It's Like the Travelocity Gnome

When we were first engaged, someone asked me if I would be showing off my ring in every picture from now on. As if that was a BAD thing?! My retort was that I only had these engagement days once in my life, so you bet I would! This post in tribute to the excitement of being engaged and knowing you have the right guy.


In which my ring tries to be domestic:

Hmmm doesn't that look good!

In which my ring tries to make healthy choices:

Hmm... I am not allergic to pears!

In which my ring becomes another driving distraction:

Don't worry, Mom. I am sure 55 was the speed limit!

In which my ring goes to work:

Thank God my school doesn't block the Wedding Bee!

In which my ring is contemplative:

Sage green? Clover green? Hunter green?

Nearly 9 months to go!! As my friend Jamie says, "I am having a baby and the baby is my wedding!"

Got Wood?!

I actually fell in love a year and a month before I met Chris. Luckily, Chris is very understanding and has been a real sport. It all started back in 2006 when I visited my cousins during my April vacation. I arrived in San Francisco and quickly found my kindred spirit, my cousin Neil. It's not what you are thinking. He's not the one I fell in love with. Neil was the best host. He took time off from work and showed me around his part of the world. I had a wonderful time seeing the town and painting it red with his friend Kris.




We also visited my Uncle Alan and his lady friend, Valerie. I was doted on. They truly knew how to make me feel special.

We also visited my cousin Craig. Again, no, he's not the one I fell in love with... but you're close. Craig lives on Bass Lake which is close to the southern entrance for Yosemite. He helps take care of a cabin that is right on the lake. It was gorgeous. The cabin is nestled in a forest of sky scraping redwoods. It is truly my "happy place". One day, we went to Yosemite to see the big trees. It was incredible. I could not believe how massive these trees were. Part of the park was closed so we had to hike up to where the trees are. It was funny since we had laid out on the docks that morning and got sunburned. I was radiating! The further we climbed, the more snow and run-off there was. Yes, those are my cousins in shorts! When we started on or way down, I spied something in the woods that made my heart leap.









IT WAS...manzanita!! I just loved these trees. I have never seen anything like them! I love the green leaves and the twisty red wood.
Oooo.... look, the leaves are a sage/clover green!When I returned to California in February, it dawned on me. I could have both of my loves on my wedding day! I went on a search for branches. I stumbled upon Nettleton Hollow. This is an online shop that sells branches, flowers, and other materials for crafting. We loved this arrangement that they showed featuring their branches. We purchased branches and are in the process of making our own arrangements. (More on this later!)

Isn't this pretty!?! Chris says it isn't cheating. ;-)

Since our reception hall has a rustic feel to it and we both aren't huge fans of flowers, we are incorporating more and more of the "manzanitia feel" into our day. It took a while for it all to make sense to my mom. At first she was thinking I was a bit morbid wanting sticks instead of flowers. I think she gets it now!!

Invitations: Willow (not the movie staring the little person.)

When we started budgeting for the wedding, one category we thought we'd cut back in is stationary. Who keeps all those save the dates, initiations, reception cards, place cards, thank you cards, you are welcome cards, etc? Besides me, of course. I had looked at a number of magazines when Allison was getting married and I thought I liked the simple cards with a border around them.

Chris and I looked at The American Wedding stationary, first. (www.theamericanwedding.com) We ordered several free samples and decided on the "Perfect Pastel" invitation. In the picture the one that looks blue is actually a sage green. It had the border I had mentioned and the price was right. We checked that off our "to do" list.

THEN... thanks to my obsession with every website to do with weddings, I stumbled upon Minted.com. This website specializes in high quality, designer invitations. Chris was psyched because the website was totally designed with the tech savy man in mind. It has a search engine with check boxes that will search their offerings to meet your specifications. He was quite impressed. In further investigation, we found a few invitations that had the woodsy/manzanita theme (more on that later!) that we are going for. We ordered the samples and we were more than pleasantly surprised when they arrived. We had to pay $7 a sample, highway robbery! NOT! The payment is a credit to our final purchase; score us.
It's all about presentation! As you can see, the samples came in a clear envelope that was tied with a green ribbon. Inside, along with the samples, was a note from Rick K. who had packaged and shipped the order. These samples/invitations do not even compare to the ones from The American Wedding, sorry! Chris and I quickly fell in love with the Willow design by Cat Seto.
Here the invitation is pictured with the all of the accent colors in teal. Our invitations will be printed with the teal replaced with sage. What you might not be able to see is that on some of the sporatic branches there are little Swarovski crystals in the accent color, bling bling! The branches are twisty and have flowers which mimic our quasi-rustic decor. The paper is a heavy card stock. Quality. Unfortunately, quality means money. (sad face) To keep the cost down, we are going to print the RSVP and reception cards ourselves. Thank the technology gods for high quality scanners and Illustrator!!

Pamma Lamma

"Tim, its a girrrl...." I said not so enthusiastically upon a phone call from my mom telling me my newest sibling was a bouncing baby girl named Pamela. I still remember that Day, not so much the conversation. I remember everyday when my sister's due date was approaching, I'd wake up and run to my parents bedroom, albeit I had to run 3 feet, to see if mom and dad were still there. One day, a surprise, it was Gramma Delena sleeping in my parents bed. I was excited because I knew what that meant.

I have had different levels of closeness with Pammy over the years. She's 7 or so years younger then myself. She was always the quiet one, but I think she used to get Tim into quite a bit of trouble. Its always the quiet ones fault.

I would go to all her cheering competitions, and I have to say I miss them. They were always a lot of fun, so much energy and enthusiasm. It was quite a proud moment when she competed at the Fleet Center for the state championship, I know I've never gotten that far with any team I've been on. That's a day I won't soon forget! Go Raiders!

