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WEDDINGS 2011 3TRAVERSE CITY RECORD-EAGLEWednesday, December 28, 2011

is published and distributed annually by the

On the cover:

(Clockwise, from far left)

Photo by Johnathan Nobach; Digital Reflections Photography;

www.digireflections.com; [email protected]

Jennifer (Barnhart) Yost between Arica (Swoverland) Zenner, left, and Kristy (Zenner) Helmreich at her June 18 wedding.

Photo by Carrie Nedo; Carrie Lynn’s Photography;

www.carrielynnsphotography.com

Arica (Swoverland) Zenner stands between Jennifer (Barnhart) Yost, left, and Kristy (Zenner) Helmreich at her Aug. 6 wedding.

Photo by Karen Youker; Karen Youker Photography;

www.karenyouker.com

Kristy (Zenner) Helmreich stands between Arica (Swoverland) Zenner, left, and Jennifer (Barnhart) Yost at her May 20 wedding.

Cover photo illustration by Pat Putney

■

Designed and edited by Mark Urban

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“ T H E LA K E , T H E V I E W, A G R E AT B E G I N N I N G F O R YO U ”

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WEDDINGS 20114 TRAVERSE CITY RECORD-EAGLEWednesday, December 28, 2011

Associated Press

Employee Carl Horst

as he soaks a gown in a custom cleansing

solution in a tub at Margaret’s

Cleaners in San Diego.

For The AssociATed Press

After Barbara Hart’s wedding in 1989, her mom took care of the dirty work.

She had Hart’s 1950s lace gown repaired, cleaned and pre-served, boxed up and ready for another bride in the family. It was late last year, though, when Hart’s niece, who was consider-ing wearing the gown, opened the box, only to learn it held the wrong dress.

“It was very upsetting to me. It’s all this connection to your younger life. A connection to my mother, to a moment in time,” said Hart, 50, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., whose mother has since died. “You’re just losing the thread of this connection.”

So much thought goes into selecting a wedding gown, but once the celebration is over, the dress begins to fade into the background. Experts say that right after the wedding, howev-er, is precisely the time to make sure everything is in order so your dress is pristine if you want to wear it again for an anniver-sary, have it made into a chris-tening gown, or hand it down to a daughter or other loved one.

Hart doesn’t know what in-structions her mother was given about opening or not opening the box, and the dry cleaner that

worked on it has since changed hands.

“My advice is that people should open the box and inspect it, and make sure they have the right dress and it’s properly done at the time,” said Hart, a lawyer.

Mix-ups are more common than you might think. Hart said an acquaintance of hers heard her story and opened her box to find a different dress too.

Plan to save the dress? Take care of it right nowFirst, make sure you have the right one

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The Associated Press

see preserve page 5

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“The problem of the wrong dress is endemic in the indus-try,” said Sally Conant, execu-tive director of the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists. “Ask to inspect your dress.”

A preservationist for 20 years, Conant said the wrong-dress-in-the-box scenario happens less frequently now because most preservations are done in boxes that aren’t sealed, though some still are.

Conant, of Orange, Conn., said she packs the dress in front of the bride. Many gown special-ists now feel it’s OK for people to open the box later, she said; it won’t void the guarantee against yellowing.

“It’s fun for them to see it again,” she said, “and they like to reassure themselves.”

The association, which has members in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Ecuador,

requires gowns to be preserved in acid-free boxes.

Margaret’s Cleaners, a mem-ber in La Jolla, Calif., packs the gowns in chests with acid-free tissue and wraps the gowns in unbleached muslin. The box is put into a muslin bag to keep out

environmental debris. The boxes aren’t sealed, and white gloves are provided so oil from your hands won’t mar the fabric.

“We want our brides to be able to open the box and examine it every couple of years” in case any yellow spots start to show,

says bridal director Jan Bohn.Cleaning the dress soon after

the wedding is key to preventing discoloration and fabric damage.

At Margaret’s, each gown is evaluated to determine how it should be cleaned, Bohn said. Her business has seven methods.

Cleaners remove blemishes that are visible (the most com-mon is floor dirt) and invisible (usually perspiration, or sugar from Champagne, soda or frost-ing).

