Sweet 16

As promised in one of my previous posts, I was going to tell you about my daughter's Sweet 16 party I had for her. I'm finally getting around to posting about it.

My daughter is thinking of becoming a fashion designer or wants to work in some type of fashion industry. So, I planned a simple, yet elegant "Design Your Own Style Fashion Luncheon." We asked the guests to create their own fashion style to wear to the party. We said it could be very formal, dressy casual, shabby chic - whatever they wanted - there would be a prize for the most creative, fashionable style. The girls really did a great job of dressing up in their own styles. My daughter chose a Simply Vera by Vera Wang dress for her own "fashion style."

I had a signature drink called a "Fizzy Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri" served in champagne flutes that I purchased at a thrift store for $0.50 each! As each guest arrived, I took a picture of her with my daughter, they lit a tea light in a votive holder and with their signature drink in hand were directed to our family room to place the votive tea light on the mantel and then sign the guest book.

For the guest book, I had pre-drawn an outline for a 4 x 6 photo, alternating vertical and horizontal, on each page. On that page, the guest would write a note and later their photo with my daughter would be placed on that page. (Haven't gotten around to doing that yet.) Surrounding the guest book, I had printed out various photos of my daughter at different ages to display. Also as the guests arrived, I had my son and his friend be the "waiters" and they passed Hors d'Oeuvres of carrots and celery sticks in individual cups of Ranch dressing and mini-crab cakes.

We played an "ice-breaker" game and then we opened the buffet. (My husband was the "caterer".) The buffet included steamed shrimp with cocktail sauce, mini-quiche, popcorn chicken, deviled eggs, ham & cream cheese ball served with a variety of crackers and bite-size pieces of watermelon. What do you think those girls ate the most? The popcorn chicken. They couldn't get enough of those babies.

After about 45 minutes, we played a trivia game. We had made up questions about our daughter to see how well her friends knew her - and do you know that her best friend did not win? Oh, well. When the game was finished, it was time for the gift opening. Later, we went out on the deck to take some group photos.

By then it was time for dessert. My daughter LOVES ice cream! So, of course, we set up an ice cream sundae bar along with my mini-chocolate fountain. The dessert was definitely a big hit. With the ice cream bar, we served brownies, mini-chocolate chips, mini-M&M's, sprinkles and whipped cream. For the chocolate fountain, we served marshmallows, strawberries and pretzels.

My daughter's color scheme was yellow and pink. I purchased yellow and pink paper lanterns to hang in the family room. As part of the decorations, I had taken a picture of my daughter and used it to make a mock-up cover of a fashion magazine. She really loved it. For favors, we used yellow take-out boxes, lined them with pink tissue paper and filled them with mini packs of M&M's, pack of gum, personalized lip balm from my Kate Aspen shop, and an anklet that my daughter made for each guest. We put the anklet in a cellophane bag with a label that said, "Made Especially for You."

All in all, I think it was a great success and a lot of fun.

DIY

With the rising cost of gas, food and just about everything else, more and more couples are choosing to do things themselves. I love doing things myself, as long as I can do it where it will still look professional. Well, with the way technology is today, DIY projects are becoming much easier, cost effective, and can look very professional. Martha Stewart is known for doing things herself, but now she is providing beautiful templates that you can download for free to design your own menu cards, programs, place cards, etc. as shown in the pictures above. So, so easy. So what are you waiting for? Go to marthastewart.com/weddings-summer-2008 to see these templates and more.

Martha has also made it easy for you to plan your wedding by now offering free planning tools on her Web site for your budget, timeline, seating chart, vendor search, etc.

Happy creating! I’m going to play around with some of those templates and see what I can create.

Plant Green

In our ever-present “Go Green” mentality these days, you can get “go green” more with providing seedlings as favors and get more bang for your buck by having them do double-duty as centerpieces when they are grouped together as shown above. This idea is from the latest issue of Martha Stewart Weddings magazine summer 2008 issue.

