Portland Wedding Coordinator

( Photo of the Day ) - The Nines Hotel, Textural Geometric Centerpiece

Today's photo that I'm loving comes from Evrim Icoz Photography - we recently did a wedding at The Nines Hotel where the client asked for modern, geometric centerpieces to go with the modern, glamorous look of the hotel and the reception. These were designed by Geranium Lake and I just love the mix of textural floral with the sharp lines of the container. Thank you to everyone who worked on this wedding with us!

"Photo of the Day" is our regular blog feature where we pick a quick favorite photo and share it with you. It might be a behind-the-scenes, it might be a wedding detail shot, whatever is catching my fancy that day. If you have worked with EJP Events and would like your photo of the day featured here, please email me.

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{ Local Love } Two fun open houses - Event Cosmetics, Geranium Lake, Dec. 11, 2014

We were invited to two fun holiday open houses by a couple of our favorite vendors, and we just have to share! Geranium Lake Flowers is hosting a cookie exchange party and 20% off sale, while Event Cosmetics will be doing a "Party in the Penthouse" at their Da:Da Salon location. Both events are this Thursday, December 11th. Click the pictures above for exact details!

Holiday open houses are great ways to check out potential vendors for your wedding and get a little shopping done at the same time. Hope you enjoy!

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What's the difference between an Inspiration Board, a Mood Board, and a Palette?

 

Photo courtesy Craig Mitchelldyer

Early in wedding planning, even before the gown or the venue is chosen, most of you are thinking about look and feel. When you close your eyes and picture yourself entering the venue on your big day, what do you see? What flowers are you holding? What colors are surrounding you?

It's a big choice and the heart of wedding design, and it can be overwhelming. Equally confusing can be the many options you have for gathering your ideas in one place. You've probably heard about mood boards and inspiration boards, palettes and swatches, but what is what?

A mood board is the broadest tool used early on to help you determine the most general ideas about look and feel of the wedding. Not limited to actual wedding services, you might pull in photographs, videos, songs, words, and even poetry that evokes the mood you want to set for your special event. I really love the mood boards over at The Wedding and Event Institute Blog, here's one example:

An inspiration board is the next building block of creating your wedding design. Many of you may have started a Pinterest account and it's a great way to easily create inspiration out of your collected pins.

Once you have set the mood of your wedding, use an inspiration board to collect specific photographs of actual flowers, invitations, linens, stages, mandaps or huppahs, ceremony backdrop, room layout, and so on. Lots of folks interchange the terms mood board and inspiration board, but I feel like the inspiration board is a more specific tool.

An inspiration board can also be tweaked to become a story board later on - necessary for design-intensive weddings. A story board is just that: a detailed board that tells the event's story from start to finish, from the actual color scheme and entry points to the venue, to the lighting settings and tablescape. These depict final choices and elements. Most of the time, we accomplish the same thing at EJP Events by writing a detailed setup narrative, but in some cases, a story board is definitely needed.

A palette is just a selection of possible colors for the event. This is a great way to communicate to your vendors so they are all on the same page and using the correct warmth, hue, and saturation as they produce your wedding attire, linens, tablescape, and flowers. I love the palette tools over at ColourLovers:

Finally, a swatch is a sample of a design item, usually a textile/fabric that you use as a sample of the texture and color you would like to see. It is the physical version of the digital palette.

Thanks for reading this post! You might also like this post about 5 tools to help you choose a color palette for your wedding.

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2014 Geranium Lake Dream Wedding - Contest Entry

We are thrilled to be chosen by Geranium Lake Flowers again this year as one of Portland's best wedding professionals and to help judge their Geranium Lake Dream Wedding Pinterest Contest. Please read below for the exact details on how to enter your Pinterest board in the juried contest - it's not a drawing!

via geraniumlakeblog.weebly.com

YES! It's happening again!  This weekend at the Portland Bridal Show we launched our search for 2014's most fabulous wedding board on Pinterest.  

