From Geek Twins

Zombies - From Bad-Ass Weddings

Are you planning a Halloween wedding?  Please send us your photos! – info@bayareabrideguide.com

Check out these wonderful photos taken by Paula Kirkland from a gorgeous wedding held at the San Francisco Film Centre.

I was in Malibu last weekend for a destination wedding and just had to share these photos!  Chris and Dana’s wedding in Malibu was gorgeous and fit their personalities perfectly. They are both from the Bay Area, but wanted to have a fun wedding near the beach where there would be a lot of  sun.

Dana and Chris got engaged at Disneyland in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, so everything tied back to Disnelyland.  Prince Charming was the ring bearer, with Tinkerbell and Ariel as flower girls.  The cake (designed by the bride) helps tell their engagement story and was extra special because it was so personal.  The best part…the red velvet cake tasted awesome!! I just wish I had gotten the name of the bakery!

The Disney theme carried on to the tables, which were all named after rides at Disneyland and California Adventure.  To liven things up, each table was asked a series of questions, and if you got your question right you were allowed to go to the buffet, but if you answered incorrectly, you had to wait.  My table was the Enchanted Tiki Room.  I am happy to say I answered our first (and only) question correctly.

A lot of work went into the table decorations.  To help cut costs, the bride and groom chose not to put flowers on each of the tables.  Instead, they ordered large martini glasses off the internet, and filled each one with stones, water, and floating candles.  The floating candles looked great, and it was really nice having a small centerpiece on the tablesmaking it easy to talk to everyone at the table.

Vendors

Venue: Malibu West Beach Club – http://www.malibuwestbeachclub.com/

Hair and Makeup: Rachel Browning – rachelbrowning20@yahoo.com

Photographer: Susan Wood – http://susanwoodphotography.com/portfolio/  

susan@susanwoodphotography.com

Last weekend, after months of planning, we finally had the bridal shower!  It was fantastic and everyone loved the food and had a great time.  After all of the planning that went into this, I realized that even thought I thought I could do it all myself and save money, it is important to know your limits and know when to ask for help.  The shower would have been impossible to throw without the help of my sister and my mom, and all of the other bridesmaids.  As you get ready to plan your shower, you should keep these tips in mind…

Similar to planning the wedding, you should start with a list of everything you need to take care of and give each item a budget.  To start, keep it simple by listing out the major things you need done for the shower.  Here is how I had it broken down: invitations, decorations (includes all plates, utensils, etc.), food and beverages, favors, and games. From there, add in the projected budget for each area as a way to keep you in check so you do not get carried away with any one thing and spend more than you can afford. If you are lucky like me and you have a lot of helpers, then it should be pretty easy to divide up the responsibilities.

To make decorating easier, you should pick a theme and color palette.  We stuck with the beach theme of the wedding, but feel free to use any theme or colors you choose, you do not have to use the wedding colors.  One of the other bridesmaids found some great vases and filled them with sand and starfish, which looked fabulous on the tables.  Instead of typical placemats, we used 12×12 scrapbook paper.  It was easy to make all of them coordinate and there are so many more paper choices than you get with fabric.

I thought the food was going to be the toughest part, but it turned out to be pretty straightforward and we got so many compliments!  Here is our menu (along with some of our secrets!)

Appetizers

• Pita chips and hummus
• Cheese and Crackers
• Veggie Platter

Entrees

• Quiche (frozen quiche from Costco, super tasty, but also low in cost!)
• Orzo salad (homemade)
• Barbeque Chicken Chopped Salad (from California Pizza Kitchen)
• Asian Chicken Salad (from BJ’s)
• Fruit salad

Dessert

• Red velvet cupcakes (Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix, but with homemade cream cheese frosting piped on)

I do not know how all of you feel about bridal shower games, but my friend hates them.  She was pretty adamant about not wanting to have games, but we ignored her wishes.  We played my favorite shower game: gift BINGO.  Blank BINGO cards were passed out to all of the guests, who then filled in the squares with gift predictions.  As the bride opened her presents, people crossed off items until they had five in a row.  We ended up with 4 people winning the BINGO game and it made the present opening a lot more interesting!

Good luck with all of your shower planning!

by Vera Devera

Swoon! My former colleague, Bethany, is getting hitched and she and her fiance are working with one of my favorite photographers, Jerry Yoon, for their wedding. Both Jerry and Bethany were kind enough to let me share their engagement shoot with you all. Congrats, Bethany and Bryan!

Secondly, I just love my photographer so much that I have to share them. (once like a spark) photography is named after a line in an ee cummings poem, who happens to be my favorite. It’s a collective of a couple of the freshest, most original wedding photographers on the West Coast, Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta. Everything is online, from payment to profile to print ordering. Our engagement session was amazing, and our photographer Michael was very generous with his time and talent. He was open to suggestions from us and also had some great ideas himself.  Check out their website at http://www.oncelikeaspark.com.

Thirdly, I found a pretty awesome etsy decoration that is cheap, festive, and original. On the etsy.com site, search for “party poms”. They are these amazing paper pom poms that you can order in any color – just tell the artist your colors. They come out to about $4 per pom, are made from recycled paper, and can be recycled (rehearsal dinner – wedding – farewell brunch, anyone?)