I'm back

I know, I know. It has been a long time since I have blogged. A family situation set me back and over the past several weeks, have been busy de-cluttering, throwing out, giving away and storing stuff as we are making our house ready to sell. We are not moving out of the area, but just to a different neighborhood that will provide us a little more land.

Soooooo, I am also getting ready to go on vacation to the beach (Outer Banks) and as soon as I return, I'll be heading back working on my two upcoming weddings in September and November.

My daughter had her 16th birthday party over the summer and I will blog about that later.

It has been a very busy summer and is going by very fast. Hope yours has gone well and your wedding plans are going smoothly.

Be back soon.

Helpful Hints for Saving Money on Your Wedding Day

My husband, a CPA, printed out an article for me he recently saw on The Vanguard Group’s Web site relating to saving money on your wedding day. So, I thought I would share some of their ideas with some additional comments by me in italics.

Some questions to ask:

Have you set up a budget for your wedding?
How will you pay for it?
Will you be going into debt to finance your big day? If so, how long will it take to pay if off? (It’s really not a good idea to start off your new life together with new debt.)

Here are some simple suggestions for paring down some of your expenses:

1. Trim your guest list. Your reception will usually be about 50% of your budget, so by trimming your guest list, you will save money. For example, if your wedding costs $125 per person, cutting just eight guests will save you $1,000.
2. Don’t do engraved invitations – do thermography. This method still has the raised lettering, but just doesn’t have the copper-plate engraving which is very expensive.
3. Think about getting married on a Friday evening or a Sunday. Many venues will give significant discounts on these days and you can still have your sit-down dinner for a much less cost.
4. Consider having your ceremony and reception held at the same place. You’ll only need to decorate one place and you’ll save on transportation, too.
5. Wine and beer only. Save a lot of money by having a wine and beer bar only.
6. Nix the extra dessert. Wedding cake will be plenty to serve the guests.
7. Want an extravagant, multitiered wedding cake? Have your baker do a “fake” cake with Styrofoam decorated with icing and serve guests sheet cake made from the wedding cake recipe you choose. No one will be the wiser. If you want to do the traditional cake cutting ceremony, then have your baker do one tier with real cake and the rest with Styrofoam. Or, if you don’t particularly like the idea of a “fake” cake, (I know I don’t) you can still save money by having your baker create a smaller version of your wedding cake to serve less guests and have additional sheet cakes that will be cut up in the kitchen and served to guests.
8. Eliminate favors. Most get thrown out, unless their edible. If you have 125 guests at $3 per favor, you will save $375.
9. Seasonal flowers. Always try to choose flowers that are in season during the time of your wedding. They are less costly than forced blooms.

By sticking to a budget and using some of the above cost-saving tips, you can still have an elegant wedding, but not go in debt.

Bling, Bling!

Just received my copy of Martha Stewart Weddings magazine spring issue. The picture on the cover is shown above showing several different styles and cuts of diamond rings. Wow! Gone are the days of the single round, solitaire diamond engagement ring. There are such a variety of styles to choose from these days. Makes me want to get engaged all over again. Or maybe, I'll just hint to my husband to upgrade my ring for our 15th or 25th Anniversary. Don't get me wrong. I love my engagement ring. It's a sapphire surrounded with diamonds - modeled after Princess Diana's, but on a much smaller scale, of course.

I just love diamonds and wouldn't mind wearing one of these beauties once in awhile.

Makeup For Your Big Day

Make your wedding day picture-perfect. How? By preparing your skin one to two months in advance of your wedding day. "How do I do that?" you ask? If you are a DIY bride, then all you need to do is use the right products, and you will have that “storybook look” that will last until the last dance.

The skin care and makeup I recommend is Mary Kay. I use it and love their products. Visit my beauty consultant’s site at www.marykay.com/leahfontana to see the latest in skin care and makeup products. On the home page, go down to “What’s New” and click on “Bridal.” If you want to have a little fun, too, be you own makeup artist by taking their Virtual Makeover.

Happy shopping.