Hi friends.


I've been a bad blogger, both about weddings and about my real life. But I've also been busy. However while I'd like to say I've been super busy with wedding-related things, that's just not the case. See, while my mom has been slaving away on programs and bridesmaid dresses and silverware rentals down in the Bay Area, I have been busy finding a new job, finding a place to live come June (only 5 weeks away, folks!) and gritting my teeth and bearing it when my students drive me absolutely crazy.





So while it would be great to give you some great wedding updates with pictures and goodies, I'm afraid all I can offer up are our engagement pictures by the amazingly talented Kali Kraum (book her right now!). I will say, however, that we are darned lucky to have her as our photographer and I felt almost like a model for the three hours that I traipsed about Sacramento taking pictures and kissing my fiance.

Awesome, right?

all the things i thought i knew

Things have been quiet on the wedding front, but work is still getting done (read: money is still being spent!). Mom spent the last week visiting her parents in Oklahoma and finished Lindy's dress:Today we fit Bethany for hers. They are going to be so pretty!

Mom also made a few French memo boards for us to display pictures, as we vetoed the idea of a slideshow:


Also, inspired by this post on Vintage Glam Blog, I bought 30-something vintage hankies on Ebay this morning:

Definitely not a necessity, but a totally cute (and cheap!) idea nonetheless.

Last week I bought a ring bowl from Paloma's Nest on Etsy (my new favorite wedding accessory destination - so much great handmade stuff! I am working with a jewelry maker there to design necklaces for the bridesmaids). Since we aren't having a ring-bearer, I thought we could put the rings in the bowl and have them sitting at the front of the ceremony. Then, we can use the bowl as a keepsake/ornament later. I had it printed with:

i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)
26 july 2009

And finally, Brian picked a wedding band today! This may not seem like a big deal, but the selection of this ring has caused numerous disagreements for the past three weeks because Brian couldn't make up his mind and finally set his heart on a $2,000 ring we found at a jeweler in Davis, which after seeing he refused to even look at anything else. I finally convinced him to consider how much my ring cost before adding the diamond and he realized that maybe the Davis ring was a little bit of a rip-off. He ended up getting a really nice white/yellow gold band that is classic but still a little "different" and cost $600 and we both are much happier.

Mom says my next job is to design the programs and order my bouquet and the boutonnieres. We are making the bridesmaid's bouquets and all of the table arrangements, but since I want cymbidium orchids in my bouquet and for the boutonnieres, we are going to let the professionals deal with those.


Only 155 days to go!

here comes my girl

Yesterday, Brian and I looked for wedding bands (for him, I will have to have mine custom-made) and finally picked out tuxes for the guys. I have been super-opposed to the guys wearing tuxes from the beginning because I thought all of the men in black tuxes would look way too formal and prom-ish for our super-casual outdoor wedding. I just wanted all the guys to wear suits. The problem? None of the guys own suits. Not even our dads! I griped and moaned in the Men's Wearhouse in December until a salesguy took pity on me (or got annoyed) and pulled out next season's "Look Book," because he remembered that they would be getting in a super-light, super-casual grey tux in March 09. Bingo!

Brian and the groomsmen will wear the Calvin Klein grey tuxedo:

(disregard the super cheesy 90s hair)

Brian will wear an eggplant vest and tie (to match the girls' dresses):

and the rest of the boys will wear navy:

Our dads will wear traditional black tuxes with platinum vests and ties:

The best part of the whole ordeal? Brian made all the decisions while I wandered around the store, wondering how cruel of a women would I have to be to make all of the guys in our wedding wear Watermelon, Candy Pink, Fuschia, or Iris. Of course, I mean no offense to any girl out there who has chosen one of these shades as a wedding color, but just put your guys in Silver and spare them the embarassment, right? I even felt bad picking that eggplant as one of our colors and told Brian he absolutely did not have to wear it and could just wear blue with the rest of the guys, but he said he wanted to look different and since they didn't have our green in the style we wanted, he was willing to wear the purple. But still.

In other wedding news, I wrote the ceremony script this weekend and am so excited about it! We are doing a "Boo on Prop 8" shout-out, sure to offend several in attendance, as well as a family lei exchange and are including readings from Shakespeare, the Apaches, and Khalil Gibran. Brian and I are also writing vows "to the world" as well as vows to one another. It is super multi-cultural and hippie-ish and is so beautiful I just want to read it all the time.

My next DIY project will be programs, since the invites and favor boxes are all done. We are also making French boards in the wedding colors to frame and stand on the guest book table in leui of doing a slideshow.

Wedding in 167 days! Engagment pics in 47! I've lost 3 pounds already just running with my soccer team. Time to start lifitng weights soon!

good enough

Checking my email this morning, I saw an email from David's Bridal. I get approximately 4 million emails from David's Bridal a day, so I was about 2 seconds away from deleting it when I saw the title "Your Special Order has Arrived!"

"Special order?" I thought. "What special order?"

So I opened the email while gulping down my coffee and burning my tongue (I was late for work, as usual) and saw the following:

Event Member Megan Garcia
Style Number T9612
Color IVYCHAMPIVORY
Size 8
Department Bridal Gowns

HOLY CRAP WEDDING DRESS!

So, my dress has arrived 2 1/2 months earlier than expected, all of the invitations and save the dates are printed, the bridesmaids' dresses are in production, the catering menu is set, the venue is picked, the photographer is secured, and Brian and I had so much fun registering last weekend and picking tuxes. Whew!

This wedding planning stuff is easy!

is this really my idea

Just a few images I have been enjoying on this (finally!) sunny afternoon:

Wine bottle guest books from here

Gorgeous cymbidium orchid, calalily, and ivy bouquet from here

Mexican wedding banners from here

This bride's to-die-for beautiful makeup here

The students are gone for the day and I am free for a sweet weekend of tux/suit shopping and registry fun!

for once in my life

Super-nerdy, but I couldn't resist posting that I added the very first item to our wedding registries tonight! Brian and I registering at Macy's, Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and (wait for it) REI. Tonight I registered for these babies:Whee!

photographer - CHECK!

OK, so this is what I'm most excited about. Today I drove up to SF again to meet with Kali Kraum about doing our wedding photography. Photography is super important to me and I was worried that A) she would be too expensive, B) we wouldn't get along, or C) Mom wouldn't like her. Lucky me, I had nothing to worry about! Her prices were totally reasonable, we laughed like we had been friends for years, and Mom thought she was awesome too! I cannot wait to do engagement pictures with her and work with her for the wedding. Here are a few samples of her work from her blog:

A San Rafael wedding

The same couple's engagement shots

Gorgeous! She also does boudoir sessions, but I don't know if I'm that brave...

stationary - check!

Last night my mom and I played around with wedding stationary. Here are some rough scans of what we plan to do:

Save the Dates

Invitations

Response Cards

The only major difference is that the final invitations and response cards will be done on cream cardstock (like the save the dates). Not too bad for a DIY, homemade wedding!

venue - check!

On Monday, Brian and I checked out Holbrook Palmer Park in Atherton, CA and it was a winner! We signed the necessary paperwork and are all set for July 26. It was such a relief to secure a venue so we could deal with all the other details. Here are some pictures:

We will set up dinner in this courtyard underneath the trees

The bridal party will get ready in the main house and then walk down the steps to the ceremony

The entrance to the park

this is my jam

And we have a wedding website!

Other posts coming, including our wedding venue, and (hopefully) our photographer!

beautiful day

Yesterday, Lindy and Carrie accompanied me to buy my wedding dress (yep!). I didn't really need their help picking/purchasing the dress, but I did want them to see it. More than that, though, I wanted them to try on bridesmaid dresses. Mom has wanted to make them from Day 1, but we figured that if we found something off the rack that fit everyone, why go to that trouble? Unfortunately, since Carrie is six feet tall (believe it), everything that looking amazing on petite Lindy made Carrie look like she was wearing her clothes from junior high school. We didn't take many pictures, but here are a few:We all really wanted this dress to look great, because the style is so fabulous but.... obviously it was not a winner. Plus, in this color Carrie kind of looks like an ear of corn.

