Trying my hand at flower arrangements

One of the vendors we have to book for the wedding is a florist. I've met with several and will make a decision soon. One florist, after talking with me about what we need for the wedding, the colors and flowers I liked, my budget, etc. gifted me with a bunch of flowers to take home.

I ended up traveling on the subway and walking home with this giant paper package in my arms.

He gave me a huge variety - gerber daisies, orchids, hyacinths, roses, carnations, lilies - and I went to work putting together an arrangement.


FI had bought a vase from IKEA so I could put any flowers I get from him in it. I grabbed the vase and set up shop in our front hallway (easy access to kitchen and bathroom for water and paper towels). First I tied the raffia ribbon from the bouquet around the vase.


Then I spread out all of the flowers and started trimming the stems and placing them on the vase. I don't have any gardening shears, so I used a pair of desk scissors. It worked okay, although my cuts weren't very clean.


Then I started arranging them in the vase. I would put in all the stems of one type of flower, then slowly add others mixed throughout the flowers so there would be nice color contrasts and textural differences.


Here was my first completed arrangement.


But wait! We didn't want to see the ugly stems in the glass vase! So taking a page from lots of wedding photos I've seen, I took all the flowers out and lined the vase with the broad leaves (banana?) that were also given to me.

It's not completely smooth, but still a pretty nice effect. Especially since I had already put water (with plant food) in the vase and had to do it underwater.


Then I rearranged all of the flowers back into the vase. It looked pretty cool on our side table for the next few days.


Another overhead shot!


Given how much I like trashbowl shots, I can't finish this post without one of the mess I ended up with in the hallway.
Don't worry, I cleaned it all up!

Fabulous Color Combinations

As I've written before, our wedding colors are lavender/purple and yellow. As I peruse wedding websites and looking at pretty pictures, I've kept my eye out for purple and yellow themes.

I also try to enter as many contests as I can in the hopes of getting a gift certificate or some custom designed accessory. And I finally won one! I just had to comment on my wedding colors and I won a copy of a wedding magazine. Not only that, my colors were featured in a blog post and she sent me some more inspiration boards.

inspiration board from Kelly Oshiro Events

From bridalcanvas.com
From She Walks in Beauty (original source unknown)

From She Walks in Beauty (original source unknown)

I love the color combination and her blog post has even more examples of the colors together.

And as I told her in my comment - the color theme came about as a result of an ice cream FI and I shared on a date. We were at Sundaes & Cones and order mango and taro ice cream. The mango was a bright, pale yellow and the taro was a lovely lavender and I was entranced by how pretty those two colors looked next to each other that I tucked the idea into the back of my head and kept it until we were engaged and starting to plan this wedding.

Pretty, pretty flowers...

I enjoy arts and crafts. I like scrapbooking, jewelry-making, cross-stitching, and especially origami. I started learning origami from my Nai-nai (my paternal grandmother) and then from lots of books. I've missed crafting since being in NYC. Our little studio apartment doesn't leave much room for lots of crafts.

As we've been planning this wedding, I've been trying to think of ways to personalize the event and incorporate origami. My Nai-nai, who is a ripe old 90, also wanted to help out. Which means finding something cool with origami.

I was surfing the web (as I do) and came across a link to a tutorial on how to make Kusudama Balls - Japanese flower balls. It looked relatively easy (Part I and Part II) so I decided to try it out.

I used some random 3 inch origami paper that I had purchased in Chinatown a couple years ago and sorted out a bunch of colors. You have to make each petal separately and then glue each petal together and then glue 5 petals to make 1 flower. Then you glue 12 flowers together to make one ball. Turns out it was pretty easy, it just takes a while.

I started out by folding 5 petals at a time.


Then I glued each one together. I would put glue on one side, roll it together, and pinch it tight as I counted "one Mississippi, two Mississippi..."


Then I would let the petals dry as I folded the next 5 petals.


Then I would have an assembly line started. Fold 5. Glue 5 petals together. Glue 1 flower together. I got into a pretty good rhythm and it was something to do as I watched through a week's worth of the Daily Show and Colbert Report.


