Our Tasting Appointment

July 26, 2012

My posts here began with one thing on my mind, dessert. So, you can imagine how excited I was for our food / cake tasting appointment! Great tasting food is very important to us, especially on our wedding day! We are a having buffet style dinner of yummy Italian food. Not only is our chef very talented, but he uses some of the best local ingredients. One amazing thing about living in the agricultural center of California is that we are provided with lots of amazing vegetables for each of our dishes. We had the pleasure of tasting all three of the dishes we'll be serving and some amazing bread sticks.

The bread sticks were ridiculously good, lots of flavor and flaky but also soft. (I know you're thinking, bread sticks? Big whoop, Ash. But I implore you, these rival those of Olive Garden and I could feast on those for years.) The first dish was an angel hair pasta with fresh roasted tomato, capers and goat cheese (not pictured, I ate this much too quickly). The second dish was fettuccine with roasted vegetables, and thirdly fancy mac n' cheese. Honestly, the mac n ' cheese was my favorite with provolone and smoked white cheddar it was delicious comfort food done right.

Source: Frosted Cakery

We were able to also try several different cupcakes, though we already know we love the cupcakes from our baker, Frosted Cakery. From left to right, salted caramel, chocolate chip cream cheese, snicker doodle, and vanilla bean raspberry. We ultimately decided on the last three and possibly the salted caramel for the cake for the Mister and I to cut at our reception.

Source: Frosted Cakery

Though we did taste our cupcakes at the same meeting as our food, we had a separate meeting to figure out what we actually wanted our cake to look like and the details of our desserts. Above is a loose vision of what we'll be going for. I wanted everything to be spread out and also keep with our overall theme.

What do you think about the layout? How important is/was food to you for your wedding?

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Cayman Beach Wedding

July 16, 2012

Cheers to such an organically beautifully, and wonderfully styled wedding. Such a simple design and perfect little Cayman wedding, oh how I dream of eloping when seeing weddings like these. Christin Rose for capturing this day so nicely.

And of course you have to end the night off with a little spontaneity! I love it.

Photography: Christin Rose || Venue: Caribbean Club || Coordinator: Parfait Wedding & Events

Wedding Dinner :: To Family Style or Not

July 11, 2012

My fiance and I were up in Oregon a few weeks ago for our friends' wedding in the Portland area (such a fun wedding and entire extended weekend, by the way! Future post to come). Even with a full wedding schedule, we managed to fit in two meetings for our own wedding - we have really had to make the most of the time we are up in Oregon! And while our wedding is actually in the Hood River area (about an hour drive east of Portland), we quickly found that so many of the vendors are happy to make the drive for Hood River and Mount Hood weddings. So, while we were in the City of Roses, we met with a caterer and a photographer. For this post, I'll be talking FOOD! My fiance and I both love great food...I mean, who doesn't?! Spending as much time as we have in Oregon's Willamette Valley and the Bay Area, there's no shortage of amazing food; from all the fresh and local ingredients, to an array of restaurants to farmers markets. So, food was one of the first things we thought about when it came to our wedding. We both agreed we didn't necessarily want anything fancy or elaborate, we just wanted it to be good.

What we quickly realized is that there is more to wedding food than the actual food part. You have to also consider how you are serving it. I originally had my heart set on family style for a few reasons. It started with the images of the long tables, below, which are just so picturesque. I also love that family style, long table or not, lends to conversation among the guests and a feeling of community and family (hence the name). Here is some of my family style inspiration...

Source: left, middle, right

Source

Source: all four

What I didn't consider were some drawbacks that came to my attention during our first caterer meeting. The main drawback was the price. The caterers need additional servers than they would with a buffet dinner, in order to bring around the different dishes and clear salad plates. And more servers equals more money. Another possible negative - the timing can be tough. You want people eating at generally the same time, especially if there are large tables involved. You don't want someone with no food sitting next to someone who has already been served. And the other issue can be the amounts of food served. The caterers need to be vigilant to make sure everyone is getting the right amount of food. Some people could take too much and others would be left with not enough.

