Note to Brides/Grooms: Don’t Forget About This Photo...

Photo By Katrina Nicole Photography

Don’t forget about your Wedding Stationery Flat Lay Photo. I repeat, Do Not Forget About Your Wedding Stationery Flat Lay Photo. This photo is most likely taken on your wedding day, with your wedding accessories, your wedding bouquet, and sometimes with your wedding venue’s carpet if it fits the aesthetic! 

If you spent a pretty penny on a 4 piece custom designed wedding invitation, tied with organic silk ribbon, hand addressed with beautiful lettering, sealed with a wax seal, and mailed out with vintage postage stamps, why wouldn’t you want to beautifully capture all that goodness within your official and very professional wedding photos/videos.

The problem is, almost every bride forgets about it. Between getting last minute things done, and picking up Uncle Boy and Auntie Baby from the airport, the last thing on your mind is the wedding invitation that you sent out 2 months ago. I’m one of those brides who forgot! I not only forgot to bring my wedding stationery along, I also forgot to pack our marriage license! I can 100% relate, but I’m here to help you fam! I’m sharing reasons WHY you shouldn’t forget about this photo and HOW you can remember! 

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER FORGET:

1. TIME - Before you even spend any money on your wedding stationery, you’re spending your time. You’re taking countless hours going back and forth deciding how you want your invitations to look, which stationery designer fits your style and budget, and taking the time to wrap your head around all the tiny details. I’m talking paper, paper weight, paper color, lettering style, embellishments, etc. 

2. MONEY - You spent your hard working money on “just paper.” Which btw it’s totally not “just paper,” so get that idea out of your head. (Continue reading along to Reason #3 for an explanation of this.)

3. MONEY SHOT - Your Wedding Invitation is the one piece of your wedding that documents the entire day. It contains your names, your wedding venue, the time of your wedding, maybe a map from the church to the reception, cocktail hour, and some reply cards list down whether your guest ate steak, chicken, or fish. Not only that, but your wedding invitation will also include your wedding colors, maybe illustrations of your wedding flowers or the lace pattern on your wedding dress. Take all of this, and add in your wedding bands, cuff links, wedding shoes, the bouquet, your wedding day fragrance, and boom! One beautiful flat lay photo that speaks volumes! 

   But that’s not all…

4. VENDORS - I know you didn’t just hire the best professional wedding photographer and videographer, and not have them capture every inch of your wedding day?! They actually want to include this flat lay photo in their highlight reel. Photographers say it helps with their blog posts. Videographers say it creates great transitional shots to their video content. And there are a lot of other reasons why they too, want to capture this photo. But for you my friend, just like how your soon-to-be Mr. or Mrs. makes your life feel complete, that flat lay shot of your wedding stationery, will make your wedding day album feel complete! 

HOW YOU CAN REMEMBER:

Photo By Katrina Nicole Photography

1. BE EXTRA - Have your Stationery Designer include extra. Before your wedding day, set these extras near the items you need to bring along with you. What I do for my clients, is that I separate the extras and include a note that says something along the lines of, “bring this to your photographer the day of your wedding.” Also note, that if you got hand addressed envelopes, your Stationery Designer will include at least two envelopes — one with a fake guest address, and one with a fake return address. That way there won’t be any need to crop out private information.

2. MAIL OUT - I know that the challenging part about this task is that you receive your invitations at least 2 months before your big day. If you don’t want to think about keeping the extras in a safe spot you’ll remember before then, have your Stationery Designer mail the extras out to your Photographer, Videographer, and/or Wedding Planner with a simple note so they know what to do with them.

3. RIGHT-HAND MAN - Let’s take it up a notch and have your Stationery Designer mail it out to a trust-worthy member of your wedding party. This can become one of their task. As I refine my process, I plan on creating simple instructions for your right-hand man, so they know exactly what to do with the wedding invitation and who to hand it off to.

After all is said and done, send those professional shots to your Stationery Designer. He/She will be extremely ecstatic because I guarantee you, with every wedding they designed an invitation for, they’ve probably received only less than a handful of professional photos taken by your wedding photographer. The photo I’m sharing in this post is the VERY first time one of my clients remembered! Lol! 

I hope this helps! Now, lets get those wedding day flat lays in! 

The Back of Your Place Card is Ridiculous!

