Sarah & Tommy's Wedding Featured on Beantown Bride!

I'm excited to share that Sarah & Tommy's Four Seasons Hotel Wedding was featured on Beantown Bride! Photos were taken by the lovely Kate from k. Photographie. Check out the Beantown Bride feature here, and if you're interested in a detailed recap that I posted of this wedding, you can read all about it here.

Photo from Beantown Bride
~Emilie

Hope for Tohoku - Benefit Concert & Reception

This weekend marks one year since the devastating tsunami in Japan, and I am honored to be part of another Japan Disaster Relief Fund Boston event taking place next Saturday, March 17, 2012. It is called "Hope for Tohoku" and is a Benefit Concert & Reception taking place at the New England Conservatory. Prior to an amazing concert at 8:00pm by the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, there will be a pre-concert reception at 6:00pm. This will include Japanese food from o ya restaurant, Snappy Sushi, Oga's Japanese Cuisine, Osushi, Beacon Hill Hotel & Bistro, and Bluefin Middleton. There will also be a photo exhibition of Tsunami Sakura (Cherry Blossom) series of Ofunato, Iwate by James Delano, performances from Japanese musicians, as well as two students from Tohoku telling their personal stories from the day of the tsunami.

More information can be found here, and tickets can be purchased here: http://hopefortohoku.eventbrite.com/

After just being in Japan last week, I am still amazed at how kind the people of Japan are. To know that they have suffered through such a tremendous disaster is heartbreaking. Please consider joining me at the event to support this cause. Thanks so much!

~Emilie

Vacation Post! Japan from February 24 - March 5

It's time to squeeze in one more vacation before a busy wedding season begins, so I'll be heading to Japan from February 24th to March 5th! I'll have limited email access, and will respond back to any inquiries by March 6th. I'm so excited to eat a lot of amazing food, go shopping, and check out stationery stores there that are literally 11 floors of paper goodness! Ito-Ya, Tokyu Hands, and Loft are three of my must-visit stationery destinations.

Photos from Ito-Ya
~Emilie

A simple and cute Valentine's Day card

Happy Valentine's Day! For many couples, today is a day of kisses, cards, flowers, chocolate, teddy bears, and love notes. I thought it would be fun to spend a few minutes creating a cute and simple Valentine's Day card. I love the idea of hearts in another color besides a typical pink or red. This card can easily be personalized by creating multiple heart balloons and adding in the name of your "valentine" on the balloons, or simply just adding your name underneath, like the example below with "POW" for Pink Orchid Weddings!


~Emilie

Elizabeth and Michael's Wellesley College Club Wedding

On Sunday, October 9th, I had the honor of coordinating Elizabeth and Michael's wedding at Wellesley College. Both the ceremony and reception were on campus, and it was a sunny and unseasonably warm day. Elizabeth and her father arrived to ceremony at Houghton Memorial Chapel in the most amazing vintage car, and Michael saw his bride for the first time on the wedding day as she walked down the aisle. The bride wore a stunning mantilla veil and carried a bouquet of eggplant callas with purple heather and rosemary foliage created by Jennifer of The Tangled Web, who provided all florals for the wedding day.

The ceremony was attended by 130 guests, and included classical music performed by the Copley Chamber Players. After the ceremony, the newlyweds got into their vintage getaway car, and here is one of my favorite shots of the couple from their photographer, Meredith Perdue.

Photo by Meredith Perdue
The cocktail reception was held at Wellesley College Club, where guests enjoyed a beautiful view from the tented patio and lawn. The tent was decorated with white lanterns, and both were provided by Come Rain or Shine. In addition to a full open bar, there were stands for self-serve lemonade, apple cider, and glass bottles of Coca Cola. Hors d'oeuvres included mini crab cakes, tomato bruschetta on crostini, grilled petite lamb chops, smoked salmon, and potato blinis. At the end of the cocktail reception, guests participated in the Russian Bridal Dance, which was very fun to watch. It involved lots of singing, vodka shots, and guests paying a small fee to dance with the bride!

For the reception in the dining room, tables were covered with silver bengaline linens from BBJ Linen and topped with floral centerpieces of purple antique hydrangea, heather, rosemary, thistle, and silver dollar eucalyptus. Table numbers were made from antique saucers, and silver Chiavari ballroom chairs surrounded each table. At the place settings, silver bengaline napkins were topped with rosemary and heather sprigs, and each guest received homemade pastry favors in a box tied with purple satin ribbon. The four course dinner included an organic baby greens salad, butternut squash soup, entrée choices of roasted atlantic salmon, wild rice stuffed game hen, grilled filet mignon, or vegetarian provencal Napoleon with bow tie pasta, and wedding cake. The three tier vanilla cake with raspberry filling or lemon filling from Dessert Works was gorgeous and covered with white rolled chocolate flowers.

Peter Hallisey from Sound Choice Events was the DJ for the evening, and guests danced under the tent & lanterns after dinner. As a late night dessert, there was a cookie bar set up that included cookies baked by many of the relatives (family tradition!). More photos from Meredith will be coming later, but for now, here are some photos that I took on the wedding day!

Elizabeth and Michael, thanks so much for allowing me to be part of your big day! Also, to Lovie (mother of the bride), I know we worked very closely together and it was so wonderful getting to know you and your family.

~Emilie

Custom Chinese Wedding Menus & Gummy Favors

Last month, I created wedding favors and custom menus for Yvonne and Ben's intimate 20 person wedding reception. They wanted the favors to be something tasty and thought that they would share their favorite candy. Peach rings are the bride's favorite candy, and gummy frogs are the groom's favorite candy. They asked that I personalize each favor so the ladies at the reception received peach rings, and all of the guys received gummy frogs. Each guest got either 46 peach rings or 49 gummy frogs in a gold favor box, tied with a double faced red satin ribbon bow and a tag personalized with their first name.

In addition to the favors, I created menu cards for each guest that included the dishes in English and Chinese, as well as a description of the significance of some of the courses in the traditional Chinese banquet.

There were 15 dishes in total, and they included the following:
Stuffed Mushrooms & Bamboo Tofu Crepes
Crispy Fish with Scallions
Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs
Five Spiced Beef
Seafood Soup
Sichuan Chicken
Sauteed Lobster
Crispy Fish with Pine Nuts
Seared Filet Mignon
Tea-Smoked Duck
Braised Pork with Chestnuts
Salt and Pepper Scallops
Sauteed Okra
Sweet Sesame Dumplings
Fruit Platter

This menu definitely sounds delicious! The menus were printed on a pearlescent white metallic cardstock, with a crimson red metallic cardstock backing. I added the bride & groom's name on the top, along with their wedding reception date and a small red blossom branch.

If you're interested in boxed favors or custom menus, contact me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com for more information.

~Emilie

2012 Bride's Choice Awards Winner

We are excited to announce that for the third year in a row, Pink Orchid Weddings has been selected to receive the annual WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012! This means that we are among the top five percent of all wedding coordinators in the WeddingWire vendor community across the US and Canada. This award is solely based on reviews, so thank you to all of our 2011 newlyweds for nominating us!

~Emilie & Fiona