A Wedding at the Taj Hotel and China Pearl!

On Saturday, June 5th, Fiona and I were the coordinators for Bernice and Art's multi-cultural wedding. Bridesmaids wore light spring dresses from Anthropologie with lavender accents, and the bride had a total of four dresses: a Thai dress for a Buddhist ceremony at their rehearsal dinner the night before, a traditional Chinese qipao for the tea ceremony, a wedding dress from Kleinfeld's for the church ceremony, and a Melissa Sweet dress from Priscilla of Boston for the reception.

The day started out with a traditional tea ceremony at the bride's family home, followed by a wedding ceremony for 200 guests at the Arlington Street Church in Boston. The church bells were rung as guests entered, and after they were married. Bernice and Art exchanged vows by Walt Whitman, and after the touching ceremony, guests enjoyed a cocktail reception with gorgeous views of Boston in the Rooftop Ballroom at the Taj Hotel.

After cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, guests made their way over to China Pearl Restaurant for a 10 course wedding banquet. A damask print covered the escort cards along with the specialty raspberry linens from Rentals Unlimited. Purple teapots filled with loose jasmine tea from the bride and groom, acted as centerpieces, along with lush peonies. The tables were a mixture of numbers (in Chinese, Thai, and Roman numerals), and some names of places at Dartmouth College, where they are both alums. The embossed menus highlighted the symbolic meaning of some of the dishes, and were placed on raspberry bengaline napkins.

Instead of a traditional guestbook, there was a beautiful scroll that included some of their vows from Walt Whitman, where guests could sign their name in a designated box. The scroll read:

"I promise to love you without reservation, honor and respect you, comfort you in times of distress, encourage you to achieve all of your goals, and always be open and honest with you. I pledge to be your faithful partner in joy and in sorrow, in beauty and in plainness, in sickness and in health, because for me, there is no other way. I give you my love, more precious than money. I give you myself before preaching or law. I will stick by you as long as we live."

"Entreat me not to leave you, and to turn back from following you. Wherever you will go, there I will go. Wherever you stay, there I will stay." ~Ruth 1:16

In addition to this scroll, there were little notecards where guests could write a little wish to the bride and groom. At the end of the night, little packets of jasmine tea were displayed as favors for guest to take home, and they included cute quotes like "If you are excited, tea will calm you" and "If you are hot, tea will cool you".

Uplighting in shades of purple by Boston Uplights really transformed the room, and DJ Brian Delac from Murray Hill Talent kept everyone on the dance floor all night. Martin Haseman of Martin Haseman Photography, along with his two assistants, captured the entire day and were such a pleasure to work with. Professional photos will be coming later on, but for now, here some photos that we took of some details!

Bernice and Art, both of your families were so warm and inviting to us, and it was such an honor to be part of your wedding day!

~Emilie

Ally and Randall's Engagement Photos

What do you get when you have a couple in love, a fabulous photographer, and huge bright yellow balloons? That's easy: incredible engagement photos! I'm coordinating Ally and Randall's wedding at the end of this month, and wanted to share some of their engagement photos with all of you. Erica Ferrone of Erica Ferrone Photography took these gorgeous shots, and will be capturing their wedding day as well. Doesn't it look like they're in some sort of fantasy forest?

To see more of Ally and Randall's engagement session, visit Erica's blog!

~Emilie

A Wellesley College Club Lakeside Wedding

Over Memorial Day weekend, I had the pleasure of being Helki and Jesse's wedding coordinator. The entire wedding was held at the Wellesley College Club, and the bridal party got ready there as well. Gina and Maria of Pure Hair Design created modern updos and also did the makeup for the bridal party. The bridesmaids all wore varying styles of J.Crew turquoise dresses, and the bride wore a stunning Sassi Holford gown.

The wedding with 150 guests consisted of a Ketubah ceremony in the Library, a lakeside ceremony under a family constructed Chuppah, a cocktail hour under a tented patio, a fabulous three course dinner inside the College Club, and then dancing afterwards under the tented patio.

