showering

Bridal shower #2 was so wonderful, and...intimate. We clocked in at 8 ladies total and not just because my mom unknowingly scheduled it for super bowl sunday at 1 pm. there was an unfortunate abundance of illness and family emergencies. But nonetheless I still had such a good time.

Mama reserved a room at the Olde Spaghetti Factory. yum yum yum. this place is delish and adorable. Recommendation: Spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra cheese and the pesto ranch for your starter salad. Also the spumoni ice cream (strawberry/chocolate/pistachio). The lighting is very moody, so some of the photos turned out kind of funky, but we were still able to get some good ones. ready for some up close and personal time with little me?

First up: the dessert/gift table

{mini red velvet cupcakes and assorted cookies and homemade lemon bars to the right}

{gorge floral arrangement by ms. suzy, my wedding planner extraordinaire. a sneak peak of the wedding flower decor}

{lavender of course. somehow became the mascot of this wedding. but they're so pretty and smell DIVINE}

{one of those amazing flameless candles, this one is actually made of real wax. to debut at the wedding as well}

{time for some bubbly!}

{Spumanti - Italian sparkling wine}

{mama made the shower kitchen themed and sent out recipe cards in the invites for friends and family to add to my recipe collection}

{little me super psyched about getting our beautiful toasting flutes. the stems are filled with mini pearls!}

{yummy crate and barrel boxes. no wrapping needed. I maybe registered here solely for the boxes? oh also because they have cool stuff inside the boxes...}

{the "ambience" at the good olde sketti factory}

=D

{that book from my mom? it's called p*rn for women. it has photos and captions of men offering to do household chores and bringing breakfast in bed and providing shopping advice. so silly.}

{thanks mama!!! this is a full set of silver plated antique silverware in a velvet lined wooden box. time for dinner parties!!}

Fun, simple, girly. I can't wait for the wedding!!

toasty warm feets

people's generosity continues to amaze me.

today my coworkers threw me a surprise wedding BBQ for lunch. they kept it a secret for a couple weeks. Not only was there hot dogs, burgers (with ALL the fixings you can imagine), baked beans, homemade potato salad, a giant cake, and ice cream...they also pooled together to get a gift off our registry. and not just any gift, but the kitchenaid stand mixer! I'm so excited to play with it! It was such a wonderful surprise, my work is awesome. and the bridal shower paper plates and napkins were a nice touch on a construction site ;D

bridal shower #2 post coming soon. I swear. last week was...rough. I literally flew back from my parents monday morning and drove straight to work. the rest of the week snowballed after that. but the weekend turned around. we took one of our bffs out to a birthday drinks and dinner friday night. Sunday we celebrated valentine's day with lunch at a cute little retro diner and a movie. and one last shopping trip for my rehearsal dinner dress.

Saturday, when fiance went to work I did a little shopping for my trousseau... I'm just going to say it was way fun, slightly awkward and majorly confidence boosting - if all those adjectives can make sense together.



less than 2 weeks away a-peoples! (bonus points for guessing the movie reference there)
still soooo soo excited!

gifts

so I have mentioned before how people seem to come out of the woodwork to help and support us in any way. Well here's another story. A family friend who I haven't seen in a while texted me out of the blue last week and asked if I had any plans for friday. I said no and he responded with "early wedding gift. how about staples center 7:30?". Immediately Fiance and I knew what was going on. See this friend is the ultimate bachelor-type guy, knows all the best restaurants and bars, goes to live sporting events all the time, etc. He also has season tickets to the Los Angeles Lakers. Fiance LOVES basketball. so free NBA basketball tickets, win right? let's take it up a notch. the Lakers happened to be playing the Sacramento Kings on Friday. Our hometown, Fiance's favorite team. He's a die-hard loyal fan, even though they've...struggled for the past 5 or so years. The chance to watch the Lakers play the Kings is the ultimate experience.

So Friday night I raced home from work, changed and then we were off to downtown LA. Lakers fans are kind of intense, making it difficult to be fans of the opposing team, we knew it would be best to keep a low profile. Well early on that became hard as the Kings (2nd worst team in the league I believe) started absolutely killing it. They were ahead of the Lakers (reigning back to back champions) by as much as 20 points nearly the whole game. And then, the Kings won. The Kings beat the Lakers. and we got to watch it live. I think this may be Fiance's favorite wedding present of all time.

So about wedding gifts. I love our registries, I need everything on our registries. But I really don't mind if people gift us other things, especially as they have all been very personal and thoughful. People will give in ways that they are most comfortable. Whether its basketball tickets or kitchen gadgets or simply lovely cards with meaningful handwritten words. And I love all of it, I'm grateful for each and every person whether they paid money for their gift or not. I just want them to be there, at least in thoughts and prayers if not in person as well.

brown paper, white paper, stick it together with the tape, the tape of love*

I spent all day today printing our invitations, envelopes and cutting RSVP cards with a paper cutter. I may be a bit biased but I think they've turned out beautifully! It's amazing what a decent printer and MS Word can really do. I did invest in some quality paper from Paper Source. I purchased our save-the-date from them and was impressed with the quality and pricing. Fiance and I went into one of their stores a few weeks back, which was quite lovely, and stocked up on a few different shades of paper and envelopes for our whole ensemble. I downloaded a few free fun and unique fonts from this website and designed everything myself. I'll take some photos at some point. The hardest part of all of this was getting my new-to-me printer set up and working properly. Everything else was a piece of cake, and quite a bit cheaper than anything I've seen online. DIY success!

