The San Diego Wedding - April 16th 2011

Where have I been the past couple of weeks? Well, one week I was away for my wedding and this past week I am coming down from the high and easing back into work.  We have another party coming at the end of May for all of our East Coast family and friends and I can't wait for that! So yeah, I will me MIA for another two weeks at the end of May for the Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild Conference and then the second reception in Connecticut. It is all about me me me right now and I appreciate all of the support and patience I have gotten from family, friends and clients. I swear I will get my act together once all of the wedding bliss has passed - for now please enjoy some pics!

The photographer we hired won't have pics ready for a couple of weeks and we had several cameras going so we are trying to get all of the pictures organized but my Sister-in-Law, Jayci, grabbed Shaun and I for a few pics (she took some gorgeous photographs!) and I did my best to document the DIY food before it got consumed.

photos by my new sis - Jayci Lau of Sweet Petite

 We rented a big house in Carlsbad California with a fabulous backyard and enough bedrooms to house our immediate families while they were in town. We went the budget DIY route and were lucky and blessed to have so many hard workers in the house helping to coordinate tasks and get things done! We got to the house Thursday and had family arriving all day Friday and some even coming in Saturday afternoon after the ceremony! We had family from Hawaii, Texas, San Fran and Connecticut flying out to be with us. We went a little unconventional and had a small ceremony Saturday with a family dinner afterwards and then a reception of about 35 friends and family Sunday. It seemed too short - I barely had a chance to spend time with people!

 Me and Dad (also known as Franky P) with Birds of Paradise - his new favorite flower. He spent a lot of time going around the yard inspecting all of the Bird of Paradise flowers like a giddy little kid. Being from New England and not traveling very much, he had never seen them before and called me over a few times to look at some that he found particularly interesting. He is so cute! Here are a couple of his favorites:

 This patio was towards the back of the yard and was the perfect place to hold the ceremony.

Shaun's Grandparents brought Kalua Pig and Lau Lau all the way from Hawai'i and Shaun's Aunties brought some veggies from China Town in San Fran. The evening of the ceremony we has a simple dinner with Kalua Pig, Lau Lau, Chinese Broccoli and Spinach with Oyster Sauce and plenty of rice and Poi! The Aunties surprised up with a cake so we did the feed each other the cake thing! It was fun!

The day of the reception was crazy with family and friends running around, going to the store for last minute items, hanging decorations and making food. The menu turned out to be quite extensive with Kalua Pig sliders, handmade local Tamales and Lumpia, a variety of Cheeses, Charcuterie and Olives,  Caprese and Baby Green Salads, Homemade Cupcakes, Chocolate Covered Strawberries, French Macarons and Hawai'ian Coffee.

Look for this Red Velvet Cupcake recipe on the Soap Queen blog in the next month or so. It is Gluten, Dairy, Egg and Soy free and the cupcakes were flying off the stand at the Reception!

To decorate I printed out Butterflies from a Dover Clip Art Book onto cardstock, cut them out and taped them to toothpicks. A simple but pretty topper!

 

I made my Own Wedding bouquet and favors. The favors were soap of course! I made a simple tag with an eyelet and tied it with baking twine. The Matchbooks are filled with a honeybee wildflower mix with many plants native to California. I got the project from Martha Stewart Weddings and modified the template to include the seed mix and planting instructions for Connecticut, Hawai'i and San Diego.

I took the bouquet around the yard looking for accents. There was this fabulous patch of lavender and I just had to include some of my favorite plant into the bouquet.

This soap is my Hubby's favorite! It is unscented made with shea butter, jojoba oil and a bunch of other awesome stuff! I added some ground oatmeal and french yellow clay.

Custom Ring Bowl from Paloma's Nest

Another fun project - I made these vases by covering wine bottles with Chalkboard Spray Paint. My Nephew had fun decorating them and my Dad made little arrangements with leftover Bouquet flowers.

There are still a lot of pictures floating around out there so I will add to this post as I collect them and look out for the Connecticut Reception post sometime in June.