After the ceremony, this New York bride and groom, got their guests to the reception via pedicabs {via New York Magazine Weddings}. A row boat wedding in Central Park’s Wagner Cove makes for a gorgeous photo op {via New York Magazine Weddings}. A groom’s father, and best man, serves as the driver of a handcrafted teak electric boat that ferried a happy couple to their reception {via Brides.com}. A blushing bride and her maid of honor made a grand appearance via horse-drawn carriage {via Brides.com}. Have a look at a couple fun photos of love birds in a red double-decker bus {via Studio 306 Photography}. A bride poses in a classic New York yellow taxi cab {via Martha Stewart Weddings}. A Michigan couple shuttled their guest to the reception aboard a vintage red trolley {via Brides.com}. Guests take a hayride through {The Orchard at Altapass} in North Carolina and a happy bride and groom strike a pose on a yellow school bus {via Heather Bohm Tallman Photography}.

{Agnes Lopez}, {Lovely Morning}, {Platinum Weddings by Kerrie}, {Real Brides}, {Leigh Miller Photography}, {Brenda's Wedding Blog}, {Audrey Hannah}, {Lauren Clark}, {Jasmine*}, {The Knot}, {Untitled Bride Blog}, {P.S. I Love This}, {Bliss Event Group}, {The Girl's Girl}, {The City Sage}, {Gniffke Is Up To Something}, {Tastefully Entertaining}, {Modern Vintage Designs}, {Joey Seawell}, {Elefantitas Alegras}, {Marianne Graham Designs}, {J&K's Wedding Blog}, {R. Peters Photography}, {A Historic Savannah Wedding}, {LEMonade}, {Inspired Events}, {Krishnaswami08}, {We Met In A Bar}, {The Plan}, {Swanky Tables}, {The Savvy Bride}, {Joanna Leigh}, {The Finer Things}, {The Indecisive Bride}, {Saltines + Ice Cream}

Fuss Jewelry Contest: Don't worry we haven't forgotten about the Fuss Jewelry Contest winner!  The votes have been counted and added to our staff's votes.   We've just been so busy preparing for Engage!08 that we haven't had a moment to announce the winner.  Thanks for your patience!  Once we land in Orlando today, we will post the winner.  Stay tuned!

Thanks and have a great week!

Congratulations to Arjola + Peter!  We wish you a lifetime of happiness and joy!

Win: A $50 Gift Certificate from Inky Pink. 

How to Win: Visit Inky Pink and choose an item that you would want to use in your wedding.  Tell us which item you chose then describe how you would incorporate it into your wedding. Be as detailed as possible--we want to hear your fabulous ideas!

Contest ends Tuesday, October 21 at Midnight!

Bluehost is having major server problems today and our email was down for most of the afternoon. If you sent an email to any of us after 2pm today, we unfortunately did not receive it. Please resend your messages. So sorry for the inconvenience! I know a lot of people were sending in ad contracts and materials today. Thanks for your understanding! To brighten your day, here is a fabulous inspiration board I fell in love with from the phenomenal {Snippet and Ink}. Kathryn created it in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month... gorgeous!!

The weather on our wedding day was: absolutely beautiful!

What was the design inspiration for your wedding? As corny as it sounds, Jessica Simpson’s.  I wanted candlelit, light pink roses, and romance!

Favorite design element of your big day: I loved every bit of it!  From the initials lit up on the wall, to the cigar bar, to the enormous arrangements of pink roses on top of the candelabras. 

Tell us about finding your wedding dress: It was the 5^th one I tried on!  Only took about 2 hours – I knew it was the perfect dress! 

Describe your wedding flowers: that’s easy….pink roses!  Yes, every one – and there were A LOT!

Describe your wedding cake: Simple is best!  It was a five tiered white cake with edible pearls throughout.  Each layer was outlined by black ribbon.  A few pink roses (I know, a surprise!) were sprinkled on top. 

Our favorite detail of the wedding was: Steve said the cigar bar.  I’m torn between two: the milk and cookies they served as the reception was coming to an end and our giveaways.  They were cupcakes made by Sweet Memories.  However, they were very special because the recipe that was used was that of the New York famous, Magnolia Bakery.  These were very special to us, as the first year we dated, Steve lived in New York City while getting his masters at NYU.  Every time I would go up to visit him, we’d always have to make a trip to get a cupcake at Magnolia Bakery (even if the line was wrapped around the building!)

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? Where to have it.  Steve’s from Fayetteville and I’m from Advance (near Winston-Salem).  We considered Bald Head Island, but it wouldn’t hold enough for us.  So we ultimately decided on my Alma Mater (Steve’s law school Alma Mater) where we could have room for all of our friends and family, be with in walking distance of anything you wanted, and be right in the middle of Fayetteville and Advance.

Were there any special family traditions you included in the wedding? Steve wanted me to have the blusher over my face; although not a family tradition, he likes the old school style.  We did follow all of the old school traditional traditions: something old, new, borrowed, blue; no seeing each other after midnight the night before the wedding; having a stand in for the bride during the rehearsal.

Scariest moment? There weren’t any scary moments…well I take that back, I guess a button falling off my dress as I was getting into it at the church would count.  However, again, my fabulous wedding planner found a glue gun and had that button back on in minutes.

Funniest moment? My veil fell off walking down the isle – and the only thing Steve had requested was the blusher over my face!  Thankfully, however, just days before I decided to add a hymn into the ceremony.  So, while we were all singing the hymn, my fabulous wedding planner and her assistants ran down the isle and put my veil back in.  They did it with such grace, all the guests thought it was all a “planned revealing”. 

