Emergency Bone Marrow Match Needed for Nicole Szeto

We need your help in finding a bone marrow donor match for Nicole Szeto! She is 22 years old with Stage 4 cancer. The doctors have given her a 2 month diagnosis to live.

Here's how you can help. "Be the Match" is the National Marrow Donor Program.
1. You can join their registry via mail in which they will send you a packet. All you do is swab the inside of your mouth and send it back along with your information. Click here to register online and get the swab packet by mail.
2. You can join by going in person to a bone marrow drive where they take the swab for you. Click here to find a drive happening in your area.

To my understanding, the registry is well organized so new registrants are matched against the current list of people who are in need of bone marrow on a daily basis. If, however, you could state that you are registering to see if you can be matched for Nicole, that would greatly appreciated!

We are on a race against the clock. It takes approximately 6 weeks to process and get test results of each new registered donor. So, if we get a match, Nicole will have 1 to 2 weeks to get the bone marrow transplant. Please pray for her so we can get a match for her in time.

Check back for updates.

For more understanding on the process of bone marrow matching and donating, feel free to check out marrowdrives.org and marrow.org.

Planning a Green Event - Part 10: The Trash

Ah, the final posting to our Planning a Green Event series ends in dealing with the trash. If you haven't noticed already, all the posts leading to this one has dealt with reducing unnecessary waste on each aspect of planning for your event. Often times, we do things in our daily lives without thinking about the consequences until the end and we have a pile of trash to deal with. I guess you could take that metaphorically too. But the reality is, in order to control the amount and type of waste we will have, we have to think about the effect our current decisions will make. Is it possible to have a 'zero-waste' event? I truly believe so but that decision lies within you. I hope that this little series has helped you in gaining some fun, creative ideas for your event planning.

As always, Happy Planning!

Invisible Touch Events in Irvine, CA

Meet Invisible Touch Events, a leader in Orange County's event industry providing a plethora of services including DJ, Emcee, Live Entertainment and Lighting.

But the truth is, if you're familiar with the event scene around here, you've probably already heard of them. And you probably already know of how great they area. In fact, here are some of my favorite snapshots of their gorgeous work.




However, after chatting with Robert Arthur, the owner of Invisible Touch, I was pleasantly surprised to learn a few new interesting factoids about them:

1) Robert offers a DJ/Emcee school for aspiring DJ's and Emcees at their corporate office in Irvine. The course is for 3 months, offered once a year, and students have the opportunity to learn directly from top professionals off-site and on-site at actual events. For those who want to start on this career path, what better way than to learn from the best!

2) Robert is very involved in an exclusive "think tank" business group of the top 40 entertainment companies in America. In fact, this past July, Robert and his colleagues met in South Beach Miami, Florida for their annual meeting involving business discussions and product reviews. And the best part? "Its a business sharing group but also a family." Robert tells me this after giving me the best story of how his sons came along on the trip and joined in on a karaoke night singing Michael Buble. And of course, the boys' singing act was followed by a roaring applause!

Here's a little food for thought that Robert took away and brought back to share:
"Every human being has the same amount of time in a day as Gandhi, Dr Martin Luther King, Edison and Einstein. What will you do with your time?"

Chew on that for a while! Cheers!

Planning a Green Event - Part 9: The Leftovers

So, you're throwing a grand event with lots of amazing food, fabulous drinks and stunning decor. But what do you do at the end of the night with all the leftovers?



Chrissy Gray, the talented event planner of Green Events, has some great suggestions so I asked her for some help on this one:

"For food waste there are a couple of different options:
1. This sounds obvious, but almost always does the trick, give leftovers to your staff. At the end of a long night, almost everyone will want something to munch on or to bring home for a snack the next day.
2. Donate the leftovers to a food bank, such as the Second Harvest Food Bank in Irvine. They are happy to take food donations of any kind, whether packaged or already prepared.
3. Compost anything else. Home composting is relatively easy to start, or nearby farms (yes they still do exist in OC! :) can take your compost as well.

For decor, donating to hospitals and nursing homes is what I always suggest, unless your guests want to take the arrangements home."

Thanks so much for sharing your words of wisdom!

Wish Upon a Wedding Southern California Gala

The latest announcement from Wish Upon a Wedding Southern California:



Blissful Wishes Ball will be held on November 4, 2010 at Ebell in Los Angeles.


"The Ebell of Los Angeles is a women's social club housed in a historic 75,000 square foot facility of Italian Renaissance design that includes a 1,270-seat theatre, 200 seat auditorium, three ballrooms, garden/courtyard, an executive chef, and full service catering." (Ebell website)
And it is gorgeous! View their website for more beautiful photos of their venue.