After finishing all 12 flowers, I glued 6 together to make the 2 halves. I tried to figure out a way to organize it so none of the same colored flowers touched each other. I don't think my visualization skills were advanced enough.


Look how pretty it is! To finish it off, I would glue a loop of ribbon to one half and then glue them together.


I showed the kusudama ball to my mom over Thanksgiving and she thought they were beautiful and would be something my Nai-nai could help with. Over Christmas, I showed my Nai-nai the ball and how to fold the petals. (We used napkins to practice.) She was very excited about helping out and talked about how she'd be able to fold all of the flowers. She even thought about asking her senior citizen center friends to help but decided against it because "they wouldn't be neat enough." :P

I found some jumbo value pack wrapping paper that should work pretty well. We'll use the balls as aisle decorations for the ceremony (hang them on the chairs right next to the aisle on every other row) and then for the reception (move them to the cocktail tables, place card table, gift table, etc.).

Another Wedding Show!

Earlier this week, I attended a Luxury Bridal Show sponsored by The Wedding Salon. I was able to get a complimentary ticket to the event via Style Me Pretty, a wonderful wedding blog with lots of beautiful pictures and lovely ideas for weddings.

The show was designed for the luxury wedding market and all of the vendors there were such. Pretty much everything was out of my price range, but it was fun to walk around and get pictures of the beautiful table settings and taste cakes.

Here's one of the table settings. The centerpiece is gorgeous and huge, over 3 feet tall. I like the filler they used in the vase - clear rocks that reflect the colors of the table settings. See how blue they look in the photo? They're actually totally clear.


Here's another enormous table centerpiece. The column is covered in the white roses and white orchids decorate the top and base of the doric flower column. The shiny structure spiraling up the flower column are little gold votive candle holders. I think I would prefer a simpler version of this centerpiece, making it more of a ionic column without the orchids, giant leaves, and candle holders.


Here's a simpler version of a spiral candle holder and white rose centerpiece. In this one, you still get the height of the piece, but your guests can actually see each other across the table.


I love centerpieces that are low (so everyone can see each other) and still bursting with flowers. This low centerpiece is nice and girly with all of these pink roses.


The show had models in wedding dresses with bouquets walking around the space showing off the designs. What was really funny was that they had a sign hanging off of them with information on the dress designer, who made the jewelry, which florist did the flowers, etc.


Here's a wedding cake from Mark Joseph Cakes. I love the simplicity of this design (and so do bridal magazines, I've seen this cake in at least 2 issues) and the beautiful sugar bows. They had cake samples as well - chocolate with pistachio icing and vanilla with strawberry icing. Both the cakes were good, but I think the icings both overpowered the cakes and their flavors (pistachio and strawberry) were too strong.


Sylvia Weinstock had cake samples, which were super moist and yummy. No cakes to look at though. :(


Here's the gift bag everyone got, with gifts "worth more than $250". There were some cool beauty samples but that was about it. There were also tons of magazines, which made the bag ridiculously heavy.


Mars Candy had a booth there as well to show off their personalized M&Ms and Dove bars. For the M&Ms, you can even get your picture printed on the candies. Which while sort of cool, also kind of creepy, since you're basically eating yourself....


Here's a bouquet from one of the florists there. I like the bright colors and big bunched-up-ness of the roses.


All in all, it was neat to see pretty things you could have at a wedding, but I'm kind of glad I got to go for free. There were too many different types of vendors and not enough of each kind. When there's only 1 make-up artist, 1 florist, 2 cake people, but 2 dress cleaners, 4/5 vacation spots, and 4/5 jewelers, you're not going to really be able to do any comparison shopping or see a wide range of options.

No Kissy Faces!

Earlier this fall, FI and I were down in NoVA for a friend's wedding. While there, we also had an engagement photo shoot with L2 of Girls with Big Cameras. Since L2's other photographer partners were busy, she recruited another friend from college, Corey, to help with the shoot.

