Another important decision was what to wear! In keeping with the casual theme, neither of us wanted to wear formal clothes (tuxedo, wedding gown) so we searched for alternatives. In the end, we settled on having a matching outfit made. We found a wonderful seamstress in the LA area who sewed Debi's dress and Tom's shirt out of lovely white linen using standard sewing patterns. We were really very pleased with the results.

Debi had a lot of fun exercising her creative side -- she made all sorts of things by hand, including:

• her veil
• the origami favor boxes
• the guest book (well, the binding was done professionally)
• the centerpieces and origami table decorations (yes those fish are real)
• the wedding bubble bottles
• the program
• the musical selections

Of course, there were other things best left to professionals, although we had fun making the decisions. Rather than having a formal wedding cake, we decided instead to have wedding cupcakes, baked by Dream Cakes By Lynette, which were scrumptious and a big hit with everyone, especially the kids. Also professionally done were the flowers for the wedding party, by Jacob Maarse Florists. Debi's unorthodox decision to use sunflowers raised a few eyebrows at the florist but it came off beautifully and the bright yellow was striking.