Vintage Jersey Shore: The Vision Goes To The Beach

 For those of you following along; I had envisioned a rustic-chic vineyard wedding for The Groom and I. I pulled together "The Vision" based on the idea that a vineyard wedding would be a way for us to have a beautiful, romantic wedding yet stay on budget. However, after touring a few vineyards I realized that this option really wasn't as affordable as I had hoped. Before I fell into complete despair, The Groom stepping in and found away that we could get "The Dream". The Dream being the beautiful Jersey Shore wedding I used to daydream about, but never thought we could afford. The Groom had found a few venues that were within budget, and located in the beautiful beach town of Spring Lake, NJ. Intrigued by this idea, The Groom and I set up appointments on a day we could both take off work and coordinated with my parents to meet us in Spring Lake for another day of venue shopping. 

  While I waited for the day of beach venue shopping to arrive, I got my pinterest on. My ideas for a vineyard wedding didn't totally blend with a Jersey Shore beach front wedding, thus I had to make a new vision. And so I developed The Vision Goes to the Beach, not just my latest pinterest board but also my new frame of mind. The Vision Goes to the Beach began with making my vineyard-inspiration beach appropriate, but over time I let go of the vineyard look and instead held onto the overarching aesthetic I wanted regardless of location: beautiful, romantic, and fun. Instead of deep plums, I'm thinking soft lavender and lilac. Instead of emeralds and moss greens, I like soft pale greens. And it wouldn't be a beach wedding without hints of blue mixed in, right? More important than the colors, I want the wedding to reflect classic Jersey Shore. I'm thinking of using salt water taffy as favors, maybe renting a trolley to transport the bridal party, and incorporating vintage beach postcards. I want our guests to feel like they are on the ultimate Jersey Shore vacation of days gone by. I guess we could call this vision Vintage Shore? 

XOXO

The Vision Gets a Makeover

In my last posts, I went over The Vision. The Vision of how I want our wedding to look and feel. The Vision was a combination of what I wanted for our wedding, and what I thought we could realistically have. While a wedding in an Italian castle would be one hell of a beautiful vision, I know that was not something we could do. So, based on what I thought was a realistic dream, I compiled The Vision. Why did I go with the rustic-vineyard vision? Well, I knew that South Jersey had an abundance of vineyards that would make for a surprisingly affordable wedding. Researching these vineyards, including Renault, Valenzano, and Tomasello, I thought to myself - "You know what, I could plan a really beautiful, and unique, wedding here - that I could actually afford." And thus, The Vision was born. 

my rustic-glam vineyard chic vision

  
But I should rewind. Before I had The Vision, I had The Dream. The Dream is everything I ever hoped and wanted in a wedding when I was a little girl. What does The Dream involve? The Jersey Shore. No, not this kind of Jersey Shore:

This kind of Jersey Shore:

 The Jersey Shore of days gone by. The Jersey Shore of salt water taffy, long walks on the boardwalk, Victorian mansions, Italian ice, The Jersey Shore my Ossie and Poppy used to take me to as a child. The Jersey Shore my family escaped to any opportunity we had. The Jersey Shore where Rob and I had our first vacation as a newly minted couple just one month into our relationship, and where I realized I loved him.

 Why didn't my vision include the Jersey Shore? Honestly - I didn't think we could afford it. I thought it was just a dream. A dream reserved for brides with much deeper pockets then mine. And then, something crazy happened. While I was in the midst of building The Vision, and setting up appointments to see vineyards, The Groom suggested we revisit our dream of a Jersey Shore wedding. And how did I react? I chewed his head off. And maybe cried. Maybe. I didn't think we could afford it. I also felt like I had worked so hard to come up with this rustic-vineyard vision and I didn't want to start all over again. I know. That's ridiculous. I made a freakin' mood board and felt like I was too far along to change direction. Luckily, The Groom understood where I was coming from and promised to do more research so I could get a better idea of what a Jersey Shore wedding would entail.

 While The Groom did research on possible beach options, I visited vineyards with my family. Were they gorgeous? You betcha. But, were they affordable? Nope. What we quickly realized was that planning this vineyard wedding was not going to be as affordable as I hoped. In fact, as we started to add up all the extras (full open bar, chair covers, bridal suite, etc) the vineyards became down right pricey. For example, we almost booked Renault. My family and I loved the resort-like setting. The hotel was lovely, the grounds were too die for, and there was even a golf courses on-site for The Groom to squeeze in a round pre-wedding. The base wedding price was about $78/pp. A steal for New Jersey! But this didn't include a full open bar, and only included a 4 hour reception, when we felt a 5th hour would be necessary. And, don't forget tax and gratuity. All of a sudden, my "affordable" venue was no longer in the budget.
 
 Upon realizing how my "affordable" option was no more, I turned to The Groom's Jersey Shore idea. While I was traveling back from venue hunting with my mom, I went over a wedding package The Groom had received from one lovely beach-front hotel. As we talked it over, a new vision started forming. Here was a location we could afford, in a setting we had always dreamed of. Could this actually be the best option for us? Were we going to somehow get the wedding we always dreamed of, on a budget we could manage? Stay tuned....

The Vision Board

As I explained in my last post, I'm envisioning a rustic but glam Fall vineyard wedding. I've always loved purple and want to create a beautiful palette of plum and lavender with some natural moss green to create the laid-back beauty I'm going for, with pops of gold to bring in the glam. I threw together this vision board to bring The Vision to life. 

The Vision

I can't lie - I've been planning this wedding in my head for about two years. But don't think I'm completely crazy, at the time I was working for "the-online-wedding-registry-company-from-hell". Or, MyHellHole.com as I affectionately refer to them. During my time at MyHellHole, I spent a lot of time scouring wedding blogs, WeddingBee, The Knot, etc. Suddenly, my head started filling with ideas and inspiration. This was long before Pinterest, so what was a girl to do? E-mail myself all these genius ideas of course! Over the last two years I quietly e-mailed myself anything I came across that sounded interesting and stored these emails in a Gmail folder. 

It's completely normal to create your own monogram pre-engagement right?

When Pinterest finally debuted "secret boards" I pounced. Finally I was able to create and save all my ideas in one visual place. Without looking like a total nutbag. Around December of last year, The Groom had all but confirmed to me that we would become engaged sometime in 2014. In between walking on air and keeping my fingers freshly manicured, I did research on what I really wanted this wedding to look like and what would be a good representation of us. 

And thus... The Vision was born. 

Source: Style Me Pretty

The Vision is what I hope and dream this wedding will look like, feel like, capture, and reflect. It is not finalized, and will continue to evolve. It also may get scrapped completely as we move forward with wedding planning. However, The Vision is giving me parameters and is helping to guide me in piecing together this little wedding of ours. And - bonus, The Groom is completely on board with The Vision. Did he sit around dreaming about what our wedding would look like for two years? No. But he does have a sense of style and taste, and he's loved everything I've shown him so far.

Source: The Perfect Palette

So: I give you The Vision. A romantic, Fall, rustic yet elegant vineyard (or vineyard-esque) wedding. Featuring a lot of purples, bronzes, golds, and other autumn elements. I do not want to limit myself to two or three colors, but instead want to work within a general palate and create an overall ambiance for the wedding. These are the images I am using as a reference tool. Eventually I'm sure I'll create my own mood board, but for now these have been very hand. 

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 This week I start the venue hunt. I'm visiting two vineyards in South Jersey. I'm hoping these venues fit the bill so that we can lock down a date, and The Vision can come to life. 

xoxo