New Year’s Eve should be a night of over-the-top fun. The night that you dress up in your very best party dress and pop open a bottle of the good stuff. This year I’ll be celebrating at home, but I’m still planning to go all out. Festive, champagne-inspired balloons are an easy way to spruce up your space, and gold sweets like these macarons are almost too decadent to eat! Gilded cookies are a small detail that can make your entire party feel straight out of The Great Gatsby. I also love incorporating a little bit of custom paper into the evening. These confetti toss cards are so worth investing in, even if it means there’s a little clean up after!

1. via Etsy 2. via Snidel 3. via The Pretty Blog 4. via Tumblr 5. via Indulgy

Happy Friday! A little inspiration for your weekend. Enjoy. xx

Costa Rica!  There is not much more to say than that… I have been granted the opportunity to be Candice’s assistant for the past several months, working alongside her and learning so much about this industry and the creative process that she puts into everything.  Less than a week after she returned from Paris, we set off to head down to Costa Rica for yet another incredible project.  Amidst the lizards, crocodiles, and beautiful sun, Candice and her main core of professionals have put their juices together to make this next editorial shoot even more amazing than you could picture.  Of course, that’s always the goal, but with every single photo shoot that is compiled, you learn about the place and the story behind it.  Fortunately our gifted professionals and also very good friends were with us to help bring out the magic in this piece.  Carla, from Carla Ten Eyck Photography, Beth Chapman from the White Dress by the Shore, and Tony Palmieri from Datura, A Modern Garden have been collaborating with Candice to help make this shoot truly unique and spectacular.

Months of planning has gone into this, and with the help of Magan Hunt from StayInCostaRica.com, we have been granted the great opportunity to stay in the heart of one of the most breathtaking places you have ever seen, La Casa de Suenos, which means “the house of dreams”.  This really is quite an understatement!  The weather, the people, the culture, the plants—it’s all completely gorgeous!  Every time we sit down for a meal we are accompanied by such a colorful and tasty assortment of food—our chef Jose is such an artist in his field.  When we are not enjoying a masterpiece meal, we are exploring or collaborating on the grounds of Los Suenos Resort.  Each grain of sand that leaves the beach on our toes matches just how many times we have come across an amazing part of this city.  We fully plan on captivating each part of it in our photo shoot coming up so that we can share this with everyone!!

More to follow soon!!

XOXO

Diana

If you don’t know about Posh Paperie than you must read further– if you do know of the lovely ladies behind this amazing San Diego paper company, than their work below will come as no surprise. I originally met with Elizabeth and Karrie as we collaborated on a project together. I found their work featured on WeddingChicks.com and fell madly IN LOVE with their amazing pinwheels and banners. They’ve been working with us on a lot of projects since our first introduction and I just couldn’t wait any longer to blog about them. Their work is custom for each client and they are capable of taking your wedding paper suite to new levels! From save the dates, invitations, programs, menu cards, travel maps, table numbers, sweet station signs, banners, paper details, unique installations, escort cards, place cards….. seriously, if you can make it out of paper, ribbon and glue, these ladies can do it! Take a look at some of my favorite pieces hijacked from their great blog:

Ladies, thanks for being an absolute source of inspiration for us at Jubilee and our clients! What a joy it is to work with two very talented and supremely creative women. If you are in the market for unique and amazing paper, check out our friends at Posh Paperie.

XOXO

We are so excited to begin putting together a photoshoot for Style Me Pretty. Thank you to ALL those who submitted a spring inspired inspiration board for our contest. We chose this amazing board by Lena, below. Thanks Lena!!

I love the vibrant color story and modern, sophisticated lines. We’re working with so many great vendors, including Carla Ten Eyck, The White Dress by the Shore, Datura: A Modern Garden, The Loading Dock, Dana Bartone, Ana’s Custom Cakes, Taylor Creative, Inc., Gus and Ruby Letterpress, Paloma’s Nest, 14 Stories and so many more!

We can’t wait to share this same sex shoot with you all. xoxo

It is that time of year again—turkey, wine, pumpkin pie, football, stretch pants—aka Thanksgiving. I think Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday. This is our first year celebrating as a married couple so we’re excited to see our families and chat about the wedding. Thanksgiving to us is full of so many holiday traditions—as I’m sure it is with your family. We sneak really good bottles of wine in the butler’s pantry and snack on some type of delicious seafood for an appetizer, always brought by my aunt who lives in Boston. The children get bigger every year and we get them chatting about the mother of all holidays – Christmas. We eat dinner at my grandparents house in their big dining room on fancy plates and silver trays, which my grandfather has probably been shinning all week (my grandmother is the true party planner in the family, much to my chagrin). After dinner is aunt Kitty’s homemade pies—apple and pumpkin. Then, like clockwork, my dad rallies the kids upstairs into the family room and puts on The Grinch.

