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Call it stress, hormones, aging, or whatever, but my skin has been freaking out lately. Overall I have to say I’ve been blessed with good skin. I never had terrible acne as a teenager. If anything, it is worse now than it was back then. However, sometimes my skin will be great, and then suddenly it just switches personalities and starts to break out, get bumps, dry spots, or is just icky. My skin is very sensitive to my stress levels, that time of the month, and weather changes.
I’ve been following all of Lo’s posts, but I paid close attention to her recent post on Recession Proof Skincare. Over the years I’ve splurged on different products from Clinique, Laura Mercier, and a few others. However, lately as we budget for getting married, the extra money just is not there for some products I’ve relied on in the past. Lo’s post was a lifesaver, as I trusted her to recommend some great products that wouldn’t break the bank, and I could buy more than one product without feeling like I needed to only eat bread and water for a week to make up for it. I’ve decided to look at it from the perspective that I really need to step my skincare up a notch to make a deposit in my skin for many years to come. And of course, I want that beautiful bridal glow on my wedding day!
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Who wants to hang out with our newest bee, Miss Frenchie and me??? It is kind of last minute, but we wanted to see if anyone could join us. We are going to be eating some delicious Mexican food. Chips and guac… yum!!
We are meeting this Wednesday (April 29th) at 5:15PM at Avila’s El Ranchito in Laguna Niguel.
Address:
27941 La Paz Rd. Suite E.
Laguna Niguel, CA
Comment below if you think you can make it!
Well, after my last post about wooden details, I happened to come across a few more inspirational pictures I had to share with you all. You probably are all thinking I’m crazy, but I thought a few of you might appreciate a little bit more inspiration.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Joey, Miss Burgundy, Boddy, and Rachael in San Diego. We had so much fun talking and laughing while enjoying some delicious desserts. Although I have to admit, we probably sounded pretty funny to anyone listening to our conversation. “Lemonade is getting married this weekend. Oh, did you see Deviled Egg’s cake? Cupcake’s recaps have been great.” It may have sounded like we were crazy, but at the same time, I loved being able to be with a group of people who read Weddingbee just as much as I do, and knew exactly what I was talking about!
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
In order to keep up with the huge list of blogs I read, I use Google Reader. All of the newest posts are delivered straight to my reader, and it’s easy to keep track of them. I hesitated to start Google Reader, but now I love it, aside from the fact than it’s harder to comment all the time now. I’ll often “star” my favorites for inspiration, tutorials, or just useful information. As I went through my “starred items” the other day, I began to notice a certain theme in some of the posts. Lately I’ve just been loving any sort of wooden detail. There is just this rustic charm to using wood slices, branches, and signs throughout the wedding.
Here are some of the wooden details that have caught my attention lately.
It would be so unique to use wood slice platters during your cocktail hour.
Who is ready for delicious desserts with some fabulous hive members, Miss Joey, and me??? This Friday is the San Diego Meet Up, and I am so excited! And if that doesn’t sound tempting, look at this sampling of desserts from the tarts and pies menu!
We will be meeting on Friday, April 17th at 8:00pm at Extraordinary Desserts in Balboa Park.
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Well, we have officially booked our honeymoon, and I am so excited! As I’ve mentioned before, we have been looking forward to the honeymoon for a while. It will be my first real break after finishing graduate school, and will be the first time that we will have time away and will have nothing to worry about. With that in mind, we really wanted to go somewhere that was beautiful, where we could relax, and still have lots of options if we wanted to go do something.
Well, our criteria brought us to Hanalei Bay Resort on the North Shore of Kauai. We love Kauai because it is so beautiful and is not overly populated or developed. Now what’s the “scoop”? I want to share the awesome deal we found, and hopefully it will help if you are also planning a honeymoon on a budget. But first, I have to share the view from our shower!!
Yes this is the view from the shower alone! Amazing! And don’t worry, it’s not a full exposure window, but you can make it fog, so people can’t see in and think they are getting a show! Ha ha. Anyways, I just thought that it was funny that the shower has such a great view!
After leaving Pepperdine (go here for Part I if you are just catching up), we headed to an awesome beach spot that Mike knew about. We definitely hiked down a small cliff to get to it, but I think it was well worth it. The day was coming to an end, and the gentle lighting just was perfect for the beautiful setting.
All Photo Credits go to Mike Larson Photography
Where have I been? Well, things have just been crazy, and I have lots of posts to catch up on. I’m two weeks away from finishing my last semester of my graduate program! However, the first thing I absolutely have to share with you are the engagement pictures! I last left off telling you about the wonderful makeup advice from Lo.
After getting ready, we jumped in the car and headed up to LA to meet our photographer, Mike Larson, and his wife Rachel (Remember when I talked about them way back when?). Mike and his team had just gotten back from Costa Rica a few days before and spent the whole weekend shooting a wedding in LA, but were willing to spend the afternoon with us shooting our pictures. Mike was taking pictures, assisted by Chloe, who is one of the associate photographers. We originally were going to start shooting at the Getty Museum, but the place was packed, so we started heading towards the coast.
Mr. Ducky and I met at Pepperdine during our undergrad years, so it made sense that we’d return to our beautiful campus for some engagement pictures. We have so many memories from this place and we felt like having pictures taken there would give them extra meaning.
We started off in a little patch of wildflowers that overlooks the campus. Mike warned us that we would feel super awkward for the first five minutes, but then it would be okay. Well, he was definitely right. We just giggled awkwardly for the first five minutes and slowly relaxed with the fabulous coaching and encouragement from Chloe.
All photo credits are to Mike Larson Photography
The week before I took my engagement pictures, all of a sudden I started worrying about my makeup. On a daily basis my makeup is pretty natural, and knowing that I was going to be taking pictures, I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to look washed out, shiny, or so made-up that it wasn’t me. Hiring someone to do it for me was out of budget, and I didn’t want to take my chances at a random makeup counter at the mall.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been loving Weddingbee PRO and all the vendor tips and insights. Laura Nadeau has been one of my favorites, as I’ve been slowly accumulating a product wish list from all of her incredible posts. Well, since Laura is in New York and I’m in California, it wasn’t exactly a possibility to have her do my makeup or for me to visit her studio. So, I instead left a comment on one of her posts asking for tips, and she replied with an email asking for a picture, what I wear daily, and the look I wanted to achieve. I was thrilled when she sent me the email, and immediately sent her a breakdown of all the information. Check out her post here to see what my email said.
A few days later I opened my inbox and found an email from Lo, also posted on her blog, telling me step by step what to buy, what to do, and some general tips.
Miss Duckling,
You are a beautiful woman and I think that with a few changes in your makeup routine we can easily make you even more photogenic! If you think of your makeup like your wardrobe, then I would say you have all of the classics. Now, we’ll just fine-tune it with the proper accessories, and I’ll show you how to dress up your look!
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Attention all San Diego hive members, and anyone else who is willing to drive! Miss Joey is going to be in town for the weekend, so we are having a meet up in San Diego!! Miss Joey and I will both be there, along with some of our fabulous hive members.
We will be meeting on Friday, April 17th at 8:00 PM at Extraordinary Desserts in Balboa Park. If you haven’t been there, they have some absolutely incredible desserts. Just look at this picture!!
I took this picture from their website…isn’t it making you hungry?
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I grew up in San Diego and absolutely love it. Even though I am currently living in Orange County, I am hoping that one day we will be able to return to San Diego. To be honest, there are so many thoughts that come to mind for a honeymoon in my hometown, that it has taken me a while to put everything together. San Diego is beautiful all year, so you can come and enjoy it anytime. Obviously for those that love the beach, summer is the best for that. If you are planning on coming here for your honeymoon you could either play tourist and see all the sights or choose to cozy up in romantic restaurants, spas and relaxing scenery. San Diego is very big, so I think I’m going to divide it up by general areas and things to do.
Downtown San Diego (also includes the Gaslamp district)
I recently went shopping with my two Maids of Honor for bridesmaid dresses. I wanted to find dresses that were cute and flattering, and something that the girls woudl be able to wear again. I wasn’t looking for a standard looking bridesmaid dress. Most importantly, the dress had to be affordable. My first choice was a cornflower blue dress, or a gray dress if we couldn’t find something in blue. Because I feel like “bridesmaid” dresses are often expensive because they are made for bridesmaids, we decided to start our search in the mall. We found a few dresses that either were the wrong shade of blue, were too expensive, had lots of beading, or just weren’t very cute on.
Heading to store after store began to get tiring, but we finally made our way into Banana Republic. We found a gray dress that looked kind of interesting on the hanger and decided to give it a try. As soon as I saw it on both MOHs, we all loved it. The dress looked beautiful on both of them!
The dress was $150, which was within our goal of being under $200. We didn’t purchase the dresses right then and there because Banana Republic often has sales, so I was going to go home and check my membership information to see if there was an upcoming sale. Sure enough, I found out that this last weekend was friends and family weekend, which made everything 30% off. And with my membership I got an additional 10% off, making the dresses 40% off, and under $100!! Woo hoo!
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We haven’t had too much conflict over wedding planning issues. Some questions have come up, but we usually resolve them quickly and reach a happy compromise. However, there is the one thing that has continually come up and always ends in a disagreement. Part of me feels so silly for sharing this, but if anyone can relate, or it helps someone, then it’s worth posting.
Our great debate is over what to do for the music during the reception. I know many bees (Mrs. Bell Pepper and others) have pondered this same issue and I’ve seen it discussed on the boards. Even after reading many of these discussions, we still can’t decide. Recently we’ve just put the decision off, but we are getting to the point that we really need to book the DJ now, if we go that route.
Ready for the arguments? Just kidding, but I’ll break down the reasoning and issues we are going back and forth with.
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As I relax and recover this week, I’m hoping to get some wedding stuff done, since I don’t sit still too well. The first big thing that needs to get out are our save the dates. I had originally hoped to have these out in the mail in January or February, however with all the medical stuff going on, that has just not happened. We just booked our engagement session for a few weeks from now and I want to use those pictures for the save the dates.
To make things a little easier on the production, and to save money on postage, we decided we should do postcards. I want to work on our graphic design with Mr. Ducky so that once we have our pictures, all we have to do is drop the image in and send them off for printing. Mr. Ducky is working, so I will be on my own using Photoshop during the day, which will be interesting. 
Here are some save the date postcards I’ve seen that are inspiring me as I think about what to do.
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Mrs. Duckling, San Diego Age and Occupation: 23, Psychology Grad Student, Youth Diversion Specialist/Marriage and Family Therapy Trainee and an Executive Assistant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Marketing and PR Coordinator Engagement Date: May 17, 2008 Wedding Date: September 2009 Venue: Rancho Bernardo Inn About Me: I'm currently living in Orange County, but planning our wedding in my hometown of San Diego. We are a DIY wedding "2fer", as I'm the crafty one and Mr. Ducky is in charge of all of our graphic design and technical aspects. When not wedding planning or reading wedding blogs, I'm attending grad school and rotating between two different jobs to keep things exciting. My favorite things include shoes, Post-Its, Labrador Retrievers, traveling, psychology, delicious food, photography, reading, craft gadgets/supplies, and of course, my wonderful Mr. Ducky!
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