skip to main |
skip to sidebar
my first thoughts on the idea of a rehearsal and dinner were along the lines of: no. no, no. no! why? no way! we don't need one!!?!?!
originally, we were not going to have a wedding party at all (other than a best person or two), but i warmed to the idea of a flower girl and ring boy. which means we are actually at a point where we could have something to rehearse, if our venue allowed it.
a few days ago i heard from loop (our site manager and all around helpful guy) that we could pencil in a one hour rehearsal at the marvimon. it wouldn't be set in stone and we won't know until the week before if we have the space, but it's better than nothing. and there is no charge from marvimon for this use, which made me happy.
so i went about mulling over the whole escapade and decided we might as well go for it! if we have fifty or so guests flying in from around the country, it will be nice to be able to spend friday evening with them as well.
to keep costs down, and stress to a minimum, we are having the dinner in my neighbors' large backyard. we are thinking israeli or indian food buffet style.. some summery drinks, minimum decor. small personal details to make the night memorable.
ike totally agrees.
planning our wedding has been bizarre.once we told people we were getting married, the questions started rolling in. when? where? what are your COLORS?! what does your dress look like?!?!? all of these questions lead me into a panic, and we are only a month into planning (yet less than eight months away). my mind is a roller coaster of ideas. none of those ideas are color-related. very few of those ideas are dress-related. i am thinking about food, music, decor, food, vows, food and.. cake (food..).
when i saw a simple dress i thought looked nice, i bookmarked it. a few days later i went back to analyze and realized it was a j.crew dress. never being a j.crew type of person, i was a bit surprised, but i still went back a few times to look at their dresses. on a particularly hard day, a long, long time ago (last monday) i was feeling sick/sad about wedding planning and decided to just buy the dresses (yes, two).
i regretted it a bit later, realizing i probably want something a tad more unique, a little bit more rock and roll, more me. finally decided (with a bit of help from g) to cancel the order. i was actually lucky that the dresses were on back order in my size and color. they wouldn't have shipped for a while anyway.
the dress that did arrive yesterday, and that i do love, is the free people dress. once i figure out how to work the new fancy-camera-early-birthday-gift, i will perhaps post some pictures.
the shirt i ordered for b (for the engagement photo shoot) from penelope's is permanently out of stock, so they let me cancel the order. i googled around and the shirt happens to be out of stock everywhere, except in a not-as-awesome gray checked pattern. instead we bought these:
one of them will be our winner. i can feel it.
in short: still trying to put all of my ideas together. still trying to figure out the style/feeling/colors/theme junk. still not a j.crew girl. still focusing on what i can have fun with: engagement pictures with our lovely and talented photographer in exactly three weeks!
xo
mm
it's no secret that b and i follow the dave ramsey plan for "financial fitness." yes, as nerdy as that sounds, we have a workout plan for our money. we stumbled upon dave almost a year ago, and it has been smooth budget sailing ever since.
when the topic of wedding budgets came up, the first thing we did was go into our 'total money makeover' account and try to make a budget page for weddings. let me be the one to tell you, do not try this. it will not work. we also tried the knot budget system, the martha stewart budget system and every other wedding budget system that google could find for me. none of them worked, and most were depressing. we should spend $2500 on my gown but only $1500 for our venue, based on our total budget?!
currently i am just using a simple spreadsheet. it's plain, it's easy, it works right now. hopefully b will soon work some magic and make it come alive for me. i am trying to ignore all of those percentages i saw earlier, and just work around what we have.
deposits have been sent to: the venue, the photographer, the valet service, the site manager and the day of coordinator. it makes me so happy each time i get to mail something out and know that it is one less thing to stress about.
one of the dresses i ordered arrived. it's a keeper. two others will not be arriving at all. more on this later!
i have had three wedding related nightmares in the past week. i need to calm down and stop reading so many wedding blogs. it's too much pressure!
(having the day off from work is lovely..!)
for many long months before our actual engagement, B and i talked about marriage. what it means to us, how it would change our relationship, and if it was something we wanted to tackle. obviously we came to a decision on that one. but for all of those days and weeks i had many hours to daydream about OPW, aka OUR PERFECT WEDDING. being a preschool teacher, i have a lot of time to daydream at work while the kids are napping!
early in the fall, my pilates partner mentioned she had been at an amazing wedding in downtown L.A. it was a unique loft space with an indoor/outdoor feel. i looked up the venue, bookmarked it, showed it to B and tried not to think about it too much, as it seemed a tad on the way-too-expensive side.all this boils down to is that, when the engagement happened, i was prepared. i had read the blogs, the message boards, the journals. and i knew what i wanted. basically: a local venue (very important), that will let me bring in my own food/drinks (not budging on this one), that has space for a ceremony and reception (i don't want to drive in between the two), and that has an indoor space and an outdoor area. as much as i love woodsy places, i really wanted to go as local as possible, and east l.a. isn't exactly known for it's woods (or IS it?).
the marvimon met all of these requirements! and it has a show kitchen! i did spend some time researching other venues, but the places that let you bring your own food didn't have any green things growing, and the pretty hotels downtown made you use their in-house catering (in-house catering never specializes in vegan cuisine..) and i am not a big beach person and i want a late night party so running into the forest is out and whineee whineee whine.
we made an appointment, met with the owners, picked a date and now it's really happening. i feel blessed to be able to work with completely local vendors (all vegan food sourced within 400 miles? score!), and we can have an outdoor ceremony and a rocking party inside.
you can see some lovely photos of the marvimon house here at apartment therapy.
one day i will figure out how to place and source pictures on a blog. until then..
xo
mm
ok, ok, this one isn't exactly a project. at least not for me. although it was somewhat of a project for B, and he even projected it (get it?!) onto every single person i know. meaning: everyone in my life knew about the proposal before it happened, and NO ONE told me! hard to imagine no one ruined the surprise.
the lowdown: it was a freezing, cloudy, early, early (EARLY!) morning. we had just arrived in the bay area the night before and B convinced me to get up early for some "sight seeing." how he got me to agree to this, i will never know. i grew up in the bay area, have lived there most of my life in fact, so there are very few sights left that i haven't already seen many times. i think i felt bad that he had never walked across the golden gate and said "let's go!"
we arrive. it's drizzling, no one is around, we start walking. pointing out everything (including crisis hot line plaques) to each other and laughing. B seemed nervous, i didn't think much of it at the time. we got halfway across the bridge, taking pictures the whole time. and then he got down on one knee and popped the question. i think my initial reaction was "why didn't you tell me!" followed by "yes!" immediately followed by tears and a guy riding slowly by on his bike, turning around, and riding back again. mysterious. then it snowed (well, flurried). it was wonderful! and amazing! and freezing! we walked back to the gift shop, bought a tiny bridge pin, and then B told me that i had to call our good friend G, as she was expecting a call. which is how i found out that everyone already knew. what if i had said no?!
he would have had a lot of explaining to do.
xo
mm
a very good place to start.
hello! i am megan marie, a twenty-five year old bride-to-be living in sunny los angeles, california. i will be going full force into wedding project mode, and this is the perfect place to document with photos, give and get tips, and have fun.
jumping on the blogging bandwagon has never felt so good!
xo
mm
ike totally agrees.
