I’ve lost about 14-15 pounds as my 10/10/10 wedding approaches, but so far I’ve still got the jiggly arms since I haven’t been doing weight training consistently. My dress is strapless and I’m worrying about the chicken cutlets that threaten to hang out over the sides of my dress. Eeks!!!

This past July 3^rd was a very fun La Vita Bella Events wedding at Tra Vigne. What a wonderful venue to work with. It was a joy to be apart of the bride and grooms special day. I wanted to share with you the rustic/countryside theme that mixed beautifully with the courtyard at the Napa restaurant.

This wedding was done mainly in pink and gray, a great color combination option. The flowers were a burst of different colors designed in vintage blue and clear jars that were tied with raffia. The table décor was full of candles for warm lighting at night, orchids, and hand made burlap table runners. Each seat had a delicate paper decorative hummingbird, butterfly or bird that doubled as a place card. One of my favorite parts of the wedding was the sweet table. Which had the most delicious cookies to munch on and the cutest “love is sweet” sign.

As a plus size bride, I certainly like my sweets.  So naturally I am happy to go to a bakery to test a few cakes out. This weekend my fiancé and I will be cake tasting together. I haven’t thought too much about it till now, I mean what all do you have to think about other than enjoy the taste of the cake right? Wrong. There is defiantly some preparation that goes into cake tasting for your wedding. In my case we have already picked out a bakery, through a recommendation. If this is isn’t your case and you want know the best way to go about choosing your cake/baker read further. The best advice I got about choosing a wedding cake was broken into these six steps.

1. First talk to a few of your friends who have recently gotten married and see what they have to say about their baker and if they would recommend their services to you. After you have been recommended a baker or found one through your own research narrow them down to the top three choices. Call and make an appointment with each baker and request to taste any cake flavors that you are particularly interested in. Gather pictures, and drawings of wedding cakes that you are interested in. Know the wedding cake budget and number of guests that will be invited.
2. It is important to have had a snack or meal before you do cake tasting as being very hungry can sway your opinion of cakes. Start tasting the lighter fluffier cakes first and move on to heavier and richer cakes last. The pastry chef often has a recommended order in which to taste the cakes in. It is important to taste the cakes, frosting, fillings and embellishments separately this will enable you to taste the true flavor of each item.
3. Now notice the differences and take note of the textures, is the frosting lumpy or smooth? Then note weather the cake was moist, dry, fluffy, sugary, and buttery? This is a good time to inquire about the ingredients. Are the fillings made with fresh fruit? Can they use organic ingredients upon request?
4. Try a few combinations, perhaps there are a few flavors you enjoy and the baker can possibly make a special combination for you or has a recommendation.  Think about what you and your groom enjoy the most, then what your guest will likely enjoy. As an option ask the baker if they can do different flavors for each tier.
5. This one is an important one: cleanse your palate as you taste cakes with milk or water. Do this in between each different cake tasting and that will ensure that you taste the proper flavors.
6. Take it slow and ask questions. Savor each bite and take note of flavors you liked. Ask the pastry chef about creating custom wedding cakes as well as any extra charges for certain types of cakes. Then inquire about all the details and ask to see their portfolio.

Aside from previous six steps mentioned above you should also know the cake language. Yes, there is a language. If you are currently sucked into cake making reality shows like I am you may not need this advice. If you don’t know what genoise, mouselline, or ganache is then don’t stop reading.  Here is a list of cake vocabulary to brush up on before you go into your tasting.

Fondant: An ultra smooth sugar icing that seamlessly drapes a cake. Its matte finish is an ideal canvas for appliques, royal-icing brocade work, or sugar flowers.

Buttercream: A buttery soft icing or filling that can be blended with anything from apricot puree to burnt caramel. Like fondant, it can be tinted to match your color scheme.

Genoise: A moist European sponge cake, less sweet than the American version. Usually flavored with syrup, this cake works best with a light filling and icing, such as whipped cream.