Marble Place Cards are one of the hottest wedding trends of 2018. They're a beautiful detail to add into your wedding day and not to mention, a great wedding souvenir for your guests. That's if they're not too drunk to bring their's home! 

I recently did my first Marble Place Card order. I was already advised that the prep work for it would be time consuming. However, this was a small order of less than 50, so I didn't see the big deal. I was super excited for it. I set up my work station in my tiny balcony, turned my music up, and started the recommended sanding process to the back of each tile. That's when reality hit me! I am no Chip Gaines! Sanding marble tiles is a bitch! I'm a tiny filipino girl with baby muscles. What was I thinking?! I managed to smooth out about 20 tiles until I decided that it was time to take a break before I lose my arms!

As I ate my lunch, I stared at the rest of the tiles that still needed sanding and decided that I needed to come up with another solution. I've read some tutorials that people have glued felt or added contact paper to the back. This tip isn't recommended because it's considered more time consuming than sanding, but I decided to give it a go. My arms were begging to be saved! I had black contact paper in my stash of random supplies, so I tried it out. I lightly sanded off any rough edges but ultimately, the contact paper worked out much better than the Chip Gaines method!

The tiles were 3x3 inches. I measured out the contact paper and cut out 3x3 inch squares, stuck them to the lightly sanded backs, used a pair of embroidery scissors to get closer to the edge, and voila! Super smooth Marble Tile backs, and most of all, CLEAN backs with the comfortability of placing these marble tiles on a table linen or dinner plate for a beautiful wedding table display. It's a great finish to these details. Try it out and let me know how it goes in the comments! 

How to Escape the Wedding Day Fuss During the Wedding Day Fuss

You know how your wedding day is the best day of your life, but also the longest day? From the minute you wake up on your wedding day until the moment you crash in the honeymoon suite of your hotel, the day is pretty much non-stop. And although its a non-stop day full of love and laughter, it can easily become difficult to really step back, reflect, and soak it all in. Add in having a huge family and you got yourself a wedding day that flies right by, with your first meal as newlyweds, hardly ever touched. But what if I told you there's a loop hole to taking a mini breather for the full day event? Well, I have a secret tip for you! 

I'm going to tell you how to escape the Wedding Day Fuss during the Wedding Day Fuss! If you're anything like me, I'm half introverted and half extroverted. I'm a social butterfly, but also need to crawl back into my cocoon to recollect my energy so that I can flutter around for the rest of the fun-filled day, if you get my drift! I suppose you can consider the dinner portion of your reception as a way to wind down from the excitement. But keep in mind, (and this is for anyone who has a gigantic guest list) huge family equals lots of photos! Lots of photos equals tired smiles and nobody wants that! My husband and I also have slight space cadet syndrome, that I knew we wouldn't be able to get ourselves to eat with so much going on around us.

Our goal was to have time just the two of us, but also use the time to recharge ourselves! Enter our PRIVATE WEDDING DAY DINNER during COCKTAIL HOUR! While our guests mingled in the ballroom's foyer, scarfing down hors d'oeuvres, and guzzling down all the alcohol they can manage (or not manage for some...hey I'm not naming names over here!), Jan and I were on the rooftop having a very romantic and intimate dinner. We had our videographer and photographer present, however they were very respectful to refrain from capturing too many photos, just so that we can enjoy our first meal as husband and wife.

We had a few of our guests ask where we went off to, and when we told them, they figured the private dinner was something our venue or coordinators offered as a service. But the great thing about it, is that you can have this for any kind of wedding at any venue with any coordinator! JUST ASK!

It's an odd request, so if you happen to just flat out ask your coordinator, "hey can you set up a private dinner for my husband and I?" you might possibly get a very confused look. Instead, you have to approach the request with an explanation. Explaining that you'd like a private dinner so that you can take a breather from all the wedding day fuss is something they will highly respect. Once you explain your intensions for requesting this, they'll honestly be very pleased and happily be on board with making this work into your jam-packed day. 

Now, beggers can't be choosers, so your coordinator and venue will do the best they can to find private space for you. But just know that compromise is key if you happen to not be so thrilled about the location they can offer you. Just focus on the fact that it'll be your one-on-one time together, no matter where they set up your private dinner. 

We were very fortunate that our team wanted to set ours up very romantically and even mimic the table designs for our reception into a mini sweethearts table. We initially just asked for a booth in the hotel's restaurant. They honestly could've placed us in our venue's kitchen for all we cared. Just as long as we were together, eating, and drinking. But they really went the extra mile for us. And we can't thank The Westgate Hotel and Lavish Weddings enough for really pulling through! 

