Safari Theme Dol (Korean First Birthday)

Safari fun for our son's first birthday!

Winter White Wedding

A rainy cold day in Southern California set the perfect atmosphere for this wintery white wedding.  At the lovely Cerritos Center of Performing Arts lots and lots of hydrangea and mitsumata branches to created a dramatic and romantic setting for this special day.

 Vendela Roses and double white tulips accented with lovely dusty miller to fit in with the rest of the theme. 

 Draping with none other than white twinkling lights framed the perfect ceremony alter.

One guest described the orchids in this arrangements as clouds floating.  These orchids are the ultimate in romantic weddings.

an aisle flanked by puffs of hydrangea and dramatic branched with the warm glow of candles... oh so romantic.

Her bouquet with coveted white peonies, hydrangea, vendela roses and tulips.

Vivian's 1st Birthday

Dol or doljanchi is a Korean tradition that celebrates the birthday of a one-year-old baby. This ceremony blesses the child with a prosperous future and has taken on great significance in Korea. The birthday babies wear a hanbok and a traditional hat: a jobawi or gullefor baby girls and a bokgeon or hogeon (호건) for baby boys.


Traditional Korean food was served at the party with a modern twist on decoration.  The theme of the party was "Alice in Wonderland", so we used a lot of vibrant colors, oversized flowers and lots of butterflies!

My son's 100 day celebration

In Korean culture it is important to celebrate your child's 100th day.  This is considered their first birthday (9 months in the womb+100 days).  For my son's baek-il, we had an intimate dinner with just family in Koreatown. The color theme was easy - blue, silver and white.  I bought a variety of scrapbook paper and made fans.  I cut them into different sizes so that I had a variety of sizes for my collage.  I even made some large ones with poster board to kind of anchor the whole thing.  I laid them out and then started to glue them to four large foamcore boards.  Since we couldn't take or nail anything to the wall at the restaurant, I had to pre make my wall decor.  When we arrived at the restaurant, we taped the 4 poster boards together.  The awesome cake was from Kings Hawaiian Bakery.  Just to make it more festive, we got tons of star balloons!  It was a great celebration, with the exception of his melt down.  Poor baby, all of the people and photos overwhelmed him!

Melody and Mike's wedding photo by Susan Sabo