Mini-moon anyone?

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As everyone knows, one of the best things about having a destination wedding is getting to have your wedding and honeymoon at the same time. Unfortunately, Mr. P'cakes and I won't be able to enjoy Costa Rica or the post-wedding glow the way we had hoped. As it is, my law school graduation takes place the Monday before the wedding (which I will be skipping) and I start bar review classes 3 days after the wedding. So, we've decided that we'll do our honeymoon after I take the Bar at the end of July. At that point we'll be able to take 2-3 weeks to travel to some exotic location like Bali, South Africa or the Maldives. ( a girl can dream.)

However, that doesn't mean we can't take a mini-moon! With all the stress of moving back to NYC , getting ready for the wedding, graduating from law school and getting married, we figure we'll need a few days of relaxation before we get back on another plane. It would be just 3 days/2 nights to reconnect as husband and wife, and enjoy the post-wedding glow.

I know a lot of ladies have honeymooned in Costa Rica so I thought I should share and get some feedback!

These are my top three choices:

1. Hanging in the Tree Haus at Rancho Pacifico

{Rancho Pacifico}
Perched on a platform 20 feet above the ground and amongst the treetops, the treehaus hideaways offer seclusion, tranquility and an up and close experience with our extensive and pristine tropical rainforest environment.
Why we love this place? A great place to unwind after the big weekend and prepare to dive back into life in NYC.
Price: $450/night


2.Glamping it up at Rafiki Safari Lodge

{Rafiki Safari Lodge}
Rafiki is a wilderness luxury tent camp and conservation project focusing on adventurous sustainable tourism. The spacious luxury tents were imported from South Africa. The lodge is nestled on 842 acres of pristine jungle along the Savegre River, 30 km south of Quepos and Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica.

Why we love this place? This place has amazing reviews. We would be able to go white water rafting come back to a unique location and enjoy the natural beauty of Costa Rica.
Price: $282 for 2 person tent/$4oo for honeymoon suite

Since our flight leaves early in the morning on the 24th we are planning on doing our last night in San Jose.

{Finca Rosa Blanca}
We are looking at Finca Rosa Blanca Coffee Plantation and Inn, which is is an organic shade grown coffee plantation right outside of San Jose. At the Inn, guests are encouraged to participate in the picking, processing and roasting of Finca Rosa Blanca coffee. What could be more amazing than enjoying fresh organic homegrown coffee IN Costa Rica?
Price: 250/night

The truth is, there are LOTS of cheaper options at equally gorgeous boutique hotels. The thing about us Pancakes, is that we love adventures. It wouldn't be a honeymoon without a little Costa Rican adventure thrown in. It just doesn't seem right to stay at a Marriott or a Hilton when we could stay at a family-owned (luxury) coffee plantation instead!

So, what do you think? How did you decide where to 'moon? What were you looking for romance? adventure? relaxation?

Let's dish about mistmatched vintage dishes

{Source: Etsy -$108}

Mr. P and I are soon-to-be a homeless married couple. Right now, we live in an adorable one-bedroom in the center of Amsterdam, overlooking a lovely canal filled with swans and ducks, but come May 2nd we'll be HOMELESS! The reason I am telling you all this is because I LOVE vintage plates. I am head over heels obsessed with vintage plates. BUT, since we don't have a home, we really aren't in a position to accept a lot of traditional gifts. We literally have no idea where we'll be from May - October but chances are that we'll be living out of suitcases and a storage unit. (***I would love to be in Latin America, but we may be in NYC, DC or LA) That being said, we have to be careful about what we buy and what we register for.

One of the most amazing things about living in Amsterdam is the proliferation of antique stores! I spend at least 6 hours a week just wondering through all these trinket-filled stores, running my hands over everything.

So here's what I've decided. I would really love a set of small mismatched vintage plates of my very own. I know other Bees have blogged about this in the past, but I can't help it.

Is this just a passing fad?

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There are really two issues at play here. One, I want mismatched vintage plates at my wedding. and two, I want vintage plates of my very own. For many people, I suppose these two things would go hand-in-hand.

1. For the Wedding

I did a little research and it looks like there are dozens of UK based companies that rent vintage plates, and only a handful based in the U.S., and NONE that ship internationally (understandably).

