Helene's baby shower

Finally got the time to post a party that I had hosted last week! It's a baby shower for my labmate, Helene. I had lots of help from other girls in lab hosting the shower, especially Kristina, Stacy, and Ming.

Theme: afternoon tea
Few secrets that I'd like to share on how to plan a party on a budget-
1) shop smart (think Target, Ross, Goodwill)
2) have a theme
3) and of course not paying for catering is a plus too (all home-prepared food)!

The invitation: Printed on textured stock card ($6 for whole pack from Target), add color-matched ribbon, and voila! Kristina handcrafted the envelope from brown paper lunch bag.


The table-scape: already owned serving plates, plus additional tableware that we just bought for the party (the silver servers are $4-6 each, teacups $2, teapots $3-5 from local Goodwill store), tulip centerpiece, plain table cloth. We decided not to use anything disposable for the party, and they would cost about the same anyways.





For additional personal touch, Kristina calligraphed tag for each teacup and label for the food.








The menu:












1) Cupcakes:
- Robin's nest cupcakes. Inspired by Martha, but not quite the same! The robins are made from white chocolate-orange ganache rolled in blue sugar (a drop of blue food color on cup of sugar!), sit on a bed of toasted coconut.
- Chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate medallions.
- Lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting.






2) Assortment of scones. Tweak the dough and you can get multiple kind of scones! Recipe from KAF: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/
biscuits-and-scones





3) Tarts and quiches. Shhh... they are made with store-bought crust! Just mold into mini tart pans. I filled them with chocolate ganache (also for the chocolate cupcake frosting) or white chocolate-orange ganache (also for the robins). Also pecan tarts made by Ming.








4) Assortment of sandwiches:
- Smoked salmon, cucumber, dill, and cream cheese on pumpernickel bread (beautiful color!).
- Pecan-crusted brie sandwich on cinnamon bread.
- Waldorf chicken salad on panettone.








5) Chocolate crinkle cookies (courtesy of Jessica), white chocolate truffles (yep same as those robins), cheese sticks, and coconut biscotti (courtesy of Stacy).








6) Endive boats. Bacon, sweet potato, cream fresche, and chives. Super easy to assemble and gorgeous looking too! Stacy made these.

7) Stuffed pumpkin (yum!) made by Negin.








8) And of course the teas! Courtesy of Negin. Coconut black tea was my favorite.

Post #2

Excited to say, we have made quite a bit of progress this week.  We have asked a few friends who are getting married soon if they would like some help.

• Marie has taken up OP's offer to help with her wedding day coordination on July 3rd. 
• Betty, who is very well-organized and mostly set with her planning, is open for OP and I to help out the day-of and learning a thing or two from.
• Betty may also have a friend who can use our help for her wedding at the end of August.

Congrats to all the brides!  We are looking forward to working with you all to help make your big day extra wonderful :)

Meanwhile, have been doing lots of research online especially through blogs (check out the blog roll on the side!)  There is so much inspiration!  From centerpieces, cakes, to proposals, out of the box save the dates...!!!  So many beautiful couples and beautiful pictures, and non-traditional/ creative weddings.

Post #1

OP and I have been considering starting our own wedding/ event planning business.  We have extensive travel experience; OP specializes in creative design and I'm good with details and more familiar to the business side of things.  Nonetheless, there are lots to consider and lots to do before we can hit the ground running.

A few critical things:

• Vendor Network - where would we go when we need something done?
• Clients - how are we going to reach them?
• Creditbility - how to build credibility, so that brides and grooms to-be would trust their big days in our hands?
• Hands-on experience - so far our experience are in general event planning; we need to fill the gaps for the special occasion.

Meanwhile, we need to put together our portfolio of events that we havd put together.  Especially, OP's bakery creations (from tiered cakes to cupcakes) and venue decorations.

Luckily, given OP's enthusiasm and grad student schedule, she has found a few ways for us to at least get started.

1. Friends who are getting married (soon)
2. Wedding singers whom she knew with reputations and connections for upcoming weddings
3. Blogging!  Documenting events as we go
4. wishuponawedding.org - this is a non-profit organization that just started Jan 2010.  It's like the make-a-wish foundation, but specialize in weddings.  Their Seattle chapter just launched in May.  If they would have us, non-profit would be a great way to get started and gain some experience

On the other hand, we continue to do our research online for resources available and looking out for wedding shows and expos, much like real brides do!