Ganache: A rich frosting or filling, created by the Swiss, that combines chocolate and heavy cream. Ganaches don’t usually hold up well in humid weather.

Mouselline: An icing or filling enriched with whipped cream for a light, smooth texture. You could have a mousseline buttercream, for instance, flavored with chocolate or fruit.

Marzipan: A paste made of ground almonds, used for edible cake decorations in such shapes as flowers or fruit. Some bakers use a thin layer of marzipan as a filling or to cover a cake.

Creme Anglaise: A smooth custard, sometimes placed under slices of cake. It can be flavored with Grand Marnier, chocolate, or pistachios, giving it a beautiful pale-green hue.

Are you craving cake yet? I am.  I will be sure to follow up with you all on what some of our final cake decisions are. I have step one down plus my cake language, now only five more steps to go till the cake of my dreams, oh wait I mean “our” dreams. I got to get use to that.

If you have not already read my bio, than you may not know that a few years ago I became a certified wedding planner. I always have been asked to help with friend and family parties.  Then it started to pick up through referral and finally I hunkered down and became certified. I realized this was my calling, and I just have to listen to it and follow wear my heart is. So it’s official I am a wedding and event planner!

I guess I was just born with an artistic eye, the ability to multi-task, and be very organized. It’s like second nature to me. I am thrilled that my company has taken off with flying colors. I feel incredibly thankful for all that has come my way, and each experience just strengthens me and prepares me even more for the next event. I absolutely have enjoyed all my clients this past year and look forward to what this industry has to offer me in the years to come. It is wedding season now, which means my life is full of meeting clients, vendors, and getting quite crafty with DIY projects.

I have a handful of bride clients who grew up in the Bay Area but live out of town and are coming back here to have their weddings. What a great idea, California is such a beautiful place to get married. However this means they are trying to plan an out of town wedding. Which is why I step in to be there second pair of hands and eyes as their local liaison to plan their Bay Area Wedding right.

As well as having these types of weddings another very popular client are those on a budget, and who isn’t these days? My company La Vita Bella Events now offers a Day-of-Wedding Planner Package, which is very budget friendly and enables the bride, groom, wedding party and family to truly enjoy the event and be the guests, not the helping hands. As well as help the wedding run smoothly and look beautiful.

Which leads me to say this; even if you are a DIY bride from start to finish on your actual wedding day you will want and need someone there to be the go-to gal. So that you the bride can actually enjoy your wedding day, as it should be, stress free. Even me, the Plus Size Bride to be and wedding planner will have my very own helping hands from Vera from Va De Vie Events as my personal Day-of-Wedding planner. I highly finding a planner that is right for you.

I love the idea of a wedding wishes jar rather than a guest sign in book. Often a guestbook just gets filled with signatures and leaves pages of empty paper to waste.  Instead of signatures and short messages like “congratulations!” doing a wish & advice jar is a great idea that will possibly give you a more intimate message from your guests. They will have a place to write down all that they want to say right down to some advice on a good marriage.

There are so many options of how you could do this and it’s easy to match with your decor. You can use different color papers, ribbon, pens, and pencils, or whatever you fancy.  You can use apothecary jars, vases, recycled jars, cookie jar, birdcage, or even a specially decorated box for guests to drop their wishes into.

It may be a twist on the traditional but it is guaranteed to leave you with lots of wonderful reading to look back on.  For after the wedding this can be a fun little project to relive all the little messages from your guests. What fun!

We finally had our engagement photo shoot. It was a much anticipated event; I really wanted to have more recent photographs of us as a couple.  So our time finally came and we set out to Stanford campus with our fantastic photographer Paula Kirkland.

I was a little worried about being a plus size couple and how our photographs would turn out. I assumed it would be hard to capture our loving moments as well as our best sides. After a handful of photos taken I forgot about all that and just started having fun with my fiancé.

