A spectacular home wedding

I haven’t had the pleasure of attending or decorating too many home weddings, but this wedding has basically ruined me for all future home weddings, I think.

Wedding ceremony in the front yard at sunset. This is what we found when we walked in the driveway entrance.

Zooming in on the canopy.

A closeup on the aisle arrangements.

I was thoroughly, thoroughly impressed. This was the wedding of Sid and Maureen, who met while working at Fox Sports, where my husband spent some time a few years ago. Before I get into the decorations and such, I first have to say this was one of the most enjoyable weddings I’ve ever attended. It’s truly a testament to the couple when it feels as if all their wedding guests are so incredibly nice.

There was probably one thing I would have changed — I would have added “garden wedding and reception” to the invitations. It would have signaled to all the women attending that they’d be walking in grass during the entire event. I happened to be nearly 8 months pregnant when attending, so there was no way I was planning to wear heels anyway — I wore a long dress and flat sandals and was apparently the only woman at the wedding who felt comfortable walking, heheh.

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Gift-giving etiquette at weddings

There have been a few stories about wedding gift etiquette in the news lately and each time I read one of these stories, I was aghast. Why is gift-giving so controversial these days?

Pictured here is one of my mom’s creations — a wishing well. She had a carpenter create this little well-shaped box, complete with a way to padlock the whole thing, and decorated it so that it would fit into a wedding. What goes inside? Well, you can slip the happy couple a card or note, wishing them well, but it was especially perfect for folks who wanted to give the couple some cash — call it “starting out” money. Of course, I think this is a practice common in communities where living together before marriage is frowned upon, so a couple really does need some “starting out” money. More and more couples these days do live together before marriage, so I would think that starting out money would be moot.

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Tips for planning a wedding or party

Coordinating any event — a wedding, a child’s party, a fundraiser, even a work gathering — can be stressful. It always amazes me how some moms who manage to throw a birthday party every year for their (usually only) child. I had first birthday parties for both my boys, and I don’t anticipate having another big birthday party for either of them until 5 years old — it’s that much work.

Each type of event carries its own individual challenges, but it occurred to me that most of the details of just about any event can be organized in a system I’m about to share with you. My system is not perfect, of course, but it can serve as a good jumping point for your own system. One benefit to this method is that you will be able to assign a monetary amount for each category, so if you’re able to keep your details under each category to a minimum, it should be reflected in your budget.

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Weddings in the news

I’ve come across several wedding-related stories the past few days that I wanted to share.

First, a friend posted this story about a bride who made her wedding dress from 10,000 bread tags. The bride, Stephanie Watson in Australia, works in the fashion industry and began collecting the tags when she and her now-husband began dating — in high school. Stephanie obviously made the dress herself, seeing as how there’s probably not too many dressmakers who know how to incorporate bread tags into a dress. So how did the dress — which eventually became known as Nadine — come out?

Photo from Constructing Nadine

I actually think it came out rather pretty. The dress ended up costing a total of $38, but Stephanie has said the dress was pretty uncomfortable (um, what wedding dress isn’t?) and weighed 7 kilos — about 15 and a half pounds. But its a great story and it reverberated halfway around the world….and, as they always say, you only get married once. This sort of underscores something I read in another wedding-related article, 10 things the wedding industry won’t tell you, which actually contains a lot of information I’ve mentioned myself — if you have your heart set on doing something DIY, pick something that can be completed well in advance — like your dress.

“Step away from the inspiration boards when it comes down to knocking things off your checklist,” she says. Couples who want to do DIY projects should also stick to ones that can be completed well in advance. “Anything fresh or floral or baking, leave it up to the pros,” Winnika says. “You don’t want to be doing that on your wedding day.”

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Creative save-the-date ideas you can buy or DIY

Folks get pretty creative when it comes to their invitations and save-the-date notices. Earlier this year, a Redditor’s picture of his save-the-date went viral. Because they are having their wedding at a library — and if you read further down the thread, you’ll get more details about their wedding, including the fact that they’re having a gelato stand instead of a cake — their save-the-date was designed as a check-out card for a library book, with the relationship milestones and their approximate dates included. The final date and milestone on the check-out card is, of course, their wedding on June 22 of this year.

Reddit photo by bsbtauldl

It got me thinking — what other themes could you do when it comes to your save-the-date? The great part is that all the ideas I’ve found can either be bought for pretty cheap off of Etsy (here’s a library checkout card you can simply buy, or a bookmark in keeping with the books/library theme), or do yourself with some creativity and Photoshop, like this guy did.

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Ah, Paris…! Wedding cakes from France

Chef Ivy Dai

Ah, Paris — the City of Lights, the most romantic city in the world, home to world class fashion and cuisine. I happen to have a friend living there now, working as a pastry instructor for Cook’n with Class and hosting dinners for the Paris Eating Club. Previously, she has worked as a pastry chef at the Ojai Valley Inn and appeared on Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars.” (If you ever watched Cupcake Wars and marveled at the super tall Asian girl, that was her.) I follow her on her Facebook fan page, Ivy Eats, where she frequently posts scrumptious-looking photos of the pastries she and students are creating.

It was her frequent postings that made me ask if she had done any wedding cakes since moving to France. Dumb question!

Photo by Chef Ivy Dai

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Trends In 2013: Use your photos as decorations

I love taking photos, always have. I’ve been taking photos of my loved ones since, gosh, junior high, when taking photos involved film and a couple of days to get your pictures developed at the local drug store. Seeing as how we’re all so crafty and DIY now, and armed with smartphones with cameras that give us instantaneous photographs, it makes sense to incorporate more of those photos into wedding decorations.

Photo from photojojo.com

One of my favorite sites lately has been Photojojo. It has all sorts of accessories for iPhone users and photography enthusiasts, and its blog is chock full of DIY ideas on how to make your photos the centerpiece of your event. For example, the under-$5 contraption holds photos with the help of florist wire and rocks (or seashells). They call this the DIY Stone Photo Holder.

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