Photo: Courtesy of Keltie Colleen
What do real brides have to say about the wedding planning experience? Well, it's not all happy tears at the bridal boutique and indulgent cake tastings. Over the next two months, guest blogger Keltie Colleen will share the ins and outs of planning a California wedding, balancing a public profile, and how to send your pet down the aisle in style.
I'm thrilled to be joining Brides as a guest blogger You might recognize me from my job as correspondent for the entertainment news television show OMG!Insider. After reporting on numerous celebrity weddings, not to mention co-hosting Brides' very own Brides Live Wedding, I am so happy to finally get to talk about my own!
My fiance (let's call him "Swoon") and I met at work. As anyone who has been in love can tell you, every couple has a few things they both agree and disagree on. Swoon and I count travel, our dog Hobo, and UK rock 'n roll as the things we agree on most, while the temperature in the house, spicy food, and sharing personal stuff on the internet remains a sticking point. Clearly Swoon is very shy, and I am the kind of girl who cannot eat a salad without tweeting about it.
Every girl believes they have the most magical proposal of all—I am also one of those girls. Swoon totally surprised me with ours! We had made plans to have dinner at our friends' house that weekend and when we arrived they sent a text asking us to use the backdoor because their kids were sleeping. As I walked around the corner into their backyard, there was a huge isle of white lights leading to the back of the yard. It didn't even faze me. I thought, "Maybe that's where they tell the kids Santa parked the sleigh?" (It was Christmas time after all!)
Swoon said to me "Let's go check it out." Mind you, I still had no idea what is happening! We walked to the top of the lawn where the lights ended, and it was pitch black. Swoon told me to stand there, and all of a sudden a giant white hearts lit up the sky around me. Swoon proceeded to quote a line from the book I published in 2010, Rockettes, Rockstars and Rockbottom: "I wish that when you met the person you are supposed to give your forever to, that a giant light bulb heart illuminated above their heads, and you just walked up to your perfect match, turned off their light, and knew that this was it."
Swoon said some amazing words to me, and then got down on his knee and asked me to marry him!
Photo: Courtesy of Keltie Colleen
The thing I love the most about my fiance is that he loves me when I am good, and he loves me even more when I am a terrible mess. He makes me laugh more than anyone I've ever met, and even after all these years, my heart feels like it will burst when I see him walk across the room to me.
We knew before we got engaged that we wanted to buy a house instead of throwing a lavish, expensive wedding. Since I attend huge Hollywood parties for work, I found myself being drawn towards a very laid back, intimate, and casual event. We are serious music lovers, and our eclectic vision for our wedding combines bohemian, gypsy, rock n' roll and a Mexican seaside village. During our last awards season for OMG!Insider, covered over 20 red carpet parties like the Grammy Awards, American Music Awards and Elton John's star-filled Oscar party. I love the glamour of Hollywood, but I didn't want our wedding to feel like another day "at work." Plus, I knew that something low-key would be easier on a small budget. We set our budget at $12,000. And you should know that planning a wedding in Los Angeles for less than $25,000 is almost impossible. I was embarrassed to tell our wedding planner, Tori Hendrix from Sitting In A Tree our budget, but she was so supportive. She told us that we would just need to be very creative. Oh, have I ever been creative! I have finagled, sourced, borrowed, and crafted my way to what I think will be a very special day for us! I cannot wait to share my planning adventure with you!
—Keltie Colleen
For more from Keltie, follow her on Twitter and Instagram!
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