• Idyllic Days (UK)
  
• Vintage Teas and RSVPs (UK)
• Table Graces (NY)
  
• Rent my Dust (DFW, TX)
• Anyone for Tea (LA, CA)

This means there is virtually no way I'll be having vintage plates at my wedding. :(

2. For me

Although I'm strongly considering collecting my own vintage plates over the next few weeks and shipping them back to the U.S. myself. I recently stumbled across Antiquaria, an amazing online vintage home goods store. I immediately added half of their plates, cake stands and tea cups to my registry. I mean, how amazing is this 5 piece china place setting?!?

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So even though my wedding may have to be "vintage plate-less," perhaps my home won't!

Do you still love mismatched vintage plates? What about other places to register for vintage China?

You are cordially invited {Full disclosure}

This will be a very short post. I just wanted to follow-up on my post invitation post from yesterday!

Yesterday, I posted my invitation suite but as many of my fellow bees pointed out, I didn't post a picture of the invitations themselves. oops! I apologize for the repeat post but here is the whole suite, inside and out!



I did two separate mailings:

1. boxed invitations for all my friends and domestic family. I did a mix and match of different postage stamps and a luggage tag inspired wrap around label.

2. Envelopes for all my international family.

My mom is one of 7 and my father is one of 13. I have almost 100 cousins, and 2 dozen aunts and uncles...all living overseas. As such, it was just not financially feasible for me to send them all boxed invitations. To cut back on cost, simple envelopes for my overseas family.



*** You should know that I actually hand wrote ALL my mailing labels but they got lost in the mail from Amsterdam to Connecticut. I was on a two week vacation in Spain when I found out that the labels never arrived. After one late night at an internet cafe in Calahonda, Spain, I typed out all the labels and made do.

So THAT's it! My COMPLETE invitation suite.

You are cordially invited

First of all, I have to say that I have the BEST bridesmaid in the world. (you may remember her from my save the dates.) So before I moved to Amsterdam in January, I went to her house in Stamford Connecticut and dropped off my HUGE box of wedding crap.

Since then she's been working like a busy busy bee to get my invitations out on time and they finally went out last week. Let's just take a moment to appreciate how amazing my bridesmaid truly is... this is what her coffee table drawer looked like for weeks:



If you remember, I was inspired to do boxed invitations. The first thing we did was finish the invitations. Then we had to order boxes. I looked at a number of places but finally settled on Uline because they were they only place that had the dimensions I wanted (9 x 7.5 x 3). Since we got kraft boxes instead of fancy colored boxes, they were only $0.60 a box.

Without further ado, here are my invitations:

Now piece by piece. We decided to go with three pieces. First, the map. I hand drew the map and L scanned it into her computer (did some magic fancy desiger things). We decided to print the maps on vellum and finished it off with a little twine.

We also included handmade luggage tags. I bought the linen and ironed on the "stamp." My sisters added the grommets, my mom sewed the corners into angles for me, I added the strings, Mr. P cute all the little plastic squares and L used her machine to sew the squares on. (If I have time, I'll put together a proper DIY post!)

For our RSVP cards, I ordered these great pre-cut cards from Envelopper Inc. Best thing about Enveloper is that they have free shipping for all orders over $50. So I also ordered the pink tissue paper and label paper from them! Since we are living in Amsterdam, we decided to do our RSVPs online. It was just too expensive to include postage to Amsterdam, and was seemed like a bad plan to have the RSVPs sent to anyone else.



We sealed the pink tissue paper with a little pink vintage label. I got the template from iDIY and added the words "Pura Vida" across the top. Our wedding date along the middle and our names along the bottom.


The last thing we did was order this great return label stamp. I designed the stamp myself and then L had it made up at a place across the street from her apartment. It cost around $10.


So that's it. Ta-da... Our wedding invitations! It was sooooo much more work than I could have ever anticipated but it was definitely worth it. One of the things about having a wedding planner is I feel like I don't get to DO that much. It's a lot of decision making via email or skype. Plus I've gotten a lot of great feedback which doesn't hurt! :D

How much "work" were your invitations? Was it worth it??

Slight Chance of Shower

Some of you may remember the Christmas blizzard of 2010. If you don't, it took place the day after Christmas and dumped over two feet of snow on New York City. The thing was that my family (two sisters, one niece, one nephew and my mom!) had come to stay with me (and Mr P.) for A WEEK in our tiny ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT. Now if you aren't Chinese you may not understand how you end up with your 3 adults and two children staying in your living room, but it if you are, you understand how impossibly hard it is to say no!

At first it didn't seem like the worst thing in the world. I LOVE my family plus there is SO much to do in NYC that I figured they wouldn't be around that much. Then the blizzard hit the night they arrived! If they had been on a flight just a few hours later, they would have never made it at all. So after a day of board games and wedding crafting, we decided it was time to venture into the snow.

