Originally, we were going to do something really small for the rehearsal dinner...but we changed our minds and decided to hire a caterer for it. I contacted His & Her Catering Service because I had been to a few events they catered and thought the food was great. Shaletha, one of the owners, was absolutely great! She worked with me to pick a menu. We decided to go with a Pasta Bar so our guests had the option of spagetti and penne pasta, alfredo & marinara sauce, meatballs, sauteed shrimp, and grilled chicken. We also had toss salad, garlic bread and rolls, lemon pound cake and strawberries, and Ice Tea.
We had about 75 people at the rehearsal dinner and everyone loved the food. It was so good, we ran out! And when we ran out, they even brought more food in for us! They were there to set up on time, the staff on hand was very friendly, and they are reasonably priced. If you are in the Richmond, Va area and looking for a caterer for any event, I would definitely recommend His & Her Catering!
www.hisandhercatering.com
P.S. Sorry I dont have any pictures of the rehearsal dinner...I was SUPER exhausted the day before my wedding. Being a DIY bride has a price....lack of rest!! lol
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Real Wedding - Nicole & Roosevelt
Todays real wedding feature is on Nicole & Roosevelt. Nicole and I have a mutual friend and when she shared her wedding pics with me, I thought they were great! The lovely pair met online through a professional networking group on meetup.com (which is not a dating website). Roosevelt reached out to Nicole and they went back and forth via email, chatted a couple of times, and scheduled a "date". However, Roosevelt didn't follow through so their date never happened. Fast forward a couple of months later, out of the blue Nicole hears from Roosevelt. This time they actually went out. And they have been together ever since! :)
On September 12, 2009, the couple wed at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia, Pa in front of 35 guests.
Nicole gets a gold star in the DIY Club because she took on the task of doing the menus, programs, cupcake bags, cocktail napkins, favor tags for tea tins, out of town guest tote bags, rehearsal dinner invites and rehearsal dinner menus. She did a great job on everything! Very elegant!
When asked how she knew Roosevelt was the one, she said "When we started to stay up all night talking for hours on the phone and when one day without seeing him felt like forever....thats when I knew."
Check out some of the beautiful pictures from their big day!
On September 12, 2009, the couple wed at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia, Pa in front of 35 guests.
Nicole gets a gold star in the DIY Club because she took on the task of doing the menus, programs, cupcake bags, cocktail napkins, favor tags for tea tins, out of town guest tote bags, rehearsal dinner invites and rehearsal dinner menus. She did a great job on everything! Very elegant!
When asked how she knew Roosevelt was the one, she said "When we started to stay up all night talking for hours on the phone and when one day without seeing him felt like forever....thats when I knew."
Check out some of the beautiful pictures from their big day!
A Few Miscellaneous Wedding Things.....
Remember the DIY Card Box I made in one of my earlier post? Well here is how we used it on the gift table at wedding:
I actually had all intentions to buy a Guest Book instead of making one but I got caught up at the last minute and had to throw something together. I got this plain book from Walmart with blank pages. I created a label for the cover and bought some damask stickers from Michaels and decorated the inside pages with it. For something that virtually no one really pays attention to...it didnt come out half bad! :)
BLANK BOOK
BOOK WITH LABEL
INSIDE
Since I had rhinestones left over from jazzing up my vases, I decided to buy a cake serving set (only $10 from Walmart) and add some pop to it! Just use your hot glue gun to glue them around the handle.
BEFORE
AFTER
As a gift for my husband's Inner Circle/Bridal Party (I'll explain the inner circle thing later), we got all the guys pink ties for them to wear the day of wedding. I purchased the tie boxes online, then created personalized labels for each box. I topped it off with ribbon tied in a bow. Check them out!
I actually had all intentions to buy a Guest Book instead of making one but I got caught up at the last minute and had to throw something together. I got this plain book from Walmart with blank pages. I created a label for the cover and bought some damask stickers from Michaels and decorated the inside pages with it. For something that virtually no one really pays attention to...it didnt come out half bad! :)
BLANK BOOK
BOOK WITH LABEL
INSIDE
Since I had rhinestones left over from jazzing up my vases, I decided to buy a cake serving set (only $10 from Walmart) and add some pop to it! Just use your hot glue gun to glue them around the handle.
