridget her request, without abolishing the traditional customs completely, it was decided that women could propose to their men once every four years, on Leap Day!
{ Happily Ever After }
Regardless of whether he asks, she asks, or they flip a coin, any marriage proposal that ends in a “YES!” is meant to be the beginning of a beautiful Happily Ever After. It isn’t so much the way it happens, as it is the sentiment behind it – an outward promise of an inward commitment between two people who love each other. All our Happily Ever After wishes go out to all the girls brave enough to pop the question today – and all the men who agree (and follow up with a sparkly ring!)
Cameron Diaz: “A dress should be tight enough to prove you’re a woman….
Jennifer Lopez: “and loose enough to prove you’re a lady.” {quoting Edith Head as they present Best Costume Design 2012)
: Red Carpet Walk @ the Oscars 2012
We’re loving what the gorgeous Cameron Diaz donned on the red carpet – and we wouldn’t be surprised to see variations of this spilling over from the red carpet onto some ceremony aisles in 2012! Chic strapless is always in, and the flowing asymmetrical lines embellished with tone-on-tone sparkle are stunning and sophisticated.
This picture doesn’t do it justice at all… but try to catch a glimpse of the train on this beauty . Definitely wed-carpet couture!
Now.. Michelle Williams…. can’t you just picture this style in a soft diamond white, embellished with a Victorian brooch on the waist, and a removable bottom for late-night reception grooving??
Ofcourse, when you’re standing next to Mr. Clooney, you need to look uber-fab… and Miss Stacy Keibler certainly does. Loving this pseudo-sweetheart neckline that swoops into a beautiful off-the-shoulder design. Moreso, the texture-gathered rosette. Totally bridal-posh!
{We’d like to thank the Academy… and the following websites for photos}
Last night, Jenn (the fab photog behind mINK Creative) and I cracked a bottle of Misterio Argentinian Malbec (it was AMAZING – definitely a must-try).
We caught up on life, chatted business for a bit, then donned some stilettos, and headed out on the town. Our destination? Industry Night at the Toronto Centre For The Arts (with a special Thanks going out to Derek for extending an invitation!) We were super excited to see what the Centre has to offer brides-to-be beyond its theatrical loveliness – and were so pleasantly surprised! First and foremost…. SO easy to get to + find parking (which, let’s face it, is a big deal in Toronto).
We were greeted by smiling faces and top-notch hospitality – particularly the glasses of wine poured and waiting in some couture stemware. The chard was a tad acidic for my palate, the red…. delish!
Everywhere we turned we bumped into fabulously hospitable industry pros, and even had a lovely staff member (Nancy, I believe?) offer to take a picture for us (even though she’d never used an iPhone) – how sweet! (the poor lighting was totally my fault).
We perused the gorgeous hors d’oeuvres displays, took in some classy little floral accents, and visited a few modern, carte-blanche event spaces perfect for some contemporary Happily Ever Afters. I’m dying to show this space to some of my real-world brides!
Most amazing gnocchi and my first time trying duck confit courtesy of Loic Gourmet…
Fabulous little chocolate + raspberry panna cotta treats from 10tation Catering…
Awesome chocolate mousse and rice pudding (to follow a wicked salmon + mango salsa + couscous treat) from A La Carte Kitchen Inc…
We also had the pleasure of meeting the lovelies (Anna and Mark) at Kostel Photo – wedding + lifestyle photographers from Port Credit.
Not sure who designed these beautiful little details – but the punch of colour was amazing! (and this is a super cost-efficient centrepiece alternative!)
Look at my lovely beauty — those eyelashes are do-die-for! Thanks for coming, Jenn!
The only shot of the two of us with relatively ambient lighting….. love this girl <3
{ Sponsor Shout-outs}
All in all, it was a fabulous night – with all kinds of Thanks for the yumminess, awesome service, and our fab Swag Bags delivered by….
Written by Brenda (our 2011 Wedding Threesome winning bride!)
{ phase I }
Its hard to believe it was only one year ago that I was asking (begging), reminding (nagging), and hoping (praying!) that I could find 100 friends to actually like/join/add all these facebook pages! After all our hard work, we were able to get past the 100 minimum and make it through to round two of this exciting contest.
{ phase II }
So fast forward to round two announcement day. This round involved us writing a submission about who we are, whats different about our wedding, and why we should win the contest. Now personally I thought this was going to be a piece of cake because who in the world is there that we would know more about than ourselves?! The WHO was easy. We wrote about ourselves, our separate pasts, and how we finally started dating after 10 years of friendship. The WHAT, also pretty easy – this was explaining what was different about our wedding. We were planning a winter wedding and we had great ideas and hoped they would be interested. Lastly, the why. WHY?! There were lots of people trying to win this. We were all happy, all in love, all excited for our weddings. What makes us more worthy than any of the other couples? We had a hard time with this one, so finally we decided, why should we have to write this? So we didn’t. We emailed our wedding party and had them write it for us. They liked us! They really liked us! (the wedding party I mean). We got some seriously sweet, and some funny, reasons why we should win this. We submitted our entry with an introduction to our wedding party followed by their reasons of why they thought we should win this.
A few days later there was an update – the weddinggirl.ca blog had a new post with the results of phase two. It started off with an introduction about everyones submissions and how there were powerpoint presentations, fancy PDFs, and slideshows, and I thought to myself, how would my measly email compare to an online slideshow? I quickly scrolled down to find out that SURPRISE! They liked our submission! It seems their attempt to narrow down to three couples didn’t go as they had planned, and I’m pretty sure six brides breathed an excited sigh of relief that day.