Day one looked like this:

{Mama Pancakes, me, Baby Sister, and Middle Sister holding my nephew}

{Mr. Pancakes and Me}

We decided to go for brunch three and a half blocks away and it took almost 30 mins to get there! By the time we got back (and built snowmen in the street) everyone was EXHAUSTED.

The next day we tried again...this time we had a big day! We went to Bryant park to check out the ice skaters, then to the fabric district to get project supplies, then we did a little shopping in Midtown, headed down to China town for lunch, and finished off with a little more shopping! It was a looooong cold day... yet for some reason my sisters kept talking about having a girls night out!

By the time we got home it was almost 4 and my sisters were super excited to go get drinks later that evening. I secretly knew I was not getting back out of my pajamas. As 6 o'clock rolled around my baby sister mentioned that one of her friends was in town and she would love to go see her. I happily gave her instructions and wished her well. Unfortunately that was not enough she wanted me to take her! I dug my heels in, I was NOT leaving my house! Soon my other sister was on my case as well. I was increasingly annoyed, after all they were staying in MY apartment and I had walked around freezing cold, slushy, crowded NYC ALL DAY for them!!

Finally they got to Mr. P! Before I knew it, he was trying to talk me into going out with my sisters... Traitor! I had finally decided that I would secretly walk my sisters to the subway and then get off the train behind them... horrible, I know, BUT I was freezing and tired!

Luckily, they broke!

They told me that they were planning a surprise bridal shower for me, and two of my bridesmaids had come in from out of state (in the blizzard!!), and were waiting for us downtown! I felt horrible! After a few forced hugs and lots of kisses, we all finally got dressed and headed down.

{My baby sister, Me, My other sister}

{Me, Bridesmaid L, MOH N, Awesome Friend S}

They even got us an ice cream cake! I LOVE ice cream cake. We tried to do practice cake cutting pictures but the cake was frozen, so they turned out like this:

{Mr. Pancakes, and Me}

My niece loved the ice cream cake even more...her shirt should say " I love ice cream cake & NOT sharing"

This is my family's reaction to my "wedding smile." I've been practicing a new smile (a.k.a no bottom teeth) but my family seems to think its HILARIOUS! (notice that they all have the EXACT same laugh!)

{Mama Pancake holding my nephew, My baby sister, Me, My middle sister}

I think the smile looks perfectly natural....well not "perfectly" natural but it's definitely getting there!

Well, thanks for the FABULOUS bridal shower ladies. It's the best surprise bridal shower I've EVER had. Sorry I was such a "zilla"!

Has anyone else been a HUGE "zilla?" How'd you make it up to the people you raged on!?!?

Letterpress of my very own!

After months and months of looking at wedding invitations, I finally decided to create my own design. I really wanted something unique, personalized and whimsical. Basically, it needed to be something that I felt would reflect the feel of our wedding. I kept telling Laura (my bridesmaid and personal wedding designer) that I wish I could just hand-write a invitation to each of my guest. Finally, we decided that I would hand write my invitation and then send it out to a press and have it letterpressed! Genius, I know! The design part didn't take that long. Laura used her fancy-pants design program to figure out the lines and spacing. Then I traced the invite and gave it my own personal touch so it would look like my handwriting.

Finding the right letterpress was by far the hardest part. After all, I had to figure out who to trust with my invites. MY INVITATIONS! The very first impression my guests will have of the big day... It will set the tone and get people excited about the upcoming big day!!!! IT"S A BIG DEAL!! hahaha. so that may be a LITTLE dramatic, but that's what happens sometimes when Mr. P says things like "What's the big deal? Just pick one." :P

I considered a number of options: Mercurio Brothers, Thistleberry, White Aisle, Wild Ink Press, and Parklife Press. First, I emailed them all to confirm pricing since I was requesting an irregular number of invitations (65) and wanted to submit my own design. Unfortunately, a few of them never even responded to my email or stopped responding once they heard my budget, so they were immediately cut from the list. Then I cut all the places that were out of my price range.

Once I had my top three I sent another email requesting samples and asking follow-up questions (doing my due diligence and all...). I finally picked Travis at Parklife Press. He asked me what I was looking for and sent me a free selection of samples. Best part, I gave him the wrong address by accident and once I realized my mistake, he over-nighted a second set of invitations! He was fabulous, not only did he respond quickly to all my emails but they were personalized and casual responses (nothing canned or overly formal). I felt that he would be easy to work with and I could definitely trust him with this very important responsibility.

