What’s not to love about summer?  That might be the only question left after reading all of y’all’s fabulous reasons as to why you do love summer on our blog giveaway and on Lara’s twitter-only giveaway.  Don’t you just adore the image below by Simply Bloom?  So summery.  Someone pour me a glass of fresh lemonade stat!  We’ve got some very fun summer-themed giveaways coming up in the next few months, but until then (and without further ado), I present the two winners of a $25 iTunes gift certificate along with a few of our other favorite responses:

From the blog:

A few other favorites:

From Lara’s Twitter-only giveaway:

A few other favorites:

Congratulations!  Winners, email us your mailing address and we’ll get your cards to you!  Hope you’re all having a fabulous summer!

Like so many weddings these days, Katharine’s will be a destination affair, with only about 5% of her guests local to the Boston area.  To keep her guests informed, she and her groom put together a wedding website chock-full of helpful and hilarious information.  Read on for more details and a few sneak peeks!

From Katharine: Last week, I revealed Kyle’s and my pick for a wedding photographer.  For those of you who missed the post, any guesses as to who we chose?   Take a peek here!

This week, we want to show off one of the very first things we checked off our to-do list.  While most couples dive right into photography portfolios, catering menus and dress shopping, my tech-savvy fiancé and I headed straight to the web to create our very own wedding website.

I’d seen and heard of virtually all the wedding websites out there, but my very favorite sites were those hosted by Wedding Window.  After stumbling upon our first Wedding Window site, and Kyle + I fell hard and fast for their highly-customizable, fully-loaded sites.

But let’s back up a minute.  Why bother with a wedding website in the first place?  Besides the fact that it’s fun as all get out to watch a couple’s love story unfold on the world wide web and to see their upcoming wedding take shape, there’s an infinitely more useful and practical side that makes wedding websites a must-have for today’s modern bride.

1. The 4 W’s: With a wedding website, a couple can easily – and interactively – share all the who, whats, whens and wheres of their big day with family and friends.  Think of it as a one-stop shop for your guests to plan for your wedding and share in your celebration – from both near and afar.   Want to make sure dear Aunt Sally knows when and where the reception is and how she’ll be getting home after a long night of dancing?  Have a list of hotels where your out-of-town guests can book rooms near the festivities?  Need to let everyone know your wedding is a western-themed event?  A wedding website is the way to go, folks.

2. Introductions: It’s a guarantee your family and friends will feel more involved in and get more excited for your big day if they’ve been introduced to all the major players beforehand.  A wedding website is a fun and easy way to introduce your fiancé, bridal party and family to your guests.  Sure, they likely won’t remember every member of your twenty-person bridal party or memorize the names of each of your fiance’s six siblings, but it’s a good start.

3. Celebrate!  For most of you brides-to-be out there, you’ll likely enjoy a 9 – 18 month engagement.  A fun and interactive wedding website can help fill the down time between the excitement of your engagement and the anticipation of your big day.  One catch?  To keep the buzz up and questions down, make sure to update your site regularly.  Add new details about your weekend as you plan them, post those tear-worthy engagement pictures of you and your betrothed, start an online countdown.

From Emily: Though it was pretty much over once Wedding Window caught Katharine’s eye, there are several other great options out there for those who haven’t yet made a decision.  My sister chose Project Wedding for hers (we love that PW collaborated with stationery greats like Elum, KenzieKate, and Hello!Lucky to ensure beautiful interfaces!).  Wedding Wire has also collaborated with design-savvy businesses including Martha Stewart Weddings, Wedding Paper Divas, and the Green Kangaroo.  Lastly, we think Wedding JoJo has fabulous, clean, modern options.

Help a girl out: Did you create a wedding website for your big day?  Which site did you use, and what did you think?

Previously:

Intros + Inspiration Boards

The Bridesmaid Dress

The Photographer

Project Wedding and Wedding Window are SW sponsors.  For more info about advertising with us, email Katharine!

Chelle + Tim’s outdoor reception at the Pine Rose Cabins looks so effortlessly summery and relaxed, I can’t help but wish the SW teams were on the West Coast.  Sarah Rosenberger, one of Chelle’s bridesmaids, styled the fresh white and yellow blooms, and Jensen’s of Lake Arrowhead designed the too-cute bird cake.  Just one question, C + T: was that cake as delicious as looked?  Since we know y’all love pretty things, there are more shots from the rustic wedding from The Brothers Wright. 

Tell us about finding your wedding dress: My Mom and sister both live in Oklahoma, and I live in Long Beach, CA.  In October of 2009, they both flew out for a girls’ weekend of celebrating and dress shopping.  A few bridesmaids came along, and we spent the day at bridal boutiques in Southern California.  It was so special to be able to share this moment with them.
Describe your wedding flowers: I love the look of renunculas, and yellow is my favorite color, so that set the foundation of our flowers and color scheme.  I knew I wanted to find an alternative to traditional bouquets and boutonnières, though, so we eventually discovered handmade flowers in a shop in OKC made from neckties.  My father and grandfather had a ton of neckties they no longer wore, and we were able to find a few more at thrift stores.  The bridesmaid bouquets were also made from these and finished with vintage buttons from my grandmother’s sewing box.
Describe your wedding cake: Our cake was three tiers, each a different flavor. We used a pine tree round from the Pine Rose Cabin properties for the cake stand.

