:: Words and Photos shared by William's mom Helen ::
We got William’s dol pictures! The photog did a pretty good job of capturing all the details. I’m so happy! I’m normally not good at this detail stuff, so I’m glad with all the thought I put into it, we got to capture some of the things we did during the day.
We had William’s birthday at Shanghai Reds in Marina Del Rey, and with the view of the Marina, I thought I would do a undersea/oceans theme party. I knew I wanted to work with greens, blues, and whites so it fit perfectly!
For centerpieces I thought of doing live fish, but I didn’t want to deal with dead fish at the end or during the party and be stuck with a bunch of fish if no one wanted to take them home. So I tried to find a way to float glass fish in water. I attached fishing line to cork boats to float the fish… And it WORKED!!! I’M A GEEEEENIUS! And humble, but I was so excited. I was happy with the way it turned out!
I halved a cork, stuck a toothpick and pasted triangle sails… voila… floating boats!
that help fish float!
I had fish and octopus balloons made by Balloon World… and they did such an amazing job!
room shot
At each table we had a program for the birthday and an explanation of the significance of dol and doljabis
Chocolate wrapped favors for the bigger kids and adults, and goodie filled baggies for the little kids
Entrance table with doljabi board, wish/blessing tree, and under-the-sea cupcakes
Of course Mocha made an appearance (William’s 1st stuffed doll), and my aunt found these amazing blue flowers that fit perfectly with the underwater theme.
Doljabi voting fishbowls
If you’re considering doing a wish/blessing tree, I have 2 words for you - Do it! Some cute and great messages come out of it for your baby as wonderful keepsakes
William not only got gifts but lots of envelopes, which will go into his 529 college fund. Easier to transport for us parents that drove down to do his dol:)
Here’s the birthday boy who had no idea we were celebrating his birthday! He was actually sick with this bad cold that’s going around, but he did great despite that! Just was a stone face:)
We had a Birthday Quiz for William - and a prize for those that did well. It was fun!
Happy Birthday to yooou~, Happy Birthday to yooou~, Happy Birthday dear Williammmmm~
Doljabi time! What will William choose?
Let me grab the baseball!
Why is everyone yelling and screaming???
Mommy wants to give me a 2nd shot for an alternate path… Law!
They’re screaming again… order! order!
Pic with grandparents behind the dol table. One regret I have is that we didn’t get ANY pictures with our siblings at this party!!!:( Gonna have to make up for it for William’s Sacramento birthday
Dol table shot with the 3 of us (better view of the table)
I bought treasure box looking favor boxes, and we packed dduk as favors for the guests
Us outside the room (loved the view!)
On to Vendor Reviews!
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1st Birthday Banner - KOKOLiving.com (KOKO Printing Co.) and Dohl Posters & More -
They did an AMAZING job with a quick turnaround. I thought I might have to pay a rush fee, but they arranged it so that I was able to get the poster in time, and advised I was guaranteed to get it before the party without the rush fee. They were right! The artwork done by Heesook at Dohl Posters & More was perfect and what I had envisioned, and Kathy at KOKOLiving.com / (KOKO Printing Co.) was super easy to work with and was the one that helped me figure out the shipping and printing of the poster. I would HIGHLY recommend working with them. They also do doljabi posters, for future kids, I’ll be going to them for both needs based on my experience.
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Balloon World - They were prompt and did an amazing job with the balloons. My cousin recommended them, so that’s why I hired them out of 3 other potential vendors that did balloons. I had so many compliments and they were easy to work with. I would definitely use them again and highly recommend them.
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Flowers and fruit - My aunt did them. Just giving credit. Love her!
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Photography - Pai Photography. They did a great job of capturing the details and they were super economical! We were already spending quite a bit on this dol and didn’t have a whole lot of budget left. They did a great job, and were also prompt. They took all the photos above. I did some photoshopping to them (just processed a little), but I needed nice pictures to work with, and they did that for us!
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Fondant cake, dol goim, wish tree - Rented it all from Twinkle Events. They also do event planning, but I had pretty much everything planned by the time I went to them, so just needed the rentals. I rented everything for a week, and it worked out well.
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William’s hanbok - I bought it somewhere in ktown… if you need vendor info on that, let me know and I’ll try to dig up.
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Caricature Artist - I actually hired a caricature artist for the day, and she didn’t show up! OK, honestly when the time came, we probably didn’t really need her, and didn’t have much space. But, I was annoyed she didn’t call me. I was going to blast her on this blog, but she wrote me saying it was a misunderstanding and she saw a “cancel” email and thought it was me. Not sure if she’s making it up, but she’s going to give us a free caricature of our family as an apology. So, I’ll holdback her name assuming it really was a misunderstanding:)
OK, this post is getting long so I’m just going to end with. Thanks for all our family that made it down from Sacramento to help with the party (especially Greg’s mom who did the chocolate bars, programs, games) and also celebrate with us, and thanks to my 1st aunt for all the flowers and fruit, and thanks to my parents for helping me figure out details in LA while I was up here in Sac, and thanks for hubby for helping me tie all the fishies to the cork, make invitations, and lots of miscellaneous details… I still felt overwhelmed with all that help. Without their help though, this party wouldn’t have been possible. I’m actually glad it was fun and great, and that it’s over. hehe! No more planning! Yayyy!
Hi Helen! Happy 1st Birthday to William!! You did a superb job with everything! Your centerpiece idea is ingenious. Love it! Thank you for your review. We look forward to working with you in the near future! :)
Posted by: sooki | 01/18/2011 at 08:06 PM
Your party was so cute! Where did you get those little treasure chest dduk boxes?
Posted by: ellex112 | 01/21/2011 at 08:36 PM
Oh beautiful! William looks like he had a wonderful time.
Is it possible for you to put a picture of your program up? I wasn't going to do one but it's such a great idea, especially for the non Koreans that will be invited to the party.
Posted by: Rosa Walz | 01/23/2011 at 10:22 AM
Hey, Helen! You did an amazing job. Love all your creativity and the head table looks so professional!
Posted by: Jennifer | 01/24/2011 at 07:26 PM
I bought the treasure chess favor boxes from papermart.com. They have a huge variety and were super easy to work with! I loved the variety the best!
As for the programs, the photog didn't take a picture of it, but I'll take a picture of the front and inside tomorrow and post it up. I'll let you know as soon as I do it!
Thanks everyone for your sweet comments!:)
Posted by: Helen | 01/24/2011 at 10:50 PM
Sorry for the delay on this! I posted the inside and outside of the brochure for your reference on www.helenandgreg.com/helenblog - I was going to do it in this kokoliving comments section, but I don't know how to upload pics here. So, can go there if you'd like to use for reference. Hope that helps!
Posted by: Helen | 01/26/2011 at 04:37 PM