Anything can happen on that “Big” day. The key to keeping things as stress-free as possible is being prepared.  We have created a list below to help out. About a week before the wedding, start gathering as many of these items you think you’ll need.  Put them in a bag and bring them with you. 

Dress
Bobby Pins
Make-up
Make Up for Touch-Ups
Clear Nail Polish
Nail Glue, Nail file
Hairspray, Hairpins
Tissue, cotton swabs, cotton balls
Perfume
Jewelry for the Bride and yourself
Wedding Dress shoes and a casual pair for after
Undergarments for the wedding dress
Needle, thread (white and color of bridesmaid dresses), and scissors, hem tape, safety pins
Contact solution/rewetting drops or glasses, eye drops
Breath Mints
Pantyhose/Nylons (at least 2 pair)
Change of clothing for after
Phone numbers of all the important vendors
Watch
Any prescription medication the bride or groom is on
Plane tickets and luggage if the newlyweds are going on their honeymoon straight from the wedding
Flowers (unless brought by the vendor)
Extra money (just in case of emergency)
A friend to stand by for back up in case the car has flat tire or engine problems
Your speech
Card to give the bride (always a cute friend idea)
2 garters (1 to keep and 1 to toss)
Grooms Ring
Camera for Pictures
Tylenol and Tums
Deodorant / Antiperspirant
Phone Numbers of all Important Family Members in the Wedding, Bridesmaids, Grooms
Toothbrush
Antacid
Cash (In small bills for tips)
Tampons/Pads
Sanitizing Wipes
Tide To Go

For the Home

Decorating a first home is always a fun challenge for the new bride and groom. When choosing a personalized wedding gift, be sure to take the happy couple’s taste and preferences into account. Certain gifts, such wall hangings, wall clocks, canvas hangings, and personalized wedding mementoes, can fit into nearly any décor, and can serve as the perfect wedding gift for the new couple.

Surprise the new pair with a beautiful engraved glass wedding frame to display one of their favorite wedding or engagement pictures. Welcome them to their new home with a stunning double-sided table frame that displays their favorite wedding quote on one side and a photo from their special day on the other. If you are familiar with the decorating taste of the bride and groom, you can choose a frame that suits the style of their home so that your gift can become a permanent part of their everyday lives.

Take a wedding picture frame to the next level with a unique collage frame specifically designed to hold honeymoon photos. A Honeymoon Photo Collage Frame can beautifully accent any home while reminding the couple of their first time together as a couple. While any collage frame can display honeymoon photos, choose one that can constantly remind them of their wonderful first vacation together. A frame fitted with a die-cut mat spelling out the letters “HONEYMOON” gives ample space for displaying nine wonderful photos from their trip.

To Hang on the Wall

Other popular wedding gifts are wall plaques, and a personalized wall plaque can enhance the importance of the gift even more. For a friend with simple, homespun tastes and a country rustic decorating scheme, you might choose a country art slate wall plaque, hand-painted with their names and the date of their wedding. A canvas art wall hanging is a lighter alternative to a personalized wedding plaque. Choose one with a joyful saying like “Live, Love, Laugh” as a lasting reminder of the important things in life.

Keepsakes

If you decide to buy the bride and groom a small keepsake, consider a gift that will become a treasured part of their holiday celebration for years to come. One option is a personalized Christmas ornament scripted with their names and wedding date. Opting for more detail, you could also get them a creative ornament personalized with the entire wedding party. Certain ornaments enable you to even choose the appropriate hair color and skin tone of each wedding attendant, and include their name on the ornament.

Non-Traditional Personalized Wedding Gifts

If you want to avoid the “wedding” tag, you can choose a personalized gift for the home without a wedding motif. Gifts such as personalized tile coasters inscribed with an initial or last name can proudly sit on any table in any room. Carry your wedding gift ideas outside and choose a personalized welcome mat or welcome plaque for the door of the couple’s home. Hand painted slate tiles or a molded and hand painted welcome plaque is an especially warm wedding gift for couples moving into a new home together.

For the Bedroom

If you are looking for something very traditional, one of the most conventional wedding gifts for a new couple is a quilt or other bedding option. Whether you choose a quilted throw in the traditional wedding ring pattern, or a more modern woven jacquard cotton afghan throw, you can have the blanket embroidered with the new couple’s name and wedding date to make it a lasting keepsake of their special day.

