May through July

Let's ignore my false promises and lame attempts and just catch up where we left off.
May has come and gone (thank you, captain obvious) and I am no closer to being a real blogger. Nonetheless, the past few months have been rather blog-worthy. I said goodbye to a comfortable job with colleagues who felt like family, started a brand new job with a new culture and set of coworkers. While only having to move down three floors in my office building. We joked that for a person who doesn't like change, it was as low impact as possible. Same building, same parking structure, same gym, same commute, nicer shoes.

We started house hunting. Right off the bat we found the most precious Spanish bungalow with a white Carrera marble kitchen. Seriously, the stuff (my) dreams are made of;  put in an offer, (I) became completely emotionally attached. Counter offers, 24 hour deadlines, "Dear Seller" letters and lots of anxiety later- we did not get the house. The LA real estate market is no joke. After the whirlwind that was our first offer, we decided to take a step back and just wait to find something great. Since that point (first week of June) there has been absolutely nothing remotely exciting. And so we wait. And learn. And save. Anyone who knows me will be quick to tell you that I'm possibly the least patient person ever. So there is that.

On the bright side, this summer has been exceptionally fun. We celebrated one year of marriage and attended three fabulous weddings in four weeks. It doesn't get much better than watching people you love walk down the aisle, say their vows and then party the night away. Fourth of July was spent at the beach and last weekend we borrowed a spectacular boat for a day trip to Catalina. We saw the Postal Service at the Greek Theater (a story for another day) and indulged in too many delicious meals to count. Now it is almost August and finally up to speed.

Wedding One: Elizabeth & Robert in Carmel, California

  

Wedding Two: Tess & Joel in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

Wedding Three: Rachel & Ryan in Los Angeles

More to follow when I get my paws on some professional photos from the last two weddings. All deserve a post of their own, but this is a start. 

Wedding Wednesday: The Venue

Selecting the wedding venue was (for me) one of the hardest parts of the wedding planning, second only to picking my wedding dress (that's a story for another time). The similarities between the two (venue & dress) are not lost on me. There are essentially limitless options, plenty of "really nice" choices and the one you ultimately select will set the tone of the rest of the wedding.
As I mentioned before, from the proposal to our walk down the aisle was over sixteen months. People have asked if I recommend having such a long engagement (actually only two people specifically asked, but I have asked myself multiple times). Naturally there are positives and negatives for both a short and long engagement, but I will say this: the longer the engagement, the more time there is to second guess decisions. Maybe you are the kind of person who sticks to your guns. In this case, I was not. Throughout our engagement, and thus the wedding planning process, our idea of how we wanted our wedding to look shifted. In some ways that's good. Our tastes stayed primarily the same, but our vision narrowed and the end result was extremely representative of who we were at the time we said "I do." However, there were plenty of tears (mine) and restless nights (also mine) along the way. Not to mention, making changes typically has a cost involved. Not great for the bottom line. If I had half the time, I probably would have stuck to my initial vision and most likely been pleased with the result. I read somewhere that if at the end of the day, you are married, you have accomplished your goal. The rest is just fluff.
In the beginning we were fairly certain we wanted a non-church ceremony. We imagined our ceremony and reception being held in the same location (ideally different areas on the same property). Ceremony outside and reception in a ballroom. I also had somewhat contrasting visions of a winery wedding. Perhaps a string quartet set among the vines? For whatever reason we decided in the beginning that we were dead set against a beach wedding (we are more winery people than beach people), a hotel (Sean's preference) or any place with wall to wall carpet (again Sean's preference). There are times when I regretted not going the hotel route. There are so many different hotels, surely we could have found one that fit us. (It probably would have been easier!) We narrowed the field a bit more by deciding against a destination wedding. This limited us to Southern California and about a million venues. The wedding planner helped make suggestions, but in the end it was up to us to pull the trigger (and fast). I felt the clock ticking away and wanted to  make a decision, so we could move forward with planning. Everything was a standstill until we had a date and venue locked down.
After researching hundreds of venues online and visiting six or seven, we landed on a historic estate built in the 1890s. It had beautiful gardens for the ceremony, a ballroom for the reception, a grand lobby and salon for the cocktail hour, a ton of character. We picked a date (July 21st) and the signed a contract.
A few months passed and as we imagined saying our vows, things began to shift. I'm not sure exactly how it first came up (there were quite a few parental opinions volunteered) but we came to the decision that we actually did want to be married in a church. I started researching every church within a five mile area of our venue, narrowed it down to those that were actually our religion and went church shopping. I learned that churches book up really far in advance and vary greatly in terms of flexibility. At this point our date wasn't flexible, as we were already under quite a few contracts. I was 100% set on having the ceremony in the late afternoon and continuing straight to the reception. I wouldn't hear of having a morning ceremony or any gap of time between the two. Luckily we managed to find a beautiful church, with an incredible pastor, that would hold a 4:30pm service and was available for our date. The pieces started to come together!
Having two venues changed our vendor list and the schedule significantly. The pastor we hired to orchestrate our non-church ceremony was no longer needed. The church required us to hire their "coordinator" even though we already had our own. Transportation from the ceremony to the reception had to be worked out. And the list went on.
Add in taking photographs and doing our "first look" at the hotel, and our timeline became a carefully orchestrated ballet. Apparently simplicity was not the name of my game.
Looking back, here are a few of the elements that helped us narrow down our reception venue :
-ability to bring in our own caterer. This was tremendously important for keeping us in budget. I was shocked at how the cost of catering varies. Apparently all Chicken Parmesans are not created equal! I may be a foodie most of the time, but oysters and truffles were not in the cards for our wedding day.