We got real close the year I spent driving her to Notre Dame on a daily basis her sophomore year. This was when I realized that my sister was no longer the quiet one. You couldn't get her to say anything in the morning, contrary to myself, I am a morning person. But when I picked her up at the end of the day, she would start talking, and not stop until she got into the house. OMG. I taught her to drive essentially, in my 8 month old car. Her first experience was pulling out of Friendly's at the bottom of airport hill. OMG, I didn't almost die, but it wasn't the most pleasant experience. From there, she got a lot better. Unfortunately, I left the year after that, to do this grad school thing, way overrated by the way!!

Things have been up and down since then, she started at UNH and we would have dinner weekly, and I'd hear all about everything, because again, Pam can TALK. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to my little sister. The smallest cutest little girl I've ever known. She's grown up, and a junior in college. It makes me feel old, but it makes me really glad to know we are such good friends at heart and as we grow up and start families, I know our children, well, Pam's 329089 kids, and my 2 or 3, will be the greatest of cousins and friends.

I leave you with a little song:

From "We Go Together"
Pa-ma la-ma la-ma ka ding a da ding de dong
:0)

27 Dresses. Nah! How about 2?

To be completely honest, I had an idea of what I wanted for bridesmaid dresses well before Chris proposed. I came across this fantastic dress on the David's Bridal website. The dress didn't come in green, however. When I looked after Chris proposed, I was pleasantly surprised that it had been added in "clover" green. Kimberly, Katherine and I went to the store and they tried on the dress. They liked the dress so it was an "all systems go". We didn't put any orders in just yet (THANKFULLY!). One morning, I went online before work and clicked on the website that had this dress on it. It led me to a page that said the dress had been discontinued. You would think that the people at David's Bridal would have called to let me know that!! Erase that check mark. My search was back on.

Disheartened by the lack of customer service at David's Bridal, I went online in search of a popular designer that is carried in bridal boutiques. I came across Alfred Angelo. This designer is a popular one whose designs seem to be carried in most boutiques around the country. Since the majority of my bridesmaids are scattered around, this was very important. I liked a number of the dresses and picked out two that were similar to my "vision". Their line of dresses come in a very large array of colors. They also had a "clover" green! Brittany was the first to venture out to try on the dresses. The dress that Katherine, Kim, and Heather (pictured in the left) had liked from the picture proved to produce a "nay" by Brittany. The second dress (in the blue) proved to be a winner. She likes how it looks on her and thinks it will be the most flattering on all of my beautiful girls.

Since Allison is my matron of honor, I would like her to stand out among the bridesmaids. To me, this means a different dress entirely. I made an appointment to look at dresses with Allison this past spring. Allison currently is pregnant and will have a little girl in December. She wanted to go dress shopping before she had too big of a belly!! Allison was beyond patient with me. We tried on a number of dresses and made very little progress in choosing a dress for her! Here are some of the dresses she tried on. With a trained eye you could see a little bit of a belly bump!!!

Here are the rules. I really liked the blue dress that Brittany was wearing. I wanted to find a different dress for Allison that was similar but would be different enough that it would be clear that she was my matron of honor. Allison doesn't like to be in the spotlight. She nixed having a different colored dress of the same style. She felt that would be too much. We really needed to find a dress that complimented the bridesmaids dress. I also wanted to find one that Allison felt comfortable in. This means I didn't want her to be self conscious OR physically uncomfortable. Ideally, I think she'd like a dress that has straps. Her little girl will only be 6 months old and will probably be breastfed. So, what did I do first? I pulled a dress that didn't look anything like the bridesmaid dress and was strapless!! Woops...

The Bowtie For Your Belly Dress: I pulled this dress because I really liked the train in the back. The back is just so pretty. However, most of the pictures would be taken from the front. The bowtie was bizarre. It was a shame Allison didn't have more of a pregnant belly at this point because it would have looked hilarious. Although Allison will most likely be back down to her regular size by the time of the wedding, we decided the bow would draw the eye to her stomach. This might make her a little self-conscious. The Two Piece Fit for a Blimp: Ok, so after she indulged me with that bowtie dress, I got back on task and looked for a dress that would be similar to the bridesmaid's one. I pulled this two piece dress because it had the same diagonal lines that the rouching in the bridesmaid dress had. This was the funniest to try on! The skirt was a size 28. It could probably wrapped around Allison's itty bitty body 3 times. We decided we didn't like the look of the separates. This dress really looked like it was two pieces. I think it seems less like a formal dress and more of a matching top and skirt.
In this one, the Employee played along... So, one thing was decided, we like the dress that Brittany liked. We tried to find a dress that was similar. We pulled this peach dress. The girl that was helping us offered to try it on. Talk about going the mile for customer service! Although the peach dress had spaghetti straps, I really didn't like it as much as I liked the one on Allison. I was pretty sure that was the best one I could find that complimented the dress. Although I really didn't like it, thoughts of putting the bridesmaids in the peach dress popped to mind. Thank goddness I went hom eand searched online.

Here is the one Allison will (most likely) wear: I found this dress. It is pictured in the "clover" green. It has thick straps and rouching like the bridesmaid dress. I also like the sparkly details. I think this dress did everthing we were asking it to do.

We set an appointment for all of the bridesmaids order their dresses on November 23rd. The appointment is at 1:00. I figure, if they could swing it, the local bridesmaids will come and those out of town can order over the phone. They will get a discount if the order is in that day. They will have to get their measurements from another bridal boutique... or do it themselves. Allison and I are pleased!