We are on Hostess with the Mostess!

I am so excited I could burst!! I have known about this for a while, but wanted to wait until it actually happened to share:

Our fall party has been featured on one of my all-time favorite blogs, Hostess with the Mostess !! How fun is that? Isaiah even made an appearance :)

Please check it out. It is a wonderful blog full of fun ideas for entertaining and I am so honored to have my ideas featured! 

The It list!

The Southern Weddings blog has had a facelift and is awesome! Be sure to check it out: www.iloveswmag.com

On the new site, they have an "It List" of their favorite top wedding professionals and we are honored to have made the cut. Thanks ladies! I love the new site!


**A fun game & giveaway**

If you look closely at the photos across the top of the site, you'll spot a photo from one of our weddings. There are a few different line ups of photos, so you might have to click around to different pages on the site in order to find it. In honor of the glorious cold weather we have had this week in SoCal, I am going to give away a $5 Starbucks gift card to the first person who finds it and comments back on this post with which wedding it is from. Ready, set, go!

will work for food

I am going to piggyback off of Amanda and share a great article with you. The wonderfully fabulous Sasha Souza posted a great article on her blog about feeding your vendors. Find it under the title: "Sparkliatti Lesson: Feed Me a.k.a. We Can Only Drink So Much Coffee". For me, substitute Diet Coke for Coffee. 

Well fed vendors=happy vendors. 

Happy wednesday!

So much DIY love!

There are a lot of fun things floating around the blog world and I want to make sure that you all know about them!

Style Me Pretty  had a DIY week last week. (For those who do not know, DIY means "do it yourself".) So many fun ideas! Here are some of my favorites:

To see more, check out their DIY gallery.

And, now, to extend the goodness, Elizabeth Anne Designs has made November DIY month! Fun ideas made by real brides all month long. They are still accepting submissions as well, so if you have a project for your wedding that is absolutely amazing, find out more here .


Also, the wonderful Wedding Chicks are looking for a real bride to be a guest blogger. The deadline to enter is on wednesday, so make sure you check out the details here . This would be so fun for the bride who loves to write and wants 15 minutes of wedding blog fame!


And, finally, my favorite of all. The lovely Christine of The Spiraled Stem has started an incredible giveaway. She and an all-star team of vendors are donating their services to a bride who is battling breast cancer. So, if you or someone you know is undergoing treatment for breast cancer and is also planning to get married in the next year, please check out the Say I Do contest. As a cancer survivor myself, I am overjoyed to see people in the wedding industry reaching out to cancer patients.

More details from Isaiah's first birthday party

Here are some more fun moments from Isaiah's first birthday party:

The food:

My funniest purchase was that Elvis guitar. It is full of popcorn. I thought it was hilarious. No one ate it. It is now in the trash. 

I used kraft paper as a tablecloth. Easy, cheap, cute and themed. 

PB&J sandwiches cut out with a star cookie cutter:

Drumsticks (get how it goes with the theme?) & chicken stars:

*We tried to find chicken stars all over but no grocery stores sold them. So, we had to get some from good ol Carl.

Mmm.. watermelon rind:

Isaiah's future wife, Abby:

Simple centerpieces:

The big kids banging away:

And the little kids doing the same:

Cake time:

Yum! He didn't even make that big of a mess (much to my husband's dismay)

Isaiah was so excited with all of his presents that he started clapping and cheering.

It was so stinkin cute!

Believe it or not, this is not the end. I still have to post a pics of the favors and the invite CD. Hopefully I will get them posted tomorrow, because I am sure you are tired of hearing about his birthday party.

Happy november!

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!