Wedding Cookie Buffet

A couple months ago I was honored to plan, decorate and coordinate a special couples big day. Seemingly endless paper decorations, hand stamped tags and a beautiful cookie buffet were some of the visual highlights. The wonderful photgrapher that day was Victoria Carlson. Her photos are so intimate and warm. They blow me away. She offered to send me some photos of the work I did at the event and I am happy to share them with you. 

Kiel & Yvonne

I love a party. Birthday, valentines, fiesta, they are all awesome. But the party I love the most is the wedding. This magical time in a couples life - the beginning of a new chapter together. It is magical. So being able to help plan and coordinate this special day with the bride, groom and family is a real treat for me. 

Yvonne and I met about 5 years ago and I was immediately drawn to her. She makes everyone feel special when they are around her. She moved to Chicago to go to law school, then she graduated, passed the bar exam and is now a real deal lawyer. She met her beloved, Kiel in Seattle before moving and after managing a long distnace relationship he moved there to be with her. I don't know Kiel as well as Yvonne - but I do know he is a real deal hunk of a man in love with this beautiful girl. 

When they started planning their wedding I reached out to Yvonne to let her know I would love to help her in any way possible. Planning a wedding is hard but being in another state while planning your wedding is harder. I wanted to make sure her day went smoothly and was everything she wished it could be. 

The wedding ceremony was held in the Seattle Chinese Garden. They were the first couple to be married in the courtyard. It is a beautiful spot and if you are looking for an outdoor location this may be it. 

We repurposed some old cabinet doors to make signs for the wedding. Mr. Ramon was nice and offered his hand lettering skills for this project. They turned out really pretty. 

The reception was held at House of Hong in Seattle. A favorite location for parties and receptions. Me and my team hung over 150 paper decorations to transform the restaurant. Over 100 tissue pom poms on the ceiling over the dance floor and paper mobiles over the dessert buffet and bar. 

I set up the cookie bar with take away bags and hand stamped tags. The family had all pitched in and baked their favorite cookies. The sister of the groom had little cookie cookbooks printed as takeaways. The sister of the bride baked over 20 pies as well. 

At the reception they had a traditional Chinese lion dance at the reception. Something I have never seen - it was really awesome. 

It was a beautiful day made even more so with the bringing together of these two familes. 

Paper Wedding Decorations

I love a good party. I need no excuse to get people together, cook up some good food and decorate. For me the ultimate party is a wedding. Really, when else in your life are you going to have all those people in one place celebrating one of the biggest decisions in your life? Whether it is big or small it can be awesome. 

I have been really busy the last couple weeks as we count down to my friend Yvonne's wedding. She is amazing. Her fiance is amazing. Her wedding is going to be the same. I have the great honor of being her wedding coordinator and helping with the decorations. I will make sure everyone shows up in the right place with the right stuff at the right time. I will make sure everything looks great. It sounds so easy but believe me there are a million moving parts. 

For the reception we are looking at tissue pom poms hanging from the ceiling over the dance floor. I could wax poetic about paper decorations for days. I love them. I find them to be very nostalgic - circa 1950's prom or wedding. When done right they are fun and happy. They add texture and smiles to everyone's faces. 

You can find paper decorations on Luna Bazaar and Devra Party Corp> I also show how to make tissue balls here. I look forward to sharing pictures from the reception. 

Save this Date!!!

So exciting - we hit our first big milestone. We sent out save the dates on the 6 month mark from our wedding.
This is a big accomplishment for us as Mr. Ramon has been insanely busy with a big project and it was a team effort so we needed to coordinate all the different pieces.

We had originally decided to screen print on wooden postcards - but then got together for a brainstorm session that left us interested in fabric, sewing and screen printing. We are really trying to do all of the elements of the paper goods for our wedding ourself (with the help of some amazing friends and family) - not wanting to out source or go the mass produced way. We both love paper goods and tend to geek out on them all the time. I spend way to much time perusing blogs filled with paper goods and right now with wedding on the brain it could fill up all my days if I let it.

We hit up a local fabric store and found two prints that were indicative of our "rustic glamour" theme. A little home spun a little fancy. First I had to join the two fabrics together with a iron-on binder.

Then I cut each piece out just big enough to go into the envelope - and pinked the edges.

Then it was Mr. Ramons turn - get paper and screen print the image on and cut them all to size. He has a really great friend who is a pro at screen printing - so this was a chance for him to learn some new tricks. Once that was done I was back to work. I glued the top of each paper to the fabric so it was secure to sew. I chose coordinating thread for a nice visual pop.

As the timeline drew near - I had some assistance from my mom with the sewing. We left the edge strings a little long - they looked so nice.

Mr. Ramon made some pretty wrap around labels for addressing our save the dates.

So the finished look was this. We were very happy with the results - they spoke to what is to come at our big day as well as hand crafted and unique. Such a fun project.