blooming

there may be hope for my flower dilemmas after all! My mom has been diligent in her research and found a local florist that does DIY flower services. Her website also lists prices in plain sight. It's seriously so genius, so helpful and refreshing. Monique Wilber at A Special Day Designs will provide bulk flowers that you can arrange yourself. The advantage to ordering through her versus the online places is that she has relationships with local growers and gets better deals, plus she will go through taking care of the flowers, hydrating them, etc and delivering them on the day of. So no surprise dead or wilted flowers in a box to deal with. Just a professional with tips and supplies.

(an inspiration board by Monique that I particularly loved: succulent, lavender, lotus pods and burlap! via aspecialdaydesigns blog)

If her pricing is in our ballpark I'm thinking we'd have her make the bouquets, because that seems to be the most time consuming and she knows how to arrange and wrap flowers at their prime so they last a long time. (She also offers different size bouquets for different prices). Then the reception flowers can just be in bulk and I'll have some friends toss those into miscellaneous buckets and vases.

Honestly I'm surprised I haven't heard of other florists doing this. Trying to help save their clients money. I'll keep you updated when my mom gets a hold of her.

love

Fiance and I currently live 70 miles apart. it sucks. We have lived 70 miles apart for nearly 4 years now. It's hard to believe. Two different cities, two different counties for that matter. When we first met in high school, we lived 10 miles apart. We saw each other just about every day. We're not much of phone conversation people. While we do talk every day, it rarely lasts more than 5 minutes. Just a quick update, more to hear each other's voices and say our "i love you's" than anything else. Our relationship works best when we are together, in person. enter difficulty with long distance. Despite the distance, and LA traffic and out of control gas prices we have seen each other at least once a week almost every week since we moved here in 2006. It was a necessary sacrifice for our relationship to work. The longest we have gone without seeing each other was 2 months while I was studying abroad in Europe.

Have you ever read The Five Love Languages? Fiance and I read through it as part of our own personal marriage prep and both loved it. To summarize, Gary Chapman explains that there are 5 different love languages, or ways that we perceive love: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Quality Time, Physical Touch and Gifts. Each of us speaks a different love language, and when someone else speaks the same language we feel most loved. If your language is gifts, you feel most loved when you receive gifts, big or small lavish or simple, it's the thought that counts. The difficulty comes when we speak different love languages. If you are gifts but your partner is words, you will want to give them gifts to show you love them, when they really just need words. It doesn't mean you will be unsuccessful in your relationship or shouldn't be together but it can cause underlying misunderstandings and tension. The book tries to teach us how to speak each other's languages. That loving someone the way they need to be loved may not come naturally. There's a quiz at the end to determine each of your languages.

Mine is Quality Time, which translates into, well obviously spending time together. Undivided attention.  Followed closely by Physical Touch, this translates into needing time together, in person, hugs, holding hands, etc. Thus the long distance makes things difficult. I think most of our fights result from the simple frustration that we can't see each other every day. Fiance's number one is physical touch and so the concept of me needing just simple quality time is less intuitive for him. In depth conversation, and wanting to go places to have experiences with him are important to me but it's difficult for him because he just wants to snuggle on the couch at home and watch movies. Just having this understanding makes things a little bit easier.

You know one thing I'm really really looking forward to in marriage? Being able to see him every day. Knowing he'll be there at the end of the day. Being able to talk to him in person when I have a crap day and not have to cry to him on the phone and then try to go to sleep alone in my house. Having done the semi-long distance thing, it is not something I will take for granted. While I definitely like and need my occasional alone time, it'll be nice to know he's waiting to eat with me and make me laugh until I can't breathe.

prettiness

you have to go check out Meg's new a practical wedding site launch. She has been very instrumental in getting the whole planning thing off to a good start and helping fiance and I get our heads in the right place. The new site is super organized (a lady after my own heart) and easy to navigate. Right now I have a bunch of her old posts bookmarked so they'd be at my fingertips, but it's been getting out of control, her new drop down tabs are perfect. Definitely check out the wedding graduates, ladies who have come out the other side and impart their wisdom. Also the reclaiming wife section and talking about about life after the wedding day, because that's the whole freaking point of getting married.

=DDDDDDDD

So Fiance and I received some super exciting honeymoon related news this week. I won't jump the gun until we figure out the details, but let's just say we have a lot more options than we originally were planning for.

Now to try and study instead of researching honeymoons...that is the difficulty.

sundays

sunday suppers just posted a teaser shot for a brunch they did last month. Those flowers match my vision quite nicely. I can't wait to see the rest!

yay!

So we have a winner. Church #2. Granted we can actually get ahold of them (I've been having issues with all sorts of people and places not returning phone calls lately. grrr), it's simply...well simple. i won't say perfect. but I love it.

I am a small person, even in the middle of the street I couldn't get far back enough for a good shot, but you get the idea. Say hello to fiance! =D

Just look at that lovely red brick. (I have a secret love for brick) It's 150 years old. Only 10 miles from the reception site, and close to the freeway. But if people so choose, there's also a very easy scenic route they can take. We haven't seen the inside (it was locked) but I'm going to optimistically assume that it has the same character as the outside and has been kept in just a good condition. It was hiding, just off a main "old town" street. Most of the buildings in the area are gold rush era. The church is on a super quiet, quaint little street (thanks to one end being blocked off from a main thoroughfare. must notify guests of this because google maps was not aware) surrounded by giant victorian homes.

AND just one block down is a fantastic chicago style pizza place that fiance and I love, which we're thinking would make an excellent spot for the rehearsal dinner. The decor is quite classy, moody lighting, brick walls (i know!), downtown chicago city-like feel inside.

Now our guests can choose a more historical locale to stay and visit, there are lots of lovely shops and restaurants and hotels right by the church, or they can stay in a more modern area by the reception site.

Also, I read a review of the church online and this lady said they got to use the church for FREE! We will definitely make a donation to the church since it's a historical landmark and all, but it definitely won't be anywhere close to the $750 requested by the other church.

So my momma is taking over as contact point since we are no longer in the area, and she can go visit the inside. She will use her jedi mind trick powers of negotiation. Seriously she's brilliant. I had a car disaster last year and so when we went to buy a used car last june, she talked the salesman down to 2/3 of the asking price! She can convince people to do just about anything.

the royal

So I know the whole "typewriter as a guest book" thing is SO overdone. But hear me out. This is one "trend" that feels legitimately genuine to fiance and I.

(via snippet and ink)

First, fiance is a writer. Struggling screenwriter to be exact. Although screenplays are typed on computers now, they still use typewriter font, i.e. courier new. Since we're designing our invites I'm planning to incorporate a typewriter style font (dafont has some great inky vintage-y ones for free). And fiance's thesis for film school graduation (which he wrote, directed and had a cameo in) was called "The Royal" and featured a bright red Royal typewriter used by the main character (proud fiancee shameless plug). He owns both that red typewriter and a light blue Royal as well.

 (photo by connor gustus)

He thinks it's a great idea for the guestbook. It also goes with our vintage edge. It's interactive for the guests (a throwback for the less tech savvy, and funny to watch those smartphone lovers pound out the keys). It'll be easy to throw the pages together and have them bound.

(via vintage glam, now known as ruffled)

(via oncewed)