“If you do nothing, they will oxidize in a couple years,” Bohn said. “You’ll start seeing small yellow or brown marks, and then they grow and get bigger and they can damage the material.”

Conant estimates that 80 percent of gowns have invisible stains, which cleaners find with special lights.

Levine urges brides who want to save their gown to use a gown specialist, or a local dry cleaner that handles at least 100 wed-ding gowns a year.

“You can’t just go to the dry cleaner on the corner,” she said.


Dress-soaking tubs at Margaret’s in San Diego.

Preserve

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Downtown Bridal Show vendors

By MARK [email protected]

While it may be admittedly a little tight, the annual Downtown

Bridal Show seems to have found a perfect fit.

Wedding bells will be ringing on Sunday, Jan. 8 when the 18th annual show returns to the City Opera House.

“It’s a great location in the heart of downtown,” said Col-leen Paveglio, marketing direc-tor for the Traverse City Down-town Development Authority/Downtown Traverse City Asso-ciation. “We’re happy to have it

back at the City Opera House.”It’s the second straight year

the Opera House has hosted the event, which has been in several locations in Traverse City. It’s most recent venue was at the Park Place Hotel, but renova-tions forced a move to the Opera House.

Paveglio said the Opera House stage adds a tremendous amount.

“It was just a nice setting,” she said. “The stage is really nice for the fashion show. It lends itself to a more organized, nice fash-ion show for the attendees.”

Open to the public and free of charge, the 2012 show will run from noon to 4 p.m. The bridal show is set for 3:15 p.m.

“It’s one of the only free wed-

Downtown Bridal Show back at City Opera HouseSave the Date for Sunday, Jan. 8

see show page 7

WEDDINGS 2011 7TRAVERSE CITY RECORD-EAGLEWednesday, December 28, 2011

ding shows in the area,” Paveg-lio said.

Hosted by the Downtown Tra-verse City Association, 36 local experts in all phases of wedding planning will be in attendance. Consultants and displays will feature wedding gowns, tuxedos, bridesmaids’ dresses, invitations, flowers, decorations, music, re-ception sites, registry items and hotel accommodations

There’s even a dental lab on site if anyone in the wedding party is worried that their teeth aren’t as shiny bright and white as possible.

The bridal show, the highlight of the annual event, is sponsored by Pavlova European Salon and Day Spa. The show will feature the latest in fashion trends from To Have & To Hold Bridal Bou-tique & Formal Wear and Cap-tain’s Quarters.

“We look forward to another

Bridal Show in downtown Tra-verse City and continue (to) strive on keeping local businesses top of mind while individuals are wedding planning,” Paveglio said.

Door prizes — including gift

certificates, bridal goodies and other wedding-related incentives will be drawn at the end of the fashion show.

“There’s some nice prizes in there,” Paveglio said. “We always have some nice items there for

the brides and the grooms.”In addition to Pavlova, the

other main sponsors of the show are WCCW and Z93 and MyNorth-Weddings.com.

While the winter seems to be an unusual time for a bridal show, it’s really not considering when most proposals are delivered.

“It’s an interesting time to have it,” Paveglio said. “But a lot of people tend to get engaged over the holidays.”

The Downtown Traverse City Association is made up of more than 200 businesses, merchants and restaurants. For more infor-mation, call the DTCA office at 922-2050 or log on to www.down-towntc.com.

Show

FROM PAGE 6

The City Opera House in Traverse City will host the annual Downtown Bridal Show for the second straight year.

Record-Eagle file photo/Jan-Michael Stump

“We continue (to) strive on keeping local

businesses top of mind while individuals are wedding planning.”

Colleen Paveglio


BRIDE AND

BRIDESMAID

According to the Chinese calendar, 2011 was the year of the rabbit.

For three friends, 2011 was the sum-mer of weddings.

Not only did Kristy (Zenner) Helmreich, Jennifer (Barnhart) Yost and Arica (Swover-land) Zenner all get married over a span of 2½ months, they also each served as brides-maids for each other.

“It was a lot of fun,” Yost said. “It was a real fun summer.”

“We all did it together,” Zenner added. “It was wonderful.”

To get the summer of matrimony under way, all three couples ran their engagement announcements the same day, in the Feb. 6 Record-Eagle.

