wedding streaming

Wedding celebrations are becoming social! You’ve seen the groom who pauses to update his Facebook status, or Tweet that he is officially married. Friends are taking photos at the wedding and uploading them to Facebook the next morning! Before you even get your professional wedding photos, you can watch as your guests start to populate your Facebook page with tons of wedding photos!

Friends or family who didn’t attend are able to comment on the photos, and share in your special day as well! Make that wedding sharing real-time by live wedding streaming your wedding. There are 3 HUGE reasons why you should live stream your wedding.

1) Save on Your Wedding Budget - Less live guests means saving on your wedding costs. Think about all those guests that you need to invite, but you don’t necessarily need them to attend. Send a wedding invite that allows them to take part in your wedding over the internet.

2) Experience the Wedding All over Again – Wake up the next morning and watch your wedding ceremony as if you were a guest. The wedding will be such a blur that you will want to capture the moment for you to remember! With live wedding streaming, you can watch your live wedding video of your ceremony and experience it all over again!

3) Share Your Wedding With All Your Friends and Family – You can’t invite all your Facebook friends to the wedding, but you CAN share the wedding with all of them real-time. Or, if you want to make the wedding private only to a select few, Marry Me Live sets up a password protected page that allows your “special” friends to leave comments on your “guest book”.

The black and white ones I found would make a perfect cupcake wrapper for a bridal shower or DIY wedding!!

According to the Reynolds website they can be found at major grocery stores, and mass retailers such as Target.  If you are looking for a great recipe, I found my recipe on www.allrecipes.com using the Heavenly White Cake and Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.  Happy baking!

Some brides like to go literal with their color schemes, others like to use their favorite color as an accent. These shower arrangements are about as literal as you can get with the color palette that was at hand; Green and purple!

The vases were made from recycled yogurt tubs wrapped in wax paper and white floral mesh, and topped off with a pretty purple and white striped ribbon.

The floral shopping list: Green Spider Mums, purple-ish/pink Spider Mums, green and purple Hydrangeas, and some cool looking dyed purple branches.

A few flowers here, and a little branch there, and the arrangements are ready for your bridal shower. The best part about these arrangements is that they can be taken home by your guests as little treats.

If you haven’t been to Café Du Nord in San Francisco, it’s a classic SF joint that hosts all sorts of awesome bands and events. With its dark woods, and red accents, it has a very speak-easy/ prohibition era feel to it.

Crimson colored Dahlias were the flower du jour! Other flowers that the bride wanted included: Crespedia (Billy Balls), Succulents, and Fig Branches. I threw in a bunch of white/green Hydrangea, and some green filler to help fill in the gaps. (I hope you’re all memorizing these plant names, as I will have a pop quiz at some point…. )

Dahlias, Billy Balls, Fig Branches, and Hydrangeas

The main arrangement was tall as it was going to be the centerpiece to the buffet.

A tall arrangement as the main centerpiece

Totally Succulent!

The Bride asked for a small bouquet that she could hold on to for some of the special moments at the reception. She was provided with a classic Nafis Designs yogurt tub holding vase for the moments that she didn’t want to hold on to her bouquet.

A bouquet with a lot of texture

A Succulent Bouquet and a Billy Ball Boutonniere!

The Groom received a small boutonniere made of a couple of Billy Balls, a Quail feather, and a sprig of green filler.

Billy Ball Boutonniere

After all the arrangements were complete, there were enough flowers left for an accent arrangement that could either help amplify the table centerpiece, or could be set aside as a separate arrangement.

Accent arrangements always come in handy

Accent arrangements can always be paired up with centerpieces for extra umph!

By Erin Frank

With pumpkin season in full swing, I wanted to share a delicious recipe for DIY pumpkin butter. This recipe by Virginia Jane’s Flavorful Edibles is very easy to prepare in large batches, and pumpkin butter makes the perfect homemade favor for a Fall-themed wedding. If you’ve never had pumpkin butter, it’s a tasty treat that’s great with oatmeal, on toast, with either peanut butter or jam, and more. Enjoy!

Combine pumpkin, sugar, apple cider and spices in a large pot, heavy-bottomed if possible. Turn heat to medium and stir until sugar dissolves and spices blend. Increase heat and cook until mixture comes to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer for 30 minutes continuing to stir until thickened. Transfer to clean containers and chill in the refrigerator until serving.

You can safely double or triple this recipe without damaging the flavor. For a bargain on jars in bulk, Fillmore Container has terrific prices on all different sizes of jars. The Container Store also has an excellent selection of hermetic jars. Finish this simple gift with some cloth around the top and a rubber band, closed in by ribbon. Ribbon and cloth won’t be affected by refrigeration. The whole ensemble can be ready to go on the big day!

You may want to make a simple tag with ingredients and suggestions for how your guests can enjoy it, be sure to include an expiration date. It’s very important that the finished butter be refrigerated; it cannot be kept on a pantry shelf. Even if you are familiar with home canning, still follow this guideline; the acidity level of pumpkin is too low for safe home preservation. The pumpkin butter will stay safe to eat for 6 months in refrigeration from the day it was made.

Autumnal Centerpiece

If you’re having a white winter wedding, chances are that your bridal shower will be sometime in the fall.  With all the pretty fall colors around us, it’ll be easy to go all autumnal for your shower.