It’s a good day. I look forward to our traditions. It is never the same when a family member can’t make it, someone tries a new recipe (ahh! Where’s the stuffing?!), or something doesn’t go horribly wrong (remember the mash potato incident?). I find a lot of comfort in our family traditions and I’m excited to explore new traditions with my husband’s family this year. We have a new nephew and our other nephew is getting so big—it’ll be really exciting to share the holiday’s with them this year!

On our honeymoon to Sonoma County / Russian River we purchased many bottles of wine for special occasions. I’m really excited to bring and drink Porter Creek’s 2006 Carignane, grown in the Alexander Valley. We had the most amazing afternoon at Porter Creek Winery which was, literally, across the street from our fabulous inn.

What are your favorite family traditions during the holiday’s?

I was so excited to work with the wonderful girls over at The White Dress by the Shore on my wedding gown and accessories (I did a feature on the blog about them last September). For my first dress fitting I brought along my friend Robin Dini to check out my dress. She surprised me with her camera and took some beautiful shots of Beth, Josie and I talking about different looks and the couture element of ruffled tulle I added to my Modern Trousseau gown. Am I super lucky or what?

Josie did all the alterations to my gown and has come out with her own line of fine European lingerie, sold exclusively at White Dress. Its called Beneath the Gown, and her creations are magnificent!!

The time has finally come for this wedding planner to get hitched! I’ve been so busy over the past two weeks finalizing details for my wedding (in addition to many others!) that I haven’t had an opportunity to blog which is so unlike me! This is my wedding week, and thus far it has been spent doing what many brides do:

— Finalizing escort cards (thanks Lisa!)
— Creating wedding day paper (epic programs, FYI)
— Assembling out of town bags
— Confirming with vendors
— Wondering what I’m forgetting?
— Buying things last minute
— Smiling as my vision comes together!
— Wondering what I’m forgetting?
— Adding one old friend to the guest list
— Forgetting to twitter
— Practicing our first dance (we skipped the lessons this week, too much to do)
— Trying to remember to eat
— Calling my mother daily
— Wondering what I’m forgetting?
— Attempting to clean, although failing miserably
— Packing for my honeymoon
— Checking items off my to-do
— Okay, so seriously, what have I forgotten to do?!?!?!

So, I’m pretty much like every other bride in the universe. I had a friend ask me last night — are you cool, calm and professional or are you loosing your mind? I’d say, neither. I’m just gettin’ by, just like every other bride before her wedding day.

My prospective has changed a little, though. I’m thinking, dang, where’s my wedding planner?!?! (holla Jen!) In an effort not to turn this into a walking advertisement for me, I’m just going to say that I wish I could push all this stuff off on a professional!! I wish I could talk more but I’ve gotten run. Early morning appointments with my vendors and my fabulous in laws are coming to take me out to breakfast before.

I’m so excited to be able to share our invitations with you!! As many of you know, the first item I purchased for our wedding was my shoes. They’ve been my muse for the entire event and have guided me toward the most amazing gown, linens, and paper. When I set out to have our invitations designed I knew of only one designer who would be able to take my shoes and make an invitation out of them!

Paper is one of my loves, and Kalyn from Lilah Paper and I have worked together on several events and her style really compliments my own. We came up with a custom invitation suite based on a variety of different inspirational pieces that I sent her through out the process. When she sent me our first round of proofs I was blown away. It wasn’t something I had envisioned but it was exactly what I wanted — which is a true testament to her talent! Much like a proud mama, I happen to think I have the most beautiful wedding invitations ever made.

We started out with a pretty belly band holding all our paper goodness together.

Inside, a tri-fold invitation suite. It starts off with lyrics from our soon to be first dance song by Van Morrison…

Our actual letterpress invitation to the ceremony with double backing layers. Photographs cannot do it justice! It is so gorgeous!!

Our pretty letterpress enclosure cards. We’ve gotten so many compliments on the cute vintage inspired food selections. We’ve also received A LOT of interesting first dance songs!!

Our envelopes were hand written by the extremely talented Lisa Ridgely of Pen and Ink Calligraphy. I LOVE working with Lisa — she is SO good to my brides and it was so much fun to be one of hers! We chose this gorgeous red ink color for a fun pop.

I had so much fun working with Lilah Paper and absolutely love the couture suite she came up with for us. The quality was so important to me, and our invitations are above and beyond what we could have imagined. We were SO thrilled to mail them all out (except for the $.78 stamps on each one) and have gotten so many RSVP’s back. Its a joy every afternoon to run out to the mailbox!

I’ll have some prettier pro pictures after the wedding with the rest of our amazing paper!