Raaaawwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It’s about to be a what? GIRL FIGHT!!!! I low-key hate when they play that song to catch the bridal bouquet! Lol I would much rather hear Single Ladies by Beyonce. Prior to the release of Beyonce’s single ladies, all I heard was that stupid girl fight song! Lol Ugh I mean…at the very least have a little class about yourself and play the instrumental!

What is it that brings out the cattiness in most females? Is it the time of day or perhaps the temperature in the air? It’s almost as if where 2 or more are gathered you’re sure to have trouble. It can be taxing to pick one bridesmaids dress for a large wedding party, but it must be done and the peace must be kept while doing so. Take into account, the same females that are your confidants, prayer warriors, and reading club buddies sometimes don’t get along when thrown into group work…i.e. weddings! So sad but true! Don’t be afraid to unleash your inner bridezilla, she may need to appear just for a short while to restore a little order. Conflict will arise, its how you deal with it that will make the difference. Although it is the sole purpose of the bridesmaids to make the bride stress free during wedding preparations, some women naturally find a way to make your event all about them….be leery of how many of these people you allow into your ceremony! They are sometimes your family…best friends…sorority sisters so you’ve already asked them to be a part and unfortunately can’t renege now…need tips to help them simmer down? Sure…

Do everyone a favor and simply plan ahead when choosing your bridesmaids! Take personality and history into deep account to make the final decision. Consider the balance of alpha females and those that simply won’t back down and what kind of conflict this will undoubtedly lead to. Realize there will be discord over duties amongst the leaders of the pack! Brides, when faced with a dilemma, protocol is “blood is thicker than water”…so your birth sister over your “like my sister”.  Weigh your “extenuating circumstances” carefully.  Make the choices you feel most comfortable with. If you feel bad leaving someone out, remember there are other duties such as guest book attendee and emcee of reception that will allow them to be a part of your big day.

Directed at a few of my blog supporters….IF THERE IS A DISPUTE BETWEEN BRIDESMAIDS AND IT INCLUDES THE MATRON/MAID OF HONOR, THE MATRON/MAID OF HONOR IS ALLOWED THE FINAL SAY SO IN ANY WEDDING OR PARTY DECISION. I don’t advocate for a monarchy or anything, but someone has to keep order when things have absolutely run a muck. With rank comes responsibility and the MOH is ultimately in charge of the planning and execution of all things bridesmaid…brides remind bridesmaids of this in the beginning! Face it; in the case of Matron of Honor and Maid of Honor…they are both the bride’s last line of defense against planning-induced insanity. Duties should be taken seriously and performed with mucho care.

Perform your damage control early! If you have to put your sister in the wedding and you know she doesn’t play well with other women (possibly because she’s a jealous lil hussy)…give her duties that don’t require a whole lot of group work. These consist of execution tasks, i.e. the things that don’t require group consensus and one person can complete… shower/party invitations, pick up favors, place order for shoes and perhaps since the bride can stomach her, she’ll be helpful to go along to consultations and give her opinion.

Keep it in perspective! All members of the bridal party should be willing to demonstrate their immense love for the couple by BEHAVING! They should be willing to place their “mature” hat on even if they don’t wear it often! There bubble should consist of fairness and mutual respect for at least a couple of months. It is important that the bride know very little of any conflict so bridesmaids keep your “rawrs” down to a minimum.  MOH and Brides… don’t be afraid to reiterate bridesmaids are here to help wedding prep go smoothly!!! They are here so the bride can enjoy the journey up to and through the big day!

Please exercise these tips and the advice of other bride’s to avoid and alleviate tension amongst the wedding party.

Men, in the event you have a little cattiness in your camp….please exercise this same advice! It works!!!

