On August 15th (more or less) the Charlottesville Wedding Blog will be a big 2 Years Old!!! …wow, I can hardly believe it!

If you’ve been following along over the months you’ve seen me try lots of different things here…

• “best of” series (which I plan to do again later in the year);
• “Bride Online” sharing various finds around the web;
• Ceremony readings;
• Green wedding tips;
• lots of Real Weddings;
• engagement shoots;
• local products and services;
• interviews;
• announcements;
• videos;
• guest posts
• featured vendors.

and lots more… so, as we head into year 3 here on the blog it would be truly fantastic to hear what you’d like to see more of (or less of) and what other types of features you’d find useful and would like me to include.

One of my own wishes for this blog is to find ways to get more people involved: brides, grooms and wedding professionals in the area, so I’d love to hear any ideas you might have about that.

I’d also love for more of the wonderfully talented wedding professionals in our area to share their work with my readers: yes, I’m talking to you… photographers, caterers, bakers, florists, planners, audio, video and all the rest… my readers want to know about what you offer and I’d love to feature you here… so get in touch!

Please post your thoughts and ideas as a comment or, if you’d prefer, please e-mail me directly: revclaire@sacredgroundceremonies.com

Thank you to everyone who has made the past 2 years of blogging so much fun for me!

~ Claire

If you’re planning a wedding (or not) and love wedding blogs, like I do, you’ve probably seen a few out there in the Blogosphere… I haven’t shared my favorites in a while so today I’m happy to send you links to a few of the blogs that I read (or at least scan) every day. These blogs are not local to Charlottesville but are filled with stories, ideas, inspiration, instructions for various projects and tons more.

Most wedding blogs are, naturally, focused on the interests of brides in particular… which is understandable since statistically it’s the bride who undertakes a great majority of the planning.  However, today I discovered something quite unique (I think) a blog written by a groom, telling about his experience preparing for his own wedding which, apparently, is more than a year away.  It’s a relatively new blog written by “Dave” in Los Angeles… he calls it “Temple of Groom”.  Cute, huh?

So, I know that this post about wedding blogs isn’t specific to Charlottesville but since so many of the brides I work with are blog readers, I wanted to share a bit about my own wedding blog habit… and also to ask you if you’d let me know what your favorite blogs are. Very soon I’ll be sharing my favorite local Charlottesville wedding blogs… so stay tuned!

Style me Pretty ~ Weddings Unveiled WeddingbeeSnippet & InkEcochic WeddingsTemple of Groom ~ Brooklyn BrideBride’s CafeOffbeat Bride ~ Kiss the Groom Ritzy Bee

Send me a comment and let me know which wedding blogs are your favorites!

The Bride’s Cafe is a colorful and beautifully done wedding blog created by Janie Medley of Janie Medley Flora Designs right in our very own Richmond, VA. Janie is an incredibly talented floral designer and The Bride’s Cafe blog is full of her love of beauty and of weddings. Tons of photos and great ideas for your own wedding… but mostly it’s a feast for the eyes… enjoy!

I just learned that our very own amazing and talented Jennifer Carroll of Jennifer Carroll Events was featured on 2 wonderful blogs today… so I decided I’d jump right in there and feature her here too… maybe 3 in one day will be some kind of record

First, let me link you up to the 2 other blog posts that came out today, they are both wonderful, please check them out:

• Weddings Unveiled features Jennifer’s wonderful favors invites and papers.
• Teardrop Weddings has Jennifer in their Vendor Spotlight.

Jennifer is an extraordinarily talented planner, designer and artist and is a joy to work with. Her work is a true expression of her many gifts and talents and it is so much fun to watch her multitude of amazing ideas and inspirations come to life.

Earlier this year Jennifer’s friend and colleague, the talented Jen Fariello, sent me this selection of her photographs of some of Jennifer’s incredible design work from a wedding that we all did together at King Family Vineyard in May of this year… and today seems like a great time to share them with you… enjoy!

Jennifer knows how to keep the kids busy!

Contact Information for Jennifer Carroll Events:
~ website: www.jennifercarrollevents.com
~ e-mail: jennifer@jennifercarrollevents.com
~ phone: 434-823-7607
~ blog: http://jennifercarrollevents.typepad.com

Contact Information for Jen Fariello Photography:
~ website: www.jenfariello.com
~ e-mail: jen@jenfariello.com
~ phone: 434-963-7976
~ blog: http://jenfariello.bigfolioblog.com

If you’ve been planning your wedding for awhile now you very well may have already encountered the Style Me Pretty blog written by the amazing and prolific Abby Larson. Abby writes about every imaginable aspect of the wonderful world of weddings and each post is full of colorful photos and links to great resources. To give you a tiny taste of the broad range of Style Me Pretty’s content here’s a tiny sampling of what has been on the blog in the last couple of weeks: wedding cakes; cinematography; little black dresses; wedding sweets; invitations; breast cancer awareness; and this week she is devoting solely to do-it-yourself projects for weddings. This little list doesn’t even scratch the surface!

Among many other features, Style Me Pretty has it’s very own, exclusive, directory of wedding vendors around the country called the Little Black Book. As I understand it, Abby only accepts 3 in each category per locality and each vendor listed is screened and recommended by colleagues as one of the very best in their category.

Ok, that’s enough from me… now hop on over there and check out Style Me Pretty… but please be sure to come back!

Just for fun… take a break from planning your wedding and check out Weddingbee. Weddingbee is many things: a blog, a forum, a source of great information and inspiration… but mostly it’s a fun diversion for a few minutes each day and an opportunity to network with other brides.

