Bridechilla™ Tip #34

Tip #34 – How to be a BRIDECHILLA™ – Be insta-chill & follow Off The Beaten Path Weddings on Instagram.
_____________________________________________

Have we told you lately how grateful we are to all of our new Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest followers? We recently rolled over 600 likes on Bridechilla™ and 2000 likes on Off The Beaten Path Weddings, which is amazing! T H A N K Y O U. Take this as a little shout out to all of you following us and giving chill social media love. This Bridechilla™ Tip is just for you!

Now that you’re liking, pinning, and tweeting with us, we’ve got one more way for you to be the chill through social media – INSTAGRAM. We certainly got on this bandwagon a little late, but better late than never right?

To follow Off The Beaten Path Weddings and Bridechilla on Instagram, search “otbpw” or simply click here. Happy Instagramming!

Be more on top of the Bridechilla™ Blog by being on our e-mail list! Send your e-mail to gloria @ offthebeatenpathweddings.com to be added!

Off The Beaten Path Celebrates One Year of LOVE: Niamah & Darren, July 28, 2012

We’re so thrilled to spend our Sunday wishing our Bridechilla™ , Niamah, and her husband Darren a very happy anniversary. Below we remember some of the special moments of their chill day, as told by their event stylist, Mary Ellen Murphy of Off The Beaten Path Weddings. All photos taken by KT Merry.

What was your favorite thing about working with Niamah and Darren? The couples playful spirit made being with them so much fun!

How did Niamah embrace the chill & be a total anti-zilla?
She was so chill that she left her super chill home of Bermuda and had a destination wedding in Napa Valley 🙂

Tell us some memorable details that stood out to you about Niamah and Darren’s wedding day.
Her stunning gown and some of the fun outfits the guests wore. The location was a stunner, a designers dream! The vocalist during the ceremony made me cry 🙂See Niamah and Darren’s wedding film by BASICO below… so much love and smiles in this wedding. And don’t forget to see their full wedding here on Style Me Pretty.

To many many many more chill years of love and happiness. -Bridechilla™ & Off The Beaten Path Weddings

PART ONE: Interview with a blogging Bridechilla™-to-be

One month shy of marrying her hubby-to-be, our Off The Beaten Path Bridechilla™ Julia Bayard is blogging away about her planning experience as well as everything “preppy and fabulous”. From Wedding Planning 101 to stylish adventures with her fiance, Tom, this Bridechilla™ is inspiring us to encourage all brides to start a blog on her journey to the aisle. Find more about Julia’s journey so far with this interview below and stay tuned for our PART TWO interview with Julia on her wedding day!

Photo by onelove photography

Tell us a little about your blog, Tartans & Sequins.

I describe Tartan & Sequins as a home for all things preppy and fabulous. I navigate party planning, style my bad self, play beauty parlor, and share my latest obsessions. It’s all the stuff you talk about with your girlfriends over wine, accessible anytime!

What made you decide to take a step in to the blogging world?

I have always had a love for all things preppy and fabulous. While stuck in a job I didn’t love, I was searching for a creative outlet. Turns out, Allison McDonald, my former blog partner was looking for the same thing. After months of texting/emailing/calling/liking/etc, I proposed the idea of us starting a blog together, and Tartan & Sequins was born. Allison recently left the blog to pursue other opportunities so I am now solely responsible for Tartan & Sequins. It’s an exciting new chapter for me!

We looove that you share details about your planning experience with your readers. How has blogging about your upcoming wedding helped you stay chill?

I think the thing about wedding planning is that no one realllllly tells you what to expect. Sure, people say that it’s hard and stressful, but no one really explains how or why. Sharing my experiences has allowed me to get support and guidance at a time when I really needed it!

How did you hear about Off The Beaten Path Weddings?

As soon as I got engaged and started planning out wedding, I felt overwhelmed with all of the details. I had given up on being able to afford a wedding planner until a friend suggested OTBPW. She had used OTBPW and said Mary Ellen was amazing at managing her budget and delivered a wonderful wedding. After meeting with Mary Ellen and visiting our now venue, I was sold! I would not be able to have the wedding we’re having without OTBPW!

So, only 1 more month left until your Off The Beaten Path Wedding! Is there any advice you can offer our Bridechilla’s that have just begun their planning?

