Serena Grace Photo Blog

Happy New Year everyone!  Hope you had wonderful holiday season!

We headed out to Palm Springs with some friends for NYE.  We rented an awesome house together and had such a great time hanging out poolside in lovely 80° weather.  It was a great way to ring in the new year!

Here’s a collection of iPhone pics from our weekend.  These were taken on Instagram and Hipstamatic Disposable.  Hipstamatic Disposable is a fun app where you can share a “disposable” camera with friends. Everyone that you invite can take pictures on the shared camera from their own phone, and you can only see the images once all 24 frames have been shot.  It’s fun to see everyone’s pictures once it’s done!

Here’s to a wonderful 2012!

I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by!  I meant to blog about these a long time ago, but somehow never quite got around to it.  These are the invitations I designed for my friend Vivian’s bridal shower.  Since they were headed to Europe for their honeymoon, we decided to do a European/travel themed shower.  So we made the invitations look like passports!

It was a lot of fun putting the invitations together!  Since I’m really familiar with Photoshop because of all the photo editing I do, and have no idea how to use Illustrator, I designed everything in Photoshop.  All the paper was purchased at Kelly Paper and then printed on my Epson R380.  So happy with how they turned out. =)

If anyone’s interested in using the diamond envelope liner for a future project, I’ve made a pdf that’s available for download. Enjoy!  [download here]

The inspiration for the envelope liner comes from this poster by Jason Munn.

A few photos taken at Vista Hermosa Park in LA.  Different from my normal processing, but I like it.  It’s fun to play around with different processing looks sometimes.

Happy 2011!  I hope everyone had a fantastic new year.  We decided to kick off the new year with a road trip up to San Francisco.  We wanted to spend new year’s eve with some of our college friends who now live in different cities on the west coast, and thought it’d be fun if we all converged in SF.  Let’s just say the trip was memorable….in more ways than one.

I didn’t take too many pictures while I was there, but here are a few from our short time in SF.

Here’s to an amazing 2011!

Enjoying some crepes at Ti Couz Creperie

Celebrated NYE on a yacht in the bay (which sounds fancier than it was).
These were taken using the CrossProcess app on my iPhone.

The grapevine was shut down due to snow, so we had a looooonnnnngggg 12 hr drive home.

Viv & Lloyd’s wedding at Cafe Pinot was amazing!  I’m sad I don’t have any pictures of the ceremony since I had bridesmaid duties, but it was seriously so beautiful.  They got married under a tree decorated with pink flowers and ribbons streaming down, and there wasn’t a dry eye as the two of them recited the vows they wrote to each other.  I get teary-eyed just thinking about it!

Their reception was set against the backdrop of the Los Angeles Library, and nestled amidst LA’s skyscrapers.  Viv & Lloyd really wanted their guests to have a good time, so a jazz band (made up of their talented groomsmen & friends) entertained guests with covers songs like “Candy Shop” and “Between the Sheets” during the cocktail hour, and guests were treated to a silhouette artist, photo booth, and a yummy dessert table!  They handed out several Flip video cameras so guests could help record the evening (it was really fun watching the footage afterwards).  The groomsmen surprised everyone with an awesome dance, and Lloyd sang as Vivian danced with her father.

It was all so amazing and wonderful that I wish the night could have gone on forever!

Such a cool chandelier designed by Amber Event Production!

We helped to make custom buttons for each guest.
And it took us forever, but Lloyd & I finally figured out how to do a data merge in InDesign to make the seating cards.

Here are the groomsmen serenading the guests during the cocktail hour.  Yup, that’s my hubby on the far right!

The cake & desserts from the amazing Melody of Sweet & Saucy Shop

Vivian & Lloyd live in Portland, and there were lots of Portland guests, so our friends Janet & Allyson made these Portland cookies for their dessert table!

The paper heart straws and buttons we all helped to make.

I really love this sweet moment between the newlyweds!

These giant letters were made by Lloyd & my hubby Jeremy.  Aren’t they so cool?

Some pictures from the photobooth.  Juli and I made the banner b/c we really wanted to try printing on fabric.  It worked!

Venue:  Cafe Pinot

Wedding Coordinator:  Nancy of So Happi Together

Cake + Desserts:  Sweet & Saucy Shop

Chandelier & Lighting:  Amber Event Production

Linens:  Elegant Designs Specialty Linens

Videographer:  Nate Fu

DJ:  John Villa of Dance Syndicate

Photobooth:  Cheesy Photobooths

Silhouette Artist:  Sylhouettes by Sylvia