I am SO excited to be contributing to Dynamite Weddings as a recently engaged bride!! Here we are just moments after, on the coast in Big Sur!!
Here I was fooling around with the camera, practicing ring shots :)!

I am excited to share that we are planning a real Dynamite wedding, meaning all the professionals involved so far are Dynamite Experts. The purpose behind Dynamite Weddings was to share tips, trends, bridal advice and recommend professionals that we would be honored to work with on our own wedding. Well, our wedding will be an opportunity to showcase a real Dynamite wedding where couples can see that those we recommend are truly trusted professionals. While Mr. Detonator and I would be grateful to work with all the Dynamite Experts, we could only choose a few for our 100 guest wedding. The experts we are excited to be working with are:

Bella Donna Bridal Salon
Blooms by Martha Andrews
Celebrations! Elegant Party Rentals
Profinish Design
Sheffield Multimedia
Stephanie J Designs
The Memory Journalists

Check back next week for my dress trials that have proved to be the most difficult part of this wedding so far!!

Hello all! I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Carissa AKA "Torch". I'm the newbie on the block, both to Dynamite Weddings and to the newly marrieds club. I just got married on February 29, 2008 after a year and two week engagement.
My fiance proposed after a year and a couple of months of dating while we were on a Valentine's Day ski trip in 2007. No he didn't propose on the 14th, he waited until the 15th... the boy just had to be ornery! But I was so happy and the proposal was so well thought out and special I just couldn't be upset with him.
This is my second marriage (everyone is allowed one mistake!), but my guy's first, so there was a lot of discussing (even before we got engaged) about what we wanted and didn't want in a wedding. I think it's safe to say that we are both foodies. I am a trained pastry chef and he was a server and bartender/wine for almost 20 years (mostly at fine dining restaurants), so we're pretty particular when it comes to food. The food was our top priority, but I also like flowers. (I'm a girl... I can't help it!) So with these two priorities in mind we started the real planning shortly after we got engaged.
I would have loved to have had a wedding planner (in hindsight it probably would have saved me a lot of stress), but I really wanted to work with a smaller budget so we could pay for everything with cash (also known as the having your cake and eating it too strategy). We did a lot of the work together and really enjoyed the process. I can't wait to share our game plan and end results with you all. I couldn't have been happier with the results and I keep getting compliments. We were married at David Girard Vineyards and had our reception at Sequoia Restaurant, both in Placerville.
I'm thrilled to be the newest B2B Girl and to contribute to Dynamite Weddings. I love being creative and hope my experience in the kitchen and on the sweeter side of things will be useful for all of you newly engaged gals! Ask me questions and reply to the posts! I love talking about food and desserts!

Hi, I'm Blaze. I was married on October 16th, 2004. My husband and I were married at Saint Francis of Assisi Parish in Sacramento. Our reception was at the Sheraton Grand. I never pictured my wedding in a church, I always thought I would be married outside on a golf course or at a winery. However, a church wedding was important to my husband. I am glad that we opted to be married in the church -- it was a beautiful ceremony and I know my husband appreciated it.

In July of last year, we welcomed our first baby to the world. My husband and I were blessed with a beautiful baby boy. Many things in our life have changed since our son was born. It has taken some adjusting but I will say that my husband and I have never been happier.

I am so excited to be a part of Dynamite Weddings. I love the Dynamite Weddings concept because it not only helps brides with the wedding but it also provides insight and guidance for marriage and family.

Hello everyone, I'm Sparky. I don't actually remember the very first time I met my husband, because we were 5 years old. However, I do remember being an extremely annoyed 8 year old that couldn't stand the teasing of a little boy. As it would turn out, this was the boy I would marry. Many, many years later, after years of dating and ten months after our engagement, we were married on July 21st, 2007. My husband and I stayed in Sacramento for our wedding, getting married at a church, with our reception at the Library Galleria.
Having known one another since kindergarten, our wedding day combined a lifetime of memories and friendships to form a beautiful ceremony with the exchanging of vows. What mattered most to us, wasnâ??t the â??thingsâ??, but the marriage that we would start on that very day. We laughed off any minor dilemmas and smiled because we realized how fortunate we were to have one another, our health, and our families and friends.I am glad that I am a part of Dynamite Weddings and hope that by sharing my experiences others will be able to utilize the information. I think comparing notes, especially about one of the most important days in your life, is always valuable and probably pretty entertaining at times. I look forward to all the exciting endeavors to come!!

Me & the FI. Courtesy of ME again!

My wedding planning experience was fun, overwhelming, sentimental and downright stressful. THANK GOODNESS for my mom and my sister! They are the best party planners I have ever seen HANDS down. I'm totally a big picture person. I get the vision, I tweak it in my brain and then I hand it over. I had vision of glowing candles, warm autumn colors, fall leaves everywhere and ROMANCE. I also envisioned a wedding guest list under 100. That was the only thing that didn't happen!

