Charissa and Jarryd: Part 2

Happy Halloween everyone!

Here is more scrumptiousness from Charissa & Jarryd's wedding. 

The ballroom at the Richard Nixon Library is gorgeous!

We used a mix of round and square tables to fill in the space and we had four different flower arrangement styles. 

Love these dahlias! 

And the rhinestone buckles:

They wanted to seat all of the wedding party and their dates at the head table, so we created a gigantic kings table that sat 35 guests!

Each guest received an individual box of chocolate caramels, handmade by a friend of the bride. 

I always love Vanilla Bake Shop's treats because they are tasty as well as incredibly stylish. Amy custom makes a tower for each bride to go along with her colors and theme.

A moody first dance photo:

Someone close to the bride works on "Deal or No Deal" so, as a surprise, we showed a video of Howie & the girls wishing the newlyweds lots of love. So fun!

Craigs Extraordinary Catering always does a wonderful job. I love working with them. As a special treat, they tray passed shooters toward the end of the night: Root beer floats, Orange Dreamsicles and a coffee float. They were a big hit! 

Charissa & Jarryd: Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your beautiful day. I enjoyed our countless emails and fun meetings and I even was okay putting up with Jarryd's USC pride. Although, I know if I saw you right now, all I would hear about is football and how bad we are doing :)     I wish you two and sweet Jack a life of happiness!

Their wonderful vendor team:

*Venue: Richard Nixon Library
*Catering: Craig's Extraordinary Catering
*Florist: Rainbows Flower Shop
*Photo: John Partridge
*Cake & Cupcakes: Vanilla Bake Shop
*Video: Mise En Seen
*Linens: Fusion Linens
*DJ: Prospect 11 DJs - Ethan
*Officiant: Tim Culling of Restoration Church of Long Beach
*Favors: Schweets by Kristy
*Flamenco Guitar: Terry Toney (yep- my father in law. Better known in the flamenco world as Antonio Duran)

Charissa & Jarryd at the Richard Nixon Library: Part 1

A while back, I showed a sneak peak of the flowers from Charissa and Jarryd's wedding at the Richard Nixon Library. A few weeks later, their wedding was featured on Southern Weddings . Now I finally their photos for you, taken by the wonderful John Partridge .

That notecard is actually the directions for how to put on Charissa's dress. How funny is that? It was quite an ordeal :)

Bouquets:

The beautiful bride:

The groom's adorable son was upset that he did not have a boutonniere like the big guys. I grabbed a little mum out of an arrangement and made him a makeshift boutonniere. Here he is happily showing it off:

Isn't he cute? 

Here he is again, sneaking into his dad's photo shoot: 

The ceremony, with a glimpse of the Nixon birth house in the background:

Charissa wanted to incorporate a lot of eucalyptus into the ceremony decor:

More ceremony details:

That is my father in law, above. He plays a mean flamenco guitar. If you are interested, let me know!

Guestbook table:

Drinks in the color scheme of the wedding:

Escort cards:

The beautiful couple:

All flowers by Rainbows Flower Shop.

Reception details to come!

Happy Birthday Isaiah!

Last saturday, my little guy turned one. Can you believe it? I cannot understand how a year has already gone by- it is crazy! If you want to take a glimpse back at his first year of life, you can check out our family blog.

He loves anything and everything having to do with music, so we threw him a music/rock band party.  Here is a sneak peak into the party, with pictures by the wonderful Jenetta . (we will be posting more in a week or so once my hubby's computer gets back from the Mac hospital)

The invite:

My inspiration for the invites, and really the whole party, was the adorable paper by Die Cuts with a View . The main part of the invitation is not actually shown- we included a CD of all of Isaiah's favorite songs. I'll take a photo of it and post it soon with the track listing. Because of the CD, I had to come up with a cute way to make a CD holder. I decided a pocket design would be easiest and cutest. It was super simple to make as well. I cut the paper, folded in in half and then we stitched the sides with a sewing machine (and by we, I mean my mom... aka my personal seamstress!). I used a circle hole punch to make the opening slit and the glued on the graphic (which was so generously given to me by etsy seller Salmon Street Studio ). I used a lot of kraft paper for the party to give it a laid back, slightly retro feel. I also made Isaiah a party hat out of the paper:

It was one of my favorite details of the party- isn't it cute? It is way cuter on him though!

He was not as into it as I was- it only lasted a couple of minutes.

Friends of ours from church graciously allowed us to have the party in their park...err backyard. It is gorgeous and huge! 

A couple of shots of the cake and gift area.

I made a fun banner that said "happy 1st birthday isaiah". Inspiration from the adorable etsy seller, Polka Dots & Pirates .

Yum!

The guitar cake was my biggest undertaking for the party. I love to bake, but usually stick to round or square types. Luckily, Wilton makes a guitar cake pan, purchased at Michaels. I was nervous the cake would stick to the pan when I tried to get it out, but some shortening and flour took care of that. I am pretty proud of how it turned out :)

I used licorice for the strings and frets and black fondant for the sound hole. Isaiah ate it very politely :) My sweet friend Shae baked some delicious coconut and vanilla-almond mini cupcakes. I frosted them with either cream cheese or butter cream frosting and topped them off with a fondant star.

I have been eating the left overs all week... Always a fan of lanterns:

For the kiddos, we set up play areas on the lawn. We made 4 different sections: the guitar section, the piano section, drum section and the "noise" section. Each had a big blanket and lots of fun toys and instruments to play with.

The signs were not staying in the ground well, so we got resourceful and grabbed some potted plants. 

We hung some pots & pans and let the kids bang away with wooden spoons. It was funny, but the kids that played with it the most were the big kids (the 8-12 year olds!)

Favor bags:

I made tags with each child's name on them, using my cricut. I don't have pictures of the actual favors yet, so you will just have to check back next week to see what they were!

Isaiah loved playing the bum floor tom drum and his little red piano. He even wanted to stop eating his cake so he could keep playing the piano.

More to come (food and other details). 

Happy birthday sweet one year old!

We love you!