stinkerpants design

I recently started thinking about how different my wedding would have been if I’d started planning now, rather than in early 2007.  The culture on my local knot board, which is where I got most of my inspiration, is much different now than it was then.

When I started planning, I went on a knot bio bookmarking spree.  I was inspired by almost everything I saw–everyone was so creative and unique, it seemed!  I was blown away by the women who planned weddings for the Summer of 2007, and was constantly amazed my my fellow brides-to-be, who were at the same stage in planning as I was and kept coming up with creative ideas.

I am sure that there are a lot of current bride- and grooms-to-be who would love to be inspired, too.  Maybe you guys have found some awesome bios lately (if so, please share them with me!), but I haven’t really (although I admit, I haven’t really been looking!).  Anyway, here are the bios that I found most inspiring, plus a few of my friends.

2007 knotties who inspired me:

• barnhunter
• mskittie
• kellynaaron
• Chrysallys
• jusloveli
• andreayung23
• calicayman
• graceface
• sakegirls
• SpringChic
• walletpuppy
• LaMaddalena
• bruinchiq
• lisakeiko
• weezermonkey
• academybeldam
• Amber888
• mavie
• sfmaybride
• lzanassi
• kateaudplan
• Mrs.Nerissa
• acopsgirl
• proud-wife
• tanya2s
• abattyref
• avalikelava

A few brides whose bios have disappeared (or their pictures are now too small to see) but I really loved: MrsHoya, lickaflea, blackcurrant, kayrose.

The brides-to-be in 2007 who ended up with awesome weddings:

• purplewedding24 (married bio here)
• charmeng
• sfgirl75 (married bio here)
• bloominautumn
• tenfour (make sure to check out her giant table for all of her friends–what an awesome idea!)
• soon2bwilcox (married photos here)
• mooners
• cathleya
• happysigh
• myfiancesbrave (married bio here)
• californiaborn (married bio here)
• palomahelm (married photos here)
• tmconne (married photos here)

A few brides whose weddings turned out beautifully but didn’t update their bios (or I can’t find their bios)?, pearls&lace and bride2bJG.

Anyone else got any favorites to add?

Holy moly, it’s the last wedding post.  Sad!!  It also happens to be one of my favorites, though: the DIY (do-it-yourself) details.  I slaved my butt off working on all the details for our wedding, and I’m thrilled with how they came out.  The reception was perfectly executed by our wonderful caterers, and every last thing was photographed by our awesome photographer, Kim.

At least one or two guests commented on every single detail, which really made all of the work worth it.  It made our wedding really personal and fun, which was exactly what I was going for.  The reason I’m telling you all of this is because I think the DIY projects are worth it, for sure, as long as they add something unique to your day.  I don’t think it’s worth the effort to slave over a centerpiece if no one will notice how unique it is, or how it tells a story about you and your fiancé, though.  Enough blabbering, how about some photos?

Kim did a great job photographing our invitations (don’t forget to add this to your list of things to bring on the day of!):

And our programs (the one project I did not think was worth it, but it made for a funny story, so whatever!).  This photo shows all of the colors I used, but it has the shoe-shop stitching:

 One of very few “perfect” programs (with the zig zag stitch):

This is our head table at the reception.  We had one small rectangular table that seated us and our parents.  Ah!  The colors of the favors so perfectly match the napkins!!  LOVE!

One of the mini menus:

One of the table number sandwich boards with a placecard:

Our friend JD had a good time in the photobooth:

The cropped drawings that were hanging from the tall centerpieces:

One of the low-centerpiece tables:

The inside of the favor boxes:

And, just to recap some of the details you’ve seen before…

the bar menu:

The signs I made for the back of our chairs (there were also signs for our parents):

Actually, here’s a non-pro pic of Y’s dad with his sign (how funny is he?!):

 The “random fact” napkins:

The memory boxes:

The guestbook table:

The ceremony signs (well, one of them at least!):

The handmade-by-my-mom-and-my-aunt chuppah:

The Ketubah:

Holy moly.  Looking back on this, I did a LOT.   Whew!!  No wonder I’m wedding-ed out!!

