Wedding Junkie

Northern and Southern California Event Locations

By Wedding Junkie, December 18, 2006

Hey – congrats gal! Now that you’re engaged it’s time to find the ultimate location to hold your once-in-a-lifetime-shin-dig. With so many things to consider when searching for just the perfect location who can choose just one? Well if you’re anything like me I imagine you’ve been thinking to yourself… “Self…. should it be a garden or beach setting? In the country or in the city? Long aisle or short aisle? Inside or outside?” If this sounds like you then you’ll want to check out a fantastic online resource called, Here Comes the Guide, to help you navigate your search.
Straight from Here Comes the Guide… “Your complete resource for California event locations and services. Our online database has over 1,000 fantastic locations and pre-screened event professionals to help you plan weddings, rehearsal dinners, corporate events or parties.Find the perfect wedding location, search for wedding dresses, and compare florists, photographers and other vendors by using the easy-to-search listings and other features on herecomestheguide.com.” Excerpt taken directly from www.herecomestheguide.com
Here’s a taste of some of the great features this website offers: First and foremost — from the comfort of your office chair and on your bosses dime you can research multiple event locations from one website! multiple photos of each location are available 360 degree tours are often available pricing is listed you can see the “rules” of the event location: can you have your own caterer? can you supply your own alcohol? can you play music until dawn? etc. you get a listing of the services and amenities offered the search function let’s you set your search criteria to narrow your search results
All-in-all I have found this to be the most comprehensive website for event locations in California. I hope it’s a useful resource to you.If you used Here Comes the Guide to find your wedding location send me an email at stacey@weddingjunkie.com with the location name and why you picked it. Better yet – just submit a comment right here on the blog.

I’ll go first — I selected the Piedmont Community Center after seeing it on Here Comes the Guide. The Piedmont offered a spectacular garden setting and also had a beautiful ballroom to boot! The venue only scheduled one wedding per day which allowed my vendors the flexibility to set-up all day without being rushed. The indoor/outdoor thing was a big requirement for me. At the Piedmont we were able to dine outdoors and then take a few short steps right into a beautiful ballroom for dancing, cake cutting and chocolate fountain eating! It was perfect!How about you?

photos are from www.herecomestheguide.com

Planning Tools

Bachelorette Party: Saying Thanks

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By Wedding Junkie, December 14, 2006

There will be so many memorable celebrations leading up to your wedding, but none quite like your bachelorette party. I’ve thrown a few, attended many more, and finally had my very own two years ago. I’m still hungover.

It was an amazing party — we went to Vegas — we got smashed — we put dollar bills in sweaty strippers banana hammocks — the whole enchilada. My closet girlfriends came to celebrate. They shelled out the cash for airfare, hotel rooms and it meant a lot to me that they would do that for me. So, I wanted to give them all a “thanks for coming” kind of gift. Matching PJs it was.

Before you laugh and call me lame these aren’t like the flannel PJs your grandma sewed for you — better yet like the bunny suite from “the Christmas Story movie”.. hahahahaha! I digress. And if there are any guys reading this they weren’t g-strings paired with a beer flavored rubber bra, either. They were cute tanks and pants adorned in a poker theme. When we had them on at night it reminded me of my childhood slumber parties with my very best girlfriends. Only this was some 15 years later. They were a hit and the gals still say they love them.

So I say, live it up — see strippers — laugh and stay up all night and always remember to express your thanks to the gals who travel near and far to be with you to share during your special moments.

How did you shower your girls with thanks? Send me your photos, creative ideas or comments to stacey@weddingjunkie.com or submit a comment right on the blog. I’d love to feature you and your ideas in an upcoming blog.

Matching “Thank-You” PJ’s Bachelorette Party

All dressed in black for the big night out

Party

Let’s put it this way — I don’t remember being in this chair that was carefully placed on the floor of the adult “toy store”. I do, however, recall the cold kiss of the hardwood floor as I fell off the chair just a few minutes after this photo was taken. Good times. Good times.

Bachelorette Party

Wedding Cakes – Get Inspired

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By Wedding Junkie, December 13, 2006

The wedding cake is the jewel of the party — I mean second to you, of course. Make it special. And no, you don’t have to seek out some famous New York City baker to have a wedding cake your guests will be swooning over. Have some faith in your local bakers – chances are they are very talented in the skills necessary to recreate the look you want. Here’s a tip — when you come across a photo of a cake you love, either in a magazine or on-line, cut it out or print it out. I know, I know it’s seems like a no-brainer since you’ve likely been clipping out dresses and such from all your wedding mags — just don’t forget the cakes. When it comes time to place your cake order review the clippings you’ve gathered. Pick your favorite or make some notes on a few so that your baker can combine your ideas onto what will be your wedding cake. The wedding cake photos just below are from a client of mine. She saw the inspiration cake in a copy of Brides magazine and just fell in love. The only thing she modified was having the baker turn the ribbon and embellishments from gold to brown to complement her Cosmopolitan Styled, Pink & Brown wedding.
The Inspiration Cake Cake as seen in Brides Magazine	The Recreated Cake Cake by Neldams Bakery in Oakland, CA photos taken by Connie C. Leal photography, San Francisco, CA
Wedding Cake Resources The links that follow take you to wedding cake galleries, articles and websites of talented bakers.
Brides Magazine Online Cake Gallery Martha Stewart Wedding Cakes Webpage Your Wedding Company Cake Gallery	Love To Know’s Wedding Wiki Elegant Cheese Cakes Online Gallery Katrina Rozelle’s Online Gallery
I hope these resources inspire you to make your wedding cake a sparkling centerpiece on your big day! I’d love to hear about your favorite wedding cakes. Send me your photos, creative ideas or comments to stacey@weddingjunkie.com or submit a comment right on the blog. I’d love to feature your ideas in an upcoming blog.

