While photos are being edited, photographer for our June 11, 2010 wedding, Amelia Tarbet has shared with us the slide show she's put together for Kendra and Matt. (Click the photo above or the link here.) I love all the bright bold colors that Kendra used. Very fitting for a June wedding! Hope yall enjoy this along with their video that was posted earlier!

Weekly Advice

I'm going to start a new weekly advice section to help our brides during their planning processes.

Hopefully yall will find this pretty helpful!

THE BIG SEND OFF
My advice for this week is for your BIG SEND OFF at the end of the evening. First and foremost you do NOT need to purchase enough for your entire RSVP'd guest count. Only between 1/3 and 1/4 of your guests will stay until the very end. Of course this average will change depending on if most of your guests are from out of town and staying nearby.
Many venues have restrictions on items that you can and cannot use, especially if you're within the San Antonio city limits. Fortunately for us, The Marquardt Ranch is not so we don't have to hold our brides to those special city rules. We do however have items that cannot be used for the following reasons.

Bird Seed - We learned this the hard way after our 2nd wedding - bird seed is a SEED and seeds GROW. We battled the new sprouts until winter came and diedl off.

Rice - with all the wild animals and birds in our area, this is a very unsafe product for them to consume. It is also very difficult for us to clean up. ** SPECIAL NOTE** there is special rice called "Designer Heart Wedding Rice" that looks similar to rice but disintegrates when it is sprayed with water, and is okay to use.
Confetti & Silly String - these are both impossible to clean up.


Some very popular items to use for your send off at The Marquardt Ranch are:

Sparklers - If you plan to use these PLEASE get the medium sized ones (at least 20 inches). Smaller ones won't give your guests enough time to all light them and for you to get down the aisle before they burn out. If you miss getting them during the 4th of July or New Years Holidays you can purchase them online at BuySparklers.com. Even during a burn ban it is okay to use these because we keep the landscaping watered so well.

Rose Petals (only real) - Real rose petals are very pretty, inexpensive and are very environmentally safe for the local animals. You should budget about 1.5 roses for every guests (remember only about 1/3 to 1/4 of your total guest count will be there for your send off on average!)

Bubbles - Always looks great in photos especially if you have some mighty long winded guests =). You can usually get them for a great price at Hobby Lobby. Please please PLEASE don't waste your time tying ribbon bows on your bottles of bubbles. I've seen too many brides stress out about this the last week before their wedding. Not a single person will remember if you had a bow tied on them or not. We usually can't even place them out before the end of the event anyway because people will start to blow them inside. Soapy bubbles and our smooth floors don't mix well especially for guests in heels!

Being cheered on by your family and friends as you and your new spouse make your way to your get away car couldn't be a more joyous way to end your perfect wedding - no matter what is thrown at you.

Truely Unique??

What can get more unique than your fingerprints.... on your wedding band?!

Okay I'm going to admit that I found this on another wedding blog...
so here's the link to the original post.

http://www.onestylishbride.com

New Video Highlights

The awesome team at Elite Video Productions already has the highlight reel from Kendra and Matt's wedding up (June 11, 2010)!
Sam and Lisa are awesome fantastic to work with and always produce great work! One of the top notch vendors in the area!

The video will also be listed to the bar right hand side so if you want to reference it later you don't have to search through all the posts!

Enjoy!

Kendra & Mathew from elitevp.com on Vimeo.

Over Due March Photos

I've wanted to post the photos from Sarah and Darius' Wedding for a while! Unfortunately, May caught up with me and this took the back burner. But I'm thrilled to share them with you now! Sarah was such an energetic bride who knew exactly what she wanted! Darius would just reply "what every you want baby" which always made me chuckle.

The Marquardt Ranch did all of her flowers while maintaining her look and budget. I love when brides - esp spring and summer brides - choose bright, bold colors!

Cat with Peacock Photography of Austin, TX did a fantastic job capturing the event. She and her whole crew were wonderful to work with and really open to new ideas!

Go to her blog to see the sneak peak she first posted and more detailed ceremony photos and wedding reception photos she posted later.

Letters of Praise

We hate to toot our own horn (not really =). But this couple wrote such a sweet letter to us after her wedding I thought that I'd share it with yall.

"Amanda!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for the perfect wedding!! We could not have done this with out you. Everything went so smoothly and the evening was just perfect. I loved the flowers and so did all of our guests. They turned out more beautiful than I ever imagined. Please thank Delores and whoever else helped for doing just an amazing job.


The ranch was beautiful as always and set up just perfectly. The whole night ran so smoothly because of you. My girlfriends who have been married commented on what a great wedding planner you were, and they could not believe you did my flowers too. :) I hope you are catching up on your rest after that busy wedding month, you deserve it!


But seriously thanks for everything you did, it was truly an amazing day, and we would not have changed a single thing. :)


Many thanks and have a great weekend,
Kendall and Jake"

Sneek Peek...

... of our 5-29-2010 wedding with Jake and Kendall

compliments of their wonderful photographer

Francis Joseph Photography from Austin.

Check out the full sneek speak at his blog

Below picture was snapped with my Iphone... see the Francis' on his blog!!