Ho! Ho! Ho!

I get the joy of playing Santa Clause today~ Are you ready?! I'm calling you today..... you Bliss Wedding Winner, you! Many thanks to ALL of our finalists and to every amazing couple that took the time to share their love story with us- you are all so blessed. As cheesy as it sounds, you are already winners! We will post the winner here as soon as we talk to them and calm them down after they hear the good news. Merry Christmas, right!? : )

In other news.....

We are all so excited about Phillip Morris's new 'Spayce'. Phillip is a family friend and quite the entertaining genius- it's about time he unleashed his magic on Pensacola! Check out the new digs at www.myspayce.us. This new ultra high style venue is just what we've been craving!

You will hear more about this, but for all you blog-stalkers, I'm opening the doors to "Real Weddings" submissions for Southern Wedding Style Magazine. Send us pictures, your contact info, a short story about your Big Day, the vendors you used, and make sure it's ok with your photographer for us to use your pictures on the SWS website and possibly in the print edition. Vendors, we welcome your submissions too! Send us your favorite weddings~ we can't wait to see what you're proud of! Send all submissions to lara@southernweddingstyle.com. (Only low res images for now please) We will contact you for more details and to let you know when your wedding will be featured. You work hard to make your Big Day perfect, so we want to show you off!!!

25 Days till Christmas!

Angry BrideTurns Wedding into Charity Benefit!

click this. trust me.
you may have to click on the article again to zoom in. Love this!

Sneak Peak...

For those of you Bliss Blog lovers who are wondering what in the world is going on with us not announcing the winners of the Bliss Wedding, the story is that we got several responses on Thanksgiving and wanted to give each one a chance to tell us more over the phone and in person. We are push-overs for a good proposal story! So, bear with us. We PROMISE to announce the winners this week!!!

In other news, we are all crazy preparing for our December 19th HOT LIST cover shoot for Southern Wedding Style Magazine. A sneak peak for you: Jackson's, Eat!, Portobello Market, Big Sexy Foods, Elebash's diamonds, dresses from The Bridal Loft, etc etc, and some HOT photographers... the best of the best! We are so thrilled and I frankly can't sleep- visions of sugar plums and Jackson's key lime purses~

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM BLISS!

BLISS WEDDING WINNER...

We've decided to give you one more day! You have until midnight tomorrow night to submit your story on our website. We've had dozens of fantastic entries and we look forward to announcing the winners Saturday morning!

Check back....

Aloha~

I just returned from a much needed week in beautiful Hawaii. I visited some of the orchid farms we order from and witnessed dozens of weddings! It was amazing. Another purpose of the trip was for an upcoming wedding we are doing in April. This huge wedding has a modern and fun Hawaiian twist to it, so much research was done. I am definitely inspired.

BLISS WEDDING WINNER

So, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and in the spirit of GIVING, we've had a contest on our website for a Complete Bliss Wedding. You have 24 hours left to submit your story!

And the winner is.....


stay tuned!

Honeymooning in St. Lucia

This picture is from our balcony - what a view!!!

First of all, let me say how wonderful my wedding went! So glad I didn't see all the 'behind the scenes' action!! I would have been a wreck. But I knew I had a group of very talented girls keeping everything flowing smoothly! I must say that our wedding was the most fun I have had in a long time. And to all the future brides out there - get ready to talk, talk, talk! Here's my little hint for when you are out of breath and tired of hearing 'Congratulations': (it's nice and all but geez!) run to the dance floor and dance the night away, you will have so much fun and you don't have to talk to everyone!! It works perfectly! Thank you especially to Bliss - without you it wouldn't have happened! Thank you to Big Sexy Food - the food tasted superb! Thank you to A DJ Connection - Jeff you were awesome! Thank you to Kris from Consider the Lillies - my flowers were gorgeous, just how I wanted them! Thank you to everyone else I may have left out!