I don’t usually ask questions at the end of my blog entries, but I am really curious: what DIY projects did you do (or are you doing) that truly reflect you and your fiancé?

 After I changed into my cheongsam (chinese dress) and we ate our cupcakes, our band leader approached me and asked if we’d like to start the Hora.  For those of you not familiar with Jewish weddings (or Bar/Bat Mitzvahs) the Hora is a circular dance we do at our parties.  It ends with the person/people of honor sitting in chairs lifted by the strongest people at the party.

I was really excited to see that the non-Jewish guests (including my FIL on the right!) joined the dancing even though most of them had never even heard of the Hora.  My FIL keeps talking about how much fun he had during the Hora.  “Such a nice tradition!” he keeps saying.

Here we are, sitting in the chairs.  Y is already starting to go up, and I’m next.  He looks terrified mostly because only two of the people responsible for holding him up have any idea what they’re doing.  Also, one of his cousins is notorious for dropping things, so Y was understandably a bit concerned!!

Totally terrifying.  Seriously.  I thought this part would be way more fun that it actually was (haha).

Y actually looks relatively content, doesn’t he?!

Thrilled that we survived.

The Hora was the last event of the night.  Sadly, things were winding down…

We’re almost done with the wedding recaps, sadly.  The only thing we’ve got left are the details!

After a long hiatus (sorry), I am back!   I have been SO BUSY for the past week that I haven’t even had time to catch up on my favorite blogs!  But busy is a good thing.  :)  There are only two more posts (after this one) in my wedding recap!  Sad!  This one is about our cupcakes, which were DELICIOUS.As you might recall, my mom and I made the cake stands for the wedding.  I was totally thrilled with how they turned out; the display was delicious and quirky and totally perfect.

OMG how delicious do these look?!  We got our cupcakes through Sibby’s Cupcakery in San Mateo.  We did VERY extensive research before deciding on them (more on that below).  The folks at Sibby’s are super professional, and they definitely the most delicious cupcakes in the bay area. AND they’re the cutest.  I told them that I wanted the cupcakes to “look like a candy store, with lots of bright colors” and they really delivered.   So. cute.

We weren’t really attached to the idea of a traditional cake cutting, so we decided to feed one another cupcakes instead.  Lucky for us, Sibby’s makes an amazing GIANT cupcake.  Y ordered vanilla and I ordered chocolate (of course), and I made these little “his” and “hers” flags for them.  These giant cupcakes were on taller, smaller stands, so they stood out.

When it came time to eat the cupcakes, we were both very excited.  Actually, I think Y was more excited than I was (as a side note, I changed into my Chinese dress right before the Eating of the Cupcakes.  MAN I love that dress)!

He appears to have enjoyed his more than I did, too!

We’re a little weird:

The day of our wedding was also my cousin’s birthday.  He’s rather shy, but we decided that we HAD to humiliate him by singing him “Happy Birthday” and giving him a special cupcake.   His cupcake said “Happy Birthday Peter.”

Here we are, telling Peter he has no choice but to come up and get his cupcake:

And here he is telling us never to do this again!  He probably still hates me to this day (haha–I hope not!):

After the singing, it was time for people to enjoy their cupcakes!

We anticipated that people would eat a LOT of cupcakes, so we ordered a TON extra.  We had three boxes left over, and the next morning we shared them with the hotel staff and some of our guests while we waited for valet to bring our cars.  We gave my cousins Jeff and Peggie a box to take home, and they gave a cupcake to the lady who checked them in at the airport.  Apparently it was the best cupcake she’d ever had!  Here’s a (clearly non-pro) photo of Peggie and Jeff eating cupcakes at 9am the next morning!  So fun.

If you live in the bay area and happen to be interested in cupcakes, here’s a general overview from our cupcake tasting:

Sibby’s Cupcakery (San Mateo)–Easily the best cupcake I’ve ever had.  She doesn’t mark up her prices for weddings, which I appreciate.  However, they’re still really expensive at $39/dozen, $150 delivery and setup.  Sibby says that setup takes about 2 hours, which we decided to do because we wanted to make sure it actually got done!  She has really cute stands, if you want to go the rental route. 

