Monthly Archives: January 2009

Drape your wedding in garlands

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I’ve been thinking a lot about my friend Jinah’s wedding. One thing about decorating for a friend is that you don’t want to disappoint — but at the same time, you don’t want your friend to be a drill sergeant, barking orders about how to do this, or do that that way. Luckily for me, Jinah has given Caroline and I pretty free reign on what to do, mostly just telling us she wants the colors to be silver and gold. Hey, that works for me!

Problem with that approach is now there’s too many possibilities! But when I think about the house where Jinah is going to get married, all I can think of are all the horizontal and vertical lines there are — all the balconies on the second floor, the height of the portico, the top of the portico, not to mention the pool’s fountain. There are so many surfaces to decorate! So I naturally began to think of garlands.

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Have your wedding at someone else’s house

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As I alluded to recently, I am going to be helping a friend of mine who is getting married in April at a Malibu home. The mission: decorate an ultra-modern Malibu home with balconies for miles in silver and gold with lots of candles and lights.

Forgive my terrible Photoshop job on splicing together two photos to demonstrate how much balcony I’m going to be working with. Every house is different, which means there are unique challenges to decorating each one, for each individual bride. The bride, by the way, is my AAJA-LA co-president Jinah Kim (and NBC reporter), here in red. My partner in crime to help with the planning and decorations is Caroline Paras there, standing next to Jinah. The owner of the home is Jon Hoffman, in blue.

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Bridal bouquets in wild colors

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Because the economy is in the dumps, we’re apparently supposed to be all dour and serious and sedate is supposed to be in. But when it comes to your wedding? I think not. Your wedding day should be a joyous event, so if you want to have shots of color, by all means, go for it!

Photo by Flickr’s rydeeroo

I once did a story, a long, long time ago when I was an intern at the Arizona Republic, about brides who opt for colored wedding dresses, as opposed to the traditional, American white wedding gown. Apparently, the tradition still holds when it comes to wedding gowns, seeing as how the majority of wedding gowns are white or cream, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a shot of color with your bridal bouquet. For example, check out the bouquet above — it would be a very traditional bouquet, except the bride opted for those velvety red roses, rather than white. I love the effect.

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Two wedding-related contests

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OK, really, who doesn’t love free stuff? I sure do. So if you’re in the midst of planning you’re wedding, and you’re freaking out a little bit about how you’re going to pay for your flowers, or your reception, or what have you, I have a few contests you can try your hand at.

I found these contests via a mailing list I belong to, I forget now how I originally found it. Anyway, seeing as how I’ve got a diamond up here, you can probably guess that the first one is related to diamonds.Yep — you can win a Blue Nile Signature Diamond if you just give up some personal information. Unfortunately, you can only enter this contest once — I’ve actually bookmarked a few, unrelated contests that I enter everyday. :) But if you win, you know who to thank. ;)

The second one has to do with Hampton Inn. Give Hampton Inn some personal information, and you could be one of 25 brides to win a $1,000 eCertificate (not sure how that’s different from a gift card or store credit) to David’s Bridal. This contest, fortunately, you can enter at least once a day. Heehee. Enter until March 31. Good luck!

Flowers for your wedding at Costco.com

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I have a friend who shops at Costco for everything, and I mean everything. He even used to tell us about going to Costco’s all over the country — while visiting the East Coast, while in Maui. Yeesh. If I was in Maui, I wouldn’t be spending my time at Costco, lemme tell ya. But I understand the Costco fixation; I love going and I always find stuff that’s useful and its always of good quality. So, does the sentiment carry over to wedding flowers?

Did anyone else even realize that Costco.com had a weddings section? The flowers are provided from VistaFlor and their prices range from $100 to $1,000. Even at the top of that range, that’s still quite cheap.

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Get married at home

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It has occurred to me recently that so many people have really beautiful homes, so why are hotels and other venues the only places we think of when planning a wedding? The thought didn’t come completely out of the blue — a friend of mine is getting married in April and will be doing it at a Malibu home. More on that later. Anyway, having a wedding at home used to be the standard, not the exception, unlike today. When scouring Flickr — and I mean clicking through the hundreds of pages of thumbnails tagged “home wedding” — I found very few pictures that actually fit the keywords. One photo I definitely wanted to share was this one from the ’30s. It was a simpler time…

Photo by Flickr’s Dan Kroesbergen

I don’t think I’ve ever decorated someone’s home — a house someone was actually living in at the time — for a wedding. Not even my old house in Hacienda Heights, which was gorgeous and beautifully landscaped and probably had the room for such an event. I have decorated venues that were homes but are now dedicated event facilities, like La Venta Inn on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and The Palace in Hancock Park (which inexplicably has no website address!).

But as with all things, there are many things to consider when having a wedding at home.

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Flowers for your flower girl

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Bridal flowers are not just for the bride, but also for the flower girls. How many do you have? That’s up to you. You generally have at least one. Then again, do you absolutely have to have one? That’s totally up to you. Anyway, I wanted to explore the different styles of flower girl flowers. The most common style is the basket, like the one below. Funny thing is, I think there is a difference between the flower girl baskets that you commonly see in magazines and the ones my mom did — the flowers. In magazines, movies and such, you usually see the baskets full of rose petals that the flower girl throws on the aisle, for the bride to walk over. But my mom did flower baskets with the flowers staying in the baskets. I know some Catholic churches would prefer the latter, for easier clean up.

And yes, the flower girl above was me. This is circa early 80s, at the very least. And by the looks of things, those flowers are silk, but who knows now.

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