“E”

…these were taken after we just got back from watching Avatar 3D.  E was so excited about the 3D glasses (boys are so easily amused) that he didn’t return them at the end of the movie…completely ignored the theatre’s request for him to kindly return the glasses to be recycled.  How “un-green” of him.  He immediately got online as soon as we got home to find as many 3D things online so he can watch them with his new glasses.  I just thought he looked so funny in those glasses.  I ❤ him :-)…also because he brings me home desserts when I ask him to (almost every night)…even when I’m on a diet 🙂

“SHORT WEDDING DRESS”

…this was the original dress I was gonna buy…should have bought it.  Isn’t it adorable? And, it’s under $2000!  It was the first dress I fell in love with when I started searching for a wedding dress.  If I had bought it, I would pair it with one of these statement necklaces from Anthropologie since the dress is so simple, a birdcage veil…and a pair of yellow heels.  So chic.

O’Keefe necklace

Metalwork Corsage choker

Treasured Trinkets necklace

But then I fell into the proper wedding dress band wagon.  Once you started trying the dresses on, it’s so hard to choose just one.  I fell in love with another dress.  I could have gotten the Drew dress for the reception, but it’s too pretty to wear it just for the reception…and with the amount of money I’m spending on my dress, I want to wear it at BOTH the ceremony and reception.  Every once in a while though, I would still come back to the Drew dress and wish I could have 2 wedding dresses *sigh.*  So pretty.

“REUSABLE BAG”

…E and I are doing our parts to be a bit more green.  We recycle regularly, and we avoid using plastic bags (or paper bags).  We bring our own bags when we grocery shop, which is great especially at Whole Foods since they take 5 cents off for every bag you bring…not that it’s much considering you are shopping at Whole Foods after all, but it’s better than having to pay for a bag. It also helps with us not accumulating all these bags in our tiny condo.  Over the years, I’ve collected many designer shopping bags because they are so fancy and pretty, I feel bad throwing them out.  I have so many of them, I just can’t keep them anymore.  I now go as far as not using shopping bag when I shop for clothes (or shoes or make-up or whatever).  I bring my ginormous purse with me when I shop (blog more about my purse collection later), and I shoved as many things in it as I can.  If it gets full then I pull out my little trusty “Rainbow Brite” bag.  My friend, Susan, got it for me for X’mas, and it is one of the most useful presents I’ve ever gotten! It folds into a little pouch, and I can throw it in my purse so it goes everywhere with me.

If you are considering getting one, Baggu makes cute reusable bags that also come with a pouch, and the more bags you buy, the cheaper they are.

I’m the crazy girl who uses her own bag when shopping, and I love it!

“BUTTERFLIES”

…not to the point of obsession like Mariah Carey and her butterflies…I just like them because of the Martha Stewart Butterflies Wedding Cake.

I ordered a bunch of silk butterflies from Floraltrims because I didn’t know how much I would need for the cake.  Then I decided I only want yellow butterflies on my cake so now I have about a thousand butterflies in other colors that I don’t know what to do with.  I was gonna make a cute bouquet out of them.  Saw it in Martha Stewart Weddings mag also.  Super adorable.  If you don’t want to use a fresh flower bouquet, this butterflies bouquet is so darling.  If you don’t want it for yourself, you can make it for the flower girl.

I want a fresh flower bouquet so I decided not to make a butterflies bouquet.  I thought may be I could string them on a string and hang them as a backdrop for the photobooth.  Great idea in theory…but not in reality because that didn’t turn out quite right.  I don’t have quite enough butterflies to make a good impact in the background, and I don’t want to have to order MORE butterflies just to make it (which sorta defeat the purpose of me trying to use them up in the first place).

I then decided I have enough to make pretty wreaths (2 to be exact).  I purchased the wreaths from Michael’s.  They are just wooden branches, and I sprayed them with silver paint.  I then attached the butterflies to them.  The butterflies already came with wire attached so it was really easy to do.  I’m not sure what I’ll do with the wreaths yet, but I might hang them as a backdrop for the photobooth still or use them to decorate the venue somehow.  They are so pretty aren’t they?

