Color Palette...HELP!

We are just about nine months away from the big day and although we have booked both the ceremony and reception venues quite awhile ago...we have yet to nail down our color palette. Our ceremony will be held at the Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Phots courtesy of Sarah K Chen

Our wedding is taking place next May, so we'll be able to take full advantage of all the flora and fauna that surrounds this tiny little glass chapel by the Pacific.

We are having a traditional Chinese Banquet style reception and specifcally picked Royal Banquet in Westminster because we liked their neutral-ish setting (as opposed to the sea of red velvet we were drowning in at the majority of the other Chinese banquet venues).

Initially I thought that I wanted to go with a "shades of white" color pallete, but now I'm afaid it will look too bland. I would love shades of white with black as an accent color but unfortunately in Chinese culture, black is a no-go for weddings. White, fuchsia and chartreues would be pretty but I think I wanted to go with something a bit more "sophisticated". Anybody out there got any suggetions???

The Shoe(s)

I am absolutely fanatical about shoes (ok, lets be honest-handbags too!) so I've been daydreaming about my wedding shoes before I actually bought my dress. The FI and I initially considered having a beach ceremony so I jumped the gun and purchased these babies!





I could imagine myself walking down the aisle in a flowing gown with these beauties peeking out from underneath. They would have been perfect except for the fact that we decided against the beach ceremony and wanted to go with something slightly more formal. I went back and forth on whether or not I should return them and actually went so far as talking back into the store- but I just couldn't part with them! A decision I did not regret since I was able to wear them for our engagement party a few weeks ago-YAY!


So...the search continued and it didn't last very long before I stumbled upon these:

Stuart Weitzman's "Eiffel" and best of all, I found them at Nordtrom Rack for 85% off retail! Apparently these were a customer return, but they were in perfect condition so I snapped them right up! What I didn't realize until I got home was that these lovely metallic shoes did not go well with my ivory dress. No way am I returning these since I got them at a fantastic price- so I'll probably wear them with my other gown durning the tea ceremony (dress- still tbd).


Determined as ever, I hit the stores during every opportunity I could get. While perusing the shoe racks during one of Macy's incredible shoe sale events I found and fell in love with these:


You that that feeling every bride gets when she knows she has found "the one"? Well, thats the only way I could describe how I felt when I saw these. My only concern was that they were super high, and though I'm usually comfortable wearing high heels I just didn't know if I could handle 5" stillettos (in my wedding dress none the less!) but when I slip them on, the arch on the shoe fit the arch of my feet perfectly and it felt like a dream!




They are Casadei's "Pellame" matte gold with a gorgous floral detail that ombre's to silver at the vamp. They are not only comfortable, but a perfect fit with my dress and I was able to snag them at 60% off!

Anyone else out there as obsessed as I am about shoes? C'mon ladies...anyone?!

Etsy Love <3

I've got my heart set (even while our budget is screaming- noOOoo!!) on booking a photo both for our reception. I'm never been a fan of wedding favors but when it came to the renting a photo booth, it was a no brainer! Who doesn't love a classic photo booth photo strip?! I've seen tons of variations from bigger and chic-er looking booths and others that offer personalized options with the names and dates imprinted on the picture but I love the look of the classic 4 pose strip. After hours of cruising Etsy I found the perfect companion for our favors- Personalized button magnets for displaying our guest photostrips at home on their fridge!

Etsy seller~ Buttonarcade is selling 100 1" customized round magnets for only $35! We could easily work out a personalized design to go on the magnet (I mean, what better canvas than athe fridge to display your pretty face!) and leave them in a large bowl by the photo booth for our guest to take home with them. What did we do before Etsy came along? Anybody else find some fantastic wedding ideas using Etsy?

DIY Success!

I worked with a wonderful seller on Etsy who designed these water bottle labels for us. Our engagment party was comming up and I wanted to be able to hand these out to our guest. Since we would be purchasing the water for the party anyways they would also be serving double duty as our STD's! They were a hit!

Here is how we put them together:

Since I am in no way computer savy, I convo'ed the Etsy seller who had designed out electronic STD's to come up with a water bottle label design. She hadn't done anything like this before so I googled a really basic water bottle template and emailed her with our label measurements. She came up with an awesome design and was able to fit 3 labels across on one 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.

I reaserached a bit and found that you couldn't print these on a laser jet printer (the ink would run) and premade waterproof labels were way too expensive (.75 each! really?!) Luckly I was able to print these out using my office color copier (which also happened to be the best method, not to mention most cost effective :P ) which worked out perfectly since the ink on a color copy won't run when submerged.

In order to give it a finished look I "laminated" each label using clear shipping tape and cut out each one using a paper cutter. After removing the original label I wrapped each label around the bottle and used double stick tape to secure the end.

I never considered myself a DIY kinda girl- I always found it so much easier to buy things pre-made, but these were super easy to do and I was soOOoo happy with the finished product.

Even if you're not lucky enough to have access to a free color copier (and a paper cutter!) it would still be most cost effective to use a color copier to print your labels. You can get at least 3-4 labels on a page and use the color copier from your local Kinko's/Staples store for less than a $1 copy and cut them there yourself as well. Has anybody else used "creative" ways to cut cost on your DIY budget? Please share!