Blog Bliss: Style Me Pretty

When I first got engaged, I should have bought stock in wedding magazines because between my mother and I, we bought them all!! I would scramble through every page and article, cut out anything I loved to put in a book of ideas, made notes in my wedding notebook, and then exchanged the magazine with my mother for whichever one she had bought... of course hers were always fully in tact and the ones she got from me were shredded..... for some crazy reason she thinks she was getting the short end of the wedding magazine stick! Some people! =)

But magazines aren't cheap and they are usually only updated once a month or so... not enough to fill my curiosity. As I said before, I had no preconceptions about how my wedding would be. I didn't dream of it as a kid, and I hadn't spent any time focusing on it as an adult. So now I was curious and loving a wide variety of ideas since they were all new ideas to me!

Enter the best email I ever received. (at least wedding planning related - I have some really great romantic ones from Adam saved somewhere!) My newest sister-in-law suggested I check out some wedding blogs for ideas. Specifically, Style Me Pretty. I was skeptical because I never read blogs and wasn't so sure I wanted to trust ideas from people I didn't know. WOW was I wrong! So I thought I would begin a section of my blog focusing on the blogs I stalk and why I love them. Hence - Blog Bliss.

First up, the first blog I started to follow, and still one of my favorites: Style Me Pretty. Abby Larson has an amazing talent for beautiful and unique inspiration boards and fun fresh ideas for wedding details. Abby also does an "Ask Abby" section where the questions are relevant to almost every bride-to-be. Her writing is fun and witty while being knowledgeable and unpretentious. If any bride-to-be (or any other wedding style craver) doesn't have SMP on their list - add it now and go through her archives and inspiration boards for some astonishing eye-candy! These are some of my favorite inspiration boards, and some of the reasons I really became a blog-stalker of SMP (which lead to other blogs she featured and now my google reader has 40 some odd blogs I have subscribed to!)

I absolutely love the bright colors and unique look combined with a relaxed but stylish fete that this board brings out:

This one is just fun and relaxed while incorporating naturally beautiful elements like coral and seashells. I can almost smell the salt air breeze off the water:

If I had an unlimited budget, I'd consider having a wedding somewhere in Europe using this bright beauty as my inspiration board. Anyone else thinking Greece?
Peach is not exactly one of "my colors". I don't think I own a single peach article of clothing. I am normally a vibrant, bright color person, but I love this board. It makes me want to serve Bellinis and sorbet at the beach in Apalachicola, Fl.

And as if all those beauty's weren't enough, Abby is also a papery person with an eye for style. She finds beautiful calligraphy and invitation companies and artists and posts articles and interviews explaining why each is wonderful and special. I am not a invite-oriented person. I had to be talked out of email invitations. But the more I look at some of her finds, the more I think... hmm... letterpress - lovely... belly bands - beautiful...etc.
And to top it all off and REALLY solidify the SMP obsession - she features Real Weddings too!

This was one of the first real weddings I saw featured on SMP (before I learned to stalk to archives too!) and I fell in love with the romance of the roses and candlelight.

Oh - and looking for a vendor in your area? Check out her Little Black Book section. She only features the best and brightest of each field in each location. Need more reasons to look and love SMP? If you answered "yes", you have ISSUES!!!

(All images courtesy of: Style Me Pretty)