CREATE A SEATING MAP

Creating a seating map isn’t 100% necessary for your wedding, but it does add a little panache, and it’s something fun that can help your guests find where they’re parking for a few hours.  This is especially helpful for weddings where there are several tables – in our case 28.  Sometimes the table numbers are difficult to spot, so we did this as a courtesy.

I created this map using Microsoft Word.  I laid out the wine barrels along the three sides, showed where the band, dance floor and bar was located, in addition to mapping out all the tables.  We had a mix of rounds and kings to give the layout a different look.  

For each table, not only did we give them numbers, we also named them by different nicknames we have for our dog.  There were even more than 28 – we just had to choose our faves.  Using double-sided Tolsby frames from Ikea for $.99/ea, we had a photo of our dog on one side with the table number and his nickname on the reverse.  I think folks enjoyed it.  Wouldn’t you want to be sitting at a table called “Mr. Pooman” or “Cutie Pie in the Sky?”  I would!  (Don't worry, I didn't sit family at the Mr. Pooman table.  I'm not that crazy.)

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30151035/

I included the photo from each individual frame on the large seating map as well, giving guests another way to recognize their tables.  Our pup wasn’t allowed at the church for the ceremony, so we had him at the sitter’s all weekend.  It depressed the hell out of us to not include him in our special day, but he definitely played a huge role without physically being there =)

HOW TO MAKE CREPE PAPER FLOWERS

My husband and I decided to try something different with our wedding – we went with crepe paper flowers.  Not a single bush was harmed for our wedding.  It was a very time consuming idea that required hours upon hours of burnt fingers and QT with my bridesmaids, but in the end I felt like it was worth the blood, sweat and tears!  Hopefully my girls feel the same way!

Here is a photo of my bridal bouquet – arranged entirely by my bridesmaid, Crystal:

 

For my bridal party we created purple and blue bouquets:

We also created enough flowers to fill all 28 guest tables:

After much time had passed and different attempts were made at figuring out the most advantageous route to make hundreds (maybe thousands) of these flowers, the following procedure below proved to be the fastest:

What you will need:

1) A pack of 18” cloth wrapped stems 

2) A pack of 19” premium & heavy crepe paper

3) Your choice of color/size beads

4) Hot glue gun

STEPS:
1) If the stems are too long, cut them in half.  (I did.)
2) You want to use sturdy crepe paper for the petals.  I bought mine at www.papermart.com.  The paper was affordable and the color selection was superb.  Not to mention the shade of the front is different to the back which gives it a really nice effect when the flowers are put together.
3) Cut a strip of crepe paper length-wise about 2 inches wide and fold it in half until you get a rectangle or square about 2.5 inches high.  With the paper I have I folded it in half three times.

 

  

4) Cut a petal shape like so, making sure the lines on the paper are vertical.  And be sure to cut the petal starting from the bottom middle and not the corner so the petals are easy to spread.  You can eyeball this or create a template – but I eyeballed all of mine.

5) Put a drop of hot glue at the pointy end of the petal and attach it to the stem about half an inch down from the top, overlapping each petal as you go.  I glue mine on with each petal tiled a few degrees more than the last. Via pictures 2 and 3 below, wrap the entire width of the base/pointy end of each petal around the stem. Five petals should do.  

                                                 

6) Spread the petals so the flower opens up.

 

7) Take the bead of your choice and hot glue it to the center of your flower – two or three will suffice, depending on the size of your bead.  When your making hundreds of flowers I found the fastest way was to drop the hot glue directly into the center of the flower, then place the beads inside.

If any of my instructions are unclear, please ask!  Good luck!!

SUPER Spouse

On the daily, we're thankful for our spouses, but I'll be the first to admit that there are times where I also forget that I'm super blessed, super grateful for my SUPERMAN!

It's easy to get wrapped up in the world of...well, LIFE! Anything that life brings at you is a good AND bad distraction. But at least we can be reminded of these things. I'm terrible at goal-setting, so we'll see how this pans out, but for now, I "plan" to follow the goal of letting my husband know just how thankful I am for his love, and who he represents, who he's grown to be, and then some...

What's your goal today?