Ask the host of your shower to head down to their local Trader Joe’s where they sell organic and locally grown flowers, and  for roughly of $22.00 they can purchase some decorative Gourd’s and Squash and three pots of “Pin Cushions”. (The cutest ground cover I have ever seen)

Top left: Pin Cusions. Bottom Left: Mini Apples from Farmer's Market. Right: Gourds and Squashes

Ask your host to raid their kitchen cupboards and use grains, legumes, and fruits to accent the centerpiece arrangement for the table. For example I had some extra flowers from last week’s arrangements that I decided to take apart, cut up, and re-use, along with some lentils from my cupboard, and some mini apples I had purchased from the farmer’s market.

With a bit more rummaging around in the cupboards I’ll guarantee that your host will be able to find vases or containers that can be used as alternatives to complete the look. After searching through my storage cabinet, out came my great grandma’s old tea cups (used as mini candle holders), a few vases I had from a wedding last summer, and one of my Ikea canisters from the kitchen counter top.

Tiers of activity help make your centerpiece interesting

Get creative with legumes and the containers in your kitchen

Remember, centerpieces don’t always have to be done with flowers; you can get creative with fruits, veggies, and yes, even legumes! Happy Fall & Happy Shower!!

What girl doesn’t love her sweets? After all, it’s an essential part of our daily diet! (Of course we all do extra mileage on the treadmill to work it off…. Right ladies???? Yep… that’s what I thought….)

Bridal Showers are about all things girly. Some do special Mani-Pedi outings, some will have games like “Make a Bridal Gown from Toilet Paper Contest”,  but just about every single Bridal Shower will have (in some shape or form)…. Wait for it….. CAKE! So, why not have a cake and sweets only Bridal Shower? Talk about a bunch of giddy women on a sugar high! Watch Out!

Vines and small objects are great way to accent a table that already has a lot going for it.

Now, you can’t just have your cake and eat it too… you MUST have flowers! Have your bride-to-be pick her favorite flower or color, take a look at the location of the party, and come up with some fun whimsical placement of flowers, leaves, and objects to set the tone for your fun filled shower.

Oh, and um… please save me a piece of cake. Thanks!

Pretty Peonies

Texture and color are equally as important.

Floral highlights set the mood.

Place flowers in and around the venue to bring the whole event together

“Be prepared” may be the scout motto, but it’s great advice for a bridal party as well. Maids of Honor and Mothers of the Bride (or any well prepared family member or friend) can save everyone a lot of grief by packing a well-stocked emergency kit. At a recent wedding I was blown away by the level of preparedness shown by the photographer. Check out the amazing emergency kit pictured here! Here are just a few of the items they pack for every event:

Allergy Medicine
Tide Pens and Shout Wipes
Hair Spray
Antacids
Ibuprofen/Aspirin
Contact Lens Case and Solution
Mole Skin
Hairbands / Bobby Pins
Eye Drops
Floral Pins
Safety Pins
Lighter
Nail Glue / Nail Clippers and File
Sharpie
Tweezers
And, of course, booze! Miniature bottles of alcohol can work wonders to calm an overwrought bride or groom.

Obviously, these folks are prepared for a multiple weddings per month. A tackle box full of items doesn’t make much sense for your one day occasion.

Here’s what to pack for your one-time only event:

Band Aids
Safety Pins
Concealer — go one further and bring tiny pots of the bride’s makeup with you
Bobby Pins
Listerine Spray
Emery Board
Hairspray
Fashion Tape
Small Folding Scissors
Aspirin
Pepto Bismol Tablets — they handle both heartburn and nausea
White Chalk — for covering up small stains on a bride’s dress
Q-tips — if you or your bridesmaids will be handling your own makeup
And last, but not least, tissues for the inevitable tears of joy.

With just a little bit of planning ahead everyone will enjoy a less stressful wedding day. Be prepared—your bride will thank you!

I was introduced to a bride that was looking for a bouquet and a few other arrangements by a great San Francisco artist whose mother owns a flower distribution shop at the SF Flower Mart. (If you ever need fantastic roses, you MUST check out “Sunshine International” )

The bride and I spoke over the phone a couple of times, and we went through her special day. The wedding was going to be intimate, with a total of 6 people attending (including the bride and groom) in the foothills of Mount Tamalpais.  The bride had antique blue Hydrangeas in mind as her dress had silver accents on it and she felt that the blue hue would look nice against her dress. She also mentioned that she likes non-traditional flowers, as she’s not a very traditional person, and was adamant that we use the signature Nafis Designs yogurt tubs wrapped in wax paper as her vases! A truly low cost, environmentally friendly wedding!

Total material cost: $80.00

Shopping list: Antique Blue Hydrangeas, Green Hydrangeas, Fig Branches, Sedum, Bells of Ireland, Star of Jerusalem, White Roses, Scabiosa  Seed Pod.

The bride’s bouquet was made up of Star of Jerusalem flower, Sedum, Green Hydrangea, Blue Hydrangea, and Scabiosa Seed Pods, and was wrapped with light silver satin ribbon at its base.

The Groom’s boutonniere was crafted with three Scabiosa Seed Pods and some interwoven silver wire.

There were enough flowers left over for three really full arrangements that could be used as alter pieces, and or table arrangements.

Once again, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get some great looking flowers that will leave a lasting impact in your wedding photo album!

Tip of the day: If you want Hydrangeas to be in full bloom for your event, place the flower head in cold water and watch the blossoms burst open!