First dress?

I was hanging out with girlfriends K and C, whom are getting married themselves (not to each other, though!).  After happy hour, we headed back to K's place for C to try on her wedding dress.  Their friend had bought 3 dresses at a sample sale, so K invited me to try one of them on, just for fun.  It was a mermaid silhouette, one that I hadn't considered before in my browsing for wedding dresses, and I looked fabulously curvy!  I wasn't crazy about the dress itself, but I liked the idea of showing off my figure (and I think the mister would love it, too!).

I wish I had a photo to show you, but I was worried it'd be bad luck before even getting the proposal! :(

Another issue I've come across in the dress search is that I know my mom has her heart set on making my wedding dress.  I'd rather buy a dress and ask her to alter it, but I'd hate to hurt her feelings.  Plus I have 3 more sisters after me, and I see this as "taking one for the team."  But it's been awhile since she's made dresses for people, so maybe she's not as keen on the idea anymore?  Or, as K and C suggested, maybe I could ask her to make my ao dai.  I'll cross that bridge when it comes, but until then I'll keep looking through dresses for inspiration.

Dessert Table

I read somewhere that a standard wedding cake can go anywhere from $2-$8 a person and that couples typically allocate about $500 for the cake alone.  I'm not much into wedding cakes myself (at least based on the ones I've tried).

Without a doubt, I know I'd want to have a small, single-tier cake (maybe double-tier at the largest) for my wedding as part of a great dessert table with all the great desserts the groom and I have enjoyed over the years.  Benefits of a dessert table:

• It accommodates to many different tastes for the guests.  Some people will want the traditional cake dessert, but maybe some will be too full from dinner and will opt for fruit or candy.  Or cookies.  Or jello.  Or pies (hell, I could probably do a pie table alone and still be able to satisfy guests' tastes).
• It can be really affordable, depending on the desserts you decide to go with.  I imagine more candies and cookies will keep the price lower.  A 8" guava cake from Aki's Bakery would probably feed about 12 people (depending how you slice it), and that's $30 ($2.50pp).  Gourmet macaroons costs about $2 a cookie (ouch!), but the costs might be lower if you order in bulk; Trader Joe's supposedly has some frozen macaroons that are actually pretty decent and are $5 for a dozen.  Pies go for about $8-$12 a pie, with each pie feeding maybe 8-12 people ($1-$1.50pp!).  DIY-desserts are the cheapest (boxed brownies on sale for $1 can yield 2 dozen brownies (less than 5 cents a serving!). 
• The dessert table doubles as decor!  If taken the time to set it up nicely, a dessert table could look really stunning.

Okay, so this last one is just mostly about the cake.  I'm not too keen on the actual design of this, but I do love the strawberries!  Feeding each other strawberries instead of cake would be more fun. :)

A list of desserts that could be included (pending budgetary allowances of course):

• Candies: chocolates, gummies, and sour candies
• Fruits (in-season is best)
• Chocolate-dipped
• Tart form
• Parfait form (parfait bar?  Awesome!)
• Pies (chocolate pie, strawberry pie, apple pies with an a la mode option, custard pie)
• Cupcakes (banana cupcakes, s'mores cupcakes??)
• S'mores
• Small ice cream sundae bar (good for a summertime wedding); alternatively, maybe a halo-halo bar!
• Hot chocolate (good for a wintertime wedding)
• Guava cake, banana cake (cupcake forms are also acceptable)
• Doughnuts (could rent a mini-doughnut maker machine and give them out in pairs like "wedding ring" favors)
• Pudding?  Banana pudding, rice pudding
• Brownies
• Cookies (those Japanese cookies that the mister loves so much, classic chocolate chip, baklava)
• Cheesecake

And there's probably a ton more I haven't thought of yet.  I'm sure there could be a game made out of this like an Iron-Chef style contest among tables to see who could make the tastiest dessert. :P

More invites/save the dates!

This is a beautiful, peacock-themed wedding invitation that's vintage-styled and eco-friendly from HouseofHazelnut.  The price says $8, so I assume that means per invitation?  Pretty pricey, but absolutely gorgeous.

The next one is pretty cute:

It's kind of hard to see, so follow this post for a better view and a backstory.

More cake toppers! And other fabulous accessories!

Oh my GOD, I am loving the cake toppers on Etsy.

This one above is from Garden4Arts.  They make these cake toppers in several animal varieties with different accessories, similarly styled to the one above.  Priced at about $60 each + S/H.

Here's a similar set from kikuike.  These are just as adorable, maybe a little more elegant, and the sticker price on this one is $100 + S/H, which looks like the least expensive set Kikuike has on her Etsy site.

From StyleMePretty, these photo accessories caught my eye from a Nashville backyard wedding.  It's a more DIY-version of the popular photo booths you see now in weddings; I like that quite a lot.  I tried to find similar accessories on Etsy, but so far all I can find are these, which are fun but not as cool-looking as their polished counterparts above.

Last but not least, I love this idea of puzzle-style escort cards from 100 Layer Cake. 

See the original post for a better view.  Basically, guests pick up their escort cards and find the corresponding phrase at their seat.

All super-fun ideas! :)

Wayfarers Chapel

I'm one of those Catholic brides who long for the look and feel of an outdoor wedding but are confined to the rules of the Church, which basically say that in order for the Church to recognize your marriage, you'd need to be married in a church.  So I've been looking for a way to reconcile my desire for an outdoor wedding and my parents' desire (and probably his parents', too) that our marriage be recognized by the Church.  One way is Wayfarer's Chapel in Palos Verdes, designed by Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright's son.

The boyfriend and I went to visit the chapel ourselves earlier this week.  I think he knows I'm secretly scouting for wedding locations, but we went under the guise of "sightseeing."  And what a sight to behold!

Pros:

• It is breathtakingly stunning.  The soft way the light enters the chapel, the views of the ocean from the cliff side, the modern fountain and small garden surrounding the place... I imagine it'd be a wedding photographer's dream.  It's so beautiful that we'd save money on decorations because the setting is already gorgeous.
• It is tiny.  The website says that the chapel will accommodate up to 100 guests.  This is a huge plus for me; I would want something as personal as my wedding ceremony to be shared only by our closest friends and family, and having a chapel that small makes it easy to limit the guests our parents would want us to invite.  Most people would enjoy the reception more anyway.
• It is in the LA area.  I originally thought that my wedding would be in the Bay Area, but having the ceremony where I grew up (LA area, not Palos Verdes!) would mean a lot to me.  

Cons:

• They are not too keen on letting you choose your music or your officiant.  The music is less of a big deal (though I'd rather not come in with the traditional wedding march), but I worry that the chapel will restrict the participation of a Catholic priest there in order to make it a formal Catholic mass/wedding.  That was kind of the whole point, after all.
• It is in the LA area.  While I'm happy to have the ceremony in LA, I'm not so thrilled about moving the reception away from the Bay Area where I imagine the majority of our reception guests will be.  And splitting the two means doubling the costs of makeup, hair, and probably other vendors I haven't thought of yet.  My friend suggested that I just do the reception in LA, too, but... I don't know, we'll see. (Edit 7/31/10: K suggested that I save money on hair or makeup by hiring her so that my costs there don't double.  Huzzah!  But I don't think that'd be for both hair and makeup.)
• Not a huge con, but the sticker price is $2500 to book Wayfarer's Chapel.  This is not a price that I mind for such a beautiful location and setting, but when you compare this to the cost of getting married in other churches (maybe a few hundred dollars or donation-based), it's a hefty premium.

I have that feeling I got from when I saw the Mark Schneider Kismet ring.  Now that I've seen something that's pulled so much on my heartstrings, it's going to be really hard to let go.

Upcoming Posts!

So excited to be posting again, but have to leave for work soon, so this entry is just kind of a bookmark until I get home. 

Content to look forward to:

• A potential wedding ceremony venue? with pros and cons.
• Some new adorable cake toppers
• An invitation design or two
• Hair styles
• Dress styles I'm considering