{ phase III }
Finally, round three was announced. This turned out to be my very favorite round of this contest. It was like a photo scavenger hunt for wedding stuff. This was so much fun. Also, this is where all our friends actually got super interested and wanted to help out. The goal of this round included taking pictures of three items in each category, and the categories included people, places and things. Read up on the details here:
1 – Wedding night spent with the wedding party. This actually nearly happened, except the party wasn’t in our hotel room, and we managed to sneak out for some sleep around 4 AM.
2 – Wedding day family photo at a famous landmark. We went to Niagara falls and gathered up some random family on the street. Most people didn’t ask any questions at all, just hopped into the picture!
3 – Our wedding threesome. We knew we wanted Mary, Rick and Jason, so we recreated what we thought our threesome would look like, with masks. If you ask me, the black and white really class them up.
4 – Another wedding. While in Niagara falls, we found a couple waiting to tie the knot outside one of the local wedding chapels.
5 – Recreate proposal in costume. Kris proposed to me at Niagara Falls in Sept 2009. So we did it again, wearing my sister and brother-in-laws halloween costumes from a few years ago. This was a real crowd pleaser!
6 – Reverse Wedding. This picture was taken at a wedding chapel site in Niagara falls. Kris’s dress, we bought cheaply on kijiji, and the flowers are my mom’s flowers from her wedding to my dad in 1980.
7 – Something sassy made from the wedding dress. The girl on kijiji gave us her dress very cheaply when we told her we were planning to cut it up. That wedding ended in divorce so she really liked the idea.
8 – Make a wedding cake. The hardest part of this contest may have actually been convincing kris to help making this cake. Turns out he’s pretty good at it, but don’t tell him i told you that! ;)
9 – Recreate your engagement ring for a giant. Single men, blow your girlfriend’s mind with the gift of a giant diamond shaped paperweight from michaels! It also helps if you have a regular sized one to match it.
The deadline for phase three was April 4th, and they told us the day they would announce the winner. They said the winner would be surprised at work or home, or somewhere and just go about our daily lives as per usual. This was the longest day ever. First off, I wanted to make sure we wore something nice in case we were the lucky ones they surprised. Then I wanted to make sure we didn’t do anything out of the ordinary in case they showed up and we weren’t there. I even tried to convince Kris to stay home when they guys invited him out that night… Alas, nobody won. As you can guess, this caused a riot in the facebook contest community. When we got updated (announcement delayed by family emergency), everyone once again, breathed a sigh of relief. The winner would find out the next day. At the time, Kris and I worked for the same company (different teams, different floors). When the teaser photos were posted on facebook….
{ the Teaser photo }
….. I actually walked around the building looking out each side to see if we had grass or sidewalk anywhere that looked like the posted picture. Of course we didn’t.
I was waiting patiently for the winner to comment on facebook… Finally, after wrapping up a work item, Kris and I went down to the building’s cafeteria to get some lunch. Apparently we ordered, received our food, and were on route to pay before we noticed some balloons peaking out around the corner. It was done! Mary, Rick and Jay were hiding in our office cafeteria to tell us we had won!!! It was a great day!
{ this is how the Big Reveal unfolded! }
{ the Threesome in action }
Over the next few months we started really getting into the planning. We exchanged TONS of emails. We met with Rick for engagement pictures and talked about the wedding day.
We met with Jay from Captivate to talk about what we wanted from our video.
And then there was Mary. We met with Mary numerous times. She introduced us to our florist and our hair and makeup team. She chased our vendors for answers and information. She gave us tips on our invitations and design ideas. She made sure every detail was taken care of. On our wedding day, amongst all the other work she was doing, she made sure every piece of ‘snowflake shaped gel confetti thingys’ on our guest tables were placed the right way up <3.
If you dont know me, I am a bit of a “super-planner” (control freak) and I found it hard at times to let Mary do her job. On our wedding day, Mary replied to every single one of my texts, even during dinner when I texted her from the head table. Every time I asked about a detail, she assured me it was done. When she told me how gorgeous our hall looked before the wedding, I asked if I could run over to take a look. Although she firmly said no, she did return a few minutes later with pictures to reassure me it was even better than we had imagined. I never would have thought we would have benefitted from a wedding planner or day-of co-ordinator, but now I would recommend it to anybody getting married.
Mary, Rick and Jason really helped make our wedding. We have fabulous photos, and we are still hearing compliments from our guests about how they loved our video.
We couldn’t have pulled this off without you all and your teams. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! <3
{ To this year’s contestants }
To all the brides who are now doing the asking (begging), reminding (nagging), and hoping (praying!) to get through Phase I of the contest – DON’T GIVE UP! Once you get to the last few, it’s so much easier than you think! (and all your family and friends will totally understand if you explain why it matters so much).
Whatever these guys make you do, DO IT – it’s totally worth it, and it’s so much more fun than I could have expected! I’d do it all over again if I could.
Okay… so we may have a mild obsession with all things creative…. and with these little details – we just HAD to share!
Cocktail Hour Crudites
Ceremony Stiletto Savers
For The Groom
Guest Book Alternatives
People in your Program
Cocktail Hour Escort Cards
Glass Embellishment
Father-of-the-Bride Gift
Mother-Of-The-Groom Gift
FlowerGirl Signs
Happily Ever After
Disclaimer: These images have been shared with us and collected over time. Original sources are cited when available. Should one of these images infringe on your copyright rules, or you’d like to be credited, please let us know and we’ll be happy to send out honourable mentions!
