Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
So now that I have purchased my wedding dress, I have been starting to think about the other elements of my bridal look: makeup, jewelry, bouquet, the works. Each of these can (and probably will) be dealt with in their own posts, but for now I want to talk about one particular aspect that both excites and scares me: hair.
Like most brides, how I’m going to wear my hair on my wedding day is a very important decision. Since getting engaged, I have refused to cut my hair. Even though I prefer it shorter (about shoulder length), I’m afraid a cut will limit my options for my wedding-day hairstyle. I’m now at the point where I need to go in for a little trim, but I’m still a bit terrified they’ll take too much off.
Right now, I’m still undecided about what exactly I’m going for. I know it will be something curly or at least wavy because my hair is naturally pretty curly and holds curls really well.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
…and they look fabulous! Even better than I had expected. I am so happy with how they turned out, and I’m thankful that they were so easy to personalize and order. If any of you ever need any save the dates or invitations or anything, I highly recommend Wedding Paper Divas.
Here are just a few snapshots to give you a sense of how they look.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
So now that Mr. Parasol and I have a wedding date and I am very close to finishing graduate school altogether, I can actually start thinking about and working on my ever-increasing list of DIY wedding projects. Like many brides, I like the idea of creating things for our wedding myself. That way, everything will be much more personal and actually encapsulate what I envision for our wedding (which I’m still trying to work out on a daily basis). Plus, DIY projects generally have the added bonus of saving a lot of money.
My first wedding project was really only semi-DIY. Originally, I had wanted to make our save the dates from scratch, but school and work and the like were so crazy that I just didn’t have time. Thankfully, I found an awesome site, Wedding Paper Divas, that has a lot of wonderful save-the-date templates that are very easy to personalize. Our save the dates should be here any day now, and I cannot wait to see them! I can only image they look even more amazing in person.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
Well, hive, I did it. I went wedding-dress shopping, and guess what? I survived.
OK, wedding-dress shopping was not nearly as bad as I had expected. I’d even go so far as to say that I actually enjoyed it! More than anything, I feel relieved that the process isn’t foreign anymore. And it’s certainly not scary at all. It’s actually pretty exciting!
(I apologize in advance that I don’t have any pictures of me in the dresses. I know that some places don’t like you taking pictures of the dresses, and I was just too nervous to ask if I could snap a few photos.)
Before my official appointment at Kleinfeld (yes, the bridal salon from Say Yes to the Dress), I decided to check out a sample sale at Priscilla of Boston, whose dresses I absolutely love and have been eyeing for quite some time. Since getting engaged, this dress, Maeve, has been my favorite:
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
Mr. Parasol and I are now a couple months into our engagement, and we have done absolutely no wedding planning. We haven’t set a date, researched any vendors, or even decided what we want for our big day. To be fair, we intentionally put off any definitive wedding planning because we want to savor the joy of simply being engaged without all the stress of planning.
We still aren’t totally certain we want to have a wedding anyway, and given that Mr. Parasol and I have so much on our plates right now, we barely have time to think about planning a wedding. We are both finishing up our graduate degrees, deciding where Mr. Parasol will go to law school in the fall, and coordinating another relocation. Needless to say, wedding planning is the furthest thing from our minds.
But even though planning for our wedding isn’t a top priority, Mr. Parasol and I do take planning for our marriage very seriously. We are blessed to attend The Journey, an amazing church community in New York that offers engaged couples a 12-week course to help prepare them for marriage. And no, it’s nothing like the crazy premarital counseling Robin Williams forces on Mandy Moore and John Krasinski in License to Wed.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
So in Part I of the Story of Us, I told you all about how Mr. Parasol finally got me to go out with him and a little bit about our relationship. Now I want to share the over-the-moon amazing proposal he surprised me with on our three-year anniversary.
By this time, we had been living in New York City for about a year and a half and were getting close to finishing up our master’s degrees. Anyway, on Friday December 17th, 2010, I came home after taking my last final of the semester and working a long shift. I was exhausted, hungry, and looking forward to a relaxing evening at home. As I approached my door, though, I spotted a note. It was from Mr. Parasol, and the note said that in honor of our three-year anniversary on December 19th, he would be showering me with surprises for the next three days. The note also contained a clue to the first surprise, but I was so tired I didn’t have a chance at figuring it out. But even though I was exhausted, that note instantly lifted my spirits, and I found myself incredibly excited (and anxious!) to experience all that Mr. Parasol had planned for us.
When I walked in the door, I saw that Mr. Parasol had prepared a beautiful dinner for us that consisted of some of my favorite foods and a delicious bottle of apple wine.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
I’m sure that many of you are still pretty curious about us Parasols (and, honestly, I’m thrilled that anyone is even remotely interested in us), and so I thought I would start by sharing the story of how we met and fell in love.
In summer 2007, I was a studious English major at UC Berkeley who spent most of her free time having random adventures with her girlfriends.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
Hey, hive! I’m Miss Parasol, and I am beyond ecstatic to be introducing myself to you today! I’ve imagined writing this post so many times before, but even now I still can’t believe that I’m actually here. I’m a beeeee!
I received the news from Pengy at the end of a jam-packed wedding day. Mr. Parasol and I got some pretty awesome wedding gifts in the mail, as well as the paper and envelopes for our wedding invitations. We also bought the last few remaining items for his wedding-day suit—a sharp white dress shirt and a fantastic tie—and then I had my first dress fitting! It was quite the day, and by the end of it I was feeling pretty accomplished wedding-wise, but also a little exhausted. I came back home, slipped out of my Spanx and into some comfy pants, and decided to relax and check my email. I noticed one particular email from an unfamiliar address, and even though I should have been suspicious because I was expecting a response about my Weddingbee application, it didn’t even cross my mind that this could be THE email. I started slowly skimming the email, but I don’t think I even made it past the first sentence before I snapped out of my stupor. The next moment, I jumped up from my bed and ran downstairs to find Mr. Parasol, all the while screaming, “I’m a bee! I’m a bee!”
Do you think I’m excited? Yeah, I’m pretty darn excited.
Mrs. Parasol, San Ramon, CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 25, Non-profit writer, editor, and bloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Law school studentEngagement Date: December 19th, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Bent Creek Winery (Livermore, California); Reception: Family Residence (San Ramon, California) About Me: I am a California girl at heart. I love the outdoors, sunny days at the beach, and hiking in the woods and mountains. I also love good books and am fresh from completing my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature in New York City. Living in NYC was an amazing experience, and while I'm glad to be back on the West Coast, I'm also thankful that my two years back East gave me an opportunity to explore new places, make new friends, and indulge my passion for Broadway shows. Oh, and I received a pretty awesome proposal from Mr. Parasol in Central Park. Above all else, Mr. Parasol is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend. But even though I'm thrilled to be marrying him, I wasn't always totally on board with this whole wedding thing and at first, I wanted to run off and elope. I've finally been convinced to throw the wedding I never thought I wanted, and so now I'm busy planning an intimate September wedding filled with DIY details. Along the way, I'm slowly learning to appreciate, perhaps even love the wedding planning process.
Unique Wedding Favors
