Announcing the First Annual Disney Wedding Awards!!!!

Well, 2009 is coming to a close and I thought I'd celebrate the new year with a brand new event here on the Disney wedding blog. I'd like to announce the First Annual Disney Wedding Awards!!!

I've seen similar awards on other Disney wedding sites, but I thought I'd host my own to give my readers a chance to have their say. I'm going to post nominations for fifteen Disney wedding categories and let you guys choose the winners. No prizes (sorry!), although I promise a lovely blog badge to both the nominees and the winners.

Here's what I need from you guys:

The contest won't start until the new year. It will be sometime in the first week of January, although I can't give you a definite date because we'll be visiting with friends and family in Ohio over the new year and I'm never sure if I'll be around a computer. So, until I post the nominations, I need you guys to help me out by sending me names, links, and pictures to people who should be nominated! The rules are that the event in question must have happened in 2009. This doesn't necessarily mean that only 2009 weddings can be nominated...if your invitations or engagement pictures or love story happened in 2009, feel free to post them!

At voting time, each category will have three nominees. I will choose the nominees based on how many people sent them in. Beyond that, I'll just be picking my personal top three of everything and letting you guys go from there. You can send nominations either by leaving a comment on this post or by emailing me at carly at beingcarly dot com.


RULES:

1. Needs to have happened in 2009.
2. All nominations, except "love story" and "blog", need to have photographs accompanying them so I can put them up on the blog for readers to see.
3. I cannot be nominated for any of these awards. If I could, my mothers would sweep in and I would win everything.
   
4. I must have permission from the bride or a photographer's copyright in order to post photos from the wedding. No nomination photos will be posted without permission or copyright.
5. Feel free to nominate yourself! My best spotlights have come directly from featured brides.
   

Here are the categories:

Best Engagement Pictures

• The best engagement photo or set of photos taken either on Disney property or for a couple who later had a wedding event on Disney property. The session must have taken place during 2009.
  

Best Pre-Wedding Party

• This can include any pre-wedding event that the couple hosted, such as a rehearsal dinner, or any event that may have been thrown for the couple, such as a bachelorette party or bridal shower. The event must have taken place during 2009.
  

Best Love Story

• The best story of how the two met, how they got engaged, etc. This is the category for LOL stories and tearjerkers. The whole story doesn't need to have taken place during 2009, unless it centers around a specific event, such as getting engaged.
  

Best Wedding Invitation or Program

• The best wedding invitations or programs of 2009.
  

Best Wedding Flowers

• The best wedding flowers of 2009. This includes bouquets, decorations, boutennieres, etc. Fake flowers or floral substitutes may be submitted.
  

Best Wedding Ensemble

• The best bride or groom outfit, taking clothing, jewelry, footwear, and other accessories into account.
  

Best Dressed Attendants

• The best wedding party ensembles of 2009.
  

Best Wedding Cake

• Best looking wedding cake of 2009. Does not necessarily need to be Disney themed.
  

Best DIY Wedding Project

• Best DIY wedding project of 2009. Doesn't need to be Disney themed, but does need to be connected somehow to a Disney wedding or Disney-themed event.

Best Wedding Hair and Makeup

• Best bridal hair and makeup of 2009.
  

Best Ceremony/Reception Decor

• The loveliest ceremony and/or reception decor of 2009 at a Disney wedding.
  

Best At-Home Disney-Themed Reception

• The best Disney-themed wedding event not taking place on Disney property.
  

Best Wedding Party Footwear

• The most incredible bridal party shoes of 2009.
  

Best Disney Wedding Blog

• The best blogs of Disney brides. Trip reports posted on a public forum may be nominated. The blogger must have posted at some point in 2009.
  

Best Disney Wedding Overall

• The absolute best Disney wedding of 2009. This event must have taken place on Disney property.

Good luck to everyone who may be nominated!!!!

P.S. - If you're a Disney bride who knows other Disney brides or participates on other Disney bride sites/blogs, spread the word that I'm looking for nominations! I think it would be really fun to get some contenders in here that we've never seen before!

Getting Engaged the Disney Way

A couple of days ago, I was watching television with my family when a commercial for engagement rings came on. I sighed and said, "I want to get engaged." My mom responded with, "You already did that," to which I replied, "Yeah...and it was a whole lot of fun!"


I was a lucky girl, since I got three pretty wonderful proposals from Kyle before we tied the knot. What I didn't get, however, was that crazy picture perfect Disney proposal that I've seen around the internet and I'm just not going to let it go until I get one. Kyle has promised to propose again when it's time for a vow renewal, but he's also threatened to never do it if I start every Disney trip with "Are you going to propose? Are you? Do you have a ring? Did you set stuff up? Are the cast members in on it?"

Disney Themed Wedding Cake and Groom's Cake

These cakes are from an at-home reception. I love the way they managed to bring the Disney magic into their wedding! I think the groom's cake is one of my all time favorites...

Photo by Travis Hoehne

Photo by Travis Hoehne

Photo by Travis Hoehne

Photo by Travis Hoehne

Photo by Travis Hoehne

Wedding Gowns Inspired by Princess Tiana

In honor of the opening day for The Princess and the Frog, I thought I'd share the Princess Tiana inspired gowns from the Disney bridal line...

Sweetest Wedding Proposal in the World (No, Really!)

You know, one minute I'm surfing the internet and the next minute I've got tears running down my face. If I only surfed wedding blogs and mommy blogs, that might be understandable, but I surf a whole lot of blogs and I still get caught off guard by unbelievable sweetness.

Like this little story...

One of the blogs that I'm semi-obsessed with is Bakerella. Warning: you will get a sugar rush just from peeking at this baking blog and the yumminess is completely addictive. It's also really bad for dieting, because it makes you want to try to make all of these goodies.

I love this blog, but I've been bad about keeping up with my thousands of blog subscriptions, so a lot of posts have snuck by without my seeing them. This morning I attempted to catch up on my baking goodness and stumbled upon the sweetest story ever. Apparently there is a young lady who loves Bakerella even more than I do and her boyfriend of six years asked Bakerella for help in setting up a marriage proposal.

In the proposal post, Bakerella makes these adorable little cake pops that look like wedding cakes and then notes that they'd look even cuter with tags, following that observation with these photos:

How cute is that?!?! Between the pops and the proposal, I had happy tears running before I even had a chance to get breakfast. If you want the full story, here's the proposal post and here's what she said.

Wedding Spotlight: Dara + Jason

Ceremony Location: Wedding Pavilion
Reception Location: Citricos
Photography: Root Photography

I'm an Etsy Seller!

I've started an Etsy store! I've been meaning to get into it for a while, but it just never came together. I have a bunch of ideas, though, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get them up after the new year. In the meantime, I thought I'd try out a faux-Etsy store with some silly little items I've put together. There's even an item just for Disney brides!

At the moment, it's all Disney stuff - mostly remnants from a wedding craft that never got up off the ground before we got married. It was sort of fun to finish some projects and put them online, though. It was also much easier than I thought it would be to get started as an Etsy seller!

Here's a peek at some of the stuff in my store:

Wedding Video of the Day