-only hosts one event  per day. Guests were free to roam around and explore the estate without running in to another bride and groom.

-allowed hard alcohol. One of  Sean’s top wedding requests was an open bar. We found that most wineries only allowed wine & beer- no hard alcohol, so they were quickly crossed off our list. I have been to weddings without hard alcohol and had a blast. I tend to stick to wine at weddings, so this really wouldn’t have been a big deal for me. However, the tequila shots we took later in the night were fun.

-end time. I was shocked how many venues turn the music off at 9 or 10pm. We were allowed to go until midnight and needed every second of it.

-Character. Completely vague, but it had to have some sort of "wow" factor.
Missing from our list? A HIGH powered, well functioning air conditioner. Buildings in the 1890's weren't known for their air conditioners. The brochure said the ballroom was air conditioned. I can say from personal experience on that balmy July night, it was not.
So what did we end up with?

 

Escort Card Table in the foyer

And the church:

 

 

 

 

 Have I wondered if we picked the right venues? Yes. Does it matter? Nope. We are married. Everyone had a great time. I love our photographs. 

Moral of the story? Worry less, celebrate more!

Wedding Wednesday: Hiring a Planner

March 13th will mark our two years engagement anniversary. Do you celebrate engagement anniversaries after you are married? I'm not sure, since this will be our first. I have casually mentioned it a couple times and in typical us fashion we have assigned already planned activities as our celebration for whatever date happens to fall around it. Our Napa trip will be an engagement anniversary celebration, a Sean is finally done with the business school application process celebration (and hopefully we will know where he is going!!!) and perhaps even a half birthday celebration thrown in there. The second we find out where Sean has been accepted to B school, we will likely forget about the engagement anniversary and I will kiss the ground and let out the exhale heard 'round the world. I do not function well with unknowns. As soon as we "know" and we can start the planning, I will be fine, regardless of the outcome. It's the not knowing, not being able to plan that drives me nuts. And this has been 6+ months of waiting for the end of March. And it is almost here at last, hallelujah.
All of this to say, it's been a while since we got engaged. And the more time passes the less I remember of the exact details and order events. This is clear in my recap posts, as we are already out of chronological order, but I guess that's ok.
Rewinding a bit, I believe the order went like this:
-engagement
-hire wedding coordinator
-Italy trip/ engagement photos
-ask bridal party
-select a venue
-Engagement Parties

