Welcome back to our regular Under the Radar feature on Portland Wedding Coordinator, showcasing a cool new Portland wedding venue. Each time, I'll be sharing a site with you that I've stumbled across recently. Most of our Under the Radar wedding ceremony and reception venues are ones you won't yet find in the glossy wedding guides. If you use one of these sites, please let them know you heard it here first! – See more at: http://weddingcoordinator.typepad.com/my_weblog/page/2/#sthash.ZEPUb00V.dpuf
Welcome back to our regular Under the Radar feature on Portland Wedding Coordinator, showcasing a cool new Portland wedding venue. Each time, I'll be sharing a site with you that I've stumbled across recently. Most of our Under the Radar wedding ceremony and reception venues are ones you won't yet find in the glossy wedding guides. If you use one of these sites, please let them know you heard it here first! – See more at: http://weddingcoordinator.typepad.com/my_weblog/page/2/#sthash.ZEPUb00V.dpuf
Welcome back to our regular Under the Radar feature on Portland Wedding Coordinator, showcasing a cool new Portland wedding venue. Each time, I'll be sharing a site with you that I've stumbled across recently. Most of our Under the Radar wedding ceremony and reception venues are ones you won't yet find in the glossy wedding guides. If you use one of these sites, please let them know you heard it here first! – See more at: http://weddingcoordinator.typepad.com/my_weblog/page/2/#sthash.ZEPUb00V.dpuf
Welcome back to our regular Under the Radar feature on Portland Wedding Coordinator, showcasing a cool new Portland wedding venue. Each time, I'll be sharing a site with you that I've stumbled across recently. Most of our Under the Radar wedding ceremony and reception venues are ones you won't yet find in the glossy wedding guides. If you use one of these sites, please let them know you heard it here first!
via Vibrant Table's Facebook page
We are SUPER EXCITED about this week's feature: The Exchange Ballroom and Cascade Rooftop located at the Eastside Exchange building, the much-trumpeted new development at the Burnside Bridgehead location. Eastsiders like myself have been waiting for YEARS to see what the development would turn out to be, and of course, with every new development, I kept my fingers crossed that there would be a cool new event venue to explore. The Eastside Exchange delivers.
The Exchange Ballroom has a capcacity of 450: holding 350 for banquets and 450 for standing receptions. Catering and bar are provided exclusively by Vibrant Table Group. Events can go as late as needed indoors, and 10 pm outdoors on the rooftop. The rooftop capacity is 125 seated/250 standing and can be tented.
Photo by Evrim Icoz via The Exchange Ballroom Facebook Page
Lots more details are available from the folks at Vibrant Table.
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.
In the middle of #Snowlandia2014, why am I sitting inside thinking about weddng sparklers? Maybe because I am obsessed with making sure people don’t make mistakes with their wedding, and sparklers are one place where it’s really easy to screw up something that seems simple. Here are a few tips:
1. Order your sparklers really early. First, so you can get the benefits of super-low bulk pricing from the large favor sellers. Second, because in most places, sparklers are considered to be a type of firework, and thus cannot be shipped express air. So many people wait until the last minute/last couple of weeks before the wedding and then realize that they can’t get the sparklers on time!
2. (Or maybe, #zero?) Check with your venue to make sure they will allow you to use sparklers on site! Just because you’ve seen a bunch of great pictures of people using wedding sparklers on Pinterest, doesn’t mean your venue allows it. Also be prepared that, especially in the Gorge or Oregon’s forested areas, where it can be very windy, a site that allows sparklers normally can all of a sudden ban them if there is a general burn ban in the area due to dry and windy weather.
3. Don’t hand them out too early. Guests will get into them and start lighting them up on the dance floor or wherever, and all of a sudden, there aren’t any left for the special getaway picture you were planning. Designate someone to pull them out of their safe storage place at the end of the night and hand them out as guests are leaving.