I know you're probably wondering: if you already ate your dinner then what do you do during the dinner portion of your reception?! And the answer is, we MINGLE and we get the evening of events started!

Since we already ate our dinner, we really had no need for a sweethearts table at our reception. Instead, we opted for a VIP seating area. It gave our guests the opportunity to sit with us and hang out, and also became very inviting for the little ones, too. The rental furniture was provided by With Love Event Decor and the beautiful draping was provided by Concepts Event Design. And don't think that the hand-lettered laser-cut sign was by me, because that beauty was designed by Letters To You. It takes a team! And with this team there was no need for it be on a riser since everything they put together created a huge statement piece in the ballroom.  

So there you have it. I won't claim that the Private Dinner was an original idea. I know a few newlyweds who have done this way before Jan and I were planning a wedding. But the idea is great for anyone who needs that breather, newlyweds who want to make sure they eat, and let's keep it real, anyone avoiding their camera-happy relative! #sorrynotsorry

We opted for this because as a military couple, Jan and I actually planned our wedding living apart; him on the East Coast, and me on the West Coast, so this intimate dinner was a chance for us to soak in our wedding plans together. ...Okay fine and also, I had an extremely camera-happy Auntie at my bridal shower a few months before, but that's a different story to tell! So with that said, I HIGHLY encourage you to add this into your big day! And if you do, TAG ME! I'd love to see your own version!

The Repercussions of a Not-So-Great Job

Well, talk about major procrastination! This website launch has been on my Things To Do List since 2013 and 5 years later I finally got around to it. I know you’re judging me and wondering why it took me this long and I have no real answer other than, LIFE! This website will not only share my portfolio of work and the services offered, but it will share the dirty laundry of the beginning stages of launching a business, tips and tricks, and because I feel this topic is missing on google searches, I’ll be occasionally discussing how to conquer the terror of wedding planning as a modern Filipino-American Bride-to-Be. But first, let me catch you up on the last 5 years.

By now I’m hoping you looked through my website because then you’d already know that designing is something I was born to do. As soon as I graduated and got my degree in Graphic Design, I pictured myself in a relaxed office setting as an In-House Graphic Designer for some design agency. A very naive idea. I mostly wanted to be surrounded by likeminded individuals and 5 years ago, I got pretty close to that goal. I interned for a Branding Consultant (shout out to Peji Design) , and while I was an intern, I managed to land a job as an In-House Graphic Designer for a small team sports apparel company. Although sports are clearly not my thing, I chose to leave my awesome internship for the stability that this salary position offered. I worked with a pretty cool marketing team, but sadly, the projects were such a snooze fest. Like any other young professional out there, I stayed. After all, it was an easy job, I was paid (not well, but better than nothing), and they allowed me to keep my job and work remotely from D.C. when my husband, Jan got military orders. The arrangement sounds great, right? But after living a life with a goal to be a designer, I ended up questioning if this was really what I wanted to do. Lesson learned: when you pray for something, be more specific! Although I had my "dream" job, it was robotic, and I was taking direction from a misogynistic boss who swore on his life that his 5-minute creations on Microsoft Paint equated to the projects the marketing team and I were constantly pitching to him. 

Budget cuts happened, and after 3 long years, I was eventually laid off with a group of others. No tears here! I literally prayed for myself to be laid off. Lol! Now jobless, with an open road ahead of me, I did plenty of soul-searching in order to determine if I wanted to use my degree or start a new venture into another interest of mine. The only thing I knew was that I did not want to design for a male targeted audience. As I struggled with this, my Dad brought to my attention that I had a natural knack for designing for weddings. Because my last job was such a bore, I managed to freelance as a stationery and brand designer at the same time. It was my way to balance my very masculine 9-5 job. Very passionate about designing for females, but not so hot on the idea of owning a business, I disregarded my Dad’s advice. Surprisingly, Jan was on board with the same idea as my Dad. 

For the first few months, Jan insisted to operate the business side of things, just so I can focus on design, and fall back in love with it. As I took on my first two clients, pushed myself forward, started to network with people in my industry, and gain my confidence back, I decided it was time to take the wheel and let him have the backseat. So here I am, on the driver's side stirring my journey along. Jan is on standby if I run into a pothole and if I need a flat tire changed.