All you need to know about Wedding Lighting

I knew about Led Lights and twinkle lights but did you know about gobo or pin spotting? me either but thanks to GetMarried.com now I know a lot about lighting! whoop!

{image via http://trendsettingwedding.typepad.com}

Wedding Conversation Starters

Last week after leaving Legally Blonde, mi amor, MOH/cousin and I were discussing ways that we can get people to mingle at the wedding since most people will not know everyone. I should have wrote their ideas down because I remember them being great, but for the life of me I can not think of a single one they mentioned. Hopefully MOH/Cousin remembers and she blogs about it ;-) Until then...I found some great conversation starters at MarthaStewart.com check them out *here*. I really liked the one titled- "Song and Dance" because it gets people not only to mingle but gets them on the dance floor! The idea is each table is assigned a song title and when the tune plays, the whole table has to get up and get down! Another good one is "Change is Good" - Each guest opens their favor box which has a penny & then shares with the table an important event that corresponds to the year on the penny. Are you guys doing anything to get them to mingle? One thing we are doing is proving a 5 hour open bar, that should help loosen people up!












{Source Martha Stewart}

Like U2 says..."I still haven't found what I'm looking for...
I've been engaged for 4 months and I still don't have a clear sense of the vision for the wedding, nor a venue or even colors, I have not even looked at wedding dresses. I know crazy right?! but there are reasons behind my madness. I had decided that I did not want to decide on anything until I found the venue, I knew it would be difficult to find one within budget and that met all our requirements but I had no idea that it would take this long and require so much research. I have googled all possibilities, looked through every single wedding site resource available, I've even looked through L.A photographers blogs looking at weddings they have shot, in hopes that I could find one that way....oh & in regards to those photo blogs as soon as I see pictures of the bride's Manolo Blanhkik or Jimmy Choo's heels, I know where ever that couple got married at, it is not within the budget!.
Honestly I feel lost, there are so many beautiful inspirations out there and I just can't decide what I want. Unlike some brides to be out there, I never dreamed of my wedding day, heck I did not even know if I was ever going to get married, not because I don't believe in it, but because I was set on not settling, on finding the person that met all my criteria and the one that I would love and never wonder if I made the right decision in marrying them. It was because I valued marriage so much that I was willing to live a life of solitude if I did not find "the one". In fact my parents pretty much had given up on me getting married and being the only girl in a latino household, they were not very happy about having to give up on the idea but they were supportive nonetheless. But I did find the "one" :-) & now I need a venue for our nuptials!
Now going back to this whole wedding vision, I am hoping that as soon as I find this holy grail venue, that things will just come together. I hope to soon share some actual wedding projects but until then here are some wedding inspirations I have saved over the past few months...

I don't know where, but some where I *must* use this frame I have seen at many weddings, maybe in place cards or table numbers?

{source Southern Weddings}

{Source: Paper Source Stamp & Fancy Square Punch}

Although I have not looked for a dress, I know I want strapless and I may wear a flower in my hair for the reception and mi amor is thinking of wearing white tux (GRRR!)

{Source Snippet and Ink}

I'm pretty sure I won't just have 2 colors, and that everything will not match exactly but that it will hopefull come together. My favorite color & mi amor's fav color is green, but I don't tend to have green things, I tend to like buying things in red, yellow, turquoise, pretty much vibrant colors. I like the way this wedding was able to mix the colors beautifully.

{Source Snippet and Ink}

I now I also want my bridesmaid to wear strapless dresses and luckily my MOH/cousin and my sister in law have both expressed that they would like to wear strapless dresses, so it works out perfectly. I'm leaving the dress picking to my MOH/cousin, we have similar taste in dresses so I know whatever she picks out I will love, the only thing I am picking is the color. I'm leaning to yellow dresses but not sure how nice yellow ties will look on the groomsmen, but the other day when I was telling mi amor mi about this dilemma he said that he is sure we can find some good looking yellow ties, and him saying it makes me believe it :-). I love the way the yellow looks with the blues in this wedding. I'm also thinking I want to wear colored shoes. I *love* wearing colored shoes, in fact whenever I wear black dresses I wear either my red patent heels or my nude colored heels. But I am also open to wearing silver or gold heels, which are colors I tend to wear when I wear white.

{Source Snippet and Ink}

You know writing this post has actually helped me with my vision, apparently it is coming together :-) Was it easy for you to decide on your vision for your wedding? What made you decide on your colors?

Dirty Dancing at Wedding

Who knew doing these special dances was all the rage?! not me! I have never been to a wedding that had people do a special dance but apparently tons of people do it all the time!
Here is a dirty dancing one! I had the idea when we saw dirty dancing but I think we will do a different song & dance, not sure what yet, it's going to require a brainstorming happy hour with the wedding party!

