Wedding Week: Misty and Me

What party is complete without confetti?

I worked with Melissa, owner of Misty + Me to make confetti in my wedding colours.  While the confetti game plan is not 100% set in terms of whether I will be using it as decor or for the guests, I am happy with the beautiful colours from Melissa and look forward to using all 800 pieces in the venue!

Photo Source: Misty + Me Etsy Shop

How do you think I should use the confetti on Sunday?  Any thoughts?

Wedding Week: The Little Red Button

Here we go! Can you believe it is wedding week in my neck of the woods?  I sure can’t.

I wanted to share with you some of the amazing people I have had the chance to “meet” virtually and work with leading up to the big day.

I worked with Stacy Blair of the Little Red Button (+ a fellow Canadian) on my boutonnieres.

No, none of the pictures below are for my wedding but I wanted to give you a flavour of how crazy-talented Stacy is with paper.   I don’t know how she makes such beautiful things!

Photo Source: Little Red Button Etsy Shop

I was initially attracted to her work when I was looking for an alternative to real flowers.  I’m not a flower hater but I wanted to do something different.

In my search, I stumbled upon her paper creations and decided to reach out to her.  Stacy was a pleasure to work with and I look forward to seeing everything come together on Sunday.

Exciting News: One Month To Go…

How exciting is this?

One month today and I am getting married to someone I have been with for almost seven years!!!

I can’t believe the “big day” is almost here.  It feels like we have been planning this wedding for months and months.  It is kind of scary and I wonder whether all the planning will come together in the end?  I am curious to see what all the details will look like set up in the venue and whether the vision in my head can be translated into reality….

I will be sharing more wedding details over the next couple weeks, so be sure to come back soon.

Any advice for the bride to be?  Leave me a comment 🙂

If you want more wedding ideas, or a sneak peak into the wedding aesthetic in my head….I’ve been pinning up a storm on Pinterest here, here and here.

Streamer Love

Have I mentioned I am in love with all things streamer related?  I think streamers may be the happiest type of decor out there, second of course to balloons.  No matter their shape, size, colour, length or style, streamers, bunting, pendants, garlands or whatever you call them, are simply awesome.  If you are looking for some streamer sources, I would recommend the following sellers on Etsy- trust me, I have done my research!  Studio Mucci, Pom + Love, Frances Moulin, and Steph Loves Ben.

How to plan a wedding abroad

On numerous occasions, I’ve been asked what it is like to plan a wedding from abroad without the use of a wedding planner.  No, planning a wedding abroad is not hard;  planning a wedding abroad is not scary; planning a wedding abroad does not have to be stressful if managed correctly. I thought I would dedicate a post to sharing my experience and maybe be of help to those of you who find yourself in a similar situation.  This post will be lengthier than usual, but I hope it will demystify the process of planning from abroad if this is something you are seriously considering.

To give you some background, I actually had the opportunity to plan three weddings abroad, only one of which will come to fruition, the one in Toronto in August, as the other two were “re-routed” for various reasons.

If you have made the decision to get married in a city, other than the one in which you are presently living, congratulations, you are now planning a wedding abroad.  I researched and planned three different weddings, cities I was neither familiar with, nor in which did I reside (Amsterdam/Florence) and planned the third wedding in Toronto (where I am originally from, but not currently living).   I will first address the experience of planning a wedding in a city where you neither live, nor are from- as this type takes a bit more leg work.

How Much Help Do You Need on the Ground?

The first step is to determine how much help you need on the ground.  This ranges from hiring a wedding planner who will act on your behalf and negotiate with local vendors (full service), to going it solo and relying on your own research skills and perhaps the venue’s staff to help you sort things out.  If you are getting married at a venue such as a hotel, vineyard, museum, or restaurant, that is already accustom to organizing events, your planning task becomes simpler.  Outside of negotiating what can and cannot be brought in from third party vendors and what has to be supplied by the venue, this type of venue is proficient in running their business and is usually experienced in events and can help guide you through the decisions that need to be made for your destination wedding.

In Florence, for example, where we were looking at a mix of hotels and Tuscany villas, we started with a planner as we thought it would be helpful to have someone show us around for a day or two but to be quite honest, we did the research ourselves, told our planner what we wanted to see (what type of venues looked good/suited our budget) and at the end of the day, could have conducted the visits ourselves.