Citizen Cupcake (San Francisco)–these cupcakes were so bad (dry and nasty) that we didn’t even make it to the cost part of the equation.  NOT recommended AT ALL.

Teacake Bakeshop (Emeryville)–we found these cupcakes to be a little on the dry side, but our main issue was the frosting, which was really waxy.  The cupcakes are $36/dozen, and as far as delivery…they apparently contract out for that, so they charge an unknown amount for delivery and don’t do any setup.

Kara’s Cupcakes (San Francisco)–I’m not going to lie, her cupcakes are good.  We enjoyed them very much.  When we tasted them, her cupcakes were marked up simply because it was a wedding–$45/dozen.  Now I see on their website that the cupcakes are back to $36/dozen (the normal cupcake price).  Delivery is about $30, but no setup.

That Takes the Cake (San Francisco)–I really liked Sara Lynn a lot when I talked to her on the phone.  She was super generous, giving us 8 full-sized cupcakes for our tasting, for free.  However, the frosting was way too sweet for me.  The red velvet was AWESOME, though.  Best red velvet ever.

Love at First Bite (Berkeley)–Their cupcakes were pretty tasty, for sure.  However, I’m not too wild about the fact that they charge $10 for a tasting, and at first I didn’t even want to try them because that irritated me so much.  $36/dozen, about $50 for delivery to the city.   Their customer service was the main reason we didn’t choose them.

American Cupcakes  (San Francisco)–I really liked these cupcakes a lot.  They aren’t quite as cute as Sibby’s, but they were very good–not too sweet.  We almost went with them, but at the end of the day, they weren’t very responsive to my emails or phone calls, which made me kind of nervous.  It probably would have been fine, but I don’t want to be worrying about that, you know?

Sprinkles Cupcakes (Palo Alto)–this place actually opened recently, so they weren’t an option for us.  We did, however, taste their cupcakes recently.  I thought I’d add my two cents!  I wasn’t a fan of Sprinkles, which is a famous cupcake shop in LA.  Their frosting was way too sweet, the cake itself was kind of dry and heavy, and it just wasn’t that great.  I do like their color-coding system, though!

 I am getting really, really excited about my new website.  I’ve been creating all sorts of new drawings to put all over it, and Bob, the wonderful Brother Bee from Weddingbee, has been helping me for months.  I’m excited.

What?  Back to the wedding?

Our caterer created an amazing outdoor bar by stacking martini glasses, glass blocks and sheets of glass.  It was amazing.  The bartenders made AMAZING drinks.  Seriously the best lemon drop (or shall I call it a “Dr. Miles”?) I’ve ever had.  The signature drinks were so popular that we ran out of vodka.  The bartenders were nice enough to run to a liquor store and get us more!

The signature cocktail bar menu…

SIL clearly enjoyed the drinks:

Do you see how the sugar is yellow?  The caterer brought that!  How special!

Our caterers did a very fancy thing with the soup: they presented the contents of the soup in a bowl, and then poured the broth on top of it.  Fancy.  I’d never heard of anything like it (although admittedly I am not one to dine out at fancy restaurants).

The bride and groom signs I made for the back of our chairs.  I also made some for our parents.

After dinner, my dad and I had our father-daughter dance.  We took lessons and learned how to waltz, and we were very proud of how it turned out!

The photobooth was a huge hit:

I am sooooo glad we got the photobooth.  It was worth every. penny.  If you have a photobooth at your wedding, make sure to go in multiple times with your new husband!  We only went in once together, and although it was a good photo, I want more!!

Up next!  Cupcakes!

 Whew!  It’s getting late in the day to be posting, but heck!  I’ve been working feverishly since 8am and haven’t really come up for air!

I’m not sure how interested in these photos you guys will be, but I thought I’d share them anyway–they’re the toasts.  We fed people the first course, and then the toasts began.  My dad did a magnificent job.  My friends asked to “rent” him for their own weddings!

The toasts are the #1 reason why I’m glad we got a videographer.  I can’t remember a darn thing anyone said, but I remember I was really touched and I cried.  I am excited to hear what they had to say (again).

