San Diego Inspiration Board

Following the flower trial last week, the bride and I discussed a few options. Namely, we decided that the spider mums were just too spikey for her bouquet. Perhaps a bit too much texture, especially sense she is wearing a vintage style sheath. We decided that soft ivory football mums might be a better alternative.


She also nixed the hanging amaranthus for the tree. So it will just be yellow and purple orchids dressing the manazanita branches.

So, all in all, we pretty much have it down. I put together a final inspiration board for their wedding.

San Diego Trial II - their Tree of Love

Again, this is a more ghetto-fied version of what their actual Pièce de résistance will be. They have requested that guests write a poem or other loving thoughts on pieces of paper to hang on their "tree of love" which they will have prominently displayed at their reception and then later in their home.

Their tree will composed of large manzanita branches. They are still unsure if it will be sandblasted, natural brown red, or spray painted. If they go out and collect them on their own (again manzanita grows like wild here), I think they should spray it a soft gold. If they buy it, I like the sandblasted.

Here is a pretty good tutorial of how to make your own from the WeddingChicks.

Sandblasted Manzanita

I started messing around with this just to get the feel of what it is like to work with branches. I collected some dead branches from off the side of the road (near the florist coincidentally). I can tell you this, one of the reasons why manzanita is so popular for floral decor is that it is so strong. These dead branches - not so much - I have crap all over my car.

So again, just screwing around, I hung some green amaranthus on them. The amaranthus is really cheap here at $5 for 5 stems, which I used here. Side note - I actually had a beautiful red amarnathus in my garden, but my damn landlord chopped it down. Oh well.


Again, this isn't the same type of branch, not the same type of vessel. But I think I like it better with orchids on them. These are with my cheap dollar store orchids.


If they decide to go for the orchids, I think we will just order yellow and/white dendrodiums as they are so much cheaper than the other orchids (anywhere from $15-30 for 75ish blooms). These fake ones are supposed to be mokara orchids, which I admit are a more interesting flower to me. Sam's club is selling them super cheap, so you never know.


For a tutorial on how to hang and conceal the amaranthus flowers, see this article from wonderful Nettleton Hollow blog.

More florals - a trial for a San Diego wedding

One of my friends from Miami is getting married in his home town of San Diego. He is a great, chill, outdoorsy fellow - very San Diego. Well, I offered my floral services to him and his lovely fiancee and they were so excited to have something off their plates.

The wedding, which will be in a month, will be held on the beach followed by a reception at a nearby home.

For the ceremony, they will have manzanita and/or driftwood branches lining the aisle,

as well as vases hanging on shepherds hooks. Here is a trial go at the ceremony vases

They are a white hydrangea bloom and two marigolds with green amaranthus hanging down.



The bride requested that her bouquet include alot of texture and a variety of different blooms. She also had a preference for yellow and white. Here is what I dreamed up with some excess ribbon leftover from my wedding (I personally dislike this ribbon).










I used white spider mums, yellow button mums, white carnations, and yellow marigolds. This is about half the size I will make for her actual bouquet. I will also add in yellow cockscomb and probably switch out the marigolds with yellow carnations (the marigold stems just don't hold up well).



As for the groom, I suggested rosemary and they loved the idea of it. Here is what I came up with, and I hope they love it as much as I do. It is just two sprigs of rosemary from my garden and three tiny yellow button mums. It smells lovely and I think it will accompany her bouquet very well.





















For the reception, they have beautiful metal rectangular containers, that they plan to fill with succulents like the ones shown and rocks.



























To give it a little more zing and color, I think we are going to add a sweeping small manzanita branch covered with some smaller orchids. Here is my inspiration, using my very own succulent plant garden, a branch from one of my juniper trees, and some dollar store fake orchids - yes it is a ghetto-fied trial

On the tables, they will also have some smaller vases with succulents for their guests to take home


All in all, I think this is going to be a fabulous looking wedding, which will be minimizing the amount of cut flowers, but adding in lots of texture with living plants and branches (manzanita grows like wild in Cali).

More soon on their Pièce de résistance !

