Tag: vegetarian wedding

Part 1: Event Partners

I though Karen did a great job personalizing her wedding. She did it in such a way that wasn’t about throwing a bunch of knickknacks together from bridal magazine. What she did took some introspection.

The more obvious, physical items reflected Karen’s Chinese heritage. The double happiness symbol was found on the invitations, ceremony programs and menus. Karen wore 3 different dresses (a white wedding gown, a Chinese qi pao, and a fuchsia evening gown). Finally, the favors of chocolate covered fortune cookies were inside a mini bamboo steamers.

I thought the more thoughtful and more subtle touches reflected David’s German heritage. The ceremony music were all by German composers: Johann Pachebel’s Canon, Bridal Chorus by Wagner and Ode to Joy by Beethoven. Their first dance was a waltz. Finally, several dishes had German influences: potato pancakes with apple and braised red cabbage and the red beet salad.

Venue: Atrium at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens

Floral Design: Petals Edge. I *love* the work they do. They always bring their A game. Incorporating the pink color scheme and the Asian aesthetics, Gerry came up with two different arrangement for centerpieces (top row, left and center). One of the arrangements is a potted phalaenopsis orchid in a silver square pot which I’ve never seen used before in such a simple yet effective way. She also made the cutest flower girl basket I have ever seen (bottom row center)!

Catering: Fusions Cuisine is another one of my favorites, Fusions Cuisine did a masterful job of developing a vegetarian menu for the evening. Yes! A vegetarian menu as the mother of the bride is Buddhist and they all agreed that it would be a healthy and unique way to go. Although I was skeptical at first, I must say that the food was delicious and Chef Thompson prepared the best beet salad ever and I don’t even like beets.

Ceremony Music: Jeanne Calderon, pianist from Bialek’s Music (middle row right). Wonderful. She worked really well with the violinist and soloist who were both friends of the couple.

Reception Music: DJ Chris Roorda from ThePros. A neutral rating here. He kept the dance floor pretty packed and was amenable to playing some Chinese music. He did forget the mother/son dance and had to send his assistant out to buy a CD at the mall.

Videography: Crystal Video. David Chen was very professional and unobtrusive. Since he was only doing raw footage, I cannot attest to what finished videos look like.

Cake: Fluffy Thoughts. Lara did a beautiful 3-tiered square cake with a cherry blossom design (bottom row left). Lara stayed for quite a while after delivering the cake to do additional touch ups. The only issue I had with the cake was that it looked like David & Karen had trouble getting the knife through the fondant and the one layer I tasted was a bit crumbly.