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Pegeen Announces Their Wedding of the Year ~ AGAIN

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Yeah.  Murphy’s Law struck our household again.  After spending oh, I don’t know a hundred hours preparing our for our wedding of the year contest – THEN my hubby who has Type1 Diabetes and shakes ALL THE TIME was so tired he put a screwdriver into that electric plug thingy to take out the battery.  OOPS.  Then I decided NOT to listen to my dentist of a few years ago and cracked my tooth in half.  NO MORE CHEWING ICE. THEN, as my web designer and I were preparing to launch our new mobile ready website – disaster struck.  (Thank God for full, overwrite protected backups)  29 breath-holding hours, we restored the website BUT, alas, I forgot to protect WordPress.  Dumb.  SO, here is my best attempt to re-write a story about my son and his new bride.  Here it goes at my attempt to re-write my previous post (Yes Rob, I saved it in Word.)

When my son Billy was pretty small, 5th grade in fact, he and I were sitting at rehearsals for his dance show, and he announced to me in a deep sigh, “I so want to be married”.  My son, you see, was a romantic and liked having his ducks in a row.  So, while at Disney working  after graduating from business school, he met his fiancée Juanita there although while they worked there they didn’t date.  Then Billy moved to California (sigh) to set out to conquer the world but they stayed in touch.  A few months after living there, and many calls later, they started dating. At first it was long distance as she had now finished her college internship program with “The Mouse” and moved back to Reno while Billy was living in Modesto. Luckily, they were just a quick drive from one another over the Rockies.  A few short months later, Billy announced he was engaged, and while we were happy for him, I knew that the picket fence was what Billy had long searched for.  Plans were for a wedding 12 months later, but after months of planning a Nevada wedding, we got a call from Billy and Juanita because, quite honestly, my son couldn’t wait to get married.  Like I said, this is something he dreamt about since, oh, I don’t know, 5th grade.  So, with less than 6 weeks’ notice, we found ourselves flying to Denver for their wedding in their new home town.  We all will be celebrating as planned this summer on the original date, but even though it wasn’t as I would have planned, it was the most intimate, loving and special day for me, yep a mom in the wedding business for all of these years.

I DO know how Martha Stewart must have felt when her daughter Alexa decided to basically run off and get married.  My son Bill did not quite do that but we were surprised when my son and fiancé decided to move their wedding from August to March.  But you know what?  Even though there were just a dozen or so guests, they pulled it off and it was the most intimate, wonderful occasion where we, his brother, dad and I – along with Juanita’s mom and her closet friends – pulled off quite a number of surprises. Lucky for us, this beautiful woman, my new daughter-in-law has the same heart of gold as my son and relaxed style.

And, as Walt Disney himself would say, it all started with a mouse.It all started with a Mouse

Of course I would be a bad mother if I didn’t say “MY SONS WEDDING WAS THE BEST IN THE ENTIRE WORLD”, correct?  But actually, we named their wedding our favorite “Intimate Wedding of the Year.”  Gosh, we had so much fun though at first I wanted to kill him because I was worried about my youngest mid-terms 2 days later (Teddy only flew in for 12 years). After all, mom’s never stop worrying about grades, huh?  I can’t forget what a nice time we had in the hectic hours leading up to his wedding.

Originally I had planned creating new designs for the 500 flower girls I was hoping they would have, but those plans went out the window when they moved up the date. As a surprise to Juanita, her sister brought her niece and on Thursday they let us know they needed a flower girl dress. I threw the bride’s color scheme for a loop because I brought along, after some alterations, my favorite dress from our Fairytale Collection (and my favorite color) and hopped on a plane Friday morning.  Frozen Fairy Tale Flower Girl Dress by Pegeen.com

The morning of the wedding there were haircuts (thank you Teddy for cooperating after no sleep), a quick run to Men’s Warehouse for better coordinating shirts and Tiffany blue ties, dry cleaners and some package drop offs (yeah, even on vacation I am always working).  At 5pm, we gathered together at a beautiful venue in Denver.  His cousin, my niece and her now-fiance picked up 3-sizes of the most delicious cheesecake (thank you Cheesecake Factory in Boulder) topped with a newly purchased glass topper of Cinderella’s Castle that Jim and I picked up Thursday night at Disney for a surprise!  After the ceremony, the 20 or so guests gathered at a restaurant for the Wedding Reception.  Oh, I was even able to sing to Billy the song we practiced around his dancing and performing days, “My Best Beau” to the guests and yep, barely made it through, sobbing.  It was really touching for me that he joined in.

SO how could I not include one of my children’s wedding?