Let me just say, I was right! The invites turned out beautifully. My fabulous invitations came in just three days before I left for Amsterdam. I was so busy moving (packing, cleaning, etc) that I forgot they were coming! What a pleasant surprise :D

Here's a little peek:


My invites just went out in the mail last week and I can't wait to share the full invitation suite with you all! I also just got back from ten days in Spain so I'm still putting together the post :D

A little love goes a long way...

If you are or have ever planned a wedding, you are well aware of how much money a wedding costs. It's really quite ridiculous and sometimes it feels so unnecessary and super selfish. I am currently working on a LLM (Masters of Law) in International Criminal Law at the University of Amsterdam, so I spend my days reading about the most horrendous crimes on earth (ie. mass rape, genocide, torture, etc). After hours of that, I feel so silly spending hours looking at wedding porn! I totally need the escape but end up feeling crazy guilty.

The more I thought about it the more I realized there has to be some way to have my wedding and eat it too...so, to speak. I know that a lot of people donate money on behalf of their guests in lieu of favors, which I think is great! On the other hand, why take the money from your guests when you can take it from corporations ;) Here's some of the great organizations I found that totally make that possible:

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On I Do Foundation, you can raise money for charity simply by registering with one of their partner stores. Up to 10% of guests' gift purchases from these partner stores will be donated to your selected charity. These donations are made at no additional cost to you or your guests.
In addition to a charity registry you can shop from select stores which will give back a certain amount of their proceeds to charity! Additionally, they have partnered with Traveler's Joy to give back 3% of whatever you raise for your honeymoon!

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Brilliant earth is an amazing company with a strong moral compass. They have a three pronged mission focused on: providing quality products from pure sources, encouraging change in local communities affected by the industry and promoting growth by donating 5% of their proceeds to help communities who have suffered from unethical practices in the jewelry industry.

{Baking for Good}

Baking for Good is dedicated to providing high quality, irresistible treats that are perfect for any occasion. Moreover, they're committed to helping great causes raise money for things that matter. That’s why 15% of every purchase goes to the cause of your choice!

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The Bridal Garden is New York City's only not for profit bridal boutique. They sell gently used dresses at up to 75% off the original prices and all proceeds go towards education programs for children in the city!

It makes me epically happy to know that I can use my wedding to help others. What have I missed?? What are the options available in your community??

What's a bride to D.O.?

As you may or may not recall, I want to be able to use the word bride as much as possible on my wedding day. I know a lot of people prefer to got the "Mr" & "Mrs" route, but I figure I have my whole life to be a "Mrs." That being said, I had originally planned on doing simple chalkboard bride & groom chair signs tied with some burlap, lace and pink ribbon. Simple and sweet. done and done.

Then, during a sort of sale-induced Michael's shopping frenzy, I picked up these large (about 10 inches tall) white wooden letters on sale. They were only $1.50 each, plus I think it's kind of sweet that our initials spell "DO."

I literally had no plan, I just bought them and hoped I could work them in somehow. Now, I am thinking they might make great chair signs. However, I am not entirely ready to give up on the "bride" and "groom" signs. I have collected a series of inspiration pictures and am kind of hoping can kind of incorporate these different elements into a cohesive design. (Hang in there I know there is A LOT going on!)

I really like the sweetness of these signs... we are also using a lot of whimsical calligraphy at our wedding so like this but smaller might work.

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I love the feel of this one. The mix of items is really pretty, I feel like this would only work for my chair though, I would want to make the grooms chair a little more masculine. Maybe we could do pink ribbon and lace on mine and burlap and lace on his.


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I think this whole setup might be the closest to what I want. Instead of blue ribbon it would be pink or lace. However, I would hang the letters a little lower and then add the words "bride" and "groom" to the chair.

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After all that, I realized that maybe its just too much. Maybe I should just K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, silly) it. Look at how sweet and simple these striped letters are:

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I love the print on these letters. I think I also prefer the way the letters are hung with the two strands instead of just one.

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I love these fabric pom-poms, I think they are a great touch and would be super simple. I don't love the white, on white, on white, but since my chairs will probably be gold/silver, then I can add a pink pom-pom or fabric flowers to my chair and burlap ones to the groom chair. hmm... so many possibilities.

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As an alternative to adding bride and groom signs to the sign, I could somehow try to do something like this: There is actually a great tutorial on how to do this... the problem is that I only have one set of letters so I really can't afford to mess them up with a DIY project.

