This is one of the highlights of my setup for the party, the Guest Frame area. Traditionally, guests sign up in a guestbook located at entrance of the reception. Now, there are lots of creative ways to welcome your guests. A guest frame is a popular alternative for guest book. It is a frame with a little photo of the couple, some text, and a big space where guests can leave their messages or wishes.

Today, we are not limited to guest books and frames, we can spice up the start of the wedding reception with some nice activities for the guests. Here in the Philippines, we always expect people to come an hour late during parties and some will come just in time or earlier. So while waiting for the other guests, you can provide cocktails and make a band to play nice music. You can also setup a photobooth and give them more activities in the guest area.

For my party, I decided to make a DIY Guest Tree. It is an unfinished artwork where every guest can help finish it. The frame has an image of a tree without leaves. A palette with paints of different colors is provided beside the frame. Using the paint, guests will have to press their thumbprints on to the artwork. Their fingerprint will serve as a leaf and every guest will contribute their piece of leaf until the whole tree is filled. They should also sign below the fingerprint or give their wishes around the tree. It is a work in progress and it will only be completed by the guests until the end of the event.

I bought a nice wooden frame painted in gold. My cousin made the design of the tree and i hand-painted it on to the paper. The paper we used is a beige cartolina-sized special paper with a nice texture. The text and pattern for the ground is digitally printed. I cut it into shape and pasted it on the paper before painting the tree. I also made an infographic instruction so guest will know what to do. So here is the final look of the "Guest tree".



Finally, I decorated the guest frame area with lots of vintage stuff like pocket books, little clocks, paper cars and my dad's collection of nozzles and fireman snowglobe. We also clipped old photos with wooden pegs in abaca rope. The little posts were borrowed from our friend, Gerry DCarpio, who is also an event coordinator/stylist. We hand made the paper vintage cars using the templates we found in the internet. There is also a candy jar with peppermint candies we bought in La Tienda. A Check out more photos below.



Credits to Ryann Elumba (Seed Interactive Multimedia Production) for the photography, and me for the editing. I couldn't have done these without my dearest brothers and our cousin Wella, and her boyfriend, Lance. :D Thanks guys! Do check out the rest of the details of Project Red Party here.

Last month, i had my first opportunity to become an event planner for our thanksgiving party. I'll share little by little every detail of the party and share my thoughts and tips in a series of post called Project Red Party. I posted the moodboard that i created here which involves firetrucks, skylines and things related to music. The party is a double celebration since its my dad's 50th birthday and their 25th (Silver) Wedding Anniversary. They both work at the Fire Department where my dad is the city fire marshal and my mom is a government employee. Thus, the color motif that I chose is red, silver and black.

The first thing we planned out are the essentials of the party: the date, time, venue, and theme. After finalizing them, I started to create the moodboard and eventually the invites. I wanted to create a simple, fun-looking, hip yet elegant looking invitation without much cost. So here's the final look of the invitation. :)


The inspiration for the design is fusion of NYFD (New York Fire Department) and Jazz. We printed it in poster paper and embellished it with crystal stickers to give it a sparkling finish. The envelope is a 6-inch wide special scented envelope with a nice pearly texture. Then to give it a color, i printed a doodle-ish pattern in red paper and covered the inner side of the flap. On the other side of the envelope, we labelled it with the name of the recepient with some musical symbols. And finally, we sealed the invitation with a specially designed emblem of the event which is inspired by the logo of the fire department.

I'm personally satisfied with the design of my first-ever DIY invitation and my parents liked it too. Each invite roughly cost 15 pesos only. With a creative design and resourcefulness, you can really make a cool, cheap but expensive looking invite for your party. Here are some fun behind the scenes photos of us during the process of creating the invites.


Thanks to my brothers, Wella and Lance for helping me out :D More updates soon...

At last, i have my first ever party to plan. Together with my partner in creative stuff, Wella, my cousin, we will create a themed party for my father's 50th birthday thanksgiving. It is also a double celebration for my parent's Silver (25th) Wedding anniversary. It will be held at Zalo's Restaurant and Bar on November 19, 2011. We already made the initial plans and i will them in this blog in the coming days. For now, here is a mood board that i created for the said party. Some keywords include New York, Music, Jazz, Fire Trucks, Badges, Red, Black, Silver, and Vintage. I'm so excited for this project. Can't wait :D