Learn how to delegate. Whether it be to a wedding planner, your fiancé, parents, Maid of Honor, or all of the above, learn how to delegate! Whenever I get that glazed look on my eyes for too many days in a row, my fiancé sits me down and makes me go through my to-do list. He forces me to assign him items on my list. While I am resistant to give things up, ultimately, it is the key to surviving wedding planning!

Are you a Bridechilla™ sharing your step-by-step, month-by-month experience with the world? Please send your link to us so we can stay in tune with your planning experience and be on hand with any chill advice you might need for this experience!

Find Julia Bayard’s Blog, Tartan & Sequins by clicking here and also stay up to date with her planning via Facebook and Twitter.

Off The Beaten Path Celebrates One Year of LOVE: Erin & Byron, July 21, 2012

We’re so thrilled to start our week off by wishing our Bridechilla™ , Erin, and her husband Byron a very happy anniversary. Below we remember some of the special moments of their chill day, as told by their event stylist, Mary Ellen Murphy of Off The Beaten Path Weddings. All photos taken by Matt Edge.

What was your favorite thing about working with Erin and Byron? They were very clear in their vision and had so many amazing ideas…it was fun to create with them. Their menu was fun to plan…fusing her southern roots and his California heritage.

How did Erin embrace the chill & be a total anti-zilla?
OMG, when she got some very difficult news…the way she handled it was amazing. A bridezilla would have gone insane. Their wedding location (that she was madly in love with) backed out in the final hours, creating many challenges. I was so impressed with how she handled it because I know that it was not easy.

Tell us some memorable details that stood out to you about Erin and Byron’s wedding day.
The wonderful warm spirit of family and friends, it was infectious-AND MAN did I love that directional sign, which included locations of all their travelers! It was pretty cool.To many many many more chill years of love and happiness. -Bridechilla™ & Off The Beaten Path Weddings

Bridechilla™ Tip #33

Tip #33 – How to be a BRIDECHILLA™ – Adorn your guests’ chairs with muslin, our new favorite (& totally affordable) material that adds just the right amount of chill elegance.
_____________________________________________

This week we came across a refreshing new take on chair decor. If you see below, we typically are fans of an understated elegance for the bride & groom chairs. An Off The Beaten Path Wedding has signature touches like these burlap Mr. & Mrs. signs:

KT MERRY | Jessica Burke Photography

And we recently started using these wooden, shabby chic Mr. & Mrs. signs to adorn the bride and groom’s chairs too..

From Anna & David’s wedding:

But what are the best ways to decorate the rest of the chairs? Personally, chair covers are a little old and we have been dying to see something new. Luckily, Armenian Weddings read our minds and shared this amazing new use for muslin with this week. It’s just too gorgeous to keep under wraps!

Why limit this gorgeous idea to your wedding reception? Use it in any formal setting or even your backyard (if you love it just as much as us!). And it gets better: the material is called muslin, which is very inexpensive and easy to find. Thank you Armenian Weddings for the share, plan on seeing this idea at an Off The Beaten Path Wedding this year!

Be more on top of the Bridechilla Blog by being on our e-mail list! Send your e-mail to gloria @ offthebeatenpathweddings.com to be added!

Bridechilla™ Tip #32

Tip #32 – How to be a BRIDECHILLA™ – Never lose the memories of your wedding day, get a chill photographer to capture it, AND a chill cinematographer to FILM it!

Off The Beaten Path Weddings couple Alana & Peter

by rose street studio

Vows are so precious and probably one of our favorite parts of the ceremony. These vows are a glimpse in to the love and connection that Alana & Peter have for each other – and we can’t imagine them being captured better in any other way other than in this film by rose street studio. So, press play and see why we just can’t get over this wedding film.

Off The Beaten Path Weddings couple Mark & Tracy

By David Waldorf

When we asked wedding videographer, David Waldorf, why he thinks having a wedding film is such a valuable keepsake, his response was something we can’t help but agree with; “film/video makes you relive the moment unlike any other visual medium. Maybe it is the combination of image and sound that stimulates one’s memory.”

Mondavi Wedding by Off The Beaten Path Weddings – Megan & Carlo

By David Waldorf

Many people (including us) wonder if there would ever be a chance that wedding films would be more chosen over photography in the future. “I feel wedding photography will always be more popular than a wedding video. Analogously the main course is the photography and the video is the dessert”, says Waldorf on the subject.