FI was a little apprehensive when I first proposed an engagement photo session. But I really wanted to get them done. Not only do you have more time than wedding photos, but you also get to be a lot more comfortable, since you're not in full formal wedding wear.

It was also more comfortable because we were working with L2 and Corey, who are both good friends of mine. FI agreed afterwards that it was a lot easier to be relaxed and natural around friends who were taking photos than a "real" photographer who we weren't familiar with.

L2 and I discussed where we wanted to take pictures. I wanted to do some shots near water and near some cool architecture. But I didn't necessarily want the usual D.C. monument shots. So I asked L2 what she thought of Old Town Alexandria, the historical area of Alexandria, VA that's also on the waterfront. L2 thought that would be perfect since she's shot there before and knows the area. Plus she also recommended shooting at the Old Torpedo Factory, an old weapons factory that's now an art gallery and artist studio space since I wanted to shoot some cool formal shots.

FI and I also discussed what we wanted to do to make these shots our own. We always talk about the things we owned in common, so we included them in our photo shoot.

We started out inside the Old Torpedo Factory and then moved outside onto the waterfront and then back around town. Basically L2 (and sometimes Corey) would tell us where to stand or try a pose. Then she'd let us relax, talk to each other, make each other laugh, etc. as they took pictures.

After a month, we finally got our photo CD in the mail! FI kept laughing at me every day as I checked our mail box for the photos.

So... yay... a sneak peek!

Here we are in our "formal" wear inside the factory. I loved the fun artsy things that L2 did with some of the photos, like brightening the images or changing the color contrast.


Then we went outside and took some shots along the buildings on the waterfront. This one is along the Chart House restaurant. There's actually a corner in the wall, right about where we were holding hands. So we couldn't even see each other, but L2 just told us where to look and pretend we were smiling at each other.


Then we walked along the docks and took some strolling pictures. I like this one because of FI's smile. :)


We then went back to the Old Torpedo Factory to change into our "casual" outfits. Here's where we pulled out the "props" we had. We both have Nintendo DS Lites and we love playing games against each other (Big Brain Academy, Tetris, Mario Kart, Boggle, etc.) so we wanted to get some shots of us playing them.

We're not pretending here either. I think we were in a heated battle of Tetris. This was L2's interpretation of the Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant scene in "Notting Hill".


Notice the matching his-and-her flip-flops from J. Crew. We bought those together last year at an outlet mall in CT. We brought them especially so we could wear them for the shoot.

Then we did some hand-holding in cool architectural spots.


L2 loves jumping shots, so she and Corey got a bunch of us jumping off the steps. We tried to make silly faces at each other. Which wasn't hard when you're jumping in the air.


Then we walked over to the fountains and pulled out our sunglasses, again some of our matching items. Our glasses are both Von Zippers. FI had his first and when I needed new glasses, he recommended the VZs.


Finally we went and got some ice cream. We noticed all these ice cream stores when we were walking to the Torpedo Factory and we decided we should get ice cream at the end and then take some photos with the ice cream.


The end of a long afternoon!


Taking engagement photos was a great experience. L2 and Corey were super easy to work with and they did such a gorgeous job with the pictures. We love them! And we can't wait to use them for our wedding.

My first wedding show

Earlier this summer, I went to my first wedding show. It was at Kate's Paperie and was called "Unveiling the Best". Kate's sponsored the event with Martha Stewart Weddings and Darcy Miller, who's the editor of Martha Stewart Weddings, was there as well.

Since I'm looking to be a DIY bride (well, as much as I can be with time constraints and general procrastination), I was mostly at this event to get ideas and see what details were popular at weddings.

They had some cool appetizers including some yummy corn salsa and these amazing deep-fried shrimp cocktails. Totally cool, but probably totally expensive. Not only were they giant shrimp but each were individually set in its own cocktail glass. Which means 1) time-intensive and 2) not eco-friendly (since they would have to clean each of them and use up a lot of water).