~LOVE

*SpArkLe*

I was super excited to have no plans this past weekend…or so I thought….and had dedicated myself to jump from couch to bed…order take out….and just chill out. I was successful on Friday night, but unfortunately tuckered out around 11:30pm since I didn’t get much sleep the night before. No…not like that…I didn’t get much sleep the night before because I ventured to the movies to be one of the first to see Whitney Houston’s last performance in SPARKLE. Super happy I did….I never for once regretted the idea until I was at work the next day, less than energized from my 3 hours and 45 minutes of sleep. You only live once right? #YOLO

Welp, on Saturday I received a call from a bride asking me to share some of my expertise with her maid of honor. As I listened, I realized the maid of honor needed a lil help in the planning of the bridal shower for the bride. With a wedding party of 22+ people, 10+ being women…making decisions was not as smooth as all parties involved had hoped they would be. Luckily they thought of me first…so I’m happy for the contract! (God is good!!!) After a 3 hour conference call that began at 10pm and 2 emails later it seemed we were on to something! There were two main issues responsible for the slight quarrel amongst the bridesmaids…affordability and “less bang for their buck”! That last issue took me some time to understand, but once I did….I was ready with all sorts of solutions!  Asking the right questions lead to a menu change where I’m sure the bridesmaids will feel more comfortable spending their hard earned coins. The maid of honor seems to be quite efficient, so I’m pretty sure this will be a piece of cake once all 10 girls are on the same page!

Check out pictures of the potential venue below (well the very few I could steal), once the vote is final we’ll be ready to move forward.

 ~Peace & Blessings

RaTher UnforTunaTE...

Even after months or even years of planning for a wedding, it is inevitable that something will go wrong!! With a good planner, we hope the something wrong is very small AND we hope the bride doesn’t even notice. I favor a few minor hiccups over full blown disasters any day of the week, for sure! What are some of the worst wedding day disasters you’ve witnessed? I thought I’d try my hand at coming up with a few:

Rain….Missing members of the wedding party…Undone chicken…Family drama...3 hr wait time before the reception…..Slower than usual hair stylist that then throws everything else off schedule….Deposits paid twice….Rips in dresses….Inexperienced Deejays….Malfunctioning equipment…Venue bankruptcy days before the wedding…Ever changing tight budgets....you  know things like that! Well what if I told you a friend of a cousin of a friend told me the shocker that beat all shockers….wanna read? Ok!

This poor lady has had to endure the most unfortunate of circumstances. Death of parents, drug abuse of siblings, burning down of houses, adoption of nephews and groom’s children, cheating of spouse….with that alone she deserves complete happiness in life, not just her wedding. Sure enough, her fairytale was not as smooth as one would hope! The caterer, for whatever reason, fled the original agreement and this poor “bride to be” was stuffing wedding reception food in her deep freezer and every other deep freezer for miles. Her bridesmaids were slow to plan the bridal shower and when the one bridesmaid with sense planned it, the other maids said it was too expensive (it was a room in a restaurant). The wedding started like 2 hours late because *pause* the poor groom got into an accident where he totaled the car (He’s okay, thank God) AND the hair stylist had to send her niece to the store to get a better matched weave for her wedding do. The wedding venue, of course being 45 minutes away, was too far for the already running late wedding party! The bridal party left their 1^st location an hour after the wedding already started, thereby leaving the unready bride at the 1^st location, 45 minutes away! The maids decided they needed to get ready, only there wasn’t a planned place for them to get changed at the actual wedding venue! Where they truly beautified themselves is tight lipped leaving me to believe it may have been an average gas station fast food joint! #noshade All this happened BEFORE the wedding…

 There was a significant pause (10 mins) after the wedding party came down the aisle and before the bride, so much so, the pastor asked “is the bride even here”….apparently the guests had restless leg syndrome and ventured out to find the guest book instead of letting the 2 hr late bride enter the church. I couldn’t understand why all the guests hadn’t signed the guestbook 4 times a piece already! Once into the ceremony, the pastor asked everyone to have a seat, despite the two wedding rehearsals, the pastor’s request was a complete surprise to the bride and groom. The pastor delivered a sermon…no a REAL sermon…. where he asked the matron and the best man to have a seat…oh and he asked the bride and groom to have a seat tooooo while he delivered the SERMON (not a passage or two) on love. Yeah that was another 45 minutes passed. They got to the reception with 3 hours to do everything as they were just THAT late. My heart absolutely goes out to this bride!!!!! Sheesh!!!! The bride had already purchase a wedding cake, but the mother of the groom demanded she have a traditional wedding cake, typical of the Jamaican culture, and the bride that accommodates everyone else, obliged. Couple of days before the wedding, the mother of the groom asked for half of the money to pay for this cake that was the mother of the groom’s idea<<<---Really ma’am?  The 2^nd wedding cake was significantly more than the original wedding cake and of course money was becoming more than tight by then! I really hope that 2^nd wedding cake was a small piece of heaven because she could use it.  

