Thursday, February 26, 2009

Brides Against Breast Cancer Sale in Orange County THIS WEEKEND!

I love this organization- you can buy wedding dresses for a great price and at the same time support the fight against breast cancer. As a cancer survivor myself, I have a deep appreciation for these events.
The Brides Against Breast Cancer sale will be in Orange County this weekend. See more information below. Thanks to the lovely Christine of The Spiraled Stem for bringing this to our attention. 
Bargain Hunting Brides Can Get Wedding Dress Deals 
 and Support a Great Cause
 

Brides Against Breast Cancer
 
This Friday and Saturday February 27-28, the Brides Against Breast Cancer Nationwide Tour of Gowns stops in Anaheim! For two days only, brides can shop from a huge selection of wedding dresses in all sizes and with prices at 25-75% below retail. These beautiful wedding dresses have been donated by past brides, designers, salons, and manufacturers so that proceeds from the sales go to benefit Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation, a non-profit organization which grants end of live wishes for terminally ill metastatic stage IV breast cancer patients.
 
Power Hours
Making Memories will host special morning hours of operation to offer brides a "sneak peak" and first pick of the thousands of gowns available for her one special day. "Power Hours" are on Friday, February 27, 2009, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm - admission is $20, advanced registration is required, and space is limited.
 
Here are the details on the Brides Against Breast Cancer Wedding Dress Sale:
 
Location
Anaheim Marriott Suites Hotel 12015 Harbor Blvd Garden Grove, CA
 
Hours
Power Hours:
Friday, February 27, 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Gown Sale:
Friday, February 27, 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Saturday, February 28, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
 
Pre-Registration
Power Hour
Brides
 
Payment
Cash and credit cards are welcome. General admission is FREE.
 
BONUS!
A coupon worth $50 off any gown over $500 or $25 off any gown from $250 to $499 will be printed in the Orange County Register and the LA Times - Orange County Edition on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for additional savings! Brides must present the coupon clipped from the newspaper to redeem the discount.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Lauren and Scott's Engagement Pics

Aren't these two just so stinkin adorable?

I cannot wait for their sweet, at home wedding in July. It is going to be beautiful, not to mention that we have my favorite caterer, Iva Lees , on board for the food. Yay!

The amazing Amy Squires (a Wedding Chick extraordinaire) took these adorable photos and I love how they capture Lauren and Scott's personalities (and their cute pups!).

Happy Tuesday!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Our second seasonal season party: Winter

For those of you who are new to the blog, I am excited to introduce you to a new Toney Family/Joyful Weddings Tradition. This fall, we came up with the idea to host a small dinner party each season. We started with a Fall party and it was a blast! You can check out the details here.

Last month, we held our Winter Party. We scaled it back a bit as far as details go because we were moving that week (yes, we are indeed crazy). But, never fear, it was still an inspired beautiful event.

We tried to build the party around our favorite things about winter: soup, hot chocolate and tea, fire in the fireplace, moody music and lots of quality time with friends. What we came up with: A Soup potluck!! It was a hit- each couple brought a different type of homemade soup and we got to enjoy all of them. Delicious!

Color palate: grey and white.
 **side note: while writing this post, I decided to research the difference between grey and gray. They are the same- both acceptable. I read that "gray is a color and grey is a colour". My husband likes colour, so for the rest of this post, gray will be grey :)

Here are some photos, captured by my good friend Jenetta:
For the  mantle, I left up my wreath from Christmas (intentionally- not laziness!) and then added two cheap potted plants from Trader Joes which I transferred into cute white vases. A few grey candles from Target, a beautiful piece of Martha Stewart ribbon and some Cricut letters and viola! 

I decided to do long tables to make it more of a communal dinner event. I just love the look of long tables! The tablecloths, china, flatware and glassware all were from my girl Megan at Classic Party Rentals.

I wanted to recreate the look of snow in a creative way. I came up with white circles of paper and buttons.

I made the runners by cutting out over 350 circles on my Cricut, using many different styles of white paper- some glittery, some embossed, some with a light grey design. I then laid them out and moved them around until I had the perfect combination, much like you would lay out quilt pieces. A million and a half whole punches later, I tied each circle together using some white string. It was pretty time consuming, but relaxing and I am really happy with how they turned out. Sorry I don't have a more close up photo- I forgot to get one.
For the centerpiece, I took whatever silver or white vases/urns I had and made each unique, filled with a single type of flower that I picked up from Trader Joes or Costco. I was bummed that I did not have time to go to the flower mart (I had other flower visions in my head), but it worked out because it forced me to be creative with what I found. 

For instance, this was a potted plant that I tore apart and turned into an arrangement:
More flowers:
I wrapped some votives in the same light grey ribbon used on the fireplace, which you can see in the above photo.

I decided to continue the branch theme from our Fall party. With the change of the seasons, the branches lost their paper leaves and gained some white buttons, mimicking snow. I sewed each one of the buttons on by hand- which was 100% unnecessary and way more time consuming than just glueing them on, but I thought it made them just that much cuter. 

I made the cutest little bathroom tree- but forgot to get a picture of it. I stuck a button-ed up branch in a small clear pot filled with more buttons. It was super cute. 

I added a couple of "brr"'s to the vases in an effort to convince my guests that it really was winter (we had a crazy heat wave here in Southern Cal the week prior to the party).


I adore these tall votive holders I found on clearance at Target- aren't they so cool and unique? (You can get a better view of them on some of the table shots above) I used a mix of clear and gray ones. I about squealed when I found them at the store and they were only $2.99. Seriously? I couldn't pass it up. I bought all they had left (only after breaking one- oops!)