Wedding Project #11-Check.

“THROW PILLOWS”

…we are fortunate enough that our venue is so versatile.  We are having both the ceremony and the reception there.  In the grand ballroom area where the reception will be held, there’s a enclosed lawn right outside of it so we can set up a lounge area.  Our wedding planner, Nancy, recommended that we have a few throw pillows for the couch that will be placed outside.  She was gonna go buy some for us.  I stopped her immediately.  Hello?  I love making pillows.  They are the easiest thing you can make for your wedding!  Ok, may be not the easiest, but it’s certainly not complicated.  Sew 2 pieces of fabric on 3 sides, stuffed, and sew the other side.  Or in my case, I only had to sew 2 sides because I cut the fabric long enough to just be folded in half first.  Genius, right?  I know.  Anyways, I made some from the fabrics I got at Downtown LA.  The heavier fabric (black and white) is the original fabric I bought for the ring pillow, then I found a cuter fabric (the lighter cotton with yellow and gray geometric squares) for the ring pillow.  I have some left over from making the ring pillow so I used it up to make another throw pillow out of it.  I still need to go buy some pillow stuffing from downtown then I can finish them, but these are super easy.  Try making one yourself.  You can throw it on the couch or your bed…and viola.  Simple room makeover.

Wedding Project #9 – Half Check (still need to stuff the pillows).

“DESSERT TABLE”

… Not only that it’s delicious, it also gives you an opportunity to express more of your style though the use of desserts and table decor.  Amy Atlas is known for her dessert table.  I’m posting some of the really cute ones she did here.

NOTE that all of them has a beautiful backdrop.  In reality, this may not be at the case at your wedding since it could be outdoor or if it’s indoor, you can’t ask the venue to re-wallpaper their ballroom just for you, obviously.  Just focus on having beautiful vessels to hold your desserts such as gorgeous cake stand for bite size goodies (from Target or Pottery Barn) or beautiful glass canisters for candies.  The glass canisters can be found at Target or Michael’s.  You can even scour flea market or yard sale for them.

Unfortunately, there is not really a flea market close by where I live so I’ll mostly likely have to buy them from Target.  If you do not have a beautiful backdrop like Amy’s, try to add some structural elements to the table to make it more interesting.  For us, I’m using the craft letters I decoupaged to spell out the word “SWEETS”, and I may also get a few sturdy boxes and wrap them in pretty papers or fabrics and display the desserts at varying heights.  Don’t forget to label the jars or platters with pretty tags.  You can also provide cute to-go boxes or bags for guests to take the candies home.  This can double as your favors.  Pretty and budget friendly.  That’s a project worth doing.  The candies can be ordered online in bulk from sites like ACandyStore, GroovyCandies, or CandyWarehouse . Order them in your wedding colors and have fun.

“CAKE TASTING”

…My cake inspiration came from the cover of Martha Stewart Weddings magazine.  It was the first wedding magazine I purchased ever in my life, and it was because I fell in love with the cake picture on the cover instantly.  I bought it right after we got engaged, and it has inspired so many details of our wedding.  The cake is so beautiful, and I knew immediately that I want that as my cake no matter where or how our wedding is going to be.  Originally, E was going to bake our wedding cake.  It seems simple enough because I only want a plain, white fondant covered cake, just like the MS cake.  I was going to decorate it myself with the butterflies I purchased from Floraltrims.  However, as we move further along into the planning process, we feel that it is quite a responsibility to do our own cake, and we do not need another added stress closer to the wedding date.  We decided to order a cake.  For those of you who are thinking of making your own cake, please don’t.  It is so worth it to leave it to professional, and it will probably cost you just the same to make one or order one.  We thought we could do it because we had the resources.  E has his own professional kitchen equipped with his own pasty chef, and we were still reluctant about doing it ourselves.  I originally searched around Orange County for a baker, but then everyone is either charging an arm and a leg for the delivery fee, or they won’t even deliver to Palm Springs.  Then I started looking into finding a bakery in Palm Springs.  I found out that if you are planning a destination wedding, it is best to use the resources available in that area.  You save so much money on the travel/delivery fees.  As for us, it was sorta half local/half destination so either way could have worked so it’s just really depending on what you are looking for.  Fortunately, Coachella Valley is not that big, and there are not that many options for many things.  You can count that as a blessing or a curse, depending on how you want to look at it.  I’d like to think positive and was glad to narrow down my options rather quickly.  Pastry Swan came highly recommended both on the website search and through word of mouth.  I went to check it out while I was in Palm Springs for work.  I brought my bridesmaid Debi with me since she lives there so it worked out.  E was working so he missed out.  We had fun mixing and matching the cake flavors and fillings.  They all tasted great so I went ahead and put the deposit down.  We have a cake!

