Emmy in LA's Blog

The “To Do” list…

emmyinla — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:10:40 +0000

…from Hell.

Candy Bar
Signs/stories
Images (stamped)
Order Candy
Buy frames
Transport Appothocary Jars

Tea Bar
Stamp/color tin covers
Decided what we are doing
Blend Tea

Guestbook
Create Pages
Print Pages
Cute pens/pen holders
Glue sticks (for photos)
Dress up box
Compile Guestbook

Ceremony Programs
everything!

Escort Card Scrapbooks
Text
Print
Stamp
Covers
Assemble
Nameplates

Table Numbers
Select Photos
Add Text/numbers
Frame? Tent? Stand?

Fantastic Candy Bar

emmyinla — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:51:45 +0000

This is the best candy bar I’v ever seen!

It’s part of a science themed wedding on Style Me Pretty

Candy Bar Bags and some Crafting

emmyinla — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:19:05 +0000

Here are the other, better, candy-bar bags my mom and I decided on:

Onto those we are going to glue a piece of paper with this stamped image:

Programs, part deux

emmyinla — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:34:08 +0000

My fabulous idea for the programs is to turn them in to mini scrapbooks for the guests. Along with the general information you’d expect I plan to include blank pages for people to put photos on.

Here’s my breakdown:

E and P’s Program

The wedding program is going to be a spiral bound book that will act as the guest’s scrapbook of the event.

These books will be personalized, with a letter addressed to the attendee on the first page.

Here’s a second take on the favors, which are custom scrapbooks.

One book per couple.
Cover: Dark card stock. Stamped wedding logo on front with names and date.
Ribbon across the middle of the page will meet ribbon on the back cover and tie the book closed.

Pages

Letter from E&P. Handwritten thanking them for their attendance and acknowledging any help with the wedding planning.
In-depth Bridal Party Bios
“How we met”
Info about the wedding
1. Candy bar
2. Tea bar
3. Guestbook
“Dictionary/Glossary”
1. A humorous fake dictionary/glossary wherein P&E give definitions for various “Irish” or “America” things they say.
Page for “photo booth” photo. Caption saying “In the photo booth”
Scrapbooking page – blank except for wedding a love quotes picked by P&E at the top or bottom of the page
Scrapbooking page
Scrapbooking page
Scrapbooking page
Scrapbooking page
Scrapbooking page
Cake info—listing flavors and maybe a story about the cakes (pics from Thanksgiving?)
Words to Irish song everyone will sing.

How they met

emmyinla — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:27:49 +0000

This is a killer cute idea to have in the program (since it’s too late to do it for the invitation.)

http://theunbride.com/2010/02/unvitation/

Candy Bar Packaging

emmyinla — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:16:44 +0000

It’s time to get serious about ordering things for the candy bar. Since our new watch-word is glamor I’ve re-thought the items I’d previously picked for the candy bar.

Bags:

I like the bags with ribbon, but don’t want people to get flustered trying to tie them. (Yea, I don’t think people will be able to figure it out.)

Total for 120 (just to be safe) of these size 4.5 x 7 is ~$72

Cute boxes:

I think these are darling, but wonder exactly how long it takes to put them together. Hmmm…

Total cost for 120 of these size 3.5×5 is ~$118

“Glamor” that’s our word

emmyinla — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:30:20 +0000

I had my first dress fitting. An unbelievably nerve-wracking experience since I ordered a dress slightly too small since I was on the border between sizes. But it fit! Crisis averted.

Somehow, I’d forgotten what the dress looked like, and what I looked like in it. I convinced myself that the dress was very gold, and that all these cute crafty DIY projects I wanted to do would be no problem. Not so. The dress is glamorous. I am glamorous. This is going to be a pretty, pretty princess wedding.

One of my fabulous bridesmaids was there with me. After she saw the dress she declared that glamor was our new watch-word for the wedding. As much as I love woodland inspired DIY project with knitting and mason jars and all that it won’t fit with my wedding. And after seeing the dress, and seeking out some pictures of “traditional” weddings, with all the glitz and glam associated, I remembered why I picked that dress and that I love glamor.

Picking a Photographer, pt. 2

emmyinla — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:22:54 +0000

After the horror of visiting Orange County to meet with photographers it took a long time for me to get up the gumption to try and meet with them again. As a matter of fact I let it get to the “oh crap the only reason we aren’t screwed is that we have a Sunday wedding” point.

The next person I met with was Marianne Lozano. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!

She’s an expert at my venue, and was so cool in person. She met me at a coffee shop and we went through pictures on her computer as well as several gorgeous albums she’d brought with her. I was ready to book after that meeting, but had a few more people to meet with.