Florals on a budget - cheap flowers

When I was planning our wedding, I knew that I had to DIY the florals. Florists just charge way too much for stuff I know what do. Still the flowers and vases themselves can be costly. I did a fair share a research to find well priced flowers. What I found was that online wholesalers are no deal. I actually got better prices getting quotes from local florists (plus no delivery fee). For my own wedding, I used a local flower wholesaler. Miami, as the gateway from the Central and South American floral farms, is filled to the brim with flower wholesalers. But most large cities have flower wholesalers that will sell to the public. If not, get a quote from your local florist and make sure to ask for a better price since they aren't arranging them for you. Other well priced places include Costco (call and place the order with your local store) and your local grocery store.

Now on with doing your floral centerpieces on the cheap. What I have learned is that cheap flowers look, well, cheap when arranged with other cheap flowers. But when showcased on their own, they can be the stars and become stunning. See, for example, the following....

Carnations credit

Poms or mums
credit

Even baby's breath

The extra plus for working with a monoculture of flowers is that your save time dealing with the placement of specific flowers. Instead there is more emphasis on shape, color, and texture



Next is the vessel. Buy cheap vases. Dollar Tree and Ikea have great ones. You can always cover them in paper and ribbon for pizzaz.

Avoid buying online, they will get you with expensive shipping.

Or just make your own vases, by repurposing containers.

Ball canning jars

credit

Or cut some of your wine bottles. For tutorial see here

credit


Also, for an additional bit of decor, you can always add a punch of color underneath the vase. like these from etsy seller darlingdamask

Sure, you could buy them or always make these yourself. But time and money can be an issue (or sewing prowess in my case). But, why not rent awesome napkins from your local linen company. They usually rent for 50 cents each and come in a range of colors, textures, and fabrics. If you aren't renting anything else from them, pick them up and just mail them back.

Waffles for my sweetie!

Ok, so my new husband is not a fan of breakfast, which is only my most favorite meal of the day. But there are a few exceptions. He loves my pancakes, frozen Eggo waffles, and bagels with cream cheese. Well, when I happened upon a good recipe on CookingLight.com, I decided that it was high time to put the waffle iron, which I inherited from my dear grams, to use.

The iron, albeit rather old, worked out great and the waffles did not stick - not even the first batch! The recipe listed below is a little fine tuned to suit my taste, since I often like to eat them dry - so some more cinnamon and more sugar was needed. All in all, they were a snap to make and now we have waffles for the rest of the week. I just froze them individually. They have a texture similar to Nutri-gran waffles but with more flavor and heartiness that fill you up. One is just enough for me in the morning.

A baby waffle made from the last of the batter.

Bannana Cinnamon Waffles

Makes 12 waffles

Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed - grind in coffee grinder
3-4 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups fat-free milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 large ripe banana, mashed
Cooking spray

Instructions
Spoon flours into dry measuring cups and level with a knife. Combine flours, flaxseed, and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Combine milk, butter, and eggs, stirring with a whisk; add milk mixture to flour mixture, stirring until blended (don't over mix). Fold in mashed banana.

Preheat a waffle iron. Coat iron with canola oil from your Misto (don't use Pam or other bottled stuff - it will gunk up your iron). Spoon about 1/4 cup batter per 4-inch waffle onto hot waffle iron, spreading batter to edges. Cook 3 to 4 minutes or until golden Remove waffles by gently lifting the edges with a fork and then pulling the rest with your fingers. Respray the iron plates and repeat procedure with remaining batter.

Nutritional Information
Per two waffles:
Calories:215 (31% from fat)
Fat:7.4g (sat 3.3g,mono 1.9g,poly 1.4g)
Protein:7.3g
Carbohydrate:31.1g
Fiber:3.4g
Cholesterol:65mg
Iron:1.9mg
Sodium:205mg
Calcium:133mg

It takes a village... (ahem, how much does a wedding cost?)

At first, Ralph and I planned and expected to pay for our own wedding. We figured $10,000 should have been enough to cover it. We are lucky we had lots of help, because our wedding ended up costing more than double that. Keep in mind that we busted our butts to keep costs as low as possible, while not putting out our friends and family. So now, I unveil our wedding budget - but know that it took a whole village to throw this event in terms of emotional, financial, and logistical support.

