Vacation

Tahoe till Monday! I can't wait! Ski, Gambling and some Relaxing! I will have our Save the Dates to post after I come back along with some more inspiration pictures!

I hope everyone has a safe and fun New Years! I can't wait for 2010!!

Our Toasting Glasses

My dad and his fiance went to Italy for a vacation and for the first time ever I got a gift other than a tshirt!! He got Tony and I these beauitful hand blown Venetian Glasses. They are a deep red with gold designs on them. Granted I will not be able to leave the table with the glass since I am an absolute klutz.

Custom Cake Topper

I ordered my A from Crafty Eddy. He had it delivered within three days of payment. I decided to forgo the normal rhinestones for glitter. Both FI and I like the look a lot better than the rhinestones, it glitters more and looks complete not crafty.

One side affect. When I was applying the glitter I used a box lid to keep it all contained. I threw the lid with the left over glitter in the garbage. The next day my lovely mishevious puppy decided she wanted to play in the glitter and covered our entire room in champagne glitter. It has been two weeks and we still find glitter specs on me.

Directions:

1) Order cake topper from Crafty Eddy

2) For Glitter I purchased Martha Stewart Smokey Quartz. It was $5 per bottle and I didn't even use a 1/4 of the bottle. Much cheaper than rhinestones

3) For the Glue- Original Tacky Glue by Aleene's was also about $5 and worked amazing

4) Grab a box lid to keep the glitter in one spot, make sure it is large enough to fit the whole letter and the spokes

5) Start applying glue to the front and brush with a cheap paint brush to make it even. Do a line at the time

6) Sprinkle glitter over glue, then shake off left over

7) Continue doing this for the back and sides

Easy Peasy. It took less than 15 minutes to finish.

Ignore the Niner Cheerleader calendar. That would be my lovely Fiance's!

Bridesmaid- Gifts, Events, Night before

GIFTS:

So I decided to stop me from charging on my credit cards, I am going to get gifts throughout the year that will all go into a bag to be given to the bridesmaid at the rehearsal dinner.

So far I have purchased the necklaces from herecomesthebride.

I will be getting them champagne shawls to wear after the ceremony in case they get cold, I will be either getting them from kohls, macys or etsy (ClassyWeddingShop picture below is them).

For shower gifts I will be getting the hostesses gifts from philosophy at Sephora or Nordstroms.

I may be getting different earrings for each girl in garnet, I will be contacting herecomesthebride for those once the girls have the dresses picked out.

Everything will be packaged in a tote and I will have a clutch in each for each girl for the day of to hold makeup and other things. I am hoping to get lucky at Marshalls, Kohls, Target or Etsy on good cute clutches.

EVENTS:

The friday before the wedding we will be getting our nails done at EuroNails in burlingame. They rent out to large parties (6 bridesmaids, MOB, MOG, Grandmothers, and friends). I will be paying for my girls nails and taking them out to lunch afterwards.

NIGHT BEFORE:

I will also be getting a cottage suite at the Ritz Carlton the night before the wedding. It will also be our honeymoon suite the night of the wedding. All the girls will be staying with me the night before. We are going old school, board games, movies, wii etc. Just a fun relaxing night before the big day. This also alievates any stress of driving over the hill the day of the wedding and getting ready in time.

Norcal Brides

If there is anyone who would like to be a guest blogger on this site, to update with your wedding projects and vendors, email me at christineandtony2010@gmail.com. I would love to have at least 10 different brides from all over Northern California putting in their input once a week. If you want to post more your more than welcome to, but the minimum would be once a week. The more people the more it will help other brides with their planning process.

In the email answer the following:
Bride and Groom Names:
Budget:
Location:
Venues:
Vendors Booked:
Venders Need to Book:
Wedding Colors:
DIY projects you plan on doing:

Thanks,
Christine

Invitations- DIY

I designed these myself in Corel Draw. We will be getting them letterpressed. I haven't decided what kind of holder I want to do. But I have plenty of time to figure it out!

Coaster Design- Will be printed at ForYourParty.com

Fonts are: Bruges Font, Beautiful, and Centry Gothic

Photographer- Lily Rose Photography

Last Wednesday night I went into panic mode regarding the photographer that I had originally booked. I don't doubt that she can do amazing photos but multiple reviews regarding her being rude at weddings, not seeing proofs in a reasonable amount of time and poor communication, caused me to second guess my choice. The quickest response I ever got from her was cancelling the contract. Don't get me wrong, I understand people are busy but really it takes two minutes to send an email back.

I then went on the hunt for a good photographer and found Lily Rose Photography. Not only did Deborah respond to me within an hour of emailing her and even on thanksgiving. She worked with the price to help offset what we had already paid. Since she is located in Rocklin, I will be paying for her hotel night at HMB Lodge, it was the least I could do for how much she is helping me. She is also willing at no extra cost to meet us in Tahoe for our engagement session. We will be up there for a week for our friends wedding and originally wanted to get married up there. Perfect place for engagement pictures in the summer!

Here is some of her work, all credits are Lily Rose Photography:

Calligraphy

As a designer myself, I always figured I would just print the addresses on the envelopes like I have done for hundreds of clients who wanted to save money. But I thought again. Since I am doing my own invitations, I am saving my parents 100s of dollars. I am also doing letterpress through my FI's family business saving lots of money. SOOOO since I am saving all this money I want to splurge on calligraphy for the invitations. I know a little selfish but I want it!

After doing some research I realized that a lot of calligraphers just used normal fonts and probably just traced it with ink.... not worth $2 an envelope if I could do the same thing. But then I found TrialbyCupcake on etsy. I fell in love with her "Katie-Elongated" it is elegant but fun at the same time, and definitely different! I am booking my deposit (A refreshing $25) to reserve August for her to do them!