Our wedding coordinator was Ryan Larson from Savoir Flair Weddings. If you are in the Southern California area and looking for a coordinator I cannot recommend her highly enough. A few weeks ago a woman emailed asking for a reference for Ryan. I stopped what I was doing and wrote an extremely long winded, verbose letter professing my undying love for all things Savoir Flair. I also demanded encouraged my best friend to hire Ryan. Thankfully she complied and her wedding could not have been more beautiful.
 Ryan was the first person we met with after getting engaged. I'll never forget the day. My Mom, Sean and I  went out to meet her and I was wearing terrible fitting white jeans and could not stop starring at my ring. I found Ryan on The Knot, where she was ranked one of the best planners for LA, and immediately emailed her. I just checked my gmail records, this was March 16 (exactly three days after getting engaged).
The three of us immediately liked her. She was confident, experienced, organized, creative and savvy. I wanted to be her best friend (actually that hasn't change, I still want to be Ryan's best friend). Sean decided she was perfect and that we should "just hire her" and not interview anyone else. My Mom and I proceeded to waste our time meeting with another four or five planners. We compared everyone to Ryan and no one measured up. After checking her references (all of whom wrote similar letters to the one I had the joy of writing a couple weeks ago), we were officially under contract with our first wedding vendor.
People will tell you the first decision on your list is selecting a venue (without a venue contract you don't have an official wedding date which is needed for every other contract). Hiring our coordinator first allowed her to help us in the venue search, selection and contract negotiation.  We knew when we hired Ryan (March 2011) we knew we were going to do a Saturday, summer 2012 wedding and at that point she let us know which days she was still available and we took that in to consideration in picking a date.
A few important elements to me:
-Ryan is the principal of Savoir Flair. It was written in to our contract that she (along with her assistants) would be there on our wedding day.I didn't want any of this "I'm sending my associate" business. It was extremely important throughout the vendor selection process that whoever I hired was the person I saw on my wedding day.
-Personality. Ryan and I meshed well. She let me run with my ideas, (micro)manage the entire process and stepped in when I needed a hand or when there were tasks I was happy to hand off. I did not want to show up the day of my wedding and be surprised  I wanted to meet with every vendor, hand select the linens, be at every floral mock up. I had dreamed of planning my wedding my entire life, you better believe I was going to be hands on. She was extremely good at calming me down. When I was freaking out or thought something was ruined, she put everything in to perspective and created a plan of action. If for no other reason, Ryan was worth her weight in gold right there. Having an objective entity who is able to talk sense in to you (not your mom or fiance) is crucial. Plus I trusted her opinion and experience (no offense to my well meaning mother).
-Every wedding is unique; none of Ryan's weddings loo alike. There are quite a few wedding planners out there who are very trend conscious and fixate on a certain look that they do over and over again. The wedding tells you more about the planner's aesthetic than the couple. While that could be good for their business, if you want a rustic hipster wedding in Malibu you know who to choose. I wanted my wedding to look like us, not necessarily Style Me Pretty.
-Cost. It all comes down to the bottom line, right? I've heard a lot of people ask if wedding coordinators are worth the money. I can not scream yes fast enough. Regardless of your budget, the size and intricacy of your wedding- you are going to need some outside help at some point- at least on your wedding day. Even if everything is perfectly planned, you need someone to orchestrate the day. Just because your well intentioned aunt offered to set up the escort table, does not mean she can or should manage everything (there are so many details that will not even occur to you). Plus your aunt will be stressed out her mind, let the poor woman enjoy the party. I can not stress enough how important it is to have (at the very least) a day of coordinator. I would recommend springing for a month of  + day of coordinator if you are able. There is so much going on before your wedding, the last thing you want to do the week before is making and sending out timelines, confirming 25 vendor and trying to figure out who you owe money to and how they are going to get in on the day of your wedding/ day before, etc.
There are wedding planners at all price points. Find someone who works in your budget. Before planning my wedding I was under the impression that wedding planners were cost prohibitive. Wrong. If you are going to spend all this money on everything else, you might as well enjoy your wedding day. The return on investment for a day of coordinator is extremely high. Knowing what I know now, I would have paid twice as much for Ryan. You can't put a price on sanity!

