Portland’s ONLY multi-cultural bridal show is taking place this Sunday, May 15^th, 2011 at the Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel. Come check out entire ballrooms decorated to feature the following cultures: Russian, Latino and Indian. The event will include three fashion shows highlighting multi-cultural fashions for the whole family. Here are the details:

Where: Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel, 8235 NE Airport Way, Portland, OR  97220

Date: Sunday, May 15^th, 2011

Time: 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Cost: FREE!! RSVP required at www.portlandweddingsoftheworld.com

Other features include:

• Prize drawings
• Free food samples
• Wedding inspiration everywhere you look!

WedPortland looks forward to seeing you there!

At the lovely Hotel Monaco & delicious Red Star Tavern in downtown Portland, promoting sustainability isn’t just a once a year event. They value green business practices year round. These venues are Green Seal Silver Certified. This certification requires achievement of specific criteria in the areas of waste minimization, energy efficiency, conservation and management, management of fresh water resources, waste water management, hazardous substances and environmentally and socially sensitive purchasing policies.

In honor of Earth day, Hotel Monaco & Red Star Tavern are celebrating with EarthCare Week. EarthCare week, sponsored by Kimpton Hotels, includes many events: Recycles RoundUp (see flyer), recycled art gallery in the hotel lobby and offering Treetini’s at the nightly wine reception with donations going to the Friends of Trees organization. On Earth Day, EarthCare Week will conclude with Lights Out Power Hours by extending the hosted wine hour, by candlelight to conserve energy, from 5 pm to 7 pm. Details of all the week’s events can be found at http://www.kimptonhotels.com/programs/earthweek-2011.aspx.

Hotel Monaco & Red Star Tavern are excellent venue choices for many of life’s celebratory events: weddings, rehearsal dinners, anniversaries, birthdays, etc. For more information, check out their website at http://www.kimptonhotels.com/hotels/factsheets/hotel-monaco-portland/.

In honor of Earth Day, I thought it only appropriate to highlight a few eco-friendly wedding vendor options this week. I’m very excited about today’s highlight. Greenvelope.com provides a much greener option for wedding invitations by taking a paperless approach and inevitably reducing paper usage with electronic formal wedding invitations. In addition, Greenvelope.com donates a percentage of profit to charities that share the company’s values of improving the environment.

Greenvelope’s electronic formal wedding invitations are easy to customize and services include save-the-dates, invitations, response cards and thank you cards. In addition to being environmentally friendly, they are also very cost effective.

Greenvelope’s Packages:

• Bronze (FREE) – Save the Date Cards
• Silver ($99) – Save the Date Cards, Invitations, and Response Cards
• Gold ($149) – Save the Date Cards, Invitations, Response Cards, and Thank You Notes

For an additional savings, use the coupon code “WedPortland” and receive an additional 25% off!

Other features include an advertisement free website, guest list optimization, invitation animation (allowing guests to receive a beautifully addressed envelope mimicking the experience of opening a traditional wedding invitation), group email, thank you notes and the option to save a high resolution copy of your invitation to your computer.

Lastly, Greenvelope is easy to use. It provides an accelerated process for sending invitations and allows you to import your guest list from your email contact list or excel spreadsheet. In addition, customer service representatives are available via phone or email to assist you through the process. If you are looking for an eco-friendly option for stylish and unique formal wedding invitations, Greenvelope is the way to go!

So, for those of you that don’t know, one of my hobbies is baking cupcakes. My favorite thing is to test out new recipes that I find and see how they turn out. I was asked to bake some cupcakes for a Baby Shower on Saturday and was just going to make my favorite Red Velvet Recipe. However, in my cupcake blog perusing last week, I found a recipe that caught my eye: Banana Buster Brown Cupcakes from Tidymom.net. I was dying to try this out. Normally I wouldn’t use a recipe I haven’t tried out before for an event but I said, “what the hell” and took a chance. Boy am I glad I did! The Banana Buster Brown Cupcakes were a huge hit!

The baking process was a bit interesting. The cupcake ingredients listed both cups and grams…this made me nervous. It even called for a “scant” cup of flour suggesting you may need to make them a few times before you get it right. Yikes! I went with it. The final batter seemed a little watery so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Good news is they baked beautifully! And, they were super duper moist!