So after our wonderful, absolutely perfect day, we packed for our Honeymoon and Monday we were off to St. Lucia. We had a great time, however, I wouldn't recommend their Sandals Resorts. Not the best service, especially for the price! And there were ants all in our room, YUCK! But besides the not so great things, everything else was fabulous. St. Lucia is a gorgeous island, and I would defintely recommend visiting it (and if you do, I would recommend a great little hotel called Ladera, it's on Oprah's must do list). When we got there, we took a Hellicopter transfer to the resort. It was so much fun!! The first couple days, we did what a newly wedded couple should do -- get your mind out of the gutter-- WE RELAXED!! We had our own private plunge pool which was nice in the afternoons, and the beach was pretty nice, however, not as nice as Pensacola Beach =). We went Deep Sea Fishing, and caught nothing except quite a few Heineken Bottles and some Rum Punch! We had a good group so it made it lots of fun even though the other boat caught a Blue Marlin! The next day we took a private tour of the island and saw the Banana Plantations, the drive up Volcano (which really stinks!), we drove through the rain forest and through little fishing villages. Then, my favorite, we did a Canopy Zip Line tour in the rainforest! It was so incredible, I would recommend it to everyone, but get ready to look a little stupid! I was definitely a little nervous at first, but after the first part, I was ready to go faster and faster.

Now we are home and back to reality....it's hard, but I am glad to be back with my kitties and puppy!

Thank you to everyone who made my wedding the most perfect and the happiest day of my life! Robby and I appreciate it so much!

Congratulations Heather and Jimmy!

This weekend I had the pleasure of coordinating the wedding celebration of Heather Hudson and Jimmy Cleary. They were married at Old Christ Church on the nicest Saturday afternoon we've seen in a while. Jimmy looked dapper in his creme tuxedo and Heather was an absolutely stunning bride. Her attendants wore floor length mocha satin dresses and carried flowers in colors of peach and apricot. Jimmy's groomsmen were in black tuxedos with coordinating champagne accesories. The ring bearer (all 18 months of him!) behaved beautifully as the flower girl pulled him down the aisle in a flower adorned wagon. After the ceremony, the celebration moved to Crabs on the beach where everyone ate, drank, and danced the night away. The bouquet was caught by the groom's sister and the garter was snatched up by the father of the groom (who is single!). The bride and her stepfather brought tears to everyone's eyes as they danced to 'Butterly Kisses.'

I have to share one story, now that it's all said and done. Heather will never know (well, now she will!) that one of the children at the party stuck their fingers into her cake before it was cut. Tiffany and I made sure that it was fixed before anyone noticed. However, that worry went away as I watched the bride and groom prepare to cut the cake. This was the first time in a long time that I have seen a groom brave enough to clobber his new wife with wedding cake! Heather was a good sport and returend the favor, so they ended up with matching icing masks. Turns out that a few finger holes were the least of her worries!

I now have a special place in my heart for Heather and her mother, Teresa McLellan, who treated me like a member of the family. Thank you both for being such a pleasure to work with. I can't wait to see the pictures!

Black and White and Red all over!

This past weekend, one of Bliss' own wedding producers was married to her high school sweetheart. Ms. Natasha Dimalanta is now Mrs. Natasha Williams! Her planning for her own BIG DAY was done expertly! I, along with other Bliss producers Tiffany, Danielle, and Samantha, had the pleasure of overseeing the "flow" of things at Natasha's reception. Her divine taste conjured up a beautiful black and white scheme, with splashes of bright red roses scattered throughout the historic Pensacola Museum of Art. The gorgeous paintings were a perfect backdrop for her fabulous event! Natasha looked simply stunning in her gown (and her ear-to-ear smile). As flawless as it seemed, no one ever suspected that while the majority of the guests were doing the Cha Cha Slide, I was extinguishing a small fire caused by a not-so-sober guest playing with the votive candles. The guests didn't get to see the behind-the-scenes frantic scatter to get the reception tables/chairs/chaircovers all set up correctly before everyone began to arrive. Nobody saw Danielle using her chewing gum to collect chards of glass from the table linen (this was hilarious!). I can't say that anybody else witnessed me catching a falling framed portrait to prevent all of the piano decorations from being wiped out. That's what I like to tell couples that are considering hiring a planner! Catastrophes WILL present themselves at your wedding, it's our job to make sure that nobody else has ANY idea that anything went wrong! Anyways, all-in-all, the wedding was absolutely WONDERFUL! It's so refreshing to see two people that are truly in love the way Natasha and Robbie are! Congratulations you guys!

