better together: the flowers

Well, I will let the pictures do the talk. Our flowers were beyond everything I expected. They were so pretty. I still drool over them.

gorgeous pictures by schwarzbild

Next up: the first look

better together: the dress

Oh, how I loved my dress! However, during the planning process, I struggled with it big time. I bought my dress while we were on holiday in Florida last Christmas. We went to the store, I tried about 20 dresses on before deciding thatthe last one was "my dress." It was the total opposite of what I've envisioned. I wanted lace, a mermaid silhouette, and sheer sleeves without a train… And what did I end up with? Take a look!

{click to enlarge}

A modern, drop waist, lace-free gown with a train! While my lovely dress hung in my mother’s closet, I drooled over Jim Hjelm and Alvina Valenta gowns. I even almost bought a second dress. But my sister and a good friend convinced me that I've bought this dress for a reason and that I shouldn’t doubt my intuition.

The dress was a sample and because it fits me almost like a glove, the saleslady let me take it with me. So a few weeks before the wedding I took her to a seamstress and made a big decision. I wanted to shorten the train since I thought it was "too much". After a little exercise of stashing the train away, taking it out, stashing it again, and taking it out again, I decided to remove it for good. I loved my dress even more without the train! It looked younger, fresher, and definitely more modern than before.

pictures by schwarzbild

Next up: the flowers

better together: meanwhile

What did the boys do while the girls got beautified? Theydid what boys do — hang out and drink beer on our roof top!

Looks like they had a great time, don't you think?

pictures by schwarzbild

Next up: the dress

better together: the hair

My hair. Well, honestly, there is just one person in the world whom I trust enough to do my hair — Simon. Simon and I have known each other for about four years. I asked him to come to the hotel to do my hair. He sat patiently waiting for me in our room full of chit-chatting girls. Doesn't he look calm?


We had a trial a few weeks before the wedding, but, honestly, it was more gossiping and playing with the veil than an actual trial. But I knew I could trust him 100% so I just let him do whatever he wanted. In the end? I loved my hair! And so did everyone else.






While I was pampered by Simon, my girls did their hair themself...

all pictures by schwarzbild

Next up: the boys

better together: the make-up

A good friend of mine served as our make-up-artist. I love to spend time with her, as she is so bubbly and fun! While she worked her magic on me, we listened to Mando Diao (my sister brought her iPod and docking station with her) and sipped Prosecco. It felt like the three of us are getting ready for a night out in town rather than a wedding. We were very relaxed and calm and enjoyed being pampered.

pictures by schwarzbild

Next up: the hair

better together: chillaxing

Hi, remember me? And my wedding? Well, I finally kick my recaps off! So here we go!

Spending the night before the wedding with my two favorite ladies in a hotel was, for sure, one of the best wedding related decisions we made. It felt great to spend some time just laughing and hanging out with the girls... I almost forget that I was getting married the next day! It really helped me stay calm and relaxed.

The girls and I went to bed around midnight. I fell asleep immediately and slept until the alarm rang in the morning. After having a delicious breakfast, we were ready for the transformation from "It’s Morning Already?" to "Hellooooo, Bride!"

picture by schwarzbild

Next up: putting on some make-up

Look What Happened While I Was Working!

Severine got hitched!

{Image: schwarzbild}

Her photographer posted a preview that I must have looked at 10 times. (Is that weird to admit?) Everything looks awesome and she looks HOT in her namesake bird cage veil. I hope that if I'm nice and promise to review her posts in a very timely fashion that she'll maybe come back here to recap so we can all read about it** and call her "Fab!". I've heard that there was dancing to dawn and a surprise performance by the wedding party.

Much love, luck, and blog wishes for a long, happy marriage to my favorite Swiss Mrs!

Sev, Google Reader's Translator STINKS!

Honymoon, 2nd Act

Twenty-four hours after the wedding, we’re heading to Bangkok. We will spend two days in Thailand’s capitol city before we fly over to Siam Reap, Cambodia. Siam Reap is known for their temple, "Angkor Wat." I’ve always wanted to visit this stunning temple. We will have a private tour with an English-speaking guide and a driver, so I hope we’re really able to see the highlights. After three days in Cambodia, we will head to Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia. I cannot wait to see the Batu Caves and the Petronas Towers. Before our city tour ends, we will stop in Singapore. I’m so excited to see this city again.

After Singapore, we will head to the beach on the island of Koh Samui. Unfortunately, we wanted to go on our honeymoon right after the wedding, which limited our options for beach destinations, as September is monsoon time in Asia. Since we had visited Koh Samui during our 2006 vacation, I did not want to include it in our itinerary. But; our hotel choice totally changed my mind. We’re going to spend three nights at the Six Senses Hideaway Samui! I’ve always promised myself that I’d stay at a Six Senses hotel soon. So, what better occasion than on our honeymoon?
From Koh Samui, we will take a 30-minute speedboat ride to Koh Phangan, another beautiful island in the Gulf of Thailand. There we will stay at the brand new Hotel "Rasananda."
I cannot wait to spend 3 weeks in Asia with my husband! (oh wow, this sounds strange!)

