Thoughts of the All Consumed Bride

Wed Recap: Videos and fun pages from our Guest Book

2011-09-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, I wanted to finish up the last 4 or so wedding recaps I had. So you all know that the guest book was like one of the best parts of our wedding because it involved the photobooth. I knew I wanted photos of every single guest (as many as we could collect) from our actual wedding day. So we incorporated the idea of using a photobooth to offer a fun entertaining activity for the guests as well as an extra favor for them to remember our wedding by. And the second set of photos that they took would be placed on a page from our guest book.

Here's some video of some of the guests in the photobooth throughout the night:

Rather than using the typical scrapbook with blank pages for our guest book, I found a company called the Guestbook Store online and ordered a book and customized pages for our guests to complete. The pages have a place for a 4 x 6 photo of the guests - perfect since that was the size our photobooth printed out.

Here are some of my favorite pages of our guest book. (Please note that the pages are double sided but the photo only goes on one side) :)

This couple color coded their answers so we would know which came from each of them :)

I love how Kristin even colored in the page in our wedding colors on this page:

I love how our neighbors mentioned the video from our ceremony with such enthusiasm:

I think the best 'real' advice I got from anyone was from Mr Fix It's mother who wrote the following:

I particularly liked that my aesthetician/masseuse wrote under "How do you know Stacey & John?" : "I make Stacey feel good with my hands."

And I thought it was pretty profound when one of Jordan's friends wrote under the 'advice' section 'Not to fight because it scares kids.' :)

Share time: What did/are you doing for your guest book? Did you incorporate photos of the guests?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: If you incorporate a photobooth or guest book that may not be too self explanatory at your wedding, it's a good idea to put up a bunch of clear signs with instructions or even better, have an attendant to direct your guests on what to do and how to use the equipment.

I threw another huge party!!!

2011-02-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

So as if planning a wedding for 190 guests at a huge venue with lots of different vendors and aspects to deal with wasn't enough...I decided to throw a mini version of a wedding just 9 months later!

This past February 9th my daughter, Little Miss turned 16. And just like getting married, turning 16 is a *BIG* deal...so of course we wanted to do something spectacular for her. Alas, I came up with an idea to throw her a surprise Sweet 16 party with dinner, desserts, a DJ/dancing and a mock faux-to booth to entertain her. It was quite a feat that took over two months of planning, shopping and conniving since we had to enlist a lot of help to pull off the surprise. And of course, just like with a wedding, it wasn't easy either! :( We ended up having a few hiccups that seriously stressed me out.

Here is the deets and the photos and video to show all that happened:

1) Come up with the guest list. I enlisted 5 of her best friends to create a guest list which ended up with 100 people on it: 17 family members and 83 friends. Funny thing was, with 15/16 year old girls, the guest list ended up with over twice as many girls as boys. In the end, we had about 55 people actually able to make it.

Here are some of her friends from the night of the party:

The theme colors were black and white with touches of silver.

That crazy lady on the right is me with some of my daughter's besties who helped me pull off the surprise by coming up with a guest list and passing out invitations.

Some of the food we had set out. We kept it to easy finger foods for teens.

2) Pick a date. I wanted to throw the party the weekend before her actual birthday (which fell on Wednesday) so that she wouldn't be expecting anything. I picked Friday the 4th because it turned out that was a minimum day and the last day of finals for the semester. What a great way to celebrate ending your finals - a big party! Unfortunately, I didn't think about the fact that several of her best friends are cheerleaders and athletes and Friday nights mean games for high school students. So we probably would have had closer to 70 or 80 people show up if we would have held the party on Saturday. :( Oh well, live and learn.

3) Pick a venue. I called tons of recreation centers, club houses, even hotels to find a location big enough to hold a DJ, food, tables and about 70 people. Most of them were either thousands of dollars (way out of our budget which was about $1500) or they had hugely ridiculous limitations due to the fact that it was a 'teen' party. For example, one place told us we had to pay an extra $200 in security for the teenagers and we could only rent the place from 6 to 10 pm which included set up AND clean up time! That's just silly.

We thought we had the perfect place when we found a clubhouse that was the perfect set up in a reasonably close neighboring town for only $100! We had a friend who lived in the area and could rent the club house for us. Due to stupid miscommunication on the part of the clubhouse representatives, the day we went down to reserve the room, they told me they had just rented it to someone else! I was livid. And desparate. Then suddenly Mr Fix It suggested I look into the YMCA.

We ended up booking a room they had there which was going to cost $540 for the night. It had some downside: 1) every single guest would need to bring a signed waiver from their parents (or self) to get into the party 2) we had to have all of the food outside on a lawn/patio area instead of in the acutal room because it was an exercise/fitness room that they didn't allow food in.

It wasn't perfect, but it was somewhat close and it was somewhat affordable and it was better than all of the other options.

I booked it mid-December. Cut to February 1st...3 days before the party. I received a phone call from the YMCA profusely apologizing that they couldn't allow us to have the party there that night because they received a notice from the electric company that their power was being shut off that evening to have repairs done.

Needless to say, I spent a huge amount of time on the phone with the YMCA and the electric company trying to think of other options but it was pointless. I called Mr Fix It crying since we had mailed out 100 of these little pretty invitations designed by my sister:

Note they all have the YMCA address on them. UGH!

But suddenly it came to me...I had a friend who lived in an apartment complex that had a clubhouse. I called the apartment complex and by the grace of God they had an opening for Friday so I called my friend and asked her if she would reserve it for me and she met me there the next day. In the end, it all worked out even better than we hoped because the location we ended up at gave us a cheaper rate, longer usage time, a mini bar area for the food - inside, better furniture, a patio area, a location for the photobooth and a great big room to dance and eat in!

So we took this place which was located like 5 minutes from the kid's school:

With this room we rented:

And turned it into this:

Video first, then pics:

Cupcake table

My sister made all those little cupcake toppers (she sells them on Etsy by the way)

This picture doesn't do the toppers justice because they are actually super bright and colorful in real life.

The DJ set up right in front of the fireplace. You can see the pink and black tablecloths and little balloon and decor centerpieces we used on the right.

My sis made the signs that read Happy Birthday Jordan and Sweet Sixteen.

There was plenty of room for us to move furniture around and all the tables, chairs, and sofas were included in the rental fee. We just rearranged them the way we needed to make a dance floor.

I bought bunches of decorations from a web site called Windy City Novelties...great stuff!

Highly recommend.

We put silver fedoras and metallic pink beaded necklaces all around the tables for the kids to take home as favors and wear around. Again, from Windy City...super inexpensive!

Here you ca see the set up of the tables, cupcake table and mini-bar food area.

The invitations came in an envelope with this graphic on the front...it had the guest's name in pink across the top left corner area. Loved it!

The back of the invitation envelope had more graphics like this one that let the guests know there'd be a DJ, dancing and food!

And of course, we pulled off the super fun surprise part:

Did you notice on the left side of the video those flashing balloons? Yeah, how cool are those?!? Here's a clip of them in the room. We had them all over:

Again, I got these from Windy City Novelties and rented a helium tank from a local party supply store. They were a huge hit. If you choose to try them, I suggest getting an extra pack or so from how many you'll need as there were a couple that were defective or didn't work :(

Mr Fix It ran around all night with a camera taking photos and helping run the photobooth area. Here's some of the great shots he got:

My sis acting all gangsta...or tryin' to

Kids in the photobooth

Hangin' with guests

Little Miss as she walks in for the big SURPRISE!!!

Being silly with 2 of the only 7 boys that were there that night :)

Girls gettin' groovy on the dance floor!

Mr Fix It acting like he doesn't enjoy himself hangin' with Little Miss' friends. We truly love her group of girlfriends...they are really good girls and so fun to be around!

Every teen likes to get a piggy back ride!

The back patio area of the clubhouse...it overlooked the pool and the kids could hang out there and get some fresh air after tearin' it up on the dance floor.

And shawty got low, low, low, low....

I love this one because I have no idea what I am doing and Little Miss has that typical 'You're an idiot' teen look on her face. :)

Such a great shot of her being surprised.

And even more dancing! My little one is just like me...she could dance all night regardless of what everyone else is doing. I love it.

Ok, this one is kinda scary...those are 2 of her best girlfriends in the background.

Little Miss and her dad with the photobooth props.

You can't tell from this photo but those dreadlocks actually light up and flash!

The pretty birthday girl

Toasting with cupcakes

This was a cute shot of my daughter with her dad's whole side of the family that was there.

So all in all, we had a great time. She was totally surprised, we ate good food, danced all night, got silly and after cleaning up, I collapsed in bed exhausted!

Share Time: Have any of you thrown any other huge parties since or before your wedding took place?

I missed out on the hot guy!

2011-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend Mr Fix It and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate Valentine's Day and my belated birthday gift. We had a nice relaxing weekend and I'll have some fun stories and pics to share with you later this week.

But today, I thought I'd share a little picture of my daughter, Little Miss. She celebrated her 16th birthday this past Wednesday and her Aunt and Uncle invited her to come check out the Tonight Show that day since this guy happened to be a guest on the show that they were working with:

Yeah, that's Clay Matthews of the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers. Ya know, the guy who caused the fumble that the Steelers lost so that Green Bay could win the game. No biggie. She's pretty blessed. And he's pretty hot. Bummer I couldn't take off work to go up with her but her dad took her (on the left) along with one of her best friends and her mom who are HUGE Packer fans and actually went to the game in Dallas! REALLY lucky!

Are you football fans? Us Beevers are HUGE NFL fans...it pretty much consumes our life in the fall and winter :)

The things I don't want to forget...and a final highlight video

2011-02-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

It has been quite a journey on this little blog. For over 2 years I have been sharing my ideas and plans and the little ups and downs of planning and participating in a wedding from the bride's perspective. It has been a blessed joy.

I never would have imagined that I would have actual 'followers' who would care to read what I had to share much less provide me insight, feedback, encouragement and support throughout the emotional roller coaster. Heck, half of my wedding was probably designed or carried out by ripping off ideas from fellow blogger brides!

This site has been my opportunity to vent and brag and talk unrelentlessly about all things wedding - something my family and friends never would have allowed as all of you have. And that's only because you are along for the ride as well with your own plans and dreams and big celebrations.

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you.
As one of my final three wedding recaps, I wanted to share some last minute reflections and most excitedly the very last closing montage from our wedding video courtesy of Gary Freedline of Video Keepsakes of Bevelry Hills. It has been so cool to share the actual 'live' events from our wedding day along with the photos and it is all because of Gary. This last video is a favorite because it recaps our entire day for the bride and groom. Have fun with it!

I do remember things from our wedding rehearsal and wedding day that I wanted to share so that I don't ever forget them. Here are a few of the sweet moments, funny things and just plain 'weird' things that I recall:

* Mr Fix It's dad (Pops) came up to me and my daughter, Little Miss at one point during the reception and hugged us and said "I am so happy that you two ladies are part of our family now and we love you so much!"

* At the rehearsal, Mr Fix It pulled me away from all the guests onto the deck and practiced 'dipping' me for our dance. We didn't actually do any dipping on the wedding day, but at least we had that moment together.

* At the rehearsal, Mr Fix It pulled me aside and we stared out over the venue and the ceremony where we would stand the next day and he said "Are you happy? Are you getting everything you ever wanted?" I just smiled and told him "Of course!"

* Just before the walk down the aisle while waiting in the bridal cottage, my dad took my hand and knelt down beside me and said "Just breathe."

* The dance floor seemed full enough and definitely was not too small. Though a lot of guests didn't dance I don't think. One of Mr Fix It's good friends was acting all crazy jumping up on the fireplace hearth and shaking his bum at the dance floor. Then he began bouncing his girlfriend off of his knee. And I of course had a blast dancing with my small group to You Shook Me All Night Long while the youngest kids loved dancing to Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA.

Share time: If you have already taken the plunge, what are the things you don't want to forget from your special day?

Seriously Saturdays: Being Single Again

2011-02-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

So about 15 months ago I started this thing called Seriously Saturdays where I said that each Saturday I'd post about something that just makes me say 'Seriously?!?' Well, I did it for about 12 weeks and then I forgot about it somehow. I remembered the idea though and decided to revive it. So today's post is all about why I feel single again.

We got married in April...we're closing in on about 10 months of marriage which is roughly 40-45 weeks that we've been husband and wife. And do you know that in that 45 weeks, Mr Fix It has been gone for about 6 of those weeks which is 13% of our short marriage. And now he is leaving next month for another two weeks! I mean, seriously?!?

I might as well have stayed single!

About a month after we got married, Mr Fix It drove up north to work on his parent's rental property for three weeks. Oh man...that was hard. We didn't have our new puppy at that time and my daughter stays with her dad for 3-4 nights each week so it was strange being in a house all by myself that I had just moved into.

In November, he went up to his parents house for about a week to visit his family and spend the holiday up there...which I had already told you all about how I stayed home without him because my own family had our first Thanksgiving without my Grandmother who had just passed.

Then in January I mentioned that he went back up to his parents house yet again for another two weeks to work on a new rental property they just bought. And now in March, he's going up to Sacramento to remodel a bathroom for his sister so he'll be gone yet again.

As much as I'm glad his family is giving him so much work, and they do take care of him well financially for what he does, it's very hard to have him gone for such long periods of time. I really don't know how these military wives handle themselves when they have to watch their hubbys leave them...and possibly leave them for a dangerous job!

Anyway, I am definitely one who enjoys my time to myself and some peace and quiet and not having to answer to anyone. But as a newlywed, it's not easy being by myself for over 15% of the first year we've been living together.

Seriously...can't my hubby find work here in our own county?!? :D

What about you, ladies? How do you do when you have to be apart from your hubby? Have you had any long stretches of time apart?

Wed Recap: Overheard at our wedding...

2011-02-03T05:00:00.001-08:00

I think it's funny that it's probably been five or six months since I did a wedding recap but I still had about 3 or 4 in my scheduled posts that I never did publish. So I thought I would share some of the little things and conversations I heard from some guests at our wedding with you all.
A conversation between my cousin, Mike & my sister and I:

Mike: Stacey, you hit a grand slam! I swear, this is like *THE* best wedding I've ever been to. All of it - so much fun!
My sister: And what the heck was my wedding? Chopped liver?!?

An e-mail from my friend Shelley about her husband, Pat:

Pat was just telling our friend about your wedding yesterday and he said, “It was the best wedding I’ve ever been to.” Wow, you’d think his own wedding would have been the best…right?

From my mother-in-law:

Stacey, you outdid yourself. Everything is just beautiful. It's so wonderful. We are having such a great time.

And just for fun, though I am not usually a huge fan of this, our videographer went around to the guests' tables asking them if they'd like to say anything on camera to the bride and groom. Here's a little video sharing some of the more personal and specific messages:

Thanks to Gary of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills for this footage!

Share time: What was one (or some) of the best things you heard or that was said to you at your wedding?

Quick and easy

2011-02-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more updates I thought I'd share with you to keep me consistent in trying to blog more lately :)

In July, we went to a concert called Jack's Fifth Concert held by a local radio station. It was AH-MAZING! The bands were:
Night Ranger
Skid Row
Modern English
The Fixx
The Cult
Steve Miller Band
Young MC
Vanilla Ice
and a couple more I don't remember.

Me, Mr Fix It and my sis and bro-in-law spent a good 6 to 7 hours there taking in all the amazing acts. Vanilla Ice and Young MC were the two that totally got the entire crowd up and dancing. Here's a fun shot of my sis being silly dancing behind some chicks shakin' it in the aisle at the Verizon Wireless Ampitheater in Irvine:

FUN WEDDING FACT: If you ever watch WE TV's My Fair Wedding With David Tutera, this past Sunday's episode featured our wedding venue, Rancho Las Lomas!!! Check your local listings to see when it reruns and look for the episode with the Zebra bride who wanted a Passport to Africa wedding :)

Did your wedding have some vendor, venue, or other aspect that made it 'famous' somehow?

Should I stay or should I go?

2011-02-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

Considering it has been over two months since my last blog post, I am struggling with the inevitable question of whether or not I should just give up blogging all together? Deep down, I know that I do not want to do that. But with our wedding now over and moving on into a new year, I have decided that it would be good for me to journal about what's been going on in my life on at least a weekly basis. So for now, I am going to try to start again by committing to weekly posts...regardless of whether anyone reads them or not.

In the past years, I have often loved going back and reading journals I wrote out to see what was going on and how I felt at that point of my life. It is really encouraging and causes you to re-evaluate yourself internally.

Anyway, for now, here's a recap of what's been going on with us Beevers during the last several months...some good, some bad...but life nonetheless.

