Wedding Recap - The Details

This is the last post before we go on our honeymoon in Thailand! I will be documenting my trip for sure, but my laptop is slow so I won't be blogging. Check my twitter and facebook pages for updates from my trip. See you all after the break!
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Here is the last of the wedding recaps. All the lovely details. If you would like me to recap anything else about my wedding, please email me your request at ngocxema@gmail.com. This is still a food blog after all and we're straying far from food and far from San Jose.  All photos by Rock the Image Photography unless specified.

Invites and signage

(personal photo) My friend designed the invites, map cards, and RSVP cards, 2 sets because I had split venues. Then I bought petal folds online and ribbon from Michael's and using adhesive spray glue, assembled the invites you see above. The flowers were also samples from my meeting with the florist.

My friend also designed this Please Use Me signs for the boxes which held the sun umbrellas. I got them printed at Staples and bought the box from Marshalls.

Our guestbook was inspired by coin envelope guestbooks I had seen on ruffledblog.com. I found out that coin envelopes cost more than I wanted so I folded 200 envelopes from origami paper my friend had left from a craft project. Using photo adhesive, I taped them into a scrapbook I already had at home and added pictures from my school winter formal photo booth. Then I cut out white squares from card stock for people to write notes on. The same friend who did the invites designed the guestbook sign, I printed it at Staples, got some happy face stickers at Walmart, and ta-da, very cheap guestbook.

Flowers

 My florist was great, she made me a toss bouquet from leftover flowers used in everything else for the wedding. But before I knew she would do this, I feared I wouldn't have a toss bouquet so I bought a bunch of one of my favorite tulips and tied them together with some orange ribbon. They ended up brightening the girl's hotel room as we did our hair and makeup. I'm glad RTI snapped this pic.

 Bridesmaid bouquets were made from coral roses. I originally wanted coral dresses and peony flowers but I couldn't find the perfect coral dress and peonies are pricey as F*ck! So my florist suggested that I go with all rose everything because they come in so many colors and are available year round. I like how everything turned out. The bouquets popped against the light dresses.

 In the middle is the toss bouquet which is made from leftovers of various flowers used throughout the day. See if you can spot how they're used later. There are also 2 bags of coral rose petals which were no doubt discarded from the bridesmaid bouquets. I admire that the florist didn't waste anything and gave me extras I didn't intend to have.

A bride and her maids.

 Groomsmen's matching coral rose boutonnieres.

The groom with his rose and ranunculous boutonniere.

If I had the budget, I'd have a bouquet full of dahlias, peonies, and ranunculous in peach. But at least I have ranunculous in my bouquet and it's a full round shape like I wanted. I still love it.

This thing was heavy!

Decor/Scenery

HMB Golf Links had rolled out astroturf on their greens to protect the lawn from heels. They set up 140 white chairs and we brought the altar pieces, silk pomanders, and sprinkled flower petals on the aisle.

 

You can see that one of the guests has the pink sun umbrellas I put out. It wasn't sunny so people mainly used it as photo props and took them home as favors.

Close up of the altar pieces. My original inspiration photo is very different from this but it was from an indoor venue. Budget and wind caused me to change to heavier, lower vases with a wider base. Also, I couldn't afford to fill it up with all calla lilies so in came some hydrangeas and orchids.

The golf course is lined with this spectacular beach view.

I'm a little bummed that our color scheme strayed farther from peach/coral than I liked but at least all together the separate elements meshed well. This is actually a coral overlay over white linen.

My original idea was bright orchids submerged in tall skinny vases but for budget reasons, here's what I worked out with the florist. We had 3 different types of centerpieces. This is a vase of hydrangeas and curly willows. Table numbers were also designed by my friend and had pictures on one side, and a city Phil and I had traveled to, a table number, and the city's significance on the other side. As you can see, I ate a chocolate covered cricket in San Luis Obispo.

Another type centerpiece was the tall cylindrical vase with submerged orchids and crystal strands. Next to it is third type of centerpiece. Fake white tree branches with crystals and orchids attached. This was the most budget friendly one because the trees were reusable and not as many fresh flowers were ordered for it.

Details

I bought Phil this $1.50 eye mask from Ross to use as a playful blindfold for our first look. It was a toss up between Diva or Princess.

The bridal party got to roll away on impeccably lined up golf carts to take our bridal party portraits. The HMB Golf Links staff was so awesome. They have weddings down to a tee (pun intended). These were lined up and ready after we finished our post-ceremony mingling and our bridal party made a grand exit in them. If the scenery suits your needs and you don't mind the chance of foggy weather in Half Moon Bay, I really recommend the staff here. We got great, attentive, professional service from beginning to end and lining up 5 golf carts for you is an example of this service.