“We ended up coordinating between email and phone,” Zenner said of the initial an-nouncements. “At the same time, in all our emails we all said, ‘This is to run with this person and this person.’”

Kristy was the first one of the three friends to enter into wedded bliss, tying the knot

with Richard Helmreich on May 20 at St. Mary’s of Hannah Church.

Less than a month later, Jennifer got mar-ried to Benjamin Yost on June 18 at Central United Methodist Church in Traverse City. Serving as her maid of honor was Kristy.

Coming down the aisle last was Arica, who said ‘I do’ to David Zenner — Kristy’s first cousin — on Aug. 6 at Kalkaska Church of Christ.

At each of the weddings, a picture was taken with the bride in the center and the

Three friends, three weddings, three months By MARK URBAN

[email protected]

SEE THREE PAGE 9


two bridesmaids alongside.“It was a lot of fun,” Helmreich

said.Even though the three friends

shared the same year for a wed-ding anniversary, that was it. Other than the wedding party, nothing was the same with the three brides.

“Nothing at all,” Yost said. “I thought maybe photographer or something.”

“As far as places went, Jen almost had her reception at the Park Place, just because we both have such big families and needed a place that could hold everybody,” Helmreich said. “But we all just ended up in completely different places.”

Yost had her reception at the Williamsburg Creekside while Zenner selected Castle Farms in Charlevoix.

The three women ended up sharing something much more valuable then wedding sites, florists or caterers.

“We helped a lot,” Yost said. “Kristy and I talk all the time any way, so we threw ideas back and forth.

“It’s funny. None of us used the same caterer, venue, cake, photographer. Nothing was the same. We all went different directions, but we still talked to each other. ‘Hey, what are you doing for this?’ and ‘When are you getting this done?’ I think the timelines were that we all helped each other plan things out.”

“We definitely did a lot of our own thing,” Helmreich added. “And we shared a lot.”

All three of the new brides said having someone going through something at the same time was valuable.

“I absolutely loved it,” Zenner said. “It was wonderful being able to bounce ideas off every-one, hearing horror stories of what went wrong and stressful moments. And being able to relate to one another.”

“It was helpful in that we all kind of hit the same spot in our lives,” Helmreich added.

Proposals

Not only was Helmreich the first to get married of the three friends, she was also the first to get engaged when Richard popped the question in June of 2010.

While not everyone gets en-gaged at Pirates Cove, it worked for the Helmreichs.

“Our first date was golfing (at Elmbrook), but the day he had gotten the ring, it wasn’t quite nice enough to golf or anything,” Kristy Helmreich said. “So he asked me if I wanted to go mini-golfing. By the time we got to the last hole I was really mad that he was beating me because I’m pretty competitive. So, he was trying to get the ring out and I was just saying, ‘No, just put the ball in the hole, I’m done.’ He’s like, ‘No, you have to hit it.’

“So I went to hit it the ball and he said, ‘Here, I’ll line you up’ and set the ring down by the 18th hole there.”

A short time later, Yost got engaged while returning from a trip to her family’s cabin on July 11, 2010.

Ben Yost took his future bride to show her a bridge he worked on in Mackinac County, the Cut River Bridge.

“He took me on a little walk down the river, we were look-ing for fish in the river, then he popped the question,” Jennifer Yost said. “It was good. It was cool.”

David Zenner asked Arica for her hand in marriage on a trip to Traverse City on Dec. 27, 2010. It was the two-year anniversary of when they started dating.

“I love downtown Traverse City during Christmas,” Arica Zenner said. “So he proposed to me under the big Christmas tree downtown.”

As soon as the Helmreiches and Yosts got engaged, they began to make plans for the wed-ding. Helmreich was also the first to set her date.

“She got engaged and they set their date right away,” Yost said. “Then I got engaged and I was thinking springtime as well. I was thinking April first and then — May wasn’t going to work be-

cause Kristy’s was May — so then we decided June. That worked better for me anyway because I was done working in June.

“After I had my date set, Arica got engaged around Christmas and then set theirs for August. So we put another month in between.”

“It was pretty crazy,” Helm-reich said. “Jen got engaged a month after me. They had been dating for six months, so that was kind of a big surprise. I wasn’t as surprised about Dave and Arica, but I wasn’t expecting us to all get married in the same summer. When they got engaged in December, I just knew it was going to be the same summer because with her being a princi-pal, I knew she was going to try and get it out of the way before school.”