BEFORE
AFTER
As a gift for my husband's Inner Circle/Bridal Party (I'll explain the inner circle thing later), we got all the guys pink ties for them to wear the day of wedding. I purchased the tie boxes online, then created personalized labels for each box. I topped it off with ribbon tied in a bow. Check them out!
Friday, November 13, 2009
VENDOR REVIEW: Holiday Inn, Colonial Heights, VA
One of the most important steps in wedding planning is finding a venue. Needless to say, this is not a fun process at all. Depending on where you live, it may be harder for you than others. Major metropolitan areas usually have alot of venues but they may be booked far out in advance.
I contacted about 7 or 8 places and ended up going with the new Holiday Inn in Colonial Heights, Va. When I went to the Holiday Inn to check it out initially, I didn't know what to expect. I think I associated Holiday Inn to the old school, run down Holiday Inns I remember seeing around years ago. But let me tell you, the Holiday Inn has really stepped their game up! I'm not sure if this is the case for all of them but this one really surprised me. It was very nice and I loved the decor! It was especially nice to do it at this particular hotel too because the area where the ballroom is located is like a separate wing of the hotel. So hotel guests don't have to walk through your event to get to their rooms.
I worked with the event coordinator there, Vibha, who did a great job helping me get everything together! When we went to do the tasting, the chef came out and introduced himself and offered suggestions on what we should go with for our food options. And the food was great! During the weekend of the wedding, the general manager helped out alot with setting up the reception and was a pleasure to work with as well. The whole staff was friendly from the front desk clerks to the servers and bartenders at reception! We are extremely glad we chose to have our reception there and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a reception/event venue. We invited about 220 people so it was a little tight in the ballroom with the amount of tables we needed but we made it work.
Check out some of the pics of the hotel in general. They probably don't give the hotel its full justice but you get a general idea:
Wing where ballroom is located
If you have a bar, this is the area where they set it up
Lobby
Cafe
Hallway
I contacted about 7 or 8 places and ended up going with the new Holiday Inn in Colonial Heights, Va. When I went to the Holiday Inn to check it out initially, I didn't know what to expect. I think I associated Holiday Inn to the old school, run down Holiday Inns I remember seeing around years ago. But let me tell you, the Holiday Inn has really stepped their game up! I'm not sure if this is the case for all of them but this one really surprised me. It was very nice and I loved the decor! It was especially nice to do it at this particular hotel too because the area where the ballroom is located is like a separate wing of the hotel. So hotel guests don't have to walk through your event to get to their rooms.
I worked with the event coordinator there, Vibha, who did a great job helping me get everything together! When we went to do the tasting, the chef came out and introduced himself and offered suggestions on what we should go with for our food options. And the food was great! During the weekend of the wedding, the general manager helped out alot with setting up the reception and was a pleasure to work with as well. The whole staff was friendly from the front desk clerks to the servers and bartenders at reception! We are extremely glad we chose to have our reception there and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a reception/event venue. We invited about 220 people so it was a little tight in the ballroom with the amount of tables we needed but we made it work.
Check out some of the pics of the hotel in general. They probably don't give the hotel its full justice but you get a general idea:
Wing where ballroom is located
If you have a bar, this is the area where they set it up
Lobby
Cafe
Hallway
Thursday, November 12, 2009
My Menu & Food Options
As I was coming up with the way I wanted my table settings to look, I knew I wanted to include a menu. So I created the menu using Powerpoint, printed them out on cardstock, and took them to Kinkos to get cut. Kinkos charges $1.49 per cut and it gives them a clean look.
Of course I had a few different designs I was going to go with before making a final decision. This was one of the menu designs I initially came up with:
And this is the final menu design I went with:
We had our reception at the new Holiday Inn in Colonial Heights, Va and the food was great!! Im happy to say it tasted just as good as it did at the tasting!
Food Option #1: Grilled Chicken Breast with Herb Butter Sauce, Red Bliss Potoates, & Green Beans
Food Option #2: Grilled Salmon with Lemon Caper Sauce, Saffron Rice, & Citrus Asparagus
Of course I had a few different designs I was going to go with before making a final decision. This was one of the menu designs I initially came up with:
And this is the final menu design I went with:
We had our reception at the new Holiday Inn in Colonial Heights, Va and the food was great!! Im happy to say it tasted just as good as it did at the tasting!