I would rate this wedding pretty low on the minor hiccup scale… but I hear it was a pretty wedding! Lesson of the day, pray for extreme favor and complete the due diligence!

 ~LOVE

KISS cam...

Greetings again,

Aren’t you proud….yes this is the 3^rd day in a row that I’ve blogged! Get yo’ life…because I’m doing better than ever! Yesss! Today my group began discussing how President and First Lady were caught on the "kiss cam" at the arena last month…OMG how cute, I love our First family!!! They seem so down to earth, President Obama and his five guys while First Lady Michelle shops at Target! Awwe! They’re just like me….what great motivation for our children to see faces like theirs in the White House living an “ordinary” life. The dream just got closer! From this conversation we somehow moved into snafu proposals on the big screen! Recently, a guy had it all set up for his soon to be fiancée via the megatron…and ole girl was busy making the beer run. Why? Lol

Got me to thinking…so I’ve compiled a short list (some with prices) of how to propose at a sporting event in NC!

Carolina Hurricane Proposals:: For $250, the organization will put together a special wedding proposal package.  The package includes Stormy coming to your seat in a tuxedo and the video board and matrix board showing “Will you marry me?” as you ask the question.  The Hurricanes will put together a DVD to commemorate the moment.  Call (919) 861-5462 for more information. (That’s not that bad if she would really like it)

Durham Bulls Propsals:: The Bulls run messages on our video board and message board typically during the middle of the 6th inning nightly. These messages are primarily "Happy Birthdays" and "Happy Anniversaries" but are not necessarily limited to that, anything other than these 2 topics are at the discretion of management.

Just check in at the Herald-Sun Fan Assistance Center before the fourth inning and let the attendant know what the message should read. Messages should be limited to five words for the message board in left field and just a name for the video board in center field. A $10 donation to the Durham Bulls Youth Athletic League (DBYAL) is required. The DBYAL allows disadvantaged inner city youth the chance to play little league baseball for free. (By far the BEST deal….$10 is a steal)

Carolina Panthers Proposals::

Send someone a personalized scoreboard greeting during a Carolina Panthers home game in front of more than 73,000 of your closest friends. Tell us what you want to say, and your message will be immortalized on Bank of America Stadium's sideline message boards during the Panthers game of your choice.

Messages will be displayed on both of Bank of America Stadium's sideline color message boards, located between the two suite levels above the stadium's grey seats, between the first and second quarter for eight seconds.

Each personalized message costs $125, payable with a credit card. Included in the cost of each message is a 5x7 photograph, which will be sent to you via U.S. Mail, of the message being displayed during the game.

The deadline for purchasing a scoreboard message is Wednesday at 11:59pm ET before the selected game with some exceptions for non-Sunday games. You can purchase a message for any upcoming game at any time prior to the deadline as long as inventory is available for the selected game.

It is recommended that messages contain a maximum of 5 to 10 words. Please note the number and size of the letters in the two examples shown above. The shorter the message, THE BIGGER THE LETTERS!

Bank of America Stadium is a privately owned building. No commercial messages or profanity are allowed. In addition, the Carolina Panthers reserve the right, in their sole and absolute discretion, not to display any messages that are deemed inappropriate, including but not limited to messages that are religious or political in nature, or messages that support any team other than the Carolina Panthers.

(Not bad!!!)

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any information on how to propose at a Charlotte Bobcats game…that’s whack! Remember your proposal should be special and something she would really enjoy-no expense spared!!! Then again, some women would much rather spend a quiet night at home…so as long as you create the proposal with your soon to be fiancée in mind, you can’t go wrong!  Yaaay! Let’s get engaged people ;)