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A while back, I posted about our wedding favors and asked for suggestions on how to fill the containers that we had purchased ahead of time. We got so many suggestions and found a great solution to our problem. Costco has tons of chocolates/candies that are only available during the holiday. We decided to use their truffles from Around the World as our wedding favor, since they needed to be pre-packaged weeks before our wedding day. I didn’t want to be stressing and losing sleep over these favors days before the wedding, so we needed something that would stay well inside our containers without the need for refrigeration.
The truffles were individually wrapped and came in 6 assorted flavors. We filled each container with 6-7 truffles each and used a sage green satin ribbon that I purchased in downtown L.A. a while back during one of my wedding shopping sprees. We then bought artificial white flowers to put on each favor as an accent, along with our tag. We used the same monogram that one of our groomsmen designed for us (the same one that’s on our cake) on our tags.We recruited my cousins and my MOH’s bf to help in filling the favor containers while I baked some brownies as a thank you to our laborers
I wish I would’ve taken better pictures of my bridesmaids’ gifts, but it got busier and crazier the closer it got to our wedding, so I never had a chance to take a picture of all the bridal party’s gifts. Here’s what I did come up with:
- 1 large tote to hold of all the gifts (a friend of mine bought the totes while she was in Hawaii just recently)
- 1 black wristlet from New York & Company
- 1 pack of Target note cards with their respective initials
- 1 gift card (I gave my 2 married bridesmaids a Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant) gift card for them to have a date night with their hubby while the non-married bridemaids got a Visa gift card.)
- 1 pair of pearl earrings (to wear on the wedding day)
- 1 pashmina shawl (to use on the wedding day)
- 1 bottle of our favorite wine, Stella Rose (red) or Moscato Asti (white) from San Antonio Winery in Ontario , Ca. We discovered this wine late last year from a gathering we attended and just loved it.
My MOH recently gifted me a blurb book showcasing all of the pre-wedding events that we had, from our getting-to-know-the-wedding-party barbecue, my bachelorette/girlie gathering day, my work happy hour/bridal shower and the bridal shower.
I just love my blurb book and it makes for a great coffee table book to look at and remember how much fun we’ve had. It’s a standard hardcover book with a landscape layout, but it looks like they have tons of templates to choose from. Shipping took about a week and the cost is about the same as Shutterfly, maybe give or take a few dollars. Here are some pictures…
Recently, I blogged about the plot that our groomsmen had planned for Mr. Gardenia during his garter toss. It was definitely a memorable moment for all since it had everyone up their seats and just watching for that initial shocked look in Mr. Gardenia’s eyes. It’d be safe to say that Mr. Gardenia is the shy one – the introvert in our relationship - which is why he did not look forward to being the newlyweds, because it meant being the center of attention. With that said, his groomsmen knew that they had to do something hilarious just to get him comfortable during the garter toss.
Here’s the setup. I sat down after my bouquet toss and Mr. Gardenia got ready to search for the garter. Little did he know that one of our groomsmen came with one of the bridesmaid’s pashmina to use as a blind fold. Once Mr. Gardenia was blind folded, I switched seats with one of our other groomsmen (who apparently has smooth legs, maybe smoother than mine) and moved my gown closer to GM so that Mr. Gardenia wouldn’t get suspicious. I think Mr. Gardenia got up to mid-thigh when they finally told him to take off his blind fold, and as you can see from his reaction – it’s PRICELESS.
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10. Waking up to “Going to the Chapel” playing in the background.
9. Having all my bridesmaids and family around me before going to our ceremony just comforted me knowing that everyone was behind us during this union.
8. Seeing my dad in his tuxedo. This was a first for my dad - wearing a tux - so I felt so overwhelmed seeing him all spiffed up.
7. No Rain – Rain was forecasted during our wedding weekend. The rain started early in the morning and stopped just in time for our ceremony and reception.
6. Walking down the aisle. Though we had close to 200 guests watching us, all I could see was Mr. Gardenia waiting for me at the end of the aisle. He’s like that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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Since my long hiatus away, I’ve been catching up and was excited to read Miss Donut’s blog about her Martha Stewart inspired wedding cake. I immediately loved that cake and remembered tearing off that page in the Martha Stewart magazine when it first came out. I knew that it was something that was gonna work for us since our main color was sage green. During our cake tasting, I took the picture along with the monogram that one of our groomsmen designed for us to our baker, Rockwell’s Bakery in Orange. We were so excited to see the end result so as soon as we walked in to our ballroom, our eyes took us to the cake.
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After such a long and very much needed break from it all (Christmas holidays, wedding preparations, rehearsals, wedding, honeymoon, birthday and being sick and injured) - I am back and now a MRS!!!
I must apologize for the mini-break that I took from blogging but I must share that…
I am now officially MRS. GARDENIA!
