Invitations and Favors

I haven’t posted anything new for awhile because I’m spending lots of time updating my other blogs and with the wedding coming down to four months, I’ve pretty much busy with that.

Check out my other blog: U Inspirare for some wedding inspiration blogs.

Also check out another blog I started for companies I found interesting:  Where Its Made

I attended the Invitation and Favors wedding workshop at The Wedding Cafe (i LOVE these people).  The Wedding Cafe only has two more workshops left, but this is the last one I’ll attend since it’s in town and gas in Hawaii has climbed to $4.00 (and that’s for unleaded!)…so I can’t drive into town every week, I already do it for my babysitting gig, but driving into town everyday without a jobby job doesn’t make sense to me.

There was pre-entertainment by Ben and Maila, who I wish I could afford for live music-but I have to stick to my budget.

Ben and Maila-pre workshop entertainment

 

Kinohi Designs were there representing and I didn’t know this company existed before but I did see one of the invitation designs they had exhibited on Wedding Paper Divas!  I almost ordered this very same invitation from Wedding Paper Divas and I didn’t know it was by Kinohi Designs.  Good for them!  I just check out their website and it’s lovely!

Invitation from Kinohi Designs, who designs also for Wedding Paper Divas!

 

Creations By You were fun speakers and they love their bling, Swarovski crystals anyone?  This is a great place where you can go to with your ideas and then they can print everything but you put it together.  It’s for the DIY brides.

Creations by You..lots of DIY ideas here and as they said, lots of bling! Fun!

Next up is Shop Toast, my new fave!  I love their favor ideas-check out Whereitsmade for my blurb about them:

Shop Toast-my new favorite!! I love their mini pop favors, adorable!

mini pop favors with customized stickers! LOVE.

Cakeworks Hawaii was there and they usually do lovely wedding cakes but have opened a new line called Candyworks.

Here are some favors from Cake Works-they have a new line called Candy Works

The next vendor..oh how to explain, as I say in the caption, if I had the budget, Miemiko Atelier does letterpress invitation which is an art.

Miemiko Atelier -- gorgeous letterpress...ooo, if I had the budget to this I would have.

So pretty

gorgeous

the process for letterpress

 

Emi Ink is my favorite-I say that about everything I know, but  am serious when I say Emi Ink is my fave.  Her invitations inspired me as I make my own invitations.  I would love for Emi Ink to do my invites but I made a choice to DIY for invitations, but I admire the paper they use, the simplicity but wow factor.  It’s gorgeous and they do fabulous work!  Check out their website and they have a blog as well.

Emi Ink- I LOVE Emi Ink!

I love the color swatches-hey look! That's my color palette! 😉

 

so cute!

 

Menehune Mac makes all kinds of goodies too-who knew?  I thought they only made chocolate covered macadamia nuts, not so!

Menehune Mac! I never knew made favors too!

There were other vendors there-I just had no chance to grab a picture because the table was crowded!  But I had fun as usual and I had goodies as usual 🙂  Enjoy!

The Wedding Cafe Workshop: Table Design

Last night, my MatronOH Judith and I attended one of the workshops held by The Wedding Cafe.  Read my blog Whereitsmade for my feature on The Wedding Cafe.

The workshop was very informative!  They had six florists there who each went up to the mic and talked about their companies and floral tips. There were also 3 wedding design/rental companies that talked about what their companies offered.

First up was Vignette and Les-Saisons owner Naomi Lee, their Vignette website isn’t constructed quite yet but the Les-Saison website is great.  Naomi talked about many different trends in the wedding industry.

 

Here is an example of using colorful linen for a table. The yellow linen brings out the green and yellow flowers much more.

 

Here we have a magenta table linen, with a pin up. They added green napkins to the table top. Talk about POP!

Sweetheart table sample. It seats just the bride and groom.

A new trend-a sweetheart lounge for the bride and groom to relax during the formal program.

Next company was Royal Party Rentals.  These are the people you would order chairs, tables, cutlery, lanterns and other items for an indoor or outdoor wedding.  Since my wedding it outdoors I’ll be renting many things!

 

Here's a lantern sample. Imagine you have an outdoor wedding, with a tent-this would be hanging from the ceiling of your tent.

A table designed by Royal Party Rentals-everything on the table you can rent from them.

