Wedding Lessons Learned | Type A Bride

We LOVED our wedding and it was a total dream come true but if there were a few things we learned and can hopefully help someone with when they plan theirs, it’d be the following:

1. Line Item Contract: Get it all in writing: We had a hard time with surprise fees from our venue after we’d already put in our non-refundable deposits. Specific items we had thought were already included from prior discussions were surprisingly not. Don’t trust verbal assent. It must all be written. We’ve had to use a few e-mails with Q&A back and forth as proof to remove some costs we had already upon being included beforehand. IF you’re going to ask after the contract is written, ask in an e-mail so it’s written rather than over the phone or in person.

2. Plan Out Greeting All Your Guests: We casually put in our schedule for the wedding reception a “dancing time and greeting guests”. However, we didn’t really plan out enough time to greet all our guests or specifically focus on just doing that. As a result, we didn’t get to say hi to probably 30% of our guests, which is something we truly regret.

3. Thank You Speech: Write down whom you’ll thank during the thank you speech. We thought we’d remember it all right then but, nope, we realized sadly later that we didn’t. But we were able to make it up in our thank you cards.

4. Schedule in More Dancing Time with Your Spouse: Greeting guests, entertaining, and finding spare time to finish your food can surprisingly take up a lot of the night. Make sure you set aside time to really just enjoy the reception and dance with your spouse.

Most Importantly: Whatever happens, enjoy. The unexpected happens. Mistakes occur. But you are married to the love of your life! You have the rest of your lives to live, love, and learn together!

Harmoniously Yours,
Drexelle
The Type A Bride

March 29th | Bit of Inspiration

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Sneak Peek | Veronica & Daniel

A wedding shot with Jaimee Hubert from Capturing Moments!

Cupcake Deliciousness from La Provence | So Scrumptious

My food pyramid includes a large but necessary portion of chocolate. I was also born into a
family with other chocoholics (yes, that is a word!..or at least it was when I googled it).

Now cupcakes fall under that part of my food pyramid. Normally, when people recommend good cupcakes or any kind of cakes for that matter, they give me these fluffy and light desserts. But fluffy and light to me equates with emptiness, a lack of something.

If you're ever going to recommend or give me any type of cake (these gifts are welcome btw! haha), it must be...rich and thick and layered.

One day my cousin sees me raving about Sprinkles cupcakes and she declares boldly, "BAH, wait 'til you try these!"

La Provence Patisserie & Cafe

La Provence's tagline: The best bakery in Beverly Hills

When my cousin handed me these velvety chocolate cupcakes with ganache frosting, I nearly fainted from the sheer delight and DELICIOUSNESS.

Try them. Let me know what you think. Oh and let me know if there's any other types of sweets I can add to get my daily dose of chocolate!

How to Have the Cheapest OC Wedding Ever | Type A Bride

The Wall Street Journal posted a scary but realistic article of how much a wedding really can cost you in the long run.

A Lavish Wedding Costs More Than You Think

I personally still feel that, despite the pain of the money spent on our wedding, I could never want to take it back. It was really just an amazing way to celebrate being married to the love of my life. But for those of you who are curious...what is the LEAST amount of money you need to get married?

Let's use the OC as the example here.

Steps to Take for the Cheapest OC Wedding

1. Go online to apply for your marriage license and set an appointment to pick it up (which should save you about 10 minutes at least): https://cr.ocgov.com/marriageappointment/.

2. Before your appointment, make sure both you and the groom attend. Bring your government issued Photo IDs. as well as either cash, check, or money order (if you use credit card, there is a $2.50 charge).

3. During your appointment, go to your designated courthouse, which for us was the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana (the well-preserved red building that stands out from all the rest in the land of Civic Center buildings, which took us an hour to find because it had NO sign or number to distinguish it from the rest).

4. Raise your right hand and swear you didn’t lie on the application. Show them your IDs. Hand them your payment.

5. Get an ordained minister you know or a friend who is willing to become ordained to marry you for free.

6. TADA! You’re married!

How Much Would You Have Spent?
$61.50 and about 45 minutes (if you find the place in a timely manner)

If you didn’t want to find an ordained minister for free, you can have the marriage ceremony at the courthouse. It’ll only cost you another $28. A lifetime commitment for $89.50 and in under an hour!

