Flower porn

Daniel Ost has blown my mind. I've never seen anything so unique. I didn't even know that you could do this with flowers. Truly. Amazing.

amazing tents

I don't have much to say because I think the pictures speak for themselves. I was reading old posts of the blog ready2spark and came across some postings for tents. Apparently Regal Tents offers a new draping product that lets you match virtually any pattern, print or logo, gives the look of a high end fabric at a fraction of the cost AND is 100% recyclable. Its called Printed Velon and its amazing. I don't know how much it would cost just yet, but I'll update when I do.

So do I want either a really dramatic draped tent like these:

Ready2Spark

Or a really light, airy open tent like this:

Becker's Blog

Either way, they are both just gorgeous.

lighting inspiration

So I have been thinking a lot about lighting lately. Since the wedding is outdoors I really want to go overboard with candles, lanterns, lights, etc. I think you can't really overdo lighting - who doesn't like to see tons of clusters of candles? My obsession with lighting began a few months ago with the picture below, from Jung Lee's book Fete. It evokes such an ethereal and romantic feeling.

Here are some pictures of where we are getting married (courtesy of http://www.malibufamilywines.com/). I'd love to light up the pathway as well as this long brick wall that runs along the property.

Its hard to see the brick wall, so I've circled it in red (in a very unsteady/ugly manner)

So, I was mostly just considering candles until I stumbled across this amazing blog - ready2spark. She has the best ideas and inspiration. This is where I found pictures of lanterns/globes as lighting for the ground. I think its gorgeous and a little unexpected. I'd just have to come up with a way to weigh the lanterns down and light them from within.

Abi Boura

Michelle Rago

What do you think - candles or lanterns for the walkways/brick wall?

Wedding favors!

I've been thinking about wedding favors for some reason from the moment we got engaged. I think its because my sister in law gave me the idea to give away pashmina shawls. We were going to order a bunch of them and then tie them on the back of chairs to look like ribbon/chair decoration. Then at some point in the night tell our guests what they were and to take them home as gifts. I was even going to get little labels made with our names and wedding date sewn on them. I eventually abandoned this plan as the numbers grew from 300-350 to 450-500. Also, I was feeling bad for not even attempting to include the men in the favor.

So, one day my mom and I were talking and we came up with the idea of doing something with tea. Sri Lankans and Indians alike are obsessed with tea so this seemed like a pretty perfect idea. Then on weddingbee one of the bloggers (miss onion) posted about using adagio tea samples for wedding favors. I went on their site and ordered some samples and they were adorable. Then I came up with this idea to do a Ceylon tea (Sri Lankan tea) and a Darjeeling (Indian tea) so it brings the two cultures together. I think I'm going to stick little Sri Lankan and Indian flags on them or something like that to make the idea clear.

I'm also super excited because I finally ordered the tea tins and had such an amazing experience with Adagio. Adagio specifically does wedding favors with cute preprinted labels that come in organza bags but they didn't have the Darjeeling tea that I wanted available for the wedding favors. Despite that, Adagio has offered to give me labels free of charge and place the labels on the all the tea tins. Not only are they doing that, but they are also going to try and order special organza bags that will fit both tins of tea in them. On top of this they are giving me a 15% discount because I ordered SO much tea (400 tins). They were so prompt with their response time and so accomodating, I know I'll be ordering tea from them for the rest of my life. I highly recommend them for any tea needs. :)



Now I just need to figure out how I will be packaging these tins. I want to put the tins in some type of box and emboss the lid with our wedding monogram. My brother gave me the idea of using these paper mache boxes from A.C. Moore (see image below). I went and picked up some paper mache boxes and a small wooden box so now I just need to test the embossing on these surfaces. I'm sure embossing 200 boxes is going to take a stupid amount of time - enter MOH, sister in law and mom :).

Guest Book Idea :)

I know, I've been a bad blogger lately. I've been swamped with work and honestly just keep looking at my wedding countdown and trying to figure out how it became less than 4 months until the wedding.

