Today I found THE must adorable USC Trojans garter and I just had to get it...
I know that it doesn't match our "Turquoise and Tangerine by the Sea" theme, but I don't think the garter has to match, since it's under the dress. I thought this garter would be a fun thing to for the all of our USC boys to try to catch, and since Jonathan and I met at USC it's very appropriate for us.
I woke up today, watched the morning news, and saw that the airline we'd booked for our Honeymoon, ATA, was bankrupt and no longer flying. Ahhh.. suddenly we had no flights for our Honeymoon!
I searched high and low for free flights and cheep fares, finding that flights to Hawaii were over $1000 dollars. I panicked! Just when I thought I'd have to cough up 2K to fly to Hawaii, my parents came through with two free American Airlines Vouchers! Now I owe them free Southwest Airlines tickets for the rest of my life, but it's worth it to take our dream honeymoon. Disaster averted. Thanks Mom and Dad!
I just can't help but feeling bad for all the people stranded in Hawaii or all of the people's Honeymoons that the ATA bankruptcy did ruin.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be profiling some of the most important women in my life and my wedding. I'll go in order of length of time I've known them, which means I'll start with Laurel.
Laurel
Nicknames: Lolo, wowo, lo, lo-ho
How we met: First day of Kindergarten, Laurel let me play me marbles with her when a mean girl didn't let me play (now Laurel and I have been friends for almost 20 years!)
Our favorite childhood activities: “Rocking out” to my playschool tape player and playing “Old Hag” where I’d pretend I was princess and Laurel was an “old hag” that I befriended (mean game, huh?)
Why I love Laurel: She’s been there for me through thick and thin for pretty much as long as I can remember, and I know she’ll be there for me until we’re old and grey.
Some pictures of Laurel and Me over the years (1999, 2006, 2007)
After a long quest to find cute aqua/ turquoise bridesmaid dresses and determining that the "Pool" dresses from David's Bridal were just not our thing (I wasn't crazy about the color the girls weren't crazy about the cut), I've finally found THE dresses. I give you...
Invitations... apparently they "set the tone" for the entire event. I thought I didn't care very much about what the invites look liked until I walked into DayDreams and saw all of the beautiful colors, styles, and embellishments!
I choose a pocket fold style in matte turquoise, light metallic tangerine, and matte ecru. And the crowning touch... a metallic Starfish. So pretty!
None of these are my invite -- but you get the idea...
I met with my Wedding Coordinator, Carlee Jimenez for La Bella Weddings and Events, this weekend. She's new to the industry, so I got her for a steal! I'm so excited to have her as my "Day Of" Coordinator.
Carlee's "Day of Services" Include"-
Pre Wedding -Reviewing vendor contracts and conformation of requested services, organizing vent delivery/arrival times, collecting floor plans, creating wedding day timeline and distributing timeline to vendors.
Ceremony - Coordinating with all vendors, organizing wedding party for their entrance, directing guests, and collecting personal items.
Reception –Coordinating with all vendors, setting up of guest book table, gift table, decor, place cards, etc., maintaining the night's timeline, distributing final payments to vendor, and gathering personal items.
You can reach Carlee at cj@eventsbylabella.com
We tasted and choose our Wedding Menu this weekend...
Cocktail hour will include various cheeses, sausages, and meats as well as bruschetta.
For the dinner:
- The appetizer course will be Tomato Caprece
- The salad course will be Tropical Salad with mango and coconut
- The main course will be a choice of Salmon or Vegetarian Crepes
- The dessert will be Wedding Cake
Yummy!
Our ballroom, the Terazza, decorated for a wedding dinner.
As of today we have 150 days until the BIG DAY! I can't wait for the wedding to get here but I still have a lot to do. This weekend I'm going to San Diego to work on several wedding activities. As of next week I will know:
- The Menu
- The Tuxes
- The Coordinator
- The Videographer
- The Bridesmaid dress
- The MOB Dress
- The Inviations
Stay tuned for posts on those!
As someone who has never subscribed to a daily (or even weekly) newspaper, I can't help but feel that newspaper Engagement Announcements are antiquated in the digital age. Maybe they are, or maybe I think this because I'm a big city Los Angelino, and if I lived in smaller town I'd think Engagement Announcements were a bigger deal.
Internet Engagement Announcements don't seem to make any more sense, but regardless, I submitted our Engagement Announcement to San Diego Style Weddings (online) and they posted it! http://www.sandiegostyleweddings.com/engagements_2006.asp
I've been working with Marianne (Jonathan's Mom) on plans for the rehearsal dinner. She hired Gerardo's (this great little Mexican catering company) to do the food and we're going to have it at my parent's home.
Can you tell that I’m ready for a vacation? Between wedding planning, moving into our new Condo, and working/traveling full time, sometimes I can’t help but wish today was Aug 18th and we were in Hawaii (but that would mean the wedding is over, so scratch that...)
We decided to take our Honeymoon in Maui. We toyed with idea of the Conrad Hilton in the Madives but we decided that an 18 hour flight followed by a prop plane to the island was just not our thing. The resort looks amazing though (check it out at Hilton Maldives). Then my Dad said something about the Maldives having terrorists (blah blah dangerous place blah blah extremists blah blah … I wasn’t really listening), so that I was definitely out.
So we decided on the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa on Maui. The best part is that it’s a Hilton property so I can pay with POINTS (thank you consulting firm)!
The Grand Wailea is situated on 40 beautifully landscaped acres and opens onto Maui's gorgeous Wailea Beach, voted one of the best beaches in America. The resort offers an array of amenities including a world class spa, acres of pools, rivers and waterslides, and beachfront access.