Planning

With all the dates set, the plan-ning began in earnest.

That’s when having two other friends getting married at about the same time was helpful, even if none of the selections were the same.

“I used postcards.com for my save the date cards, thank-yous and stuff,” Yost said. “I shared that with them and I think that’s one thing they may have used.

“A lot of the timeline stuff, we were really able to help each other. What day you have the bridesmaid’s dresses ordered, all that stuff. The timelines were real helpful because we were all able to bounce that back and forth with each other and make sure that we didn’t miss any-thing and make sure that’s all done.”

“We talked about flowers and things,” Helmreich said. “I don’t think we were necessarily trying to make them different from each other, but we just never had any problems with picking colors or anything like that. We just all had a different idea of what we were going to do and it just all worked out well.”

Zenner said having friends going through the same situation was as much about ruling possi-bilities out as making decisions.

So it was the information shar-

ing that helped, she said.“The research behind every-

thing,” Zenner said. “Everyone had a different venue and it was like, ‘Oh, I checked out this place and I really didn’t like this place. It closes down at 11 o’clock and you couldn’t purchase any more time.’ So it wasn’t like I was doing all the research for everything on my own. Even though all three of us ended up with all different venues and vendors, it helped us narrow down to other places we didn’t want to go.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, this flower company is real expensive, I wouldn’t go here.’ All three of us ended up going with florists that we knew. It helped us financially keep heads and tails of things.”

With so much condensed in a span of less than three months, it was important that none of the other parties that surround a wedding conflicted.

“I just tried to stay two to three weeks away from Kristy,” Yost said. “Arica’s bachelorette party ended up being a week before our wedding. That was the only one that was a week apart, but it wound up working fine. It wasn’t a big deal.

“It was surprising it all worked out so well. We were all a little worried about that, but it went a lot smoother than we thought.”

“We were very good about let-ting each other know when we had showers and bachelorette parties and things like that,” Helmreich said.

Zenner said she actually com-bined two of her parties into one day. But that was as much about her maid of honor as her other two bridesmaids.

“I did some things a little dif-ferently because of our lack of dates and times,” she said.” I did my bachelorette party and my bridal shower on the same day. It’s a lot of the same people, so we just kind of stayed and hung out a little longer. My maid of honor was from Lansing and it was her cabin on the bay. Trying to be considerate, I didn’t want to have her drive up here twice. I’m not one of those everything is about me type of people. So

Three

from page 8

see three page 11

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let’s do it all in one shot and then I’m done.”

Dealing with the blips

On the big day, rarely does everything go perfectly.

Helmreich said she had a num-ber of things not go exactly like she planned. But despite having “every problem in the book,” she was able to deal with the prob-lems that popped up, including the flowers arriving in the wrong shade.

“It didn’t matter that day,” Helmreich said. “Even the night before, my DJ lost my play list and I had it at work. Just things like that. In the end, it doesn’t matter what happens. At the end of the day you’re married and that’s what you’re there to do.”

Zenner said she tried to put in all the preparation to deal with any potential pitfalls.

“Being an educator, I handle things very differently,” she said. “I am insanely organized. So I’m one of the people where I double-check, triple-check and quadruple-check things.

“Every person that I had that was a vendor I went to their locations, I knew exactly what it was going to be. Everything was pretty much done for my wed-ding a couple of days before my wedding. All my vendors were local and I used vendors from Kalkaska, which is where I’m from. I was very familiar with ev-eryone and I knew everyone per-sonally. Getting way out in front of it and dealing with everyone that I knew and could trust.”

Still, Zenner agreed with Helmreich that the final result is all the matters.

“The number one thing is when you get stressed out — and it could be for anything — just the fact that it’s getting closer and anything like that, the No. 1 thing I learned is that in the end it doesn’t really matter,” Zenner said. “In the end, the final result

is being married to the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. That was some-thing all three of us said to each other at one point or another. Don’t sweat the small stuff and in the long run, what color some-thing is really doesn’t matter.”

Honeymoon and beyond

Two of the three friends — Helmreich and Zenner — opted to delay their honeymoons until a later date.

