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New blog

Come visit my new blog

New blog coming

I haven’t been posting much lately because I have an entirely new blog coming.  In the next week or so I’ll post the link to the entirely new blog.  It’ll be quite a bit more robust than the current blog, giving you an overview of the whole Alisa Benay company all in one site including pictures of all the gowns, links to editorial and magazine articles featuring my gowns, all of our (growing number of!) stores, and much more.

In the mean time, if you are in the Denver area today & want to see some of my gowns up close, a few of them will be featured in the runway show at the Wedding Vogue Show located at the Curtis Ballroom, 3rd Floor, Comedy Works at The Landmark in Greenwood Village from 1-4 pm.  Of course, you can always stop by Little White Dress any time to see the entire line!

What did you wake up to this morning?

Me?  I woke up feeling somewhat better from this cold I’ve had.  Thanks for asking.

And?

I also woke up to find out someone or something had hit our garage door in the night.

This is what it looked like when we tried to open it this morning.

And?

It’s going to cost 1000 bucks to fix.

Which means?

It’s not worth filing a home owners insurance claim.

Nice.  very nice.

Get Married episode coming soon!

The episode of Get Married featuring my launch party and runway show will air Monday, May 11 on Lifetime Network at 7:30 am EST.  I can’t wait to see it!!!!  If you happen to miss it, you can catch it online (I’ll post the link as soon as it’s up) or it will air again on May 27th.

Get Married, my new gowns are up!

Get Married

My new gowns are up on the Get Married site!  Go to the link above & in the designers drop down box, you’ll find my name.  Cool beans.

Launch Party, more pics

All my girls.  Plus the bottom picture is of the ice sculpture with my name on it.  Which is seriously cool in case you’ve never had your own personal ice sculpture before.  But you can’t see it well.  Better pics later.

A fun day all around with the silliest brides you ever met.  Keep those dresses off the ground girls!

Top row, left to right:  Jolene Picone of Veil Trends, my veil desiger:  Margo Trueblood, my Director of Sales & Marketing:  my own personal stud muffin (who obsessed about his suit for over a month):  Daddy dancing with Olivia (everybody say “awww”).

Middle-ish row, left to right:  Harmony Walton of The Bridal Bar:   a much larger & more user friendly version on my own personal stud muffin (I love this picture!):   my besty Karen Burniston, an ubber cool designer in her own right, who has such fabulous taste she showed up dressed just like me.

Bottom row, left to right:  The fam, true colors showing:   Cate Malone, owner of the best bridal boutique in Colorado,   the rents.

A fabulous time was had by all.  If you weren’t there, you can catch us on the road in the coming months.  Deets to come.  Or you can catch the runway show on my episode of Get Married, airing in the early fall.

Launch party candids

Here a just a couple of candid shots from the end of the day yesterday.  The launch weekend was fantastic and there are some super secret amazing (as in the blow your mind kind!) details in the works which you will find out about very soon.  Over the course of the week I’ll have more photos & details about the weekend to show you.  I am completely blown away by the response from the gowns & can’t wait to share it all with you.  My mind (& my feet) are overworked.  We’re re-grouping today & getting the gowns ready to head up to Little White Dress for the trunk show.

We had the wonderful Scott from Ambassadors Rolls Royce Limousine Service bring out the most georgeous vintage limosines to the show and were able to take the models out at the end of the day to catch some fun candids with the cars.   If you are in Colorado & have limo needs, please give Scott a call.  He’s super cool & will treat you like a queen.

Sneak peak of the week

We were out at the castle on Monday for the final photo shoot for the debut colletion.  The remaining 5 gowns will be up on the website next week, but I thought you might like a sneak peak at Claudia.

Look how cute Christina is trying to see her pics outside…

Things that can go wrong when sending out invitations. By date.

Stay with me on this, it gets complicated.

