Thursday, May 7, 2009

here and there.

It's been a great spring for getting to know people in the wedding industry a little better.

Alison Hotchkiss, of Alison Events fame, recently had a super-fun launch party for her new wedding planner book, which is beautiful and useful and I highly recommend it for any thoughtful bride-to-be. It was held at Coffee Bar in San Francisco, which has delicious coffee (and makes a mean white sangria, too!).

WIPA, a relatively new wedding industry organization, just held a completely green-focused event, which was TERRIFIC for lots of reasons. A) Green weddings are still a growing trend, b) the industry is really starting to pay attention. Lots of businesses are throwing around words like "green" and "organic" and "recycled" in their marketing materials, because it's become the hip thing to do, even though they a) don't really care about it, or b) aren't even actually USING green or organic or recycled materials. Ugh. But here was a room full of people who get it - who were earnest in learning how they can make a difference in the world while they make someone's wedding day great too.

Greening weddings is a MUCH harder sell in some areas than others - some brides won't even consider a reused dress, for examply - but cakes are a cinch, honestly. Organic ingredients make such a difference in flavor, the green aspect is (almost) secondary. You can get lots of ideas for greening your wedding here - Corina is an incredible resource (and incredibly sweet, too).

Most recently we attended the opening of Scheid Vineyard's event space, put on by Amy Byrd Events, which was really lovely.

Ceremonies are held in the demonstration vineyard, and dinners are in the barrel room. They also added a lounge area in the steel tank room, which was a very cool surprise - not what you'd expect in a Central Valley winery.

I made some bittersweet chocolate cupcakes for the event, complete with clusters of grapes and grape leaves:

(Forgive the low-fi iPhone picture - they were cute!) There were so many amazing, talented people there, and I just felt really lucky to do what I do and be a part of this neat community. Thanks, ya'll!