OCTOBER

We travelled up north to Redding, CA to visit Mr Fix It's brother and his in-laws for the celebration of a family member's 60th birthday party. It was a quick, pop in/pop out weekend trip but it was super fun to see Mr Fix It's parents and the other family members that live up in Northern Cali. The party was a costume event and so being the weekend before Halloween, it was the perfect opportunity for us to test out our costumes:

(I apologize for the quality as most of these photos were taken on my cell phone camera)
Oh and did I mention that Mr Fix It won best costume?!?

We finished out October at a Halloween party at a neighbor's house. This was the first time for me to really hang out and get to know all the neighbors on our cul de sac since I had just moved into Mr Fix It's home 5 months earlier. Needless to say, I was a bit concerned when I was served the following Deviled eggs:

After that, I took a tour of their house since Mr Fix It had done a lot of work on it for them. I really flipped out when I walked into the bathroom to find this waiting for me:

In their defense, our neighbors are HUGE holiday freaks. They love to decorate and go all out in their yard and their house. It was actually quite fun to see all that they did around the entire place.

NOVEMBER

Of course November ushered in the holidays. And as you may remember from one of my last posts, I had my first Thanksgiving ever (without my hubby with me) in our home. We had about 20 family members there and I mostly did everything myself. I forgot to take pictures when everything was first set out so here are a few I snapped after people had started chowing down. The lighting's not great cuz I took them on my cell phone:

I was so excited to use all of our brand new serving platters and casserole dishes.

All of these items were wedding gifts!!!

My brother-in-law did a fabulous job of carving up the 20 lb bird!

Again, I got to use a new wedding gift: a 3 pot crock pot/slow cooker! This thing was so cool!

DECEMBER

December of course meant Christmas. Christmas was a little hard for me since I was usually really into it the day after Thanksgiving. I would put all of my decorations out and get so excited to decorate my fake tree. Had to be fake because I liked to leave it up from the day after Thanksgiving until the day after New Year's and we all know real trees don't last that long.

But Mr Fix It is all about a real tree so I opted to wait until about 2 weeks before Christmas to put out all the decorations. Especially because with our new puppy in the house I was petrified he was going to destroy everything! Surprisingly, he did well and didn't really go after anything at all...not even the stockings that I hung from our fireplace mantle.

In early December, I got together with the six girls I had led in a bible study for almost 5 years. We don't meet regularly anymore since I got married because almost all of us are now married and we don't live as close anymore. So we make it a point to get together once a month instead. In December, one of the girls hosted a fabulous tea party and she was excited to use all of her brand new tea set. I absolutely loved this mad hatter style table setting but with a Christmas feel to it. She went so far as to put pictures of us girls at each place setting! I loved it.

One of our favorite memories of our first Christmas together was driving to my sister's house on Christmas morning. We decided to get up early to go see my niece and nephew open all of their gifts. On our way down to South County we happened to come across this guy driving in a station wagon full of gifts on the 405 freeway!

I mean, come on! Does it get any better than seeing Santa on Christmas day driving with a car full of presents?!? We honked at him and he waved and gave us the peace sign with a big smile on his face.

JANUARY

January meant a new year. As much as I was so thrilled with all of the exciting things that went on in 2010 (like oh, our wedding and honeymoon), I was really excited to say hello to 2011 and begin what will hopefully be a great start to our lives together. But in January, Mr Fix It left me yet again for about 2 weeks to go up north to his parent's house to work on a rental property for them. This picture of our puppy, Brody sums up how I felt during that time:

We missed the man of the house and Brody is looking out our front window waiting for him to come home like me! Thankfully, I had my daughter, Little Miss with me to keep me and Brody occupied.

We finished up January with me, Little Miss and my mom taking a quick flight up to Seattle for the last weekend to see my cousin star in a little musical play he wrote. He attends college at Cornish school for the performing arts and I know he'll make it big some day. It was so fun to see him act.

While we were there, we took in some of the sights...like the very first Starbucks ever!

My mom, Little Miss, my cousin (the future star), my aunt and me

We checked out this silly wall of grafiti near Pike's Market (a popular outdoor market). While we were there, we went and had lunch at the restaurant where Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner filmed a scene for the movie Sleepless in Seattle.

We walked on the waterfront

They made us check out this stupid wall of gum.

A dumb tourist site in my opinion where people stick their chewed gum.

And of course we saw the Space Needle (as well as Qwest & Safeco Fields)

FEBRUARY

Of course, I don't have photos for February yet since today is the first day. But this will be a super fun month. And here's why:

Sunday is Super Bowl day. Though I am not thrilled with the teams that are playing at all :( I do love me some good football!

The following Wednesday is my daughter's actual birthday and then that Friday Mr Fix It is taking me to Vegas for the weekend to celebrate Valentine's Day.

The weekend after that, an old friend from high school (who just happens to be the President of the World Poker Tour) got us tickets to a celebrity invitation reception and event that they are holding near our house. Mr Fix It is a huge poker fan so we are super excited about that.

The last Friday of February, I am throwing yet ANOTHER surprise party for Mr Fix It's birthday! His brother is flying in from Sacramento to surprise him along with 20 other friends who will be waiting for him at our local Lucky Strike Bowling Alley and Lounge.

Oh and Little Miss is taking her driving test in the middle of the month as well. We bought her a car from a family member and she is dying to be able to have her own car and drive herself to and from school finally. Scary stuff to see my little one growing up but I am excited about all the new changes coming.

Thus I am so thankful for February and all the celebration it is going to bring. On the downside, Mr Fix It and I lost a very dear close friend of ours about a week and a half ago. She went to Hawaii after our wedding (in July) and came back with a nasty cough that wouldn't go away. The doctors soon found out it was lung cancer and once treatment began, it soon spread to her brain. We were devastated when we found out they only gave her a month to live when it was determined that the treatment was not working whatsoever. She lost her battle on Wednesday January 26th. Mr Fix It and I cried and are trying to make sense of why someone so loving and genuine and beautiful was taken so soon. But her boyfriend (our dear friend) summed it up best when he said "I guess God just wanted her back sooner than we had all hoped."

Audrey, you will be dearly missed and we love you so much! Rest in peace lovely lady.

On the menu tomorrow!

2010-11-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

So, I am a HUGE Food Network fan. Especially of Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa and Giada DeLaurentis). Most of their recipes have become big favorites of Mr Fix It and Little Miss. So of course I hit the Food Network web site for ideas for my Thanksgiving Day menu. (Oh, and I also have a subscription to Martha Stewart's Everyday Food and Food & Wine magazine which has some great recipes in them as well!)

For the 20 aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, inlaws, etc that are heading to my place tomorrow morning, this is what we have on the menu:

* Turkey: For the first time ever, our family will be having a FRESH (not frozen) BRINED turkey. I have heard great things about how brining helps make a turkey moister and also infuses great flavor into it. Tonight as soon as I get home from work, I am sticking our 21 pound turkey into a 5 gallon bucket filled with a brine including molasses, honey, garlic, soy sauce, lemon, thyme, safe and of course, salt! We'll see how this thing works.

* Citrus Marinated Green Olives (appetizer): Along with traditional chips, salsa and onion dip that my family munches on before the big meal, I decided to try this new recipe instead of just sitting out plain black olives and pickles. I made it Monday night and it marinates for 2 to 3 days...smelled yummy. The marinade included olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, curry, tarragon, lemon zest and juice and red pepper flakes.

* Wine Simmered Fruit Dressing: Did you know the difference between a stuffing and a dressing is that one gets put in the turkey and the other gets put in a casserole dish? That's the only difference! :) And I've read that putting stuffings in turkey make the turkey dry out because you have to cook them longer plus it is not the safest way to cook veggies and such. So I am making a homemade dressing this year instead of Stove Top stuffing (which is what I think we always had at Grandma's house). My dressing includes toasted oat & honey bread cubes, white wine, apples, golden raisins, butter, onion, celery, pecans and chicken broth. I never eat the stuffing at Thanksgiving (don't like it) but I am thinking I may enjoy my own dressing concoction :)

* Traditional things:
        Mashed Potatoes (gotta have 'em)
        Corn (I would opt out of this but the guys in my family like plain old canned corn)
        Carrots (this is a simple new recipe I am making for the family which is baby carrots in a honey glaze with butter, lemon juice and parsley)

* Green Bean Casserole: We used to have the traditional canned Campbell soup green bean casserole...and again, I never ate it. It was gross to me and I LOVE green beans. So last year I made a simpler green bean dish with homemade onion rings and marinated in a mushroom brandy sauce. This year I am returning to the traditional casserole dish but making a homemade version with onion rings coated in panko crumbs and flour, and a sauce made up of mushrooms, half and half, butter, chicken broth, nutmeg and garlic.

* Whipped Sweet Potatoes & Bananas: This is also a new dish for the family that seemed surprisingly easy to make. You just roast the potatoes and bananas and scoop out the flesh into a bowl. Mix them up with some butter, dark brown sugar, butter, honey and pecans and bake with a crumbly topping. Hoping this is a family hit :)

* Cinnamon Apple Cranberry Sauce: Again, not a fan of the cranberry sauce but decided I am going to make something worthy of being served along with the turkey this year. The guys again insist on that can of crap that you think is sauce so this year I am making more of a relish with sweetened dried cranberries, gala apples, cinnamon, and sugar. I made this last night and stuck it in the fridge since it will keep for a day or two so I don't have to worry about making it the day of.

* And for dessert, I made a couple of my famous Pumpkin Banana Mousse Tarts from the amazing Ina Garten: These things have replaced pumpkin pies as a homemade favorite of our family since I brought one to Thanksgiving about 2 years ago. Super yummy!

Ok, so I have taken on a huge task! But I have an organized to-do list with time schedule and mom is spending the night to help me prep vegetables, peel potatoes, and set everything up tonight.

Can't wait to snap some shots and share with everyone this weekend. Have a great Thanksgiving and please do share your favorite dish item from Turkey Day or your favorite ingredients!

All by myself...at Thanksgiving!

2010-11-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well, not really. Sort of.

As you may remember, this past July, my wonderful 95 year old grandmother went home to be with our Lord. Thanksgiving has *ALWAYS* been a tradition that took place with our entire extended family at my grandma's house in Hemet every year for as many decades as I can remember. We have anywhere from 20 to 40 people each year and it has been a solid family get together forever.

But with Grandma now gone and most of the family traveling about 90 minutes to get to Hemet where my Aunt (who took care of her) still lives, we decided there's no need for all of us to make that drive each Turkey Day. So we are starting a new tradition...and it's at *MY* house!

Yep, I will be making my first Thanksgiving Day feast this week for 20 people at the Beever household. It is bitter sweet for several reasons:

1) The cooking: I love to cook - especially for parties - but I've never done a Thanksgiving feast for this many people so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. I have already finished all the shopping last night and even made my first appetizer yesterday: Citrus Marinated Green Olives that sit in the fridge for 3 days.

2) The traveling: We won't have to drive far...almost all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, mom and sister live in Orange County so most of them will only have to drive about 30 minutes to get to my place. But it is going to be super tough this year being without Grandma and in a house other than hers where I grew up. And it may be a bit chaotic with our new puppy jumping all over the place.

3) The cost! Oh my gosh, I never realized how expensive it is to feed this many people! We are going to have each family pitch in $5 for kids and $10 per adult to help me pay for the expenses but even after that contribution, I am still paying about $100 - $150 out of my own pocket. If I do this again next year, I may need to up the ante by either having people bring a dish or pay more like $15 each :)

4) The preparation...oh wow. I started shopping for non-perishables two weeks ago then bought cold items on Saturday and the produce and turkey yesterday. I cleaned the house all weekend and tonight I am making pumpkin banana mousse tarts and the cranberry sauce/relish. Tomorrow and Thursday will be busy days for sure but I am actually excited (and a bit nervous) to see how it will all come out.

But the unfortunate thing about all of this is that Mr Fix It will not be with me this year on our first Turkey Day as a married couple. We have always spent Turkey Day apart each year since he goes up to his parents house in Northern California and I have always been at Grandma's house. So after we got married, his family assumed we would go up there together. But Mr Fix It understood how important it was to me to have this year with my family since we just lost our grandmother.

He asked if I wanted him to stay here with me so I wouldn't have to be alone but I told him to go ahead and go up to his family's house and next year we will start the alternating of holidays between the two families. A lot of people think it's weird that we won't be together, but honestly, as much as I love him, I know that he would probably stress me out pretty bad while I am cooking all day Thursday. Mr Fix It tends to be one of those guys who sits over your shoulder in the kitchen thinking he knows everything better than you do. So silly...he always talks about what a good cook I am but when we have people over to our place, he just has to have his hands in everything.

So I told him that I loved him and I would miss him and I would make a plate of leftovers for him to try when he gets back, but to go enjoy his thanksgiving with his family and not to worry about me.

So, ladies. What are your big holiday plans this week? Any of you having to deal with changes for your holidays now that you are married?

A loveless marriage vs. an unloved child

2010-11-18T11:53:00.000-08:00

Today a 'sort of' co-worker asked me how I liked married life. I told him it was great (neglecting to tell him about the little argument Mr Fix It and I got into this morning before I left for work). Now don't get me wrong, what is great about *my* marriage is that within 15 minutes of that little spat, Mr Fix It had humbled himself to see my side of the story and why I was frustrated and we had calmed down and lovingly kissed each other goodbye.

But what made me sad was the next thing this co-worker said after he asked me the question. He said "Yeah, you know." So I knew there was hesitation there and I asked him what he meant.

He responded by saying this: "Well, it's just hard to keep the love alive in a marriage when you have kids to take care of and work and you're tired at the end of the day. My wife and I have been married for almost 20 years now and it's just...I don't know."

The way he said it made me so sad. It made me feel like he found no joy or pleasure or happiness in his marriage...at least not today. I answered back by saying, "Yes, I know what you mean. Mr Fix It and I have only been married for 7 months now and I already feel like we have a lot of mundane days. When you work all day and are trying to keep up a house, a pet and kids, it's just really important that you work hard to keep romance in your relationship. You have to be very 'intentional' about each other and trying to surprise one another."

I went on to tell him how different married life is from dating someone because when you're dating, you put everything else out of your mind when you are out with the other person because you know that is *your* time together. But married life is seeing each other day in and day out...paying bills and cleaning and all that unromantic stuff. He said that's exactly what it is.

Ladies, many of you are either newly married or soon to be married. And at 38 years old after having spent 6 years with Mr Fix It before we married and moved in, I can tell you that marriage is WORK. Relationships are work. There's no getting around it. Whether it's with your boss, your mom, your sibling or your husband/wife...you have to work to be respectful of each other, to please each other, to comfort one another and to keep the spice in your life.

What truly makes me mad though is how easy it is for people to just walk away from marriages nowadays. We take divorce so casually or we decide to just live with someone without 'putting a ring on it.' That way, we always have an 'out' if we need it*.

Well, guess what? I don't have an out when it comes to my daughter, Little Miss anymore than I have an out with Mr Fix It in our marriage. We would *NEVER* talk about our children the way we talk about our spouses. We would never say it's hard to 'keep the love alive' for our son or daughter. We make just as much of a choice (if you want to even call it that) to love our child as we do to love our spouse. Could you imagine a mother telling her daughter "You know, I just feel like there is nothing between us anymore. I mean I'll always love you, but I'm just not *IN* love with you anymore. I think it's best we just part ways"?

We would think all sorts of unpleasant thoughts about that mother. Unfortunately, parents do indeed abandon their child. Our world is full of unloved children. But a loveless marriage is just as ridiculous as an unloved child for those of us who profess to be somewhat healthy and responsible. As much as Little Miss frustrates the holy heck out of me sometimes, I would absolutely NEVER imagine waking up one day and not feeling pure, unconditional love for her even if she felt like she couldn't stand me.

So why do we think it's okay to let ourselves 'feel' like we don't have the marriage we once did or want anymore? I'm telling you now, ladies and gents, if you want a romantic, passionate, loving relationship filled with all the joy and happiness that you felt on your wedding day or in your courting days, then you better be prepared to have mundane, boring, frustrating days with that person that you will not be able to get away from. Because marriage is indeed work. I have to forcibly remind myself to walk into the house and go give Mr Fix It a kiss before I pick up all the crap he and Little Miss left all over the place. And even then, after a day at work, I'd much prefer to just grab a bag of Cheetos and plop down in front of the tv than have a conversation with Mr Fix It.

But last week, as it was a super chilly night, while Little Miss was away at her father's house, Mr Fix It and I started a fire, made some root beer floats, turned the soft rock radio channel on our television and just snuggled up with our new puppy on our sofa sitting in the dimly lit living room. We didn't make love that night and we didn't watch tv. We just sat and listened to the music and talked about whatever came to our minds.

And in the morning when we woke up, Mr Fix It hugged me and said "I had so much fun with you last night just doing nothing. We need to do that more often." And it reminded me all over again that while our lives may sometimes be boring or busy, our marriage will always have love as long as we remember to value each other as a family member that we cannot get away from.

