When I first got engaged, I swept up any and all books with the words “marriage”, “bride” and “wedding” in the title. Now, almost a year later, I finally finished one of them.
The book is “Bride in Overdrive” by Jorie Green Mark - it’s a non-fiction book about her descent into wedding insanity, and how she came out of it unscathed. This book is hilarious!

One of the things that made me laugh out loud: after reading a few wedding magazines, she demanded that her father provide a budget for lobster as the main course. Oddly enough, she doesn’t even LIKE lobster, but hey, that’s what the magazines said (yes, she realizes her mistake). Another time, she and her fiance got into an altercation while registering for gifts - all things the magazines said she had to have. I can relate to that doubt that comes with reading magazines like that, because I myself felt the same way.
One of the major highlights of our wedding was the food. Not that I had too much of it, but people were raving all night long about the utter delicious-ness of absolutely everything. We used a caterer from LA called Savore. They were unbelievable to work with, full of amazing ideas and, the food was really over the top spectacular.
In truth, I had never been to a wedding before where the food was really good, so this was a new experience for me. My one major regret/complaint is that no one made us a doggie bag. You really do get so caught up in the evening, talking to everyone, and not wanting to mess up your lipstick (ok, at least I did), and by the time you turn around it’s all over. We got back to our hotel well after midnight (which was after they had stopped serving room service), and we were so hungry we had to make a run to a vending machine.

We came…we saw…we “I do’d.”
October 21 was a pretty magical day from start to finish (despite some major snafus). Yep…it went by in a flash. Yep…many things went wrong, but our wedding day was still more dreamy/fantastic/over the top/delicious/fun than I could have ever imagined. Here are the deets:
Our wedding was in Big Horn (a fancy shmancy community in Palm Desert, CA where my aunt, who threw our whole shindig, lives).
When it came to the planning process, I admit, I really stressed myself out and drove people around me crazy because I was so unorganized. Here are my wedding day imperfections:
1. In one of my close up detail pictures, there’s a shot of my nice pedicured foot in bronze sandals. That was not what I wore day of. I placed a special order for custom made 5″ heels on Shoes Usa. Their shoes are known for comfort despite having gravity defying heels. Days before the wedding, there was no UPS man with my wedding shoes, so I called the company and spoke to who I think was the owner. He said he would ship them out overnight (free of charge). I must’ve thank you’ed the man to death. The day before the wedding, still no shoes so I called and found out they were never shipped. At that point, I was freaking out. A guy there told me he was going to personally drop them off at the airport and have them shipped to Newark airport (35 minutes from where I live), but the plane would not arrive until 7 something the morning of my wedding day. Long story short, my custom made shoes ended up stuck in San Francisco. My friend James ran around the day of the wedding to find me shoes. I ended up in 6″ not 5″ inch white stripper heels day of, which actually turned out perfect with the length of my dress.
I was thinking about my wedding the other day….who am I kidding. I think about my wedding every day.
Why? Because I can’t wait to get my pictures, and when I start thinking about all the beautiful shots, I start playing the wedding over and over in my mind. Also I went to Mrs. Snail’s wedding this past Sunday, so I’ve been surrounded by weddings.
Anyway, I was thinking the things I would do differently if I could do it all over again. I have definitely learned more about wedding planning and as stressful as it was, I had a lot of fun. But there are things I would change.
1. Favors - As much as I loved the idea of candles and matches, I think the favors could have come out a bit better. I would have ordered several candles from different companies to see which one I liked best. Also, I would have spent more time designing the images for each item. I think I just ordered them way too early in the planning process, because I didn’t have a full vision of what my wedding would look like.
2. Out of Town Bags - I liked how these turned out, but I definitely could have made them more personal. We didn’t provide any water bottles because in the end, we only had 4 bags to give out (2 of them being my parents who stayed in the hotel for only 1 night).
Ah!! How could I forget about my paper and invitations vendor?
Invitations and Other Paper Items - Custom-Programs
Oh, how I loved my invitations. Unfortunately, due to a small mistake, I will have no professional pictures of them. Boooooohoooooo! I will, however, have pictures of my escort cards, menus, table cards, and programs.

Here are the rest of the reviews!
Wedding Dress - Casablanca (MyrJan Bridal)
I absolutely loved my wedding dress. The alterations were done by Fancy Cleaners (check the Tuesdays “Sales” blogs for a discount!). Everything about the dress was perfect! The veil was from MyrJan and the tailor altered it because I didn’t like the original length too much. MyrJan Bridal was good to deal with as a vendor.
Final Rating (MyrJan): B+
Final Rating (Fancy Cleaners): A
Bridesmaid Dresses - CocoMyles.com
I got sooooo many compliments on the bridesmaid dresses. And people’s jaws literally dropped to the floor when they found out how little they cost!

Ok - I finally have some down time now. Exams are over, my official honeymoon is almost over, and everything goes back to normal on Monday. Between now and Monday, I thought I would write some more about my wedding. So let’s talk vendors.
Overall, I was realllllly happy with all my vendors. But here are the details anyway.
Photo/Video - 5 West Studios
I absolutely loved them! 5 people showed up in my hotel room on Saturday at 1:30pm. Honestly, I could barely remember everyone being there. I really wanted some pictures of my husband (husband!!!! :D) seeing me in my wedding dress for the first time, and they made sure to capture that. We then piled into a limo and drove to Washington Square for some outdoor pictures. I had sent Spencer (photographer) a long list of all of the family combos, bridal party combos and other “must take” pics. He brought the list and made sure everything was captured. After seeing that teaser of some of the pics, I am absolutely thrilled with his work and I am soooo happy that I hired him!
Final Rating: A+