Efficiently Yours,
Drexelle
The Type A Bride

Oh Where Oh Where Can My Wedding Be? | Type A Bride

How can you find your perfect wedding venue? Let’s sit & talk.

…with your fiancé.

…and paper and a pencil…or an iPhone.

Step 1
There are tons of venues out there. Needle in a haystack tons of venues. Maybe not what you want to hear. First, let's try to shrink that to just a handful of choices and save some time. Before you go looking, sit down and decide on the following:
• What would be your ideal wedding reception? How does it look (indoor/outdoor, natural, modern, edgy, etc.)? How do you want the guests to feel at that reception?
• What's your wedding theme and style?
• Where do you want to get married? Give yourself options but rank their priority.
• How many guests are you expecting? Most venues have a capacity minimum or maximum. Don’t squish your guests into something small and don’t have 20 people in a large ballroom, unless you’ve got the dramatic lighting that can pull that kind of thing off.
• List the venue must-haves: Examples can be easy wheelchair access, guidelines on the types of food or drinks they allow, etc.
• Estimated wedding date/time (they’ll ask you and it’ll determine your price)
• What's your budget?

Step 2
Decide traditional or offbeat.

If You Want Traditional:
These websites will have plenty of information on the traditional ones you'd like to see.
• The Knot
• Here Comes the Guide

If You Want Offbeat:
Personalize your wedding venue to your different kind of love story! You can also do this with a traditional venue as we'll talk about later but this can sometimes be the key to making a wedding really your style.
• What kind of venue would have personal and real meaning for you and your fiance?
• Where was the first place you met or dated?
• Do you have a favorite hobby together?
• What are your passions? Do you love amusement parks, movie theaters, horse racing, or museums?
• Where would your guests have fun and know that this place was totally meant for the two of you?

Potential Benefits of Offbeat Venues:
• Less competition for the wedding date
• Tendency for being open to negotiation
• Guests have never seen it before for a wedding (no comparisons)
• Express your real personality
• Flexible timing/dates
• Available resources right at the venue (for example, with our wedding at the Grove of Anaheim, we had the spotlights, crew, and audio/visual equipment that celebrities used)

Potential Problems with Offbeat Venues:
• The crew is less experienced in wedding planning/support
• May require you to bring everything from the outside in: catering, chairs, tables, sound, caterer, etc.
• Family resistance for those that prefer traditional - Be prepared.

Step 3
Brainstorm. See what you both love. Ask around. Drive around! That’s how we found our dream wedding venue:

Leave a comment and let us know what works/worked for you!

Effortlessly yours,
Drexelle
The Type A Bride

Wedding Sites | The Good Ones

Brides & Grooms - a list of wedding sites for you, the good ones.

These wedding blogs and sites are full of great ideas and resources, easy to read, and won't waste your time as you plan your wedding.

• 100 Layer Cake - Crafting your wedding, layer by layer (real weddings, DIY, style, pretty paper)
• Green Wedding Shoes - Southern CA wedding inspiration for the modern bride
• I Will Teach You to be Rich - Community focused on personal finances and entrepreneurship for college students, recent college grads, and everyone else. Featured on Wall Street Journal, NY Times, NPR, ABC News, and CNBC. Odd title, I know. But it's a great site on effective money management and there's nothing like effective money management when you plan your wedding and the rest of your lives together.
• Junebug Weddings - Wedding blog ideas, products and professionals for your Seattle, LA or OC weddings
• The Knot - Internet's most-trafficed one-stop wedding planning solution
• Offbeat Bride - Altar your thinking. No two weddings need to look the same because no two couples are alike
• Serendipity - Inspirations for the Asian Bride
• Style Me Pretty - Style savvy wedding resource devoted to the modern bride
• Utterly Engaged - The 1st online wedding magazine. Inspiring budget savvy brides with style.
• The Wedding Chicks - Sharing everything new, classic, funky, hip and just plain fun for weddings
• Wedding Bee - Wedding blog updated daily by 20+ real brides across the US and Canada with a core focus on real brides' wedding planning journeys from engagement to "I Do" and beyond
• Wedding Style - Grace Ormonde's Wedding Style Magazine is a sophisticated and elegant wedding media for high end brides. The magazine assists prospective brides with choosing wedding services and offer informative, practical editorial content on topics ranging from wedding planning to home decorating and women's health issues.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think of these sites or if you've seen anything else we should follow!

Preparedly Yours,
Drexelle
The Type A Bride