The SF Meet the Dream Team Event Recap

Meet Professional Wedding Consultant Liz Guthrie of San Jose Wedding Consultants. She is the brains, passion and inspiration behind the San Francisco Dream Wedding Giveaway. If you or someone you know is engaged but too broke to have a wedding, make sure you, or they, enter the Dream Wedding Giveaway to win a $100,000 wedding in San Francisco, CA, on May 10th, 2010. CLICK HERE to learn how to enter.

Liz thought it would be fun to host a meet and greet mixer where the wedding sponsors, who she's affectionaly dubbed "The Dream Team," could meet any of the contestants who wanted to attend as well as each other.

This was the beautiful Golden Gate Floral display by Haute Horticulture that greeted the guests as they arrived.

And that's our giveaway logo designed by Astrid Mueller of Champagne Promises. This menu card was adorable and was a beautiful letterpress piece. I loved how the shading was lighter in the recessed area of the skirt.

The before and after.... The top shot is when I arrived at the Marine's Memorial Club to set up my own display and help out. The lower is with the guests and event lighting by North American Theatre Technology.

Napoleon of Golden and Chioggia Beets

with herbed creamy goat cheese and topped with caramelized pecan

OK I just have to say, the food that night, provided by Springloaf Catering, was to die for. These hors d'oeuvres were so delicious! It seemed like nobody liked beets, but everyone I convinced to try this beet and herbed goat cheese with candied pecan hors d'oeuvre loved them.

I should have taken pictures of their skeptical expressions as I convinced them to try one, followed by their eyes getting bigger and bigger as they tasted the flavors meld together in the most dreamy combination of yummy goodness. If you ever have the chance to sample them, do! But don't tell everyone else how good they are. That way there'll be more for you. LOL

Pulled Pork BBQ

with tropical coleslaw served in mini paper "take-out" boxes

Normally I don't eat pork or beef but as I hadn't eaten anything since lunch and there were no restaurants or grocery stores anywhere within walking distance of the venue it was eat or starve and I still had 3 hours of the showcase in front of me along with breakdown and the hour drive back to San Jose. So I ate pork and have to say I loved it.

Asiago and Corn Polenta Cakes

topped with ratatouille of fall vegetables, garlic, tomato, fresh herbs and toasted pine nuts

Each time I walked within 4 feet of the Springloaf table I was hit by a wave of the scent of chocolate from their brownie buffet in the center of their table. I had one. Only one. And it was goooooood.

This was my display for the evening. The Flirty Bride is donating a couture cake topper to the lucky winners so I brought out my little travel display case and gave my samples a fun night out in the big city.

A few people asked so I'll share with you that I found this cute picture frame at a second hand shop then hired someone to create the display case behind it. The light is from IKEA and I drilled holes in the plastic case and hung chandelier crytals from it to create a mini chandelier.

Floral designer Nancy Liu Chin was setting up her Dream Popcorn Bar with the help of Armando Sarabia of Get Your Do Up! when I arrived. It was a lot of work!

There were so many flavors! Plain, White Cheddar, Parmesan and Herbs, Cookies N' Cream, Jalapeno, Sour Cream and Onion, Caramel and more!
It was actually a lot of fun. They had poured the popcorn into the jars and realized they didn't pay attention to which flavor was which.... So we had to taste all of them to figure out which name tag went on which jar. It was a tough job but someone had to do it. Well actually three of us did it but only one had to. LOL

The popcorn came from Thatcher's, which to be honest I'd never heard of before but apparently they're quite the institution when it comes to the best kick ass popcorn in the Bay Area.

The finished display was beautiful with orchid covered branches, lots of yellow and white popcorn colored carnations and white feather butterflies flitting above the display.

I am now a huge fan of Thatcher's white cheddar cheese corn and classic caramel corn. OH MY GOSH! Kevin Chin, Nancy's wedding photographer husband, sent home the half empty bag of white cheddar corn with me. I ate it for two days solid excluding almost all other forms of food until there was none left. Talk about a cheese corn overdose but I couldn't stop myself. It was that good.

Adjacent to the popcorn buffet was this life size, balloon bride and groom by Brian Asman of Balloons Equal Fun. We and the guests had fun posing as balloon people.

This image by Lilia Photography

Bridal hair stylist extrordinaire, Armando Sarabia from get your DO up! did the hair styling for the evenings three models.

Kathy Goodman from Well Rehearsed, a rehersal dinner specialist, was also in attendance. Her signature cupcake pops were at the ready. A very stylish sweet treat!

Dilek Sezen is donating the wedding bands to the lucky winners. When Liz mentioned she was still looking for a jewelry company to participate the only company that came to mind was Dilek because I LOVE the diamond band I purchased from her earlier this year. I was thrilled when I found out that she had become part of the dream team.

And that's Lilia of Lilia Photography in the foreground shooting one of the models that evening. I love to take pictures of the photographers taking pictures. I like to show how hard they work.

And this was the first time I met Jon Casey Caricatures. How fun is this? Did you know you can hire a caricature artist to attend an event and draw your guests?

Freedom Bakery and Confections brought this cool wedding cake decorated with sugar photographs! And they created this cupcake buffet full of chocolate and mango cupcakes.

This swanky fuchsia table top design was also by Haute Horticulture.

The lovely models were wearing gowns by Bella Mia Bride in San Jose.

At the end of the evening we watched a fun compilation video of all of the sponsors created by wedding videographer Andrew Hsu of Studio MSV.

That's me on the left in one of my two cameos in the Dream Team video. I was taking a picture of Andrew while he was filming me. And he used the footage! LOL

This is the photo I was taking of Andrew when he took the shot of me featured in the video above.

Below is the video. Take a peek. It's cute and fun.

SF Wedding Giveaway 2010 from andrew msv on Vimeo.