If we went through with Florence, hiring a planner would have been helpful to help manage our guests on the actual weekend of the wedding, help us coordinate and oversee the extra guest activities as well as manage the legal wedding process, especially if there are documents that need translation or certain requirements to be met by the local government.    For instance, some countries require that the couple is present in the country three weeks before the wedding if neither person is a citizen of the country.  Be sure to check out local marriage laws if neither of you has citizenship of the country you are getting married.  Government websites are the place to look for this information.

On the other hand, in Amsterdam, we found our own religious officiant, set up meetings with florists, cake makers and located hotels for our guests.  We also researched and found our own venue and would have felt in good hands and received support from them since it was a hotel with an on-site events manager/team.

Planning a wedding in Toronto from Prague, brought its own complexities but nothing that was too difficult to manage.  The benefit of this situation is that we are both from Toronto and were familiar with venues.  We also planned to return home once before the wedding and did most of the correspondence with our caterer, cake person, florist, DJ, venue and decor via email. We then set aside and booked one week of meetings to finalize details and meet everyone in person when we returned to Toronto.  For the most part, vendor decisions can be discussed and managed online or on SKYPE because they require a little face time until a taste test is required.

We did opt to hire someone for day of execution because this bride-to-be would end up micro-managing the heck out of this event (more out of pure love of events and a strong interest to be hands on in everything she does) but that might not suit the needs of the guests and people around her.  So we mutually decided to increase our team by one and partner on the execution.

How Much Do You Love Research?

The more you love to research, hunt and search, the easier it is to plan a wedding abroad.  I will say, our process in all three cities was smooth due to the fact that both of us like hunting for things and one of us excels at online research.  Because my fiance and I were on the same page and shared a common interest in research, it was a pleasure to meet, talk, find, and learn about the potential vendors we could work with in each city.  It wasn’t stressful.  It was like an adventure.  We also gave ourselves enough time to do it so when we landed on the ground in each city, all of our meetings were pre-booked and all we had to do was follow our schedule of appointments and say yay or nay.  If research is not your thing, interest, forte or desire, hire someone.  Planning from abroad takes a lot of leg work and organizational skills.  If this does not bring you or your partner pleasure, outsource this duty.

Thanks to the Internet, our invitations, decorations, DJ, cake, groom’s suit/shirt, plus a couple other items, all came from online.  Pinterest has also been an extremely helpful tool in terms of creating image boards and finding pictures to help us communicate (visually), what we are looking for to vendors.  It is so easy to send a picture or group of pictures if words are not your forte, to help someone understand your needs. I have Pinterest boards for everything, the most minute detail if it is more helpful to communicate with a picture to someone I am speaking with. (If you are new to Pinterest- here is an example of a series of Pinterest boards)

If anyone has any particular questions, or is in need of some ideas, feel free to leave me a comment in the comment section below.  Happy to help where I can.

Terrariums

I am a complete and utter failure at making hamantashen.  It’s Purim on Wednesday and I thought it would be fun to bake three different hamantashen recipe and then write a blog post about my baking escapades on Wednesday.  I promise to show and tell on Wednesday but after two different recipes, the taste is there but sadly they are not the prettiest things I’ve ever made.  Not even close. My triangles are deformed, cracking and the jam in the centre is oozing everywhere!

I really think it has something to do with the flour I am using.  I still can’t decipher the different types of flour in Prague.  I know one is for bread, one is for cakes and then there is a third one that is some sort of hybrid.  I think I have tried two of the three types but I can’t figure out which one is closest to North American all-purpose flour.

On another note, my new infatuation is with terrariums.  I like saying the word and I want to make one for my apartment in Prague.    A terrarium is typically housed in a glass container and is something where plants are grown.  I got turned on to terrariums when I read about Anthropologie’s new line from Slug and Squirrel on the Times Magazine blog. Of course after I read the article, I started noticing terrariums everywhere. It always seems to happen that way, once something becomes top of mind, you eyes open up and you start seeing the thing everywhere.

They are such a cute idea for events, don’t you think?

via Camille Styles

via Stuart and Welch

via the sweetest occasion

via Green Wedding Shoes

via Project Wedding

By the way, if you want the history of the terrarium, Design Sponge has a great blog post on the topic.

More on the hamantashen soon, I promise.