The sun umbrellas in action.

(personal photo from a relative) The same friend who designed the invites also designed these cool bachelorette tees. We didn't have them in time for the bachelorette party but we rocked these at the rehearsal dinner. Tees were $7 from Banana Republic. I tried to have as few words as possible put on them so the girls can wear it again if they want. The fronts are blank.

My favorite detail of the whole wedding is this little red heart I sewed onto Phil's tie. Read about my inspiration here.

Wedding Recap: The Food

Underlying the color schemes, look and feel, and other wedding nonsense, Phil and I had a very clear goal to make sure people were well fed and nourished. Since we had split venues and the day was going to be long for everyone, we tried to have food and drink at every corner.
All photos are by Rock the Image unless otherwise stated.

During the morning ceremony, I requested pink lemonade from the golf course. Our colors were peach and coral so I hoped the pink lemonade would turn out lighter and match with the theme. Oh well, this looks really pretty anyway and at least people had a choice between water and lemonade.

I also ordered peach colored cake pops through a friend of a friend. I had 3 different flavors: red velvet, chocolate, and vanilla. We had a ton of these leftover. Not pictured is the box of miniature breakfast pastries. These were gone by the end of post-ceremony mingling.

Cocktail hour had a hosted bar and cheese and antipasto plates. The hotel really loaded these platters up. This makes the deal hunter in me happy but not so happy for the wasted food. :(

Here's the cheese platter with various cheeses. I didn't get to eat a single bite from these platters but the guests were surprisingly happy with these options. Apparently the cheeses were to die for and my coworkers couldn't stop raving about them. They look pretty darn tasty and if I were there, those raspberries and blueberries would be mine!

Picture by KB. Our starter was a salad of garden greens with a champagne vinaigrette.

Picture by me, from our tasting. Our chicken option was my favorite Italian style chicken dish of all time: chicken piccata. Read up on how much I love chicken piccata here. It was instantly my first choice for the chicken option at our wedding. At the Marriott, the piccata sauce is made with a cream sauce instead of lemon dill butter sauce. The substitute was still very good.

Picture by me from our tasting. Our vegetarian option was a vegetable wellington, a puff pastry with ratatouille style veggies inside. It looks very unappetizing and trust me, when this plate came out I was thinking, uh oh we are going to have to come back for a second tasting of a different veggie option. BUT, this is pretty darn fantastic, at least during the tasting when I had it. I almost switched my own entree option from steak to vegetarian after this tasting. I also heard a few compliments from vegetarian guests after the wedding too. Don't judge a book by its cover or a meal by its appearance. This is like a fluffy vegetarian pot pie.

The beef option was a filet mignon with wild rice pilaf. Excuse my blurry picture. We had a bunch of compliments on this steak after the wedding. Even I was amazed at how good the chef at the Marriott made a banquet order of filet mignon perfectly. I expected them all overcooked but he did a great job. AND filet is my favorite cut so yay for me!!!

For dessert, we had our wedding cake from Burlingame Cakery. Here are the pictures from our tasting. Cakery gave us really great service and allowed us a 2nd tasting for free because we loved the yellow cake with mango filling, and loved the hazelnut cake but not with strawberry filling. Our second time, we tried all 4 hazelnut cakes with different fillings. And the winning filling is....

MOCHA! Our wedding cake above has alternating layers of yellow cake with mango filling and hazelnut cake with mocha filling. Both were super good during the tasting and sadly I didn't get to eat the mango cake during the wedding. I was supposed to have the florist drop off flowers to the bakery but I had already maxed out my flower budget and thought I could just stop by the wholesale flower market the night before and pick up some flowers. This was not the smartest idea. 1) I don't have a florist business license and thus going to a wholesaler gave me no more of a discount than had I gone to a grocery store. 2) I couldn't make it to the flower market early so I had to pick from what was left and that's how you get 2 wilted flowers on your cake. I do commend the bakery for doing this design using the 2 bunches of wilted flowers I gave and a spool of ribbon. You can't really tell that I had a flower crisis the night before.

We did not save the top layer of our wedding cake to eat on our 1 year anniversary because we don't enjoy eating old cake. But we did discover that the hotel had kept our top layer in the refrigerator and we picked it up 9 days later. It tasted like hairspray. Literally, hairspray. So, if you're planning to save your cake, freeze it, don't refrigerate it.