The frosting was crazy…a peanut butter butter cream! Yum-E! The recipe said to beat the melted light brown sugar, salt and egg whites for 15 minutes on medium speed and 7 minutes on high speed (for a total of 22 minutes) until stiff peaks form! I used my hand held mixer. Yes, exhausting. Then, you add the peanut butter and the mixture went from super stiff (like taffy) to almost soupy. I used Adam’s peanut butter so I thought maybe the extra oils had a negative impact on the frosting consistency. I added the butter anyway hoping it might thicken up a bit and it didn’t. So, I decided to make a whole new batch of frosting with regular peanut butter. Needless to say, it turned out exactly the same!

I applied the frosting to the cupcakes and made sure not to get to close to the edges in fear it would spill over. I even placed the cupcake container in the fridge for storage overnight to avoid overflow. Normally, I don’t store my cupcakes in the fridge. I got lucky. They didn’t overflow and they were the perfect texture and temp by the time they were eaten. In hindsight, I probably could/should have added some powdered sugar to the frosting to thicken it up but I have to say, the frosting flavor was perfect without it.

End result: super YUM-E cupcake! Yes, I will definitely make it again! To print the recipe go to: http://tidymom.net/category/recipes/cupcakes/.

	Look inside >
March 2011

Over the last week, I’ve been posting different ways to meet your wedding day needs with Costco on my WedPortland facebook page. Costco is a DIY Bride’s dream! In addition, it is budget friendly! I got my inspiration for these posts from the March 2011 Costco Connection magazine. I highly recommend the article. Click on the image above to read the article located on page 28. It covers everything from how Costco can help you with the proposal to invitations to food, favors, décor, dessert, photos and more.

Here are ten things you should not do the week before your wedding (collected from real life tragedies):

1. Try a new food (hello allergic reaction)
2. Wax anything you have never waxed before (bumpy red irritated skin… and itching)
3. Cook in the middle of the night (hello second degree burns – on my face!)
4. Overeat (it is a tight white dress after all)
5. Starve (it can be a loose white dress if you are not careful – and you can faint)
6. Do anything too sporty (although the cast is white too – it just doesn’t look so good with the dress)
7. Try new makeup (see number 1 and number 3)
8. Get a hair cut from a new beautician (I think this one is a no brainer)
9. Stay awake and worry (no makeup can hide truly dark circles)
10. Forget that it is just a party (down Brideziila! – down girl!)

There have been a number of studies and arguments devoted to this very subject and it appears there still isn’t a clear answer.  The debate continues with the question whether cloth napkins actually waste more energy and produce larger amounts of greenhouse gases in their production and maintenance than paper napkins?

Cloth napkins not only use water in washing and a lot of energy in drying but the making of them is also significant. A paper napkin causes 10 grams of greenhouse gas emissions and uses 0.3 liters of water while the linen napkin causes 112 grams of greenhouse gas emissions and uses 22 liters of water, according to Greenhouse Gas and Sustainability Engineer Pablo Paster.

Other considerations are the washing and drying of the napkins. In the act of washing each napkin produces about 5 grams of greenhouse gas emissions through the electricity used by the motor, and 1/4 liter of water. Drying napkins causes about 10 grams of greenhouse gas emissions per napkin. Of course, to reduce this to zero you could line dry. One of the advantages of the paper napkin is, of course, that you don’t incur the emissions or water use from washing and drying.

The main benefit to using linen napkins is the fact they can be used multiple times. Chances are that a set of napkins can be used 50 times before it’s not suitable for your wedding table. When you divide the emissions and water use by the amount of actual times used, the numbers are more confusing.

Let’s crunch some numbers over 50 uses of each napkin type.

Single use paper napkins = 500 grams of greenhouse gas

Linen napkin washed and dried 50 times = 862 grams of greenhouse gas

Linen napkin washed and line dried 50 times= 362 grams of greenhouse gas

It appears that all we need to do is find someone who wants to line dry 200 napkins every week!

Of course we need to wash the linens after every use for a wedding, but when you use linens at home you wash them once a week or so.  You’ll most likely add them to an existing load of laundry thus not increasing the greenhouse gases in direct relation to the napkin.