An infant who cannot offer you anything in the way of reciprocated affection, entertainment or conversation and is quite possibly just demanding of your time as their parent would never be unloved any more than your spouse/significant other should be once you have chosen to commit to them as their one and only.

*Let me clarify that I do believe there are times when divorce is unavoidable (abuse, etc). I am referring to those who simply say they 'have lost that lovin' feeling' without any rhyme or reason or real effort.
Blessings to you all and I hope you are excited about the upcoming holiday season.

Wed Recap: Great expectations...

2010-11-16T11:37:00.000-08:00

I never did a full recap about our experience with our DJ. I think of all of our vendors, the DJ was one the one that we really put a lot of expectations on. So much so, that we even had like 3 or 4 meetings with him and the owner of the company to confirm all that we were hoping to accomplish for our guests at our wedding.

The best thing I can say is that they were super organized and attentive and extremely accommodating. I think for all we got from them (a custom GOBO light of our names, uplighting for around the reception room, audio system and wireless microphones for the ceremony and reception, dance floor lights, about 8 hours of coverage, emcee services, etc) we got a really good deal from a quality company. They were a pleasure to work with. But unfortunately, no matter how much we communicated everything to them, things didn't come off the way we had envisioned them in our heads.

He did play a good mix of music and there were definitely people dancing, but it didn't seem like a lot of the songs Mr Fix It and I had specifically hoped for were played much. It could have just been that I didn't hear half of them while I was chatting with guests or that we simply ran out of time, which TOTALLY happens at wedding receptions!

I had put trivia questions on the guests' tables asking them to answer the question in order to get the bride and groom to kiss. About 3 or 4 people came up with their answers immediately after the grand entrance but that was it. The DJ didn't really walk around encouraging the guests to answer the questions while dinner was being served and people were hanging out.
Probably our biggest let down though was in the way the grand entrance came off. Mr Fix It and I are HUGE UFC/MMA fans (mixed martial arts/ultimate fighting championship). We love to watch the fights and host fight nights with friends and such. So I suggested a creative grand entrance that incorporated this idea by coming up with little introductions and nicknames for each member of the bridal party to be introduced with.

We spent a lot of time coming up with personal introductions and corresponding songs for each bridesmaid or groomsmen to come into. We even played videos of the fights for our DJ's in one meeting and specifically told them how we wanted the introductions to be pulled off. I even specifically noted parts of each song that we wanted played while each bridal party member was introduced so they would have something to dance to and get the crowd laughing and such.

Well, unfortunately, our DJ didn't nail the grand entrance voice as well as Mr Fix It hoped he would. And I guess the old addage "If you want something done right, do it yourself," really would have played out here because Mr Fix It even suggested that he record the intros himself for the DJ to play for us. But I thought it would be better to have the live version rather than a recording.

And the DJ didn't pick the best parts of each song for each party member either. For example, for our friend, Jerry, we wanted Britney Spears's Womanizer to be played...but only the chorus. Because Mr Fix It always jokes about what a player he is with the ladies. But when he was introduced, the DJ played the very beginning of the song where there are no real words and a very slow beat...it didn't come off well at all.

We also wanted the intros to be real quick, one right after the other, because we had a large party and we also wanted to keep the energy flowing and fast. But our DJ took too much time and waited too long for each party member to get all the way into the reception room. We had specifically told him when and how to begin each intro, but it didn't come off the way we had wanted. Oh well.

Regardless of the let down, it was still unique, different and fun and a lot of our guests mentioned they thought it was funny and creative. So you can see for yourself here:

Though it didn't come out quite the way he hoped, we did get some wonderful shots of our bridal party from the photographer:

By Roseanne Rivoli

By Gemma Bourke

My best suggestion to you is to remember that when you are meeting with vendors, you can NEVER OVER communicate! And when you have something you are asking a vendor for that is not typical of what they provide, be sure to test it out! Make them do a demo or audition to prove that you are all on the same page. :)

Share Time: Did any of you have a vendor really let you down? Or did you have something that you thought you communicated well to your vendors to have handled only to have them not meet your expectations?

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Robert Mullins

The Beevers are not dead

2010-11-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hi, everyone!

I noticed a few of you have left some comments lately wondering where I am. Yes, I am still around and yes I am still married...very happily!

I feel horrible that I have not been blogging for the past couple of months. I even have about 4 more posts that I never finished up from wedding recaps I'd still like to complete and blog for you soon. And eventually, I'd like to start blogging more about our married life...the ups and downs and adjustment phases we've been encountering.

But all is, indeed, very well. We are happy and living together for almost 7 months now just feels 'normal.'

I asked Mr. Beever if it was weird for him to suddenly be leaving with a wife and a teenage daughter and he said "No, it just feels normal....like we've lived together forever." I just adore him. He has been saying some really sweet things lately...waking me up in the middle of the night to let me know that he loves me and is really happy. He has told me several times this past month what a 'good woman' I am. And he is just as good to me.

We just had my birthday last month and we're hoping to hit Vegas soon to celebrate a post b-day getaway. I am also planning and hosting my very first family Thanksgiving this year at our place. There will be about 20 to 25 of us and I am so nervous but really excited.

And of course, we just got a puppy about 2 months ago and so when I am home I try to focus on him and the family since we're at work all day away from each other.

Work is slowing down a bit again so hopefully I will get back to all of your blogs. I know some of you have recently married and I have lots of recaps to catch up on.

For now, I will leave you with the two Christmas cards we just ordered today. We couldn't choose one of the two so we opted to get two and send out half and half to the 100 family and friends on our card list.

Hope you are all well!!! Take care and I will most definitely be around. :)

My baby sister designed both of these cards for us. And of course we included the new puppy, Brody in our family photo card this year.

H-moon Recap: Always take the advice of locals

2010-09-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

We had some amazing food experiences in Australia and Bali. The best thing I can suggest for future honeymooners or travelers is to ask a few locals what their recommendations are for restaurants.

On our way down from the rainforest retreat in Australia, we saw a little 'cafe' that we thought we'd stop for breatkfast at. Unfortunately, they just opened at like 10:30 or 11 am and didn't serve breakfast...just sandwiches that were basicly grilled cheese. When we asked for avocado on mine, they came out later and said they had no ripe avocado and then they forgot to put cranberries in Mr Fix It's sandwich. But the trip was salveged when we struck up a conversation with the three people at the table next to us. Two of them were fellow Americans but one was a local who suggested a restaurant for us close to our hotel back near the coast.

The suggestion led us to Ashmore Steak & Seafood. It was incredible! A bit pricey but totally worth it for the quality and amount of food you get.

In Kuta, Bali we found a restaurant called Nero Bali and loved it so much we even went back a second night! They had insane food and Mr Fix It ended up buying shots for a couple about to get married after he offered to take their photo so their whole group of friends could be in a picture.

We also had a concierge at a casino in Surfer's Paradise suggest we check out Omeros Bros seafood in the Marina and that again was a high end but ever so yummy find!

I highly recommend you check out these places if you ever visit these areas!

Do any of you have fellow recommendations for dining near your home towns? Do you typically ask for locals to suggest places for you?

The Video: A mashed up montage

2010-09-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

I feel horrible because I only have about 10 or so recaps left and then I will finally be finished with all the sweet details of our wonderful wedding event.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to sit at a computer for personal recreation (like to write my blog posts) for a week or so now. And I obviously haven't been able to get over to your blogs either :(

Work has been crazy. We also got a new puppy that we have been trying to train and has been consuming our time. I want to write much and I want to read about all that is going on with you ladies but I just don't have the time. On top of that, my wrist and arm have been totally acting up from carpal tunnel syndrome.

Needless to say, this was evidenced by the fact that I began to write out notes for a post yesterday and then forgot to actually write the post...so forgetting about it, it automatically scheduled and posted live with just my notes instead of my thoughts :) Silly girl...I am losing my mind!

To share at least something, I'm going to share this little montage video from our full wedding video which is a little recap of some of our photo session shoot and such.

Enjoy!

Wed Recap: Time to eat!!!

2010-09-13T05:00:00.001-07:00

UGH! I never got around to writing out this whole post...so you might have read the ramblings of my notes. This just goes to show the madness of life. I'll try to edit it up a bit in a hurry as I am supposed to be working right now :)

We ran out of the mini cheese chicken quesadillas...John was upset about that and the fact that the lemonade pitcher was empty when he came out to the cocktail area. But caterer handled it immediately.

Caterer was sick and left early :( But his staff did a great job of keeping things cleaned up for the most part.

Food was okay...seemed like guests were eating it. The chicken didn't get the rave reviews we thought it would and John and I thought it didn't taste nearly as good as it did at the tasting. He thought the tri-tip was not cooked enough but one of my friends said her fiance loves it rare and thought it was great. One of our friends told us the roasted garlic mashed potatoes were like 'crack' and that he had gone back for 3 or 4 servings.

Salad and veggies were good but hard to screw that up.

Appetizers seemed well enough...simple - fruit, cheese, crackers and then quesadillas. Substituted the stuffed mushrooms for little teryaki chicken drumettes at our caterers request because there were no ovens. John wasn't happy about that and didn't think they were as good but other friends said they were really good.

Seemed like people had cleaned their plates, including my boss who is hard to impress :)

We had water pitchers on each table that we asked them to infuse with either cucumbers, lemons, or strawberries. Some people loved this, others said it was not that good.

They only cut up the bottom layer of the cake so the other three layers that had different flavors weren't even set out! Thankfully, we ate the lemon layer the next day at our day after lunch with family.

Overall, the food was definitely not bad, but definitely not great either. We knew that food was *NOT* a priority for us as long as it tasted good. It must have been okay for most of the guests because a few people even commented on the good food on their guest book pages.

Wed Recap: Jane plain and simple

2010-09-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Or maybe I should title this post "Stacey plain and simple" ?

Today, I want to briefly recap my thoughts on my wedding day hair and makeup. But first, let me just tell you ladies, that the days of the up do are gone...everyone had their hair down in my bridal party (and 3 years ago in my sister's bridal party)!

To share with you how I felt about the wedding hair/makeup, I'll remind you of how Mr Fix It told me my right eyelash was coming off during the soloist's performance in the middle of our ceremony. As soon as I walked in to the bridal cottage after the ceremony, I just pulled the eyelashes off completely as I didn't want to waste time trying to replace it. So basically, I was really complacent about how I looked on the wedding day. Mostly because I just didn't feel like I needed to worry about anything...nor did I want to.

A few days after the wedding, Mr Fix It and I had the following conversation:

Me: I wasn't really thrilled with my hair on the wedding day.
Mr Fix It: Why? I thought you looked pretty.
Me: Yes, but all the girls looked way better than me.
Him: You looked fine.
Me: Yeah, but I felt like I just looked very...
Me & Him at exact same time: plain.

Yeah, exactly...that's the word. There was nothing spectacular or done up about my hair that day like it had been in the trials. In fact, it barely held the curl at all (but that's not really the stylist's fault...my hair NEVER holds curl of any kind). The main reason why was probably because of my inability to focus and remember things I had planned. My 'go with the flow' attitude led to this conversation on the wedding day during my hair styling:

My stylist: Ya know, I'm afraid if I use the extensions in your hair they're going to pull out your natural hair curls.
Me: Really? Why, do they look like they're falling out?
Her: No, but I think the extensions are too heavy and will pull it out.
Me: Ok, then...whatever you think is best.

BIG MISTAKE!

I should have stuck to my plans and used the extensions because they definitely held curls better than my natural hair. On top of that, I shouldn't have told my stylist on the wedding day to not do any teasing on my hair at all since I had let her tease the top a little during the trials.

I did in fact feel like the girls' hair came out way better than mine did. And I did truly love my makeup as well.
Granted, regardless of all of this, I truly loved my makeup for sure. And the fact that we were able to do a post wedding shoot gave me the opportunity to do up my hair a little better and different while in my gown. When Mr Fix It arrived on site the day of our post wedding shoot, he looked at my hair and immediately said "Now, THAT'S how your hair should have been on the wedding day...much better."

In addition, I have to rave about my stylist, Natalie Buketov because she truly was a sweetheart and it was so amazingly generous of her to do my hair/makeup free of charge for the post wedding shoot simply because she was disappointed that one of my false eyelashes came off during the wedding ceremony.

Share Time: Did you feel totally satisfied with your hair and makeup on your wedding day?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Don't use old makeup, especially lipstick! Sit down with an attendant or family member before your wedding day and go over photos, colors, styles, and anything you have to show them what you want or are supposed to look like on your wedding day. Then when your hair and makeup is finished, have them check you out before the stylist leaves and give their approval of the finished work. And stick to your plans if you liked them in your trial(s).

H-moon Recap: Hiking in the Rainforest

2010-09-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am nearing the end of both my honeymoon and wedding recaps. Today, I wanted to share one of my final honeymoon recaps with you (only one more to go!).
We spent most of the week in Australia on the Gold Coast near the beach and surf spots. But for one day in the middle of the week, we decided to drive about an hour and a half inland to this rainforest for a one night stay at O'Reilly's Retreat. It was a great side trip in the middle of our 'beach' vacation. And it was actually one of the funnest things we did on our honeymoon.

We arrived in the late morning and checked into our room. Then we immediately headed over to the front desk to obtain some maps and info on the hiking trails around the retreat. They recommend that you take a guided tour with a guide but we didn't want to do that. So we asked about a good hike that would take us to a few waterfalls and not be too short but not an all day thing either. We didn't want to be out while it was dark!

The cool thing is they have a little sign in/sign out sheet so that if you go on a trail by yourself, they know what trail you are on and when you left. That way if you don't sign back in they know when and where to go looking for you. So smart! And comforting too since there were literally only about 2 or 3 other hikers that we passed on our four hour hike!

We are pretty good at reading maps and of course there are some signs, but there's still that chance that you took a wrong turn somewhere when out in a tree infested rain forest. The weather was perfect and it did sprinkle on us a little bit at one point but it felt good and the sun would shine through in a few different places. Thankfully, we came across a lone hiker about an hour into our hike. Since Mr Fix It is a chatter box, instead of the brief little nod hello that you usually give to passing hikers, we somehow managed to stop and chat with him for a minute. He was an experienced hiker and we randomly mentioned which trail we were taking to which he informed us we took a wrong turn and we were on a totally different trail that was like twice as long! UGH! So glad we ran into that 'angel' on the trail because we were able to turn around and go back the right way so we didn't end up stuck on an 8 hour hike out in the dark!

There were definitely some scary parts of the trail where we were on a very small narrow ledge high on a cliff type walk. Being that Mr Fix It is afraid of heights, we both thought it smart not to look down much and just keep moving carefully. I love that my loving hubby is so thoughtful and protective of me as in several parts he would reach out and take my hand to help me get across sketchy areas. :)

We finally came to the end of the hike after having seen some very cool waterfalls. It was a great day, we were a little tired but it was the perfect length and we had a great memory. Mr Fix It even went a little crazy and took off all his clothes at one waterfall for me to get some pictures of him in it. Beware ladies, these photos are a little 'R' rated, though I hid most of his personal parts well in the shots :)

Share Time: Did you do any adventurous or workout type activities on your honeymoon? Did you do anything scandalous or provacative? ;)

Post wedding: Saving your bouquet?

2010-09-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Preface: TODAY is my 300TH blog post!!! So crazy!

Are you one of those brides who wants to figure out a way to preserve her bouquet long after the wedding day? I have seen and heard about brides who tried hanging the bouquet upside down in a dark closet to dry it out. Or placing the petals in a food dehydrator and then placing the dried petals in an organza sash to use as potpouri in clothing drawers. Or you could always do the old fashioned thing and stick it in your freezer...not sure why my mom did that with our old dance corsages?

Anyway, one day while browsing the net for wedding ideas, I came across a web site for bouquet preservation. I fell in love with the idea and was more excited to find out the company was only 10 minutes from my house. So after my wedding day, I assigned my mom the task of collecting my bouquet and delivering it to Nature's Beauty in Laguna Niguel, CA.

On the wedding day, the bouquet looked like this:

And few months later when I received my completed flower box, it looked like this:

Sorry I couldn't get better pictures with my crappy camera...this was the best I could do because of the glare of the protective glass on the box. But basically, you give the company your bouquet along with a photo of you and your groom and whatever items you'd like to add from your big day. They typically suggest your invitation but we used our program instead along with the little tag from our favor box, the silver bell of a bride and groom that sat on each table and my garter wrapped around the bouquet.

If you like this idea, I highly suggest you contact this company to find out more about the process. Even if you live in another state, they have ways of shipping to work with you. Check out their web site to see other examples of boxes in different shapes and colors. It's not cheap by any means...but it is a very cool keepsake to display in your home forever.