Our Hotels, just click...Nr. 1 , Nr. 2, Nr. 3, Nr. 4, Nr. 5, Nr. 6

Honeymoon

We (okay, let’s be honest, I) booked our honeymoon a few weeks ago! So, where are we going? South Asia! We have been to Bali and Thailand before, and, while I don’t like to visit the same place twice, I’m willing to make an exception for Singapore ;-) I love, love, love Singapore. I think it’s an amazing city and I’ve always wanted to spend more time there. We tossed around many ideas, but none of them seemed to be “the one.” Vacationing in Thailand back in 2006 was so freaking beautiful and relaxing that we decided to go for it.

Photos by me

We have about three weeks for our honeymoon. Since three weeks on a beach was definitely not an option, we came up with the idea of city-hopping and a spending few relaxing days at the beach. Stay tuned for the details…

The Invitations

I'm sure our invitations look somehow look familiar to you. Your right, the main inspiration came from the paper goddess herself, Tina! I loved her design so much that I contacted her to find out more. That was the kick-off for our mails and the reason for me posting here. But back to the story. I not only loved the design but also the wording "we do" "do you" so I asked her, if it would be okay if we are going to copy that too. And she graciously agreed. So a major thank you goes out to her!

And now, without further ado, the invitations.

All photos by me, if you want to see a close up, hop over to my blog

Calligraphy

I’m sure that you all know the lovely Jessica Lynn from tying the knot. One fine day, I read a post on her blog in she wondered aloud about her handwriting and the possibility of opening a calligraphy business. Let me tell you, her handwriting is BEAUTIFUL! So, I jumped right in and asked her if she would address the labels for our wedding invitations, despite that they are in German. To my big surprise, she said, “Yes!”

I sent her my labels and after only one week, she sent me a little glimpse of what was coming my way. I am thrilled! They look AMAZING! She did a fantastic job and the process was so smooth. I cannot say enough good things about Penned and Pretty. If you still need someone who addresses your invitations, I highly recommend Jessica’s handiwork.

Photos by me

I love shoes

I think the second wedding-related decision I made was that I was going to splurge on my wedding shoes. I own about 70 pairs of shoes. (Yes, I have a serious shoe problem.) But for that reason, I wanted my shoes to stand out.
I had decided to search for some Christian Louboutins to complete my wedding ensemble because I love his sense of style. So, when I stumbled upon these beauties – on sale, I knew I had to buy them.
Sometimes I worry that they are too low-key, but then I return to my senses. The fancy thing about them is their beautiful red sole! I think that I made the right decision.

Photos by me

Our wedding

I have dreamed about my wedding since I was a little girl. Yes, I am one of "those girls." I dreamt of a princess-like wedding with a white coach and a church ceremony followed by a ballroom reception. I’ve always thought that I’d like to wear an A-line gown, a tiara, and all of the stuff that goes with them. But guess what? None of this will happen!

As it turns out, I’d rather have a wedding that is a reflection of who my fiancé and I are than a "classic wedding." We forget our anniversary on a regular basis. There are no candlelight dinners or red roses. This is just how we "love." I’m equally happy if my fiancé buys me a Starbucks Coffee in the morning or if he gets me shoes when I think I shouldn’t buy them because I have enough at home.

Given this, we will be exchanging our wedding vows in a small ceremony at the conservatory. We view our vows as something very sacred and intimate. Therefore, we made it a priority to keep the ceremony guest list short by inviting only our immediate family and friends.

After the ceremony, our party will enjoy a "Flying/Waking" meal. A flying/waking meal is a three-course meal that involves serving finger foods cocktail-style, then serving a seated, plated main course, and finally, enjoying a passed, finger food-style dessert. Our intent is that the guests won’t tire out too early so that we can dance the night away!

Our remaining guests – extended family members and friends – will join us round 9:00 p.m. for the big party!

As you probably can imagine, we have to answer a lot of "Why are you doing...?" questions. So, I’m wondering, did any of you make unconventional decisions? If so, did you have to take a lot of flak from your guests?

Image provided by Severine

I gocco-ed

After chatting with Tina about buying a Gocco (she convinced me to do so) I bought one and started right away. So, let me show you my first project.

Photos by me

I'm more than pleased with the outcome. Especially if you know that, uhmm, I'm quite clumsy... So this was a huge sucess for me! :-)

Foto Love

I saved this image long time ago. I really, really want to recreat it on our wedding day!