Wedding Day Costs
Ceremony Site Fees: $350
Reception Site Fees: Included in food costs: $0
Food/Drink (includes tax and service fees): $7,802
Bridal Gown: $2600 for the gown, $50 pressing: $2,650
Bridal Accessories:
*Veil $40
Bracelet/Earrings $40
Shoes $20
*Bra/Garter $40
Groom’s Attire: FREE! Deal w/ 2 other rentals. $0
Stationery/Postage (DIY): $162
Photo/Videography: Won Contest! Only paid for travel related costs of the couple $1,600
Ceremony Music: $350
Reception Music: $800
Flowers (DIY): $400
Cake: (upgraded package) $65
*Favors (DIY): $50
Officiant: $400
DOC: FREE! Won contest! $0
Makeup: (@ counter included trial =$90/4 items, failed trial at counter = $50/3 items) $140
Hair $100
Wedding Party Gifts $210
Out of Town Guest Bags $100
Hotel Rooms: $700
Décor:
*Tablecloths (bought used) $120
Chargers (rented from a friend) $45
*Escort Frames $45
*Glassware/Misc Décor (most of the vases were gifted to me) $120
Flip Flops $50
Wedding Transportation $300
*Sold Leftover Items: -$260

WEDDING DAY TOTAL (excluding non-food related gratiuties): $16,439
TOTAL COST PER PERSON: $193

Other costs
Wedding Band: (Mine was bought w/ my E-ring) $70
Rehearsal Dinner: $900
Day after Brunch $400
Honeymoon: also used Frequent Flyer miles $3,600

OTHER COST TOTAL: $4,970

GRAND TOTAL: $21,149

Wow! That figure kills me. I mean that is 10% downpayment on a trailer home where I live :-)

Anyway, looking back, where would I have trimmed? Nearly nothing. I would not have liked to have an Ipod wedding (why do that to a friend?). Our officiant was wonderful, and worth every penny. I am glad I didn't put out my parents and make them host any event at their home. I am glad we hired a limo - EVERYONE was on time!!! My dress, albeit a huge splurge, was (1) cheaper than the first dress I fell in love with, (2) perfectly made to my body, and (3) AMAZING! I will probably sell it and hopefully recoup half its cost. I mean, I acted as our florist - can you be anymore of a cheapskate? As far as the guestlist, well I am sad that close to $1000 was spent on dinners that people simply did not show up for - but what can you do? I think we are both content with who we were able to invite.

PLUS, we had a blast at our wedding and honeymoon (we hadn't been on a real vacation in many years)!!!!

Thanks to my all Moms and Sister (you are my faithful readers too) for making it happen - there is no way we could have pulled this off without all of your love and support. I love you and miss you - J!!!

We have very generous family and friends

Ralph and I came home to lots of gifts that we had such a great time opening. It was like Christmas all over again.

All the packaging, though, it is alot. I actually kept all the tissue paper. And those falling over EMPTY boxes... they once had our everyday china in them, which I love and Ralph doesn't hate by the way. I already gave away some of these very sturdy boxes to some brides to use as their cardboxes. So we are trying to reduce waste where we can and help some brides out along the way.




Ralph ever so conveniently left for 3 weeks and so I am putting away all our new stuff by my lonesome. So far, I have to tell you, having a programmable coffee pot and a blender ROCK!

Last Friday, M-Lee got that aforementioned blender going and made some kicking pina coladas. Afterwards, we went to a great dance party at our yoga studio. The party called for costumes and so we obliged:

Ok, back to gifts... not everything is so completely new to us so we do have some older stuff that we can now retire. The good news is that we have several needy friends that could use our stuff. Whatever they don't need, we are donating to our local Labrador Retriever Rescue group's yard sale. I am glad that our stuff, largely from my first apartment (12 year old towels!) and family leftovers, will be benefiting others.

Just the begining of our retirement pile

We are very grateful for everything and everyone.

Wedding Day Run-through: the final, most fun bits!