Julie & Billy

Happy One Year Anniversary to one of our favorite brides!

My Big Day...

Is approaching so fast, I can't believe it!! It has definitely been a crazy past two weeks. It has been an amazing journey though - planning my own wedding. I am a little sad that it's about to be over, but I also can't wait to see it all pan out. I have had such a blast with all the parties and get togethers. This picture is from our Booze Cruise party on the Steel Crazy! Don't you love the cheesy hats we were made to wear. I just know that our wedding day is going to be the most perfect day of my life with great friends, family, food, drinks, and most of all the most perfect man in the world. I am, however, a little sad about losing my last name (I am keeping it as my middle name). I think I have actually grown to like spelling 'Dimalanta' and hearing people try to pronounce it, it's pretty hilarious what comes out sometimes! Now I will be plain ol' Natasha Williams.
Robby and I are going today to do the paperwork to make our marraige legal, I guess this is the first big step towards the wedding. I am so excited! I just still can't believe I am about to become a 'wife', it seems so wierd. Not like we aren't basically married already! I guess the actual title is a bit overwhelming, I feel a little old. Just wait until I become 'Mom', yikes!!
Well, I have a thousand things on my mind, and I think I have spend about 45 minutes writing this...I can't seem to concentrate on much these days! Thank you Danielle, Kara Marie, Tiffany, and Samantha for helping out on the Big Day, you have put my mind as ease. And Lara - thank you for being so wonderful during this crazy time and for the roses, they will be gorgeous! I am so lucky to have such an amazing group of women part of my life! I am so lucky to have found Bliss!

Planning a honeymoon is FUN!

After getting recently married in August, my husband and I were planning on taking our honeymoon cruise in the spring. Just yesterday, I decided I couldn’t wait that long. I admit I am a little (gross understatement) impatient and tending towards neurotic when it comes to anticipating events such as this. Anyhow, my inability to wait any longer ended well, because it caused us to pick a date in January for our West Caribbean honeymoon cruise! I can’t wait!! I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the new year than on a cruise with my husband. It’s his first cruise, so he’s even more excited than I am, if you can even imagine that. We plan on going on as many excursions as we can pack in. Snorkeling (my absolute favorite) and visiting Mayan Ruins near Belize are our number one picks. I will take tons and tons of pictures with my new digital camera, so check the Bliss blog later to see them. I’m sure those photos will result in at least one painting memorializing our trip, so look for that as well! Also, in a couple of days, I will also officially have the name of “Samantha Rich Crooke.” I completely love my new name. It’s very original, very hilarious, very me. It turned out wonderfully for me that my maiden name was Rich, and I married a Crooke!

One of my friends Crystal is actually getting married today in Texas. Her and her soon-to-be-husband Kyle, both shown in the picture on the left, are such a perfect match for each other. Individually they are wonderful people, but together they are completely glowing! They are just getting married legally in a courthouse, with the “real” wedding to be next summer in Pensacola. In a couple months they are moving to New Jersey where Kyle is being stationed, having recently joined the air force. I wish them the best of luck on their exciting new life together!


I hope all is well with all of you soon-to-be-brides. That includes Natasha, one of our own Bliss members, who is getting married in a matter of days! Good luck, girl!