Food Option #1: Grilled Chicken Breast with Herb Butter Sauce, Red Bliss Potoates, & Green Beans
Food Option #2: Grilled Salmon with Lemon Caper Sauce, Saffron Rice, & Citrus Asparagus
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
My DIY Wedding Reception Centerpieces
When I started planning my wedding, I had no idea I would spend so much time trying to determine what look I wanted to go for with the reception centerpieces. Ideally, I would have loved massive pink floral centerpieces draped in rhinestones or something elaborate like that... but those cost serious dough!!
So now the dilemma was ...how do I come up with something cost effective that looks elegant and classy but not cheap?? Although, I couldn't have my dream floral arrangements, I still wanted to incorporate flowers in the centerpieces and I knew I wanted to make use of candles too. Sooo in my quest to come up with something... I had quite a few ideas over the course of planning. I took a few pics of some of my ideas....shall we take a look (lol)....
Idea #1 - Ive always loved the way flowers submerged in water look..so I came up with this:
(Purchased tall vase from Michaels and square vases from Dollar Tree)
Idea #2 - The inspiration for this idea came from a picture I saw in a wedding mag:
(Purchased lamps from Ikea for $5 and covered them in fabric and ribbon)
Idea #3 - Still the lamp idea but decided to try out contrasting patterns
I decided to nix the lamp idea because something was off about it and bases of lamps looked a little cheesy to me.
Idea #4 - This look wasn't far off from what I ended up going with
Idea #5 - This was a mockup of the look I decided to go for.
BLOGGER TIP: Try to do mockups of all the ideas you come up with. The last thing you want to do is see how the idea you came up with in your head looks in real life for the first time on your wedding day!
The vases I used were 5X15 and we used floating candles instead of pillar candles. Using floating candles vs pillar candles is definitely a sure way to save money. Floating candles run from $1.00-$2.00 a piece vs pillar candles can run anywhere from $3.00 to $20 each. I knew I didnt want to just use a plain vase for the centerpieces so I decided to get some ribbon and rhinestones and jazz up the vases a little.
All you need for this project are the vases, ribbon, strings of rhinestones and a hot glue gun.
Here are the rhinestones I used:
If you are in the NY area, you can get them from B&Q Trim on 210 38th Street. If not, you can order online at www.shinetrim.com
First step is to cut ribbon out and use glue gun to glue it around each vase.
Next, glue rhinestones around ribbon using hot glue gun.
After those were done, it was time to move on to the smaller square vases that were going to hold the roses. I bought them for $1 each at Dollar Tree. FYI, you can buy in bulk online at www.dollartree.com. But again, I didnt want them to be bare, so I decided to glue a thin ribbon around each of those too.
Ribbon cut out in pieces:
Thank God I had help with these (Thanks Katisha :)
So after all that was done, here is how it turned out at reception:
The centerpieces sat on 20 inch cardboard pizza circles that I covered with damask fabric. I got them for $0.95 each at www.epartypaper.com/Cardboard_Pizza_Circles.html
I also used the rhinestones to decorate vases for head table and we used pillar candles in these for more of an impact
Head Table/Sweetheart Table
P.S. I bought my vases and pillar candles from Jamali Garden in NY. If you aren't in the NY area, check out their website www.jamaligarden.com
So now the dilemma was ...how do I come up with something cost effective that looks elegant and classy but not cheap?? Although, I couldn't have my dream floral arrangements, I still wanted to incorporate flowers in the centerpieces and I knew I wanted to make use of candles too. Sooo in my quest to come up with something... I had quite a few ideas over the course of planning. I took a few pics of some of my ideas....shall we take a look (lol)....
Idea #1 - Ive always loved the way flowers submerged in water look..so I came up with this:
(Purchased tall vase from Michaels and square vases from Dollar Tree)
Idea #2 - The inspiration for this idea came from a picture I saw in a wedding mag:
(Purchased lamps from Ikea for $5 and covered them in fabric and ribbon)
Idea #3 - Still the lamp idea but decided to try out contrasting patterns
I decided to nix the lamp idea because something was off about it and bases of lamps looked a little cheesy to me.
Idea #4 - This look wasn't far off from what I ended up going with
Idea #5 - This was a mockup of the look I decided to go for.