“GUESTBOOK”

…it probably would have been easier just to buy one, but me being me, I want my own unique guestbook.  We want to have a photobooth at our wedding so I figured we will need something for our guests to stick their photos on and leave us a few words.  I went to office supplies stores and craft stores, and I didn’t like any of the guestbooks they have available.  Not even a plain one that I can jazz up myself.  One day, I was in the arts section and found this artist sketch book.  The papers were a bit thin, but the book itself is a good size and has sturdy covers.  I think it is really important to find a book with strong covers if you want to make your own guestbook so you can be creative with it and so that it would last.  I simply glued on some ribbons left over from other projects using the spray glue left over from the decoupage fiasco.  It actually worked well with ribbons in this case.  Then I used a pretty, textured paper to cover the back of the front cover so hide the ribbon ends.

I also found a cute scrapbook sticker set which I used to make the word “LOVE” on the cover. Cover is done.  Now, the papers inside.  They were too thin.  The original sketchbook was wire-bound so I needed to go to an office supplies store to see if they can replace the papers for me.  Seemed simple enough.  Well, apparently, no stores does wire-bound anymore.  I went everywhere.  I was so disappointed since I spent a lot of time working on the cover.  Just when I was about to give up, this one very kind lady at Staples told me they can cut off the wire-bound completely, replace the papers, then re-bound the book for me.  It worked perfectly, and it only cost me less than $5 to do it.  Thank you, Staples. So awesome.  Wedding Project #8 – Check.

“ISABEL MARANT”

…I know I’ve been blogging a lot about fashion/trend lately, but I just want to get this one in.  I’ve been obsessed with Isabel Marant for a while now especially recently after I saw her latest Spring/Summer 2010 collection.  Heart, heart, heart every piece in it.  If I were 5’10 and has tons of money, I’d order the whole collection and replace my wardrobe with it.  But I’ve stopped growing long time ago so I’ll settle for just the black one shoulder dress.  I have to figure out how to get it somehow.  I’ve been obsessed with one shoulder mini dress lately, and this dress has everything I want in it.  The ruffles make it girly, but the black anchors it so it’s not too saccharine.

Looks like feminine, flirty ruffles is going to be a big trend this Spring.  I have to stock up.  Can’t wait!

“UNEXPECTED WEDDING JEWELRY”

…I never quite get why people spend so much on wedding jewelry.  May be because they have tons of money so they feel that it is necessary to spend it on diamonds for the wedding.  I don’t know if I would have done the same since I already spent most of my money on the wedding itself.  Luckily, I don’t care much of expensive jewelry anyways.  I like things that are unexpected…like the Olympian Cuff from Anthropologie or the Indian Cuff from ASOS.

How hot is the Olympian cuff, though, especially if I paired it with the Blushless dress?  I’ve decided that I will only be wearing earrings and may be a bracelet or a cuff and no necklace so I’m just focusing on looking for those items.  The more unusual the better.  Jewelry should reflect your personal style, and there are no rules that said you have to wear fancy jewelry or any jewelry at all for your wedding.  Do what makes you feel good.

I like chunky, attention-grabbing (in a good way) jewelry.  Normally, I would throw in a big cocktail ring since I totally heart that, but I want the only rings I’m wearing to be my engagement ring and my brand spanking new wedding ring.