Bouquet Inspiration

How fruity is this bouquet? I love the sun set colors and the kumquats! The turquoise wrap is also a beautiful touch.

Holiday Hiatus

Wedding planning has taken a backseat as I and Pepe prepare for the New Year. We spent some time with his wonderful family in So. Cal for Christmas vacation but we are back here in Lil Rhody (after a flight cancellation due to a Nor'easter) ready to celebrate the last few days of 2010 in total bliss. Happy planning! Wishing 2011 the very best year ever!!!

Sign-in Scrolls: The Alternative Guestbook

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

In Chinese culture, a common practice at weddings is to have a scroll available for guests to sign. After the wedding, the newlyweds would either frame or hang the scroll in their new home. Unlike a traditional guest book which is usually stored away and rarely gets open, a hanging scroll "guest book" is a unique way of displaying the sweet words and well wishes of friends and love ones. Most often the scroll is backed by red silk brocade, fine paper for writing and features a double happiness symbol. I have seen other variations available online and in some specialty stores in Chinatown but I was looking for something more personalized as I wanted to have our names, monogram and wedding date on the scroll too. I stumbled upon ArtfulBeginnings' custom work via Etsy (of course!) and quickly fell in love with her designs in wedding scroll invitations and vintage hankies. She is going to construct our "guest book" using a cotton sateen fabric and hand paint the borders in gold to match one of our wedding colors. The size of the scroll is approx 14 x 30 which should be sufficient space for our guests count (180ish) I'm also going to provide guests with colorful fabric markers for writing. I'm really looking forward to seeing the final product. And yes I will post pics!

Aisle Style

My inspiration for our beach aisle! It will add a pop of color and the simple DIY project is also very inexpensive. I plan on reusing them on the wraparound deck of the venue too. I will also provide guests with bright parasols to protect them from rain or drizzle. It's going to be simply beautiful!

Frugal Find: Veils

Veil. In botany - a part of some fungi. In bridal - a part of the 40 billion dollar empire. This means that a relatively cheap fabric like tulle or some other sheer material gets upgraded with a hefty price tag. I got sticker shock after my first wedding dress experience. The thousand dollar dresses did not make me bat an eyelash but the $450 veil (I wanted to accessorize with my lace Pronovias gown) made me cry poor. Finding the purrrfect veil can be a little complicated too. There are just so many options! Wedding veils come in different colors, cuts/styles/embellishments, lengths, fullness and finished edges. So where does a bride begin? Well I recommend this site, Occansey designs to get a better understanding of what your options are when it comes to the types of wedding veils available. They offer custom design quality veils for a reasonable price but it was still too much for this budget bride. I can't justify spending no more than $50 for a veil for 30 minutes (for ceremony and photo ops). A good quality mantilla (type of lace veil) with a scalloped edge will cost you well over $200 and that's just for a fingertip length. So I thought for sure my dream of having a beautiful cathedral (floor length) mantilla veil would be out of my reach. But I was wrong. I will be able to have the "wind swept beach effect" with a long soft flowy veil (thanks to countless of beach wedding inspiration pictures). You just got to know where to look and the first place I looked was Ebay. I actually found a preowned veil in excellent condition for a fraction of what the new one would cost! While it may not have been the exact length I wanted, I realize I could still purchase a second longer veil from the original designer. After all my veil was only $15 (retails for $65 on the designer's site). I also have room in my budget for a beautiful hair piece. Of course I recommend Etsy.com to find the perfect accessory.

As for my veil, my only concern is that the lace is not nearly identical to the lace on my dress but I know it doesn't have to be matchy matchy but we will see if it compliments the dress. It will be the $15 gamble.

Visual-Obsession

Invite Sample

Our first English sample invite is completed! We still need to tweak one or two things but otherwise they turned out better than we expected. Yay to DIY! BTW this was printed on our ink jet printer with no problem - using metallic text paper and backed with metallic gold card stock from Paper and More. Custom designed by Kemba Celebrations on etsy.