BLOGGER TIP: Try to do mockups of all the ideas you come up with. The last thing you want to do is see how the idea you came up with in your head looks in real life for the first time on your wedding day!
The vases I used were 5X15 and we used floating candles instead of pillar candles. Using floating candles vs pillar candles is definitely a sure way to save money. Floating candles run from $1.00-$2.00 a piece vs pillar candles can run anywhere from $3.00 to $20 each. I knew I didnt want to just use a plain vase for the centerpieces so I decided to get some ribbon and rhinestones and jazz up the vases a little.
All you need for this project are the vases, ribbon, strings of rhinestones and a hot glue gun.
Here are the rhinestones I used:
If you are in the NY area, you can get them from B&Q Trim on 210 38th Street. If not, you can order online at www.shinetrim.com
First step is to cut ribbon out and use glue gun to glue it around each vase.
Next, glue rhinestones around ribbon using hot glue gun.
After those were done, it was time to move on to the smaller square vases that were going to hold the roses. I bought them for $1 each at Dollar Tree. FYI, you can buy in bulk online at www.dollartree.com. But again, I didnt want them to be bare, so I decided to glue a thin ribbon around each of those too.
Ribbon cut out in pieces:
Thank God I had help with these (Thanks Katisha :)
So after all that was done, here is how it turned out at reception:
The centerpieces sat on 20 inch cardboard pizza circles that I covered with damask fabric. I got them for $0.95 each at www.epartypaper.com/Cardboard_Pizza_Circles.html
I also used the rhinestones to decorate vases for head table and we used pillar candles in these for more of an impact
Head Table/Sweetheart Table
P.S. I bought my vases and pillar candles from Jamali Garden in NY. If you aren't in the NY area, check out their website www.jamaligarden.com
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
My Wedding Lighting - Gobo & Uplights
Custom lighting at weddings is really popular these days but can be pretty pricey. And watching the tv show, Platinum Weddings on WE had me thinking that it wasn't even a possibility for me because I assummed it would be totally out of our budget. Lighting can easily run thousands of dollars depending on your location and the type of ligthing effects you want to go for. Luckily, something told me to check out a few lighting companies before I ruled it out.
After doing some research, I decided to go with uplights around the room and a custom gobo to have our names shining on wall. We used a company called Backstage (www.backstageva.com) based in Richmond, Va. They were great to work with and very reasonable. They charged $15 per uplight (par can) and the custom gobo was $79. We used about 14 uplights evenly placed around the ballroom. You can have any color light you want. We chose Neon Pink. The gel sheets, which is what they place over the lights to make them illuminate in your desired color, ran about $7 per sheet and can be used for 4 or 5 uplights I think. They also charged for delivery so altogether we spent about $500 on lighting. Not bad, huh?
BLOGGER TIP: One way to save on lighting is to rent the uplights from a company, but set them up yourself or have some family and friends set it up. That way, you save on labor and delivery
The custom gobo is really easy to create and you can have it shining on a wall or dance floor. I created my design in Powerpoint and emailed it to the guy. (By the way, this is the same design we used for the front of our programs. The key is to make sure everything ties together for your wedding. Its all about the details!) Once he received it, he confirmed that it was ok. And that was it!
Here is a pic of our custom gobo:
Another view:
This is what an uplight looks like:
I dont have a picture right now of how the uplights looked in my actual reception but it really created a beautiful ambiance especially for an evening wedding. My hubby was dead set against adding lighting to the budget at first, but after the wedding was over he was glad that he agreed to it. We can't imagine how it would have looked without them! Well worth the money! :)
After doing some research, I decided to go with uplights around the room and a custom gobo to have our names shining on wall. We used a company called Backstage (www.backstageva.com) based in Richmond, Va. They were great to work with and very reasonable. They charged $15 per uplight (par can) and the custom gobo was $79. We used about 14 uplights evenly placed around the ballroom. You can have any color light you want. We chose Neon Pink. The gel sheets, which is what they place over the lights to make them illuminate in your desired color, ran about $7 per sheet and can be used for 4 or 5 uplights I think. They also charged for delivery so altogether we spent about $500 on lighting. Not bad, huh?
