Sweet Ideas

One of the many things which I have spent literally hours, days even, pondering in regards to the wedding is the issue of the centerpieces. There are quite a few factors which make these pesky arrangements more complicated than one might assume. For one thing, flowers, or more specifically florists, are rather expensive. We could easily run-up a $3,000 floral bill without even trying if a professional does everything with the flowers that I actually like, which (of course) are more expensive than one might assume. One way to get around this is to buy the flowers ourselves at the LA flower market and do the arrangements ourselves the day before, which would save a significant amount of money, however you are at the mercy of whatever the market has available that day. Also, we would have to find a way to keep the flowers fresh overnight, and enlist our bridal party members to spend several hours at least preparing every single one of the flowers in vases which I would have to buy wholesale on ebay and etsy. This is an option I'm still considering, however my main concern is that I will hate myself when that day comes if the workload is way more than I'd bargained for, or if it doesn't come out as I'd envisioned and I have only myself to blame.

Regardless of the DIY decision, I have always gravitated towards using vintage vases and cakestands with the flowers at each table to bring some girly-ness and parisian flair to our outdoorsy venue. I'm always amazed how easy it is to find these things in lots of a dozen pieces for less than $10 online, which makes more sense than renting them, if I figured out a way to use them after the wedding anyway. And then, inspiration struck! I saw the above photo on the hi-fiwedding blog and thought it was the best idea ever. Why not pay homage to my love of all things baked, cute, and sugary and just put desserts on the cakestands at each table? Each table could have something different, or maybe three tables per treat variety, and everyone would have something to nibble on as they chat during the reception. They could also visit other tables and swap treats on cute vintage dessert plates. The only thing is figuring out how to tie-in the woodsy theme with this, and also making sure that the treats survive the elements of the outdoors, but I'm positive there's a way to put a unique spin on this. So exciting. Now we'll just have to figure out what real food is going to be served, haha!

Pre-Anniversary

Yesterday, June 18th, was our pre-wedding anniversary. We have been married -1 years and counting. Which means that as of today, we have less than one year to go until the wedding! Holy cow, it feels amazing to have made it through the first year-and-a-half of our engagement, and now we're in the home stretch. To celebrate we went to Ruby's on the Huntington Pier, which is always more windy and cold than I expect it to be, but still fun. For the rest of the night, we looked at the clock and thought, 9:17 - we will be dancing at the reception... 11:30 - wrapping things up and heading on the honeymoon... or possibly still dancing...

364 days! The real craziness begins now...

Graduation, etc.

Let me start off by apologizing for being so impeccably absent over the past few months or so. This past semester, along with all kinds of drama at work, and perhaps the occasional nervous breakdown, have caused me to use my precious little free time to curl up in bed, turn on hulu/netflix, and veg. I do feel bad, though, and I promise to make up for the lack of posts and other forms of online communication this summer.

In other news, I graduated! Well, walked anyway. I'm officially done with my BA July 14th, 2010, and then life can re-commence, or at least the wedding planning aspect of it. Graduation was exciting, though. One thousand times better than graduating high school, for a few reasons. One was that I'm not so much of a loner this time around, and have wonderful classmates whom I'm sure will be long-time friends, at least on Facebook. Second, I'm not in a neckbrace and braces this time. Third, I had a strong cheering section made up of my family, co-workers, and Darryl, of course. Fourth: better hair. And lastly, in high school I missed graduating with honors by about .05 grade points, and this time I made it to the gold cord status. Not that that will ever matter again in the future, but for that one night it counts for something. It's crazy that I'm actually done with this stage of my academic experience. Also odd that although Darryl and I graduated from the same school, a year apart, we didn't actually meet there. In fact, I wouldn't have even chosen Vanguard as my transfer school if it weren't for Darryl's sales pitch for them two years ago. And if it weren't for that, I'm almost positive I wouldn't be anywhere near done yet. So thank you, love, you were right. :)

So the inevitable question following graduation is, now what? What are you going to do with your bright, shiny, expensive degree? Funny you might ask. I've changed my mind over the past year more than ever before as to what career would best suit me, besides Domestic Goddess and (future) mommy. And yes, I could stay a dental assistant, but the thought of having to work overtime with my school-age patients during the same vacation months that Darryl will be off of work as a teacher kind of depresses me. Among other reasons, of course. One of them being radiation exposure. So what I've learned about myself as I have gone through my psychology program is that I love the field of psychology and learning about disorders, assessment, etc., and I still love working with kids/teenagers, but I'm not big on your typical marriage/family therapy-type counseling. I admire those who can do it, but it's just not really me. So the best combination of my strengths seems to be school psychology and teaching. The plan is: get married, get a teaching credential, (hopefully) get a teaching position, go back for a masters in educational psychology with a PPS credential, complete an internship, and then land my dream job. Then work just long enough to afford to quit and have babies, haha! Luckily, despite the school budget crisis, there are still jobs out there for school psychologists, which was surprising. So, that's the plan, we'll see how it goes. It's not written in stone by any means, but it's a direction to move in. We've had plans before which haven't worked out quite the way we expected, but the good news is that in many ways they seem to improve with time. Cheers to the end of one era, and on to the next!