Share Time: Will you be saving or preserving your bouquet after the big day?

Wed Recap: All the deets! (photo heavy post)

2010-09-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not gonna say much in today's post. Honestly, I have had some major stressful things happening at work lately. I don't want to go into all of it but we're talking about my boss losing millions of dollars due to an issue with a lender. :( This means I haven't been able to spend much time on the net browsing through all of your lovely blogs I follow. Don't dismay - I am totally still here! Those of you who have noticed I haven't been commenting much lately, please know that I will be back over there to more thoroughly digest archived posts and catch up as soon as things are resolved here in the office :)

Thankfully, I schedule most of my posts months in advance so I have still been going regularly over here. And I can honestly say that the wedding recaps will finally be ending this month! Five months after the wedding, I will be wrapping it up with a few more pics and videos to share with all of you as I finalize my memories of our big day. Thanks for hangin' in there with me.

Today, I wanted to share this cool little recap video that our videographer included in our wedding video (note that the song is not the song used in our wedding video, I had to change it due to YouTube copyrights). It is a recap of the cocktail hour but I love it because it shows a few of the little details of our event, specifically the reception tables. So after the video, I'll share a bunch of photos as well:

One of the two door hangers that my sister made for our day:

Our Flip Flop basket covered in red silk fabric holding 72 pairs of multi-colored flip flops:

Reserved seat signs designed by Serendipity Design

Red chinese take out Favor Boxes containing little red or turquoise key chains with a 5 ' tape measure inside:

Place cards were tucked into the napkins with each guest's name sticking out at the top. The card was not a menu card but rather a list of activities and favors that we had available for the guests:

Personal photo

Cake table: Our cake was made by a family friend and if you remember, Mr Fix It tried to recreate the stand from a professional picture we found. It didn't turn out the way we envisioned it but it was amazingly good!

Our Gift Card box was the one thing I did NOT want to sell but Mr Fix It said we didn't have room for it in the house :( So I took it to a wedding swap meet where other girls fought over it :)

A photo of my friend's guitar which he played during his solo at our ceremony

I loved this simple poster board of our room layout which made it easy for guests to locate their tables when they picked up their escort cards.

Cocktail tables (without the pen holder and votives that were also on them):

I absolutely adored the way that my coordinators tied the linen around the high standing cocktail tables! I had shown them a picture of what I wanted and they recreated it perfectly!!!

By Amber Marquez

These Parasols were part of my gift to my BM's...loved them in a few photos.

By Yan Freedline

5 page Fan Programs designed by Serendipity Design

Gobo light

Kleenex tissue packs: A last minute ceremony favor idea that I quickly threw together on the cheap:

Personalized water bottle labels that I designed and placed over bottles for our wedding party (unfortunately the photographer did not get a better shot of just how adorable these were...they had a custom ingredient chart on the back, too):

Our Unity Cross:

Each younger child (and some younger teens) place settings had a personalized menu under their napkin which had a word search, maze and even a scavenger hunt for the reception:

They also had a circus favor box full of goodies with a little thank you message label on it:

The label reads: A basket full of treats and fun, especially for the younger one. Color, draw or play a game...just have some fun, so glad you came!

I won a free print via blog giveaway months before the wedding and had this engagement photo printed on a canvas which we displayed on an easel next to our gift table:

Some of the many little signs that we place around the event for the guests' convenience:

Photobooth table signs and baskets:

Our super cool and unique toasting flutes which I can't wait to use on future anniversaries!

Share Time: What was your most favorite detail, DIY item or decor item from your big day?

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography

Wed Recap: Family drama

2010-09-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

It happens at many weddings...the unfortunate drama that unfolds (usually because of family issues) during the event. It's truly so sad and frustrating that people can't put aside their differences, or even better, get over themselves during someone's most special wedding day event.

At my sister's wedding there was a little drama but not much. One of our Aunts flipped out because as my sister and her hubby were wandering around the guests' dinner tables to greet everyone, they suddenly ran out of time about halfway through. The photographer was going to be leaving and needed the bride and groom to get on with the cake cutting and bouquet/garter toss. Since my sister didn't get to talk to our Aunt at her table and it just so happened that we pulled the bride away as she was approaching their table, my Aunt started totally crying and yelling at me for not letting her talk to her. It was so silly but that's what happens when you add alcohol.

Then my sister got a little upset later that night when her new hubby's ex-girlfriend shared a cab with her her new mother-in-law to the after party. It was already a huge selfless act that my sister was even willing to allow the ex-girlfriend to attend the event (which she didn't want to do), but to find out that her MIL offered her cab to the after party to her was just ridiculous!

Thankfully, there was no drama at our big event. We didn't wander the tables and I made sure to go greet my Aunt so there were no disappointments.

The only two things I heard about which irritated me on the day after the wedding were that one of Mr Fix It's brothers got into a little spat with him because his brother was yelling at his son about spending too much time in the photobooth. The kids loved that thing and they were in and out of it all night. Mr Fix It's nephew was in there a lot and rather than just telling him to get out and wait until everyone else had had a turn inside, his dad decided to make him sit at their dinner table for almost an hour! That was not necessary and Mr Fix It was pretty pissed when he heard about it. He told his brother to calm down and not be such a dictator...the kid was just having fun.

Then my sister told me that one of my other Aunts came up to her at the cocktail hour and gave her a hard time about what a horrible job she did bustling my dress. If you remember from this post, we were rushing my poor sis and I knew I was about to take my gown off to change right after the cocktail hour so I told her not to worry if it wasn't perfect and part of the dress was dragging on the ground. So not a big deal to me at all but it did bother me that my Aunt felt the need to ridicule my sister about it. So not cool and so not necessary. My sister told her that it was the bride's own decision to leave it like that and my Aunt told her she shouldn't have let me walk out into the cocktail area until it was fixed.

People are so silly about what they get hung up on...it really befuddles me. :)

Share Time: Did you have any drama (or are you concerned about any potentail drama) at your wedding day?

Wed Recap: Let them wear what they want!

2010-08-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is an image of the dress I originally wanted my bridesmaids to wear (and in this color, too):

Isn't the back adorable? It's a Dessy (After Six) dress (from their web site).

When I took my six bridesmaids with me to a shop to try it on, I was so excited to see them all fall in love with it. Perfect for our spring April wedding and to match our turquoise/aqua color. Unfortunately, they all HATED it! I mean, not just, "Uh, we're not thrilled about it." But rather, it is totally unflattering...the bust is horrible...I hate the color...please don't make us wear this, hated it!

I was so bummed. But I wasn't going to let the attire issue come between me and my girlfriends and relatives. Then they started going on about how they didn't like the blue colored dress and wanted to go with red instead (the other color of our wedding). They said they would more likely wear red again and it would be flattering on all skin tones. I was really bummed out about this because the blue was what I wanted to go with my color scheme! The red was only the accent color. So I asked them to show me some options of what they liked. They came up with two choices:

Photo by Dessy

(This would be in the same color as above)

I was sort of okay with these so I told them they could each pick which of the 2 they liked to wear. But one of my cousins wasn't there at the time so she went back with me and my daughter to try the 2 different dresses on and guess what? She hated them both! And then my daughter tells me that she also didn't like them (even though she was there when all the other girls picked them out).

Ugh, even the sales lady was telling me they weren't good quality dresses and that pleating rarely looks good on all body types. I was again so bummed out. But my cousin and daughter picked out two more dresses that they said they both loved.

These dresses I loved as well and the color (berry) was PERFECT to match the cranberry color of our wedding. So I brought all the girls back to the store again and had them try them on. They all agreed they did love the dress. But since my daughter was younger and not developed, we realized it wasn't as flattering on her. But the sales lady showed us a dress by the same designer in the same fabric and very similar style for my daughter. She loved it and so did I. So I opted to let her wear a different dress. But then she said she wanted the dress in the blue color (known as Bahama Breeze). I was actually excited because I had wanted *ALL* of the girls to wear the blue. So I decided my daughter got to stand out in a different color.

Then my cousin realized that her very large endowed chest was not going to fit into this dress. Again, the sales lady rescued us showing us another dress by the same designer in the same fabric and very similar style that held my cousin's bossom in perfectly! :) And much more flattering on her as well.

So we ended up with a bridal party that looked like this:

Photo by Robert Mullins

Photo By Yan Freedline

I later found out that one of my Bridesmaids actually wanted the dress in the blue color as well. I had offered for all the girls to wear whatever color they wanted to when we placed the order but they all just went with red. When I asked her why she didn't go for the blue, she said she didn't want to cause ruffles and be the only one different besides my daughter. I told her I would have loved for her to be in the blue and I wish she would have spoken up!

And here is my little one in her dress from our post wedding shoot :)

Photo by Rachel Garcia

And how cool is this one of the tiger looking at her?

Photo by Rachel Garcia

I had great BM's...they weren't divas and didn't have to do too much but were important ladies in my life. I thought they all looked beautiful on the wedding day - some even better than me! ;) My stylist did great with their hair and makeup too though 2 of them did their own hair/makeup. Can you guess which ones?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: If you are one of those brides who wants to let your bridal party be a part of the attire decision making process, then be sure to talk to each of your bridesmaids AWAY from the rest of the bridal party and ask for their desires and feedback regarding their choices and preferences. They may be intimidated by other girls to truly be honest about decisions you want their input on. And don't we all want our friends and family feeling beautiful, confident and comfortable while they are celebrating our special day with us?

Post Wedding Shoot: Channeling fellow blogger brides

2010-08-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

I got back the disc of images from our post wedding shoot but I'm going to split up sharing some of my faves in separate recaps mixed in with the recaps of our wedding (yes, they're still going on 4 months after the big day!).

So I never shared with you the story about a special gift I received in the mail from Australia via a favorite bestie blogger friend of mine, Mrs T from Ninety-Nine + Forever.

Mrs T informed me that she had sent me something several weeks before our wedding to use on my wedding day. I adore her. If you are not a follower, become one and go back and read all about her big day. We share some things in common and became friends quickly. So I was excited to see what she had sent me. But alas, the stupid post office managed to LOSE the package she sent me! She tried to track it down before the wedding day and we determined that it was somewhere in Los Angeles, but it never arrived before the wedding day :(

However, a few months later...yes, like 2 months later...I finally got the package which contained a sweet card and a pair of these fun little heart shaped sunglasses like Mrs T had worn on her day! I loved the photos she took with them and was excited that I had an opportunity to still wear them at our post wedding shoot! :)

One of the cool photo opportunities at our venue was this red phone booth. I mentioned to our photog that I needed to remember to use the red heart sunglasses in some shots and she thought this photobooth would be the perfect place/background.

Just a few silly shots of me alone in the booth

And now me with the sunglasses on.

I tried to channel Mrs. T

but Mr Fix It wasn't getting it...he didn't understand the 'look' I was going for.

And then he thought it was funny to raise his 'pimp hand' to me which he tries to pull off quite often.

I didn't think it was funny. So I locked him inside the phone booth.

Maybe he'll think twice before trying to be silly next time. :)

All photos by Rachel Garcia of Brilliant Imagery

Reflections on Marriage: Treasure Hunting

2010-08-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Doing the laundry takes on new meaning when you have a husband in construction. I absolutely have to dig through the pockets of every piece of clothing in the laundry if I want to salvage our washer/dryer.

When it was just me and my daughter, I would find a gum wrapper or loose change or a piece of fake money from her school which she received as a reward for something like not talking during story time. But with a husband, especially a manly, grungy, work hard husband, I now find screws, drill bits, loose change, business cards, receipts, and of course, CHECKS and CASH!

I guess it's kind of nice to try to turn in a new dirty chore like laundry as a wife into a scavenger hunt.

Share Time: What's the funniest, strangest, coolest thing you've found in clothing or the washer and dryer?

I sold my wedding gown!

2010-08-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Now, now, before you all start flipping out with questions like "How could you?!?" and "What about your daughter?" let me just say that I did in fact discuss the issue with my daughter first.

I have always been one to notice that it doesn't seem like very many girls wear their mother's gowns in today's day and age. Styles change over the decades for sure and with shows like Say Yes to the Dress and all that jazz, it's like every girl's (and mom's) dream to get to go into a salon and try on all kinds of styles until she finds 'The ONE'. So how could I deprive my daughter (and myself) of that very special moment? I mean, it is in fact a once in a lifetime moment, right?

Now this gorgeous gown is in fact something I was so absolutely amazed by and excited about on my wedding day:

When I first tried on the Maggie Sottero SaBelle, I was not sure that it was the one. But after carefully going over the dress and every single one of it's amazing details (the beading, the lace, the sweetheart neckline, the pickups and gathers, the unique split front/side and the ruching and fitted bodice) I mean it had everything that I had wanted in my gown and more!

So, my hubby and I decided that there was no reason to save it. Instead, I would try to sell it. Now I didn't rush out to do this right away because as you know, we just this week had a post wedding shoot which provided me an opportunity to don the gown one last time. But while I was browsing that web site I told you about going through wedding classifieds looking for photographers, I noticed that they had boards to sell and ask for wedding gowns as well. So I just did a quick search for my gown and found that there was a girl many, many months ago who was looking for my exact gown. I left a comment on the post asking is she had ever found her gown indicating that I was considering selling mine. Well, lo and behold, about a week ago a young lady from Canada contacted me saying she saw my comment and wanted to buy my gown.***

I shared the details of the dress with her - size, color, alterations I had made - and we discussed her height compared to mine and all that jazz. Though she is about 6 inches shorter than me, we contacted our tailors and asked them about the concerns regarding altering a dress like this for a shorter woman. Well, she decided she was too in love with the dress to let it go by. She had already tried it on in some bridal salons and was in love with it.

So we negotiated a price which gave me a 60% return on my original cost of the gown and I told her that as soon as I have the gown cleaned this week, it'll be shipped off to her for her wedding next year! I am so excited that I didn't have to put hardly any effort into selling it at all and that I am getting to help out another bride who also loved my precious beauty.

And since there's that whole nostalgic tradition thing that I am losing by parting with the gown, we came up with an alternative family tradition. Instead of saving my gown for my little girl, I decided to share something else with her on her wedding day. I received so many compliments on the custom designed brooch necklace that I had made for our wedding that we have decided to keep it in the family as a treasured 'hand me down' from one girl to the next. I will keep the necklace and as each young lady in our family marries she will have the option of wearing the necklace on her day. This way not only my daughter but also our nieces, cousins, etc will be given the opportunity to have something borrowed and 'old' that has been used in many family weddings. I already have one niece who can't wait to don it on her day :)

Sorry I don't have a clearer picture of it. So, what do you think ladies? What are your plans for your gown after the big day and are there any other items or things from your weddings that you are considering using in future family weddings?

*** She has sent me the check but we have had some problems cashing an international money order, so the final sale is contingent upon us clearing the exchange of funds :)

Old to me, new to you: FOR SALE!!!

2010-08-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Hey ladies...I'm selling some of my leftover wedding items and decor from the big day. If there is anything you might be interested in (especially for you local So Cal ladies) let me know. Everything is in great condition.

27 4x6" photo frames in 3 different decorative patterns of silver - used as luminary table numbers and for miscellaneous signs - $20 total

Custom designed vintage pearl bracelet (made out of a clip on earring) - $25.00

24 turquoise paper covered glass cups (used to hold pens on cocktail and dining tables for scrapbook/guestbook at photobooth) - $10.00

Brown wicker basket (currently covered in silk red fabric) used for flip flops and/or photobooth props - $15.00

70 Glassine Envelopes (used for lottery tickets or tissue packs) - $5.00

13 Keychain 5 foot tape measures - used as favors (for bridal party or showers?) Reads "Love Beyone Measure" on label - $5.00 total

30 Large sized BLACK GLOSSY Gable Boxes (image does not show color of actual item) - $15.00

E-mail me at jkr2995@aol.com if you are interested. Paypal and cash forms of payment accepted. No shipping for local buyers who want to meet up (I am in Orange County, CA). Buyer pays any shipping costs.

Wed Recap: The most important recap

2010-08-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Why is this the most important recap? Because next to the dress, it has to do with the one thing the bride will have on her almost the entire day - her bouquet! That little beloved beauty typically means a lot to most brides. But it also coincides with another huge aspect of your decor and style for the day - all the florals...whether silk or real, they are a huge part of most weddings. So this the recap of all of my amazing florals and the lessons I learned going through this process of selecting, designing, and most importantly carrying or wearing the florals on my wedding day. Before I start with the info, I just wanted to post the only photo I have of my florist on the wedding day since she was just so incredibly amazing! She was super affordable, super creative, super accommodating and nice and super stealth like! On the day of the wedding, she was in and out setting everything up, dropping off bouquets and then off for the day.

