Fall Special Elegant Design Specialty Linens

This is one of my favorite linen companies and I had to share their amazing promotion with you! Such a great deal on beautiful chiavari chairs! Book fast, the offer expires at the end of the year!

Sneek Peek to Cindy and Alex’s Victorian Wedding

Photo by the amazingly talented: www.forevertruephotography.com

Save the Dates

Should I, or should I not send Save the dates to my guests?

I don’t recommend Save the Dates to every one of my clients, but if you are having a lot of guests coming in from out of town, or a destination wedding, then your guests will really appreciate the early notice. Sending out a Save the Date will definitely give your guests plenty of time to schedule time off from work, locate a rental car and locate a place to stay.

When to send out Save the dates?

You should send out save the dates 6 months before your wedding day.

Here are some fun Save the Date samples that I found online: You can create your Save the dates on pencils, calenders, bookmarks, magnets, luggage tags, postcards and more…

Are you sending out a Save the Date? If so, what does it look like?

Featured on Project Wedding’s Blog

I am a little excited and overwhelmed with all of the excitement surrounding Project Wedding. One of our past client’s weddings was featured on their blog and then just this morning I received a five star rating certificate from them.  Click on the link to see our featured wedding: www.projectwedding.com/blog

This is just the type of news I need to start my week.  :)

Adorn Brides- Diamond Jewelry you can rent

Remember the movie, “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”, where, Andie Anderson, the character played by Kate Hudson,  attends a party entitled ”Frost Yourself”? Well if you do, do you remember the amazing yellow bling bling she got to wear around her neck???  Well… that can be you at your next wedding or event. Imagine walking down the aisle in a pair of diamond chandalier earrings and matching bangle bracelets or attending  a gala wearing a diamond  necklace.  Only you and I will know they were borrowed from www.adornbrides.com  (wink, wink).  With prices starting at $100 for diamond necklaces, who can resist?!?! So go ahead and bling it out at your next wedding or event.

Here are two of my  favorite pieces from their site:

Practice Bouquet for your Ceremony Rehearsal

Before every wedding rehearsal, I send out an email reminding all of my brides  to bring their ribbon bouquets (a bouquet  made of ribbons and bows, taken from the gifts received at bridal showers) to their rehearsal. It really makes a difference when you have something to hold and practice with.
Some brides have arrived with very creative ribbon bouquets, others have told me  that their bridesmaids never made them one, and some (excuse me for saying this) show up with a “hot mess”, a ribbon bouquet that is falling apart.

With that being said, I thought I’d provide instructions on how to make a ribbon bouquet.

Things You’ll Need:

• Sturdy paper plate
• A pair of Scissors
• Ribbons and bows from bride’s shower gifts
• Double sided-stick tape
• Small rubber band or twisty tie 

1. With a pair of scissors, poke a hole in the center of the plate.
2. As the bride unwraps her presents, save the ribbons and bows. Poke the ends of the ribbons through the hole and pull them through the bottom of the plate so the ends hang loosely and the bows remains on top of the plate.
3. Use double-stick tape to attach bows without ribbons to the plate. Cover the plate entirely with all the ribbons and bows.
4. Bring the ends of the ribbons together under the plate and cinch them into a bunch. Take a small rubber band or twisty tie and wrap it around the ribbon bunch. Take another ribbon and tie a bow around the rubber band or twisty tie.

Voila! Now you have a beautiful practice bouquet for the bride to be!

My trip to New York

Sorry for the delay in blogging lately. I just recently returned from a long, truly needed vacation in New York! It was my first time and I had such an amazing experience. Now, I know when you’re on vacation you’re not supposed to think about work and just relax, but I seem to somehow always be reminded of my amazing job as a wedding and event planner. Almost everywhere I turned I saw something that reminded me of a wedding or a party.

If you haven’t been to New York, you’ve got to go! It has amazing food, the city never sleeps and they have the most beautiful churches to get married in. Some are huge and ornate and others are small and quaint. So no matter what your guest count, there is a ceremony location for you to recite your vows in.

Here is a picture of my favorite church in New York, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. My jaw litterally dropped when I walked in and I just kept thinking to myself, what a beautiful aisle to walk down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I’m obsessed with cupcakes and cookies, I had to stop at all of the famous bakeries in New York. Our first stop was at “Magnolia Bakery”, where I had to try one of everything in the store.

 

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was in Hoboken, New Jersey at a quaint little cake shop called,” Carlo’s Bakery”.  Those of you who watch “Cake Boss” on TLC know just  how amazing their design work is. I walked in the door and they had the most beautiful cakes on display for every occasion, from birthdays to babyshowers, and of course weddings. It was really great experience.

