Boxing up some signage…

Murphy’s Law…

Wedding

This past weekend I went to my cousin’s wedding which spoke about here. I will begin by saying that everything that could have gone wrong did. I will do my best to recap what happened at the wedding last Saturday.

My family and I both arrived at the church at 8:30am along with 2 of the bridesmaids. The groom arrived at 8:45am along with his brothers and his parents. We took pictures outside until we were asked to enter the church.

The church official asked us to go into the church at 8:55am. At 9:00am a limo pulled up and the wedding party began to enter. Five of the groomsmen were there ready to go and only four bridesmaids were present.

The doors closed and the anticipation of seeing the bride began to overtake the church. Everyone had their cameras ready and then the doors closed and never opened (well at least not for a while). The priest waited about 5 minutes and stated that since he had another mass shortly after the one we were attending he had to continue with or without the bride. 20 minutes past by before we heard anything from the bride again meanwhile my poor cousin is standing in the front alongside his parents. The doors flung open and along with her uncle and aunt the bride came down the aisle while the lady that was doing the second reading was taking her place.

The bride rushed to my cousin’s side and the mass continued. 10 minutes later the rest of the bridesmaids, flowergirls, and the bride’s parents entered the church. Everything was great after that until we got to the reception hall.

I will continue my story on a different day about what happened at the reception. The lesson of today’s story is that both my parent’s and my in-laws have been warned about arriving late. The wedding will go on with or without them as long as both my HBoO and I are there.

I love my cousin and wish him and his new bride a happy marriage full of love and joy. I am not telling you their story to make fun of the situation in anyway but simply to point out that things do go wrong. I think we lose sight of what’s important during the wedding planning the most important part isn’t the guestlist or the crazy amounts of signage we will have but that we are marrying the love of our lives. Like I’ve previously said things will go wrong and people will stress you out but what matters is that you committing your lives to each other in front of the world. The next morning after the wedding is all done you will be married and have made vows to each other that you must nurture as much as you have all the details of the wedding.

Good Luck and Happy planning to all of you…

It’s All in the Name of the Wedding!!!

Hair, Wedding

I have been growing out my hair since I got engaged two years ago and today I chopped most of it off. I wasn’t planning to cut my hair until after the wedding because I was going to donate it to Locks of Love. I have been growing it out and donating it every two years for the past 10 years but after doing my hair trial two weeks ago the stylist and I decided that I needed an over due cut. I feel a tad selfish because I love donating it but I decided that I can always grow it out and do it again.

Of course I have to do a shot with the glasses:

Here is one without:

For the first time in my adult life I have bangs. I love it and the stylist said I will have more curls to work with on my wedding day.

Have you done something different to your hair to help your bridal hair? What do you think of my new style?

It’s a wedding…

Wedding

It’s not my wedding yet but my cousins wedding. My cousin and his high school sweetheart are getting married today. The mass will take place at 9:00am and the reception will be from 4:00pm to 1:00 am. His wedding is going to be completely opposite of mine. We are having an intimate affair and they are throwing a huge party. I am completely stoked about it and can’t wait to share some photos with you after it’s all done. I just spoke with him and they are both extremely stressed out, which got me thinking if I will react in the same manner the night before our wedding.

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However, lately I feel that I am getting less stressed out as the wedding approaches. The strange thing is that since I took those 2 weeks off after I told you that I was stressed out I feel so rejuvenated and embraced the idea that things will go wrong. I realize that I could only control certain aspects of the wedding. I can plan and organize as much as I want but the truth is things will go wrong and there is nothing I can do about them. Now that my attitude has changed I’m enjoying the planning even more than before. Life is great and my focus has now shifted towards creating a happy marriage rather than being consumed by the wedding details.

I text my cousin and reassured him that today I will be there to make sure things run smoothly. I think he just needed someone to tell him that they are going to be there for him if things arise that they were not expecting. I told him that I will be there throughout his wedding making sure things go right. He really appreciated that and thanked me. I hope he and his new bride have a lovely time and things work out.

How are you handling the stress or if you are already married what advice do you have for the rest of us? Is there anyone taking charge at our wedding to make sure things run smoothly?

I love photography…

Photographers, Wedding

How cute is this bride with her umbrella? I just wanted to share with you these lovely photos I came across in Wedding Cabaret. You have to appreciate a happy bride with a black birdcage veil. These photos are so great. Enjoy!

{All photos by Ben Blood Photography}

I have found myself countless of times admiring the different personalities brides have and how they bring it out during their wedding photos. I hope you enjoyed these photos as much as I did.

Take Out + Candy = Our Boxes

Candy Buffet, DIY, Wedding

When you think of favors or recuerdos in a Mexican wedding you think of something plastic with lace. My mom and aunt kept asking me what type of favors I was going to have and since I don’t want to ruin the surprise of the candy buffet I insisted on simply stating candy. I don’t have anything against recuerdos but I rather have something that my guest can eat instead of just throw away.

Here is an example of a recuerdo:

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Like I’ve previously mentioned here we are having a candy buffet. When trying to figure out where our guest were going to put the candy in I began to look around at different ideas.

One option was bags:

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Another one was jars:

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And the last one was take out boxes:

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The one I completely fell in love with was the third option. I found that Paper Mart has the cheapest take out boxes. I ended up spending less than $20 for 100 boxes including s&h. If you live near L.A. you can pick them up from there warehouse and can save on the shipping.

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Here is how our boxes arrived:

Here is where we thank our guest for sharing with us:

Here is our names and wedding date:

Here they are all together:

Many hours and miles of ribbon later we finally finished our boxes for our candy buffet. I am really happy on how they turned out especially since my HBoO and I burned ourselves on the glue gun on more than one occasion.

Total cost of this project approximately was about $25 for 100 boxes all completed.

What do you think of our boxes? What kind of favors are you going to have at your reception?

I’m back from the Salon!!

Hair, Make-up, Wedding

When looking for a salon I was mostly looking for convenience and for great reviews. I decided to go with Atlantic Studio not only is it close enough to my house that I can walk there but my stylist is amazing.

I walked in with my supplies on hand and with an open mind. I took a collage of photos which could be used as inspiration. Since I’m not the “Bridezilla” type I wanted the stylist to have some input on what would work best with my hair, face and skin type.

I wish I would have taken a before picture of my hair but I didn’t. Here is a photo of me without make-up.

Here is the after shoot with make-up and hair done.

This is a side view of my hair with a flower.

Here is the back of my hair.

Here are a few more pictures of me at home with my make-up and hair done.

You gotta love the lashes.

I’m still debating wearing my glasses on my wedding day so here is a picture of me wearing them.

At first a was a tad skeptical about having that trial done since I didn’t want pay for it but now that I’ve done it I would recommend it to anyone. I discovered that my HBOo does not like so much eye liner on me. I also realized that I want more loose curls and due to that I will be layering my hair next week. Overall this experience was amazing and I wouldn’t change anything except like I previously mentioned planning a romantic date.

Did you have a hair or make-up trial? What do you think with glasses or without? Less make-up or more?

I love color but how much is too much…

Dyed Crinoline, Wedding

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A while back I heard of this colorful trend dyed crinoline. After doing a search online I found that the Wedding Cabaret can do it for you for only $25. How cool is that you don’t have to deal with the mess of having to clean up the dye.

Another alternative for the more adventurous ones is to dye them yourself Mrs. Avocado from the Wedding Bee gives a great tutorial on her blog about how to do it. Another site that tells you how to diy it is here.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to partake in this latest trend since my slip is 100% polyester. I wish i would have read the label before I purchased it at Alfred Angelo Bridal.

Aww sadness now I won’t be able to have photos like this one.

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Or this one.

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I guess the only burst of color that I’ll be wearing is going to have to be on my shoes. Are you dying your crinoline? How are you going to add color on your wedding day?

My hair is going on trial tomorrow!!

Hair, Locks of Love, Make-up, Wedding

Tomorrow I have my hair and make-up trial and I’m utterly excited. I’ve spoken about how I would like my make-up done here but I’ve yet to say anything about my hair.

Here are a few things you should know about my hair:

I’ve never dyed it.

It’s wavy.

It’s back length.

It’s black.

I’m donating it to Locks of Love after the wedding.

Now that you know more about my hair I will show you the looks that I’m interested in.

Look 1.
I love this look because of the loose curls that seem to have taken no effort to create. I also love the small bangs on the side of her face.

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Look 2.
This look is slightly similar but doesn’t have the small bump like the top one. I still like the bangs in the front and the loose curls.

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Look 3.
I’m also considering having an updo. As you can tell I love loose curls and this updo is perfect for my hair accessories that I’ve written about here.

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Look 4.
Here is another updo that is higher than the previous one and still has the loose curls.

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I’ve read that somethings that you should bring to your hair trial are:

Inspirational photos.

A photo of your dress.

Hair accessories.

A camera to capture the look.

Wish me luck! I’ll update you on what happens tomorrow with my trial.

Lets cut the cake…

Garment District, Wedding

To add to the things I purchased at the Garment District recently is our knife set. This is pretty much how it went down.

My mom said, “Aren’t you going to buy a knife set?” I replied, “No I don’t think we need one.” My FMIL said, “I think you might need one to cut the cake.” I replied, “We aren’t having cake but we are having cheesecake. You ladies are right I should get one.” Meanwhile the cashier is waiting for me to pay for the flower girl baskets. I asked him, “How much are your knife sets?” He replied, “They start at $3…” I stopped him and said, “I’ll take it.” I figured since this wasn’t so important to me I would take the cheapest one they had.

Here is my $3 knife set:

You know you love it. Once again a bit of ribbon and a flower goes a long way.

Here is a closer glance at our knives. Not bad considering they are more expensive at the store and they are stainless steal. I don’t think it was necessary to have a fancy set engraved with our names.

What made me feel even better about my purchase was going to Michaels and seeing it for $24.99. Yes that’s right you the price underneath is for the same knives sets.

Are you using a knife set and are you having them engraved?