BLOGGER TIP: One way to save on lighting is to rent the uplights from a company, but set them up yourself or have some family and friends set it up. That way, you save on labor and delivery
The custom gobo is really easy to create and you can have it shining on a wall or dance floor. I created my design in Powerpoint and emailed it to the guy. (By the way, this is the same design we used for the front of our programs. The key is to make sure everything ties together for your wedding. Its all about the details!) Once he received it, he confirmed that it was ok. And that was it!
Here is a pic of our custom gobo:
Another view:
This is what an uplight looks like:
I dont have a picture right now of how the uplights looked in my actual reception but it really created a beautiful ambiance especially for an evening wedding. My hubby was dead set against adding lighting to the budget at first, but after the wedding was over he was glad that he agreed to it. We can't imagine how it would have looked without them! Well worth the money! :)
FYI
I will definitely be doing a Real Wedding feature on my own wedding but Im trying to wait around for the professional pictures to come back first. The photographer said it should be about 5 to 7 weeks. But in the mean time in between time, I will continue to feature all my DIY projects and a few other wedding features as well. Hope you are enjoying my blog as much as Im enjoying writing it! :)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Wedding Linens & Things
Depending on the size of your guest list, wedding linens can really be a big hit to your budget. But there are ways to get around over spending on them. One option is to find a venue that includes linens. The venue I used included white linens but I wanted black satin tablecloths and white chair covers and that was not included.
Here are linens that came with the tables at the hotel we used:
Alot of wedding venues use Chivari Ballroom chairs. So if you luck out with a venue that uses Chivari ballroom chairs, then you wont need chair covers so thats a big savings.
Here is a pic of a Chivari Chair:
The chairs at the hotel we used didn't offer Chivari chairs and the chairs they had(see above) didn't go with my color scheme so I realized I would definitely need to rent chair covers as well.
I started researching where I would rent them all from. There were two local spots in the area but they wanted $18 to $25 a piece for round satin tablecloths and about $4 to $5 a piece for chair covers. Remember, we were expecting 220 guests so you do the math! Clearly, that was wayyy out the budget we set for linens. So I started looking for rental companies online. After comparing tons of them to each other, I decided to go with www.beyondelegance.com for my stretch chair covers and sashes. They only cost $2.75 per cover and $0.25 per sash. For my table linens, I went with www.qualitychaircovers.com. They only cost $13.00 per tablecloth!
The only catch with renting linens online is that you have to pay for shipping and you also have to make sure you ship everything back the next business day after wedding. But as long as you have plenty of people to help you out, its not really a major inconvenience and you save alot of money.
The linens arrive a few days before your wedding. You may want to have a steamer or iron on hand to knock some of the creases out. See below:
Black Satin Linens being put on table:
Here is how everything came together with chair covers and tablecloths:
Overall, if you are looking to save some money, renting linens online is typically way cheaper than using your local rental company.
Here are linens that came with the tables at the hotel we used:
Alot of wedding venues use Chivari Ballroom chairs. So if you luck out with a venue that uses Chivari ballroom chairs, then you wont need chair covers so thats a big savings.
Here is a pic of a Chivari Chair:
The chairs at the hotel we used didn't offer Chivari chairs and the chairs they had(see above) didn't go with my color scheme so I realized I would definitely need to rent chair covers as well.
I started researching where I would rent them all from. There were two local spots in the area but they wanted $18 to $25 a piece for round satin tablecloths and about $4 to $5 a piece for chair covers. Remember, we were expecting 220 guests so you do the math! Clearly, that was wayyy out the budget we set for linens. So I started looking for rental companies online. After comparing tons of them to each other, I decided to go with www.beyondelegance.com for my stretch chair covers and sashes. They only cost $2.75 per cover and $0.25 per sash. For my table linens, I went with www.qualitychaircovers.com. They only cost $13.00 per tablecloth!
The only catch with renting linens online is that you have to pay for shipping and you also have to make sure you ship everything back the next business day after wedding. But as long as you have plenty of people to help you out, its not really a major inconvenience and you save alot of money.
The linens arrive a few days before your wedding. You may want to have a steamer or iron on hand to knock some of the creases out. See below:
Black Satin Linens being put on table:
Here is how everything came together with chair covers and tablecloths:
Overall, if you are looking to save some money, renting linens online is typically way cheaper than using your local rental company.