Internship 2012

Tis true.... Your Wedding by Jen is officially opening the doors for an intern for the 2012 wedding season. We are looking for ONE gal or guy to fill this spot and we are excited to see who fits the bill.


What will an intern do you ask? Ok here is the low down...
1. Work side by side with jen to design and orchestrate at least 4 full planning weddings.
2. Assist with love+bash ii 2012. (the badass wedding expo created by jen and Nikita Gross)
3. Contribute to weekly blog post
4. Assist with day of weddings.
5. Get a real world feel of the wedding industry and network! (at least one networking event is required)


What we are looking for....
1. is detail oriented (duh)
2. loves alternative design (but can do traditional also).
3. likes to work for free (a.k.a. Intern)
4. loves alternative style (we are not fans of cookie cutter)
5. can offer an opinion and take constructive criticism.
6. can shoot the shit with industry folk.
7. likes to have fun.
8. can handle a 16 hour work day on a Saturday.
9. can solve problems independently and quickly.
10. is badass.

How do I apply you ask?
Shoot an email to jen@yourweddingbyjen.com and I will send you an application. Skip the resume crap. I do not want it. The application is fun not stuffy. I want to get a feel for the real you.
XOXO
jen

My D.I.Y. wedding

Let me start off by saying if you are planning a D.I.Y. wedding, you better be prepared to dedicate a HUGE amount of time to doing so. Being a D.I.Y. bride is hard work. Not only do you have the stress of being a bride but you are handcrafting a butt load of items that all your guests will be looking at. So they have to be awesome.
When I first got engaged we went right to vendor hiring. That was pretty easy for us since I already knew who I would want to have at our wedding. My problem was the design of the event. There were so many things I loved but I could not find them, or I didn't want to pay for them. (i became very cheap when it came down to paying for decor). We had no "theme" or color scheme, we just went with things we love. It was a hodge podge of randomness that meshed beautifully in the end.
My D.I.Y. list consisted of the following:
1. fabric bouquets (this was a trial and error situation, I thought I wanted funky printed fabric flowers but ended up with solid rolled fabric flowers. After I had made a bunch of the funky ones of course. Then I had to figure out how to assemble them into a bouquet! It took a while but I finally got it. They turned out awesome. Shown below is mine but I also made my girls' as well.

2. Painted silverware... UGH.. This was a project that took forever. Mainly because we wanted vintage silverware to paint, because the handles are so much more ornate. It took us months to find enough silverware for everyone. Once we did Shane took the liberty of painting them all. They turned out amazing as well. This was a job that I didn't think we would get finished, but we did.

3. I wanted to make candy buttons for the sweets table.. So I made a few. These things were messy as all get out. The buttons were so tiny they were hard to get out of the molds, but they were cute. We scattered them along the base of our cakes and other random areas on the dessert table.

4. Flower girl toss. I did not want to have our adorable flower girl toss flower petals, I though at first glitter or feathers but decided some fabric hearts would be much cooler. Plus I had a ton of fabric cut from my initial fabric flower idea.

5. Napkins. I wanted fun printed napkins for the tables. My original plan was to cut them and bind the edges, but since I put this project off till last minute I skipped the edge binding and just used pinking shears to create a cute little edge. They took forever as well because after cutting them all I had to press them so they laid nice and flat.

6. I also made the menu cards as seen above and our programs which I didn't take a photo of but they were cool! I will post pro pics once we get them back tomorrow. :) YAY!

7. Escort cards.. I ordered paper straws along time ago and wanted to use them somewhere.  I went with the soda bottle and attached the escort cards onto them with a ribbon and stuck the straws on them as well. They were cute. :)

8. Table numbers.. I just cut numbers out of fabric and suck them on a piece of kraft paper and inserted them into an Ikea frame. Easy peasy.

9. A big project was the floral centerpieces. In the beginning I was going to make all fabric flowers for the centerpieces.. well... that didn't happen. So instead, after thrifting a mother load of vintage glass I decided I would use real flowers. I wanted to create a wildflower look that was not to "put together" looking. My friend Nikita and I went out 2 days prior to the wedding and started picking flowers from the side of the road like crazy people. Since it is early fall we lucked out with a ton of yellow, purple and white flowers. But I wanted more color so I went and bought a TON of bouquets from Kroger and took them apart and created our centerpieces. For this job, I had  help from Shane and our friend/officiant. It took way longer than I thought it would to put all of the centerpieces together because I wanted a ton of smaller ones.
This is our kitchen after the flower arranging madness.