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Love these. Simple. Romantic and really diy-able!

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I think I'm gonna keep the letters white, do something simple with burlap, ribbon and lace and just call it a day. Who would have thought chair signs could be so complicated!?!

I know lots of people have used these wooden letters so please share... I could use a little crafty feedback from the hive!

My something blue...

I wrote this post when I first got my dress in December but I thought the information would still be helpful to other brides so here it is...



MY DRESS IS HERE!!!! So I may or may not be wearing my wedding dress as I type this post. At first I considered, not opening it at all. Who was I kidding!?!? I ripped it open like a kid on Christmas morning. First of all, it fits like a glove. I don't even know if I need alterations.

Second, now what?!? My wedding isn't until May what am I suppose to do with her until then...

{Friends: The One With All The Dresses}
I did a little bit of googling and learned that depending on the dress, you can either keep your dress stored in a box/bag under your bed or hanging. However you shouldn't hang your dress for more than 6-7 months.

UNDER THE BED STORAGE

• If the dress has beading, pearls, sequins, rhinestones or anything else that makes it heavy it needs to be stored flat.
  
• If the dress has heavy fabric suspended relatively weak fabric, it is also a good candidate for the "under the bed" treatment. A heavy dress with narrow shoulder straps or a dress with net insets in the bodice are examples of dresses that probably shouldn't be hung. Basically, you don't want the weight of the hanging dress to pull it apart.
• Wrap the dress in a white sheet, then store it under the bed. Mine came in a long, flat box but if you don't have one, you can pick up all sorts of under the bed storage at Target. This will protect the dress from curious kittens and fuzzy little dust bunnies.
  
  HANGING IN A GARMENT BAG

• If your dress is relatively plain, check the fabric content. Natural fibers need to "breathe," which they cannot do in a synthetic garment bag. A dress of silk, linen, cotton, or wool should be wrapped in a cotton sheet. You can leave a plain, not-to-heavy dress on the hanger.
• If, however, your dress is good old polyester, with little or no trim, it can stay happily on its hanger in a garment bag for seven months. A very heavy dress might start to pull apart after seven months of this treatment, but polyester is remarkably stubborn stuff. A 100% polyester dress with no appliqued trim can be washed in the washing machine and allowed to drip dry, too.
• If your dress has a mixed fiber content, follow the procedure for the most demanding fiber.
  

For more info click here.

For now I am going to keep her hanging, however I think the safest bet will be to put her back in her box until the big day. My seamstress is coming out here this weekend to do my first fitting. I'll be sure to post pictures once I have another person around.

What'd I miss? Any other advice or suggestions regarding pre-wedding dress storage??

2 flower girls and a ring bearer

I am so blessed to have an amazing family. I was raised in a very traditional (co-dependent) family and am super close to my fam. I talk to my baby sisters every day, sometimes even three or four times a day. I also talk to my parents 4-5 times a week... did I mention we are uber co-dependent?

That being said, the family is GROWING!!

{Personal Picture} My baby sister has two a-mazing kids who are are going to be my flower girl and ring bearer. Our wedding is about a week before her third birthday and the ring bearer will be about 10 months old.( Don't worry, he won't actually be holding any rings!)

{Personal Picture} Also, my very favorite cousin who is going to try super hard to get to my wedding all the way from Malaysia, has an A-DORABLE daughter, who would be my second flower girl. She will be 2.5 at the time of the wedding.

That being said, how am going to get three toddlers down the aisle?!?! At first I was think we could do a wagon situation. Flower girl D loves nothing more than to pull her brother around the house... so she could probably handle it. I am not to worried about stage fright, she is quite the ham.

PLUS babies in wagons are super adorable!

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I love this kid. He has the best hair and who doesn't love a cutie in a suit.

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How much do you love the "hear comes the bride" sign. Also doesn't this baby look like an Anne Gedde baby. She looks like a little baby fairy, but I am partial to babies in tutus.

As far as I can tell there are two problems. (1) How would I get a wagon to Costa Rica? Maybe they have them there??(2) Can you even pull a wagon through the sand?? More importantly, could a 3-year-old pull a wagon through sand?

If I can't get this wagon thing to work out, I will just have one of the bridesmaids walk the ring bearer down the aisle. I have 6 bridesmaids and only 5 groomsmen so it would actually work out quite well.

Does anyone have any other suggestions on how to get three toddlers down the aisle? What about sand-friendly alternatives to a wagon?