The interesting thing is that the first catering company we met with a few months ago completely discouraged us from doing family style, saying each of these problems were extremely troublesome. The next catering company we met with a couple weeks ago was much more flexible. They made it seem like each of the issues could be somewhat easily overcome. They also broke out the pricing, while the first guys wanted to bundle everything and wouldn't show us how much each component costed. I don't like to be strong-armed into any decision, especially when it comes to such an important day! Also, we liked caterer #2's cuisine and personality much better, so whether we decide on family style or buffet, we definitely have a great lead on a place to work with.

Have you considered family style for your wedding? If so, did you run into the same hurdles as I have? How did you overcome them, or did you decide on another option (buffet, plated)?

Take a Seat! {Creative Escort Card Displays}

July 10, 2012

The last "big" thing on my list (invitations) will be in the mail next week, so I'm officially ready to begin crafting! And I have to say, I'm quite excited! This weekend, Dan and I took a trip to Urban Ore (a fantastic salvage shop in Berkeley selling anything you could possibly image; it is great for crafty inspiration) to start getting some inspiration for our escort card displays. I know I want them to hang in some way and was on the hunt for interesting windows, shutters, frames or other items that could make a fantastic display.

We didn't get anything on this trip, but it definitely got the wheels turning. I'm loving some of these ideas. We could go vintage, classic, modern, rustic and anywhere in between!

Source: Tree, Wooden Posts, Twig Frame, Wooden Frame, Door, Gate, Modern Frame

One idea that we're leaning towards is displaying the escort cards on a cork board. But we don't want just basic cork. I love the idea of painting the board in an interesting pattern, covering it in fabric (or this AWESOME coffee sack!) or even having it in a fun shape! And this board made of wine corks could be a great touch for our wine country wedding. These would each be so cute with some colorful escort cards.

Sources: Striped, Numbers, Coffee Sack, Wine Corks, Ampersand, Fabric

You savvy brides out there have probably seen escort card displays with shutters, windows and doors a dozen times before. And while I think they are totally charming and great ideas, I came across some more unique ideas in my sourcing for this week's post that might spark your creativity. How fun are these?!

This one is so gorgeous! These colored plastic gems would also be so cute for an engagement party or shower decor.

Source: Boat, Firewood, Billy Balls, Wreath, Birds, Jewels

Once we decide what to do and get crafting, I'll share our DIY work here! Do you have any unique escort card display ideas?

Tarrytown Wedding!

May 29, 2012

I am traveling to New York this weekend for one of my best friend’s wedding and I couldn’t be more excited! She’s getting married at the Tarrytown House Estate and it looks stunning!

The grounds are amazing…

And check out that staircase!

More importantly, I am so excited to celebrate the marriage of my friends Robin and Bruce. They are an amazing couple and it is going to be so fun to celebrate them. I’ve got my dancing shoes packed – can’t wait!

Anyone else traveling to a wedding this weekend?

Credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

The Lab :: Romatically Pink by Esla Events

May 21, 2012

Photographer: Meg Perotti

Back in January 3 gals (Erin of Bustle Events, Yasmin of Floral Theory and yours truly of Engaged & Inspired) banded together to bring the most amazing bridal event to Northern California, The Lab. I wanted to feature some of the incredible images from Esla Events of an inspiration board she brought to life at the event. She was a new-comer last year, but her talent was so evident and we knew she should be a perfect fit for what we were doing. Check out these AMAZING images from The Lab. Special thanks to Weddingbee for the inspiration board!

We are so excited to host The Lab Event once again next January! Watch out for the date, which we will be announcing soon.

Photographer: Meg Perotti

Photographer: Edyta Szyszlo Photography

Photographer: Meg Perotti

Photographer: Edyta Szyszlo Photography

Photographer: Jennifer Skog Photography

Photographer: Tinywater Photography

Weddingbee’s “Young Love” inspiration board Designer: Esla Events Floral: Studio Choo Desserts: Fox & Fawn Rentals: Hartmann Studios Vintage Rentals: Milkglass Vintage Rentals/ Heritage & Craft Lighting: Impact Lighting Stationery: Aerialist Press

Venue Victory

May 17, 2012

Our search for a wedding venue was incredibly short. Despite the fact that we found the venue of our dreams so quickly into wedding planning, it was very stressful. There are some beautiful places that fit exactly what we wanted aesthetically, but we simply couldn't justify the price tag associated with most of the places or the compromises that came with them (port-a-potties were a deal breaker). Below is the look and feeling we were going for.