A few other things I made but are not pictured was the aisle decor, which was a few billy balls and some iron wedding tied together with a ribbon. They were attached to every other row of chairs. Simple yet pretty. CD's of all music for the prelude, ceremony and dinner.  Boutonnières for the guys. I believe that is everything.

Sorry the photos are dark, they were all taken from my phone. I will be doing another post when we get our photos back from the amazing Steph Carson. You can get a sneak peek at our wedding by clicking on Steph's name. :)

erin + jeremy

Erin was a client I had met because she was a friend of two of my previous brides, which I adore. When I met Erin I learned that her mom was used to New York weddings. Weddings which were full of glitz and glam and that is what she wanted. Also, that is what she achieved. An intimate wedding at the Hilton Netherland Plaza is still a beauty. With the French art deco decor at the Hilton and the huge floral designs by Courtenay Lambert there was nothing left small about this wedding. It was beautiful. Erin and Jeremy are an adorable couple and their families are as well. Check out the photos below and i know you will love what you see so lets give some credit to the amazing vendors!
Hair : Sam Hills, High Five Salon
Makeup: Nancy Dawson, BrideFace
Floral Design: Courtenay Lambert Florals
Venue: Hilton Netherland Plaza; Continental Ballroom
Cake: the BonBonnerie
Lighting: Goodwin Lighting
Band: The Chuck Taylors
DJ: Greg Lee

erin + jeremy by urweddingbyjen

love+bash

OK OK.. I have been waiting to do a blog post about love+bash for awhile now so here it is.
Many of you know that Nikita Gross of Nikita Gross Photography and I worked our butts off to organize Cincinnati's first ever alternative bridal expo. We put many, many, many hours of planning into this event and I think in the end it showed. It was awesome! When we said "bad ass" we meant every syllable of it.
Honestly we had no idea what to expect. We had many bi-polar moments where we were so pumped and excited than we would start to panic and freak out a little. Our vendors were great and every time they said they were excited it gave Nikita and myself a little boost of confidence.
When the day finally came, it was raining, which made us even more nervous! As we were all unloading onto the sidewalks waiting to get into the Leapin Lizard every moment that passed we got more and more nervous, excited and anxious. So many emotions!
Once we got in it was "game-on."
Every vendor knew exactly what to do when it came to their displays. We were so excited to see everyone bring it, in terms of creativity and using love+bash as an outlet for that. Everyone got our vision perfectly.
As time went on, all of the fashion show models were upstairs getting their hair and make-up done. Downstairs was shaping up to look "bad ass" Nikita and I were running around like crazy checking everything and someone yelled "you have a line outside!" We were so excited, Nikita's motto through this whole adventure was "if we build it, they will come." From day one she said that, and I believed it and it happened. The turn out was awesome and so many brides, grooms, moms, and friends had FUN! It was not stuffy and people wanted to talk to the vendors. They loved what they saw and asked questions. It was exactly what we wanted. I know I felt a huge sense of accomplishment and pride once the day came to an end and I am 100% sure Nikita did as well. We could not have done it without the amazing vendors who participated and the bad ass couples who came to see. Thank you to everyone who was involved in making love+bash a success.
We are excited to start planning love+bash 2 and have many bright new ideas and BIGGER plans for the future. So take a peek at the 1ST annual love+bash!

love+bash by urweddingbyjen

kristen+andy=awesome!

I'm not going to lie, the day I spoke to Kristen and Andy via pone call I was super excited and crossing my fingers they would book me. When they did book, I was beyond excited! Kristen and Andy live in Chicago (jealous) and both have style like no bodies business. They opted on having their wedding at Kristen's aunt and uncle's home in Pleasant Plains Ohio, which is just outside of Milford. Kristen's family went above and beyond with making sure Kristen and Andy had a perfect wedding. They even painted a wedding ring quilt square on the side of the barn in their colors. HOW CUTE!
There are so many fantastic details to this wedding, Andy made all of the pin wheels which played a major roll in the decor for the ceremony. He also brewed his own beer as favors. I am pretty sure I overheard that a family member grew the hops that he used as well. They had a polaroid guest book/ photo booth with awesome props, candy/dessert bar, claw foot bath tub full of great beers, and amazing friends and family to celebrate with. Honestly I can not even tell you how awesome this wedding was, the music was great (no dj!) they opted for karaoke starting at 10! The groom and his brother played music while Kristen walked up the aisle with her father, and the best part of the evening was when Andy surprised Kristen with a quartet disguised at catering staff singing "the luckiest" by ben folds, as their first dance song. I am pretty sure there was not a dry eye in the house! Even I was getting watery eyes!
Just look at the pics... which I had a hard time choosing a small amount to blog about,  Jenna Davis did a phenominal job taking the photos! She captured every emotion just perfectly. Other vendors who were involved, BrideFace, Inspired Floral Design and Vondehaars Catering. Now on to the eye candy!