My Goal: Gratitude | Kyria  

BM Dresses Gone Wrong

And we're back...again!

Happy Friday. Here's one for giggles. Thank goodness all the weddings I've been in so far called for the right dress.

 #WeddPicFriday!

This reminds me of the movie "27 Dresses".

Cournel's "epic" Save-The-Dates

Courtney here...

Ok, so I lied.  I guess I’m NOT putting out as many blog postings as I thought I would.  What’s been taking up a lot of my time lately is another man.  More specifically, this one:

 

 I definitely have to get my priorities straight!

Since my one and only blog posting where I celebrated finally choosing a venue, much has happened since.  I found my dress (Novella Bridal), we chose a photographer (Imagine Nation Photography) and videographer (Imperial Video Production) and photobooth (Say Ya! Photobooth) and engagement photographer (Letlove Photography), booked the emcee (Lawrence Lee) the band (Foreverland) and DJ (DJ Chickenskratch), met with the ring designer for our bands (Talron Diamonds), booked the transportation (Coach 21) and, of course, the church (St. Patrick). 

WHY DO I FEEL SO BEHIND?!? 

6 months to go… and for all those who have planned a wedding, you know we still have TONS more to do.  You ask my fiancé, though, and he’ll have no clue as to what comes next.  Uggggh.. MEN.

We were able to get our Save the Dates out around Christmas, so that’s one less thing to worry about.  Although I’m not quite sure that was the BEST idea.  Not only did they lag getting to the recipients having to fight for importance amongst hoards of holiday cards, I’m pretty sure some got lost in the mail as my maid of honor and sister haven’t received theirs yet! Note to self… for the next wedding =P 

The funniest part of the whole ordeal was actually mailing the envelopes.  The reality of it all hit us like a ton of… rice.  Sure, he proposed to me in the sweetest way and I’ve been wearing my gorgeous ring for 9 months.  Sure, we met with and booked all these vendors.  Sure, we spent a million years putting the Save the Dates together.  But it took feeding that big blue mouth to really say, “Crap. This is it.”

As we were pulling away we even said, “If we change our minds we just have to be here tomorrow at noon before mail pickup.”    

Anyway, my fiancé, still VERY useful when steered in a direction, did a lot of research on Save the Date/invitations and found a very clever one that consisted of a folded card with a red rope being tied when you open it (see below). 

http://wedsavvy.com/tying-the-knot-diy

We both thought this was BRILLIANT and want to give a shout-out to the genius behind the idea. 

But we weren’t just going to take someone’s creation, plug in our names and pass it on.  That’s forgery.  Haha!  Instead we decided to put our own personal touch to it.  This personal touch took FOREVER to complete, but we feel it was well worth the effort.  Please see the steps we had to take and the final product below.

1.   Take, size & edit photos;

2.   Decide on a font style and Save the Date language;

3.   Buy cardstock online;

4.   Buy a 1/16 hole punch;

5.   Realize the hole punch won’t work so we order another one on ebay from London;

6.   Re-edit the entire Save the Date (maaaaaaaaaany attempts) to print 3 on 1 page;

7.   Lots & lots of paper slicing;

8.   Lots & lots of hole punching;

9.   Drew the string through the holes, taped down on the backs; and lastly

10. Use spray adhesive to attach to the blue cardstock.

After several trips to Jo-Anne Fabrics, Michaels, Office Depot & art stores in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley & Las Vegas, and spending hours upon hours of editing, reediting and laborious construction, this was the final product:

My fiancé did all of the computer work, and for someone who hasn’t studied a lick of graphic design I think he did a spectacular job! 

Thanks for all your hard work, Beez!

Onto the next…

Cheers to Donna & Leo Dizon

We had one beautiful wedding to start our Summer (Arlan-Aleman Wedding)...and we finished with another memorable wedding to end it on Saturday, August 20, 2011 for Donna Megino and Leo Dizon.

When Courtney told me last Fall that she had another client lined up for us, my eyes lit up with excitement thinking to myself, "Perfect, another one we can add to to our C&C portfolio." Hey, it's a start. Donna is her name...a cousin of Lionel (Courtney's fiancee).