Kristy, a claims adjuster at Hagerty Insurance, and Richard Helmreich, a manufacturing engineer at Boride Engineered Abrasives, plan to enjoy a vaca-tion at a later date. Same for Arica, the principal at Rapid City Elementary School, and Dave Zenner, a processor at eFulfillment.

“No honeymoon,” said Arica Zenner, who lives in Williams-burg. “I had to be back to work the following week. So we got married, I got a couple of days off and then I had to be back at

work to get ready for the begin-ning of the school year. That’s OK. We’re talking about going out West this coming summer. It was kind of nice not to go on a honeymoon. I can’t imagine do-ing all the planning for that and having to plan to go on a honey-moon, too.”

The Yosts enjoyed a honey-moon in British Columbia, be-fore returning to their home in Kingsley — a short distance from the Helmreichs. Jennifer is the administrative assistant to the athletic director at Traverse City West Senior High while Ben Yost is a carpenter and welder.

The Yosts will also add a new chapter to the summer of wed-dings when they welcome their first child in March.

“Better be a good hockey player,” said Jennifer Yost, who played goalie at University of Michigan while her husband used to coach and play. “She should have the genes for it.”

Three

from page 9


This photo courtesy of Fisher Creative Image shows groom Steve Poland, right, and bride Caryn Hallock during their wedding ceremony in Buffalo, N.Y. Robert Palgutt, center, a friend of the bride and groom, got ordained online in order to perform their ceremony and read the nuptials from an iPad.


NEW YORK (AP) — As her grandfather sat pleasantly per-plexed at her wedding, Lauren Barnes reached into the recess-es of her strapless white gown, whipped out her iPhone and accepted her groom’s Facebook relationship change to “mar-ried.”

“Nothing’s official,” she said, “until it’s Facebook official!”

In today’s $78-billion-a-year business of getting hitched, those wacky viral videos of whole wedding parties dancing down the aisle seem positively 2009. Social media, mobile tools and online vendors are abun-dant to offer the happy couple extra fun, savings and conve-nience, though most of the na-tion’s betrothed aren’t ready to completely let go of tradition.

Some send out video save-the-dates, include high-speed scannable “QR” barcodes on in-vitations, live-stream their cer-emonies for far-flung loved ones to watch online, and open their party playlists to let friends and families help choose the tunes.

They invite guests to live tweet the big day using special Twitter keywords, called hashtags, and create interactive seating charts so tablemates can chat online ahead of time.

One couple featured a “guest of the week” on their wedding blog. Another ordered up a cake with an iPad embedded at the base to stream photos at the reception. A third Skyped in a “virtual bridesmaid” who couldn’t make it, so she was walked down the aisle by a groomsman via iPad.

For Steve Poland, 31, in Buf-

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For The AssociATed Press

Baseball stadiums, poker chips and racks of saucy ribs don’t usually come to mind when you think “wedding.” But these manly pursuits have found their way to the dessert table through a new breed of groom’s cake that is more elaborate and personal than ever.

Traditionally a gift from the bride to her new husband, the groom’s cake was usually a sim-ple affair, made with fruit and liquor, and perhaps chocolate. It is believed to have originated in Victorian England and arrived in the United States in the mid-19th century, where it became popu-lar mostly in the South.

Take today’s trend of highly personalized weddings, add the fact that more grooms are involved in wedding planning, and throw in the popularity of extreme baking shows such as

TLC network’s “Cake Boss,” and you’ll find that humble groom’s cakes have evolved into works of edible art.

While traditionalists still honor the groom with a plain, round

cake, many couples are order-ing cakes in the groom’s favorite flavor and in the shape of golf clubs, fishing gear, football helmets, smart phones, and guys-night foods like burgers, pizza and hot dogs.

“It’s really about the groom’s interests and his hobbies and something that’s reflective of the groom,” said Darcy Miller, edito-rial director of Martha Stewart Weddings. “A wedding is about the two of them. That’s one detail that can be all about the groom.”

After last spring’s royal wed-ding, at which Britain’s Prince William requested a groom’s cake made of biscuits, the popu-larity of the cakes among U.S. couples is likely to get another boost, Miller said.

