Is it Love or Lust?

There was (at least) one of thing I forgot to take a picture of at the Tickled Pink baby shower for my bestie Ashley. Hey, I said I did better - there's still plenty of room for improvement!

Ashley's sisters used the most fabulous epink and white serving set to display veggies and sandwich fixins'. For me, it was love at first sight. I immediately wanted to know who this belonged to and why I hadn't spotted one anywhere yet.

Images via Etsy seller MarianneClare

It turns out, it was a vintage piece that their mom received "several" years ago as a wedding present. After some digging (thanks Google!) I found the set! It was made in the 1960s by the Frazier California Pottery company.

The set has one large bowl in the center of  three small serving dishes and three large serving dishes, all on a lazy susan. The set I saw in person was on a metal lazy susan but the sets I saw online all came with wood. The scalloped edge and raised dots just make my heart hurt!


Since it's vintage, it costs a bit more than what I'm willing to spend on serving dishes. So, I need to come up with reasons I could use it. Showers, brunches, Valentine's Day parties... What else do you think I could put on the list to justify buying it?

Tickled Pink Baby Shower

 The shower was a success! Despite the distance between the three people coordinating it (myself included) everything was perfect. The mama-to-be loved all the decor and received some great gifts to boot!

Added bonus! I took some better photos this time - I'm learning!
As shown in my previous post, we used a pink and brown polka dot theme inspired by the new nursery. The welcome table had a photo mat for the guests to sign and write a message to Ashley and a memory board with tags for everyone to write a note to the new little Miss.

Love, love, love this idea from one of the sisters.

Some feathers, a Cricut and a little yarn to introduce the theme.

 

The meal was a light lunch with sandwich and relish trays, cupcakes and two delicious signature cocktails. A perfect baby-themed soundtrack played in the background. 

 

We were lucky to have a few little ladies join us so an activity table was set up for them as well.

The lovely Ashley and her precious bump!

I loved helping to put this shower together for one of my best friends. I'm glad her sisters didn't mind letting me play with the theme and decor ideas. Congrats Ashley!

Oh Baby!

Sorry party people. I was on quite the post roll there - three in three days! But I've been spending that last few nights putting some things together for a baby shower for one of my besties this weekend! Her darling sisters are the ones actually in charge but I offered my help. We spent last week brainstorming and this week creating. We decided to use the theme "Tickled Pink" and found inspiration in the decor of the new nursery which is pink (surprise!) and brown polka dots.

sources:

chocolate mousse (Tracy Lau); cake (Butterfly Cakes); banner (Icing Designs); garlands (Martha Stewar)

peonies (Precious Moments Florals & Events);  

feather centerpieces (Add Style UK), nursery (Kids R Us - what the mama-to-be registered for), gift wrap (Elegant Labels)

The sisters are planning the menu and a couple signature cocktails/mocktails among other things. Just to prove that I actually have been busy - here's a sneak peek of what I'm working on: 

OK - blogger is rotating this and I'm not sure why. Tilt your head to the left to see the pic the way it was intended.

It will be interesting to see how all three of our portions come together. The short time and long distance may not make for a perfectly coordinated party - but hopefully we'll be close. What has your experience been with long distance celebration collaboration?

My Wedding Day!

After all the planning and crafting and schedule-writing (and re-writing), it all came down to one thing - the day that I married my wonderful husband. But I won't get too mushy on you all - you're just here for the wedding porn, right?!
A couple other things that I did not have the skills to DIY were the cake and the flowers. I had to put these into the hands of vendors and could not have been happier with the results!

 All photos by the amazing Mark Kegans

Our cake by Donna Flewelling.

P.S. - notice the candles on the table. I forgot to mention that I either spraypainted or decorated (with ribbons and crystals) 148 votives. 

 Bouquets from Sunnybrook Flower Shop

Despite all my work, the best looking part of the celebration was our wedding party. Check out these hotties!

Of course, we couldn't stay serious for long...

All formal pics were actually taken AFTER the ceremony. My husband-to-be didn't want to see each other before I walked down the aisle! As an event planner, this was hard for me to agree too (totally threw a wrench into my schedule!) but I was glad I did!

Married!

After the ceremony, guests headed to cocktail hour in the Orpheum foyer while we took our formal pics (and a few fun ones too!).

 Cocktail table decor

 A great shot of one of the chandeliers in the foyer.

Once we made our entrance into the reception, we cut the cake before we invited our guests to the stage for dinner. This may seem a little backwards but it was nice to go directly to the cake right after being announced because everyone was paying attention!

I know I said I wouldn't get mushy but Kurt and I snuck away with our wonderful photographer for a few shots that I have to share.

The Orpheum staff customized the marquee for me. Well, they do it for all their receptions. What a great touch!