So, I was pokin around wedding blogs today in some off time and came across some posts to have a blurb book as a guest book. blurb allows you to put photos and text together to look like (you guessed it) a book. In my opinion, in a really professional, impressive, non-yearbook sort of way. Mypublisher or iphoto (using macs) are some other sites/places that you can use to create these type of things. After reading a bunch of reviews, I'm thinking of trying out Mypublisher - plus I got an awesome coupon where I get a free copy of any book I create. I can provide the code if anyone wants to make a book.

Blurb Wedding Book

Side view of a blurb book

I have been racking my brain trying to think of an unusual guest book that I would actually want to display/keep out in our place. I think these books would be perfect since I'm obsessed with pictures. I'm already planning on having a display of family pictures and a photo booth (more on that later) so I think this could be a cute option. It lets me be creative and also forces me to start going through our pictures so I can work on the slideshow and the guestbook at the same time. Hopefully the engagement pictures we are taking in June will turn out nicely so we can use these in the guest book.

Now I just have to patiently wait for our engagement shoot in June and then I can get started on our guest book! And yes, I realize that the guest book should be the last of my worries and I should probably focus on getting my florist, cake, lighting, etc. figured out.

the perfect hair

So its been a long time since I've posted. I took a hiatus from wedding planning - I think I just got overwhelmed with everything (especially after getting a $5K cake quote!). :)

I still do my daily perusal of wedding blogs and today when I was looking at my new favorite wedding blog The Brides Cafe, I found my hair inspiration for the wedding! The wedding of Anna & Seth taken by Ann Hamilton was truly gorgeous. The bride's hair is perfection! I mean, she is insanely gorgeous so I'm sure thats a lot of it, but I just love the flowers and the unfussy up-do.

For better/larger pics go here: Ann Hamilton's Blog





What do you think?

Regina B

Speaking of hair accessories, Regina B makes the most amazing hair jewelry. Of course its insanely expensive as well but I absolutely love them!

These are some of my favorites....

Hair Bling or Flowers?

Another idea I had was to wear something in my hair sort of under my veil. My veil/dupatta is sheer so you'll be able to see it. I'm going back and forth between wanting to wear a piece of "hair jewelry" or just wear simple flowers. Right now I'm leaning towards flowers because I'm going to be blinged out from head to toe in terms of outfit and jewelry. Also, traditionally Sri Lankan brides wear fresh flowers in their hair.

Here are some of my inspiration photos:

I like the vine look. I even kinda of like the hair style. The top is a little too high but the rest I sort of love. From InStyle Weddings:


I have no idea where this picture came from but I like the simplicity of the french twist. I think a few too many hair jewelry pieces though - I'd have stuck with just the flower near the nape of her neck


So here's the flower look. I love Mariska Hargitay's hair here on her wedding day. She wore a bunch of fresh roses in blush pink and white. I think I'd wear less flowers and maybe stick to ivory though

More Mariska Hargitay this time laughing with her Dad (how cute)

Hair Comes the Bride picture - I really like the up do and think I'd go for one simple bloom versus the two shown here.

Jennifer Behr hair accessories are gorgeous (and also really expensive). I like this simple style though.

What do you guys think?

Wedding Hair

I've been collecting lots of pictures of different hairstyles over the past few months. Despite my picture collecting obsession of all things wedding related, I can't quite decide what I want though and no one picture really seems to capture what I want for my wedding day. These are the things I do know. I want an up-do for my first outfit (ivory colored bridal sari) and a half-up look for my second outfit (red and copper colored lengha). Problem there is that I don't have a lot of time to change my hair and makeup so I'm hoping that I can find a style that easily transitions from all up to half down without looking messy.

Some half-up do's:

I love how simple this is - although I'm not sure if it looks too messy

I just really like the flower in her hair and the simple curls
Some up-do's:

I like this simple front sweep - although I think i'd want something more off my face


I love the way these curls look
Another nice and simple up-do but this time with hair
Another view
The top is a little crazy, but its nice and simple also
Thoughts? opinions?

a few more flower ideas

So I couldn't get these up earlier but I also love these flower ideas:

This centerpiece I fell in love with after watching this wedding on Platinum Weddings. Square Root Design made it and its gorgeous - the tree is actually made of copper and I think its something like $2K a centerpiece. Crazy right. But so beautiful. Using manzanita branches instead of a fixed copper tree will make mine A LOT cheaper.
Another tree by Square Root. I like the uniform color - it makes it very dramatic. Although the white would be a little scary for a non-winter wedding I think...
Also a really beautiful centerpiece by Square Root that draws on those large full flowers that I like.
This bouquet by Michelle Rago is gorgeous. I love the detail in the wrap the most - it reminds me of a laced up corset.