What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Tim makes films for a living, and wanted to create a film to show at the reception of each of us answering the same questions about each other, (e.g. where we met, how he proposed, what we love about each other, etc.).  Towards the end of the film, Tim went to great lengths to describe the proposal. Unbeknownst to me, Tim’s best man, Ben, had secretly hidden a camera in the bushes on the mountaintop where Tim proposed.  I was able to watch him propose to me at our wedding, and it was absolutely priceless.
Did you write your own vows?  If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line?  We did write our own vows, in addition to repeating traditional vows.  It was shocking how similar they were to each other’s!
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future? We still live in Long Beach, are continuing in our current professions and hope to have children sometime in the next 5 years.  For now, we’re enjoying being newlyweds.

I like the color yellow, and I like (okay, love) cowboy boots, so I’m pretty sure Chelle’s cheery maids (in Anthropologie frocks) get the W for this week’s Super Southern Bridesmaid Ensemble.  So it’s not a real award, but if we did have one, they’d definitely get it!  Chelle + Tim said “I do” at the rustic Pine Rose Cabins in California, and were lucky enough to have The Brothers Wright on-hand to document the occasion.  The bride wore a lacy Pronovias gown (style name “Galvina” for those of you dying to try on the romantic v-neck number yourself), finishing her wedding look with a handmade veil.  The reception photos are just around the corner!

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story. (From the groom) The first time we EVER met was at a Labor Day BBQ in September of 2007…but Chelle doesn’t really remember this, so it doesn’t count.  I began attending Grace Brethren Church in Long Beach in January of 2007 and soon met Christa Neilsen, Tim’s older sister and we became friends.  Somewhere along the way I met Tim, but he lived far away in Corona. We crossed paths every now and again, but then in the summer of 2008, Tim moved to Long Beach and started attending Grace regularly.  Tim organized a “group hike” one Sunday afternoon in November but unfortunately I was the only person who could make it. We hiked to the top of Mt. Zion by the light of the moon and their headlamps.  At the top of the mountain we laid on our backs and watched shooting stars. Very shortly after this, I received an unmarked package in the mail. It contained a case of black jack gum (my favorite which had been discontinued). My roommate tipped me off that Tim had stopped by earlier that day…but he denied any responsibility until a month later when we began officially dating. Tim FINALLY asked me out in December.
Describe the proposal. Around late July, Tim started telling me that I needed a day off of work.  So we planned a hike for Saturday, the 1st of August.  Since we were going to Oklahoma in a week, my engagement radar was at a -10, despite the fact that we were hiking Mt. Zion…they very first place they’d ever hiked…and despite the wonderful breakfast that Tim had cooked for us that morning before we left. During our hike, we finally came around the last set of turns to the summit, where Tim’s friend Ben had set up a picnic. I was touched that Tim had planned a romantic summit celebration and finally realized that there was more to it when he uttered the words “will you marry me?” I said yes and we celebrated later with family and friends at Tim’s house in Long Beach.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Peaceful, reverent, joyful.
What Southern details or traditions did you include in your celebration? I am from Oklahoma, so all the girls wore cowboy boots. We had fresh lemonade and mason jars for flower arrangements.

Howdy, friends!  A few tid-bits you might find of interest…

For those of you searching for the perfect wedding dress, we’ve got two great resources to share.  The first is the new Priscilla of Boston salon that’s just opened in our neighboring city, Raleigh!  It’s a signature salon, which means it carries all of the POB lines, including Priscilla of Boston, Melissa Sweet (my favorite!), Vineyard Collection, Platinum, Jewel by POB, and Reverie by Melissa Sweet.  The gowns start at $1,200.  And if you happen to pop in, you might just snag a sweet Southern Weddings surprise!

A few of our favorite Priscilla of Boston dresses in action, from Jasmine Star, Sarah K. Chen, and Paul Johnson.

If you’re interested in doing good while you shop, you should also check out Brides Against Breast Cancer, where you can browse through hundreds of brand-name dresses, many donated by stores and designers.  They’re making a few stops in the South this summer on their current nationwide tour, including Austin, Dallas, Charleston (WV), Jacksonville, San Antonio, and Fort Lauderdale.  If you’d like to win tickets, head over to One Wed’s blog — they’re running a giveaway!

Aisle Dash and Wedding Channel are both holding nominations for their wedding blog awards right now.  We’d love your vote!  Click here or here to help out.

Lastly, for our vendor friends, Two Bright Lights is hosting a “Boot Camp” in Raleigh on Wednesday, July 14, where TBL co-founder Siri Eklund will demonstrate how to use their super-cool submission software.  The event will be held at Midtown Place in Raleigh from 5:30 to 7:30pm.  It’s sponsored by Walters & Walters Photography, and some of your SW friends might just be making an appearance!  You can sign up right here.

Happy Tuesday!