Home Reception Thank Yous

I wanted to give THANKS to those who were able to make our reception back home that much more memorable! We were truly truly fortunate to have been able to work with great and wonderful vendors overall! And so, I would like to highlight them here.

So for the sweets, I wanted to be greedy and utilize and share the talents of my friends who are creative in their own rights to be showcased in our wedding. So, here's the following salivating sweets to knock your socks off! haha.

My friend Ria of JUST CAKE ME created the beautiful cupcake tower for us!

 

 

 

The penguin cake topper was from an Etsy seller Kikuike. Since I lost my phone, I don't have a closer picture of the topper, but it looks something like this:

 

We chose this design since penguins are an inside joke for us since the hubby thinks he walks like one. Hah! And we wanted it to match with our guestbook fingerprint signage.

My friend Linell of Serenade Sweets made the Star Wars cookie pops that was a part of our candy buffet and also helped me surprise the hubby with the Death Star groom's cake in which he was blown away with. The cake was Ube flavored which is his favorite!

 

 

 

 

My friend Kat of Pretty-Kitty-Cupcakes made these delicious cupcakes that we also must have!  hahah. Yes, we were def. greedy.

 

 

 

We provided the lanterns, but the room décor was helped put together by San Diego Party Rentals 

 

 

The food was catered by the Abbey Catering and Events. We worked with Robert & Megan and we couldn't have been more pleased with the food served!

 

Last, but not the least, definitely couldn't have done it without the coordination of Kadesha with Charisma Events & Consulting. She listened to our ideas and made sure we were on point with everything. I may have won a free day of coordination from her, but her help made everything run very smoothly.

 

Here's some photos of how our reception looked through family & friend's photos:

 

Your picture will be taken in placement of your escort card. This photo will be added to the mad-lib guest book that my cousin made for us. The escort cards were from another Etsy seller Recycled Ideas. According to her site, "each plantable lock and key is embedded with a carefully selected mix of annual and perennial flower seeds. Used as place cards, they make a charming wedding addition that keeps on giving" So this also served as part of our giveaways.

                                                        It looks something like this

Once you go upstairs, this is what you were welcomed with:

 

Sample of one of the table settings:

 

 

 

 

Wedding Run Down

I can't believe that a week ago, we had our reception here back home. Everything still feels surreal, but we really wouldn't change anything because everything turned out more beautifully than we could've imagined. All the hard work, procrastination and anxiety were all worth it because we finally did it and all our loves were there to celebrate with us. 

For our ceremony, there were 51 of us that went on a cruise to the eastern Caribbean and got married in St. Thomas on the 19th of March. I lost my cellphone in Puerto Rico in which I'm still kind of bummed about since all my wedding projects that I haven't posted were on there :( But, as the mantra I've learned to say through the wedding planning goes, "It is, what it is." The pictures may not be captured again, but the memories will be embedded in our hearts and mind.

We worked with Island Bliss Weddings and our coordinator, Janelle Scott, really listened to what we wanted and worked to make it happen. We were able to get our circular chair so that we were surrounded by our loves.

Our photographer, Elisha Orin, did an amazing job and you can see our wedding photo preview HERE! <3. She was fun and if we had more time on the island, we would've run around town just to be captured by her amazing work!

Our videographer, Chris Angeles, flew in to St. Thomas with his wife to capture our union. He truly immortalized our memories and here's the preview below in which he included parts of our reception back home as well. It still makes me cry every time I watch it. hahah. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have! This really has been one of the amazing moments in our lives & we couldn't have been any more fortunate to have worked with very talented folks to capture everything for us and make it all happen. <3<3<3


My Love Will Never Fail You "A Wedding in Virgin Islands" from Chris Angeles Films on Vimeo.

 

Little Reminders

Now that the wedding is getting down the wire with about 1.5 months left to go, I'm feeling more anxious and a bit stressed with the things I still have to do. In the end though, I just need to get through it one day at a time and do as much as I can from here on out.  Little reminders and positive thinking helps along the way too!

Remind yourself as to why you're getting married in the first place and why you're doing what you're doing. My answer?...

I want to spend the rest of my life with this man and have our own little family someday. I want to celebrate every success no matter how big or small it may be with him and also go through the motions of life together for support and to also help make our relationship stronger. I want to help bring more positive people in the world with him in hopes in making the world a better place too.