The caterer had some gorgeous dessert platters as well. Here are a bunch of truffle lollipops on display. These must have taken forever to make and set up.


Here are close-ups of the truffle lollipops and pastries. I took some samples home for FI. I wrapped them carefully in a bunch of napkins and stuck them in the top of my purse (very carefully).


A beautiful wedding cake! The flowers are super delicate and gorgeous. However the cake samples were okay, not great. They were too dense and a little dry.


Some pretty stationery sets.


A gorgeous purple and green themed table setting. I really liked this since our colors are lavender and yellow.

It was a fun way to spend an evening. I got to try some yummy food and dessert samples, got some free stationery and see some beautiful wedding set-ups.

Things we don't want at our wedding...

Since we've gotten engaged, I've added a whole new category of RSS feeds to my Google Reader - Weddings. I'm included wedding site blogs, invitation blogs, design blogs, wedding planner blogs, cake blogs, and photographer blogs.

I read them everyday for inspiration, how-tos, ideas, commiseration, do-it-yourself projects. They're great fun to look at. While most of them are all great about wedding planning and ideas, there are a few snarky ones out there that are a great laugh.

One of the ones that I enjoy reading just for the snarky commentary is Stupid Wedding Crap. This woman is planning her wedding and kept finding really weird and unnecessary wedding stuff. So she decided to write about it. The stuff she finds mainly falls into 2 categories - 1) nice things that end up not being used because they are personalized with wedding decorations and the couple's names and 2) weird stuff that no one wants to take home with them (like a bale of hay or a champagne bottle egg timer).

Favors are a big discussion point. We're trying to figure out what to do for ours. We've been going back and forth between doing donations, doing a treat (mints, cookies, chocolates), or doing something practical. We still have time to decide, and once we do, we'll have to figure out how to personalize them, DIY of course!

Too beautiful to eat...

FI's mom's cousin's friend (was that complicated enough?) makes cookies for FI's mom's cousin's open houses (she's a realtor). She made some beautiful wedding cookie samples for FI and I.

Here's a double-hearted one with the couple's names on them. It's super-cute with the 2 background colors and the edge decorations.

This is the same double-heart shape but with a tux and wedding dress design. This is so intricate! You can't really see it clearly, but there are extra black piping on the tux for the lapels. The dress even has piping that looks like lace and a string of pearls.

Here's a wedding dress cookie. The piping on the skirt gives it a nice ballgowny feel.

This wedding cake has a cute heart caketopper. I love the piping work that makes it look like fondant stripes or icing designs.
The cookies were suprisingly soft and chewy, even though it was a few days before we ate them. They were really tasty!

Giant fortune cookies!

At the beginning of August, FI and I traveled to NoVA to attend the wedding of Sean and Lai-fan. They held their ceremony and reception at The Tower Club which is at the top of what we NoVAns affectionally call "The Shopping Bag" building. It's also the building that Stephen works in, so we just let him lead us all upstairs.

The ceremony was in the late afternoon and the sunlight made the whole space look so beautiful.
Caroline and Fleix brought Cady along. She was super well-behaved throughout the whole ceremony. And during the rest of the reception as well, as EVERYONE (like everyone, not just the girls, but all the guys too) wanted to hold her.

What a cute couple!

Here is the wedding cake. I think Lai-Fan's colors were red and orange. The bridesmaids wore muted orange dresses and flowers were red and orange. The cake had the red roses.

The centerpieces were thin branches arranged in a glass vase and they hung all these cute little red lanterns. The vase was on a mirrored plate and they had scattered Chinese candies all around the tables. The candies were a big hit as those were the first things everyone grabbed for as we sat down.

Our favors were giant homemade fortune cookies that the wedding party (and a few friends) made the last few nights.
For the table names, they used Chinese characters with good meanings - prosperity (fu), love (ai), family (jia), etc.

It was a really great party. Even though it was small, about 100 people, we kept it going pretty late. We danced until the DJs packed up and then we didn't leave even as the clubhouse people started setting up the original furniture.