Novelty Wedding Gifts

Of course, not every wedding gift has to be formal, or even useful. Sometimes fun and hysterically personalized wedding gifts are the best and most memorable. If the bride and groom have decided to change their names, give them each a t-shirt imprinted with Mr. and Mrs. “last names” in calligraphic script so that they don’t forget their new family name. Deck the couple out in matching “I’m the Bride” and “I’m the Groom” t-shirts and baseball caps to wear on their honeymoon.

A personalized wedding gift is a very special way of acknowledging your friends’ or families’ new journey together, a life of love and true happiness. Don’t be stuck giving an impersonal set of pots or glassware, with a little effort choose a unique personalized gift that will be treasured and displayed forever.

Trying to plan a last minute Holiday Party?  Well, space is still available and we’ve got rates that will knock your socks off.

With many amenities that are perfect for Office gatherings, especially Holiday parties, we are sure that our event center will exceed all of your expectations – except for the price!

Call us and take 25% off your Holiday Party if you book in December 2009 or January 2010!

You’ve heard that business and family don’t mix, right?  Don’t lend money to family members; don’t blend business and pleasure, etcetera.  If we believed that, the opportunity to have your wedding and reception at Stonebrook Manor would be non-existent.  You would just have to go somewhere else.

Lucky for you, at Stonebrook Manor, we believe that business and family DO mix.  We mix it everyday.  And by everyday, I don’t mean Monday through Friday, 8a.m. to 5p.m.  I mean 24/7/365.  Holidays, birthdays, Sundays.  Everyday that our family gathers, business is on the brain and in the conversation.  And it works for us.  

I imagine that some families would never even consider working together, let alone starting a business together.  Some families just don’t have what it takes, I suppose, especially when you throw stepfamilies and in-laws in the mix.  Yep, we’re a blended family to boot.  Would you want to work with your greedy step-sister, or your menacing mother-in-law?  Me neither.  Fortunately, none of us have to.  There are attributes that each family member must possess for this to work: a good work ethic, selflessness, humility, and a SENSE OF HUMOR.  If we didn’t have these, it would be a recipe for disaster.

I’m not saying that we don’t have our occasional disputes, disagreements, and even blow ups (don’t tell my mom I just admitted that), but we don’t let our differences at the office upset our family gatherings.  We just don’t. 

From our very first business meeting 7 years ago to today, we have maintained a common goal.  I don’t think we have a concrete mission statement per se, but we all agree on the purpose for Stonebrook Manor as our family legacy: to be a blessing.  We want to be a blessing to the community in which we do business, to the brides and grooms who choose to say their vows in our home, and to their witnesses.  And if we are successful at this, then our vision is that our children and possibly grandchildren will work here and prosper as well.  We believe in the biblical law of sowing and reaping.  If we bless others, then we have no choice but to be blessed in return.  We hope that if we serve our clients and do the best that we possibly can for them, we will prosper. 

Rest assured that if and when you book your reception at our facility, we will treat you with the same respect that we treat each other.   We have high standards and our quality of goods and services show that.  On behalf of my family and myself, welcome to Stonebrook Manor.

One of my dearest friends had her wedding reception at the OMNI Hotel in Miami, Florida.  She planned the event herself and her choices in dress, flowers, band, everything, were flawless.  She’s not a control freak, she just had little help with the planning because all her friends and family lived out of state.  When she felt overwhelmed with the planning, she would call me in a panic and practically have a nervous breakdown on the phone.  My advice to her was to make lists.  You can’t get everything done in a week.  Prioritize and make lists.   Schedule what needs to be done and when it needs to be done.  Kim, sweetie, I’d say, first thing’s first.  Right now, it doesn’t matter that Aunt Rita is allergic to carrot cake.  Let’s decide on cake flavors after you’ve made the guest list-waaay after.  Foooocus.  Fooocus.  Stay with me now.  Besides, Aunt Rita might not even be on the list when you get done with it.  In which case, bring on the carrot cake!

Even though I was 2000 miles away, as one of her bridesmaids, there was a list that I could make and take responsibility for-the wedding day emergency kit.  I hoped she would remember her dress, veil, shoes, undergarments, etc. without my assistance, but I wanted to relieve a little bit of stress by gathering up those little things that she and her bridesmaids just might need on her wedding day.  So I bought a little case in which to put the little treasures and I named it ‘Justin’, ‘Justin Case’.  I secretly called it Justin Timberlake Case, but I digress. 

