“I want my speech to be perfect” he had told me 2 years ago (tomorrow) “Perfect because you deserve no less” I started tearing up, who wouldn’t after those heartfelt words.

“Dear Kelly,
I look at you today and with my father heart, I will summarize the movie of your life:

From the day you were born I have been touched…
Touched by the memory of the first time I held you in my arms.
Touched by looking at your grow along the years and I am so proud of the woman you’ve become.
Touched when you took my arm this afternoon and we walked down the aisle together.

And today my dear Kelly, the next scene of your movie arrive, the one about your union, your couple life.
You stand beside an exceptional man that I cherish, appreciate and love very much.
I wish you both lots of love, happiness and in hopes that I will be moved by becoming a grand-father one day.”

I will remember that day forever and ever. It is one of my favorite memories of my daddy and me. Happy Fathers day Daddy!!! You are my hero, my friend and my life. I have been blessed to have you in my life in such important moments… and soon, your wish will come true. You will be a grand-father one day… one day being in less than 3 weeks away

Happy Fathers Day!!!

Being a blogger for Weddingbee has definitely made me feel special / sort of celebrity-ish at times (but seriously I’m just a normal gal who blogged about her wedding planning) and it was an honor to share it with all of yous. Some bees have been recognized in public on several occasions (crazy I know!) So when Mr.Flamingo and I took part of a wedding tv show called La Bosse des Noces, well that definetly an interesting experience.

A couple of weeks ago, I was flipping the channels on the television and came face to face… with me. Yup, our wedding was airing again on television. Kinda neat I know. I know you have been waiting to view this video for quite some time, but trying to find a way to upload the video took longer than I anticipated. But I can finally share it with you now. So for those of you who understand french – enjoy!

The show was about helping us out with issues we came across while planning our wedding. They helped us out with decor elements and our place card chandelier tree. What’s great is that they even featured Wes Jones of Film Jones because they found the whole 8mm video really intriguing… plus that whole segment is in english 

So that’s it… I’m officially done my wedding recaps. Sniff sniff. Now for the next chapter in my life….
If you want to see all the Glamnuptials recap posts… lookie here.

What was particularly difficult with our situation was that Marc-André was in school the whole time we were engaged and even after the wedding. So planning a wedding on one salary wasn’t the easiest thing to do… but do-able nonetheless. We simply needed to have an extra long engagement in return (2 and a half years) but it was worth it.

Here is the breakdown to our glamnuptials:

Date: June 21st 2008
City: In the Suburbs (approx 30 minutes from Montreal)
Budget: $22,000
# of Guests: 145
(including children, vendors & excluding guests (30-40) who came in the evening )

Wedding Day Costs

Ceremony Site: $475
This included the officiant and helpers for no extra cost. We basically had a mini church coordinator so everything ran quite smoothly.

Reception Site: N/A
There were no fee associated with the Hotel we used for our wedding reception. Basically the cost was broken down with the food and drinks. We had a beautiful hall with the capacity of 300 guests. (Therefore enough room to move and dance) We had a beautiful terrace where guests could enjoy with a waterfall and fireplace at night.

Food & Drink: $13 010

The reception started off with a cocktail and some hors d’oeuvre. Then was followed by a 5 course meal with wine included during the meal and open bar after 10:30 for a time slot of 4 hours and a sweet table at the stroke of midnight. This included 4 vendor meals ($35.00 / per vendor ) Here is the breakdown of the food and drinks:

• Hors d’oeuvre: $850 ($21.25 per dozen)
• 5 course Meal: $77.00 / per adult – $17.00 / per child
• Open Bar: $18.50 per adult (18 years and older)
• Sweet table: $500.00 (including pizzas, sandwiches, fruits, cake)
  =================
  total : $13007.50 (excluding service charges/gratuities

Service Charge/Gratuities: $1950.00
A 15% gratuity and all service charges for 1 event manager, 6 servers, 1 kitchen staff, and 3 bartenders was added to the total amount.

Cake: 375$
A 3-tier, chocolate, marble and vanilla cake. A small cake (75 large portions) to serve at the sweet table since we already had a dessert included in the main meal.