Reception: Dancing Wedding Party

ok I know you guys have probably seen this because it has been all over the weddingblogoshere since yesterday, but I had to post about it since it was what sealed the deal with my wedding party to make my dreams come true and dance into the reception! I first saw it on weddingbee when Mrs. Shortcake first posted about it. I had initially told my MOH & bridesman my idea of dancing into the reception after we went to see Dirty Dancing at the Pantages theatre a few months ago. As soon as I saw the video I sent it over to mi amor, MOH, bridesman and future sister in law/bridesmaid, telling asking them if they would be into dancing into the reception and all of them said YES! some even shed a few tears :-)

Who's your DJ?! My ipod homies!

{Moby spinng at Elevate Bar in Downtown L.A, taken by moi}

Um not really...we will have a human DJ at our wedding because music is very important to us, we want to dance all night (or till 12 am when we get kicked out) and I have heard from many peeps that the DJ can make or break your reception, ergo we are hiring a DJ. That being said, I also hear that many people are using their ipods for their reception as a means of saving money. If you are going the ipod way, you may be interested in using iTunes DJ & also in allowing users to vote on songs that are coming up in your play list or request a song that they want played. The only catch is that your guests must find someone that has an iPhone with the Remote application but now a days everyone knows someone that has one so this really isn't that hard and may even get your guests to talking to people that they just met. This is a feature that needs to be activated, so if you want to use the iTunes DJ but you don't want guests to vote or requests songs then all you have to do is not activate it. Are any of you planning on using an iPod or have at least thought about it? Have you been to a reception with an iPod in lieu of a DJ?

DIY Candy Buffet

Prior to all the wedding blogs that I subscribe to I had no idea about the popular candy buffets, I still haven't been to a wedding with one but they seem to be all over the wedding sphere!
So far these are the ones I swoon over...

{Source} Hostess With The Mostess

{Source} The Budget Savy Bride

{Source} by Amy Atlas

{source} Weddingbee



{Source} Once Wed
and when I showed mi amor the cigar buffet I saw at Style Me Pretty he was all IN! It's been the first thing I have shared with him that he was actually excited about, so I was stoked!
{Source} Style Me Pretty

Get your drink on

Having an open bar is something that is important to me, my fiancee and both are families, that being said, having an open bar is freaking EXPENSIVE! There are many choices out there, and in the end it doesn't matter what you choose as long as you are happy with it in the long run. So I've been told by the world wide web that these are my choices:

1. Cash bar - Nope.
2. Have wine & beer - Nope I don't drink beer & there is only so much wine I can handle, so if I don't care for events that only have wine & beer then why would I subject my guests to only those choices?
3. Have open bar for an hour or two then switch to cash bar- Nope, I want my guests to come and celebrate with us & not have to pay for anything at the reception, 1/2 of them are coming from the east coast and spent a good amount of money on a plane ticket & hotel, so I don't want them to fork over some more money.
   
4. Open bar. Yup this is the only choice. It's expensive but it's something that was #1 on our list of things we want from a venue.
   

So now what? Now we have to decide whether we pay per person which can range anywhere between $30-$60 for a 5 hour reception or whether we pay per drink which can range anywhere from $6-$12, I think what we are going to have to do is go through our guest list and estimate how many drinks everyone will have and based on those calculations decide whether we pay per person or per drink. We also may decide on a venue where we can bring in our own alcohol and for that I will be using a drink calculator! Here are some that I have found:

• Evite.com has a good one where you put the percentage of light, medium & heavy drinkers & then it tells you the how much alcohol, wine & liquor you need, but it doesn't tell you what type of liquor you need.
• perfectplanning.net has one that includes alcohol, wine & liquor but also has how many soft drinks you will need.
• thatsthespirit.com not only tells you how much alcohol, wine & liquor you need, but also tells you the average price you are going to spend on buying it.
  

Here are some recommendations for a wedding reception with 100 guests:

Real Simple:

• Red Wine: 12 bottles
• White Wine: 12 bottles
• Champagne: 20 bottles
• Beer: 120 bottles
• Vodka: 4 bottles
• Gin: 2 bottles
• Rum: 2 bottles
• Bourbon: 2 bottles
• Scotch (blended): 1 bottle

USA Bride:

Beer:9 Total Cases

* 3 Domestic cases
* 3 Imported cases
* 3 Light cases

Wine:5-8 Total Cases

* 3-4 Chardonnay cases
* 1-2 White Zinfandel cases
* 1-2 Cabernet Sauvignon cases

Champagne

* 1-2 cases

Hard liquor

* 5 liters vodka
* 3 liters gin
* 2 liters rum
* 2 liters scotch
* 2 liters bourbon
* 750ml vermouth
* 3 liters kahlua

Others to Consider (1 liter of each)

* Bailey’s Irish Cream
* Grand Marnier
* Amaretto
* Sambuca
* Brandy
* Frangelico
* Chambord

the knot has some averages:

• Beer: 5 to 6 cases
• Whiskey: 1 liter
• Bourbon: 1 liter
• Gin: 2 to 3 liters
• Scotch: 2 liters
• Light rum: 1 liter
• Vodka: 5 liters
• Tequila: 1 liter
• Champagne: 1 to 1 1/2 cases
• Red wine: 2 cases
• White wine: 3 1/2 cases
• Dry vermouth: 1 bottle
• Sweet vermouth: 1 bottle