When sending out Save the Dates to my list of 277 upscale bridal boutiques around the country on

Jan 12

the printer runs out of black ink.  There is a snow storm out & Kevin isn’t home.  Which means if I want black ink to print the address labels, I have to take all 3 kids out into a snow storm.  In my car who’s tire needs air in it every 3 days.  Today is the 3rd day.   So I decide to print all the labels in blue.  It still takes me 3 hours to stuff & label 277 envelopes.  At which time I realize I ordered 800 cards.  Why?  I can’t remember.

On the recommendation of my graphic designer, I decide to use a local printer for the invitations to save on postage.  I decide to use a printer that my photographer knows in Lakewood & have them print up the comp & overnight it on

Jan 26

When it arrives at my UPS store (where I have a p.o. box) on

Jan 28

(I know.  overnight?  From Denver to Colorado Springs.  Takes 2 days?)  the UPS people don’t fill out a slip for the package to put in my box letting me know I have a package.  So when I go in there on

Jan 27

and

Jan 28

and

Jan 29

and

Jan 30

they say that it hasn’t arrived yet.  So I have the printer look up the tracking number & confirm that it did arrive on

Jan 28

When I tell this to the UPS people on

Jan 31

they look around & say “oh, look, it’s right here.”  So on

Feb 2

I approve the comp & order the invites.  Except there’s a problem w/ my credit card.  The credit card company won’t raise my credit limit, even though I charge & pay off 4 times the credit limit every month.  Also? I can only make 4 payments per month, none being within 5 business  days of each other, & once a payment is made it takes 3 to4 days to post.  You do the math.  So I spend, I swear, at least 1/2 hour every day doing math trying to figure out what I can charge when & what has to wait and exactly what date it has to wait until.  So I have to pay off the credit card balance on

Feb 3

and wait until

Feb 10

to pay for the invites.  The wonderful people at Raven Printing print & stuff the envelopes and have them ready by 2 pm on

Feb 13

And, btw, Lakewood is 1 hour & 20 minutes from my house.  Didn’t think that one through.  Arrive at the kids school for 3:20 pick up precisely at 3:21.  Here’s where it starts to get fun.  On

Feb 14

when I start to get ready to send out the 277 boutique invites, I begin by printing out the labels.  On Avery 5660.  Which I will never use again.  And neither should you.  Ever.  The labels come out of the printer with the ink just laying on the surface, smearing everywhere.  It takes me an hour and 1/2 and an entire box of labels to figure out that I can lay them out around the house & let them dry for 20 minutes & they won’t smear.

Then I realize that I didn’t have the printer put stamps on the RSVPs.   So I have to unstuff them, put stamps on the little cards, restuff them & put the stamps & labels on the outside.  Which takes 2 more hours.  Then I try to moisten the envelope flap to close them, but they won’t close & when laid in a stack, smear the ink on the label underneath them.  So I have to re-print & re-label about 20 addresses.  Remember the laying out & drying thing.  And decide to just put the little clear stickers on the back.  Which means I have to take all 3 kids to Office Max and then the post office.  Luckily it was Valentines Day & we stopped by Hallmark first to get their new Webkinz.  Webkinz are like crack in our house.  Even I have one.  A very uncoordinated bat.  Named Fangette.

So the kids & I put stickers on about 260 envelopes in the post office.  Whew.  Done.  Right?  You would think.  But on

Feb 19

I go to pick up my mail & there are TWENTYFIVE invites returned b/c the post office machine tore the address labels off of them.  And there’s no way to tell which 25 of the 277 they are.  So on

Feb 20

when I get around to sending out the remaining invitations to Colorado Wedding planners I decide to hand write them with a calligraphy pen.  Sitting in a chair in my living room.  With my laptop open next to me to read off the addresses compiled by Margo, my sales director.  Who is a goddess.  My calligraphy pen starts to dry up,  so I open a 2nd one.  Which spews ink all over my lap full of invites, the carpet, and my LAPTOP COMPUTER.

I love you.  I really do.  And I want you to come to my launch party.  But really, can I just call you on the phone & invite you?