See the black "plate" beneath the white plate, I've learned it's called a Charger. LOL...details, details.

This was RPR other table design-which is more my style. Muted colors with a pop of red!

It's all about detail!

Now let’s talk about flowers and florists!

First up was Fong Tagawa from Floral Inspirations.  First very important tip and reiterated all night by all the florsits: “Communicate with your florist!!”  Very important.  I loved Fong’s table at the workshop she’s very talented.  I also liked how she mentioned prioritizing when planning and budgeting for your flowers.  Another tip is to have one main focal point where you have a big piece that people will remember.

Table inspired by her 13 year old daughter who loves daffodils and romance 🙂

I love the lanterns...so romantic!

Next florist was Spinning Web Florist.  Their speaker, I forgot his name-Elmer?  He was there last minute apparently, but he was very funny! His tip, bring lots of photos for inspiration.  You can even use shows and movies as inspiration.  For the wedding expo they created a tabletop inspired by Avatar!  Wish I saw that.

 

High tower centerpiece.

Bling at the base of the centerpiece.

Next, was Passion Roots.  They are big on representing the bride and groom’s personalities for the big event.  The speaker told us how one bride and groom they have right now are very techy and they created a centerpiece involving usb cables.  Very interesting!

 

Now this is elaborate. See the feathers and moss? They used LED lights in the votive candles too!

The base of the centerpiece-I love the glass and the moss! Very different!

The florist I’m using is Su-V Expressions. Sue told us a story about a man who was more of a bride than the bride and that for their wedding, they built a 12 foot tree in the middle of the ballroom because he had proposed to his bride at Disneyland.  They had a disney themed wedding-I wish I could see pictures!  Sue talked about the trendy color of grays and silver, also she said honeysuckle is a trendy color as well (yellow).

 

One option for brides on a budget, use less flowers, like these branches. It's dramatic and less costly

 

Here a cluster of ferns or flowers which I love against a pewter gray linen (which I'll be using in my own wedding).

Floating candles

They also had Jae Yoo from My Florist which is a relatively new company-in business for 4 years now. Jae was fun-the guys who are in the flower industry have such a sense of humor.  Jae reminded brides not to go overboard with information because most brides may come to him with four ideas all different.  He said to stay focused on a concept.

Jae's table was gorgeous! Very pink!

These are called pomander bouquets-see how they open the petals?

Last we have Watanabe Floral who has been in business since 1945! Wow!  Because they are a large company they definitely have the man power to accommodate the needs of any bride.  I love going to them just to buy flowers.

Love this linen-very wintry.

Winter theme centerpieces. Love the colors for a winter theme.

There were lots of prizes given away all night and Judith and I really enjoyed ourselves.  We’re thinking of going to their Invitations and Stationary workshop just because it’s fun!

So what did I learn?

* Know your budget

* Communication is KEY

* It’s fun to incorporate your personalities in the design

* You can use other things besides flowers, examples: driftwood, feathers…

* If you are on a budget, prioritize what’s important to you: ceremony flowers or reception?  Don’t spread yourself too thin.  Also, reuse flowers from ceremony into your reception space!

If you need to find out anything else check out The Wedding Cafe website, I highly recommend them.

 

Lounge

One concept in decorating for an outdoor wedding is to make the outdoor look indoor in the way of using lounge furniture.

It brings a lounge club atmosphere especially near the dance floor I think-or for different alcoves around the venue that you want to keep intimate and semi-private.

I like the play of light in these photos.  Lighting and draping can have such an effect on decor!

Right now I’m in the stages of planning the layout of the venue with my wedding planner.  We’re going over ceremony, seating, cocktail hour, buffet line, dj, dance floor and lounge furniture.  I am opting to put lounge furniture around the dance floor to keep that area more for people who will want to dance.  I also like the idea of people getting out of their seats to mingle and enjoy themselves!

As I count down the months, 5 going on 4 in total, I’m finalizing all the different pieces and putting them together and I’m glad it’s almost here and almost over!! 🙂

Wedding Accessories-Part 1

Okay, I’m back!  I’ve been under the weather lately so I haven’t posted much about the wedding.  There is 5 months to the big day…I can’t believe it.  We’ve pretty much got everything set, which is a good thing.  Now it’s the small things…like accessories to concentrate on.

