colors...

i've never thought of myself as a "blue" kinda gal, but i've always loved aquas. and of course, the notion complimentary colors - blue/orange being more favorable in real life, organic settings than red/green and yellow/purple. here's a cake from pailloncakes back east. i the flow to the lines a lot better than a 1 inch strip of grosgrain ribbon encircling the layers so mechanically.

here's a really neat color picker at brides.com:
i'm drawn to these mod combos, perhaps because they're mod shapes to begin with. however neither swaneset nor hycroft are going to match boldly contrasting colors....

there's a huge clothing shop in gastown that is two levels, kind of like....umm....one store on robson, but with considerably less clothing....there's a downstairs, and an upstairs and it's all big and open. and i thought it'd be a cool place to have a chic party there, although i think i need to yaletown condo and the paris hilton dog to pull it off.

i'm all about the "one flower" thing - so andrew knows never to buy me a bouquet, that i'd be happier with just one flower. my flower of choice is always a gerbera daisy, but despite the fact that i love them, i don't really feel like having them at my wedding for some reason. maybe because i'm shying away from really bold flower colors.....like reds and oranges all mixed together seems overwhelming to me unless we do a stark white loft or tent.

via martha. is it just me or do peonies seem really easily bruised?

yay for jenn - a listing of what's in season, when: some californian wholesale company

swaneset, pitt meadows

here are the two money photos that i like which showcase that it's "upstairs" and that it's well lit




okay so what is this about?! "Swan-e-set reserves the right to offer a cash bar at any evening function." so if i say i only want beer and wine, if someone approaches the bar and asks for cognac they'll be asked to pay??

the outside looks dated to me:

but that notion somewhat dissolves away in the evening when it transforms into something out of "the bachelor" or, at least that one show where the construction worker was pretending to be some multimillionaire


here are outdoor ceremony option(s?):



and it looks pretty blank canvas to decorate so i could almost go for something clean and bold:

it is a golf course after all, so i guess the view outside the window would be a lot of greeeeen


and so flickr has been my resource for a lot of actual wedding photos, especially when the resorts' websites have been pretty sparse. so here i am looking at some random couple and look who they turn out to be, laila! i've seen their wedding photos before but it was funny how they popped up in my venue search.

At the capilano suspension bridge:

"The Canyon Lookout is unmatched in spectacular beauty. Located at the north end of Capilano Suspension Bridge, this private area features a deck cantilevered 300 feet above the rushing waters of Capilano River (click here for a virtual tour). Heated tents allow this area to be used during any season and it is unsurpassed in its uniquely West Coast appeal."

well. it's definitely got that real "westcoast" feel....i'm from vancouver, hear me roar. we could even do a salmon barbeque. and another upside is we have the roaring water below us rather than the roaring traffic at granville and 16th...too bad i can't find more pictures of the damn place


Seating capacity: 150 guests
so, here's a pdf breakdown, sans the food
$1500 + $5/guest as a park service fee ($5 x 100 = $500) which includes tent rentals to a max of one 20'x30' and four 20'x20' tents....does this mean i have five tents? one can be for dinner/dancing, one can be for lounging perhaps with couches like the fancy pants wedding books suggest?? big downside: we run into a 6:30-10pm limitation, which ends earliier than brock house if we do the ceremony there. also, the lookout is a non-exclusive venue, which means i'll have german tourists parading through my wedding? "additional charges" for "equipment rentals" run 30-40 per person (whatever that means??) and then it goes into more pricing that seems like what they've already discussed, but somehow it's in addition it! ...an additoinal $2500 for outside catering, and a park service fee of $15.95/per person - it does come with a cd player with background music, a podium and a mic (ipod-friendly it seems), easels (artwork to display?), a stage and "mirror centerpieces and vases." cake cutting is $1.50 per person, and printed menus are $4 per menu! 1 per table i guess it will be.....unless i'm allowed to make my own which i bet they won't allow. four course dinners run $40-50 a piece which is decent. i have to use their alcohol.
and since it's at the canyon lookout, there's an adiditon surcharge of $6/person (in addition to the $5 and the $15.95 mentioned earlier? this is going to kill me with the kid guests - maybe i can get cheaper meals for them, but they're still running an additional $27 each just exisiting on the property)

red

hello red. lots and lots of it. instyle weddings tells me to use ranunculus as a cost-saving alternative to roses. personally i really like dahlias, and for some reason, hydrangeas, but perhaps for the latter that's just because i'm thinking of something that would go with hycroft. and i of course had wanted a bunch of "dead things" for my decor - branches, bold and contrasting dried arrangments....but pish posh wedding magazines aren't going to feature a whole lot of plant carcases for me. back to the topic at hand: red. red has some chinese overtones. i like the use of levels in the last photo. it reminds me of prop placement in plays.



via martha stewarts wedding color guide magazine


via simple stunning weddings

pashmina scarves

pashmina scarves as wedding favors that will work so well for an outdoor wedding. the image to the right is taken from jo gartin's weddings. below features an ebay seller where i can get 50 scarves at about $5.50 each. i'm kinda drawn toward the light green color. and the bridesmaids can have unique colors.

semiahmoo resort, blaine, wa

okay, well i had left this well enough alone, content to live vicariously through jenn if she had her wedding here. but here we go - semiahmoo resort in blaine, wa. just minutes from the border, just minutes from whiterock - which is where i would have loved to have a wedding if they had anything halfway decent! they have about ten different venues available for weddings (which also means that there could be many different weddings going on at the same time).

we could get married on the beach on their seaview terrace:


it looks gorgeous, right? the only downside is this is what my view would be:


i believe the guy on the phone recommended this tudor-style venue - "the pierside room" - for my 100-120 person guestlist. it runs $5000 minimum for food/drink/tables/linens etc and $1500 to rent the place. which worked out to about $50 per person! what a steal.


i'm not crazy about the adjoining "pierside dock" for the ceremony (the plastic chairs need to go):

but the rest of the dock doesn't look so bad:



here is the loomis trail garden. trade up for my white wooden folding chairs and i actually really like this.

and i love the way the wedding party would approach the alter! this is so much more palatable than what brock house has to offer.

and the "loomis trail" - i guess there had to be the obligatory golf course photo setting. too bad there's no photos of the inside of this place.....


or are these the inside photos? they must be; "loomis mansion:"



their tent looks so much more gorgeous than the one at brock house somehow...at first i was worried it was much too big - it can hold up to 250 people....whereas brock house's tent accommodates up to 180. but we could have a larger dance floor? and a grand piano perhaps??? this is only $8000 minimum for food/drinks/linens/tables + $1500. any venue at this resort could potentially save me fifteen thousand dollars.


here is one more wedding spot i'm not as crazed about, and there's a few more that aren't elegant enough to be posted here:
the palmer room:


okay. so the major downside is that everyone needs a passport. and the worst downside is that the border lineups are going to probably be between 2 and 3 hours long. my parents practically live in the states to begin with, my aunt ditas and uncle ron have a timeshare in birch bay they don't have nexus fast lane pass so they sit in the 2 hour line up week after week, and the rest of my family wouldn't have any qualms about it in the least. sounds picture perfect, doesn't it, jenn? however that's just half the guestlist.

the upside? i can hit up a US costco for gorgeous $8.99 bouquets!