The most unexpected event on our wedding day was: I can honestly say, thanks to all of my wonderful vendors, it went just as planned….Steve however, may not have expected that I would actually smush the cake in his face when it was my turn to feed him!

Three adjectives that describe the day are: The BEST, unforgettable, FUN

Did you write your own vows? No, we’re very traditional.  In fact, we even found a more traditional version that even our minister offered us.

What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Remember what the day is about.  It’s not a production, it’s not the perfect dress, it’s ok if the cake happens to show up late, or your shoe strap breaks – because it’s about you and your best friend getting married.  And as long as he and the minister show up, nothing else matters.  Enjoy yourself!

Best advice or most memorable comment someone made to you during the wedding celebration:   I will never forget a woman telling me a few days before the wedding, “Whitney I hope your wedding turns out as magical and perfect as you’ve always dreamed”.  I just thought that was so sweet!

Fun details: Our out of town goodies bags were my favorite details of the wedding!  I made a welcome booklet so that everyone would have important numbers, the schedule, and things to do around town.  Inside we had a bottle of wine with a blue Tarheel foot on the label, a bottle of water with our monogram on the label, pink homemade heart cookies from mom, a bag of pink M&Ms, peanuts, and craisins, and finally a small bag of pink popcorn – are you seeing a pink theme?  I really liked having a cocktail hour on the front lawn on the Inn with the signature drink of spiked pink lemonade and a jazz band in the background.  It was so much fun riding up in the horse and carriage and seeing all of our guests enjoying themselves outside.  I loved that, thanks to my dad, our entire family, bridal party, and some close friends all stayed at the Carolina Inn.  So we got to spend a lot of time together!  One last thing that I really enjoyed was having a brunch the morning after the wedding, I wore a white sun dress I had made with my new initials in pink!  Oh yeah, and the honeymoon was a surprise!  I didn’t have a clue where we were going, (just knew it was Caribbean) until we landed in Miami and Steve gave me my ticket to Aruba!

What's next for you as a couple? Right now, we’re just really enjoying being married!  We wake up, make each other laugh, go to work, Whitney goes to the gym, the grocery store, and cooks dinner.  Then Steve comes home, we eat, watch TV, kiss each other good night, and the day starts again.  We try to find the simple joys in life each day, and are just happy we have each other! 

Congratulations Whitney + Steve.  We wish you a lifetime of happiness!

How did the two of you meet? I was a rising senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, moving into my new house on campus with my roommate.  Because we were impatient and didn’t want to wait for our parents to come to Chapel Hill to help us move our furniture in, we decided to try it ourselves.  As I was trying to shimmy the mattress to my bed out of the back of a truck, this tall dark and handsome man came across the street to ask if I needed help with it.  The tall dark and handsome man turned out to be Steve who had just finished at Carolina Law School and was in the midst of studying for the bar exam.  He helped me move in the furniture, and the rest is history.

Describe the proposal: We were at Holden Beach, staying at his parent’s beach house.  It was the only tropical storm of the summer of 2007.  I was upstairs getting ready to go out to dinner.  Steve kept telling me that he wanted to go outside and have a drink by the ocean.  When I got downstairs, he insisted that we go out by the ocean and have a glass of wine under a gazebo they have at the end of the walkway.  I looked at him like he was crazy, I had just finished getting ready for dinner and there was a tropical storm going on outside!  I asked, “Can’t we just stand in the doorway and pretend we’re outside?”  He said no, and said “come on, I’m going out to make sure it’s still raining.”  “Still raining?!” I said, “The rain is beating against the house!”  However, after he started to walk out, I decided he might be up to something and that maybe I should follow him.  So I followed him out to the gazebo, glass of wine in hand, and being beaten by the wind and the rain.  We stood under the gazebo and he started telling me that I was his best friend, how much he loved me, and other sweet things, when I realized, “oh my gosh, he’s going to propose!”  I quickly realized I had my wine glass in hand and how could he ever put a ring on my finger with a glass in my hand.  So I sat the glass down and Steve looked at me like “what are you doing?! I’m just trying to talk to you”.  So feeling silly, I stood there and talked to him, and then thought, “Maybe if I look away towards the ocean he’ll get down on one knee.”  So I looked away, and looked back, and he was STILL there!  Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few seconds, Steve got down on his knee and asked me to marry him!  Of course I said yes!!

What attracted me to my husband was: his drive, his height (I’m 5’11”, so I appreciate him being 6’3”), his heart, his love of the Lord, his love of children, his overall sweetness

Why do you love your husband? He is that guy that does the selfless things for people, and does it anonymously so that he doesn’t receive the credit.  He makes me smile every single morning I get up.  He says silly things out of no where! 

What attracted me to my wife was: her sweetness followed very closely by her beauty

A date we went on that we'll always remember: Drinks at sunset at the Southernmost point in Key West Florida.  We had been scuba diving in Key Largo with my scuba class from UNC.  I got a little nervous going down on the dive, so Steve held my hand all the way down and during the dive to make sure I made it.  However, half way through the dive, I scrapped my leg on a piece of coral.  That deep in the water, the colors are distorted so the scrape looked black to Steve.  I pointed to the scrape on my leg, and, because Steve saw black and thought it was dirt, he rubbed it really hard not once, not twice, but three times!  Because I had my oxygen line in my mouth, I couldn’t tell him that it was blood and not dirt!  After we surfaced and got back on the boat, we laughed about the fact that he literally “rubbed salt (water) in my wound”.  Later that night, we headed to Key West and had drinks by the sunset.