Source: Utah Bride, Style Me Pretty, The Loveliest Day, Style Me Pretty

Dreamy right? Our list of needs were simple enough and pretty much summarized by the inspiration photos above. Very natural and romantic. I was never one of those "princess" brides, but the castle fits our vision. After touring the place, talking over everything amongst ourselves and getting the opinions of family members, we booked it. By choosing our venue we were already choosing our DJ, florist, photographer, videographer, caterer, and wedding coordinator. Done. All that was left was deciding what we actually wanted, no research on who was best for our needs comparison and so on. Ultimately we chose our venue for many reasons, the biggest of which being that we had a lot of trust in the owner and his vision. We know we will be in great hands and our big day will be just as we want it. Here's a peak at our venue.

Source: Clovis Castle

This is just a tease for several reasons. The first is that if any of our guests are reading this we want them to be surprised! Secondly, it's still being developed so there's no complete picture to share just yet.

There are some things you should keep in mind when doing something like this and I thought putting together a small pro/con list would help.

Pros: 1) All inclusive venue means one choice, the venue. No vendor searching and interviewing, no price comparisons for each. 2) This also means you're writing essentially one check. 3) In our case, very few planning meetings. One to make all the decisions and meet with each vendor and one to taste everything and see your decor choices live before the big day. 4) And here's the big pro, no worries on our day! Our venue takes care of set up, clean up, mishaps, everything. We're also staying there that night so we don't have to worry about driving somewhere else after partying with our guests. I just relax, soak it all in and walk down the aisle and Frank just enjoys being with his guys prepares for his socks to be knocked off by me and my dress!

Cons: 1) This is a bit of a hands-off approach. While you are deciding what you want for your wedding, there are only a few meeting and decisions are made quickly and no less than 9 months in advance. For those that want to REALLY be involved, you really have to decide if you would be able to put your wedding in someone else's hands. 2) While doing something all inclusive means you're getting the specific vendors best prices, there is no price comparison. Vendor B may have a better price on those beautiful cream linens, but Vendor A is who your venue uses, so that's who you have to use. 3) Deals such as these can easily seem and turn out to be, too good to be true. Doing your research on the venue and participating vendors ahead of time can help avoid a disaster. 4) Sticker shock comes swift. Have a budget set in mind and make sure to take into account all that is included before dismissing the venue because of how the price sounds initially.

We couldn't be happier with the choice we made and am so excited to get to planning and seeing our big day come together!

So tell me ladies, did any of you go with an all inclusive venue? What are your thoughts on our choice?

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Venue...Check!

May 16, 2012

I'm happy to say we found the 'where' and the 'when' for our wedding! We took an extended weekend trip up to Oregon last weekend and fell in love with one venue in particular...it had all the checks on my list and then some. Not only that, but we got to spend an afternoon in Hood River, where our guests will be staying, and had so much fun! As a bonus, our friends and their sweet ten-month-old baby girl were passing through town too, so we got to go to lunch and walk around town with them (with a little wine tasting room pit-stop). I can only hope for the 80-degree weather from last weekend when our wedding comes around! I hadn't been to Hood River since I was a teenager, and I can say that it definitely lived up to the memories. I know our friends and family will enjoy this town as much as we did. As I mentioned last week, it's really important to us that our guests are staying in a place that they can explore and hang out with each other. As we walked around town, we kept our eyes out for places we could be in the days before the wedding. There were so many great spots and things about the town that fit our style...breweries, fresh and local food, outdoor decks, nice people, etc.

The downtown area is full of quaint buildings with home and clothing boutiques, windsurfing stores and restaurants. In the background is the Columbia River and the State of Washington.

Source

Hood River is also the windsurfing capital of the world!