Intimate Wedding of the Year

I loved their first look photo as they both said a prayer with the pastor. intimate-wedding-021

These two are never serious, his brother Ted served as Bill’s best man.

intimate-wedding-020

Nice socks, Teddy!intimate-wedding-026

Always a Disney Dream.

intimate-wedding-013

Eh… I did choose two other wonderful and beautiful weddings to be included in our yearly contest but for me, there was no other Wedding of the Year. I will be writing about them in our regular, Pegeen Flower Girl Dress Blog but this blog is really about Life, Love, Home and Work. And my crazy, loving family.

 

Kirk Douglas, American Icon Celebrates His 100th

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Screen legend Kirk Douglas celebrated his 100th birthday last month with his family, including his wife of more than 60 years, Anne. I can’t decide which is more remarkable, the fact that Mr. Douglas made it to his 100th birthday or the fact that a Hollywood marriage could last for over 60 years. I can count on one hand the instances I can remember of both.

“I was lucky enough to find my soulmate 63 years ago, and I believe our wonderful marriage and our nightly ‘golden hour’ chats have helped me survive all things,” he writes in celebrity magazine Closer Weekly. Douglas has survived his share of tragedies, including the death of his son from an overdose of drugs and alcohol, a midair crash between his helicopter and a plane, and a stroke which has left him with a severely curtailed ability to speak. His wife, Anne, his faith, his family and his rise from poverty and subsequent hard work during a stellar career, which included three Oscar nominations for best actor, gave him the strength to rise above these challenges. His son Michael, also an actor, wrote: “I think his stamina and tenacity are the qualities that stand out for me. He has taught me always to give it your best shot at whatever you take on. He’s the full package.”

Since the stroke limited his acting roles, he and his wife turned their attention to philanthropic work, mostly feeding the homeless and repairing and refurbishing playgrounds in Los Angeles. They say keeping busy will keep you young and they make a strong case for that axiom.  I think it is beautiful in the world of Hollywood that such a long and lasting marriage shows their deep love and commitment.

And yes, I am also one who has outlasted many of my friends, and my wife’s friends, marriages.  I can hardly believe that we have been married over 30 years, (almost 32 this year) and work together every day, 24/7, as partners in our business, Pegeen.com. Some people would consider that fact to be remarkable, but even more remarkable might be that this was not the career path either of us imagined when we were in college but I know I can’t imagine my life any other way.  I don’t have words of wisdom, just that both of us give in, a lot, to each other.  And plenty of wine.

Celebrating 30+ Years

Pegeen Launches it’s first Crowdfunding Campaign!

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We Proudly Launch our Fairytale Collection for Flower Girls at a special price for our Indiegogo Supporters!

Pegeen Fairytale Wedding Collection

Pegeen.com Designer Childrenswear announces the launch of their Fairytale Collection through a Crowd Funding campaign. What exactly is crowd funding? The easiest way to describe it is this:

 

  • Crowd funding is when a Business (like ours) posts a project available for funding on a crowd-funding site (in our case indiegogo.com) to help get backers interested in our products and company.
  • In return for backing a project, our customers receive different rewards depending on the amount of funding they commit (from levels of $5 through $500) and also with a very special opportunity, that is to collaborate with Pegeen and help design, name and receive the dress you designed along with our ensuring someone who is less fortunate or has a very special wish to receive a dress so they can be a princess too!
  • Interested backers donate during the project, sharing our campaign over their social networks with their friends and contacts
  • What we receive in exchange for your support is the ability to expand greatly our advertising and marketing budget as we grow our company to an even higher level
  • What you will receive are various rewards, the opportunity to be able to say that you helped our company realize our dream of growing our business to the next level, and someday even, to fulfill our dream of being able to open a store (s) in the Downtown Disney area and beyond.
  • Moreover, Pegeen has arranged with a few organizations to be sure that we can provide to someone in need a princess dress of their very own through some really great charities like Give Kids The World. We are reaching out to Wounded Warriors and Make a Wish foundation as well and hope to get a response from them soon!

Everyone can participate even at the smallest of levels and know that Pegeen is one company who will REFUSE to outsource to other countries the manufacturing of our goods. In addition, you will help with building within our community the opportunity to share our really beautiful dresses with some really sick and needy kids so that they can become princesses too!
We hope that you will listen to our pitch and pass it on to friends as well!

We Proudly Launch our Fairytale Collection for Flower Girls at a special price for our Indiegogo Supporters!

For details click the link above for the video.
What your contribution to our campaign would mean to us:

We at Pegeen know that we create exquisite and well made products, not just for girls, but for boys as well. We are really proud of what we have accomplished in 33 years started by the talents of Marg Hyland. Behind the scenes are still the husband and wife team of Marg and Jim whose union formed just four years into the company’s origin and who steadfastly believe that answering the phone, producing in the US and dedication continue to help steer the company’s mission: to create beautiful clothing for children to remain looking like children. Joining the couple are some very dedicated seamstresses and one heck of a talented web developer.

