Tag: Portland wedding planning

Sweet treats and a cupcake truck – from Hungry Heart Cupcakes

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Portland-cupcake-truck-hungry-heart

This is being written on Saturday night, and I am at the office doing my 2011 taxes. I just want everyone to share in my misery. Happily, there was one cheerful beam through the gloom of paperwork, and that was the super-nice Jax of Hungry Heart Cupcakes taking the time to stop by with a box of samples. It was really great to finally meet her and to hear about the fun and different service she is offering to wedding clients.

For one thing, Jax has a truck. A cupcake truck named Chomps. Just saying these words gets me pretty giddy. She will drive this truck to your location and be a cupcake fairy goddess of love, handing out cupcake treats to your wedding guests. She can also add on a freezer and ice cream novelties, so your guests can enjoy Bomb Pops, Dreamsicles, and Choco Tacos along with the cupcakey goodness.

Portland-mobile-cupcake-food-truck-cart

Photo via Hungry Heart Cupcakes website.

(DISCLAIMERS: 1) I just ate two of the samples in quick succession, a Saigon Cinnamon cake with Horchata frosting, and the other one was a Dark Chocolate Cacao Nib cake with Dulce de Leche Sea Salt frosting. So maybe blame the giddy on the sugar. 2) She did provide these samples free of charge to me, but otherwise, I have not been compensated in any way for this blog mention. Happy, FTC? All right, let's continue…)

The other neat and different thing about Hungry Heart Cupcakes is their use of offbeat flavorings like cardamom and horchata in the cakes and frostings, as well as their daring flavor combos. A quick glance at the upcoming menu revealed flavors like bourbon apple, apricot brie, and even prosciutto melon. Jax says in a few weeks there will also be gluten-free versions. Can't wait!

Keep an eye on the blog in the coming weeks because I've been so busy assisting clients find their perfect wedding teams, and sometimes that means tasting a lot of cake, pie and cookies. I'll be sure to report my findings.

Don’t forget about beautiful indoor weddings in Portland

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Today’s gorgeous March weather reminds us we are moving closer and closer to summer wedding season. Outdoor weddings and ceremonies are always big in Portland and throughout Oregon. But for various reasons, not everyone wants an outdoor wedding. Perhaps they’re looking for a more formal design. Perhaps they want dancing and a huge band until midnight, which would get you in trouble with the neighbors (and the law) at an outdoor wedding. So this week’s post is dedicated to a short roundup of some gorgeous indoor wedding locations in Portland.

All weddings coordinated by EJP Events.

Portland-indoor-weddings-ejp

Continue reading “Don’t forget about beautiful indoor weddings in Portland” →

Springtime and cherry blossoms means engagement photo time!

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Today's warmer weather reminds me that springtime is just around the corner. For many of you who are getting married in Portland in 2012, this means engagement photos.

Portland-wedding-cherry-blossoms-engagement

Image by Paul Rich via My Portland Photographer. (actually taken in Maryland, but ah well.)

Why have an engagement photo taken? This is an exciting time, and it's fun to document the transition between singlehood and marriage. The photos have lots of uses, such as holiday cards, and save the dates. I say, err on the side of taking more pictures, at more events, than not. When you look back, you'll be glad you did.

And in the most practical sense, if you do your engagement shoot with your own wedding photographer, it gives you a chance to run through what it's like to be around that person for an extended length of time in the focus of their camera lens. If, like me, you don't have professional photos taken that often and can feel somewhat awkward about it, every chance you get to spend time with the photographer and get more comfortable in the process will help you feel more at ease when it comes time on the day of your wedding.

{ Design Roundup } 5 sites to help you choose a wedding color scheme

Posted on by Emee Pumarega
orange peach and yellow flowers
Chuttersnap on Unsplash

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 palette 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. Adobe Color Extract From Image – Adobe Inc.’s Color 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.

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.

3. Design Seeds This blogger takes hundreds of artful photos and applies her own aesthetic to draw out each custom color palette. A wonderful inspiration site on their blog and Instagram.

4. The Perfect Palette This blog updates several times a week with wedding color inspiration. You can search the whole site by color family to find exactly what you want.

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.

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

Check for availability with The Portland Wedding Coordinator!

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Book An Appointment

To book your first appointment, please check our appointment calendar below. If you don’t see your preferred time, email us at info@ejpevents.com, and we can adjust to your schedule. Once you have chosen an appointment time, simply email us at info@ejpevents.com to request the time, or call us at 503-284-6756 to schedule by phone. You’ll receive a confirmation shortly after.

EJP Events offers a 30-minute initial complimentary phone consultation to discuss your event needs and create a proposal. It is meant as a casual conversation and introduction to the business. We also can book working in-person or remote consultations at the cost of $75/hr, to address specific issues and work on your event, such as: develop venue/vendor lists, create preliminary budgets, or provide assistance with initial concept, design, and strategy. If you wish to book more time for an hourly consultation to work on a specific task, just let us know at the time you make your appointment.

We look forward to meeting with you and talking all about your wedding!

Make it a White Friday instead, and set your wedding planning intentions

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Black-friday-shopping-wedding
Photo by tshein on flickr, used with Creative Commons License.

Wait! Before you make one more Black Friday purchase, stop for a minute! If you’re recently engaged and hoping to have your wedding in 2012, why not take a little time this holiday weekend to set your intentions around what’s really important for your celebration? A little pre-planning before the plunge of wedding shopping can go a long way.

1. Have your families met yet? Ideally, your families will meet before the wedding day. Figure out a way to make this happen if it hasn’t already.

2. Have you set your budget yet? There are many budget planning tools online, or you can email me with the subject line “I read your 11/25 blog” and I’ll send you the one I use for my full-service clients — free!

3. Have you started on your guest list? Your budget will give you an idea of how many guests you can have. It’s not a perfect rule of thumb, but just to get you started, consider on the casual end (in the Portland, Oregon area), a budget of $50-100 per person; then, a more elaborate celebration will have a budget from $100-500 per person. Reducing your guest list is the easiest way to reduce your budget.

(Of course, all you really need is your intended and the witnesses, but these guidelines should work for anyone hoping to host a celebration with more than a dinner-party number of guests and some kind of food, drink, and entertainment.)

Another way to think about budget is to consider a favorite restaurant whose food you would love to have at your wedding. What did you pay per person the last time you went there on a date and had appetizers, dinner, and a few drinks? Take that number and double it (in order to budget 50% on catering and 50% on the other things like planning, venue rental, entertainment, documentation, printing, etc) and that can be a rough budget for you.

4. Have you discussed your shared vision with your fiance(e)? On The 2000 Dollar Wedding Blog, Sara Cotner discusses how she and her fiance “started with the end in mind”. No matter what your wedding budget might be, this is great advice.

So take a few moments during this holiday weekend to be thankful for this exciting time, and to set your intentions and get your wedding planning started right. Who knows–maybe eliminating one Black Friday impulse purchase will allow you to get something you really hoped for for the wedding.

A version of this article originally ran on The Portland Wedding Coordinator on November 27, 2009.