A Venue at Last!

Ladies and gentlemen, the deposit has been placed! Get ready for a fun-filled mountain wedding weekend extravaganza on...

June 18th, 2011

at

Hidden Creek Lodge at Pinerose Cabins Mountain Resort

Twin Peaks, CA

I'm so relieved to finally have this one big decision over with! Over the past few months, I have been crazy busy with school like never before (remember how I said previously that this semester would be cake? Yeah, I was sorely mistaken). In what precious little free time I did have, I was vegging in front of the TV and scouring through any and all possible wedding venue websites, considering eloping once every other week. At least. But, we didn't give up on the promise of a real wedding to share with everyone else, and considered several different possibilities for a location. Pine Rose won the contest for several reasons:

1. Unique and picturesque landscape

2. Includes guest cabins of various sizes to rent and one big cabin for our wedding party to stay the entire weekend, so no worries about partying the night away

3. Once the insurance deposit is placed, the whole place is our's to do whatever we want with it, so long as nothing is permenently damaged

4. Complete freedom of choice with vendors

5. Day-of coordinator included, who gave us the tour and seems very helpful and responsive

6. Very (very) reasonable pricing, including the catering costs, including being able to purchase any and all alcohol on our own to avoid crazy bartending fees

7. Available sound equipment with which we could have an iPod DJ if we so choose

8. The starlight dance floor (see above)

9. The TV in the living room of the main cabin where a Wii/Xbox station could be erected (you're welcome, Ethan)

10. Including cute forest creatures somehow in the decorations :D

So although this isn't exactly what I had always pictured my wedding to be like, it's clearly the best choice out of what we had available. We will be going back up there in May for their wedding open house where we will meet the caterer, baker, and such to see how we like them. In the mean time, I'm still quite busy with school for the time being, but graduation is coming in 3 weeks (eee!), and then there's just two more (hopefully easy) summer classes to go. So, as of July 14th, I will be DONE with my bachelor's and ready to complete my MRS. preparations.

3 = perfection

Today (well, yesterday, but we celebrated today) marks the third anniversary of our first date. As always, we commemorated the event with dinner at Jalapeno's in downtown Orange. On the one hand, I can't believe it's already been 3 years, and at this time last year we weren't engaged quite yet. On the other hand, with everything that has happened in both of our lives since we've known each other, it seems more like at least 5 years. So I guess it evens out.

I love you, D! Cheers!

Where, oh where, shall our wedding be...

The search continues for our wedding venue(s). Crestmore Manor is still a major contender, which we visited last weekend to have a look around. I still have some questions on specifics for that location, but it definitely looks like it could work. I am trying to keep an open mind, however, dating around with different locations before marrying the first one that comes along. So to speak.

Last night I came across an interesting option:
Hidden Creek Lodge at Pinerose Cabins, Lake Arrowhead
http://pineroseweddings.com/hidden-creek.shtml

These are from greenweddingshoes.com, which has more pretty pictures.

I had looked at places in the Big Bear area before, but the pricing on this one is much more reasonable than the other ones I found, and seems to be a bit more flexible with vendors. Plus, we could spend a little more and have everyone in the bridal party stay the night before and after the wedding, so no one would have to make the long drive up and down the mountain that weekend. I still want to go up there with Darryl to check it out ourselves sometime, but most of the pics I found online of weddings there are pretty impressive. And we got engaged around Lake Arrowhead! So... a good sign, perhaps?

Let the Search Begin...

Over the past few days I have accepted, and even perhaps embraced, the fact that we will not be having a Mission Inn wedding. It could, in fact, be for the best. For starters, I can take another look at places which are (as we now know) much cheaper and more flexible than the Mission Inn. Also, since we still have the luxury of time, I can search around for places more off the beaten path which allow for more creativity and a different style.

I've been pouring over my favorite wedding blogs, in particular Green Wedding Shoes and Junebug Weddings, as well as some photographers' blogs such as Jagger photography, for venue ideas. So far two have stuck out as good candidates:

1. Crestmore Manor, Riverside

These are from the wedding of Heather Jagger, one of my most favorite photographers, taken by Dana Grant. I like that this venue is in a pretty convenient location, near Mt. Rubidoux, that it is pretty inexpensive to rent, and I would have complete creative freedom with both design and in choosing vendors. That being said, it does create more of a challenge when every tiny detail needs to be addressed, which is where a wedding coordinator (or perhaps a very good friend who takes on such a role!) may become necessary to help run things.

2. Marvimon House, Downtown Los Angeles

So with this one, the location isn't quite as ideal, and I actually haven't found out the cost of it yet, but it seems really unique and interesting. Outside vendors are allowed, but they offer their own caterers. Maybe not the most feasible place, but I think it's worth looking into at least for the fun of it.

We still have a lot to think about and consider over the next few months, but at least I've found some interesting possibilities for our wedding location. Anything could happen, and that just makes things all the more exciting.