 Here I am with my bestfriend, outside of Carlo’s Bake Shop. It was raining that day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last stop was at  the New York Public Library, where Carrie Bradshaw, from Sex and the City almost got married. Since this space is open to the public, events can not begin until an hour after the library closes.

Here are a few amazing shots of events taken place at the New York Public Library:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures courtesy of From left to right:

Christian Oth Studios, Peter Aaron ESTO, Glorimundi, David Sundberg ESTO,  Jeff Thomas/ Image Capture

 Check out the link below  for more information.

http://www.nypl.org/spacerental/?Trg=10

I’m ready to do a destination wedding in New York. Any takers?

Jack’s Candy Company

In September, A Stunning Affair is putting on a HUGE Carnival themed baby shower. My client and I are working hand in hand on the design and  when it came  time to designing her candy bar, I wanted to make sure that we found just the right types of candy and goodies to wow her and her guests. 

On Monday afternoon, we took a trip downtown, Los Angeles, to Jacks Candy and Toy Company .  When we arrived we were greeted and asked if we needed any help.  We then grabbed a cart and started going through the aisles. Each aisle was organized by candy type, the first aisle was filled with Mexican candies, then came all of the gummy candies, m&m’s in all colors, skittles, rainbow colored swirly pops, cotton candy bags and more. My client also wanted to fill some of her apothecary jars with yoyos and bubbles for some of her younger guests attending the shower and we were able to find those there too.

Overall we had a great experience, and it was a lot easier for my client to visualize the sizes of certain items and how much she really needed to buy, instead of ordering it online. Not that ordering online doesn’t work for some, because it is very convenient, but if you are a very visual and hands on person,  and don’t want to pay extra for shipping, then I would highly recommend checking out Jack’s Candy and Toy Company.

Here is their contact information and you can also check them out online and see the names of all of the candies that they supply. http://www.jackscandyandtoy.com/

Jack’s Wholesale Candy and Toy Store

1244 East 8th Street

Los Angeles, CA 90021

(213) 622-9287

Plenty of free parking is available in their lot and their is also meter parking on the street.

Store Hours:

Monday -Friday: 6am-5pm

Saturday: 6am-4pm

Sunday: CLOSED

Leslie and Colin’s Wedding

This past weekend I had the great pleasure in being a part of Leslie and Colin’s Wedding, in Newport Beach, CA. Their wedding was very unique in that it was my first wedding on a boat, the bride and groom were close friends of mine from college and to top it off I wore two hats that day, one of a floral designer and one of a coordinator. It was a lot of hard work, and I mean a lot of hard work and organization, but my amazing staff and I really pulled it off and we had one happy bride and groom!

Here is what Leslie had to say about us:

“I had the pleasure of working with Lina and her staff at A Stunning Affair. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hire a wedding planner/coordinator because I thought I could handle it on my own. I am so glad that I called Lina. During the initial consultation, she gave me many ideas and really got me excited about the big day even though it was over a year away. Lina is very detailed oriented like myself so she made sure that everything was perfect. She is very quick to respond to questions and concerns through phone calls and emails and made me feel at ease about everything. I felt no stress the day of the wedding because I trusted her to take care of everything. I knew that all of the details would be exactly as we had discussed during our meetings and they were. While looking at pictures of the wedding, I was able to see all of her hard work and dedication to our event. The pictures came out beautiful because of all of her great ideas that I never would have thought of on my own. I received many compliments from my guests on the decorations and flowers. They took everything home with them including the escort cards, table numbers, and menus. I had my dream wedding come true and I could not have done it without Lina and her staff.”

Leslie was extremely detailed and crafty and spent countless hours working on her menus, programs, escort cards, guestbook, favor boxes and tears of joy boxes. My absolute favorite were her adorable “got milk” straws that we displayed at her treats and candy bar that were accompanied by milk and chocolate milk. It was such a hit!

Here are some beautiful details from Leslie and Colin’s’ wedding:

Pictures were taken by: the AMAZING Carolyn Troadec Photography and Kelly Photo and Video

Thank you Leslie and Colin for letting me play a big role in your amazing day!

Sneak Peek to Noemi and Alex’s Wedding

Noemi and Alex got married on May 9th, at the beautiful San Fernando Mission with their reception following at the LA River Center and Gardens. Here is a sneak peek taken by Linda Lewis Photography. I will post more next week…