Ryan & her brides

Wedding Wednesday: Engagement Photos

(We used this photo for our Save the Dates)

On my first wedding recap post I said I would share my engagement pictures next. Then I forgot the promise and the order of events and went straight to the engagement party. Two steps forward, one step back. Such is life.

Anyway, Sean and I love to travel. Italy was high on our list of places to experience together. We spent close to a year dreaming up and planning our Italy trip. The timing worked out (thanks Sean!) that we were newly engaged, excited and in love, yet still naive and blissful about the wedding planning process. I loved the idea of capturing this special time in our lives and having unique engagement photos to document the trip.

I started researching Italian photographers, spending time on Style Me Pretty's Little Black Book of International wedding vendors and before long I had narrowed down my search. Since we were traveling around quite a bit, the logistics needed to be perfect. Of the places we were traveling, we decided somewhere in Tuscany would be best. Florence was too crowded of a city, yet I didn't want vineyard pictures that could have been taken in California. I found a photographer whose work I liked and was based right outside of Siena. A few weeks of emailing later and the date was set.

In my humble opinion, we could not have picked a better location. Siena is easily one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The architecture is incredible, the streets are charming and while the city is very much alive and active it was never crowded. Our photographer, Andrea Corsi, was apparently very excited to shoot an “American couple.” He recruited two other photographers who wanted to build their portfolios to photograph us (at no additional cost). When three Italians arrived at our hotel, we were a little overwhelmed. We quickly chugged a beer and the  five of us set off to explore Siena on foot and “follow the light.”  I would never attempt to recreate the situation because we could simply never top it. Their English was mediocre (at best) but they led us to different locations and told us to kiss (over and over again) and before we knew it the sun was setting and we had three new friends. It was great learning experience as Sean and I were not used to being in front of the camera for hours on end. It helped me realize what I value in a photographer and see the facial expressions I make in photos that I didn't want to replicate on my wedding.

The Italian photographers were “photojournalistic” in style. They told us to not look at the camera and were very against any posed photographs. I get it. Poses can be cheesy and fake. However, on my wedding day you better believe I wanted some posed photos. I wanted a photographer assertive enough to tell Sean to button his jacket and how to angle my head. The Italians were not that way, but the experience allowed me to the pick the perfect (for us) wedding photographer upon our return. 

A downside to taking “destination” engagement pictures is that we were never photographed by our wedding photographer until our wedding day. Nowadays many photographers recommend (or include) an engagement session so that you get to know each other before hand. I love this idea, however the photographer I selected did not include an e-session in our package, and it fell in to the nice in theory but not necessary camp which those of you have planned a wedding knows typically doesn't get done. And realistically, how many photos can you really display of yourself?

A few points that are coming back to me while looking at these pictures:

-Photographers take a LOT of pictures. You are most likely going to dislike the way you look in 90% of them. The goal is to have enough to choose from so that you end up with a few you do like. From our engagement session (over 1,000 pictures) I needed one great photo to use for our Save the Date. It can be traumatizing  discouraging looking through 900 bad photos of yourself. Try not to let it bother you. You only need a couple "frame worthy" shots.

-My American sensibilities were challenged by these passionate Europeans. Sean and I are decently affectionate but tend to shy away from PDA. Kissing in public is just flat out awkward. Also, the number of "up the dress" shots they took is borderline crazy. All I can do is pray I'm not on some weird Italian p*rn site.

-Be sure to get the high resolution images AND a contract where the photographer gives you the right to re-print. I had to show the contract while having images printed at Costco.

All of this to say, here are our engagement pictures. 

Siena, Italy. May 2011.  

Wedding Wednesday: Engagement Party

After the initial engagement excitement wore off it was time to get down to business. It’s funny how the moment people find out your engaged you are greeted with a multitude of questions. Maybe a congrats here and there, but usually it’s just a bombardment of questions. Number one being “have you set a date?” “When are you getting married?” “Where?” Or more annoying still “What’s the date? I need to block off my calendar and I booked a cruise for all of next June? So definitely don’t pick next June.” At some point I will do a separate post on everything not to do/ say to the bride and groom. Actually that could be a novel.