Bridal Gown & Alterations: $0 (dress) $125 (alterations)
My wedding dress was a gift from my mother. But it cost $690 this included dress, veil, shale, sash, and extra straps. Even thought I barely had any alterations to get done, I needed to make my dress shorter. The alterations cost 125$

Bridal Accessories: $320
I had lots of accessories some purchased some DIY projects. Here’s the breakdown:

• Jewelry Set: $130
• Shoes: $95
• Shoe embellishments: $10
• Hair Comb: $10
• Handmade Brooch: $15
• Garter : $10
• Undergarments: $50

Groom’s Attire: N/A
Where we got the suits for the guys a little guy, there was a great promotion which allowed the groom to rent his attire for free!

Manicure/Pedicure : $0
Offered as a gift by my sister (aka bridesmaid)

Hair/Makeup: 0$
My hair was done by my awesome hairdresser. My step-mother was the sweetest and paid for all the girls and myself. As for my makeup, it was done by my awesome friend, also a gift.

Stationery/Postage: $435

• Invitations & envelopes: $75.00
• RSVP Postcards: $25.00
  
• Accomodation Cards: $25.00
• Thank-Yous & envelopes: $40.00
• Postage: $120.00
• Printing and/or Ink: $150.00

Other stationery items: $60

• Place Cards: $40.00
• Guest book: $0 Gift from a friend
• Programs : $10.00
• Menus: $10.00
• Printing and/or Ink: $25.00

Flowers: $480
All wedding flowers included:

• Bride Bouquet : $100
• 3 Bridesmaid + 1 MOH bouquet + Toss Bouquet : $240
• 6 bouts: $60
• 5 corsages : $50
• DIY Bouquet Bling: $30

Centerpieces/Decor: $1000
Various decor elements included:

• Table runners: $125
• Vases + Mirroirs: $350
• Garlands and chandelier pieces: $40
• Candles: $85
• Vintage Park Lighting: $400

Photography: 1000$
Being a graphic designer and familiar with Photoshop, I wanted my pictures to be RAW (un-edited) on a DVD. That way, it was good for both parties, less work for them, and cheaper price for me. Plus I got to do all the editing I wanted and feel free to use any picture I wanted

Videography: 3500$
Having our videographer come from NYC to our wedding obviously raised the cost and we definitely busted our budget on this one. That’s why we opted for less coverage (6 hours only) But to be honest, I’m extremely happy we decided to splurge on the Super 8 … without it, my wedding wouldn’t of been the same.

Ceremony/Reception Music: 700$
Our DJ was awesome. Not only was the find a great deal, but the guests did not stop dancing for one bit. The price included 10 hours and all the props; glow sticks, hats, hawaiian necklaces..etc

Coordinator: N/A

Favors: 300$
Bottles of water combined with a donation to the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation in memory of my grandmother and in honor mommy flamingo, survivor.

Wedding Party Gifts: $300
The bridesmaids (x3) got a 50$ gift which included a Flash Drive, a journal, and an embroidered silk jewelry roll. I gave the same to my MOH but added a 50$ gift certificate at a local spa. The best man got superman cuff links and a 50$ gift certificate.

Transportation: $425
Rental of our beautiful Vintage 1957 Bentley. This amount was for 6 hours and included the champagne, red carpet and all. Tip was also included.

Night Accommodations: $0
Honeymoon suite was offered as a gift by the hotel for having our wedding reception take place there. It was a very very nice honeymoon suite.

Miscellaneous: $385
Flower girl attire: $60
Ring Bearer attire: $125
Parent Gifts: $200

===========================
Wedding Day Total: $ 24 840
Total Cost per person: $ 171.31
===========================

All inclusive costs:

Wedding rings: $ 1800 (both)
Having my ring made by a jeweler boosted the price of my ring over than what I originally wanted to pay for it. Regardless, its a good investement, anyway my fingers would say so.

Rehearsal Dinner/Day After Brunch: N/A

Mini-moon: 1250$
Because of budget restraints we decided on doing a minimoon to New York City. A 4 day 3 night trip filled with shopping, museums, dining out and of course a broadway show.

===========================
All inclusive total: $3050
===========================

For a Grand total of …. drum roll please: $27 890

I was afraid adding up all the totals, but honestly… its not as bad as I thought. A little over 5500$ of my initial budget. I must say though that being prepared and having every little details in a budget excel sheet made it so much easier to see how much I spent when planning my wedding. For those interested, you can download my budget form here.

Hope this has helped in some way…

What I loved even more was seeing real wedding inspiration boards and comparing the original ideas with what the wedding actually turned out to look like. It’s fun to see if the theme/ideas stayed the same and also to see if the wedding turned out better than the inspiration board itself!

I made my own before and after boards. (click to enlarge):

Our wedding theme changed a little in the planning process. When I first created my inspiration board, I was going for my pinks, golds, champagne colors and more a vintage modern approach. Then, it shifted to a 1940s brown and ivory movie vintage theme. Honestly I really like how our wedding came out, and if I were to do it again, it would be exactly the same.

I have to confess that I was sort of competing with my own inspiration board. I wanted my wedding to be better than what I had envisioned. I know… isn’t it weird? What do you think, is our real wedding board better than the original?

Did you make a real wedding board as well? If so, I would love to feature them on Glamour This! so email me : deluca.kelly @ gmail dot com your original inspiration, the real wedding inspiration board and a little background on your wedding.

At first Marc-André didn’t want a wedding video because he didn’t want to force our friends and family to watch a 1 hour video… and I completely understood.  I wanted to have a wedding movie-esque trailer, a short film with all the important moments of the wedding… packed with lots of emotion sort of like a movie. So I went ahead and edited our wedding footage into a really short wedding trailer - a total of 9 minutes. Yup that’s it!

Our Wedding Trailer.

My wedding movie trailer… from Kelly De Luca on Vimeo.

I used the Mac program Final Cut Express to do all the editing. Luckily my friend had the program and helped me a whole lot (Thanks Isabel!!!). The program isn’t very complicated, and with Google you can find many tutorials online. Because I compressed the movie quite a bit, the movie lost a lot of details and the 8mm effect isn’t as great as the original movie. But I think you will get the overall feel.

Music used in this montage:

1. song: Finding Beauty by Craig Armstrong
2. song: Memories by The Sequel
3. song: Make You Feel My Love by Adele
4. song: Meaning by Gavin DeGraw
5. song: We Are Man & Wife by Michelle Featherstone

So do you like it? Will you be editing your wedding video?

I wanted something different and unique, and luckily my friend (newbie photog) knew exactly what I wanted. So in a matter of an hour and a half we went from the gas station, to the corn field, to the railroad track and more. I am really really happy with the outcome of our pictures. (Plus, I got to wear my beautiful birdcage veil – that I had forgotten at home the day of the wedding).

The morning of the shoot, I actually went to the hairdresser to get my hair done. Unfortunately I did the after wedding chop, so my hair was much shorter than at the wedding and I couldn’t have the same vintage hairstyle (snif! snif!) I did my own makeup like it was done on my wedding day. It wasn’t very complicated to do – except maybe putting on the fake lashes. First stop – the gas station. Now this wasn’t a fake pose - we really needed to put gas in the car otherwise we wouldn’t go very far. I must admit though, they are pretty cool pictures.

A few minutes from the gas station, there was a huge corn field. Being corn season, it seemed perfect for wedding pictures. We asked the owners if we could borrow their field for a couple of minutes, and I guess seeing a bride and groom always results in an automatic yes!

Since it had rained a couple of days before the shoot, the ground was quite muddy… so ya, I had a fun time cleaning my shoes afterwards… (note to self : wear runners when taking pics in a field)

Once the shoe cleaning was complete, we hopped in the car and went to the nearest train track, which was literally 2 minutes away. We had fun on the tracks, and cars would pass by and honk… oh weddings!

I love this picture of Marc-André holding my shoes as I walk down the line (the track line that is). But might I add that it was extremely hot for my feet!

I love this picture – à la Clark Kent (Superman).

Next up, we took some pictures in a vast grass field. Marc was the one who found the place. It was very beautiful and just across the street of the field, there was a beautiful stone fence, where we took some more shots. (Can’t get enough)

I love how all these pictures turned out… and to think all these places were literally 5 minutes away. I will never get back my actually wedding day, but at least these pictures put an extra smile on my face. I had a blast taking pictures and if I could do it again I would! Hmmm… winter wedding shots… But my hubby would kill me – he is so NOT a picture person.

Did you have an Day After Shoot? Were you happy with the results?