On Kim’s wedding day, Justin was called upon on more than one occasion.  It was like he was my personal valet.  Justin, my earring just fell out.  Fetch me an earring back, please.  Or Justin, the bride snagged her panty hose.  Fetch me some clear fingernail polish, please.   J.T.C. proved to be very prepared, and very reliable. 

Here are some things to help you get started when creating your Justin Case:

Earring backs

Clear nail polish

Batteries  -  all sizes

Aspirin/Ibuprofen

Tape – Scotch/duct

Sewing kit

Scissors

Static spray

Panty hose

Safety pins – all sizes

Umbrella

Bobby pins

Bandaids

Nail polish (bride’s color especially)

Nail polish remover

Feminine products

Disposable Razors

Iron

Mints

Cash/quarters (vending machine, parking meters)

 One last thing, and I wouldn’t recommend mentioning that you included this or the bride might freak: smelling salts.  Enough said.

 I’m pleased to report that the bride and groom got hitched without a hitch, due, in part, to Justin.  I did, however, give too much credit to my dear friend, the bride.  While she did remember her dress, veil, and all the other essentials, she forgot to bring clothes to wear the day after the wedding.  So, post wedding day, not wanting to wear her now champagne soaked dress to the complimentary breakfast buffet provided by the OMNI, she donned the clothes her new husband wore to the church the day before – basketball shorts and a t-shirt that said, I’m with stupid.  Lovely, I know. 

 If only she had had a Justin.

I don’t know about you ladies, but I had my share of breakdowns while planning my wedding.  The stress of it all- the budget, the dress, the never-ending guest list- was more than my brain could process.  I called my boyfriend (I refused to use the word ‘fiancé’- I don’t know why) on more than one occasion and cried crocodile tears into the phone.  I begged him to reconsider having a destination wedding, but no, he wanted a traditional wedding in a church (which didn’t happen) with a Saturday evening reception (which also didn’t happen), bridesmaids, groomsmen, unity candle, the whole nine.

The problem was, he didn’t help me.  Hear that, ladies?  HE DIDN’T HELP ME.  He didn’t help me choose the venue. He didn’t help me choose the menu. He didn’t help me choose the photographer, videographer or the florist.  I did it all myself, and it’s not like I was a professional event planner.  Planning a wedding is a full-time job and I already had a full-time job.  One that paid.  So when I asked said boyfriend to accompany me to a meeting with a vendor he’d say, I’ll give you twenty bucks if I don’t have to go.  SOLD!

I know some of you are in the same boat, spending every Saturday meeting with wedding vendors who give you enough information to make your head explode, and your fiancé is not helping you paddle. And in this economy, your fiancé doesn’t have $20 to bribe you into letting him off the hook.  But I did learn that there is a bright side to doing it all yourself, and you control freaks probably already know this: you get to do it all yourself!  Every decision is yours.  You get to pick the colors without him saying, Pink? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.  You get to have salmon at your reception without him saying, But my cousin Lloyd doesn’t eat fish.  And you get tell the DJ that under no circumstances should he play “Y.M.C.A.”

One great thing that you ladies have that I didn’t have when I was planning my wedding is Stonebrook Manor.  You don’t have to spend all your spare time dragging your maid of honor from venue to venue, vendor to vendor, to get her opinion.  Stonebrook Manor’s all-inclusive packages are so comprehensive (the food, the cake, the DJ and more) that the only question you have to ask is, where do I sign?

So after all the breakdowns, all the tears, and all the head explosions, you get to have the wedding of YOUR dreams.

 Sorry Village People.