Again, sorry for the grammatical errors.

Pretty much all of these pictures are from rock star Jade at Uplift Photography.

8:10 pm: Reception time! A panicked DOC tells us that two couples have no seats. I immediately feel that I must have screwed up the seating. I later learn that our venue only put 8 instead of 10 seats at one table, and another couple just flat out refused to sit where they were assigned. It all worked out in the end, because of a few no-shows. But I was kicking myself around for a good amount of time over it. I, then, exchange my evil heels for my ballroom shoes. Ralph and I dance as husband and wife. We do what is comfy for us and had a great time with each other being silly.


Next is the parent's dance. I immediately hear the song and wonder why the DJ had to pick the longer live version of Fleetwood Mac's Landside. I hate recorded live music played at events. My dad does a great job for a man that hasn't danced in close to 25 years. We have a fun time being silly too. I notice that Esther loves our song choice.

(I love how cute Ralph and Esther look here. The look I am giving my dad is awesome!)

Toasts are wonderful by our siblings. Donna was awesome and gave an unexpectedly non-sarcastic speech. Dave's speech was exactly what I expected. I hoped that everyone got his humor. I certainly did and I loved it.



8:20 pm: Dinner is being served. The seated appetizer was horribly disappointing. I LOVE crab cakes, but this one tasted eh, and the sauce is much too spicy for a broad audience. I eat like 3 tiny bites.

(apparently Adam liked it and even ate the crayfish garnish)

The Hearts of Palm salad eventually comes out, but where are the Hearts of Palm? It is good, but where is the best part? I get some aspirin in me, now that I have food in my belly, and immediately feel better. The main entree takes forever to come out and Ralph and I are ansy to go to each table and visit with our guests. I finally take a bathroom break by demanding that my new sistah Donna come to help me go. I return to find my entree, which is in some serious need of salt. I can't find the salt, as it was hidden behind the flowers, I eat three bites and then go and visit the tables. Our DJ tells us that we are running late due to the very slow dinner service and need to start the music. We hold him off for a bit to go and visit the tables, but we still miss 2 tables. I still feel really bad about this.


Now, I have no idea about time....

• With no headache anymore, I finally drank some Champagne. I think I drank a single glass over the entire night.
• I had a blast on the dancefloor and was so glad that Ralph stayed with me.

• I kept complaining about the heat. It was hot the moment we walked in - what was up with that?
• I noticed people with no shoes and then kindly asked someone to make sure that the flip flops were placed out. They finally appeared and I directed the barefooters there. It was a hit!

(I think this is a Marjie foot)

• The DJ played all the songs we requested and included a few songs that were right up our alley, however, they weren't mixed that well and he cut out alot of the crecendos and best parts of songs. Ralph and I were really sad about this, but understood that he needed to fit all our "must play" songs into a limited amount of time since dinner took too long. It didn't ruin anything for us and we were happy that the dancefloor was always kicking.
  
• We visited with people outside, where it was much cooler. I danced a bit out there too.

• My mom was in the bathroom during the playing of Dancing Queen. I tried to find her, but I didn't look there.
• I kept checking in with my Dad who was very amused at all the fun people were having.
• Cake cutting time. We had no idea what to do! We winged it and then winged it again.

• Garter removal. I had no idea what was coming! I sat out there and for some reason had no idea what the DJ was going to do. Ralph's dance was soooo classic Ralph. I love that he chugged the beer - because he knew what was coming.

• Bouquet Toss. Totally planned. I knew exactly who I was throwing it to. She just moved, but then actually caught it.

• Garter Toss. I see that my brother Dave actually went for it.

• More dancing insues. Ralph stayed on the dancefloor all night.

(Ralph's Grandmother - who rocked it all night. She says that this is the way she is 90-something young)

• We end the night with one slow song (Clapton's Wonderful Tonight) and then go into Journey's Don't Stop Believing. Somehow we become encircled as we dance/sing the silly song. The funny thing is that Journey followed us on our honeymoon and had a concert right next to our resort. We totally tailgated and stayed for half the show. I have a feeling that Don't Stop Believing was saved for the last song too. I was too chilly to wait for it.