“All eyes were on that wed-ding,” she said. “I think (Wil-liam’s) groom’s cake will defi-

Groom’s cakes no longer just simple ... or SouthernIt’s often a way to give the groom some time in spotlight


A cake made by Fairy Dust Cakes to look like Yankee Stadium.

see groom page 14

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nitely help inspire the growing trend here.”

Groom’s cakes originally were served at weddings. Today, they also appear at rehearsal dinners or day-after brunches. Wedding planner Tara Guerard, who owns Soiree in Charleston, S.C., urges her couples to enjoy the groom’s cake at the rehearsal dinner to give the groom a night in the spotlight.

“A lot of our grooms want this groom’s cake,” she said. “It’s re-ally important to them.”

Women sometimes keep their grooms in the dark about the cake; other men help select it with their fiancees while choos-ing a wedding cake.

John Keenan wasn’t interested in having a groom’s cake for his August wedding in Baton Rouge, La., but his fiancee persisted. “We have to have something that puts you in the picture, too,” his

wife, Ashley, 26, told him.Pushed to choose, Keenan, 31,

asked their baker if she could create the only design he could imagine for himself: Yankee Stadium.

“I almost fell down,” Keenan said, upon seeing the highly detailed cake. “It was more than I could have asked for.”

Patrick Delaney wanted a groom’s cake when he got mar-ried last year but was resigned to missing out when his fiancee told him they couldn’t afford one. Instead, she surprised him at their rehearsal dinner in Alexandria, Va., with a cake touting his Kansas City roots.

It was shaped as a grill, with a sizzling rack of ribs and a bottle of barbecue sauce from his fa-vorite childhood rib joint, Gates Bar-B-Q.

“I was amazed,” said Delaney, 30. “It had even more weight because most of my groomsmen and the family members I had at the rehearsal dinner were from Kansas City.”

Groom

FROM PAGE 13


falo, N.Y., it was the whole she-bang for his Sept. 10 wedding.

Oh, and Poland and his wife, Caryn Hallock, spent part of their honeymoon in a Hawaii tree house they found on Airbnb.com.

According to surveys by the magazine sites Brides and The Knot, tech is on the rise in the world of weddings, with 65 per-cent of couples now setting up special sites to manage RSVPs, stream video of the ceremony and-or reception, and keep guests in the loop.

One in five couples use mobile apps for planning. That includes chasing down vendors, and virtu-ally trying on and locating dress-es. Seventeen percent of couples use social media to plan, shop or register for gifts, along with shar-ing every detail online. About 14 percent to 18 percent of brides buy a dress online, according to Brides.

Nearly 1 in 5 couples go paper-less for invitations or save-the-dates. Many of those who have preserved the tradition of paper invites have dispensed with the inserts usually tucked inside envelopes, opting for e-mail or Web tools for RSVPs, maps, and details on destinations or related events.

From proposals on Twitter to Foursquare check-ins from the church or honeymoon, weddings seem ready-made for social me-dia sharing — or oversharing.

Alexandra Linhares, 23, is ner-vous about that.

She just moved to Marietta, Ga., but she’s getting married in April back home in Highlands Ranch, Colo. She and fiance Bradley Garritson, 24, are taking care not to gush too much to their hun-dreds of Facebook friends. Other couples turn off their Facebook walls so premature messages of congrats don’t show up before they’ve announced their engage-ments.

“There are a lot of people I work with on Facebook and who follow

me on Twitter,” Linhares said. “We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

But apps and online services have saved her life, logistically speaking.

“Since we’re planning a wed-ding from thousands of miles away, we’re relying heavily on technology to help us,” she said. “We have a private Facebook group that we use to communicate with everyone in our bridal party since we’re all in different states and countries.”

Linhares found her gown with the help of an app. She and Gar-ritson rely on Skype meetings to interview vendors. They’re keeping track of RSVPs on their phones, along with the usual tangle of deadlines. And they’re using an app to keep track of their budget. The couple went to the cloud — for online data stor-age and sharing — to maintain a master spreadsheet everyone can access at any time, avoiding the need to push updates around in e-mail.

Tech

from page 12

This Sept. 3, 2011, photo courtesy of Luminaire Images Photography shows groom James Williams, right, as he watches his bride Lauren Barnes use her iPhone to accept his Facebook relationship status change to married.


Documents

2012 Weddings