A shot of the placesetting:

I had quite a few snowballs left over, so I started throwing them wherever I could: in the bathroom, on the walls and they ended up in each soup bowl. My intention was to have them be placecards, however, my husband was strongly against assigning seating. And I mean strongly. I tried to convince him to just let me write names on them for photos and then let guests move, but he insisted. Alas, the nameless placecards just looked cute.





Now, on to the good stuff:

We had each guest bring some homemade soup to share. Would you believe that we did not think to get a single shot of the soups? Not one. We were too busy devouring them. We had potato cheddar (my personal fav), butternut squash, broccoli cheddar, two different types of tortilla soup, roasted red pepper and an Indian soup. Everyone ate way more than they should have and commented on how much they loved the idea for a party. 

In addition to the soups, we had a yummy pear, pine nut & gorgonzola salad and a few different types of bread. For dessert we had these:
yum. 

(that last photo was taken by me, not jenetta)

Over Christmas, my hubby became very skilled in making homemade hot chocolate. Grating the chocolate and whipping the whipped cream and all. It is absolutely amazing. Here is a peak:

It was a great party all around and we are already excited for Spring! 

A HUGE thank you goes out to: 
*Jenetta for loving me even though I make you bring your camera to parties
*Megan and Classic for being so generous and all around awesome
*Shae for your mad baking skills,
*everyone for your mad soup-making skills, 
*my hubby for cleaning while I sewed buttons on to sticks
*and my dad for being a rockstar and saving the day by returning the rentals for me while we were packing that whole next week!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

No more email problems!!

We just got home from an incredible few days in the mountains and I arrived to a not so pleasant surprise: my email server stopped sending me my emails. again. If yours was one of them, I apologize profusely.

Someone far more technologically savvy than I (my husband) was finally able to figure out the snag and I am excited to say that we should have no more email issues!! Yay!

Once again, I apologize for the lameness of my email lately. I was about to go shot Godaddy. Thank you Hubby for stopping me. Thank you clients and friends for your patience and for resending emails that have been bounced back. I owe you big time!

I will be back tomorrow with the full winter party recap! For now, I'll leave you with a bad iphone photo of my hubby and I on the slopes:

Monday, February 16, 2009

We have a winner!

drumroll please....

Kellsey- you are the lucky winner of our Pleated Poppy giveaway! Please email me at courtney{at}joyfulweddingsandevents{dot}com with your address and Lindsey will get that little poppy mailed off to you! 

Thank you to everyone who entered and please be sure to check out Lindsey's blogs (Imperfect & The Pleated Poppy). She is always posting the cutest hand made items and creative ideas. What a lucky girl I am to have such talented relatives! 

We are headed out to Big Bear tomorrow to get some snowboarding in (yay!) so I will be out of the office tuesday-thursday. However, I really want to get our winter party posted, so keep checking in for that.

Happy President's Day everyone!

Friday, February 13, 2009

A sneak peak: Our Winter Party

I have been trying to get this blogged the past few days and will hopefully have a whole post up today, but for now, a sneak peak:


photos by Jenetta

Don't forget to enter the Pleated Poppy giveaway!

Monday, February 09, 2009

**Giveaway!!** Pleated Poppy Bridal Pins

My sister-in-law Lindsey and I have been brainstorming some fun ideas lately. You may have found her product line, The Pleated Poppy, through my blog before, but if you have not- please check it out. She hand designs such cute things!


We have been talking for a while about creating some Pleated Poppy wedding items and over Christmas vacation we sat down and had an idea session. I am so excited about what is to come! For one of my amazing March weddings, we have a couple really darling things in the works and I am constantly trying to find new inspiration for my other brides. If you are a client of mine and are interested in talking about using some cute fabric flowers in your wedding decor- let's talk! Even if you are not a client of mine, contact me or Lindsey to talk through some ideas if you are interested. She can custom make posies out of your wedding colors/fabric/decor, etc. 
Lindsey just posted her first official Bridal item: cute, simple, sweet and gorgeous Bridal Posies! They can be worn in your hair or pinned on a dress or sweater. I love em. Check them out here.
*****
To kick off the bridal line, Lindsey is going to be giving away the above hairpiece to one of my readers. Woo~hoo!
 So, here is what you have to do to enter: Check out Lindsey's blog  and shop, come back here and leave a comment sharing how you would use fabric flowers at a wedding or event. Or just tell us what you love! 
A winner will be randomly selected next monday, the 16th- President's Day! You will have until noon that day (pst) to enter. Browse and comment away!

Congrats Michelle!

One of our sweet brides, Michelle , was just selected to be the newest WeddingBee! She is Miss Duckling and we cannot wait to read all of her DIY and wedding planning adventure posts!

Congrats Michelle- we are so excited for you! 
Something that makes us love Michelle even more? One of her first posts was about our beloved Cricut . *swoon*

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Jen and Tom: A Closer Look

Doug with Furious Photographers sent me disc with more pictures of Jen & Tom's adorable wedding at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park and thought I would share a few more with you.  You can see their original post with more photos and vendor information here.

The beautiful bride at the US Grant:




Flowers by Suzan M Florals.

I just could not get enough of these two little guys and their super cute Lovebirds ring bearer nests that Jen & her mom made:


Speaking of handmade, Jen and her mom were a wonderful DIY team. They made all of the details, incorporating in the bird theme wherever they could.


The table numbers were cute, simple and easy to make if you have a Cricut and some cute paper.


Draping, linens, lanterns and lighting by Concepts:

We added a fan to each placesetting and Sue placed a single orchid on top of each. Jen personalized the fans with ribbon she had printed with their names and wedding date. It was a fun way to tie the decor into the setting.


We set up the candy bar, which was one of the best ones I have tasted set up. A friend of the family owns a gourmet chocolate shop and she provided over 10 different types of chocolate. Heaven!!




It was a fun one! For vendor info, click here .