Sean and I are both blessed with quite the “American family.” In that we have parents, step-parents, half relatives, twice removed, you get the gist. So a large portion of our families had never met. We decided it would be nice for our relatives to not meet for the first time at the wedding, if at all possible. We also didn't want to invite all of our extended relatives (cousins, aunts, uncles) to our engagement party. Maybe that’s weird or improper- but we wanted the engagement party to be just that. A party, with our friends and immediate family to celebrate and enjoy. Where we didn't have to worry about Sean’s cousin explaining her different tattoos to my straight laced, attorney uncle. We got that out of the way at the family party.

My Mother in Law was overjoyed to host the family party at her house (it kept her occupied in the very important first few months of planning), and Sean’s Dad and Step Mom (who are party people) offered to host our engagement party. I focused on the actual wedding planning and left the engagement parties up to our host.

Ok, that’s a lie. I am terrible at handing over control. I micromanaged bits of the engagement parties, but managed to let go of the rest. 

I only have a couple pictures from the family get together. I remember it felt very surreal to drink out of the "bride" glass.

For the engagement party, Sean's Dad and Step Mom went with a Mexican Fiesta theme. Margaritas, Mexican food and music. Sean's Dad toasted to our future with a tequila shot and the guests happily obliged. 

Our hosts with the lovely spread & one of many musical performances for the evening:

Party people:

Tequila shot toast:

More shots!

Bridezilla & bridesmaid picture:

As evidenced in the photos, we had a blast. It was a great jump start to our "wedding year." (I know how annoying and absurdly self indulgent that sounds. I own it.) We had a 16+ month engagement, so it was nice to have smaller festivities to look forward to throughout the process. Despite the ups and downs of wedding planning, the stress and differences of opinion, I can say without a doubt in my mind that we experienced an outpouring of love and support.

Wedding Wednesday: Engagement

A Trip Down the Aisle... Part 1
It will come as no surprise that I love weddings.  I'm a newlywed, of "the age" where the majority of my weekends revolve around wedding activities, many of my friends are planning their weddings and  quite a few of my online  friends are engaged. Needless to say, I have marriage on the mind. My only blog wish is that I would have started a couple years sooner so I could have documented the wedding planning process here. C'est la vie! When I saw fellow new blogger, Staci at Leather and Leops, doing a weekly recap of her wedding titled "A Trip Down the Aisle," I knew I wanted to play along! 

Sean proposed on March 13 of 2011. We were planning a two week trip to Italy for May and I (along with many friends) had a sneaking suspicion that he might pop the question on our trip. Sean decided to surprise everyone (except my parents who would have been incapable of keeping a secret for two months) by proposing early. This ended up working out for the best. Sean didn't have to worry about sneaking an engagement ring through security and we decided to take engagement pictures in one of  the most beautiful places in the world, Siena!

Sean "popped the question" while picnicking before a hike at Will Rogers State Park in the Pacific Palisades with our trusty pup in tow. We waited until after the hike to share the news, and I greatly cherished those miles where we were the only people in the world who "knew." I just remember being overjoyed with happiness, holding hands and feeling on top of the world. Luckily we ran in to some people at the top of the mountain and asked them to take our first picture as an engaged couple. 

We eventually finished our hike and were ready to re-join reality. As soon as we were at the car we called family and friends at a rapid pace (deciding who to call first is quite challenging, so we just tried to make our way through the A list as fast as possible). We returned home, quickly showered and before we knew it our friends were at our door with bottles of champagne.



We drank a lot of champagne that (Sunday) night. Come Monday morning, I was incredibly hungover. Why I decided to go in to work that day shall forever remain a mystery. (Going to work super hungover is never worth it in my opinion. I've learned this the hard way, many times.) My coworkers kindly treated me to a celebratory lunch at Hillstone aka Houston's (where I promptly ordered a burger & fries) and (almost) gagged when they ordered champagne. 

Looking at these pictures, it's hard to believe it was almost two years ago. Although when I think back on these past two years, I'm not complaining one bit. It has been an amazing ride and I am so excited to finally document it here!

Up next, Italian Engagement Session!