Holiday Card Swap

I am so excited about this!

Brooklyn Bride is hosting her second annual handmade Christmas Card swap. This is so fun. You sign up to send five handmade cards to others in the blog world and you receive five yourself. I have already signed up and cannot wait to make my cards and see what others come up with.

For more details, click here. 

Today...

photo from Sprinkles

Confession:

I have been eating peppermint ice cream for over a month and yesterday I listened to Christmas music by choice.

~Courtney


P.S. hint, hint: lots of holiday goodness is coming soon!

Jennifer & Michael featured on Style Me Pretty!

This wedding has been popping up all over the place! Jennifer & Mike's red and tiffany blue wedding was featured today on Style Me Pretty's Little Black Book Blog. Thanks to the wonderful Chenin Boutwell for submitting these gorgeous photos. There are three separate entries: I, II, & III.

To see more details from this wedding, please click here and here.

You are going to be so sick of me by the end of this post...

If you have been following my blog at all over the past couple of years, you know how much I love Jasmine Star. I had the privilege of coordinating the first wedding she ever shot and it has been so wonderful to see our friendship grow as we have worked together over the past couple of years. I am so proud of how much she has accomplished and how stinkin awesome she is at capturing couples- the love, the emotion the goofiness. If you have not seen her work, give yourself an hour or two to devour her blog and amazing website. Brides: if you have not booked your photographer yet, I highly, highly recommend Jasmine.

Being the lovely lady that she is, she offered to take new pictures of me & Darcie for my website (an update is finally in the works!). We had so much fun prancing around the Orange Circle last week. Here are a few of my favorites:

To see more, click here.

I also want to thank my good friend Jenetta, one of my favorite SD photographers, came to my rescue a few weeks ago and shot a new headshot for me. I had to get them taken for a magazine I will be in and gave her about a days notice. Being the amazing woman she is, she stepped right in and I love the way it turned out! You can see it in my profile information over on the right side of the page. Thanks Jenetta! You are the best!

Okay, now that you are sick of looking at pictures of me, I promise I won't talk about myself for a while :)

Inspiration overload!

Looking for some inspiration today? Do yourself a favor and hop on over to Anthropologie's website and check out their holiday section.

The styling in the Glee section just makes me happy.

The Holiday Trim section is just amazing. It makes me want to go decorate a tree right now.

If I had $28 to buy new dishtowels for Christmas, I would get these.


Need some more? Head on over to my other favorite store, PaperSource, and check out their adorable holiday cards, gifts and crafts. I did some damage there yesterday.

How did I just find out that PaperSource, Anthropologie and Free People are all next door to each other in Carlsbad?? And the Apple store is right across from that? Oh, bliss. This might be a dangerous holiday season!!


Do you have any fun, creative projects or plans for the holidays? I'd love to hear them!

My 1 year old

One of my favorite photographers, Jenetta, came over last week to get some 1 year photos of my little man. Here are a few of my favorite:

So sweet & happy:

The Rockstar:

"Hi, my name is Isaiah and I am Trouble"

"...and I know exactly how to melt my mom's heart"

My favorite hat:

Not his though.

Struttin' his stuff:

I just love him.

There are a few more photos up on Jenetta's blog, if you would like to check them out.

Jennifer & Michael: The Details, part 2

Welcome back to the fun wedding of Jen and Mike!

Here is a look into their reception:

The gorgeous centerpieces:
#1:

#2:

Aren't they breathtaking? We wanted something elegant, dramatic and different. I loved the variation on the low arrangement of have the flowers around the candles. I also loved how Flower Allie, the florist, submerged the orchids in the water on the tall centerpieces. Along with the tall centerpiece, each table had these little beauties around the main arrangement:

How amazing are those red damask votives? Here is the story behind them: at our meeting with the florist, Jen brought a candle she owned that she loved. It was a red and white damask print. They were no longer sold where it was from, so we brainstormed how we could recreate the look. We came up with the idea to have the damask print designed and printed on vellum and then cut & attach the vellum to the votive holders. It was a huge undertaking, but definitely paid off! Stacia of Serendipity designs created and printed the graphic and Jen and her family spent countless hours cutting, taping and glueing. There were hundreds of them! And the best part? Jen came up with the idea to resell them to another bride after the wedding. 