Try not to be envious…. Hehehe…
Click to photos to enlarge
Photos courtesy of http://www.grandwailea.com/
I'm very excited that my good friend (and Hair Stylist) Carey Bear is going to do my hair for the wedding. I'm going in for a consultation with her in a few weeks. In preparation for that, I put together a list of hairstyles that I like and I think would look good with my dress and veil.
Thoughts to consider: My dress is really dramatic so I think I need a half-up/half-down hair style to make it a bit more romantic. My veil is short with crystals at the end, the the hairstyle needs to work with a short veil as well. My hair isn't particularly thick (unlike some of the hair models bel0w), so what hair style can my hair even "pull off."
Below are a few of the half-up hair styles that I like. Take a look and let me know what you think: 
I think I found my Wedding Florist! I met with her on Saturday and really liked her ideas especially for how to incorporate Turquoise without having blue flowers . You can see some of her work here: http://www.flowersbyerin.com/.
Below are some of my orange/ tangerine flower ideas, but to be honest Erin's ideas are even better. You'll just have to wait until the wedding to see them!
Just when I thought I had the Bridesmaid Dresses, I found dresses on Nordstrom.com that I think I like EVEN more! Mainly because I think the Pool/Aqua/Turquoise is prettier (I'm realizing there are a LOT of names for this color)
So I'm going to order these two dresses from Nordstrom and see if I like them in person:
Hopefully this my only crazy-change-my-mind-bride moment.
I have a wedding budget of just over average for a California wedding, so you'd think that would pretty much cover all of my wedding dreams and fantasies... WRONG.
In reading wedding blogs I've also decided that I want (but cannot have due to budgetary constraints):
- Chiavari Chairs - Those gorgeous suckas rent for like $8 a chair. I'll just have to use the hotel chairs, whatever, they're nice.
- Professional Lighting - Initials on the dancefloor and lighting to make it look like a Vegas club, sigh... I think the regular ballroom lighting and candles will be fine
- A ridiculous amount of flowers - Those giant tree-like centerpieces are so pretty, but $150+ for something that dies the next day.
- Matching professional stationary for menus, place cards, etc. - I think this makes a great DIY project (I'm actually excited to do this one)
- Colored linens - You know you can buy napkins and tablecloths for just a bit more than you can rent them for? Lame. Oh well, the white comes with the venue are elegant and crisp.
I went to David's Bridal and I found a couple of pretty nice and really affordable. I think the bridesmaids will be wearing "Pool" blue dresses in one of these two styles!:
Here is a video I took of our Ballroom at the Hilton, the Terazza Ballroom.
I think it's too small and we're going to upgrade to one of the windowless but bigger ballrooms. Those other ballrooms have higher ceilings and look more dramatic. Too bad Hilton doesn't have a 2nd floor ballroom that looks out onto the water like the Catamaran.
I am SO excited, I found and ordered my Wedding Dress Yesterday! It's so pretty!
The designer is Maggie Sottero. It's the Amara Royale dress in Ivory. It's a corset, strapless gown with sweetheart neckline, dropped waist, flare skirt, and a sweep train. It features swarovski crystals and bead embellishments.
If you want to see what it looks like, send me an email (I didn't want to post it because then Jonathan would see it).
Note: the diet starts tomorrow :-)
Here is a tiny preview of the dress:
This week while I was in San Diego I met with my favorite bakery, The Grove Pastry Shop, about doing our Wedding Cake. The Grove Pastry Shop has done almost all of my Birthday Cakes since I was 8 years old, so I was very happy to hear that they could do my wedding cake for a very decent price.
It’s almost obligatory for a Bride to say to her Bridesmaids, regarding their Bridesmaid dresses, “Oh! You could totally wear this dress again!” But it’s a rare Brdesmaid that ever wears said Bridesmaid dress again (usually because it’s a pink, taffeta, nightmare of a dress with awkwardly placed bows on it someplace). However, as a bride I am on a quest to find dresses that could potentially be worn again by my Bridesmaids.
When my friend, Laurel, got married in October she let us pick our own dress from J.Crew in the color Espresso. I’ll fess up that I was worried that it might look weird, but it looked REALLY good. AND I even wore my dress out on the town a few times before the wedding because I liked it so much (much to my Mother’s dismay… she was appalled that I’d wear the dress before the wedding and risk ruining it).
So I’ve been thinking about matching the color (ocean blue/turquoise) and material of the Bridesmaid Dresses but letting the girls pick their style. Right now I have two options on the table…
1) Siri. Their styles are classic, adorable, and fun. Below are my favorite Siri styles. All of them come in Shantung material in the color ocean (see below, the Yale dress is in Shantung- ocean). I’m not sure 100% if the Bridesmaids would necessarily wear these again (I mean how many occasions do you have to wear an ocean blue party dress?), but at least the girls would feel more comfortable if they got to pick their own style for their figure.
(Click to enlarge)
http://www.siri.com/
2) Two Birds Bridesmaid. These dresses come in a “one size” with directions for how to wrap it in over 10 ways. You can do strapless, backless, sleeved, halter, etc. The material looks really comfortable and I love idea of many ways to wrap the same dress (they have a nice turquoise color as well). I feel like bridesmaid would definitely wear these dresses again because they are so versatile. My only concerns are a) formality (they look a bit casual) and b) is the dresses really fit as well as the company says that they do. Check out the colors below and the models wearing them. They are all wearing the same dress wrapped in a different style and it looks really matched without being “matchy-matchy."
(click to enlarge)
http://www.twobirdsbridesmaid.com/