Pegeen is always anxious to grow. Moreover, it’s a personal endeavor. “When I see the garbage that is coming in from China as counterfeit goods, I am mortified. I realize everyone has financial constraints but our job at Pegeen is to price our dresses so that a reasonable amount of people will make sure that their children wear heirloom quality goods. By offering our garments on the internet we actually can offer our creations without the markup of a retailer. We will continue to do so while improving the way our customers can purchase our goods.”

We really want to thank Addie Brie Hays for her wonderful participation in this project, Bill Frank for his guitar accompaniment and Rob Fong for an unbelievable new website and our now famous Pegeen Dress Dreamer!

For more information on our campaign and info on how you can help make a little girl feel like a princess, click the link below.

FAIRYTALES COME TRUE: Pegeen Childrenswear

Our Fairytale

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THIS IS OUR FAIRYTALE

My husband and I have just celebrated 28 years of marriage and are business partners as well. We have had a fairytale relationship and are mad about each other. We share all the likes that couples do, renovating old homes and visiting the parks in Orlando. Our annual trip to Disney World, at first was just the two of us, then three, and finally four of us from our home in New Jersey as our family grew. My husband always got worried every time we finished renovating a place because he knew my eyes would start wandering again. About 8 years ago, we had just finished an entire renovation on an old, 1928 English Tudor House and gardens. We entered a contest, winning an honorable mention in Better Homes and Garden’s Whole House Redo. So instead of waiting until our traditional December trip to Florida, we decided it was time to have an early fall trip to Florida.

AN IDEA GROWS

That year, while driving on the return trip from a wonderful Halloween visit to Orlando with our boys, we were just a few hour North over the Florida border, when snow flakes started to fall and the air got down to a chilly 40 degrees. Looking at my husband who was driving, we both said to each other “turn around.” He looked at me first and then at the road and then uncharacteristically for him, turned right around in the median strip back to Orlando (so to speak). We started to look for homes the next morning in Central Florida. A year later we had built a new home and moved to Orlando, and the warmth of Florida.

Our flower girl dress business is fun but frantic as the wedding business tends to be. We decided that if we had to work a lot of crazy hours we may as well be nearer to the parks when we need chill time. Although our decision to move to Florida was an on the spot move, our promise to live in Orlando grew from our love of the parks. Face it, Disney just makes you feel good. Don’t get me wrong, we love Universal too (especially since they opened The Wizarding World of Harry Potter). No matter what your day has been like, your week or year – Disney gives you that special feeling that makes the blood pressure just turn back to normal. We get season passes and find ourselves there generally once a week (except in Summer, we leave that to the tourists!) We enjoy ourselves there so much that we are excited when friends visit and head straight to the parks there. Eventually, we decided to celebrate our nearly 30 years in business working together (and our wedding anniversary too) with family and friends. Where better to have a vow renewal than at our favorite “get away” place?

So this year, we will be working on renovating another home and discussing our experiences working together as partners.

OUR STORY

AltarOur wedding in 1985 was wonderful but my mom and Percy Leach (God bless both of their souls) were really in charge of all the decisions. I was busy building a business with Jim and I trusted my mother’s taste explicitly. Percy was the owner/curator of Waterloo Village in Stanhope, NJ where our wedding took place, and an Interior Decorator who was used to supervising all sorts of fund raising, music and so forth at the Village of Waterloo he and his partner Lou Gualandi loved. Percy invited my father and family up there when I was just 7 years old to show the dream to him and to enlist my father (who was in politics and a law practice) to see his vision. I saw Percy’s vision right then and there and enjoyed my many years of visits to Waterloo. As a young girl, he promised me that I could get married there, only I was 7 and had to find a husband! Seeing him often, we made plans for the “wedding” without a fiance! I even called him from London during a buying trip for fabrics and laces in 1983 and told him I had found “the dress”.  My family attended many concerts and events there, and even my brother proposed to his wife at the same spot. Two years later, after a whirlwind of just three dates, I took Jim on a picnic (unintentionally) and showed him this marvelous place I had fallen in love with. Right then, outside the old Methodist Church of Waterloo, he proposed, just 5 days into our relationship! Percy and I were off and running, and although not professional, he was a very good wedding planner who made our evening magical.

I was building my business at the time, so much of the wedding was decided by Percy and my mother since that’s what you did 25+ years ago. I think except for the cake, I had no firm ideas and left most decisions to my father and mother because they were of similar tastes as I. From the fantastic music and food choices, I left it to them to make final decisions.

This blog is dedicated to my former mentors, Mom and Percy —- and hopefully they will be watching me from above with full blessings…. both of whom not only helped me get my wedding together but both of whom shared with me their love for design and interior design. Percy was a celebrated Interior Designer to New Jersey’s famous residents as well as many other. He also had a wicked sense of humor. His love for design was carried through in one of his great loves, the restoration of Waterloo Village in Stanhope, NJ. I love them and miss them both terribly.

I hope you will join us in our journey of life, love, home, and work.