As a matter of fact, I didn't even get to thank her on the day of the wedding. So my first tip begins there:

TIP # 1: Be sure to ask your florist to personally deliver your bouquet(s) to you on the day of the wedding. That way he/she gets to see your reaction (hopefully a good one) and you get to thank her/him in person. This is Allison of Flower Allie...USE HER if you are in the So Cal area! You will not be disappointed.

* My bouquet
Consisted of dark reds and burgundys: Black Magic Roses, Red Tulips, Mokara orchids, Burgundy Cymbidium orchids, Burgundy Dahlias, Small spray and red roses. It held up really well.

By Yan Freedline

I gave my florist a small blue brooch to add to the bouquet as my something blue which was Mr Fix It's mother's brooch. She passed away when she was only 49 so this was very special to me to incorporate.

I did *NOT* want any greens or berries in my bouquet. I was adamant about that. And I wanted a very different type of ribbon wrap...Allison said another local florist uses this wrap all the time. I loved the way the ivory ribbon was all gathered around the bottom of the bouquet.

TIP #2: Allison asked me to bring her some of the fabric from my wedding gown after my seamstress had hemmed it. She was going to use it to create the ribbon wrap. Unfortunately I forgot to bring it to her but this is a great tip for fellow brides.

TIP #3: Be sure to discuss the height and weight and shape of your bouquet with your florist. For as thorough as I was, I didn't think about these issues when we were discussing the bouquet. As much as I loved this bouquet on the wedding day, it was honestly just way too damn heavy! I mean, look at it in this photo - it covers almost my entire torso from waist to the top of my bust! (Note that this was totally not Allison's fault...something I should have considered when we just kept adding flowers to the arrangement!)

And check out these two photos...look at my arms and how I am straining to hold the bouquet up...you don't want to have to feel this way all day long during your wedding, ladies...so please take this into consideration!

I also wish it would have been 'rounder' in shape instead of longer vertically. I didn't really think about this until I saw the second bouquet that Allison made for me to use in our post wedding shoot. It was a rounder bouquet which I really loved...it sits better on your dress for photos like these:

By Rachel Garcia

But the weight thing is most important. My bouquet was so heavy that, I wanted to put it down throughout the day. As soon as I got to the top of the altar, you see me handing it to my sister. Now the MOH will usually hold the bride's bouquet as well as her own during the ceremony and then hand it back to the bride just before she returns back down the aisle. Or sometimes, the MOH will hand it to the bridesmaid next to her so she can fix the bride's train while she is on the altar. But for me, as soon as I handed my bouquet off to my sister, I told her to set it on the ground next to her because it was just way too freaking heavy for her to hold during the entire ceremony! :)

* Bridesmaid Bouquets
Consisted of: Red Tulips, Green Hydrangea, Burgundy Dahlias, Black Magic Roses, Green Bear Grass, Green Jade Roses.

Originally I wanted my BM bouquets to be mostly blue hydrangea along with a couple jade green and black magic roses. But after sharing the basic style I wanted with my florist, I let her finish it off. The main thing I told her was the type of flowers I wanted and the fact that I wanted the bear grass weaved in and around the bouquets. I love the way she finished them off. She urged me to get away from the blue flowers and instead go for the blue ribbon wrap and then stick to more red and greens. I told her as long as they didn't remind me of Christmas bouquets or colors, I'd be happy. She didn't let me down. I loved the spring feel of the Jade Green roses and Green Hydrangea.

By Yan Freedline

You can see my blue brooch on my bouquet really well in this photo

TIP #4: Listen to your florist! If you hired them, it's probably because you liked their work. So trust their experience. I originally wanted my BM bouquets to have the same type of ribbon wrap as my bouquet. But Allison called me a day or two before the wedding and said she was concerned that the wrap was too much with the green bear grass that was sticking out of the bouquets. The bear grass was more important to me than the ribbon wrap, so I told her I trusted her to make it look 'right.'

* Wrist corsages for the mothers
Consisted of: One single white gardenia flower

I did not want to do the pin on corsage for the moms and I wasn't super excited about the little tussy mussy or small spray bouquets for them to carry either. I had seen a few magazine pics of a single bloom on a wrist and told Allison that a pure white flower would be perfect to complement their dresses and colors.

Overall, I loved the idea and they were really pretty. Unfortunately, this was one of the only things I was a little disappointed about regarding the florals. My mother's flower fell off of her bracelet as soon as we were done taking the formal photos before the ceremony and my mother in law's gardenia was browning at the tips before the ceremony as well. I think that was partly just because gardenia's are a very delicate flower that don't hold up as well.

TIP #5: If you go with this idea, ask your florist how they are going to secure wrist corsages and be sure to use sturdy flowers - not delicate or easily wilted ones. Though I loved the idea, I wasn't super excited about the little plastic pearl type bracelet that they came on. I think I would have preferred a simple ribbon tied around their wrist. Another little detail I didn't think of.

* Boutonnieres
Groom's consisted of one single Burgundy Cymbidium bloom. It was horrible! It did not last at all. Within less than an hour it was wilting and falling apart. But it was his own fault...my florist and I didn't like that flower for a bout at all but even after showing Mr Fix It a gardenia and a gerbera daisy, he insited on using the cymbidium orchid.

The Groomsmen bouts consisted of small green orchids tied to a metallic blue wire with a few green berries.

I actually really liked these. Unfortunately, my photographer did a horrible job of getting shots of all the different floral elements. So I had to take other photos and crop them to zoom in on these type of things.

I think the only thing I would have changed was maybe only using 2 blooms instead of 3 and spreading them out just a bit so they were more distinctive.

Ring Bearer's bouts consisted of a single green kermit mum (also called a mini mum I think) with a metallic blue wire wrapped around it. It was perfect for the little boys tuxes.

TIP #6: Be sure to ask your florist to 1) stick around to assist with attaching the bouts to your wedding party and 2) leave you extra pins to attach bouts. Somehow, one of our ring bearers didn't show up until well after we started photos so when it came time to put his bout on him all of the pins had been taken. I believe there were only enough for each individual bout and someone grabbed an extra one. (We didn't need our florist to stick around because our DOC helped the guys get their bouts on)

* Flower Girl Wand & Wreath
I gave my flower girl the option of carrying a wand bouquet or carrying a bucket of petals to toss and she opted for the wand which I actually wanted anyway. :) I sent my florist like 2 photos of some wands I had seen on blogs or in mags and told her to just incorporate the wedding colors. I really didn't give her any other direction and she came up with this adorable little wand with the turqouise ribbons streaming off all on her own. You can see it consists of a few of the same flowers from the other bouquets.

I also wanted a wreath for my FG. Again, I didn't give her much direction other than to incorporate the same colors and flowers. This is one of my fave pics of my FG with her mom (my cousin) during our ceremony.

As you can see by this pic which shows the back of the FG's wreath, it didn't go all the way around her head but rather had a ribbon to tie it in the back so it fit a little better. And somehow my florist managed to match the ribbon color perfectly to the gown and the other ribbons.

* Ring Bearer Pillow
Consisted of tons of mini kermit mums tied with a ribbon around it to hold the 'rings.' Of course, my florist attached fake rings to the pillow...I didn't even need to ask her (which I forgot to do). She just showed up on the day of the wedding with the pillow and fake rings attached.

Again, my photog did not get one single shot of this thing on it's own and so I had to zoom in on it from another photo. Best I could do...sorry, Allison :( And I didn't even see the pillow once all day long on our wedding day either which irritated me more that he didn't get a good shot of it :(

TIP #7: Get creative with things like your RB pillow. It doesn't have to be traditional. I loved the idea of creating our pillow out of nothing but florals. It was unique and matched with the colors and other florals of the RB's bouts and such perfectly!
* Ceremony
I wanted to keep the ceremony decor minimal since the main reason I picked this venue is because of the beautiful flowers and trees that already line the grounds. Some people still go crazy at our venue with their ceremony flowers but this was the least of my budget focus. As such, I opted NOT to put anything on the arch above our heads at the altar.

I still wanted our aisle to be done up and we didn't have any type of a runner. So instead, I found a pic on a web site that I shared with my florist. We took a single dark red (burgundy?) gerbera daisy and tied it with ribbon in turquoise color to the end of each row of chairs.

For the altar arrangements and the end of the aisle, we used a tall spray of dark red tulips on the top of a tall vase with a few submerged tulips inside. To bring in the turquoise color, Allison added a simple blue ribbon at the top of the vase. This also served nicely to hide the floralyte that was attached inside the top of each vase to help light up the vases during the reception.

TIP #8: We used 4 of our tall arrangements from the reception area to decorate the ceremony area. As soon as the ceremony was over, our DOC and her team carried the 4 arrangements back up to the reception area and placed them on the tables. Since the guests hadn't entered the dining room yet, no one knew any different and we saved money not having to pay for additional arrangements for the ceremony.

For the aisle I also loved some images I found of a deep gutter of dark red petals lined with a few sporatically placed green spider mums. This was a great way to bring in more of the spring green accent color in our wedding decor and to help make the gutter of petals a bit more unique and bright.

Here's another pic I love of the tall arrangements at the end of the aisle. My florist 'loaned' us all of the vases and the red boxes that we used for the ceremony area free of charge. Rather than having to pay a rental fee, she allowed us to use them with the understanding that our DOC would tear everything down at the end of the night and return all of the florist's vases to her shop the next day. This also saved us from having to pay an extra delivery fee!

TIP #9: Try to see if you can hire vendors who work with each other so that you can take advantage of discounted services between them. Since our DOC knew and worked with our florist on other weddings, the florist offset our costs by having the DOC help with returning the vases and such.

Here is the finished product. This is the best shot I have of the entire thing set up and it was taken by my cousin.

By Amber Marquez

This is another photo I love because it shows the huge flowers that were part of the venue's grounds. We specifically chose the month of April to get married in because we knew that all the flowers and leaves would be in bloom and the So Cal weather would be perfect - not too cold and not too hot!

A great angle of the venue's flowers

* Memorial Table
Consisted of a personalized vase engraved with the names of our loved ones who had passed on. I had our florist keep with the main 'tulip' theme by using tulips in this vase but in a white color for the memorial. This was the only place (besides the mom's wrist corsages) that I used white florals of any kind.

* Cocktail Tables
Again, I wanted to keep this part of the decor extremely simple! You can make a bold and unique statement with very minimal florals...believe me. And besides, as you can see in this photo behind the brown tables and lounge chairs, the venue itself already offered a pool lined with lots of in bloom florals in our cocktail area.

For the lounge tables, we had a vase filled with submerged mochara orchids and a floating candle at the top. Very simple and pretty way to bring in the red colored florals.

By Yan Freedline

For the seated and standing tables in the cocktail area, we didn't want to clutter the tables since I was hoping the guests would be filling out guest book pages and eating :) So we opted for a very small square vase with submerged red gems (same as the inside reception centerpieces) and a single spider mum bloom in them. This again carried in the green spider mums from the ceremony and I loved how the little pop of spring green accents meshed with the main wedding colors of cranberry red and turquoise linens.

A close up of the cocktail table centerpieces:

* Reception Tables
Everyone questioned my decision to use turquoise with cranberry red as our wedding colors. Mr Fix It thought that it would look like the 4th of July with red, white and blue and my mother was concerned it was just too bright. But when our guests walked into our reception dining room, they adored the colors and details and florals just as much as I did. And Mr Fix It and Mom gave me a huge stamp of approval and loved it!

We alternated the dinner tables with high and 'low' arrangements to help offset the cost....and because I really did not want to have the exact same centerpiece on every single one of our 20 tables!

The low centerpieces really weren't low but rather were more simple with just 4-6 single tulips submerged in a taller rectangular vase. To keep it from being 'too simple' we placed 2 or 3 small votive type vases around them with a single burgundy dahlia bloom in them. I loved this! And the guests thought it was very unique to have submerged florals. Sorry that my photographer took all these photos before the caterer and DOC had set up the reception room so you're going to see tables without being fully set up with glassware, silverware, candles, etc :(

This was the tall centerpiece. It was about 3 dozen tulips sprayed out of a tall vase. We wanted to be sure not to block the guests view of each other while trying to chat across the table...a very important concern. We also carried in the submerged tulips from the alternate tables by submerging 3 tulips in each of the tall arrangements.

Here is the one and only shot I have of our entire room all set up for the reception. It was thankfully captured by my videographer's wife! It's still day light outside and we didn't enter this room until after it was just about dark so it's not quite the same effect...but you get the idea.

By Yan Freedline

For our sweetheart table, we needed to keep it very simple. We sat on the dance floor and then as soon as dinner was finished, had them tear down our table to make room for dancing. I didn't give our florist any real direction on this at all. She just placed a few of the kermit mums around the table along with some votives and some spider mums, roses and dahlias as we had on the other cocktail and reception tables. I loved it.

And to finish all this up, here is a little 'inspiration board' style recap I put together using Shutterly Studio to showcase many of the florals from our big day.

I always give huge props to those brides who make their own flowers and set up their own decor using silk or real florals. No way was I going to worry about that stuff on the day before or during our wedding....and frankly I just don't have that talent!

Our flowers took up about 7% of our total budget and were relatively inexpensive. Most brides have no idea how expensive flowers are when they first start planning a wedding. Allison of Flower Allie prides herself on being able to do most weddings for under $3,000 which ours definitely was! Allison was amazing to work with and she kept telling me how people are going to think I spent $100,000.00 on our wedding! And a lot of them probably did think that! To me it wasn't anything over the top, just a lot of thoughts and ideas and things I liked and wanted to incorporate that my ever so amazing florist brought together in a well thought out cohesive plan which was professionally executed.
Share Time: How important were the florals to you in your wedding planning process? What part of your budget did you allow for florals? Did you make them yourself?
Some additional WEDDING TIPS:

1) For boutonnieres, corsages, etc that have a single flower that may be something delicate or that does not hold up well under weather and time, ask the florist to give you a discount and create a duplicate 'back up' copy of these so that if one is destroyed or dies, you have a second on reserve in a vase or fridge somewhere to change into later during the day.

2) A really good florist should definitely include an opportunity for you to see a full fledged mockup of your centerpiece idea BEFORE your wedding day. This should be included in your contract and will provide you the opportunity to make revisions based on sizes, colors and costs.

3) Just because it's your wedding does *NOT* mean you need to have a white bouquet or white florals. I personally love white florals but I did not use them anywhere in my wedding decor other than the memorial vase. I really prefer a bouquet of some color against a bride's white gown...but that's just my personal preference. My sister actually had a red and green bouquet at her wedding and then used all white bouquets for the bridesmaids against their chocolate brown dresses. It was beautiful!

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography

Wed Recap: Who ARE these people?!?

2010-08-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I would take a moment to share some of the photos we have of our many fun and loving guests from our wedding. So this is a simple recap post in honor of them - with some fun little details or info about each one :)

Mom, Cousin Amber, Uncle John and Aunt Sue

Aunt Sue flew in from Idaho for the wedding. My Aunt Kathy (Amber's mom) and my Aunt Sue both were taken in by my grandma when they were days old. My grandma was a foster parent and raised these 2 girls as her own daughters for almost their entire life. That's just the kind of person my sweet grandma was. She couldn't make it to our wedding due to being placed on hospice care and passed away just 3 months after our wedding, but this photo is a testament to the type of woman she was and the family that she raised regardless of blood line. I am so blessed to have these ladies in my life!

My dad, daughter and mom

Dad flew in from Houston with his wife. I rarely ever get to see him so it's very cool to have this photo of my daughter with her grandpa and grandma.

My niece (sister's daughter) and my 2nd cousin (flowergirl Tatum)

I love this photo. It looks like my little niece Analeigh is looking up at her little cousin...maybe she's aspiring to be a flower girl herself one day?

My cousin Amber and her husband, Jimmy (the Greek)

I love that Amber is taking this photo of them. She was my rescue lady on the wedding day as she took lots of personal photos of the details of the day and got the only shot of me and my mom together!

My Aunt Sylvia (Uncle John's wife), cousin Erin and her hubby, my cousin Mike

Erin is my cousin by marriage...and when I asked her to be in my wedding on Christmas Eve, 2008 she literally started crying. I adore her! I was so honored to have her in my wedding...their daughter, Tatum was our flower girl and their son, Chase handed out our programs for us.

Cousin Amber, Aunt Sue and cousin Sarah (Aunt Sue's daughter)

Sarah flew in from Redding where she just graduated from college to come to the wedding. Her brother, Tyler (my cousin who lives in Seattle and couldn't make it) is going to be a huge star one day! I am telling you, the kid is all kinds of talented with singing and acting and has a BIG personality. He already has some YouTube videos out and has also starred in several local community plays and such.

My 2nd cousin, Dimitri (Amber and Jimmy's son)

This kid was a total ham on the wedding day! I mean just look at this photo! And he also made us laugh with lots of photos in our photobooth, too.

Mr Fix It's sister, Christy, her hubby, Bill and their son, Caden.

Caden was a ring bearer (the youngest one) and did a great job! They came in from Sacramento for the wedding and Christy is the only girl and youngest of the 5 children in Mr Fix It's family.

More extended family with my mom.

These sisters, Gemma and Omega and their dad's girlfriend, Rose are friends of the family. Their dad, Robbie, was the son of my grandma's best friend and was raised like a cousin to all of my older cousins.

My cousin, Kyle and his girlfriend, Kate

Kyle and his brother, Blake are huge basketball players. Kyle is about to head off to the University of San Francisco (where his brother just graduated from).

My cousin, Heather (Kyle's sister) and her hubby, Myka and their daughter, Brooke

I adore this photo. Heather is another one who took lots of photos for us at the wedding but some of my faves are the ones of her little girl. She hammed it up in the photobooth, scarfed down the blue chocolate from our fountain and partied it up on the dance floor with my niece. Such the life of the party!

My beautiful cousin, Jane and her daughter, Jenna

One of my fave photobooth photos came from these 2 who pretended they were afraid of the afro wig.

4 of the 6 girls in my bible study small group I lead.

Sean and Melody, Seth and Suzanna (who got married the weekend after us), Danny and Kristin and Jeff and Laura. The three on the left are now married and the one on the right is currently ring shopping! :)

These girls have been a weekly part of my life for almost 5 years now. They are beautiful, talented and God loving ladies that truly made our wedding day so special by livening up the dance floor! Kristin sent me a text message the night of the wedding after we left that said: "We had so much fun at your wedding. We partied hard for you guys and can't wait to see you after the honeymoon! You get to have sex tonight!!!"

All 6 of the lovely girls together:

Kristin, Mercedes (who just got married in June), Melody, Suzanna, Laura and Jen

Jen is the only single lady but I don't think that'll last long. And Melody and Kristin are now about 25 years old...I first met them when they were my daughter's age! So scary to watch them grow through high school, college, careers and now marriage!

Andy and Mercedes

They had the super fun country wedding I blogged about in Cayucos

Mr Fix It and his friend, Cordell Miller

If you are a surfer, you may know Cordell's name as he makes some popular surfboards here in So Cal. I even had a friend come up to me at the wedding and ask "Is that Cordell Miller over there!?!" So silly.

Mr Fix It, his friend Reed, Groomsmen Jerry and Jerry's girlfriend, Cynthia

So Reed is the one who stayed at our house during our honeymoon and had to tell us that our doggie had passed away. He was so amazing in taking care of everything for us!

Jill and Sydney

Sydney was one of the only non-family younger aged guests we allowed at our wedding. Her parents have been friends of ours for like 10 years through our daughter's playing softball together and she is one of my daughter's very good friends. (Sorry it's a blurry pic)

My niece and nephew, my brother-in-law and his mother, Kaye

Kaye was so sweet to come and help my brother-in-law take care of the 2 kids at our wedding since my sister was so wrapped up in acting as the MOH. Once dinner was over, Kaye took the kiddos home so my bro-in-law could party it up a little longer with my sister.

Jake, Jay, Kelly and Brooke

Kelly is my daughter's Aunt on her father's side. My daughter's father, his mother, his brother, and his 2 sisters and their significant others/children all attended our wedding. We are very blessed to have a large family surrounding my daughter and her dad and I work together very well to be an equally influential part of her upbringing and caregiving.

Kathleen, Frank and their kids, Kate and Wyatt

These were the other young non family children that we allowed at the wedding. This family has been some of Mr Fix It's best friends for many years and they came from San Jose for the wedding. We loved having them and their kids there and the kids had a blast with all that we had planned for them!

My new neighbors from Mr Fix It's street, Bob and Joan

We had about 6 of the couples that live on our small cul-de-sac street at our wedding. It was so cool to have them there as I don't know all of them that well yet.

By Robert Mullins

Dana and Joe

Joe used to work for Mr Fix It...he's a good friend of his and they are a super cute couple!

By Robert Mullins

Groomsmen, Keith (Mr Fix It's brother), his wife, Jackie and GM Todd (Mr Fix It's best friend)

I love these type of photos that show the guests truly laughing and enjoying themselves!

By Robert Mullins

My 2nd cousins Adam and Ellissa

They came all the way from Tennessee to make our wedding. I was bummed that their dad, my cousin, Johnny and his family couldn't make it out as well.

Mr Fix It's friend, Sam and his girlfriend, Suzy

Sam and Mr Fix It met surfing but Sam is also a doctor, so now he's our family doctor :) It's good to have people in these places. He prescribed us some helpful anti biotics and sleeping pills for our honeymoon.

More new neighbors, Natalie and Debbie

These ladies are *PAR-TEE-ERS*! They were on the dance floor all damn night long!

Wed Recap: What I didn't get to see

2010-08-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

As cliche and stereotypical as it is, every post wedding bride will remind others that the day really does go by way too fast. Even though Mr Fix It and I took a few moments during the cocktail hour to walk into the reception area first before our guests so we could see everything all set up, I still missed seeing half of the details and elements of our decor and venue that I was excited about and had spent so much time on.

Some of the things that I never saw on our actual wedding day:

Our gift table - hell, for all I know, someone could have made off with all the gifts and I never would have known anyone even brought anything for us!

Our memorial table - this truly disappointed me that I didn't get to see this because our photographer didn't even get a shot of it and I had purchased personalized vases and had set out a poem and digital frame with scrolling photos of all of our closest loved ones who had passed on. Even though it was set up right in the middle of the cocktail area, I didn't think to go stop and look at it and none of my bridesmaids or family mentioned it to me. Thankfully, I was able to capture an image from the raw footage our videographer shot so I have at least have this...the rest of these images are of the elements that were on the table:

This was the one thing that did not come out the way I wanted it to. They were supposed to have a satin red cranberry linen on this table along with some extra little votive candles...oh well.

Still image captured from Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Our escort card table - I was so super excited about how all of the little chair favor boxes I had bought, designed and assembled were going to look all set up. Unfortunately, since we didn't want guests taking them before the ceremony started and the guests had to walk through the cocktail area to get to the ceremony area, our coordinators didn't set them up until after the ceremony started. So our photog didn't get any shots of them all set up before the guests rushed back up and started grabbing them.

Most of the cocktail centerpieces - I didn't even take the time to look at all of the flowers that were around the cocktail area. I was trying to focus on the guests.

By Yan Freedline (Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills)

Our ceremony area all set up - I wish I would have gone out to see it before the guests arrived because they were setting it up while we were walking around taking our photos. And once that ceremony starts and you make the walk down the aisle, don't think for a second that you are going to be able to take in all the decor around you!

By Amber Marquez

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Be sure to have a bridesmaid, coordinator, friend or someone know if there are specific things you want to take a moment to experience or see on your wedding day. Give them a written list and ask them to come up to you at one or several points throughout the event to remind you that you wanted to go look at your escort table or whatever. And if there are certain things that won't be set up and available to see until later, then be sure to ask a coordinator or whoever is going to set them up to take a photo of them for you as soon as it is all ready in case your photographer isn't able to get over there before your guests do.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography

A look inside our wedding album

2010-08-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

I don't want to keep bringing up the frustration I felt over our whole photographer situation. In all honesty, looking back in hindsight, it was what it was and I just need to get over it. Of course, having a little post wedding shoot last week to capture some of the shots we wanted that we didn't get certainly helped me feel a little less disappointed about all the things that were not done on the day of the wedding. Even after all that I was upset about, I still can't complain about not having *any* photos that were good from our wedding. Because there were in fact quite a few that we absolutely loved.

To prove it, I am giving you a sneak peek into our wedding album. I received this about two months ago, but was holding off on sharing it until I got a little further into my wedding recaps because I didn't want to give away too much. And I have to give credit to my videographer's wife, Yan Freedline, as a good 25% of the images in this album came from her and *not* our photographer. There's even a couple that were from our family and friends' cameras.

Check it out:

Click here to view this photo book larger

I designed this photo album myself using Shutterfly.com. I LOVE Shutterfly! Their photo albums are high quality and unlike most DIY photo album web sites, they have a huge amount of flexibility and such in the way of templates, options for backgrounds, colors, layouts, adding text, etc. And to top it off, they are super affordable! This 12 x 12 inch hard cover album only cost me about $141.00 total for 91 pages including tax and shipping. And it has about 437 photos from our wedding day in it!

Now, don't get me wrong, I did time it just right when ordering by waiting until they were having a 20% off sale and also finding a coupon code online for free shipping. :)

I love this album! In addition, I made 5 copies of an 8 x 8 soft cover book of about 20 or so pages for each of my bridesmaids. It had a few photos of me and us getting ready and mostly focused on images of each of them or all of the bridesmaids. Then I made another 5 copies of an 8 x 8 hard cover book of about 40 pages for each of our moms and the groomsmen (only the ones who were Mr Fix It's brothers). It was like a mini album of our wedding but focused on their family as well.

Share time: Ladies, are you creating your own photo albums or did you go the pro route and have your photographer or a studio design one for you? What were your thoughts, reviews and other suggestions regarding wedding photo albums?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: When deciding on a photographer, don't feel like you have to contract them for their services as well as a high end wedding photo album. You can save money by asking them to simply provide you all of the high resolution images on disc format so that you can decide to purchase an album or prints later. Most photogs offer this nowadays and also offer online services to order individual prints from as well. You can always go back later and order a high end album or a simple hard cover DIY album from a site like I did.

Sneak peek pics: Post Wedding Shoot

2010-08-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday I got to put my Maggie Sottero SaBelle gown on one last time and Mr Fix It put on one of his nice black suits and we met up at our wedding venue, Rancho Las Lomas with a wonderfully fun and talented photographer from Las Vegas, Rachel Garcia of Brilliant Imagery.

My cousin Amber did up my daughter's hair and makeup - so well in fact that I almost wish I would have had her do it for the wedding, too :) She did such a great job that we have found a new stylist to help with future dances and such. Unfortunately, I don't have any sneak peek pics of Little Miss just yet but Rachel tells me she has at least 300 + photos she will be sending us after she has had a chance to edit them. We spent a little over 2 1/2 hours walking the grounds and trying to come up with some unique poses at locations we missed the first time around.

Unfortunately, Rachel got sick right after the shoot and hasn't had much time to work on editing the images, but she did take a moment to send me over a few quick pics from the evening. And I have to say that I am so excited to see them all because with just these 7 that she sent over, we already have 6 different locations that we did not hit on the wedding day and the artistic style she was going for has truly sparked our interest to see them all.

This image was a better ring shot than the one we got from the wedding day with Mr Fix It holding the rings out on an orange from the orange orchard. My daughter was trying to get him to recreate the Twilight book cover but he had no idea what we were talking about :)

While this is not the clearest image, it is kind of cool and I can assure you that we have a good amount more photos coming from this location with us actually looking *at* the camera :)

Both Mr Fix It and I love this photo Rachel took through the gate at the fish pond. We are actually standing on a little bridge that jets out into the fish pond.

I finally got my infamous shoe shot!

I think this is one of my faves too.

We took several shots at this location which is the main entrance into the reception area.

This is the patio right behind the back of the bridal cottage where we got dressed on the wedding day. Our original photographer didn't get any shots out here but Rachel took this one as well as several more I can't wait to see!

And probably my fave of all 7 of these shots is this one on the swing. Not only is it a great shot of us on the swing, but Rachel actually climbed up onto that big branch you see in the foreground (with my cousin's help) to get this angle...something I have not seen of any of the similar shots I have stalked on other photographer's blogs from our wedding venue. I am adoring this one! And especially the super cool bouquet that my florist, Allison of Flower Allie did up for me to use during the shoot. Rachel got lots of pics of it while I was getting dressed so I'll have lots more to share :)

So, as I said, it's just a real brief teaser. I have a feeling I am going to have lots more super cool shots to show you in the coming weeks when we finally receive the images. And I just have to say a huge thank you once again to Rachel for offering to do all of this for us to make up for the lack of images and locations we missed out on at the wedding day. I highly encourage you all to check out her web site and consider her for your future weddings on the west coast...she does travel and had some very unique pose ideas and was so fun, relaxed and easy to work with.

Share time: Did you decide to do a post wedding or day after shoot? Why or why not?

Keeping little secrets...

2010-08-17T05:00:00.001-07:00

So remember how I told you about my photobooth? I shared like a massive amount of fun pics from the day that we received on a CD from Cheesy Photobooths. It was definitely a huge hit of the wedding that kept the guests busy, entertained, involved and having fun. Well, what I neglected to tell you was that it was the one thing I kept secret from Mr Fix It during the wedding planning process. Check out this super brief video:

You see, way back in January of 2009 (the month after we were engaged) when we first began to go over the budget, I shared with Mr Fix It that the one thing I really always wanted at a wedding was a photobooth (and a magician). I had told friends about the idea in the years before we were engaged and even watched some of them take that idea and use it at their own weddings. So now it was my turn. I investigated a few companies and found several. It's easy to find them nowadays as they are ever increasingly popular. Back when I first came up with the idea, the faux-to-booth was not really popular yet as a budget conscience way to include this so I was all about the real thing - vintage style photobooth you actually get into.

One of the companies even offered a booth that shot pictures *AND* video! So cool. But that was like almost $1800 for 4 hours for that one. And I knew I wanted a booth for at least 6 hours and I knew I couldn't afford that. Well, Mr Fix It actually said we couldn't afford anything for a booth. He told me, "Nope...not gonna be able to swing that one."

Well, I did a horrible thing. I went ahead and rented one without telling him. Isn't that so bad? My friends would tease me saying that I was already starting off lying to my husband but I would justify it by telling them that I was the one paying for the entire wedding (he paid for the ring and the honeymoon and the house renovations) and that it was going to be a 'surprise' for him. So I couldn't tell him if I wanted to surprise him with it, right?

Anyway, flash forward 16 months to April 16th and our wedding day. Mr Fix It still had no idea about the photobooth. They showed up mid-afternoon while we were taking photos. I didn't say anything to Mr Fix It about it at all....until we were getting ready for our grand entrance at the reception. This is how it all went down:

Our grand entrance consisted of the guys entering from one side of the room, the girls entering from the opposite side and me and Mr Fix It entering from the middle of the room behind the fireplace. So we sat on the fireplace hearth hiding from everyone while each of our bridal party was introduced. While we were sitting there, we had a conversation that went like this:

Me: So baby, what do you think about the photobooth?
Him: Yeah, everybody loves it. It's a huge hit. But I am telling you right now, that if this is how we are starting off our marriage with regards to finances we're going to have a huge problem!
Me: (acting all sweet and coy like) But honey, I swear I will *NEVER* do anything like this again! I promise. It's just that it's our wedding day and you know how much I wanted a photobooth.
Him: I don't care, I said we couldn't afford it. It's *our* money, not just yours.
Me: I know and I swear I won't ever do it again. I'll never make a large purchase without first consulting you.
Him: Yeah, you better not.
Me: I promise I won't.
Him: The thing that bugs me the most is that if you would have just come to me and asked me about it again, you know that I would have told you to go ahead and rent it.

Yeah, really? I highly doubt that! Maybe he would have but I didn't want to take that chance.

In the end, it all worked out and it truly was like one of the biggest hits at our wedding. Thankfully Mr Fix It didn't get any more upset than that brief conversation. The funny thing was, for our grand entrance, which happened right after this conversation ended, our DJ introduced us by saying: "If you think you've seen the best in ultimate fighting, just wait until the honeymoon's over!"

Share Time: Was there anything that any of you brides (or your grooms) kept from you until the wedding day because they knew you wouldn't be thrilled about it?

Wed Recap: The little ones...

2010-08-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

One thing we knew for sure was that there would be lots of kids at our wedding. Out of a guest list of about 190 people in attendance, at least 15 to 20 of those were kids ranging from 6 months to 16 years in age.

Our 2 little nephew ring bearers hanging out pre-ceremony

By Grant Sharp

Now everyone knows how hard it is to keep kids entertained at a wedding, at least during the ceremony portion. So I had lots of ideas to keep them busy and active. And it had to start with our four ring bearers (3 of which were Mr Fix It's nephews and 1 was my nephew) and our flower girl (my little cousin).

Our Junior Groomsmen (nephew) keeping some of the ring bearers entertained

Besides the favor boxes that were specific to the younger aged children that I blogged about here, and the little kids corner area that we set up with portable DVD players, lollipops, craft kits, coloring books and two paid babysitters, we had a few things that I didn't share previously. Oh, and that kids corner with the babysitters? Yeah, there were at least a couple kids in that room the entire night! So it was definitely a good idea and money well spent!

