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By
Lynne Shallcross
We have to be honest. On Thursday morning, we took extra time doing our hair and putting on our makeup so that when stylist Amanda Moran came in for her live chat, we’d look as good as she did! Well, we didn’t look nearly as good as she did, but we did learn a lot from all the tips and advice she shared with readers.
When Amanda was growing up in Virginia, she was the hairstylist-in-training for her friends at school, and she loved makeup, too. Years later, she’s turned her passion into a career. With 12 years’ experience in the industry, Amanda is a hairstylist and makeup artist who’s done work for Fox News and C-SPAN. She offers on-site makeup and hair consulting for weddings and special events. “It’s always such a joy to make a bride look her best on one of the biggest, most important days of her life,” Amanda says. “I enjoy the artistic vision that goes into all of it.”
Wondering what to do with your hair on a humid wedding day? Is there such a thing as too much eye makeup? Amanda has answers for all the tough questions. If you missed the chat, catch up here. Want more Washingtonian.com online chats? Check out past Q&As with everyone from bartenders to other wedding pros, and submit questions to upcoming chats. More>> Bridal Party Blog | Wedding Guide | Wedding Vendor Search
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By
Emily Bratcher
The wedding is done, the honeymoon over with, packed boxes bound for Wichita surround us—which mean that it’s time to say “see you later” to Washington and “au revoir” to this blog. During the nearly eight months of wedding planning, I wanted time to move more quickly than the 24 hours allotted each day, but now as I look back, the time did seem to move at a sprinter’s pace.
Now our beautiful wedding weekend and our lune de miel (honeymoon) in Paris are done, and there’s a kind of melancholy associated with their being over. Be advised, brides and grooms, your wedding weekend will be a rush of activity, a blur of emotion, and suddenly you’ll be in the car, headed out to your first night, man and wife. Drew and I both wanted to just grasp each moment, take it captive, completely live and feel it, but it was like trying to catch clouds—they are much too big and much too elusive to be contained. You will, however, take back some vivid memories—moments when time stood still enough for you to really feel them. Those are sweet, sweet, sweet memories, but for the rest of them, I suggest hiring a good photographer. Ours caught some great ones.
So rather than detailing the entire affair, I’ll try to give you the highlights, the moments that stuck out.
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By
Lisa Marie Ordakowski
It’s a church ceremony for Lisa Marie and Andrew. But where’s the party?
The venues for the ceremony and reception truly dictate the atmosphere of the wedding, so this is a huge decision that must be made early on in the planning. Religion certainly determines some of the options available for an engaged couple, a fact I found out when I approached my priest. Reading a booklet on Catholic marriage, I quickly discovered that it’s mandated that we host our ceremony in a church. Andrew and I were both raised Catholic, and we wanted a religious ceremony, so the wedding would have to be in a church. But after the ceremony, where’s the party?
Andrew was pretty clear that he wanted to get involved in only some of the wedding-related plans, but the venue was definitely one of his keen interests. Most of our guests will be traveling from out of town, so we wanted to present them with something unique, maybe something that represents Washington, but most important, something that would be worth their travel. As an Internet connoisseur, Andrew began searching for affordable reception sites while I searched the wedding message boards for inspiration.
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By
Amanda Warrington
Welcome to Mom of the Bride, a new feature of Bridal Party from a different perspective. This week, Amanda takes a look back at the time leading up to her daughter’s engagement.
Tiffany and her fiancé, Mike.
I was talking to my daughter, Tiffany, after work one evening in early spring when she said, “Can I come over?” Duh, of course you can come over. But it did alarm me because with her busy schedule, I usually have to plan time with her weeks in advance. Or, if I really just need a “fix,” I can drop by her work for a quick hello. But a spur-of-the-moment pop-over is not typical.
When she came over, she told me the various “signs” she had seen that her boyfriend was going to propose. She had overheard a comment from a friend—“Let me know if you need help picking out the ring.” Something had arrived in the mail from a local jeweler. They had a weekend away planned for their upcoming anniversary. She told me all this as if she had been trying to ignore the signs—not because she didn’t want him to propose but because she knew it was supposed to be a surprise. But clearly she wanted to talk about it. She didn’t have doubts, but I could tell she needed to process the whole thing. So I asked her if she loved him and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She nodded. “Your whole life,” I emphasized. Yes. So I asked her, “Well, what would you say if he asked you to marry him today?” This may have been a more direct way of facing “the question” than she had actually considered. She crinkled up her nose, pulled her shoulders up, and said, “I wouldn’t say no.” I think she just didn’t want her mom to be the one she said yes to and so phrased it so as not to give me “the answer.”
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