• I try to give away as many flowers as possible. I snag a bunch of leftover favors. I try and help with clean up as Ralph yells at me to stop. I give in and we head off to our sassy little Chevy Cobalt. People keep telling me that the limo is waiting for us... he he, that ride was for my parents and family.
• We go back to the hotel room only to find this (thanks to Heather, Emily, and Corey)....

There is no other way to say it: we had a freaking blast!!!! Thank you to everyone. xoxoxo

(my amazing necklace was Ralph's gift to me - it was the most perfect gift ever)



(Our last day in Hawai'i, walking the coastline)

I gave in to the DIY world of weddings

I told myself that I would try to keep things simple, but man, I got sucked in. I told myself that I did not have to print on a piece of paper what was going on during our ceremony (aka The Ceremony Programs), that it was a waste of paper. I mean, certainly people have been to a wedding before and generally know what is going on. But then, I thought, hmmmm... there are an awful lot of women here, people are going to wonder who is who, and for that matter, who is that girl reading that poetry, and what is she reading? And I thought, that some of those moms might want a keepsake from the wedding. And then I thought, well it is just one more thing, it won't take long to make. Hmph!

I also told myself that a decorated aisle runner was totally unnecessary. I mean, what do you do with it when you are done? Then I met our DOC a few weeks ago and I broke the news to her.... (a) we are using basic banquet chairs without chair covers (shutter), (b) we are not having an arch, (c) we are not decorating anything for the ceremony, and finally (d) that includes the aisle runner.

See, look how pretty our ceremony site is without decorations and stuff.

It was only D that made her slightly downtrodden. So, since I had already made an emergency flight back to Miami to take care of wedding business, I decided to decorate that damn aisle runner the morning of my flight home back to CA.

And so, here are my instructions for other brides that don't feel like shelling out $80+ on one...

(1) Make your design. I used powerpoint to make this...

(2) Measure the width of your aisle runner to determine the size of your finished monogram. At first, I thought it should be 1/2 the width of the aisle runner - WRONG. That was way too small. I would say about 2/3 the width is good.

(3) Resize your design in your program. For Powerpoint, go to File --> Page Setup and enter your correct dimensions. It should automatically resize everything to scale. I then saved the file as a PNG file (I really don't know why, but I did)

(4) Get it to a printer friendly program. For me, that was Excel. I went to Insert --> Picture and inserted that PNG file into there. Then I printed in grayscale. It will print in mulitple pages (I couldn't get Powerpoint to do this).

(5) Cut the pages, align, and tape them together

This is the smaller version that I ended up scrapping

(6) Place the taped pages under the runner and secure well with tape that you have predetermined to be removedable without damaging the runner.

(7) Using a toothpick, outline the runner with your paint. I used craft paint from Michael's. This is kinda nessesary to have a nice finished edge.

(8) Fill in with a brush, if you have a steady hand. Otherwise fill in with the toothpick. I luckily have a steady hand.

The finished product

(9) DO NOT SPILL IT ON THE RUNNER! If so, we found that blotting with concetrated all purpose cleaner (Mrs. Meyers) and then LIGHTLY painting over it with Whiteout worked ok.

We fixed it pretty well

(10) Remove the paper from underneath the runner. The question really should be when should you do this. We waited until the paint was dry to the soft touch, however, the paper stuck to the aisle runner and was a pain to remove. If you remove it while it was wet, I am afraid that the paint will stain anything else that is left underneath it while it dries.

(11) If you are like me... thank you mom profusely. Between the two of us it took us a good 4.5 hours to outline, paint, and then figure out how to fix our boo boos.

Total cost was $16....~$11 for the runner, $2.25 for paint (which I already owned but was in CA), $2.00 for a thin brush, and, of course, the bonding time with mom was priceless. I also got all these supplies at Michael's when they had 40% off coupons (the trick is that you print out multiple ones and make your family come with you).

So what will do with this thing? Well I decided that we will have a little decor in there. How about a few rose petals down the sides of the aisle. Sorta like this.....

Yes, I am a total sucker!