Here's how to enter to WIN $1000 TOWARDS YOUR WEDDING FLOWERS!

You must be getting married in 2014 (if you're a 2015 bride,  check back next year!)

Follow us on Pinterest {Emee says: Why not follow Emee's pinterest while you're at it? :-D}

Create your own Pinterest board and title it “Geranium Lake Dream Wedding”

Re-pin to your board a minimum of 3 images that inspired you from our website

IMPORTANT: Continue to curate your board from any source until your dream wedding look is complete and simply amazing.  Your board should not be limited to flowers only.  Feel free to pin whatever has inspired you, including your dress, invitations - and whatever else rocks your world. This is NOT A DRAWING. Your board will be judged against other couples' boards so it's important that your board be complete, cohesive, and gorgeous.  The boards will be judged by the best Portland wedding professionals so make it count!

Finally, email a link to your board to [email protected]

We will accept submissions accept through February 28th and the winner will be announced in March.

Good luck!

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{ Portland Wedding Planning } An Opulent Wedding in Portland

Sometimes, after a particularly lovely wedding, I wonder if it was all a dream. Truth be told, an  opulent, bling-y wedding seems a bit of a Portland aberration.

Sure, we have plenty of glorious weddings with a healthy budget. But Oregon couples seem to be more focused on the guest experience and artisanal, organic meats and vegetables, than on all-out glitz. It's just more us.

It does happen, though. Enjoy our Pinterest board featuring some of our favorite glamorous, luxurious weddings -- EJP Events's own, and also from around Portland and the web:

 And, Happy Thanksgiving!

 

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{ Fall Roundup } Autumnal Wedding Inspiration

Photographer: Evrim Icoz Photography  Wedding Coordinator: EJP Events

Here in Oregon we had an uncharacteristically beautiful October. Blue skies and temps in the 60s and 70s are a reminder that fall can be the perfect time to host your wedding. Here are some ways to incorporate a fall feel into your wedding.

During the summer it's best to stick to cool, refreshing cocktails but fall begs for a warmer beverage. Here is a DIY Apple Cider Cocktail from Green Wedding Shoes that is sure to wow your guests. Plus, the alcohol is added after the cider is already concocted, making this an easy one to offer as a non-alcoholic choice as well.

Idea of the day - LED light letters

Happy October! We are lucky in Portland that summer still seems to be holding on, in the afternoons at least. Makes me want to blog all the past warm-weather goodness from the last few months! One great idea we saw at a September wedding we coordinated, was a "BAR" backdrop sign designed by René Steelman of RK Steelman Events and Interiors (also mother of the groom!). It's always so flattering when event pros themselves hire us.

I loved this idea to create a "name in lights" using battery-operated LED tealights. No cords needed! René chose chevron fabric and pink rickrack which she mounted to a board. Then added embellishments like tiny mirrors with more tealights, pink flowers in test tubes, and of course, the letters. More pictures from this fun wedding are on our Facebook page.

Hope this gets your creative juices flowing - do let me know if you've seen or heard any great design ideas at weddings in Portland or beyond; email me at The Portland Wedding Coordinator or comment below.

Like this idea? Feel free to share or repin using the buttons below as well.

An Oregon Garden Wedding Inspiration for a Stylish Manhattan Bride

I was so excited to be contacted by another out-of-towner this week who will be planning her Oregon summer wedding, working long-distance from Manhattan. Her big priorities are food and photography. She sent along a few photos of her intended style and I thought I would go through our past event file to put together a few photos to  convey my initial thought process for site selection and other possible details. Here goes:

All photos are from real weddings coordinated and planned by EJP Events.

Full size photos and photographer credits after the cut.

{Sunday Roundup} 5 Sites to Help You With Your Wedding Color Scheme

Image: The Perfect Palette Blog.

You're engaged, you've got the venue and the date, and are so excited to get going on planning! Yet, you're stuck on what the wedding will actually look like. Envisioning the final event means you need to pick invitations, table linens, flowers, lighting, and all the assorted goodies that go with your big party. And of course you've got to start with a color or two (or a few!) that hopefully go together.