Lindy needed to see how the dress looked next to a tux before she made a decision. Winner! (but not in brown, obviously)

However, the dress was too short for Carrie and the store does not make it in a "long," so we came home and started combing through patterns. Thank you Vogue! We'll fit the girls for the center dress and hem it at the knee.

The next job, of course, was to find fabric. Mom and I headed into San Francisco this morning to shop at Britex. I was in fabric heaven!


We ended up with a gorgeous silk dupioni in eggplant (the picture does not do it justice). So much prettier than the brushed cotton dress from the bridal store.


Plus something pretty for me too:


While in the city, we walked through the Flower Mart, since we are going to do our own flowers too and stopped in Fantastico, where I found all kinds of tacky bridal accessories:

Bachelorette on the loose!

Tomorrow we are going to visit the Seymour Marine Discovery Center at Long Marine Laboratory in Santa Cruz and will then have to visit the Holbrook Palmer Park in Atherton and make the big venue decison. I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

invites and STDs

We have been getting so much accomplished! I have always sort of turned up my nose regarding wedding planning because it seemed so frivolous and unneccessary, but I've actually been having a lot of fun.

Let's talk stationary. I think it's pretty ridiculous to pay 100s of dollars for paper, so I have known from the beginning that I would be designing and printing my own invitation suite. My mom recieved a gorgeous new printer for Christmas, so we have been itching to do some fun printing. When I came home from Sacramento, my mom and I went into Michaels looking for a fern or orchid stamp to use as a general motif to guide our design process and came out with DIY wedding stationary kits - everything we need for invites, response cards, and save the dates for under $50! We are using the Anna Griffin Wedding Studio Invitation Kit in green:We have also ordered two beautiful stamps from Stampin' Up and ink pads in kiwi to adorn the stationary:

Today I have been working on designing the save the dates (have you noticed how on all the wedding blogs, they shorten "save the dates" to "STDs?" Maybe it's just because I work with hormonally-driven teenagers, but that just really makes me uncomfortable...). I was originally going to just do a basic text save the date with the stamp as decoration, but then I started getting creative. Here is the leading design this evening:

After we print them, we will then circle the number 25 by hand in ink.

Next up, bridesmaid dresses!

clever rhymes

Jessica sent me the sweetest engagement gift today!


I know what Mom and I will be doing when I get home on Saturday.

Other wedding books that I might be sort of interested in, just in case you were thinking of buying me a wedding-related Christmas gift (seriously? When did I become so interested in weddings?):

• Anti-Bride Guide: Tying the Knot Outside of the Box, Gerin & Rosenbaum
• Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides, Stallings
  
• The DIY Bride, Cochran
• Eco-Chic Weddings: Simple Tips to Plan an Earth-Friendly, Socially Responsible, Affordable Green Wedding, Anderson

And I'm buying this for Brian. :)

engagement time!

With the busy-ness and excitement that the last few weeks of school brings, I sort of forgot about this blog. Oops.

Oh yeah, and I got engaged.

For real.

Over Thanksgiving holiday, Brian and I visited both sets of parents. He asked my dad for permission to marry me. My dad cried. Not once, not twice, but three times. It was adorable. When we went to Santa Cruz to hang with the Ellis family, Brian took me down to the beach. We walked past a dead seal (very romantic!), he recited a haiku he wrote for me (yep), then got down on one knee (I said, "Seriously? Do you have to do that?") and gave me my ring. It was not terribly surprising, since, you know, I was there when we bought the ring and when he talked to Pops. What was surprising? Alex and Erica hiding behind an umbrella taking pictures of the whole proposal!


We then got an impromptu photo shoot. Here are but a sampling of the 250 pictures Alex took (most of which feature at least one of us with our eyes all squinty, or me doing my ridiculous open mouth-closed eye laugh. Look out, wedding photogs, you've got a difficult couple on your hands...):


Consider this blog officially back in action, especially since Brian has limited patience for wedding-talk, since he just started a new job. And since it's only taken me.... 3 weeks to blog about the actual engagement, I'm sure this will just be a hot-bed of wedding planning updates!