Style Me Pretty guest blog day! Check out this classic Connecticut wedding with one of the PRETTIEST dresses I’ve seen in awhile. Dress envy. Big time. All the pretty classic details can be found over on Style Me Pretty.

Photography by Orchard Cove Photography.

Vegas baby!  Sigh.  I do love Vegas.  Recently we took a roadtrip from Nevada to Utah and back down to LA.  I have to say that I saw a different side to Vegas.   Just like we’re about to see today with this classic Las Vegas wedding.  Set in Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada, this wedding is just brimming with style.

When I received these photos from Troy Grover, a Cali wedding photographer, I fell in love with the cream on cream bridesmaid dresses.  They’re just glam.  And so are these photos.  I have a serious love affair with black and white photos. Some wedding blogs shy away from featuring black and white photos and that has always puzzled me. They’re so classic and crisp. They’re drama makes them irresistible to me. And may I say that Mr. Troy Grover knows his black and white photography. Add to that the fact that I LOVE dancing at weddings and you won’t be surprised to hear that my favorite shot is of the bride and groom on the dance floor.  Makes me want to take ballroom dancing.  Or just shake “it” in my living room. One or the other.

Troy gave us a glimpse into this wedding story: The bride was wearing a stunning Monique Lhuillier gown with Louis Vuitton shoes accessorized with Tiffany and Channel bracelets. Her bouquet was full of gorgeous light pink peonies. The bride and groom are both performers in Las Vegas so they loved the idea of having their wedding away from the strip at the beautiful Lake Las Vegas Ritz. The couple included their two adorable dogs in the ceremony as the ring bearers wearing fresh floral collars. The reception had a live 8 piece big band for that old classic feel. We also provided a photo lounge in the ballroom where guests could take pictures ‘photobooth’ style.

Photography: Troy Grover Photographers | Video: Pristine Videos |  Venue: The Ritz Lake Las Vegas  |  Band: Las Vegas Event music

A secret: I especially love when real brides submit their weddings to La Belle Bride. I mean, I love submissions to my little wedding blog…period. However, hearing from brides is a particular treat. Fresh from their wedding day, they’re usually ready to burst with details. Today’s DIY wedding was submitted by Susan Lee, a sweetheart bride from Boston. And she’s just full of great insight from her sweet wedding day

The inspiration for the day is trying to make my wedding modern, relax and intimate. I’ve been to so many weddings that have the exact same feeling – a ceremony at a church and reception at a huge banquet hall. We love our friends but we were so over the traditional wedding. We wanted something “out of the box”. That really made us to decide on having the ceremony outdoors at Hyatt Harborside which had the backdrop of Boston and our reception at Rocca Restaurant and Bar. We rented out the entire restaurant – cocktail hour downstairs and brunch buffet upstairs. It was so intimate because the space was smaller but everyone loved it. People got a chance to bond with other people at the next table. It was great! And most importantly, we wanted our day for us to really BE with our friends. So many brides say they never remember their day because it was so rushed but I remember everything about my day. And my husband and I wanted it that way. We didn’t rush anything and cut out things that weren’t important to us – we didn’t do the bouquet/garter toss, father/mother dance and etc. So with those things cut out, we had time to mingle and really have fun with our friends and family.

Planning my wedding wasn’t the most fun but my sister aka MOH aka wedding .coordinator did most of the work (I didn’t make her do all the work….her ideal job is to be an event planner). I told her what I liked and she made everything happen even with the budget we had. Having all that stress off my shoulders definitely made my life a lot easier and enjoyable.

Our wedding was filled with DIYs. Our photobooth was set up by our photographer and my husband and I made the props for people to use. We glued mustaches on sticks and bought signs to use. My husband went to Home Depot and got thin wood boards, cut out speech bubbles and painted them with chalkboard paint so people can use and write on them. It was awesome! We use birdcages as cards box and used Moo cards for guest books. We designed and created all our Save the Dates, invitations and signage around the reception. I created short and tall centerpieces with hydrangeas purchased at BJS (much like a Costco) and curly willow branches. There might be more but I just can’t seem to remember.

My day was fantastic!!!!!!!!! It was the best day of my life (well maybe there might be better days later) but I felt so loved and I was just ecstatic to marry my man. I knew that no wedding is perfect and mine was not perfect. The ceremony was next to the water and it sooooo windy. My hair was blowing everywhere and I was sure I didn’t look too attractive but I didn’t care. I didn’t let anything that didn’t go my way ruin my day. I just had to not think about it and remember the most important thing. I was going to married to my husband! And that’s why my day was great. And I loved how relax my reception was. People came up to me and said that it was such a fantastic idea to rent a restaurant and that the environment was ‘very us’. I was able to eat and catch up with people and took great photos at the photobooth. To me, my wedding was pretty darn perfect.

Venue and Caterer: Rocca Restaurant and Bar |  Wedding Dress: Allure |  Shoes: Nine West  |  Bridesmaid Dress: David’s Bridal  |  Menswear: JCrew  |  Wedding Cake: 6 different cakes from Dessert Works |  Invitations: DIY  |  Florist: Bumble Bee Landing |  Hair/MU: Hair by Carolina |  Photography: Joshua Behan

It’s slow motion day for me today. Post-holiday, post-eating too many treats on the weekend. So today’s clean and classic Westlake, California wedding is just the pick-me-up that I needed! Marianne Wilson is the lovely wedding photographer behind these photos on our wedding website and as you can see she’s got a keen attention to detail coupled with a panache for incredible lighting. Ryan and Natasha, our bride and groom, have pulled out all the stops to ensure that this wedding is a free flow of cohesive details. EVERYTHING blends perfectly! The sweet wedding flowers, incredibly lush wedding centerpieces and especially Natasha’s graceful style. Bright and pretty. Thank goodness for this wedding today…and coffee!

Natasha’s story: I would describe our theme as soft, romantic, vintage. Our venue has a very Tuscan look and feel to it which I incorporated as well. I chose cream, sage green, blush and dark brown (to tie in with the venue décor) as our colors. We used very romantic, full bloomed flowers: roses, peonies, lisianthus, hydrangeas etc. To help create a vintage feel, we used several different types of glasses as vases for the cocktail hour, dessert and sweetheart tables; all of which came from Anthropologie! Our centerpieces were footed bowls that our florist sprayed dark brown to match our table numbers that had been painted brown. Our aisle décor consisted of sheppard hooks and small handing vases which were all painted brown to match the gazebo.

We purchased several vintage frames to showcase old family wedding photos. These sat on our “guest book” table which featured a bird cage and “love” cards where our guests left us words of wisdom and advice. All cards were embossed with stamps and other materials from Paper Source.

Another big goal for us was to show our guests a fun time! The mini dessert bar from Sweet and Saucy shop was absolutely fantastic. Melody really captured everything we wanted from the eclectic look and feel down to the fabulous tasting treats for our guests to enjoy. This was a great alternative to a basic wedding cake that our guests really seemed to enjoy. The photo booth we rented through Sassy Booths was a huge hit as well! There was a consistent line at the booth the entire night and we received many compliments! The pictures and videos speak for themselves – everyone had a blast! Another project we took on was flip flop buckets for the ladies. We didn’t have any pairs left at the end of the night! It made me so happy to see all the girls out on the floor dancing in comfort.

I really enjoyed the entire wedding planning process. My favorite part was definitely the DIY projects. Stamping/embossing was something I had never done before and I found that I really enjoy it! We stamped and embossed invitation belly bands, escort cards, out of town boxes, flip flop size tags etc. etc. The list goes on!

Our day was absolutely perfect! Everything we had planned came together so nicely and most of our vendors exceeded our expectations! What I loved most about the day was having all of our friends and family in the same place, sharing the most important day of our lives with us. And of course marrying my best friend.

Wedding Coordinator: Carol Grogan, Simply Natural Events  |  Venue and Catering: Westlake Village Inn |  Wedding Dress: Enzoani Blue  |  Shoes: Nina   |  Wedding Hair and Makeup: Laura Cavanaugh  |  Bridesmaid Dress: Vineyard by Pricilla of Boston  |  Menswear: Men’s Wearhouse  |  Wedding Cake: Sweet and Saucy Shop  |  Invitations: Paper Source  |  Florist: Art with Nature  |  Entertainment: Good Times Entertainment (DJ) and Sassy Booths (photo booth)  |  Photography: Marianne Wilson Photography

Phew.  What a day!  I’ve been admittedly a bit behind with my post today and just as I’m typing this – an earthquake!  Mini  in nature (5.5) but still VERY weird.  Anyhow, I’m happy to finally post this lovely Michigan nautical wedding sent over by Harrison Studio .  RJ and Steph are so stately and classic, aren’t they?  There’s definitely a nautical feel to this little ditty.  Here’s Steph with the “deets” on her day:

The inspiration for my wedding came from my venue, since it was a yacht club I knew I wanted the theme for my wedding to be nautical. I choose blue for the bridesmaids dresses and bunches of green hydrangeas for their bouquets. I wanted the overall vibe of my wedding to be casual, so we tried to keep the numbers small and had the reception at a smaller; more casual venue.

Our engagement was only 6 months, so the planning was very fast and hectic. I used inspiration for the big day from anything; from bridal websites to pottery barn magazines(which is where we go the idea to wrap jars with rope that were included in the centerpieces.). Many parts of the reception were do it yourself projects; the name cards that were placed in sand, the rope wrapped jars, the “I DO” box for cards. The most exciting part of doing all of that stuff was seeing it all come together, bc you can think it will look good;but your not sure till you see it all put together.

The big day started out bad; the linens had some how not been ordered and the placement of the table was not working out the way we had it diagrammed.  So I had to postpone getting my hair done and go to the reception venue to figure out what to do.  An hour later we finally had the room reconfigured and linens on there way! The rest of the day went great; we had perfect weather and not other major problems.  The best part of the day was the “first look”, it was so great to finally see each other after all the anticipation and it helped calm my nerves a ton.

We absolutely loved every part of our wedding and wish that we could do it all over again!

Venue and Catering: Macatawa Bay Yacht Club | Wedding Dress: Angelina Couture | Shoes: Aldo | Wedding Hair: Tiffany Stevens | Bridesmaid Dress: J.Crew -Silk taffeta collection in caspian blue | Menswear: Navy suits from Jos A Banks | Wedding Cake: Jaynie Skazinski | Florist: En Gedi Floral | Entertainment: DJ | Photography: Harrison Studio