Source

About a 30-minute drive south of the town of Hood River, past wineries, lavender farms, and pear orchards lies the spot we will be saying 'I do' in July of 2013 - Mt. Hood B&B.

Source

Here are some pictures of their awesome 47-acre property that sits on the northeast side of Mount Hood.

Mountain backdrop: check.

Source

Room for lawn games: check.

Source

Great dance floor: check!

Source

Spot for the music: check (although now my fiance wants a band and I'm not sure if that fits into our budget :-)

Source

Another reason we loved the B&B is that the owners were really sweet and helpful. Jackie (the wife/mom) happily answered my million and one questions. The couple raised their four kids on the property and now their daughter is also a day-of event coordinator. We wanted a day-of coordinator and she knew her stuff, so we hired her on the spot. That is sort of becoming a theme with our planning - if we know we like something, we make the decision quickly.

I am so relieved to have the date set and the venue booked. Now I feel like I can make all the other decisions within that framework and the vision can sort of fall into place. My mind is racing with all the other fun details...the colors, the dress, the flowers! Did anyone else feel like this? Or are the hard decisions yet to come?

Location, Location, Location :: Venue Search

May 9, 2012

You've heard it before - 'location, location, location' - and while it usually refers to real estate properties, I think it's also applicable to wedding venues. In searching for where we want to have our wedding, we were quickly faced with thinking not only about where the actual ceremony and reception would take place, but also where our guests would be spending a weekend. As I mentioned before, Chris and I have many friends in Oregon and my family is there, but we have lived in San Francisco for the past five years and his family is in California, so we have a community here too. Over our wedding weekend some of these people will be meeting for the first time, so it's really important to us that everyone get to know each other and have plenty of opportunities to hang out. As we come together in this union of marriage, we want our friends and family to come together as well (sounds corny, but it's true!). When thinking about this, we realized that if people just came from their house to our wedding and then went back home, it wouldn't have the effect we wanted. So, we decided, what better way for everyone to get to know each other than to be thrown into a small town over the course of a couple days?! Hence, our decision to narrow our search. We think the perfect place for what we have in mind is the Gorge/Hood River/Mount Hood area because it will be a 'destination' for almost everyone. At the same time, it's only an hour drive from the Portland and PDX airport, so it's not crazy remote for anyone either.

After we made the decision on this general location, the search has gotten easier and I'm beginning to actually picture what everything will look like. The main things we want in a venue are for it to be outdoor (although an indoor backup plan in case of rain would be a huge plus), some views would be nice, for it to fit our style - outdoor chic/whimsical - and to have a great dance area! Here are some of the images inspiring me and that I hope to find parts of this weekend on our visit. I know part of it will be being able to envision what we could turn a space into with some creativity.

Bridal Veil Lakes, sources: left, top right, bottom right

Mt. Hood Organic Farms, sources: Top, bottom left, bottom right

Mt. Hood B&B, sources: top, bottom

Gorge Crest Vineyards, source: all

I'm loving each of these venues for different reasons. I can't wait to see them in-person in a couple days. And it doesn't hurt that the forecast is showing 81 and sunny on Saturday so it will feel like summer!

Bear with me on one more real estate comparison...blame it on me living in several 'for sale' houses growing up (and countless HGTV shows in the past few years). If you remember last week when I talked about the difficulty seeing a venue through their website, I mentioned that I was sick of seeing countless close-up images of people's weddings - from their centerpieces to their rings on a grape vine, etc. I'm not trying to sound insensitive, it's just that that's not what us brides are looking for we search online for a venue (we want to see that when we are looking for a photographer or for DIY projects). The principle already applies in real estate - when you are trying to sell your house, you want to stage it in a way that other people can picture themselves living there, but at the same time, don't picture your family living there. So, you take down personal touches - family pictures, your moisturizer and toothbrushes from the bathroom counter and so on and you 'stage' it so that they think 'oh that little side room would make the perfect library/office!' I think wedding venue websites would benefit from a similar mindset. Instead of treating their sites like wedding blogs with pictures of all the details, they could find a way to balance couples being able to let their imaginations run wild with the space (staging), while removing the personalized elements of other weddings (family pictures on the wall). Any out-of-state brides out there? What do you think - are you running into this issue?

