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Weddings

How This Fashion Blogger Almost Ruined Her Proposal

Alyssa Surrett of a-listed is planning her quintessential city wedding and is sharing all of the fabulous details with us!

alyssa from alisted

alyssa from alisted

Photo: Laurel Creative

After moving from Tennessee to New York City, Alyssa created her blog, a-listed, in 2011 as a way to share her fashion, entertaining and travel adventures.

Now, as an established New Yorker and digital marketing maven, Alyssa is planning her quintessential city wedding and is sharing all of the fabulous details with us!


Name: Alyssa Surrett
Blog: a-listed
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Wedding Date: August 19, 2017

WW: Thank you for joining us, Alyssa! We are so excited to have you a part of our Engagement Edit series. Let’s kick it off by telling us a bit about your #justsaidyes moment to your fiance, Chris!

AS: Unknowingly, I almost ruined the whole thing! My boss had generously (and somewhat mysteriously in hindsight) given me the afternoon off from work one Friday in December. My friend had asked me if I wanted to meet up with her at the Shake Shack near my apartment in Dumbo, where Chris would have intercepted me to propose at the Brooklyn Waterfront Park. Things took a turn when my stomach started hurting on the train ride home, so I called my friend and bailed on our burger date. This threw Chris’s plan into a tailspin, but he ran to intercept me at our apartment door and asked me to go for a walk by the waterfront. I reluctantly joined him and he proposed in front of a huge crowd of people who all cheered when I said yes. Then I turned around and saw my whole family watching. Chris had them in on his little secret all along! It kicked off an amazing weekend of celebration with them and with my new fiance!

WW: To match the ultimate NYC proposal story, you are planning the ultimate NYC wedding. How did you select your vendors?

AS: We are getting married at The Bowery Hotel, and I’ve admittedly found some of my favorite vendors via Instagram. Our florist, L’Atelier Rouge, and our cake vendor, Sugar Lane Cake Shop, are both the product of a successful trip down the Instagram blackhole. We’ve all been there! I find lots of inspiration by cruising around on the app.

WW: Did you find any of your vendors on WeddingWire? If so, which ones?

AS: We went to my close friend’s wedding last fall in New Jersey, and they had the most incredible band—Silver Arrow Band. I knew that I wanted to look into having them at our wedding, so I used Wedding Wire to make sure they had a good reputation and were easy to work with. That’s one my favorite ways to use the site—to get more information about vendors that are recommended to us via word of mouth. There’s certainly strength in numbers!

WW: What was the hardest wedding planning decision you have made thus far? What has been the easiest?

AS: The hardest decision so far was picking out a dress. As a fashion and lifestyle blogger, I wanted something that truly matches my risk taking personal style, but I don’t want to look back in 5 or 10 years and say “What was I thinking??”. I think I landed on the right combination of trendsetting and classic (see my dress shopping trip on my blog here). The easiest decision was picking out a groom!

alyssa from a-listed

Photo: Laurel Creative

WW: Have any wedding planning tools on WeddingWire been especially helpful to you?

AS: The checklist, hands down. There are so many details that go into planning our day, so it’s been a lifesaver to help us stay on track and remember all of them. The things I wouldn’t have thought of so far include, but are not limited to, the cake knife, card box and signature cocktail signage.

WW: We are so inspired by your fashion-forward style. How are you incorporating your personal style into your wedding day?

AS: If you’ve spent any time on my Instagram, you know that I am a huge accessories junkie. Bags, shoes and jewelry are truly my kryptonite, so I’m excited to reveal what pieces I have picked out to wear on our wedding day. Hint: there are 3 pairs of shoes for the wedding day (and counting…).

WW: A main topic on your blog is your love of travel - we can only imagine you have some exciting honeymoon plans! With so many amazing options, could you tell us how you went about selecting your honeymoon location?


AS: Chris did a lot of the heavy lifting on this part. I initially suggested that we do a European trip, but he pushed me to think more outside the box. We landed on a week in South Africa in Cape Town and on a safari, and then we are spending the second week in Mauritius—a stunning island in the Indian Ocean. I highly recommend using Audley Travel for any exotic honeymoon travel planning. We told the online travel agency where we wanted to go, and they built out our entire itinerary and handled all of the reservations. They are helping us to travel like locals to these far away corners of the Earth!

WW: In terms of packing for a longer honeymoon, do you have any packing advice?

AS: My number one packing tip, regardless of the length of the trip, is pack in outfits. I typically count the number of days and nights on the trip, and pack casual looks for day and more dressed up pieces for evening. I plan out what to wear with what right down to the shoes, earrings and bags. Of course, there’s always room for mixing and matching once you’re there, but this has helped me so much. I used to be the queen of getting to a destination with 95 printed tops and nothing to pair with them!

WW: Finally, if you could give couples one piece of wedding planning advice, what would it be?

AS: Have fun planning the details together! We had a great time picking out the music for the band and the string quartet to play the other night. We opened a bottle of wine, dug around on Spotify and created lists for each hour of the reception. It’s moments like that that make monotony of contracts and emails totally worth it!