Their ceremony program was filled with some beautiful quotes:

"I am my beloved's an my beloved is mine." by Song of Songs

"You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip." by Jonathan Carroll

One thing that I love about Jewish ceremonies is that the bride and groom get to spend some private time together immediately after the ceremony, also known as "Yihud". Helki and Jesse went off to a romantic stone bridge area, with a plate of cheese and fruit, as well as two of their signature cocktails, a kir royal and vodka gimlet, for 15 minutes while their guests joined cocktail hour.

For the reception, peonies filled the tables, along with little candy dishes of M&M's in their wedding colors, and a variety of chocolates from Harbor Sweets. Guests were able to take home a jar of wildberry jam as their favor, and enjoyed almond flavored cake from Cakes to Remember as dessert.

Open dancing on the tented patio was kicked off with the Hora Dance, with incredible live music from the Boston Common Band. There was a photobooth area in the corner of the dance floor, luminaries located around the tent, and baskets of flip flops for dancing. Later on in the night, cookies from Mike's Pastry were brought out along with glasses of milk.

This wedding was a lot of fun, and was photographed by Kyra and Gaurav Khanna of Khanna Photography, who are based out of Washington D.C. I will be posting professional photos later on, but for now, here are a few that I took of the wedding day!

Helki and Jesse, you two make a beautiful couple, and thank you so much for allowing me to be part of your wedding day!!

~Emilie

Remy's Candyland Birthday Invitations

Ever since I created the carnival birthday invitation last year, I've gotten a lot of requests for similar types of invitations in different colors, or with different wording, like a county fair, instead of a carnival. Melissa contacted me in March to design the invitations for her daughter's first birthday, but wanted to incorporate a Candyland theme into the existing carnival invitation.

I loved the idea, and incorporated things that she was planning to have at the party, like cotton candy, penant flags, pinwheels, huge lollipops, a candy buffet, and a cupcake piñata! I also included a colorful walkway similar to the Candyland board game. The invitations were made of a pearlescent metallic white cardstock, with a light pink metallic cardstock backing, and fuchsia metallic envelopes. The cotton candy, the candy buffet, and the little flower on the cupcake were all hand-glittered to give the invitations some extra texture and sparkle.

I love how colorful the invitation is, and the shades of pink make it very girly =)

~Emilie

Mimi and Matt's Escort Charts

Escort charts are a great way to let your guests know where they are sitting for dinner at your wedding reception. If you have place cards to assign seats at each table, escort charts make more sense over escort cards, so guests do not have two sets of cards with their names on them.

For Mimi and Matt's escort charts, I used the same lovebird design from their invitations to tie them all together. There were four charts in total, and they were divided into A-G, G-M, M-S, and S-Z so guests could easily find their names. The charts were made of pearlescent white metallic cardstock, with a silver metallic cardstock backing. I also created little triangle stands out of cardstock, and attached them to the back of each chart so they could stand up on their own without a frame.

If you need escort charts for your upcoming event or wedding, email me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com!

~Emilie

Chrissy and Pete's Engagement Photos

Next month, I'll be coordinating Chrissy and Pete's wedding at Habitat in Belmont, Massachusetts. To give you a little peek of the fun and outdoorsy couple, I thought that it would be great to share some of their gorgeous engagement photos taken by Punam Bean of Punam Bean Photography.

Beautiful, right? To view more from this engagement session and other samples of Punam's incredible work, visit her blog!

~Emilie

Personalized Tin Tie Candy Buffet Bags

I recently blogged about Gary and Maartje's phalaenopsis orchid invitations for their wedding this summer in the Netherlands, and in addition to invitations, I created some other items for them like thank you cards, ceremony program covers, and candy buffet bags.

Candy buffets are very popular for weddings, either as an additional favor, or as the main favor for wedding guests. It's great because there's a variety of candy to choose from, and guests can pick and choose what they like the most. I created 180 candy buffet bags for Gary and Maartje with personalized labels that included their names, wedding date, and a phalaenopsis orchid stem that matched their invitation. The frosted tin tie bag holds 1/2 lb. of candy, and has a closure on the top to make it easy to securely seal the bag.

Seeing the open bag just makes me wants to fill it with lots of colorful candy! This type of bag works well for not only candy, but other popular buffet items like popcorn, cookies, and other desserts. If you are interested in these personalized candy buffet bags for your upcoming wedding or event, email me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com!

~Emilie