Samples of Centerpieces & Bouquets

My mom, grandma and I made some sample centerpieces. They arn't excatly the flowers I'm going to use. But very close. The white one is a spider mum. They are one of the main flowers I'm going to have. I might have some yellow spider mums (pictured) as well.

Each table will have four yellow tiles in the center, then 4 bud vases of varying sizes with flowers of different varieties in the yellow, orange and white family. Votives in small glass holders will be spread around.

The tables will also have bottles of wine and smart water on them. And will have a napkin, silverware, water goblet, wine glass and champange glasses at each setting.

This is a mini version of what I think my bouquet is going to look like. A lot of white spider mums and other white flowers.

This is what I think your (bridesmaids) bouquets are going to look like. Except with 4 of the leaf turned ribbon action. And those are spider mums. It will either be those or disbuds (see below).

Lastly, I want to have votives in taller glass holders along the edge of the pool. Will look kind of cool in the day and very cool at night.

It was nice to put stuff together to see what it would really look like. I'm happy with how it looks so far. Thoughts?

Cakes

So my mom and I went to this chimer-ish wedding expo at the Embassy Suites here in Pasadena on Saturday. It was mostly photographers that I felt sad for and a few dj's but there were also a few bakeries there with cakes to taste and I met a guy named Daniel who has a bakery and we tasted his cakes and they were awesome and way cheaper than the average. He has a website but he also said I could find a picture of a cake I like and he'd make it happen. So here are some cakes:

I like the shapes of this cake. I don't know what the deal is with the penguins or whatever they are. But I like the squares that are alternating directions.

I like this one too for the same reasons

I would never have this. But how cute is this!
I like the writing. We could have u me written on the cake.
Interesting cake topper

I also like the square and circle combo cakes.

Invitations & Save the date cards

Here's what we are doing for the save the date "cards". We took this pic at the mall and we're going to get copies made. Attach a magnet and a sticker that gives our wedding website and bada bing bada boom. save the date cards. still figuring out how to mail them. Standard envelopes? Wraped in thick paper and stamped? Yet to be determined.



For invitations the one we both liked and felt was us-ish was this red one below. I got the pic from this website- http://www.invitationlane.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=TA5101BRE-37&Category_Code=SD

But we'll do it ourselves and probably in yellow. The yellow will be a different paper square. And the white will be an outside square and inside square. So it will be a lovely three layer cake of an invitation.

I'm still scoping out envelopes. This website seems like a good one- http://www.envelopemall.com/Default.aspx If you find other pass them my way. I'm probably going to order samples from this site to see how I feel about them.

Catering & Food

Catereing- So I think I've mentioned to some of you that I want to have the wedding catered by Stone Fire Grill. Here is a link to their website. I think it's a flash site. So you may have to click on the catering link on the bottom if you want to check it out. It is VERY YUMMY. My mom and I are planning on going on Saturday to set it up.

Great news: My aunt Carol (who is a genius in the kichen) has volunteered to be the food coordinator type person. Meaning she'll work with the servers from Stone Fire AND make a bunch of yummy apetizers! I'm excited about this.

Dessert Table: I've been inspired by the below picture of an awesome dessert table and want to replicate it. Sans the woodsy theme. Just yummy goodness in fun arrangements! Homemade ooey-gooey bars, maybe I can con CPK into making some cookies, cadbuy eggs, mini cheesecakes from trader joes, the possibilites are endless...

Wedding Website

I made a wedding website. I like it. Please check it out. It's at www.wedorama.com/theothermelissaanderic or maybe at www.TheOtherMelissaAndEric.com

I need pictures of me and some of you. I had a computer melt down a few years ago and lost all my pics so I only posted what I had.

Talk to you soon.

Melissa

update

So last night me and eric sat down to have our first offical wedding planning session. It went really well.

I had this style survey that I had found on-line/ made up and we agreed on a lot of things. One of the questions they gave you was to pick out of this list of like 30 words the three words you want to describe your wedding. We both picked: fun, unique, casual. So that's cool.

We discussed the time of the wedding. I wanted three, he wanted one. We're going to get married at 2pm. Mark your calenders. I kept invisioning that we would get married at 3pm and still have people showing up at the reception at like 4:30 and he convinced me that weddings never start on time and it takes a while to get people to the reception. So we can start at 2 and they'll still be getting to the recetption around 4:30. And still have the reception last through the golden hour when everyone and everything looks so pretty.

I told him I wanted to have big hanging lights and he's like, "we have those at work. we use them for the fair". His audio/visual company does all the lights and sound for the LA county fair. So he talked to his boss and they were like, sure you can have 100-200 feet of lights (like the full size light bulb ones, with wire reinforcements built in) we're going to get them for "a small fee" which is FANTASTIC.

We also decided that we are going to have round tables. I really wanted rectangle tables becuase they have less open space and I like how the decor will fit. But he brought up a really good point that who ever is at the end feels left out and rectangle tables arn't conducive to good convo. And people are more important then things looking good. All very good points. So I agreed and we decided on round tables. I still want to do the "found art" look of lots of small vases and votives. I just may now want to have a unifying center vase to pull it all together... we'll see.