I keep having to remind myself that I like the way I look and I am attracted to my fiancé as he is, so why was I putting so much pressure on getting the perfect pictures. The fact is we are not in perfect shape and our pictures will be the real us. The plus size couple in love.  So here is a celebration of our love and our beautiful engagement photo shoot.

My tip for all of you for your engagement photographs is to wear something comfortable as well something you feel beautiful in.  Then go out there shake off the nerves and just have fun together. That’s when the magic will happen.

Supplies needed

My first idea was to take ordinary small brown paper bags and transform them into cute little bags to use for the candy favor table. Where guests will be able to pick and choose from some of our favorite candies to eat through out the night or to take home. I tested a few ideas using scissors, a stamp, and pen then resorted to a Martha Stewart paper punch and Thank You stickers. I think the end result goes well with décor.

A few different trials

The one I liked

Second, I felt like I needed to test out the boutonnieres for the guys. I had so many ideas swarming around in my head. I know that flowers are something I am capable of doing since I worked in a floral shop years ago. However it has been awhile since I have made boutonnieres. I decided I wanted to do something a bit unusual in style as well as something that goes with our wedding colors. So I tested green orchids, with brown felt leafs. After cutting the leafs out of a felt sheet I hand wrapped the felt, orchid and a curling branch with floral tape and then wrapped that with a dark brown silk ribbon.

Floral supplies

Finished product. It looks very big in this picture but it's actually much smaller.

It actually looks jaw dropping in person. I could not capture the color or correct size of it with my camera. I am now thinking these same orchids will look great strung onto manzanita branches for possible table centerpieces?

I know my mom will be there by my side through the rest of the planning and help whenever needed. I hope she knows how much I appreciate her and all that she gave me, taught me, and loved me to this point in my life.

I can not wait to see her all dolled up in a beautiful dress and fancy hair and makeup smiling as she watches her youngest child get married. I’m sure it’s a little hard to let go of her baby but I know she is also so happy. So mom, this one’s for you.

Have a Happy Mothers Day!

Things were slowly coming together for my entire wedding day look, but now it’s all happening so fast. The dress is bought, the shoes, and now as of this weekend the jewelry. I am so excited for my big day to come. I am dying to put on my new jewelry with my dress. Dying!

18k white gold and crystal bracelet

A huge thank you to my wonderful fiancé who purchased the jewelry as a gift this weekend, while we were in San Francisco. Shopping for jewelry was certainly not what we had planned to do, but I fell in love with this jewelry as soon as I saw it.

Me wearing the necklace

The pieces I went for weren’t what I expected to be interested in.I thought I would be going for less traditional looking jewelry but I followed my heart in San Francisco and it followed me to some serious bling. “Frost yourself ladies” as Matthew Mcconaughey would say in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and that is most definitely what I did!

Trending in the bay area is the peacock feather themed weddings, everything from the actual feathers to using the colors inspired by the bird. As a wedding planner I am quite excited to see the interest in this feather because it is one of my favorite birds and it reminds me of a dearly loved painting we had in our house as a child. The usage of this feather and colors gives a fun, playful, yet very elegant feeling to a wedding.

The Peacock Feather

A few ideas to bring this theme into your wedding is through cake, attire, invitations, décor, even within your flowers. The feather has blues, greens, brown, silver, and gold shimmer, giving you a fantastic palette to work with within your event.

Bringing this theme to your cake can be as intricate as having fondant hand painted feathers added to the cake or as simple as adding the actual feather to your cake stand or cake.

Handpainted feathers

Actual feather cake topper

Many printing companies have peacock themed invitations or you can order a simple brown invite and add a individual peacock feather to each invite for a pop of color.

Peacock feather inserted into invites

You can use table linens and décor to match the feathers, which will bring rich brilliant colors to your wedding day.

Bringing peacock feathers to the table

We also love the idea of a DIY project where you can use feathers, ribbon, felt and a few gems to make a one of a kind Boutonniere.

DIY project must!

We think the peacock feather theme is a perfect idea for the spring, summer and fall wedding.