I have nightmares about the wedding.  Last nightmare I had, I had no SHOES for my wedding!  I was so upset in my dream that I forgot to buy shoes!  LOL..I can’t laugh now but in my dream where it felt so real, I was literally crying because I was barefoot.  I will post something on shoes, but I want to talk about something else in this post: ring bearer pillows

My nephew Jacob and his brother Isaiah will both be in my wedding as ring bearers.  I know it’s common to only have one ring bearer, but Isaiah loves to be a part of anything his brother is a part of, so I want them both.  I remember pillows used to be white and satin.  Nothing special about it.  When I did a search on pillows, I found so many different styles!

I like the clean lines on this pillow and I love the fabric with a pop of color.

 

Check out these various styles

Myself, I like these pillows with flowers!

 

Flower pillows

Cute

Very romantic

This is my favorite and I found this on Etsy.com. You can change up the colors, but I love it. It’s elegant and fun at the same time.

 

A break in Wedding Planning-let’s talk Valentine’s Day

The dreaded V-Day is approaching.  Maybe I’m too quick in saying it is ‘dreaded’ because I have someone to spend it with and to top it off we live together, so maybe the pressure is off of us to make it out-of-this-world special?  Not sure.  But I don’t feel it this year…is it because it’s landing on a Monday?  Probably.  Do you know how I will spend my Valentine’s Day?  Babysitting my nephews from 8:30am-5pm, and then heading home, sitting in traffic for probably an hour and a half trying to get home to Josh.  So…I’d rather not do anything on Valentine’s Day!

Last year we made a big to-do about V-Day and went to a hotel at Ko’olina, watched the sun set and sat under the stars and it was all so amazing.  Right now Josh is getting over being sick and I’m jobless, so I don’t want to be splurging money I don’t have on a gift that he probably doesn’t need.  He is the hardest person to shop for because he doesn’t really need anything.  He likes when I make him breakfast, lunch and dinner.  He likes when I greet him with a hug and kiss.  He likes cuddling up on the sofa with me as we criticize a show or movie until we’re laughing. I’d be happy to make some pizza on V-day, pop in a dvd and relax with the dogs on the couch.

I don’t like expensive things(unless it’s a Dyson vaccuum or the iPad 2? lol…)-so I think Josh is relieved he doesn’t have to scour various stores to find me something I’d like.  I did suggest a dinner, but not on V-Day, but our usual date night over the weekend.  And I want to see a laugh out loud stupid movie…I want to laugh.

If we weren’t planning a wedding and watching our money because of it, I’d take that money and plan a weekend get away to Lanai!  Since he proposed to me there we’ve been dying to get back there to relax and get away from it all-but that can happen LATER, not on V-Day.

I’m just glad I have a second chance to be with someone “the rest of my life” and that it’s with Josh. To think I could have been so scarred from losing Bobby that I may have never opened my heart again-but I’m really glad I did.  So to my future husband to be…I leave you with words from Bob Dylan:

TO MAKE YOU FEEL MY LOVE by. Bob Dylan

“When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the star appear
And there is no one to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I’ve known it from the moment that we met
There’s no doubt in my mind where you belong

I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling down the avenue
There ain’t nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on rolling sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet

There ain’t nothin’ that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
Make you happy make your dreams come true
To make you feel my love”

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Bridesmaids dresses

One of the more agonizing parts of wedding planning is CHOOSING items with a certainty that FOR SURE you want THIS very item.  I was stressed out while picking bridesmaid dresses.  I found my own dress in a matter of two hours, but finding the right bridesmaid dress, to compliment 4 of my girls was very stressful!  I worried about the fit and the look.  I worried about the cost (yes I’m paying for the dress) and the color.

What I did know to be TRUE for me were:

1) it had to be short

2) it had to comfortable

Another problem I felt I had was there were a shortage of good places to find dresses on the island!  I bought my wedding dress at Party Dress by Claudette, and though I loved the gown I bought for ME, when we looked at bridesmaid dresses, my girls didn’t love the selection.  I shopped around for bridesmaid dresses for a good month before I was starting to stress.  I realized that bridal boutiques carried certain designers and if I found one online and they said a certain store in Hawaii carried the line-when I went to the store, they had only two styles from the designer and never the one I saw online!  Very tough.