Weddingbee has several dozen brides and newlyweds (and even a few grooms) who blog about their before, during and after wedding experiences with you. Each blogger has a funny, unique blogging id such as “Miss Pinot Noir”, “Miss Hot Cocoa”, “Mrs. Milkshake” and “Mr. Mango”.

Using these aliases, Weddingbee bloggers share on a huge variety of topics… everything from finding and buying great shoes, honeymoon planning and reception menus to personal relationship stories and do-it-yourself wedding creations. Some days there are more than a dozen posts on a wide variety of topics.

So check out Weddingbee and enjoy!

By the way… if anyone out there is a Weddingbee blogger or has been following Weddingbee, I’d love to hear your experiences!

As you probably already figured out I am a big fan of blogs and blogging… I especially love to follow the blogs of the various photographers that I have worked along side of at weddings. Because the nature of blogging is a more relaxed and personal format photographers often post their favorite photos of the day on their blogs… and not necessarily the most perfect ones. Also, because I only see my photographer friends at weddings their blogs give me the chance to see the other kinds of work they love to do.

So, given that this is a wedding blog you can correctly assume that the 8 photographers whose blogs I’m linking to here are amazing and talented wedding photographers but a peek at their blogs will reveal that they all have much broader interests and expertise… You will discover Rob Garland’s amazing photos of famous performers and performances and that Jen Fariello, Meg Runion and Bill and Anne Holland all have a special love for photographing babies and children … others you’ll see enjoy shooting portraits of people and pets, engagement and pregnancy shoots and there are even some amazing food photographs that will make you hungry

I hope that you enjoy these blogs as much as I do. I think if I were getting married and had to pick a wedding photographer in the Charlottesville area it would be an awfully difficult choice!

The Blogs of Eight Talented Charlottesville Area Photographers:

Allegra’s Studio

Billy Hunt

Holland Photo Arts

Jen Fariello

Meg Runion

Meredith Montague: Making Use

Rob Garland

Sanderson Images: Life in the Light

Photo Credit: Meg Runion of Rob Garland Photographers

Just this week I noticed that 3 of my favorite local (non-photographer) wedding-related colleagues have started blogs recently. (I say “non-photographer” because it seems the photographers all got started blogging earlier than most everyone else!) Let me share their beautiful work with you in the order that I discovered them myself…

First, I visited Anita Gupta’s site, Maliha Creations, because I’d met with a new bride on Sunday who was interested in baking and I wanted to send her a link to Anita’s site. When I got there I saw that, indeed, Anita had started blogging in May and has been posting stories and photos of her creations since then… so much fun!

VISIT THE MALIHA CREATIONS BLOG

Next, I got an e-mail from Pat’s Floral Designs (Pat and Sherry) announcing their newly designed website… which I visited right away and it is spectacular! In their navigation I saw a curious link to “In Bloom” which turned out to link to their brand new blog that they’ve already been posting to with lots of beautiful photos… it’s beautiful!

VISIT PAT’S FLORAL DESIGNS BLOG

Then today I hopped over to Jennifer Carroll’s site and found that she has several YouTube videos posted plus her new blog that’s not much more than a month old and is already filled with fantastic photos of her place settings, invitations, linens, food and all the other details that she is so incredibly talented at creating!

VISIT THE JENNIFER CARROLL EVENTS BLOG

So welcome to the wonderful world of wedding blogging Anita, Pat, Sherry and Jennifer… isn’t it fun?

Thanks so much for joining me on my brand new re-designed Charlottesville Wedding Blog now hosted on my very own domain! This is a project that has been in the works for some time and today’s the day I share it with you, I’m so excited!

I’ve got lots of great plans for this blog. Of course, I will continue to share my wedding adventures and experiences with you… highlighting my beautiful couples and the many talented vendors I work with. A couple of the new features that you can look for in the coming months will be: interviews with a variety of wedding professionals and authors who will be sharing their wisdom and advice with us plus guest-posts (please let me know if you’d be interesting in being a guest blogger) from brides & grooms, vendors and other brilliant people with expertise on a wide variety of topics of interest to my readers.

I’m sure you’ve also noticed that I’m now including a small selection of very specific advertising in the sidebars of the blog… this is still in the experimental stages and will be changing and shifting in time… it is my hope & intention that the ads you find here will be for products and services of high quality and integrity. Your comments and suggestions on any aspect of this project are always welcome.

Thanks for reading… and please be sure to visit often and be sure to subscribe either by RSS Feed (look way up top on the right) or by e-mail (in the sidebar) so that you don’t miss any posts!

There are dozens, no, hundreds (thousands?) of wedding blogs out there. Truthfully, there are lots that I wouldn’t give a second look at and a huge number that have been abandoned… that is they are no longer being posted to but are still sitting out there in the blogosphere.

Over the past 6 months I’ve run across a fair number of interesting, unusual, fun and sometimes useful wedding blogs that are being kept current and today I am happy to pass these links along to you.

Hope you have fun checking these out and if you have a favorite of your own please let me know…. if I get enough suggestions I’ll do another post on wedding blogs!

Here’s my list (in no particular order)… enjoy!:

1. The Bride’s Cafe edgy, sophisticated, romantic
2. Wedding Bee
3. Wedlok gettin’ hitched in style
4. DC NearlyWeds
5. Off Beat Bride taffeta-free alternatives for independent brides
6. Wedding Fanatic
7. The Handcrafted Wedding the cure for the common wedding
8. Always a Bridesmaid ask us your pressing wedding questions
9. Groom Groove a blog for the groom – quick tips and information for grooms, the best man, groomsmen and wedding mcs
10. Bridal Cheek a journey toward non-traditional wedded bliss, with style