Of course, the kids had fun with the ribbon wands that we left on the ceremony chairs for all the guests to wave as we walked back down the aisle:

By Kathleen Wolsfeld

And they loved the flashing sunglasses and mouthguards that we gave them for the reception (though the flashing didn't really show up well in these pictures)

By Kathleen Wolsfeld

By Chad Beever

A big hit were the table top bowling pin sets. And the older ones danced the night away.

You can imagine how many fun shots the younger ones took in the photobooth (there were at least SIXTY photo strips of my flower girl, junior groomsmen and younger cousins alone in the booth!).

They adored the chocolate fountain...Yum!

By Heather Hughes

And these two would not stop bothering our magician...he was so great with them!

My sister said my little 3 year old nephew is still playing with his favor box toys even today four months later! But probably the best investment I made for the ring bearers was for the ceremony portion of our day. When they made their way to the end of the aisle as seen here:

A little bribery goes a long way:

I told their mothers that they could just gather them in the front row to sit down so they didn't have to stand on the altar for a good 45 minutes to an hour. And waiting on their chairs in the front row, I had these little goodies:

Silent and yummy and entertaining!

I got these little mini travel sized magna doodles at Target for like $10 each and they kept the boys busy during the ceremony. And you can't go wrong with a sucker! Especially the ones that last for hours.

By Grant Sharp

But for some reason, my sister's in-laws felt the need to also have a bag of Reese's Pieces waiting for my little nephew. That was something we had not planned on and right at the beginning of the ceremony he dropped the bag and the little candies spilled everywhere in the front and into the aisle. Now I did not see them as they tried to quickly pick them up but apparently several of the wedding party and family members at the front of the altar saw all this go down and started laughing thinking it was just hilarious. Good thing I had the sucker there for him so that he wasn't in tears about losing all of his candies!

And for added convenience for the guests with the youngest kids...these precious babies:

I even had our rental company swap out 4 of the chivari chairs for highchairs....which my family profusely thanked us for! And as a special treat for these super young ones who can't really play with toys, we gifted them these fun little personalized bibs:

By Heather Hughes

By Chad Beever

Share time: Did you do anything different or special for the younger guests you invited or included in your wedding?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Read the above information. I think it speaks for itself. Be sure to have little things throughout your day available for little ones to be entertained and kept busy so they don't get bored - or loud!

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
All raw video footage provided courtesty Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

I'm in a magazine!

2010-08-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

I officially got started as a wedding bride blogger (actually a Featured Bride Blogger) over on the site http://www.getmarried.com/. I found the site by watching the Get Married television show which is on Saturday mornings on WE network.

I loved the blogger bride community there and eventually began my own personal blog which led me to even more internet buddies and support. Something I have treasured...mostly because so much of my inspiration, decor, ideas, etc all came from just simply browsing vendor and bride blogs. I highly encourage new brides to do your research and take advantage of the vast community of wedding info out there.

Anyway, through the relationship I've formed over at Get Married's Blogger Brides, I was given the opportunity to be the fourth bride featured in their Magazine edition of the Get Married media hype known as the Lucky 7.

Basically, their quarterly magazine features one bride from their blogger bride community to share 7 of her favorite items from her own wedding or wedding research with fellow brides. Of the 7 items that are listed on the Fall feature of the magazine, every single one was an item I actually used at my wedding. However, 2 of them (the garter and the jewelry rolls) show versions different from the ones I actually ended up purchasing for our wedding.

And here it is:

The cool thing was that one of my girlfriends who is an amateur photographer was able to get the photo credit in the magazine since they used pictures we took from our engagement session with her (Kristin Jepson). So I was excited to be the first one to be able to help her get published. :)

Share time: Would/Are you considering submitting your real photos and ideas to any magazines, tv, media outlets, etc to try to get published?

Side note: I know it's Friday the 13th today. I was actually born on Friday the 13th in October so my mom used to always tell me that for me, it's a good luck day since I was born that day. I love her!

It's not fair...

2010-08-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

...that weddings typically only last 4 to 6 hours! Truly not enough time for a bride and groom to spend time with their 190 guests (in our case).

Briefly trying to mingle with *everyone* at the cocktail hour

My friend Shelley who I basically only got to say good bye to at the end of the night :(

...that even the best laid plans and attention to detail end up somehow falling apart when you are all caught up in the moment of everything going on around you.

...that the animals didn't come out while we were down by their cages to take pictures with us in front of them.

Although my cousin snapped this one while she was walking around before the wedding

By Amber Marquez

...that we (or I should say our photographer) totally forgot to go get pics by the fish pond, llamas, orange orchard, old antique car, barn silo, zebras, fountains, fountain pool, bridges and bird cages...oh, and didn't get any twilight or night time shots with pretty soft lights glowing**

...that I was too wrapped up in everything going on to feel relaxed enough to have some different shots with Mr Fix It like sexy, romantic, laughing type shots.

...that I felt like I barely got to see or spend much time laughing with my bridesmaids before the wedding.

Yeah, that's me in the back getting ready while they are all hanging out

Photo by Amber Marquez

...that I barely had enough time to get into the photobooth and when I did I couldn't think straight to come up with crazier, funnier poses!

Cheesy Photobooths

...that I totally forgot about the chocolate fountain until the end of the night when almost all the guests were gone and I stood there by myself scarfing down strawberries and blue chocolate.

...that I never really felt like I was 'in the moment' throughout any part of the day.

...that I was feeling like I was going to pass out through half of the ceremony because my dress was strangling me...and that I didn't feel like wearing my dress through more of the reception because it was too damn heavy!

By Amber Marquez

...that I barely danced with any of our guests...though when I did, it was sure fun!

...that I didn't even get to see the escort cards, the gift table, the memorial table and half the other little details that were set up before all the guests arrived.

...that either the caterer forgot the right linen for our memorial table or someone messed up and didn't read the design layout correctly so it was in a lame cream linen cloth instead of a cranberry satin cloth (I know that's trivial, but it still bothered me).

...that Mr Fix It and I (nor our photographer - blech!) thought to put our wedding rings on for all of our photos before the ceremony so they are not in the pictures we have of us.

Notice - no rings on either of our hands!!!

...that my officiant didn't show up until almost an hour into our rehearsal so we didn't get to plan out and walk through a lot of things that I would have done differently had I been able to see them in the rehearsal. Like I wouldn't have staggered our bridal party on the stairs of the altar and I would have realized that me and my girls basically sprinted down the aisle! :(

I wasn't feeling this staggered look at all! You can't even see my sister who had to stand

behind the tulip arrangement and pillar on the top of the stairs.

...that after it is all said and done, I totally want to do it all again! :) Can you say '5 year anniversary vow renewal' anyone?

Share Time: What about you? What did you think was not fair about your wedding day or just weddings in general or perhaps even the planning process?

** Though we did get a lot of shots at these locations in our post wedding shoot this week! :)

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography

The second time around: Exciting news!

2010-08-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

So ladies, I've held my tongue for over a month now about some exciting news I have been dying to share with you. Thanks to the lovely Laura over at Happy Hour with a Housewife, I was able to do some internet browsing via the weddingbee.com classifieds and find a wedding photographer who did a post-wedding photo shoot with me, Mr Fix It and my daughter, Little Miss yesterday! Typically this is called a day after shoot or a trash the dress shoot, but since it was done 4 months after our wedding and I didn't officially trash the dress, I'm just calling it a post wedding shoot.

You may recall that I was really wanting to do this since I had mentioned in previous posts about how disappointed we were with our photographer. I also shared about how our photographer pretty much blew us off when I tried to contact him to request some compensation for the lack of photos that we had asked for and didn't receive. Mr Fix It had said he would be willing to go back to our venue and do another photo shoot but *only* if we had another photographer do it and only if our photog would reimburse us to be able to pay another photog. Well, since he didn't agree, I wrote off our chances of a post wedding shoot.

But then Laura (who had a lot of the same disappointments about her own photos as I did) suggested I browse weddingbee to find photographers who sometimes offer free engagement sessions. I e-mailed about 3 different photogs I found and was delighted when I made contact with Rachel Garcia of Brilliant Imagery.

Rachel is a wedding photog from Vegas who had scheduled a road trip along the So Cal coast at the end of July. She typically works with a lot of California brides and wanted to see if she could branch out into destination weddings here in So Cal. So she went up and down the coast offering free e-pic sessions and photo shoots to familiarize herself with the cities, venues and get some photos for her portfolio and website. When I shared our story with Rachel about how I don't even have one photo of me and Mr Fix It with my daughter from our wedding day, she felt horrible and apologized on behalf of 'all wedding photographers out there.' Then she told me that she checked out our venue's web site and would love to shoot there for us.

So yesterday, me and my daughter donned our wedding attire again and Mr Fix It put on a nice black suit (no tux this time) and we headed back to Rancho Las Lomas to spend a few hours in the late afternoon browsing the grounds of our wedding venue and snapping some fun, romantic and missed shots post wedding.

Here's the details of the day:

** Venue: I e-mailed the venue and they agreed to let us come back on an off day (we picked a Tuesday) completely free of charge and we had total access to the entire venue again...and this time, the tigers were out! I cannot wait to show you these pics!
** Hair/Makeup: My amazing stylist, Natalie Buketov, felt horrible about the fact that one of my false eyelashes was coming off right after our ceremony on our wedding day. So she e-mailed me offering to do my hair and makeup for our re-shoot totally free of charge! I only had to pay a $20 sitting fee to the studio she works out of since she is not usually there on Tuesdays.
** Bouquets: What's a wedding shoot without a bouquet? My ever so talented florist, Allison of Flower Allie offered to make us some smaller bouquets in the same color but a little trendier for me and my daughter to use for our photo shoot. The only cost? She just asked that our photog get a couple good shots for her to put in her portfolio.
** Suit: Mr Fix It just wore one of his own nice black suits instead of paying to rent the tux all over again. Only difference? This time, we got the infamous shoe shot I had been longing for!
** Dress: I had already had my dress cleaned but my dry cleaner who I have frequented for years told me he would re-clean the dress for less than half of what I originally paid after we re-did our photos. This was the only other charge I had for the photo shoot.
** Alterations: I didn't need any alterations done to the dress but my seamstress offered to steam the gown for me for the shoot and even touched up some of the bustline where the beading and threads had come loose from the drycleaning.
** Other help: My cousin, a bridesmaid who had helped my sis get me into my gown, came down with us and did the hair/makeup for my daughter and then helped get me into my gown and jewelry for the pics. What a sweetheart she was! Little Miss also wore the same dress she had worn as a bridesmaid.

So all in all, I paid about $85 to have a post-wedding shoot. Rachel was so amazing and fun to work with and did a fabulous job of making us feel relaxed.

And this time around, we got shots in the orange orchard, near the antique car, near the fish pond, in front of the fountain pool, and in several other places around the grounds that we had asked for from the first photographer but didn't get captured.

I absolutely cannot wait to show you the photos once we get them all back from Rachel!

As a side note, my florist, Allison, did tell me that even though it was unfortunate that we didn't get all the shots we wanted from our photographer, he was in fact an above average wedding photographer. She said she was in tears at one wedding about a month ago where the photographer was horrible and didn't get hardly any good shots at all. I have to agree that we did in fact get a lot of great shots from him for sure (as I will be sharing my wedding album with you soon), but it was so nice to be able to go back in a relaxed setting and get some of the shots and locations at our venue that we weren't able to get on our wedding day.

Wed Recap: To toss or not to toss? A unique twist

2010-08-10T05:00:00.001-07:00

I have honestly despised the moments when the DJ calls all the 'single ladies and gents' out onto the dance floor to have the bride and groom toss the bouquet and garter away to see who will 'get married' next. Yeah, right? Does it really ever happen that the people who catch these things get married next? Doubtful.

However, I knew I wanted to somehow have a toss and of course, it had to be unexpected. Originally, I had the fabulous idea that I would surprise the girls I tossed my bouquet* to by having the bouquet break up into 4 smaller bouquets so that more than one girl gets to catch it. :) But as I evaluated our guest list, I realized there weren't as many single ladies as I had expected there to be.

Instead, I had read on some blogs about how some brides were choosing to 'hand' their bouquet off to someone specific rather than just toss it away. I loved this idea and here is how I incorporated this into our own wedding for a very special lady in my life:

As for Mr Fix It and the garter toss, he wanted to do this for sure. But mostly just because he is a perv who wanted to get up my dress. He decided he wanted to be 'covert' about it and worked with the DJ to surprise me with the song selection that would play while he slithered across the dance floor to remove my garter. Here are some great pics and video of his little display:

As you can see, Mr Fix It tricked the guys they called on to the dance floor by acting like he was going to toss the garter, but then he decided to intentionally place it into the hands of one of his groomsmen that he calls a 'playa who needs to settle down finally.' :) I love how the DJ made the comment "If that isn't someone saying 'tag you're it' I don't know what is!"

Share time: Did you decide to do the tosses and if so, was there anything different or unique about how you incorporated them?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Rather than tossing away your own bridal bouquet, *be sure to ask your florist about creating a smaller 'toss bouquet' for you to throw to the ladies. Usually this will be thrown in free as part of the contract (mine was). You can also do this with the garter as well. A lot of garter sets come with a fancier garter for the bride to wear and a simpler version to be tossed. The bride can wear both of them on her leg with the toss one on the bottom so the groom removes that one and leaves the fancier one for the bride to keep.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: Why teenagers are annoying!

2010-08-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned many times how I have a 15 year old daughter from a previous relationship. Well, today, she is taking her driver's permit test! Pray for me!

She and Mr Fix It have been a part of each other's lives since she was 9 years old. It's kind of crazy...but they love each other and get along great. Too great...in fact, they sometimes annoy me. And since Mr Fix It is truly still a big kid himself, the two of them together usually causes me grief.

That said, we definitely wanted to include Little Miss in our wedding ceremony and our vows.

As you may remember in this post, Mr Fix It made a vow to be a patient and caring step-father to Little Miss. Well, we wanted her to take some responsibility in our newly formed family as well.

And so we created a special little part of the ceremony in which she stepped forward and the pastor asked her a brief question about whether she will love and support the two of us in our marriage. She then was to respond with "I will" after which, Mr Fix It was to place a ring on her finger as well...sort of a little promise ring uniting our entire family.

Of course, we didn't run through this at the rehearsal and so no one knew what the heck was going on. It's kind of silly and we laughed our way through most of it. Little Miss wasn't sure where to stand or how to walk around me to join us. In addition, as you'll see, she totally held true to herself as me and Mr Fix It did with her little 'unplanned' response. Check it:

I could have killed her! Little twerp. Teenagers are so cocky and annoying...they just can't hold to traditions and rules of any type. Oh well...everyone laughed, and I did, too at the time, but afterwards I told her she was a pain!

Share time: Do you have any children or other family members that you incorporated into your ceremony or vows? Did you have (or do you suspect) that someone in your wedding party may go 'off script' with their role during the ceremony?

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Reflections on Marriage: Comfort

2010-08-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

I had only lived with one man before I met Mr Fix It and that was my daughter's father. We were never married and it lasted less than 2 years. I was 21 at the time which seems like ages ago now that I am close to 38. Crazy!

Anywho - Mr Fix It and I did in fact spend the night at each other's place sometimes during our six year relationship...but the last two years before we got married we didn't really stay over that often. I think I was relishing in my final days as an independent woman who didn't need to answer to anyone in her own home.

So when we first moved in together on the first day after our wedding, it was something I was wondering about...how would it all pan out? Would we easily settle into married life *AND* living together without any real issues or arguments? Or would it be a real adjustment phase that took some getting used to?

For the most part, we eased into it pretty well. Though I have to admit, Mr Fix It's bed (a Queen size) is truly not big enough for the both of us. He definitely moves around a lot when he sleeps and he made comments about how I really don't move much at all while sleeping. Yeah, good thing...because it is a pain learning to share a bed with someone. If we had a California King bed (something I have high on my list of priorities when we are ready to move into a new house in a few years hopefully), it would be no problem at all.

I am the type of sleeper that when I get up in the morning, if I slept in the bed alone, all I would need to do is pull the one top corner of the sheets and comforter up and throw a few pillows at the top and the bed is made. Not so much with Mr Fix It.

Half the time I wake up in the morning, the sheets and comforter are totally ripped out from every corner of the bed and are in complete disarray. I usually have to turn the comforter a few times to get it back in it's correct position to tuck it in.

Alas, sharing a bed - at least while actually trying to sleep in it - is not something I have been excited about when it comes to merging as a married couple.

What about you ladies? Any of you have similar problems or something else that has been difficult to adjust to while trying to live with a boy?

Wed Recap: You may now claim your bride with a kiss!

2010-08-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

This ceremony recap speaks for itself. There's not much I need to write to go along with these photos and video other than to tell you that like with everything else surrounding our wedding, I did not want the traditional verbage used to end our ceremony.