I don't know where I found it, please let me know if you do so
Thanks to Stampin Rachel, I know where I found it. It's from Vanity Fair!

The Venue

Venue shopping was not quite as much fun as I had expected. We originally found a perfect art nouveau building with a superb restaurant located right next door – which nipped any catering problems in the bud. Great, right? Well, not really.

During our first appointment with the venue contacts, they told us that all of our requests would be possible, including hosting the ceremony on location. During our had our second meeting to discuss the details, they informed us that transforming the spot would be too much work. Instead, they offered us the ugliest room that I’ve ever seen. I’m not kidding. It had white panels with muddy blue stripes all over them. I actually cried when I saw the room that they were suggesting. But then the anger took over and I told the venue contact that this room was not worthy of my time. So, we had to let go the beautiful venue and head back to the drawing board.

The search for a new venue was nerve racking! The more venues we toured, the more appealing an intimate wedding somewhere on a beach surrounded only by our closest family seemed. I even thought about eloping (especially after seeing this elopement.)

In the end, we found the perfect place —at least for us. We want to have a modern, chic wedding and our new venue fits the bill perfectly. We will exchange our vows "over" a river in a conservatory overlooking the water. Cocktails will be served outside (cross your fingers for good weather). While we’re outside enjoying the cocktail hour, the conservatory will be changed into the dining area. And for the party, there is enough space for a dance floor and a lounge area. There is even a super cool bar! The front of the bar is gold and the back wall has purple lights – thus our gold, purple and light rose color palette.

Photos by us

Photographer

Back in Switzerland, I took a deep dive into the wedding world and have not emerged ever since. From the very beginning, I knew that I want to have GREAT pictures of our wedding day, so my first and most important concern was finding the perfect photographer. Through the WPJA, I found a talented photographer in Germany (located right next to Switzerland). I sent him an e-mail and he responded immediately (in fact, his answer was in my mailbox after 10 minutes!!). We phoned and I was sold the minute I spoke to him. He seemed to be a very nice and calm person, just what I’m going to need on my wedding day. We met him for an engagement session and I’m even more pleased about his work after seeing our pictures. They are amazing...

Shoes and my hubby to be, I love this shot!


we both love to shop, how appropriate


All photos by our wedding photographer Schwarzbild

Want to see more? Go here

The Proposal

Onto the good stuff — the engagement! First of all, you should know that, in Switzerland, girls just get a simple gold or silver band as their engagement ring. And there are quite a lot of girls who don’t get a ring at all for their engagement. I told my boyfriend at the very beginning of our relationship that, if he wanted to marry me someday, he needed to get me a real American engagement ring. A girl needs some bling, right?
We have been together for a bit more than six years when he finally made the decision to get me an engagement ring. We don’t have the same taste in jewelry, so he wanted to be on the safe side and let me pick the ring by myself (Alright, probably because I’m juuuuuuuuuust a bit picky). So, we took a vacation in Florida and visited as many jewelers as we could find. By the end of the day, I found the most precious and gorgeous ring at the very last jeweler we visited!
I told him beforehand that, even if he bought me the ring, it didn’t mean he that could skip the proposal. But guess what? After that wonderful day we spent together, I didn’t need a proposal as it just felt right!
The night I finally took my ring home (they resized it three times), we went for a romantic dinner. We drank red wine and just enjoyed each other’s company. I could not have asked for a better or more meaningful "proposal".

Photos taken by us

"Hello" from Severine!

Hello, Everyone:

Wow! This is so exciting! I was so honored when Tina asked me to be a contributor on her wonderful blog. I said, “Yes,” faster than I could even spell it! So, here I sit thinking about my first post in a foreign language. I better start at the beginning…

I live and will get married in Switzerland. Since I read InStyle magazine on a regular basis, the first wedding-related Web Site that I visited was InStyle Weddings. It was there that I was introduced to the wonderful world of wedding blogs. I read most of them (the popular ones and, of course, THIS one!) from beginning-to-end and added them into my Google Reader. I even started my own blog, but I think I may be the only girl in Switzerland blogging about her wedding. I can’t wait to write in English about our journey to the altar. I hope you will enjoy my posts as much as I do all of yours.

WTRITO is International!

The state of the 'ole Tina Union is a mess y'all. Going from Wedding Utopia to Work Hell for the past four months has left me tired, fat (not kidding), disorganized, and creatively constipated (ewww). But thanks to the Internet, I'm not in it alone! I now have help.

I'm so excited to announce a new contributor, Severine from Switzerland! Her first post will display tomorrow morning. I can't wait to see how her wedding pans out. I am sure that it will be great with her sense of style (Hint: She's wearing Christian Lou's). If you happen to speak German, check out her blog. You might see a few familiar faces. (Hooray for the Internet!)