A Giant Celebration

photo by Angie Silvy

This week San Francisco is abuzz celebrating the Giants World Series victory.  On Halloween, fans will fill the streets for a ticker tape parade honoring their 2012 World Champions.  I'm sure one of our clients, Ashton, will stake out a front row seat for the festivities.  Earlier this year Ashton (a huge Giant's fan) had the most amazing Bar Mitzvah celebration at AT&T park planned by Laurie Arons Special Events.  It was a once in a lifetime experience for the lucky attendees.  The night began with cocktails in the dugout and locker room.  The kids were able to swing a bat in the actual batting cages that their favorite players use during games.  The celebration continued with dinner, activities and dancing in the club level of the park.  It was a night people are still talking about and few will forget the celebration.

We were fortunate enough to work with Laurie Arons on many details for the celebration.  I love a theme party and the best part was that the clients were game to include as many ideas as we could come up with.  The first on our list was the save the date.  We wanted to do something that would be fun and also get people excited for the event.  We decided to do an old fashioned event poster with a photo of Ashton on it.  The poster did not divulge the exact location of the celebration, but gave the theme of the party and got people guessing as to where the location might be.  In this day of email and evites, the arrival of a tube in the mail is extremely exciting for the invitees!

save the date by ps paper

Because the save the dates were such a hit, it set the bar high for the invitation.  One of the luckiest things was that Ashton's initials are AF, so I was able to modify the SF Giants logo.  The AF logo was used throughout the celebration and worked well with the theme.  The invitation was printed on a real baseball.  The baseball invited people to the party at AT&T park.  We had an separate card on top of the box inviting guests to the Bar Mitzvah service.  The baseball theme was continued in the RSVP and information card.  After receiving the invitation, people could not wait to see what was in store for them at the ball park and I'm sure no one was disappointed. 

Invitation by ps paper

One of my favorite details at the party was the escorts used for the adult dinner seating.  Each of the tables were named for a beloved Giants player and the the guests were given baseball trading cards for the player that corresponded with their table.

Photo by Angie Silvy

Escort cards/display by ps paper

Of course this celebration would not be complete without a dessert table, in fact we did two different tables.  One was filled with baseball themed desserts, the centerpiece was a cake replica of the World Championship Trophy, created by Katrina Roselle.  Who knew the Giants would be getting another trophy this year?  The other, filled with candy, was a big hit with the kids.

dessert tables styled by Jill Sassa

These were only a few of the things that Laurie Arons Special Events had in store for guests.  Here is a link to Laurie's blog post of this event.  It's safe to say the guests had as much fun as we did working on this event!

New Venture...Dessert Tables!

 

I'm happy to finally share with you a new part of our business...styling dessert tables.  We are working with Paula LeDuc Fine Catering to create custom dessert tables for special events.  Paula LeDuc is providing all of the delicious desserts and we are working with her to personalize the desserts and  presentations.  If you have been lucky enough to taste Paula LeDuc's food you know that everything she makes tastes as amazing as it looks.  This table is from Tyler Florence's birthday celebration.  The party was planned by Laurie Arons Special Events and was at Tyler's newest restaurant, El Paseo, in Mill Valley, California.  It marked the debut of the restaurant {the restaurant was a still a construction zone that day},  El Paseo provided a preview of their menu and Paula LeDuc created the sweets.

The desserts & table mirrored the rustic feeling of the newly refurbished restaurant.  Laurie worked with Paula LeDuc to have desserts that were hearty enough to stand up to the delicious chophouse food they served.  She also picked desserts that are some of Tyler's Favorites {mini pecan pies a nod to his southern roots & banana trifle}.   One of the first things to go was my favorite "Paula's 'smores"  {far left photo}, they are homemade graham cookies with chocolate ganache and meringue on top ... yummy!

Also on the menu, the cutest little apple turnovers, spiced cupcakes, cookies and ccmade carmel corn.  The desserts were in the main dining room which converted into the dance floor after dinner with DJ Dojah spining the tunes.  The mini desserts were the perfect size to eat in between dancing and socializing.

I am so lucky to have found a business that combines two of my favorite things - food (desserts to boot} and paper!  Hopefully there will be many more to share soon...

p.s.

at left is Sammy Hagar, co-owner of El Paseo, I'm lighting the candles on Tyler's birthday cake.  Sammy sang happy birthday to Tyler!

Photography by Meg Smith

Kathryn + Ryan's Day of Wedding Details

Kathryn Storke, the founder of the wedding blog, Snippet and Ink, is one of my favorite brides that I have worked with.  Since she is immersed in all things wedding, I thought that she was going to want to oversee all the details of the  day.   It turned out she was the quite the opposite.  She had the perfect amount of input of as to what the day would look like and a few specific items of she wanted to include.  She allowed her Wedding Planner, Jenna Lam, of Laurie Arons Special Events, and her vendors to carry out her vision.  One of my favorite things that Kathryn has on her Snippet and Ink are inspiration boards. She showed us several items that ultimately ended up on her own inspiration board.  This really gave me an idea of what she was looking for and got the creative ball going.

In Ryan's hands is the little wedding program.  I blind letterpress printed the wreath logo on the front cover, the inside had the important details of the service and it was sewn together with red thread to give it a hint of color.