Love, love, love this sweetheart table. So romantic!

Some more details:

The favors:

Inside each of the boxes, there was a scrumptious red velvet cupcake for each guest. This was in addition to the cake. Double dessert? I'm in!  Here is a peak at what the cupcakes, made by For the Love of Sugar, look like:

The kids got their own goodie bags, filled with little toys, activities and their own special cupcakes, designed like jungle animals! 

Jen & Mike also created a special surprise, a hand-made coloring book, featuring the animals found on the Rancho Las Lomas property:

The DIY details never end: Jen even labeled these bubbles and tied a ribbon on each. An easy touch to take something from generic to adorable!

Sweet first dance moments:

Want your girls to love you? Give them flipflops to wear while dancing:

Seating Chart:

We stuck candles anywhere we could. One of my favorite spots was along the bridge to the reception area.

All lit up at night:

Jen's mom and a group of her college friends performed a few line dances for the new couple. It was adorable!

Yum and Wow!

I could look at this wedding all day. It was such a blast to help design and bring to life. Jen and Mike, I hope you are doing wonderfully in New York. Thank you for allowing me to share in such a special day, in addition to our long days of planning on your two trips out here. I so enjoyed getting to know you and your relationship is so sweet and special. Your thank you speeches to each other brought tears to my eyes and were some of the best I have ever heard. May you have as much, if not more, wonderful things to say about each other 50 years from now!

The rest of the amazing vendor team:
*Photo: Sweet Chenin Boutwell 
*Video: The wonderful Joe from Todays the Day Weddings
*DJ: The always fabulous Eric with SoCal DJs
*Linens: The lovely crew over at Fusion
*Catering: Craigs- a big thanks to Danielle & Daniel for being so wonderful to work with!
*Beautiful Strings: Fiddlestix
*Lighting & flat screen TV's for slideshow: Rainbow Lighting (thanks for rockin the TV's at the last minute!)
*Gorgeous cake: Great Dane Bakery 
*Calligraphy: The oh-so-talented Laura Hooper 

Jennifer & Michael: The Details, part 1

I love all of my clients and their weddings, but one of my favorite weddings from the past year was Jennifer and Michael's wedding at Rancho Las Lomas . The color scheme was so fun and the wedding was overflowing with gorgeous details. I am very excited to let you know that this wedding is going to be published in a wonderful wedding magazine this winter. More details on that to come...

For now, I am thrilled to share some more photos of their wedding, taking by the amazingly talented Chenin Boutwell . This post will feature the ceremony and cocktail hour. The reception will be posted tomorrow, so be sure to check back!

Beautiful!

The gorgeous car, provided by Classy Chassis : 

Ceremony details:

Mr & Mrs:

I LOVE this one! Taken right after the ceremony. So sweet!

I loved how the bridesmaids' bouquets popped against their dresses:

My favorite thing about their wedding was that every single element was specifically designed to coordinate with the theme of the wedding. From pens for the guest book, to reserved signs in the church, to votive candles and to the cocktail napkins: no detail was overlooked. I love this! It is my favorite part of helping brides come up with their decor.

 Jennifer even made welcome bags their out of town guests that matched the stationary from the wedding:

All of the printed items, with the exception of the invitations, were designed by Stacia ofSerendipity Designs . She printed more red damask vellum for this wedding than she probably will the rest of her life! Event the cones on the church pews (above) were made by the floristout of the vellum Stacia printed. More on how we can up with that idea in the next post.

The reception was held at one of my favorite venues, Rancho Las Lomas. The Spanish architecture lent itself wonderfully to the romantic Spanish theme.

I adored how the invitations turned out. From Cards De Luxe .

A few cocktail hour details:

At Rancho, guests walk though a cute little building called Rick's Cafe to get down to the lower grounds, where the reception was held. We stuck childhood and couple photos of the bride & groom on every ledge or table we could find, along with candles. Guests loved it!

Here is a little sneak peak to hold you over until tomorrow: