February

5 months to go! It is starting to seem a little more real each month. I think when we hit four months it will feel soclose. This past month we have worked on quite a few details. One of the first ones was to figure out what we wanted to do for our honeymoon and make the registry for it. We decided we want to go to Italy for about 2 weeks . We will spend one week in Florence (where Chris lived) and then one week down south in the little town of Positano, on the Amalfi Coast. The only thing that would get in our way of going is if Chris gets a full time fire job and his schedule would not allow. I would be so upset! I am worried that we will make reservations and then find out we can't go. I really don't want to lose any money paid. We registered for our honeymoon because we have been living together for almost three years. We have all kinds of stuff and a small apartment. It might be different if we had a house, but we loooooove to travel and the gift of that is really what we could hope for. We went with the website Wanderable because of the ease of creation, they don't charge a fee, and their design is nice.

Shoes
In other news I finally found (I think) my wedding shoes. Finding shoes was hard. It seemed like ones that I liked where too expensive or looked uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure that the ones I have now will be the ones. They are not too high, and not too low. They are comfortable and sparkly!

Hotels
Another thing we nailed down was the hotel for night before and night of the wedding. We are staying at the Coronado Island Marriot. The grounds are pretty, it is right by the ceremony location which makes it very easy. My parents room will have a small kitchen that will be helpful if I have any DIY stuff left to do (I may make the boutonnieres for Chris and all the dads). We will also be staying there for our wedding night. Since we don't plan to leave right away for the honeymoon we just wanted somewhere to crash. I am sure we will be exhausted.

Party
Last month my mom and I checked out some locations for the rehearsal dinner. We looked at Il Fornaio and Candelas. Both are close to the ceremony site. My mom has been very gracious in planning the rehearsal dinner and I am very grateful because I am busy enough with just the wedding. Our ceremony site is in high demand so we are most likely going to have to do the rehearsal in the morning. We would hate to show up while some other people are getting married and we can't do it! Our rehearsal will be a lunch at Il Fornaio. I am really excited because I like the restaurant a lot and it is in a gorgeous location along the water. Hopefully our wedding weekend has amazing weather because that is the best time to be along the bay in San Diego.

Bridesmaid Dress
There is only one bridesmaid in the wedding party, so I told her she could pick her own dress within some guidelines that I gave her. I think we have different styles, so finding something she is comfortable in and that goes with my idea will be the goal. Below are pictures of what I am looking for:

The pink one shoulder

I am looking for something floaty and romantic. In a fresh pink (not too pale). Below is a dress that my bridesmaid says is her style. It isn't floaty like I want but it would work. Overall I want her to be comfortable in what she is wearing!

Invites
The last thing we have been working on this month are the invitations. I designed them all myself and I finally finished them. I found the perfect script font for our names. The task was to figure out how to get them printed. I thought it would be nice to have a printer do that and then cut them. We got a good quote from a printer for $75 bucks to print them all. That seemed nice, but I designed the invitations on Microsoft Publisher. This isn't a program that graphic designers use and when he opened the file in his better program it was (his words) "a disaster". However I had done it, made it so that he would have to go in and try to redesign some stuff. Also, one of the special fonts I had was not showing up. I would have to go purchase the font ($100). So it ended up looking to be more expensive than $75. Our printer at home prints them just fine (no disasters). I decided I would just suck it up and do the printing and cutting myself. I bought some heavy duty paper and then all of the gray envelopes. I also bought a return address stamp. I can't wait to start printing and assembling them. I hope they turn out how I see it in my head. They are totally of my design and I am very proud of them. I have also been practicing my calligraphy for the addresses!

Here is what we are working on between now and April
1. Bridesmaid dresses
2. Decide on men's attire and buy ties and pocket squares
3. Finish and send out invites
4. Finalize my wedding day look
5. Start wedding day timeline
6. Continue working on DIY decor

Check and Check

January is upon us. This last weekend marked the "6 months until the wedding" date. Time is moving waaaay too quickly. The good news is that we have hired our final "vendor" and now just have to start working on the details. I finally ordered the ceremony chairs which seemed more complicated than it should be. Rental companies have so many rules regarding how you use their equipment. Anyway, the chairs look like these without the pink chiffon. We will leave them plain.

I am also still thinking about arranging the chairs in a semi-circle. Since our location is public I want to create some intimacy and also make it so that people can sit closer to us.
We finalized the cake order (took forever). We decided to go with cheesecakes in all different flavors. It ended up being more cost effective as well because they aren't a "wedding cake" that requires tiers and elaborate decoration. We are happy!
This last weekend my mom came down to visit and I picked up my wedding dress. We ordered it back in April, so it was nice to actually have it in my hands! It is exactly how I remember it. I had purchased some shoes that I was thinking would go, but they don't so I am back to the drawing board on that. I am very picky about my shoes! Here are some pictures of dream shoes (all of which are ridiculously expensive-therefore, out of the question.)

Her shoes in this picture. Too bad they are literally 11 years old (picture was taken in 2001)

I have a couple pairs I ordered and am waiting to come in the mail. We will see if they are right when they get here!
I am also happy to report that my mom found her mother of the bride dress! It was totally by accident, we were walking around the South Coast Plaza mall after picking up my dress and happened to walk into a dress store. I saw this gorgeous dress there and it just looked like my mom. It looks great on her. I am not going to post a picture in case she wouldn't want me to.
On Sunday we went down to Coronado to look at the restaurants near the wedding location and also check out some hotels for guests. It was a perfect day and since it is January ....no tourists! yay! Coronado really is an idyllic place. It has the feeling of a small town on a lake, but with the big city right across the bay. We found a hotel that is nice and closeby, it even offers a free water taxi across the bay where guests can then take the train all over San Diego. It felt like a very productive wedding weekend.

Taken from the park where we are getting married. :-)

Next up on the list
1. Finish the honeymoon registry and honeymoon planning
2. Think about bridesmaid dress
3. Figure out what we want to do for our wedding night and book it.
4. Finish the guest list and update any changed addresses
5. Start making the invitations!
Good thing my timeline for all of this is by the end of February. We have a busy two months. I am helping a fellow teacher coordinate a wedding this weekend for her side business, Chris is teaching full time and working as a reserve and hockey coach part time, and we are going to Denver in February for 4 days for a hockey tournament! I would also like to squeeze a Vegas trip in there somewhere too. Fun times ahead!

That to-do list.

The thing about weddings is that you get all of this stuff done and then there are just 1,000 more things next up on your to-do list. We just finalized most of of vendors but we still have some other things that need to be decided here pretty quickly.
First up is the cake. We have done some tastings when we hired our caterer, as well as some other tastings of local bakeries. One bakery even gave us two whole cakes to take home. We ate 1 slice of each...looked at each other...and decided we don't want traditional cake. I ended up taking these babies to work and they were gone by the first morning break.

What we did decide is that we would rather have (our favorite) cheesecake! I did some internet research and found 1 bakery in San Diego that does cheesecake specifically and they do cheesecakes for weddings. They are called The Incredible Cheesecake Company

We stopped by there the other day and grabbed a slice of their classic and their "naughty hula". They were AHHHMAZING. So we will be making a consultation appointment soon. If they are too pricey (or not professional enough) then we might be able to do something like order cheesecakes from Costco and have our coordinator set them up. Here are some inspirations.

Another to-do list item coming up is to reserve the ceremony chairs. This isn't really a big deal I just want to get the best price. I do know that they charge extra to deliver and set-up on a Sunday, which I think is ridiculous but whatever. Here are some ideas on how I would like the chairs to be set-up. Because of the public nature of our venue I am looking to create a little privacy with how the seats are arranged. I also think it will help looky loos to steer clear.

And finally I leave you with a dream and a wish. These shoes are stupid expensive, but gorgeous.

Thanksgiving already!?

Well, time is flying but we are getting a lot of things done that are on the list. Woo Hoo! Also coming up is my birthday and the 1 year anniversary of us getting engaged. That was a fast year! So as of today we have hired a DJ, coordinator, videographer, and guitarist! We also bought our wedding bands!

DJ
DJ Daniel Peterson. We had originally thought he was a little expensive, but he was able to match a deal that a different DJ had given us. Thanks to that we were able to hire him for what we could afford. We are super glad because we liked him more than the other DJ's. We could tell he really cared about the flow of the party and the type of music being played.

Coordinator
Based on an awesome referral from a co-worker who has been a coordinator in the past, we have met with and hired Elisa Suter of Events by Elisa. She was super upbeat, friendly and she cared about us as a couple. I know she will care about our event as if it was her own. Truth be told, hiring a coordinator is one of those expenses that is not totally necessary, but with our wedding being in two separate locations and those locations being city owned property, we are short on people who can do set-up for us. We really need a coordinator! I am excited to now have one! The photos below are from her website.

Videographer
Last week I also met with Luke McCain a local videographer. His style is exactly what I am looking for, but at a price that isn't through the roof! Some companies are charging $5,000 for a wedding video! Ridiculous! He was super nice and easy to talk to. He also gave us a full DVD sample of what we would be paying for. The video is great, below is an example of his work. I am glad we have decided to go for the video because we are putting all this time into our event and don't want to forget it all years later!

Niki + Kyle | October 15th, 2011 from Luke McCain Videography on Vimeo.


Guitarist
We did go to see the guitarist Kenny Earnest live at this restaurant in Rancho Santa Maragrita (an hour drive!). He was good and we liked him, but his professionalism was a little in question when he wasn't really responding to e-mails in the way I thought he should. Maybe I was being sensitive, but oh well. We started looking around for other guitarists and were super happy to find a different one whom we like a lot better! His name is Matt Commerce. We went to see him perform at one of our local pubs, Hennessey's. He plays guitar and harmonica and we really liked that vibe. There are some links below to some of his performances and music.
http://www.myspace.com/mattcommerce
http://www.gigmasters.com/acoustic-guitar/Matt-Commerce/



Wedding Bands
We just happened to be at the mall last weekend to get Chris some sunglasses and I randomly wandered into a jewelry store to see what was there. I wasn't super impressed with any of their ladies bands, but Chris actually found a band he wanted in like 10 minutes. At first I thought he was just trying to get it over with, but no he really just found the one! It is a ceramic band coated in tungsten with a comfort fit. It is really lightweight, and tungsten is harder than steel so it will be durable. It is black which I was surprised he wanted. I really like it!

My band took an extra day to find. We went through some stores together and hadn't really found one. I started off wanting a very thin diamond band such as this one.

Then I quickly realized that it was not enough sparkly bling for me. Plus my engagement ring is oval, so part of the band would be covered up. Here is my engagement ring, just to remind you!

So I thought I might want to get 2 different skinny bands such as these ones...

Or I thought I might just get one big band such as this one (this ring was GORGEOUS in the store!)

I really love the two mismatched bands look, but having two bands is more than we can afford right now. I am hoping for our anniversary I might get one! :-) So what I decided was to get 1 band that had slightly larger diamonds. It is super sparkly and I love it! It was Veterans Day weekend so we got a pretty good deal. All I have is the lame picture from the website and you can't even tell how awesome it is...once it is done being sized I will post a real picture.

End of October '11

Well here we are, at the end of October. Seems like I was just marveling at how we only had 9 months left and now we have only 8 and some change. Chris and I are both working constantly and we don't have as much time together as we like. We hope that this part of our lives will be short and hopefully he will get a full time fire job soon so that he can quit the rest and have time to himself. His new position as a reserve fire fighter will open some doors for him we hope.
As far as wedding planning is concerned, today I met with the final florist and I was not really impressed with her. She seemed a little spacey and definitely not as thorough as the other florists I met with. I decided to go with Sally Preston-Gonzalez of Exquisite Blooms. Her taste level is similar to my own and she seemed at ease and confident. I e-mailed her today to ask her what the next steps are in booking.
We have met with one DJ, DJ Daniel Peterson. We really liked him. He knows his music and seems very thorough. What I really like is that he can mix and also add beats to songs that are older to make them seem fresh. His price is a little steep for what we were thinking we would spend on a DJ. We have one more meeting next weekend until we make the DJ decision.
We got quotes from Kenny Ernest and Tini Grey for guitarists and Tini Grey is too expensive (even though I really, really like him). I wanted to go see him live and ever the practical one Chris said "Why? If we can't afford him?" Good thinking Chris. We are going to see Kenny Earnest play at a restaurant next Thursday (date night), hopefully we like him in person too. :-). On to November!

Florists, Music, Videography Oh My!

Save the dates are out and now I have the task of hunting for florists and music. I started with florists and have had two appointments so far. It is really important to me for the florist to really get my vision, but also work with me on my budget. I love the ones who are able to offer me suggestions for keeping the look I want but finding a less expensive way to do it. I put together a packet of inspiration pictures for the florist to look at. Below are some of the pictures I chose.

Ceremony

Attire

Cake

Bouquet

Reception

My first florist meeting was with Sally Preston of Exquisite Blooms. We met at a cute shop in Little Italy and went through all of my pictures. I felt really good about the meeting and Sally seemed really sweet and calm.  She does amazing work and I would totally trust her. The only thing I am worried about is staying under budget...i'll have to wait to see a proposal.
My second meeting was with  florist/ coordinator Jen Haase from Branches Floral Studio. She also really understood the look that I wanted and even coined the name "Modern Luxe". I don't know about the luxe part...but modern for sure. She also went into a lot of detail regarding her coordination business and it sounds like she really knows what she is doing. It reminded me that I really need to find room in the budget for a coordinator because all of the things she was talking about I do not want to have to worry about on my wedding day. I am still waiting on a a proposal from her as well.
I plan to meet with Dede Barnes from Moments in Bloom sometime in the upcoming weeks. I e-mailed her my inspiration pictures and she said she really loved the look. I was up front with her about my budget and she is willing to offer a lot of suggestions on how to save money.

In addition to florists I have been looking for musical options. We want to have an acoustic guitarist for the ceremony and cocktail hour and then a DJ (a real one that mixes) for the reception. I have found some awesome options for the DJ such as Injoy Entertainment and DJ Daniel Peterson. We plan to set up meetings as soon as Chris has some time. For acoustic guitarists I really love Tini Grey, but he has not gotten back to me regarding availability. I did hear from Kenny Earnest who quoted me a really great price. I am hoping Chris and I can travel up to Long Beach and Rancho Santa Margarita  to listen to these guys perform live.

I am also searching for a coordinator and have already talked to Jen Haase. We have some friends that are getting married the day before us and they have a friend who is a coordinator. Here name is Stephanie Furlong of Furlong Event Design. Based on her website I cannot wait to talk to her! I also have a friend who used to coordinate weddings that gave me Elisa's name of Events by Elisa. I am planning on contacting her soon.

The last little bit of this blog is just to swoon over some videography. I really would LOVE to hire a cinematographer for our wedding to make videos like the ones below. They are just gorgeous! But most of these services are WAY far out of our budget. I did find one gentleman who has a similar style (although not as cinematic) that seems more affordable (last video). :-)



Jim & Stefanie // San Diego, CA. from FortyOneTwenty on Vimeo.


Sunny and Nik Wedding at Andaz Hotel in San Diego from Rustic Red Studio on Vimeo.

Nancy + Alex | September 5th, 2011 from Luke McCain Videography on Vimeo.