Stinkerpants

Stinkerpants Wedding: DIY Details

November 19, 2008 in Our Wedding • DIY Projects • Recap Photos

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?

Stinkerpants Wedding: the Hora

November 12, 2008 in Our Wedding • Recap Photos

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!

Stinkerpants Wedding: Cupcakes!

November 3, 2008 in Our Wedding • Recap Photos • Reception

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!

Stinkerpants Wedding: Reception

October 27, 2008 in Our Wedding • Recap Photos • Reception

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!

Stinkerpants Wedding: Reception (#1)

October 21, 2008 in Our Wedding • Recap Photos • Reception

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!)