My favorite picture of the day. 

We returned to the reception to celebrate our love and brand new marriage with our friends and family. We dance the night away in the beautiful foyer of the Orpheum and then, started our married life together!!

Wedding Weekend - Preparations

Note: I promise that I did actually write this post on Sunday. But Blogger was having some issues during the last 20 hours.

After gathering inspiration from all kinds of sources (yes, I practically lived on TheKnot.com) I started to make decisions on how to make my (budget) Modern Glam vision come to life. But the first step was one that I could not DIY - I had to find the dress. I wanted it to complement the Orpheum and be something that people hadn't seen before. I tried on a LOT of dresses:

 

before I found The One:

Maggie Sottero Evita (love, love, still love it)

Then it was time to get down to the DIY; well, almost. I wanted to use a chandelier motif to go with all of the gorgeous chandeliers at the Orpheum. However, my design attempt didn't get very far:

Fortunately for those who want to use this lovely theme now, it's widely being used in invitation designs. It was just getting popular when I was looking for it so I couldn't find quite what I needed. Instead I went to Etsy (also fairly new two years ago) and bought these lovelies:

Invitation by fubabee. Photo by Mark Kegans.

So I missed my chandy on the invites but did find a few other places to use it:

 

Stamped on coasters for cocktail hour;

 

Stamped and embossed on place cards; (photo by Mark Kegans.)

and on the labels for the CD we gave as favors. (Photo by Mark Kegans.)

We were holding dinner on the stage which, while lovely, may as well have been outdoors! The ceiling was so tall that I knew it would be hard to make the space feel like it was filled. I decided to do both low and high centerpieces to create some more atmosphere. Half of the tables would have Eiffel vases with some gold sprays I found that couldn't have been more perfect.

 Everyone in my family went on the hunt for these!

The other tables would use pillar candles, a gold charger and pearls. But during my test runs I couldn't get it quite right...

Don't worry, no fake flowers were planned for the actual centerpieces.

Eventually, the 6 inch candle was replaced by pink candles that my mom, my sisters and I spent one night customizing.

The place settings from this post, and the centerpieces too, would have been a perfect finish to the table. But...I would probably still be paying those off today. So the final touch on the tables were framed numbers:

Little sister lovingly cut and assembled everything.

A few more DIY projects were also completed for the ceremony. Quite a few nights were spent pinning flowers to styrofoam balls that would line the aisle:

 Photo by Mark Kegans.

I used our engagement photos on my DIY programs which I probably had way to much fun designing and writing!

Photo by Mark Kegans.

Actually, I had far too much fun with all of it. Which is one of the reasons why I love to see the weddings and parties that others have planned. It's great to know that other people enjoy putting together all of the details that make a celebration special. But no matter how much I liked putting everything together, nothing compared to seeing it all come together to celebrate our wedding day!

Wedding Weekend!

Two years ago, I had the most wonderful weekend with my friends, family and the love of my life. On June 7th 2008 (6/7/08!), I got married! I loved every minute of our wedding and every minute of planning it.

 

Engagement photo by Mark Kegans

We decided to get married in Sioux City, where most of both our families live. Admittedly, I was a little nervous about finding the perfect spot for our reception with the limited in the options in the area. But then, we found the Orpheum Theatre,. and I knew it would be the perfect place to celebrate with our loved ones. 

*-

The auditorium in the Orpheum (left). After viewing our photo montage video on the big screen, we had dinner on the stage. The grand foyer (right) where we held cocktail hour and then dancing.

The venue became my inspiration for planning a modern glamour themed wedding using pink, gold and ivory for the color palette. I created this inspiration board to guide me.

The only problem was that I did not have a modern glam budget! That meant a LOT of bargain shopping and DIY projects. I would love to do it all over again but for now, let's just re-live it! ;-)

Party Envy: Kentucky Derby

I know, it's one month later but since I finally posted my Derby party pics, I might as well share this divine Derby Dessert Table from Save the Date for Cupcakes. So, so cute and and creative! Check out the full post here.

This table is SPECTACULAR. A little astroturf and...brown sugar?! That's right, she used brown sugar for the sand - brilliant! I love the custom cupcake toppers as well. Perfect color coordination.

One look at this Mint Julep display with the adorable mason jars and beautiful baby's breath and you can feel yourself sitting on a porch swing on a southern plantation.

Again, perfectly coordinated sugar cookies (they match the horseshoe cupcake topper!)

And a brownie for the road. What more could you ask for?

The best part? At the end of the post Miss Save the Date for Cupcakes writes "This was totally out of my comfort zone in designing, but I think I pulled it off?!" No question mark needed - you did! I'm definitely putting these ideas into action for next year's Derby party!