Credits:

Pink Lemonade by Half Moon Bay Golf Links

Cake pops by Charla 

Breakfast patries by Burlingame Cakery

Cocktail hour food and entrees by Chef Vince at the San Mateo Marriott

Cake from Burlingame Cakery

Wedding Recap - Hair and Make up

  Before I start, I have to state that I love my wedding hair and makeup artist and would recommend her to any and everyone. I basically sent Van an email full of inspiration pictures. I told her I wasn't sure if I wanted my hair down or up. I was really leaning towards leaving it down because I felt having it up made me feel like a boy. I was all over the place with my inspiration pictures and I brought a bazillion accessories with the price tag still on in case they didn't work out. During our 3 hour trial, Van did 3 different looks on me. She even cleaned up my eyebrows.

 Look 1: Hair down with light makeup. I told her my wedding colors were peach and coral so she gave me a pinkish shadow. We tried this with both the barrettes and a head band and I really loved how it looked. I felt a little retro and classic.

 Look 2: Messy side bun with headband. We also tried barrettes. Many brides use this style and I think Van did a great job but I wasn't feeling this particular look on myself. The head band ties could be tucked in so that wasn't a problem but the symmetry lover in me wasn't digging being follically off balance. Note that she also gave me a darker lip color. I was definitely liking both colors.

 Look 3: A pulled back bun. Going into the trial, I was convinced that the one thing I wouldn't wear was this look. I thought it could turn out boyish or matronly on me. And then she showed me how I looked and my mind was changed for good. It was surprisingly a top pick. I felt elegant and formal. She also darkened my shadow so my eyes could pop. This look also ruled out the headband because I felt it was better without. So I came in wanting my hair down, with a headband, and using this jewelry combo. I walked away wanting my hair up, with barrettes, and eventually got different jewelry.

(All photos above are courtesy of Van Pham)

(Julie Parks Does Hair)
After thinking and browsing online, I sent Van this picture of what I really wanted a few weeks before the wedding and this is what she came up with:

 

  (All 4 professional images are by Rock the Image)

She did a great job, especially considering my hair was pretty short for this look. Van is very creative and efficient. She breezed through our trial and not once did she have to refer back to the inspiration images I sent. She just has a good memory I guess. She's also very flexible to any changes and tweaks I asked for. The best example is that my final look was basically something entirely different from our trial. It's almost as if I never did the trial. But she whipped up this fantastic up do on the morning of. Some people were convinced I had extensions in but no, that is all my own hair. It felt surprisingly light and only the bottom portion with the hair pins felt heavy at the end of the night, but by that time I was reaching the 24 hour mark of being awake so fatigue was a factor.
 Vanity Pham Bridal Makeup
Vanity Pham on Yelp

*UPDATE*
Van wrote some sweet things about me and our wedding day experience. Read her blog here. The internet is getting spammed with my wedding but I love all my vendors, I would be more than delighted to do as much publicity for them as possible.
http://vanitypham.com/ngocs-wedding-highlights/272

Bachelorette LA - Sushi Gen - Palm Tree Korean Bar

My last bachelorette recap left me in the arms of a handsome Fabio and a pretty pink pinata. Now onwards we march towards the food portion of the night. We went to the ever popular Sushi-Gen. In my haste, I forgot to document pricing or detailed descriptions, but you can devour these pictures for free!

Don't let the pretty pink bottle fool you, unfiltered sake is really nasty. From our sake tasting party last summer, we learned not to trust the packaging. But what we didn't learn was to recognize names so we don't order unfavorable sake again. Makes for a pretty picture though.

Ozeki Sake, filtered. A little smoother than the pink one.

Monkfish liver in ponzu sauce. I got hooked on monkfish liver after having it at Gochi and this one was also excellent. In fact, this dish made it to "My Favorite Foods" album on my facebook page. Very rich and creamy and usually paired with a more acidic sauce to cut through the richness.

Fried tempura platter with yams, zucchini, and shrimp. The usual. Very nice and crispy batter.

Here comes the delicious sashimi platter. I labeled whatever I could recognize and I'm sure hamachi is in there but as I'm not sure which one, I don't want to mislead you. It was ALL good though.

Spicy tuna, up close.

Spicy something else, up close. Next to raw squid which was quite unique and chewy.

After dinner, we headed to Palm Tree, a super cool Korean bar in Ktown for some drinks. This place is pretty awesome. There were go-go dancers walking around and there were karaoke, bar, club, and restaurant sides. One of the biggest and coolest Korean bars I've been to. Thanks Shawn for the recommendation.

The pineapple soju was not so tasty. Tasted like mold. That's right, I described it as mold.

These pretty blended tropical drinks were delicious though, especially my red one on the right.

Palm Tree LA, a pretty cool Ktown bar! Check it out!

Sushi Gen on Yelp

Palm Tree on Yelp