Tickets go on sale August 17th! Purchase them here.

Planning a Green Event - Part 8: The Transportation

The transportation to and from an event can easily be accommodated to reduced carbon footprint alternatives. And it doesn't mean that you and everyone else needs to show up with a horse and carriage (although, that might be fun). For all you car lovers, you can have a lot of fun picking out a fancy hybrid fuel efficient car to drive for the night.

There's the Mercedes S400 Hybrid:


Lexus RX 400 Hybrid:


Personally, I would love the chance to drive around Fisker's Four-Door Karma Hybrid.


'Sigh.' I can dream in the meantime.

And if you end up falling in love with the car, it just might be a great time to make the vehicle switch.
But if you prefer to just carpool in a bunch of minivans, there's nothing wrong with that.
But come on, its a special night. Go wild!

All images released press photos.

Do It Yourself Party Decorations with Tissue Paper

As promised, I will be starting a Do It Yourself label for anyone interested in DIY projects for your own events in which you don't want to hire in a designer. You might remember a while back in which we dec'd out a boy's birthday party with Cookie Monster fabulousness. The most sought out DIY request was the tissue ball so here it is for you. Keep in mind that you can do any size version of these playful tissue balls. The sample I have for you today is a mini version which can be wired onto anything you want to spice up. If you want to make them bigger, just use larger sheets of tissue paper and a pretty ribbon as the tie to hang.

1: Take any color wrapping tissue paper.


2: Cut into short rectangular pieces and stack. Depending on the desired density, go with 5 to 8 sheets of tissue paper. And the reason we need short rectangles instead of squares is because the length will be shortened by the f0lding and fluffing (you'll see what I'm talking about). This way, you'll get a round ball instead of a football shape.


3: Fold the stack in an accordion-like manner.



4: Fold the accordion in half.


5: Twist a wire at the center fold.


6: Pull apart the ends of the tissue paper and fluff along the way.


7: And viola! The perfect little pouf.


Wire it onto anything you want to decorate. Here's the branch we decorated for the Cookie Monster birthday party.


More DIY posts to come! Happy decorating!

Utterly Engaged One Year Birthday Party Hoedown at Irvine Park

Utterly Engaged, the first online wedding magazine, held their one year birthday bash at Irvine Park with a BBQ throwdown competition in the most UE stylish hoedown way.
I'll let my pictures do the talking:


Flowers by Honey and Poppies:


Furniture and decor structures by Signature Party Rentals:





Sodas by Izze:


Desserts by Sweet and Saucy Shop:



Horse Photo Opp by Aaron Young Photography:


Some BBQ contenders and their awesome skills:




Caricature by Jennifer West:


Hair styling by Hair Comes the Bride:

This is Drexelle from D Park Photography gettin' her hair did.

And here's me gettin' mine did.



And the finished product: hair and cartoons. Can you tell which one is Drexelle and which one is me in the drawing?


And yes, it REALLY was a fun as it looked!
Happy Birthday Utterly Engaged! We wish you much continual success!

Erica O'Brien's Fondant Succulents

Can I just say one word?
LOVE!

This cake made by Erica O'Brien was featured on Style Unveiled. You can see the original post here with more great photos. When I first saw the pictures, I thought the succulents were real but instead, they are indeed made with fondant. Wow! Beautiful work Erica!

USGBC and OC Green Drinks Presents: Emerging Profesionals Launch Party

Once a month, OC Green Drinks gets together at various venues across Orange County in a casual environment for anyone and everyone interested in chatting about and advocating all things "green" (yep, verbatim from their site). In July, OC Green Drinks teamed up with USGBC to throw Emerging Professionals a rockin' launch party.



Say who?

Ok...so USGBC stands for U.S. Green Building Council. These guys are the ones responsible for creating LEED certification for buildings across America. They basically quantify and qualify the eco-friendliness of buildings. You might remember my previous post discussing LEED certified event venues. Emerging Professionals was born out of the USGBC for, well, emerging professionals, who are committed to creating a sustainable future.

Impressed? Yeah, I thought so.

As I was saying...July's Green Drinks event was held at The Camp in Costa Mesa.


I enjoyed the area so much, I couldn't help but take a few extra pics of the grounds.




Just in case you couldn't tell, here's EP bringing awareness to the public.


I would really encourage you to delve a bit into USGBC's website as it contains so much great info. And it just might inspire you to make some simple changes at home towards a sustainable future.



Thanks OC Green Drinks and USGBC. Cheers to you EP and welcome to the OC!