A bouquet by Square Root that I also really love. Its mostly that really deep blood red that I love - it would be a great contrast to my ivory colored sari. Although, it wouldn't match my wedding colors
I want my flower girls to wear head wreaths. I love these also by Square Root:
Flower girl wings by Square Root - pretty dramatic but maybe on a small scale minus a head wreath? I dunno...
Jennifer at Fiore suggested I have the flower girls carry these cute little baskets filled with flower petals - I think its an adorable idea

Flower inspiration

So, with the wedding rapidly approaching (185 days!), my coordinator Mary put me in contact with a few florists in Los Angeles. My mom, Mary and I met with Jennifer from Fiore Designs and Lisa from Ixora Floral Studios a few weeks ago when I was in California. Both Jennifer and Lisa were really warm and creative. Basically they both had me show them inspiration photos and describe my dream/idea flowers for the wedding, ceremony, bouquets, etc. and then they gave me their input and design ideas. From there, they will send me price quotes and we can cut back on my dream to fit my budget. Of course, now I'm sort of giddy thinking about my ideal flowers for the wedding and anxiously awaiting my quotes.

Basically I have a love for manzanita branches (see example of the orange colored branches with green orchids below), fluffy/romantic flowers like peony's, teacup roses, dahlias, etc but I also love the modern design of orchids, lotus buds, succulents and bamboo. Surprisingly all those things sort of work together.

Here are some of my inspiration photos:

Bouquets

I have been debating fan bouquets, but here are some other bouquets that I absolutely love.

This orchid bouquet was done by Fiore. So pretty and simple.


I absolutely love peony's and teacup roses


I think rananculus and peony's


Centerpieces:
For centerpieces, I want some trees with flowers and hanging candles along with low varied height centerpieces.

Love the orange manzanita branches with the orchid bunches



Not quite what I'm going for, but I like the single flowers and crystals

A baby version of a centerpiece
I love how big and full dahlias are

Love these lotus buds with the dahlias and bamboo
I like the succulents with the calla Lilly's and roses. Not a huge fan of the ivory flowers in here - I think they are too stark but overall I like this for a low centerpiece
I love how the orchids are spraying and sort of look like branches. Very dramatic

Different heights of flowers in bamboo I think look cool and could be inexpensive for the cocktail hour too?

More dahlias
If we do decide to do a few long/rectangular tables - I am in love with this sort of creeping tree and flower look.

Ceremony

To line the aisle for the ceremony I was thinking of getting large copper or dark wood bowls and floating dahlias or plumeria in them

I also love the idea of floating plumeria but they are hard to find in August
For the ceremony, I knew I wanted to have lots of hanging lines of jasmine or orchids. I also know I want a more open simple structure that is circular. The lines of orchids would be similar to this amazing table scape below. I haven't been able to really find any pictures I'm obsessed with until I stumbled upon Michelle Rago. She is nothing short of amazing and probably is insanely expensive. If I had a million dollars to spend on just my wedding, I'd use her in a heartbeat. Anyways, the pictures below are of a wedding she did at Breakers hotel was gorgeous! It had the most beautiful mandap/chuppa-like structure with all the carving it makes it look almost Moroccan.

I LOVE these orchid trees. We wanted to do some type of archway leading into the aisle and I think something like this would be perfect.

Cocktails

We also have to do some kind of decor for the cocktail hour. Since I'd prefer to really wow everyone for the reception, I'm thinking about doing something sort of simple like this. I'm not sure my mom was a fan of using fruit in a centerpiece but I think they look modern and have a little asian culture to them with the jasmine flowers. Thoughts?

Boutonniere

I don't have many boutonniere ideas. But here are two that I thought were cool and different. One of the florists suggested using succulents and I think it looks great and masculine. Not sure how they'll work with Indian outfits though?

I think these stephanotis flower's would look great with indian outfits though. I like the copper detailing a lot.