Originally when we would talk about honeymoon destinations, Marc and I weren’t on the same page. He wanted Disney, I wanted Italy/Paris. Then it switched, since I knew we wouldn’t agree on a place… we considered going down south, but we abandoned all those ideas and figured a minimoon was a better option. So right after the wedding… we packed our bags, fill the tank and drove to my favorite city NYC!

Not having lots of money to invest in our trip, we used Priceline to book our hotel in Jersey. It was our first time using this site and we were quite happy about the price and hotel.

The view of Manhattan from our room

Yup I even brought our laptop so that I can blog while we were away.

Very comfy bed…

Every morning we would grab a chai latte at starbucks (which happened to be in the hotel lobby – isnt that amazing!!! ) and would take the shuttle to the train station. It was my first time taking the train to Penn station but other than getting lost a couple of times we finally got the hang of it

As a wedding gift, we received a brand new Samsung NV24HD digital camera from work and we were so excited to put our new camera to good use. We took lots of pictures on the first day but when it came time to recharge the battery… oops there was a problem. It wasn’t charging – a defect in the battery. So you know what that means…we didnt take pics of our other days in NYC… what a shame.

But at least we caught this on camera.

We visited the famous Madame Tussaud. I’ve been to NYC at least 5 times and never got the chance to check out the famous wax museum… we seriously had a blast.

Of course hubby needed to take a picture with his favorite superhero… sometimes I seriously think he would love to be Clark Kent.

I, on the other hand need to take a pic with my girl power chicas! I almost look like Geri Haliwells replacement… almost. So, Marc felt he needed to be part of something too… so N’sync was his choice of the hour.

We absoultely wanted to see a Broadway show (even though Marc is french) our first choice was Wicked, but tickets were sold out and decided to see The Mel Brooks musical The Young Frankenstein.

This is the only proof we were at a broadway show. No pictures allowed so before they confiscated our camera we put it away. We seriously LOVED it… to the point that its going to be on our “must” list next time around.

The rest of our stay we did lots of walking and continued to visit places. We even got the chance to meet Mrs. Bee, Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin and Mrs. Lovebird (of Weddingbee) for a nice meal at the Spice Market in the Meatpacking District.

Can’t wait to go to NYC again, might make it an anniversary thing

I was searching for a bowl or something where I could place the cards in. Then, my mom came to the rescue, pulls out a vintage crystal dish. It was perfect… and vintage (it belonged to my great-grandmother). Plus, don’t the cards look better in a pretty dish?

The guestbook table was really a family thing. My step-mother purchased candelabra shaped miniature trees. Yes yes… I am not kidding you, the branches of the trees are shaped like a chandelier. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the first time I had seen anything like that.

A lady who works with my dad mentioned that she had a vintage typewriter which might look nice with my whole vintage theme. I was so excited about this, so I sort of pulled a Lovebug. (thanks for the inspiration) I spent hours cleaning the thing, it was filled with dirt and dust… but in the end something beautiful never looses its beauty.

I had a fun ready what our guest left as words of wisdom. Unfortunately, not many people left us notes, so we should of made an announcement somehow, but it doesn’t really matter. My favorite message was from my cousin “Mr. Flamingo, my cousin is always right, remember that… or I’ll kill you!” lol

What was your favorite guestbook message?

Our wedding cake was so beautiful! It was literally a show stopper, or should I say a conversation starter. All our guests commented on how unique and glamorous it was, and it made me extremely happy to know that people actually paid attention. We wanted something unique, and thanks to all the weddingbee  readers, we finally had the perfect balance of brown, ivory and design.

For our cake topper, we used a vintage crystal glass that my step-mother had, and used the remaining arylic crystals that we used for our escort cards. (more to come on that) I put a tealight candle in the glass so that way at night our cake would have its own mini chandelier.

We had a chocolate Ferrero Rocher crisp dessert included with our meal, so we served the cake later on with the sweets table. Since I figured not everyone would eat cake at night, I decided to make cake flags to go with our oh-so yummy dessert.

Sorry for the blurry picture, this is the only proof with our cake flags.

For the portions, we decided to make a cake for only 70 people (though we had over 150 guests), and I have to say it was still too much because we had tonnes left over. We had more than half the cake untouched… but we even forgot the leftover cake at the hotel. Oh well… just another excuse to get a cake made for our 1 year anniversary