One sad note in the planning- Salena may not be in the wedding. I posted a message on Shane's myspace that her and shane got pretty offended over. I shouldn't have sent it. I didn't think through how it would be taken and the consequences it would have... I'm still hoping she'll accept my apology and we can talk it out/ put it behind us... but I don't know if that will happen and that is sad.

So we may have only 5 bridesmaids (though most of you are married, so does that make you bridesmatrons? weird) and one of you will have two guys walk them down the aisle... or one guy will walk solo at the end. That will be kind of funny.

k. friends. that's all for now. I'm still feeling a little bit on east coast time so I'm gonna hit the sack.

M.D. out

Bouquets

I love this. I don't know what they are. But I love it.

Other Reception Ideas

Ideas on fun things for the reception

Paper bag lanterns are cheap and look great at night. But do they look like, well, cheap paper bags, during the day?
Very cute. If we put lemons in the theme these could be lemons. They couldn't use them as a pre-dinner snack like they could if it was an apple. But they could take it home and have, you know, a lemon...

read about this idea here
ding ding, don't break the bell.
I love this. I really want to do it.

If Princess was still with us you can bet some good money she'd be doing this for our tables. Would it be too weird to photoshop table numbers with pictures of her? j/k.

picture removed

Things I need:

(well, besides me and Eric making some decisions about this stuff)

- I'm fairly sure I want lights strung over the tables to a) look pretty b) keep it from being really dark. I don't know if I want white paper lanterns or just a string of lights. But I don't want x-mas lights. Mariah had pictures from Carrie & Corrie's wedding and they had strings of lights that had full size light bulbs in them. I need to find out where they sell such things...

UPDATE: I found some. They're not cheap. But I guess neither are paper lanterns... http://www.partylights.com/Strings-Bulbs/CommercialStringers-Medium http://www.hometownevolutioninc.com/C9-7Watt-Multiple-Socket-Power-Cords.html http://www.offthedeepend.com/c-118-commercial-lighting.aspx

- ummm... I guess that's all I can think of for the moment. If you think of things I need please remind me.

centerpiece/ flower ideas

Lots of things I like for flowers on the tables. Kind of a common theme of little vases with fun flowers. I don't think there is one that is like DING DING. But there are elements of a lot of these that I love. In this first one I like the mix of clear and white bud vases.

On the one below I like the layout of the table. We don't want really long tables. But I like the idea of rectangle tables better than round ones. I like having candles and small vases down the center. And in this one they don't have charges or plates down yet, but it still looks nice because of the napkins...

I like this but with lemons instead of limes. Not sure how it fits with the ideas above, but...
I really like the effect of lots of candles. Perhaps if I fill the little votives with peas (see below) so they look nice in the day and at night. I also like the effect of a runner.

Are these peonies? I like them. Not the silver vase. But the effect.

This looks very pretty. I think they are Dahlia's. It looks like 10 or so stems.

Hydragneas are also very cool...

I want to have some really small lower vases/ single flowers. Again I think this is a Dahlia.
This is kind of fun. I could find wrapping paper that I like and wrap tin cans of different varieties and use those as vases... don't know if I like it better then ecclectic vases, but it's fun.

This picture makes me think, "maybe I do still want Gerbera Dasies in Mason jars...

This is very sweet

I don't love the entire centerpiece. But I love the peas. Yes those are peas in the vases. v cool
Some of the pieces:

Bud vases from Ikea $1.99 each

Vases and tall candle holder set. $5.99 for the three of them.

Votive holders $1.29 for 4!

Ikea .99 cents

288 Unscented Ivory Votive Candles - 10 HourIvory unscented ten hour votive candles. Great for restaurants, hotels and weddings. 1.75 inches tall x 1.375 inces wide at the bottom. 10 hour burn time. 288 candles per case. $38.00 http://www.acandleco.com/index.cfm/fa/categories.main/parentcat/1316

I like the idea of scouring thrift stores for bud vases galore. But I like having some store bought vases that are the same on every table to unify things. And maybe along those lines I should have the votive holders be all the same to unify...

If you know of anywhere or find anywhere cheaper to get the vases and such please comment.

a few inspiration bridal party pics

This is when letting them pick their own dresses goes to far. This does not look good. So if we do this "everyone picks a black and white dress" we need to make sure they go together better then the pic below.

p.s. I do know that I have crossed the 6 months till the wedding date and should soon stop saying, "isn't this a cool idea" and say more of "this is what I've decided" but I'm not there yet. so there. join me in the ohhh isn't this pretty. and let me know what you think is the prettiest of them all...

Bridesmaid Dresses new idea

Here's a new idea. That has yet to be discussed with Eric, so don't fall too inlove with it. All you you wear dresses that you love! Meaning you all wear different dresses in the black and white, sundress, possibly with black rainbows family... ideas for the dresses are below. But these are far from complete thouhts. If we decide to go this way everyone can pick out their own dress and make sure it matches. So basically who ever picks their dress first we post a pic and you aim for something that matches. Then we paste the pics togeter one at a time making sure we stay in the same family of dresses...

Thoughts? I've seen a few weddings in mags where they do this. Has anyone seen it in real life?


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