Why a destination wedding? It's a vacation with the WHOLE family. We have celebrations at home, but it's still different to actually experience a relaxing, joyous and also momentous moments together no matter the age. The last time my family did this was when we all went to Italy as my cousin got married at the beautiful Vatican. It was a memory to remember.

With ours, I would like my and his family to also meld and come together in a fun and relaxing way. With the day almost here, we just have to remind ourselves that it's about US. And that we're doing this because we want everyone we love to be a part of our union. That no matter how rocky and wavy things may get leading up to our special day, in the end, everyone we care about will be there to witness our love and support our union. One day and one step at a time. In the end, we'll all be relaxing away in paradise.

Passport Invitations

We finally got our passport invites out!!!! :)  My fiance and I have been working with my cousin who has a small letter press business with his wife and it was fantastic working with them. We came out with about 8 drafts in the end because not only can I be a perfectionist sometimes, but also, towards the end, when I shared what I thought was a final draft to my parents, my dad who's also an artist gave some good criticisms. Lol.

 I was a little annoyed at the idea of having to bug my cousin again since we've done so much changes and revisions, but I thought that my dad sees through an artist lense and I appreciated that he wanted to help. I obviously care about my parent's opinions hence I showed them the last drafts lol. And I felt like that was one of his ways of at least contributing his part for the wedding in which I was grateful for. In the end, the invitations came out beautifully.

We started assembling them with my bridesmaids on Thursday night at one of my bridesmaid's home. We brought pizza, breadsticks and chicken wings for everyone to show our appreciation lol. That night, we got majority of them assembled until we ran out of the red ribbons. hah. Then the rest of the shorter ribbons were just placed on heads or hair to tie.

On Friday night, the FI and I stayed up really late placing the map envelope liners and getting some of the labels put together. Hah. It worked out since we also got all the liners glued in place.

 It was A LOT of work, but we got through it! And I'm so lucky to have a partner that's there to help me out even if it felt like a second "job" to him. hahah

This is him taking a break at 1 am. Kawawa pants. lol.

This morning, Saturday, we woke up really early to place labels, assemble, seal and place the seal wax on the invites that needed to be shipped out. We were informed that postage is going up as of Monday and wanted to at least get out  the ones that needed to be shipped to save hehe :)  We finished it all with 30 minutes to spare and headed out to the post office that closed at 1pm. hah.

We celebrated our success by going to a near by Mediterranean restaurant called Petra Restaurant.  We were going to the Italian restaurant we usually go to, but didn't realize they were only open for dinner. It was a really great find for us though since we love Greek food and it was a family owned restaurant that's really good too! Small place, but the owner/chef who also served us made our overall celebration wonderful with in house humms and baklava! Yum!

Destination Wedding Bridesmaids Ask

 

 

With the destination wedding at hand, I wanted to ask my bridesmaids in a special way. I thought, I'd incorporated a little bit of the theme I'm going for which was a something in the lines of vintage travel with a touch of rustic. Hah. The materials I got are mostly from Michaels w/ the exclusion of the message bottle that I got from LA's Garment District. I also saw them at PartyCity in case you're looking for one. :) Here's how everything looked like and what I came up with.

The main holder is a book like cardboard box.

This is how it started; blank slate:

I then placed border scrapbook stickers on top and bottom. This came in a pack and I then drew an image tag in the middle that'll hold their names. I was going to paint the background inside the tag behind their names, but didn't have the time to do so.Lol. I think it turned out well in the end :)

 

 

Inside, I decorated the portion behind the bookcover differently to go with each bridesmaids.

 

The main book contained the following:

 

A card with the ask

 

 

 

Sorry for my chicken scracth hahah. The bottom message states:

Something old, something new

Something borrowed, something blue

The bride, the groom

The dress, the tears of joy will definitely be there

But there's nothing I'd rather have  to complete the day

Than to have the honor of you standing by my side and

see me walk down the aisle.

 

I may have found my true love, but I still need my sister (my girls).

So on my wedding day, I will need you more than ever.

Our sisterhood (friendship) means the world to me &

having you there will be as blissful as can be.

 

Message in a bottle

 

Inside the bottle contains these:

  

It's fun too since it opens at the bottom, they get confused as to how to open it haha

 

You just fill it out and put together

 

 

Swatch of the dress color

(The dress was supposed to be a cookie, but I ran out of time too hah. So I just traced the cookie cutter out of scrapbook paper)

 

 

Flipflop box container to hold the glowing ring

 

 

And these are how each looked like individually:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My bridesmaids and their Bridesmaids Ask Book Box <3