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All desserts, miniatures, cakes are custom designed for any special occasion. Contact Amber at www.wix.com/kumquat360/kumquat360 for your cake or dessert needs!

(photo credit: all photos by Basile Kuo)

Chez, my lovely makeup artist had recommended that I pick up a tube of Trish McEvoy’s Curling Mascara after I told her that eye makeup tended to smudge on me. This is a tubular mascara which coats each lash and won’t come off until you gently wash it off. It lasted all day and night for me, which was my main concern, but I didn’t find that it necessarily “curled” my lashes any more than usual. Pricey at $28.00, but worth it if you need your makeup to hold up for a long time.

I didn’t want to be sucking it in all day and have always been curious about Spanx’ Higher Power given people’s raves about Spanx in general, so I decided to go with these for my wedding, or at least, check them out. For some reason, all of the stores seemed to be out of stock of the Higher Power in beige in my size! Luckily, Nordstrom pulled through, one with of their helpful sales associates giving me a call as soon as they got them back in stock. Turns out there had been a problem with the stock shipment during those couple of weeks.

Back to the product. The Higher Power was great! When I first pulled them on at Nordstrom (they have sample sizes for customers to try on), my doubtful self immediately thought, “Oh no, these aren’t going to work, I don’t really feel anything, it can’t possibly hold everything in!” But then I looked in the mirror and did my obligatory turn to the side, and voila! Everything looked smooth and flat, just the way it should be. I took several deep breaths, purposely trying to make my belly protrude, but the Higher Power still held me in.

It was comfortable wearing these on the day of my wedding. I thought I might get a little warm, but I didn’t at all (although perhaps this was because of the cool Bay Area climate I was in). I would highly recommend the Higher Power!

I’ll be adding reviews of various wedding-related products – anything from beauty products to apparel and accessories. Hope this will help you readers!

One of my favorite parts of the wedding was my mini dessert spread. I have a huge sweet tooth (just ask T) and was initially going for a candy buffet, but decided to turn it into a dessert buffet for various reasons (no need to rent more plates as napkins were used, not everyone likes cake/cupcakes, etc.). We had cream puffs, red velvet and vanilla cupcakes, mini caramel apples, peanut butter brownie pops, lemon meringue tartlets, as well as my yummy vanilla/chocolate ganache/strawberry wedding cake (which we simply used for cutting).

Luckily for me, my friend’s sister, Amber, is a pastry chef who agreed to take this project on. For those of you on a budget wanting to do something similar, check out your local bakery or supermarket. For example, I recently bought a platter of mini desserts at Whole Foods at $1/piece. Not bad, especially for Whole Foods!

Here’s how it turned out:

(photo credit: Basile Kuo and friend)

I really liked our gifts to the girls and guys. For the guys, we provided navy and pink ties to wear for the wedding as well as real, vintage typewriter key cufflinks in each groomsman’s respective initials (thanks to etsy.com).

(photo credit: saveonties.com and sparkeez8z1d.etsy.com)

For the girls and my bridesman, we provided monogrammed tote bags in navy with white lettering, bcbgirls black satin rosette flip flops (to change into after the ceremony) (needless to say, we omitted this item for above-mentioned bridesman), and another gift that was personalized for the recipient (gift cards to their favorite store and a french press coffee maker).

(photo credit:: nnichols.etsy.com)

Hope they enjoyed their gifts!

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Chez Murphy
Location: Bay Area, CA
Email: chez@chezmurphy.com

I am a professional makeup artist and skincare consultant. Besides the obvious make-up for weddings, proms, anniversaries, quinceaneras and birthday parties I also provide personal shopping and image consulting. I have over 10 years industry experience with such lines as Estee Lauder, Lancome, True, MAC and Trish McEvoy and I have dabbled in high-end fashion as well. Please e-mail me for pricing or consultation. I also partner with a California cert./licensed manicurist who I can bring with me on location. Great idea for bridal showers and parties etc. I have a wonderful contact for photography and I have contacts for wedding planners as well as videographers.

I’m married! The wedding flew by – it was so much fun and the honeymoon, even better… Although I wish I could’ve blogged more about my planning while I was in the thick of it, too many other obligations and crises which arose during the past several months made it difficult. So now that the wedding is over, I’ve moved in to T’s cute little apartment in SF, and things are settling down, I plan to share some planning tips with readers as well as reveal how my wedding all came together in the end. Keep posted!

It’s been awhile since I updated this site, but I’ve been busy with a new job amongst other things. Well, I finally decided on my colors. It’ll be navy and raspberry! Here are some pretty navy and pink (or close enough) inspiration boards that I’ve found:

Some more navy and pink details:

It’s what I wanted initially, but all of the other pretty palettes and combinations distracted me for what, nearly 7 months. I’m still going to have the girls wear black dresses, which I don’t mind. I’m excited!

I’m a bridesmaid in my good friend’s wedding this summer and am planning a bridal shower for her with the other girls. We’re just tossing around ideas at this point, but I couldn’t help making a polyvore (I am getting addicted to this site!) to help visualize what we’re thinking of.

pink and brown by msbean featuring Betsey Johnson heels & wedges