David’s Bridal did open on on Oahu, yay!  And we did go there to have 2 of my MOH’s try on dresses.  They have a large selection of dresses and the store is clean and big!  They had tons of fitting rooms and great sales assistants.  We did find a dress there-but it was a “maybe” for me.  So we kept on searching.

We went to a few other places, some I won’t mention as I didn’t think their store was the best to be in for trying on things and they weren’t the most helpful.  But finally I went to the Bridal Boutique on Cooke Street and by then I was determined to find something!  The store was clean, modern, neat and spacious enough that we had room to walk around-I loved it after seeing some other shops.  Eunice, my Maid OH came with me and because she’s very petite, we needed a place who was sensitive to the issue and had amazing dresses that would make her feel comfortable.  The woman who helped us, Cecilia, who is part owner of the place, helped Eunice into dresses and she was really nice and personable.  I had a good feeling about the place and then when we saw the dresses on Eunice, my good feeling intensified.

It was a hard decision as we found two really cute dresses, three actually, but I had to narrow it down to one.  I had my Matron of Honor, Judith be the deciding factor the following week as she tried on the dresses.  We finally chose a dress by Bill Levkoff and the main thing is that they felt good in the dress!  To top it off, they were having a special, buy 3 dresses, get the 4th free, which was perfect for me since I had 4 girls and needed 4 dresses!  Everything was going right 🙂

I’m glad I got that out of that way since it was the most stressful part for me about wedding planning yet.  Everything else has fallen into place like it should.  So since we are talking about dresses, I wanted to post some pics about other dresses I found online that I thought were cute.

This is actually the dress I was looking for my girls, but couldn't find it in any stores-maybe I didn't look hard enough?

Why is it bad luck to have other people dress in white? I would say have my BMaids dress in white-it's classic!

I'm in love with flower appliques on dresses!

This is the dress I wanted for the girls, but in a different color-but I couldn't seem to find it in the stores!

Here's some play on two tone colors--I love it. The deep orange is the color of the dresses we ordered.

Now I LOVE this! I love the draping, I love the bling! 🙂

Short dresses-too cute!

As much as I love color-I love nudes too! It's so clean and fresh. Understated to a T.

So what do you think of patterns on bridesmaid dresses?  I think I love it-but I’m too chicken to try it!

Maxi dresses? Nice for a beach wedding!

I love metallic! Check out the patterns on the dress to the right-beautiful right?

Now this is bold! Let your girls pick and choose! You know at first I didn't like this, but it's kind of growing on me. What do you think?

After finding the bridesmaid dress, I realized there are no rules!  It’s YOUR wedding, you have a vision so do what you want 🙂  And have fun!

Cake?

The cake is a beautiful, delicious thing and a staple at every wedding.  I never had a wedding cake before even if this is my second wedding!  So let’s look at cake!

I am not a big cake person.  I love the designs of cake (have you seen all those cake shows on t.v.?).  I’m more of a cupcake kind of person.  So what do you think I’m doing for my wedding cake?  You got it!  Cupcakes!  Thank you to whoever started the wedding cupcake craze-it’s definitely more of my style.

I have a favorite cupcake bakery here in Hawaii and yes, it is my favorite b

ecause I haven’t tasted any other ones…yet.  I should do that one day, make a list of cupcake bakeries in Oahu, go on a hunt for them and then really choose my favorite.  Sounds like a plan!  Any takers?

So my favorite is: Hokulani Bakery.

 

They are located in Restaurant Row on Nimitz Hwy.  They also have a kiosk in down town, on Ft. Street Mall.  While I was working in downtown and found out about this, I frequented it more times than I should have.  I know most people LOVE their Red Velvet Cupcake

and yes I think it’s very good, but my favorite is their Guittard Chocolate with Buttercream Frosting.  To DIE for…and I love their Vanilla with Buttercream Frosting.  Now, my sister loves their Lilikoi and Guava flavored cupcakes.  All good too, but I am simple and love my chocolate and vanilla!  I’m hoping I can do three flavors, red velvet, chocolate and vanilla.  Actually I wish I could have all their flavors!