4. Organize your peeps. Those getaway pictures don’t just happen. Guests are usually occupied getting one last drink at the bar or hanging out near the dance floor — they have no idea that you want them to gather out at the front of the venue to pose for a complicated photo composition. Again, designate your wedding coordinator or trusted friend who will have their wits about them at the end of the night, to round up guests a few minutes before you and your new spouse exit the venue. Or get the DJ/emcee to make an announcement.
5. Again, those getaway pictures don’t just happen!Make sure your photographer is well versed in taking nighttime photos with sparklers. Once more, your coordinator is key in making sure that the schedule will accommodate your photographer’s package (you don’t want them leaving before the getaway, right?).
6. Timing is everything. By the time the last guest lined up gets their sparkler lit, the first guest’s sparkler could go out. That’s why I recommend using 28″ to 36″ long sparklers – the really long kind – so they last a long time. As an alternative, you could give out two of the shorter (more commonly found) 12″ sparklers per person so when their first one goes out they have a backup. It goes without saying that you should have plenty of lighters, matches, or a central large sparkler for everyone to light off of. And of course, pails of sand or water for guests to put them out.
I hope you found these tips helpful! Here are a few links where you may be able to find wedding sparklers online.
We may be paid a commission if you purchase something through a link on our website. Thank you for allowing us to recoup our time in writing this blog. We hope you found it helpful!
This post was edited on Feb. 4, 2021 to remove outdated links.
Today I received a question from a bride who wanted to know how she should let her guests know about their wedding registry.
“We’ve been wondering how couples typically let their guests know about their wedding gift registry. Is it a part of their mailed invitation, a word of mouth thing, or something else?”
Let it be known: it’s generally frowned upon to put information about gifts or registry into the wedding invitation. The reason is that you would never imply that your guest wasn’t welcome without a gift, right? Nor that attending your wedding comes with an obligation to give a gift. The focus of a wedding invitation should never be on gifts.
That being said, most everyone attending will want to fete you and shower you with blessings and gifts! So you should definitely register for gifts if you want them. But how to let people know about your registry, since you’re not supposed to put it in the invitation?
There are two ways: old-school word of mouth, and new-school wedding websites. Both are etiquette-correct. Simply let your family and friends know where you are registered, and if a guest asks them, your besties/familia can pass the word along.
Or, list it on your wedding website on a secondary page, not the home page. This way, your wedding website acts as your etiquettely-correct, 21st-century word-of-mouth, since by clicking on a link to your registry, your guest is inquiring where you are registered and it’s not you pushing the information at them. And you CAN include a link to your wedding website in the invitation, as long as, again, the focus of the website isn’t the wedding registry but information about the wedding overall such as maps, directions, and the like.
Updated 9/17/2020 by Emee Pumarega.
Many thanks to our affiliate partners who support this blog. If you click through any links and make a purchase, EJP Events may receive a commission from an affiliate. Feel free to click on the link below for some great deals from one of our affiliate partners, Minted Weddings.
I know, crazy, right? Why would The Portland Wedding Coordinator blog about not needing a wedding planner? The plain truth is, not every wedding really needs one. Here are some signs that yours might be one of them:
1. You are very laid-back about the look and feel of the wedding and don't need for things to turn out or look a certain way.
2. Your event has very little etiquette, protocol, or time constraint
3. Culturally, the expectations of family and guests of your ability to host a party experience are low.
4. Your guest list is small (less than 40) people, and you don't have friends and family coming from out of town
5. The how-this-will-all-come-together is pretty cut and dried. Logistics are really easy, and your vendor team has all worked together before in that venue. Additionally, you are not creating a script or schedule that deviates greatly from what's been done before.
Our friends at Amrapali Boutique in Hillsboro are celebrating their 4th anniversary, and we just got this great sale notice from them. If you need to outfit yourself for a South Asian or Indian wedding this summer, you have to check out their great selection of clothing, jewelry and gifts!
"Thank You For Your Patronage
It is because of your love and support that AMRAPALI is celebrating its 4th Anniversary. It only feels like yesterday when we opened our doors on 9th January, 2010. A dream came true and all of you helped nurture & support it. Thank You Once Again.
