Weddingbee

I am semi-obsessed with the OOT bags already, even though I am months away from preparing them. I love the idea of sharing your favorite things with others, and I thought that a music CD would be a great way to do so. My car survives on mix CDs from friends, since my music collection is almost completely digital these days. In fact, almost all of the CDs in my car at the moment were gifts.

Yet, printing out all of the labels seemed a bit tedious and not so… well… pretty. And isn’t everything about your wedding supposed to be “pretty?”

I happened upon these via See Jane Work the other day:

See…pretty! Everyone would love to get one of these in their OOT bag and pop it into their CD player!

I’m happy to report that Mr. Lemon was highly successful in his mission and returned to Los Angeles feeling fulfilled from his journey. He had a rough start thanks to some puppy ills, but made his way up north in good time. He decided on a rehearsal dinner venue in Carmel, visited multiple florists and DJs, and managed to help my Dad with the wireless computer system all in one day. On his downtime he also got to bond with one of my brothers and my nephew (and ringbearer!) Gavin.

On Sunday, he met with the Catholic priest who has helped us with finding a deacon to officiate our ceremony. Fr. Roy treated Mr. Lemon to coffee and tea, and from the email I was cc’d on this morning, it looks like they got along quite well.

As for the tricks on how to turn your fiance into a wedding fanatic… I’m not sure what to say. This trip was prompted by a severe “Oh my gawd! I’m going crazy with this stuff!” freakout, and it was offered as genuine appeasement. Yet, he’s also the guy that completely vetoed my ceremony program design and was very insistent on the “no poufy dress!” rule. He’s very into the wedding and planning, but he always gets really excited about the things that I like. It’s worked so far for Disneyland and college football, next task is college basketball…

After sorting through all of my emails requests and plotting them into my spreadsheet, I came to the conclusion that I was not going to spend over $3000 on a photographer. So many fabulous photographers seemed to be around the $4000+ range, but their costs kept going up by not including taxes, engagement sessions, and requesting $500 plus a hotel stay to travel less than 2 hours for a wedding!

But once you set a limit, it’s much easier to narrow down your options. My three finalists were:

Misty Richmond
Archive Life Photography
Fiona Sarn

Fiona was the first to get back to me, and replied to my e-mails with complete exuberance and happy thoughts. Silly, I know, but incredibly appreciated by a fellow wacky girl. She shared passwords to the engagement and wedding sessions of a client, and honestly that sold it for me. I had seen other photographers who had captured great photos, but when you saw the entire shoot, there wasn’t a lot there. The simple engagement session I saw was taken inside the couple’s home, and it was one of the best portrait sessions I’d ever seen.

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I need to be under strict supervision whenever I enter a shopping area. After buying a long-sleeve shirt for my trip to Chicago this weekend, I decided to cut through Bloomingdale’s today on the way back to my car. I tried my darndest to make it through the cosmetics area unscathed, but alas, I wandered over to the skincare section to examine some products. (You see, my face has been the victim of stress and abuse lately, and it’s definitely looking worse for wear.)

It was then that my friendly nature worked against my bank account. I started up a conversation with the Rodan + Fields gals, and before I knew it, I was on my way out the door with this:

Created by the makers of PROACTIV, they have four kits available to treat different skin needs: UNBLEMISH (my choice), ANTI-AGE, REVERSE, REGIMIN-PLUS and SOOTHE. According to my new friends, PROACTIV was made for oily skin, and mine is far from oily. I bought the travel size 3-piece kit ($45) from them and they gave me a free terrycloth travel case and 2 samples of their microdermabrasion paste and an anti-aging face cream.

What really sold me though? The money-back guarantee and Allure rating! I’ll let you know how it goes in the next month!

Has anyone else ever tried the Rodan and Fields line?

GIRL POWER! I’ve always been a fan of all-girl groups: the Go-Go’s, the Spice Girls, Indigo Girls… and now my own little band of pals… my bridal party!

[Miss Lemon & Memphis, MOH Audrey, Meagan, Michelle, Nora and Gayle]

These are the noble souls who will be with me through thick and thin on that overly emotional day and dancing their hearts out at the end of that lovely night. They’ve eagerly volunteered to cut and glue along the way, and I’ll soon start handing out silly tasks for them to do when I get to the six-month crunch. Maybe we can even get Memphis to help out with some envelope licking!