 

Here’s a picture of a wedding cupcake tower with many tiers of cupcakes–I don’t think I’ll need all of that.  I figure Josh and I will just feed each other a cupcake 🙂  Yum!  I can’t wait!

I do love the look of traditional cakes, I just don’t care for fondant.  So here are some pictures I found of regular wedding cakes.  Have you seen what they can do now with cake?  They can make any image come to life!  Have fun!

I love the one with the birds and that black and white one is classic.

These are the orchids I want to use in my bouquet, check it out with this cake.  Beautiful and light!

Ceremony

My ceremony and reception are at Lanikuhonua, so guests won’t have to travel from one place to another.

I’ve already posted pictures of reception ideas but let me spend some time on ceremony.    Josh has always wanted to get married outdoors.  My first wedding to my late husband, Bobby, was also an outdoor wedding with a judge.  I love outdoor weddings.  I love having all of Mother Nature’s elements surrounding me on the day I speak vows to the man I will be with for the rest of my life.  There’s just something so romantic about it.

Now if I could get married more than once (to the same guy)…hahaha…I’d have a church wedding as well, because there is something so special about being in a house of worship.  The problem is I’m catholic and he’s jewish and we’re both not converting anytime soon to one another’s religion.  We both believe in God and that’s what is important.  We respect each other and our upbringing and beliefs and we are going to try our best to marry both faiths and have an interfaith family.

So what does any of this have to do with the ceremony?  A lot.  We want to incorporate different things in our ceremony that include Jewish traditions.  Because I was raised Catholic, I do love rituals and symbolism, similar to Judaism.  I love that for jewish wedding ceremonies they have a Chuppah.

A Chuppah is a canopy with four poles.  It is supposed to symbolize the bride and groom creating a home together that will be open to guests.  It originates from the wedding of Abraham and Sarah.  I think it’s a beautiful tradition.

I was already planning to have a canopy of some sort.  But I believe Josh will have a Rabbi be the officiant so I would think a Chuppah be more appropriate to the ceremony.  Thank you Judith (matron of honor) for informing me of a Chuppah at the lat bridal expo, I never knew she was informed about Jewish traditions!

Another ceremony tradition we want to include is a marriage contract or Ketuhbah that is written in Aramaic or Hebrew.  Things to discuss with the rabbi because I need to be more educated about this.

And of course there is the breaking of the glass.  Josh definitely wants to do this!  So these are some ways we want to incorporate his religious traditions.

Now on to flowers.

How to decorate the ceremony space?  Here are some options my WP gave me at our meeting:

Petals…

And there are heavy brocade flowers lining the aisles…

And there are individual arrangements for each aisle…

So there are many options and there are also decisions on the chairs as well, Chiavari or regular white?  So many options.  Hopefully in the end, my ceremony will look as beautiful as these do at Lanikuhonua!

 

Serve.gov

Serve.gov.

This doesn’t involve weddings, but it’s an issue near and dear to my heart.  Check out the link above and see how you can help thank our military and their families for their continued sacrifices!

Photography is a MUST.

How else would you remember your wedding but by the photos that were taken of that day?  It’s no wonder that after food, photography and videography takes second place in wedding priorities.

It’s so hard to choose a good photographer because most of them now are great.  The technology is not what it used to be, the equipment is high tech and so the prices are high as well.  After doing searches on google I made my choice to go with Frank Amodo.  His stuff is amazing, just check out his link!  The pictures are personal and you can feel the emotion of the moment he captures.  That’s very important.  When I made my decision, I thought…I can see HIS work on my walls at home.  That was it.  His photos are intense and I want that captured at my wedding.  That’s what I want to look back on when I flip through the wedding album.  I want to remember the tenderness and the emotions 🙂

But here are some other photographers worth mentioning too!

Chrissy Lambert

Visionari – these guys were at the last wedding expo at the Blaisdell Center and they were so cool and genuine.  They made me and my girlfriends laugh.  They were approachable and it is important to know you can work with your photographer!  They also have another sister company called, Dulce Phototography, which is the more affordable deal.  Either way, the guys were fun to talk to!  And their work is stunning!

Nineteen Owls Photography

Shawn Starr Photography

Anyway, here are just some, but there are a lot to choose from.  Hawaii is a popular place to get married and there are lots of options when it comes to photographers.