Through all of the planning I did tons and tons of research online. If I had an idea or the thought of an idea I would spend HOURS researching it and seeing if I could find exactly what I was looking for. What I found so difficult is there were SO many websites but not ONE that accumulated all the ideas in one place. Of course there are those big ones that we all know about but those were SO overwhelming that I would log on and just stare at the page. I need that one spot I could go to and find EXACTLY what I was looking for.
So when I was offered the opportunity to be in on the ground floor of just such a website I jumped out it! We hope that you will find EXACTLY what you are looking for here. Whether it be the DIY project that will make your day or exactly where to find the world's best bakery THIS IS THE PLACE! I'm so thrilled to be a part of it and can't wait to hear what happens next! So ask us a question, give us your feedback. We can take it! Trust me, it's going to be DYNAMITE!!!

Hi all Dynamite Daily readers. I'm the Starr Burst! (aka Jennifer Dunham Starr) . I was married in May 2006 and have been enjoying married life immensely. My husband and I dated for almost 3.5 years before getting married.

We were married in San Francisco with only 16 of our closest friends and family in attendance. It was a 3 day event for our guests complete with a surprise Cable Car ride through the city right after the ceremony. We were able to do many small touches - handmade pillows for each chair for the ceremony (made with love by my sister Valerie!), candy treats and personalized M&Ms with movie quotes placed in rooms prior to guest arrival, a unique movie quote for each assigned dinner seat that I matched to the personality of each guest, and I found the greatest hanging test tubes to place flowers along the railing of the terrace overlooking the Baybridge! I had so much fun planning our wedding. We did everything our way and we loved it. Even our black cake was a hit! Of course I couldn't resist taking some of our own photos (hello I'm a wedding photographer: The Memory Journalists), but we had the great honor of having my friends Bethy B of True Love Photo and Matt B of NJB Photography take our pictures.We just went on our honeymoon last month in December 2007 - a much delayed honeymoon. It was well worth the wait! For all those worrying about not having a honeymoon the day after your wedding - don't sweat it. You can spend just as nice a time having a picnic while driving along a desolate highway.

I loved planning our wedding so much (understatement), and being a wedding photographer myself, I meet brides all the time who have as much passion as I did about pulling off the best wedding of their lives. I wanted to find a way to give back to the brides and grooms in our community and provide them Tips and Trends to create their own Dynamite Wedding. The idea was born (read about The Story on www.dynamiteweddings.com). I'm the idea-maker behind Dynamite Weddings and am proud to announce the launch of our website and blog. I'm so happy to be bringing all future brides some tips, trends, and advice. And for those of you already married, I encourage you all to share your ideas, stories, and laughter. Please email us if you're interested in becoming a B2B Girl at b2b@dynamiteweddings.com.

Thank you to our entire team who helped get this off the ground:

NJ - You're my angel! Seriously, not possible without you. We argue and get cranky like sisters and we still love each other.

Nik - "Just tell me what to do." Your mantra. And you make things happen so efficiently. A calming force for certain.

To all the B2B Girls - some who joined on our Bridal Board many months ago and those who joined forces just in the last weeks. We've created quite a Dynamite "super hero" team who are so giving of their time. The Flame, Blaze, The Firecracker, Sparky, Flare, The Scorcher, and more to come soon. I hope you all enjoy getting to know each and every B2B Girl!

To all the Vendors who took a risk and accepted our invitation to join our Dynamite Vendor team before we were even live with the site. Thank you for believing in us! You'll always have a special place on our team as Charter Members. We look forward to the future as we add on to our team. If you are interested in being a Dynamte Vendor please see the "How to become a vendor" on the Dynamite Vendors site.

And lastly, to my husband Cory, who hasn't seen much of me lately. Thank you for letting me try new things, at the cost of working too much and not getting to watch as many movies together. Several times I wondered "What am I doing?!?!" And I was afraid I'd hear "I told you so." But somehow I have managed my sanity and our new company is off the ground. You won't know what to do with me now that you'll see me more often again!

Discover the spark of TNT! Cheers everyone.

2010:

Jan 79

Feb 74

Mar 73

Apr 63

May 64

Jun 64

Jul 32

Aug 34

Sep 30

Oct 2

Nov

Dec

2009:

Jan 82

Feb 72

Mar 83

Apr 65

May 67

Jun 67

Jul 69

Aug 71

Sep 67

Oct 77

Nov 67

Dec 67

2008:

Jan 2

Feb 132

Mar 102

Apr 96

May 94

Jun 93

Jul 93

Aug 104

Sep 80

Oct 78

Nov 87

Dec 83