I learned something the hard way on my wedding day and ladies, that is not the time for learning lessons. If you do not want to make the same mistake I did, keep reading.
I didn’t have the budget for a pricey photographer, but I knew better than to hire a cheap, inexperienced one. When I stumbled across a middle-of-the-road photographer who would bring along an apprentice (which meant I would get twice as many pictures for no extra cost) I was sold. (Her protégé was a former porn magazine photographer but that’s a whole other Oprah.)
We had several phone consultations prior to my wedding day and discussed whether I preferred mostly posed, mostly candids, or both. I provided her a list of poses that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE: the groom and me (of course), Mom and me, Dad and me, Grandma and me, soloist and me, cake cutter and me. You get the picture.
When my day arrived my 2-year-old flower girl, a little ball of satin and tulle, carried out her job beautifully, almost. She waddled halfway down the aisle and decided on a slight detour: to go see Grandma. Her mother, a lovely (pregnant but not-yet-showing) redheaded bridesmaid rushed toward her, thwarted her detour efforts, carried her to deliver a kiss to my handsome groom, and handed her off to Grandma. Cute, I know.
After the ceremony, my organized photographer rallied everyone to their places for pictures. New husband and I looked great. Mom and I looked great. Dad and I looked great. And so on. When it came time for the bridal party photos, I wanted my flower girl to be included. Problem was, she was not as cute as she had been during the ceremony. Her cheeks turned red from the heat, she complained of the itchy dress, and she pulled out all of her “hair pretties”. No amount of silly faces, clown noses or tickle feathers would make her smile. And instead of the bridesmaids looking at the camera, WHICH IS WHAT THEY WERE INSTRUCTED TO DO, they focused on the tears and wails from my sweet little ball of tulle. Is it too much to ask that twenty-somethings look at the camera even if the 2-year-old won’t?
So instead of the awe-inspiring proofs I had anticipated, I got dreadful photos. You might think it was my fault for insisting that my flower girl be included, but I am not the professional. My photographer should have suggested that I take pictures, JUST HER AND ME, prior to the ceremony. Then the photos of the bridal party might have turned out as priceless as I had expected.
So my advice is, avoid a catastrophe and take pictures of all the little people in your bridal party before your ceremony, if at all possible. For me, lesson learned the hard way.

Stonebrook Manor’s Nearly Free Colorado Wedding Receptions were the focus of a Fox 31 brief on the economy.

Watch the video here:

Click here to apply!

The dreams of a little girl concerning her wedding day have always carried high hopes and lofty expectations. So it has finally paid off. All of the hours at the local hangout, more hours at the health club, the tiresome book clubs, the power lunch dating, all of the many online dating services, hundreds blind dates…and then bam! True love at last! You have finally found the man of your dreams. Unfortunately, as it turns out, during a recession. Now it is time to put the old adage to the test. Does love really conquer all? At Stonebrook Manor Event Center and Gardens we believe it still does.

To prove it, we introduce to you our very own Stimulus Package. We call it “Nearly” Free Tuesdays. Stonebrook Manor is essentially giving away free wedding receptions at our event center in Thornton, CO for deserving couples on Tuesdays. The receptions include one of two gorgeous ballrooms with elegant chandeliers, gas fireplaces, granite dance floors and hand-crafted oak stairways, for up to 75 guests. It also includes an unsurpassed dining experience for guests prepared by Stonebrook Manor’s executive chef and staff, fine china, flatware, glasses, crystal centerpieces, luxurious bride’s and groom’s rooms, chairs, linens, complementary parking, and a state of the art video projection system and large screen for DVD presentations.

This may or may not get the economy back on track, but it will for sure help fulfill those dreams of luxury and enchantment by allowing brides to fulfill those high hopes and lofty expectations.

According to the owners, “Stonebrook Manor has been part of the business community in the Denver, Colorado metro area for approximately 6 years. It is our desire to give back to the community and to the people who support us by offering this special promotion.”

The reason for the “Nearly” element of the title is that persons wishing to receive the free reception are required to write a detailed and compelling letter explaining the reason(s) they should receive a free reception. Letters should include an explanation of what makes them deserving and what makes their situation unique. Applicants will be notified within two business days if their letter is accepted and Stonebrook Manor may use their letter in promotional pieces. It is also “Nearly Free” because the client covers the cost of staffing.  Click here for details on Nearly Free Tuesdays or call us at 303-255-0063.

Stonebrook Manor is a family owned and operated business. Consisting of mom and dad, three sons, three daughters, three grandsons and future generations to be welcomed, Stonebrook Manor is the quintessential family business.

Stonebrook Manor has also, for the second consecutive year, been rated by local brides as The Knot Best of Weddings Pick according to The Knot Best of Weddings 2009 magazine.

“From the moment we entered Stonebrook Manor we felt we had walked into a storybook fantasy, the elegance of the entrance, the garden and gazebo, the staircase to greet our friends, the granite dance floor, the people committed to making our day a true fairytale come true. Stonebrook Manor has it all. We would be able to have the wedding of our dreams at Stonebrook Manor.”
Written by Stephanie, Recipient of the First “Nearly” Free Reception at Stonebrook Manor.

Click here to view the full press release.

We are proud and honored to announce that Stonebrook Manor Event Center and Gardens in Thornton, CO has been rated extremely high by local brides and voted The Knot Best of Weddings 2008/2009 Pick.

As always our goal is to help make your wedding day dreams come true.  We consider it a privilege to take part in that experience.