[Images courtesy of Design-Her Girls]

Mr. Lemon is a brave and adventurous soul. While I’m enjoying a mother/daughter pilgrimage to the holyland of college football (Notre Dame), he’ll be on his own mission. By his own suggestion, he is driving up to Monterey this weekend to visit with florists, DJs and priests (oh my!) all by his lonesome self.

You see, Mr. Lemon is very excited about getting married, and he’s really into planning a wonderful event. While certain elements don’t excite him much, he’s very determined to contribute all that he can. I wholeheartedly trust his judgement in aesthetically pleasing florists - essentially he’s just scouting and getting some basic pricing for me to be able to narrow down the list of candidates.

As for DJs, well, he’s been working on our reception playlist for months and knows exactly what he wants in our master of ceremonies. And last but not least, he’s the Catholic one, so it’s only appropriate that he meets with the priest and the deacon to introduce himself to the church.

All of these wedding tasks are enough for him to take on in a weekend, but he’s signed himself up for one final encompassing challenge: my dad. That’s right, he volunteered to do some future father-in-law bonding all on his own! What a guy!

Has your fiance taken an active role in planning your wedding?

On our fourth date, I took Mr. Lemon for “dim sum and then some” at my faux-Chinese restaurant, Chin Chin. We started sharing stories at dinner and he reminisced about his picky food habits as a kid. To illustrate the story, he started to talk about a trip to Paris with his parents and his insistence upon eating McDonald’s on the Fourth of July. He started to remark about how horrible his request truly was, as it was his parent’s anniversary, when my mouth dropped to the ground in shock.

You see, we’d already shared a ridiculous number of these similarities in our earlier three dates (left knee surgery, former lives as costumed characters, public policy, etc.) and this one was just too silly to believe. MY parents were also married on July 4th… just five years after his parents wed. I’d yet to meet anyone who shared my parent’s anniversary, and most people just figured my family to be ridiculously patriotic because of it. In reality, for both sets of our parents, it was convenience. The church was free that day and everyone could make it to the wedding due to the holiday!

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The Internet has certainly opened up a huge sector of the wedding market that was once reserved only for special city folk. Instead of only allowing a privileged few access to amazing design and letterpress, the Internet now thrives with sharing the newest trends and ideas. I’m a sucker for them… just take WeddingBee, theKnot, etc. for proof!

As a DIY bride, I adore scouring for inspiration anywhere I can get it and figuring out how to reproduce it at home. I hate giving orders and am rarely satisfied with a product unless I sacrifice all control or retain all of it and do it myself. But my intellectual side is wondering if I’m being that creative or just snatching ideas from others…

Take for instance my first few pieces of wedding stationery. My Save the Date cards were inspired by a design on ifete.com.

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I had one distinct purpose in signing up for match.com: to get my friends out of their relationship funks. The singles scene was rapidly turning sour for them, and I wanted to expand their horizons to a new pool of eligible bachelors. With my one month membership, I set out to test the system and prove that there was hope in meeting a good partner online.

I had gone on two unsuccessful dates when Mr. Lemon’s message arrived in my inbox. It was simple and to the point, and boy it did the trick!

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Perhaps it was the fact that I had just returned from a ballet class, but when I received the news that I was going to be a WeddingBee blogger, I literally jumped for joy! Sadly, in my tiny little apartment (very NYC-ish in size), that poses an extreme risk to my physical health and I’m sure the bruises on my elbows and legs will reveal themselves in the next few days. Oh well… I’m a WeddingBeeFruit!

I’m going to take my duties as a representative from the Golden State quite seriously! Being raised on the central coast of California (remember BrotherBee’s trip earlier this year), and living my adult life in Los Angeles has created an interesting dual personality that reflects itself in my style preferences. I’m the girl who wears flip flops year round and adores sample sales in the fashion district but loves nothing more than sipping coffee in the morning fog and watching the waves crash on rocky shores. I’ll pledge from the start to do my best to try and unite NorCal and SoCal in wedded bliss!

I’m going to go and jump around some more!