Follow up to my first week: If you were patient enough to read through this post, below is a picture of my finished ring!!! My first post two weeks ago was about the ring my fiance proposed to me with (his grandmother's beautiful ring) and how we went to design the 'engagement' ring that day together. Well, he got down on his knee again last night with the ring we designed in-hand (actually in-pocket) for me to see for the first time and it seriously exceeded all my expectations. For some reason I'm not super comfortable posting pictures of my ring for all to see, which is why I hid it all the way down here. Perhaps it's because I don't want to come across as superficial or giving the impression that the loveliness of a ring has anything to do with what truly matters about a couple, because it doesn't...but I do truly love this ring and the guy who gave it to me and I'm not ashamed of either of those things. ;-)

props to our amazing jeweler!

Venue Time :: Destination Unknown

May 2, 2012

While my fiancé and I live in one of the best cities in the world - San Francisco (yes, I know I'm biased!), we have known for a while that we wanted to get married in Oregon. I grew up in Eugene and we met while in school at the University of Oregon. We both have a lot of history there and the summers, especially, just feel like home to me. I can't imagine getting married anywhere else. Beyond knowing the state we want to tie the knot in, we are pretty open. The areas we have been focusing on spans from Eugene, up north to Portland and, from there, east to Hood River and the Mount Hood area. With this vast area in mind, the next question I asked myself was – where can I picture getting married?

Sources: 1, 2

Vineyards: I grew up in the Willamette Valley, which is home to some beautiful vineyards and delicious wines! Chris and I had our first date at King Estate Winery and have visited many times since.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Farms/Ranches: Views, nature and a little country flair…what more could a bride ask for?!

Source

The Beach: I grew up going to our condo at the Inn at Otter Crest, located about 8 miles north of Newport, Oregon. The Oregon coast is scenic and raw and would make for amazing pictures. The downside of an Oregon beach wedding? The weather. If I got married in a beach setting I would want it to be outside and Oregon beaches aren't exactly known for warm summer evenings. Cold and wind-blown wouldn't be a good look for me.

Source: 1, 2

Urban Scene: Portland isn’t just for shows about quirky, over-the-top Portlandians, it also has some great potential wedding spots. I am envisioning an industrial, exposed-brick-and-beams look for the reception. Possibly a little chapel for the ceremony (not because we are particularly religious, but I think it would be sweet and fun).

Source

Hood River/Mount Hood area: ahhh, the views! If you’ve ever had the opportunity to drive along the Columbia River Gorge, which forms the boundary between the State of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south, you know it’s a sight to see. I was not surprised to hear that this area is increasing in popularity for weddings. A snow-capped mountain in the height of summer would be such a cool backdrop for the big day.

Brainstorming was the fun part. Next came the searching where I found out the hardest part about planning a destination wedding is just what I thought it would be – not being there! The internet has been a lifesaver for me over the past couple weeks in the quest to find the venue but, with that said, most of the websites are not designed with the destination couple in mind. It is so tough to get a feel for the space and its layout through the pictures most sites have posted. I keep thinking to myself ‘I don’t care about these people’s center pieces and wedding rings hanging from a grape vine; I want to see the space!’ This is where Google Earth’s Satellite and Street View’s have come in handy for me. I have been able to zoom in on the area and see the layout of these places. Why don’t more sites feature a floor plan?! (It could be the interior design student in me. Does anyone else think this?)

Not only has it been hard to get a feel for the spaces through companies’ websites, I quickly realized that venues are booking up for summer 2013. So last week we bought plane tickets for a long weekend trip up north to see some of these places in-person - we're leaving next Friday! I do feel lucky that our ‘destination’ is a quick and direct flight away!

With just a weekend to look at spots, we don’t have the luxury of spending weeks looking and visiting, going back and weighing our options, but the destination thing is forcing us to be efficient and I like that!

Are you having a destination wedding? Destination or not, did you have the same trouble with venue websites? What was your venue strategy?