I met Donna for the first time when we had our initial consultation in late August 2010, and already I felt her free-spirited nature she carried with her. She has this easy-going aura, sweet and kind about everything. Throughout the planning, I learned more about her (her childhood illness she overcame and the things she had gone through that impacted her life growing up (Donna's video). Even gone through difficult times of healing, she grew to be a beautiful woman inside and out, and proudly carries her big dreams everywhere she goes, especially when it came to her wedding. She wanted it to be as special as the person she was going to marry...as special as her family and closest friends mean to her...and as special as her heart is and who God made her to be.

We worked with Donna closely month after month...which sometimes then turned into weekly chats as we approached the month of March. Leo, who was living in Virginia with a 3-hour time difference finally got on board to do our weekly chats at any odd hour. Soon after, we all were in sync with what was needed to get done. Yes, that's right, Virginia and yes, that's right, Donna lives here in California. And YES, for 7 years, they managed to stay in love and dedicated to one another clear across the country. Who does that? I'll tell you who...Donna & Leo. :) As you've heard it before "Absense makes the heart grow fonder" and oh, how they can testify to that. Their strength and stability is something we can all learn from.

When we got together with Donna, she already knew what her colors were and the guest list which stood roughly around 120. The colors she chose were beautiful (reminded me of a soft, yet fun and striking event to be had). Fuchsia is such a bold and vibrant color, so choosing tan, chocolate brown, and ivory as her accent colors made it a little less bold. This worked well for her flowers, as she wanted them to have that pop to radiate a fun, yet chic atmosphere. We went on a mission trying to find the perfect venue to fit her budget and finally after several and more inquiries to local bay area venues, Oakhurst Country Club nestled in beautiful Clayton, CA was the residing winner to accommodate their needs for their big day.

 

To work her budget a little more cleaner, Donna decided to opt and do her own flowers with the help of her gals in waiting. Not only did she save money with her florals by visiting the local flowermart, but she did an excellent job with her stationaries (invites, programs, namecards, table #'s).  Alot of DIY (including the ribbon wands that were waved during the reception in lieu of clinging glasses for the couple to kiss) was invovled and that made it even more personable and eventful.

She didn't want a typical sign-in area with a sign-in book, so she created two photo albums from Shutterfly and had people sign in them. Before we knew it, the idea to have a wishing tree was born. It turned out spectacular, as people signed their well wishes on beautifully cut cardstock in many different colors, which already had the ribbon tied to the paper, ready to be strung onto the manzanita branches (I glued on the fuchsia colored dried freeze orchids to add a little bit of that pop she wanted). 

River rocks were ordered and purchased and we used the large ones for the wishing tree, while the smaller rocks went into our 13 centerpiece vases. White alstroemeria flower were placed in the vases and water was added to float the ivory candle.

The cake table was decorated with the same jute runner that was placed on every guest table. She went with Minia's Bake Shop in Newark, CA and chose a 2-tiered chocolate flavored cake with fresh strawberries. One hundred beautifully decorated cupcakes flavored with a Filipino favorite of ube mocha macapuno stood on a 4-tier cupcake stand, which sat behind the main wedding cake. 

Donna also requested her Mickey and Minnie wedding hats she had purchased during her bachelorette trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth" be displayed to the side so that they could put them on before cutting their cake.

What a cute picture that turned out to be!

 

The night continued on with her family showering the newly married couple with love, smiles, laughter and lots of dancing. A big fan of not only Disneyland but Hello Kitty, she couldn't resist the adorable pink Hello Kitty shoes she danced the night away in.

It was a pleasure working with a couple devoted to each other no matter the distance. And with Leo making a move to the Bay Area, what a great way to celebrate the upcoming holidays with his new wifey. Here's to the their "Ever After..."

Mr. and Mrs. Leo Dizon

 

 

Shout out to the following vendors (whom we had the pleasure working with):

Accommodations - Courtyard Marriott, Pleasant Hill

Cake – Minia’s Bake shop

DJ – Raul "RJ" Navalta

Photographer – Shaneil Deo

Transportation – Excel Limo Service

Venue - Oakhurst Country Club

Videographer - Capture It All Weddings