The escort buttons were something that Kathryn had seen years ago in a Martha Stewart Magazine,  I too, remember seeing them and thinking it such a fun idea. We were lucky to have calligrapher, Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls, who lives in San Francisco work with us on the project.  In keeping with the vintage feel of the venue, I used antique style postcard spinners to display the buttons.  Each card also provided a table number for each guest.  It was so fun to see even the bride and groom wearing their buttons and the guests enjoyed having a keepsake with their names in beautiful white calligraphy by Maybelle.

Below are the menus that continued the wreath theme from the invitations.  Instead of printing the logo, I had a custom rubber stamp made with the wreath and I used a glue stamp pad and then sprinkled glitter onto the image.  It was really the perfect little sparkle to add to the table. The beautiful table settings had a festive holiday feeling without having too much color. Maybelle added the guests name atop the menu to act as a place card.

The photo booth added to the vintage feeling of the evening.  I made a curtain as a surprise for the bride + groom to work with the decor of the room.  The "guest book" was a photo album that we customized with  photo corners so that the guests could mount their photo into the book and write a little note beneath their photo.   I loved seeing that book full of photos & notes leaving with Kathryn + Ryan at the end of the evening - what a great way to capture the fun.

Of course the dessert  table was probably my favorite thing to plan.   We styled the table and added the personalized touches to the amazing desserts from Perfect Endings.  It was so much fun that we have added dessert styling to our list of services we offer to customers (more on that to come)! 

photography : Elizabeth Messina, event planner: Jenna Lam for Laurie Arons Boutique Events, ,  calligraphy: Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls, venue: Presidio Social Club,  floral design: Kathleen Deery Designs, Desserts: Perfect Endings

Kathryn + Ryan's Save the Dates and Invitations

Kathryn Storke {who publishes the wedding blog Snippet & Ink} + Ryan Grady were married last December in San Francisco.  We felt so lucky that Kathryn, who lives and breathes wedding details, entrusted us with her save the dates, wedding invitations and all things paper for her big day. Kathryn + Ryan got married in San Francisco, their save the dates combined the retro feeling and Golden Gate Bridge views of their reception venue, The Presidio Social Club.  The save the dates were glittered vintage postcard images, complete with a handwritten message from the couple.  The other card provided information about hotels as well as their wedding website.  We tied the postcards with bakers twine and added a custom metal rimmed tag.  The cards were sent in a glassine envelope so it retained the postcard feel while protecting the glittered images.

Kathryn had lots ideas for her wedding invitations and she decided on this classic and elegant invitation. They were double thick Crane Lettra cotton card stock which were hand edged with red and had the corners rounded.  It's hard to see how luxurious and rich the cards were but when you hold them they are extra thick and the detail of the hand-edging is more visible.  The envelopes were all hand bordered to match the cards.  All of the pieces were letterpress by Alan Hillesheim Letterpress.  The wreath details were letterpressed without any color which added to the elegant feeling of the invitation.  The subtle color of the red accents reflected the December wedding without feeling too seasonal.

I'll be sharing more details from Kathryn + Ryan's wedding in my upcoming posts!

photography (top photo) : Elizabeth Messina, event planner: Jenna Lam for Laurie Arons Boutique Events

Chalkboard Menus for Napa Valley Wedding

This was one our my favorite weddings to work on.  Beaulieu Garden is such a beautiful place for a wedding.  The lovely details were planned by Laurie Arons Special Events.  She came to us and asked us if we had ever done a chalkboard menu.  We hadn't, but it was so much fun creating these menus...one of the things we enjoy is a new challenge.  We used many different materials and methods to create these menus. When we couldn't find exactly the right chalkboards, we made our own using chalkboard paint.  After that we silk screened the menus onto the chalkboards and even put real chalk on the finished menus to make them look authentic. It was so much fun that we decided to make 3 large chalkboards to use as the escort boards for seating.  

photography: Angie Silvy, event planner: Laurie Arons Special Events, floral design: Kathleen Deery Designs

Rehearsal Dinner Menus & Place Cards at Calistoga Ranch

What an incredible rehearsal dinner at Calisoga Ranch!  The beautiful setting and table design inspired us to design these menus that capture the rustic yet sophisticated feeling of the room.  We incorporated the rich dark colors and the delicate branches in the floral arrangement.  This menu is double sided with a blue striped background which mirrored the stripe on the linens.  The corners were rounded to soften the angular lines of the stripes.


When we are working on day of details such as menus, place cards and table numbers we find out about what the overall feeling of the venue is as well as their specific details { floral arrangements, table linens, etc}.  We then design and customize each item to reflect your personal style instead of modifying an existing design.

Photography: Meg Smith , Event Planner: Laurie Arons Special Events, Floral design: Kathleen Deery Designs

Table Numbers for Vintage Hoedown

Doesn't a rehearsal dinner that has a vintage hoedown theme sound fun?  We thought so and we wanted to make sure the table numbers were whimsical enough to add to the vintage feel of the evening.  The tables were named after classic western movies.  The wood signs were made with a heat tool that burns each letter onto the wood.  We added pieces of weed to each galvanized pot and covered it with small pebbles.  It was so much fun to come up with this design and this turned out to be such a great craft project!

photography: Thayer Allyson Gowdy
event planner:  Laurie Arons Special Events