Blues and greens?

I think I'm leaning towards having blue and green be my colors, with accents of orange.... here are some looks i love....

Wedding coordinator blues

So, my mom insisted we hire a wedding coordinator, since we're doing the wedding in San Diego, and I live in L.A., but we hired the first one we spoke with and now I'm really wishing I had shopped around, or at least interviewed a few others. Turns out my coordinator usually deals with only higher end weddings, and has suggested an estimated budget for us at....$58,800!!!!! For 150 people! We're by no means wealthy, and I couldn't imagine spending a down payment for a home on a one day wedding! She's trying to tell me that paying anything less than 6500 for a photographer comprimises "quality," and that we can go lower than 4500 for flowers, but we'd be looking pretty sparse. Come on! I work in production! I wasn't born yesterday, and I know how to finagle a deal or two! And more specifically, when we hired her, I told her I wanted her to think party, not wedding. So, for those of you that in the market for a coordinator, I would suggest asking the following questions:

What is the average budget of the weddings you plan?

Do you have vendors to reccomend that fall in a variety of price ranges?

Do you think you can still acheive an amazing event despite any budget limitations?

Those are three questions I wish I would have asked before I signed her contract. Now I'm not sure if we're stuck, or if I should figure out how to cut our losses and hire someone else!

Did any of you have problems or concerns with a coordinator? Are there any other questions you might ask before hiring one on?

Photo booth fun!

I am really excited about having a photo booth at the wedding! It will be a great way for people to have their own keepsakes, and also to have fun imprompotu photos for our guestbook! I'm thinking of using these guys, Red Cheese photo booth, because they give you two copies (so your friends won't steal the ones intended for your guest book!)

I registered!

Sorry the posts have been sporatic! I shoot on fridays, and this weekend i was computerless-- my dear old mac is in the shop and they're back-logged so i'm out a home computer for a week!

So, I started our first registration at Crate and Barrell, I think we're also going to do Macy's and either Williams Sonoma or Z Gallerie, we thought about registering at Target, but we shop there ourselves all the time, and isn't the point of a registery for the sorts of nicer things you wouldn't be normaly buying yourself? I don't think I'll feel truly married until I have a cuisineart standing mixer and some crystal and china! I went to Crate and Barrel with my engaged best friend, and it was so much fun to have the scanner and run like crazy through the store! I didn't register for much since my fiance wasn't there, but I did pick out some cookbooks and great kitchen stuff like cedar wood for bbqing and a french press!

Where did you decide to register? And how many places did you end up registering at? And in the end, what did you end up getting, keeping or taking back?

I love orchids!

I definitely want orchids everywhere!

Economical bridesmaids dresses

I'm trying to find some hot, fun, funky dresses for my super stylish ladies, but everything I'm finding is waaaaaaaaaay out of what I think is an appropriate price range! I've been in a few weddings where we just found material and got dresses made, but that can be a hit or miss depending on the dress-maker. I also don't want the girls spending tons of money on something that they may never wear again. How much do you think is too much to ask your girls to spend on dresses? And have you ever been in a wedding that you actually wore the dress again?

Asking your bridesmaids

I've already asked most of my bridesmaids to be in my wedding just over the phone, but I just ordered the cutest "Will you be my bridsmaid?" cards to send out as an official invitation, but also I would love to include the story of our friendship and why they are so special to me. The cards are adorable, it says "Will you be my bridesmaid? I promise not to make you wear an ugly dress!" I'll post a copy when I recieve them!

My fiance and I are trying to figure out what gifts to give to our wedding party, I'm definitley doing name necklaces for the girls (a la "Sex in the City" Carrie necklace) and we're thinking either cuff links for the guys or these flasks from Urban Outfitters that I found that have "El Boracho" engraved on them (which for those of you that don't speak spanish, means "the drunk," a completely appropriate gift for our groomsmen!)



What are some other unique gifts to give to a wedding party?