KRISTEN AND ANDY by urweddingbyjen

love+bash

 I am 100% sure most all of you have heard me blab about love+bash at least a 100 times. Especially if you are a fan on facebook.
Well now it is time for details! With one week to go we want everyone to understand what is going on!
With so many badass vendors, this is not a bridal show that you will want to miss out on. It is not a typical show. You will want to make eye contact with these vendors. If you have been to a bridal show you know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
Now, let's get to the good stuff.... the free stuff....
The huge prize is free photography from Nikita Gross Photography, $2,000 floral package from the badass Katie Elfers AKA Inspired Floral Design, Full Planning Package from ME!, Cinci Makeup is giving free makeup for the bride and Five Dot Design is giving a $500.00 credit towards stationery! Seriously! This is HUGE. That is over an 8500.00 prize. This is a prize where you have to send us your story. In order to do so visit Nikita Gross Photography's blog for full details.
There will also be a love+bash happy hour where many more prizes will be given away.
The first 50 couples through the door will get a swag bag full of awesome items. Not just business cards but actual stuff.
Nikita and I have put or heart, soul, blood (not really blood) but sweat and tears for sure into this event. We are sure it will be epic!
Do not be the bride who wished she went, just go! There is a bar, dj spinning cool tunes, a fashion show and DIY classes.
Tickets are available at CincyTicket.com
You can also visit the website at lovebash.com

love+bash

Oh the things I have been working on.. CRAZY! I sometimes wonder why I feel the need to keep busy every second of my life. I do know that love+bash is the coolest thing I have worked on in a long, long time.
What is love+bash you may ask? Well let me give you the low down.
A while back I met with Nikita Gross, from Nikita Gross Photography simply as a networking kind of meeting.. at a bar..We both knew going into this meeting that we had to make time for a LONG meeting, because after looking at each others work, we knew we would be chatting for awhile. So we met and in all of about 20 minute we were talking about an "alternative bridal show" something that would attract the kind of clients we would love to work with. A show that would NOT showcase the "generic" vendors, but something that would show off the awesome artistic talent in this area. The talent that can make a wedding friggin' awesome! The kind of vendors that you see in blogs and swoon over. The kind of vendors who know that there is more to a wedding than a zilllion dollar budget and who can make awesomeness happen.
After our initial meeting and the "holy shit we HAVE to do this.." we met again at my house, and love+bash was born. Not only was a friendship created but a passion was sparked. We knew that we had to show brides in this area that there is more to bridal shows than what they are used to seeing. We want to show brides that not all bridal shows have to be scary! And they are. I know, I went to one of the bigger ones a little while back and I was scared to even look at a vendor! I felt like an asshole! And to be honest, I felt bad for the vendors that were there! WHY in the hell do people feel like they have to whore themselves like that? If you do good work, you do not have to attack poor brides like vultures and make them think weddings are still like they were 25 years ago! THEY ARE NOT!! Weddings now are all about you! What you like, your style, your love for your love! Not some generic, stupid, cheese-ball gathering. The kind where people are saying"oh shit we have to go to a wedding this weekend." In their "oh crap" voice. We don't want your guest to think that at all!
We are 100% committed to making love+bash a party for both brides, grooms, moms and dads, as well as the vendors involved. We want brides to be able to see ideas rather than hear about them. We want brides to walk away with do-it-yourself ideas and direction. You will see some cutting edge and alternative fashions at the fashion show. You will rock out to some serious tunes, have a drink and have fricking fun! This is not a bridal show that you will be attacked at. Brides will want to talk to the vendors, and will not be afraid to make eye-contact! We want to achieve an event like atmosphere, where people are proud to show off work in a non-booth setting. Also where brides want to chat it up with the vendors! We want you to have an awesome wedding whether you use us or not! That is the point of love+bash! Get inspiration, meet amazing vendors, have fun! So make sure to mark your calendars for May 15, 2011 at Leapin Lizard in Covington, KY! You will not want to miss the tri-state area's first and only badass bridal show!
Oh one more thing.. where would we be without facebook? Go "like" the page to keep up with the details and other useful wedding tips, inspiration, and ideas! Visit love+bash's facebook page!