My Life, As Told Between (Baby Cakes') Naps

Back from our wonderful honeymoon in Maui! I’ll try to post some pretty pictures of Maui soon, but in the meanwhile, as promised, here are some pictures from the wedding. Most of you have probably already seen these since many of them are either up on the Flickr site I set up or on various Facebook pages!

The programs. Notice the scrapbooking paper I had my friends scour the earth for! I love the color combination on this paper, which is much richer in person.

Here’s our Treasure Chest Card Box – the pirate related project I had alluded to in an earlier post! My friend H and I stained it, painted the black stripes and attached the gold trim to it. I made the stacks of “gold” coins by gluing together bits of wood and painting them. I’m really glad we were able to get the box done. People left us really sweet messages and cards.

Our cartoon theme table assignments and escort cards. We assigned each table a cartoon name and each place card had a picture of a different character from that cartoon. We tried to attach some meaning to the various character assignments but lots of them were just random. The table cards themselves each had pictures of us carrying a white posterboard which I photoshopped the table names onto on the front and a picture of the cartoon cast on the back.

The dining room. You can see the centerpieces we were upsold on. I didn’t love our flowers (some looked a little wilted and there was more greenery than I would have liked), but the florist showed up on time and didn’t mess anything up so I don’t have much of a complaint, especially since flowers were never our top priority.

The ringbearer pillow which I made following Martha Stewart’s instructions, with some slight modifications to account for inferior scallop shears. The flower is made out of left over fabric from my wedding dress after it was hemmed and the gray bead is from a neckalace I sacrificed for the cause. Sadly, the pillow was destroyed by our adorable ringbearer.

Speaking of which, here is our adorable ringbearer and flower girl. They’re both kids of T’s friends from his old neighborhood growing up.  The ringbearer took his job of holding her hand down the aisle very seriously and didn’t let go all night!

The props basket, used to take pictures in our Picture Corner. We (I) decided to do Picture Corner at the last minute and wasn’t sure if we could pull it off. Fortunately, it all came together relatively smoothly, thanks to our great photographers! I can’t wait to see all the silly pictures our guests took. We also made sure to pay homage to ITLAPD by including plenty of pirate gear.

Our table setting, including our favors (pear shaped salt & pepper shakers and pear jelly belly beans), menus, and cards asking our guests to upload their photos onto a shared Flickr site.

And lastly, here are the invitations to the bridal shower and the wedding. My sister B made the bridal shower invitations herself! We ordered the wedding invitations, but I lined the envelopes with the scrapbooking paper I loved and embossed them with green vines – both ideas inspired by B’s bridal shower invitations. I love how well the envelope liner complemented the invitations and how the entire ensemble fit the vibe we were going for of a casual, modern outdoor wedding.

The wedding was wonderful, although it flew by entirely too quickly. There were a few hiccups and quirky moments (apparently I was making funny faces up at the alter – I have a very expressive face) but overall I had a great time and am still overwhelmed at how lucky we are to have such a fantastic group of friends and a wonderful family (and extended family). The beach party the following day was also lots of fun and gave us a chance to unwind and spend some quality time with everyone.

Busy cleaning house right now and getting ready to leave for Hawaii, but I promise wedding recaps and pictures when I get back!  In the meanwhile, here’s one of me being walked down the aisle by my dad, who got too choked up to actually give me away.  He was rescued by my mom, who piped in “we do.”

I think I’m coming down with a cold.  F*ck.

Yay!! I’m getting married in a week! I’m so so excited about having our family and closest friends all together for the first time. I’m also excited to see how all of our ideas play out. We wrapped up the last of our planned projects last weekend, but new ideas keep popping up. I’m in the process of seeing if we can execute one of them now and am keeping my fingers crossed. If it works, I think it’ll make the wedding more fun. Hopefully everyone will love it as much as I do! If it doesn’t, well, I’ll tell you about it in another post. =)

See many of you next week! (And, if I don’t, I promise many pictures to come in the weeks following the wedding. Followed by a period of complete silence as I desparately think of what to write about next.)

P.S.  Completely off topic, but I’m reading The Road right now and while I realized it was dark, I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to get through.  It’s compellingly written, but leaves me feeling vaguely depressed every time I read it so I have to put it down periodically.  The only other book I’ve had this experience with was Blindness and in comparison, Blindness was not that bad.

T and I had a marathon weekend of wedding projects.  We finished our place cards, favors, menus, programs, ring pillow (which I made from scratch – go me!), and various other wedding related projects no one will notice or care about except us (well, except me actually).  T anticipates that all our guests will take away from the evening is that our theme color was red.  I’ve already warned him that since I’m generally one to toot my own horn, I will make it a point to comment loudly and frequently about everything from the place cards to the ring pillow (that no one likely even saw).  =)

Or at least I will soon. With the wedding a month away, I’ve started making primping appointments – facials, manicures, hair cuts (well, trim at least), color, etc. I don’t remember the last time I was so concerned about my looks! It was probably around the time T and I started getting serious (I wouldn’t say I’ve let myself go completely . . . but, well, let’s just say I don’t spend nearly as much time in front of the mirror as I used to). =)

One of our favorite things about our wedding date is that it falls on International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD). I’d been toying with an idea for a project that would be a (subtle?) nod to ITLAPD, but had been a little daunted by the actual work involved. I’m happy to report that, thanks to my wonderful friend H, who is experienced in all things crafty, I finished the project this weekend! I’m hoping it’s more funny/cute than over-the-top tacky, but avoiding over-the-top tacky is difficult when dealing with pirates. =)

Come to think of it, many elements of our wedding waver between being funny/cute and over-the-top tacky. Oh well. We think they’ll add a touch of whimsy to our wedding and reflect who we are as a couple. In fact, I’m really excited to share all the do it yourself projects I’ve been working on over the last few months (either at the wedding or in the posts that follow!).

Speaking of neat wedding cakes . . .

More details here.

T and I bought our wedding bands this weekend! We both knew what we wanted so it was a relatively painless experience. I hate jewelry shopping (I’m happier with the fake stuff – real jewelry seems like a waste of money) and dislike the Jewelry District (too much pressure to buy) so we tried to get in and out as soon as possible. I was looking for a 2 millimeter white gold, rounded band in a size 4. T was looking for a Tungsten (it’s a scratch proof metal) band in a size 10. Unbeknownst to us, it turned out we were looking for the two least expensive items in the Jewelry District, which are not even carried in many shops. Nevertheless, we were able to track down the exact rings we were looking for in a little over an hour – which left us plenty of time to head home for T’s softball game!

After the game, we met up with our coordinator at the wedding venue and finalized some more details. With a little over a month left, things are really starting to pick up! T had to work Sunday, so I ran errands, did some organizing around the house, and hung out with Alfie, who’s been limping lately for no discernable reason. He hasn’t been whining and there’s no obvious sign of injury so we’re hoping it’ll pass soon on its own. =(

How amazing is this wedding cake?

(You can check out more of the amazing details here.)

This is the adorable cake that inspired the one above:

I’m not a big fan of video games generallly, but I love whimsical cakes. Although my tastes run towards clean lines and simplicity, which is reflected in our wedding cake, there’s a side of me that would love something crazy and cute like this for our wedding.

My co-workers threw T and I a wedding shower today. It was really sweet. Since most of my them have never met T, and he had the day off, I had asked him to swing by. He was the hit of the party. Several co-workers dropped by afterwards to tell me how charming he is and to comment that he was such a good sport about the entire office grilling him for an hour. =)

I’m actually a little overwhelmed by how generous everyone (my co-workers most recently, but certainly my friends and family) has been, both with their time and money. I can only hope to be as nice to the people in my life as they are to me.

Had a phenomenal bridal weekend. My friends and family outdid themselves putting together my bridal shower and bachelorette party. I am incredibly lucky to have such wonderful people in my life.

My fabulous sister B organized the bridal shower, which included overseeing the “staff” (including my littlest sister L, both B and L’s boyfriends, my Quad friends, and T), preparing a delicious array of food (from scratch!),* and crafting amazing decorations. B spent months coming up with the menu, doing test runs on the dishes, and hand making the decorations. My sisters and their boyfriends (aka, “laborers”) all drove down from San Jose Friday and got up early Saturday morning to finish preparing for the shower.

My Quad friends organized the bachelorette party. They rented a bi-level suite in Long Beach and decked it out in an Hawaiian theme. The party started out in the suite and then moved to the Mai Tai bar, where they’d rented out a booth and surprised me with a special cake (pictures of which are NSFW). =)

The bridal shower:

The bachelorette party:

And here’s poor Alfie, pooped after an exhausting weekend of entertaining. =)

* To be specific, she made crab rangoon,  chicken salad sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, pigs in a blanket, cucumber sandwiches, spinach dip, bite sized nachos, mushroom tarts, brownies, french macaroons, mini pies, pear champagne cupcakes, and tiramisu.  And for drinks, she made white wine sangria, lemon spritzers, and mimosas!

I admit it. I’ve been checking my registry and doing a little happy dance whenever something new is purchased off of it.

Despite having real jobs, a condo, and a dog, we still live like college students. We use mismatched old towels, dine off of chipped dishes from Ikea, make do with two or three scratched up pots and pans, skip vacuuming altogether because our vacuum hasn’t worked properly since 2006, speak quickly on cordless phones so old they barely hold a charge, drink out of reusable POM tea glasses, and serve appetizers on plates adorned with snowmen year-round because they’re the only serving plates we’ve got. We’ve happily made do, but are even happier anticipating the new “adult” life that comes with all of our cool new stuff!

In an effort to avoid boring everyone with the details of the wedding planning, and in order to maintain some element of surprise, I’ve resisted the urge to post pictures of all the cute projects I’ve been working on. However, I haven’t been able to stop shoving my wedding projects in the face of anyone unfortunate enough to enter our home in the last several months! This may be a problem as my bridal shower/bachelorette party is this weekend and half my wedding guests will be over at our place. T thinks I should put my projects under lock and key so I don’t end up forcing everyone there to admire them. =)

Wedding planning is picking up with a little over two months to go. We’re facing a bit of an upheaval in the wedding party because one of T’s groomsmen (who is starting medical school in Ohio) just got his exam schedule and found out he has an exam scheduled for the day of the wedding. We’d obviously understand if he can’t make it, but he’s super sweet and is trying to see if he can get it changed. He also happens to be the father of the ring bearer so things are a bit in the air there but I imagine it’ll sort itself out soon enough.

In any case, we took a break from wedding related stuff to hang out with friends this weekend. Two of my favorite people happened to be visiting from out of town (Tucson and New York) so I got to spend some quality time with them, as well as catch up with a couple of other local friends I haven’t seen in too long. We went to the beach, watched fireworks (Alfie barely reacted to them at all), had brunch on the marina, dinner downtown, and people over for a barbeque (with food provided by another lovely friend!). I also did an 11 mile run on Friday and cleaned house on Sunday! It was a glorious, fun, productive weekend and I wish it were longer.

Me: Hon, I want to fill our favor boxes with jelly beans at the bottom. I saw a really cute example of someone doing this on my favorite wedding blog!  What do you think?

T: I guess.  If you want to.

Me: I don’t think you get it. Seriously, it’s really cute. Come look!

T: It’s okay, I get it.

Me: No, look at this! See, that’s what I was thinking of.

T: Ohhhh. Thanks Babe. Because, you know, I had no idea how jelly beans in a box would look like until you showed me this picture. =)

Think I’m a little burnt out on running and working out, which I’ve been doing more or less steadily for the last three years.  Lately, I’ve been waking up early to go running, but then end up finding little things to waste my time until it’s too late to actually get a work-out in.  Like writing this post. 

I’m hoping it’s just because work’s been really busy lately, which I’m not used to anymore.  Since I’ve been getting home later, I just don’t have enough time to sit around and do nothing.  Plus, my list of little wedding details to finalize/finish is growing by the minute and I’m starting to worry when I’ll get it all done.  T, on the other hand, seems oddly convinced wedding planning is a snap.  For example, we had this exchange a few weeks ago . . .

T:  Hey, do we still have stuff to do for the wedding?

Me:  (*Staring in disbelief*)  Um, yeah.

T:  We should make a list!

Me:  (*Thinking, I have about eight different lists*)  Okay.

T:  (*grabbing a post-it note*)  Let’s see, what do we need to do?

Me:  (*snort*)  A post-it?  Really? 

T:  What?

Me:  Um, there’s actually quite a lot of things we still need to do.

T:  Really?  I thought we were pretty much done.  We’ve booked all the vendors.  What could we possibly have left? (*taking pen to post-it*)

Me:  Well, we need to figure out what the guys are going to wear, plan the rehearsal dinner and beach party, prepare the slideshow, buy the rings  . . .

T:  (*abruptly stops writing*) Oh.  So you’re saying there’s a lot left to do.

Me:    Yeah.

T:  (*puts pen down*)  Hey, I think the game’s on.  Maybe we can make the list later?    

While in line at Chipotle on a Monday night. . .

T: Psst. Hey, do you think that girl in front of us has gotten a nose job or something? Something looks off.

Me: No. She just has tons of makeup on which looks weird ’cause it’s Chipotle and it’s a Monday night and she’s wearing sweats.

T: Oh. Yeah, I think that’s it. You’re so much better at being catty than I am.

Me: Well, you’re still learning.

So yeah, we’re catty. And we were at Chipotle last night. The weather was gorgeous Monday so we’d gone biking earlier in the day and felt semi-justified in the indulgence. Rest assured, I was looking properly sloppy and makeup-less! =)

Aside from Chipotle’s, I had a very bad weekend invoving many meals out and off of my diet. (At least I made my 11 mile run on Sunday!) T’s friend was in town for the weekend so we met up with him and his new girlfriend for dinner Saturday and Sunday. We may have gone to In-N-Out one of those days and I may have gotten a hamburger and fries animal style. (Sooo good. The sauce makes the fries all soggy, just the way I like them!) I went shopping with my girlfriends Sunday morning so there may have also been a visit to a food court (where nothing healthy is ever to be found). And somewhere in between all of this, I may have polished off a box of truffles a friend of mine had given me. (Shhh, T doesn’t know about the truffles. . . ) Ugh. Feeling a little sick and chubby today! Not good since I have to pick up my too-tight wedding dress next weekend.

Aside from eating and shopping, I saw Indiana Jones with T and his brother. We thought about sticking around for the new Narnia movie, but were too tired. (Okay, truth to tell, my back starts to hurt after an hour of sitting in a movie theater so I wasn’t feeling it. Is this a sign of what’s around the corner from my 30th birthday?). The movie was okay in case you’re interested.

Also, I finished the envelope liners for our wedding invitations!! Yay!

I did not finish (or even start) any of the Economists piling up on our coffee table. Boo. It turns out our friends are right. There’s definitely a certain sense of guilt that develops from not reading the Economist after one subscribes to it. It’s like not doing your homework. Well, maybe this weekend. . .

Ugh, how is it Monday already? This weekend has flown by. We had a lot of fun and got a ton done (but left even more undone). I’m feeling exhausted today. It probably didn’t help that I skipped my long run this weekend, and my shorter run this morning, and have been eating badly the last couple of days.

T’s high school friends came to town on Friday so we had dinner with them and then played video games all night (which I realize doesn’t sound super exciting but considering we’re often in bed by 9:30 on a Friday night, this was quite an adventure).

Saturday, we hung out with his friends at our place. Then while the boys went off to play football, I started putting together our wedding programs.* Later that day, we met with our friend H for engagement pictures at UCLA. We also tried to take some on the beach in Malibu at sunset but were thwarted by the fact that the sun sets behind a mountain in Malibu and there were no pretty beach pictures to be had. After chasing the sun for an hour, we all got frustrated and gave up, opting instead to have a nice, relaxing dinner at Duke’s.

On Sunday, we met up with T’s friends again for lunch before they headed out of town. Then we ran errands. Or tried to. We successfully bought a new desk chair, hairdryer, laser level and stud finder. We failed to find any dog adoption fairs (although we found several cat ones), failed to buy a rug (the one we liked having been discontinued), and failed to buy a doormat (last one in the store was damaged). Since we’re spoiled and things weren’t going our way 100%, we sulked a bit.

Fortunately, we perked up in time to meet up with H again. H, being a phenomenal friend, had volunteered to rescheduling our Malibu beach picture session. Unfortunately, we may have choosen the windiest day of the year to try and take beach shots. Nevertheless, I wore my cutest sun dress and tried to smile through the pain as ferocious winds whipped past us. Lucky for us, H is a genuis and the pictures turned out great!

* I’m kind of enjoying the craftsy aspects of the wedding, although the programs have been more work than I intended, mostly in tracking down the specific discontinued paper I’m using for the cover. Even that’s been fun since I find it satisfies my neurotic, obessive compulsive side. However, it may not so much for my friends, whom I’ve sent out on a massive paper hunt.  Luckily for them, I recently tracked some sheets down in Malaysia so I’m only 10 sheets away from calling off the hunt!

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged about shoes. Mostly because I haven’t bought anything interesting in ages. Most of my shoe purchases in the last year or so have been very practical. Maybe it’s the realization that I have several pairs of extremely adorable shoes in my closet which never see the light of day because they are so excruciatingly painful to wear. Although I occasionally feel brave and slip them on my feet, I usually realize as soon as I get to my car that my feet are already in pain and have to hobble back to the house and change shoes.

However, I’ve been looking for wedding shoes recently and am finding that my burgeoning practicality is tempered by my desire to look good in my wedding pictures. Since I am very short and T is very tall, this requires some high heels.

As some of you may remember, I’m considering these red ones. They’re comfortable enough, at least in short bursts, and are absolutely adorable. (Squeeeee. I LOVE these.) But the heels won’t stand up well in the grass (pun intended!) and they’re not quite tall enough.

I also bought these (in silver) because they’re higher than the red ones (to better offset the huge height difference between T and I), have a thicker heal (might not sink into the grass as much), and have a thick platform in front (so hopefully I won’t feel all 4″ of the heel). My sister hates them and calls them my hooker heels.

Since I’m worried about marching around our grass laden venue, I’ve also been hunting for wedges. Specifically, tall, comfortable, cute, inexpensive wedges with a platform to offset the height. I recently bought these, which, although not nearly as cute as my red shoes, fit a lot of my criteria and are surprisingly comfortable (or seemed to be for the minute I wore them anyways).

And then, for no particular reason, I bought these ivory heels. I don’t love them as much as my red shoes and they don’t have any of the good points of the silver ones or the wedges, so I don’t really know why I bought them (especially since they weren’t even on sale, unlike the other three). They are pretty cute though, aren’t they?

So yes, until I decide which ones, if any, to return, I have four entirely different shoes for a five hour wedding. (Hmm. . . do you think I should also buy some flip-flops? Because, regardless of what shoes I decide on, I’m sure my feet will start protesting at some point.)

Just devoured the last two books of the Gemma Doyle trilogy this weekend. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes The Golden Compass/Harry Potter series, i.e., young-adult fantasy books, although this one had some very dark and scary scenes. I’ve been a little scared of the dark since I’ve started reading it. It doesn’t help that the last week has been cloudy and stormy with all sorts of noises in the middle of the night. Luckily for me, T’s still working days so he’s there to reassure me there are no monsters in the hall or hiding behind the closet door at night! =)

Aside from obsessively reading, I dragged T along with me to meet several florists this weekend. I don’t want to do it any more than he does and don’t see why I should be stuck with it simply because I’m the bride. Fortunately, he was a great sport about it (mostly) . . . although I think he’s developed a bit of a martyr complex after one of the florist accidently revealed that she doesn’t see many grooms at the initial consultation!  We also looked into hotels near our venue and will hopefully have a block of rooms reserved at a decent price for our guests soon.

Other highlights of the weekend include playing Trivia Pursuit ’80’s edition with T’s brother (T surprised us both by taking the lead before we all called it quits), finally putting up shades in the guest bedroom (T’s mom calls the guest room the Land of Eternal Sunshine because aside from the lack of shades, there’s also a light right outside the window), and watching The Bourne Ultimatium (which was a fun action movie).