Here are some pictures of the calligraphy and check her out on etsy.com

Update- 12/1

So this weekend ended up being a big weekend in planning after a bad week of dealing with a sick puppy. I changed Photographers (from Terra Tabbytosavit to Lily Rose Photography) and I booked a calligrapher. I also made a calendar of when everything is due, booked a date with my bridesmaids to look for their dresses and called about room blocks. I will do a post on each to explain what went down!

Cake Topper- Crystals- Update

So the gold crystals I purchased before are too yellow. I reordered crystals for my cake topper that are a lighter gold. Hopefully they are perfect when they come in. I ordered them from rhinestonshop and ordered it in 6ss, 9ss and 12 ss to make sure it is fully covered. I am also going to put crystals on both sides.

Flowers- Florists

So. I was going to DIY flowers and after doing a trial run I realized I am not up for the challenge. I met with three different florists and have just sent in our deposit to Huckleberry Karen Designs.

Breakdown of the florists we met:

1) Sarah Padilla Designs- Very nice. She was recommended to me by my cousin who used her for her wedding. I liked her at first but then throughout the meeting she seemed to keep on pushing me towards Circus roses (bright orange and red) which was not what I wanted. She also pulled the whole, "well I do have someone who has contacted me to do her flowers for that day so you need to book immediately" this was 15 months out from our wedding so I knew the chances are slim! She also first said we can do the deposit in installements. She wanted 50% for the deposit for the date. Then after meeting she emailed me saying she needed everything to book the date, which bothered me that she flip flopped. So we decided to look at different florists.

2) Flowers by Nicole- Very very nice and great person. She met us at the venue which I thought was really cool since she can see what she is working with. She understood and didn't try to change my mind on my muted color palate for the flowers. I would recommend her to everybody but she ended up being about 600 more than expected. This led us to Karen!

3)Huckleberry Karen- Is highly recommended on the knot message boards and is friends with Sara from Stinkerpants (who did our save the dates). She met with me on my lunch hour in Palo Alto which was amazing. She drove from SF to just meet me to go over the flowers. She also brought books that showed which flowers are in bloom during our wedding (effects costs) and which are not. She had a beautiful portfolio and her prices can't be beat, they are amazing! I can't wait to see the final product!!!

Here are the inspiration pictures- Since we are doing November we want more muted colors compared to bright ones that we were originally planning.

Photo credit Huckleberry Karen

Finally Back to Updating

Business wise I have been slammed for the last couple weeks so it has put wedding planning on hold. We are under the 1 year mark now for the wedding and I know once the holidays are over it is going to get quite hectic!! I will be updating the blog today with a bunch of new entries and hopefully will stop neglecting the blog and updating it more often!!

Floral Supplies

Since I will be doing my own floral elements for the wedding. I went a a little huckily buck on eBay. I got 12 eiffle tower vases for 45 dollars and also square 5x5x5 (6) vases for 30 dollars. My cousin who is getting married in September 2010 and I are going to the SF Flower Mart on 9/21 to see what flowers are in session and make some mock ups. I have a reseller license for my side business so I get wholesale discounts. I also purchased crystals from 4ClassyDesigns on etsy. I will be using these in the bouquets. They are excellant quality and she even gave me 6 extras free of charge!

Tune in the week of 9/21 to see the mockups of the bouquets and centerpieces!!

Junior Bridesmaid Necklace

We will be asking Tony's neice to be our junior bridesmaid when we see them at Thanksgiving. We usually never go empty handed so we are purchasing a little gift for her and her brother (ring bearer- Tony is in charge of this gift).

I found this adorable necklace at Here Comes the Bride.

I plan on going through her to get my bridesmaid necklaces once they purchase their dresses. I think I am just going to do a drop pearl necklace. The simplicity makes it look so elegant. I also loved her fresh water pearl touch to the ends. I am so happy with this purchase and will be purchasing more from her!!

Cake Topper

I ordered my cake topper from Crafty Eddy. It is the perfect A size for our a cake. I will be spray painting it gold and adhering Gold (Citrine) crystals on it. I decided I am going to do both the front back and the sides so I ordered a lot of crystals from rhinestone_world on eBay.

I will post pictures as soon as I start adhering the crystals! It will be a long process but I can't wait for the final result

The Dress- Inspiration

Both dresses are by Maggie Sottero. I am in love with the bottoms of the dresses. I think because I have broad (swimmers) shoulders, the V neck would probably look best. I am planning on losing a good amount of weight so I am not dress shopping until January when we go with the bridesmaids to Trudys.

Inspiration Pictures

All images are from www.weddingchannel.com. These colors are on the brighter end, but we are going to go with a darker green and gold/burnt orange.

This is how I would love to do our centerpiece but in our colors.... now where to find the candelabra?

Hi and Welcome!

This blog will follow my DIY projects throughout our wedding. I will also be posting about great Northern California Resources for weddings from invitations to locations. I am going to do my best to keep this updated 2x per week.

Little Background: I am an almost 25 year old bride named Tine (DOB-9/4) and both my groom and I have been born and raised in the SF Bay Area. I went to college on the East Coast and met my fiance while on break from school and back at home. We had 3 years of long distance relationship... which sucked... but we made it through. We are hitting our 6 year anniversary on October 3rd.

Our wedding date is November 6, 2010 at Half Moon Bay Golf Course. In some upcoming posts you will see some color schemes and ideas that we would like incorporated into our wedding. Our wedding colors are going to be Garnet (Florida State Red, as he calls it) and gold/orange... very fall colors.

So keep on watching to see all the DIY projects that I will be doing!