"But I like everything!" you say. Or maybe, "Our site has this weird carpet and I'm not sure what goes with it." Or possibly, "I don't want my wedding to look too matchy-matchy." How do you decide on a color scheme that, while not as lasting as a bedroom paint job, is still super-important and something you'll remember for years to come? Here are five tools and websites I like to use when I help clients formulate their color ideas.

1. The Perfect Palette This blog updates several times a week with wedding color palette ideas and an explanation of each. You can search the whole site by color family to find exactly what you want.

2. ColourLOVERS A bit broader in scope, ColourLOVERS covers not just weddings, but other design solutions such as graphic, print, and web; interior design; and fine art. Users are encouraged to get social by creating accounts, uploading patterns, and sharing with the community. (A side note: ColourLOVERS also has the great widget Themeleon, for creating Twitter screen backgrounds. It's where I got mine - look here.)

3. Kuler - Adobe Inc.'s Kuler tool makes it possible for you to take a photo of your site (or any photo, for that matter) and extrapolate a color scheme from it. Click on "Create" > "From an Image" and upload your photo and wow! You can also select different moods for the same picture. A great tool if you are feeling a bit stumped. You do need to create an account if you want to save your palettes.

4. Design Seeds Similar to The Perfect Palette, but not exclusively about weddings. This blogger takes hundreds of artful photos and applies her own aesthetic to draw out each custom color palette. A wonderful inspiration site.

5. You knew I would mention Pinterest. If you're following my boards already, you know how addicted I am and how you can be sure to see a 2am pin from me on your dashboard now and then. If you haven't had the pleasure of using this site, it is a sort of visual Twitter where you can "pin" just about any image on the Web to a virtual bulletin board, keeping all of your ideas in one place. You can create as many boards as you like and name them anything, from "Color Inspiration" to "Cute Pictures of Pugs". All boards are public, so you can search the site for your desired color scheme or idea and re-pin other folks' images to your boards. All of the above tools can be used in some way along with Pinterest.

Similar to Gmail and Spotify in the past, getting a Pinterest account might involve a bit of a wait for an invite. For you wonderful readers of The Portland Wedding Coordinator Blog, I'm offering up my next 4 Pinterest invites. Just share this post, then comment and let me know where you shared it (Facebook, Twitter, G+, Tumblr or whereever!) and I'll send you a Pinterest invite. Please make sure to include your email (which won't be publicly shown) in the comment field where asked.

Are there any other great color tools you're using to design your wedding? Please share with me in the comments as well.

{Budget saver idea} A giant head table centerpiece, simple centerpieces for other tables

We're always being asked about cool ways to make decor and floral "pop", but not spend a huge amount. A common request for wedding centerpiece floral and decor is, "Can we keep the centerpieces under $1,000?"

Because of the cost of sourcing and transporting fresh flowers, and the skill and labor of your florist, wedding floral centerpieces often top $50 - 75, hitting in the $200's and up for large, lavish, or elevated centerpieces. Wow! If you have 12 tables plus service tables and buffet, that $1,000 can get eaten up pretty fast if you put a centerpiece on every table.

What if you think out of the box and maybe don't put a fresh floral centerpiece on every single table? What if you had a big square or round table for the wedding party, in the center of the room, with an amazing, show-stopping, gigantic lavish centerpiece that drew all eyes to the center of the room and the happy couple? (In the photo below, there are florals on the guest tables, but imagine the following ideas: crystal bowls with fruit or candles, arrangements of vintage glass bottles and feathers, instead.)

Image from Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Galleries

It's a different way to spend that $1,000.00. Have you ever seen this done, and what were your thoughts? Do you think the average wedding guest missed out having a fresh floral centerpiece on his or her table? Do you have any other ideas about how to do wedding centerpieces differently, or to get more bang out of the wedding buck? We welcome all your relevant comments below.