Invitation styles played a gigantic role in the grand scheme of our wedding planning. We wanted our save the dates and invitations to be able to tell a story, or give our guests a hint of what to expect come January 2008. Since we had a rigid budget, we knew that DIY would be our solution to infusing our style into our stationery, and making them affordable at the same time. When I stumbled upon Mrs. Eggplant’s post about her wedding invitations, I finally had a direction and a vision!
Typical Filipino wedding invitations include an insert that lists your entire wedding party, so we knew that we needed to add that to our other inserts (response cards, reception cards, etc), and a pocket folder seemed to be our best bet. We started with sample pocket folders that we ordered from Cardandpockets.com and Paper Source, completed several mock up pieces, and finally decided on the Vertigo pocket folder from Cardsandpockets.
Since I’m still suffering from shower coma from this weekend, I thought I would continue blogging about my cake. My bridal shower cake was definitely the piece de resistance over all of the mini desserts we had last Sunday. I love LOVE the intricate detailing on the cake and the flavor was so heavenly. It was a 10 inch round marble cake with a double layer of chocolate bavarian and cappuccino mousse filling. Mmmmm. It’s THAT good!
My bridemaids and family threw me a wonderful bridal shower this past weekend. I’m still so excited from the leftover energy high, that I don’t know where to begin! I think I must start with the details, since there were so many wonderful details that they worked on.
The shower was at PJ’s Abbey, a quaint and charming family owned restaurant in Orange. The restaurant itself is an older Victorian Baptist Church that was built in 1891. It has so many details, like the stained glass windows that draw in just the right amount of sunlight. I discovered this place earlier this year when we threw one of my girlfriends a bridal shower here and liked the location. They have a private room that you can use for parties, so it’s nice to be in the restaurant but still have your own private space.
On with the detail shots:
Along with the marriage prep class we have this weekend, I also have my bridal shower coming up this weekend. I’m really excited for this shower since most of the plans have been shielded from me, so everything should be a surprise come Sunday afternoon.
I was so motivated by Miss Magnolia’s hostess gifts that I did something similar using cereal bowls from Target. I was really on the lookout for those damask bowls, but they ran out so I went with plain sangria colored cereal bowls that were on sale. I filled each bowl with 3 washcloths (white, light blue and blue) with snowflake designs, 4 silver ornament balls and Hershey’s hugs. I then wrapped the bowl in some leftover tulle that we had around the house (we have so much we can cover the entire house in tulle!), used a pretty wired green ribbon and finished it off with a teal blue-ish snowflake ornament as the gift tag to tie in with the washcloths inside.
This is them before getting wrapped in tulle.
One of the last few things that Mr. Gardenia and I waited to do was to enroll in our marriage prep class, a requirement to get married in the Catholic Church. We waited on getting this done because we weren’t too sure if wanted to do the weekend retreat or the 1-day class that’s typically done locally in your parish. Most of my friends preferred the engaged encounter/weekend retreat and recommended that Mr. Gardenia and I attend one if we had the choice. They found a lot of value in the weekend retreats because it gave them time as a couple to refocus on their priorities, get away from all the wedding hustle and bustle, and meet other engaged couples to share similar experiences with one another.
Mr. Gardenia and I signed up for a 1-day marriage prep class this weekend at a local parish. Unfortunately since we did wait until the last minute, we weren’t able to attend a class in the same church where our ceremony will be held. We decided to enroll in the 1-day class since we were in a rush to get this accomplished, and tight with our budget. The 1-day classes typically cost around $70-$100 whereas the weekend retreats cost $200-300 since it covers food and lodging for 2 days.
Since Mr. Gardenia and I got engaged, I’ve been interested in putting together a newsletter for our bridal party. I thought it would give our bridal party (including our bms, gms & sponsors) a peek into our wedding plans, since a lot of them have been asking us for a quick update from time to time. But then I thought that the guys might just think that it was a waste of time since I have to put the newsletter together, so I decided to just keep the newsletter for our bridesmaids with information mostly pertaining to them. Since my sister/MOH has a background in newsletters (she was an editor for PASA in college), I recruited her to do all the creative stuff.
She used Microsoft Publisher since she was familiar with it, and I wrote all the articles and got the pictures ready. I started introducing all of the bridesmaids and gave bit of information about the groomsmen - which led me to deciding to send the newsletters to all of our bridal party. The end result surpassed what I was imagining it to be. I’m so happy with how they turned out, and so was everyone that received them! (even our groomsmen) 
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Mrs. Gardenia, La Habra Age and Occupation: 30, IT Security Administration Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Accountant Engagement Date: February 6, 2006 Wedding Date: January 5, 2008 Venue: Black Gold Golf Club About Me: After 9 years of dating, I’m finally getting hitched and planning a multi-cultural wedding in Orange County, California. I think making brownies is my secret passion in life - I will make my mark in this world through them (a la Betty Crocker). Aside from baking, I also enjoy scrapbooking, being a dessert connoisseur (current fave: French macaroons), photography and I’m also a self confessed spa virgin turned addict.
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