Cakes

Wedding Colors: Black, White, Citron Yellow

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By Wedding Junkie, December 12, 2006

Let’s talk color! One of the hottest trends this season is black and white. And while the duo is a staple of the fashion industry, screams simplicity, formality and classic style, you will likely want to add a third color into the mix to complete your wedding look. One of the greatest black and white trio’s for the spring and summer season includes Citron Yellow. So, if you think this color combo is an ultra-chic-color-consideration for your big day read on.

The Bridesmaid Dress
I know you can hear her now. “Yellow… youuuu want meeeee to wear yellow???”. Well, I imagine this is what these gals said until they put on these amazing Silk Shantung dresses from Aria Bridesmaids. They all look fantastic!

By the way — you will hear me talk a lot about these Aria dresses. I don’t work for them, they don’t pay me advertising $$, they simply have great color choices and an amazingly easy to use/easy to order website. Who could ask for more?

photo and dresses from www.ariadress.com

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers.
Yellow flowers bring a fresh, bright touch of color to the table, the bridesmaid bouquets and even to your bouquet.

Pictured right is a yellow peony and below is a peony bouquet. The pictures speak for themselves. Beautiful.

Yellow Peony

Pink Bouquet
Peonies in a bouquet — albeit pink!

Centerpieces and Decor
I am not worthy. I am not worthy. The Martha dynasty never ceases to amaze me… fruit in a bowl — who knew?

Using fruit in a glass vase is a great way to infuse color into your tablescape. Even better — using fruit that is in season can also be a real cost saver when compared to traditional floral centerpieces.

And what invitation, centerpiece, or favor would be complete without an accenting ribbon. The black and white polka dot ribbons pictured right look fantastic next to citron yellow.

photo from www.marthastewart.com

Polka Dots Ribbon

I’d love to see how you’ve used these colors or plan to use these colors. Send me your photos, creative ideas or comments to stacey@weddingjunkie.com or submit a comment right on the blog. I’d love to feature you and yourideas in an upcoming blog.

Color Schemes

Personal Wedding Website — Gotta Get One!

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By Wedding Junkie, December 9, 2006

If you are a Wedding Junkie you truly want everyone to share in all your wedding moments from the time he says “will you” to the time you say “I do”. One of the greatest ways to help people from near and far share in all of these moments is with a personal wedding website. Some are free and some charge, but all of them can help you get messages, photos, travel info, etc., out to your friends and families. When I got married I used a company called Wedding Window to create our personal wedding website. What I loved about them was I could just go in, tinker around and create a website using their free trial. I saw how easy it was to use and I was sold. I used our personal wedding website primarily to: - share photos, share photos, share photos - provide info and links on where to stay to out-of-town guests - entertain people (or so Id like to think) with stories of how we met, etc. - share the fun of planning with friends and family who lived far away Factors to consider when picking a website vendor:
Personal Wedding Website Option: www.weddingwindow.com	Try Before you Buy Go with one that let’s you try before you buy. Your soon-to-be-hubby let you try him out before you decided to buy so why not your web vendor.Trying out the site will let you go in and see how easy or hard it is to use. You are going to be the one putting all the info in and the last thing you want to do is have to go get another college degree to fill in your wedding website. It should be easy — if it’s not — go to the next one.
Personal Wedding Website Option: www.theknot.com	Pay or Free? Go with something that meets your budget — don’t feel like you need to spend a mint. But don’t immediately discount the ones you have to pay for because as we know sometimes you get what you pay for, right?
Personal Wedding Website Option: www.wedshare.com	Functionality that’s important to you! Get what you want. For me it was photo sharing — I asked myself “Do they let me add photos or add links to photos I have stored somewhere else, like KodakGallery or Shutterfly?” I didn’t want to store my photos on the Wedding Window rather I wanted to use what I normally use, KodakGallery. Wedding Window allowed me to just link to the albums I already had elsewhere.
Personal Wedding Website Option: www.wedquarters.com	Sample Text and Templates Please girl, you are planning a big shin-dig for all your family and friends and you don’t have time to go writing eight pages of fresh-out-of-your-brain content for your website. You will love the help — if nothing else it will give you something to start from. Go with a site that has a bunch of sample text in there already. You don’t have to use it word for word, but you can use it to start what you are going to say.
Personal Wedding Website Option: www.ewedding.com	When It’s Over I hate to tell you this — I didn’t want to hear it either. Your wedding… it will be over one day. I mean having said “I-Do” and being off on your “marry” way will be a good thing, but you will want to keep every last memory, piece of paper, scrap of rice left on the floor, etc that you can to remember your big day — that is IF you truly are a Wedding Junkie, of course. So, while I contemplated paying the annual fee for my wedding website for the next 50 years to keep it active it just didn’t make much sense. So, the website I used actually let me purchase a keepsake cd of the site. This way I will have it for—ever. Even though when I go to show it to my grandkids one day I will have to go lug that thing called a “computer” out from the dusty attic to get it to work… just like my parents did with the record player every time they wanted to play the 45 of Neil Diamond’s greatest hits…. Sweeeeeeet Car-o-line… dudundundah… I digress…