For the first time since I’ve started coordinating [okay, maybe with the rare exception of a vacation a few years back . . .], I promised my husband one WHOLE day with me, without my email. SO, for the rest of the day, please don’t be alarmed- I’m not dead! I’m just falling in love again!

Besides, reminding myself of how special my marriage is, reminds me how special each and every one of my client’s marriages will be as well!

Take a day and fill it with love and love alone! I’ll respond to everything I get today sometime tomorrow.

So, I got lazy and it took me until now to get photos of my arrangement and get them out to all of my anxiously-waiting readers [right??!!]. Ha!

Without any further delay:

Not bad! We focused on making “round” centerpieces, meaning the total affect of the arrangement would look like a half circle. I got a 4 out of 5!

Just so everyone knows… I updated my website gallery with the rest of my ‘07 events! I added about 4 or 5 weddings to the gallery, at the top, so go ahead and take a visit!

Go There Now!!!

Here’s a preview for a sneak peek!

Well, this week’s floral class was canceled, so Steph and I, along with my associate Jen, made the trip up to Downtown Los Angeles today [to search for fabric, trims, and other non-sense-icals] and got ourselves some flowers to practice making more bouquets!

Mine:

My most favorite picture of the bunch:

I’ve calmed most of the images down, but the colors of the flowers are really something like this:

Stephanie’s:

Up close and personal [probably my 2nd fave pic]:

I LOVED picking out all of the flowers ourselves! We found the freesia first, which was this beautiful rusty orange with yellow accents and flecks of pink and lavender. Adding in the warm yellow roses [yummy] and pinky purple tulips, tying it off with a gorgeous deep warm fuschia ribbon- love it! Color is seriously my thing, and this made my week!

Hope you all enjoyed and PLEASE take a moment to stop and smell the flowers sometime this week!!!

But, sometimes I make up my own words, and it’s really fun. Most of the time, these words are just shortened versions of the real thing [but, awkwardly shortened] or they are a merger of two words.

My favorite word that I came up with today

Surpresent!

Noun. A surprise present, typically unexpected and surrounded by no formal occasion.

Do you LOVE it???

A great idea for a wedding reception with a ton of elements is to create an information card for your guests, like the one shown.
These are from my wedding, 4 and a half years ago. We had incorporated a lot of personal details and unique touches and wanted our guests to experience them to their fullest extent.

In case you can’t read the card in the picture, we had everything on there from our cake cutting, to our photo booth and grand exit.

If you have a wedding that you want your guests to be a part of and really experience with you, this is a great and cost-economic way to do it! Want to know if something like this is right for you?

If your reception includes:

Lounge Area
Candy Buffet
Photobooth
Grand Exit
Grand Entrance
Chocolate Fountain
Dessert Buffet
Fire Pit or S’mores Pit [yep, I've seen it!]
“Portrait Station” [for guests to get pictures taken
Slideshow [running in a certain area all night]
Any sort of table station [heritage/family table, engagement photo table, dedication table]
Unique guest book area [writing a note to bride and groom, signing picture matte, etc]
Many, many, many other ideas!

If any one of my clients are interested in creating one of these, let me know and I’ll be glad to help! I think they really help your guests explore the entire site on the day of your wedding, and to allow them to do so, is helping them appreciate all of the care and dedication you put into your details!

Today was Tina’s bridal shower, and I was so excited to get to stop by for a bit and take some pictures of the details and the lovely bride-to-be! Here’s a snippit of her Breakfast At Tiffany’s themed shower!

The LOVELY Tina, making her grand Audrey entrance!

Some Details:

Some toats to Nick and Tina from those closest to them:

I love this picture of her mom, Karen, trying not to cry! And these two below:

Tina with Nick’s mother:

Tina’s grandmother was desperately trying to keep it together for the crowd! She was so moving!

All in all, it was an amazing day for Christina that I loved being a part of- even if I only got to be there for a little bit! The whole crowd “oohed” and “aahed” over her engagement photos and chatted about how much fun their April wedding will be.

Tina, you looked gorgeous!

I guess it’s an appropriate time to explain just what Valentine’s Day is to my husband and I.

Honestly, I’m not even sure how the tradition came about- but tradition it is, none the less!

Every year, Josh and I switch off on who gets a gift for the other. This year it happened to be his year. Last time he gave me a gift- it was a doozie. I mean, a REAL doozie. It’s a shame that I don’t have a picture of it [I'm sure I could find it somewhere. . .]

Anyway- when my husband and I celebrate Val Day, we actually set out to find an absolutely cheesy, 100% awful gift for the other person. The only rule of the situation is that it MUST be Valentine’s paraphernalia. Whatever has hearts, bears, lips, whatever is red or pink or white. . . that’s the game. In our years of marriage, we have exchanged some truly hideous stuff. And more than that, we spend a lot of time threatening each other with stuff we’ve found [like- while grocery shopping and you see the stuffed monkey with cymbals on the hands that dances and plays a song- that type of stuff].

This year, I think he took it easy on me:

Please note: this Pez dispenser says “sweet” on it. He said that it was a toss up between “dream” and “sweet”- and those were the only two options they had. Wow. What choices Pez gives us!

The best thing about this gift is that they only give you the red/pink flavored candies- which happen to be my FAVORITE! So, while everyone else is enjoying roses, chocolates, and gifts that they may actually want, I’m chomping on Pez! And that’s A-OK with me!

We DID end up going out for the evening [which wasn't planned, and thus we sat on the patio at a restaurant that gave us terrible service, but hey, it was Val Day and we were TOGETHER!]. Some pics from the night:

A tree in our complex. We have these beautiful blooming white trees all over. I jumped out and took this while we were driving

Up close and way too personal.

Love that dang husband.

Artsy photo courtesy of Josh.

Some dinner chat shots.

That’s about it. Afterwards we walked around and caught a movie, which was the original plan. All in all, it was a pretty great night!

Anyone have any FAB Valentine stories??? Let me know!