Other factors contributing to the endless debate include the plastic packaging of paper napkins, harmful chemicals used to beach paper napkins, the transportation needed to get the napkins from producer to consumer, disposing of paper napkins after a single use, etc. These issues are so variable and event dependant that no solid and substantial conclusion can be proven.

If nothing more, use linen napkins at home. Chances are they will last you a number of years and help reduce your family’s carbon footprint.  I recommend using linen napkins for your wedding because of the chemical and disposal issues of paper napkins. We’ll save the biodegradable debate for another day.

When it comes to weddings, all the magazines, websites, guides and helpful hints tend to focus on the Bride. However, we understand that you men are just as excited, and possibly concerned, about what you’ll wear for YOUR big day.

Men’s fashion is a passion of mine and as I set out on the quest to help answer some questions about men’s wedding fashion, I too became frustrated. I picked up wedding magazines galore, especially those that appeared to be friendly to the groom, and found no helpful information.  I then turned to men’s fashion magazines and as I was about to write this blog, I decided to search Google.  Oh, Google, how you are a friend! I found a few helpful articles but even more exciting, I found a wonderful website called Junebug Weddings that truly is Groom friendly: http://junebugweddings.com/groombug/mens-fashion.aspx.

Here you will find great information about tuxedos, suits, alternative attire (such as kilts, or a military man’s dress) accessories, and even a gallery of real grooms who show their style off on their big day.  I was ecstatic to find this site and I hope that you men find it just as helpful as I did!

Written by Zandra

Have your date selected? Your venue sealed? Awesome! Now let’s work on fine tuning that day-of timeline. If you’re planning an outdoor evening ceremony it’s best to work from sunset to create your timeline and not leave you in the dark. Find out what time the sun is expected to set at  http://www.sunrisesunset.com/usa/Oregon.asp and plan your events accordingly.

Things to consider…do you want your ceremony at sunset? Do you want dinner in the dark? What’s the lighting going to look like? What time do you have your venue until?

Of course every bride’s timeline is going to be different based on what type of wedding you are going to have, but it’s a good idea to consider the sun.

Photo by Becerra Photography

There are countless romantic comedies that play on wedding stereotypes, and unfortunately too many of them end up coming true. We have all heard stories of bridezillas, wedding disasters, and terrifying in-laws. If you are in one of those situations, well, I’m sorry but there just isn’t that much you can do. A more common problem for today’s bride is keeping the groom involved with the wedding plans.

For whatever reason, it’s not uncommon for grooms to be a little absent when it comes to his upcoming wedding. Maybe he feels the bride, who probably has a well-developed vision of her wedding day, should lead the charge in planning. Perhaps the Blazers are in the middle of a playoff race. Whatever the case, don’t let that absenteeism make you think he isn’t interested. Unless you have really dragged him into getting married, he is probably at least a little excited about the upcoming big day and he may even have some ideas of his own.

Here are some ideas to help keep your groom involved in the wedding planning process:

• Give him specific tasks – In all likelihood, Mr. Groom doesn’t take charge with wedding plans because you already have. Delegate some responsibly to him such as creating a list of potential caterers or calculating how much liquor will be required. When the task is presented clearly, your groom will step right up.
• Ask for creative input beyond collaboration – It isn’t really fair to ask your groom “What do you think about this centerpiece.” The response is likely to be “whatever you like best, dear.” I know you are trying to collaborate, but this is the type of result that happens when one person has extensively studied the subject and another has virtually no experience.  Instead, ask him to create his ideal centerpiece (without pressuring him to use your ideas) and you may find your husband-to-be Googling the phrase “flower arrangements.”
• Make trades – Sometimes grooms require a little positive reinforcement. Is it so wrong to buy him tickets to a football game in order to motivate some wedding planning? As long as he takes you, then no.
• Compromise – First, admit that you have very specific ideas for your wedding. Second, realize that this is about both of you. He may have ideas that don’t exactly jive with your master plan, but you should try to adjust the wedding so that it fits you as a couple. After all, why shouldn’t you give out custom pint glasses for favors?

Okay, so this might sound a lot like strategies adapted from teaching kindergarteners, but what did you expect?

Written by Courtney, my fiancé…