Off The Beaten Path Couple Anna & Darren

By Weddings on Film

We couldn’t help but ask Waldorf one more important question, especially for our chill brides that are interested in hiring a wedding cinematographer or videographer. So, what is the most important thing to remember when hiring a cinematographer to film your wedding? “One of the most important things in choosing a cinematographer is picking a professional who’s work you can relate to and that you feel confident can tell your story visually.” says Waldorf.

Nick & Laura’s romantic elopement in the mountains

 By Janssen Powers Media

We also  l o v e  our chill photographers and how they have the talent to capture and deliver amazing photos to our Off The Beaten Path couples, so that they can keep their wedding day portraits near and dear to them for all the chill years to come. With the rise of mobile applications such as Instagram Video and Vine, we can’t help but point out some great wedding films that definitely make us want to advise our future Bridechilla’s to consider thinking about hiring a cinematographer along with a photographer.

Heartfelt vows by Travis & Mari

By Bridges Cinema

This video alone can be enough reason to hire a cinematographer. You never know when  your groom is about to bust out in song during the reading of his vows! But in all seriousness, this video is proof that you cannot capture such moments in photos. Have someone film your vows so that you always remember the promises you made (or sang) to each other.

Destination wedding with Nick & Maria

By Paperback Weddings

Promise this is the last one!  This small English wedding is full of pretty,  we just had to include it on this Bridechilla™ Tip. Although the bride’s mother could not make it to the wedding, this video is something we can bet that she loves to watch over and over so that she doesn’t feel like she missed the day completely. Which is another great reason to consider hiring a wedding cinematographer – imagine how happy guests who couldn’t make it will be when they find they can watch a short film of what they missed.

Be more on top of the Bridechilla Blog by being on our e-mail list! Send your e-mail to gloria@offthebeatenpathweddings.com to be added!

Anna & David’s Off The Beaten Path Wedding

This past weekend we celebrated the union of Off The Beaten Path couple, Anna & David. This chill couple kicked off the OTBPW 2013 season last Saturday at a private estate in Napa Valley. This was the first wedding of the season, so we thought it would be chill to have LIVE updates for our readers on Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter. We suggest you follow along with us as this is the first of MANY Bridechilla’s you will be able to gain live inspiration from as it is happening.

An Off The Beaten Path Wedding is known to be a celebration in nature full of creative touches and gracious hospitality. Anna & David’s wedding exemplified a true celebration in nature; full of organic infused design that only meant seasonal flowers, colors, olive branches folded in to the napkins, and much more. As much as this day was beautifully designed, it was just as much fun for the guests; as Mary Ellen Murphy would call it, “a party with a wedding thrown in”.

A wedding without walls is all about using natural surroundings for decor and making the most of the setting you’re in. The OTBPW team used the shade outside the Napa Valley private venue to serve spiked and unspiked lemonade to arriving guests, which were embellished with vibrant florals. Every table was adorned with pink hydrangeas and yellow blooms, creating a irresistible color palette and a pop of summer hues. The escort cards all hung on 3 plum trees, where they could be easily found during cocktail hour.

One of the most memorable aspects of the wedding was this chill dessert idea. Anna & David were so chill and so Off The Beaten Path by choosing to go above and beyond when it came to the standard wedding cake. Instead of just a cake, Anna & David let the Off The Beaten Path Wedding team run with a NEW idea – a dessert bar. This was hands-down one of the most favorite details to the wedding, which included everything from root beer floats and cheesecake to cookies and milkshake donuts. (Oh yes we did) Tons of guests captured images of this new Off The Beaten Path signature detail, but we made sure to gather some images of our own to show our Bridechilla™ readers.

Anna & David’s chill dessert bar, featuring OTBPW invention, “Milkshake Donuts”

Guests were greeted with the choice of spiked or unspiked lemonade, a trademark by Off The Beaten Path Weddings (and a must-have drink for
a summer wedding in our opinion…)

hmm… SPIKED OR UNSPIKED?

a big chill thank you to the Off The Beaten Path Weddings Team for all your
hard work last Saturday!

We look forward to sharing more inspiring details from this Summer’s weddings, but nothing compares to getting the inspiration as it is happening. To follow us and catch more of the OTBPW Team in action find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.