Thinking outside the (cake) box

April 7, 2022 Amanda + Isabelle

For a few years now couples have been choosing non-wedding cake desserts - and completely un-cake-related desserts for that matter. Overall it seems that people like offering more variety, whether that’s multiple flavors of the same dessert or maybe even mixing and matching a few different things. If this sounds like the direction you want to go, here are some local creative ideas to consider!

Gelato cart

Especially on a warm summer day (but really, any time) there’s nothing better than some delicious gelato from the **Nutty Squirrel**. This would be the best treat at the end of the night!

Doughnut wall

Doughnuts are delicious and we especially love **Top Pot Doughtnuts** - perfect texture and lots of fun flavors. The biggest problem: ordering enough since you know everyone will go back for more.

Poffertjes party

Want to add something totally unique that probably none of your guests will have tried before? Serve adorable tiny Dutch pancakes from **Miri’s at Golden Gardens**, which can be sweet or savory.

Crepe truck

Ok this might be our personal favorite option, but any excuse to have crêpes is hard to pass up. Hiring **Caravan Crêpes** would be such a fun surprise and also is another option that offers lots of great savory and sweet options.

Amanda is definitely trying to convince Isabelle to consider a few of these for her Re-ception…!

Life updates!

March 24, 2022 Amanda + Isabelle

So many fun things are happening for us and we just needed to take a *little* break this week from our regularly scheduled posts. We’re both in the process of moving into new houses (!) and all the fun things that entails (don’t worry, we of course made sure to live within walking distance of each other #veryattached). Plus, Amanda has started a new job and Isabelle is taking on some exciting challenges at her work. We love our Perfectly Paired business (and hope to help with some weddings this summer!) and this blog, but whew, we are juggling a lot right now. There are more great posts in the line-up and we can’t wait to share those with you soon :)

Part I: What to do with your engagement photos?

March 10, 2022 Amanda + Isabelle

Between your engagement, various celebrations and your wedding day you might end up with a lot of photos and we thought it would be fun to help you brainstorm what to do with all of them! We’ll start with your engagement photos and then next time talk about wedding photos.

Maybe the first question you’re asking is, do we need to do engagement photos in the first place? Of course like everything else we talk about, it’s completely up to you. We do recommend them for a few reasons though:

Get the relationship with your photographer started. It’s a great chance to meet someone who will be there on your wedding day, helping capture all the big and small moments. On the off chance you end up not feeling like it’s a good fit, you have plenty of time to find another one.
Practice! Not everyone is used to having photos taken and it’s a good opportunity to get comfortable with the experience. You might find out what you do or don’t like about having photos taken and maybe how to get the best laugh (and therefore smile!) out of each other :)
Capture the joy of this time. The wedding day gets a lot of attention, but there’s something really sweet about this part of the experience.

And the last reason we recommend engagement photos is if you want to use the photos for your wedding. Some ideas to get you started:

Save the dates
Invitations
Guestbook (used as the cover of a book, a photo guests sign etc.)
Incorporated into wedding decor (on display near where guests enter for example)
Thank you notes you write before the wedding

Whether you hire a professional or have a friend take some photos, make sure to capture this special time during your engagement :)

Wedding accessories that wow

February 24, 2022 Amanda + Isabelle

Just some pretty things for your Thursday :) As planners we mostly spend our time thinking about logistics and decorations, but we love to see the smaller details, especially bridal accessories.

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Wedding planning toolkit

February 10, 2022 Amanda + Isabelle

We know there’s a lot to think about when you get engaged! So we thought it would be helpful to put some key resources you might need during the planning process all in one place. It’s broken down into great resources available online that we recommend as well as the key documents we provide to our clients to help with the process.

Planning Resources

Budget guide & tool - there are a lot of websites out there that provide these tools (this one is just an example) or you can easily create something in Excel. Either way, it’s important to do some research early on and get an idea of how much you want to spend and how you want to spend it. Pick your priorities!
Master to do list - this is a simple but handy list that could be easily customized and will help you make sure nothing is forgotten.
Planning timeline - none of these are perfect and there’s no real rule (for us, earlier is always better! Although some things, like head count, just won’t happen until closer to the day), but setting a general set of deadlines for yourself is a good idea.

Having a Coordinator/Planner

Here is a little breakdown about the different kinds of coordination/planning services out there and we also have a page with an overview of our services. In addition to assisting on the day of the wedding, we also help keep the planning organized. There is a set of documents that we have created and send to couples as soon as they book us. We share these via Google Drive so that everyone involved in planning has access and we can edit and discuss them together.

Whoever your person is, your coordinator/planner should help you organize things like your vendor list, wedding participants’ roles, and basic timeline (we always work closely with couples to customize this together). We also highly recommend a spreadsheet that will eventually contain information for every. single. item. being set up and taken down.