Double the fun...two brides and two weddings!

My best friend Stacey got engaged a week before me, our fiance's are really close as well, but they didn't tell each other that they were going to ask us, so it was a fun surprise to discover that we had two weddings to plan! Stacey is getting married January 13th in Palm Springs, and we're both in each others weddings. Its been a little strange planning, because we both like the same things, but we both want to ensure that both our weddings are unique, since we have a lot of the same friends that will be attending both. We spaced it out so that neither of us will steal the others thunder...but its been so fun to have someone to bounce ideas off of and talk non-stop about the wedding with. We drove across country at the end of the summer and spent over 40 hours discussing the weddings, and we still didn't cover it all. It's actually been a relief for our fiances, because now we don't bug them nearly as much as we could, and its great to have someone to go to bridal shows and dress stores with, and spend hours looking at fabric and discussing flowers and reading magazines! And right now, all four of us are living together in a compound of a 2 bedroom house and a 1 bedroom studio, so Stacey is constantly over for wedding tv show night. Did anybody else end up sharing their engagement and planning with another bride to be? Did it make the planning more fun or difficult?

I really am getting married...

I know this because my dear lovely wedding coordinator sent me a timeline. For the year. I'm getting married next June, but I now know exactly what I need to be doing every month until it happens. The Knot (a popular wedding website) also has a countdown clock till "the big day" and now I know that I have 255 days till THE day. Today, I really need to be working on my edit for my show, but instead, I'm researching wedding photographers online (since I have to meet with them, along with DJ's, either October 21 or 29th), reading wedding blogs, looking at bridesmaid dresses, and basically procrastinating. A coworker of mine got married last June, and she was telling me how crazy it is that this one day will be so all consuming until it happens-- which I already agree. I've been blowing hundreds of dollars on wedding magazines, and my tv schedule has been reduced to watching episodes of "Platinum Weddings," "Whose wedding is it anyway?" and whatever wedding movie is on HBO (Currently, "The Wedding Date") I even missed the series premiere of "Grey's Anatomy" and I LOVE that show! My coworker assured me that all my regular hobbies, and interests will come back as soon as the wedding is over...but I think I might begin to miss it a little. I haven't been this obsessed about anything since junior high (which at the time was Johnny Depp, River Phoenix, Guess jeans with the zippers at the ankles and anything Kero kero keroppi, in that order). And who, by the way, would have thought that skinny jeans would come back?

He proposed....and i said yes!

On Sunday, May 28th, my dear lovely wonderful boyfriend asked me to marry him! We got a room and the Viceroy and he spelled out "will you marry me" in tealight candles! It was a complete surprise, which is just the way I would have imagined it to be! So now I'm sure I'll be blogging about my road to the altar, we've been egaged a week and already the madness is happening ......more to come!

drunk boyfriend

My boyfriend is drunk and passed out on the floor next to the couch...I haven't vaccuumed in awhile so I hope that he's not breathing in too much cat hair. Sometimes I wonder what the hell we're still doing...but tommorrow he'll wake up and write me a song, or paint something amazing and once again i'll fall for the tortured artist apology speil...coltrane keeps meowing, and i want to play some records really loud, but its late and the loft is too echoey and i'm not drunk enough to not give a f-ck what the neighbors think...i had a long shoot today and i'm too tired for pajamas, i'm all out of wine (and I knew I should have bought some at Whole Foods last night) but oh shiat! I forgot I did buy some sake! Yay! I'll just drink that and read magazines...I miss my friends, they are either pregnant, new moms, or too far away to just meet up to cackle over martinis with....that is what I really love about my girlfriends, we don't laugh, we cackle, loud and obnoxiously, we feed eachother food at the bar, listen deeply, tell each other we love you at the end of every conversation, and hug and kiss and hold each other when its been awhile...

i'm 30 and 1/2...

half way to 31. And I haven't even been posting! Shame on me! I better begin to document my 30's a little better!