Get our newest creation — the limited edition Snow White “love fruits!” basket — exclusively at The Wedding Cafe - Ward Warehouse.  Each basket comes with three red apples - filled with assorted Menehune Mac chocolates - and an apple and chocolate licorice filled special black “poison” apple.

Warning: The poisoned apple may cause  a sleeping death, which can only be broken by love’s first kiss.  ENJOY!

Head down to The Wedding Cafe at Ward Warehouse and check out our new “love fruits!” window display! It’ll give you a chance to see each and every one of our “love fruits!” custom favors in person before making any final decisions.  We’ll be participating in their Wednesday Night Workshop this coming September 10th…come down to see the debut of our newest favor lines!

While you’re down there, be sure to order up one of their delicious sandwiches…we love the chicken walnut!

Did you make it down to The Wedding Cafe’s Divas Doing Good benefit “Green is the New Black” this past August 12th? If not, you missed out on a great cause, on top of the great food, drinks, and atmosphere! The event was a benefit for KANU HAWAII and their movement for Island Style Activism.  Kanu Hawaii is working to make Hawaii a model of environmental sustainability, compassionate community, and economic resilience. Visit their website and join the cause!

In addition to mingling and stuffing our faces with Hokulani Bake Shop’s delicious cupcakes, Shop Toast donated two “love fruits!” 12-fruit baskets to the silent auction! (You may have seen us in the back corner, using our mental telepathy skills to get people bidding! Hehe!)

We can’t wait until next year’s event! Congratulations to Tanna and her crew at The Wedding Cafe!

Meet our newest addition to the Shop Toast shelves! We’ve teamed up with our good friend and letterpress goddess Joie Studio to create these new letterpress cards, inspired by our “Love Fruits!” custom favor line. They are the perfect way to let someone know how sweet you are!

Our cards are available in “the apple of my eye” red & green apples, “tangerine kisses” orange, “ma cherie, my darling” red cherries, and “the perfect pair” golden pear. Buy one, the entire set, or better yet, pair them with one of our “Love Fruits!” baskets for the ultimate “awww-shucks” moment! Head over to our Shop Toast stationery section and enjoy the fruits of our labor - pun intended!

Okay, here’s another shameless plug for SHOP TOAST:

Pick up the latest issue of Hawaii Weddings & Honeymoon Escapes Magazine (available for purchase online at www.http://www.brideschoicehawaii.com) to get some helpful tips and vendors for your upcoming wedding.  Be sure to flip to page 25 if you happen to purchase the Summer/Fall edition!  Why?  We’re in it!  Shop Toast was lucky enough to get a great mention from the magazine’s publisher (Thanks, Dun!).

Hey all you brides and grooms!  Did you attend the latest Hawaii World Class Wedding Expo at the Hawaii Convention Center (August 18 to 19)?  If so, you missed out on meeting some great vendors, and most importantly, the newest edition of the “Brides Choice” Hawaii World Class Wedding Directory, which they were giving away for free!

It’s a great little resource for standout wedding vendors in Hawaii, and it’s small enough to fit in your purse (or bag, for all you grooms out there).  PLUS, we were in it!  There’s a picture of our little “love fruits!” custom favor ad above (Thanks Dun for getting us into your directory!)

Be sure not to miss any of the upcoming Wedding Expos, and of course, don’t forget to pick up a copy of the “Brides Choice” wedding directory!

We’re finally getting to topics we’ve had on the back burner for awhile now. This is one of them…

We participated in our very first Hawaii Bridal Expo this past January at the NBC Exhibition Hall! Very exciting…very intimidating. We’ve been trying to get the word out on our favor lines and we couldn’t think of a better way to introduce ourselves to blushing brides, tag-a-long grooms, and fellow vendors in the Hawaii wedding industry.

Being our first Bridal Expo, we didn’t know exactly what to expect or how to display our creations. We ended up showcasing our Soda Snacks and Love Fruits on a 2-tier display, highlighting customization options and introducing our new monogram label (which we’ll be writing about in the near future).

We even did a couple of table mock ups to show everyone how our favor lines could be incorporated into a reception table. The image below is our Soda Snack table mock up. The great thing about our Soda Snack line is the ability to match your favor with your wedding/event color scheme, like the green and brown theme below! For those of you who are curious, we finished off the table with custom made fabric program holders, Martha Stewart glasses, and Crate and Barrel vases.

Thanks to those who came by and talked to us about their upcoming weddings! Hopefully Shop Toast can be a part of your special day. To those to missed us, don’t fret, we’re aiming to be at future bridal shows! Look for us!

We’ve had this special edition apple in the works for some time now, but we were waiting for the perfect moment to unveil it to the world…or Honolulu, at the very least. Last week our buddies at The Wedding Cafe asked us to help celebrate the opening of the musical comedy “I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE”, and we jumped at the opportunity. Held at the Manoa Valley Theater and hosted by Modern Luxury Hawaii, we knew that this event would attract the young and trendy - the perfect crowd to appreciate our newest creation.

*drum roll* Without further delay, please welcome our Special Edition White Apple! *ta dah*

This apple is our luxury “love fruit!” — filled with assorted Godiva chocolate squares, and accented with a gold rhinestone heart charm and shimmery gold leaf. We only made 15 apples for our first run, but we’ll make more throughout the year to celebrate special occasions. We may even consider offering them as favors in the future!

Want one? You can either purchase them from our webshop, or you can swing down to the Wedding Cafe (Ward location) and grab one from the shelves.

Recently we were hired to coordinate the 10th Anniversary party for Fung Associates, a local architectural firm we’ve worked with in the past. On top of our custom favor and invitation design services, we were asked to coordinate the venue, catering, and decor. Needless to say, we came out of event planning retirement to help out our dear friends.

The event was held in the Cupola Event Theater at the Honolulu Design Center - great food and AWESOME staff. For those of you not familiar with the space, the theater has a semi-circular layout and very industrial feeling - lots of metal and concrete. The curved wall running along the back of the room was something that we wanted to incorporate into our decor. We would normally create a favor table for this type of non-formal, non-seated gathering, but it would have been a mistake not to use that curved wall! In the end we decided to hang the favors along the wall, using them as both giveaway favors and decorative elements. It was visually stunning, and most importantly, very functional!

The favor design for this event was a variation of our popular “love fruit!” orange, which was chosen by our client for it’s strong symbolic meaning in Chinese culture. We were asked to incorporate a Chinese money envelope into the design, which we decided to use as the backing for the favor. We even changed out the standard jelly slice filling for a newly discovered local treat - Menehune Mac’s orange cream flavored mac nut chocolates! The chocolates worked out so well that we’re considering using it as our standard orange filling. If you haven’t had a chance to taste these chocolates, head down to the Menehune Mac factory store right now and get your fill!

The Fung Associates’ orange “love fruit!” is a good example of how you can create a favor that fits in perfectly with your special day, whether it’s color, theme, or even culture! When looking at favor ideas, be sure to take a step back and look at how it fits in before making any final decisions. Afterall, the favor is the one thing that everyone takes home when the party is done!

Until next time!

PS - Congratulations to Fung Associates! Here’s to another prosperous 10 years in Hawaii!