My first bridal shower is in less than 2 weeks and I've noticed a few items have started disappearing off our registry! So excited!

Next task: Start printing up Thank You cards. I have procrastinated on pretty much everything...but I need to be on the ball with those

*p.s. I couldn't resist the flight of the conchords "cello tape" reference... =)

wish list

I read a lot of foodie/cooking blogs. I love food if you haven't already noticed. One of the ladies posted a genius guide to registering for those who love to cook. It is very helpful, and I have definitely added a few items that she recommended! For the love of all that is sweet and/or bacon flavored, go check out her stuff. You'll be hungry.

coming up roses

Happy New Year!
I just got back from watching the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena! It was something I've always wanted to do, and I live so close now I just had to be there. So fun!

It's going to be a great year, if for no other reason than it's the year I marry Fiance!

I went and had my dress fitted yesterday! I still love it just as much as I did when I bought it one year ago. It actually fits really well, I just need a few inches taken off the bottom, because I'm short stuff. And I'm having a bustle done, the seamstress made a really gorgeous one, I can't wait until it's done! Invites ARE happening this weekend, finally got the printer hooked up (of course now it needs ink...). My first bridal shower is in 2 weeks! I'm so excited to see all my girls and celebrate. I don't mean to sound greedy but I especially can't wait to get new kitchen stuff. Currently we have ONE tiny pot. just 1. we have 4 skillets in various sizes, but in all the hand-me-down kitchen stuff we received there ended up being just one pot. It makes cooking multiple things very difficult.

Here's to a fantastic new year. And now it's time for my nap...

scan free

Along with the excessive over-planning and analyzing that is in my nature, I'm love lists (and post-its, they take over my life). Specifically, wishlists. I have a wishlist established at just about every website imaginable, even though I know I'll never buy 95% of it (or 100% at this point, I haven't made any unnecessary purchases since I moved! And food/eating out does not count in that category). So the whole online registry thing has been way too fun for me. We still have a lot of editing down to do to our registries, considering there's only 100 people coming to our wedding and we have 400 things on the lists. And we still need to add bedding, towels and luggage...oops.

P.S. we registered at Crate & Barrel too, did I tell you that? Less personalized attention than Macys, but their system was easy to use. Once again the scanner gun was a blast. And we got the cutest little heart shaped glass candy dish thing as a free gift. We're all about the free stuff over here. Crate & Barrel has really great stuff, simple yet stylish and unique and I was surprised at the affordability. We scanned everyday items like plates, glasses and kitchen utensils. Fiance went a little overboard with all the specialized and fun, but unnecessary items. Like the silver dollar pancake pan, and the mini burger pan, that are basically the same thing. And a sauce bucket with attached brush. And anything "game night" and BBQ related, even though we don't have a BBQ and the possibility of our future place having even a patio is highly unlikely. But, you know how boys are =)

rolling along

I love my little apartment, my kitchenette and my cooking items in all their mismatched glory. But I think I really understand the joy of a wedding registry now. brand new, shiny, high-quality things that all work properly and are in colors and patterns of our choosing... things that will be OURS and not just hand-me-downs or cheapie items that don't quite work. Also that we don't have to necessarily pay for. And I've decided that I WILL use all the fancy stuff we registered for. Like that china? Dude it's Tuesday night, bust it out. And the super nice wine glasses, um, it's saturday afternoon? I don't believe in shoving stuff away in storage for someday. I'm using it now! Also why sometimes I put on a nice fancy dress to sit around and watch movies in...silly i suppose.

We're really rolling on wedding to-dos. My mom will be contacting the florist. Fiance's mom is waiting on quotes from the caterers and rental company and confirmation for the honeymoon. I've contacted the darling pastor of the church we'll be married in so we can meet up and start planning the ceremony when Fiance and i visit home next month.

Fiance and I still get giddy about being engaged. it's been over 8 months, with less than 7 to go now!

And work is going marvelously, I love my job. I could work there for the rest of my life and be totally happy.

he's got a gun

updates updates!
my mom and her friend suzy hit the thrift stores last weekend. and scored big. milk glass vases, cake stands, galvanized tin buckets and silver platters (all $2 or less) galore.

Yesterday Fiance and I were hanging out and he says "hey let's go register today!" so we drove on over to Macy's. Everyone should have the in-store registry experience. It lives up to every bit of the hype. We have our own personal registry consultant, who was the sweetest woman on the planet. you can tell she absolutely loves her job. Macy's has these bonus rewards, where if you register for, say $500 worth of kitchenaid, then you get a free gift (worth about $30-$50). It doesn't matter if no one buys that stuff for you, as long as it's in your registry. how awesome is that? so Fiance went a little crazy with the scanner gun. I was trying to be logical and pick only things we needed and Fiance was like, "is calphalon on the list? yes?" scan scan scan scan scan. "babe we don't need $1500 worth of all-clad cookware" "but we get a free engraved skillet!" "do we really need a skillet with our names and wedding date on it?" "hell yeah if it's free!" oh dear! it was so so fun though. I also signed up for a macy's credit card. because anytime someone buys off our registry, MY card gets like 5% rewards. we're supposed to wait on bedding, towels and luggage since the styles are seasonal and what's out now won't be available once the wedding date rolls around. we definitely need to do some editing down as well...those scanner guns are too addicting.

the playlist is coming along nicely. and we looked at some suits and shoes for Fiance.

I'm kind of having internet withdrawals. trekking to the coffee shop for an hour a couple times a week is not nearly enough time to get everything done. we'll see how much longer i last.