The only problem was the price. Not that she was more expensive than other people I’d met with, but for the package I wanted it would have been at least two-thousand dollars above my budget. This was troubling, because owing to some unexpected family emergencies that required lots of travel, it was looking like the photography budget was actually going to go down, not up. When Marianne said she had another couple interested, I had to let her go. Sadness.

The next photographer I met with was Chris Diset. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!!!!!!

His images are amazing, and he was very cool and easy going. He has a little air of camera-nerd about him, which I appreciate in a photographer, and which I can say being the friend of many photographer and cinema nerds. This slight hint of nerdyness also led me to feel that he and my cute-geek fiance will get along well. More than anything I want my fiancé, who is miserably camera shy, to be comfortable with the photographer.

Chris also had another wedding photographer friend with him, and she was ridiculously cool also. I realized at that point that I did have a bias towards female photographers, because, wrongly I now know, I sort-of assumed guys wouldn’t understand my deep need to have pictures of all the little nitpicky stuff, and shoes, and girl shots, and all that.

The other completely awesome thing Chris did was to actually make suggestions for adjusting his package. There was no way I’d be able to do an engagement shoot, and the engagement session was always included in the packages. Chris was the only photographer to actually work with me to adjust the package and give me options rather than saying “oh sure we can do something to adjust it” without giving me concrete suggestions.

I had a really great conversation with Chris and his friend (whose name I promptly forgot, damn it.) In the middle of our meeting I just knew he was the photographer for us. We called my fiancé (at about 4am his time, woops) and finalized it.

I am so excited, his photos are gorgeous!

Picking a Photographer, pt. 1

emmyinla — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:48:57 +0000

There doesn’t seem to be any real agreement within the wedding world as to what is the most important part of the wedding. If you watch “Say Yes to the Dress” it’s the dress, if you watch “Amazing Wedding Cakes” it’s the cake. The entertainment seems important—after all, they’re going to spend lots of hours at the reception, as does the venue, menu and, well, pretty much everything else. You know, like, the CEREMONY THAT ACTUALLY MAKES IT LEGAL!!!

Ahem.

Anyway. The one thing that most people will say is VERY important, even if it isn’t the most important, is the wedding photography. Other brides tell me that you basically don’t remember the day at all, so the pictures had better be good.

Stupidly, photography was one of the big things we’d left until last to do. We had a rather disastrous trip right before thanksgiving where we went to see two photographers, both of whom were amazing. Photography by Jane and Braedon Photography.

I loved Braedon’s pictures. They’re edgy, cool, visually interesting and modern. He was hipster and interesting, his wife was nice, and his baby cute. However, he was very expensive, and for what I wanted with albums and everything it would have been at least $9,000. I would have cheerfully stolen that money away from something else, but he was a bit too cool for my fiancé, who seemed a bit intimidated/confused by him.

The second person we saw that disastrous day was Jane. She was very nice, and had great packages and prices. Her photography was more traditional, and not really what I was looking for, but my fiancé loved her work. He loved her albums, photos and her in general.

It seemed like we needed to meet in the middle somewhere. We had plans that day to meet with two other photographers, but due to left sunglasses, a purse on the roof, and horrible traffic on I-5, we didn’t see anyone else that day.

My first big registry experience

emmyinla — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:10:36 +0000

I think I’ve done it. I didn’t think it could be done, but it was done. I completed my wedding registries.

This might not seem like an important or interesting task—I certainly wasn’t really paying attention to this aspect of the planning until my checklist on The Knot started freaking out at me. I had no intention of registering for lots of stuff. My future mother in law flat out told me that most people would give money not gifts, so it didn’t seem important.

I wasn’t going to register for China. I mean, why would I? My mom has China, two sets! I could borrow hers if I needed to. While on the hunt for wedding shoes (another story) with two of my bridesmaids we went to Macy’s. Oooohh Macy’s…

First of all, you go sit at a big desk and meet with registry counselor, who gives you a gift and a scan gun. Then she gives you a checklist of thing you should register for. This is similar to other checklists I’ve seen, except it’s much scarier when you’re looking at the list while actually surrounded by the stuff.

While she’s setting up my account I start flipping through a book of china patterns. All my good intentions—not registering for much, not getting too into all this madness—went right out the window.

My China Pattern

“I want china!” I exclaimed. My MOH was practically vibrating as she suppressed her comment. “Just say it,” I said on a sigh.

“I knew it! I told you you’d want china. I told you so!”

I registered for over $2000 worth of waterford crystal

So we started with china, went on to flatware, everyday dishes, glasses, decorative things, pots, pans, kitchen electronics, kitchen accessories—we scanned everything on the wall of Martha Stewart accessories—then bedding, towels…

We were there for 4 hours. When we printed out the receipt-tape list of items it was at least seven feet long. Holy smokes.

And that was just the first one.