Up next…the more interesting parts of the reception (haha!)

 Hi!  After a four-day hiatus from posting, I’m back!  With photos from our cocktail hour!  I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. And now, back to the wedding.

Because we missed the cocktail hour, I had no idea if people looked through our memory boxes, appreciated our custom napkins or started playing with the photobooth.  Getting those photos back was so fun!  There were a lot of photos of people appreciating my hard-DIY-work.  :)

Guests looking through the memory boxes:

 At the guestbook table…as you may recall, I put our photo reminder cards in envelopes for people to store their photobooth photos in.  Here, one of our guests opens an envelope and reads the flickr photo upload instructions.

And a guest appreciates our random facts cocktail napkins (more on that in a second)!!

 The memory boxes, closed (note the empty glasses–people were clearly appreciating the signature cocktails):

and open…

Signing the guestbook:

My SIL and one of our groomsmen.  She was clearly quite a good salesperson with the photo reminder cards!

Overall, I think every single one of my DIY projects was worth it (besides maybe the programs: I’m not sure the pain was worth the product in that case!). They were really fun to make, and it was totally gratifying to see people appreciate them.

When I first posted about our Random Fact cocktail napkins on Weddingbee, people wanted to know what all of our facts were!  At the time, I didn’t want to share because I wanted our guests to be surprised.  Now that it’s over (and we’re using the leftover napkins every night with dinner!), I’ll share the facts with you guys.  :)

1. Growing up, Sara happily quit the following activities: Soccer, Violin, Recorder, Art, Golf, and Tennis.
2. Yorkey once walked on 1200° hot coals wearing a kilt.
3. When Sara was in elementary school, she wrote a newsletter for her neighbors called “Neighborhood News” and distributed it exactly 3 times.
4. Yorkey starred in a television commercial for Chabot College…but because he didn’t get the local cable access channel, he’s never seen it.
5. Sara makes $20/year selling advertisements on her website about rats.
6. Yorkey once ran out of gas in the Nevada desert…in his Prius.
7. Yorkey and Sara once convinced themselves that they had bed bugs.  They strapped their box spring to the roof of Yorkey’s car and drove it to the dump…only to realize two days later that it was most likely a mosquito.
8. When Sara was a little kid, her beloved Aunt Maggie gave her a copy of “the Velveteen Rabbit.”  It scared her so much that she threw it in the closet, slammed the door shut, and refused to go anywhere near it.

I had a few people come up to me at the wedding and comment on the random facts.  For example, I grew up in a very small town, and one of our next-door neighbors was my P.E. instructor at school, and also my soccer coach.  When he saw random fact #1, he felt the need to remind me that I had, in fact, once scored a goal in soccer, so I couldn’t have been that bad.  I reminded him that I only scored the goal because everyone was distracted by an injured teammate, and otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten near the ball!

One of my goals for the cocktial hour DIY projects was to include our guests.  Obviously you can only include people in the random facts to a limited extent, but the memory boxes were another story.  We included photos of neighbors from many years ago, old family pictures and dorky photos with friends.  I think people really enjoyed seeing themselves!

Next up?  The reception!

 I am so excited about my flowers.  To this day, I get a bit of a thrill looking at them.  Our florist, Leanne of Callalily Flowers, is truly an artist.  I don’t know very much about flowers, so when we started talking about what my vision was, I just said, “lots and lots of color.”  For the bridesmaids and groomsmen, I wanted stark white–and I found some fun ribbon to spice things up.

My bouquet was TO DIE FOR.  I seriously could not have imagined anything better.  The texture, the color…WOW.

Y’s boutonniere was also a masterpiece.  After the wedding, I kept wondering if our photographer had managed to get a picture of it (there was a mix up, and the portraits of Y were taken before the flowers arrived).  Luckily Kim is amazing and managed to get some!  Because I am so in love with this (why, oh why, do flowers have to die?!), I’m posting two:

I love how the white looks against the bright bridesmaid dresses:

How awesome are these boutineres?  They’re white, but they’re so special!

 Moving on, to the reception…our centerpieces were amazing.  Those are little cards hanging from them with cropped versions of that table’s drawing.

OMG amazing.

The room, while people were eating dinner….

There are obviously more details, but they’ll be sprinkled out in the rest of the posts.  :)

Um, so I realized I totally forgot the cocktail hour.  Oops.  Completely out of order, that’s what’s up next!!

 After our formals, it was time to head up to the reception!

One thing about me: I am always cold.  As a result, I knew I’d need something to keep me warm on the day of our wedding, especially given San Francisco’s summer weather (read: freezing).  After looking at boleros and other small jackets, I realized that my dress would look best with a pashmina.  My mom and I did a lot of “research” (read: shopping) before deciding on a color for said pashmina, and eventually settled on hot pink to match my shoes.  Sadly, the pashmina disappeared when I needed it most and I had to borrow a white one from one of my darling bridesmaids (so much for the research!).  When I got our photos back and saw this one, I wondered what happened to my pashmina.  And then I saw another photo, where my mom was wearing it!!  THIEF!!! hahahaha.

In the elevator on the way up to the reception:

Our caterer set up a special room for us to get some hors d’oeuvres before the cocktail hour.  Y was happily eating away and having a glass of champagne, but I was super antsy and couldn’t wait to get to the party.  I ate two hors d’oeuvres and drank a little water, then started begging Y to head into the wedding.

We decided to do something a little different for our grand entrance: we entered to our first dance:

Our first dance was kind of silly: “our” song is My First, My Last, My Everything, by Barry White, which is a pretty goofy song.  Our awesome band learned how to play it, and the horn section made it really cute. We decided quite awhile ago to choreograph our first dance (after falling in love with a few YouTube videos).  Unfortunately, our dance lessons were a bit unsuccessful and we kind of slacked off on our choreography.  We figured out some silly moves to about a quarter of the song, and then…we figured we’d wing it.  Not recommended. We were nervous and things kind of fell apart midway through the dance.

Because we were so nervous about the dance, we decided to go straight into the first dance from our grand entrance, which was a great idea.  Here are a few photos from the first dance:

This photo cracks me up.  Y is clearly an excellent dancer.

I think our saving grace was my spur-of-the-moment decision to grab a bunch of our guests and make them dance with us.  It ended up being really fun!

 Overall, if you’re nervous about your first dance, I HIGHLY recommend starting off with it.  It was fantastic, and after we were done I totally relaxed.  We went right to our table, made a little speech to welcome everyone, and then started eating.  During the first course, we had some toasts, and then finished dinner.  After dinner, my dad and I did our father-daughter dance and opened up the dance floor to everyone.  It was so perfect.

Next up!  Flowers and decor!  I loved my flowers and decor!  Wait till you see them!

 I hope you had a wonderful weekend, guys!!  Personally, I cleaned out my refrigerator.  :)

But it’s Monday, so back to the wedding!  We had our formal photos taken in three places: at the hotel, at Crissy Field, and at the Green Room.  The ones in the hotel didn’t turn out too well–we didn’t get any bridal party shots (as planned) and for some reason we didn’t look that cute.

The first formal photos we had that I was super in love with were taken under the tree at Crissy Field.  In 2005, this is the tree that Y and I were standing under when I asked him if I could be his girlfriend.  Who knew that three years later we’d be standing under the same tree, on our wedding day?  Awww….

While we were waiting for the trolleys to show up, we took some photos with the bridesmaids and I.  I love these photos, because the colors really pop!

I love the white flowers against their colored dresses!

Back at the Green Room, we took some more photos with the groomsmen:

My FIL is a big goof!

The whole bridal party:

These all crack me up.  I couldn’t choose my favorite!

At this point, the photos started to go downhill…everyone started to get tired. This one’s not that bad, but a lot of them were.

Our parents and us:

My husband and his sister, being very brother & sister-ly:

I hate to say it, but I wasn’t too keen on our formal portraits.  I love the ones we have here, but maybe it would have been better to get shots like “bride and groom with parents” throughout the night, rather than during a formal session like we did.  Everyone ended up looking pretty uncomfortable.  Thoughts?

Next up…the First Dance and the beginning of the reception!