As our pastor made everyone aware in this post, I wrote out our ceremony script for him with key bible verses, vows, and ideas to share during his message. Near the end of the wedding planning process, I told him that he didn't need to stick to the script verbatim...except for where I highlighted certain words and portions of the script that were absolutely imperative to have Pastor Lyle say exactly as I wrote them out. One of those few things that I insisted be performed exactly as I wanted was the final comment of the ceremony where the officiant typically says "You may now kiss your bride!"

I wanted this to be a bit untraditional, so as you'll see in the video, I came up with a bit of a unique way for Pastor L to direct Mr Fix It for the kiss:

And ladies, let me tell you yet again why I absolutely implore you to have some type of video at your wedding....the day after the wedding, I could not remember one thing about our first kiss!!! Nothing! I didn't even really remember kissing my groom at all at the end of the ceremony. But thankfully there was video to prove we did in fact kiss. And though the photos are great, they just can't seem to convey the length, type and memory of the kiss the way the video can. :)

Here's a few more pics I love of our first kiss as husband and wife:

Share time: Was there anything that may have seemed insignificant or normal during your ceremony or reception that you wanted to slightly tweak to make it different from a traditional wedding event?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Be sure to practice the recessional during your rehearsal as well as the processional. We didn't really practice this at our rehearsal like we should have and so the wedding party didn't realize that they were supposed to wait until me and my groom got to the very end of the aisle before they started walking down. Then each of the couples immediately started following each other back down the aisle rather quickly which didn't allow the photographer a chance to get a good shot of each couple walking down. It's better to have a mark (the middle of the aisle, end of the aisle, etc) that you direct each couple to start their walk at once the couple in front of them hits that mark.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: Oh, let me just do that for you!

2010-08-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Mr Fix It and I are control freaks. Shocking, I know, right? I mean what would ever make you think that I think I can do it all? As my sister, MOH J so brilliantly put it in her toast at our reception, neither Mr Fix It nor I are perfect...and that *is* in fact hard for both of us to hear.

We are both perfectionists and though I am a little more humble in realizing that I don't 'know it all,' Mr Fix It believes he is a contractor, electrician, plumber, lawyer, doctor, mechanic, teacher, gardener, etc. Now granted, he does in fact know a lot about a lot of those things, but he definitely can't do it all. Though he'd like to think he could.

Anyway, our personalities once again flared up during our ceremony when it came time to partake in the Unity Cross. I wanted to incorporate something that we could keep as a memorable item to display in our home from our ceremony. A lot of people will participate in the lighting of a unity candle or in a sand pouring ceremony and then keep the vase in their home. I wasn't super excited about either of those ideas. So I was super thrilled when I found the Unity Cross on the GetMarried.com web site.

It's not cheap at $99 but my small group of girls that I lead in a bible study asked if there was anything special they could all pitch in to get me for my shower and I instantly thought of this cross. So it not only was a great keepsake from our ceremony, but it also was a special gift from some very important friends in my life.

Basically, the cross is put together by the bride and groom during the ceremony to represent the uniting of the two different beings (man and woman) on the foundation of our faith.

I loved the symbolism of this. Although I wish the pastor would have spent a little more time and thought on how he explained this to our guests as part of the ceremony. It comes with a great little story about how the man's cross is strong and sturdy and yet somewhat empty inside. And the woman's cross is intricate, beautiful and perfectly suited to fill the man's cross. But instead he described the woman's cross as 'curvy'. Really? Whatever, Pastor Lyle is awesome at rolling with it and I love how he made everyone laugh with his comment about me breaking a nail. It was still a cool idea. However, when it came time to put together the cross, well, let's just say that I commented to Mr Fix It that we probably should have practiced putting it together before the actual ceremony which we in fact, did *NOT* do as you'll see in the clip:

Did you listen carefully to how Mr Fix It and I make a perverted comment about 'finding the hole?' Yeah, not one of my finer moments...I was obviously nervous. :)

Starts off great working together.

Mr Fix It is having some problems.

And I try to take over...unsuccessfully.

Share time: Did you have any little mishaps that occurred during your wedding?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: While it's not necessary to practice every single thing that you will be doing at your ceremony or reception, it is a good idea to at least talk about how you'll do certain things. We should have definitely practiced putting together the cross before the ceremony. And though you can't do that with a sand pouring, you can at least remind each other that you want to pour the sand slowly so it mixes together well. My sister and her hubby didn't do this and she poured her sand into the vase super fast while her groom took his time. It didn't merge quite as well as they wanted though it was a funny story. Remember to try on your rings before the big day to make sure they fit okay.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: The planner and the wing-it guy

2010-08-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still following up with ceremony recaps - but there's only a few more to go. However, today is again, one that is sort of a favorite...because it is the only time during our ceremony that I actually got choked up (though briefly).

In my post last week about our pastor talking about both me and Mr Fix It and why he 'likes us,' he mentioned that I am a planner and that Mr Fix It is a surfer. Well, in today's post, I am sharing with you our personally written messages to each other.

And as you'll see in the video, Mr Fix It just 'wings it' and didn't have anything specific prepared or written down. This is exactly why I didn't involve him in the writing of the traditional vows I shared last week, because he really just waits until he is in the moment to make decisions and share thoughts. :)

The funny thing is, me being the planner, I knew one day Mr Fix It and I would get married. And so early on in our six year relationship, I started keeping a journal that every once in a very great while, I would write a note or reminder about something he did or said or something I thought about him. Basically, as soon as we got engaged, I went back through those old journal entries to gain inspiration and then wrote out this letter to Mr Fix It. It was written probably a good 9 to 12 months before our wedding and I didn't look at it again until it was time to print it out when we were going over the ceremony with our pastor. So yes, it was well planned in advance - at least mine was.

So here it is, the video of our messages to each other.

I just absolutely love how our pastor knew how to put us at ease and lighten a mood with a simple statement like when he tells Mr Fix It 'he's not going to top' my message. :)

Share Time: Did/Will you include a personally written note or message to each other in addition to the vows you recite? Or will you maybe write your vows as the written notes to one another? How much time did you put into writing them out? Did you wait until the last minute or have them prepared very early on?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: If you are reciting traditional vows, consider whether or not you'd like to incorporate a personal message to one another before you actually recite your vows.

Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills
Unless otherwise indicated, photos by Robert Mullins

Wed Recap: War wounds at our wedding (the ring exchange)

2010-08-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is not your boring old ring exchange part of the ceremony recap. Oh no, I let my pride get the best of me during our ring exchange and ended up with the war wound to prove how stupid I was for being so vain and worried about how something would look to our guests in the middle of our ceremony.

See, it starts off all normal. Pastor Lyle is taking the rings from Best Man K...

Mr Fix It begins to place the ring on my hand.

This is kind of pretty, isn't it?

But what's this? Why is the bride pushing the ring on her finger herself? Isn't that the groom's job?

Oh, this is a FANTASTIC shot of the bride during the ring exchange. Don't you just love it? I mean, seriously, what the heck was I doing? It is obvious this ring does *not* want to get on my finger!

But alas, here's another horrible shot of me with my eyes closed where I am showing the guests that in fact, I was going to *MAKE* this ring fit even if it cost me a little blood! Which by the way, it did!

You see, there's a little something special about my ring. It was a pain in the butt to get sized! We bought it at the LA jewelry market and I didn't have it sized for a very long time. Oh yeah, nevermind that it was too big for me. I mean it didn't fall off or anything but it was not secure by any means. We didn't want to have it sized down because the setting was such that the 28 princess cut diamonds in their invisible setting along side the center stone could have been ruined or fallen out by altering the shape of the ring. So we just left it.

But I knew that wouldn't last, so I eventually found a friend's jeweler who said we could 'add' a round bump arch type of thing on the inside of my ring on the bottom to make it fit better. And when we added that extra white gold to the ring, it did in fact fit better. In fact, too good...it was now too tight. I had him shave off some of the extra gold we added and it seemed to be okay. I have large knuckles and they kept insisting that if they made it any bigger it would slip around on my finger once it got past my knuckle. So he told me if I needed to, just use some extra cold water and dish soap to slide the ring on and off. Hey, that idea worked great! I did this every morning and evening when I would take my ring on and off.

So come wedding day I had a plan. I told my coordinator and pastor that I needed either a glass of ice water or a little bottle of dish soap or hand sanitizer at the table where we would take communion just before our ring exchange. This way I could easily place some of the soap on my finger right after we took communion before we went back to our places on the altar. Well, instead, my coordinator decided to just give the bottle of soap to my pastor to keep in his pocket so he could hand it to me if I needed it. Great idea. But I didn't want to put the stuff on my finger in front of all of our guests...I was trying to be covert about it. So when it wasn't there at the communion table and we went back to do the ring exchange, well, I'll let you watch the video to see what happened next.

Can you believe that? I was totally bleeding from trying to shove and force the ring over my knuckle! Mr Fix It's ring went on just fine. But mine, not so much. The rest of the ceremony Mr Fix It kept trying to hold my hands and I just remember that I kept pulling my left hand away from him trying not to get blood on my dress, or the ribbon on my flowers or on Mr Fix It. As you can see in the video, at one point, I even turned my back to the guests and tried to suck the blood off of my finger! Disgusting...but you do what you gotta do. Nobody at the wedding, not one person noticed what the heck had happened or that I had totally cut myself on my ring finger and was then wearing one of our little pink Hugs and Kisses from the New Mr & Mrs band-aids that I had gifted our wedding party. Guess they came in handy after all :)

The part in the video where you see my back turned to the guests and I'm talking to my sister? Well, I held my hand out to show her the bloody mess on my knuckles. She must have been out of it, too because she looked at my hand and said "Yeah, pretty." Like she thought I was trying to show her the ring! Then I glanced at my knuckle in an effort to tell her to look again and she saw the blood and her eyes got all wide with this "What am I supposed to do look?" So silly.

Here's a couple pics of when I put Mr Fix It's ring on him:

But now, thanks to the little fiasco of me not being able to get my ring on, Mr Fix It makes a face wondering if we will have the same problem and *HIS* ring won't fit either!

And here's a shot of me with my best friend from high school immediately after our ceremony when I first came up for cocktails. She was the only person the entire night who asked to look at my ring. Very strange I thought but whatever.

By the time I changed for our grand entrance, I was able to take the band aid off. But as you can see in this lovely photo from our first dance, I did have some minor cuts and scrapes :)

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Stick to your plans! Ladies, there's a reason why we come up with things when we say "Oh, I need to be sure to do this." I knew that my ring was difficult to get on and off at that time. I was having to use cold water and sometimes dish soap to slip it on comfortably every morning. So I specifically said "I want to be sure to have a little bottle of hand soap or sanitizer gel or something that the pastor can hand me so that I can easily slip my ring on." But at the time, in the moment, I let myself think it was no big deal and didn't want it to become a weird thing in the middle of our ceremony (though a lot of people would have probably laughed). Had I let him hand me the soap, I wouldn't have ended up with a bloody knuckle! I should have stuck to my plan knowing that it was the best thing for me regardless of what anyone thought.

All photos by Robert Mullins Photography
All raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: More money to spend?

2010-07-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

So about 2 weeks ago BiCoastal Bride posted about her research and decisions on tipping her vendors. I was truly surprised at what she came up with. The info I seemed to recall finding online and in wedding mags seemed to disagree with what she found.

For instance, there were several vendors (photog, videographer, florist, etc) that she said you don't really need to tip where I pretty much have always thought you tip them all.

Of course, this all depends on your satisfaction with their service. So since she did it, I thought I'd share a recap of how we made our tipping decisions:

Photographer: Since we were really disappointed with the images he delivered and mostly upset about all the ones he did NOT deliver, we didn't tip him anything. We paid him close to $2,000 for his services already for a 10 hour day and a second shooter. I got a great deal. His web site said his packages started at $2,500 for 8 hours for minimum coverage.

By Amber Marquez

Videographer: Though we haven't tipped him yet, he gave me a phenomenal deal on the package I wanted and went above and beyond bringing along an extra photographer who gave us some great shots our main photog didn't, an extra videographer with a second camera and a third videographer with a special 'jib' camera for some of the coolest shots in our footage. Though we haven't tipped him yet, I fully intend to send him at least another $50 with a thank you card.

By Yan Freedline

Florist: She did a phenomenal job. She included set up fees in her total charges and since she worked with my coordinator and they arranged for the coordinator to deliver everything back to her the next day (all the vases she let me use for free and such), there were no delivery charges. Though I am still on the fence about whether to send a tip or not. But she totally did a great job.

Baker: This was a family friend. We paid a heck of a lot less than most bakeries would have charged us for a cake. Since it was a friend who gave us a set cost, we didn't offer any additional tip.

DJ: I think Mr Fix It tipped him $50 at the end of the night...not sure though. I need to follow up and ask him about that.

Caterer: We loved our caterer through the whole planning process. Tax and gratuity were included in our total charges from him but he did such a good job that Mr Fix It gave the owner an extra $100 at the end of the night.

Coordinator: She was fabulous and had a team of 4 assistants. They set everything up, took all the free vase rentals back to the florist the next day and then stored all of my wedding goods until we got back from the honeymoon. Mr Fix It didn't think we needed a DOC but was so impressed with all they did and how hard they worked that he gave her $100 at the end of the night. When he realized there were 5 of them total, he felt like he should have given her more. But I told him that was plenty!

Stylist: She did a good job and I think you should tip them between 10 and 20% but I honestly think I forgot to tip her. Oh well. She must not have minded because she felt so bad about our photog situation and the fact that one of my false eyelashes was coming off after the ceremony that she offered to do my hair and makeup for free if we did a post-wedding shoot. :)

Officiant: He was a long time friend and pastor of a local church. He told us that the church accepts donations for his services typically around $500. We didn't pay him that much at all though (and that was for pre-marital counseling as well). Since this was a donation, we didn't offer a 'tip.'

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography

Wed Recap: I like these people!

2010-07-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy week. Which is strange since I've been rather lonely the past several weeks. Have I mentioned that Mr Fix It went up north for 3 weeks to work on his parent's home? He left his newlywed wife all alone in a new house. Turns out, my daughter, Little Miss has also been gone spending a lot of time with her dad since he had some time off and she had practices going on down at his house. Easier commute.

But since I was surprised at 4 am yesterday morning by my sweet husband kissing me and coming home 2 days earlier than expected, I plan on keeping today's post a little short so I don't have to be at the computer too long. I did put together this little video clip which was one of my very favorite parts of our ceremony (Do I say that a lot? Are they all my favorites?).

Anyway, this was a little tidbit that our pastor shared about how he knows us and it gives you some great insight into who we are as individuals. I absolutely had no idea he was going to share the little detail he did near the end of the clip about my 'planning skills.' Enjoy!

Share time: Was there any part of your ceremony or wedding planning process that you took control of planning that is typically handled by someone else like a vendor or the officiant? :)

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Ask your officiant if they will incorporate specific things about who each of you are as individuals and as a couple. If they don't know you personally, perhaps they can have you fill out a little biography to include as part of their introduction or message? This is one reason why I truly love pre-marital counseling :) It gives you an opportunity to bond with your officiant which makes the ceremony that much more special.

Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: Not your typical vows

2010-07-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

As you will see in tomorrow's post, I had a big part in writing out our ceremony and especially our vows. I truly wanted our vows to blend the traditional with the unique. Instead of writing our own vows, we wrote personal messages to each other which were read at a different point in the ceremony. But I still tweaked the 'traditional' wedding vows you hear at ceremonies to make them a little unique and unexpected (the mantra of our wedding day).

I also loved the idea I had found on another bride's blog to invite your guests to renew their vows along with you so I wrote in a little bit about having married couples hold hands and just give a little squeeze to affirm their commitment to their vows along with ours. So here is the video of us saying our vows to one another:

Again, true to ourselves, Mr Fix It couldn't help but interrupt me during my vows when he thought I made a mistake. I love my response to him and the guests laughs. :)

To make it a little faster and ensure we didn't really mess up much trying to repeat after the pastor, I wrote the vows out on a computer, printed them out and created these little 'vow cards' that our pastor handed us when it was our time to say them. Each card had our name on it (Stacey's Vows, John's Vows) because they were slightly different since Mr Fix It's vows included a promise involving my daughter.

Funny thing was, Mr Fix It did not read or know anything about these vows until the moment Lyle handed him the card to read. In my defense, he didn't ask to see them before the ceremony and didn't ask what we were going to say as vows. As things went on during the planning process, I began to realize that it was easier to not involve Mr Fix It in anything unless he specifically asked about it or wanted to be included in the decisions. :)

Did any of you find that there were aspects of the wedding that you either didn't want your fiance involved in or he didn't care to inquire about?

Photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills