Weddings « The Catch My Party Blog

Posts in the ‘Weddings’ Category

I Want the Fry Girl at My Next Party!

I just stumbled upon the Fry Girl, and even though I just threw Lainey’s third birthday party, I’m already looking for cool ideas for the next one. And what cool idea is this — piping hot mini donuts made fresh at your party. (They can even do fried candy bars, corn dogs, and traditional French fries if you want.)

Here’s how it works. The Fry Girl sets up a mini donut machine at your event. Your guests watch as they make their “healthy” donuts. (Each donut made with 100% canola oil, has 26 calories, 1 gram of fat, and 3.5 carbs.) Then your guests get to top them with cinnamon sugar, vanilla, chocolate, raspberry, powdered sugar, Vermont maple sugar, or Oreo cookie crumbs. Sounds like a big yum to me, don’t you think?

The Fry Girl is based in LA and already has a huge celebrity clientele that includes Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Denzel Washington, Adam Sandler, Ellen Degeneres, and Tori Spelling to name a few. But don’t be surprised to see my name on that list soon.

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Jillian posted on April 1st, 2010
Filed under Entertainment, Food & Drink, Kid's Birthdays, Party Planning and Ideas, Quinceaneras, Sweet 16, Weddings.
Tags: celebrity food, Donuts, Los Angeles

Party Flip Books — Have You Heard Of Them?

I’m always looking for that unexpected “thing” at a party that gets people to step outside of themselves so they can relax and have fun.

I just saw party flip books for the first time, and thought this might be just that thing.

So what is a party flip book?

Well, it’s just what it says, flip books (those little books you flip through that look like little movies) made at your party of your guests doing silly things.

A company like Pic Flips sets up a little 10′x10′ studio at your event. Your guests, using props, signs, and anything else they can think of, make 6 second videos that in about a minute and a half are turned into tiny flip books.

A couple great things about the concept… it creates something fun for your guests to watch as people make their videos, plus guests have something to show off (their little flip books) and take home. You can even customize the cover with your party logo.

I don’t know how expensive this whole shebang will run you, but I think this could rock at a wedding, Sweet 16, Bar or Bat Mitzvah or any other big function where you want to get your guests to loosen up and have some fun.

Via Pic Flips

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Jillian posted on March 22nd, 2010
Filed under Entertainment, Party Favors, Party Planning and Ideas, Quinceaneras, Sweet 16, Weddings.
Tags: party flip books

Cake Wrecks — Great Blog!

I love Cake Wrecks. It says on their blog, “When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.” And boy do they…

Here are some of my favorite cake disasters:

This blog is right up there with another one of my favorites.

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Jillian posted on March 19th, 2010
Filed under Cake, Cupcakes, and Desserts, Food & Drink, Quinceaneras, Sweet 16, Weddings.
Tags: superbowl cake, wedding cake

Cocodot: My New Favorite Online Invitation Site

I first learned about the online invitation site, Cocodot, from watching the Techcrunch 50 conference, an event put on by the tech blog, TechCrunch, highlighting some of the newest technology startups.

I thought Cocodot’s invitations looked cool, but what hooked me was the free trial. After having used Evite so many times, I wasn’t going to step up and pay for an online invitation. Crazy.

So I used my free Cocodot invitation for a charity event I hosted with a friend. I liked that I was able to upload my own background photo, and except for a few little sniggly things, I thought the process was pretty easy and the invitation turned out looking good. Here it is.

My first Cocodot invitation

I even got a few compliments.

Then my daughter’s 3rd birthday rolled around, and having used Cocodot once, Evite seemed less interesting (especially with all the ads). Plus, I didn’t want to do a paper invitation. Not only are they expensive, but tracking down people’s actual addresses… way too hard.

So I stepped up, paid my $19 to use Cocodot again. I photoshopped together some pictures of my daughter dancing, uploaded the image, and used one of their birthday templates to make the invitation. And I have to admit, again, I was pretty impressed.

My second, but not my last, Cocodot invitation

So now I’m actually thinking I might step up and ( gasp!) even buy the one-year delux membership for $99. That way I can do all my birthday cards, holiday cards, thank you notes, and invitations at Cocodot, too. Crazy!!

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Jillian posted on March 18th, 2010
Filed under Invitations, Kid's Birthdays, On a Budget, Party Planning and Ideas, Weddings.

It Takes a Village to Throw a Wedding on a Budget

I was just talking to Christine Long-Plotkin, who recently added her wedding photos to our site. She got married in November 2009 in Los Angeles, and threw a $30k wedding on a budget of $13k.

Christine and Jacob under the big trees in Topanga Canyon

How did she do it? With a “can do” spirit, by finding people who were willing to work within her budget, and by enlisting everyone she knew.

First, she found an outdoor restaurant in a magnificent setting called Inn of the Seventh Ray, that was flexible on cost. They have no alcohol license, so it was beer, wine, and champagne for everyone. Plus, they bake their own wedding cakes so there were no cake cutting fees.

She hired a cute, bubbly, actress friend of her sister’s to be the MC and DJ, gave her a laptop with prerecorded songs, a script, and let her do her thing.

She used officiant, Matthew Linzmeier, who was a friend of the family’s.

Her mother took a flower arranging class and became the florist.

She found a college kid named Andrew Lee, studying photography and used him as her photographer.

She called in a favor with a graphic artist friend of DKNG who designs band posters, and had him design their invitations in the form of posters.

Their invitation designed by a graphic artist who does band posters

Her husband’s mother made the cake topper.

And since Disneyland is a special place to both Christine and Jacob, Christine blew up vintage Disneyland posters, had them printed at Shutterfly, and used them as table themes.

Christine said it wasn’t the fanciest wedding, but that wasn’t what they were after. They wanted something beautiful, meaningful, and personal. And that’s what they got.

Her one splurge… her $3,000 dress because who doesn’t want to look like a princess on her wedding day?

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Jillian posted on January 11th, 2010
Filed under Entertainment, Food & Drink, On a Budget, Party Planning and Ideas, Weddings.

We’re Giving Away an iPod Nano!

Just to give you an update, we’re getting closer to our goal of 100 parties. But if you add your party photos now, you still have a chance to win the brand spanking new iPod Nano we’re giving away. So go ahead, show off your party on our site, we’d love to see it!

Because we’re so excited about our site, Catch My Party, we wanted to share some of that excitement with you. So to 1 of the next 100 new users who add their party photos to our site, we’re giving away a new iPod Nano. Yup, it’s the one with the built-in video camera, the cool aluminum finish, and the larger screen.

The New iPod Nano

We will randomly draw a name out of a hat and put the video up on our blog so you can all watch the suspense.

So go on, add your photos, write about your party, send the whole thing to your friends and family, and most importantly… have fun!

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Jillian posted on November 18th, 2009
Filed under Quinceaneras, Sweet 16, Weddings.
Tags: contest, giveaway, iPod, Nano

Wedding Photographer, Jules Bianchi, is Obsessed With Capturing Moments

PART 2 in my series on wedding photographers…

Yesterday I talked with Jules Bianchi, of Jules Bianchi Photography in Los Angeles, because I love her photographs and needed to understand what inspires her.

Jules, who is very close to her family (her sister, Joy, is her partner and still cries at every wedding they attend), feels that time with friends and family is precious. Therefore when she’s photographing a wedding, it is the fleeting moments, the ones that disappear in an instant, that she’s after.

Jules feels it is her job to give her clients not only beautiful photographs, but beautiful photographs filled with all the memories they need to remember their wedding day as it really happened. And Jules is such a perfectionist, she won’t stop until she’s captured everything — from the smallest detail of the place settings, to the spontaneous moments of emotion during the ceremony, to the bride at her most radiant.

Take a look at these photographs. Click on them to enlarge them and see how evocative they.

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Jillian posted on August 28th, 2009
Filed under Party Planning and Ideas, Weddings.

Kate Watson, Wedding Photographer, and How She Captures Love

PART 1 in my series on wedding photographers….

One of the first things Kate Watson, of Kate Watson Photography in the San Francisco Bay Area, said to me was, “I shoot love.” And that’s exactly how she sees her job. Of course she cares about aesthetics and shooting beautiful pictures, but her main concern is capturing the connection between people. Above everything else, she wants her photographs to evoke real emotional.

To help achieve this, all of Kate’s wedding packages include an engagement session. Not only is this so the bride and groom have some cool shots for their guest book, but it’s a way for Kate to get to know her couples, and more importantly, for her couples to get to know her.

She’s found that the best wedding shoots are the ones where her couples feel comfortable exposing themselves to her. That way, at the wedding, Kate can make herself as invisible as possible, document the day as a photojournalist would, and capture every wonderful spontaneous moment.

When I asked Kate what kinds of couples tend to hire her, she said those that want to relax and enjoy the experience of their wedding. She said it fits with her philosophy as a photographer: to be dedicated to the authentic, and to capture everything as it really happens.

Here are some of my favorite images of Kate’s. Click on them to enlarge them and see how gorgeous they really are.

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Jillian posted on August 24th, 2009
Filed under Weddings.

Paper Olive and their Gorgeous Wedding Invitations

I was just talking to Marleine Pacilio, owner of Paper Olive, a fabulous couture stationary company based in Los Angeles.

When Mareine was a bride, she wanted to do something a little less traditional with her wedding but couldn’t find an invitation to reflect that. Because she has a flair for design, she tackled many of the design elements of her invitation herself, then used the colors of her invitation — bright orange and green — as the featured colors of her wedding.

Enjoying the invitation process, Marleine started designing invitations for friends and family, and before she had her company, The Knot called and wanted to feature one of her invitations in their magazine. That’s when she knew she had to do this professionally and started Paper Olive.

Marleine’s goal is to create beautiful invitations that have a modern spin. Her favorite thing to do is to take something traditional — a pattern, a color, a typeface — and mash it up with something contemporary and casual. She wants people to be inspired by the invitations she creates and also to find them fun. According to Marleine, you want your guests to have a great time at your wedding, and the invitation sets the tone.

Marleine will either help her clients select one of her existing designs, take one of her designs and alter it to their liking, or create something completely new. Plus, she will go as basic or over-the-top as her clients want.

For those of you who live in Los Angeles, and want to see her invitations in person, head over to the Bridal Bar where she is one of their featured stationers.

For those of you who don’t live nearby, check out some of her most popular invitations below and visit her website Paper Olive.

The Peacock invitation -- their most popular.

The Peacock invitation -- her most popular.

Their Lily invitation -- one of my favorites.

The Lily invitation -- one of my favorites.

Their Safari invitation -- I love the animals.

The Safari invitation -- I love the animals.

Their Blackberry invitation -- my other favorite.

The Blackberry invitation -- chic and fun.

Their Frolic Invitation -- I love the colors.

The Frolic Invitation -- what amazing colors.

Also, for more unique design inspirations, check out Marleine’s Paper Olive blog.

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Jillian posted on August 10th, 2009
Filed under Invitations, Weddings.

Forget the Cupcake Cake, What About A Twinkie Cake?

I consider myself a mild foodie, I shop at the farmer’s market almost weekly, and I go out of my way to avoid trans fats.

However, my husband and I were recently in North Carolina visiting family and we went to a local Walmart, walked down the snack aisle and couldn’t resist the Hostess Cupcakes. I probably hadn’t had one in twenty years. But I have to admit, it was pretty darn tasty. That’s why when I saw these pictures I had to post them.

Twinkies bring back a lot of good memories for me because they were my snack of choice in elementary school before my mother unfortunately discovered health food. So I know if I were at a wedding and someone served me a Twinkie cake, I’d love it. I’d probably go home, blog about it immediately and call all my friends and say, “You’re not going believe what they served!” And I promise you, I’d never forget that wedding.

That’s a lot of impact for a cake that costs $60.